Rudra

The original story line is still there. Walk up to Burke, he is at the same spot he was previously. Talk to him. He will send you after Arachnos and Snakes. Walk up to Kalinda. She is standing right there where you first appear. Just slightly up the stairs. Talk to her. She still sends you on the same missions she always did. The original story line has not been removed or changed. You want your character to ahve broken out of the Zig? Then do the Breakout tutorial when the game asks you if you want to go to the tutorial when you finish character creation. Mongoose is still right where he always was. So is Dr. Geist or whatever that mad scientist's name is. Most of what you posted is your opinion. Yes, on the previous map, you moved progressively from top to bottom. Now you move progressively from near the bottom to the top. With the flier at Fort Darwin taking you back to Mercy City. It may take you back as long as you can reach it, but it definitely takes you back as part of the final mission of the final arc of the new story. And even on the previous map, there was a lot of doubling back. You would run out of Fort Darwin, do something, then run back to Fort Darwin over and over until the contact sent you to Mercy City. This is not a reason to bring back the previous map and throw out the current one. Also, Longbow has always been on Mercy Island. They were around the city itself and not far from the fort. You could find them on the shore out of the way or everywhere ringing the city except for the front area. They were scouting the island and looking for vulnerabilities to exploit for their pending invasion. The difference between the maps? Is Longbow was scouting (and even attacking to a minor extent) on the previous map, and have completed their invasion on the current map. I don't remember if Mercy Island exists as an echo zone. And if it doesn't, it should so players can go back and run through the previous version of the zone. You are not giving a good reason for reverting the map though.

The Snakes are in the city. They still pop out of the holes just like they did in the previous iteration of Mercy. They can still be found in the alleys and behind the buildings just like they could in the previous iteration of Mercy. They still sun themselves on the roof tops just like they did in the previous iteration of Mercy. They are a bit harder to find because of Longbow's presence in the city, so that area no longer has them, but the rest of the city where the Snakes gathered before still has them. You can still patrol for xp in Mercy too. I do on my starting red side characters all the time. Smack down a few red RIP to get to level 3, then pop outside the city to hunt higher level mobs. I agree that if Mercy Island does not have an accessible echo, then it needs to be made available. However, you can still patrol for xp in the current iteration of Mercy and find all the same mobs and missions/arcs from prior to Longbow invading. (Edit: And even do a short arc that drives Longbow out of the city. Keep following those arcs and you drive Longbow out of Fort Darwin. Then when you run around Mercy Island, Longbow no longer has any presence in the city or fort.)

They do take it back. That is the arcs you run through in Mercy now unless you go to the original contacts. The Snakes are still there. You can find them by any hole in Mercy and on the roof tops. They can also be found in the missions. Primarily from Mongoose and Kalista.

This thread is dead. The OP has been shown to be false. I'm just waiting for it to be locked.

I have an SoA. Two of them actually. I play them from time to time when I don't feel like running one of my MMs, Corruptors, or Brutes. I haven't seen a /Kinetic in a long while even when I occasionally team, and I haven't played one in even longer. So I went with what came to mind. Still had to look up the bonuses they would give.

A single /Kinetic can also sustain FS's buffs. Fulcrum Shift has a base recharge of 60 seconds and a duration of 45 seconds. It doesn't take much in the way of recharge enhancement, even if just global, to get that recharge to under 45 seconds. I didn't use /Kinetics for my comparison because I did not think of them. Edit: Besides, @Galaxy Brain blew a planet-sized hole in my position. I'm not just taking on water, I've been wiped out.

Okay, went back and threw a Brute version of the Elec/Elec Tanker with the exact same enhancements together again and compared them to each other. I don't know what I did. I'm not duplicating the problem I saw that started this thread. I apologize. I'm going to sit down and eat my crow in peace. Can I get a mod to lock this thread? Not going to hide it behind the Hide option. Edit: For reference:

Then the two of us did something different in Mids and I need to revisit it to find out what. I had my Electric Melee Brute's Fury maxxed in Mids and was still 20 points under the Tanker just for Charged Brawl as an example. Edit: Using your post as reference, it is apparent I had an error. I'll go back and look at it again to find out what.

I think there may actually be 10 of us. 😜

You're going to have to explain how having more ATs will change how much buffing Tankers got compared to how much nerfing Brutes got. I still remember how the Brutes progressed. The first "fix" was put out and Brutes had their damage reduced. And the response from the devs was "We didn't figure how Fury would affect the Brute's damage compared to other ATs right. So this is to correct Brutes to fit between Scrappers and Tankers". *next update that reduced the Brute's damage* "Don't worry, we're just bringing brutes more in line with their blue side contemporaries. Your fury will still get you doing more damage." *next update that reduced Brute's damage* "Don't worry, with as easy as building fury is, your full fury bar will keep you going." (It now takes an 80%+ fury bar to exceed Tankers.) *next update that reduced Brute's damage* "Don't worry, we didn't change your damage cap. On a team, you can still outdamage the Tankers." *last update that reduced Brute's damage* "Don't worry, we upped your damage cap to compensate. Going all out still has you outdamaging the Tankers." (It just requires specific support to do so.) And almost every time Brutes had their damage nerfed, Tankers had their damage buffed. It is now at the point where a maxed out fury Brute still does less damage than a Tanker. And only if you have the requisite support to get past the Tanker's damage cap to the Brute's cap does the Brute finally outperform the Tanker at anything. That is like saying Colossus is stronger than an enraged Hulk and should be unless the Hulk has suitable support to reach his cap. And that is just plain laughable. Tankers have been buffed to the point they completely rendered an entire AT superfluous. Which is what many Tanker players I knew wanted. Tankers and Brutes are so similar, that many Tanker players I knew felt that Brutes should have never been made. Never mind that AT proliferation hadn't even happened yet. "Tankers should have just been made available red side." And after AT proliferation? "Tankers are available on all sides. Brutes should get off my lawn." Do I sound bitter? I probably do. Tankers and Brutes have their respective roles. Or at least, they did. Nerf Tankers. Buff Brutes. Give Brutes some other element to define them that doesn't get rid of what they have. I don't care! Pick one. Just stop stomping on Brutes! Give them back their advantage! Or at least give them an advantage that doesn't require specific powers from their teammates to enjoy. (Edit: Or doesn't require the Brute to have an infinite stockpile of red inspirations to enjoy.)

I saw Shivans on a regular basis in LRSFs. Never any nukes though.

@TheZag already explained the FS bit. Thanks though. I have never known people to carry and use nukes for anything you are mentioning. Not saying it didn't happen, just that it was never as prevalent as you are claiming. Even back before set IOs, ATOs, and so forth. The PvP community was much more present back then and most people I knew wouldn't even go into Warburg unless they had a full team. And getting everyone a nuke was a sufficient hassle that even with a full team, no one I knew cared to bother going for the nukes. I did Terra Volta trials regularly back on Live and never once did anyone have a nuke. Pick a TF. Same thing. No one had a nuke. Kronos Titan? We maybe sometimes had a single person with a nuke, but most times it was just good old-fashioned teamwork. So yeah, to me, your nuke answer is very niche. You are getting dangerously close to being hostile/insulting. The way you slotted the proc is not niche, it is more effective than how many I know slot it, myself included. There is a difference. Most Brute players have the proc slotted. You just happen to be using it more effectively than most. That makes it not niche. I'm not concerned with what is vogue or not. Never have been, never will be. For the purposes of this discussion, I discount anything that is not sustainable. Build Up? Great, you get 10 seconds of improved damage. If you slot it well enough, then you only have 20-35 seconds of it not doing anything before you can get another 10 seconds of use out of it. Nope, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't factor. Vengeance? You have to have a party member die to use, and the team, let alone the Brute or Tanker, is supposed to be doing their best to prevent that. I've never seen nukes being used on anything even remotely close to a regular basis, and back on Live I did a lot of teaming. And even if you count it as not niche? Once all 8 team members have used their nukes (assuming they all have them), then it's either time to put any further missions on hold and take a group field trip back to Warburg to get another 24 scientists (less if you have the bypass option available) before going back to your missions, or you press on without. So that is not a sustainable option either. I understand your point. Brutes shine when they have proper support. (Point of fact, so does every other AT. So that isn't really an advantage.) Brutes are the dollar store Tanker unless you have a team capable of pushing the Brute past the Tanker's damage cap. My thanks to the person that gave me that name, it sounds so much better than poor man's Tanker. It is still an advantage Brutes have over Tankers, which meets the criteria I set out in the OP, even if I find it disappointing. It does however require a team that can help the Brute get to that point. And if you are playing sub-level 45 if Ouro'ing, not up to end game if still leveling, or not on a team with specific abilities, that Brute won't get there. Answer this honestly please: If your team had one slot left, no Tankers yet on the team, and both a Tanker and a Brute asked to join the team at the same time, which would you choose? (If the answer isn't that you would have to just randomly pick one, then there is a problem with the Brute AT. Or if the answer is simply "Tanker" like most others would, then there is a problem with the Brute AT.) Brutes and Tankers do the same thing, just with different inherents. When CoV launched, Brutes had the offset of starting with higher damage than Tankers. Then Tankers complained and things got adjusted. So Brutes got higher damage after building up a little Fury instead. Tankers still complained so things got adjusted. Brutes have been losing ground and their identity since CoV launched. So now Brutes' advantage is they have a higher damage cap, but start out with anemic damage values as compared to "lowest damage melee AT" Tankers. Their Fury quickly pumps up their damage, but unless the Brute is paired with a partner, team, or league that can push the Brute to damage cap, the Tanker is the only choice for absolutely everyone I have met in the game. Tankers were always preferred over Brutes, and that is fine. Brutes only claim was their higher damage compared to Tankers, but Tankers had the better aggro management for teams, better resists, and higher HP. All good, that is what Tankers are for after all. Brutes had aggro management capability, but it took more work. And with their lower resists and HP, they had to be a little more careful than Tankers. However, they could waffle stomp enemies faster than any Tanker could hope to and that went a long way to maintaining parity. Then with the last few updates that affected Brutes and Tankers, Brutes lost their ability to keep up with Tankers unless a /Kinetic was there to bolster everyone or the team had enough support abilities to do the same thing. Not every Defender, Controller, or Corruptor set includes a damage buff power. Not everyone wants to play a /Kinetic, or an SoA, or whatever. So you will find teams that lack the ability to push the Brute up that high. Not everyone plays just at endgame so they get access to their incarnate abilities. Not everyone takes lore pets or other incarnate powers that buff anyone's damage output even when they do play just endgame. So looking at general teams where you can't count on having access to those buffs, the Tanker stomps the Brute. (Edit: Even with every member of the team having access to Assault.) Because the Tanker has better everything. Even with your point about Brute's having higher damage caps. THAT is the issue this thread is trying to address. That unless if the situation is set up to make it possible for Brutes to get to their damage cap, Brutes are inferior to Tankers in every way.

You're going to have to explain that one to me. They get access to the same power sets, except Tankers get their defensive powers earlier. (Though looking through Mids, I find it 'funny' that Tankers outdamage both Brutes and Scrappers unless the Brute gets to a higher damage % (per the discussion in this thread) and the Scrapper has their ATO proc. That is Mids though.) Edit: Huh. That was Electric Melee, but it stopped being that way when I reloaded. Edit again: I had to have had something set up wrong. Please disregard this bottom paragraph.

I can accept the /Kinetics argument. (Kinetics has a listed buff on CoD of (2.0 * Ranged_Buff_Dmg)% Damage (All) Strength (all affected targets) for 45s. Mids shows Controllers give a 20%/40% boost, not 150-250%.) The Warburg nukes one though? That is a very niche answer.

That changes my math to 669%, which is above the 602% threshold to catch up to Tankers. I sit corrected. (Edit: Still assuming those 7 SoAs all take Support Hybrid for some reason. And which is still a specialized team to get as many damage buffs squeezed in as I could.) Edit: Also, I never called Brutes struggling weaklings overshadowed by Tankers. I said Brutes no longer have any advantages compared to Tankers. In general play, that still holds true. As long as you can pump up their damage buffs on a team/league though, that changes. Though in my opinion, that is strictly a niche advantage for an entire AT since it requires sufficient teammates with the ability to bolster the Brute's damage bonuses to catch up to and finally get past the Tanker in damage capability. I did however, say explain to me what advantage the Brute has over the Tanker, and this still counts. Not enough for me to delete or hide this thread, but enough for me to leave it as is pending other comments and for the devs to evaluate the merits of.

+400% bonus damage for Tankers would be 500% damage cap. Base line is 100%. +600% bonus damage for Brutes is 700% damage cap for same reason. Also, your comparison of adding in Brute's Fury bar was already factored into my math above. It takes 602% damage (100% base + 502% buff from various sources) for the Brute to reach the same damage as the already capped at lower max Tanker.

I don't want Brutes to step on Scrappers' toes. I don't want Brutes to step on Tankers' toes. Somewhere along the way though, we went from not having Brutes stepping Tankers' toes to Tankers not only stepping on Brutes' toes, but walking all over them.

Take a Brute on a team of SoAs and have them also take Assault. Assault is +15%. Tactical Training: Assault is +15%. That's +30% per SoA. +210% from the 7 of them. Then add that to your Brute's 275% (using your explainer post for hitting 100% Fury as base). That's 485%. Still short of the Tanker's 500% damage cap, let alone the Brute's. If for some reason all 7 SoAs take the Support Core Embodiment incarnate ability instead of say Assault or Melee Hybrid powers, that is another +84%, 12% damage boost per SoA with Support, for a grand total of 569% damage. Above the Tanker's max cap, but still well below threshold to get the Brute caught up. So yeah, it takes a specialized team to get the Brute to even 600%, let alone the 700% cap. Edit: Replace any one SoA with a Tanker to run damage comparisons? And that number drops by at least 15%. Edit again: And all the while, that Tanker still has better everything else than the Brute. Better resists. Better HP. Better status protection/resists. Better END management. And the Brute despite all that buffing from the team is still not able to keep up with the Tanker.

Let's take a look at Beheader. Tanker base damage: 50.19. At 500% damage cap: 250.95 Brute base damage: 41.71. At 700% damage cap: 291.97. At 600% damage: 250.26. So in order for the Brute's improved damage cap to even be relevant, you need teammates with powers to buff the Brute's damage. And they need to get the Brute above 600% to even match let alone overcome Tanker damage output. That calls for a rather specialized team to pull off. (Edit: Or a league using @TheZag's post as reference.) Sorry @Luminara. Usually I agree with your take on things. In this case though, I can't.

It's Scrappers that get the chance for double damage. Tankers have been buffed and buffed and buffed. Brutes have been nerfed. Multiple times. Your proposal would change nothing. A Tanker would still enjoy higher resist, better END use, higher HP, better status resist, better status protection, and do better damage than the Brute running with a full Fury bar. My preference would be to nerf Tanker's damage back down. They would still retain the higher resist, better END use, better status protection, and better status resist, but Brutes would finally have a role again in their damage output. Or someone can get creative and come up with something that makes Brutes stand out as their own role/AT. I really don't care. Reverting Brutes to doing better damage than Tankers would be the simplest solution in my book. Getting anything that makes Brutes stand out as something other than the Poor Man's Tanker is my end goal.

You're just trolling the thread, aren't you? I'm disinclined to look up what "sesquipedalian" means. Do you have an actual valid complaint about the OP? Is there something Brutes do well compared to Tankers? Do Brutes have any advantage going for them mechanically or in game role? I even gave you a means of getting me to shut down the thread. Your comments seem less aimed at actually dealing with the content of the OP and more aimed at just causing a disruption. So here is my question to you: What exactly is your point? What are you trying to say about Brutes in reference to the OP?

You're missing the point. My point isn't that I want to max out the Fury bar. My point is that the Brute AT does nothing unique and even with a full Fury bar does less damage than the "lowest damage melee AT" in the game with no benefit or other standard to set it out. Brutes are basically inferior Tankers in the game because of how often they got nerfed (without any buffing) and how often Tankers got buffed. Tankers complained they were the lowest damage melee AT in the game. The problem with that, is that Tankers were always billed as and are still billed as the lowest damage melee AT in the game. And they still do absolutely everything better than Brutes do, including damage.

The Scrapper is a fierce melee combatant. In hand to hand, no other hero can compare. All Scrapper melee attacks have a chance to land a Critical Hit for up to double damage. The higher the rank of the target, the greater the chance for a successful Critical Hit. The standard chance of a Critical Hit is 5% against players, pets, and critters of Minion rank and below, and 10% against critters above Minion. ( https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Inherent_Powers#Critical_Hit ) Contrast that to having an inherent that because of increasing rate of decay the more full it is, keeps most Brutes locked at no more than 80-90% of their inherent's full ability. We're not talking about having an inherent that is already good and gets improved by the AT's ATO procs. We're talking about an AT that can't even utilize its own inherent to full normal listed ability without either the Frenzy power or the ATO proc. (Edit: Or in cases like me apparently, even with the ATO proc. That Scrapper's could use a boost to their crit chance for enemies higher than minion, preferably scaling with the increased rank, isn't part of this discussion.)

I'm with @Glacier Peak on this. Aside from Brutes having been nerfed into being an overall inferior AT compared to Tankers, no other AT in the game relies on a specific enhancement proc or temp power to maximize their inherent ability or even try to fully utilize their inherent ability. Edit: What can Stalkers do? They can inherently sneak around and 1-shot mobs before combat even begins with their planned criticals and assassination attack. What can Scrappers do? They get automatic criticals, the likelihood of which increases as their enemy's level increases. What can Tankers do? They can automatically taunt up to 10 enemies, soak insane amounts of damage, and still do solid damage. What can Brutes do? Everything a Tanker can do, but at lower levels of capability.

I haven't been able to hit 100% Fury on any of my Brutes regardless of what I do or how many enemies I surround myself with. What's the trick?