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.

Ok, well we just disagree on that matter of opinion. That's ok.

The vast majority of situations don't require a tank at all, but having one can be handy. In those situations (MOST of the game) the Brute provides sufficient tanking while providing more damage than a Tanker would. That is the Brutes place on a team. Without data demonstrating that Tankers do better damage than Brutes, the case saying Brutes are worthless falls apart in the face of these facts.

Almost, I said. It’s right there. Sufficiently, is what I implied. And yes, they absolutely do, tank sufficiently. They tank almost as well as tankers, and well enough for almost everything in the game.

Yes, you absolutely did. Suggesting that I am incapable of understanding it, when you haven’t explained it any better than anyone else did, is an insult.

Regardless, nothing you or anyone else has said, demonstrates in any way that there is anything wrong with the concept of a tank class that can tank almost as well as another tank class, while also doing damage better than that class. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, just a lot of complaining with nothing to back it up. We need data. Either brutes are too far behind scrappers and not far enough ahead of tankers or they aren’t. Anecdotes are not enough.

Somehow, I’m able to discuss it without insulting the person I’m discussing it with, maybe you should work on that. Everybody is on the team to do damage. That is your misapprehension, that everything must be divided. That’s not how this game works.

No, my premise is perfect. Brute does more damage than tanker, while still providing tanking sufficient for almost every encounter in the game.

Heck, corrupters aren’t the best there is at anything. Blasters are better than them at damage, defenders are better than them at buffs. But corrupters do a good portion of what each of those other two do, and it’s not an issue with them. Why should it be an issue with with Brutes?

I don’t understand the concept behind “tankers are the toughest, scrappers do the most damage, so why ever bring a brute?“ Brutes are tougher than scrappers and do better damage than tankers, so they’re right in between, that’s why you would bring a brute because they do most of what each of the other two do. I don’t see the issue with that concept. Now, if the numbers aren’t right, that’s a separate thing, but the basic idea that roots do most of what each of those other two archetypes do should be fine. Why is that a problem? This concept that every archetype must be the best archetype that there is at one particular thing doesn’t hold up as far as I am concerned.

What we need to see are new scrapper times, brute times, and tanker times all compared. With the same offensive sets for each, and similar quality builds. I’m not really sure if it should be +4×8, because I don’t really think that gives a realistic picture of the game, but it doesn’t really matter that much as long as they are all the same I suppose. If it turns out that brute is squarely between tanker and scrapper, then all of these complaints are nonsense. If it turns out tanker is ahead of brute, that’s a problem.