Defending my scrapper arguments there - I said Broadsword and Martial Arts are the best choices for single-target damage. I stand by that. Broadsword gets two cones and an AoE, Martial Arts has one AoE. They're otherwise high-damage and single-target focused.
However, Broadsword does more damage per attack - it has the highest damage numbers up front. MA can cycle them faster - MA attacks have faster animations and recharge. If the fight drags on a little, then MA might have an advantage. But Broadsword has more up front.
There's a reason Broadsword is favoured over MA for PvP.
Dark Melee is also pretty good for single-target damage. The main advantage is it does dark/smashing damage (with one pure dark attack). Dark damage is not resisted as much. However, Dark Melee only has four damage powers in the set - the rest are utility powers. Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Maul and Midnight Grasp is a decent chain. However Shadow Maul has a long animation, with the damage spread out over that animation. And Midnight Grasp only does about 60% of its damage up-front, the rest is applied in damage-over-time ticks.
Again, if you're pounding on one target for more than a few second or so, that's okay. But in a large team, it's likely individual targets may not last that long. For example, I can smack Midnight Grasp on a bad guy and have the damage happily tick away, and it will kill the enemy. Eventually. Given another five seconds or so. So my target is effectively dead. But since he isn't dead yet, it's likely some other player's gonna take a shot at him. They're not gonna wait for my Midnight Grasp to tick down. So it's a bit of wasted effort there. Mind, Damage-over-Time can be a very very useful tool, but in some situations it works against you.
It needs to be said, my oldest and favourite scrapper is Dark Melee - I love the set, but I don't deny the limitations.
The point is... City of Heroes is cool like that. I mean, all Scrappers wade into melee and deliver the hurt from up close. But how you deliver hurt differs. You've got the ability to do massive burst damage with Broadsword. Then there's the more tactical play of Dark Melee, and Spines, where you're basically an antipersonnel mine on two legs.
-- Acyl
However, Broadsword does more damage per attack - it has the highest damage numbers up front. MA can cycle them faster - MA attacks have faster animations and recharge. If the fight drags on a little, then MA might have an advantage. But Broadsword has more up front.
There's a reason Broadsword is favoured over MA for PvP.
Dark Melee is also pretty good for single-target damage. The main advantage is it does dark/smashing damage (with one pure dark attack). Dark damage is not resisted as much. However, Dark Melee only has four damage powers in the set - the rest are utility powers. Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Maul and Midnight Grasp is a decent chain. However Shadow Maul has a long animation, with the damage spread out over that animation. And Midnight Grasp only does about 60% of its damage up-front, the rest is applied in damage-over-time ticks.
Again, if you're pounding on one target for more than a few second or so, that's okay. But in a large team, it's likely individual targets may not last that long. For example, I can smack Midnight Grasp on a bad guy and have the damage happily tick away, and it will kill the enemy. Eventually. Given another five seconds or so. So my target is effectively dead. But since he isn't dead yet, it's likely some other player's gonna take a shot at him. They're not gonna wait for my Midnight Grasp to tick down. So it's a bit of wasted effort there. Mind, Damage-over-Time can be a very very useful tool, but in some situations it works against you.
It needs to be said, my oldest and favourite scrapper is Dark Melee - I love the set, but I don't deny the limitations.
The point is... City of Heroes is cool like that. I mean, all Scrappers wade into melee and deliver the hurt from up close. But how you deliver hurt differs. You've got the ability to do massive burst damage with Broadsword. Then there's the more tactical play of Dark Melee, and Spines, where you're basically an antipersonnel mine on two legs.
-- Acyl