(Scrapper changes) Let's not totally ignore the field requirement for combos

[Huck Chaser.8721]

Every post I've seen related to the proposed upcoming scrapper changes has totally glossed over the field portion of executing combos, either implicitly by not mentioning them at all, or even explicitly with statements like, "there will always be a field under whatever the group is fighting."  This, however, completely ignores the additional challenges you'll see in solo play and/or fights involving movement. 

In terms of solo play, sure, engineer has access to a lot of abilities that create fields, but they're all on longish (20+ sec) cooldowns, and now you have to line up those long cooldowns with the cooldowns of your blast finishers if you want to grant quickness.  You're going to have to constantly micromanage your cooldowns to keep quickness up, which means you can't use your abilities based on the needs of the fight.  So combat will turn from a fun, reactive encounter that rewards skillful use of the right ability at the right time to just mindlessly executing a rotation to keep up quickness.

Lots of our fields are stationary once cast.  In a moving fight, this means you're going to have to choose between keeping up with the fight and waiting behind to execute finishers inside the fields.  This is going to feel like absolute garbage to play, especially for a class that's so naturally mobile.

Some fields move with you, but that creates its own problems because you'll sometimes have to choose between using a finisher on an enemy at range, or using it at your feet to grant quickness (but wasting the ability's actual effect).  For example, throwing a mine at the enemy for the damage and cc but not granting quickness, or just blowing it up at your feet, wasting the damage and cc but granting quickness.

Yes, the current system strongly encourages you to take and use certain utility abilities, but those abilities jive so well with the class's overall design and playstyle that those are the abilities you'd be taking anyway.  After the changes, we'll theoretically (but not really) have more flexibility in what abilities we use, but we have to use them in a way that is counterproductive in terms of how the class is meant to be played.

[Fueki.4753]

Seeing how the patch (too) strongly focusses on changes in relation to Quickness/Alacrity, I think it's fair to assume that the changes team didn't have many (if any) thoughts about solo play.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[The Boz.2038]

Scrapper was beautiful. There was no reason to fundamentaly change the design.

[Zzik.5873]

10 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Scrapper was beautiful. There was no reason to fundamentaly change the design.

I agree strongly! Quickness on super speed was not the best, but it was better than this. Its going to feel so clunky after this patch. Also wtf scrapper dont have quickness in wvw, thats just stupid.

[Hokk.1954]

As the source of your direct quote, I will say it's not that I didn't think of it, it's that I legitimately don't think it's a problem.

Pretty much every solo encounter should be done in seconds so you don't need very many fields. (If it takes longer for you and you're actively thinking about quick uptime, maybe you need to think about one of your two free equipment sets focusing on damage, take it from someone with 21 full map completes) Even then mortar kit has 4 fields on its own that it can drop and no one should realistically be taking the other elites if they're focused on quickness as sneak gyro and elixer do nothing to contribute and crate's cd is far too long to be worth it. Poison gas shell in particular is a 5 second field on a 10 second cooldown which covers 50% of the time on its own. If a player can't work around that let alone all the other fields you'd have access to, it's absolutely pilot error on their part.

In short, assuming we can actually get the finishers to hit the uptime we need. (Which I am still skeptical of) fields are the least of my concern because of the myriad of them engi has access to on a single util skill alone.

[Huck Chaser.8721]

3 hours ago, Hokk.1954 said:

In short, assuming we can actually get the finishers to hit the uptime we need. (Which I am still skeptical of) fields are the least of my concern because of the myriad of them engi has access to on a single util skill alone.

You're correct that the finishers are the *greater* concern, but the fields are still *a* concern, and we're not doing ourselves any favors by handwaving it away completely.

Basically, my main gripe is that this change will mean that scrappers have to weave 5 "rotations" together during any given fight: damage, fields, finishers, superspeed (which is still something most scrappers will want to maintain even though it's uncoupled from quickness), and the specific fight mechanics.  Before, we only had 3, which was, in my opinion, a good balance of challenge vs. comfort.

 

[Kenjiro.5074]

What are you guys on about, engineer is one of the easiest professions to combo with, this change will free up utility skills a ton.

Hammer 3 and throw mine is going to be enough to cap quickness on full zerkers if you have alacrity. In solo, one extra blast and you're golden. Your healing skill could be healing turret for two fields and one extra blast. If you want even more fields, shredder gyro is a ton of damage and provides a field. Mortar kit has 4 fields. 

You just need one field every 10 seconds. So two 20s cooldown fields are enough.

I'm not even mentioning function gyro because thanks to this change we'll be able to save it for the utility it brings.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Kenjiro.5074
forgot to mention function gyro

[Kuma.1503]

This  becomes a legit concern when running Sneak Gyro. We'll have to rely on skills like our Med kit water field or Lightning field frm Function Gyro/Shredder Gyro, and rotate between them. 

It's not a problem if running Mortar kit. You have more than enough fields to suit your needs. 

 

I guess this means we'll want to make good use of template swaps when using Sneak Gyro, so we can ensure we have mortar on our bars whenever we enter combat. 

[Sean.6297]

Anet following in Blizzard's footsteps with this anti-fun method of balancing. Unfortunate.

[doc.9162]

4 hours ago, Sean.6297 said:

Anet following in Blizzard's footsteps with this anti-fun method of balancing. Unfortunate.

yup despite all the hate they got for the scrapper changes, which was fun and balanced (pve), they decided we were all wrong. been trying to micro manage the new way of being of dps/quick. man what a mess! 3 seconds on each blast, and i will have to use leap finishes, which is suicide in group content. heal scrapper looks better now, i just don't understand why? engineer already has mech heal/alac, i mostly use scrapper for dps/quick, i play wvw and never see scrappers as a threat there, maybe pvp?

 

i just don't get why! why change something that worked.

[Limbo.4087]

9 hours ago, doc.9162 said:

yup despite all the hate they got for the scrapper changes, which was fun and balanced (pve), they decided we were all wrong. been trying to micro manage the new way of being of dps/quick. man what a mess! 3 seconds on each blast, and i will have to use leap finishes, which is suicide in group content. heal scrapper looks better now, i just don't understand why? engineer already has mech heal/alac, i mostly use scrapper for dps/quick, i play wvw and never see scrappers as a threat there, maybe pvp?

 

i just don't get why! why change something that worked.

As for pvp and wvw, this feature has become much more convenient, since I get boons directly during the burst combo, and not when I run away under a superspeed or use breakstun

Edited June 28, 2023 by Limbo.4087

[WipZedKay.5316]

Mortar kit has 4 different combo fields you can place more or less whenever since you rarely need to dump all 4 at once for anything.

[The Boz.2038]

Just now, Rayamon.4358 said:

Mortar kit has 4 different combo fields you can place more or less whenever since you rarely need to dump all 4 at once for anything.

Fields are not the issue.

[shaz.8572]

Can we maybe allow the quickness application to apply based on blast finishers or whirl finishers... 

Or if blast finishers only, allow any person with in the groups that triggers the blast finisher to ALSO allow for the trait to trigger (with maybe an internal cool down) 
This would potentially allow extra sources to be applied and the only thing the scrapper would have to track is making sure they have combo fields up at all times, which the class really allows anyways in most kits, and make sure they keep up blast finishers for that boon application, would also allow for other classes that also have blast finishers to help keep that boon up. 

[loregnum.3619]

Tried out my scrappy this morning (solo, which is what most of my gameplay is) for the first time since the patch and ugh, the class is basically dead to me now, which sucks since it was super fun before. I think if they added in whirl that it wouldn't be too bad but having leap seems like a giant troll on their part. They know hammer 3 is a horrible skill.

[oCynder.5136]

11 hours ago, loregnum.3619 said:

Tried out my scrappy this morning (solo, which is what most of my gameplay is) for the first time since the patch and ugh, the class is basically dead to me now, which sucks since it was super fun before. I think if they added in whirl that it wouldn't be too bad but having leap seems like a giant troll on their part. They know hammer 3 is a horrible skill.

I can feel the pain and qscrap is like dead to me know considering how the quick is applied.

I always enjoyed the idea of quickscrap but this feels clunky. The rotation feels awful even with the different utilities. DPS Scrapper is still the same but just providing quick and tying it to combo fields make this whole quick application clunky. If they add more things than just blasting for quick like whirls to the list, maybe it would feel better. A better idea if you just providing quick by using toolbelt skills would be better.

I never really liked the idea of pressing hammer 3 due to the fact that it's just an animation lock and you can't do anything else. I just mainly use it with lightning field for the Dazing CC effect.

Granted that scrapper has an EASY application to combo fields. But it just that part makes the application clunky. You have to press a combo field then queue up a blast finisher to provide quick. Other classes can easily provide the same thing but at a much faster pace. It feels much slower just trying to apply quick and using up more skills to apply quick.

Edited June 29, 2023 by oCynder.5136

[Alcatraznc.3869]

I tried QDPS Scrapper in fractal and to be fair it wasnt as bad as I expected. I dont know the DPS I had but as far as quickness application goes it wasnt too bad. It does help that as long as you apply a blast or leap finisher inside an AOE regardless who made the AOE so there's that. But still, if they tried to move away from the spammy skill then it still has work to be done because in the end if I wanted to keep my quickness uptime I still had to use my throw mine on CD but also make sure there are AOE around me. 

[Stalima.5490]

One other factor you guys need to take note of is the expansion features.

The scrapper will be to use the mace and as such have a 6 second cooldown leap finisher making effectively zero effort quickness support builds possible on scrapper later on.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Stalima.5490

[ParadoX.3124]

I thought it sucked at first sight, but it is actually fun, we just have to forget the last gameplay. We can gear up full zerk equipment and we're doing more dps.

Using mortar you will always have a field to leap to ; Muscle memory told us not to use hammer 3 for many years, we will just need to adapt but overall, I dont think it is a bad idea. It reminds me the old condi vanilla where you needed to adapt to every sutuations