ScarySai

Now who's putting words in people's mouths? Your main points are irrelevant to a balance discussion. Stating the obvious fact of there always going to be a top, a bottom, and some variance, and that different playstyles exist adds nothing to the discourse. Wow doesn't balance warlocks around the players who kill rabbits for 'teh lulz'. Nor should they, they dont matter in a balance discussion. How would that even work? Personally, I dont want to know. They balance around the people actually playing their class to at least a competent level. And how do they achieve this? By objective measurements in performance outside of raw dps. We don't need a parser to figure that stuff out (though a good one would be quite nice.)

With respect, this is entirely irrelevant to a balance discussion. And we do have objective standards, that's how metas are formed. It's not typically just some crazy guy making things up, and everyone blindly obeys.

That's fine if you just want to discuss normal play, but when it comes to balance, this is a terrible argument. Does kinetic melee not need a buff because I can eat a bunch of reds and do more damage than someone who isn't? Is regen better than bio or stone because I can keep a tray full of purples and oranges on me at all times? Is sentinel good because some -res is better than no -res? A barrier'd fire scrapper is capable of replacing a brute in the hardest content of the game, and they don't even have a taunt aura, if we really want to bring things like that into it. It doesn't help the case of brutes, and only really spreads the general misinformation.

I actually directly proved that tank nerfs wouldn't make brutes more desirable a few months ago, so I do hope the solution isn't just to nuke tanks. They should keep some of the power they've been given - but brutes should have something that makes you want to roll a brute. I can't even fathom a brute I could tolerate right now if procs got whacked, they're more dependent on them than tanks are. Maybe by default, since the entire scrapper class would crumble if the ato gets caught in the blast. Then we're back to square one and literally nobody is happy, lol.

Solo play is inherently a vacuum, there are no external factors besides what you bring with you. Outside of barrier, temps, t9s or mog, you're not capping a brute's stats with the same ease as a tank, even with a good build.

1. Yes, because they do not shine in any areas, and scrappers/tanks can easily take their place even in the hardest content while having areas they excel in. Look at 4* comps with a taunter, you're not gonna see a brute unless it's regen, but more often than not, it will be a scrapper or tank. 2. Absolutely. Blasters are the chosen one, corruptors and defenders multiply the damage of themselves and their peers, supporting the team without being useless themselves, Kheldians, are slated for a rework, sentinels are the laughing stock of the game, masterminds are slated for a rework, control ATs such as dominators and controllers are largely considered weak at the high end and in need of a rework. 3. Among other things, yes. 4. No, brutes have higher caps than stalkers and scrappers, but share the same scales, a well made brute is not significantly more durable than it's scrapper counterpart outside of external factors on average. Even defensively kitted brutes won't be getting too far past the 70s in all res without neutering their damage, at that point, you're just a gimped tank.

I'll never understand how the creators of axe cyclone could possibly take issue with the armor meant for sacrificing durability for damage ending up doing more damage.

A lot of people don't realize that Brutes were only the popular tank AT eons ago because they were essentially the only option. This isn't 2008, Stalkers are good, Scrappers actually do something now, and tanks aren't a joke AT anymore.

For some outlandish reason, they did this with stone assault too, but refuse to buff Stone and SS's version of hurl for some vague, nebulous balance-related consideration that doesn't make any sense at all.

Burn across the board for every AT was nuked from orbit, barely does any notable damage now, procs worse, and only spawns one patch. In essence, you have to proc it to do anything, funnily enough. Brute burn was bugged in a way that heavily benefitted them. The patches spawned close to a mob's level and benefitted from fury, so instead of burn needing to be procced to do ANYTHING to a mob, things that stood in your burn took a lot of damage over time. This is the only reason fire armor was so popular on brutes for farming, and why rad tanks for active farming have largely taken over. Now call me crazy, but maybe that's how the power should work.

And since then, Tanks got turbo buffed, and one of the only reasons to make a brute - fire armor, got nerfed into essentially irrelevance.

I just think each form should have its own inherent in addition to the base. I think things like this conflict with the playstyle and overcomplicate something simple.

I missed the part where that matters.

HOW. HOOOOOOOW?!

Brutes need a win so bad right now, lol.

Fire's identity was more or less gutted, particularly with brutes since they had the one version of burn that actually did good damage without procs. Now it's just a generic, boring armor set with some utility but effectively doesn't do anything well enough to be notable. Whereas before it's lower values were compensated by an overflow of damage. Phoenix rising is also a completely trash power rework. And what I might consider the most insulting change of the bunch: No, it doesn't. I don't know where Bopper got that idea from, but it's wrong. FA doesn't even have a resist stat to multiply the protection value with. By all means though, go ahead and bring a fire armor character without and zephyrs into a council mission as I watch you get dribbled like a basketball.

Dark regen isn't the problem with the set. Current tuning makes it good on single target and aoe. As much as I would like to trust the powers that be with a dark overhaul, I can't. What has been said about dark armor has only convinced me they shouldn't touch it.

The single most powerful power pool in the game. Whirlwind and flurry won't get buffed until some significant change is made to how the powers team follows their coveted formulas.

Freak tanks are vulnerable to energy, psi will break through most forms of unstoppable, clockwork are also highly vulnerable to psi (and knock), off the top of my head. DE are vulnerable to negative.

This is why the focus of my reply was what I've heard from CPH. Simply a non-starter for arbitrary reasons.

I promise you, your scrapper with cloak of fear isn't doing a single thing my brute without OG or cloak of fear can't. I don't understand why people defend terrible powers. I really don't. We both benefit from a buff.

Yeah dude, all the dark armor mains that have skipped it for the last twenty years just don't get the true power of a -5% tohit debuff for .50 end/s on a set that already hard struggles with end. Honestly, how is this relevant? At some point you gotta stop trying to look at the positives and admit that the turd is a turd.

Considering the spreadsheet wizards we're dealing with, they probably look at the potential of dark regen's healing and consider it way more valuable than it actually is, considering how even unslotted, hitting 3-ish targets is more than enough to fill the health bar of a non-max hp brute/tank/scrapper twice over. Like after 2k healing anything past that point is basically a flex. We're dealing with a set here that requires a lot of toggles and a really well made io build to really work, has a heal that requires a tohit check and a pissload of endurance, a t8 that doesn't work, and a self rez for a t9. Granted, the best rez in the game, but still. The idea that dark armor has to sacrifice ANYTHING for basic needs of a modern set is laughable.

No KB protection for dark armor, because again, it's been asked, and the ultimatum was "No kb protection, or we nuke the best power in the set." I can struggle and cram some kb protection into a dark armor build, nothing I can do could salvage a gimped dark regen.

High base values and dark regen is basically all dark armor has. Videra echos my response: Dark regen is the soul of the set, and PH has made it clear they wouldn't reduce the end cost without essentially gutting the power. Personally, after what she did to dark armor? I'd rather they leave it the hell alone, they've proven by now that the one and only thing they can do right with sets is overtune them. Anything short of that they drop the ball and make it worse. Look what they did to fire armor, imagine if they reduced dark regen's end cost, nuked it's healing/recharge, and then gave dark armor a paltry one point of knock protection to balance it out. I'd scream.