Anet, you broke WvW Scrapper Barrier builds

Anyone else finding this build obnoxious in roaming? I am OK with them in zergs where they pump out absurd amounts of the heals but the barrier roaming variants is yet another too bunker/too hard hitting build in WvW.

After tooling around on one for an evening, standing in front of two decently hard hitting players and basically laughing at them with little counter play seemed a wee-bit much. The gyro upgrade was the buff Scrappers wanted but I am not sure WvW needed.

I suggest putting a cooldown on Purity of Purpose or toning down Adaptive Armor which is basically 53% reduction of damage most of the time since Barrier/Protection is up pretty much all of the time.

@Straegen.2938 said:I suggest putting a cooldown on Purity of Purpose.

what has that trait to do with barrier ?rather make bulwark barrier scale with allies affected by it.

@MUDse.7623 said:

@Straegen.2938 said:I suggest putting a cooldown on Purity of Purpose.

Purity of Purpose is often a trigger that sets off a massive amount of damage reduction and healing because of the way the traits interact. Use Rune of Sanctuary to really make taking down the build ridiculously difficult. Essentially one trait makes attacking the build with anything that pushes out condi a bad idea. I am not talking about just damaging condi either. Anything that chills, vulns, weakens, immobilizes the build is in for a very rude surprise.

This thing in a zerg is the new meta which I am ok with since it adds some diversity to that game mode. In small scale it tilts the scales to a bring two extra friends for every one of these in an area.

@Straegen.2938 said:

@MUDse.7623 said:

@Straegen.2938 said:I suggest putting a cooldown on Purity of Purpose.

but a cooldown on that will have a much greater effect in large scale than in small scale as with increased number of allies you cleanse way more conditions.however one could reduce some barrier spamm for smallscale by reduceing base barriers and increase scaling with healing power, as in smallscale you usually will have more offensive equipment and not support stuff like in largescale.ontop of that one could change the boon/condi conversion tables to have a diminishing effect. therefor multiple boons convert to the same condi , multiple condis to the same boon as the amount of stacks and duration after a conversion is fixed, it will reduce the boons/condis with each conversion.

Using barrier and laughing at two hard hitting players is absolute hyperbole lmao I run maurader gear with durability runes on scrapper a lot last couple weeks and with barrier two hard hitting opponents will still down u fast and hard and be laughing at u. Yeah against a non zerk solo Roamer barrier can make u very sustainy but u definitely aren’t hitting like a holo,soulbeast or warrior lol and certainly not invincible.

We ran a 3 man scrapper group yesterday - all with heal, bulwark, purge and sneak gyro.

Still got stomped by smallscale meta balls with immortal fbs and condivomiting or carpetbombing scourges supported by various melee dps.

The gyro changes makes the scrapper more competetive in 1v1, true. Now it can challenge spellbreakers, mirages, holos and the likes.

But this is WvW. 2 players beating on 1 player = win unless said 2 players are bad enough for that 1 to kill both, or bring bad builds. This apply to all classes. Scrapper buffs changes nothing.

Stealth gyro needs a nerf.

Sure barrier is currently strong on scrapper, but it is not overkill that it would outsustain two equally skilled enemies.

Sure, full marauder scrapper can hit 7-8k with hammer #2, but the attack chains are fairly slow, so the dmg Output is not that high. Furthermore it can be outmoved easily if you don't take in the superspeed traits (trade-off for damage or tankyness).

IMO the current state of scrapper ranges from bunker/not very dangerous to fairly dangerous/not very bunker. But it never hits as hard as SB/Holos/Mes/Thieves

so your problem is with barrier but you want to nerf purity of purpose? that doesn't make any sense.

You really are a serial whiner, as your posts attest. You can tank up, but you barely do any damage and have to drop barrier traits to kill anyone. Even then, ranged and normal players can move away, leaving the Scrapper hitting thin air. As for nerfing purity of purpose, that's equally non-sensical.

Bulwark Gyro cooldown is too low, it's as simple as that. There's no justification for that while Stone Resonance exists.

I'm sensing more that the issue here is that Scrapper is pure on anti-condition, but I'm still unsure why that is a bad thing? We have lots of abilities in game already that mitigate physical damage, why shouldn't there be one that does the same for condi?

And medi-scrapper is not the 'new' meta, it's always been meta since the rework - it's just much better now that gyros don't suck eggs, with purge gyro being at the top of the list of things that make scrapper so amazing in zerg play now. Before you might have 1-2 per 50 person squad, but I suspect those numbers have risen, likely at the expense of FB, as I think support Tempest is also seeing an uptick? (not sure though)

The biggest complaint you saw from Medi Scrapper before the recent patch was that the majority of what made their build came from Core engineer, and that the Scrapper bit was pretty minor. Now with the gyro rework that isn't true, and I think that's good for the game overall.

Making gyros unkillable was a bad idea, lack of counterplay makes them too strong.

@Clownmug.8357 said:Bulwark Gyro cooldown is too low, it's as simple as that. There's no justification for that while Stone Resonance exists.

Does Stone Resonance blow you up, if you don't block your allies damage? It's how it's used which makes the difference between skills. Does weaver have a healing model, comparable to the use of bulwark by Scrappers? Solo roaming with bulwark reduces your ability to hurt anyone, you need that slot for new blast or shredder gyro.Weavers/Elementalists in general need something more than bunker for solo, but dragging down other classes skills is not a true reflection of their needs.

I don't think the problem lies with the other traits or the gyro cooldown, but with the way the bulwark gyro skill functions.

It's in this state of being OP in a small fight, but also a liability in a large one.

In a 1v1, it's basically a free 10k heal on a 20s cooldown that comes with a bonus anti-projectile bubble and stability.

In a zerg fight, you'll instantly take so much damage from your teammates it will drop you. If you don't also use elixir S at the same time, you're probably going to die.

The suggestions for more barrier scaling based on # of teammates affected are probably a good solution.

@coro.3176 said:In a 1v1, it's basically a free 10k heal on a 20s cooldown that comes with a bonus anti-projectile bubble and stability.

While before the patch it was a 33% DR for 4s on a 20s cooldown that comes with a bonus anti-projectile bubble and stability.

I'm not a theorycrafter or anything, so I don't know if barrier or DR is better, but in my opinion the new bulwark has more of an impact on large engagements than they have on small ones, so I don't see how it's all of a sudden stronger now than it was before for 1v1?

@Valdel.7325 said:

@Clownmug.8357 said:Bulwark Gyro cooldown is too low, it's as simple as that. There's no justification for that while Stone Resonance exists.

In 1vX the damage sharing isn't a factor. It'd be nice if Weaver's healing required no stat investments and just pushing a button every 20 seconds. Suggesting that Blast or Shredder Gyro would even be considered by most people to use over Bulwark is laughable.

Those that don' think this is OP, hasn't seen the roaming version of this build yet. While the damage is on the low side it can still grind an opponent down and when mixed with other players it starts getting stupid OP with little chance of downing players because the build just stealths the downed and back up they go.

@"Psycoprophet.8107" said:Using barrier and laughing at two hard hitting players is absolute hyperbole lmao I run maurader gear with durability runes on scrapper a lot last couple weeks and with barrier two hard hitting opponents will still down u fast and hard and be laughing at u.

Fight this build and let me know how it goes. We tested this against a pure power/ferocity Soulbeast, blow up DH and Rifle Dead Eye CS/Trick all max power ferocity and best we could do is half health it. Even if it gets hurt, it rockets away and is back to full in a couple seconds. With over 60% damage reduction and virtually immune to conditions while fighting, the build is a beast. I rarely have to activate the heal. It is far more bunker than Tempest/Firebrand.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqencoC9dhFpCuoCEqiFDjKMAuv+iOxf8KXMd6v/D-j1hYwA8fAACU+RU9HGKB/cCAAs/wI9AkCo1daA-w

The version we are tinkering with punches harder than this one but requires more active counters. This is a training wheel variant that allows a player to use their cat/dog to play for them and roll through players. I am pretty sure a player can randomly press buttons and not lose with the build outside of extreme skill or being outnumbered.

@MUDse.7623 said:however one could reduce some barrier spamm for smallscale by reduceing base barriers and increase scaling with healing power, as in smallscale you usually will have more offensive equipment and not support stuff like in largescale.

It isn't the amount of barrier it is that the build has a constant flow of barrier keeping Adaptive Armor nearly full time. That trigger comes from converting condi into boons. The reason I singled out Purity of Purpose is that it has no bounds and completely shuts down any condi build. In most fights this build has protection, regeneration, barrier, Adaptive Armor might, stab, etc up all the time. Even corrupting just slows it down for a second or two. You are correct though in the fact that it can generate barriers in excess of 15k rapidly but that is just gravy.

Run the build I linked above for a bit and then come back here.

Yeah, whatever. Counterplay. I wish people around here would stop trotting that one out- as though they're a bunch of five year olds who've discovered their first dirty word and are hell-bent on wearing it out in front of everyone they meet. Let's talk about 'counterplay'

The Scrapper has one thing it does semi-well now. It bunkers. In melee. Fighting defencively doesn't win in wvw or anywhere else for that matter in this game. The longer you endure the more chance you have for someone to call for help and +1-10 etc. Every other profession with the ability to do this- and there are some, kick out a hell of a lot more damage/pressure than scrapper and they bring targets down. A lone scrapper legitimately doing this is a unicorn. They're either top of their game which is in itself an oxymoron, or they're up against bad players who expect to be able to faceroll everything and everybody they run across without dodging, without kiting, without staying out of range and playing to their own strengths to tip a fight in their own favour because of the simple belief that they should win every. single. time. 'cause. reasons.

Whether it's with hammer or with rifle- and don't even bring pistol/pistol or pistol/shield into this- in terms of any sort of combat scrappers are laughably kiteable. Engineer kits- which are trash no matter what flavour of engineer uses them- don't magically become competitive in the hands of a scrapper either because at the least they waste a bar slot needed for that much vaunted bunker everyone's so afraid of. Seriously. Look at the abilities they have on hammer. Read them. Now, if once you've done that, if you choose to stand toe to toe against them and you lose who do you have to blame for that?

With scrapper you treat it as a scourge with no teeth. You stay at range and make them waste their barrier/bunker abilities and the fight is done. Let's also not forget that the radius on every single gyro ability they have is 240. Go ahead, I challenge you to log onto a scrapper, use a gyro, any of the defencive ones and you'll see right now just how laughably small that circle is. And that, in a small scale setting, is what you need to keep your friends inside of for them to see any benefit from your 'overpowered' support abilities. It's a joke.

Most players either aren't capable or willing to stay that immobile during today's highly mobile fights. Which means a large portion of this support is rendered wasted. If you're fighting a team using a scrapper then divide and conquer. Get the scrapper separated from his teammates, pull/knockdown,throw/lift- there's plenty of that going around these days -chances are they'll be glass and using the scrapper's defence to shore of their lack of same. You'll see the fight change. Destroy them first and then you have someone left incapable of hurting you and your team.

Now if you want to talk smaller scale- which is two v two if you come in with two damagers against a scrapper and a damager and they stay together, you're in for a potentially long fight and might even lose if both of your builds are glass with an emphasis on ganking. To this I'll say, who says you should win every single fight just because you show up? Use your brain. Use map chat, call in help.

The one caveat here is troll comps. If for some unfortunate reason you run across the same group of tossers in EB, mostly playing bunkers of their respective professions( a scrapper, one or more soulbeasts, and a guardian or some flavour in the mix, camping the bridge at Overlook to keep it contested, then play around them and take everything in their part of the map. They're there to do nothing but waste your time so don't feed them. Scrapper is a late addition to this though and for years most of these guys have been doing it with just druids and other high mobility classes.

Thing is you take a bit of their survivability away they're still a threat damage wise. Take the scrapper's away and it just goes back to being as worthless as core engineer has been for five or more years. It probably will get nerfed to appease the mob. And it won't be much of a shock when it comes.

Ultimately nobody wants a challenging fight in wvw. Plenty of lip service but the truth is in the game play. They want quick turnover in order to keep amassing bags and exp in a mode that for want of care and initiative on the part of its producers hasn't had a purpose, a direction, or an ounce of relevance for longer than scrapper has even existed. Bickering over bulwark and sneak gyro in WvW has the semblance of a couple of hobos fighting in an alleyway over a corner in their favourite cardboard box. They could murder one another and nobody would know or care as anybody with the will and the means has left the alley for something better because it's filthy, it's dark, nothing good ever happens in it, and it smells of pee.

@Straegen.2938 said:

@MUDse.7623 said:however one could reduce some barrier spamm for smallscale by reduceing base barriers and increase scaling with healing power, as in smallscale you usually will have more offensive equipment and not support stuff like in largescale.

duelling or 'surviving' might be easy with that build, but to kill someone with such a build you will need the opponent to really be committed. you might use it to bunker a camp, but for roaming the pressure that build puts out is way too low for me. fighting as or against a bunker like that in 1 vs 1 is usually a waste of time.

@"MUDse.7623" said:duelling or 'surviving' might be easy with that build, but to kill someone with such a build you will need the opponent to really be committed. you might use it to bunker a camp, but for roaming the pressure that build puts out is way too low for me. fighting as or against a bunker like that in 1 vs 1 is usually a waste of time.

As I noted the build I linked is a build anyone can play by simply activating any skill when it is up and not only sustain but be an incredible anchor. The build has sustain not seen in any other build I have run into at least with a skill bar so low a toddler can make it work.

We have a variant that nearly doubles the dps output and retains most of the survival. That build requires a player to be more active but otherwise crazy sustain with average DPS. Two of them on top of each other requires a substantial force to counter and grinds down opponents quickly. The build even feeds off others in the same build. Two are not additive but multiplicative. So much so that one can run a full sustain and the other minimal sustain which will still feed the engine on both.

Just to be clear these aren't "my" builds but builds we deconstructed while fighting and dueling other players. I normally run the hardest hitting blowup meta I can find but when two of us tried to put this thing down we learned unlike Firebrand, Tempest, Druid and other Scrapper builds bringing a friend better mean two high DPS power variants with a lot of knockdowns.

@Straegen.2938 said:

@"MUDse.7623" said:duelling or 'surviving' might be easy with that build, but to kill someone with such a build you will need the opponent to really be committed. you might use it to bunker a camp, but for roaming the pressure that build puts out is way too low for me. fighting as or against a bunker like that in 1 vs 1 is usually a waste of time.

espeically now with +1 comming faster from everywhere, i really think the damage of those builds is too low. it doesnt matter if it has insane sustain. going by that you can still play ghost thief, for no damage but incredible sustain!but waiting to fight a very tanky scrapper, maybe i havent encountered one yet. tho i did play the last days a very offensive reaper when not in a zerg, maybe i just dont realize the opponents are supposed to be tanky.

It's hard -- but certainly not impossible -- to kill scrappers 1v1 but it's also fairly hard to get killed by them 1v1 as well. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have a build like that available to everyone . . .

You know when a class/build is OP when suddenly 95% of roamers start using it. ;)

@Endeavour.4206 said:You know when a class/build is OP when suddenly 95% of roamers start using it. ;)Patently false.

The proof? The forum isnt filled with the remaining 5% thieves moaning loudly about reveals and how it ruins the class.