Full-out damage to survive

[nicolasallasia.2401]

Hello all. As a returning Scrapper i'm thinking about the new damage=barrier mecanic.Would a high damage scrapper get good surviv. in the form of barrier ?I was thinking a SD/ hammer withFirearms: 3 3 2Tools: 1 1 1Scrap: 3 3 3

Mostly if not all for pve either freeroam or fractals

[Dawdler.8521]

Yes, the elusive shield/shield scrapper can go all damage.

In PvE nothing really matters.

[nicolasallasia.2401]

Lol, good :DIf i'll ever go pvp i'll stick to a condi cleanse/convert. Thanks

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I have tried running around in a full berserker scrapper build with Explosives 3 2 1, Firearms 3 3 2, Scrapper 3 3 3. A few things I noticed about it:

(1): In high end fractals and against many enemies, that barrier might as well not exist. The total barrier that you can receive caps at about 7k, which gives you roughly 22k health afterward. This... isn't a lot when looking at dungeons, fractals, and overworld zerg content. Some of the bigger attacks will blow right through that amount. It helps to deal with the low, sustained damage that comes in certain fights (bounties and conditions, for example), but otherwise it is just a convoluted way to give the scrapper 7k more health.

(2): It is difficult to ramp up that barrier. Unless you're cleaving against multiple enemies who are not actively attacking you, getting that 7k can be quite difficult. The enemy is usually dead by the time you get all of that barrier up. Unfortunately, enemies won't wait that long before doing their thing.

(3): The damage ebbs and flows, but is generally really bad. You can get some good AoE bursts if you drop Thunderclap, Shredder Gyro, Spare Capacitor, and Grenade Barrage at the same time. Outside of those times, however, you'll be stuck with Hammer auto, hammer 2, and random grenade skills which do pretty terrible damage overall. The scrapper just plays like a worse version of the holosmith. For survival purposes, this means that the barrier is feast or famine. Feast when you're cleaving multiple enemies down with pulsing aoe attacks, famine when you're fighting one boss and all of your skills are now on cooldown.

The only combat advantages that scrapper has over holosmith is that it self-buffs and can stealth easier. But, if you find yourself in circumstances where you aren't getting any outside buffs and are fighting a lot of low damaging enemies, then the scrapper can become nigh immortal. Because of this, I use the scrapper whenever I solo dungeon run. When it comes to raid tanking, the short answer is that nobody has tried it.

[Infusion.7149]

Barrier scales with healing power so a full zerk scrapper isn't going to have a large HP pool for a higher barrier cap nor is it going to generate larger barriers.

[knite.1542]

@Infusion.7149 said:Barrier scales with healing power so a full zerk scrapper isn't going to have a large HP pool for a higher barrier cap nor is it going to generate larger barriers.

It also won't do high damage.

edit: Not to discourage you from playing it of course.

[wasss.1208]

@Infusion.7149 said:Barrier scales with healing power so a full zerk scrapper isn't going to have a large HP pool for a higher barrier cap nor is it going to generate larger barriers.

You probably meant vitality/hp, instead of healing power. In fractals you could swap a few items to Valkyrie, since you are overcapped on crit. anyways.

[bambi.6214]

On one hand you want to deal as much damage as possible, dealt with sustainable amount over time, to receive and maintain barrier to gain benefits from traits.On the other hand, you want as much vitality as possible to receive as much barrier from spike damage as possible. That means sacrificing offensive attributes.On top of that you have your elite specialisation mechanic, Unfunction Gyro, contributing to your damage or survival capabilities in hardly any way.

After all of that you just go back to Holo, coz in this game the more you CC and the faster you kill stuff, the less chances it has to kill you.

Scrapper is badly designed, and ANet clearly doesn't mind.