If you have Mids, hit us with your current build.
But in general, scrappers die a lot before 22 and SOs. Our defenses aren't anything to write home to momma about. Some players actively ignore their secondaries until later and play like hit and run melee blasters in the early game.
When I do large teams as a lowbie (a rarity, I solo) I'll stick tight to the tank only leaving to pull a baddie off of one of my squishie teammates. If I see that I'm taking more damage than the tank, I'll lay off the aoes and focus on bosses/lts.
EDIT: After SOs and 22, I just kill everything and let the team sort it out.
Be well, people of CoH.
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If you have Mids, hit us with your current build.
When I do large teams as a lowbie (a rarity, I solo) I'll stick tight to the tank only leaving to pull a baddie off of one of my squishie teammates. If I see that I'm taking more damage than the tank, I'll lay off the aoes and focus on bosses/lts.
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I don't have Mids sorry.
Yeah I started turning off my quills and fire aura sometimes. I just didn't know if I needed to count to 10 before jumping in or before turning them on or something.
spines/fa? Get as many slots into healing flames as you can as soon as possible. Quills+Blazing Aura can yank aggro off of good tanks. If you're running with tanks that don't taunt, forget about it. You ARE the aggro machine.
In your case, I'd send a private message to the defenders/controllers on the team explaining how much hate you bring in on yourself and ask them to buff/heal you as much as possible.
I would actually advise staying on the edges of the fight. Grab whatever the tank isn't grabbing.
On the other hand, if you do have buffers with good shields for you or debuffers that can wussify the enemy, ignore the tank completely and dive in for the slaughter.
Be well, people of CoH.
mostly what billz said 
if you can survive the mobs easy when you aggro them then just dive in their
why stop and wait for the tank and restrict yourself so that you can be freindly? its ludicrous if you wait to be honest
Because if anyone else other than the tank starts to help you, then they'll likely take aggro. Unless you have confront and have built your scrapper for some nice AOE aggro, it's very likely that a number of mobs will break off from you and start killing squishies.
If you're going to jump into group-sized spawns, you better make sure you're either far away from the rest of your team, or built like a scranker.
I just let teammates know that if they choose to follow me and not the team they are responsible for their own agro. The same goes for me, if I'm going to argo a group while the team is resting or whatever I better not be drawing agro or AoEs back to the team. Also, if the team struggles when I break away then it's also a bad choice to go it solo.
But I simply refuse to stand around doing nothing when one person doesn't have their nuke recharged or needs a buff or isn't 100% full on end. As long as I'm not hurting the team I'm gonna go all scrapper lock on something.
It helps I play most of my non scrapper alts in a similar fashion. One should know their own limits else one should be in search of that vital piece of knowledge, no matter the Archetype.
To the original post, usually my scrappers die on teams in the low levels when my defenses are not equal to my offense, when any one in the team does something heroic, like a player not paying attention and pulling a second or third group to the team as i tend to not retreat when it's the wise action to take, and lastly I die when I think I can handle what's in front of me but I turns out I was wrong.
This list does not include when I forget to toggle up after dieing and die again instantly. Nor does it include the times I think the rest of the team would like Vengeance and I volunteer to be bait for them as the seem adverse to being dead.
My favorite part of this game is how diverse teams can be. Crafting a team play style per team is often very enjoyable. You may find that tactics that worked yesterday aren't very successful today with new teammates. Taking note of what they are doing can help identify a useful role you might fill in the team. Some times scrappers take the initial alpha, sometimes scrapper munch minions, at times you can be in charge of defeating bosses. Rarely will doing the same thing from team to team result in the same amount of success across different teams.
Poisonous Ice 50 Ice/Rad
Icy Jax 50 Ice/SS
Jaxon Penn 50 Shield/Mace
Cpt Clax 50 Thugs/Dark
Lady BlackIce 50 Dark/Cold
Lady Black Ice 50 Dark/Ice
Bella Jax 50 Storm/Sonic
Operative Jax 50 SoA
Level 50 Trick Arrow Alts
TA/A-Plant/TA-Bots/TA
Level 50 Claws Scrappers
SR-Regen-DA-Invul-WP-FA
Ever since I've gotten my Kat/WP into AV soloing status, I have become rather fond of soloing while on teams. I'll usually jump ahead a few groups and when the team catches up, I jump ahead a few more mobs. Nobody's said anything about it at this point except a corrupter (running RWZ missions) who seemed impressed that I was running ahead and not dying.
The only problem I have is when another teammate like a def thinks they need to follow me to keep me alive and end up getting themselves killed.
Tanks are negligable unless I'm going up against those blasted Vanguards. But other than that, i haven't found many missions where I'm not alright just doing my own thing.
I think the answers to your questions mainly lie in how much punishment you can endure. If you can take a lot, then don't hesitate. Otherwise just keep doing what you're doing and try not to get in over your head. Though it is always fun to try pushing yourself to the limit, just to see if you can survive.
Hello I've got a spines/fire scrapper that I'm enjoying atm.
First of all I should admit I am a disgrace to the scrapper population. I am very hesitant when it comes to jumping in and ripping things apart.
I come from playing healers in my past and being extremely cautious about keeping myself alive and others alive.
I think my character is starting to be embarrassed to be played by me!
Now since that's off my chest I have a few questions.
What is the biggest cause of faceplants in groups?
My level being to low for the group?
My aoe?
Random villian singling me out?
How long does a tank need before I should follow in behind?
I don't mind dying (debt seems really easy to climb out of now) but I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong and could improve.