Concerned about Scrappers.

honestly scrappers do need something, cause I have played better on my stalkers then i have on my scrappers and this was even before the change.

I dunno, I have seen my stalker on a team out live 3 other scrappers time and time again

...but is that because your stalker was tougher, or because your stalker was just better built/more competently played, or even just because the scrappers were the ones getting shot at? Personally, I have never seen pretty much anyone on any team outlive my scrappers.

This is just a random suggestion from my side, if crit chance for scrappers is being brought up.

Rather than up'ing it straight away, I could think of the Corruptor mechanics as in that the chance to crit is scaling upwards, while mob health is at 50%-0%
(think like open wounds, bleeding effects, crushed bones, incinerated, shock etc. pick your poison)
On healthbags like AVs this would make quite a difference though
For a solo scrapper who can't touch their regen rate to begin with, it won't.

The other way around would be similar to SR's increasing DR, that is if their own HP meter drops below e.g. 50% their crit chance would increase.
But tbh most scrappers I know prefer to stay healthy and top off their HPs most of the time.
/end suggestion

Most of my scrappers don't get played anymore, because I find them too much ST dmg centered nowadays. Has nothing to do with scrappers feeling less powerful (which they don't). It's a personal shift, prefering ATs that bring more variety and team support.

To clarify my position further:

I do NOT believe that scrappers NEED anything at this point.

I would LIKE them to get a minor tweak or two.

I also concur with the people who would like them to remain simple. Any tweak they receive, which is at this point completely theoretical, should keep that in mind. I've put a couple ideas out there, I'll just run through them to compile what I've said thus far:

1)Critical chance increase to match stalker base crit chance, with no team scaling like stalkers get.

Incidentally, I like the idea of a Scourge-like mechanic that increases the chance to Critical as the target's health gets lower. I don't think that chance should get TOO high though, maybe have it increase up to 20%?

The idea of increased Critical chance as the scrapper's health gets lower is intriguing as well, and might be the better route to go.

Neither of those things would be a gimmick that you need to pay any more attention to than the current Critical Hit mechanic, though I could see some scrappers intentionally remaining low on health to leverage it, much like blasters used to do.

2) Slight increase to resistance cap for both Scrappers and Stalkers. I explained this earlier, but I'll do so again: It just seems odd to me that a combatant meant to be in the thick of combat at all times should be capable of no more resistance than a Defender. I think Brute resistance should actually be lowered a little as well, like the devs originall planned along with the Fury changes. 85% cap as opposed to 90% isn't going to make a huge difference in Brute survivability, and it will widen the gap between them and Tankers.

Speaking of Tankers. Bill Z mentioned making Tankers the undisputed king of agro management, and I agree with that idea. Brutes stomp on that territory a little too much in my opinion. I propose that 3 things occur to meet that goal:

1) Tanker Taunt target cap increased from 5 to 10. If 10 is too much, maybe up to 7 or 8.

2) Strengthen Tanker Taunt auras so it is more difficult to pull agro off of them. I don't know how to go about that, so I'm not going to get into how to do it.

3) Increase the agro cap for Tankers ONLY, if at all possible. I don't know if that is something that can be adjusted by AT or if it's hardcoded into the game itself. Maybe increase the agro cap to 21-24 for Tankers. With the huge amounts of enemies you fight at once in Incarnate Trials, this could almost be seen as a general improvement to aid the survival of the entire league.

Basically, make it so that if you want agro control on your team, a Tanker is the single best choice for that role.

Johnny Butane won't like that idea, but Johnny doesn't seem to grasp very well what a Tanker is meant to be doing in this game. (Hint: It's not dealing massive amounts of damage, hence the defense primary)

Those things occurring should balance things out pretty well. At least in my opinion.

Thoughts?

The Tanker stuff is more appealing to me than the Scrapper stuff.

Don't get me wrong. If somehow, someone talks the devs into buffing Scrapper crit rates and (Scrapper and Stalker) resist caps, I will accept it with a smile.

I really think a Scourge mechanic that anyone could notice is too much. And if we couldn't notice it, I think people would complain it should be stronger. I definitely think any such a mechanism on top of the flat crit rate and the DR increase would be very much too much buffing.

It's been asked a few times why people would oppose buffs when they feel an AT doesn't strictly need them. Thinking about these suggestions crystallized the answer for me. If the AT doesn't need something, and you give it something, there's the chance that it will produce something that's viewed as overpowered. There are two outcomes to that: buff everything else (power creep) and nerf the AT that was changed. But there's no guarantee that the nerf will be to the area that was just buffed. They may decide to keep the new buff and reduce the AT somewhere else. But those of us who like the AT as it is like its other features where they are. We oppose risking future change to those features to pay for added features we don't feel the AT needs.

As far as power creep being thrown out the window by Incarnates, I disagree. While Incarnate abilities clearly represent a sea change in power level for level 50 characters, that does not mean that we are free to ask willy-nilly for new power on top of that. Any changes to buff ATs will just compounded with the power we gain from Incarnate abilities and IOs before them. Just because those things represent a new tack of power progression doesn't mean that the gloves are completely off and all possible power creep we can think of is now an option.

In response to "When were scrappers nerfed?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zyphoid This is a fair question, the AT as a whole has never been nerfed that I can remember. However do you remember this "Regen may be too good, it is going to see some small tweaks." At the time only scrappers had regen, my main and namesake was spines/regen made two weeks after live. I guess I am still bitter about that, where the heck was the Cottage Rule when Jack pulled that one?

So - 2004? 2005? Isn't it time to let that one go?