Scrapper or Brute for Soloing All Story Content ???

[smnolimits43]

I prefer Single Target Attacks vs AoE.  This may have been discussed already, which does more damage a Scrapper or a Brute.  I'm thinking of making a Broad Sword /Fire Armor.  This will be a Homage of Trunks from Dragon Ball Z.  I'm not sure if Brutes have Energy Aura, which could be a second option.

[twozerofoxtrot]

16 minutes ago, smnolimits43 said:

I prefer Single Target Attacks vs AoE.  This may have been discussed already, which does more damage a Scrapper or a Brute. 

 

I'm fairly certain a Scrapper will do better in Single Target than a Brute. There are probably outliers to this, but it's a fairly safe axiom to follow.

 

18 minutes ago, smnolimits43 said:

I'm thinking of making a Broad Sword /Fire Armor.

 

This isn't very Single Targety.

 

18 minutes ago, smnolimits43 said:

I'm not sure if Brutes have Energy Aura.

 

They do. It's fine, it doesn't lean to any of a Brute's strengths, though. 

[smnolimits43]

alright, i think i'm gonna go as a Scrapper.  Thanks for getting back to me.

[Erratic1]

34 minutes ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

They do. It's fine, it doesn't lean to any of a Brute's strengths, though. 

 

Attacking more often due to Entropic Aura is not leaning to a Brute's strength (Fury)?

[aethereal]

Below level 50, for the most part Brutes will outdamage Scrappers.  This may change in the late 40's, but level 50 per se is a big power jump for Scrappers.  So if you're planning to do all story content at its level appropriate range, you'll probably have an easier time with a Brute.  If you're going to go up to level 50 and have, for example, purple and superior ATOs, then lower your level with ouroborus, then that favors Scrappers more.

Edited February 9, 2023 by aethereal

[Sabrehawk]

At the low levels Brute performs well above Scrapper in my experience. I am not an expert on every AT in the game but I suspect Brute is going to offer the smoothest experience as there's so many low level story arcs. 

[twozerofoxtrot]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Attacking more often due to Entropic Aura is not leaning to a Brute's strength (Fury)?

 

Not from where I stand. By the same rationale it provides Scrappers more chances to crit.

[Erratic1]

23 minutes ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

Not from where I stand. By the same rationale it provides Scrappers more chances to crit.

 

Yes, but I am not holding that Energy Aura is not beneficial to Scrappers so that seems like an odd rebuttal.

 

What precisely would you say is armor set which leans to Brute strength over Energy Aura?

[twozerofoxtrot]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

Yes, but I am not holding that Energy Aura is not beneficial to Scrappers so that seems like an odd rebuttal.

 

To be frank your question seemed odd. Obviously my intent was to point out that EA didn't hold a particular advantage on Brutes over Scraps because it didn't play to Brute strength, not that the set wasn't good on Brutes.

 

3 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

It's fine

 

Like so. 👆

 

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

What precisely would you say is armor set which leans to Brute strength over Energy Aura?

 

Not over EA, but Scrappers:

 

Willpower

Regen

Fire

Dark 

Elec

 

Anything that allows a Brute to take advantage of their higher HP and/or Resist caps, and/or allows Fury to piggyback on a damage aura.

 

EA is a great set, but seems stronger on Scrappers due to it primarily focusing on Defense for protection, as well as providing a Taunt Aura, which is superfluous for a Brute.

 

 

[Erratic1]

5 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

To be frank your question seemed odd. Obviously my intent was to point out that EA didn't hold a particular advantage on Brutes over Scraps because it didn't play to Brute strength, not that the set wasn't good on Brutes.

 

Not so obviously because the statement, "They do. It's fine, it doesn't lean to any of a Brute's strengths, though" makes no mention of a comparison, being a flat statement in regards to Brutes. Nor is it obvious to me how EA leans to any particular Scrapper strength. But hey, maybe I'm slow.

 

 

5 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Not over EA, but Scrappers:

 

Willpower

Regen

Fire

Dark 

Elec

 

Anything that allows a Brute to take advantage of their higher HP and/or Resist caps, and/or allows Fury to piggyback on a damage aura.

 

EA is a great set, but seems stronger on Scrappers due to it primarily focusing on Defense for protection, as well as providing a Taunt Aura, which is superfluous for a Brute.

 

Higher resistance cap is always going to be a benefit to a Brute regardless of the set focusing on Defense or Resistance because either way there is more effective health which foes have to beat through. For example, my previous Brute project achieves 90% S/L resistance while soft-capping S/L/F/C/N/E defenses (well, not quite on N/E but close) when facing just a single target and hard cap facing 8 targets. A Scrapper, at equal defense values is never going to equal or surpass a Brute who has taken their resistance values past 75%. Likewise a Brute using Shield or EA or SR is going to be considerably better off than a Scrapper so long as the Brute pushes their resistances past 75%.

 

I get where you're headed, though I think I might invert the phrasing. It is less that EA (and other Defense sets) are stronger on a Scrapper than a Brute, they are stronger on a Scrapper than Resistance sets on a Scrapper because you are able to come closer to full damage mitigation with them.

 

All this talk of EA has me strongly considering remaking my SS/EA Brute from Live.

 

Edited February 9, 2023 by Erratic1

[Erratic1]

8 hours ago, aethereal said:

Below level 50, for the most part Brutes will outdamage Scrappers.  This may change in the late 40's, but level 50 per se is a big power jump for Scrappers.  So if you're planning to do all story content at its level appropriate range, you'll probably have an easier time with a Brute.  If you're going to go up to level 50 and have, for example, purple and superior ATOs, then lower your level with ouroborus, then that favors Scrappers more.

 

I was going to make a comment on this last night, but I was not up for doing the digging to support what I wanted to say. Guess sleep energized me.

 

If we look at a powerset, say for example Battle Axe, we have the following raw damage values courtesy of [url=City of Data v2.0 (uberguy.net)]City of Data 2.0[/url]:

 

Battle Axe	Brute	Scrapper	Ratio
Beheader	41.7	62.6	1.5
Chop	68.4	102.6	1.5
Gash	81.7	122.6	1.5
Pendulum	56.2	84.2	1.5
Swoop	95.1	142.6	1.5
Axe Cyclone	41.7	62.5	1.5
Cleave	115.1	172.7	1.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call that the messy way of demonstrating the scalar difference between ATs with Brutes being at 0.75, Scrappers being at 1.125 and the ratio of those two values being 1.5.

 

The Scrapper has higher base damage and criticals, the Bute has Fury.

 

In the early game is the point where players are least likely to slot enhancements. True, some people always do so, but some people don't really bother for a while. (Personally, I don't bother until level 22.) Depending on target the Scrapper has a 5-10% chance of critting for double damage so the ratio goes to 1.575/1.65. A Brute needs 29/33 Fury to be matching the Scrapper. Those are not really hard values to achieve or maintain and broadly the Brute will surpass them. But there will be some healing (at least when solo), travel, and possibly organizational (party) downtime which can push the Brute back down to no Fury between fights. Overall, the Brute is probably more effective in delivering damage.

 

Move into the realm where both ATs have slotted for damage and things shift a bit. Say the Scrapper has triple-slotted damage enhancements for a bonus of 96% (level 30 damage enhancements should put you there with level 25 enhancements being only somewhat behind that). That takes the Scrapper ratio compared to the Brute base to 3.087/3.234. So the Brute needs to pick up 210/224% damage. He of course can slot as well for 96%, leaving him wanting 114%/128%, which Fury of 57/64 puts him at. The thing is that Fury falls off faster the higher its value and those downtime bits from before are still there. So the Brute has to ramp up damage and is behind until he does while the Scrapper walks into each fight at full value. Sure, the Brute can push up to 85 Fury (it is hard to get past that value) but that has to be balanced by whatever time he spent beneath break even. It does not strike me as quite so obvious the Brute is significantly ahead of the Scrapper. This is going to be the case from somewhere in the mid-20 level range.

 

And while Brutes do have a higher resistance cap, they are unlikely to reach anywhere near it until set bonuses come into play. Short of that, the only thing they will really have over the Scrapper is a larger health pool.

 

From their 30s upward I cannot say my DM/EA, WM/Shield, or WM/Nin scrapper have felt less damaging than any of my Brutes.

[Yomo Kimyata]

This is not a damage answer to your question, but a survival answer.  Once you get this power as a melee character with Taunt, you will should not ever die.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=epic.brute_soul_mastery.darkest_night&at=brute

[aethereal]

3 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

I was going to make a comment on this last night, but I was not up for doing the digging to support what I wanted to say. Guess sleep energized me.

 

If we look at a powerset, say for example Battle Axe, we have the following raw damage values courtesy of [url=City of Data v2.0 (uberguy.net)]City of Data 2.0[/url]:

 

Battle Axe	Brute	Scrapper	Ratio
Beheader	41.7	62.6	1.5
Chop	68.4	102.6	1.5
Gash	81.7	122.6	1.5
Pendulum	56.2	84.2	1.5
Swoop	95.1	142.6	1.5
Axe Cyclone	41.7	62.5	1.5
Cleave	115.1	172.7	1.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call that the messy way of demonstrating the scalar difference between ATs with Brutes being at 0.75, Scrappers being at 1.125 and the ratio of those two values being 1.5.

 

Certainly true, though I note that the scalars don't come fully "in" until level 20 -- below 20, Brutes enjoy much closer base-damage parity to Scrappers, and Fury is just whoah-good.  Not generally a big deal since levels 1-20 go by fast, but potentially relevant at for someone who's being a completist.

 

(So for example at level 10, a Brute Beheader does 15.4279 damage and a Scrapper Beheader does 18.7338 -- Scrapper's damage advantage is 1.29, not 1.5)

 

3 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

The Scrapper has higher base damage and criticals, the Bute has Fury.

 

In the early game is the point where players are least likely to slot enhancements. True, some people always do so, but some people don't really bother for a while. (Personally, I don't bother until level 22.) Depending on target the Scrapper has a 5-10% chance of critting for double damage so the ratio goes to 1.575/1.65. A Brute needs 29/33 Fury to be matching the Scrapper. Those are not really hard values to achieve or maintain and broadly the Brute will surpass them. But there will be some healing (at least when solo), travel, and possibly organizational (party) downtime which can push the Brute back down to no Fury between fights. Overall, the Brute is probably more effective in delivering damage.

 

People should slot enhancements for levels they are going to play at seriously.  This thread is specificallya bout someone who wants to "solo all story content."

 

Brutes are massively better than Scrappers at very low levels, since as mentioned above their scalar deficit is mitigated, while Fury is what it is.

 

3 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Move into the realm where both ATs have slotted for damage and things shift a bit. Say the Scrapper has triple-slotted damage enhancements for a bonus of 96% (level 30 damage enhancements should put you there with level 25 enhancements being only somewhat behind that). That takes the Scrapper ratio compared to the Brute base to 3.087/3.234. So the Brute needs to pick up 210/224% damage. He of course can slot as well for 96%, leaving him wanting 114%/128%, which Fury of 57/64 puts him at. The thing is that Fury falls off faster the higher its value and those downtime bits from before are still there. So the Brute has to ramp up damage and is behind until he does while the Scrapper walks into each fight at full value. Sure, the Brute can push up to 85 Fury (it is hard to get past that value) but that has to be balanced by whatever time he spent beneath break even. It does not strike me as quite so obvious the Brute is significantly ahead of the Scrapper. This is going to be the case from somewhere in the mid-20 level range.

 

If you have trouble maintaining 57 Fury, idk man.  Maybe look into your play.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

From their 30s upward I cannot say my DM/EA, WM/Shield, or WM/Nin scrapper have felt less damaging than any of my Brutes.

 

I don't know how you feel, but I assure you it's not very hard for Brutes to actually be more damaging than your Scrappers in their 30s.

 

At 50, a Scrapper has a few major advantages over a Brute:

 

First and most importantly, their critical values can get insane.  A Scrapper with the Superior ATO1 slotted starts at 16% critical rate against LTs+.  Then they have 4 PPM of the +50% crit value ATO2.  With perma-hasten level global recharge, that's about 10 activations per minute, which leads to about half of your attacks benefitting from the +50% crit rate.  So call it 25% crit rate all told, leading to about a 41% total crit rate.

 

In contrast, if you're level 49 or lower (truly level 49-, not exemped down), you're starting at 14% instead of 16%, and you're at 2 PPM instead of 4 PPM.  Even if you're perma-hasten at level 49, that still means you've got about 5 activations per minute instead of 10, call your total crit rate about 26.5% instead of 41%.  Huge difference!  But you're probably not perma-hasten at level 49, because you don't have access to 10% global recharge bonuses.  Your ATO2 proc rate might be more like 3 activations per minute, instead of 10.

 

Secondly, Scrappers get much more out of Build Up than Brutes do, with both a higher percentage value and it working off their higher scalar.  But of course the Build Up uptime is again heavily affected by global recharge, so...  same deal.

 

Thirdly, Scrappers get epic snipes instead of the less-effective ST attacks that Brutes get.  This bonus comes in earlier -- you can get your epic snipe at level 35 and even fully slot it at that level with your respec, though it might more likely be slotted at more like level 37 or later.  Of course, global recharge also helps with these long-activation-time powers.

 

Fourthly, Scrappers get more use out of the armor sets that give +damage, most notably Bio.  Relevant at much lower levels, but I note that the OP is planning to use either Fire or Energy.

 

 

 

Specifically for the OP's somewhat strange use case, assuming he plans to do the story content as he levels, rather than going up to 50 and exemping back down, I think he'll likely get more use out of a Brute than a Scrapper.

 

This isn't to say that Scrappers don't have a significant damage advantage over Brutes at level 50, but people overestimate how much that translates down to pre-50.

 

(EDIT:  I'll add that if you want the most damaging melee class at mid levels, I think there's a solid case for Stalker over both Brute and Scrapper.)

Edited February 9, 2023 by aethereal

[Erratic1]

6 minutes ago, aethereal said:

People should slot enhancements for levels they are going to play at seriously.  This thread is specificallya bout someone who wants to "solo all story content."

 

What? I don't play seriously? My expectation is that I am not going to be at low levels long enough to make the hassle of replacing enhancements worth it. I start slotting with crafted level 25 basic IOs at level 22 because (a) they give a significant bang (level 50s damage IOs only give 10% more then 25s) and (b) I will not need to replace them before moving on to set IOs.

 

6 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Brutes are massively better than Scrappers at very low levels, since as mentioned above their scalar deficit is mitigated, while Fury is what it is.

 

Which is pretty much what I said. But you are not spending any real time at level 2 and not much time getting to level 10.

 

6 minutes ago, aethereal said:

If you have trouble maintaining 57 Fury, idk man.  Maybe look into your play.

 

Maybe read what was written as opposed to whatever fever dream passed your eyes. 

 

6 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I don't know how you feel, but I assure you it's not very hard for Brutes to actually be more damaging than your Scrappers in their 30s. 

 

As noted, they are not going to be majorly more survivable than Scrappers, every rest they take brings them down to 0 Fury, and Scrappers enter every fight at full damage value. The Brute's ability to be ahead depends on their ability to mitigate damage and sustain endurance. So long as they do not have to slow down to rest or spend time travelling, they can maintain superior damage output. 

 

[aethereal]

20 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

What? I don't play seriously? My expectation is that I am not going to be at low levels long enough to make the hassle of replacing enhancements worth it.

 

Levels you play seriously at.  I don't bother doing a lot of slotting at low levels either.  But I'm also not trying to "solo all story content."  Now the OP was pretty light in his explanation of what exactly he means by that!  I don't know if "soloing all story content" means just "I'm going to solo up to level 50 mostly with story arcs," or "stop XP to exhaustively play every single arc available at every level" or "solo all TFs" or what.

 

If he's going to turn on 2X XP and just solo, I'd do pretty light slotting at very low levels.  But if he's going to spend hours or days below level 20, he should slot!

 

20 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Which is pretty much what I said. But you are not spending any real time at level 2 and not much time getting to level 10.

 

Again, you and I may not, but he might be!  And you did not in fact say anything about scalars below level 20.

 

20 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

As noted, they are not going to be majorly more survivable than Scrappers, every rest they take brings them down to 0 Fury, and Scrappers enter every fight at full damage value.

 

It takes a few seconds of fighting to get back up to high levels of Fury, and Fury decay is a joke now.  There was a point in this game's evolution where building up to a high level of Fury and sustaining it was hard, but that point is not today.

[Erratic1]

2 minutes ago, aethereal said:

It takes a few seconds of fighting to get back up to high levels of Fury, and Fury decay is a joke now.  There was a point in this game's evolution where building up to a high level of Fury and sustaining it was hard, but that point is not today.

 

As it happens, my favorite blue side arc is Twisted Reflections/Through the Looking Glass, so I do it on each of my characters. Because I enjoy it so much and how character costumes get inverted, I like to screenshot the clones. As this happens when fighting I have taken to simply recording the fights so I can later pull out the frames I like. As a result, I happen to have a number of videos lying about of various characters fighting portions of the mission at a point where I will have first slotted enhancements in them and will have distributed roughly the same number of slots (3 slots in Stamina, 3 slots in each attack though usually with 2 damage and 1 endurance reduction--I hate fights being limited by things other than health total). And along the way I had a scrapper (Savage/Shield) I remade as a brute (Savage/Electrical)--so not quite an apples-to-apple comparison. 

 

Last fight against the clone was 13 seconds for the scrapper, 16 seconds for the brute. Despite the brute reaching roughly 80 Fury by the end of the fight, the scrapper came out with faster time. And while the brute comes out around 80 Fury, he is down about 30% of his endurance. How many more fights is he going to rush into before needing to rest and dropping Fury?

 

It is all wonderful to talk about Fury as if it is always max, but that is not the case even now.

[aethereal]

I don't know, dude, maybe you should just be better at this?  Seriously, while Fury isn't literally at 85 all the time, it's trivial to keep it well above 60 95% of the time -- which is all you need to outperform Scrappers.  I agree that at SUPER low levels, or before you genuinely are slotting things, there's lots of resting and that does hurt Brutes -- but they're helped by their scalars and so forth.  There may be an island of time in the low 20s where it's hard to have good endurance slotting due to low numbers of slots available/low enhancement values, where you still need to rest a lot and thus you decay your fury.  But even then, I don't usually go to 0 Fury during a rest.

 

Now, for one ~10 second fight, if you have Build Up available, that fight will probably be slightly on the edge for a Scrapper.  But at low levels, Build Up is available every three or four or five fights, not every fight.

 

If you're routinely finding that you end all your fights having used up 70% of your endurance, I think you should more aggressively look at endurance tools.

[Erratic1]

12 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I don't know, dude, maybe you should just be better at this? 

 

I am the only one in the "conversation" providing numbers (and can provide the videos as well if need be. What I know? You've blowing a lot of smoke.

 

At this point, pics or it didn't happen as I am frankly sick of your condescension and you're about a click away from the ignore list.

[InvaderStych]

....

 

anyway

 

....

 

16 hours ago, smnolimits43 said:

I prefer Single Target Attacks vs AoE.  This may have been discussed already, which does more damage a Scrapper or a Brute.  I'm thinking of making a Broad Sword /Fire Armor.  This will be a Homage of Trunks from Dragon Ball Z.  I'm not sure if Brutes have Energy Aura, which could be a second option.

 

Had to look up the reference; apparently this dude can fly, so if you're interested in keeping that aspect I'd rule out /Fire and go /EA.  Burn and Flight don't mix. I'm not really a fan of the power, personally, but skipping it on an experimental scrapper still felt weird.  Just add fire via Blaze mastery.  Fireball isn't the greatest thing ever (I use it a lot anyway because of that sweet, sweet 1s activation), but for a soloing content project it's a solid AoE add for a set like Broadsword.

 

BS/EA/Blaze, and I'd be inclined to Scrapper but that's just because of personal inclinations. That said, BS and Crit Strikes work nicely together just as they do in Katana, which is a plus.

[SeraphimKensai]

Not to interfere with the dance goin on, but personally if I was soloing content and aiming to focus more on single target than AoE, I'd roll a Stalker personally. The two ATO procs can be slotted as early as lvl 10 and they are game changers.

 

You can stealth repetitive kill variable named boss and guards, and rush a glowie, and they excel at deleting bosses, and when built out they can be godly.

[Gobbledygook]

Brute.

Scrappers and Stalkers don't have Super Strength.

Yet.

[biostem]

I wanted to try something akin to a war mace stalker, but since that's not possible, I rolled up a war mace/ninjitsu scrapper.  It's a fairly interesting pairing.  Not the highest performer by any means, but you get some neat tools and it has a bit of a different feel than other scrappers I have played.

 

EDIT:  I do have a Bane Spider VEAT, but it's not quite the feel I wanted, either...

Edited February 10, 2023 by biostem

[ninja surprise]

20 minutes ago, biostem said:

I wanted to try something akin to a war mace stalker, but since that's not possible, I rolled up a war mace/ninjitsu scrapper.  It's a fairly interesting pairing.  Not the highest performer by any means, but you get some neat tools and it has a bit of a different feel than other scrappers I have played.

 

You still get crits from hide though!

[Erratic1]

2 minutes ago, ninja surprise said:

 

You still get crits from hide though!

 

Got a red side WM/Nin myself and it is fun, especially when combined with an AoE attack. But boy is it frustrating when it misses.

[ninja surprise]

7 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Got a red side WM/Nin myself and it is fun, especially when combined with an AoE attack. But boy is it frustrating when it misses.

 

Yep, I have a Titan/Nin Scrapper and it's totally lame to get all set up and then whiff. 

Happily, after getting momentum the follow up attacks are nice and speedy.