Were Brutes that Badly Nerfed?

[Erratic1]

6 hours ago, tidge said:

The Brutes v. Tanks argument is a corner case that relies primarily (my PoV) on very specific build/slotting choice

 

If we go by this (higher is worse)...

 

 

...the specific builds are anything other than Electric Melee, Titan Weapon, Dual Blades, Psionic Melee, Staff Fighting, and Broadsword--that works out to be 16 of 22 powersets. I would usually expect an edge case to be a tiny fraction of the possibility space, not 72.7% of it. A similar usage of the word "edge" puts the majority of the US population in the edge states east of the Mississippi.

 

Edit: It was an actual edge case which got Brutes nerfed in the first place. FWIW, I think Tankers should be left alone at this point. Just give teams a reason to have Brutes along.

Edited April 1 by Erratic1

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

 

If we go by this (higher is worse)...

 

 

...the specific builds are anything other than Electric Melee, Titan Weapon, Dual Blades, Psionic Melee, Staff Fighting, and Broadsword--that works out to be 16 of 22 powersets. I would usually expect an edge case to be a tiny fraction of the possibility space, not 72.7% of it. A similar usage of the word "edge" puts the majority of the US population in the edge states east of the Mississippi.

 

Edit: It was an actual edge case which got Brutes nerfed in the first place. FWIW, I think Tankers should be left alone at this point. Just give teams a reason to have Brutes along.

I wonder if the fire melee difference is due to combustion only being on tankers. 

[ScarySai]

Still very much questioning the logic behind nerfing fury in the same patch they made it better for newer brute players, and turned tanks into gods.

[Shin Magmus]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

 

If we go by this (higher is worse)...

 

 

...the specific builds are anything other than Electric Melee, Titan Weapon, Dual Blades, Psionic Melee, Staff Fighting, and Broadsword--that works out to be 16 of 22 powersets. I would usually expect an edge case to be a tiny fraction of the possibility space, not 72.7% of it. A similar usage of the word "edge" puts the majority of the US population in the edge states east of the Mississippi.

 

Edit: It was an actual edge case which got Brutes nerfed in the first place. FWIW, I think Tankers should be left alone at this point. Just give teams a reason to have Brutes along.

The most interesting part about this data, to me, isn't any of the inter-AT comparison stuff.  It's how slept on Ice Melee still is by the entire playerbase.  The good powers in Ice Melee are horrifyingly good, and the bad powers can just be skipped and you can take cross Punch or thematic Ice Epic powers like the new Snipe for Scrappers/Stalkers or old standbys like Gloom.  Ice Melee is insanely underplayed relative to its power level.

[Wavicle]

15 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Still very much questioning the logic behind nerfing fury in the same patch they made it better for newer brute players, and turned tanks into gods.

 

The "nerf" to Fury barely made any difference at all in the vast majority of cases.

 

The logic is that if you have to nerf something you should nerf it a lot, so that you don't have to nerf it again, but maybe can buff it back up a little, later.

However, that same logic SHOULD have dictated that if you're going to buff something (Tankers), you should only buff it a little, and you can buff it more later. That part of the logic got forgotten, unfortunately.

[Erratic1]

30 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I wonder if the fire melee difference is due to combustion only being on tankers. 

 

I'd had the thought but was waiting for someone more knowledgeable to comment.

[ScarySai]

Tankers have the least garbage form of combustion, it definitely does something.

[Infinitum]

10 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

 

The "nerf" to Fury barely made any difference at all in the vast majority of cases.

 

The logic is that if you have to nerf something you should nerf it a lot, so that you don't have to nerf it again, but maybe can buff it back up a little, later.

However, that same logic SHOULD have dictated that if you're going to buff something (Tankers), you should only buff it a little, and you can buff it more later. That part of the logic got forgotten, unfortunately.

I think the differential for the Tanker can be found in the combination of the increased aoe target cap and proc abuse. 

 

Furthermore to that point - without proc abuse even that would be a non issue because the increased targets are mainly trash mob minion and lieutenants that pose no threat to a well built tanker or brute - the tanker just currently clears them faster because they hit more of them concurrently.  For the bosses and EBs the brute is going to surpass the tanker 1:1 just about every time and not have too many issues doing it. 

 

Throw giga procs in - it skews the result in favor of the tanker.  So the most timely solution would be to roll down the tanker aoe caps slightly - because boss fights do not need to become the slog they could potentially end up being before the tanker buff.

 

Im not sure Brutes need a buff outside of updated useful ATOs. 

Edited April 1 by Infinitum

[ScarySai]

3 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Furthermore to that point - without proc abuse even that would be a non issue because the increased targets are mainly trash mob minion and lieutenants that pose no threat to a well built tanker or brute - the tanker just currently clears them faster because they hit more of them concurrently.  For the bosses and EBs the brute is going to surpass the tanker 1:1 just about every time and not have too many issues doing it. 

 

More complicated than that, brutes have to devote more to good defenses than tankers do, who also have a really strong ato on top of that.

 

Brutes already lead over tanks in a pure 1v1, but as mentioned before, the damage gap isn't huge, especially if we're talking sets that lean a lot on + damage, like claws, dark or super strength. 90% of the game is blowing up trash mobs, and tanks can do that more efficiently than any other melee by virtue of the target caps. It's why rad/SS is such an obnoxiously strong tank without really having to devote any slots to your defenses.

Edited April 1 by ScarySai

[Infinitum]

10 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

I'd had the thought but was waiting for someone more knowledgeable to comment.

It almost has to be that, combustion hits a looot of trash and hurts them to boot.   Once clear switch to the more deadly ST and aoe attacks. Probably is what we are looking at there. 

[Wavicle]

3 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Im not sure Brutes need a buff outside of updated useful ATOs. 

 

I think that applies to MOST of the ATs.

 

Tankers should probably have similar target caps to Sentinels, not Blasters. Just SLIGHTLY better than Brutes, instead VASTLY better.

[ScarySai]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

Tankers should probably have similar target caps to Sentinels

 

Are you trying to nerf tanks or kill them?

[Infinitum]

Just now, Wavicle said:

 

I think that applies to MOST of the ATs.

 

Tankers should probably have similar target caps to Sentinels, not Blasters. Just SLIGHTLY better than Brutes, instead VASTLY better.

I would even give then equal target caps. So long as the overall damage modifier isn't changed. Like I said boss fights are not as annoying as they could be in the past and that's what I would like to avoid going back to.  Tankers are always going to be more durable than brutes. They are supposed to be. 

[Wavicle]

Just now, ScarySai said:

 

Are you trying to nerf tanks or kill them?

 

Actually what I'd prefer is for Tankers to KEEP the larger AoEs, but have the actual damage reduced.

[Wavicle]

Just now, Infinitum said:

I would even give then equal target caps. So long as the overall damage modifier isn't changed. Like I said boss fights are not as annoying as they could be in the past and that's what I would like to avoid going back to.  Tankers are always going to be more durable than brutes. They are supposed to be. 

 

I would say, keep big AoEs, nerf the AoE damage numbers, but NOT the single target attacks.

[Infinitum]

Just now, Wavicle said:

 

I would say, keep big AoEs, nerf the AoE damage numbers, but NOT the single target attacks.

That could work but you will still have procs working better for tankers with that scenario. 

[Videra]

7 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

 

I think that applies to MOST of the ATs.

 

Tankers should probably have similar target caps to Sentinels, not Blasters. Just SLIGHTLY better than Brutes, instead VASTLY better.

 

Wave, I love you, but this is quite possibly the most clueless thing I've read on this forum, and I frequent the defender sub-forum.

[Shin Magmus]

Everyone: evasive maneuvers.  Do not get pulled into the event horizon of the Stupidity Singularity.  This game doesn't need *anything* moved towards Sentinel performance.

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, Videra said:

 

Wave, I love you, but this is quite possibly the most clueless thing I've read on this forum, and I frequent the defender sub-forum.

 

Well, check my follow up posts, I don't actually want Tanker AoEs reduced in size.

[Wavicle]

6 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

That could work but you will still have procs working better for tankers with that scenario. 

 

I assume procs are going to get changed a lot eventually, so I'm not really considering them at this point, to be honest.

[AmrasNotHere]

17 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

 

I think that applies to MOST of the ATs.

 

Tankers should probably have similar target caps to Sentinels, not Blasters. Just SLIGHTLY better than Brutes, instead VASTLY better.

 

Well for the first time ever, I'm glad we have PH and Bopper and not you as power devs lmao. May Player 1 and Cobalt save us all 🙏

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

 

I assume procs are going to get changed a lot eventually, so I'm not really considering them at this point, to be honest.

Hard to distinguish the current state without considering procs because they work so well with the current state of tankers.  I personally don't build to proc out attacks - that's why I'm not 100% convinced this is a tanker problem. 

 

In my tests similarly built brutes still out do similarly built tankers - but that's without procd out attacks and epic pools for additional aoe attacks. 

[Infinitum]

Just now, AmrasNotHere said:

 

Well for the first time ever, I'm glad we have PH and Bopper and not you as power devs lmao. May Player 1 and Cobalt save us all 🙏

To be fair that was not the intent of their post. Read their posts afterwards clarifying their point.  It makes more sense then. 

[tidge]

3 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

If we go by this (higher is worse)...

 

 

 

So this is showing that by some measure there may be a 5-to-10 second difference in something?

 

EDIT: I mean to say: Is this something like a trapdoor test? a Pylon?

Edited April 1 by tidge

[Erratic1]

27 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

So this is showing that by some measure there may be a 5-to-10 second difference in something?

 

EDIT: I mean to say: Is this something like a trapdoor test? a Pylon?

 

Trapdoor: