Brutes vs Blasters? No, really....

[ScarySai]

They are good at different things and it depends on the combos.

 

 I'd put money on the fire/fire blaster every time, but if we're talking like a rad/devices vs a claws/elec, I'm probably going with the brute.

[Haijinx]

7 hours 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.

Whoa whoa whoa

 

Blasters have the BEST melee damage too.

[Snarky]

8 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

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.

Yeah, my Darek/Dark main Brute uses Soul Mastery ranged AoE and Cone (I personally like cones, learned them well) I use these two a lot.  Dark has crap for AoE.  Incredible complex toolkit, powerful, crap AoE.  i lean hard into Souls ranged AoE attacks to grab agro and help melt.

[macskull]

37 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Whoa whoa whoa

 

Blasters have the BEST melee damage too.

Sort of - a Brute will end up with higher-scale damage in melee when each AT is at its respective cap, but Blasters generally have higher-DPA melee attacks because Blaster melee attacks tend to have longer recharges than the versions in melee sets. Lots of +recharge buffs will end up biasing toward the Blaster.

[Nemu]

I do believe most average players have not achieved the zen of playing melee blasters and those might gravitate towards melee ATs which are "safer."  Hence my statement about average players finding their comfort zone and success in melee ATs.

 

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, macskull said:

Sort of - a Brute will end up with higher-scale damage in melee when each AT is at its respective cap, but Blasters generally have higher-DPA melee attacks because Blaster melee attacks tend to have longer recharges than the versions in melee sets. Lots of +recharge buffs will end up biasing toward the Blaster.

Blasters have double recharge attacks though on most of their secondaries, with correspondly higher starting damage 

 

For example Blaster recharge on Bone Smasher 14 seconds, Brute 8 

 

So you aren't multiplying by the same amount 

[wjrasmussen]

 

[Nemu]

Cyclops standing on the sidelines going lol melee.

 

Only reason Cyclops didn't shoot jean is because he's got emotions and stuff.

[Ukase]

Numbers aside, I will be transparent. I have never done an Apex with a melee character, except once. We got the Master, but Apex Mastery is simple. Still, I am reluctant to do Apex simply because of the annoyance of having to move away in between attacks because of the blue patches. Magisterium Trial is another example of where playing a melee character annoys me. Move in, move out, etc. 

With ranged, I still have to move, but I can attack as I move. It's safer, easier. So, my thinking is that even if math were to not support the blaster, the blaster would still edge out because of the flexibility of ranged attacks vs melee. 

I do acknowledge that I've played probably 20x more hours as a ranged character than as a melee. So, it could very well by my own playstyle that flavors my opinion. 

[Shred Monkey]

22 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

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

This is a perfect comparison.  Now lets look at these two powers in actual use.

 

You see, with recharge enhancements, most blasters have their Nukes back up in less than 40 seconds, some sets will have it in less than 30.   If there's 6 blasters on a team... that's a nuke every 5-7 seconds (and a fireball or equivalent every 1 second.)   On a team like this, the brute will be lucky to hit anything with his Footstomp because much of the time everything will die before the animation is done.   It's great if they run ahead pull everything into a tighter spawn, but don't be fooled into thinking you're making a noticeable difference by knocking down three hotdog stands before the tidal wave hits and destroys the entire beachfront.

 

Also, speed run times mean nothing about what we're talking about here.  Powers like Team Teleport, superspeed, and general team coordination mean far more than footstomp or nukes on those top times.  

 

[Erratic1]

2 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

This is a perfect comparison.  Now lets look at these two powers in actual use.

 

You see, with recharge enhancements, most blasters have their Nukes back up in less than 40 seconds, some sets will have it in less than 30.   

It is not like Foot Stomp does not take Recharge enhancements. To get a 145s Recharge down to 40s would requires 262.5% Recharge. At equivalent recharge Foot Stomp is up every 5.5s

[Snarky]

Yet I do feel that Shred Monkey hit the nail on the head.  A team of peeps throwing Nukes does make my Brute feel...meh. 

 

This bit of board therapy is kind of making me realize why I (and maybe a lot of Brutes) tend to be happy on a team...somewhere not that close to the team.  I feel powerful soloing a hundred Ritki to free a hostage while the rest of the team heads for the General on a LRSF.  I can do that job lol.

[iBot]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

Yet I do feel that Shred Monkey hit the nail on the head.  A team of peeps throwing Nukes does make my Brute feel...meh. 

 

This bit of board therapy is kind of making me realize why I (and maybe a lot of Brutes) tend to be happy on a team...somewhere not that close to the team.  I feel powerful soloing a hundred Ritki to free a hostage while the rest of the team heads for the General on a LRSF.  I can do that job lol.

This is why when I play melee that can handle the spawns mostly solo I also tend to either leapfrog to the next group while the rest of the team finishes off the current group or I drift to other groups on the map and then move on when the rest of the team comes to back me up.  I know it annoys some players when others "solo" but it really isn't about soloing content it is about being able to use more than 2 powers before everything is dead.  It is especially frustrating on my dark scrapper where I have some nice buffs but need the mobs to live through the animation. 🤪

[Bill Z Bubba]

15 minutes ago, iBot said:

but need the mobs to live through the animation.

Also one of the joys of playing energy melee. CORPSE BLASTING! Which is especially painful to watch when you're solo.

[Apparition]

20 minutes ago, iBot said:

This is why when I play melee that can handle the spawns mostly solo I also tend to either leapfrog to the next group while the rest of the team finishes off the current group or I drift to other groups on the map and then move on when the rest of the team comes to back me up.  I know it annoys some players when others "solo" but it really isn't about soloing content it is about being able to use more than 2 powers before everything is dead.  It is especially frustrating on my dark scrapper where I have some nice buffs but need the mobs to live through the animation. 🤪

 

Yep.  Some people don't grasp that melee players need to leap frog and go on their own in order to feel useful.  It's not like "squishies" need melee protection in order to survive at +4x8.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Apparition said:

Yep.  Some people don't grasp that melee players need to leap frog and go on their own in order to feel useful.  It's not like "squishies" need melee protection in order to survive at +4x8.

A whole lot of them don't.

[Erratic1]

32 minutes ago, iBot said:

This is why when I play melee that can handle the spawns mostly solo I also tend to either leapfrog to the next group while the rest of the team finishes off the current group or I drift to other groups on the map and then move on when the rest of the team comes to back me up.  I know it annoys some players when others "solo" but it really isn't about soloing content it is about being able to use more than 2 powers before everything is dead.  It is especially frustrating on my dark scrapper where I have some nice buffs but need the mobs to live through the animation. 🤪

 

And in the Can't Win Department you then get blamed when others bite off something they cannot handle for not being there. 

 

Was in a group last night with 3 Kinetics users (my corruptor and two defenders), one melee, and a blaster and a spider. It was fast, things died stupidly quickly, and I remember questioning after one mission if we could not get larger spawn sizes only to be told we were at max setting. 

 

It cannot have been a lot of fun for the melee guy because if he got a punch or two in it was only by running ahead. Heck, wasn't always fun for me because it sucks to start animating Fulcrum Shift only for everything to die before it can go off (but max damage bonus Geysers and some utterly stunning tick values on Whirlpool more than soothed any complaints I might have had).

Edited February 24, 2021 by Erratic1

[iBot]

Yeah Fulcrum Shift is another one that I find annoying on my Kin as well.  I think this really turns into more of a discussion about difficulty rebalance that this game is in serious need of.  I'm not sure what the ultimate answer would be though I'm certain it isn't to nerf the players.  I just think maybe we need the option to go to +5 or +6 or maybe 1.5 spawn size to 12.  Something to make it so if there are reasons to use more than brawl at times.

[macskull]

37 minutes ago, iBot said:

Yeah Fulcrum Shift is another one that I find annoying on my Kin as well.  I think this really turns into more of a discussion about difficulty rebalance that this game is in serious need of.  I'm not sure what the ultimate answer would be though I'm certain it isn't to nerf the players.  I just think maybe we need the option to go to +5 or +6 or maybe 1.5 spawn size to 12.  Something to make it so if there are reasons to use more than brawl at times.

There are two basic ways to make the game more difficult:

1. Nerf players. This is a very tricky thing to do since any sweeping nerf is A) going to be very unpopular and B) will probably open whole different cans of worms
2. Make enemies harder. This is probably the way to do it but with the combat mechanics of this game it basically requires giving NPCs "cheat" powers like in most of the incarnate trials. Raising enemy level relative to yours won't make things substantially more difficult, just a little slower, due to the way your powers scale against higher-level enemies. Raising enemy spawn sizes won't make things more difficult either because of the aggro cap, and raising the aggro cap/target cap on AoEs just means it makes farmers' jobs easier.

[iBot]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

There are two basic ways to make the game more difficult:

1. Nerf players. This is a very tricky thing to do since any sweeping nerf is A) going to be very unpopular and B) will probably open whole different cans of worms
2. Make enemies harder. This is probably the way to do it but with the combat mechanics of this game it basically requires giving NPCs "cheat" powers like in most of the incarnate trials. Raising enemy level relative to yours won't make things substantially more difficult, just a little slower, due to the way your powers scale against higher-level enemies. Raising enemy spawn sizes won't make things more difficult either because of the aggro cap, and raising the aggro cap/target cap on AoEs just means it makes farmers' jobs easier.

I don't dispute any points there other than to say making fights last longer is the ultimate goal.  I think "difficult" is probably the wrong word to use because it is highly subjective.  It might be as simple as an across the board increase of mob HP and/or resists or some combination there in.

[Bill Z Bubba]

8 minutes ago, iBot said:

I don't dispute any points there other than to say making fights last longer is the ultimate goal.  I think "difficult" is probably the wrong word to use because it is highly subjective.  It might be as simple as an across the board increase of mob HP and/or resists or some combination there in.

That's precisely what I DON'T want to see. Make them harder with more team buffs and enemy debuffs. Make them harder with better AI. Making them "harder" by increasing their meatbaggedness is a nonstarter for me.

[Shred Monkey]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

There are two basic ways to make the game more difficult:

1. Nerf players. This is a very tricky thing to do since any sweeping nerf is A) going to be very unpopular and B) will probably open whole different cans of worms
2. Make enemies harder. This is probably the way to do it but with the combat mechanics of this game it basically requires giving NPCs "cheat" powers like in most of the incarnate trials. Raising enemy level relative to yours won't make things substantially more difficult, just a little slower, due to the way your powers scale against higher-level enemies. Raising enemy spawn sizes won't make things more difficult either because of the aggro cap, and raising the aggro cap/target cap on AoEs just means it makes farmers' jobs easier.

#NerfTeamSize

[Apparition]

8 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

#NerfTeamSize

 

No thank you.  I like being able to play with seven friends simultaneously.  One of the reasons why I play CoH over other online games that limit team sizes to five, or (even worse), three.

[iBot]

31 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

That's precisely what I DON'T want to see. Make them harder with more team buffs and enemy debuffs. Make them harder with better AI. Making them "harder" by increasing their meatbaggedness is a nonstarter for me.

I doubt there is much if anything that could ever be done about the AI.  Add more mob buffs/debuffs sure.  Again "harder" is subjective.  And I'm not sure why you are against HP increase since really any buffs/debuffs/resists etc are just under the hood mechanics ways of increasing/decreasing the HP available to the mob.  As I said, I'm not sure what the final solution would look like but I think something needs to be adjusted so that fights with groups aren't over 3 seconds after they start.  I don't mind say every 4th group or more that the team can manage enough buff or debuff to wipe an entire spawn.  What's frustrating is when it is every single group on the map and sometimes even 2 or 3 groups when pulled together by different sources of agro negating the agro caps.  And I'm not knocking teams that can do that cause I think it is a viable strategy to the game.  I'd just like there to be better ways to fine tune the battles so everyone feels as they are contributing no matter the team make up.

[Heraclea]

Since Victory days I have consistently argued against melee unfriendly, generic MMO mechanics like the Battle Maiden fight in Apex.   This sort of thing makes too many demands on your attention, especially when players also are leaving behind glows and funks on the floor, and you have to pay attention to that specific one out of the whole lightshow.