Why a Brute?

[Sovera]

34 minutes ago, roleki said:

 

Time for me to learn something... describe this Triple Stacking.  If by "triple stacking" you mean splitting a set across 3 powers so that each gets 2 pieces, you only get 12% damage off Sup Might of the Tanker that way.  In that arena, splitting a set into 3, I would argue that Corruptor's Superior Scourge set split into 3, which nets you 10.8 endurance, would be the 'best' ATO split that way, followed by Sentinel Strikes (30% Range) and Dominator's Grasp (24% Mez duration) if the value of what those bonuses contribute to the performance of the character is considered apart from the impact of the unique from a given set.  

 

Since you've asked. The proc in Might of the Tanker adds 6.7% to all resistances. This stacks three times. It's the reason why it's insultingly easy to reach 90% on any resistance based armor.

[roleki]

7 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

Since you've asked. The proc in Might of the Tanker adds 6.7% to all resistances. This stacks three times. It's the reason why it's insultingly easy to reach 90% on any resistance based armor.

 

Gotcha, and especially dumb on my part NOT to put two and two together because I spent a lot of last night moving that proc around in my Inv/Rad tank, trying to figure out how to get it stacked more consistently.

Edited November 19, 2021 by roleki

[Sovera]

41 minutes ago, roleki said:

Gotcha, and especially dumb on my part NOT to put two and two together because I spent a lot of last night moving that proc around in my Inv/Rad tank, trying to figure out how to get it stacked more consistently.

 

I've placed it in Radiation Smash. Four Might of the Tank + damage proc + Forced Feedback proc fits in like a Tetris puzzle. Might not be for everyone's tastes though.

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, roleki said:

Maybe 'reliably predict' is too strong a phrase for increasing your chance to crit by 900% vs minions (from 5% chance to 50% chance) and 400% against higher level targets (from 10% chance to 50% chance) but in practice, it FEELS reliable.  As @Pzn mentioned, placement is key, both in what power you put it, where you fire off that attack, and what you follow it with.  

Thank you, @roleki and @Pzn for taking the time to reply. I suppose for me it's a playstyle issue - I don't care to pick and choose when clearing mobs. 

There are folks who play this game in a multitude of different ways. I'd wager 50% of them are far more efficient than I am, when it comes to traveling through a map, developing attack chains for maximal DPS, etc. 
This is why I tend to level up a character, as opposed to just PL and then work towards t-4. I am going to fare better trying different attack chains in various circumstances to see which attack is my opener, and which one is next, etc. It's just my process. When I determine which one I think is optimal, I'll move the attacks so they correspond with the number row atop my keyboard. Thinking of holding off an attack in order to get a crit on a higher HP target..I've done that, it's just not my preference. I prefer to be a bit more ...mindless, I'm sad to report. Mash 1, 2, 3, on to next target if dead, or 4,5, until or unless 1, 2, or 3 has recharged. Far more less to think about, and I believe, ultimately, faster for me. It works. At least, it has so far. 
Not saying that method wouldn't work with a scrapper, and ensure crits have a greater chance of firing. I just prefer the consistency of the brute. And I've never seen the ATOs as less then great. I tend to split up one of the Scrappers ATO sets, for the HP boost, because scrappers HP is so low without some buffs. When I learned my blasters are at 1847, and my scrapper is just at 2k...no. That's too low for a character that lives in melee to suit me. They don't dish out enough damage for that lower hp. Scrappers are weak & feeble compared to my blasters, really. But that's likely more due to my inability to build a scrapper properly, and my being far more experienced in playing a blaster. 

[Pzn]

23 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Mash 1, 2, 3

In the end all my favorite builds are like this.  I might post a bunch of complicated attack chain ideas but that's exhausting to play all the time.  Claws, katana, and dual blades are my favorites on scrappers for keeping it simple.  You can make a solid chain out of 3 attacks with lots of crits using good ATO placement.  The lower damage (but high DPA) with those sets stops you from overkilling with giant crits.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, roleki said:

Time for me to learn something... describe this Triple Stacking.

 

No, I mean stick the whole set into followup and watch ALL of your damage resistances go up by 6.7%, then 13.4%, then 20.1% as you claw through your enemies.

 

Just read the rest of the posts and see it was covered. Yea, this makes it the top AT IO proc in my book. I'd kill for that much extra damres on my scrappers or brutes.

 

Edit: Pondering it now... it seems damn broken compared to the rest of them and is likely the main culprit behind my sr/claws tank being so ridiculously awesome.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[roleki]

2 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

I've placed it in Radiation Smash. Four Might of the Tank + damage proc + Forced Feedback proc fits in like a Tetris puzzle. Might not be for everyone's tastes though.

 

I'm going to have to give that a try; I used to slot a bunch of purples and procs everywhere, but somewhere along the line I just started doing really vanilla builds that focused on one particular bonus or another, bolstered by the uniques everyone runs in the usual places.  Maybe that's kept me from falling in love with one build over another; truth is, I feel much more affinity for my weird-slotted Grav/Storm who dies if the slightest thing goes wrong than I do for my unkillable Brutes who rarely take damage and when they do, only 10% of it gets through.

 

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Thank you, @roleki and @Pzn for taking the time to reply. I suppose for me it's a playstyle issue - I don't care to pick and choose when clearing mobs. 

There are folks who play this game in a multitude of different ways. I'd wager 50% of them are far more efficient than I am, when it comes to traveling through a map, developing attack chains for maximal DPS, etc. 
This is why I tend to level up a character, as opposed to just PL and then work towards t-4. I am going to fare better trying different attack chains in various circumstances to see which attack is my opener, and which one is next, etc. It's just my process. When I determine which one I think is optimal, I'll move the attacks so they correspond with the number row atop my keyboard. Thinking of holding off an attack in order to get a crit on a higher HP target..I've done that, it's just not my preference. I prefer to be a bit more ...mindless, I'm sad to report. Mash 1, 2, 3, on to next target if dead, or 4,5, until or unless 1, 2, or 3 has recharged. Far more less to think about, and I believe, ultimately, faster for me. It works. At least, it has so far. 
Not saying that method wouldn't work with a scrapper, and ensure crits have a greater chance of firing. I just prefer the consistency of the brute. And I've never seen the ATOs as less then great. I tend to split up one of the Scrappers ATO sets, for the HP boost, because scrappers HP is so low without some buffs. When I learned my blasters are at 1847, and my scrapper is just at 2k...no. That's too low for a character that lives in melee to suit me. They don't dish out enough damage for that lower hp. Scrappers are weak & feeble compared to my blasters, really. But that's likely more due to my inability to build a scrapper properly, and my being far more experienced in playing a blaster. 

 

Some people are religious over attack chain efficiency, and my hat's off to them for being able to invest that much CPU into such things.  I'm too much of an altoholic to get that far down the rabbithole; so long as the character can clear a map without me wondering what the hell is wrong with it, that's fine by me.  I make tweaks as I go along, but, that's almost like a job to me.  The less time I have the Enhancement Management screen up, that's more time I can flit around flattening things with my Fire/FF controller or whatever.

 

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

No, I mean stick the whole set into followup and watch ALL of your damage resistances go up by 6.7%, then 13.4%, then 20.1% as you claw through your enemies.

 

Just read the rest of the posts and see it was covered. Yea, this makes it the top AT IO proc in my book. I'd kill for that much extra damres on my scrappers or brutes.

 

Edit: Pondering it now... it seems damn broken compared to the rest of them and is likely the main culprit behind my sr/claws tank being so ridiculously awesome.

 

On that Inv/Rad Tank I mentioned, the +6.7 Res(All) is a nice bonus, considering I've already got fairly decent resists out of the primary and set bonuses, but I can see why an SR tank would be downright enthused about the stacking Res(All).  In that context, that IS a pretty powerful 1-slot.  

[ninja surprise]

On 11/8/2021 at 1:27 PM, Without_Pause said:

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.

 

Similarly, I wanted to recreate a toon I had on live: Staff/SR Scrapper, but go a little tougher, so I made it as an Invulnerable/Staff Tank.  I PL'd into the 20's, got through a Yin, then went to do missions in Talos. It took so friggin long to defeat anything that I gave up, deleted it, and re-rolled as a Brute. 

Somehow, even though it isn't capped on resists or defense (except S/L resist) it still manages to survive most everything and looks great doing it.

 

On Live my favorite Brute was SS/Electric. Mainly for concept, but it was lots of fun; tough and lots of damage.

 

I'd given up on Brutes because if I wanted damage I'd go Scrapper, toughness and AoE in the Tank.

 

But playing my Staff/Invuln again, I'm thinking I should give Brutes another go. And definitely re-roll my Savage/Fire Tank as Brute. 

 

Except the Tanker ATOs are so good!

[Ukase]

So...I did something that may be of interest. Perhaps not. 

Made an elec/bio scrapper & brute. Guess which one is "better"? 

Now, this is just for me, and it's quite possible one build is better than the other, although, other than the ATOs, I have tried to build them the same. 

The scrapper is better - for one reason. Shadow Meld. How is the recharge on this so fast? It gives quite the boost 

Sidekicked to my level 50 (knocking out MJ's arc, collaboratively) without Shadow Meld. 

 

That's a sizeable defensive boost. I don't have the purple sets in yet, in a couple of powers. But, 15 seconds of solid stats, every 38 seconds now. With the Ablative Carapace & DNA Siphon, it's one of the more robust scrappers I can recall playing. 

Now, the brute is no slouch, either, but the lack of shadow meld is noticeable when fighting the AVs.  (Been having them trade-off each mission, to see how they fare. ) 

Have to give the edge in this instance to the scrapper. So, thanks to those who are scrapper ambassadors. I wouldn't have done this comparison otherwise. I'm still more inclined to play a brute, but clearly, there's going to be exceptions. 

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

The scrapper is better - for one reason. Shadow Meld. How is the recharge on this so fast? It gives quite the boost 

 

But that is looking at just one (admittedly important) aspect of a character. Shadowmeld will boost defenses but taking the Soul Master epic means your other choices are single target damage and a pet (Moonbeam of course is awesome). The Brute could take something like Ice Storm which dumps a ton of damage, especially backed by Fury.

[Ukase]

4 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

But that is looking at just one (admittedly important) aspect of a character. Shadowmeld will boost defenses but taking the Soul Master epic means your other choices are single target damage and a pet (Moonbeam of course is awesome). The Brute could take something like Ice Storm which dumps a ton of damage, especially backed by Fury.

If it were a farmer, then AoE would be something to consider. It's not. Now, I like my AoE as much as the next guy, but if AoE is the consideration, then why play anything other than a Spines/Fire brute? (or rad/fire if you're one of "those" people) 

 

[Erratic1]

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

If it were a farmer, then AoE would be something to consider. It's not. Now, I like my AoE as much as the next guy, but if AoE is the consideration, then why play anything other than a Spines/Fire brute? (or rad/fire if you're one of "those" people) 

 

 

I am not of the opinion that AoE only has merits for farmers or some sort of binary either you're doing it 100% or not. But different strokes for different folks.

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

I am not of the opinion that AoE only has merits for farmers or some sort of binary either you're doing it 100% or not. But different strokes for different folks.

Eh, I probably put it the wrong way. Just meant to say that AoE from a rain isn't going to do much damage. A lot of 1's. I could slot it 3x with damage IOs, and still get a lot of 1's.  For the brute, none of the epics are really "epic", imo. They're kind of plain. Light damage AoE, or a moderate single target.  

[Erratic1]

7 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Eh, I probably put it the wrong way. Just meant to say that AoE from a rain isn't going to do much damage. A lot of 1's. I could slot it 3x with damage IOs, and still get a lot of 1's.  For the brute, none of the epics are really "epic", imo. They're kind of plain. Light damage AoE, or a moderate single target.  

 

Check the damage value in Mids with Fury at 80. Its like doing your big single target hit to everything the rain is falling on.

[Saikochoro]

I used to be a brute main through and through back on live. I love brutes. That said, ever since the major tanker buffs I have a hard time wanting to make a brute over a tanker. 
 

The only things brutes have over tankers is better single target damage and a couple powersets. 
 

The damage gap is significantly less now than before the buffs, especially in terms of AoE. And if I want good single target damage why not just make a scrapper. They are more damaging than brutes and still survive well. 
 

Yes, brutes can get to the tanker caps, but the biggest problem is they don’t have the tanker mitigation modifiers. So they have to invest very heavily into defense & especially resist set bonuses to be able to even approach tanker sturdiness. This then takes away A LOT of slots that could be used to push damage. 
 

The biggest reason I play brutes is simple - energy aura. Energy aura is an amazing armor powerset - easily one of the best when built right. It is fairly easy to build too so you have those extra slots you need to push mitigation set bonuses. So you can get a fair amount better mitigation overall than if you are a energy aura scrapper. If tankers ever get energy aura then it’s game over for brutes for me unless they change something on brutes to compensate. 
 

Occasionally I like Regen brutes too. But again, if tankers ever get Regen I will just make a tanker instead. 
 

Balancing brutes and tankers is hard because they can very easily invalidate each other. Make it too easy for brutes to reach tanker mitigation (giving them all the tanker mitigation modifiers) and then why make a tanker when the brute is as survivable and does better damage? Same with if tanker damage is just too low to justify the extra survivability. 

 

Give tankers too much damage comparative to brutes? We are then at the “why make brutes when tankers are much sturdier and do almost as much damage?”

 

I like the tankers do relevant damage now. So I don’t particularly want them nerfed. However, brutes need something to help them a bit in comparison to tankers. 
 

My suggestion is to give brutes slightly higher mitigation modifiers for resistance only. Make brutes have to work to get their defenses up, but give them maybe even the tanker modifiers for resistance only. This will make it a bit easier to be tough brute, but still not as easy as a tanker. 

 

This would close the toughness gap somewhat just like the damage gap was closed. Then it would be a hard choice - brute or tanker?

Edited December 3, 2021 by Saikochoro

[Obsinious]

24 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

My suggestion is to give brutes slightly higher mitigation modifiers for resistance only. Make brutes have to work to get their defenses up, but give them maybe even the tanker modifiers for resistance only. This will make it a bit easier to be tough brute, but still not as easy as a tanker. 

 

This would close the toughness gap somewhat just like the damage gap was closed. Then it would be a hard choice - brute or tanker?

 

I think it would be easier to just bump brutes up to 85% effectiveness on all of the defense/resist values instead of having them share scrappers' 75% value.  87.5% would be fine too.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Obsinious
grammar

[Apparition]

13 minutes ago, Obsinious said:

 

I think it would be easier to just bump brutes up to 85% effectiveness on all of the defense/resist values instead of having them share scrappers' 75% value.  87.5% would be fine too.

 

 

Brutes have 90%, same as Tankers.

[Saikochoro]

11 minutes ago, Obsinious said:

 

I think it would be easier to just bump brutes up to 85% effectiveness on all of the defense/resist values instead of having them share scrappers' 75% value.  87.5% would be fine too.

I don’t want to run into an issue where brutes can easily achieve all the mitigation benchmarks as easily as tankers as that would then put tankers in the spot brutes are now. 
 

So I was trying to find a middle ground. Something to help brutes be tougher without investing so heavily into mitigation set bonuses. Full on 87.5% might work for all mitigation modifiers. It was either that or keep most modifiers at scrapper levels, except for resistance and just give brutes tanker modifiers for resistance only. 
 

Either way, I’d like to see how that would play out. 

[Saikochoro]

1 minute ago, Apparition said:

 

 

Brutes have 90%, same as Tankers.

Not the caps. The actually modifiers for mitigation. 

[Obsinious]

2 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

 

Brutes have 90%, same as Tankers.

 

No they don't. Brutes have a 90% resist cap, the same as tankers but that isn't what I said.  Brute's only receive 75% of the tanker's defense or resist value from any given power.

 

I.E.  Alpha Barrier gives a Rad/ tank 30% base S/L resist.  But it only gives a /Rad Brute or Scrapper 22.5%.

[Obsinious]

2 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

I don’t want to run into an issue where brutes can easily achieve all the mitigation benchmarks as easily as tankers as that would then put tankers in the spot brutes are now. 
 

So I was trying to find a middle ground. Something to help brutes be tougher without investing so heavily into mitigation set bonuses. Full on 87.5% might work for all mitigation modifiers. It was either that or keep most modifiers at scrapper levels, except for resistance and just give brutes tanker modifiers for resistance only. 
 

Either way, I’d like to see how that would play out. 

 

I don't think a change like I suggested would over balance it the other way.  Tankers are still going to be tougher and the amazing resist ATO goes a long way to that.  Tankers are still going to keep the better AOEs and the better gauntlet.  I think that's plenty of reason to still pick a Tank.

 

I also think the addition of the new difficulties adds reason to be that tough.  A lot of the problem before the tanker patch was that there wasn't much need for the added toughness.

[Sovera]

Brutes still do a substantial amount of damage compared to Tankers but it depends on sets. My tests on an Ice Melee invariably had a tanker at 4:20. A Brute made it in 3:20. A whole minute is big.

 

But comparing Energy Melee and the Brute was only 30 seconds ahead.

 

There's also a point of view that the Tanker's wider radius is mostly useless out of agro saturation (which only happens in farms). There is a physical limit on how many mobs can cluster around us, but the first AoEs even solo kill the minions and that space is cleared.

 

The Trapdoor test is a better test of gameplay but it needs mirrored builds. All Brute times in that thread are abysmal (7 minutes and up) where most Scrapper are 4 minutes and up. My own Fire/Martial Arts Tanker consistent 6 minutes. I would need to do a MA/Fire Brute to test and I suppose that I could on the test server but I am not sufficiently invested unless pressured into it.

 

Perfectly mirrored builds would no doubt give the advantage to Brutes. But there are so many sacrifices to amp a Brute's defenses. I most times end up with attacks that don't even have damage procs. All of that narrows the damage cap.

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by Sovera

[Obsinious]

8 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Perfectly mirrored builds would no doubt give the advantage to Brutes. But there are so many sacrifices to amp a Brute's defenses. I most times end up with attacks that don't even have damage procs. All of that narrows the damage cap.

I think this right here is kind of the whole point.  Brutes have the potential to do significantly more damage, but in practice a lot of that potential instead sees them 5 and 6 slotting set bonuses that the tanker gets to ignore in favor of 4 procs and a hami-o. 

 

An ideal solution would be to provide the Brute some additional assistance in shoring up his toughness.  That's what I was aiming to do with my 85% suggestion without over complicating it.

[Without_Pause]

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

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. 

Update: Boggle doubles the chances of Insight. It is still ST and has a long animation, so it is still an awkward mechanism even if now it is better using this bit of knowledge. The one benefit here is harder targets can get Boggled without being Confused, see AVs.

 

 Not much to add in terms of "Why a Brute?" Soling a Rad/ice tank and loving it so far. I see no reason for it to not work really well on a Brute with the DoTs. StJ's smaller AoEs makes me a sad panda using it on a tank. Probably keep it for a Stalker and Scrapper.

[Erratic1]

On 1/4/2022 at 9:50 AM, Without_Pause said:

Not much to add in terms of "Why a Brute?" Soling a Rad/ice tank and loving it so far. I see no reason for it to not work really well on a Brute with the DoTs.

 

Did you mean an Ice/Rad Tank? If so the Tanker has both DoTs at level 28 as opposed to the Brute having to wait until level 35.  How major the wait is as a factor is in the eye of the beholder.