Now that I have your attention, I'm not actually advocating the buffing of brutes - quite the opposite actually.
So, I made a stalker and within a few levels I noticed how pointless it all felt when I have a brute. And with that, I realized a whole bunch of other things about this game including some that I feel would change it for the better (by a lot).
Why even make another melee class when my brute has more damage than any other AT in the game and has more survivability (without musculature incarnate). It just feels like brutes are so strong that they replace every other dps class. They have more aoe, more survivability, way higher damage cap.
Additionally, for whatever reason, the game just feels kind of "meh" because you get into a team and just faceroll through +4 x 8 mobs like they're butter in a frying pan. It feels like the overall higher survivability of classes in general has devalued debuff mechanics, healers, and tactical game play. I remember in OG live, you felt a huge sigh of relief when an emp joined your team. Now, it's kind of a drag because you're losing precious DPS.
A couple of suggestions imo that would make the game more fun:
- Give tankers a reason to exist such as bringing raid-wide buffs, or more debuffs to the table.
- Dramatically buff AVs/give them mechanics so that they're not just a super high hp mob that you nuke down.
- Nerf IOs bonuses - they make it so any class can become insanely tanky. This devalues healers/debuffs/tankers/tactical game play.
- Make powers more interactive so that every mob isn't about just spamming your aoe abilities/highest dmg ability. For example (suggestion), make the fire blasters "blaze" only become available if the target is first ignited by flares. Then every time you cast a fire ability, it lowers the cooldown on inferno by .5 seconds or whatever. Just make power pools more interactive.
- Lastly, maybe for MMs, keep all pets at the same level but nerf their damage? when you're mentored as an MM and your pets are like 8 levels below the mobs, you feel COMPLETELY useless.
What do you guys think of this suggestion?
