when will scrappers get makeover

So stalkers waited for a couple years for buffs they needed.
How long do you think Scrappers will wait for something wanted but not necessary?

For a glorious example of that not working very well, take Johnny Butane's Tanker crusades.

The squeaky wheel does not always get grease. Sometimes people just kick it 'til it stops squeaking for a while.

I explained this in one of the other threads. If you're going to argue for the same campaign in a lot of threads, please don't force the people debating the other side to repeat their arguments in different threads.

There is no such thing as a change to an AT that does not change balance. It does not have to be a direct or indirect boost to damage or survivability - a change to Scrappers that introduces even a completely orthogonal ability to those they possess now cannot help but to change balance in some way, either relative to the environment, relative to other ATs, or both. If it doesn't, it wasn't really a change at all.

No one knows when a balance pass might result in change even to the AT we have now. However, the Scrapper AT has been "feature stable" for a very long time, and there is very little indication it's on anyone's radar for modification, up or down. Adding AT features changes that - it moves the AT into an area of relative uncertainty with respect to further change.

Such change, otherwise unsolicited and "just because", bears with it implicit risk through the "law" of unintended consequences. Imagine that future balance pass determines that the sum total of the Scrapper AT features we have now plus some new feature is somehow too strong. It might be determined that something about Scrappers should change to address this. But there is no guarantee that any such change would be to simply revert or modify the new addition. They might choose instead to change some other aspect of Scrappers as they exist today. That's the part of Scrappers that those of us who like Scrappers just fine would not want changed.

I, personally, do not want to even risk running afoul of such unintended consequences. Such risk is worthwhile when it buys you something you feel is important. You feel the risk is worthwhile because you feel Scrapper change is important. I do not feel Scrapper change is important, and I therefore want to avoid risk. Therefore I do not simply stay quiet while you argue for change, because I worry that meaningful change may risk something I am quite happy with.

If there wasn't such a hairline tightrope in role between various melee ATs, I might find this less of a concern, but there is.

Firespray had a good response:

Uberguy has a great response:

I <3 EG, but I think there's some serious BS in there.

I'm sorry, Werner's "curious puppy" image above belongs imprinted under those words.

I love Placate, and keep it now even in the days of glorious new AS, and that statement is ridiculously overstating the case. Placate is good against one target. Placate is not perma even with fairly exceptional recharge. And Hide means jack squat once a fight has started. Other than its handy 2.5% base unsuppressed defense, I'd love to know how exactly Hide makes up for the difference in base HP, except in specific build scenarios with defense in the mid-30s and up where that 2.5% defense can be stacked to create meaningful average mitigation.

So I'm sorry, but I full on laugh in the face of anyone who makes an unequivocal claim that Stalkers are "always" (caps omitted) better than Scrappers. That's just plain ludicrous, and tells me that person is selling something.

And quite well. There are others here who have not. It is your choice to post it again Uber. There are a few here who just choose to post rude and condescending replies.

See, those are things that are important to you (some of them are important to me too) scrappers having their own unique thing is important to me. It is what I choose to post on.

What are you talking about? Need is irrelevant.

You're a good egg too man, and my posts are always half-serious, half-BS.

Respectfully this is an artifact of this game being so darn easy. I can think of 5 games off the top of my head, where I know a significant portion of the playerbase would kill their own mother with a broken lawn chair for Placate.

A defensive ability that forces a NPC to stop attacking you and throws you into stealth (which sets up a number of offensive counters). That's just all sorts of stupid overpowered. But in this game, it appears weak because the general power level here is so off the charts.

In the first game that springs to mind (it's a big one), I in fact had Placate, except it was even better because it didn't cancel when I attacked.

Moreover, talking about how strong an ability from this game would be in other games is kinda silly. People in most games would consider our unlimited 3D movement absurdly broken, but here it's nothing special.

This is fair, and true. Personally, I'm willing to take that risk. And I'll explain why. It has become clear to me that the general power level in this game has went off the rails. I remember, as I believe you do where we were in Issue 6-8 (Before Inventions and after ED). Those were times when there were serious problems in several ATs. ED, ham-fisted that it was caused more harm than it solved and it necessitated 5 years of buffing to correct its most harmful effects.

At the same time the Inventions systems allowed players to stack power in levels that trivialized anything that even looks like solo content. So when people talk about how uber Scrappers are, they're usually looking through the prism of Inventions and now Incarnates. And that too is fair. The tools exist and they should be considered.

I am quite convinced that any combination of Scrapper does fine. But then there are multiple other ATs that do 'fine'. Brutes don't need to chase Fury. Fury simply is. Sure to hit the bleeding edge of performance you do, but then you can do a whole lot without hitting the bleeding edge of performance. Stalkers both before and after this buff needed more attention to pull out their performance. But there are great rewards for doing so.

With Scrappers for the most part, you're stuck. Except for Regen (and we agree why that set is still fun), you have very little tactical decision that you need to make as a player. Pick a solo rotation, and go forth and kill. That's cool. But Brutes and Stalkers do the same thing. And they have all these tricks on the side. Until recently, Stalkers did suffer from having significantly less AoE, but new sets don't even have that problem.

So Scrappers get to be the base AT, strong, but sterile. And that's not enough anymore.

That doesn't really counter the point. Placate is a very potent ability. Just ignored here because survivability isn't much of an issue for any melee AT.

I will mostly agree with Brutes, but not with Stalkers. Fury is not ignorable in my opinion, but it's easy to build, especially solo. I do not ignore my Assassin's Focus. I spend time paying attention to where it's at to gauge when best to AS. I don't have to do that, but I need to if I want optimum performance from AS, which I do want. I like that Scrappers are "stuck", just like a lot of people prefer powersets that are "toggle and go". Don't get me wrong, I like my Brutes and Stalkers, but how the Scrappers play is my favorite experience, because they just "are".

Give scrappers a new costume change emote. Done and over with.

AKA: Keep it simple stupid.

I like that we have at least ONE AT that sticks to that motto and doesn't have fancy gimmicks.

I VEHEMENTLY disagree that EVERY AT needs a gimmick to make them feel like a special snowflake. (notice I said ATs not players--players can request feeling like a special snowflake all they want. LOL )

That would cause more ******** than anything discussed so far. I mean really go look at the costume threads!

On a serious note, I posted this in the other thread too.

I was thinking about crits in D&D last night. The Long Sword has a roll 19-20 x2 damage crit iirc, the battle axe has a roll 20 x3 crit.

Give scrappers the Battle Axe version, and leave their crit chance where it is.

I am not sure you really need to do that. I have been playing stalkers since i22 (Staff didn't get released) and having a ton of fun. That is besides the point. To me they now play like a scrapper with the option to use the hide mechanic. Now I have played DB, and StJ a whole lot, so I am used to looking for the orange ring. I think what I am doing differnt is building like a scrapper. I stick my ATIO proc in a fast attack rather than in AS. Stalkers are where they need to be.

Yeah, the more we discuss this topic the more I agree with this. Any change that could be made, I would not want it to add complexity to the AT.

I put most of my hard work into my builds. When I play, I usually want simple. Toggle up, hit my attack chain, and ignore my heal and my inspirations. Most Scrappers serve that need well. So do Brutes for the most part, but it bothers me more than it should that I lose noticeable damage output if I destroy a spawn, eat some sandwich, destroy a spawn, let the dogs out, destroy a spawn, eat some more sandwich, destroy a spawn, let the dogs in, destroy a spawn, check the forum, and so on. While I like go-go-go when there's nothing else going on, I also like being at full power for every spawn without needing to crank anything up. I don't like being "forced" to keep on rolling by the game mechanics.

I'm not sure what everyone's suggestions have been for making Scrappers special, but I bet a lot of them leave things simple, so "keep it simple" may not be an argument in many cases. It is something I agree with, though. I like that Scrappers, at least with many or most combinations, are the easy button.

(Edit: That even goes for my beloved but retired Katana/Regen. He had a high defense, high passive regeneration build. Against normal content, I almost never had to use any of my clickies. I only had to use them when I was in the mood for something challenging. And as much as I love challenging when I'm in the mood for it, I'm usually in the mood for hitting that easy button and rolling my face on the keyboard.)

Is that really how many of us on these boards play our scrappers though?

I feel comfortable posting this because I am not really asking for a buff, just something unique to the scrapper.

For me when I play my scrappers it is all about what I can do w/o any help. Things like Pylon Soloing, the RWZ challenge, Soloing GMs (who run too damn much), or any number of other things we do just because every scrapper feels like Chuck Norris. Let's face it, if you have to take an inspiration to beat a spawn it feels like you have failed. Shoot there are times I feel I have failed if I even need to use my click heal during a fight.

I am pretty sure at some point this will be thrown back at me with statement of "How can you post this and still ask for a buff?" Because I don't want a buff, I just want something that is unique to the scrapper. I could live with the Costume option, the Emote, the Costume change, Dang give me a T-Shirt option that says "I Kick More *** than YOU!" and I would be sure that every scrapper I have has one costume that uses it. I do think anything cosmetic would have harsher reactions than any unique mechanic could though.

Also for the record I am not a fan of every suggestion made, but it is cool that people are making suggestions. I think Johnny has been ignored for so long because of how unreasonable he can be. Most of us are not really being unreasonable.

The problem with this is that, while it leaves the average contribution of crits where it is now, it makes the discrete behavior feel "more random". In any given fight, there will be half the chance of a crit happening. Sure, when it happens, it will be larger, but it's going to happen less often, making it less likely to be a factor against each foe.

In other words, in order to observe convergence in damage towards the calculated average you're more likely need to fight for longer.

That seems pretty unattractive to me.

Ok but only if you promise it is truly done and over.

Think I see where you are coming from, and I may not be being very clear. I am not suggesting lowering the current crit chance (or changing the increase the ATIO gives) I am just suggesting making scrapper crits do x3 instead of x2 damage when they go off.

No one seems to like the endurance total increase except me, so I thought I would throw something else out.

Either way I wish they would replace Conserve with Superior Conditioning in the Body pool. :/

I agree, but a man can dream.

I am not sure why no one likes the idea of increasing scrapper endurance max, but the suggestion just isn't taking root with anyone. :/

I think the thing to remember about this. It's the principle that's important. While people have made any number of suggestions that they think is in jest, I think many are fine.

On that note folks, how about this. I think UberGuy and Werner and others are reasonable in wanting to keep the feel for Scrappers. That's cool. I also think that giving Scrapper's a team based boost would work better anyway since that's where their role is basically non-existent.

So how about this. Let's give them a buff that only affects teammates. Something like 20% accuracy (not to-hit) and (20%) damage for each teammate within 20 feet of the Scrapper.

The Scrapper inherent now has something no one else has, Scrappers have more use in teams, and solo performance is untouched.