Concerned about Scrappers.

I've always thought of stalkers not as the 'sneaky' archetype in its mechanical function, but as a master of tactical burst damage. By 'tactical' I mean that the player using a stalker can analyze a situation and use a specific strategy to take out enemies. Actually, I always thought the flat scrapper crit rate+team crit rate were undermining this, as everything else seemed to focus not on random chance but on mechanics that could be pretty well predicted. As such, i'm very pleased with the new stalker changes that give more strategy to how you time attacks, and in what order, rather than the "hang around buddies, and you might win free damage!" criticals. I would actually prefer if the base damage/buildup were boosted on stalkers, and the out of hide/team criticals were done away with.

While the new stalker changes do make stalkers come into their own as bosskillers more than ever, it does in gameplay somewhat exemplify the difference between stalker sand scrappers for me: stalkers play best when you think about things, (attack order, visibility, environment, agrro) scrappers just fight. The difference in performance for timing things wrong, using powers in a suboptimal order will result in far less of a damage disparity. Scrappers you hit stuff, damage happens. As noted there are some sets that do give scrappers more of an attack strategy, but for the most part the archetype does well just running at things and smacking them.

Scrappers are no longer TEH MOST AWSUM oh noes!

pfft.
I play Defenders. The AT that doesn't get an actual, noticeable Inherent, because we're already sitting right on the balance point and the Devs don't want to mess that up.
(I also play a Scrapper, and a couple of Tankers, and a couple of Brutes. Have fun on all of 'em.)

Honestly, the Scrapper Schtich seems to be the simplicity of the AT, "Flip out and kill things"; if you will.

But to try and be a more rational devil's advocate, with regard to tankers, Tankers give up damage for survivibility. My issue is, does the level of survivibility that Tankers have, actually provide any benefit? Brutes were the tanks of CoV up and until Side switching, they were capable of taking damage, managing aggro, and acting as main tank for the most dificult content Redside. Yes, they do so with support, but without IOs I don't believe Tankers are capable of tanking the most diffucult stuff in the game without support, so I belive that argument isn't valid.

The three big issues with tankers that I see:

1. When Tankers get Apocolypse level survivability, content like iTrials and hami raids add in damage that completely bypasses that survivability. The argument of survivable vs survivable enough.

At base, Brutes have 80% tanker health, when buffed the gap closes to 90%. In this content with Unresistable damage is 10%-20% survivibility advantage enough to compare to the Fury advantage? My sexy blue tank is infinitely survivable vs 7 DE monsters (Quite possibly more, aggro cap issues though ), however, that survivability is bypassed by unresistable damage, and a WP Brute becomes more survivable vs the special damage in trials.

2. A hold over from when Brutes were expected to play double duty as tanks. Brutes have an inherent Taunt in all their attacks. It's not AoE, but one of the best Pieces of Advice new Tankers are alway given is that Gauntlet isn't Effortless. They have to switch targets, keep tagging enemies, and even then they won't be perfect. Brutes get Taunt auras (as do some Scrappers which I believe was more for Parity then mechanics) And AoE attacks have taunt, directly equating to the tanker version.

Should any AT that is not Tankers Have the ability to taunt without a power selection? I'm not sure that they should be able to.

3. Stemming from 2, there have been situations where the native Taunt of a teamates aura or Poke-voke coupled with much greater damage created a situation where I could not pull aggro off the teamate. Sometimes they died, sometimes they tanked while I just plugged along with attacks. This is less of an issue, but should something be able to take the aggro of a single enemy that a tank is activly working to hold?

Those are the three biggest issues I'm seeing with tanks. And I think it goes to show that the OP's argument is better held for Tankers vs Brutes than Scrappers vs Stalkers.

The thing about scrappers is that they are easy. They should be everyone's starter AT. You have defenses and you hit hard. Nothing complicated about them (some powersets have some complications like dual blades).

If scrappers became just the easy AT that you played because you were new or because you wanted easy mode (not god mode) I think they would have a worthy niche.

I think this proves the devs did a great job with the stalker buffs.


Stalkers do more Single Target DPS/Burst, while Scrappers have better survivablity, and better AOE.

Kudos Synapse, and associated team. The stalker buffs saved my subscription, and I thank you for them.

I have no concerns about Scrappers. Or blasters. They have entered what appears to be a steady cycle of buffing ATs and powersets and introducing newer, stronger powersets that is resulting in the basic content becoming ever more trivial.

One of my biggest concerns is power creep and what it means for the long-term health of this game.

Well, if you wanna know what might be a good buff for scrappers? (though my scrappers still feel perfectly fine)
Here's an old proposal I had: in addition to the scrapper's present mechanic, maybe for every crit they land or just every attack, they get a small to moderate recharge buff to their primary attack powers.

Though this in of itself could become a drawback since it means scrappers are burning their end faster than ever.

I should note, I don't really see anything wrong with scrappers. I just kind of like the idea of the building recharge stacks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

As I said above, I have no desire to see any of the melee ATs buffed. That said, I think offering Scrappers so form of utility boost would be fair. The Stalked AT now has: critical hit procs, automatic crits from hide, Assassin's focus, placate and 150 ft. zero endurance stealth. I don't think that near reasonable, since newer Stalked primaries don't even lose their AoEs.

Personally, I think the Scrapper AT should have utility on par with Stalker's stealth. I don't think it's needed, but likewise I don't think the Stalker changes were needed. But it would be fair.

I think a fun, but not ultimately unbalancing thing would be for all Scrappers to be able to see critter stats as if they were using Surveillance. As masters of combat it would make sense for the AT. It wouldn't increase Scrapper damage or survivability, except indirectly.

But it would be something that this AT wouldn't have to share with another AT.