Give Scrappers a real inherent power

I don't know that I agree that represents a unique quality. Perhaps, to get to Arcana's point, if that combination led to a unique playstyle like Controllers I could see that. But as I said above, Scrappers don't really play any differently than other ATs, except in the sense that other ATs have other ways to play besides just killing things.

If this is true, I propose that we allow Confront to take the Panacea set, since it is the cure to all ailments.

Then, when a scrapper uses Confront slotted with a full Panacea set he can not only save the team but see a tangible result of that Confrontation increasing his hit points.

I can't very well imagine anyone saying that controllers needed a buff. It would be preposterous.

I infer he means that they might need someone to champion a drive to make them more unique, based on his interpretation of what it means for an AT to be/play uniquely. Que disagreements on whether such perceived uniqueness can be created without resulting in an unwarranted buff.

Everyone's job, especially solo, is to kill things. For the vast majority of the game, that's the only way to progress through content. Even the ATs who don't have a primary role of killing things themselves have a primary team role of either making either easier for others to kill things or making it safer for them to kill things. What matters for Scrappers and Stalkers especially, and more diffusely for Brutes as they blend over into the aggro-management role of Tankers, is that they do not play the same way when they kill things, at least not if you want to leverage their strengths maximally. Yes, a Stalker gets Hide and Placate, but those exist to support their role in killing things.

Again, I maintain that you are calling a difference that you do not prefer no difference at all. Lack of uniqueness implies a lack of difference. You want a different difference, and you are arguing for it under the auspices that Scrappers are completely covered by all the existing options. Yes, if you look around enough, you find all their features in all the other ATs. But you don't find them all in one place except specifically as Scrappers.

I can. At this point, we're so far above the environment, that I'm not sure it matters anymore. That sounds more controversial than I intend. But I think of it like this.

Let's say we upped the Controller melee damage mod to .65 to match the spread that dominators have between their ranged and melee modifiers. I wouldn't argue against that. I don't think it would do much, but it would be an unequivocal buff. Such a buff would have little to no effect on Controller's current power. So why not?

That position is a huge non-starter. If you think the devs are going to buy into that, knock yourself out. I won't be betting on you.

Which Dominators have a better version of, called "Domination."

Honestly, I believe that's their position already. I can't reconcile their recent actions otherwise.

EDIT: Just so you know, while we disagree on this. I believe buffing the Stalker AT to the extent they did really makes me wonder what they consider "balance". I asked Arcana to explain it to me, but I don't buy her reasoning. Not because I think she's wrong, but because I don't think the devs have given balance as much thought as she has.

As I said, I haven't really considered the issue, so I'll concede the point.

BUFF CONTROLLERS!

Probably not, but what I told you was an amalgamation of every balance consideration the devs have ever expressed to me when it came to accepting, modifying, or rejecting a suggestion. Collectively they do think about the game in roughly that way, albeit perhaps not in every single way all simultaneously.

But the summary of what I told EG is that the devs do not have a singular vision of "balance." What they have, for lack of a better way of explaining it, are "balance concerns." Many, many of them. And I once posted a list of about a dozen of them, and Castle actually publicly acknowledged that every single one of them came up regularly in internal discussions, plus he said there were many more that were not on that list.

Just a note, while I give you crap, I don't think there's a person in any MMO I've ever played who considers the game holistically like you do. I tend to roll my eyes when people claim to have more knowledge than the devs about the game, but if anyone could credibly make that claim it's you.

Frankly, I don't claim to be anything other than an opinionated jerk, but at least I'm honest about it. I equally roll my eyes in threads like this when people use high-minded ideals of 'balance' when even defining that term is vexing.

Could yo post the list again, or PM it to me. There are things in the game currently that makes it hard for me to see how they view balance. I have had a hand in working on the balance of several LARPS and several Table Top games. Shoot, one system Fuzion (which stunk in most ways) Had a Rule of X which actually worked.

There is not much left to say here. I don't think the scales are balanced between the melee ATs, but hey it is not my sand box. I can at least say that tanks not scrappers seem to be on the real bottom, but scrappers are no longer at the top either. I also think scrappers not being at the top makes some so happy that they are overlooking some issues that have been created in the adjusting and buffing of the other melee ATs.

I don't know why you are even going "if" I have been saying it since 2006. There were days when for the STF people would "need" a Stonetank, need an empath to stack CMs on that Stonetank, need a pocket Kin for that Stonetank, need a Rad to minus regen, avoid having Scrappers if they were going for an MoSTF. There was never any IF to it, a whole team of Scrappers could of MoSTFed the STF way back then.

Hover + Confront

A tactic that was effective back then as it is today.

It's just a tactic many don't care to use for various reasons...one of which seems to have been "That doesn't make me feel tough"

But then, failing the STF was so much better

What these forums are about you? My comments was about you? I was not putting words into your mouth. Go read other peoples posts, not just here but in the Scrapper section. Clearly one person thought it better to take Placate over Confront.

You were never refered to.

I never thought of you.

Don't flatter yourself.

What I have dug up that you said:

You missed the point of Scrappers. They are meant to in someway fill the role of a missing AT maybe with buffs, maybe without. Brutes weren't about in the beginning and I will add Blasters can be buffed to fill the role, well to more of a Scrapper as people would see them to some extent. Given the damage output of Blasters in a team. Given the level of buffage a Blaster can recieve why bother with a Scrapper? For what some of them have, a taunt aura, great for keeping mobs packed for debuffage and AoEs. What's logical is logical.

Or it could be that you think too highly of yourself that you missed the point of Scrappers.

Scrappers were designed to lead in raw DPS, this means run into mobs and do the most damage without outside buffs. They're more soloable. Blasters if they tried it would have their DPS lowered through getting mezzed. Without CM or such like to act as a Psuedo damage buff (by allowing you to use all your other attacks, you just ain't doing the DPS.

There was a time before CoV when people didn't always have a Tanker in the team. Instead of relying on Brutes they relied on Scrappers to do the role of the Tanker. You can get a Blaster buffed to high heaven to do the role of the Tanker. No AT is needed.

This is where you have shown me your limitation. Why wasn't Lord Recluse defeated? It is within the means of almost any Scrapper to use Lord Recluses limitations against him, use those Heroes you are meant to be saving to help you defeat him, that is what they're for. Now between keeping them Heroes alive and limiting Recluse some power like Confront is a good idea. I will use a Scrapper to tank Lord Recluse on the STF while people beat him up. It's no different. The advantage of Confront on such a mission is you can take them heroes you save with you, have them fight with you and keep aggro off of the team.

I know how hard Jade Spider can be. I question the "how easy to do all of it" it was for you.

I always thought the point of Scrappers was their namesake.

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

I found that tactic when RV was first introduced so that Scrappers could tank GW and Mako together or Black Scorpion or Lord Recluse. With Scirroco it just helped to have someone with -fly. It could be a Peacebringer, Blaster or Trick Archer, whatever. There was no -Range then. It took a specific slotting in SOs. This tactic came out on the forums a whole 3 or 4 years later. Whilst the US forums were "my Icetank can't tank Lord Recluse", the EU forums was quiet for SRs scrappers were tanking Recluse, hell people did it with Divine Avalanche but that's good if you got DA. The point is people knew how to tank Lord Recluse with an Icetank unaided pretty instantly in the EU.

In those days half a server would need everything in the box as they aligned themselves up for the AVs to do what they liked. I would just facepalm watching Tankers direct cones into everyone. It seemed important that people stood behind a tanker. I used to facepalm alot.

Also in those days with an SO build a Invuln Tanker could tank Ghost Widow, Mako and Scirroco in melee, unaided, longer than what Stonetanks could last against Ghost Widow alone and by that clear way beyond 10 minutes. I play with things, somethings people find out 3 years later or more have originated from me but this one might stump many for way longer.

Yes but Scrappers fill the role of a Tanker where needed. No AT was meant to be needed. A Scrapper without Confront just doesn't work for me. It means that something I could offer the team should they need it is skipped "needlessly". My builds are tight, but never need dice in the mirror as well tight.

You'll notice I made no specific claim to any particular "ideal" regarding balance. What I dismiss out of hand is the notion that, because the devs have escalated our relative power compared to the environment in the end game and with some powersets in particular, that the reigns are completely off.

What I believe is a non-starter in that is the very assumption that the devs think they're ramming the throttle to the max as the train races down the mountainside. Your position says hey, we might as well throw more coal in the engine, right? Except I don't believe there's any chance at all they think they're driving the train that way. They may think the train is racing down the mountainside, but if so, I suspect very much that they are working the breaks and the engine to mitigate the acceleration. So I don't expect them to give suggestions based on the idea that they are driving that way more than a raised eyebrow.

I have to go dig it up, or I could just rewrite it if I can't find it. But it probably helps more to understand how the devs think if you keep firmly in mind that:

1. There is no one at Paragon Studios named "The dev."

2. The sum total of the decisions made in this game were made by many different people. Just the powers decisions alone were made by Geko, Castle, Black Scorpion, Sunstorm, Synapse, Arbiter Hawk, and a bunch of other people. None of them think exactly like the others.

3. Some decisions have to survive lots of review. Some are the brainchild of a single developer. Sometimes a single developer will do something that on average the dev team doesn't do, because they think differently. Sometimes the exact converse happens: a decision is made by a collection of devs, and because that decision has to represent the consensus of many different developers what happens is something that reflects *none* of their perspectives exactly.

4. In my experience, the chain of command is less likely to tell a developer what to do, and more likely to reserve judgment for vetoing things they really don't want to have happen. So although I don't sit in design meetings, my experience suggests that when Synapse works on something, he has a lot of latitude to do what he wants up to the point when Black Scorpion vetos something he really doesn't want to have happen, but he'll allow things he wouldn't do, but don't exceed his limits. Similarly, Black Scorpion wields that discretion right up to the point where someone like Positron might step in and veto something himself, but that too is probably limited. And I'm skipping over people and process a lot here.

5. Side effects and unintended consequences happen often. I could write a book.


What you see is a combination of what the designer who's working on it thinks is a good idea, combined with what the lead powers guy thinks is acceptable, combined with what the lead game designer thinks is reasonable, combined with what the producers decide is doable, combined with the resources available, combined with the fact that the developers' individual views evolve over time.

And they sometimes make mistakes. So the game is a combination of what the developers want, what they need, what they got away with, and what they accidentally put it. Governing that is a design philosophy: the developers don't work at random, although they don't all interpret it in exactly the same way. But because it doesn't lead in a straight line to every number in the game, its not always easy to witness either.

I'm often in a position to know when a player has completely misread the devs' intentions. Amazingly, not all that many players take advantage of my pointing that out. I'm not specifically commenting on EG here, but in general. Its strange to me, because it means many players would rather be ignored than corrected; its rare the devs pay significant attention to a post that starts off asserting the devs think something they don't, and try to draw a conclusion from that false premise. Its not like any player seems to enjoy being put in that position; I don't know why anyone would think the devs would be any different.

What I can say for sure is that I really like Synapse and the work he does. I like him far better than anyone who has come before him. Oddly, I trust him to do what is right for the melee ATs. I do feel that if he sees a problem with scrappers in the future that he will work towards fixing it.