Scrapper Inherent

[Marshal Valor]

I'm wondering if there is any possibility of changing the scrapper inherent. It just seems like it rarely procs at all ever. I've heard people talking about "why bother with the scrapper" because a stalker can crit way more than a scrapper can, which is true. I've run entire missions without even critting one time. To me that says there's a problem. This is with having both of the scrapper origin enhancements slotted. Right now those only buff the inherent on the power that triggers it. So for example as an energy melee scrapper, if I use barrage with the Critical Strikes Scrapper Enhancement, that barrage causes all of the attacks to have a +50 percent chance to crit for all attack powers up to 3 times within the next minute.

 

As a proposal I think that should be a universal buff to all attacks to give the chance for the bonus. Another thing I would try is removing the limit of the 3 times per minute. This might sound like alot in advance, but the RNG is horrible for the chance to crit. These changes are something that could be tested out obviously and adjusted as need be. I think this would be a good fix personally. The inherent as is, doesn't do much at all. Without the set even slotted seeing a crit feels like a miracle. Even with these sets, I am surprised to even see a crit as it stands right now. The inherent for scrappers just seems to be rather pointless in comparison to what the other AT's get.

[arcane]

I suspect you’re either not seeing a critical or using the ATO’s in a non-ideal way while also getting bad luck. My scrappers are critting all the time now that I’ve put some thought into how to use the ATO’s. I think the inherent is fine tbh.

 

Barrage also sounds like a bad place for expecting a good proc rate. In that example, you put that 50% chance proc in Total Focus to both set up Energy Transfer and max out your proc rate.

Edited June 14, 2021 by arcane

[Marshal Valor]

I have Critical Strikes slotted into barrage (since it's got such a quick recharge) and Scrapper's Strike slotted into energy punch. The crits just aren't happening. 

[Monos King]

Just now, Marshal Valor said:

I have Critical Strikes slotted into barrage (since it's got such a quick recharge) and Scrapper's Strike slotted into energy punch. The crits just aren't happening. 

Having the quick recharge makes the chance of proccing way lower. It's part of the user unfriendly mechanics of how procs work.

[Marshal Valor]

Ok so I probably want it slotted into say Total Focus instead since the recharge time is alot longer then right?

[aethereal]

19 minutes ago, Marshal Valor said:

Ok so I probably want it slotted into say Total Focus instead since the recharge time is alot longer then right?

That will certainly increase the proc rate of your ATO.

 

It seems very unlikely to me that you are "not critting at all in a whole mission," though, regardless of your ATOs.  The odds of a scrapper crit against a minion are 5%.  Even if you fight only minions, if you attack twice per minion, a spawn of three minions is 6 attacks.  If you fight five spawns in a mission, that's 30 attacks.  That's a 79% chance of critting sometime in that mission, and honestly it seems like a mega-worst case.  With ATOs (even imperfectly slotted) and non-minion opponents and more than x1 difficulty and so forth it feels like crits should not be that rare.

 

Scrappers are quite powerful, and the best scrappers probably do slightly better single-target damage than the best stalkers.  I do think that in general low random chances can be pretty frustrating.

[Marshal Valor]

6 minutes ago, aethereal said:

That will certainly increase the proc rate of your ATO.

 

It seems very unlikely to me that you are "not critting at all in a whole mission," though, regardless of your ATOs.  The odds of a scrapper crit against a minion are 5%.  Even if you fight only minions, if you attack twice per minion, a spawn of three minions is 6 attacks.  If you fight five spawns in a mission, that's 30 attacks.  That's a 79% chance of critting sometime in that mission, and honestly it seems like a mega-worst case.  With ATOs (even imperfectly slotted) and non-minion opponents and more than x1 difficulty and so forth it feels like crits should not be that rare.

 

Scrappers are quite powerful, and the best scrappers probably do slightly better single-target damage than the best stalkers.  I do think that in general low random chances can be pretty frustrating.

 

It might seem unlikely to you, but it's happening. If you don't believe me you're welcome to run a few missions with me in game and you'll see for yourself firsthand. I'm aware of the inherent works. I am aware that scrappers do the best single target melee damage in game (before crits are taken into consideration), however with what I've seen, I can crit in every single encounter on a stalker. You can't do that on a scrapper every single time. In fact on a stalker I can get at least two crits per encounter and on a good fight sometimes three. Three versus none hardly seems fair. Not to even consider the fact that a stalker has a chance to proc fear on every AS it uses.

[aethereal]

11 minutes ago, Marshal Valor said:

 

It might seem unlikely to you, but it's happening. If you don't believe me you're welcome to run a few missions with me in game and you'll see for yourself firsthand. I'm aware of the inherent works. I am aware that scrappers do the best single target melee damage in game (before crits are taken into consideration), however with what I've seen, I can crit in every single encounter on a stalker. You can't do that on a scrapper every single time. In fact on a stalker I can get at least two crits per encounter and on a good fight sometimes three. Three versus none hardly seems fair. Not to even consider the fact that a stalker has a chance to proc fear on every AS it uses.

 

I mean, if you want, dump your combat log.  It's more likely that you're missing the notification than that the RNG has a special hate-on just for you.

 

Now, not critting against a single spawn, on a scrapper, especially if the spawn has a low number of enemies in it, is not going to be particularly unusual.

 

Stalkers only proc fear on slow AS's.

 

I wouldn't regard stalker and scrapper crits as entirely fungible.  Stalkers depend on them more than Scraps, of course, with lower base damage.  But also with their ATOs you'll get a trickle of crits reliably for a stalker, whereas a scrapper with the ATO set will get a sort of feast or famine situation where you'll get few-few-few-several-in-a-row-few-few-few.  The lockout on stalkers' ATO means that scrappers can abuse PPM mechanics to get a much higher uptime on high-crit-rate stuff than stalkers can.

[Marshal Valor]

I'm going to try dumping the Critical Strikes ATO into Total Focus to see what that does. From what you guys are telling me and what the Wiki says it sounds like that's going to be my best chance to increase my number of crits. Right now I feel like I'm really just sucking wind in the crits department. 

[BrandX]

13 minutes ago, Marshal Valor said:

I'm going to try dumping the Critical Strikes ATO into Total Focus to see what that does. From what you guys are telling me and what the Wiki says it sounds like that's going to be my best chance to increase my number of crits. Right now I feel like I'm really just sucking wind in the crits department. 

 

Best place for it.  Total Focus > Increased Crit Chance on Energy Transfer.  WIN! \o/

[arcane]

24 minutes ago, Marshal Valor said:

I'm going to try dumping the Critical Strikes ATO into Total Focus to see what that does. From what you guys are telling me and what the Wiki says it sounds like that's going to be my best chance to increase my number of crits. Right now I feel like I'm really just sucking wind in the crits department. 

That should definitely work. But for scrappers in general I would advise playing with slotting until you max out that proc rate. For instance, Total Focus should be a good place for it no matter what, but, on my Dual Blades scrapper, there was no 20s recharge power available so I put the ATO in Blinding Feint but without the rest of the set because all that recharge slotting would’ve spoiled the proc rate. 
 

Basically went through the same thing with Superior Might of the Tanker. On EM, Total Focus had a maxed proc rate no matter how I slotted it whereas, on Claws, Follow Up had a good proc rate but wouldn’t have been so great if I had slotted the rest of the set, so I made it an Acc/Dam/Proc monster instead.

[SwitchFade]

Hmm...

 

Scrapper inherent is fine as is, I see it fire frequently.

 

Sorry, no change vote.

[Haijinx]

Sounds like you are running into the ppm math headache. 

 

Your proc chance is affected by the base recharge of the power, how much recharge you slot in that power, and the aoe of the power. 

 

Total focus is slow enough you can probably have the whole set in there and be ok. 

 

With other powers you'll likely need to go light on slotted recharge. 

 

 

[aethereal]

27 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Your proc chance is affected by the base recharge of the power, how much recharge you slot in that power, and the aoe of the power. 

 

Total focus is slow enough you can probably have the whole set in there and be ok. 

And the animation time of the power!

 

The +50% chance to crit proc is 2 PPM if it's non-superior, 3 PPM if it's superior.  It's a LOT better if it's superior, I feel like somebody didn't understand that there's a bigger difference between 2 and 3 PPM than between like 6 and 7 PPM as in for example the Brutes' proc?  Oh well.

 

Total Focus has a recharge time of 20 seconds, is single-target, obviously, and has an animation time of 2.53 seconds.

 

For the non-superior version, the proc rate if you assume a 20 second recharge time (ie, no recharge slotting, which is impossible, because the proc itself comes with recharge) it has a 75% proc rate in Total Focus.

 

The superior version has an above-90% proc rate at 20 seconds.  The ideal recharge time for the power after local slotting, to maximize proc rate while not giving up any recharge advantages, is about 15.5 seconds, so you can get about 33% local recharge in without impacting your proc rate.

 

 

 

It's worth noting again how much of a big deal the superior version of the scrapper proc is.  It's got 50% better uptime than the non-superior version!  And given how important this particular proc is to the performance of the class, at least at optimized ST attack chains, you have a big wall at 50.

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

And the animation time of the power!

 

The +50% chance to crit proc is 2 PPM if it's non-superior, 3 PPM if it's superior.  It's a LOT better if it's superior, I feel like somebody didn't understand that there's a bigger difference between 2 and 3 PPM than between like 6 and 7 PPM as in for example the Brutes' proc?  Oh well.

 

Total Focus has a recharge time of 20 seconds, is single-target, obviously, and has an animation time of 2.53 seconds.

 

For the non-superior version, the proc rate if you assume a 20 second recharge time (ie, no recharge slotting, which is impossible, because the proc itself comes with recharge) it has a 75% proc rate in Total Focus.

 

The superior version has an above-90% proc rate at 20 seconds.  The ideal recharge time for the power after local slotting, to maximize proc rate while not giving up any recharge advantages, is about 15.5 seconds, so you can get about 33% local recharge in without impacting your proc rate.

 

 

 

It's worth noting again how much of a big deal the superior version of the scrapper proc is.  It's got 50% better uptime than the non-superior version!  And given how important this particular proc is to the performance of the class, at least at optimized ST attack chains, you have a big wall at 50.

I think this is why I like the Stalker ATOs 

 

So much easier

[Koopak]

Its worth keeping in mind how bad humans are at gauging probability. What seems like "i never crit" to you, could easily be, and given the games code on this matter, likely is, normal. Aetherial provided a reasonable example of the actual math and probability, and while its entirely possible you are just the one in a billion exception, its highly unlikely.

I do recommend taking a look at how PPM mechanics work to help you understand where to put the Critical Strikes ATO, and the Scrapper's Strike ATO is a nice global boost, but what I really recommend, is dumping your combat log, or counting your hits until you've seen, say, 10 crits. Before either of those ATOs you should see 10 crits within 200 attacks on average, if yer getting less than that, then we can talk.

Speaking for myself, I actually favor Critical Strikes in an AoE attack sometimes, because while the proc rate is lower, its per target. Katana for instance can get a ~30%ish proc rate on The Lotus Drops, per target, as long as I have 3 or more targets, its a better proc rate than any single target power. Not always great since small PBAoEs get dicy with hitting and killing AVs is less optimal, but when clearing packs of mobs, that and my high global recharge means I actually proc it on probably around 70-80% of my uses, resulting in loads of crits from my hardest hitting attacks.

Trust me the scrapper inherit is fiiiiiiiine, it just doesn't afford you a lot of control over it.

(Edit: Heres Bopper's excellent guide on the topic. Theres also a good calculator out there so to can fidn the actual chance of a proc triggering based on the stats of a power. )

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Koopak

[Arcadio]

If the purpose of the character is to crit a bunch for the sake of criting then it should be a stalker, true. Scrappers are doing just fine how they are now.

[Sancerre]

even if i discount the scrapper +50 crit proc ATO (which i will get to), between the inherent and the the other passive crit ATO, you have a 16% chance to crit anything above minion level.  roughly 1/6 attacks.  i cannot possibly believe you do not get crits throughout a mission unless you are just watching your teammates do everything and literally not pressing any buttons.

 

**something to keep in mind because you mentioned you play energy melee... total focus and energy transfer CANNOT crit for bonus damage (they have other effects if they do 'crit')**

 

as for the +50 crit proc ATO... you need to put that in the correct button.  while i hesitate to frame it this way because i wouldnt want to see it nerfed, but the ATO is insanely overpowered... to the point where you asking to buff the thing absolutely makes no sense to me.  Something to keep in mind... just like forcefeedback recharge proc... if you have it slotted in an AoE power, it only needs to proc on a SINGLE enemy to give you the buff.  beyond that you need to keep in mind how procs work generally -- they are more 'reliable' in powers that are longer recharge and longer cast time... slotting in recharge reduces the proc rate, but global recharge (like hasten) does _not_ effect the proc rate.  finally think about what your goal is going to be AFTER the proc fires -- that is what abilities would you WANT to crit and even more... how MANY can you fit in the very short window (i think either 3.5 or 3.75 seconds).

 

i think for energy melee you should probably put the crit proc in total focus.  you would likely find better success with the ATO.

 

anyways a hard NO to the suggestion.  scrapper crits are fine as is.

[Marshal Valor]

At this point I am pretty familiar with how the proc chances work after reading through the Wiki.

I made the changes and put the Critical Strikes into Total Focus. Not really seeing a huge difference.

 

My mind hasn't changed. This inherent needs work.

 

Edited June 22, 2021 by Marshal Valor

[PainX]

well we also get a hp buff over a stalker and 1.125 damage scale versus 1.0 not sure we are supposed to out dps them ST while having better AoE better base damage and possibly like 350hp more then a stalker