My two cents are it is not worth training the Scrapper talent early in the game because the healing time is low and it only cuts down on 10% the amount of time to heal. Also, it is only useful if you find yourself with Companions that are wounded (defeated in battle).

With the game in it's current state, I would have to agree with the others. I have not designated the Scrapper talent to any of my companions, mainly because for the last few months most of us that have reached max level, have been also maxing out the majority, if not all of our companions. Currently, at max you should be able to get by with your 2nd, 3rd or even 4th+ row companions, if you lose a few of your favorite heavy hitters in battle. More than likely you will not be losing enough of them to where you are scraping the bottom of the companion barrel.

If you are mid-level, especially in Cool Ranch- pre El Toro, you may run into more problems with lost companions and bed rest thanks to those blasted Scorpions and Buffaloons. But you won't have to wait terribly too long to get your 'big guns' back, should you lose 1 or 2 of them- especially if they are trained well and kept closer to your pirate's level.

I use to keep only my 1st mate at my pirate's level and the rest of the 1st and 2nd rows about 4 or 5 levels lower, and the rest of the 1st page even lower...that is until things would get a little more dicey. Then I would adjust to the current 'difficulty level' that I was facing, with my companions able to move up 2, 3 or even 4+ levels from one companion point. There really wasn't any consequence to losing a companion before, since a quick port to a life fountain would fix them right up. This new system makes that strategy quite a bit tougher and keeping your crew closer to your pirate's level seems to be more essential than ever....especially in those tougher Cool Ranch/MooShu instances.

Maybe, when any new worlds are released, we may find that we can't do without those trusty, top notch companions and we may have to invest some 'Talent Points' on the Scrapper Talent just to get them back in the line up quicker. But until that happens, I personally wouldn't spend them on Scrapper and would use them towards something more beneficial.

Hope this helps!

IMO it is worth it to train scapper 1 and 2. Getting your companion healing 20 % faster may not seem much, but it's better than a loooong wait or spending all your gold.

Prior to this recent update, you could absolutely have too many companions. My first character and to an extent my second tended to be companion-crazy, because they were all just so cool (with one or two exceptions...). My third and fourth characters were much more conservative. Consequently their companion training points stretched further, and even their lower-tier companions, when they showed up, were not push-overs in the fight.

Now... I can't think of any downside to additional companions. Just make sure the ones you don't especially want in a fight are busy when you start the fight.

So far, I have not trained anyone with "Scrapper". I have a brand-new swashbuckler (so he can go through the changed Skull Island quests) and when he has someone go OOA, they bounce back in under five minutes (he is currently abotut 14th level). My lvl 62 Privateer has seen some action, and her crewman who went down took longer to come back (I forget... but I want to say in the neighborhood of an hour). but she has a larger crew so having someone in need of a little lie down isn't a critical problem. Interesting observation about it possibly being more useful in Cool Ranch - my musketeer is there, but I have not played him since the update (although he is happily training pets and sending his crew scampering all over the place while he waits his day).

-Indigo