The Issues

 

Scrapper is fairly weak in the following areas:

 

• If Shoot First doesn't crit, weak opener and lack of Upper Hand proccing abilities
  
• Poor sustain in a team fight
  
• Extremely squishy, especially in team fights with a lot of AOE damage
  

 

 

How I Would Fix

 

Weak Opener and Lack of UH Stacks

 

To address the weak opener and put it on par with Shadows in terms of burst, I suggest that Shoot First become an auto crit. Whether the damage it deals would need to be tuned can be discussed. With the addition of Shoot First being usable out of stealth, Upper Hand stacks would become much more plentiful and easy to work with.

 

Poor sustain in a team fight

 

A good chunk of Scrapper's damage comes from Shoot First, so why not let us use it out of stealth? This could be worked several ways:

 

• Chance on direct damage (Blaster Whip, Sucker Punch, Backblast)
  
• Or, following every backblast
  

to reset the cooldown on Shoot First and allow it to be used out of stealth with a normal crit chance (no auto crit). Even Flechette Round damage could proc the reset. If you get the Shoot First proc and use your vanish, it then becomes an auto crit.

 

Squishiness

 

Other specs have it and Scrapper obviously needs it: 30% AOE damage mitigation.

Another aspect to address the squishiness of Scrapper DPS is to give some kind of damage mitigation buff that's obtained by dealing direct damage.

 

Shock Absorbers

Dealing direct damage grants you one stack of Shock Absorbers, absorbing 20% of the next damaging attack directed at you. Max stack of 3, can only absorb an attack once every 6 seconds. Each stack also lowers the cast time of Kolto Pack by 33%.

 

With the list above, I believe Scrapper DPS could finally see a viable spot in rated warzones as a extremely solid front-line melee DPS with the power to call focus targets with the phenomenal single target damage and CC capability of the class. I also believe nerfing Smash Sentinels/Marauders would be beneficial to every melee DPS class as it would allow some lee-way for other melee classes to shine in ranked warzones.

Edited July 11, 2013 by bshenkd

+1

 

And, to the best of my knowledge, from a healer nonetheless! Excellent write-up.

Here's my response to the same post you've made in the operative section

A lot of people would cry all over the forums if we could use hidden strike (our signature stealth ability) out of stealth lol (that would also seriously dumb down the conceal tree by completely changing the way it is played right now and making it super broken imho WE NEED TO THINK LONG TERM and not just making this tree the next FOTM LOL)... something that seems less ridiculous to my eyes would be the possiblity to reduce cloaking screen's cooldown the same way that slash reduces the cd on smash (- X seconds everytime laceration is used for example).

That would allow us to use hidden strike more often as well as increasing our survability by a huge margin, without necessarily dumbing the class down. What about adding a similar mechanic to shield probe in order to address the survability issue? Aside the mandatory 30% aoe dmg reduction for rwzs of course.

 

Also, another small change that we could greatly benefit from would be to add the possibility to break root effects by activating the Sneak ability (in or out of stealth). And what about adding a damage reduction buff to it, like sins have with blackout I think?

 

I believe the damage is fine as it is (if you actually follow the right rotation, you should never run out of TAs, and as long as those are up, it can be very hard to beat a conceal op's sustained single target dmg), the problem right now is the impossibility to keep solid single-target uptime against strong coordinated teams due to our extreme vulnerability to peels and damage (especially aoe dmg, *cough cough double smash comps*) in general. The addition of exfiltrate was a nice step towards making us harder to kill/control but its energy cost makes the operative kinda useless after using it once or twice in the middle of a fight.

 

excuse me for the few errors as my main language isnt english

Edited July 12, 2013 by PerronCedric

Never thought of it that way. That is a good point you bring up in that it would likely make us the next FOTM. I've witnessed Shadows/Sins get "dumbed down" and it kinda does suck. They were excellent in 1.7, then the changes were just over the top on a lotta things, even Xinika agrees.

 

The whole scrapper tree needs a major overhaul, not just a tune-up. That is defensive-wise at least.

Taking blaster whip off cd would be nice, and not game breaking. Give more sustained dps, but we would still have to watch our energy consumption.

Auto-crit on shoot first will bring on the QQers. I've already dropped half your health in less than 5 seconds without a crit on SF. Main problem is the scrapper's need for stealth to be effective, not our actually damage. Someone pulls you out of stealth, whether it be a sniper, an AoE (your worst enemy), or you forget to cleanse before re-vanishing and you've lost your biggest hit. Getting rid of the requirement for stealth on SF will fix a lot of our problems imo. Maybe auto-crit SF from stealth, anyways I like your ideas. Hopefully Devs pay attention and resolve this issue.

This is exactly why we need an actual DPS operative/ scoundrel as the rep and not a healer. What toc is saying is spot on. Our single target sustained damage is 100% fine. The current mechanics for generating and maintaining a ta are fine. It would be a nice qol change to get 3 for longer out of the healing tree baseline but not necessary. The only damage/crit boost would be a slight bump in the crit talent that's already in the tree, or a better set bonus.

 

We need 30% AOE damage reduction. Root break and active damage reduction on sneak would be amazing. Would be nice to get access to some of the shield probe/evasion talents in the other trees. A CD reduction on vanish would be great also.

This is exactly why we need an actual DPS operative/ scoundrel as the rep and not a healer. What toc is saying is spot on. Our single target sustained damage is 100% fine. The current mechanics for generating and maintaining a ta are fine. It would be a nice qol change to get 3 for longer out of the healing tree baseline but not necessary. The only damage/crit boost would be a slight bump in the crit talent that's already in the tree, or a better set bonus.

 

We need 30% AOE damage reduction. Root break and active damage reduction on sneak would be amazing. Would be nice to get access to some of the shield probe/evasion talents in the other trees. A CD reduction on vanish would be great also.

 

Having mainly played a lot of Scrapper PvP pre-2.0 I see the whole damage reduction/squishness argument a little differently. The biggest nerf they inadvertently dished out was turning Pugnacity into a CD, and thereby removing the constant 2% healing every 3 seconds it provided pre-2.0. Surprise Comeback just doesn't provide the same level of healing it once did, and is fairly lackluster(20% heal over 15s, 2min cd) all around. Maybe we could change the Surprise Comeback talent so Upper Hand would provide a 1/2% heal per stack, every 3 seconds instead of Pugnacity.

 

Though I do agree that the 30% AoE reduction, and root break being available to Scrapper are needed changes as well.

 

A lot of people would cry all over the forums if we could use hidden strike (our signature stealth ability) out of stealth lol (that would also seriously dumb down the conceal tree by completely changing the way it is played right now and making it super broken imho WE NEED TO THINK LONG TERM and not just making this tree the next FOTM LOL)... something that seems less ridiculous to my eyes would be the possiblity to reduce cloaking screen's cooldown the same way that slash reduces the cd on smash (- X seconds everytime laceration is used for example).

That would allow us to use hidden strike more often as well as increasing our survability by a huge margin, without necessarily dumbing the class down. What about adding a similar mechanic to shield probe in order to address the survability issue? Aside the mandatory 30% aoe dmg reduction for rwzs of course.

 

Also, another small change that we could greatly benefit from would be to add the possibility to break root effects by activating the Sneak ability (in or out of stealth). And what about adding a damage reduction buff to it, like sins have with blackout I think?

 

I believe the damage is fine as it is (if you actually follow the right out-of-stealth rotation, you should never run out of TAs, and as long as those are up, it can be very hard to beat a conceal op's sustained single target dmg), the problem right now is the impossibility to keep solid single-target uptime against strong coordinated teams due to our extreme vulnerability to peels and damage (especially aoe dmg, *cough cough double smash comps*) in general. The addition of exfiltrate was a nice step towards making us harder to kill/control but its energy cost makes the operative kinda useless after using it once or twice in the middle of a fight.

 

excuse me for the errors as my main language is not english

 

Yes having an equivalent of the Sawbones>Scramble talent for Disappearing Act would be a great way to get Scrappers of the fringes of group combat, and into the thick of it. With the other fixes I mentioned above implemented as well.

maybe back blast crit removes cd on vanish. the 30% aoe dr thing would add more horrible thing to the already horrible scrapper tree, in terms of pve.

 

i dont pvp, but i pve in scrapper and hate that i ahve to waste like 3-5 points on worthless survival buffs in the tree... this would be another 1-2 points of drivel.

maybe back blast crit removes cd on vanish. the 30% aoe dr thing would add more horrible thing to the already horrible scrapper tree, in terms of pve.

 

i dont pvp, but i pve in scrapper and hate that i ahve to waste like 3-5 points on worthless survival buffs in the tree... this would be another 1-2 points of drivel.

 

the lack of reduction to aoe dmg received is the main reason why scrapper will not work in rwzs

Edited July 12, 2013 by PerronCedric

i dont pvp, but i pve in scrapper and hate that i ahve to waste like 3-5 points on worthless survival buffs in the tree... this would be another 1-2 points of drivel.

 

it could/should be tied into another skill like Surprise Comeback, Fight or Flight, or Flee the Scene

 

 

i would prefer Surprise Comeback, mostly because i want to completely rework the skill and change it as follows:

 

every time you gain upper hand, you heal yourself for 1% (per point) of total health

additionally reduces AOE damage by 15% per point

 

 

 

and i don't believe this is overpowered in the least since the last iteration of surprise comeback healed 2% every 3s (this suggestion is about just above half of that), and only required one point

I'm not sure i think were that far off... what i think we need overall is a finisher.

Most other classes have a "under 30%" use ability... with our resource issue we are often left low on energy and unable to finish the job unless we get some crits as mentioned... i think adding a simple finisher would close the gap largely.

I suggest auto-crits on Shoot First and/or Back Blast if target is under 30% health. That would put Scrapper in line with Dirty Fighting for raiding and make Shoot First and Back Blast as powerful as Dispatch. The 30% AoE damage reduction is another thing the Scrapper tree needs.

Also, imo remove the need to reapply flechette round before every SF/BB and just make it apply automatically. Just seems unneccesary and wastes another GCD.

Also, imo remove the need to reapply flechette round before every SF/BB and just make it apply automatically. Just seems unneccesary and wastes another GCD.

 

flechette round is off the GCD, but i'm on the fence about your suggestion.

 

on the one hand, simply making back blast 15 energy and having the effects of flechette round every time it's used would be roughly a million times more intuitive

 

but having every shoot first be 32 energy would be a bit harder to swallow. sometimes i want to use it for the damage and upper hand, but not necessarily to refresh FR

 

maybe if there were some sort of adjustment to the skill mechanically, i think it could work.

 

but also i would miss having that awesome flip swish click emote

I think making pistol whip or sucker punch have a chance to ignore like 30% armor would help alot

I think making pistol whip or sucker punch have a chance to ignore like 30% armor would help alot

 

You mean like, I dunno, using them after backstab/shoot first when the flechette round buff is up?

keep it simple guys... look at the other melee classes.. they all have a finisher, we dont.

Shadow gets Spinning Strike

Guardian and Sentinel gets Dispatch

we get... a bonus to dots but only in DF spec....

A simple finishing move with low or no cost would go a long way to bringing us in line, especially for scrapper.

in pvp the damage is 100% fine Edited July 18, 2013 by PerronCedric

Auto-crit on shoot first will bring on the QQers. I've already dropped half your health in less than 5 seconds without a crit on SF. Main problem is the scrapper's need for stealth to be effective, not our actually damage. Someone pulls you out of stealth, whether it be a sniper, an AoE (your worst enemy), or you forget to cleanse before re-vanishing and you've lost your biggest hit. Getting rid of the requirement for stealth on SF will fix a lot of our problems imo. Maybe auto-crit SF from stealth, anyways I like your ideas. Hopefully Devs pay attention and resolve this issue.

 

I am dropping all your health with my shadow in 5 sec.