Tanks versus Brutes.

[Apparition]

  On 2/5/2021 at 3:17 PM, arcaneholocaust said:

This whole argument is highly silly to me. Even the folks cherry-picking data trying to prove the ridiculous claim that brutes are literally useless now have posted their very own tests showing that their brutes are still doing more damage.

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Whether or not it is true, there is a wide belief among many power gamers that Brutes are now useless for teaming and are only good for soloing.  Even if that is mistaken, the belief is still an issue.

[Heraclea]

  On 2/5/2021 at 3:49 PM, Apparition said:

Whether or not it is true, there is a wide belief among many power gamers that Brutes are now useless for teaming and are only good for soloing.  Even if that is mistaken, the belief is still an issue.

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This is not my impression.  I am often asked to supply a Brute specifically, under the belief that they are adequate for tanking and better at DPS.  If anything, the redheaded stepchild for power gamers is the Scrapper, who generally lack the aggro control that even a Brute supplies, have lower armor values, and whose higher DPS  is not enough to make up for it. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

  On 2/5/2021 at 3:54 PM, Heraclea said:

If anything, the redheaded stepchild for power gamers is the Scrapper

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I won't deny that all the time I have to waste chasing down runners with my main is a constant annoyance. And he's even got focus and shockwave to make it easier.

[Infinitum]

  On 2/5/2021 at 3:23 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

It's even more silly how so many on the other side completely ignore how much greater the difference is between the mitigation values than the damage values.

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That largely depends on how and who builds them both.

 

Weighted towards mitigation - the brute does 15-40% more damage depending on the power used and fury level etc, and vice versa is 15-40% weaker depending on which category you are looking at. 

 

There is no magic number of x or y but basically a lot of that tanker mitigation you are referring to is overkill - which I for one am a big fan of - but even despite that theres nothing I can think of any of my tanker brute mirrors can't survive equally well.

 

At the same time the brute has a much higher smh cap and can output more dmg than the tanker from 50% fury up - which anyone can achieve sleepwalking.

[arcane]

  On 2/5/2021 at 3:23 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

It's even more silly how so many on the other side completely ignore how much greater the difference is between the mitigation values than the damage values.

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It’s even more silly than that to understand that difference completely and think it actually amounts to “brutes are useless now” - which is complete hyperbole.

[arcane]

  On 2/5/2021 at 3:49 PM, Apparition said:

Whether or not it is true, there is a wide belief among many power gamers that Brutes are now useless for teaming and are only good for soloing.  Even if that is mistaken, the belief is still an issue.

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Only because their definition of useless is not consistent with the meaning of the word useless.

[Bill Z Bubba]

  On 2/5/2021 at 4:11 PM, arcaneholocaust said:

It’s even more silly than that to understand that difference completely and think it actually amounts to “brutes are useless now” - which is complete hyperbole.

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Even a fighting pool using defender that completely ignores its secondary isn't useless in this game. Superfluous, sure. But at this point, having a character that can solo a max diff, no insps, no temps, enemies buffed, player debuffed MoITF makes everything else superfluous. But that's a different topic.

In the end, those that have stated archetype balance doesn't matter are correct. These devs have made the direction they're taking things very clear. There will be no rollback of the buffs and we can all continue cruising along with godmode enabled for max rewards and zero risks cuz that's what the people want. If you don't want godmode, play something squishie and self-gimp to your heart's content.

Edited February 5, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[arcane]

  On 2/5/2021 at 4:31 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

In the end, those that have stated archetype balance doesn't matter are correct. These devs have made the direction they're taking things very clear. There will be no rollback of the buffs and we can all continue cruising along with godmode enabled for max rewards and zero risks cuz that's the people want.

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Now that’s more like it. The reality is calling any AT useless is absurd because all of them are roughly on equal footing in terms of being able to plow through this game at max difficulty with no trouble. Brutes, or any other AT, would actually have to be hurting in some way for your prior rhetoric to be justified, and they are very clearly not. The whole thing is just a petty gripe around the lack of a perfectly linear relationship between tanker’s mitigation advantage and brute’s damage advantage. 

[Troo]

  On 2/5/2021 at 4:37 PM, arcaneholocaust said:

all of them are roughly on equal footing in terms of being able to plow through this game at max difficulty with no trouble.

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this is only troo at high levels with builds that leverage capabilities.

[Grindingsucks]

@Troo  

  Quote

this is only troo

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 Okay, I see what you did there.  😁

[arcane]

  On 2/5/2021 at 6:21 PM, Troo said:

this is only troo at high levels with builds that leverage capabilities.

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Well, considering many of the claims being made only make sense in the context of a fully kitted out build, I am assuming that all of the “brutes are useless lol” supporting data was more or less gathered at 50+3.

[Haijinx]

  On 2/5/2021 at 3:49 PM, Apparition said:

Whether or not it is true, there is a wide belief among many power gamers that Brutes are now useless for teaming and are only good for soloing.  Even if that is mistaken, the belief is still an issue.

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You'd think it be the opposite, with the fury per team member bonus infinitum cites. 

[Haijinx]

  On 2/5/2021 at 4:31 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

Even a fighting pool using defender that completely ignores its secondary isn't useless in this game. Superfluous, sure. But at this point, having a character that can solo a max diff, no insps, no temps, enemies buffed, player debuffed MoITF makes everything else superfluous. But that's a different topic.

In the end, those that have stated archetype balance doesn't matter are correct. These devs have made the direction they're taking things very clear. There will be no rollback of the buffs and we can all continue cruising along with godmode enabled for max rewards and zero risks cuz that's what the people want. If you don't want godmode, play something squishie and self-gimp to your heart's content.

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I think ultimately this will harm the game.   

 

While making stuff too hard is bad for casuals, making stuff too easy eventually become boring.  

Edited February 5, 2021 by Haijinx

[Erratic1]

  On 2/5/2021 at 3:54 PM, Heraclea said:

This is not my impression.  I am often asked to supply a Brute specifically, under the belief that they are adequate for tanking and better at DPS.  If anything, the redheaded stepchild for power gamers is the Scrapper, who generally lack the aggro control that even a Brute supplies, have lower armor values, and whose higher DPS  is not enough to make up for it. 

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I PUG exclusively and in the past week or so there have been two occasions where my scrapper was the only melee in the group. Aggro control was never brought up. What they seemingly needed me for, judging by how people would hold back until I leapt in, was to have someone to take the enemy alpha strike. And that was fine by me since my opening attack is an AoE that triggers the scrapper critical buff.

 

I don't feel sorry for scrappers because my mindset (so yes, I am extending from me to the population as a whole unfairly here) on my scrappers is, "Did you see that sea of beautiful crits I just did?"

[Erratic1]

  On 2/5/2021 at 6:52 PM, arcaneholocaust said:

Well, considering many of the claims being made only make sense in the context of a fully kitted out build, I am assuming that all of the “brutes are useless lol” supporting data was more or less gathered at 50+3.

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It is going to be different pre-50 while levelling when most Brutes not-IO'd out are going to have the exact same defense/resistance values as scrappers while tanks will enjoy being most of the way to cap?

[Doc_Scorpion]

  On 2/5/2021 at 3:49 PM, Apparition said:

Whether or not it is true, there is a wide belief among many power gamers that Brutes are now useless for teaming and are only good for soloing.  Even if that is mistaken, the belief is still an issue.

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The silly beliefs of power gamers aren't an issue - except to power gamers.  They're aren't playing the same game was "the rest of us", who (in the main) simply don't give a fig.  We PUG up and make it work.

[Verfall]

  On 2/5/2021 at 4:31 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

Even a fighting pool using defender that completely ignores its secondary isn't useless in this game. Superfluous, sure. But at this point, having a character that can solo a max diff, no insps, no temps, enemies buffed, player debuffed MoITF makes everything else superfluous. But that's a different topic.

In the end, those that have stated archetype balance doesn't matter are correct. These devs have made the direction they're taking things very clear. There will be no rollback of the buffs and we can all continue cruising along with godmode enabled for max rewards and zero risks cuz that's what the people want. If you don't want godmode, play something squishie and self-gimp to your heart's content.

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There was a statement from the old forums before shutdown, and  I'm sure every MMO has a similar experience, to paraphrase "those who use the forums and min/max builds are the minority, not the norm." For every person on here who maximizes their toons, there's plenty who don't, whether through laziness, ignorance or lack of want etc. I've got over a dozen fifties, but maybe 3 of them have been fully IOed, and only 2 have max incarnates. But I also have over 4 pages of toons, and I'm probably on the low side compared to some of the players.

 

Can we godmode? Oh yeah. Moreso than pre-ED in most instances. Is that the overwhelming majority of the playerbase? No. It is more common just because the way the game is now, a lot of the players are dedicated fans from nearly 20 years ago, so of course we'd put in more effort than someone newer. But that doesn't mean the game needs to be nerfed down. 99% of players are not going to reach godmode on more than maybe 1 or 2 toons. It's a super hero game, its nice to feel like one after dropping a gazillion influences and time researching builds. That's the reward.

 

I'd rather focus on more powersets, more costume pieces, more things that let use achieve the heroes we wanna make, rather than worrying about balance, outside of underperforming sets and sets who are obviously over performing. 

[Haijinx]

  On 2/5/2021 at 7:55 PM, Doc_Scorpion said:

The silly beliefs of power gamers aren't an issue - except to power gamers.  They're aren't playing the same game was "the rest of us", who (in the main) simply don't give a fig.  We PUG up and make it work.

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There are no power gamers in Homecoming

[FuturaTrunks]

Brutes although able to tank, are more of an off tank.  Tanks are tanks.  This is how it was, and how its always been.  If anyone says an AT is useless, or even a power set is useless, is narrow minded.

[Hyperstrike]

  On 2/5/2021 at 10:21 PM, Haijinx said:

There are no power gamers in Homecoming

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In a superhero MMO, EVERYONE is a "power gamer".

[Haijinx]

  On 2/6/2021 at 5:23 PM, FuturaTrunks said:

Brutes although able to tank, are more of an off tank.  Tanks are tanks.  This is how it was, and how its always been.  If anyone says an AT is useless, or even a power set is useless, is narrow minded.

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Brutes are pretty much tanks at the high end either with IOs or Support 

 

Low Level they are more DPS 

 

Mid level they do need more support or CC etc. 

[Hyperstrike]

  On 2/6/2021 at 11:26 PM, Haijinx said:

Brutes are pretty much tanks at the high end either with IOs or Support 

 

Low Level they are more DPS 

 

Mid level they do need more support or CC etc. 

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Brutes still tend to dance on an edge.

I'm a god!
I'm a god!
I'm a god!
I'm a*CORPSE*

Granted, this happens to high-end Tanks too.  But the "swing" isn't usually quite so abrupt.

I'm a god!
I'm a god!
I'm a god!
OW!  Heal.
I'm a god!
OW!
OW!
*CORPSE*

[Haijinx]

  On 2/5/2021 at 7:53 PM, Erratic1 said:

It is going to be different pre-50 while levelling when most Brutes not-IO'd out are going to have the exact same defense/resistance values as scrappers while tanks will enjoy being most of the way to cap?

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can IO before 50 though  

[Erratic1]

  On 2/7/2021 at 2:53 AM, Haijinx said:

can IO before 50 though  

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Which only means something if the Brute IOs and the Tank doesn't, no?

 

[Haijinx]

  On 2/7/2021 at 3:41 AM, Erratic1 said:

Which only means something if the Brute IOs and the Tank doesn't, no?

 

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Depends on if you go over the immortality threshold or not. 

 

Which depends on the team also.

 

With enough Support a Brute is almost equal to a Tanker survival in absolute terms.  And in most gameplay terms is effectively immortal at a much lower amount of support.  Which was one of the reasons Tankers got buffed damage in the first place.