Why a Brute?

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, InvaderStych said:

 

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.

You're right about Savage Melee on Scrappers.  I think it's a bug.  Savage Melee on Stalkers, for example, crits for both ticks of damage on SS.  I'm gonna put it into the bug channel.

[aethereal]

As I looked into it to post a bug, I discovered that I was somewhat wrong before.  DoTs that are the "main" effect of a power (like, say, Hemorrhage in Savage Melee) do get summed up and applied all at once when they crit.  DoTs that are the secondary effect of a power (like the bleed damage in non-Hemorrhage Sav Melee or the burn damage in most Fiery Melee powers) do not get doubled on crit, and so they are better on Brutes than they are on Scrappers/Stalkers.

[No Gods No Kings]

On 10/9/2021 at 11:01 AM, aethereal said:

As I looked into it to post a bug, I discovered that I was somewhat wrong before.  DoTs that are the "main" effect of a power (like, say, Hemorrhage in Savage Melee) do get summed up and applied all at once when they crit.  DoTs that are the secondary effect of a power (like the bleed damage in non-Hemorrhage Sav Melee or the burn damage in most Fiery Melee powers) do not get doubled on crit, and so they are better on Brutes than they are on Scrappers/Stalkers.

 

Wow that's pretty interesting. I was looking at Ice melee and despite the DOTs for a brute I'm not finding it particularly damaging. Seems maybe fire melee with its secondary Dot effects might be a stronger choice. 

[aethereal]

4 minutes ago, No Gods No Kings said:

 

Wow that's pretty interesting. I was looking at Ice melee and despite the DOTs for a brute I'm not finding it particularly damaging. Seems maybe fire melee with its secondary Dot effects might be a stronger choice. 

 

Ice doesn't have a DoT secondary -- I believe that in all cases its DoTs will be considered for crit damage (I had an ice stalker, and certainly the important ones -- frost and freezing touch -- work that way).

 

But in general Ice has a big feast-or-famine story.  Freezing Touch is one of the best single-target attacks in the game.  Frost and Frozen Aura are both solid attacks, especially if you enhance the range on Frost.  Frozen Fists is traaaaaaaaaaaaaash.  Ice Sword is, you know, fine I guess.  Greater Ice Sword is mediocre.

[Snarky]

I just started THE character.  The one i will climb (my) Mount Everest on. It is a Brute

 

My Mountain is soloing every story arc in the game on one character.  I have successfully dome this Redside quite a few times.  I recently tried Red/Gold combined and had a brain fart at 29 and forgot to turn off experience.  I have never successfully soloed Blue.  Boring and complicated.   
 

Why a Brute.  It started for me with Brutes. Nearly as tough as Tankers and more damage.  At a certain point in toughness it does not matter after all.  I started after Good vs Evil was published and my first character(s) were SS/Invul Brutes breaking out of the Zig. 
 

After a lot of play I know the toughest (to me) is a Dark/Invul Brute built for recharge.  It is my “classic”.  It fits my concept.  It will be slower than a Blaster kitted for Stealth.  But it will do okay.  I will have multiple builds for various mission types, including one with full stealth. This will be what a solo most missions on.   One for Teams/Task Forces.  One for Psi environments.  
 

This is a very long term project and will be simmering on the back burner quite a while.  I am starting them now  thy get the Halloween/Christmas/Spring badges as part of the journey 

 

 

[Crysis]

As others have already said, if it’s a Resistance based build, a Brute will generally be more survivable than a scrapper and kill faster than a Tanker.  Especially with a damage aura.  
 

I tend to only play /Fire and /Elec brutes for that reason.  Almost everything else is better on on of the other melee classes.

[Erratic1]

2 hours ago, Crysis said:

As others have already said, if it’s a Resistance based build, a Brute will generally be more survivable than a scrapper and kill faster than a Tanker.  Especially with a damage aura.  
 

I tend to only play /Fire and /Elec brutes for that reason.  Almost everything else is better on on of the other melee classes.

 

No love for Bio?

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

No love for Bio?

 

Bio ain't nothin but the max +damage armor to me. It's the thing I use for my best pylon times or when I know I'm teaming. Solo? It's squishy as heaven.

 

Edit: Course... there is defensive mode and one could build specifically to cover the holes instead of going max damage....

Edited October 30, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Erratic1]

7 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Bio ain't nothin but the max +damage armor to me. It's the thing I use for my best pylon times or when I know I'm teaming. Solo? It's squishy as heaven.

 

Edit: Course... there is defensive mode and one could build specifically to cover the holes instead of going max damage....

 

 

If you live in Offensive stance, with its hit to Resistances, I could see saying its squishy. 😛 

 

 

Edit: I run my SS/Bio in Efficient. Offensive may do more immediate damage but not ever running out of endurance means no pauses in damage delivery. Though now that you mention Defensive...never considered using Rage to offset its Damage hit. May have to give that some thought.

Edited October 30, 2021 by Erratic1

[Bill Z Bubba]

42 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

If you live in Offensive stance, with its hit to Resistances, I could see saying its squishy. 😛 

 

 

Edit: I run my SS/Bio in Efficient. Offensive may do more immediate damage but not ever running out of endurance means no pauses in damage delivery. Though now that you mention Defensive...never considered using Rage to offset its Damage hit. May have to give that some thought.

 

I shift during missions. I'm only in damage mode for av/gm fights, usually sit in efficient and have no issues going defensive if I sense things are about to go sideways. It's a pretty cool set, if clicky as hell.

 

Edit: While that may seem to contradict my prior statement, the two are actually both true. Even in defensive mode, since my builds are built for max damage, bio is pretty dang squishy due to lack of slow resists. I could shore it up some but it'd eat into the damage side.

 

Edit2: And now I want to rebuild my stone/bio brute. Dangit.

Edited October 30, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Erratic1]

3 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I shift during missions. I'm only in damage mode for av/gm fights, usually sit in efficient and have no issues going defensive if I sense things are about to go sideways. It's a pretty cool set, if clicky as hell.

 

A "best practice" I have found to avoid "Sudden Death From Nowhere" is to pop Parasitic Aura in any large crowd, where "large" is in the 10+ range.

 

Checking the numbers, Defensive applies a -25% Damage  Bonus and Rage a +80%. So there is a cost but you're still up in the damage department though I am not wowed by it to the extent that I would consider just running in Defensive and relying on the  Rage offset.

 

But being able to contemplate that is an outgrowth of SS/Bio that would not be there for most other primary sets other than Claws, where  you're mostly just negating the negative bonus, not pulling ahead.

[Without_Pause]

Going to have to see about the changes on beta to Savage pan out, but those look good at a glance. 

[FUBARczar]

On 9/28/2021 at 4:20 PM, Elia87 said:

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

Yes you should have.  

 

Like /Rad, Shield, Fire, Energy, 

[Elia87]

4 minutes ago, FUBARczar said:

Yes you should have.  

 

Like /Rad, Shield, Fire, Energy, 

Rolled a katana/rad scrapper in the end

[Snarky]

On 10/30/2021 at 10:02 AM, Crysis said:

As others have already said, if it’s a Resistance based build, a Brute will generally be more survivable than a scrapper and kill faster than a Tanker.  Especially with a damage aura.  
 

I tend to only play /Fire and /Elec brutes for that reason.  Almost everything else is better on on of the other melee classes.

I will agree with this, with a caveat.  Even without the damage aura i prefer Brutes over Tanks.  SS/Invul and SS/Will are incredible on a Brute.  The revamped Energy paired with Invul or Will is insanely good.  
 

The higher survivability of a Tank loses value when 95% of the time it makes NO difference and 1% of the time it is zero help (Magisterium and TinMage Battlemaiden fight etc).  The 4% of the time it is better is a hard trade off for the better damage and (importantly) the better damage CAP of the Brute

 

One of my personal favorites I am revisiting is a Dark Melee / Invulnerability Brute.  This build achieves greater survivability not by chasing the highest resists (although as you build you do keep these in mind as secondary goals) but by chasing high global recharge.  This brings up the Dull Pain in Invulnerability, the Siphon Life in Dark Melee and the fulcrum shift that is Soul Drain into a never ending hard point of destruction.  On live i ran this with Invulnerability’s Unstoppable and mitigated the crash with Dark Melee’s end replacement power Dark Consumption.  This would allow me to stand alone against i sane odds for very long periods going on and out of Unstoppable and using Dull Pain as Unstoppable drops.  Not as good or necessary in the modern game, but a neat trick

Edited November 6, 2021 by Snarky

[Erratic1]

5 hours ago, Snarky said:

One of my personal favorites I am revisiting is a Dark Melee / Invulnerability Brute.  This build achieves greater survivability not by chasing the highest resists (although as you build you do keep these in mind as secondary goals) but by chasing high global recharge.  This brings up the Dull Pain in Invulnerability, the Siphon Life in Dark Melee and the fulcrum shift that is Soul Drain into a never ending hard point of destruction.  On live i ran this with Invulnerability’s Unstoppable and mitigated the crash with Dark Melee’s end replacement power Dark Consumption.  This would allow me to stand alone against i sane odds for very long periods going on and out of Unstoppable and using Dull Pain as Unstoppable drops.  Not as good or necessary in the modern game, but a neat trick

 

The build which sold me on Brute back on live was a cousin, DM/Elec. No Invincibility but stronger double dipping ala Siphon Life/Energize and Dark Consumption/Power Sink. Likewise it came into its own with high global recharge.

[Without_Pause]

I was on a level 16 Dark/staff tank soloing a CoT mission. A single +1 LT made me leave the mission to restock on inspirs. I admit to having nothing slotted, but that was a humbling moment. Tough to imagine a brute needing to do the same. I hit 17 and slotted in some IOs. I'll convert them to attuned when I get a chance.

 

Dark/elec was what won me over for brutes as well. My only issue now would be wanting to go Rad/elec, but I already have a Rad/bio, and I can only tolerate those two long animations so much.

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, Without_Pause said:

Dark/elec was what won me over for brutes as well. My only issue now would be wanting to go Rad/elec, but I already have a Rad/bio, and I can only tolerate those two long animations so much.

 

Got an Elec/Rad tank and on Rad Melee I do not take Devastating Blow. I replace it with Cross Punch.

[Without_Pause]

Makes me actually wonder if I should swap out Shadow Maul for Cross Punch on a Dark. I'll save that for an experiment later on. The biggest reason it works on my Stalker is I can take the time to line up the attack better.

[Erratic1]

10 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

Makes me actually wonder if I should swap out Shadow Maul for Cross Punch on a Dark. I'll save that for an experiment later on. The biggest reason it works on my Stalker is I can take the time to line up the attack better.

 

I enjoy Shadow Maul to give it up. Helps a lot to center target then take a step back before you activate it. If you can train yourself to do that seamlessly, keep Shadow Maul.

[Snarky]

16 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Makes me actually wonder if I should swap out Shadow Maul for Cross Punch on a Dark. I'll save that for an experiment later on. The biggest reason it works on my Stalker is I can take the time to line up the attack better.

Noooooooo   Shadow Maul is great damage and with the relatively recent changes to area (easier to hit multiple opponents) it would be crazy to drop.  In my opinion.  (No, its F-ing crazy)

[luxlorica]

How do you see brutes performing in the new difficulty settings coming up?

 

I hear “tougher than a scrapper, more damage than a tank” but I have also heard the content described as trivial so maybe that toughness or that damage doesn’t get much of a test?

 

When the new setting land, do you think brutes will melt like fudge ripple at the beach? Will they find their damage insufficient to deal with threats before succumbing to their loving advances?

 

Do you think harder content will trivialize brutes, revealing the “middle of the road” approach to end up being a jack of no trades, master of respawn while more focused ATs like Blaster, Tanker and Scrapper might see their optimizations become more valuable?

 

I think that pure ATs, with their monopolar build directions, will benefit most from adjusting to the new settings. Franken-ATs might see some trouble as their trade-offs become even more pronounced while their trade-ups become less capable.

[Sovera]

13 minutes ago, luxlorica said:

How do you see brutes performing in the new difficulty settings coming up?

 

I hear “tougher than a scrapper, more damage than a tank” but I have also heard the content described as trivial so maybe that toughness or that damage doesn’t get much of a test?

 

When the new setting land, do you think brutes will melt like fudge ripple at the beach? Will they find their damage insufficient to deal with threats before succumbing to their loving advances?

 

Do you think harder content will trivialize brutes, revealing the “middle of the road” approach to end up being a jack of no trades, master of respawn while more focused ATs like Blaster, Tanker and Scrapper might see their optimizations become more valuable?

 

I think that pure ATs, with their monopolar build directions, will benefit most from adjusting to the new settings. Franken-ATs might see some trouble as their trade-offs become even more pronounced while their trade-ups become less capable.

 

Not really. In my opinion.

 

What Tankers have is self-sufficiency in reaching certain defensive numbers and a bigger HP pool. Brutes suffer from having no such boosts.

 

But they have the same caps. So the number of buffers the new difficulty will attract means the Tankers will get less out of them while the Brutes will get more, but in the end both will be at 45%+ defense and 90% resists.

 

A case can be made that with -debuffs- from enemies that the Tankers having bigger numbers will work out better for them but it's not -that- much of a difference.

 

I can for example look between my Fire Armor Brutes and Tanker builds. The Tankers reach 90% to S/L/E/N without much fuss. And they can reach 40% to S/L more easily. By easily read that I can proc attacks instead of dedicating my attacks to chasing defense or resistance bonuses.

 

But the Brute does nearly the same. It has a 30-ish% hole in E/N resistances that would require either a Thermal or a Sonic to fill but the same defenses. The difference is that I need to dedicate my attacks which makes me do less damage than I could... because of this my Energy Melee/Fire Armor Brute only

 

To be honest I would have to wait and see but I think the squishy Fire Armor Brute/Tanker may have reached its end as a main tank and will only join as a off-tank or DPS. In the case of the Brute it serves pretty well for the purpose even if Scrappers do more... because poor Scrappers and their 75% resists. Especially the sets with agro auras that get the attention of the buffed enemies.

 

That said Shield is probably going to be verrrrry popular in the future.

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 hours ago, luxlorica said:

How do you see brutes performing in the new difficulty settings coming up?

 

I hear “tougher than a scrapper, more damage than a tank” but I have also heard the content described as trivial so maybe that toughness or that damage doesn’t get much of a test?

 

When the new setting land, do you think brutes will melt like fudge ripple at the beach? Will they find their damage insufficient to deal with threats before succumbing to their loving advances?

 

Do you think harder content will trivialize brutes, revealing the “middle of the road” approach to end up being a jack of no trades, master of respawn while more focused ATs like Blaster, Tanker and Scrapper might see their optimizations become more valuable?

 

I think that pure ATs, with their monopolar build directions, will benefit most from adjusting to the new settings. Franken-ATs might see some trouble as their trade-offs become even more pronounced while their trade-ups become less capable.

 

On a full team, a brute is likely to be a superior choice over scrappers and tanks. A team of 8 will probably be supplying buffs which brutes thrive on. A tank will never match a brute at the damage cap for damage output and a scrapper will never match a brute at the damres cap for mitigation. All while retaining taunt auras and the real taunt.

Edited November 16, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Gobbledygook]

9 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

On a full team, a brute is likely to be a superior choice over scrappers and tanks. A team of 8 will probably be supplying buffs which brutes thrive on. A tank will never match a brute at the damage cap for damage output and a scrapper will never match a brute at the damres cap for mitigation. All while retaining taunt auras and the real taunt.

That's a good point. One I didn't think of.

Guess I should dust off my Fm/Inv and finally get him T4 incarnates.