Each of the 15 Archetypes in City of Heroes offers a different play experience and different Powersets to choose from. With so many options it can be a little tricky to pick a place to start, and indeed all Archetypes are perfectly capable of solo and group play alike with a little practice, but some are easier on new players than others.
The Scrapper Archetype is one of the easiest Archetypes for new players to learn in City of Heroes but still offers tons of depth once players have gotten comfortable with the basics. This guide will discuss the Scrapper Archetype and offer some Powerset and Power Pool suggestions to help new players create their first Scrapper and start heroing (or villaining, we don't judge here.)
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Archetype Overview
The Scrapper Archetype is a melee-focused DPS Archetype. With powerful close-quarters combat that can be strengthened by the Archetype's Critical Hit mechanic, the Scrapper's biggest weakness is a lack of ranged attacks.
While the Scrapper Archetype does get access to several Defense Powersets as their Secondary Powerset, they are not nearly as durable as the Brute and Tanker. This means they should approach fights with more caution and avoid charging into large groups recklessly. Nonetheless, they remain an excellent option for new players due to their mix of powerful offense and decent defense.
Regarding the Scrapper Archetype's Inherent Power, "Critical Hit", it serves to strengthen their offensive capabilities by giving all of their attacks a chance to deal double damage. Specifically, the Scrapper has a 5% chance of scoring a Critical Hit against enemies of minion rank or below, with this chance doubling to 10% when facing enemies ranked above minion. Naturally, this makes the Scrapper even more effective when targeting powerful foes.
Primary Powersets
The Scrapper gets Melee Primary Powersets. These Powers allow them to dish out a ton of damage at close range, though they usually lack ranged attacks. While all the Scrapper's Melee Powersets have their advantages, here are some suggestions for new players.
Street Justice
Players who want to deal tons of damage to a single target should take a look at Street Justice, which uses a two-step combo system to inflict several different secondary effects and strengthen later attacks. The Street Justice Powerset includes "Combo Builder" and "Combo Finisher" moves, the former of which generate "Combo Levels" which can stack up to Combo Level 3. The Combo Finishers spend all the accumulated Combo Levels to empower themselves, gaining extra power and secondary effects when performed at Combo Level 3. Street Justice Powers only deal Smash damage.
Street Justice's Finishers are Sweeping Cross, Spinning Strike, and Crushing Uppercut.Sweeping Cross is a Melee Cone AOE that deals additional damage (& has a higher chance to disorient foes) when executed with a higher Combo Level. At Combo Level 3, the damage increases further, and it gains a chance to knock down the targets. Spinning Strike is a Melee AOE that strikes around the player, with a high chance of knockdown. It deals additional damage and gains a greater knockdown chance at higher Combo Levels, with Combo Level 3 adding a chance to Terrorize foes. Finally, Crushing Uppercut is a Melee Single-Target attack that deals a ton of damage and disorients the target, with higher Combo Levels increasing both the damage and the length of the disorienting effect. At Combo Level 3, the disorienting effect is replaced by a hold effect, which completely locks down the enemy while it lasts.
Overall, Street Justice is a fantastic Powerset with excellent damage output, especially against single targets. That said, two of its finishers are AOE attacks, giving the Powerset some extra utility when fighting larger groups. Of course, since Finishers are best performed with Combo Level 3, these AOE attacks can't always be used at their greatest effectiveness.
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Spines
Players who want to wear down groups of enemies with a combination of direct damage and Damage Over Time should consider the Spines Powerset. The Spines Powerset mainly deals Lethal damage directly, while also inflicting Toxic damage as a Damage over Time Effect, which grows more potent if it is applied multiple times to the same target. The Spines Powerset also has access to a couple of Ranged Powers, making it easier to deal some damage to foes that would otherwise be out of the Scrapper's Range.
All the Powers granted by the Spines Powerset infect targets with a toxin. In addition to dealing Damage over Time, this toxin also slows affected enemies, which reduces their movement speed and the Recharge Rate of their attacks, which in turn reduces the speed at which they can attack. By taking advantage of the AOE Powers Spine Burst and Quills, players can spread some toxin to targets in the vicinity of their main target to slow them down and deal some damage in the process.
Quills is a somewhat unusual Power for a Scrapper since it's a Toggle that constantly fires spines in all directions around the character. These spines do a small amount of Lethal damage but, more importantly, apply Spine toxin to anything they hit. This performs very well against groups and helps the Scrapper to spread some debuffs around while they focus on the most dangerous target.
Impale and Throw Spines are ranged attacks in an Archetype that is usually wholly focused on Melee Combat, which can be helpful when trying to draw in a target from a distance without attracting the attention of multiple groups. More importantly, Impale can be used to knock flying foes out of the air and will temporarily immobilize most enemies on impact, while Throw Spines is a Ranged Cone AOE that can spread spine toxin to multiple foes at once.
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Savage Melee
Savage Melee, similar to Street Justice, relies on building up stacks of a resource that can then be used to empower other Powers in the set. Unlike Combo Level, however, Savage Melee's "Blood Frenzy" stacks provide a small bonus to Damage and an Endurance Cost Reduction simply by existing and up to 5 stacks can exist at once. Savage Melee inflicts Lethal Damage over Time as a secondary effect with most Powers, allowing it to easily pile up damage on a target.
Many of the Savage Melee Powers will generate Blood Frenzy, with the following Powers spending those stacks and gaining additional effects instead: Shred, Hemorrhage, and Rending Flurry. Shred is a Cone AOE that deals extra damage per stack and also gains a 20% chance to instantly recharge itself for every stack of Blood Frenzy. Hemorrhage inflicts a Damage over Time effect that grows in damage based on the number of Blood Frenzy Stacks, and lasts longer if Hemorrhage is used with 5 stacks. Finally, Rending Flurry is a circular AOE centered on the player that deals extra damage per stack and gains an increased radius with 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy.
The tradeoff for using any of the Powers that spend Blood Frenzy at 5 stacks is that they will cause the Exhausted debuff, which prevents players from gaining Blood Frenzy for a short time. Because of this, typically players prefer to use Shred, Hemorrhage, and Rending Flurry at 4 stacks, sacrificing the 5 stack bonus for the ability to keep generating Blood Frenzy and deal more consistent damage.
Savage Melee players can gain 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy instantly by using the Power "Blood Thirst", which also provides buffs to Damage and Chance To Hit.
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Secondary Powersets
The Scrapper chooses from Defense Powersets for its Secondary Powerset, providing some much-needed survivability and helping them to last longer in battle. While they aren't as durable as the Brute or Tanker Archetypes, they can still hold their own if they approach fights with care. While all of the Scrapper's Secondary Powersets are worth considering, here's some solid choices for new players:
Willpower
A well-balanced and versatile Powerset, Willpower provides a mixture of Damage Resistance, Defense boosts, and self-healing. This flexibility makes it a fantastic choice when playing solo, since players will face a ton of different enemy types with different damage types across Paragon City, The Rogue Isles, Praetoria, and beyond. Willpower is also one of only a few Powersets that provides solid resistance to Psionic damage, and eventually grants a self-resurrection Power to get back into the fight faster.
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Super Reflexes
Super Reflexes, rather than providing a variety of Damage Resistances, is focused on preventing attacks from hitting in the first place. By raising Defense, the chance of evading attacks grows, and Super Reflexes has a variety of passive and toggleable buffs to raise Defense against different attack types. With a bit of knowledge about the enemy you're up against, Super Reflexes can help players dance through the danger without harm.
Fiery Aura
If players want their Secondary Powerset to strengthen their offense as well as their defense, Fiery Aura is a great choice. With excellent Resistance to fire damage alongside resistance to smash, lethal, energy, and negative, its biggest weaknesses are incredibly low Resistance to cold damage and knockback effects, along with a lack of psychic resistance. Fiery Aura also provides several fire-based AOE Powers, one of which also restores Endurance to help fuel the Scrapper's other powers. Much like Willpower, Fiery Aura also gets a self-resurrection Power eventually, though this one is a touch more explosive.
Electric Armor
Another Secondary Powerset that provides offensive utility is Electric Armor. This Powerset provides better than average Resistance to all damage types except for toxic, along with providing Resistance to Endurance Drain effects. This can be very helpful for Endurance management, especially since Electric Armor also provides a few ways to regenerate Endurance. Energize restores health, applies an Endurance Cost Reduction to all Powers, and also boosts Recovery. Meanwhile, Power Sink allows players to steal some Endurance from nearby foes with an AOE attack, and Power Surge provides incredible Recovery and Resistances when activated, but will eventually cause an EMP blast that damages enemies and drains all the player's Health and Endurance.
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Power Pools
Power Pools, unlocked at level 4, allow players to gain Powers from specialized pools outside of their Primary and Secondary Powersets. These include Travel Powers that can be used to navigate the cities much more quickly and efficiently. They also include a wide range of utility Powers that can help to plug holes in a character's skillset or further enhance their existing specialties.
While all of the Power Pools have their uses, here are a few particularly helpful ones:
- The Fighting Pool contains Weave, which is a highly useful Power that strengthens the user's Defense against all attacks and boosts resistance to Immobilize effects. Many players will take Boxing just to qualify for the Tough Power (which increases Resistance to Smash and Lethal Damage) and then take Tough to meet the requirements to grab Weave, because of how useful it is.
- Presence includes abilities to help lessen enemy aggro, inflict fear, and eventually provides a powerful self-buff in the form of Unrelenting. This Power in particular, is excellent for Scrappers, providing boosts to Damage, Recharge, and Recovery, while also serving as a self-resurrection in an emergency. Players will need to grab two powers from Presence and reach level 20 to qualify for Unrelenting, but it can be incredibly useful on many builds.
- Flight and Leaping both have tremendous utility, with the former providing Scrappers with a way to reach enemies in the air above them via Hover and Flight (the former of which also provides a handy Defense boost), while the latter has access to both Combat Jumping (which also offers a defense boost) and Acrobatics to help with knockback and hold effects.
- The Leadership Pool can provide useful buffs that affect the entire team, making it applicable in both solo and group play. It's worth noting that the effectiveness of bonuses granted by Leadership Powers is determined by Archetype and Scrapper gets the least powerful buffs through Leadership, though they can still be useful.
After reaching level 35, players will gain access to the Ancillary Power Pools, and Villains/Rogues may also undertake a mission chain to unlock the Patron Power Pools. A character can only select powers from one Ancillary or Patron Power Pool, though they can change which one when Respeccing. The Powers available from these pools are determined by the character's Archetype and are intended to offer abilities usually associated with other Archetypes, helping to diversify the character's build. Here's a few examples of useful Ancillary and Patron Power Pools:
- The Body Mastery Pool offers Powers that help Scrappers to manage their Energy and enhance their Chance To Hit, Accuracy, and Perception. It also provides the Laser Beam Eyes Power, a ranged energy attack that debuffs enemy Defense. Its final two Powers, Physical Perfection and Energy Torrent, provide a passive buff to Regen and Recovery and a Cone AOE that knocks enemies away, respectively. Body Mastery is a superb choice, regardless of Primary and Secondary Powersets, due to its universally applicable buffs.
- The Weapon Mastery Pool provides excellent offensive utility, supplying Scrappers with the means to slow down enemies with Caltrops or stick them in place with Web Grenade. Eventually, they gain a Targeting Drone that buffs their Chance To Hit, Accuracy, Perception, and Resistance to "To Hit" debuffs. This can be very handy for dealing with groups and picking off enemies with greater precision.
- Leviathan Mastery (Patron Power Pool) provides players with Spirit Shark Projectiles, a Water Spout summon for disorienting and inflicting fear on foes, and a powerful self-regeneration effect that freezes the character in place but grants invulnerability while active. Its final two powers allow players to trap a target in a Spirit Shark's Jaws and summon a Coralax Guardian to aid them in battle for a time.
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Enhancements
When it comes to Enhancements, Scrapper players should begin by considering some Endurance Cost Reduction Enhancements. Putting out consistent damage can be pretty taxing and will easily outpace the Scrapper's Endurance regeneration without some help. Certain Powersets can help to mitigate this, such as Regeneration and Electric Armor, but slotting some Endurance Cost Reduction Enhancements in the hungriest attack Powers will help a lot. Players should also add two more slots to the Stamina Inherent Power (which everyone starts with) and fill those slots with Endurance Modification Enhancements since this will boost Endurance recovery quite a lot.
Once Endurance management is a bit more stable, players can start slotting for accuracy and damage on their attack Powers and slot their Defense Powers with Enhancements that boost their effectiveness (usually Defense Buff or Resist Damage Enhancements.) Players can start looking into Invention Origin Enhancements (Created via the Invention System at Universities and Abandoned Labs) as early as level 10 to get hold of Enhancements that won't experience loss in effectiveness as the character's level increases, but there's no need to focus super hard on these until the late-game (level 45-50.)
Generally speaking, players should pick Enhancements that strengthen the aspects of their powers that they need the most, either to capitalize on strengths or to shore up weaknesses. At end-game players can look into specialized Enhancement Sets which offer unique bonuses, like the Scrapper Enhancement Sets: "Scrapper's Strike" and "Critical Strikes." The Enhancement Sets focusing on Melee Damage can also be useful ("Pulverizing Fisticuffs" and "Touch of Death", to name two.)
To benefit from the set bonuses of an Enhancement Set, the individual Enhancements must all be applied to the same Power.
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Sample Character
The sample character I've put together for this guide is a Spines/Invulnerability Scrapper. As mentioned above, Spines offers an excellent combination of DoTs, AOE attacks, and even a few ranged attack options. Meanwhile, Invulnerability is a Powerset focusing on increasing Resistance to a wide range of damage types, though it lacks the versatility of Willpower and instead focuses entirely on this goal. It includes passive Powers that boost Resistance to most Damage Types (though it performs poorly against Psionic Attacks) alongside toggle Powers that can further enhance most of those Resistances in exchange for a small amount of Endurance per second. Thanks to the Enhancements slotted into Stamina, these costs are negligible unless a fight drags on for too long.
In the example image shown above, the character (named "Renegade Ripper") is level 18. Along with acquiring Powers from his Primary and Secondary Powersets, he's also acquired Speed of Sound and Toxin Dart from the Experimentation Power Pool. The former is excellent for zipping around the Rogue Isles, while the latter provides a fairly weak but cheap ranged attack for drawing in enemies from a distance. More importantly, having two Powers from this Pool is required to gain access to Adrenal Booster at level 20, a self-buffing Power that boosts Damage, Recharge, Chance To Hit, and Secondary Effects for a short time.
Eventually, at level 35, the plan is to unlock and utilize the Leviathan Mastery Patron Power Pool, picking up Water Spout and Hibernate for some added control utility and survivability/healing, picking up the Summon Guardian Power later on to provide support when taking on content alone.
City of Heroes
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Released
- April 28, 2004
- Developer(s)
- Cryptic Studios
- Publisher(s)
- NCSoft
- Genre(s)
- MMORPG
- Metascore
- 85
