Weekly Discussion 38: Brutes!

[GM Miss]

Weekly discussion 38 Week 2/16/20-2/22/20:

⚔️ YOU VOTED: It's time for Brutes! ⚔️

 

❓ Things to think about:

>How do they compare with other Tank/damaging ATs? With Dmg / with survivability?

>What is your favorite primary / secondary for them?

>Are they underpowered/overpowered/okay at the moment?

>What would you like to see changed?

>What do you love about them?

*Don't just use these questions, comment with more! 😄

Let's get talking! 

[Blastit]

I think that Brutes are pretty successful from a design perspective. The Fury mechanic is effective and flavourful. I also like that it changed the typical SO slotting to focus on recharge and cost reduction for Fury-building attacks and then a few heavy-hitting finishers.

 

 

I'm not sure if I want Brutes per se to be changed. It's mostly a matter of creating a solid playstyle for Scrappers and Tankers as well and then keeping them all on a relatively even level of power. Which is probably harder than just tweaking damage and resistance values, I guess.

Edited February 16, 2020 by Blastit

[VileTerror]

Yeah, I think Brutes are exactly where they need to be, and it's the Scrappers and Tankers who need to be given their respective niches in comparison.  Sure, Scrapper came first, but Brutes HAVE an identity that is their own.  I see Scrappers more as the prototypical Brute, and less as an Archetype unto themselves.  But I guess that's the conversation for a Scrapper Week (which may have already happened?).

 

We have so many Melee Attack and Survival Sets already that, even if there are great ideas for new Sets, I would really rather see the time and attention going in to creating and polishing Control, Henchpet, and Assault Sets first (in that order).

 

Brutes is good.  I is happy with Brutes.

[Doc_Scorpion]

3 hours ago, Blastit said:

I'm not sure if I want Brutes per se to be changed. It's mostly a matter of creating a solid playstyle for Scrappers and Tankers as well and then keeping them all on a relatively even level of power. Which is probably harder than just tweaking damage and resistance values, I guess.

 

40 minutes ago, VileTerror said:

Yeah, I think Brutes are exactly where they need to be, and it's the Scrappers and Tankers who need to be given their respective niches in comparison.  Sure, Scrapper came first, but Brutes HAVE an identity that is their own.  I see Scrappers more as the prototypical Brute, and less as an Archetype unto themselves.  But I guess that's the conversation for a Scrapper Week (which may have already happened?).

The basic problem with balancing the Scrapper<->Brute<->Tanker spectrum is...  that you can't really.  And Brutes can be cast as the entire cause of the problem.

Why?  Because of design decisions made a very long time ago.  The original spectrum, much easier to balance, was Scrapper <-> Tanker blueside.  When Brutes were introduced, they were isolated redside and their "neither fish nor fowl" design made sense.  (Redside was to some degree better balanced around solo play.)  Going Rogue/Issue 18 irrevocably broke that balance by allowing all three onto the same playing field, a condition which they had never been designed for.

Every discussion about Brutes (and Scrappers and Tankers) needs to take this into account.  Trying to "balance" the three archetypes and give them unique niches is trying to unscrew the inscrutable.  A fool's errand.  (And we just spent months over in the Beta forums going around in this circle.)

Another issue with unique niches is that the whole concept is (at best) obsolescent if not all but obsolete.  Unique niches originated in the era of tactical gameplay...  When "No AT was required, but every AT could play a role".  Power creep has all but destroyed that concept.  (To the point where people openly laugh if you try to create what would have been considered a "balanced" team back in the OG days.)  Adding to the problem is the fact that player distribution on Homecoming is sharply skewed...  We don't really have a bathtub curve anymore.  A higher proportion of the playerbase are experienced veterans resulting in a distribution that looks like a yeast growth curve.  This is especially bad at the upper levels where people have enough slots to be fully IO'ed out (and even Blasters can be reinforced to the point that they're practically tanks).

[Troo]

Brutes as an AT..

Using a visual that shall hence be referred to as Troo's Power Scale ©℗®™

 

[ under-powered | okay at the moment | overpowered ]

 

Brutes have achieved a nice sweat spot of being powerful, useful and still flexible enough to fill a variety roles. 

[Bopper]

Agree with the posts above, Brutes are just right. Maybe a hair on the overpowered side, but with recent tanker buffs the brutes sit in a nice spot with Scrappers and Tanks. Picking one over the other is really a choice in flavor.

[Troo]

This is not the AT you are looking for..

Move along.

[Snarky]

I started with Brutes.  Half my fully built toons are Brutes.  My first fully built toon on live and Homecoming: Brute.  Which means I am probably wrong, cause Brute players are just....yeah.

 

But rather than get into a My Cousin Vinny list of what makes me qualified.  🙂 I run Brutes.  The recent change was welcome.  No one likes getting their top damage capped lowered, but the Fury tweak was needed.  The nerf bat swung too hard back on live that last time.  This pushes it enough back to at least make an argument it is correct.

 

As has been pointed out, no one can come to agreement if they are overpowered or underpowered.  'nuff said.

 

Brutes Tank well, IF YOU BUILD FOR THAT.  It is not automatic.  The things are very easy to screw up, and with effort can be made into damage aura killing machines (that are only uber tough in one little farm map) and when building that way tend to have holes in a lot of places if you try to run TFs and Incarnate content.  I have a built out Tank, Invul/Dark. My first built out Brute.  SS/Invul.  Hands down the Tank is, well, tankier.  The Brute (1 billion inf build courtesy Hyperstrike) is nigh unkillable.  But I notice the difference in high end content.  But I get irritated with not doing enough damage on the Tank and end up back on my Brutes (Tank is my badger, so on it a lot) Brutes are that sweet spot of super tough and really good damage. 

 

The sweet spot.  Scrappers will always be jealous, and Tanks will always wish Brutes would fall off the face of Paragon.  But, someone has to be in the sweet spot.  I hated the nerf bat on live with Fury change, but it was the right thing to do.  Scrappers deserve that, and it realigned things pretty good. Glad the Homecoming team found a way to tweak that change and smooth it out.  Tanks can build to do damage, but they are not as flexible as Brutes for it. Scrappers can be righteously tough, but they cannot get as tough as Brutes. Brutes can build to come close to either Tanks or Scrappers depending on how you push it.  But never quite as Tanky, never quite as much damage.  Still, it is a very sweet spot.

 

I love Super Strength.  Conceptually as well as graphically.  They did a pretty good job with it.  so....Rage.  I have learned to deal with the Rage crash like a pro.  I eat inspirations, combine them, drop judgement power, use Alignment power, sands of mu.  Grrrrr, IT SUCKS.  Its going through a race track at 200 miles an hour and having to do a pit stop every 2 laps.  Not sure how to approach suggesting a change.  It.... I love SS, it fits a lot of my concepts.  I have ONE SS build out.  I am currently experimenting with Energy Melee on a Willpower Brute.  Just SMASH.

 

SMASH.  What I love about Brutes.  Forget scrapper lock.  I plop open the map, pick a hall and run down it.  Worried about the Alpha?  Heh.  I am BRINGING THE ALPHA.  

 

I know time is limited for DEVs to work a thousand different projects.  Super Strength RAGE could use a gentle thoughtful revamp. (which will piss off everyone who doesn't play it....and bring in more SS players)

 

Stone Armor.  give it some F-ing love.  At least let the fools get up on curbs.  something.  Also, does the outfit have to happen?  Really? Early armor, no love.

 

Bio Armor.  Havent played it.  FUGLY.  See Stone Armor. Really, it has to creep up on my costume?  Cause I could use it on undead....nope.  ruins concept. Newest armor, oldest problem.

 

Energy Melee.  It is a decent set.  I am having fun with it.  I never played it before they nerfed it 200 years ago.  But seriously.  maybe a little splash AoE, something....?

 

More Non weapon sets.  It is a Super powered game.  Glad we can have Thor and Thundarr and Cap.  But....lot of Supers use their...well...super powers instead of sticks.

 

better interface for area of effect non target AoE.  (like TP attacks)  One of the resons I don't run these things is in modern combat I cant find my mouse much less target the floor.  affects my decision not to run ice blasters as well (that I otherwise love)  Once you get past 30 or so and the teams graphics are crazy you cant accurately land these things.  so....useless.  and that kills a whole set.  any chance of a native to the GUI fix so that the power doesn't take a hacker to land the thing?

 

and a thousand other ideas.  you asked.

 

But seriously, if I could only run one character in the game, it would be a Brute.  Just an all around easy way to rumble through the night and enjoy smashing stuff for inf.

 

Thanks Homecoming team!

 

 

 

 

[Troo]

17 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Energy Melee.  It is a decent set.  I am having fun with it.  I never played it before they nerfed it 200 years ago.  But seriously.  maybe a little splash AoE, something....?

..that was 11 years, 7 months, 7 days ago (rue the day that went live)

• Nerf to Total Focus stun
• Energy Transfer went from 1 to 2.67 second animation (damage dealt after the animation completes)

[Snarky]

alternate animations for ice melee with no sword (fire too)  did I mention I hate weapons.  one reason why is disappearing, reappearing, disappearing.  make up my mind.  Just a simple ice punch IS IT REALLY THAT HARD????  thanks.

[Lazarillo]

I'm not a big fan of Fury, I'd typically rather play a Scrapper, typically.  The latest big patch helped with that a lot, though.

Now we just need the Rage fix to be un-undone!

[siolfir]

  

4 hours ago, Snarky said:

Energy Melee.  It is a decent set.  I am having fun with it.  I never played it before they nerfed it 200 years ago.  But seriously.  maybe a little splash AoE, something....?

They did that already, it's called Radiation Melee. It uses the same damage types and has attack animations shared with Energy Punch (Contaminated Strike), Bone Smasher (Radioactive Smash), and (new) Energy Transfer (Devastating Blow).

 

4 hours ago, Troo said:

..that was 11 years, 7 months, 7 days ago (rue the day that went live)

• Nerf to Total Focus stun
• Energy Transfer went from 1 to 2.67 second animation (damage dealt after the animation completes)

That parenthetical note is really key there - it's a huge change since when it was on the 1 second animation, half of the animation was pulling your hand back after you hit them and it dealt damage.

 

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

alternate animations for ice melee with no sword (fire too)  did I mention I hate weapons.  one reason why is disappearing, reappearing, disappearing.  make up my mind.  Just a simple ice punch IS IT REALLY THAT HARD????  thanks.

I also dislike weapon sets, and I'm hoping something comes from looking at the elemental sets referenced in this post from months ago:

 

As for Brutes? They're in a good spot. Changes to individual powersets would be appreciated, which is why I addressed my responses the way that I did earlier in this post, but since the powersets cross AT boundaries I think that it's not really what this thread is about.

 

As for favorites... I don't really have one. My first Brute when I got on Homecoming was a SS/Bio; I picked Bio Armor because I was waiting for it to go live when the shutdown notice occurred and never got to play one outside of a brief stint on beta (during which I played a Stalker!), and paired it with Super Strength because it was a common set that I knew (and knew I could skip a lot of) so I would just be playing a new secondary. It's the same reason that I went with Electric Armor when I wanted to try out Rad Melee. They're both good, they both play differently, and neither makes me feel as if I need to abandon other characters to play them like my Fortunata does at times.

 

[golstat2003]

Brutes are fine.

[GM Miss]

Great feedback so far. Only 5 AT's to go before we have covered them all! 

[Dreamboat]

Back on live I almost exclusively played Blaster, and since Homecoming started my main has been a Scrapper, but over the past couple of months I started playing a Katana/Willpower Brute on both blue and redside (you need to have a hero and then their nemesis, it's the rules). The novelty of "You can do this?? You can just not die??" still hasn't worn off. I guess some of that might just be how great Willpower is, but yeah.
My lack of experience with the AT doesn't lend my view much cred, but Brutes sure seem fine to me!

Edited February 17, 2020 by Dreamboat

[Tenkay Volts]

Brutes are a favourite of mine, though I am someone who does like going for high damage toons. I like their fury concept, it promotes and rewards constantly fighting, constantly being in battle to the point where it can be fun trying to maintain that overall endurance and be able to run out of one mob and straight into the next without having to wait for end or health etc. certainly fun things to build towards in IO sets.

 

My gripe with them was probably how they overshadows tanks in almost every aspect, being functionally about as survivable as they were yet having a TON more damage. The buffs to tanks to make them able to really hit some hard melee AoEs with the radius buffs does help differentiate it a bit though, which is nice.

 

Could we let them hit max fury though, rather than this 90% cap thing? could be cool to allow that whilst simultaneously reducing the generation rate slightly (at least in groups anyway, you'll go from 0 to 90% in seconds running into a full 8-man spawn which kind of defeats the purpose of it being there IMO)

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, 10kVolts said:

Could we let them hit max fury though, rather than this 90% cap thing? could be cool to allow that whilst simultaneously reducing the generation rate slightly (at least in groups anyway, you'll go from 0 to 90% in seconds running into a full 8-man spawn which kind of defeats the purpose of it being there IMO)

Nyet Nein Non Oh Hell No.  Take your hand off the nerf bat, and no one gets hurt.  Building a toon to survive the constant Alphas gets you that reward.  Invul Armor has no damage aura, but lets you do this, usually, if you build right.  Try it on Fire Armor every spawn.  Good thing you got the Rez power.

[siolfir]

16 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Nyet Nein Non Oh Hell No.  Take your hand off the nerf bat, and no one gets hurt.  Building a toon to survive the constant Alphas gets you that reward.  Invul Armor has no damage aura, but lets you do this, usually, if you build right.  Try it on Fire Armor every spawn.  Good thing you got the Rez power.

Now, now, let's not get carried away. Fiery Aura can be built to be very sturdy - more than most Blasters, even!

[Without_Pause]

4 hours ago, Dreamboat said:

Back on live I almost exclusively played Blaster, and since Homecoming started my main has been a Scrapper, but over the past couple of months I started playing a Katana/Willpower Brute on both blue and redside (you need to have a hero and then their nemesis, it's the rules). The novelty of "You can do this?? You can just not die??" still hasn't worn off. I guess some of that might just be how great Willpower is, but yeah.
My lack of experience with the AT doesn't lend my view much cred, but Brutes sure seem fine to me!

That's also partly on Kat. DA is a great bonus for almost any secondary.

 

Brutes have been my favorite thing to play in gaming. Yup, all of it. I have grown to love some other ATs which I didn't really play much on Live, but there's something about going into a mission,  going from point A to point B, and seeing the trail of bodies. 

[SeraphimKensai]

I posted the following in a thread about fury last week or so:

 

If it were up to me I'd change it so that Fury could actually scale a brute up to its Damage Cap at 100% fury and it would be easier to get there, but I feel that would need to have a counteragent to it, like reducing resistance/defense/regen on a scale after a certain point of fury as the Brute is so enraged it doesn't care to protect itself, it just wants it's enemies dead. I haven't thought out numbers for balance though.

 

Something like that might change how we play Brutes, rather than eating red Skittles, we might need orange or purple, but I think could be an interesting idea. And that would imo differentiate them from tanks, scrappers, and stalkers.

----

 

Tanks would tank, scrappers would be the general melee character like originally designed, stalkers are in an interesting place right now given their huge burst damage and defense like scrappers. Brutes would start out as they do, but as the fight goes on get stronger and stronger, but also weaker and weaker, so they end up being unique in that yes they could do the most damage of any melee class if they built up their fury that much, but also take the most damage (until they let up their attack, lowering their DPS and bringing back up their defensive (defense, resistance, regen) to pre smash the world levels.

 

Just an idea.

Edited February 17, 2020 by SeraphimKensai

[VileTerror]

An idea like that might be a good ATO Unique, Kensai.  If the Homecoming Team gets around to making a third Set of ATOs for each Archetype, the Unique for the Brute one could apply your idea.  Maybe a x2 multiplier on Fury Damage Bonus, but scaling in step with that a scaling up-to -20% Defense Debuff and up-to -50% Resistance Debuff.

[Jaguaratron]

They are fine, go change the stupid sentinel mechanic.

[Obus Form]

On ‎2‎/‎16‎/‎2020 at 8:59 AM, GM Miss said:

Weekly discussion 38 Week 2/16/20-2/22/20:

⚔️ YOU VOTED: It's time for Brutes! ⚔️

 

❓ Things to think about:

>How do they compare with other Tank/damaging ATs? With Dmg / with survivability?

>What is your favorite primary / secondary for them?

>Are they underpowered/overpowered/okay at the moment?

>What would you like to see changed?

>What do you love about them?

*Don't just use these questions, comment with more! 😄

Let's get talking! 

I agree with the majority of posters above that brutes are neither under nor overpowered, and have a well defined role and harmonious mixture of Damage/Survivability between Scrapper <--> Brute <--> Tanker despite its original design of existing in a world without direct teaming with, and thus direct comparison to, scrappers and tanks.

 

That being said, and as per above posters, the Brute power sets that are underperforming are underperforming for scrappers and tanks as well.  I'm specifically thinking of

- Stone Armor (where mez mitigation forces you to be rooted, and the set itself is a random mixture of defences/resists)

- Regen (Moment of Glory or bust)

- Stone Melee (the PBAOE taking 3.3 seconds to cast is a bit long)

- Cold Armor (virtually no enemies/TFs/iTrials use cold damage, and because -recharge and slow are virtually useless in end-game TFs and iTrials)

- Super Reflexes (a paper tank that, while thematically it makes sense for this game, is impractical in high-end TFs and iTrials)

 

It is only my personal preference that I find Dark Armour to be the strongest and most well-rounded armor set in the game:

- It is just enough defence to hit S/L 45% def soft cap

- Enough resist to "tank" everything except direct energy damage in iTrials

- Can even give -hit to nearby enemies

- Most powerful self-affecting click-heal in the game

 

Regarding end-game iTrial tanking, because the majority of damage is Energy damage, I find other armor sets (namely radiation armor hitting 90% Energy resist without team buffs) superior to Dark Armor.  It is only my conjecture that, if it weren't for the prevalence of pure Energy damage in iTrials, Dark Armor's performance would be slightly over powered since it doesn't have a Psy damage hole and has its heavy endurance requirement now partially or wholly mitigated with IOs, and incarnate powers, both of which were not in existence during the creation of Dark Armour.  I'm not asking for a Dark Armour nerf, and I say this because all my main Brutes use Dark Armor. Having tried my hand at other armor sets (and spending hundreds/thousands of hours tinkering in Mids since Mids launch and with limitless access to infamy/influence), I find most do not perform as well in the well-rounded manner (not jack-of-all-trades, but sometimes queen or king-of-all-trades) as Dark Armor.  If the next level of iTrials were based on negative energy damage (Dark Astoria??) or psy damage (Mother iTrial), I think Dark Armour would be the #1 performing armor set.

 

 

Edited February 18, 2020 by tinygodzilla
FOrmatting

[Blastit]

On 2/16/2020 at 7:20 PM, Doc_Scorpion said:

 

The basic problem with balancing the Scrapper<->Brute<->Tanker spectrum is...  that you can't really.  And Brutes can be cast as the entire cause of the problem.

Why?  Because of design decisions made a very long time ago.  The original spectrum, much easier to balance, was Scrapper <-> Tanker blueside.  When Brutes were introduced, they were isolated redside and their "neither fish nor fowl" design made sense.  (Redside was to some degree better balanced around solo play.)  Going Rogue/Issue 18 irrevocably broke that balance by allowing all three onto the same playing field, a condition which they had never been designed for.

Every discussion about Brutes (and Scrappers and Tankers) needs to take this into account.  Trying to "balance" the three archetypes and give them unique niches is trying to unscrew the inscrutable.  A fool's errand.  (And we just spent months over in the Beta forums going around in this circle.)

Another issue with unique niches is that the whole concept is (at best) obsolescent if not all but obsolete.  Unique niches originated in the era of tactical gameplay...  When "No AT was required, but every AT could play a role".  Power creep has all but destroyed that concept.  (To the point where people openly laugh if you try to create what would have been considered a "balanced" team back in the OG days.)  Adding to the problem is the fact that player distribution on Homecoming is sharply skewed...  We don't really have a bathtub curve anymore.  A higher proportion of the playerbase are experienced veterans resulting in a distribution that looks like a yeast growth curve.  This is especially bad at the upper levels where people have enough slots to be fully IO'ed out (and even Blasters can be reinforced to the point that they're practically tanks).

I don't mean tactical niches, I mean playstyle. I think it's fine if tankers and brutes are pretty interchangeable on a team and I think it's fine if scrappers and brutes are pretty interchangeable on a team, as long as each of them feels different to play and they're all kept fairly even in power.

 

The IO system is a huge design problem and "should" be massively overhauled but that's likely currently outside the scope of what HC can and should do. City of Heroes 2 would be necessary to deal with all the problems this game legitimately has but that's a bit of a dream.

[Snarky]

I have a Dark Dark Brute posted in Brute forum that handles incarnate content well. 49% energy resists. Recharge Monster so PBAoE heal is just spammed as part of the attack chain.  He does die. But in incarnate rials so does my Invul Tank

Edited February 19, 2020 by Snarky