Brutes vs Blasters? No, really....

[Snarky]

This is a slightly serious comparison of damage numbers.  Beyond that what the damage numbers mean.  (after resists, kill rate etc) But beyond that (and so Brutes arent completely crushed into oblivion a foray into team synergy and usefulness.

 

I ran a speed ITF +4 with all Ranged about a week ago.  6 blasters, 2 Corruptors.  I was on my shiny new incarnate Ice/Cold Corruptor.  It was a speed run.  No, really, it was a speed run.  We went through that thing like a bobsled down an ice sheet. I remember someone died, there may have been two deaths.  Did not slow us.  As fast as you could get somewhere everyone was dead.  We were all 50+  Now, I have not run this with all 50+ Brutes, but I would be interested.  (I never lead, but I may need to set this up)  My belief is the Brutes will prob be slower...but more because as Brute players we love to sit in the spawn rather than lack of enough damage. while blasters/corr just want to fly swat and go.

 

I was on a melee heavy TinPex last night.  That got me thinking.  The Blaster made a Snarky (everyone wants to be me) comment about "team melee."  We did alright.  Not great time, but okay. We ran it backwards and Battle Maiden was last.  I got smushed once (Dark/Dark Brute, Soul Transfer had me back up) But after that I spent more time dodging Blue carpet. It was not the quickest Battle Maiden fight I have seen. But we got through it.  Parting shot from the Blaster "Team slowme" Grrrr. It was seriously NOT that slow lol.  

 

So, two subjects really.  A straight up damage number comparison of Brutes versus Blaster.  Preferably with some number geek chiming in on what effectiveness those numbers mean against armored opponents.  

 

Second, a delve into team synergy.  Has melee slid into second class citizenship in late game content?  Was it always second class and those that love to play melee just laughed off the meat shield comments?

 

 

 

[chi1701]

This is an old page 5 file showing damage and or effect of every ability based on archytype in game. (is out of date)

CoH_Homecoming_of_Data_Page5_20200928.xlsx

[Galaxy Brain]

Well, it depends. When a Brute really gets going, it would actually be comparable to a Blaster blow for blow...

 

But Brutes don't get Nova.

[Erratic1]

5 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Well, it depends. When a Brute really gets going, it would actually be comparable to a Blaster blow for blow...

 

But Brutes don't get Nova.

No Nova, but Brute high damage area attacks also recharge a lot faster.

 

Nova is base 145s recharge, Foot Stomp is 20s.

[chi1701]

4 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

No Nova, but Brute high damage area attacks also recharge a lot faster.

 

Nova is base 145s recharge, Foot Stomp is 20s.

Not all aoes have same recharge, lightning rod is 90 seconds. But, what is the target cap for novas for blasters?

[Galaxy Brain]

Well, lets take a look.

 

Rage + 90% fury + 95% Damage enhancement on Footstomp = ~270 damage to 10 targets. 

 

Nova with 0 buffs or enhancements = 250 damage to 16 targets

 

Nova with 95% damage enhancement + Aim = 644 damage to 16 targets

 

Above + Build Up + ~15% avg defiance buff = ~932 damage to 16 targets

 

95% Dam Enh, no defiance, either BU or Aim used before = 691 damage to 16 targets on average, or about 2.6 footstomps per target, not factoring in footstomp hitting less (which would be like 4.2 footstomps to the group)

 

 

Lightning Rod is a better example with it at 90% fury + BU + Enh = 607 damage, but again 10 targets

 

 

[Hew]

2 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Well, lets take a look.

 

(math math math math)

 

 

So... blasters are more damagez? 😄

 

edit: A dead blaster is 0 dps.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Hew

[iBot]

Running ITFs all the time I've found that once everyone is 50 +1 the deciding factor is what kind of debuffs the team has available.  The LEGION has run themed ITFs of just about every flavor of ATs and power sets (all brutes, all stalkers, all debuffs, all blasters, all control, all dark, all shield, all tanks, SQUAD, etc) and we've never come up with a combination that could not finish the TF at 4/8.  The deciding factor on speed is always debuffs.  If a Cyclops goes down in 30 secs even with their MoG we've got a rocking run.  And we usually don't really "speed" run as in we kill through.

 

So to OP I'd say an all brute would probably be slightly slower than the blaster/corruptor run however it depends if those brutes are a decent mix of power sets or are all spines/fire.  If there are a mix of power sets that have secondary debuff effects then it would be about the same or slightly faster if the brutes split up and can handle spawns in groups of 2-4 instead of all 8.

[golstat2003]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Well, lets take a look.

 

Rage + 90% fury + 95% Damage enhancement on Footstomp = ~270 damage to 10 targets. 

 

Nova with 0 buffs or enhancements = 250 damage to 16 targets

 

Nova with 95% damage enhancement + Aim = 644 damage to 16 targets

 

Above + Build Up + ~15% avg defiance buff = ~932 damage to 16 targets

 

95% Dam Enh, no defiance, either BU or Aim used before = 691 damage to 16 targets on average, or about 2.6 footstomps per target, not factoring in footstomp hitting less (which would be like 4.2 footstomps to the group)

 

 

Lightning Rod is a better example with it at 90% fury + BU + Enh = 607 damage, but again 10 targets

 

 

*In Baby Huey Voice (when he's acting as an actual baby)* Blasters Go Boom

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, chi1701 said:

Not all aoes have same recharge, lightning rod is 90 seconds. But, what is the target cap for novas for blasters?

The do not all have the same recharge but then again they also do not do the same damage. This holds for both blasters and brutes.

 

Blasters

 

Nova: 145s, 250.2 damage

Hail of Bullets: 105s, 204.5 damage

 

 

Brutes

 

Foot Stomp: 20s, 59.2 damage

Lightning Rod: 90s, 133.5 damage

 

A cursory glance through the AT's powersets suggests there is less variance on the blaster side in regards to damage and recharge. As goes Brutes, while Lightning Rod does more damage it also comes up less frequently. In the time it takes Lightning Rod to recharge you could do four Foot Stomps. 4*59.2=236.8

[golstat2003]

Just now, Hew said:

So... blasters are more damagez? 😄

 

edit: A dead blaster is 0 dps.

Joke from when they were on live: Sooooo their dps is 0 most of the time. Gotcha. 😉 

[Galaxy Brain]

2 minutes ago, Hew said:

So... blasters are more damagez? 😄

 

edit: A dead blaster is 0 dps.

Pretty much on both counts lol. But, if you manage to keep them alive they will wipe out basically anything in front of them.

[Erratic1]

2 minutes ago, iBot said:

So to OP I'd say an all brute would probably be slightly slower than the blaster/corruptor run however it depends if those brutes are a decent mix of power sets or are all spines/fire.  If there are a mix of power sets that have secondary debuff effects then it would be about the same or slightly faster if the brutes split up and can handle spawns in groups of 2-4 instead of all 8.

An all Brute group is going to have the issue of splitting Fury gained by being attacked (well, unless they all run off to get their own group...which is something I can see happening).

[Nemu]

Average players will have more success with team melee.

 

Top end players will have crush team melee with team range, not even a contest.

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

Second, a delve into team synergy.  Has melee slid into second class citizenship in late game content?  Was it always second class and those that love to play melee just laughed off the meat shield comments?

 

 

 

 

Melee has always been second class in late game content.  Incarnate content just exasperated it.  It's why I always take at least one ranged attack on a melee character, whether that be Serpent's Reach or Gloom.

[iBot]

In my experience the reduction in fury generation is negated by the group as a whole.  Maybe on the very edge cases it makes a difference but it wasn't noticeable to me as groups seemed to go down just as fast as any other time.

[Apparition]

3 minutes ago, Nemu said:

Average players will have more success with team melee.

 

Top end players will have crush team melee with team range, not even a contest.

 

Yep.  There's a reason why the top speed runner teams have at most one melee character on them, and it's usually a EM/Bio Scrapper or TW/Bio Scrapper and nothing else.

[Erratic1]

3 minutes ago, iBot said:

In my experience the reduction in fury generation is negated by the group as a whole.  Maybe on the very edge cases it makes a difference but it wasn't noticeable to me as groups seemed to go down just as fast as any other time.

The lower, exclusive, boundary is the brutes are effectively only getting Fury from their own individual attacks. Exclusive because at least one of them will be getting attacked in the minimal situation (one foe, 8 brutes). The upper boundary is they are all Fury saturated from making attacks and having enough opponents attacking each to peg their Fury bars. Realistic situations will be somewhere between, and likely closer to saturation than not. 

 

I just pulled up a video of a run on one of my brutes (two other brutes, two warshades, one mastermind in the group) and my Fury bar is about 80% full while in the thick of things.

[Sakai]

Cyclops have MoG?  That explains  a lot.  

 

😞

[Bill Z Bubba]

40 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

An all Brute group is going to have the issue of splitting Fury gained by being attacked (well, unless they all run off to get their own group...which is something I can see happening).

Pretty sure this is why, last I heard, all scrapper ITFs were in the lead on time. (Edit: For max diff runs. Seems a lot of speed teams run at +0 so that may help all squishy teams.) Split up in the first two missions, do some splitting in the 3rd, team up for the monster group, computer and AVs.

Saves a bunch of time. I see no reason why brutes and tanks wouldn't follow the same tactic.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[iBot]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Pretty sure this is why, last I heard, all scrapper ITFs were in the lead on time. (Edit: For max diff runs. Seems a lot of speed teams run at +0 so that may help all squishy teams.) Split up in the first two missions, do some splitting in the 3rd, team up for the monster group, computer and AVs.

Saves a bunch of time. I see no reason why brutes and tanks wouldn't follow the same tactic.

Any grouping that can split to do the content is faster.  We've done a run we called The Squad in that the team of 8 split into 2 teams of 4 and tackled different groups in the maps.  Was one of our fastest runs while still killing most mobs and at 4/8.  So I think any group that could split up as much as possible would certainly be faster than all 8 sticking together.  Course some of that also has to do with which map is drawn in the second mission.

Edited February 23, 2021 by iBot
Spez

[Bill Z Bubba]

27 minutes ago, iBot said:

Course some of that also has to do with which map is drawn in the second mission.

It's always a joyous occasion when it's the straight shot through.

[Myrmidon]

4 hours ago, Snarky said:

I was on a melee heavy TinPex last night.  That got me thinking.  The Blaster made a Snarky (everyone wants to be me) comment about "team melee."  We did alright.  Not great time, but okay. We ran it backwards and Battle Maiden was last.  I got smushed once (Dark/Dark Brute, Soul Transfer had me back up) But after that I spent more time dodging Blue carpet. It was not the quickest Battle Maiden fight I have seen. But we got through it.  Parting shot from the Blaster "Team slowme" Grrrr. It was seriously NOT that slow lol.  

The opinion of a Blaster player making fun of playing content specifically designed to ruin melee isn’t even worth the energy to worry about.

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Pretty sure this is why, last I heard, all scrapper ITFs were in the lead on time. (Edit: For max diff runs. Seems a lot of speed teams run at +0 so that may help all squishy teams.) Split up in the first two missions, do some splitting in the 3rd, team up for the monster group, computer and AVs.

Saves a bunch of time. I see no reason why brutes and tanks wouldn't follow the same tactic.

Agreed. In addition, everyone is aware of this being the case since Page 4, yes?

 

 

Edited February 23, 2021 by Myrmidon

[macskull]

Numbers looking off damage scale and damage caps:

 

Brute has base scale 0.75 melee and ranged, and a 700% damage cap (+600%). This results in a maximum damage scale of 4.5 to melee and range while at damage cap. Blaster has base scale 1 melee and 1.125 ranged, and a 500% damage cap (+400%). This results in a maximum damage scale of 4 to melee and 4.5 to range while at damage cap.

 

You can look at that and go "oh wow a Brute outdamages a Blaster in melee" and that's true at the cap, but any +dam bonus is going to favor the Blaster because of their higher base damage scales (and Blasters get higher numbers out of Build Up than Brutes to begin with). Blasters also have attacks in both their primary and secondary so they're able to put out more damage more consistently.