Nihilii

At a casual glance, I don't think that build could take on AVs without insps. Any possible attack chain with the powers/slots chosen would be subpar and might not be end sustainable either.

To improve on that front, my own choices would be to drop Assault for Hasten, trade Poison Dart for Swipe, and slot as to run FU -> Lunge -> Strike -> Swipe gapless and sustainable for at least ten minutes.

Reposting from the other thread, still voting for DM/SD.

Start from DM/SR survivability, which is already high as anyone who played one can tell you.

Add about 260hp, 17% S/L/F/C/E/N res, a T9 on a fast recharge that can boost HP and res further, an AoE KD that also happens to do huge damage (SC), an aura debuffing damage (granted, it's not a lot against +lvl foes, but it's still a little plus), and complete protection to mez effects.

Then also consider you'll deal better damage, and killing speed directly relates to survivability.

Finally, you can round it up with Energy Torrent, which admittedly isn't something specific to DM/Shield, but stacks fantastically with it anyway - unless you're already hit the point where it's overkill, which might be true for weak factions even on +4/x8.

Sorry for the acronym overload - we were discussing Divine Avalanche (Katana power boosting defense).

DA doesn't cap smash, only lethal.

DM/SD is probably the most survivable scrapper overall, although DM/Inv can perform better in extreme S/L situations. Claws/SR can be quite impressive as well, although its mitigation isn't team friendly (spamming Shockwave).

While scrappers get the same % DDR (50), Inv tankers and scrappers are very different beasts against Cims, in my experience. At 90% S/L res and up to 3000hp you can shrug off S/L damage for quite a while even if debuffed to oblivion. On the other hand, scrappers with 75% S/L res (2.5 times as much damage taken) really need to stay at 40%+ def, otherwise cascading defense failure can happen fast. I've found being just at the softcap with X foes in range doesn't cut it, to take on groups of cims comfortably without having to eventually hop around when 2 hits connect in a row I needed 45% S/L with 1 foe in range (bringing in to 57-58% with a crowd around, which is enough room to take 1-2 hits and stay near the softcap).

That said, I think many people when talking about Cims refer to an ITF - as in, a team, with team buffs or damage to support you, and rarely over +0. In that case, Inv and even WP can definitely do fine with minimal IO usage.

I can't for the life of me see how to handle +2/x8 (or above) efficiently on a solo WP though, unless picking a primary that provides absurd mitigation - and even then, say you pick Katana for DA, you're still going to have trouble hitting as their grant covers are very efficient when stacked. With ~55% S/L res, being barely at the softcap with 20% DDR makes the first landing hit very likely to start cascading defense failure, and regen doesn't do much when you're taking ~500 damage (if not more) per second. My experience with WP alts against Cims has been on a SS/WP brute (not build for softcap, getting completely obliterated unless popping insps), and a DB/WP scrapp (originally 37% S/L, was as bad as the brute, moved then to 45%, a bit better but still nowhere near enough to avoid hopping around while defense debuffed).

Of course I guess you could build to handle Cims by picking Energy Torrent and spamming it, but I just don't like that playstyle. :P

FM/SD overall. Great ST damage, great AoE damage. Least survivable primary, but that's not much of a concern with SD.

Coming from someone who constantly brags about taking down AV/GMs with -regen alts. Ok dude, I'm sure the original vision for the game was that clicking one power every 30 seconds should completely flatline the regeneration of the toughest foes ingame, heh. I'm sure you didn't abuse the BoTZ sets on any of your alts to softcap ranged defense either, right ?

Seriously. Dude plays alts so easy you could run a macro on them to solo AVs, and comes to poo-poo someone's else thread about "cheating" for thinking outside the box with a subpar character for the task at hand ? Are you kidding me ?

For that matter, any AV soloing is exploitation of the game mechanics as it's supposed to be team encounters.

1/ 35% melee, 40% ranged and AoE IIRC.

2/ Most definitely, overall. I've had more powerful scrappers for very specific tasks (DM/invul for taking on X S/L AVs in a custom made AE mission, for example), but the ElM/SD is always at top level of mitigation and there's nothing the character can't handle on +4/x8.

Before I played SD, I felt you'd have to be silly to pick anything else for performance. After I played SD on a tanker, I started to feel bad for rolling anything but SD on a melee alt. Now that I've played SD on a scrapper, I don't think I'll ever reroll another scrapper (unless new shiny things change that). It's just so over the top and I can understand why so many people want to defend it, it's fun to be über. I just want Dual Blades/Shield now.

My level 50 ElM/SD, not softcapped (that doesn't mean any specific focus on anything else, I just never bothered to finish the build), is by far my most powerful scrapper.

It's easy to confuse "enough" with "the same", considering it's easy to reach "enough" for most situations, but really, given the same investment, no blaster can come close to scrappers when it comes to damage mitigation.

The difference between 43% and 45% (or even 44 and 45) is huge for me, provided I'm in a situation where I do need the survivability, especially in situations with significant defense debuffs as, even with capped DDR, cascasding defense failure can happen and will happen more often and faster as defense gets lower.

It was really obvious for me when I was leveling on my ElM/SD, being at 31% defense one luck gave me 43.5% and sometimes it wasn't enough and I had to pop a second luck. On the other hand, if there was any minor defense buff on the team I'd be fine all day just using one luck. Of course, a leveling character has less HP, regen, DDR than an IOed out one, but then again, at this point that same character wasn't solo fighting +4/x8 arachnos or something like that.

For most "normal" gameplay situations, it's probably not worth it to go all out with defense. Just to take one example, to sacrifice damage for defense doesn't strike me as efficient for a solo /SD farmer, as you're going to get tons of insp drops. On my ElM/SD I have enough to keep one luck up at all times *and* enough rages to more or less stay at the damage cap. It can be convenient though as clicking insps is one more thing you have to manage, and let's face it most people just don't like using insps (anyone's who tried to pass a wakie to a dead teammate only to get the "can't give, inspirations full" message, raise your hand).

Mids is incorrect here, Incinerate does more damage than Cremate ; the only downside about it is it's a DoT, some of it will sometimes be wasted on minions and lieutenants).

Kick is terrible as an attack, and to make things worse it has a random chance to KB. As with everything, you can make it work, but it's so bad I think you'd be better off just waiting for another fire power to be recharged rather than use Kick, or maybe use the time to position yourself for breath of fire.

As for defense, you just have to find a number you're comfortable with. Most people go for the softcap (45%), some go slightly higher to cover eventual tohit buffs and def debuffs, personally I plan for the former but usually end up not finishing my builds because anything over ~33% def and a luck inspiration will give you the same result for 50 inf per minute when you need it.

Checking on my SD tanker right now :

GC with one lotg def/global rech gives me 17.3% DDR.
AD with two membranes gives me 30.27% DDR (stackable).
BA with 57% def enhancement gives me 27.17% DDR.