Wavicle

I guess so, but it's irrelevant. There is no rule that says an AT must be the best at something to be useful and good overall. Being second best at two things is still really good. Brutes are better than Tankers at one thing, and better than Scrappers at two things. That is sufficient as long as they can fill their primary team roles, which are to tank and do damage, which they do. They DON'T have to be better than BOTH Tankers and Scrappers at some hypothetical fourth thing in order to justify their existence.

Uh, no. Dark Electric Fire Ice Psionic Regeneration Stone Super Reflexes (and when Brutes eventually have it, Ninjitsu) are all sets that do not have Taunt auras on Scrappers but do on Brutes. And even though their punchvoke is not as good as Tankers, Brutes all have it and Scrappers do not. Yes, they have to hit stuff, or use Taunt, or get close, but it's more than Scrappers have. So that's all Scrappers.

It does not. The Brute gets Taunt in two different toggles, the Scrapper in zero. And I believe a dev statement a while back said something about no new Scrapper armor getting a taunt aura, but I'm sure I couldn't find it.

Stalkers do not get taunt. Scrappers sometimes get weak taunt auras, basically never actually take their single target taunt, and do not get any punchvoke. They have lower HP and lower resistance caps. They are not tanks. I don't think any of them should have taunt auras, and you'll notice the newest Scrapper armor sets do not. We weren't "ignoring" Controllers and Masterminds when we compared Corrs and Defs, and we aren't "ignoring" Scrappers and Stalkers now.

I don't agree with that, which we've been over. Defenders and Corruptors have exactly the same relationship as Tankers and Brutes and always have. (Aside from the last couple years on HC, where Tankers were buffed too much.)

This is where you’re losing me. Corruptors are also literally not the best at anything, Blasters do better damage, Defenders have better buffs. Why is that ok for Corrs but not for Brutes?

If I didn't say this earlier that is my mistake, but I may have, I think the Scrapper ATO is clearly broken and OP. But that's where the problem lies. A scrapper WITHOUT that ATO is not outperforming Brutes by anything like 30%. Is that possibly the common ground upon which we can meet?

Similarly, not at all what I was saying. Just a convenient strawman. People do invite folks for buffs and healing, of course, but nobody really cares if the person they invite is a "dEdIcAtEd HEALZOR" or a DPS with some buffs. The game is not divided into discrete roles. There is tons of overlap, always has been and that's just fine. Why it's fine for support but apparently not fine for melee is unclear, still.

The claim was regarding whether the niche is worthwhile, not what the niche is. We all agree what the niche is. Simply spelling it out for me, because you still think for some reason I don't know it, does nothing to support the CLAIM that the niche is worthless. Literally, nothing in this post addresses what I was saying.

Maybe it's people who are used to WoW and other similar games, where roles are almost totally separate? That's not how this game has EVER worked.

There has not been a real case made, just unsupported claims, to say that all four need SEPARATE roles, and that the currently OVERLAPPING roles are not just fine. The claim has been made, but I have never seen any real support for it.

This claim is no less unsupported after being reiterated many times than it was the first time. It might be true, but it needs real support, not just constant repetition.

I just want to throw out there that I think it’s just about completely impossible that the class with the best combination of survivability and damage in the game is also going to be given team buffs.

I was not aware of the pvp angle, thanks.

I think it’s just that eight people cycling Barrier make armor almost completely unnecessary.