Why not just roll a scrapper or tanker?

[BLVD]

I love melee builds and have lost count of how many I've made on Homecoming.. but they're all stalkers, scrappers, or tankers (with the exception of a couple brutes I didn't enjoy and deleted - Katana/Elec and DB/FA). I only have one brute and it's for farming. So, please sell me on why I would want to pick a brute. Is it just the set between a tanker and scrapper? Or is there a certain role it has that I'm just not seeing? I've never felt that my tankers didn't do enough damage, especially on my FA/DM and FA/EM lately. And if I just care about damage, I'd go scrapper because of their performance with the ATO's.

 

Is it just the AT for players who want something in between a tanker and scrapper? Do brutes shine in any areas where other AT's don't? Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I've been wanting to make a brute that I can fall in love with and had to get some more info. 

[Erratic1]

 Brutes have higher damage than Tankers and hit higher resistance caps (when that is what your protective powerset is focused on) than Scrappers. 

[Parabola]

Brutes have some advantages. Vs scrappers they get taunt auras in all secondary sets and they have higher resist caps and more hp. They also get their damage in a very predictable straightforward way. The crit mechanism is inherently streaky, sometimes you waste a load of crit damage on a target that doesn't need it, sometimes you don't crit when it would be useful. Scrappers do more damage than brutes in general but I'm not sure that the gap in damage is as big as the gap in survivability.

 

Vs tanks, brutes do more damage in single target and sometimes in aoe. This is a bit muddy with the arc/area bonus tanks get and the fact that they can leverage procs more effectively (needing to slot for survival less). Under high damage buff scenarios a brute will way outstrip a tank though (hence farming brutes). Tanks are a lot tougher than brutes though, particularly taking ato's into account. I often struggle to choose between them.

 

The other factor vs both scrappers and tanks is that brutes are a joy to level. Fury really takes the pain out of early levels. They also generally have better power progression than tanks with getting attacks earlier and at the same time being tough enough when compared to scrappers that can feel a bit squishie at lower levels.

[BLVD]

2 hours ago, parabola said:

Brutes have some advantages. Vs scrappers they get taunt auras in all secondary sets and they have higher resist caps and more hp. They also get their damage in a very predictable straightforward way. The crit mechanism is inherently streaky, sometimes you waste a load of crit damage on a target that doesn't need it, sometimes you don't crit when it would be useful. Scrappers do more damage than brutes in general but I'm not sure that the gap in damage is as big as the gap in survivability.

Thanks for the explanation. I think this gave me a good idea of the difference between brutes and scrappers. Now I'd just need to decide on when to choose a brute over a tanker. I think the main benefit is that brute's would have more dmg and melee abilities at earlier levels. 

 

Another thing I'm wondering about though is if there are any melee powersets that are better on brutes than tankers? 

[carroto]

20 minutes ago, tan702 said:

brute's would have more dmg and melee abilities at earlier levels.

If you exemplar much this can be significant.  Depending on the power set a Tanker can end up with a very limited attack chain at lower levels.  This is one of the main criteria I look at when considering an attack set for a new Tanker.  Unfortunately there are a lot of sets that have real problems in this area.  It's made much worse by being forced into taking the first attack in the set, which is often the worst.

 

To address your OP a bit...I have always seen it the other way around.  I can't bring myself to make a Scrapper.  Sure they do more damage, but given how much damage Brutes do along with greater survivability I haven't been able to see the appeal of Scrappers.  Probably the biggest appeal for me is the auto-taunt.  Dealing with runners is no fun on a melee toon, and Brutes pretty much don't have that problem.  If I'm going to deal with it, I'll roll a Stalker, because they have a more interesting mechanic.  So for me it's Scrappers that just don't have a unique place.

[Haijinx]

That is a good point

 

Brutes are very powerful offensively at low levels.  Since Fury works right from Level 1.  

 

Better at very low levels than scrappers.   Much better below 30 than tanks. 

 

Of course tanks defensively can say the inverse. 

[Haijinx]

A couple powersets are very good on Brutes.

 

Invul for example.  Tanks end up pegging the resist caps, So do scrappers at their lower cap.  Brutes can leverage this.  

 

Attack sets with lower than normal dmg bonus work in Brutes favor.   

 

Also SS is probably still better than with Tankers, less advantage from Rage, but tankers gain no AOE distance on footstomp. 

[Hyperstrike]

Brutes more or less run a fine balance between Scrapper damage and Tanker toughness.
Additionally, it allows you some Attack/Armor combos that Scrappers just don't have access to.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, tan702 said:

Another thing I'm wondering about though is if there are any melee powersets that are better on brutes than tankers? 

 

It may very well work on a Tanker, but I started an SS/Bio Brute this past weekend. I was thinking, "Offensive Stance + Rage, what's not to love?'

 

Well, Rage is complicated and Offensive Stance...move over, because your master is Efficient Stance. The thing I discovered is that I take little enough damage that so long as I have endurance, I can continually be on the go, not pausing to recover health or endurance. If you stay on the go, your Fury stays up. And Fury significantly trumps the damage bonus from Offensive Stance.

 

A thing I am going to have to test is the Rage crash. I was using Rage and running between spawns above and did not notice the crash. Maybe I was moving between spawns, so I am going to have to specifically test this though. Moreover it was nothing special in terms of difficulty, so the crash may be more significant when trying to gear for +4/8.

 

 

[brasilgringo]

3 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

It may very well work on a Tanker, but I started an SS/Bio Brute this past weekend. I was thinking, "Offensive Stance + Rage, what's not to love?'

 

Well, Rage is complicated and Offensive Stance...move over, because your master is Efficient Stance. The thing I discovered is that I take little enough damage that so long as I have endurance, I can continually be on the go, not pausing to recover health or endurance. If you stay on the go, your Fury stays up. And Fury significantly trumps the damage bonus from Offensive Stance.

 

A thing I am going to have to test is the Rage crash. I was using Rage and running between spawns above and did not notice the crash. Maybe I was moving between spawns, so I am going to have to specifically test this though. Moreover it was nothing special in terms of difficulty, so the crash may be more significant when trying to gear for +4/8.

 

 

I've been using a Rad/SS tank build I got from the forums and it's an absolute beast.  I believe it's the version below.  The rage crash is annoying but manageable.  I farm with this toon.  It's not as fast as a fire or rad farming brute, but it's got so much more playability in general content. 

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[nihilii]

12 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Also SS is probably still better than with Tankers, less advantage from Rage, but tankers gain no AOE distance on footstomp. 

Yours is a rational intuition I'm inclined to share relatively to other powersets (less of a buff), but I'm not sure it works out that way in practice. Double Rage is truly insane on a Tanker with no Fury / higher damage mod, and Tanker survivability has an easier time handling crashes. Going from 15 feet to 22.5 feet would be awesome but probably isn't as meaningful as 10 to 15 as well, quite often 15 feet PBAoEs hit most targets in a standard mob group as is (and you still benefit from hitting 16 rather than 10).

 

Basically, SS may have gotten less of a buff from Tanker changes, but that might be because it started so overtuned for Tankers in the first place.

[Erratic1]

11 hours ago, brasilgringo said:

I've been using a Rad/SS tank build I got from the forums and it's an absolute beast.  I believe it's the version below.  The rage crash is annoying but manageable.  I farm with this toon.  It's not as fast as a fire or rad farming brute, but it's got so much more playability in general content. 

 

 

I am awed and more than a little terrified.😲

 

Did get a chance to repeatedly test Rage crashing and yeah, it just wasn't painful (at least at +2...nowhere near built enough to contemplate +4/8). Where it would be dangerous, at least with how I have to approach harder content currently, would be if I were in Defensive stance and hence might be lower in endurance, and experienced the crash. However I have been following advice I got somewhere along the way and only running Accuracy IOs atm, so no Endurance Modifications in Stamina or Inexhaustable. 

[twozerofoxtrot]

Sorry for the necro, but just didn't see anyone push back on this:

On 1/19/2021 at 6:40 AM, Haijinx said:

Invul for example.  Tanks end up pegging the resist caps, So do scrappers at their lower cap.  Brutes can leverage this.  

Do you mean Tanks end up going over the resist caps? Because they don't have to if you don't shove your S/L resist powers full of IO that would make them. Take those slots, put them somewhere else. Or skip one of the T1 powers altogether (not my preference, but it can work). This makes Invul for Tankers arguably better because you can dedicate those slots or power choices elsewhere. 


Full Disclaimer: I have an Inv/SS tanker and SS/WP brute and they're both my favorite characters. 

Edited January 27, 2021 by twozerofoxtrot

[Haijinx]

8 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Sorry for the necro, but just didn't see anyone push back on this:

Do you mean Tanks end up going over the resist caps? Because they don't have to if you don't shove your S/L resist powers full of IO that would make them. Take those slots, put them somewhere else. Or skip one of the T1 powers altogether (not my preference, but it can work). This makes Invul for Tankers arguably better because you can dedicate those slots or power choices elsewhere. 


Full Disclaimer: I have an Inv/SS tanker and SS/WP brute and they're both my favorite characters. 

True.

 

I was more thinking that a Brute can get a lot more resist than a scrapper, but when fury is high be a bit under scrapper damage.  

 

Generally only for S/L though.  But that's the big one anyway.

[roleki]

Maybe I'm doing it wrong but when I've taken comparable Scrappers and Brutes through a 4/8 farm map, on top of having higher resists and more HP/higher raw regen, my Brutes tend to spend MUCH less time making survival clicks, much less time trying to round up mobs, and  are consistently 100-300% above my Scrappers in global damage bonus. 

 

Scrappers crit and are capable of way more burst damage, but seems to me Brutes are more consistent.

 

In terms of clearing a 4/8 cave map, my experience has been that Brutes clear them faster/more completely (and therefore get more inf/xp) because mobs only run TOWARDS Brutes; once they get in range, they don't get a chance to run off because the only clicks I am performing launch attacks that kill them. It takes Brutes longer to kill the bosses/EBs, but on balance my Brutes mow through farm maps much faster than Scrappers of the same build.

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 1/29/2021 at 10:26 AM, roleki said:

In terms of clearing a 4/8 cave map, my experience has been that Brutes clear them faster/more completely

Mixed bag. While my claws/sr brute would seem to be more efficient thanks to holding aggro which decreases the chance of runners, in the end, the claws/sr scrapper still kills so much faster that when comparing 100% clear all DA repeatables at max diff, the scrapper still gets it done quite a bit faster. Sadly, thanks to the way tanks were buffed here on Homecoming, even the sr/claws tank is faster at clearing missions than the claws/sr brute just due to the increased power of their AoEs.

 

Edit: the brute still wins against single hard targets like AVs and pylons, of course. Tanks were overbuffed, regardless. They should NEVER beat brutes on damage output, aoe or st.

Edited January 30, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Haijinx]

36 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Mixed bag. While my claws/sr brute would seem to be more efficient thanks to holding aggro which decreases the chance of runners, in the end, the claws/sr scrapper still kills so much faster that when comparing 100% clear all DA repeatables at max diff, the scrapper still gets it done quite a bit faster. Sadly, thanks to the way tanks were buffed here on Homecoming, even the sr/claws tank is faster at clearing missions than the claws/sr brute just due to the increased power of their AoEs.

 

Edit: the brute still wins against single hard targets like AVs and pylons, of course. Tanks were overbuffed, regardless. They should NEVER beat brutes on damage output, aoe or st.

Brutes still do more AOE damage in a magnitude sense though, right?  Just Tankers can affect more targets, and hitting more is much easier.  

 

Making Tanker do more in actual play.  

 

 

[Apparition]

51 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Mixed bag. While my claws/sr brute would seem to be more efficient thanks to holding aggro which decreases the chance of runners, in the end, the claws/sr scrapper still kills so much faster that when comparing 100% clear all DA repeatables at max diff, the scrapper still gets it done quite a bit faster. Sadly, thanks to the way tanks were buffed here on Homecoming, even the sr/claws tank is faster at clearing missions than the claws/sr brute just due to the increased power of their AoEs.

 

Edit: the brute still wins against single hard targets like AVs and pylons, of course. Tanks were overbuffed, regardless. They should NEVER beat brutes on damage output, aoe or st.

 

You're correct that Tankers were overbuffed and do too much damage now.  However, comparing a Claws Brute to a Claws Scrapper or a Claws Tanker is a flawed sample.  Claws (and Dual Blades), will always perform poorly on Brutes in comparison to Scrappers and Tankers, because of Follow Up, (and Blinding Feint).  The +DMG does them a disservice due to the way that Fury works.  (Same for Super Strength in comparison between Brutes and Tankers as well, with the +DMG from Rage.)

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 hours ago, Apparition said:

You're correct that Tankers were overbuffed and do too much damage now.  However, comparing a Claws Brute to a Claws Scrapper or a Claws Tanker is a flawed sample.  Claws (and Dual Blades), will always perform poorly on Brutes in comparison to Scrappers and Tankers, because of Follow Up, (and Blinding Feint).  The +DMG does them a disservice due to the way that Fury works.  (Same for Super Strength in comparison between Brutes and Tankers as well, with the +DMG from Rage.)

How is this not true for buildup? It is. Therefore it's not a flawed example at all. It's true for every powerset.

 

5 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Brutes still do more AOE damage in a magnitude sense though, right?  Just Tankers can affect more targets, and hitting more is much easier.  

 

Making Tanker do more in actual play.  

I don't believe this to be the case. Otherwise, brutes would clear missions faster. Or I misread your post. Either way, in actual play is the important part.

Edited January 31, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Haijinx]

If you hit your AOE vs one target, the Brute with fury going should do more damage than the tanker.

 

So more magnitude.  

 

But the tanker will usually hit more targets, so the total damage is higher.

[Snarky]

I just levelled a Invul/SS Tanker.  This thing kills....s l o w l y.  I have the same build as a SS/Invul Brute and it kills faster.  There are some power choice differences that go into that.  (no taunt on Brute) and then building to Tankiness instead of damage.  I build a Tank to Tank.  I build a Brute to shrug off most damage and kill.  If I was going to build an armored car I would start with the heaviest chassis I could get and add armor.  If i was going to build a destructo wagon I would get a heavy car and armor it but also try to cram as much heavy weapons as I could get.  That is the main difference between the two ATs for me.  They do different jobs so I build them different ways.  So even with the recent Tanker buff (nice) I still build the Tank for Tankiness.  Why not a scrapper?  Because Brutes can survive (almost) anything and deal very good damage.  Giving that survivability up to deal very very good damage is not for me.  Also, the uncontrollability of the crit mechanic is annoying.

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 1/31/2021 at 2:42 AM, Haijinx said:

If you hit your AOE vs one target, the Brute with fury going should do more damage than the tanker.

 

So more magnitude.  

 

But the tanker will usually hit more targets, so the total damage is higher.

True.

 

Unfortunately, the difference between overall mitigation is far greater than the difference in damage output. At this point, the only reason I'd roll another brute would be if I planned to lvl cap them at 40 or so.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

True.

 

Unfortunately, the difference between overall mitigation is far greater than the difference in damage output. At this point, the only reason I'd roll another brute would be if I planned to lvl cap them at 40 or so.

I was thinking they might do pretty well if you do the weekly TFs a lot. 

 

Fury is nice for all levels.  They get a lot more attacks than Tankers at low level. You can probably get enough survival if you don't get stupid.  SR progression is great on brutes for example.

 

But its kind of sad for them to go from one of the best Incarnate options to one of the also rans   

[Haijinx]

20 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

True.

 

Unfortunately, the difference between overall mitigation is far greater than the difference in damage output. At this point, the only reason I'd roll another brute would be if I planned to lvl cap them at 40 or so.

So a thought.  What if they increased Brute mitigation numbers slightly?

 

Instead of Brute/Scrapper/Stalker 75%

Sent 70%

 

Make Brute 80-5%  ish. Whatever makes sense.   

 

This would run them another step towards Tankers. 

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

So a thought.  What if they increased Brute mitigation numbers slightly?

 

Instead of Brute/Scrapper/Stalker 75%

Sent 70%

 

Make Brute 80-5%  ish. Whatever makes sense.   

 

This would run them another step towards Tankers. 

 

Uhhh... Brutes are already 90%, just like Tankers.