Bill Z Bubba

@Eva Destruction Praetorian Invasion mission in AE? Slaughter a bunch of AVs and notate time? Get the devs to build a DPS tracker into a punching dummy that we can put in our base? I'm sure we'd figure something out.

It matters in any content where the brute will fall while the tank survives. Yes, brutes were clearing faster than tanks across the board. Again, not by nearly as much a spread as the mitigation difference between the two. And maybe the most important part of the discussion that's come out is that the game itself may have been broken across the board with IOs. I'd say incarnates but the SG I run with and I did a zero incarnates max diff ITF without any issues and it wasn't longer in any meaningful way to completion than normal. Given that we ARE forced to seek out content difficult enough to give us a run for our money by buffing enemies, debuffing ourselves, choosing not to use incarnates or inspirations or whatever. Maybe what the game needs IS another great global nerf to get us all back in line with the content since we've so ridiculously surpassed it. (And no, a 40% defense hard cap is not the way to go.) I sure as hell don't want even MORE powercreep but so far that's all we've gotten and it started long before the snap.

Apparently crosspunch is amazing. I'm guessing there's another damres debuff slotted in there.

Agreed. I don't think it's meaningless at all.

Now all that would show is what's stated in the OP: that the difference between tank and brute damage is far smaller than the difference between their damage mitigation. But again, if all that extra mitigation the tank has is meaningless, no one should bat an eye about nerfing it into line.

Looks right but you'll need to factor in crits for the scrapper and come at it with the understanding that any other damage buffs that come into play will end up benefiting the tank more than the brute.

AS and no spin means I'll never know what a good pylon time is for a claws/sr stalker.

It does. 1 pt fury = 2% dam buff.

Yea, seriously. When you're down to "well, they rock in AE" but might as well go with one of the other two for everything else, there's a problem that needs fixin. There need be no nerf to tanks if brutes get the buffs requested.

That chart (which I've always thought to be misleading) puts tanks at 10/7 for survivability and melee damage. Brutes at 8/9 and scrappers at 7/10. Those values are not accurate to how the game currently sits. It'd be closer to tanks 10/7, brutes 8/8 and scrappers 7/10. If we go with just the chart, which we shouldn't, brutes should be at 8.5/8.5.

The game won't let me start iTrials solo, so I don't know. But when teamed, I've never found anything in this game a struggle, possibly because I've always avoided cheaty playstyles. Edit: Except Aeon in MLTF. That punk...

I can't assume any of that because I never spam insps nor do I run with the P2W buffs. Except when I remember that I can buy mez protection for my squishies. For the rest of it, I don't want to assume. I want the devs to datamine the facts and share them with us.

I hope to the dark elder gods that I'm not in this group. All I've ever wanted for this game was to have a situation where I could pick any powerset for any archetype and feel that I was on a similar plane of performance. I really don't think, that with obvious intelligence of the people brought to this type of game, that such a desire would be impossible or even unlikely.

That's not true. As mentioned in the OP, standard clear all times favor the scrapper heavily in a wide variety of the test missions being built in AE as well as standard experience with the AT regardless of the incredible nuisance of runners.

I know it's all in play but I'm pretty sure, due to her never correcting me when I called her a her but that proves nothing, the greatest math-minded player to ever grace these forums was a woman. We even have a mechanism named for her in arcanatime. Edit: No, really, I have absolutely NO farkin clue how she figured that out.

I'd be ok with that.

I have three Bill Z Bubbas. Well, technically speaking I have Bill Z Bubba the scrapper, Beel Z Bubba the brute and Bael Z Bubba the tank. All three use Claws and Super Reflexes. While solo, the scrapper kicks the crap out of the brute and the tank on standard +4 clear alls. While solo, the tank kicks the crap out of the brute and scrapper on being able to survive Werner rules level content. (Enemies buffed, players debuffed, no insps, no faceplants, no temps.) The scrapper takes down a pylon in 3 mins. The brute, 4 mins. The tank 4.5 mins. While the brute may be the most suited to teaming with its tank mitigation caps and huge damage buff cap, solo it has no reason to exist. And I *still* solo a lot even though the percentage is drastically reduced from how I was before the snap. Suggestion: Raise Brute base damage modifier to be exactly between tanks and scrappers. Increase mitigation base modifiers to be exactly between tanks and scrappers. Lower caps to be exactly between tanks and scrappers. Thank you for your time.

Only cuz the mods are watching me.

Being currently plagued with the "why play a brute" mentality, I can fully grok this. I'd still find it very interesting if the dominator earth assault set was copied to sents with no changes at all other than setting the damage modifiers to sentinel level. I know I'd play the crap out of it. Edit: I guess you'd have to replace powerup with aim.

Agreed. The AT on the whole has been buffed to OP land, just like tanks, even without considering what can be done at 50 with fully IOed/Incarnated builds. But even with that mindset in place, I do see certain powersets within the archetype need some help to get them on par with their compadres.

I agree with this statement. But, unfortunately, until the devs datamine and share information regarding the *actual* percentages of players running IO builds, IO + incarnate builds, SO only builds, etc, we're all shooting in the dark at where the balance levels should be. Which is why I've historically stuck to archetype balance discussions.

I would see all of my squishies flocking to it. Not saying that's a bad thing but it would seem to introduce a new build homogeneity.

I sit around 1:45 with mine on a good day compared to 3 mins with the claws/sr. Bio adds a ton of damage.

I love the concept. But how can I abuse bouncing between the two modes? Go defensive to take the alpha and offensive to clear the spawn? If the change means bouncing between the two modes as easily as I bounce with bio and staff, then I'm 100% for it.

That was part of the mistake. Nerfing brute damage. Right now, my brute is barely faster on pylon times AND mission clearing than my tank while both are FAR behind my scrapper. (Claws and SR for all three.) If my scrapper can take a pylon down in 3 minutes and the tank can do it in 4.5 minutes, then the brute should be taking it out in 3.75 minutes. Not 4 to 4.25 minutes.