Were Brutes that Badly Nerfed?

[tidge]

I dunno, if none of those AT take longer than 6:20 at +4x8... I don't think this is evidence that one AT outclasses another enough to cry 'Nerf'.

[Wavicle]

4 minutes ago, tidge said:

I dunno, if none of those AT take longer than 6:20 at +4x8... I don't think this is evidence that one AT outclasses another enough to cry 'Nerf'.

or buff

[Erratic1]

8 minutes ago, tidge said:

I dunno, if none of those AT take longer than 6:20 at +4x8... I don't think this is evidence that one AT outclasses another enough to cry 'Nerf'.

 

I think the issue was your claim that in only edge cases were Tankers outperforming Brutes--something I pointed out was true only be stretching the definition of edge past majority of cases.

 

A team is just plain better off bringing a Tanker over a Brute for most scenarios where you have a team. The Tanker is more likely to live and will do more in terms of speeding how quickly the group gets through the missions/TF.

Edited April 1 by Erratic1

[skoryy]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

I dunno, if none of those AT take longer than 6:20 at +4x8... I don't think this is evidence that one AT outclasses another enough to cry 'Nerf'.

 

Especially since I'm not sure Trapdoor catches the current meta.  Consider where we went with nuCouncil and nuCircle and X star task forces.

[Erratic1]

40 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

Especially since I'm not sure Trapdoor catches the current meta.  Consider where we went with nuCouncil and nuCircle and X star task forces.

 

Always some reason to deny the obvious.

 

Did the Meta change such that Brutes do more damage or Tankers do less? No. Then the metric which existed and  under which  people denied  Tanker superiority until such time as it was demonstrated time, and time, and time again gives plenty of insight.

[skoryy]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

Always some reason to deny the obvious.

 

Haven't fought Warwolf and Mage bosses recently?

[Erratic1]

8 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

Haven't fought Warwolf and Mage bosses recently?

 

When whatever special case you want to point at represents the general nature of play, call me.

[Thraxen]

Until y’all agree you should take taunt this isn’t the most important discussion. 

[Heatstroke]

I find it funny when people put themselves in these little camps of Brute/Tank/Scrapper. Dont people play more than just ONE AT ?

[Erratic1]

10 minutes ago, Heatstroke said:

I find it funny when people put themselves in these little camps of Brute/Tank/Scrapper. Dont people play more than just ONE AT ?

 

I find it funny when people assume that most people in the thread don't play most ATs.

 

Was considering posting to the costume thread about my latest Tanker (started because of a comment in this thread).

Edited April 2 by Erratic1

[Lunar Ronin]

11 minutes ago, Heatstroke said:

I find it funny when people put themselves in these little camps of Brute/Tank/Scrapper. Dont people play more than just ONE AT ?

 

I don't play Tankers nor Scrappers.  Only melee ATs I play are Brutes and Stalkers.  I just don't care for most blue side ATs.

[Haijinx]

6 hours 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.

This is at this point, a pretty big assumption. Since it's been years.

 

And if changed, it will affect AT balance a lot, so it seems like doing a balance pass first would make it less likely you'd do much of a significant proc change.

[smnolimits42]

i find i'm the reverse, i prefer Scrappers and Tanks, but i hate leveling them lol.  My favourite set is actually a dom.  Symphony/Soinic.  My newest dom, is Arsenal/Arsenal.  Possibly the easiest to level.  Put em to sleep, and than turn him to ice.  You only need the first 2 powers. 🙂

[Jacke]

Lots of interesting discussion in this topic and I only went back to somewhere in 2023.  I agree with some points and disagree with others.

 

Some of these below are off-topic for a Brute-v-Tanker debate, except as more examples that being something different can be hard to balance.

 

 

This post by @ShinMagmus.  I disagree with the opening paragraph, but I think both of the fixes to Brutes should be done:  Increase the Base Defenses, Resists, and Healing to lie between Scrappers and Tankers, as well as improve Base Damage to lie between Tankers and Scrappers.  Brutes should be between Tankers and Scrappers overall.

 

 

9 hours ago, Infinitum said:

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

 

This is a major issue and not just with Tankers and Brutes.  The "same" Powerset is often very different on different ATs and not for good reasons it seems, as some have radical differences.

 

Another example is the Ninjitsu Protection Powerset.  I've got a Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu Stalker but I'll not make another Ninjitsu Stalker as it lacks the +End Power, Seishinteki Kyoyo, that Scrappers get (two Ninjitsu Scrappers and counting).  (And having Caltrops available on the Ninjitsu Stalker is good but not the same importance.)  It's possible that this difference could be designed out in builds to not matter, but Scrappers don't need it completely designed out, thus allowing them to put more resources to other build goals.

 

 

Thanks to @Erratic1 posting the Trap Door clearance values and to @tidge for drawing attention to the actual absolute differences here.  Which by my calculation is the worst cases have about 73% the clearance rates of the best.  The differences matter but only to a degree.

 

 

Thanks to @ShinMagmus drawing my attention to Ice Melee here.  I've not considered that Powerset sufficiently and this helps me think about putting it on a future build.  (I am missing so many different Powersets and combinations.)  But even more....

 

 

8 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

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.

 

Nothing should be moved towards where Sentinels are at the moment.  Especially Sentinels, who need to be moved away from that, soon.  I know, I know, they're not nerfed Blasters, they're ranged Scrappers.  But so many things aren't right with Sentinels.  I need to play my one Sentinel more to better understand them.  (It's an Assault Rifle (I main an Assault Rifle / Devices Blaster before it was cool 😺) / Ninjitsu Sentinel.  And it gets Seishinteki Kyoyo!  😺)

 

One more thing....

[Jacke]

EDIT:  Note that I'm not a Dev nor a GM nor any sort of HC staff.

 

Here @tidge gives a good example where Damage Procs can do good work, allowing the different ATs to reach a better balance in Game rewards.  Thank you so much for posting that.

 

But that's not the whole picture on Procs.

 

12 hours 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.

 

12 hours ago, Infinitum said:

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. 

 

Also replying to @Wavicle's post I quote above, @Haijinx said:

 

6 hours ago, Haijinx said:

This is at this point, a pretty big assumption. Since it's been years.

 

And if changed, it will affect AT balance a lot, so it seems like doing a balance pass first would make it less likely you'd do much of a significant proc change.

 

The current usage of Procs--despite having good effects, as @tidge points out--is hurting the Game.  And this does bear strongly on the balance between Brutes and Tankers.

 

Take a look at the City of Data 2 entries for Dual Pistols' Suppressive Fire, here for Defenders:

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=defender_ranged.dual_pistols.suppressive_fire&at=defender

Dig into all the branching parts of the Power.  City of Data 2 reflects how the Powers are set up in the Game.  I see the signs of an Open Beta fight that left parts of the code here not used because of overlapping changes.  Suppressive Fire with one of DP's Swap Ammo settings toggled on is now a short recharge power with different Holds, an improvement.

 

But Suppressive Fire without any Swap Ammo settings running is the old traditional 20s Base Recharge Stun power.  Because I imagine those who Proc-Bombed the Power complained when the Devs tried to improve it for everyone else.  Because I always hear those complaints when certain Powers are going to have their Base Recharge reduced.

 

I know that the best Farming builds, the best Tanker builds, are Proc-Bombed massively.  I'm like @Infinitum, I don't lean heavily on Procs of any sort.  Most of the Powers in my builds are slotted with 1 Proc, sometimes 2, very rarely 3 was considered, and never more.

 

I am sick about hearing about Proc-Bombing, Proc-Bombing builds.  I know it's just people being people, leveraging what they can in a game.  But that still has negative impacts.

 

But it doesn't matter what I think.  Because I know that one major change, an improvement to a major flaw in an AT, was put on hold because Procs have to be dealt with first before that change could be considered for advancement to release consideration.  There are likely other changes, fixes, that can't be done at the moment, because of how they will interact with Procs as they are now.

 

@Haijinx isn't right about their first line.  The APROCALYPSE is coming.  Search for that term, it exists in posts on these forums.  It may even come in a Page released this year, as about 3 more Pages are planned for this year.

 

I've heard next to nothing about how the Aprocalypse will change Procs.  One person who knows more mentioned that at least some Proc rates will increase.  But I suspect it will fundamentally change Procs.  Thinking on the one fix that I know is being held up by the current state of Procs, I figure to allow that to go forward, Procs will need to change a lot.

 

Thanks to @tidge's post I linked above and others here, I also know that when the Aprocalypse does come, I will need to raise concerns about the good effects of Damage Procs in helping lower performing ATs improve themselves.  That AT balance should be addressed as well when the Aprocalypse looms.  For it is coming.

 

 

Edited April 2 by Jacke

[Haijinx]

I'll still be surprized if it happens at this point.  But if its in the works, you should do the Proc change first, and then the resulting Balance passes.  Since it will affect a lot.  

 

 

[GM Crumpet]

I must say I'm confused. I've never heard of aprocalypse until this thread. 

[Parabola]

I thought there had been some mention that procs were only going to be addressed by making changes to individual over performing powers rather than a systematic change?

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, GM Crumpet said:

I must say I'm confused. I've never heard of aprocalypse until this thread. 

 

Ask Captain PowerHouse or hang out in the Gold Standard Testers Discord, where a lot of the beta testing discussions take place.

[Duckbutler]

I've been resisting this thread because it's troll bait and a half, and I see some posts that come across as very angry-because-I-want-to-be-angry, and very closed to any counterpoint no matter how reasonable. There seems to be a disconnect with what brutes are even supposed to be. Are they melee damage? Are they tanks?

 

For my part, I pick brutes when I want a tank that plays aggressively. I think that's the common perception and in line with the original CoV design. When I picked up the game again in January and applied everything I've learned elsewhere over the last decade since shutdown, I was surprised that brute baseline durability isn't higher. Base AT hit points is higher than scrapper, but not by much. The benefit both ATs get from their secondary powersets is identical and brutes don't really pull ahead until they're either built out with IOs or receiving buffs from their teammates. It would make sense to me to try to push brutes to be more in line with tankers and not even competing with scrappers/stalkers.

 

For that, I actually do like the scaling resist based on fury, at least in concept. It rewards the "turn brain off and plow into the next group" behavior that brutes are supposed to be known for. With fury's current implementation it might not work out that way in practice.

[Caimie]

1 hour ago, Duckbutler said:

I've been resisting this thread because it's troll bait and a half, and I see some posts that come across as very angry-because-I-want-to-be-angry, and very closed to any counterpoint no matter how reasonable. There seems to be a disconnect with what brutes are even supposed to be. Are they melee damage? Are they tanks?

 

For my part, I pick brutes when I want a tank that plays aggressively. I think that's the common perception and in line with the original CoV design. When I picked up the game again in January and applied everything I've learned elsewhere over the last decade since shutdown, I was surprised that brute baseline durability isn't higher. Base AT hit points is higher than scrapper, but not by much. The benefit both ATs get from their secondary powersets is identical and brutes don't really pull ahead until they're either built out with IOs or receiving buffs from their teammates. It would make sense to me to try to push brutes to be more in line with tankers and not even competing with scrappers/stalkers.

 

For that, I actually do like the scaling resist based on fury, at least in concept. It rewards the "turn brain off and plow into the next group" behavior that brutes are supposed to be known for. With fury's current implementation it might not work out that way in practice.

 

As someone who likes to play Brutes (and Dominators) more so than other ATs and was in the CoV beta test, the perception of Brutes being the CoV 'Tank' was made by the Community after it's launch, but started it's momentum towards the end of Beta when they started allowing more people in.

 

The original intended 'Tank' for CoV was the Mastermind with Brutes filling the off-Tank Scrapper-like role, but that never really panned out, on the Servers I played on at least.

 

Masterminds were few, at least the ones wanting to group, and if you were a Brute and joined a group, they expected you to Tank, no matter your Powersets.  I lost count of the times my BA/SR Brute face-planted because of this and before it got fully IO'd out.

 

I'm not going to argue with anyone about buffing this, nerfing that and so on because I've not played since the shut-down and have only been back for 3 months and there's so much that has changed and or been added that I'm not fully up to speed as of yet.  I've remade my BA/SR Brute, but it's only lvl 8 because I've been too preoccupied with leveling my Dominators and SJ/Rad Brute, which has decent survival for only being lvl 40 with SO enhancements.

Edited April 2 by Caimie

[tidge]

7 hours ago, Jacke said:

Thanks to @tidge's post I linked above and others here, I also know that when the Aprocalypse does come, I will need to raise concerns about the good effects of Damage Procs in helping lower performing ATs improve themselves.  That AT balance should be addressed as well when the Aprocalypse looms.  For it is coming.

 

Some good stuff, but if players are serious about a holistic approach to "game balance" than these are at least as important as %damage:

• Global Recharge being easier to come by that PPM damage
• Global Defenses being pretty easy to come by
• Endurance (refills, MaxEnd) being pretty easy to come by

Along with %damage, each of the above makes the game more fun to play no matter what AT is chosen.

 

One of the best aspects of CoX is that no choice of primary/secondary for any AT has to be radically inferior to any other set of player choices for 99% of content. I don't look forward to teh day when TPTB make a change affecting 100% of all players just because some players want a ±3% change between Brutes and Tankers, for some tiny fraction of game content.

[Duckbutler]

39 minutes ago, Caimie said:

 

As someone who likes to play Brutes (and Dominators) more so than other ATs and was in the CoV beta test, the perception of Brutes being the CoV 'Tank' was made by the Community after it's launch, but started it's momentum towards the end of Beta when they started allowing more people in.

 

The original intended 'Tank' for CoV was the Mastermind with Brutes filling the off-Tank Scrapper-like role, but that never really panned out, on the Servers I played on at least.

 

Masterminds were few, at least the ones wanting to group, and if you were a Brute and joined a group, they expected you to Tank, no matter your Powersets.  I lost count of the times my BA/SR Brute face-planted because of this and before it got fully IO'd out.

 

I'm not going to argue with anyone about buffing this, nerfing that and so on because I've not played since the shut-down and have only been back for 3 months and there's so much that has changed and or been added that I'm not fully up to speed as of yet.  I've remade my BA/SR Brute, but it's only lvl 8 because I've been too preoccupied with leveling my Dominators and SJ/Rad Brute, which has decent survival for only being lvl 40 with SO enhancements.

 

I don't doubt you. Masterminds as the tank replacement would have been a huge mistake... and back in the day, mistakes were definitely made. I think the community made do and it, surprisingly, worked. Villains were always individually weaker and had to work more as a team to stay alive. That was honestly part of what made the game fun, I originally played more red side than I did blue. I had a willpower brute back when that set came out and finally having something tank adjacent was a huge relief. It took many iterations before I found something that worked for me and more still to make that character something approaching durable.

[Caimie]

35 minutes ago, Duckbutler said:

 

I don't doubt you. Masterminds as the tank replacement would have been a huge mistake... and back in the day, mistakes were definitely made. I think the community made do and it, surprisingly, worked. Villains were always individually weaker and had to work more as a team to stay alive. That was honestly part of what made the game fun, I originally played more red side than I did blue. I had a willpower brute back when that set came out and finally having something tank adjacent was a huge relief. It took many iterations before I found something that worked for me and more still to make that character something approaching durable.

I read this thread and it reminded me of the CoV Beta testing and that one of the days I was on there was focused testing going on with some powerset tweeks and Plant/ Doms were in that particular one, so I was on my Plant/Thorns Dom running stuff with people.

 

Castle happened to be there observing for a bit and his comment on Masterminds being the intended Tanks kinda stuck with me is why I mentioned it.  He could see the Community making Brutes the tanking AT at release but was reluctant to make too many changes.  I'm guessing that the Going Rogue expansion was already in the preliminary planning stages is why.

Just my guess, though.

[Lunar Ronin]

2 minutes ago, Caimie said:

I read this thread and it reminded me of the CoV Beta testing and that one of the days I was on there was focused testing going on with some powerset tweeks and Plant/ Doms were in that particular one, so I was on my Plant/Thorns Dom running stuff with people.

 

Castle happened to be there observing for a bit and his comment on Masterminds being the intended Tanks kinda stuck with me is why I mentioned it.  He could see the Community making Brutes the tanking AT at release but was reluctant to make too many changes.  I'm guessing that the Going Rogue expansion was already in the preliminary planning stages is why.

Just my guess, though.

 

Castle... 'nuff said, really.  There's a reason why he's in Recluse's Victory now.