Are Scrappers Broken?

Are scrappers broken?

Yes.

Will anything get done about it?

No.

No, they are not mutually exclusive. Nor are they mutually supporting, which was the explicit statement you made:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison Trust me, anything that can solo a GM can kill mobs just as quickly, if not more so, than the scrapper.

For me to disprove the above, all I need to do is produce a build that is good at soloing single hard targets but poor at destroying several soft targets at once - and I can. But I think we are now agreed that the two activities are sufficiently different as to be orthogonal.

On a different point, I note that it would be silly for me to state that Masterminds are broken because of the performance of your Bots/Traps, just as it would be silly to say that Controllers are broken because of Ill/Rad or Fire/Kin. Scrappers and Brutes, however, have converged on a performance band tight enough that you can actually make reasonable statements about the performance of the AT as a whole. Scrappers may or may not be broken, but they're undoubtedly consistent.

Scrappers and brutes are the most well-rounded ATs. They do very well solo.

However, Scrappers are not necessary for teams. Blasters outdamage them (both single target and AoE, especially considering they have Build Up and Aim). Tankers are tougher and control aggro much better. Controllers, corruptors and defenders bring the debuffs required to take down large numbers of mobs and AVs efficiently. Dominators and controllers bring the mezzes that keep the team safer.

Personally, I find scrappers the least interesting to play on teams. The ranged ATs often kill my targets before I can close to attack. I'm also prone to scrapperlock, but only when I play scrappers. It's weird.

Scrappers are the only AT that isn't the best at anything -- even soloing. I find brutes solo better than scrappers.

That's not to say that they're worthless -- they're the most balanced overall. But you rarely need a scrapper on a team.

It's true that teams don't need Scrappers (or more accurately, Scrappers do not provide force multiplication effects on teams).

But now it is also true that Scrappers don't need teams to take on team-sized challenges. And as of this moment, that means being able to gather team-sized rewards on a single character, which is a useful thing.

This isn't unique to Scrappers, but Scrappers and Brutes are currently the only ATs with narrow enough and high enough performance bands that every combination in the AT is to some degree capable of it.* Which is an interesting situation that I expect will be closely watched.

* Tankers have the survivability, but don't universally have the damage. Stalkers always lag behind the other melee ATs in the area of AoE damage, by design. The other ATs all have too wide a performance band for definitive statements to be made at the AT level.