[Sins of the Devs are visited upon the players]

going to un-lurk, new player here, started playing a couple months ago.  Interesting thread for me, because I've been thinking about some of this stuff as I get to know the game.  TLDR, I agree with the OP.

 

Thing is tho, maybe I agree for selfish reasons?  I didn't really expect this game to be good or the world to be interesting, but in both cases it is-- very.  I've been assuming game balance and mechanics got... maybe wrecked, maybe just distorted...  late in the retail version's life, for money reasons.  Sounds like that's true.  So I'd personally love to see how it played before that happened.  I know I read somewhere when it was just SO enhancements, AT's and powersets had more identity and were more different from each other, for example.  But what I don't know is if I'd even enjoy that version of the game.  Probably, that's how my tastes usually run, but I know the OG game had serious problems and a lot of the changes were meant to address them.  Still, already running 5 servers/shards/whatever...  I'd really like to see one with that ruleset.  

 

On the other hand, like Steve Albini said, when you get underwear for Xmas from your aunt you don't send an angry letter saying "Okay but where are the socks."  I appreciate that people who care about the game and want to see it get better are letting the public play now.  Even if I tend to disagree about what "better" is.  From my end, I'd just like powersets or ATs to not be grossly underpowered, or not be too obviously inferior to an alternative.  This is so I can enter the Land of Make Believe how I want, without hearing (or thinking) "X sucks compared to Y."  X will almost always be better or worse than Y in a specific situation.  But ideally nothing should suck.  Does that mean everything should be as good as Energy Melee, or that the devs could nerf EM without angry squawking?  Probably not.  Still sad Kinetic Melee didn't get touched this patch, or that Lethal damage is considered so sub-par, or that mob behavior was changed but the flee code was untouched, or or or.  See above about the socks.

 

edit--  looking back, this post sorta boils down to "Hey!  What's that in the gift horse's mouth?!" and ends with a string of complaints about the recent patch.  So I really should say that I LUVS the new run (blitz/parkour one) the devs pulled from the files, that as far as I'm concerned this is the "No socks with sneakers option on Huge" patch, and that I wouldn't trade those things for the whole list I mentioned.  Also I realize I got no idea what money OR time/work would be involved with spinning up a "Classic" server, and I don't expect the HC folks to tackle it or think they probably should.

[Archetype for SJ/WP]

TLDR--  looking to make a Street Justice/ Willpower something for my first character to 50, choosing between Tank Brute Scrapper, strongly leaning Brute but not sure I completely understand the tradeoffs involved.  Advice appreciated!

 

SJ/WP is because of theme and (sketchy) backstory, but seems like it's a pretty good beginner setup anyway.  Stalker isn't being considered for the same reasons.  I've read Brute is the best archetype for a first melee character-- good damage, tuff.  I've also read Brute pretty much combines Tank damage and Scrapper survivability.  So, I'm confused.  My guess is Brutes are strong early, or while levelling 1-50, or before slotting good stuff everywhere, or something...  and then tend to get out-scaled by Tanks and Scrappers later on?  Or maybe folks are just jealous of their brutish charm, and resort to slander?  

 

Would a Tank give me similar damage (no Fury but higher base damage and larger AOE, more slots for offense) and better survive?  Would a Scrapper give me noticeably higher damage and similar survive?  For both these questions, I imagine the answer changes if it's level 10, level 30, just hit 50, endgame build...  and then also depends how much Inf is spent slotting stuff (not even sure I have the terminology right, here).  I do have some Inf banked, around 45 mil currently, but I'd like to split that at least two ways (2 chars for now, one red one blue).  So I could run some sort of early build, not sure how far 20 or 30 mil gets me (haven't looked into understanding slotting at all, yet).

 

I feel like I should just roll Brute and not worry about it, BUT on the other hand I could be failing to understand important stuff about the choice (such as, did the Tank buff make them out-brute Brutes).  So, like I said, advice appreciated.