Why not just roll a scrapper or tanker?

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, Erratic1 said:

Where does this notion come from and why is  it so popular. The ATs are different and the game gives them different damage and resistance scales. You are NOT going to use the same slotting to reach resistance cap on a Tanker that you are going to have to use on a Brute. To do so would be to ignore the actuality of how the ATs are actually built and played in the game.

 

For example, take Electrical Armor. A tanker sticks 3 SOs in Charged Armor and  3 more in Tough and is at 79.24% Smashing/Lethal resistance (55.47% Energy). By contrast a Brute is at  59.43% Smashing Lethal resistance (41.6% Energy). The Brute is going to have to invest very differently to cap with IOs than the Tanker will and people in play will do those different investments. They are not going to artificially slot identically and relying on identical slotting to say something is going to end up saying something not at all related to the actual game situation.

 

If you do not build to reflect reality than you're not talking about reality.

No the point is you can't compare the results of a claws SR scrapper to a Shield EM tanker.

[ScarySai]

Brute has the best variant of savage, is the strongest base melee AT (no ATO reliance), and when fully buffed up via insps or teammates, is essentially just as beefy as a tank, while meeting scrappers on dps.

 

They don't specialize in anything and lack the godlike ATOs that scrappers, tanks and stalkers have, but they still have the capacity to be one of the scariest things in the game.

 

Pylon tests and the parameters of said tests do not favor how brutes actually work.

[Replacement]

2 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Where does this notion come from and why is  it so popular? The ATs are different and the game gives them different damage and resistance scales. You are NOT going to use the same slotting to reach resistance cap on a Tanker that you are going to have to use on a Brute. To do so would be to ignore the actuality of how the ATs are actually built and played in the game.

 

For example, take Electrical Armor. A tanker sticks 3 SOs in Charged Armor and  3 more in Tough and is at 79.24% Smashing/Lethal resistance (55.47% Energy). By contrast a Brute is at  59.43% Smashing Lethal resistance (41.6% Energy). The Brute is going to have to invest very differently to cap with IOs than the Tanker will and people in play will do those different investments. They are not going to artificially slot identically and relying on identical slotting to say something is going to end up saying something not at all related to the actual game situation.

 

If you do not build to reflect reality than you're not talking about reality.

Context, mostly.

 

If you're talking about pylon times, it's important to understand the things that matter to pylon times.

Sets that are more defensive in nature?  Out.

AoE driven sets? Out.

 

If we're talking about someone saturating AoO for a self-fulcrum on what is undisputedly the strongest ST melee set, that's a whole hell of a lot of context to just ignore.

 

Sidenote here: Galaxy Brain's mission tests actually show the new EM as somewhere in the middle of the pack. That's because under that context, they are not the top performer.

 

I actually brought this up in dismay during i27 testing, that they weren't actually testing that high... Until we started seeing @Infinitum's pylon times and other reports on AV destruction.

Turns out balance is hard and we need to keep all of this context in mind before making blanket statements.

 

For these reasons, denying the specifics of chosen sets is denying the reality of those sets.

[Replacement]

19 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

We are capable of agreement. I am capable of separating my ability to have fun from my views of balance.

 

Which is why I have an em/shield brute and identically built shield/em tank on beta.

It's why I have a claws/sr scrapper, brute and sr/claws tank.

You're right when doing strict data crunching, that is the way to go.

 

And what we've all agreed on with various amounts of testing is that for clearing maps the brute still beats the tank. Where the arguments all come from is that some of us think the time difference is far too close between the two while others don't. In the end, as you can see from the back and forth, it doesn't matter at all. Some of us just like arguing for one reason or another. I can type til I'm blue in the face but don't expect what I see as a problem to ever be corrected. But I'm stubborn to a fault.

So... This is all very reasonable! No but's; just wanted to give you a call-out for this.

 

---

 

Something you said previously has continued to bounce around in my head, and I wonder if it may be a better avenue of explaining some of the deficiency: the inconsistent rule of 90%

 

So if tanker is a 10 for survival, brutes are a 9.

If Brute damage is a 10, tanker is a 9.

(Remember, these are only relative to each other, not other ATs)

 

I think what you may be coming across is that in practice, that only explains their performance caps.

 

At the bottom of the scales, brutes are a 7.5 on the survival scale, while a tanker maintains a 9 on their damage.

 

So while I'm still mostly going to side with Infinitum and say I think Tanker buffs were warranted, I think there's an argument that they don't give much up to reach those heights - meanwhile a brute needs outside buffs or a terrible amount of defensive IO investment to get to their 9 survival.

 

This doesn't change the fact that I need to see better data comparisons, but I think perhaps BZB's issue is more a crisis of convenience: tankers give up nothing to be able to come so close in contribution.

 

(Not convinced they need it, but the Tanker nerf to consider first is to lower their 10-target caps to 8 to match the logic of their 16s).

[Infinitum]

9 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Not convinced they need it, but the Tanker nerf to consider first is to lower their 10-target caps to 8 to match the logic of their 16s).

They really don't - in practice what They gained is convenience that made them more fun - in reality they are still the slowest out of the 4 by every measurable test.

 

i would still play them either way but IMO they didn't gain enough to give up any thing because they were too low to begin with.

[Bopper]

8 minutes ago, Replacement said:

At the bottom of the scales, brutes are a 7.5 on the survival scale, while a tanker maintains a 9 on their damage

I disagree. When not at caps with damage, Fury greatly separates the offensive performance away from tankers. Assuming 75% fury (+150% damage) and 100% damage enhancement you're looking at Brutes doing 0.75 x (1 + 1 + 1.5) = 2.625, while Tanks would sit at 0.95 x (1 + 1) = 1.9.  In that scenario, the Brute will average 38.2% more damage than the tank. 

 

I don't know a good way to add in the extra average damage from the increased AoE for tankers, but let's say it's worth 20% more performance (arbitrarily picked as I nor anyone else has done fair analysis on this). So if we give Tanks that arbitrary buff, 1.9 x 1.2 = 2.28. This makes brutes 15% more than Tanks in this scenario. So it might be more fair to say a Brute is a 9 at damage near base levels, while Tanks are an 7.5-8.0.

[Galaxy Brain]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

To put it another way, an Energy tank shouldn't even be able to get a better pylon time than a Spines scrapper since no scrapper can ever reach tank mitigation values.

No, that is ok.

 

The #1 ST set should probably outperform the worst ST set even between ATs with different damage values. Much like how a spines tank will likely wipe a mission faster than an EM Stalker which would blow all the rest out of the water with ST pylon times which do not even matter in real gameplay.

 

If we wanna compare pylon times, why not only run stalkers or debuffers which ruin pylons?

[Parabola]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

Where does this notion come from and why is  it so popular? The ATs are different and the game gives them different damage and resistance scales. You are NOT going to use the same slotting to reach resistance cap on a Tanker that you are going to have to use on a Brute. To do so would be to ignore the actuality of how the ATs are actually built and played in the game.

 

For example, take Electrical Armor. A tanker sticks 3 SOs in Charged Armor and  3 more in Tough and is at 79.24% Smashing/Lethal resistance (55.47% Energy). By contrast a Brute is at  59.43% Smashing Lethal resistance (41.6% Energy). The Brute is going to have to invest very differently to cap with IOs than the Tanker will and people in play will do those different investments. They are not going to artificially slot identically and relying on identical slotting to say something is going to end up saying something not at all related to the actual game situation.

 

If you do not build to reflect reality than you're not talking about reality.

Was just coming here to say exactly this. Comparing mirrored builds isn't proving anything; there is a point beyond which more survivability is superfluous but there is no practical limit to the usefulness of more damage. When both AT's are built to a practical level of survivability tanks have much more freedom to explore things like heavy proc slotting. This closes the gap in favour of tanks while still allowing them to be tougher.

[Infinitum]

2 minutes ago, parabola said:

Was just coming here to say exactly this. Comparing mirrored builds isn't proving anything; there is a point beyond which more survivability is superfluous but there is no practical limit to the usefulness of more damage. When both AT's are built to a practical level of survivability tanks have much more freedom to explore things like heavy proc slotting. This closes the gap in favour of tanks while still allowing them to be tougher.

On the same token brute dmg cap is much higher - one that a tanker can never reach - the brute can reach tanker levels of survivability.

[Galaxy Brain]

@Replacement hit the nail on the head with testing as well. My mission sim is meant to test just that: your average mission clear.

 

It does not test raw ST output, so sets like EM fall behind there.

 

It does not test raw AoE effectiveness like a Farm map would, so even sets like Spines fell behind as the difficulty got turned up.

 

Theres an old addage I'm likely butchering, but you wouldn't test a goldfish on how well it climbs a tree or a monkey how well it swims. If youre looking at a test where you compare something highly optimized to pass the test against something that isn't, it should not be a shocker who wins.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Galaxy Brain

[Apparition]

17 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

On the same token brute dmg cap is much higher - one that a tanker can never reach - the brute can reach tanker levels of survivability.

A Brute cannot reach the damage cap on its own.  It would require outside buffs.  Meanwhile, the Tanker has greater survivability and similar (less, but not significantly so as the tests have shown), damage on its own.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Apparition

[nihilii]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

since no scrapper can ever reach tank mitigation values.

I feel a case can be made SR and Shield scrappers can outsurvive Fire and Elec tankers. At least in a no insp world. Defense + DDR really does wonders.

 

I agree with your overall point nonetheless. Just felt like nitpicking this one. In the great can of worms that is balance, it's probably likely (a) Tankers were overbuffed and (b) Defense has been too good as a mechanic for a long long time. (b) superseding (a) in some cases doesn't tell us much about (a) itself.

[Parabola]

15 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

On the same token brute dmg cap is much higher - one that a tanker can never reach - the brute can reach tanker levels of survivability.

With outside buffs or in a farm yes. In general play even combining and chewing down reds a brute will very rarely see the cap. And I'm sorry but brutes cannot hit tank levels of survivability. Even if they hit the same def caps they will be behind in res and hp. The tanker +res proc on it's own makes a huge difference.

[StriderIV]

idk why people aren't taking @Infinitum and @Galaxy Brain 's offers to run tests. IMHO, pylon tests are "silo'd" data, where you're testing and comparing something that is good at ONE particular thing, and only doing that.

 

To be a dork (and combine my interests) if you take a professional boxer and an MMA fighter and all you have them do is hit a heavy bag with a 1-2, the boxer is probably going to do better. But if we cycle through BJJ, muay thai, sambo, what-have-you into it.... the MMA fighter most likely will outperform. That is why I really like Galaxy's test, it is a more realistic simulation of what you might run into in game.

That being said, there are valid points on all sides and everyone is entitled to their opinion! This game is a blast to play nonetheless, and I feel you can make anything work. I tanked a +4 ITF on my Elec/Elec/Elec Sentinel the other day, and it was tons of fun 😛

Edited February 18, 2021 by StriderIV
Spelling!

[Infinitum]

23 minutes ago, parabola said:

With outside buffs or in a farm yes. In general play even combining and chewing down reds a brute will very rarely see the cap. And I'm sorry but brutes cannot hit tank levels of survivability. Even if they hit the same def caps they will be behind in res and hp. The tanker +res proc on it's own makes a huge difference.

Without Incarnates no, but...

 

With Incarnates...

 

Yes they can - melee core says hello as well as barrier.  Rotating those can allow you to basically remain at every cap - sometimes even higher than tankers that arent running the same incarnate tricks.

 

Even when a hybrid like assault isnt taken - the brute still beats the tanker on dmg output.

 

I do it all the time.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Infinitum

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

Context, mostly.

 

If you're talking about pylon times, it's important to understand the things that matter to pylon times.

Sets that are more defensive in nature?  Out.

AoE driven sets? Out.

 

If we're talking about someone saturating AoO for a self-fulcrum on what is undisputedly the strongest ST melee set, that's a whole hell of a lot of context to just ignore.

 

Sidenote here: Galaxy Brain's mission tests actually show the new EM as somewhere in the middle of the pack. That's because under that context, they are not the top performer.

 

I actually brought this up in dismay during i27 testing, that they weren't actually testing that high... Until we started seeing @Infinitum's pylon times and other reports on AV destruction.

Turns out balance is hard and we need to keep all of this context in mind before making blanket statements.

 

For these reasons, denying the specifics of chosen sets is denying the reality of those sets.

We're not talking about Pylon times, we're talking about the whole game.

 

Pictures being worth a thousand words and all, I took a Tanker build from the Tanker forums and then mirrored its selections with the following exceptions:

• Epic choices are not the same between the ATs, Tanker Energy Mastery not being the same as Brute 's--Conserve Power vs Superior Conditioning.
• AT IOs are different.

Beyond that, the slotting and choice of IOs should be identical. Here's what we have:

 

Tanker

 

Brute

 

They are both S/L Resistance capped and Melee Def capped. Beyond that there is a rather significant difference when F/C/E/N enter the picture. And heaven help the poor Brute if something Psionic shows up. And that is before looking at 25% more health on the Tanker and that the Tanker's Regen is roughly double that of the Brutes.

 

The only way for the Brute to address this is to build differently. That means different IO and slot choices, even taking the same powers. 

 

Identical does not favor reality and reality requires sacrifices on the Brute's part the Tanker does not have to consider.

 

[StriderIV]

2 hours ago, ScarySai said:

Brute has the best variant of savage, is the strongest base melee AT (no ATO reliance), and when fully buffed up via insps or teammates, is essentially just as beefy as a tank, while meeting scrappers on dps.

 

They don't specialize in anything and lack the godlike ATOs that scrappers, tanks and stalkers have, but they still have the capacity to be one of the scariest things in the game.

 

Pylon tests and the parameters of said tests do not favor how brutes actually work.

First off, I love your profile avatar 😛 second, what do you mean best variant of Savage? Savage Melee?

[Infinitum]

9 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

We're not talking about Pylon times, we're talking about the whole game.

 

Pictures being worth a thousand words and all, I took a Tanker build from the Tanker forums and then mirrored its selections with the following exceptions:

• Epic choices are not the same between the ATs, Tanker Energy Mastery not being the same as Brute 's--Conserve Power vs Superior Conditioning.
• AT IOs are different.

Beyond that, the slotting and choice of IOs should be identical. Here's what we have:

 

Tanker

 

Brute

 

They are both S/L Resistance capped and Melee Def capped. Beyond that there is a rather significant difference when F/C/E/N enter the picture. And heaven help the poor Brute if something Psionic shows up. And that is before looking at 25% more health on the Tanker and that the Tanker's Regen is roughly double that of the Brutes.

 

The only way for the Brute to address this is to build differently. That means different IO and slot choices, even taking the same powers. 

 

Identical does not favor reality and reality requires sacrifices on the Brute's part the Tanker does not have to consider.

 

My EM Invul Brute beat my Invul EM tanker in the brutal mission simulator by 7 min. And it was weaker but still survived relatively easy utilizing dull pain more often - but that's what its there for and it still won handily.

 

At the end of the day thoe sacrifices are null because the brute wins either way - greater dmg potential.  Similar survivability.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Infinitum

[Parabola]

15 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Without Incarnates no, but...

 

With Incarnates...

 

Yes they can - melee core says hello as well as barrier.  Rotating those can allow you to basically remain at every cap - sometimes even higher than tankers that arent running the same incarnate tricks.

 

Even when a hybrid like assault isnt taken - the brute still beats the tanker on dmg output.

 

I do it all the time.

If you're taking barrier and melee then you are leaving a lot of damage on the table (both directly and in the form of recharge and endurance to use heavier attacks more often). Of course each individual build will need to see what it needs to supplement with incarnates for it's best performance. Which was my point in the first place - comparing mirrored builds is pointless, they should each be built to their individual strengths and weaknesses.

[StriderIV]

1 minute ago, Infinitum said:

My EM Invul Brute beat my Invul EM tanker in the brutal mission simulator by 7 min. And it was weaker but still survived relatively easy utilizing dull pain more often - but that's what its there for and it still won handily.

 

At the end of the day thoe sacrifices are null because the brute wins either way - greater dmg potential.  Similar survivability.

Does the simulator have a personal bias, by chance? It is called the "BRUTAL" mission simulator. Might favor them a bit more 😉 *slow claps for himself*

[Erratic1]

6 minutes ago, StriderIV said:

Does the simulator have a personal bias, by chance? It is called the "BRUTAL" mission simulator. Might favor them a bit more 😉 *slow claps for himself*

A simulation where all the opponents are dealing melee smashing/lethal damage would be the most favorable the Brute but not be honest about the situation of the game because there is a lot more out there than smash/lethal delivered by hand. But I have no idea what is in Galaxy Brain's simulation. 

[Galaxy Brain]

5 minutes ago, parabola said:

If you're taking barrier and melee then you are leaving a lot of damage on the table (both directly and in the form of recharge and endurance to use heavier attacks more often). Of course each individual build will need to see what it needs to supplement with incarnates for it's best performance. Which was my point in the first place - comparing mirrored builds is pointless, they should each be built to their individual strengths and weaknesses.

So, lets strip all that away then since the ATO's are what is really throwing things for a loop (also, Combat Jumping was turned on for one of them). The closer you build them in effectiveness (shoring up Defense or Damage shortcomings) they should perform about the same to where its more a fun-factor of Smashing vs AoEs

 

3 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

A simulation where all the opponents are dealing melee smashing/lethal damage would be the most favorable the Brute but not be honest about the situation of the game because there is a lot more out there than smash/lethal delivered by hand. But I have no idea what is in Galaxy Brain's simulation. 

The "brutal" sim (named for this thread lol) has a balance of all damage types relative to how often you'd run into them in-game, well proportionally. It is mostly S/L damage, but so is most all content to begin with as about 50% of all attacks have a S or L component.

[StriderIV]

4 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

So, lets strip all that away then since the ATO's are what is really throwing things for a loop (also, Combat Jumping was turned on for one of them). The closer you build them in effectiveness (shoring up Defense or Damage shortcomings) they should perform about the same to where its more a fun-factor of Smashing vs AoEs

 

The "brutal" sim (named for this thread lol) has a balance of all damage types relative to how often you'd run into them in-game, well proportionally. It is mostly S/L damage, but so is most all content to begin with as about 50% of all attacks have a S or L component.

Galaxy Brain is Professor X, and this sim is our Danger Room.

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

The "brutal" sim (named for this thread lol) has a balance of all damage types relative to how often you'd run into them in-game, well proportionally. It is mostly S/L damage, but so is most all content to begin with as about 50% of all attacks have a S or L component.

For general testing that does not sound unreasonable. Still, when facing Carnies, or Malta, or various other enemies, while they most assuredly have their smashing/lethal dealers, those are not the portion of the faction anyone ever complains. Wiping the spawn of Strongmen can be accomplished quickly but then there are all those women fading in and out dealing painful damage in abundance.

 

And certainly one can avoid various factions but in practice...well, maybe I am weird here, but the only faction I avoid are Hyrda--and that comes down primarily to not a lot in the game dragging you to them.

[Infinitum]

27 minutes ago, parabola said:

If you're taking barrier and melee then you are leaving a lot of damage on the table (both directly and in the form of recharge and endurance to use heavier attacks more often). Of course each individual build will need to see what it needs to supplement with incarnates for it's best performance. Which was my point in the first place - comparing mirrored builds is pointless, they should each be built to their individual strengths and weaknesses.

You are but you still have vastly more dmg potential - even building to silly levels like that - which you really don't have to do under 99% of the circumstances the game can throw at it.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Infinitum