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1. How does playing with a scrapper differ from playing with a brute?
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Much the same, except you don't need to worry about building Fury, you're always running at "full pelt". You have slightly lower defences, but the front-loaded offence tends to make up for it.
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2. What is a scrapper's general role in a team? Tanks charge in first, weather the alpha, and take all the aggro, whilst blasters hang back until everyone's engaged then start fragging minions by the bucketload, but scrappers don't seem to have such a clearly-defined task.
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Depends entirely on the scrapper, some builds (especially /SR and /Dark vs Psionic damage, or Regen vs untyped damage) can "tank" certain mobs better than tankers. /Regens and /Darks are also fantastic at taking alpha strikes because they can go from near-zero health to full quickly and regularly.
Most scrapper combinations tend to be tiered more towards "Boss killing", since the chance for a critical hit increases with mob rank... but Spine/s and /Darks work best when surrounded by big, tight mobs.
Generally it's much like Brutes, with even less emphasis on herding (no fury building is needed). Just jump in and hit stuff. If the stuff you hit first happens to 'mez' or be aggroing nearby squishies, that's a plus! 
What Maelwys said 
Much obliged, Maelwys - can't wait to get my computer back and start impaling people with poisoned bananas now.
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2. What is a scrapper's general role in a team?
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The Scrappers role in the team is to make the mob's bigger and more dangerous, whilst simultaneously under-performing compared to all other AT's (for team play); hence, the scrapper furfills a vital role of providing a bigger challenge and slowing down xp and inf gain for expereinced players.
Except Spines/Dark scrappers, of course. They are extremely bad at doing this fundamental scrapper task.
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2. What is a scrapper's general role in a team?
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The Scrappers role in the team is to make the mob's bigger and more dangerous, whilst simultaneously under-performing compared to all other AT's (for team play); hence, the scrapper furfills a vital role of providing a bigger challenge and slowing down xp and inf gain for expereinced players.
Except Spines/Dark scrappers, of course. They are extremely bad at doing this fundamental scrapper task.
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So you mean that an 8 ppl team on invincible rep without scrappers may have bosses on mobs while an 8 ppl team with one or two scrappers will have AV's in every single mob?
Ah I forgot your theory that scrappers are brainless.
Don't worry, one day you'll learn how to play one
Scrappers fill pretty much the same role as Brutes but are geared toward finishing the fight fast rather than drawing it out to become more powerful.
With ample status protection and durability Scrappers make ideal Mez slayers and bodyguards providing they don't fall prey to the "scrapperlock" excuse. With a little thought and observation a Scrapper in a team can also react to and delay (or possibly defeat) unexpected patrols/ambushes until the team has a chance to redirect their attention.
While Scrappers for the most part lack major crowd control they do have the ability to stand their ground when it all goes to hell and the squishies start dropping like flies.
Despite all the disdain of team min-maxer talk a competent Scrapper, of any build, is a true Spartan.
Pretty much what all of the above said.
On my scrappers i usually charge in with the tank, just before, or just after, depending on what we are fighting (faction/lvl/mob size). I just hack away at the bosses, trying to keep them away from the squishies. after that its cleanup time.
offcourse, in scrapperlock, all of the above advice is useless 
P.S.
Maelwys
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/Regens and /Darks are also fantastic at taking alpha strikes because they can go from near-zero health to full quickly and regularly.
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Yes, dark can take an alpha strike fairly good (except if its pure energy) and dark regen gets you back up and running in no-time. But regen lacks any Resistance or Defense at all. On my regen scrapper i almost never take the alpha, as he is likely to faceplant due to nature of an alpha strike: sheer burst damage, one of the few weak points in the /Regen set.
@Shift
Shift 50 DM/DA Scrapper ][ TTL 50 Kat/Reg Scrapper ][ Shabriel 50 Peacebringer ][ Ion Shift 46 Rad/Rad Corruptor ][ Thermal Shift 35 Fire/Fire Blaster
"A Scrapper is a lot like a chainsaw. Somewhat hard to handle, incredibly dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane."
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Yes, dark can take an alpha strike fairly good (except if its pure energy) and dark regen gets you back up and running in no-time. But regen lacks any Resistance or Defense at all. On my regen scrapper i almost never take the alpha, as he is likely to faceplant due to nature of an alpha strike: sheer burst damage, one of the few weak points in the /Regen set.
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Sorry to drift a bit off-topic, can't you take Alpha with Dull Pain and/or Instant Healing?
taking an alpha with DP/IH requires you to survive the initial alpha. especially on larger teams with higher rep settings, the initial strike is more than the 1300or so HP you get (at lvl 50), Dark invuln and SR all have some way of _not_ taking the full load of damage. regen does not (except for a tiny bit in resilience, which is a [censored] power anyway).
Using DP up front might help a bit, but that cancels out half of your mayor healing power (DP and Recon) which will haunt you later in the fight.
Instant Healing wont cut it as an Alpha taker, as its a fast heal rate, but if the initial alpha doesnt kill you, IH isnt likely to regenerate you up to enough HP for the follow up attacks.
So in short, the 'kill' is almost instant, which is too short of a time to use either DP/Recon or IH.
Then again, it offcourse depends on enemies, levels and numbers, but if i had to rank the Scrapper secondairies for alpha strike taking, regen would claim last place (even under SR yes). i dont have extensive experience with SR and Invuln, but from what i have seen, they both outperform regen in the alpha strike part.
from the little knowledge i have:
1. Dark, good resists and an awesome self heal
1. Invuln, decent resists and defense, especially in a group, also DP is a nice heal
(no typo, i'm guessing they are both even)
3. SR, no heal, but Defense gives mitigation
4. Regen, alpha strike is most likely fatal in team missions at higher lvls
@Shift
Shift 50 DM/DA Scrapper ][ TTL 50 Kat/Reg Scrapper ][ Shabriel 50 Peacebringer ][ Ion Shift 46 Rad/Rad Corruptor ][ Thermal Shift 35 Fire/Fire Blaster
"A Scrapper is a lot like a chainsaw. Somewhat hard to handle, incredibly dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane."
When I look at Scrappers I look at the primaries. Which pretty much says "Go Kil".
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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4. Regen, alpha strike is most likely fatal in team missions at higher lvls
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I would rank Regen as second, straight after /Dark in terms of Alpha Strike survivability... for some situations, Regen will actually perform better (One tough opponent- AVs, or long ranged mobs- Nemesis Snipers).
There are five methods to taking the alpha as a regen, which I did regularly on my Kat/Regen in random PUGs for nearly 40 levels (he really started teaming at level 12).
It centers around strategic use of Dull Pain.
(i) For the easiest mobs (Damage over time, like Nemesis Robots or flamethrowers) you can get away with Natural Healing + Reconstruction. Dull Pain if necessary later, but the initial damage won't really bother you.
(ii) For the next tier, you can use Dull Pain before combat. This adds 60% to your HP bar, and basically makes you harder to kill. Again, you'll be relying on Reconstruction and Natural Healing to weather damage.
(iii) Use Dull Pain in combat. There is a trick to this on tougher mobs- Dull Pain takes a second or two to activate, so you should use it IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE MOBS NOTICE YOU when you jump into the middle of a mob. The timing can be tricky to get right, but you get better with practice, and if performed properly you will get hit by Dull Pain's heal just after you've started to take damage. This cuts out a considerable amount of the alpha, letting you heal the rest with Reconstruction and Natural Healing.
(iv) Use Instant Healing and Dull Pain immediately before combat. This is usually reserved for very tough fights, where you would normally faceplant in short order. Dull Pain puts you at +60% HP, and Natural Healing + IH is now acting on that greater HP. Jump in, weather the damage. Use Reconstruction when needed. Pop Hasten first too if you ahave it to get reconstruction up faster.
(v) Instant Healing First, then jump in and use Dull Pain just as the enemies notice you. This is the hardest to achieve, since the idea is effectively to let Dull Pain's slow activating Heal take a part but not all of the alpha. Since you will only be using this method on the toughest opponents, it is very easy to mess up the timing on this, take too much damage and faceplant before the Heal activates. However if performed properly, this method provides the highest alpha mitigation that non-Katana or Broadsword Regens can achieve.
(Extra) My Kat/Regen's best possible method was to Dull Pain + IH, then jump into a mob with "Divine Avalanche" queued up. This was a variant of "(iv)" which also boosted my Melee/Lethal defence to about 23% for further initial mitigation. Getting Parry double-stacked ASAP (about 2-3 seconds) will mean that the mobs will be trying to hit something with over 2000% Regeneration, 160%HP and capped melee defence...
(Endgame) At the very, very, very endgame there is an utterly brilliant way of taking an alpha that any Body Mastery Scrapper can use: Energy Torrent. It is a decent damage, fast recharging cone which has a large % chance to do knockDOWN (Unlike the blaster version which does knockBACK) on anything that is even level or higher. Since most Scrappers tend to go for Focussed Accuracy, Energy Torrent is usually a worthwhile pick. The only downside is that you can only get it at level 47 and it can't be fully slotted before level 49. If you do get it, just use it immediately before jumping into a group. It's not a 100% chance for a knockdown, so some foes will fire at you straight away whilst the others will be knocked down. This will effectively negate most of the danger from any alpha strike short of an AV.
My Spines/DA and my Kat/Regen both have slotted Energy Torrent, and use it regularly when teamed. They have absolutely no trouble at all taking alphas, and usually on most teams they'll jump into a large mob before the tanker. Speaking from my tanking experience first as a PB Dwarf (who usually ended up main tanking on PUGs) and then as a INV/SS, knockdowns don't mess up a tanker's aggro grabbing ability and experienced tanks also shouldn't mind you jumping into a group first as long as you stay there and don't let any mobs target the squishies. You'll be doing the tank a favour by negating the alpha anyway (especially on endgame mobs like Malta, Rularru or Carnies), don't let them tell you otherwise! 
Method (iv) is the way I've managed to shrug off Psi' Clockwork King alphas before. With Reconstruction triggered as soon as my health goes a nasty shade of orange. By which time the rest of the team should be railing on the AV/GM in good order which should give you some breathing room.
The impact of an alpha on a scrapper with 2100HP regenerating at a 1800-2000% rate is pretty negligible once a well slotted Reconstruction factors into the equation.
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Method (iv) is the way I've managed to shrug off Psi' Clockwork King alphas before. With Reconstruction triggered as soon as my health goes a nasty shade of orange. By which time the rest of the team should be railing on the AV/GM in good order which should give you some breathing room.
The impact of an alpha on a scrapper with 2100HP regenerating at a 1800-2000% rate is pretty negligible once a well slotted Reconstruction factors into the equation.
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For most things I'd agree with you completely.
AVs are sometimes a different kettle of fish though... Even with 160% HP and IH, I'm not certain that my Kat/Regen would be able to shrug off a normal PUG +2 to +4 Psi CW King's Alpha without my Striga Island "Wedding Band" temp power running. He "Nukes" you with a large amount of Psi damage at the start (which can hit for over 2k damage on its own) and the surrounding Psi Clockwork are ranged so Divine Avalanche is useless.
My Spines/DA can definately survive the alpha, but even with over 60% Psi Resists, after weathering the alpha he'll be down to about 10-15% HP and will need to pop Dark Regeneration to get back to full.
Before I levelled the Spines/DA I used to tank the Psi CW King on my Peacebringer with a fairly high success rate, and my PB could ignore his alpha by using "Quantum Flight" (Phase Shifted Fly) then afterwards popping "Essence Boost" (Dull Pain) for the +HP and switching to Dwarfie to control the subsequent aggro.
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There's going to be a lot of difference depending on resistances though.
Here's a quick example comparing two level 50 Scrappers -
(1) Regen with Dull Pain (1339 Base HP + 60% = 2142HP) (+ Accolades/Set bonuses up to the 2410 HP Cap)
(2) Dark - 1339 HP (+ Accolades/Set bonuses) (@ 60% Psi Resist)
After taking a 2000 point Psi Damage attack:
(1) 2000 damage taken, Minimum 142/2142 HP (6.6%) left, Maximum 410/2410 HP (17.0%) left.
(2) 800 damage taken (40%), Minimum 539/1339 HP (40.3%) left,
Actual HP left on either toon will depend on Set Bonuses/Accolades, my Spines/DA has 1707 HP - 20% from Accolades and 7.5% from Set Bonuses, so from a 2000 point psi attack he'd be left with 907/1707HP (53%).
You might think that 60% Resistances (Dark) = 60% extra HP (Dull Pain), but the above shows otherwise.
Note that performance will differ for different Resistance levels - for a 2000 point energy, toxic or untyped damage attack, unless the DA has extra HP from bonuses/accolades they will die so the Regen wins by default!
Oh I'm not saying Regen is better than anything but the outright dismissal of Regen made earlier is flawed (as you pointed out).
In my experience kicking off with Dull Pain before the charge against any AV will usually ensure survival of the initial attacks.
numbers look nice n all, but from what i know, DP only has a 40% HP boost. you can enhance the portion it heals, but not the +max HP portion. Which is why most tend to use it in combat, not before.
Also, not everyone has all the accolade bonusses, my dark scrapper has, but havent had the time/energy to do em on my regen.
using parry/divine avalanche and energy torrent to show that /regen is good at taking alpha strike is ofcourse nonsense.
all the other methods require you to pop one of your mayor heals and time it just right. Which is really devastating for your survivability as a /regen in the rest of the fight (as contrairy to what most people think, your regen mostly comes from frequent use of DP and Recon. IH to a lesser extent.)
Also, as i said, IH is not of much use in taking alpha strikes, as most of the damage hits you withing 1 or 2 ticks of the power, making it effectively quite useless for the situation.
The only valid option to survive an alpha strike better is to use DP before combat, which ruins the 3 heal SOs you put in it for the extra heal.
A litte comparison.
A regen scrapper with DP on has 40% extra HP (not 60%) has effectively 29.5% RES to all but has to trade that for a heal that instantly heals you with 60% HP and gives you 'then' the 40% HP boost.
30% RES isnt that much if you consider that most secondairies do better than that. Invuln gets there, but also has defense which when taking the alpha is good, as you have more foes around you i.e. more defense. SR does better aswell (especially considering secondairy effects) and DA does 30% RES alone, and on top of that has lots of other damage mitigation powers. DA and Invuln have a better heal waiting than a /regen after popping DP, and invuln and SR have a better god-mode power waiting. (face it, MoG is [censored] in most situations, even tho i took it )
So id still rank them
dark/invuln
sr
regen
P.S.
My katana/regen doesnt have DA. its quite a nifty power but for real use you want it perma (otherwise it isnt worth investing the slots) and that means using it often, which, on top of that i HATE the animation, totally ruins my dps. which for me is a better way of surviving.
anyway, we're drifting offtopic here
P.S.
a way to calculate how much extra 'RES' the +%HP is:
+10%HP = 9.1%RES
+40%HP = 29.5%RES
+50%HP = 33%RES
+100%HP = 50%RES
+200%HP = 66%RES
+300%HP = 75%RES (scrapper cap)
although the hp cap keeps you from reaching anything more than +60%HPish
The formula is using decimal to describe you hp. 100% HP is 1. so 40% extra HP is 1.4 if you take this number to the power of -1, you get what you would have left. you have to subtract this number from 1.
So the fomula (1-(X^(-1)))*100%
where X = the decimal number, e.g. for 40% extra 1.4, for 100% extra 2
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I'm not outright dismissing Regen, im just saying that counting it on par with DA as one of the best alpha strike takers just isnt correct. Sure, regen can take some alpha strikes, but when push comes to shove, SR/DA/INV all survive better and longer (and thus outperform) Regen.
Also, AVs arent the hardest alpha strikes, they hit slow and most of the time not for all your hp. The hardest alpha strikes are those of big groups of +4 levels with severs lts and more than 1 or 2 bosses
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Regen does have an advantage against rare types of damage or hardly resistsed types (toxic,energy,untyped) but those dont come into play very often, most of the times the incoming damage will be largely, if not entirely smash/lethal, where regen thus is at a disatvantage
@Shift
Shift 50 DM/DA Scrapper ][ TTL 50 Kat/Reg Scrapper ][ Shabriel 50 Peacebringer ][ Ion Shift 46 Rad/Rad Corruptor ][ Thermal Shift 35 Fire/Fire Blaster
"A Scrapper is a lot like a chainsaw. Somewhat hard to handle, incredibly dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane."
1) Target boss
2) Wait for the tank to move - swift usually means I'm faster than they are unless they are tpers.
3) Press 'F'
4) Activate cobra strike, wait for it to hit
5) Activate focus chi and rest of attack chain.
6) Get scrapperlock, mash buttons till everything is 'arrested'.
UNION @Flitz 50, Lead Hose 50, Red Rag 50
DEFIANT Rose Bloodthorn 34
VIGILANCE Captain Caledonia 20 - Yeah, I made toons on the French server coz we only had 4 back then (might have to transfer/recreate them on one of the US servers)
..and many more!
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1) Target boss
2) Wait for the tank to move - swift usually means I'm faster than they are unless they are tpers.
3) Press 'F'
4) Activate cobra strike, wait for it to hit
5) Activate focus chi and rest of attack chain.
6) Get scrapperlock, mash buttons till everything is 'arrested'.
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QTF and for restarting the thread for its purpose.
Any scrapper should always try to achieve scrapperlock! its the best think after sliced bread!
@Shift
Shift 50 DM/DA Scrapper ][ TTL 50 Kat/Reg Scrapper ][ Shabriel 50 Peacebringer ][ Ion Shift 46 Rad/Rad Corruptor ][ Thermal Shift 35 Fire/Fire Blaster
"A Scrapper is a lot like a chainsaw. Somewhat hard to handle, incredibly dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane."
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numbers look nice n all, but from what i know, DP only has a 40% HP boost. you can enhance the portion it heals, but not the +max HP portion. Which is why most tend to use it in combat, not before.
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The +HP is enhanceable. It goes from 40% (Base) to 60% (Max), which is reflected in Mids builder.
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using parry/divine avalanche and energy torrent to show that /regen is good at taking alpha strike is ofcourse nonsense.
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No it's not. If you can break up incoming damage so that it's recived in less of a "Spike", Regen has better opportunity to weather it than any other secondary because you have more time in which to regen/heal.
DA/Parry and Energy Torrent both accomplish this admirably.
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all the other methods require you to pop one of your mayor heals and time it just right. Which is really devastating for your survivability as a /regen in the rest of the fight (as contrairy to what most people think, your regen mostly comes from frequent use of DP and Recon. IH to a lesser extent.)
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With IH and Dull Pain both running, you simply will not need any other heals after taking the alpha strike. By the time IH finishes, reconstruction will have been back up again three times over.
There is a reason that Regens used to be able to solo tank Hamidon. Dull Pain + IH really is that powerful. Assuming that you can weather the first initial spike (where effective timing of Dull Pain's 60% +HP comes in) you will not faceplant for the rest of the fight.
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Also, as i said, IH is not of much use in taking alpha strikes, as most of the damage hits you withing 1 or 2 ticks of the power, making it effectively quite useless for the situation.
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Combined with Reconstruction, it's VERY valuable. After taking those one or two spikes of damage, by the time you've clicked recived HP from Reconstruction IH will have recovered most of the rest of your HP. Dull Pain simply acts as a buffer to allow you to take more damage from those one or two initial hits.
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A regen scrapper with DP on has 40% extra HP (not 60%) has effectively 29.5% RES to all but has to trade that for a heal that instantly heals you with 60% HP and gives you 'then' the 40% HP boost.
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Again, this applies only to an unslotted Dull Pain.
1000 HP - 400 Damage = 600 HP (60%)
1600 HP - 400 Damage = 1200 HP (75%)
Dull Pain in this case is equivilant mitigation to the first scrapper only taking 250 Damage from the attack = 37.5% damage resistance.
1000 HP - 800 Damage = 200 HP (20%)
1600 HP - 800 Damage = 800 HP (50%)
Dull Pain in this case is equivilant mitigation to the first scrapper only taking 500 Damage from the attack = 37.5% damage resistance.
By comparison, A typical /Dark gets 24% Resistance to Toxic/Energy damage, 35% to Fire/Ice/Smashing/Lethal, 47% to Negative and 59% to Psionic... making a Dull Pain'ed Regen better at all but Negative and Psi.
Hmm, they must have changed DP since the early days (never really looked closely at it) when the +max HP _wasnt_ enhanceable. (btw, using mid's builder as an authority for the sake of discussion is flawed, but ill give you this one)
IH still isnt up every fight its base recharge is 650 seconds, and with 3 rech IOs and hasten (even if it'd be perma) it still takes 241 seconds to recharge, 4 minutes. So you cant rely on it as you main tactics aswell. Besides it not being very good at burst damage (its awesome vs DoT) also makes it 'unsuitable' for taking alpha strikes
Dark does not rely on resistance alone to mitigate damage, Cloak of Fear and Opressive Gloom drastically reduce incoming damage (-tohit and disorient) I dont feel like doing the numbers, but im betting DA totally murders Regen in that section.
DA and Torrent both are of equal value to _all_ secondairies, well, at least torrent is. Dark Avalance is of a little less value to defense sets, but still, Dark Armor and regen take even benefits off of it.
So yes, Regen has the addition of more HP, but Dark really outperforms it with shear other damage mitigation, as does invuln which has the +HP AND more RES/DEF and SR who isnt far above regen, but still outperforms it i think.
@Shift
Shift 50 DM/DA Scrapper ][ TTL 50 Kat/Reg Scrapper ][ Shabriel 50 Peacebringer ][ Ion Shift 46 Rad/Rad Corruptor ][ Thermal Shift 35 Fire/Fire Blaster
"A Scrapper is a lot like a chainsaw. Somewhat hard to handle, incredibly dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane."
[ QUOTE ]
Hmm, they must have changed DP since the early days (never really looked closely at it) when the +max HP _wasnt_ enhanceable. (btw, using mid's builder as an authority for the sake of discussion is flawed, but ill give you this one)
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Mids was referenced as an example, not an authority. It pulls from City of Data, which isn't 100% reliable since i7 beta. However in-game testing for "Dull Pain" powers on my 30 Regen Stalker, 50 INV Tanker, 50 Human/Dwarf PB and 50 Regen Scrapper has always acted this way since I started playing in early i6, and the official patch archive indicates it's been this way since 17th November 2005.
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IH still isnt up every fight its base recharge is 650 seconds, and with 3 rech IOs and hasten (even if it'd be perma) it still takes 241 seconds to recharge, 4 minutes. So you cant rely on it as you main tactics aswell. Besides it not being very good at burst damage (its awesome vs DoT) also makes it 'unsuitable' for taking alpha strikes
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But it's perfectly suitable for weathering the damage that you recieve immediately after the alpha strike, when you're typically operating at at about 10-20% HP. Dull Pain weathers the initial spike damage, IH stops you from going under immediately afterwards. Reconstruction brings you back up well into the green.
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Dark does not rely on resistance alone to mitigate damage, Cloak of Fear and Opressive Gloom drastically reduce incoming damage (-tohit and disorient) I dont feel like doing the numbers, but im betting DA totally murders Regen in that section.
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Cloak of fear is rubbish in teams (the -tohit is negligable, particularly on higher than even con enemies), Oppressive Gloom is fantastic at ongoing mitigation since it negates all non stun resistant minions... but it won't help you survive the inital alpha any more then Instant Healing, since the stun is applied in pulses and is not instantaneously effective.
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DA and Torrent both are of equal value to _all_ secondairies, well, at least torrent is. Dark Avalance is of a little less value to defense sets, but still, Dark Armor and regen take even benefits off of it.
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Actually Regen and Dark get better mitigation from them than the others, due to the fact that the longer the fight goes on the better Regen and Dark will do in comparison to SR and INV. I agree with the second point in that the benefit they get is roughly equal (Dark Regen compared to ongoing Natural Regen + Reconstruction).
Since you're breaking the Alpha "Spike" up into damage over time with Energy Torrent, Regen will do better and Dark will get a chance to let Gloom do its work. With Divine Avalanche the +defense stops a major portion of incoming damage completely, rather than delaying it until the mobs get back on their feet again (as with ET).
Since SR and INV only get "constant" mitigation they won't really care whether the incoming damage is over time or in a spike, so ET does not do much for them.
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So yes, Regen has the addition of more HP, but Dark really outperforms it with shear other damage mitigation, as does invuln which has the +HP AND more RES/DEF and SR who isnt far above regen, but still outperforms it i think.
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No, as I detailed in the last part of the above post, Dark's shields only outperforms Regen's Dull Pain at actual damage mitigation when faced with Psionic or Negative damage. When faced with Energy or Toxic Damage Regen is the clear winner, and when faced with Lethal/Smashing/Fire/Cold they are roughly equal (regen is slightly better at base, but Dark pulls ahead with +HP accolades).
Dark can heal back more HP with one ability (Dark Regen) and has Gloom, but Regen can Heal back far more over time (Instant Healing and Reconstruction). Realistically they can both survive the vast, vast majority of PvE situations once the alpha strike has been dealt with.
I have personally played both Regen and Dark Scrappers to 50, and I know their strengths and weaknesses. I'm not stating that to appear arrogant, but to show that I am not basing my POV solely on meaningless figures.
Dark is generally better with more mobs, regen is generally better against fewer mobs. Both can survive alphas regularly. I would however place both far, far above SR and INV for taking alphas. SR has no capacity to recover lost HP outside of Aid Self, and INV only has one heal and poor non S/L resists. For taking an alpha effectively, you need to weather the initial spike damage and then recover the lost HP ASAP. Regen and Dark can both do this regularly and easily, SR and INV can only do the first part and with SR it's mainly down to luck.
So to sum up, the way of the scrapper is charge in and mash buttons.
Then either a) die or b) say regen/dark ftw (delete as aplicable)
BTW Dark ftw
Tanks shouldn't care too much what a scrapper does. Tankers aren't actually there for them. Its everyone else Tankers are there for and can't prevent any AoEs on scrappers, who are meant to be in melee too, aka up the Tankers butt. Scrappers solo the best, ploughing thru groups the best, easily boss dropping on route. I see them as Boss droppers with AoEs for minions while they are at it. The only time to care what a scrapper does is when it compromises the rest of the team. If a scrapper runs into another mob while the team is fighting elsewhere, leave the scrapper to it. Defenders such as rads going to help are sometimes likely to get aggro and defeated in helping. A scrapper may enter a group before the Tanker but its not necessarily safe to attack for anyone else, sometimes the best time for people is after the Tanker/Controller has entered and gained control and for some controllers its after the Tanker has got there first but it all varies as my opinions are all enemy, lvl and powerset dependent.
Its all well and good saying I took an alpha off an AV before but most alphas are made up of more than one damage component with which one may miss. With each AV level damage is modified. Clockwork Kings opening Psychic Wail can be prevented altogether using the taunt and kiting as well as preventing all his worse attacks being chained, however his -rechg isn't nice but as an SR with a scrappers handy fast rechg taunt "I wouldn't know". Many normal mobs can be alpha'd instead, split, pulled whatever. The primary powers are what a scrappers about to me and survivability and team survivability can actually come from them. The reason to picks sets is either concept or you'd do better with it. I find Regens a bit sucky therefore I suck at regens.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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So to sum up, the way of the scrapper is charge in and mash buttons.
Then either a) die or b) say regen/dark ftw (delete as aplicable)
BTW Dark ftw
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Pretty much
Dark's better in teams, generally. Even Cognito and I agree on that point! Not necessarily because it gives *you* more mitigation, but because Gloom + Death Shroud makes life much easier for your teammates.
Soloing? Regen. No contest. Dark can't compare to Regen in one-on-one situations at all. Gloom doesn't work on anything above minions and Dark Regen only heals you to full if it hits 3 or more mobs.
There's a very good Scrapper secondary Comparison on the US boards for further reading. General consensus is that Dark and Regen are the best, with Dark having the capacity to excel far and beyond Regen in certain situations. Inv and SR are surprisingly weak by comparison.
For a general overview of all types of Scrappers, this thread says it all better than I could...
Considering that Scrapper guide was made before Inventions existed is an unfair study. Since I9, SR and INV to a point have benefited alot more to inventions than other scrapper sets.
SRs can achieve near 'elude' levels of defence (and thats without the need of DA/parry) and have near non existent elude downtimes when its ever needed.
And now INV has perma DP and can achieve 20-30% res to psi to fill that hole.
So to have a view of SR in particular of being surprisingly weak is outdated in my opinion.
OK, so I'm a reasonably experienced CoX player who's mostly been working villainside, but has recently seen the light and started playing blue again. I've been having a lot of fun with blasters, but have started to miss my super strength/invulnerability brute, Were, who's stuck in the lv.39 doldrums with nary a proper contact in sight. After due consideration, I decided that a spines/regen scrapper would probably best slake my appetite for mindless destruction.
As such, I had a couple of questions regarding scrappers.
1. How does playing with a scrapper differ from playing with a brute?
2. What is a scrapper's general role in a team? Tanks charge in first, weather the alpha, and take all the aggro, whilst blasters hang back until everyone's engaged then start fragging minions by the bucketload, but scrappers don't seem to have such a clearly-defined task.
Any response welcome,
Iaculus.