Nihilii

Update !

Hro'Dtohz
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

He hits hard, and I got lucky multiple times, but as he lacks debuffs there's nothing tough about this fight.

Nemesis
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

I had to use reds to damage him through his bubble cycles.

Requiem
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

Disappointing. He's the easiest AV I've ever fought.

Dr Vahzilok (exemplared at lvl 19)
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

Fighting low level AVs is different, that's for sure. End management becomes important ; staying alive isn't that easy either, at least for my scrapper who's suddenly not-so-invulnerable : no defense, no Aid Self, low S/L resistance and DP having a long recharge. I've barely won without inspirations.

Nocturne (exemplared at lvl 24)
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

She destroys me in about five seconds if I don't use insps. Eek.

Captain Castillo (still lvl 24)
I forgot screenshots for that one.
Video

He wasn't as hard as Nocturne, but still had a bit too much damage. His webnade also slowed my attack rate. Purple insps to the rescue...

I had some fun on the Mothership. Turns out I can actually record and keep a smooth FPS, even if I'm not too far from the crowd.

As said earlier, I'm using purple inspirations all the time during this. Usually, one while fighting normal riktis, and two against Mesmerists/Magus.

In the first part, I'm fighting on the north side of the ship (all the raiders were at south). I aggro a few riktis and destroy the grate to set off a bomb, something I won't be able to do without being interrupted before there's only 2 chief soldiers left. A claws scrapper helps me at some point.

After I'm done with the bomb, I grab a bunch of riktis, including 2 magus. I fight them until the 2 magus die, then I head to a grate, but I get killed there.

Next video, I'm destroying most of the grates to help raiders, then I jump in the middle and die promptly.

Finally, I fight near the raiders (although I manage to stay far enough and don't receive any buff). As soon as there is two or more players it's easy for one of them to keep aggro while others plant bombs. In the end, a bomb kills me, and the shields go back up a few minutes after that.

Good thing I've got rikti pylons and Werner's insight, because I'm awful at math.

Back on the old build, soloed a rikti pylon (well, half of it ; a raid is in preparation, and killing it would mess it up ). Despite a terrible string of misses, I got to the half after 7 minutes and a half. If I understand it correctly, it means my DPS is more or less at 170.

Oops. So much for the "new build has 35 more DPS!". Haha.

DB/Inv was fun from 1 to 50. The only redraw you'll have from Invul is DP, which is at most a "once every 2min" deal. While it isn't as strong as SR if you do crazy stuff without insps, I believe it is an easier set to play. With resistances, defenses and capped HP, you have time to see the big hits coming.

What I like most about Invul is Invincibility. All that mitigation isn't only useful for AV soloing ; you can tank just by going in and whacking stuff, not caring about aggro. Don't get me wrong, a real tanker does the job better, but in my experience as long as you grab most of the aggro, your teammates can deal with a few minions/lieutenants here and there.

I believe it tend to stack better with buffs/insps, too. As you have some resistance against everything, resistance buffs have a bigger impact. Your defense isn't capped unless you've got a crowd around you, and your defense debuff resist is only at 50%, so you get something from defense buffs. Although DP caps your HP, if someone puts Frostworks on you you can save it and use it as an emergency heal.

Then, there's the psi hole. Some people hate it... I like it. It gives you some challenge, priorities to think about (unless you're doing one of the few missions where all the mobs are psi ; now these specific missions aren't so fun ).

In a nutshell, I'd go DB/SR for ultimate solo power, but DB/Inv is easier to play and (in my opinion) better for teams, at least if you team the way I do - PuGs with random ATs.

[ QUOTE ]
14 minutes puts you at 173 DPS. That's not far off.

[/ QUOTE ]

My math is definitely wrong then, as I thought that should put me at 165 DPS.

Edit : Nevermind, I got it. 173 it is. Thanks.

I couldn't wait and respecced into the new build. Some good news and bad news. Well, mostly bad news.

The Empower combo doesn't stack properly at high recharge rates. First combo goes off, but the second combo won't start at all. Waiting one second after Sweeping Strike (or doing another Nimble Slash before Sweeping Strike) make it work, but of course this lowers DPS. I've made a video to show this problem.

Because of that, I'm only getting a 20 DPS boost. The chain is also end intensive (at least compared to my old build, as Attack Vitals is basically "free" damage as far as end usage is concerned) ; if I want to attack non-stop, I have to alternate CP and Unstop.

Unstoppable is fun. Problem is, I don't need it that often. If it also gave psi resistance it'd be great, but as it is, the crash is more dangerous than facing most mobs without Unstop (although the crash isn't that hard to mitigate with CP and DP, it still forces me to pay attention and not get hit at the wrong time).

Lacking Aid Self is annoying. I was doing a RWZ challenge and at some point I got down to 120hp. I could either keep fighting and just pray that I don't get hit, run away, or pop insps... I'd much rather be able to heal myself.

For the record, I didn't get hit. It's still aggravating to rely on luck alone instead of being proactive.

Now, I could drop Hasten/SS, pick up Stim/Aid Self again, and use an Empower => Nimble Slash => Sweeping Strike attack chain, doing 10 more DPS than my old build and keeping Unstoppable. Best of both worlds, right ?

Except I can't get used to Nimble Slash's animation. It just looks... wrong. So, back to the old build.

My math seems wrong, anyway. I thought I had around 180 DPS with the new build, yet it takes me 14 minutes (links to a video) to defeat a pylon.

So I just heard about the /suppressCloseFX command. Wow. This changes a lot of stuff. I could grab Hasten without having to live with the ugly graphics. If I'm doing my math right, switching to a Empower => Sweeping Strike chain would raise my DPS by 30-35.

Of course, without Aid Self many AVs would be harder. However in normal gameplay I don't mind using inspirations, so it's not that big of a deal. I think I'm going to run through all the AVs I haven't fought yet, then when I'm done I'll respec into Hasten. Dual builds would be another option, but I don't really feel like spending another billion.

Why do I bore y'all with all that ? Well, in the next videos you might notice Nihilii looks like she's fighting with passives only. Damn, I love this slash command.

Thanks.

More AVs, in no particular order :

Black Scorpion
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

There's nothing special about this fight.

Mako
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

He's a great AV. Good damage and no resistances, just how I like it. Hitting him through Elude isn't too hard with BF.

Battlemaiden (without inspirations)
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

Grabbing a few minions worked well again.

Dreck
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

He's got good burst damage and defense debuffs. I had to run around a few times and ended up killing the minions I kept around.

Neuron (without inspirations)
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

I used minions again. His end drain starts being a problem fast once he hits a few times, as it is on top of Power Sink which always hits.

During one (failed) attempt, I had enough minions to softcap me. He kept hitting me and killed me before I could get him down to 60%. In this video I haven't enough minions, yet I win without too much trouble. In the end, RNG liking or hating you matters more than any number of minions you can grab.


I wasn't able to beat Diabolique or Lord Recluse, both have too much mitigation, even with rages.

Scirocco and Ghost Widow might be possible without insps, but most likely it'd rely so much on luck I'll get bored and use purples. Using minions might be an option against GW - still, not that easy ; arachnos minions aren't exactly pushovers. Against Scirocco, his auto-hit tornadoes make this tactic impossible to use.

I take back everything I said about the minion tactic... I wasn't using it properly.

Positron
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

It took multiple tries, but it was well worth it. This fight was intense.

First, I pulled Posi to the main area, where all the minions are hanging out. I herded a bunch of them around a corner, but the human nemesis tend to stay at range and use their flamethrowers. Fire damage = not good.

After coming back from the hospital, I got rid of everything that wasn't a Werfer Jaeger. It worked much better, but I still died a lot.

Nihilii has 50% def debuff resistance, 23% energy res and 20% slow res, DP isn't perma. Which means :
- defense cascading failure happened. A lot.
- when I got hit, it was painful.
- Lingering radiation would make me unable to fight for a good 30 seconds.
- Positron could kill me in 2 or 3 shots if EF was up while DP was down.

Thankfully, all the +tohit from Blinding Feint and minions allowed my scrapper to hit consistently through Overload. At some point BF missed and I had a few deflected hits, but hitting a minion with BF to get the buff fixed that.

Dominatrix
Too much resistance. Can't beat her.

Marauder
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

I'm never in any danger of dying, and between (his) Temp Invul and Unstoppable, he can take a lot of punishment. Basically, mindless attack spamming for nine long minutes.

Tyrant
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

At first, I just rushed in melee. It became obvious I had to heal so much I didn't have enough DPS to take him down... I started healing less and of course, I died.

Next time, new tactic : pulling him straight into lava. The problem is I did this while kiting, which locked him in ranged mode and made for a boring fight. LBE... Wait... LBE... Wait... Oh well, a win's a win.


With the praetorian arc out of the way, I started doing other things. Unai Kemen's Neuron mission was a good opportunity to try Daolong's tactic. Although it's a PITA to gather them all in a good spot, once it's done it works fine. Their damage is really low and the end drain negligible. I got Neuron to 20% before he got a few lucky hits and killed me, so it seems I should be able to beat him without insps.

Later, I went to RWZ and picked up my Manticore/Positron automatons mission.

Manticore
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

This guy is a joke. At some point, I got careless ; he dropped my end and held me with EMP arrow. I was held for around thirty-five seconds and he couldn't even manage to kill me while Dull Pain was sitting unused in my tray. Your average level 50 boss has better damage output than this sorry excuse of a Hero.

Positron was something else entirely. Between his high defense debuffs and energy damage, I had to keep a luck on at all times ; not to mention getting hit by Lingering Radiation would make me lose minutes as he also has some resistance to lethal. I got him to about 15-20%, and he 2-shotted me while I was stuck in Vengeful Strike's animation. I'm not sure if I can beat him, I had about 12 insps left but he didn't use Overload yet.

As I was zoning into the hospital, people were forming a ship raid. I got an invite, and while waiting for the raid to start, did a few RWZ challenges back to back.

RWZ Challenges
Videos : 1 2 3

No problem here, although I have to lure them behind a corner or my life gets low, quick. Interestingly enough, Chief Mesmerists aren't the biggest threat for Invul ; Guardians are much, much worse. AM boosting their damage and recharge rate, and bubbles making them harder to hit... it adds up fast. Good thing these guys are minions.

A few weeks ago, there was a discussion on the scrapper board about an all-scrapper ship raid. In my opinion, it seems like it'd be not only possible, but easy. I went on my own, without a team, and killed stuff far away, gathering as many riktis as possible, almost always being at the aggro cap. Mesmerists, Magus, you name it. Unfortunately, you'll have to take my word for it as my rig isn't powerful enough to keep a smooth FPS while recording a ship raid.

Of course, I had one luck popped at all times, sometimes two when too many Mesmerists were shooting from range ; and even with insps, I died three times in about 30mn of fighting. A DB/Inv without Unstoppable isn't exactly the strongest build to bring against Riktis. One or two teams of AV-soloing scrappers could probably steamroll the whole ship without much trouble.

[ QUOTE ]
Want in on a little secret? Grab some minions... like 9 of them or so.

You are at 46% smash lethal and ~44% everything else with fully saturated invinc.

I know it goes against logic, but you will be safer with more mobs. Its like having a luck and a couple of acc inspirations going at all times.

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought about that, but I was afraid the added damage / debuffs would make things even harder. I mean, I'd get hit less most of the time, but I could get hit more at the worse times. Say against BM, if she hits once or twice and lowers my def to 40%, then a few warriors connect too and lower my def further, it could get ugly pretty fast.

It's just a gut feeling though, I should definitely try it against AVs with high burst damage I have trouble surviving against, like Neuron. Thanks for the advice.

*Edit : So I've tried gathering minions against Infernal. Well, they made short work of me. There's some flaws with this tactic, in my opinion.

1) Finding enough minions takes time. In solo missions, quite often you'll get spawns with a lone lieutenant, or one lieutenant and one minion.
2) Gathering them is tedious. Portals, elevators, or just them being so far apart keeping aggro on all of them isn't an easy task.
3) *Not* killing them is hard. Most likely, if I have more than 5-6 minions around me, one of them will die at some point because of Sweeping Strike.

To add insult to injury, Infernal's minions have fire damage and Invincibility, which means they hit a lot with a damage type I have less than 30% res against.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad tactic. It might be my playstyle. It might be these specific minions. However, it just seems easier to me to jump on the AV and whack him... especially as a death, using the "AV + minions" tactic, would mean I'd have to gather them all again, and at that point it's too much like work.

*Edit 2 :

Black Swan
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

My favorite AV so far. She's got tons of damage, to-hit debuffs and heals, but she's also giving me a 43 DPS boost when she uses Oppressive Gloom. I got her down to 20% without insps then got killed by a Shadow Maul - Gloom combo while DP was down.
It makes me think AVs would be a lot more fun if they had higher damage and lower regen. Of course, I could reroll something with more damage and less defense to achieve the same results... and with double XP week-end coming, I might do just that.

Malaise
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

I went in without insps, knowing what to expect... and I was wrong : he took me out even faster than that.

With insps, he's still fun to fight (I tried to use only 1-2 purples at a time to keep things interesting).

Mother Mayhem
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

Seeing as she had higher damage than Malaise and, unlike him, no negative resistances, as you can guess I used purples again.

Diabolique
She spawns at lvl 51 in the story arc, so I'm skipping her. Even as a lvl 50 I'm not sure I can beat her ; her "unaffected" phases would hurt my DPS a lot, seeing as it messes up Blinding Feint and Attack Vitals.

Infernal
Screenshots : 1 2
Videos : 1 2

I was uploading another video while doing this fight, and as it got done it force-tabbed me to Firefox and stopped recording. Pretty annoying.

Other than that, it was another great fight. He doesn't debuff but hits hard and fast, and his resistances are good but not great - which is how I like it. It makes using Aid Self a gamble - do I want to risk getting hit again, or should I lose precious seconds healing ? Fun stuff.

Hello, scrapper forum.

I've been lurking on these boards for a few months, enjoying all the diverse scrapper challenges topics. Entertaining reads, so I thought I'd join in the fun and post my own.

Especially now that the patch fixing Scrapper BU/FU being resistible is live.

First things first, here's the build. Everything is accurate, except the power selection order.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1,401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Dual Blades
Secondary Power Set: Invulnerability
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Medicine
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Nimble Slash -- P'ngS'Fest-Acc/Dmg(A), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/EndRdx(7), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/Rchg(39)
Level 1: Resist Physical Damage -- Aegis-ResDam(A), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(29), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(31), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(40)
Level 2: Ablating Strike -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), Achilles-ResDeb%(7)
Level 4: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-Heal(A), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(27), Dct'dW-Rchg(33), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(34), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(34)
Level 6: Temp Invulnerability -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam(15), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(23), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(33)
Level 8: Blinding Feint -- Hectmb-Dmg(A), Hectmb-Dmg/EndRdx(9), Hectmb-Dam%(9), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(11), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(11), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(13)
Level 10: Resist Elements -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(37), RctvArm-ResDam(46), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Zephyr-ResKB(13), Zephyr-Travel(25), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(25)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-ResKB(15), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(27)
Level 16: Unyielding -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam(17), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(17), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(46)
Level 18: Vengeful Slice -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(19), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(19), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(21), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(23)
Level 20: Boxing -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A)
Level 22: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 24: Health -- Numna-Heal(A), RgnTis-Regen+(33), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(37), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(37), Mrcl-Rcvry+(40), Mrcl-Heal(50)
Level 26: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(34), P'Shift-EndMod(36), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(50)
Level 28: Invincibility -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(29), LkGmblr-Def(36)
Level 30: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(31), RctvArm-ResDam(31), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 32: Stimulant -- IntRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Resist Energies -- Aegis-ResDam(A), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(39), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(39)
Level 38: Aid Self -- IntRdx-I(A), Numna-Heal/Rchg(40), IntRdx-I(42), Numna-Heal(42), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(43)
Level 41: Sweeping Strike -- Armgdn-Dam%(A), Armgdn-Dmg/EndRdx(42), Armgdn-Dmg(43), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43), Armgdn-Acc/Rchg(45), M'Strk-Acc/EndRdx(46)
Level 44: Weave -- LkGmblr-Def(A), LkGmblr-Rchg+(45), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(45)
Level 47: Tough Hide -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(48), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(48)
Level 49: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit



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I've tried to find a happy balance between power and concept/look, which might explain some strange choices :

- No Unstoppable. Thematically speaking, strong resistances to F/C/E/N wouldn't make sense for my scrapper, nor would the crash. Besides, I can't find a power I'd want to drop for it.
- No Hasten. It'd improve DPS a lot, make DP perma and free a power pick for Unstoppable (as I'd drop Medecine for it if I was going for performance), but glowing hands would ruin her look.
- Medicine. Being so close to the softcap, Maneuvers would do more for mitigation than Aid Self does (especially as using it drops DPS, while Assault increases it), but I'd have to manage my end carefully... and, again, I need Aid Self for background purposes. It's still a great tool in regular gameplay, especially against psi stuff.
- Defense numbers. I could move slots around and change a few sets to get around 40% S/L/F/C, losing a few % in E/N (which wouldn't matter much, as many energy attacks have a smashing component). However, having at least 33% everywhere lets me cap every damage type (except for psi) with one luck inspiration.


Now for the good part. I'm working my way through the Praetorian arc, trying to beat each AV without inspirations, then if I can't do it, with inspirations.

Chimera
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

Easy fight, but fun. Cascading defense failure can make things tricky, but he didn't get lucky enough. Drifting backwards when I was getting hit a lot, to force him to draw his bow, helped, of course.

Shadowhunter
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

S/L damage, no resistance, no debuffs except for his earth immob lowering defense... so, not much to say. I found it funny to see him activate his 11K HP dullpain right after mine. Dude, I know you're getting beat up by a little girl, but... overcompensate much ?

Siege and Nightstar
Pass.

*mumbles* Stupid robots, stupid lethal resists... I can't win, even with rages.

Bobcat
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

It started well, but right as she was going to pop Unstop for the second time she. wouldn't. stop. hitting. At this point, I was too lazy to start the whole thing over and popped insps to rez/toggle back up.

Neuron
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

Between his high damage and end drains, he's a tough one. I got him to 60-70% multiple times but always got killed. I believe I could do it with luck... but I'd rather use lucks.

Battlemaiden
Screenshots : 1 2
Video

She hits hard and has good resistance. It took me 5 minutes to get her to 80% life... at which point she killed me a split second before Dull Pain was ready. The second time around, I used rages.

More to come !