A theorycrafted build for the scrapper, with immense survivability, plenty of CC, and decent damage. Designed for a WvW skirmish/havok/roaming build (not zerging), but could probably be modified for use in PvP.
TL; DR: It’s a heavy melee brawler that can burst-heal to refill its entire health bar, or keep a sustained healing rate over 1k per second
Build
Take http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdQQFAUlUUhOvY9VwkLQ7FKTGk4zOQAGXfFiAA-TFCEABvphghLAgTK/4SJYiq/Q++DtpDAgHAAZAYWAA-w
Swap the rifle for the hammer.
In the scrapper traitline, take recovery matrix, rapid regeneration and reactive armour (3/1/1)
Healing
- Healing turret: 5.2k direct heal + 0.9k regen, every 15s (you generally don’t want to blast the turret with this build).
- Runes: 4.0k on block, every 30s
- Rocket charge + elixir shell combo: 4.1k from the combo, plus 0.4-1.6k from the shell’s effect (depending on how long you hang around in the field after the combo), every 24s.
- Orbital strike + regenerating mist combo: 1.4k from the combo + 0.9k regen, every 35s
- Superspeed (7s total from slicky toolbelt and toolkit refinement) + rapid regeneration: 3.4k every 20s.
- Passive healing: 125hp/s from BPR, assuming the same amount from rapid regeneration + swiftness.
Add it all up, that comes to a burst heal of 21.5k HP, or a sustained healing rate of 1260 HP/s. This doesn’t include any extra regen you get as a result of blocking people with rune of the defender.
Direct damage defence
Your in-combat toughness is over 3k, you have ~50% protection uptime (more if someone tries to stun you) and on top of that you’ve got blinds, blocks, reflects, evades, invuln, stealth and aegis. You could also combo frost armour too, though since it was just nerfed to prevent duration stacking, that’s less useful.
Condi damage defence
The weakest point of this build, such as it is. You’re still taking 20% reduced condi damage, 40% reduced duration, and have all the passives from the alchemy traitline as well as your HT for active clearing.
It might be possible to burst-clear by dropping flash shell on someone and using electro-whirl right on top of them. Since they’re unlikely to be feeling cooperative, using stun/pull/knockdown first is advised.
CC defence
You’ve got 3 stun breaks on 50/40/20s CDs which ought to be enough. This build doesn’t use the scrapper stability options as they’re either too situational or too short duration.
Offense
This is a melee power build – your aim is to get in close and smack away with the hammer. The mortar’s available as a ranged option, but you should aim to get to melee wherever possible. Fortunately, this build has a lot of mobility, so getting into melee should be easy and kiting not an issue.
Disadvantages
You don’t have the burst damage output of the meta soldier rifle build. Your sustained damage is also likely to be somewhat lower (assuming hammer is worse than nades).
Cripple and chill can be overcome with superspeed, but immobilizes may be an issue as you don’t have OCS to clear them.