Brutal Justice

I would take that but I’m not sure it would be necessary. It would also hurt the pre IO builds. I already pointed out how there are defense set bonuses of 5%. Thats 11% of the softcap. If 95% is considered the damage enhancement soft cap then a +10.5 dam set bonus should exist to match that 11%. Thats like running assault. Just like weave. Of course that’s the top level bonus. Even though you can enhance an attack for 95% and an armor for only 60%?, the res and defense values exist on a curve. IE adding 5% defense at 40% defense is exponentially better than 5% at 30%.

This is all really just an attempt to balance around IOs. I feel the game is really quite balanced before set bonuses start to kick in. Instead of trying to balance around IOs, why are we not trying to balance IOs instead? Separate set bonuses into offensive and defensive groups. Scale up the +dam bonuses to rival the defensive bonuses. If a brute wants to build for tank level survivability they still can. If a tank wants to build for brute lvl damage, now they are able to. If they both go defensive, the brute does more damage while the tank is more durable. If they both go offensive, brute does more damage while the tank is more durable. Build diversity is good. Archetype homogenization is not. We have the ability to have more than one build these days. If you’re a blaster and have a solid team to absorb aggro, switch to your kill everything build. If you’re a blaster and want to solo, switch to your survive everything build. The current playstyle would still be available and the old school would become available. There are lots of threads about missing and wishing for how it used to be. Balance the IOs into offensive and defensive categories and you allow for both play styles.

You might be missing the decreased +dam modifier from 1.00 to .8. He’s shield/stj so he’s picking up some +dam from aao and the +dam from combat readiness. Both of which are adding significantly less damage on test than live. if he wasn’t stj it would likely be worse since combat readiness trades some of that +dam for straight damage through the combo system

This one time when I was a teenager I woke up one morning with super strength. For real. I could just tell I had it. Sixth sense if you will. I tried to to show my friends by punching through a brick wall. My arm shattered. Unfortunately I don’t have invulnerability to handle the super strength. After a very long healing process (no regen either) I tried to lift a car. Dislocated both shoulders, and collapsed a couple disks. In my older days I no longer try to show off my super strength because I don’t have the durability to use it. My real world experience tells me that I’m ok with tanks performing higher than brutes with super strength. If you don’t have the durability to back it up then what’s the point?

To me that looks like good data showing the +dam modifier change has actually nerfed your tank. Without combat readiness you’re probably dealing 3% more damage. With combat readiness you’re dealing 4.5% less damage. I would be curious what kind of data you would get fighting the lvl 54 chief soldier boss surrounded by his posse feeding aao. Thanks for all the testing you’re doing.

I’ll use your numbers with the data I collected from live then. I showed that against a pylon you do get 20% more damage with bruising 253 per hit on live 253 * 1.2 = 303.6 thats higher than your beta test If you want to subtract 10% 253 * 1.1 = 278.3 278 to 286 is a whopping 3% increase from live to beta. Your team is really going to be glad to have that instead of 20% times 7

I have never set up access to the test server partially out of laziness and business. I ran ran over to RWZ with my rad/stone tank and took some shots at a pylon with seismic smash. 98.8% dam enhancement without bruising - 257 per shot with bruising - 308 20% increase with assault running 10.5 dam without bruising - 270 with bruising - 324 20% increase i found a lvl 54 chief soldier boss and smacked him too. Without bruising - 108 with bruising - 118. 9.25% increase with assault without bruising - 113 with bruising - 124. 9.7% increase At +4 bruising gave about 10% more damage. That’s for a solo tank. Add 7 more players that really adds up. Since your tests didn’t show with and without bruising, I’m not sure the base damage increase is covering our solo damage loss. I know it’s not covering the 10% damage loss of 7 more players. On top of that I doubt it’s covering the reduced +dam modifier in sets that have consistent +damage.

They could restructure the IOs or create new IOs with +dam and no +mitigation. IOs with recharge could contain the +dam, +rec, +end, etc type of bonuses that can be seen as offensive bonuses and and the regen, hp, res, def can be paired. You might end end up with a super tough blaster or a glass canon blaster. Puts the choice in the players hands. Opening doors for large +dam at the expense of mitigation could also allow for a more old school coh playstyle. Adding +dam to a tank might make it closer in damage to a tough blaster just like +def brings a blaster closer to a tank in survival. At the moment all archetypes can come closer to a tank but a tank can’t come closer to the others. It it wouldn’t be just a buff for tanks but it would have to be implemented in a way that required the choice. Or make a jack of all trades master of non. Open things up to much more diversity in builds. Soft cap builds are boring to me.

Then your reading comprehension is poor at best. The bulk of this thread has actually been discussing whether or not this most current form of buffs is increasing or decreasing tanks damage. With I believe, more concern that it’s decreasing tank damage. Which would be a position in support of more tank damage The issue with brutes in relation to tanks is their durability, not their damage. Nobody said nerf brute damage. I recommended taking gauntlet away from brutes. I also suggested increasing the amount of +dam you can acquire from IOs in an attempt to give tanks and other lower damage archetypes more damage. Which of course would open up more damage for high damage archetypes as well.

We already have defense capped ATs of all kinds running around causing these current issues. Force fields are fairly pointless after IOs, why not impact kinetics also? Obviously you you wouldn’t want to attach the +dam bonuses to IO sets with +def. you choose one or the other. Glass canon or brick wall.

If there are IO sets that offer 5 melee/s/l defense, there should be equivalent +dam set bonuses to help. 5 is 11.11% of softcap 45. If we want to use 95% for “softcap” of damage enhancement, then there should be 10.5 +dam set bonuses available. There should also be +dam toggle pool powers to offset the plethora of +defense powers. Trash all these changes and just add these things to help all lower damage archetypes.

On live did you apply bruising before you hit to factor in the loss of bruising? The numbers show beta to have higher damage than live until you factor in bruising.

I just logged into everlasting and the message on the Everlasting TFs global channel says “ The Really Hard Way, must be +3 and won’t take too many TANKS*/trollers/empathy this time” *emphasis mine they must have struggled with more than one tank the last time they tried. If these test “buffs” go live it will just say “no tanks!”

I tried my hand at math earlier and failed, but I’m a tank and a glutton for punishment, so I’ll try again 😋 currently on live if we use an attack with base damage 100 we get Live 80 base + 76 enhanced = 156 Test 95 base + 90.25 enhanced = 185.25 thats good unless you factor in bruising then live becomes 156*1.2 = 187.2 not so good. On test you’re not even covering your own damage when fighting an AV or hami or boss. Then account for -20% your team is losing as well without bruising. The test setup makes the tank vs brute debate even worse in favor of the brute when fighting a heavy target. Then factor in rage live 80 base + 76 enhanced + 64 buffed = 220 * bruising 1.2 = 264 test 95 base + 90.25 enhanced + (95*.64 new rage buff= 60.8) = 246.05 not good at all how about follow-up from claws? live 80+76+24 buffed= 180 *1.2 bruising = 216 test 95+90.25+(95*.24=22.8) = 208.05 not good. Test with 1.0 buff instead of .8 95+90.25+(95*.3=28.5) = 213.75 better but still less. Any set with consistent +dam is hit pretty hard. the tank “buffs” are making tanks in a situation where dps matters even more of a liability than they are now. Heavy targets are where teams stall out, not packs of minions. Same for solo. The tank buffs have become tank nerfs with a brute buff to compensate. Taking from the poor to give to the rich. somebody needs to time how long it takes to kill an average boss spawn solo, live vs test. I’ll wager test takes longer. So much for helping tanks solo...

That is more or less what I did. I’ll delete that post. Thanks for the correction 🙂

The +dam modifier change hurts more than just super strength. With Vandens super strength numbers showing an actual nerf I would be curious about the other +dam sets. Claws, dual blades, kin melee, dark melee, anything shield, bio. That could be a significant number of toons that come away from these buffs with less dps than they had before. Nerf tanks and buff brutes? Might as well nerf energy melee and regen while buffing Titan weapons. Any buff to any archetype that requires a buff to another archetype is the wrong direction. Unless maybe both archetypes are underperforming. Which I don’t think brutes OR tanks are. They just need differentiation.

How long does bruising last? Does jab need to be part of your rotation or just sprinkled in every 10s? If it only needs sprinkled then how much does using jab with bruising actually hurt your dps? Or is sprinkling it in with the live setup a net wash with the test setup?

Or you could do something crazy and just improve the numbers for jab and try to help tanks in a more creative way. Any buff to tanks that requires a buff to another archetype is the wrong direction.

Currently brutes and scrappers are very close in performance when solo. Each taking advantage under specific build conditions. IE punchvoke making burn more functional for brutes and aao being more beneficial for scrappers. In a team setting the scrapper has better damage because it’s harder, not that hard, to generate and maintain fury. The brute provides better aggro management. These MINOR differences provide some balance between the two in regards to teaming. I would say they are currently well balanced between the two. Buffing brutes disrupts that balance.

Both of those threads were addressing how the then proposed tank buffs would cause brutes to lose value to tanks. Not how brutes are currently underperforming and need a buff. Which is why I said, “if a tank buff has to result in a brute buff, then things need to be left alone”.

I agree with all of this but it doesn’t actually address what I said.

I’ll have to go back and reread the “Brutes are underperforming” thread then so I can be up to date.

This “issue” with brutes is THE one thing that gives them any sort of balance inside of paragon city. The only thing scrappers have on brutes is damage on-demand, unaffected by teammates. Making it easier for a brute to build and maintain fury devalues scrappers by making their damage more “on-demand”. If the tank changes must result in a brute buff then things need to be left as they are. Tanks just need something more creative than +dam. If that proves to be too labor intensive, then to help tanks, brutes need to be adjusted downward. Removing punchvoke from brutes could solve all the issues. Brutes would still have very high potential for damage and survival. They would play differently from scrappers. They wouldn’t hold aggro like a tank. Its still crazy how trying to help tanks always ends up buffing brutes, ala gauntlet. It was given to brutes to help redside. It never should have been. At the very least it should have been removed with going rogue.

Because brutes need a buff...

Here’s how I understand all the chain of events with these changes. Buff tanks = way too good lower buffs for tanks = still too good buff brutes even lower buffs for tanks net result = some tank sets perform slightly better than on live and some things have been moved around and changed for the sake of changing things. Therefore the tank buffs ultimately end up being a brute buff. Its like gauntlet 3.0. “Let’s give tanks punchvoke to make them better at tanking than brutes. Then give it to brutes too because fury is boring and brutes need two inherents.” Poor scrappers. If they didn’t have their ATIOs they would be completely irrelevant. This is why changes to help tanks shouldn’t revolve around damage.