Scrapper Envy?

Is it me or is everyone playing Melee/Blaster characters lately? Suddenly getting a Healer/Controller for a trial actually takes effort. Last straw was a BAF with 24 players and it turned out none of them had any controls. BAF with only damage ATs doesn't go very well since you are constantly chasing down mobs. It is an interesting challenge if you don't mind losing I guess. All it takes in 1 ice patch in the middle of the sidewalk to cripple the escapees.

Has everyone gone damage happy with new Incarnate abilities or is it just bad luck that this seems to be happening more?

Do you find playing Trials to be more fun with a Tank/Brute/Scrapper? I grant that it is better in the Lambda search phase since getting a team to stay together usually only lasts until you zone in. But I am curious how everyone else sees this?

The chars in my sig are likely to be my only Incarnates for some time, and have pretty much been my goto chars for quite a while so...I think I have 1 defender who's still in his 20's (made him day-3)...almost all my characters are damage focused, EATs or MMs.

As far as lambda, I just try to follow a tank type on the blaster or MM (both have some kinda stealth).

Eh, damage in general and scrappers in particular have always been more fun for me. But I'm working hardest on my night widow for the trials, which I can legitimately pretend is more than simply a damage dealer. ^_^

Is a Fire/Storm Corr considered a damage type, a support type or a control type?

These days everything gets blown apart so swiftly that playing support/control types in the "end game" doesn't feel as relevant to me. My stone cages (or whatever) has barely finished animating before the mobs have been torched into fine ash by stacked Judgements. Aside from the AV battles, I don't feel like I'm making much of a difference. Even then I don't know how much difference I'm making due to the debuff resistances but at least they're alive long enough for me to do things to them.

Scrappers and Blasters are like the two most common ATs. You're going to see a lot of them.

Everybody gets to be a tank/mage! It's up to you to decide what flavor of tank/mage you want to play.

But yeah, I do have a level 50 troller and three level 50 defenders, and I haven't felt particularly compelled to bring them to any of the incarnate stuff.

My Plant/emp is my only incarnate. The Baf is fine, roots and creepers mean I do pretty well against the escapees and the Av adds whilst floating around throwing out buffs and heals.

The Lambda is no fun though, the first and last stages I feel like I'm not bringing much. The warehouse stage is an absolute nightmare and I certainly envy the tanks, scrappers and brutes there.

I'll admit it... When the iTrials came out, I did start with my favorite stalker, scrap and tank. They had first dibs on my attention, because they're the ones I have the most fun playing. But once they were done? It's been "equal opportunity trialing" over here... I've finished Tier 3s on three of my Defenders (FF, Trick Arrow and Rad) as well as one Blaster (DP) and my Peacebringer. If my Dark corruptor and Mind/Psi dom were 50, they'd be right up there, too.

But... yeah. My melees are my favorites. So they got to go first.

I know I'm not alone in that.

All four of my Incarnates are generally considered 'support' chars (see sig).

My Dom and my Corruptor bring both control and damage in spades.
My Crab brings tons of damage, but near zero control. He does however bring lots of defense to share.
My (namesake) Defender feel anemic because he brings -zero- control the fight, but he does make stuff die faster.

The only AT I've noticed have any real problems with the iTrials are MM on Lambda. Those tight hallways and constantly moving tend to get a lot of the MMs I've teamed with killed or at the very least VERY busy constantly summoning new pets.

For anyone who thinks that support don't add much to trials:

Did a Lambda with like 10. No healers no buffers and no one staying together either for that matter lol. In Weapons/Grenades phase you can solo a box or 3 but even my Brute (Electric Defense with Surge) had trouble lasting much longer than that because you start attracting so much attention. First time my brute has died in that phase, died once or twice.

In AV fight I swear I died like 10 times. Once you get his attention if no one heals you, ever, it is hard to stay alive even with 90% resists. Actually there was a MM with traps for our healing LOL. Of course I wasn't alone in dieing, everyone except Maurader was dropping like flies.

Only had Judgement of the new sets open at that point though so even more survivable now, but without some support it is still hard to last out the battles. Basically it is like soloing a Monster, which seldom goes very well.

My current incarnates are:
AR/Dev Blaster (actually brings quite a bit of control to the fight due to having an Epic AoE Immobilize plus Caltrops)
Traps/AR Defender
Bots/Traps MM (also has an AoE immobilize)

I'm also thinking of incarnating my Crab Spider when he reaches level 50.

My scrapper is badgehunter so I wanted to finish incarnate stuff with her first (and get all badges).
At the end I was so sick of repeating same trails that I don't think I will have another incarnate soon.

Agree with a lot of above, and would add, a lot of people's badging characters are scrappers, and they are being worked on first.

I've got a Fire/Rad/Psi Controller and a Fire/Fire/Fire blaster I've been running trials on.

While the blaster does bring alot of DPS to the table, she is truly a glass cannon, and can't take quit as good as she dishes out. The warehouse phase is a nightmare for her. The escapee phase is okay, thanks to Rain of Fire and Bonfire. Otherwise she is just a straight Orange Number Generator.

The controller is a nice Jack of All Trades. She can run solo in the warehouses, solo the Add spawns, probably solo a choke point (okay, maybe the North one), nuke the dead, rez the dead, and heal for good measure (got my last healing badge on a BAF!) She doesn't bring nearly the DPS as the blaster does, but if you factor in the -regen, she probably nets out higher on long fights.

What I find rare on the trials are really good tanks. I've seen a few that can lead NS and Siege around by the nose, stack them right on top of each other, even with early bird attackers. The bad ones seem to think they are scrappers and care nothing for aggro management.