Werner

That's amazing. Want!

/bind e "powexecname Super Jump$$powexecname Combat Jumping"

Swapping back and forth has become second nature.

Now I'm curious what I did. Looks like five Hecatombs (sans dam/rech) in Smite plus one common endurance IO. Midnight Grasp has two Crushing Impacts (dam/end/rech, acc/dam/rech) and four Makos (dam/end, dam/rech, quad, proc). So it looks like I wanted the purple proc in the most frequent attack, and then was after the hit point and damage set bonuses. If I didn't need sustainable endurance usage, I'd have probably stuck just about anything other than the endurance IO in Smite's last slot.

I simply don't think of set bonuses as covering holes or boosting strengths. I think of set bonuses as letting me achieve build goals, such as soft-capped defense, sufficient recharge for my desired attack string, and so on.

As a Regen Scrapper, prevailing wisdom is to slot for recharge, recharge, MORE recharge, and then defense. Don't bother with +regen except as happens accidentally. Don't bother with +hit points except as happens accidentally (you "need" just enough to be at the hit point cap with accolades and Dull Pain). Definitely don't bother with +heal. Resistance would be nice, but you get pretty negligible amounts out of set bonuses. Do take the fighting pool for Tough. Consider Weave if you're stacking some defense.

You could think of that as covering holes instead of improving on strengths. But I can give a counterexample with a Shield Defense Scrapper. You get a lot of defense with a Shield Defense Scrapper, but you want a lot more. You want to get to the 45% defense soft cap, so pile on those pool powers and set bonuses. That's the most critical part of the build in my opinion. You could think of that as improving on your strengths.

So the answer is a simple "it depends" and also "I wouldn't even look at it that way."

I'll second what Kosmos said, "viable, but... far from optimal". Scrappers have the survivability to go face to face and put out a lot higher damage that way. Or if you want to stay at range and put out significantly higher damage with high survivability, make yourself a range soft-capped Blaster. But if it's a concept build of some sort, a ranged Scrapper should be perfectly playable, and I know I've read about people playing them and having a good time. It's just been a long time since I've seen mention of them.

Dark Melee/Invuln is probably your Scrapper of choice if you're trying to beat the record for number of dev-created AVs soloed simultaneously without temps or inspirations. What's it up to now, eight? Nine?

Well, I'm not sure what the big leagues are. But let's conservatively say you can make five billion per week (the true figure is likely somewhat higher). If you've been doing that for a year, you'd have about two hundred and fifty billion. So if nobody has 40 billion stashed away, I'd be shocked.

Well, it's not about themed characters, but I'll touch on some other points you made.

You'll find that pretty much everything gets played on Scrappers, even by the min/max crowd, or even perhaps especially by the min/max crowd. There are better and worse combinations for different purposes and budget levels, but they're all good, and nicely balanced overall.

I suspect that the reason you see so many Electric/Shield Defense Scrappers is that Electric Melee is new, Shield Defense is relatively new, and it's a great combination for AoE damage. The likely reason you see so many Dark Melee/Shield Defense Scrappers is that it's arguably the top Scrapper combination for single-target DPS, plus it's very survivable, plus again, Shield Defense is still new and shiny.

Personally, I've started work on a Martial Arts/Fiery Aura Scrapper. I'm doing it specifically because it seemed like the worst scrapper combination I could come up with, and I haven't played that primary or secondary. I'm only 5, but it's been fun so far, and I honestly don't anticipate any problems with normal content. I came up with a look I like, which is half the battle.

Anyway, it's pretty much impossible to gimp yourself with merely your primary and secondary choice on a Scrapper. You have to actively mess up your power pools and slotting too. Claws/Invuln will be great.

Looks like a no-go on my Dark Melee/Super Reflexes. There simply isn't enough room to stash the Vanguard spawns when my only stealth is a single stealth IO. I got about halfway through, and there were only a few clear spots left on the map. I had nowhere to stand to pull Johnny, and got vaporized in seconds when I tried to attack him in sight of the Vanguard. Even if I still got through him somehow, Dr. Aeon was in the same room, so yeah, hopeless.

So I'm going to say likely impossible for my Katana/Regen for the same reason, even without trying. I suppose I should TRY. Maybe Moment of Glory will let me live long enough to burst kill a single Vanguard boss at a time before the rest vaporize me when it drops. That would be slow, death by death progress. It'd probably run the clock out. But I might give it a shot some time. Might not.

I might be missing something strategy wise. But I can't pull anything to an existing Vanguard or Rularuu spawn, or I'll be vaporized. So I have to pull each named boss to a new location each time. And without mega-invisibility to lower the Vanguard's gigantic perception radius, I simply run out of space trying to Tetris them together.

Unless inspirations are a strategy. Pop enough of them, and I could probably take out a Vanguard spawn and get the space back that way. But I built for no-inspiration challenges, and it's what I can do with no temporary powers and no inspirations that I care about.

Well, I sort of just completed the mission on x1 with no temps, no inspirations, in sort of 1 hour 20 minutes with sort of 8 deaths on my Katana/Dark Armor.

I say "sort of" because Gamebot was stuck in a wall, so there was no way to pull him to position the Vanguard spawns. I think I was at 1:07 or so with 6 deaths when I finished the second-to-last named boss. I figure another 13 minutes and 2 deaths would have been enough to take out Gamebot as well. I've beaten level 54 Heavy Assault Suits with no temps, no insps before, so I'm confident I could have pulled him to position the spawns and taken him out if he wasn't stuck.

One key was having both Cloak of Darkness and a stealth IO. As long as I was moving quickly, I could reliably zip past both Overseers and Vanguard spawns, often without getting any aggro, and I think in every case without dying (as long as I wasn't already in combat and trying to run).

The Knives of Artemis could see me, though, and were really inconveniently placed. I ended up fighting them all. They killed me once when another Knives spawn wandered by while I was fighting the first spawn. I can't remember if they caused another of my deaths.

Dark Regeneration wasn't nearly as useful as I'd have liked. As long as I kept soft-capped defense, it was hard for them to put out the damage to take me out quickly. But if they got through and started piling up the defense debuffs, even a full heal every 14 seconds wasn't going to help. It just delayed the inevitable. And against the two Master Illusionists, I only got in trouble when they dropped my tohit to 10% or so, at which point Dark Regeneration couldn't hit anyway.

Cloak of Fear was completely useless, so I left it off. Death Shroud was situational, since I didn't want it on while trying to stealth through groups.

I suppose I'll have to try again to get an actual success, but I think I met the spirit of the challenge. Stupid bugged bad guy.

I doubt this works in game, but I'd need to do some fiddling on test to actually know. I say I doubt it because you can see the same thing for other defensive powers - the Enzymes and all other defense are listed separately. I don't think it lets you bypass ED, it just makes it easier to get to the ED cap quickly. But it's the kind of thing I should know is true rather than suspect is true.