Why a Brute?

[No Gods No Kings]

14 hours ago, Ukase said:

Simply put: Fury is more consistent than a critical hit. 

Scrappers do NOT blow brutes out of the water. That is a fallacy. They may at times out dps a brute, but that's not consistent. You never know when you're gonna get a crit. But, a brute knows they're going to get fury.  There is more to my stating that it's a fallacy than you might think. 

Some may say that a scrapper out-performs a brute on a pylon test. I would counter with - "Oh? That pylon that doesn't run away?" 
Play a fiery aura scrapper and you'll see what I mean. It's annoying. Pylon tests are only indicative of a scrapper's superior performance against a pylon. No more, no less. Additionally, some folks may be able to make the most out of a scrapper's build. I may not be one of those people. But I can make the most out of my brute's build. Ergo - for me, the brute is a superior choice. I mean, it's not even close. I'd pick a blaster over a scrapper, too. I'd pick a tank over a scrapper, too. They're that bad. (For me) 

Brutes have higher HP than scrappers. Thus, they have higher regen. Brutes have an inherent taunt aura. Scrappers do not. Brutes do not need to chase foes. Scrappers do. 

These are the reasons why I play a brute over a scrapper. 

As for the best primary/secondary combo - for me, I really like the Spines/Rad brute. I love my spines/fire, but there's no defense debuff resistance, unless you consider Ageless. The spines is good primarily because of impale being a ranged attack, you can slot a set of winter-Os in there, as well as in ripper and throw spines, and lung or barb. That's all the winter-Os which help a lot with recovery & s/l defense. (some winter sets do great with fire defense - which is great for a fire farmer, but not really needed. But, either way, the spines primary allows for a purple set in each category except for holds - but you can cover that in your epic if you choose. This increases the ability to get high recharge which never hurts. Rad armor is a great set, imo, to chase recharge. The faster your recharge, the higher your damage and regen. 

 

 

That's actually a pretty good answer as far as fury being more consistent.  I think maybe brutes excel in situations that are like brutes themselves. Somthing tough with moderate but consistent damage that will wear down a burst situation. 

[No Gods No Kings]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

I would personally like a Savage/wp, but I would pick something like /elec which offers a heal and +recharge. /elec has end recovery, but Savage is lighter on end usage. Not saying /elec is better than /wp. My main here is a Claws/wp brute. I'm just saying as a brute stacked +recharge will be fun, see Savage/rad.

 

Also I imagine that /elec benefits more from Savage +recharge since it has click heal and endurance powers. 

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, No Gods No Kings said:

 

Also I imagine that /elec benefits more from Savage +recharge since it has click heal and endurance powers. 

 

I made a Savage/Energy Aura scrapper at one point which not only has the same access to healing and endurance but has an aura that boosts Recharge based on the number of nearby foes.

 

I may have to consider remaking him as a brute.

[Deuce Spade]

1 hour ago, Elia87 said:

I rolled a sav/dark brute..I wanted that dmg high, maybe i should roll /something else

Mine performed gloriously until the early-mid 40s, when the single target damage started to feel noticeably inferior to other melee toons.  I think I quit him at 47.  They sure do look good though, and the AOE is quite nice.  It's also noticeably more sturdy than a /bio brute.

 

I ran a sav/bio brute to 50 in 2019, and played him a bit after.  /bio helps the single target damage, but I still think sav/ is best on a stalker, even with the hemo fix.  I have a dark/sav tank in the low 40s. and the single target damage was demoralizing.

[Doomguide2005]

10 hours ago, DreadShinobi said:

This is a misconception. Brutes have low base damage - every 1% increase to their damage is less beneficial than that same 1% applied to a tanker, scrapper, or stalker. Tankers also had their damage cap increased substantially and brute dmg cap was lowered by a tiny amount to address that already. While brutes have a gargantuan dmg cap about 190% of that is to provide room for fury. That 775% bright blue number in your combat attributes might look pretty but it is not as large a difference as you make it out to be compared to another melee archetype sitting on a 400% bright blue number. The maths around this were broken down ad nauseum over im the beta feedback threads regarding the tanker changes. This is also very unfortunate around the usage of +dmg set bonuses and red insps for brutes.

     I think I follow you but I'm also not talking about each 1% increase or even necessarily about it being a massive difference.  And if you are saying at their cap Brutes are doing the same or less than a Scrapper at theirs hmmm I'll have to go have a look at those threads to settle it in my mind as 775 - 200 is 575 which is still greater than 500% (although accounting for the crits hmmm that is closer than my brain was thinking given how reliably the proc is said to make it happen).

[Erratic1]

19 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

     I think I follow you but I'm also not talking about each 1% increase or even necessarily about it being a massive difference.  And if you are saying at their cap Brutes are doing the same or less than a Scrapper at theirs hmmm I'll have to go have a look at those threads to settle it in my mind as 775 - 200 is 575 which is still greater than 500% (although accounting for the crits hmmm that is closer than my brain was thinking given how reliably the proc is said to make it happen).

 

Its not just about the cap, but the damage scale. Starting with a lower base of damage lowers the impact of having a higher cap.

[Ukase]

3 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Its not just about the cap, but the damage scale. Starting with a lower base of damage lowers the impact of having a higher cap.

Fair point. 
But anecdotally, if not mathematically, in the early, more painful levels of 1-28, brutes seem to me to far more resilient, and do more damage. No math to support it - just anecdotally. If I were to PL to 50, there's a case to be made for rolling the scrapper, but after having done that, and not ever getting invested in the character, I stopped doing it, as there was never any satisfaction behind it, just boredom, tabbing in/out to see where the progress was while I actually played on another account. But, that's just me. I just inherently know/feel/think/believe that a brute fares better earlier, allowing me to be more invested in it's future development. Add to that, the lack of taunting (aside from the goofy provoke power), to me, and for me, the brute's a better AT. Just an opinion, no science at all behind it. 

[Without_Pause]

40 minutes ago, Deuce Spade said:

Mine performed gloriously until the early-mid 40s, when the single target damage started to feel noticeably inferior to other melee toons.  I think I quit him at 47.  They sure do look good though, and the AOE is quite nice.  It's also noticeably more sturdy than a /bio brute.

 

I ran a sav/bio brute to 50 in 2019, and played him a bit after.  /bio helps the single target damage, but I still think sav/ is best on a stalker, even with the hemo fix.  I have a dark/sav tank in the low 40s. and the single target damage was demoralizing.

Savage will have above average AoE, but below average ST damage. It does play nice with what it can be paired with. If the dev team ever makes Hemo worth a damn, it might be my favorite melee set as long as I accept it needs a sturdier armor set to go with it as I don't recall much of any mitigation coming from Savage. All things considered, Hemo should be better.

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Its not just about the cap, but the damage scale. Starting with a lower base of damage lowers the impact of having a higher cap.

 

That plus the scrapper AT IOs bumping up crit chances push the scrapper way above the brute. Another note on that, brutes may have more consistent damage once they've ramped up, but against hard targets, those crit chances become VERY consistent; to the point that you can math it out on paper and see damn near identical values with pylon times.

 

Before those IOs were added? Sure, brutes were close enough that there wasn't a reason to roll a scrapper instead. It's why my main claws/sr was a brute when the servers shut down. Now? Scrappers win on the damage front. Course, it's all become enough of a mess that BZB has three bodies on Excelsior.

[nihilii]

21 minutes ago, Ukase said:

But anecdotally, if not mathematically, in the early, more painful levels of 1-28, brutes seem to me to far more resilient, and do more damage. No math to support it - just anecdotally.

You're right on that, mathematically (at least from level 1 to level 20). Damage scale doesn't fully kick in at the low levels. And on top of that our powers are less likely to be fully slotted (even now that SOs are obtainable early on).

At level 1, a Brute essentially does 250% of the damage of any other AT. I'm assuming 75 Fury. Then it gradually decreases.

 

Especially as the damage scale of origin powers takes a while to adjust, too. A 75 Fury origin power deals, I think, something like 40-50 damage at level 1?

Brutes are also the only AT with access to their full damage cap as soon as level 1. So if you enjoy chomping on insps, you can do truly obscene things with an early Brute.

 

Fury taking care of damage means you can allocate all your slots to Accuracy, End Reduction and Recharge, while other ATs must balance the few slots we get with Damage on top.

 

The Brute early leveling experience is undoubtedly easier than anything else.

Edited September 28, 2021 by nihilii

[Erratic1]

3 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Fair point. 
But anecdotally, if not mathematically, in the early, more painful levels of 1-28, brutes seem to me to far more resilient, and do more damage. No math to support it - just anecdotally. If I were to PL to 50, there's a case to be made for rolling the scrapper, but after having done that, and not ever getting invested in the character, I stopped doing it, as there was never any satisfaction behind it, just boredom, tabbing in/out to see where the progress was while I actually played on another account. But, that's just me. I just inherently know/feel/think/believe that a brute fares better earlier, allowing me to be more invested in it's future development. Add to that, the lack of taunting (aside from the goofy provoke power), to me, and for me, the brute's a better AT. Just an opinion, no science at all behind it. 

 

The raw values of the secondary armor set powers do not change between Brutes and Scrappers though Brutes will have more health and of course there is fury. So they probably are in a better position in the early part of the game. But a few hours of just regular play will take you out of those levels. What holds my attention is the idea of a planned build unfolding and coming together so regardless of AT I am likely to make it to at least level 30, particularly if I can feel them ramping to my hoped potential through their teens and 20s.

 

As a project, I am trying to make a, "The <fill in AT name" roster of characters for myself. So, "The Brute", "The Scrapper", "The Blaster" and so on. Not the only character of the AT I would play but the one that brings me that special joy in how well they work. I was dithering over two Scrapper builds and finally got around to using the Test Server to test builds without investing in fully levelling and IO'ing them out to find out if they worked as expected. But I have both characters sitting in the mid-30s due to seeing them progress in effectiveness as described above. The StJ/Nin I made was crazily effective with me starting testing at +2x4, moving to +3x6 when that did not prove to be a problem, then moving to +4x8 when +3x6 proved not to be a problem. That is with no incarnate powers and no purple, superior, or Winter IOs. His area damage is lacking compared to the character currently filling The Brute slot (my SS/Bio brute who adds Cross Punch and Stalagmites to Foot Stomp ) but the single target damage...OMGWTFBBQsauce!

[No Gods No Kings]

55 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

The raw values of the secondary armor set powers do not change between Brutes and Scrappers though Brutes will have more health and of course there is fury. So they probably are in a better position in the early part of the game. But a few hours of just regular play will take you out of those levels. What holds my attention is the idea of a planned build unfolding and coming together so regardless of AT I am likely to make it to at least level 30, particularly if I can feel them ramping to my hoped potential through their teens and 20s.

 

As a project, I am trying to make a, "The <fill in AT name" roster of characters for myself. So, "The Brute", "The Scrapper", "The Blaster" and so on. Not the only character of the AT I would play but the one that brings me that special joy in how well they work. I was dithering over two Scrapper builds and finally got around to using the Test Server to test builds without investing in fully levelling and IO'ing them out to find out if they worked as expected. But I have both characters sitting in the mid-30s due to seeing them progress in effectiveness as described above. The StJ/Nin I made was crazily effective with me starting testing at +2x4, moving to +3x6 when that did not prove to be a problem, then moving to +4x8 when +3x6 proved not to be a problem. That is with no incarnate powers and no purple, superior, or Winter IOs. His area damage is lacking compared to the character currently filling The Brute slot (my SS/Bio brute who adds Cross Punch and Stalagmites to Foot Stomp ) but the single target damage...OMGWTFBBQsauce!

 

Same.

 

The Stalker for me is Elec/SD. Its good on other toons but AS closes the ST damage hole nicely and with Neither Shield charge nor Lighting Rod breakign concealment, on the Stalker it is entirely its own beast. 

 

I'm trying to figure what that is on a brute.  I think Rad melee is the quinetessinatal brute, but I honesty don't like it so maybe savage. Think the Brute armors is Rad or Bio.

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, No Gods No Kings said:

 

Same.

 

The Stalker for me is Elec/SD. Its good on other toons but AS closes the ST damage hole nicely and with Neither Shield charge nor Lighting Rod breakign concealment, on the Stalker it is entirely its own beast. 

 

I'm trying to figure what that is on a brute.  I think Rad melee is the quinetessinatal brute, but I honesty don't like it so maybe savage. Think the Brute armors is Rad or Bio.

 

For Rad Melee I ended up dropping Proton Sweep (miserable power) and skipped Devastating Blow due to its excessive animation time, taking Cross Punch to fill (well overfill) the hole left by not having  Proton Sweep.

 

Hmmm...wonder if you could get Savage/Bio to a point where you live in Offensive stance? Your F/C/N/E/ T/P resistances would not be good but that is what you have F/C/N/E Defense and Ablative Carapace for.

[Doomguide2005]

3 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Its not just about the cap, but the damage scale. Starting with a lower base of damage lowers the impact of having a higher cap.

Okay yes I get that ... bigger boost on a smaller base number --> lowered impact,at least the way I read that, is not the same as less.  You could have less impact because of the lower base and still net a greater value ultimately (just not as great).  I think the rest of the posts have kind of filled in the blanks/questions particularly @Bill Z Bubba reply above.

[Sovera]

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

Fair point. 
But anecdotally, if not mathematically, in the early, more painful levels of 1-28, brutes seem to me to far more resilient, and do more damage. No math to support it - just anecdotally. If I were to PL to 50, there's a case to be made for rolling the scrapper, but after having done that, and not ever getting invested in the character, I stopped doing it, as there was never any satisfaction behind it, just boredom, tabbing in/out to see where the progress was while I actually played on another account. But, that's just me. I just inherently know/feel/think/believe that a brute fares better earlier, allowing me to be more invested in it's future development. Add to that, the lack of taunting (aside from the goofy provoke power), to me, and for me, the brute's a better AT. Just an opinion, no science at all behind it. 

 

This is how I feel now. I like my Scrappers, but after a long absence trying to level news ones just didn't work out. When they crit it's joy. When they don't crit it's bland. I would rather take the Brute. But, that said and as I mention in the Ice/Fire Armor post I made a couple posts under, I still prefer the Tanker to level. Level 18 Burn beats Fury.

[Erratic1]

The other reason to make a Brute is the are drop dead sexy.

 

 

I'm not going to tell him otherwise. I like my teeth firmly in  my mouth.

[roleki]

Out on the street, going door-to-door with a group, I'd take a Scrapper over a Brute, because in theory you'll have team buffs out the wazoo that mask over the inferior survival stats and amp up your damage output.  Out on a pylon or some other single target benchmark, I'd go with a Scrapper over a Brute, because for linear damage, a Scrapper will *usually* chunk out more DPS than a similarly-equipped Brute, due in no small part that the Brute ATOs are absolutely shitty, while the Scrapper ATOs are among the best in the game.

 

But if I'm farming, I'll take a /fire Brute over any combo of anything slotted however you want it.  Ten seconds into a farm, a Brute runs at 200% damage before any inspirations come into the equation and it just builds from there.  With the higher resist caps, Brutes rarely have to fire off any survival powers in a farm, meaning every (or, close to every) click is damage output.  

 

Insofar as farming goes, you could say pretty much the same thing about a Tank these days, with their AoEs and damage modifiers being what they are now, and in fact a Tank WILL hang with a Brute (and in some cases, out-perform a Brute) if the map is short enough, but longer/bigger farm maps, the Brute always pulls away because of Fury.  

 

All that said, if you want to join PuGs, TFs, farm, do pylons and all that with just one character, a Scrapper or a Tank will likely suit you better because their performance isn't tied so heavily to a mechanic that only reaches its potential when there is an endless supply of nerds nearby. A Brute at 40% Fury might as well be a Sentinel.  

 

[Apparition]

27 minutes ago, roleki said:

All that said, if you want to join PuGs, TFs, farm, do pylons and all that with just one character, a Scrapper or a Tank will likely suit you better because their performance isn't tied so heavily to a mechanic that only reaches its potential when there is an endless supply of nerds nearby. A Brute at 40% Fury might as well be a Sentinel.

 

 

This is City of Heroes.  An endless supply of nerds (myself included), won't be a problem. 

 

[roleki]

33 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

 

This is City of Heroes.  An endless supply of nerds (myself included), won't be a problem. 

 

 

True enough; I should clarify that when I said 'nerds' I was thinking more along the lines of Possessed Scientists in lab coats that CAN fly, hanging out with winged demons that CANNOT fly.  

[Uun]

A brute should have no trouble maintaining at least 150% +dmg from fury. At that level, a brute will outdamage a tank by about 40% in ST damage, even with the lower base. AoE is trickier, since tanks got the range and target buff. A scrapper needs to crit 18% of the time to match that. I'm largely OK with how they compare damage wise.

 

I view playing brutes as easy mode for when you just want to punch stuff. 

[No Gods No Kings]

3 hours ago, roleki said:

Out on the street, going door-to-door with a group, I'd take a Scrapper over a Brute, because in theory you'll have team buffs out the wazoo that mask over the inferior survival stats and amp up your damage output.  Out on a pylon or some other single target benchmark, I'd go with a Scrapper over a Brute, because for linear damage, a Scrapper will *usually* chunk out more DPS than a similarly-equipped Brute, due in no small part that the Brute ATOs are absolutely shitty, while the Scrapper ATOs are among the best in the game.

 

But if I'm farming, I'll take a /fire Brute over any combo of anything slotted however you want it.  Ten seconds into a farm, a Brute runs at 200% damage before any inspirations come into the equation and it just builds from there.  With the higher resist caps, Brutes rarely have to fire off any survival powers in a farm, meaning every (or, close to every) click is damage output.  

 

Insofar as farming goes, you could say pretty much the same thing about a Tank these days, with their AoEs and damage modifiers being what they are now, and in fact a Tank WILL hang with a Brute (and in some cases, out-perform a Brute) if the map is short enough, but longer/bigger farm maps, the Brute always pulls away because of Fury.  

 

All that said, if you want to join PuGs, TFs, farm, do pylons and all that with just one character, a Scrapper or a Tank will likely suit you better because their performance isn't tied so heavily to a mechanic that only reaches its potential when there is an endless supply of nerds nearby. A Brute at 40% Fury might as well be a Sentinel.  

 

 

Well put, I think the cross proliferation of ATs maybe hurt brutes a little, in terms of uniqueness. I have 2 brutes for farming they are still clear kings of that world.

 

 

[lemming]

If I'm starting up a character, I tend to think, is this character more a Tank, Brute, Scrapper, or Stalker?  Though that's usually the most RP I do around here. 😉 Looking at my AT numbers, I do have more tanks and brutes, but my main is a scrapper.

[MaxxisPrime]

As someone who is looking at returning to the game since before it shut down, I find the Brute the most polarizing AT in the melee category.

 

Last I played, my main was a mid-30’s level SS/WP Brute whom was a reinvention of my level 50 Invuln/Energy Tanker. I only remade him because the Tanker was sloooow playing solo, as I did often. As the Brute, man oh man did I fly through the levels with little time wasted. Fury felt like the difference maker for me. I got that Tanker and my original Scrapper to 50, but played the Tanker more. Once I made the Brute, I found the Brute to be more fun than both the Tanker and Scrapper.

 

It’s wild how much there’s two camps of logic for the Brute: you either are accepting of the archetype and what it can do OR you find it to be a relic of a past time that is obsolete. I don’t get the hate for the Brute. Just weird how far apart people are on them, at least from what I’ve read. Not that any of this matters but it’s noticeable and makes me curious. Great thread so far. 

[Shocktacular]

2 hours ago, MaxxisPrime said:

It’s wild how much there’s two camps of logic for the Brute: you either are accepting of the archetype and what it can do OR you find it to be a relic of a past time that is obsolete. I don’t get the hate for the Brute. Just weird how far apart people are on them, at least from what I’ve read. Not that any of this matters but it’s noticeable and makes me curious. Great thread so far. 

Oddly enough, I'm in the "accepting" category for brutes, but have a hard time figuring out why corruptors are a thing anymore...

As far as "the brutiest brute", I'd like to recommend a rad/bio with damage and debuff procs in the DoT auras.  You basically jump into the middle of a huge mob, beat up on the bosses, and by the time they're down everything else is dead.  Seems pretty brutish to me: jump right in, kill EVERYTHING, repeat.
I tend to view brutes as in between scrappers and tanks; less dmg than a scrapper (although that seems more and more dubious the more I play my scrappers) but tougher, and squishier than a tank but more dmg.  That's one of the reasons I like /bio on a brute; you basically have a "tank mode" and a "scrapper mode" with the different adaptations.  Brutes, to me, are a bit more jack-of-all-trades when it comes to melee, which I find quite enjoyable.  If you need to tank, you usually can.  If you're free to just go hit stuff, you do a respectable amount of dmg.

Edited September 29, 2021 by Shocktacular

[Erratic1]

9 hours ago, roleki said:

All that said, if you want to join PuGs, TFs, farm, do pylons and all that with just one character, a Scrapper or a Tank will likely suit you better because their performance isn't tied so heavily to a mechanic that only reaches its potential when there is an endless supply of nerds nearby. A Brute at 40% Fury might as well be a Sentinel.  

 

 

My thought is the opposite. PUGs aren't running +0x1. Groups you face will be big and last long enough that you're not only going to get mileage out of Fury compared to Tankers but out of your survivability compared to Scrappers.