Brutes and Defense Secondaries

[Erratic1]

As I was fiddling with the most recent version of my non-Granite using Elec/Stone brute's build, pushing up Defense values on her, it came to me to wonder, "Why am I not playing her as a Scrapper or Stalker if I am going to let her highest resistance value languish beneath 75%?" So I boosted her S/L Resistance to 80%, which while not much more than 75% is backed by Scaling Defense from Reactive Defenses--I can feel like I am trying to make use of the Brute's higher resistance caps compared to Scrappers and Stalkers.

 

So am I weird for wanting to make use of the Brute perk even on Defense based secondaries?

 

 

 

[Apparition]

Why play Stone Armor on a Brute?  Because you won't experience the joy of chasing all of the mobs running away from you.  @Bill Z Bubba 

 

That's why I'd play any secondary other than Bio, Invulnerability, and Shield on a Brute instead of a Scrapper. 

[Erratic1]

25 minutes ago, Apparition said:

Why play Stone Armor on a Brute?  Because you won't experience the joy of chasing all of the mobs running away from you.  @Bill Z Bubba 

 

That's why I'd play any secondary other than Bio, Invulnerability, and Shield on a Brute instead of a Scrapper. 

 

I will feel no shame about my SS./Bio brute...NONE!

[Bill Z Bubba]

31 minutes ago, Apparition said:

Why play Stone Armor on a Brute?  Because you won't experience the joy of chasing all of the mobs running away from you.  @Bill Z Bubba 

 

That's why I'd play any secondary other than Bio, Invulnerability, and Shield on a Brute instead of a Scrapper. 

 

It's true. It's painful and stupid. Oddly, though, I don't experience it nearly as much on BZB scrap. Cept with AVs.... regardless, granite is ugly.

[Bill Z Bubba]

46 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

So am I weird for wanting to make use of the Brute perk even on Defense based secondaries?

 

No, not at all. As I mentioned in Discord earlier, while we COULD look at brutes as the melee AT with better mitigation than scrappers and better damage than tanks, the truth is they're the melee AT with WORSE damage than scrappers and WORSE mitigation than tanks.

 

So push that mediocrity all you can!

 

🙂

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

It's true. It's painful and stupid. Oddly, though, I don't experience it nearly as much on BZB scrap. Cept with AVs.... regardless, granite is ugly.

 

I tend to agree about Granite's aesthetic properties, which is why I am going non-Granite. Though I half contemplated making another Elec/Stone brute  who uses Granite so I could take the name Shock Rock.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

I tend to agree about Granite's aesthetic properties, which is why I am going non-Granite. Though I half contemplated making another Elec/Stone brute  who uses Granite so I could take the name Shock Rock.

 

I went with Rockhead Rex for my claws/stone scrapper.

[Gobbledigook]

Do you always play solo? with a few buffs you could have capped resists. Stone armor will give a Brute close to 3k health also with better regen. You may be slower on a Pylon than a Scrapper/Stalker but a Pylon is not normal gameplay. Critical hitting a minion is probably going to be way overkill anyway and mostly wasted, the Brute would probably have one shotted it also.

[Erratic1]

36 minutes ago, Gobbledegook said:

Do you always play solo? with a few buffs you could have capped resists. Stone armor will give a Brute close to 3k health also with better regen. You may be slower on a Pylon than a Scrapper/Stalker but a Pylon is not normal gameplay. Critical hitting a minion is probably going to be way overkill anyway and mostly wasted, the Brute would probably have one shotted it also.

 

I play a mix of solo and group and am not too worried about Pylons beyond survivability. And while I will not deny a certain joy at the scale of the numbers thrown around by either my DM/EA scrapper or EM/Shield Stalker, there is quite a bit of joy wading into a crowd with the SS/Bio or Elec/Stone brutes and hurting everything nearby. 

 

The question really is how reasonable it is to forgo the higher resistance cap Brutes offer when playing a Defense secondary.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

The question really is how reasonable it is to forgo the higher resistance cap Brutes offer when playing a Defense secondary.

 

To really answer this, I need to ponder why my claws/sr brute is *just* tough enough to be immortal amongst an aggro cap of +4 Cimerorans where my claws/sr scrapper dies. This is when I've gathered them up, stick PB on auto and sit back for X amount of time doing nothing.

 

Is the SL resist cap coming into play? Or is is the brute's higher HP allowing for the scaling resist to kick in sooner with more HP backing it up, and the associated extra regen, that's giving it the extra oomph?

 

I didn't plan to log in this morning, but off I go to find out.

 

Guess the other question is how many brute secondaries can cap more than one or two resist types? Fire can cap fire, Ice, ice, etc, sure, and all of them cap for a little while if they use barrier, but even Inv ain't cappin more than SL on its own. Unsure how close Stoners get.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Ok, scrapper first.

2033 HP

25.66 HP/sec regen

SL resist start at 36.17%

525HP 75% SL resist

546HP 75% SL resist

730HP 66% SL resist

Cimerorans seem to be having a bad day. BZB scrap isn't dying either yet.

Got me down to 303 HP. SLFCEN were all capped to 75% this low. Ooo, 214. 165! And 0.

Ok, they finally took him down. Actually took far longer than I expected.

 

Brute.

2277 HP

28.74 HP/sec regen

SL resist start at 42.17% (huh... that's weird. Oh, right, Superior Brute's fury...

Think it was 670 HP for 76% SL resist

560 HP 80% SL resist

705 78%

But generally just hovering between 1/3 and 2/3 HP.

 

So yea... even on SR, the higher brute resist cap IS coming into play (613 HP/83% SL resist! but then back up to 2000 HP) which in my brain means even MORE reason to play defense based brutes! Gonna leave BZB brute as is and go have a smoke. If history repeats, he'll still be standing and I'll update this post.

 

Edit: Yup, still alive.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Bill Z Bubba]

I got curious... took my Inv tank for the same test. Stuck DP on auto. 3300 HP, 90% SL resist and 50% SL defense, surely he'll be immortal! Nope, dead within 2 minutes. Once that cascading defense failure happens, it's all downhill and fast. Tried again, but this time with Ageless Radial T4 set on auto. But 5 mins before shard restart...giving it a couple mins. Saw the CDF start but Ageless fired back off. Same story, CDF occurs, he gets VERY close to death (wouldn't be a problem if I hit dull pain,) then Ageless fires off, defense goes back up, HP goes back up.

 

Edit: Heeeyyyy, waitaminute. Did I just show a case where an Inv tank had to lean on an incarnate power just to get the same survivability as an SR brute and without it was weaker than an SR scrapper? Hmmmmmmmmm. Late edit: this is a joke in case people are wondering. This bein the internet and all.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Uun]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Guess the other question is how many brute secondaries can cap more than one or two resist types? Fire can cap fire, Ice, ice, etc, sure, and all of them cap for a little while if they use barrier, but even Inv ain't cappin more than SL on its own. Unsure how close Stoners get.

You need set bonuses to do it, but Elec can cap S/L/E and get 65+ to F/C/Psi.

[ZeeHero]

Last I checked brutes could get as much mitigation as tanks in most places where it counts. I hope that if this is not the case now it was due to tank buffs, not dumb nerfs.

[Erratic1]

9 hours ago, ZeeHero said:

Last I checked brutes could get as much mitigation as tanks in most places where it counts. I hope that if this is not the case now it was due to tank buffs, not dumb nerfs.

 

 Tankers get higher returns on their protective powersets than do other melee ATs so pushing towards capping both defense and resistance is considerably less work for them.

[Erratic1]

11 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Guess the other question is how many brute secondaries can cap more than one or two resist types? Fire can cap fire, Ice, ice, etc, sure, and all of them cap for a little while if they use barrier, but even Inv ain't cappin more than SL on its own. Unsure how close Stoners get.

 

I am not looking at pushing more than S/L resistance. Fire/Cold could probably be pushed to an equivalent place but the tradeoffs would not be worth it.

[PeregrineFalcon]

20 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

No, not at all. As I mentioned in Discord earlier, while we COULD look at brutes as the melee AT with better mitigation than scrappers and better damage than tanks, the truth is they're the melee AT with WORSE damage than scrappers and WORSE mitigation than tanks.

First of all, what you've said here is clearly true. The numbers are what they are.

 

Secondly, I have a few questions.

1. What's wrong with an AT that splits the difference between Tanks and Scrappers?
2. And if Brutes didn't split the difference, then what would you have the devs do to fix them? Have them do as much damage as Scrappers? Give them as much mitigation as Tanks?
3. How do you 'fix' Brutes without causing either Tanks or Scrappers to become obsolete?
4. Am I going to need to don my fireproof suit for this one?

[Erratic1]

4 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

1. What's wrong with an AT that splits the difference between Tanks and Scrappers?

 

 Tankers had their damage dealing capabilities increased, Brutes had theirs decreased. Have you checked the Trapdoor thread and seen some of the times Tankers are managing? 

 

4 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

1. And if Brutes didn't split the difference, then what would you have the devs do to fix them? Have them do as much damage as Scrappers? Give them as much mitigation as Tanks?

 

I admit I sometimes wish for half the modifier Tankers get on their defensive set powers. Not because Brutes have a hard time surviving with a proper build as is, but so that fewer slots had to be plowed into getting that survivability and more could be dedicated to damage. But that's probably being greedy.

 

4 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

1. How do you 'fix' Brutes without causing either Tanks or Scrappers to become obsolete?

 

Let's invert that...What role do Brutes play which is not better served by a Tanker or Scrapper?

 

4 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

1. Am I going to need to don my fireproof suit for this one?

 

Well you have been sparking flint in ground left burned from the last great Brute/Tanker Confrontation. 😁

[PeregrineFalcon]

15 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Tankers had their damage dealing capabilities increased, Brutes had theirs decreased. Have you checked the Trapdoor thread and seen some of the times Tankers are managing?

Ok, I knew that Tankers had their damage output increased. I did NOT know that Brutes' damage output was decreased. That doesn't seem right. I mean... it's kinda funny, but yeah. It's doesn't seem like the right decision.

 

 

15 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Let's invert that...What role do Brutes play which is not better served by a Tanker or Scrapper?

Well, Brutes were the villain-side tanker/scrapper then blah, blah, blah. You already know the backstory.

 

Yeah. What can I say? The Paragon devs didn't really think that whole thing through very well. I don't know that the Homecoming devs can really fix that at this point.

 

 

15 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Well you have been sparking flint in ground left burned from the last great Brute/Tanker Confrontation. 😁

I'll make sure to feel the door to see if it's hot before I open it on my way out.  😁

[arcane]

Brutes have three fundamental purposes in this game:

 

(1) Fire farming.

 

(2) Playing Regeneration with the highest possible level of mitigation.

 

(3) Playing Energy Aura with the highest possible level of mitigation.

 

Fight me

[Erratic1]

17 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Ok, I knew that Tankers had their damage output increased. I did NOT know that Brutes' damage output was decreased. That doesn't seem right. I mean... it's kinda funny, but yeah. It's doesn't seem like the right decision.

 

To be fair it was a tradeoff. A bit of a trim from max potential but an increase in ease of maintaining Fury.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

First of all, what you've said here is clearly true. The numbers are what they are.

 

Secondly, I have a few questions.

1. What's wrong with an AT that splits the difference between Tanks and Scrappers?
2. And if Brutes didn't split the difference, then what would you have the devs do to fix them? Have them do as much damage as Scrappers? Give them as much mitigation as Tanks?
3. How do you 'fix' Brutes without causing either Tanks or Scrappers to become obsolete?
4. Am I going to need to don my fireproof suit for this one?

 

There's nothing wrong with brutes sitting in the middle ground and there ain't nuthin needs doin. Tanks should have never been buffed, sides should have never been mixed but those ships have sailed and no one making the decisions apparently has any interest in correcting past mistakes.

[Bill Z Bubba]

I mean shit... look at two stalkers, a savage/shield and a claws/sr, and tell me then that balance is something folks give a shit about around here or did for the last few years before the snap.

[Linea]

On 5/9/2022 at 10:32 PM, Erratic1 said:

So am I weird for wanting to make use of the Brute perk even on Defense based secondaries?

It's reasonable to go either way.

• More HP, as well as HP/S.
• Brutes always Taunt.
• Resist cap matters, ... even if only for buffs and inspirations, it still matters, at least on the very extreme end.

On 5/10/2022 at 8:01 AM, Erratic1 said:

The question really is how reasonable it is to forgo the higher resistance cap Brutes offer when playing a Defense secondary.

• It's reasonable - My current Beast is EnM/Ena Scrapper, she rates up to 801.7 on durability and has soloed a Difficulty 3 Vicious ASF.   Just how much more do you want out of a single build?   ...   A Brute version could rate up to 801.A (Difficulty 10), but would fail the Difficulty 3 ASF due to dps loss, and could probably only manage a Difficulty 2.
  • The main thing to note here is, for  95% of the game or more, you don't need to rate above 801.2.  Which means most players will get more mileage out of putting all those extra resources to offense.  But if your preference is durability and ease of staying alive, then you will almost certainly prefer the brute.

On 5/9/2022 at 11:19 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

As I mentioned in Discord earlier, while we COULD look at brutes as the melee AT with better mitigation than scrappers and better damage than tanks, the truth is they're the melee AT with WORSE damage than scrappers and WORSE mitigation than tanks.

• LoL.   I tend to look at them as 'Glass Two Thirds Full', instead of 'Glass Mostly Empty'.   If you don't know if you'd rather be a tank or a scrapper, be a brute, it's hard to go wrong.

On 5/10/2022 at 8:41 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

So yea... even on SR, the higher brute resist cap IS coming into play (613 HP/83% SL resist! but then back up to 2000 HP) which in my brain means even MORE reason to play defense based brutes! Gonna leave BZB brute as is and go have a smoke. If history repeats, he'll still be standing and I'll update this post.

• This.  ... Defense sets can have their cake and eat it too, but that's another story.

On 5/10/2022 at 8:59 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

I got curious... took my Inv tank for the same test. Stuck DP on auto. 3300 HP, 90% SL resist and 50% SL defense, surely he'll be immortal! Nope, dead within 2 minutes. Once that cascading defense failure happens, it's all downhill and fast. Tried again, but this time with Ageless Radial T4 set on auto. But 5 mins before shard restart...giving it a couple mins. Saw the CDF start but Ageless fired back off. Same story, CDF occurs, he gets VERY close to death (wouldn't be a problem if I hit dull pain,) then Ageless fires off, defense goes back up, HP goes back up.

• This is more or less exactly what I see and do.
• I rotate Ageless with Dull Pain as well as Rune/Hybrid, etc ... When you hit the very bottom of the valley, you hit Dull Pain, and power through till your next peak.

[Gobbledigook]

Does defence in general  fair better than resist based sets. Is it because adding defence to a resist set gets no DDR and can be stripped quite easily but a defence set that gets extra resistance gets resistance debuff built in, plus the debuffs have got to hit in the first place to actually work?.

 

Capped defence with some decent resists seems better than capped resist with extra defence that can be debuffed  to zero. Extra healing etc can make a difference though, but it is the defence sets that come with the +max health and not the resist sets.

 

Getting hit 5% of the time with some reductions to the damage when hit does seem better to me than say 90% resists. Plus defence sets avoid debuffs better. But i guess if there are no defence debuffs then a resist set will do really well.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Gobbledegook