Weekly Discussion 38: Brutes!

[Marine X]

All of my Brutes on Live were Redside and I think I might have gotten the highest one to about 35, Hemlock ( Dark/Dark ). On Homecoming playing a Brute Blueside I finally have a 50, Bubba Burns, Radiation Melee / Fiery Aura and really enjoy playing him. He's not a Farm Build so I can pretty much do anything with him and be productive. Have done very little except a few GMs , Zombie Apocalypse and MSRs where I used him to Tank for a group, I end up Soloing most of the time due to when I play. Getting him badged out and his Incarnates are getting there with Alpha T4 and the next 2 T3, rest are T2. Really think he is good the way he is but without having been here before I have limited experience. Changed one of my Brutes from Live to Tank while still on live ( AC Volt, Elect/Elect ) but have a couple concepts in Mind for a few. I have a sneaking suspicion that Hemlock's name is LONG GONE. lol.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Marine X

[Murcielago]

I wish brutes were as strong as scrappers. They're so weak and puny. Scrappers really are a lot stronger. The only advantage that brutes have over Scrappers is having Super Strength, which should be remedied any day now. Then the new devs can finally delete brutes from the game. this is just a joke

[MrAxe]

Tbh I'd be in favour of getting rid of them because of all the problems they caused when they came blueside but I'm not mental. Its never going to happen.

[Snarky]

Brutes came to Blueside and caused problems?  Says who?  Fughedaboutit

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 2/18/2020 at 1:59 PM, tinygodzilla said:

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

 

lol... wut?

[Shred Monkey]

I think the changes tanks got for size and count of AoE powers, should kick in for brutes if above a certain fury level... make that level high so it's hard to hit, but  definitely worth trying. 

[Obus Form]

10 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

lol... wut?

A paper tank = a tank that would fold/die if it took AV damage at the level of iTrials.

 

Super reflexes has no resists or heals, thus "paper" thin.

[Bill Z Bubba]

19 minutes ago, tinygodzilla said:

Super reflexes has no resists or heals, thus "paper" thin.

 

I see this posted all the time and always chuckle. SR has scaling dam-res that stacks on the Reactive Defenses-Scaling Dam-res Proc. More HP the SR user has, the quicker it hits the dam-res cap. Capped dam-res on top of softcapped defenses is far from "paper thin."

 

No self-heal? True. It doesn't need it.

[Obus Form]

16 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I see this posted all the time and always chuckle. SR has scaling dam-res that stacks on the Reactive Defenses-Scaling Dam-res Proc. More HP the SR user has, the quicker it hits the dam-res cap. Capped dam-res on top of softcapped defenses is far from "paper thin."

 

No self-heal? True. It doesn't need it.

Specifically, I'm referring to iTrials since everyone, even blasters, can tank (via softcapped S/L) non iTrial content:

 

The ideal situation for the SR armor set to actualize it's resists is to take small amounts of consistent damage (like eating machine gun damage from Council guns in a slow but gradual mamner) that allow the resist to build up until maximized.  But in iTrials, especially when grabbing aggro from AVs, the idea of having low resist will mean you will dodge 90% of all hits, but the one or two hits that get through your defence might totally kill/almost kill/bring you to 1/2 HP, specifically because SR scaling resists come into play after you've taken damage, not before.  As a brute who has aggro in iTrials, running around with 1/2 HP while holding aggro presents a risk that, should another set of damage get through your defence, you might die, thus exposing your squish team.

 

The iTrials random AOE damage that's also unavoidable and tons of adds spawning doesn't help either.  With all the fire thrown at you, the fact that you can't lose aggro easily (cause you're a brute), not having layered defences already available (defence + pre-existing resist + regen or self heal) makes the SR set riskier to play than any other set that has already existing resists such as Invincibility, Dark Armour, Energy Aura, etc.

 

Separately, almost every archetype, with IOs, can reach soft cap (to only S/L, or all positions, or all damage types except psy, or some variant of this) to non iTrials content.  When VEATs can by themselves reach all 3 positional softcaps for iTrials (I believe it's 59%) without click buffs, and have existing resists that don't require missing HP, reaching the soft cap is now a normal standard and no longer a bench mark of success.  Sadly, SR seemed originally designed with the intent of reaching soft cap being it's selling point.  The addition of resists scaling as your health got lower was added in later to bring it up to par with resist-based sets, but it never mitigated the risks quite like it's resist based brethren

[Bill Z Bubba]

21 minutes ago, tinygodzilla said:

Specifically, I'm referring to iTrials since everyone, even blasters, can tank (via softcapped S/L) non iTrial content:

 

iTrials where one would expect the lead tank/brute to already be heavily incarnated? And if smart, running barrier where even as it scales down, SR's passive resists will scale up.

 

My current claws/sr brute sits at 40% S/L DR and 30% F/C DR, softcapped defense and 2250 HP regening at 32HP/sec before the scaling dam-res is even considered. Survivability isn't an issue.

 

And no, blasters can't tank. They can occasionally survive alpha strikes. That isn't tanking.

 

EDIT: Going tank with the same build: over incarnate softcap, 55% S/L DR, 36% F/C DR, 2800 HP and regen at 40 HP/Sec.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Obus Form]

4 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

iTrials where one would expect the lead tank/brute to already be heavily incarnated? And if smart, running barrier where even as it scales down, SR's passive resists will scale up.

 

My current claws/sr brute sits at 40% S/L DR and 30% F/C DR, softcapped defense and 2250 HP regening at 32HP/sec before the scaling dam-res is even considered. Survivability isn't an issue.

 

An no, blasters can't tank. They can occasionally survive alpha strikes. That isn't tanking.

Okay

[siolfir]

So clearly the takeaway from these last several posts is that SR (and Fiery Aura) Brutes are (usually) better at tanking than Blasters.

[Obus Form]

Below are some possible ideas to give SR "resist" given the theme/name of SR. There may be ways to scale its toughness so that the player has more of a reaction time:

 

STAGGERED  DAMAGE:

This would be a brand new mechanic, and/or something similar to the Pain Domination power where the caster hurts himself in the future (delayed onset future damage). Could flavour name it "Drunken Brawler" that allows "all damage bigger than 35% of your max HP to be dealt over 4 seconds" thus preventing SR from getting one-shot by a lucky shot AND guaranteeing the player use from scaling-resist by losing HP over 4 seconds AND allowing for reaction time/counter play to the incoming damage that innate resists would allow.

 

You could make this power a click active to reward good counterplay (if you choose to make SR a high risk/high reward set), or passive (to allow for more reaction time).  You could even use it as a "Heal" where after you click you get a buff "for the next 60 seconds, all damage taken is staggered over 4 seconds), and make it on a 90 or 120 seconds CD.  This way high recharge builds always have at least one stack of this buff (and cap this buff at 1 stack maximum regardless).

 

Averaging 2100+ HP on a brute that does not have innate %HP boosters in its power set (like willpower), 35% would be about 700 damage, which is about how much energy I take on my brute at 45% energy resist from one big attack by Seige (anecdotal experience, not empirical).  The 35% also allows such that many sources of BIG damage taken at once will still kill you quick (a gigantic DOT over 4 seconds). 

 

DEFENCE/HP--> RESISTS or ABSORB

To reward a lot of HP or lots of defence, and without needing to develop a new set of calculations like staggered damage, the SR set can directly convert % of defence or % of max HP (whatever number or ratio desired) into direct resist across the board except psy (flavour because super reflexes don't help against psychic type damage).  "You move so fast that some of the damage hitting you hits you really lightly".  

 

You could, instead of direct conversion to resist, convert it to an absorb shield that grows (up to a cap) with every dodge you do and starts at max when you cast the buff or toggle.  Flavour it "Learning through doing.  As you fight you learn your opponents moves and can even parry some shots"  where parry means you take less damage or have an absorb shield. This way, successive lucky shots still kill you but yo have effectively a huge HP bar that replenish itself by dodging incoming attacks, which is effectively the same as willpower HP regen that scales to the amount of HP you have, and scales to the number of mobs surrounding you.

 

Thoughts?

[VileTerror]

I think that if you wish to discuss Super Reflexes, as they relate to all Archetypes, then the Brute Week discussion may not actually be the ideal place for it.

[Obus Form]

2 hours ago, VileTerror said:

I think that if you wish to discuss Super Reflexes, as they relate to all Archetypes, then the Brute Week discussion may not actually be the ideal place for it.

I'm specifically asking as it relates to Brute tanking because SR currently doesn't compare to other tanking sets for Brutes.  Of course it applies to Scrappers/Tanks.  And the problem with the SR set is something I would like fixed per GM Miss' "What would you like to see changed?" question.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Obus Form

[nzer]

On 2/16/2020 at 10:20 AM, Doc_Scorpion said:

The basic problem with balancing the Scrapper<->Brute<->Tanker spectrum is...  that you can't really.

I don't think this is true at all. As you've pointed out, Scrappers, Brutes, and Tankers exist on a spectrum with damage potential on one end and survivability/utility on the other, and there's nothing inherently impossible, or even difficult, about balancing that spectrum. Yes, Brutes deal more damage than Tankers while having roughly the same survivability, but Tankers provide significantly more utility, so as long as the damage differential is small enough that the additional utility makes for a worthwhile trade the two are balanced.

 

I'd argue the Tanker buffs have accomplished that.

On 2/19/2020 at 3:49 AM, Blastit said:

The IO system is a huge design problem and "should" be massively overhauled

There's nothing systematically wrong with IO sets, the worst you can say about them is that they're overtuned. And that's a pretty small problem when a well constructed team can still steamroll the game in just SOs and without incarnates. Leadership auras are a bigger design problem than IO sets.

[GM Miss]

This topic is now locked, check the ongoing thread for a weekly recap and right back here in general discussion for next weeks convo! 

 

See you then!