Scrapper 2/3rd complete after recent patch.

After an initial head scratch on the recent Scrapper changes and playing around I’ve come to like the them, but I feel like the class is only 2/3rd complete. To better compete with Holosmith and have a better-defined role I would purpose the following changes:

Merge Shocking Speed and Rapid Regen in the Adept spot. With the removal of the lighting fields from the old Final Servo Shocking speed becomes much more difficult to pull off solo. However, this ability could still be useful and promote playing with others, so I wouldn’t remove it entirely. Change Rapid Regen numbers accordingly.

In the spot left by Rapid Regen I would create a new trait called Excess Barrier. Excess Barrier – A portion of barrier gained by the Scrapper is shared with allies (25-33%). This would give the Scrapper more of an identity in a group setting.

With the removal of Final Salvo and merging of Expert Examination I don’t really feel a reason to take a Gyro over another Engineer skill. Gyros have a problem with pathing and can be somewhat clunky. That would be fine if they were strong or useful enough to overlook. I would remove Applied Force and create a new Grand Master called Maximum Payload. Maximum Payload – Increase the health and effectiveness of your Gyros.

Heal Gyro now affects 10 allies, increased healing, and splashes Protection for 2 seconds upon death.Purge Gyro now affects 10 allies, removes 1 extra condition, and rips boons from enemies upon death.Bulwark Gyro now affects 10 allies and splashes stability for 2 seconds upon death.Blast Gyro now drops a small mine field prior to hitting its target and exploding.
Shredder Gyro* Increased area of effect. Causes bleeding on enemies upon death.
Sneak Gyro now affects 10 allies and blinds foes for ½ a second upon death.

*The Shredder Gyro has always been kind of an outlier from the other gyros and I have never been in a situation where I felt it was useful. I would have it now spin around in an area vs staying in a static location. While the Gyro is spinning in the area, if an enemy was hit, they would have a stack of bleeding applied to them (5-10 stacks).

I think that these changes, while not being too over powered, would put the Scrapper in a good spot with meaningful trait choices and playstyles. It would be fairly easy to implement not requiring a huge rework of the class. I’m mainly a PVE Scrapper that’s tired of the Scrapper discrimination in high end group content but I tried to keep changes in mind in regards to PVP and WVW. I would love to hear other opinions, too powerful, not powerful enough, thoughts?

I agree that Shocking Speed should get changed. Merging it with another Master Trait like Rapid Regeneration seems like a good option here. And Shocking Speed is just not worth a trait slot on its own anymore since we just have 2 lightning fields left on Scrapper now (hammer and shredder gyro).

I would like to put more group support on the Scrapper as well, but in general Scrapper doesn't have that many barriers right now and they mostly are small. The biggest barrier he has (Recovery Matrix) would compete with your new trait suggestion. Unfortunately, I can't come up with a trait myself right now. I would like the Scrapper to have more barriers and group support, but having it compete with that other barrier trait would be a bit awkward.

I absolutely love the idea of Blast Gyro leaving behind mines, tho. Maybe they could even make it that it drops a mine every few seconds on its way to the target. Would have nice synergy with Explosives.

The new barrier trait would replace the old Rapid Regen in the master spot so it wouldn't compete. The reason I put the barrier share at such a lower rate was a fear that Sanctuary runes with Adaptive Armor would cause things to go sideways quickly. I really like the idea of dropping mines on the way to the target that would be really fun.

Ah, my bad, misunderstood it.Then I wholeheartedly support your suggestion, having such a trait would work really fine with Adaptive Armor and Recovery Matrix. And I would love to be a barrier share machine on scrapper, giving him back more support value again. Hope your thread gets alot of attention and Anet considers your ideas.

A portion of barrier gained by the Scrapper is shared with allies (25-33%).Good idea, but I think Scrapper doesn't offer much barrier at the moment - only meaningful amount comes from Recovery Matrix. Maybe add a trait "Gain 1000 barrier when using a toolbelt skill"? Toolbelt is supposed to be Engi's trademark, but there's very little to no synergy in specialsations other than tools.

The more I think about it the more I like your idea. More synergy with toolbelt skills would be welcome. Where in the specialization would you place it? Would it be better to replace the barrier increase 15% from Impact Savant with Gain 1000 barrier when using a toolbelt skill (to avoid too much power creep) or would you increase the barrier gained to say 2000 and replace the Adaptive Armor trait?

Shocking speed could get a rework instead but it would have to compete with 10% damage from Perfectly weighted & the synergy with mass momentum.

Gyros ought to have higher speed I think and the pathing shouldn't be ground dependent due to flying/floating.

I hope you are aware Rapid regen is a backbone for WvW scrappers. It's the reason you'd run scrapper over holosmith (which can still run Medical Dispersion field/bunker down and med kit). Because you grant boons with hammer auto even if you aren't in med kit , it makes the Alchemy traitline stronger.

I agree that Gryos should have a higher speed with better pathing. I made this recommendation under the assumption that it would be too difficult/time consuming to pull off from a dev perspective (better to have some positive gyro change than no change). I understand that Rapid Regen is a backbone for WvW Scrappers which is why I suggested it be moved and merged with Shocking Speed and not replaced. Is your issue with the change more that the merged trait would compete with Perfectly Weighted decreasing personal hammer damage by 10% or that the shift from a Master slot to Adept could lead to a possible decrease in healing output from Rapid Regen? If it is the hammer output decrease (reasonable concern), in a WvW Medi-Scrapper build is the decrease worth the ability to share barriers with allies? My problem with only reworking Shocking Speed is that while a Scrapper build may again be able to find a niche role in WvW, it will still have no place in PvP and PvE where super speed isn't as useful a boon.

I honestly don't think Arenanet will allow another class other than scourge to share barriers. I was surprised that they added barrier to scrapper function gyro in the February 2018 patch.

Most people run the hammer trait for the stability on evade. Bulwark gyro is run quite often already, along with blast gyro.

What isn't run often is the heal gyro. It used to have no cast time.

While what you propose for the gyros is nice, the gyros go from defensive to offensive for the purge gyro and I don't think they'd put protection on heal gyro when it has it from toolbelt. Having gyros affect 10 targets is already quite an upgrade.

As for the rapid regen slot, I always thought that people not running support ran Mass Momentum or expert examination.

I don't think it's a good design idea to have the main feature/aspect of an Elite spec depend on a GM trait to achieve maximum effectiveness. I'd rather my gyros be worth taking over other skills because the skills themselves are well designed, as opposed to being flat out better if I take a GM trait or just worse if I don't take it.

Pardon if I've misinterpreted, but I think that would be the result of what you seem to be suggesting.

Definitely +1 for the trait merge though.

No, you haven’t misinterpreted anything and it is valid criticism. I was trying to give Gyros an HGH like treatment in order to make them more appealing than they currently are. With the Function Gyro being somewhat lackluster, if the other Gyros were good enough to be the reason to pick the Elite, could that could be the boost the specialization needs? In your opinion what do those changes look like? If the assumption holds that it is too much work to repurpose the function gyro or improve AI pathing, what can be made baseline on the skill gyros that would reach that goal? Also what would you like to see from a trait that affects gyros?