What happened Scrappers?

For a while now I have not been able to shake the thoughts that scrappers have lost their, how do I put this in a way without getting my thread reported for crassness, gusto, bad-assery, killer instinct, pushing the boundaries, etc... What happened? I remember when pylon solo'ing done by scrappers used to be a serious accomplishment but now everyone and their mother does it. I used to see build threads of people constantly improving their character(s) constantly or people posting videos of solo'ing every AV known to man.

It seems like the type of scrapper player shows up to the scrapper forum to take advice and very few return to add to discussion. I remember when there were quite a few regulars on the scrapper board battling it out in discussion talking about why a set needed to be improved or come up with ideas for crazy new sets that actually ended up becoming new sets. Now all it seems to be is endless A/B build please critique, and poof they're gone.

It really makes me sad to see and hopefully my view point is wrong and I'm just delusional. Please someone tell me that I'm wrong.

I think the atmosphere you're talking about was, at least in part, because for a while the game didn't really have stuff to challenge a scrapper on the high-end, so we made up our own challenges (solo an AV, solo an AV without insps/temps, solo an AV without insps/temps faster than that, solo many different AVs without insps/temps, etc etc). Soloing an AV didn't mean much other than forum bragging rights. With the difficulty slider and Incarnates, there's stuff difficult enough to challenge even the mightiest Scrapper without setting up artificial extra obstacles, and there are in-game rewards for doing so.

I certainly haven't stopped doing stupid scrapper tricks; with Incarnate powers, I can walk all over things that were once near-impossible, and things that WERE impossible are now within reach. But there's not as much use nor desire to discuss it at great length anymore.

/shrug

I too just don't see the same level of engagement. Some people went FTP and can't post in the AT forums -- I'm thinking of once great posters like Combat and maybe Werner and Shred Monkey. Or they just gave up. Don't know. What happened to Iggy? He gave me so many great build ideas.

My recent Claws/SR post is just sitting in the forum like a silent turd. Same happens in the stalker forums.

Game seems a bit vacant recently actually -- maybe due to Diablo III and previously Skyrim?

If you look in every other section of the forums it isn't just scrappers, in general I feel like the game has changed and pushed away those players who were once its 'soul'.

I was never able to keep up with any of the good scrappers, but no matter what I do now I just don't get a sense of accomplishment like I used to, so maybe people don't feel like they should brag.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

Posting is definitely slow right now. It doesn't seem to be particularly scrapper-exclusive but it is perhaps more noticeable here as this used to be the most active AT forum by far. I'd be happy to talk scrapping but I'm not going to start dozens of threads about it myself so I've been poorly served lately!

If I had to guess, I'd say a lot of people are busy with a certain recent game release... of course I mean The Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb.

What happened to Scrappers? For me I hate Red side and once we were able to make Brutes blue side I had no more desire to make Scrappers...

It hasn't been just lately, I've noticed it happened a month into FTP.

It happened when the hardcore scrapper players started getting Incarnate powers.

Stuff that used to be "hey, look what I pulled off!"......just isn't that special anymore.

Not much point to telling people how you did something cool when they can all chime in and say, "yeah, I did that too"

Pretty soon I'm going to attempt a MoITF run on a Claws/Regen scrapper. If I pull it off I'll be sure to stop in and claim my bragging rights

Basically, it seems that the focus of the game has shifted. That, and with the option of playing for free I'm sure a lot of our former regular posters quit subscribing and just play once in a while.

Probably a bit of burn-out occurring with the long time vets as well. I know I'm starting to feel a bit of burnout, but I doubt I'm going to be going anywhere in the foreseeable future. I know Werner just recently came back from a 6 month break, and I haven't seen Iggy post since sometime last year. Umbral's been gone for at least 2 years.

Holy crap, I just realized I'm one of the old hands in teh Scrapper section now.

I think it's a combination of things:

~ The systems are a solved problem so there's nothing really to discuss. Sure, we can tweak a set or two but there's been nothing to shake up build discussions in a while. The devs probably need to release the new power pools, and release a bunch of new sets to get us to revisit our builds and start the cycle again.

~ The big new challenges are raids, and the stats are out of reach for most soloing just on sheer regeneration. The step up was too big. If the Incarnate missions were 8 man you might see scrappers trying to solo them, but raids are out of reach. There is no interim content to try to solo.

~ We haven't had a new defensive set in a while.

For there to be engagement in new achievements, there needs to be new things to achieve. I'm not going to be so foolish as to say there's nothing new to achieve, but we went on a long tear of their being a lot of low-hanging fruit in terms of achievement, due to lots of game changes. We got a long string of new things that let us boost DPS, survival or both - Inherent Fitness rebuilds, new powersets, cross-side access to epic pools, Incarnate powers, then more Incarnate powers, ATOs, etc.

The rate of new things has tailed off some. We've still gotten some new powersets, but that's not generally as likely to produce as much activity as something that uplifts every powerset.

So I think there's just not that much right now going on to spur people to new achievements. Combine that with the recent releases of some new games that definitely have overall activity lower, and the trend has just been towards less going on about "stupid Scrapper tricks" in particular, or really just stupid tricks in general.

If it is achievements and bragging rights that get things going. Then let's come up with new 'feats' of our own to throw down the challenge with. ClawsandEffect mentions soloing a MoITF. Let's start there. See which ones people can solo with their Scrappers.

Bring on the pain!

Posting in general seems way down, also I'll echo that the overall focus has changed. Before when you hit 50 perfecting your build was pretty much the end-game. Now that there's a huge raid mechanic in place the game's focus has shifted to league-play.

Maybe its just me and I need to take a break, but the past few months have felt more and more quiet around the forums and game in general. Personally I'm hoping Paragon Studios have a really awesome rabbit to pull out of their hat soon regarding the other MMO they're working on.

Scrappers used to stand out in both damage dealing and survivability. That's what happened.

When an IO'd + Incarnate support class AT like a Controller can accomplish the same tricks as a scrapper, there wasn't much left to "showboat" about for the Scrapper community.

Heres a story for you!

Character - Rashnu Damz
Powersets - Street Justice/Energy Aura
Story - As follows

Well originally i built him to have the fire epic set as i've always been a big fan of fireball on a scrapper. However after taking him on the Hero > Villain > Hero trip, i picked up the Patrons to see what they were like as i've never done them before.
Ok so i decide to chose the Leviathan Mastery and get on to making a build ingame [I dont use mids, just ingame experience/memory while doing builds or respecs], eventually finish it after about half hour of going back and forth and out of the Leviathan set i picked the ranged attack, the hibernate power, the pet and also water spout.

In all my years of playing I had never seen the water spout being used other than from NPCs so i was interested in trying something different. Well can i just say oh my god, because oh my god it is amazing! A psuedo pet that follows you dealing [pretty good] damage and a lot of KU to enemies [even bosses] has made the powers one of my most favourites ones ever!
If i ever start to get slightly over my head i know now that i can chuck this down and for the duration of it the threat value of the surrounding mobs has been reduced drastically!

So thats my mini story, a love for a power [ok the whole patron set really too as the pet is pretty impressive too] that i had never seen used ingame before and since i've been using it i have seen other players mention how good it actually seems.

For myself, scrappers have always been the go to tool for the game because I solo so much. Now that Incarnates are the happening thing, I am dealing with it well enough to keep my main toons up to scratch, but since the current challenges are almost obligate team oriented... the solo-test bar hasnt moved along with the abilities of the soloist.

Because a lot of players went to Brutes for one.

I don't know how many times I've heard people say "Brutes are better." and it seems to be a general consensus.

I still prefere Scrappers. But with the Stalker changes, I can now play a WP the way I wanted (with Reconstruction) and put out good damage.

Another thing I think it's been is the lack of new defensive sets. It's been awhile. Maybe Bio Armor will liven it up, but I think we'll see more go to Brutes (aggro auras) but I think we need more than just 1 new defense set.