Galaxy Brain

hehehe

Yeah, no nerfing Brutes thats silly. Scrappers still outperform brutes on Offense due to various set mechanics and crits, and with similar defensive base stats it evens out where Scrappers shine with sets that give +Offense (Claws for example) while Brutes shine with more tankier builds that don't hit the same peak offense as scrappers. Tankers do not follow the same path where they have X more defense vs Y less offense, its a much bigger gap on Y compared to Brutes. If that gap was shortened, it would just be too homogenous and actually threaten brutes IMO as then you have Tankers who are easily tough WITH decent damage that doesn't need maintenance. Tankers need to be build sideways, not upwards. Things like way better AoE capacity, spreading buffs to the team through sheer presence on top of being a tank (Think how superman inspires the team! Grant Cover! Physically taking the damage for the team and granting a res boost to everyone else! Etc) are the way to go where they still play the same but have a distinct playstyle difference.

Yeah, that would be something that males them actually feel different! That along with maybe some sort of team boost per tank primary like grant cover as a secondary boost would be gucci.

Nah it does make a difference. Given that you dont *need* any given ATs to play, the tanker feels a bit weird to play. Other melee characters can be just about as safe especially when you factor in kill speed as a form of mitigation. The feeling of jumping in and wrecking face which enemy attacks bounce off you is fun! But if both ATs can do it, but one AT is able to bop foes left and right and make the fight easier faster the gap in defenses doesnt feel as meaningful. There isnt much different in the gameplay loop between a brute and tanker mechanically. A Scrapper at least can react around crits taking down certain mobs and keeps things fresh compared to a stalker who plans out crits. A brute just plays like a faster tank that can easily get as tough as one when in a team setting, with the benefit of being able to kill faster. If Tanks had some sort of thing they could do *significantly different* than brutes, they'd be in a similar state when looking at scrapper vs stalker. That's not to mention that scrapper and stalker sets are differently made, while the brute and tank sets are identical.

Sentinels and Doninators also play very differently than each other, as do Doms and Controllers, Sentinels from scrappers, scrappers from stalkers and so on. What is a problem is that tanks gameplay is not different than a brute.

I mean, I guess elude is great if you essentially skip the rest of the set and circumvent what you lost through tons of IOs and inspiration... But if you dont do that, like with most all powersets played normally, its overkill

Even without IOs the t9s were often overkill

Ok cool, I havent played with it yet but the way it sounded was that it made patches that hurt other enemies besides the initial target!

Wait, does enflame hurt the user you cast it on?

I think I'll stay brute then if FSC is so reliable. Thanks!!

That's a good point! I guess I am working backwards from the character idea, "Dawnforged", who is like a solar powered armor. So, super tanky and can deal great damage to everyone around him?

What sorts of procs can go into the absorb powers?

Fire melee on brutes has 2 AoEs while on tanks it has 3, and rad armor seems to be highly effective on both for offense. Would a brute still be overall better with fury pumping up the damage?

Is that the DPA of the attacks?

Thanks everyone! Was eyeballing it for my dark/dark. As for enflame, is that worth taking as well?

Hey all! I noticed that the Arcane bolt can do containment damage in the more info tab, as can potentially Enflame (and if you have them immobilized in a pack it could do a good chunk of damage?) Does anyone have any experience with these attacks on a controller, and are they worth using while leveling up for a bit more damage? Thanks!

I think Leo has a point with the "what makes players play a tanker?" question. The game as is has a bunch of alternatives, such as control / stacking buffs / just raw enough damage to circumvent the classic tank role in a team. Brutes and even Scrappers can handle themselves in a crowd esp when they start building out in the later levels, so it feels like tankers dont really serve as big a niche as other ATs...

I would guess any of them that could be stacked? 🤔

I'm not sure. Right now we have a whole debacle about Tank vs Brute when it comes to effectiveness, which leads me more towards bolstering what tankers do already to help then stand out. I think an AT that also does this but with OK damage would just further push tankers down.

Brutes fury is their primary inherent, not their secondary

I guess the difference nowadays is that even with modest slotting you can make builds that are as tough as stone without downsides or playstyle changes. Like, if you put in some slots to Willpower to bolster it to effectively be as tough as stone without downsides. Not softcap to everything, but legit be as tough. Why play stone outside of theme? Galaxy Azrael

However, is a brute does know what they're doing and they have a tanky set that they kit out / a resist set that gets comparable numbers, this is where the comparison comes in.

Is SS with stacked rage the best melee set, deserving of a crash?

It's not the influence cost but the actual slotting needed that eats up other potential bonuses just for your set to "work". This is not a big deal on say, fire control where you only need 1 IO. But on energy blast? That is like 8 slots needed!

Technically, all we need to do is look at the uptime vs the average length of a fight, and then the average time between fights and you can get an idea. If avg fight is X, avg gap is Y, we are just measuring X+Y * Amount of fights