Buff Brutes... or Nerf Tanks.

[Haijinx]

6 minutes ago, Existential Adam said:

A big thumbs down to your suggestion for three primary reasons:

1) Leading off with nerf tanks or do what I say. Really hard to take the rest seriously.

2) As is, brutes allegedly have the best farming builds. Buff them further?

3) Before any more changes are made to melee sets, the tier 9 armors need to be made playable instead of death sentences.

 

1) Kay, I mean a lot of people don't like the Nerf word

2) Balancing on Farming ability seems a pointless waste of time.  So Buff/Nerf/whatevs should not matter. 

3) lulz 

[Wavicle]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that tanks are far too close to brute damage in comparison to their heightened mitigation, a fact that you continually hand-wave away as meaningless.

 

Because at no point have you defined "far too close". That's just an assertion you're making without basis.

Based on the actual testing, no, they aren't. In fact, the opposite, Brutes can be built to survive just about as well as Tanks, but Tanks cannot build to do nearly Brute damage.

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 minutes ago, Existential Adam said:

A big thumbs down to your suggestion for three primary reasons:

1) Leading off with nerf tanks or do what I say. Really hard to take the rest seriously.

2) As is, brutes allegedly have the best farming builds. Buff them further?

3) Before any more changes are made to melee sets, the tier 9 armors need to be made playable instead of death sentences.

 

1) I've given options.

2) What happens in farms is as meaningless to me as the folks pulling huge reds from email and saying we should balance around that.

3) I have no disagreement with T9s getting looked at. I haven't taken elude since IOs were introduced to the game.

[America's Angel]

[Existential Adam]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

 

1) Kay, I mean a lot of people don't like the Nerf word

2) Balancing on Farming ability seems a pointless waste of time.  So Buff/Nerf/whatevs should not matter. 

3) lulz 

Great! Put farming aside. SS/Fire, Rad/Fire, Energy/Fire brutes have some of the fastest solo completion times on ITF with the hardest settings WITHOUT dying. 

[Razor Cure]

On 5/20/2021 at 6:15 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

While solo, the scrapper kicks the crap out of the brute and the tank on standard +4 clear alls.

While solo, the tank kicks the crap out of the brute and scrapper on being able to survive Werner rules level content. (Enemies buffed, players debuffed, no insps, no faceplants, no temps.)

 

The scrapper takes down a pylon in 3 mins. The brute, 4 mins. The tank 4.5 mins.

 

While the brute may be the most suited to teaming with its tank mitigation caps and huge damage buff cap, solo it has no reason to exist. And I *still* solo a lot even though the percentage is drastically reduced from how I was before the snap.

 

No arguments on your pylon times or +4 clear alls..but is this really the ONLY metric of measuring how 'good' an AT is? Performance wise, sure, but does everyone using these 3 ATs only farm/pylons/+4 kill alls?

About the only thing I can see is too increase Brute damage caps. Brutes are in the middle, but I am sure that people who enjoy playing brutes still play em. I know when I log my brute in, I dont think 'man, a scrapper could be killing faster and a tank would be tougher'...I just think 'Brute SMASH!'

[Infinitum]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

You're correct that it throws teaming out the window. As it should for any proper test. Teaming introduces more variables than what folks like us can deal with.

 

I don't give a shit that brutes outdamage tanks. They should and I'm glad that I was able to test that, see it, and admit I was wrong when I was wrong.

 

It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that tanks are far too close to brute damage in comparison to their heightened mitigation, a fact that you continually hand-wave away as meaningless.

You can't have one without the other - brutes are close to tanker survivability under any normal circumstance and tankers are close to brutes dmg under any normal circumstance.

 

Insert bosses and higher and the brutes dmg output in terms of kill speed starts to leave the tankers dmg output behind.  While still surviving as well as a tankers 

 

Start getting stupid hard stuff - sure a tanker will likely fair a bit better, but again if you had a team which a scenario like that would dictate the brute would be more secure while still drastically eclipsing the tankers dmg output.

 

A no death werner rules itf isnt a metric that shows anything aside from individual skill and more determination than most people who play the game possess.

 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, Wavicle said:

Because at no point have you defined "far too close". That's just an assertion you're making without basis.

Based on the actual testing, no, they aren't. In fact, the opposite, Brutes can be built to survive just about as well as Tanks, but Tanks cannot build to do nearly Brute damage.

 

Yet you call that situation balanced. I've defined far too close specifically by soloing content with my tank that my brutes fail and by showing actual times, both single target and clear all, the difference between damage output. If tanks are pushing 90% brute capability across the board, then brutes should be pushing 90% mitigation across the board.

 

That would be an equitable situation. Anything short of that is crap.

[Haijinx]

3 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

You're correct that it throws teaming out the window. As it should for any proper test. Teaming introduces more variables than what folks like us can deal with.

 

I don't give a shit that brutes outdamage tanks. They should and I'm glad that I was able to test that, see it, and admit I was wrong when I was wrong.

 

It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that tanks are far too close to brute damage in comparison to their heightened mitigation, a fact that you continually hand-wave away as meaningless.

 

You could also argue that Scrapper survivability is too close to Brute Survivability considering their DPS advantage.  

 

Sure there are some sets where Brutes have an edge.  Invul seems it would be one since you could easily Softcap S/L Resist on the Brute and not the Scrapper.  But that's just one set that happens to specialize in S/L resistance.   

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, Existential Adam said:

Great! Put farming aside. SS/Fire, Rad/Fire, Energy/Fire brutes have some of the fastest solo completion times on ITF with the hardest settings WITHOUT dying. 

 

Maybe? The Game is too easy after all.  

 

I mean I imagine some Blasters can beat them.  Or many Scrappers.   

 

Not the Tank God style ITF though,  Those seem to the the province of Tankers, and some really skilled players with some badass non tank combos.  Maybe that Invul Brute, that would be pretty solid on a ITF after all.    

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

That would be an equitable situation.

Emphasis mine.

You clearly are talking about fairness.

In terms of Balance, they are balanced. Brutes do more damage and are squishier, tanks do less damage and are tougher. The damage differences vary a bit depending on exact situations, the survivability differences become moot at a certain point. Both ATs are valuable on teams for both their offensive and defensive abilities. That is balance.

You're claiming there's a problem where there isn't one.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

You could also argue that Scrapper survivability is too close to Brute Survivability considering their DPS advantage.  

 

You could but I've not seen that in gameplay. It's only one combo but my claws/sr brute is immortal in a standard max diff aggro cap's worth of Cimerorans while my scrapper most certainly is not. Which is why I'm currently PLing an em/sd brute and scrapper to go with my sd/em tank. One more data point.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

In terms of Balance, they are balanced. Blasters do more damage and are squishier, Sentinels do less damage and are tougher. The damage differences vary a bit depending on exact situations, the survivability differences become moot at a certain point. Both ATs are valuable on teams for both their offensive and defensive abilities. That is balance.

 

Changed two words in your quote. You think blasters and sents are currently balanced?

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

You're claiming there's a problem where there isn't one.

 

There isn't a problem to you because you don't give a damn about actual numerical balance in a game based on math.

[Wavicle]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

There isn't a problem to you because you don't give a damn about actual numerical balance in a game based on math.

You haven't shown there's a problem based on math, so stop throwing that around.

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Maybe? The Game is too easy after all. 

 

That ain't no lie.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Changed two words in your quote. You think blasters and sents are currently balanced?

What kind of intellectually dishonest nonsense is this? What a completely irrelevant question to the topic at hand.

[Infinitum]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

There isn't a problem to you because you don't give a damn about actual numerical balance in a game based on math.

Neither do you because you haven't provided concrete data on what scenario a tankers survivability outweighs the brutes dmg advantage by what percentage under what circumstance.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

You could but I've not seen that in gameplay. It's only one combo but my claws/sr brute is immortal in a standard max diff aggro cap's worth of Cimerorans while my scrapper most certainly is not. Which is why I'm currently PLing an em/sd brute and scrapper to go with my sd/em tank. One more data point.

 

Interesting.  Didn't you say the scrapper and brute had different Incarnates? 

 

Also we may need to think of things as a spectrum where not all sets and combos are going to really jive all the time. 

 

Claws for example benefits Scrappers and Tankers more than Brutes, since Brutes have much lower Damage Scale, and one of Claws big perks is being able to run followup and double followup alot of the time.  

 

Bio is like that too.  Shield is Damage wise but the Brute is going to get more from the mitigation probably since you can definitely get over 75% S/L resist.    

 

 

[RageusQuitus2]

On 5/20/2021 at 1:10 AM, PeregrineFalcon said:

Yeah. A much better comparison would include Scrapper crits and Tanker's larger AoE.

 

Maybe someone should do a test like having a Scrapper, a Tanker and a Brute clear a mission or something? 😄

 

A mission please what a horrible idea.  If that was a good idea someone woulda thought of it and run dozens of builds, maybe time it.  Post about it.  Video proof. 

 

I see no real option but fight club 1v1.  Two toons enter one toon leaves.

[SeraphimKensai]

The whole shtick of a Brute is Fury. Brutes are meaty behemoths that can take and lay out a pounding.

 

First off they should get a slight increase to melee damage modifiers.

 

 

Perhaps an idea to build up on Fury is when fury builds up damage, but add an effect when it gets to say 90+% you can activate a clicky that gives you "Rampage Mode" 30 seconds of Damage Cap for all your attacks, at the expense of negatively impacting defense/resistance/Regen for that time. Basically putting all your efforts into your attack as opposed to showing restraint.

[skoryy]

25 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

No arguments on your pylon times or +4 clear alls..but is this really the ONLY metric of measuring how 'good' an AT is?

Balancing via high scores is great for Donkey Kong, but not exactly for MMOs, yeah.

[Wavicle]

The only relevant tests MUST include performance on teams, and you can't handwave that with "it's too hard to test".

A relevant test has to include the Tanker's increased ability to draw and keep aggro AND it must include the fact that on a team they are BOTH insanely tough.

 

The Brute's increased damage is balanced in that environment, because while the improved aggro is of some value, the increased toughness of the Tanker really is only meaningful on smaller teams where there aren't enough buffs for the Brute.

You cannot simply measure their solo performance against the same mission and then declare them imbalanced based on that. That isn't what the game is about.

You're right I DON'T care about that sort of AT balance, and the devs never have either.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Wavicle

[Mezmera]

6 minutes ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

I see no real option but fight club 1v1.  Two toons enter one toon leaves.

 

Loser deletes their toon on the spot.

[Alchemystic]

Only productive thing to come out of this thread are the memes