Taking suggestions.

I started CoH before a month otr so when CoV went live at that time like everyone in their first time, I didn't had a clue to what to do so I decided to play a concept character with a few 'little addionts' into his concept. My first toon was a scrapper. I always liked melee characters but I am not too fond of tanks so after I installed and reading about AT's and sources I realised that origin of power is purely cosmetic for concept builds.

Since I wanted a character with a sword I thought training will be better explanation of his powers so I went with natural origin. First menu had a few good selections I was pretty much divided between katana (since I prefer japanese blades over medieval ones and from descriptions although katana has lower damage it recharges faster than BS) and martial arts. My urge to get a samurai like character beat down my urge to make a Bruce-Lee like character and I went with katana. In second list I was kinda dissapointed there were 4 or 5 choices in that one compared to 7 or 8 choices of first list and except one all seems too much pushing for a natural concept toon. So i went with SR after reading all of them it was the most natural choice. So I rolled my character and started playing.

Now why I told such a long life story is simple, I want to make a second scrapper toon now I have a DB/WP around 30ish levels but it hardly gave me the joy of first one (still better than most of my AT's that are hangig around level 15-). I am a casual player and it took me around 3 years to get my first toon (the kat/SR in the story) to 50 now he has one tier 4 and 3 tier 3 incarnate slots and on a semi-budget build but I almost completed my first purple set for him.

What I am going to ask is what will you suggest to me as to play my scrapper and why? It can be any reason concept-wise, pure leveling-wise, end game-wise, pure DPS, survival-based etc anything.

I tried other AT's too but other than a WS that i like to play, I didn't get any vibe from them like I got from scrappers.

Dark/Shield.

Awesome survivability (once you softcap)
Brutal single-target DPS
Lack of AoE used to be a problem with dark melee, but with shield charge and the judgement slot that won't be a problem.

Dark/Shield is probably the best ST DPS available. It lacks survivability while leveling, but don't let that discourage you. Inspirations are cheap at the hospital vendors and can cover gaps in your defense until you get into a good build.

Super Reflexes is the predecessor to Shield Defense. Super Reflexes has a recharge buff and hits the DDR cap more easily than Shield Defense, but lacks the very nice damage buff from Against All Odds.

Willpower and Invulnerability are easier to level with.

Spines/Fire can be a potent AoE damage combination, but lacks survivability, even at 50.

Electric/Shield is a good set for burst AoE damage. Lightning Rod functions almost identical to Shield Charge, and the two have the same base recharge time. It is not a very good damage dealer after those two powers are expended, though. It will just about destroy an entire spawn of enemies when you use the combo, and you can make your team angry when they don't get to kill things.

Regeneration is the weakest armor set available to Scrappers because it lacks significant resistance and defense. However, extremely expensive builds can fit in enough defense to make regeneration on par with other sets.



Those are the sets I feel are worth mentioning. The rest of the sets don't have significant advantages or disadvantages. I feel like they are mostly there for concept characters. That is not to say they can't deal damage or take a hit; they just don't have anything that makes them stand out performance-wise.