Shin Magmus

You don't. Arse Control is a half-baked set, built and tested primarily on Doms, and the Devs in charge of it don't care about you having Immobs or any way to reliably set up Containment on AVs. You are punished for playing the set at all, doubly punished on Controllers.

As mentioned earlier, 3 overall mathematical truths apply to Brute vs Tanker in the current version of the game. 1 - All +dmg is proportionately weaker on Brutes than it is on other melee ATs. Additionally, Brutes get lower numbers than they should on powers like Build Up and Rage. 2 - At the damage caps, Brutes only hit 15% harder than Tankers: but due to target caps this microscopic advantage only really applies to damage auras and single target powers. 3 - The gap between Brute and Tanker performance even in cherrypicked situations where the Brute is doing slightly better, always shrinks as you add an even amount of +dmg to the Brute and the Tanker. Doublestacked Rage is quite literally the peak example of adding flat +dmg.

...yet And Tankers perform much better with SS than Brutes do. It's one of the sets where the disparity in clear times between Tankers and Brutes (when using the same sets) is actually highest.

I mean, making Brutes be able to use their powers more frequently, or tank easier, also has the practical effect of instantly making them less likely to die on teams. I mentioned this before as well in my endless Brute Battle of Defiant Fury, but simply being a Brute instead of a Scrapper will cause most teams to look at you with the expectation that you tank. Even though we just discussed (again), that your base numbers as a Brute are the same as a Scrapper. Lotta Brutes just faceplant almost instantly... happens very often on PUG teams on Everlasting. Tankers are blessed to just work. Brutes have to be built to work. This is why some buffs to Brutes are in order: it's not just that they don't have an identity compared to the other melee ATs and are outclassed at the high end. They actually struggle the most with poverty builds on teams... not because they can't deal damage: Fury mechanics are great for helping Brutes deal dmg regardless of slotting. No, the struggle is that dead characters deal no damage. I don't have poverty builds, but I team with people who do and I see their struggles second-hand. I play this game a lot.

I tried to explain this earlier, there's so many threads now. Brutes don't get to be at those numbers for free. Either the situational team buffs have to carry the Brute there, or the Brute has to 6-slot their ATO sets (sacrificing offensive Purple set bonuses and any option for damage procs, killing DPS) to chase the 6% Res bonuses at the end of the set. The Unrelenting Fury set in particular is basically mandatory to 6-slot for those bonuses, and that kills an entire attack in your build, relegating it to being low DPS... but at least you won't die. Scrappers and Stalkers do not need to do this because they can hit their 75% Caps easily from their Base. Tankers do not need to do this because they can hit their higher 90% Caps easier from their higher base (and with the assistance of an ATO proc that is just the Unrelenting Fury set bonus but better). Only Brutes have this huge differential between their higher 90% Caps but lower base. This is well-established knowledge and it's a shame that we have to explain this, especially to a GM. Brutes need help.

Well you can blame the current Powers Team for that. The devs have passively acknowledged that Spines original animation times and DPAs are terrible, which is why Blasters/Doms get a much more powerful Lunge (Skewer), Dom Impale animation was sped up, and Blaster Thorn Burst animation was sped up. By changing these numbers and buffing these powers, they are admitting that the powers were underperforming: which is a correct statement, they sucked. At the same time, the actual OG Spines powers that Thorns and Plant Manipulation are based on, were deliberately not buffed. Spines is intentionally not buffed and kept bad, for the same reason that Radiation Melee is not buffed and kept bad: some people use it for farming. The Powers Team is literally more concerned about keeping AE Farmers down, than with making all of the powersets be similarly good at the actual video game outside of AE.

The popularity of an AT (or powerset) has no bearing on how good it is. If popularity determined quality, then Call of Duty would be the best video game of all time. Empathy would be the best buff/debuff powerset of all time (when it's actually currently the worst choice you can pick since the FF rework and so many buffs to its other competition). Just because a lot of people made AE farming brutes: doesn't mean anything. Don't use popularity as a reason for anything in a discussion like this.

Thanks, good luck in your endeavors as well.

I'm going to elaborate on this, not that you had it wrong. I just want to be specific. Stalker - Stealth is half of the identity, single target burst dmg is the other half. Mechanically, Stalkers have much more direct control over their Crits than Scrappers do, which feels pleasant to play. Stalkers have the trade-off of losing a lot of AoE dmg potential for this. Scrapper - Meathead that does the most dmg but is also the most random. Pretty simple really, Scrapperlock is a great concept and a great word, and Scrappers work the way they should right now, with the exception of enemies running away if you pick "the wrong armorsets". A QoL pass to give every Scrapper set a weak Taunt aura would fix their only issue. Tanker - Tankiest of them all is half of the identity, best at Aggroing tons of enemies quickly is the other half. The reason that Tankers have bigger AoEs which hit more targets is not so that they can be the best AE Farmers. Some bad math made them a bit OP currently but that was not the point of those changes. It was always so that Tankers could more easily apply Gauntlet's Taunt procs to every enemy in a group faster than Brutes could apply their on-hit Taunt procs. Bigger AoEs feel nice especially when you're the first one into a fight, and hitting all the enemies is a more effective way to get aggro than trying to click the Taunt power onto all of them. Brute - Identity is being poorly balanced with lowest dmg scalar but highest dmg cap, yet not having the built-in tools to really make that dynamic matter. Brutes get the least benefit from Insps, all self-buff powers (including set-defining stuff like Rage), and all team buffs as well. Yet the ceiling for Brutes is not high enough for them to have any real worthwhile advantage over Tankers. 15% dmg advantage on single target powers and damage auras isn't an identity... and it's not even good enough to justify picking them over the other 3 ATs. The theoretical idea that Brutes can use the powers in these sets more quickly, and for less Endurance, than the other ATs is a concept that approaches an identity.

Be forewarned, a similar thread to this was started not long ago, and it just devolved into bickering with contrarians who thought that Brutes "felt fine", and we got nothing of value out of it. Thanks for trying, but giving Brutes better defensive scalars and any actual identity is just off the table for now. It only takes one Beanbag fan saying that they "don't like" the buff for the devs to revert it and then Brutes stay as-is.

... Thank Energy Transfer that you aren't in charge of anything balance-related. The End Costs of travel powers are fine, and setting up keybinds or macros to turn them off in-combat and back on after-combat is something you can do in 15 seconds if clicking the powers manually is too much of a drag. Most people just don't turn the powers off and eat the cost since they get sources of +Recovery from the team and other sources.

YES PLEASE. MM's not having an inherent pet recall power at all is a huge hindrance that only affects one AT in the entire game, and it really hurts them a lot. It doesn't matter if the power has a long CD or other conditions (much), just that they have anything to finally have a button to sometimes press which allows them to function at the same speed as every other AT in the game.

Yeah but the issue is harder to measure there, because the small bonus Fury stacks with the base Fury you get for attacking regularly, so it's not as obvious and easy to measure.

I have a similar build on my Regen Brute, but I think the real takeaway shouldn't be anything you can do solo. It should be how the character works on teams, since Barrier Destiny and most common Def/Res team buffs will patch up your stats and allow your character to shine. You don't have to work nearly as hard, and will have plenty of uptime on 90% Res to several times, if the team just helps you out at all.

Having original and fun ideas is too hard, after all... why shouldn't I be allowed to copyright infringe at my leisure? I found this quite humorous; Thanks OP!

Sounds like standard Excelsior conduct to me. You couldn't pay me to play with randos like the leader on OP's team.

Chance for -dmg and -fear: a bit superfluous but a pretty cool proc nonetheless for VEATs. It's purely defensive though, so slotting it is never "meta" (and that means I'm sure some players would prefer something else).

The reason that this list of changes works, is that Brutes are often expected to tank for the entire team in any context, but Scrappers and Stalkers do not have the same expectations levied upon them: except all 3 of these ATs have the same base Def/Res from all their powers across all their armorsets. The only way that a Brute is natively any tougher than a Scrapper is in a moderate Base HP Difference. This leads to a mismatch between player/team expectations, and reality. Brutes have to invest significant set bonuses to attain higher Res than Scrappers. The Brute cap is higher but the Brute base stats are not. Poor players, and those with bad builds, will not have 6-slotted Unrelenting Fury for the 6% Res to 6x types bonus: and that is the chief way in which Brutes are currently any tougher than Scrappers. Buffing Brute defensive scalars to a midway point between Scrappers and Tankers is the most logical fix to this. There will also be a second order effect where this increases Brute damage output because they are able to freely slot more procs etc. in the slots they used to need for set bonuses (to not die).

Cowards deleting my comments won't make flawed arguments become correct. If your character is too weak to use a different chain when given more +Recharge, shrimply don't do that. Use the old chain you were using, and benefit from the +Recharge in your sustain and utility powers with them being available more often. As I said before, you have the power to just NOT change your attack chain and then you have no issues. Use your words, not comment deletion.

That's *fine*, but also boring. It's possible to give Brutes some sort of identity, which they sorely lack in the current version of the game. A Dmg proc is always going to be good though, and it's certainly an upgrade from a bugged and weak +dmg buff proc on self. I think Recharge will be something that entices more players to play Brutes though.

Thank you for the well-reasoned input. I'm just passionate about this issue; I'm a little bit miffed that one AT (Brute) has an ATO that is approximately 25x worse than the AT with the most similar stats/scalars and powersets/power order (Scrapper).

Yes, the ATO is currently *very* bugged and I already made a thread about it: Here are the videos as well because I know you want all the information in one place: The Brute's Fury proc, if it worked correctly, only grants 7 Fury. 7 Fury is only up to 14% dmg, which rapidly degrades, and is subject to the Fury Cap of 100 even before it runs into the damage cap. By contrast, Dominators get a 14.195% dmg bonus (for 10.25s) proc which does not decay, has no internal limit like the Fury bar, and stacks up to 3 times. Dominators also have higher dmg scales and no built-in Fury, and we're about to do some math assuming exactly 100% dmg enhanced in powers (Endgame builds with Musculature or Intuition Alphas do often exceed this, making the effects of dmg buffs *even lower* than I'm showing here). This +14.195% dmg is an effective boost of +~7% for Dominator dmg output in many cases when it goes off... whereas the Brute's Fury +14% dmg would only amount to an effective boost of +~3% for Brute dmg output in statistically common conditions... and I rounded up here, since average damage bonus at 80 Fury is 160% (260% including enhancements). That's how much worse the Brute's Fury ATO would be if it worked correctly: and it doesn't because it is bugged currently. Against +3s, the 7 Fury is presumably getting Purple Patched down to 4.55 Fury, meaning that the ATO only boosts your current dmg output by +~1.95% in statistically common conditions. This ATO is a joke! Reminder that the Scrapper Crit Strikes ATO boosts their averaged damage output by literally 50% (but only for 2-3 attacks) every single time it goes off, in all contexts. This is not fair, and I've unslotted the Brute's Fury ATO proc from my builds. I don't care if Brutes "feel fine" to you, and I don't care if the devs are using AE Farms existing as an excuse to avoid ever buffing Brutes. Those are both bad reasons and should not be brought to the table in this discussion. Brutes *do* need buffs to be relevant in the game outside of AE, and minmaxxers can already prove that Brutes aren't even beating Tankers in AE anyways. Buff the Brute's Fury ATO. Fix the bug, and make the Superior proc grant +20% Recharge for 10.25s (+10% Recharge for the regular version). This fits with the theme of Brutes attacking unrelentingly and thematically matches their other ATO proc making them less prone to exhaustion in a long fight.

Bumping this to point out (correctly) that 7 Fury is only up to 14% dmg, which rapidly degrades, and is subject to the Fury Cap of 100 even before it runs into the damage cap. By contrast, Dominators get a 14.195% dmg bonus proc which does not decay, has no internal limit like the Fury bar, and stacks up to 3 times. Dominators also have higher dmg scales and no built-in Fury, so this +14.195% dmg is an effective boost of +~7% dmg output in many cases when it goes off... whereas the Brute's Fury bonus dmg would only amount to +~3% dmg output even in statistically common conditions. That's how much worse the Brute's Fury ATO would be if it worked correctly: and it doesn't because it is bugged currently. Against +3s, the 7 Fury is presumably getting Purple Patched down to 4.55 Fury, meaning that the ATO only boosts your current dmg output by +~1.95% under statistically common conditions. This ATO is a joke. It should be a priority for the devs to bugfix this proc. The proc also underperforms as I've proven, and giving it +20% Recharge buff for 10.25s (+10% for the Non-Superior version) is the least they could do in minor buffs that Brutes desperately need.

Guys, here's what's going to happen if Dark Armor gets reworked and Dark Regeneration gets changed: overcomplication that nobody wants. Picture this: Dark Armor... but with needlessly convoluted If:Then conditional statements. Dark Regeneration nerfed but it grants +End on targets hit... If: Stunned. Cloak of Fear buffed numerically a bit but now it also adds Negative Energy damage procs to your attacks... If: Terrorized. The power will still suck, but now people will start pairing it with Dark Melee more... and taking Invoke Panic (vomits) to try and activate the condition. Arsenal Control but as an Armor. One dev is feverishly taking notes right now, but this is an example of why you don't actually want Dark Armor reworks from this team.

Fury itself doesn't necessarily need to change for Brutes to be good... but their ATO procs and the values of some of their powers (Build Up adjacent powers) need across-the-board buffing for Brutes to even approach relevancy. Since one of their ATO procs is currently bugged, what better time to add some useful effects to it than while they're already editing it to bugfix? We're helping.