Erratic1

While @Snarky has declared himself done with Brutes, and I have my final Brute (redside, Energy/Electric), I am sorely tempted to challenge him to one final Brute. Only thing standing in the way if I have 3 ideas for Tankers. Decisions, decisions....

On topic, I would like to ask what is the purpose of giving Tankers increased area of effect and then making damage fall off as quickly as it does? Great, you can hit 16 targets but anything past 12/13 is basically not gaining you anything for being hit.

Might be better to ask in a Feedback thread as opposed to the Brute subforum.

2m to 3m is a 33% damage reduction. 2.5m to 3.5m is a 28.57% damage reduction.

As for what to pair with Regen, Ice Melee would slow attacks giving Regen more time to work, would it not?

Never liked Spines but I have to say, not that you've mentioned it, Psionic Armor/Spines.

Are any of them Brute players. 🤣

I have routinely been informed, generally by Tanker aficionados, that Brutes are fine and their role is to do better single target damage than Tankers.

Radiation Defender using Accelerate Metabolism, Hasten, and quad (I think) slotting pre-ED.

I hopped on the perma-Hasten train back in the first month of release and long used it wherever I could. But I weaned myself from it after coming to Homecoming. Now I never use Hasten, even as a click-power, unless a build requires perma-Hasten to make it operate the way I need it to.

Tankers got extra area via their implicit but proc rates look at the area on the power. "Fix" is probably not the right word, though yes, their areas now count against proc rates in alignment with other ATs. I think the original situation was meant to give them more area with no downside.

Base value for Kinetic Shield on a Tanker on test is: 17% Def S/L, 2.5% N Base value for Kinetic Shield on a Brute on test is: 12.75% Def S/L, 1.88N So that power starts with a 1.33x difference. Perhaps if you looked at each power individually, you could find where things are off?

Did you consider what EA looks like on other ATs just using SOs without set bonuses? My level 42 SS/EA Brute, who has all SOs, is as follows (live):

Still with no good reason to be on a team.

This is the normal course of events in the Brute subforum. I dare say the AT which gets mentioned the most in another AT's forum is Tanker in the Brute forum.

It is taking 39.58% more time for your Tanker to clear. It would take roughly 96 seconds for an opponent to heal that much. From the moment you started damaging targets, they would have to be living more than a minute and a half for their regen to account for that time difference. So, it does not strike me that health regen is the causative factor, or even necessarily a major portion of that increase.

I am not all that concerned with farming and doubt the game is going to be balanced around it. Outside of farming, particularly solo, is there a good reason to be fighting more targets than your powers can hit other than you couldn't help but get whatever excess there is?

The alphabet ends because you are not fighting infinite monsters. Nor are you, presumably, endlessly chain fighting from mission beginning to mission end--some foes are the end of the chain and so the damage calculation will go up because you are not fighting foes, but rather 12, or 8, or 4.

In that particular instant of being hit, yes. But the calculation of doing 31% less damage is only for that particular attack. Things are going to be defeated leaving partially damaged foes to be fully hit on the next area attack and they will always be fully damaged by single target attacks. [NNNNNNNNNN][A][B][C][D][E][[F] will become [NNNNNNNABC][D][E][F] once the first three [N] are defeated, with [A], [\B], and [C] now taking full damage and [D], [E], and [F] taking increased damage. Granted, as the decreased damage will be distributed randomly, it is true that the average will hold while targets live, once they start going down, you are going to see more damage going out compared to your calculation because the lowest damage is falling out of the consideration.

I am not sure the calculation is correct. It presumes that those taking reduced damage continue to take reduced damage. But as targets are defeated, those still standing and partially damage start taking normal damage. I am playing a boardgame just now, but if the turns are slow enough perhaps I can (a) make sure the above thought is correct and, if so, (b) come up with a different calculation.

Left out Follow Up. Build Up has a recharge period of 90 seconds with 10 seconds duration. The game allows for maximum haste of 400%, so you could drop the recharge to 16 seconds--10 seconds up and 6 seconds down. Under a current damage buff of 80% that is 180% damage for 10 seconds and 100% for 6 seconds. That is 180%*10 + 100%*10 = 2400% damage over 16 seconds or an average of 150% damage. Nerfing the damage buff to 87.5%*80%=70% changes that average to 143.75%, which is 95.83% of the previous value. And this is assuming you reach and sustain 400% Haste. The lower your actual Haste the higher the percentage and hence lower the impact of the nerf (as goes Build Up). Follow Up is a bit different since it can be stacked and maintain stacks. Even so, worst case would be three stacks of 30% for 90% reduced to three stacks of 26.25% for 78.75%. That means 1.7875/1.9 = 94.08% effectiveness. So anytime you would have hit a target for 400 damage previously you will now hit for 376. Yes, it's a nerf. Not sure that single impact would ever be noticeable had it been snuck in.

Tankers will remain your best farming option.

Are Tankers getting Energy Aura, which the patch notes claim was a bit too good, at values which are higher than any AT which had access to it previously? Well, time for me to start the campaign for Bute Ninjitsu. Not sure why Brutes don't get it since apparently every AT deserves every power.

The mistake was (and is) continuing to proliferate every power between melee ATs. At one point, if you wanted to play Dark Melee or Energy Aura, you couldn't do it on every AT, you had to choose the AT(s) which had it. Want to play SS/Energy Aura? On live, you can only do that on a Brute, but come this the next patch...well. Honestly not sure why they didn't proliferate Super Strength to Scrappers and Stalkers at this point. I suppose on the upside, someday a Ninjitsu Brute and Tanker will be available.

Only if you don't move. You can also use the cone on approach. One of my former Tankers made quite extensive use of Energy Torrent and would leap away to do so. And the cone use consideration is completely off the table when talking PBAOEs.