Why a Brute?

[No Gods No Kings]

11 hours ago, Haijinx said:

 

It is kind of squishy, but you burn stuff down so fast that it doesn't seem like it. 

 

Plus if you go down you can always Nuke them when you rez. 

 

What do you think is squishy about it?

 

Its not particularly tough like say Invul or Stone, but it falls pretty much in line with the others. Like Electricity Solid Resists, no defenses, healing and end management. Ones I would consider a bit squishy are bio or energy or regen or something in that vein or just anything that doesn't hit damage caps and are susceptible to a big hit from a common damage source. 

[aethereal]

11 hours ago, No Gods No Kings said:

 

What do you think is squishy about it?

 

Its not particularly tough like say Invul or Stone, but it falls pretty much in line with the others. Like Electricity Solid Resists, no defenses, healing and end management. Ones I would consider a bit squishy are bio or energy or regen or something in that vein or just anything that doesn't hit damage caps and are susceptible to a big hit from a common damage source. 

 

An unslotted /elec brute with all the defensive powers except the T9 activated would have:

 

26.25% S/L resist

61.875% E resist

22.5% N resist

26.25% F/C resist

26.25% P resist

0% T resist

 

An unslotted /fire brute with all the defensive powers activated would have:

 

22.5% S/L resist

22.5% E/N resist

67.5% F resist

15% C resist

0% P resist

15%+ T resist depending on how many times you can stack Healing Flames

 

So Fiery Aura provides generally slightly lower resists than Elec (3.75% less S/L, and 3.75% lower E/N than Elec gives to F/C).  It's not a huge difference, but it's noticeable.  In turn, I think that Fire gives better offense than Elec.

[Erratic1]

10 hours ago, aethereal said:

So Fiery Aura provides generally slightly lower resists than Elec (3.75% less S/L, and 3.75% lower E/N than Elec gives to F/C).  It's not a huge difference, but it's noticeable.  In turn, I think that Fire gives better offense than Elec.

 

I realize you were not trying to be exhaustive but probably also worth noting that defensively Electrical comes with unshakeable Endurance and Recovery debuff resistance and solid recharge debuff resistance compared to Fire's solid Endurance debuff resistance and anemic Recharge and Run debuff resistances.

 

And while Fire most assuredly gives better offense, it is easy to overlook that Electrical gives better +Recharge and endurance recovery by which to use those faster attacks.

[No Gods No Kings]

11 hours ago, aethereal said:

 

An unslotted /elec brute with all the defensive powers except the T9 activated would have:

 

26.25% S/L resist

61.875% E resist

22.5% N resist

26.25% F/C resist

26.25% P resist

0% T resist

 

An unslotted /fire brute with all the defensive powers activated would have:

 

22.5% S/L resist

22.5% E/N resist

67.5% F resist

15% C resist

0% P resist

15%+ T resist depending on how many times you can stack Healing Flames

 

So Fiery Aura provides generally slightly lower resists than Elec (3.75% less S/L, and 3.75% lower E/N than Elec gives to F/C).  It's not a huge difference, but it's noticeable.  In turn, I think that Fire gives better offense than Elec.

 

Ok fair point in total resists. Though I don't know how noticeable 3.75 is, though I suspect the bigger hole Electric covers is the Psychic as it seems to be more common than toxic and energy is more common than fire.  

[aethereal]

2 hours ago, No Gods No Kings said:

 

Ok fair point in total resists. Though I don't know how noticeable 3.75 is, though I suspect the bigger hole Electric covers is the Psychic as it seems to be more common than toxic and energy is more common than fire.  

 

Once you've enhanced your powers, it's about a 5% difference, maybe a little higher.  If you want to make up the difference with set bonuses in both S/L and E/N, you're probably looking for at least three set bonuses that probably come fairly late in a set, so it means a pretty significant difference in set prioritization.  Is it night and day?  No.  But if you're chasing 90% on a Brute, every resist bonus counts.

[Without_Pause]

On 10/2/2021 at 11:59 PM, No Gods No Kings said:

So after looking at the sets these are my subjective picks. My criteria for the armor set is that they should easily allow you to get over the scrapper resist caps in someway the other is that they need to either have a damage aura or they need a damaging area attack. This list is just what I think is the most "brutish" Tougher than a scrapper and pumps out more damage. Once again this is not how good the armors are in the game, but how much I think they distinguish brutes from scrappers or Tankers. 

                    Primaries

S Tier - Rad, Spines

A Tier- Savage, Stone, Super Strength 

 

                    Secondary  

S Tier - Electric, Dark, Fire       

A Tier- Bio, Rad, Shield

B Tier - Super Reflexes, 

 

Rad and Spines have damage auras which help bridge the damage gap a  bit to scrappers, savage has low damage but good DOTs which favor Brutes. Stier Armors all have toggle damage auras. Fire and electric kind of pulls into the lead cause they go to the tanker Cap pretty easily. Bio's defense and resists numbers are better on the brute and the more you chase HP the greater the separation between Brute and scrapper.  Rad is a lot like Bio, and Shield is just overall awesome and one with the shield lets you hit those tanker cap numbers, and shield charge gives even more damage. SR I'm not sure belongs but if you slot for resistance the scaling can take you past the Scrapper caps but.. meh. 

I looked into some numbers. StJ should be high due to its animation and recharge times for building fury, and it has a heavy hitter as compared to Savage even though Savage has more AoE. Psionic is interesting in that is a slower animation time set, but not terribly so. The advantage to it is getting Insight since that adds DoT to its attacks. The downside is Insight. My fix just feels like "Anything but that." The closest thing I got is having a toggle which adds the DoT so it is like a damage aura, but different. I rolled a Psi brute today and got it to 8. I'll see how it goes as it levels. When I had Insight and could get some attacks in with it, that felt great. I went /dark to offer additional non-psy damage for those times when it is needed. Kinetic is better off for a Scrapper or Tank since they don't need to worry about building fury. Animation and recharge times hurt it. The only benefit here and it isn't exclusive to Brutes is the -DMG being used with armor sets. Animation times on WM aren't special and those recharges are long. I tapped out on a build which offered +recharge in the armor and still couldn't deal with it. Crowd Control is a beautiful thing though.

[Deuce Spade]

I just leveled my Rad/Elec brute to 50 on test and took her for a spin, and she does things a scrapper couldn't dream of.  She has capped (or almost capped, with the exception of toxic) resists and does plenty of AOE damage.  Single target is better than a tank, but not as good as a scrapper.  She plays well enough that I'll finish her version on live. 

 

In general, I think brutes are in an OK but not awesome place.  Scrappers had years as the honorable mention melee AT, and I know it sucks, but at least brutes still have areas where they clearly outperform scrappers, even now.  I think if I was running design I'd bump the damage cap back up and call it done.

[Sovera]

19 hours ago, Deuce Spade said:

I just leveled my Rad/Elec brute to 50 on test and took her for a spin, and she does things a scrapper couldn't dream of.  She has capped (or almost capped, with the exception of toxic) resists and does plenty of AOE damage.  Single target is better than a tank, but not as good as a scrapper.  She plays well enough that I'll finish her version on live. 

 

In general, I think brutes are in an OK but not awesome place.  Scrappers had years as the honorable mention melee AT, and I know it sucks, but at least brutes still have areas where they clearly outperform scrappers, even now.  I think if I was running design I'd bump the damage cap back up and call it done.

 

It's worth mentioning that the high damage cap is one of those useless perks to an AT. This was my take back during the Tanker buff patch and it remains. A Kin is unable to hit FS fast enough before a nuke or a Judgement goes off and has killed half the spawn. Heck, one of my Fire Armor tanks might kill part of the minions by dropping BU + Gaussian + Burn + AoEs.

 

The probability of managing to stack FS' to the point where damage caps are reached is, IMO, dim outside of spreadsheets.

[Carnifax]

22 minutes ago, Sovera said:

The probability of managing to stack FS' to the point where damage caps are reached is, IMO, dim outside of spreadsheets.

Eh? I manage it constantly on my DP/Kin corruptor. Remember that enhancements account for 95% of the cap. So hitting 95% less than what's showing in Combat Attribs isnt that hard.

 

Granted a brutes cap is a bit higher but should still be possible (when I'm combat attrib capped I'd be at 595% for most of my set slotted powers if it wasn't for the 500 limit)

[No Gods No Kings]

On 10/5/2021 at 5:42 PM, Without_Pause said:

I looked into some numbers. StJ should be high due to its animation and recharge times for building fury, and it has a heavy hitter as compared to Savage even though Savage has more AoE. Psionic is interesting in that is a slower animation time set, but not terribly so. The advantage to it is getting Insight since that adds DoT to its attacks. The downside is Insight. My fix just feels like "Anything but that." The closest thing I got is having a toggle which adds the DoT so it is like a damage aura, but different. I rolled a Psi brute today and got it to 8. I'll see how it goes as it levels. When I had Insight and could get some attacks in with it, that felt great. I went /dark to offer additional non-psy damage for those times when it is needed. Kinetic is better off for a Scrapper or Tank since they don't need to worry about building fury. Animation and recharge times hurt it. The only benefit here and it isn't exclusive to Brutes is the -DMG being used with armor sets. Animation times on WM aren't special and those recharges are long. I tapped out on a build which offered +recharge in the armor and still couldn't deal with it. Crowd Control is a beautiful thing though.

 

 

I'm willing to amend any list I make with new info. In Truth I didn't really take into accounts all the set, Stone made it in purely on the fact that you cant make one as a scrapper.

I did forget that Psy does DOT but I don't have much numbers on it. Does it benefit from fury if so it should go in about the same place as Savage. I love WM.. on something else. Let me know if you have suggestions on the others.

 

STJ its fast animating decent AOE. 

Claws is actually really good fast animating low base damage lots of AOEs.

Ice I don't have experience with Ice but this should be a pretty good Primary as well lots of DOTs for damage.

Fire should be as good as Ice but... bleh. Anyone got good reps on Fire?

Not sure about Staff.

 

As Far as far as secondaries only one I think is terrible is Ice. 

 

 

 

                    Primaries

S Tier - Rad, Spines

A Tier- Savage, Super Strength, Street Justice, Claws, Ice

B Tier- Stone, Fire, Dual Blades

C Tier - Warmace (Sword, Axe), Electric Melee

D Tier- Titan Weapons

 

                    Secondary  

S Tier - Electric, Dark, Fire       

A Tier- Bio, Rad, Shield, Stone

B Tier - Super Reflexes, Invulnerability, Energy Aura, Will power

C Tier- 

D Tier- Ice Armor

F Tier- Regen

Edited October 7, 2021 by No Gods No Kings

[Deuce Spade]

16 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

It's worth mentioning that the high damage cap is one of those useless perks to an AT. This was my take back during the Tanker buff patch and it remains. A Kin is unable to hit FS fast enough before a nuke or a Judgement goes off and has killed half the spawn. Heck, one of my Fire Armor tanks might kill part of the minions by dropping BU + Gaussian + Burn + AoEs.

 

The probability of managing to stack FS' to the point where damage caps are reached is, IMO, dim outside of spreadsheets.

Fair enough.  I don't team, so these scenarios don't even occur to me.  Solo farming, I hit the damage cap every run combining insps.  I also use combine macros while running normal content, though in a regular mission you're unlikely to hit the cap.  Still, it happens now and then.  I personally think the cap is fine as is, but there seems to be a lot of brute angst since it was lowered, thus my suggestion to raise it again.

[aethereal]

Why do people think DoTs are good for brutes?

Edited October 7, 2021 by aethereal

[Without_Pause]

Damage is based off of fury.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

Why do people think DoTs are good for brutes?

 

41 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

Damage is based off of fury.

 

And damage auras coming off the secondary don't crit so brute 2ndary damage auras > scrapper 2ndary damage auras.

 

Edit: And knowing that whether a power can crit is an attribute easily added to said power and could be done in a single pass makes me think the powers that be still don't want scrapper 2ndary damage auras to crit but I absolutely think otherwise.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Haijinx]

Would a Savage/Fire brute be the best leverage on the whole Brute with DOTs thing I wonder. 

 

Of course DOTs on teams aren't the greatest thing ever. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

8 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Would a Savage/Fire brute be the best leverage on the whole Brute with DOTs thing I wonder. 

 

Of course DOTs on teams aren't the greatest thing ever. 

 

DoTs solo can be a pain causing an increase in corpse blasting with sets like Nrg Mel. But they sure are a sweet extra against hard targets.

[Sovera]

I'm just part way leveling an EM/Fire Brute and I got to say that the joy of playing the Rad/Fire is just gone. It may certainly do more damage in ST but I'd rather be punching a boss in the face and have triple DoT action chewing a spawn. On the EM I'm throwing Whirling Hands on CD but eeeeeeh. Gently Caressing Hands even after the tuning patch.

 

On the Rad I was having so much fun I soloed everything, even Synapse (and finished on a respectable 1h36 which is times I've had with full teams) and Manticore.

 

Kinda pondering dropping the EM and go mess with a Claws/Fire. I know Brute is not the best to leverage Claws but it does not magically make Claws bad. It's still slicing and dicing fury with a full attack chain by level 18.

 

And Spin.

[Bill Z Bubba]

51 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Kinda pondering dropping the EM and go mess with a Claws/Fire. I know Brute is not the best to leverage Claws but it does not magically make Claws bad. It's still slicing and dicing fury with a full attack chain by level 18.

 

And Spin.

 

Knowing you have zero experience with claws....

 

Oh... wait... seriously you haven't done this yet?!?!

[Sovera]

29 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Knowing you have zero experience with claws....

 

Oh... wait... seriously you haven't done this yet?!?!

 

Scrapper and Tanker only 😛

[aethereal]

9 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Damage is based off of fury.

 

Sure.  But damage of non-DoTs is also based on fury.  That doesn't mean much.

 

I'm wondering if people think that dots like Savage or fire don't crit in Stalkers or scrappers.  They do.  In the case of a crit, in general, the crit does all the damage of the dot up front when it happens.

 

There may be some exceptions to this rule, I haven't looked at every power.  But in general, I see no reason to believe that dots are better for brutes than they are for other ATs.

 

@Bill Z Bubba mentions damage auras, which do not crit, and are relatively better for brutes than scrappers.  But dots like Savage and fire melee are different.

Edited October 8, 2021 by aethereal

[Without_Pause]

Your question was why are DoT good for brutes. It wasn't about it being best for brutes.

 

If I had to do Claws again, I would go Rad. If my numbers are correct, 5+ targets means you have equal to if not better recharge coming from Beta Decay than any other armor with +recharge. I've felt it on my Savage/rad. This did lead me down a wormhole which makes me think using Rad with StJ would be fun to play since the animation times on StJ are so clean.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Without_Pause

[Erratic1]

37 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

Your question was why are DoT good for brutes. It wasn't about it being best for brutes.

 

If I had to do Claws again, I would go Rad. If my numbers are correct, 5+ targets means you have equal to if not better recharge coming from Beta Decay than any other armor with +recharge. I've felt it on my Savage/rad. This did lead me down a wormhole which makes me think using Rad with StJ would be fun to play since the animation times on StJ are so clean.

 

Do you not have this reversed?

 

Beta Decay grants 10+2.5n Recharge based on n opponents being nearby. Entropic Aura under Energy Aura grants 5+3.5n

 

Energy Aura has the higher growth rate, 3.5n vs 2.5n, so in the end it must have the high value. To find where this is we can solve 10 + 2.5n <= 5 +3.5n:

 

10 + 2.5n <= 5 +3.5n 

5 <= n

 

At 4 opponents Beta Decay gives 20% Recharge, Entropic Aura gives 19%

At 5 opponents Beta Decay gives 22.5% Recharge, Entropic Aura gives 22.5%

[Chance Jackson]

if you want to be able to select your first attack power & still have tanker resist caps & a smoother early game go Brute

[Without_Pause]

Ah, my experience is vastly with the Stalker version which is a flat +20%. I see Scrappers get the better version as well, but mine is level 22 so I haven't had much of a chance to experience it.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Without_Pause

[InvaderStych]

On 10/7/2021 at 11:34 PM, aethereal said:

I'm wondering if people think that dots like Savage or fire don't crit in Stalkers or scrappers.  They do.  In the case of a crit, in general, the crit does all the damage of the dot up front when it happens.

 

In general, yes, this is how DoT powers should, and in most cases do work.  Savage though?  I've been slow-leveling savage scrappers (dropped the first one, probably keeping the second) for quite a while at this point, and I am not convinced that Savage crits are WAI.

 

SS critical hits are only for 1 of the two damage ticks (unlike similar 2-tick powers from Katana, Broadsword, Claws, etc).

 

MS critical hits match the damage of the initial hit, but do not include the "bleed" DoTs.

 

VS seems to be working properly.

 

RF critical hits are routinely lower than the base damage of the attack, thus definitely do not include bleed DoT damage.

 

I would have to dig deeper than just observing dmg output in real time to figure out if the distance based damage boost is included in critical hits from Leap.

 

All that said, I still love Savage on a scrapper because of the interaction between Leap and the Crit Strikes proc.

 

------

 

Another issue is that not all critical hits are created equal.  Many powers will critical for "double damage" - the expectation - some powers noticeably do not: Greater Psi Blade comes to mind as an example.

 

Finally; I would love to see critical hits written into the scrapper secondaries.  Brute Fury boosts Secondary Damage; Tanker Radius/Target Cap buffs improve attacks in their armor sets (primary in that case).  Stalkers have unique game play to differentiate them.  Scrappers have been left to twist in the wind on this one, imo.  Granting crits to the secondary wouldn't be game breaking, but it would give Scrappers back a little bit of their niche.

Edited October 9, 2021 by InvaderStych