Are there any sets that are objectionably better on brutes than tankers/scrappers?

[MattBold]

I was wondering this because someone tried to talk me out of making a /shield brute, saying that there was not much reason to play a brute compared to a scrapper, because the defense numbers were the same and a scrapper base damage will benefit more from Against All Odds.

 

Is there anything like this for Brutes where a set(primary or secondary) is objectionably better on brutes than scrappers or tanks?

[arcane]

The only real reasons to play Brutes are (1) to play the tankiest version of EA and Regen and (2) to play the scrappiest version of SS.

[PLVRIZR]

Fire farming (for me) is still faster with the classic Spines/Fire Brute (due to the Fury mechanic) and S/L farming is faster (for me) with an Elec/Elec brute than an Elec/Elec tank, again due to the Fury mechanic.

[StriderIV]

I’m not sure about single sets, but I could think of some combos I think would be optimal on a Brute. Savage Melee pairs up really nicely with either Bio Armor or Elec Armor on a Brute. The damage aura DOTS they bring, the DOTS Savage Melee brings… all ramped up by fury. It’s very nice.

[Snarky]

I struggle with this.  Depending on what you are doing there are niche cases where a Brute is (might be) a better choice.  SS damage dealer for instance.  FS is the one AoE that got almost nothing in the great Tank give away.  I have a Dark/Invul Brute which I believe is more effective than a Invul Dark Tank.  You could argue not.  But Dark Melee is an odd set and the synergy of Dark melee Invulnerable Armor is based off recharge and applying a ton of ST hard hitting attacks.  For survival the Rech brings up dull pain fast and the Dark attack/hral keeps you topped off.  

 

Concept should be the guiding factor.  But with the worst ATOs in the game and every Dev hating on them for the last 15 years Brutes are in a shit place.  

[Hyperstrike]

Honestly, trying to out-Tank a Tank while out-Scrappering a Scrapper at the same time is to misunderstand how the AT operates.

Essentially you can hit 90-95% of the Armor results of a Tank while seeing ABOUT-ish 90-95% of the damage of a Scrapper.

The "special sauce" is how you are able to ride the spurting edge of absolute damage while not dying.

It's the one thing the game can NEVER account for.
The PLAYER (not the toon).

[Thrax]

I’d say willpower as well as regen. Just higher hp so heal more. I personally think regen sucks on anything.  I have a staff/wp brute and it’s fun. In need of a respec fit it’s still fun. Can fit more of the heal procs on brute than scrap too so that’s nice. Think it’s power transfer?  The one you put in end powers. I’d say all the resist armors are better on brute just cause cap is higher. 

[Mythical Creature]

Energy Aura is a great defensive set with some resistances layered in and some neat abilities that are very helpful. The heal is also an endurance discount. The aoe end drain boosts your defense by every enemy hit (and is auto hit). There is also a good amount of defense debuff resistance 70%+ if I am remembering correctly. I am sure I will probably rebuild this eventually, but I wanted to make a tough energy aura brute (image build shown) and I was able to get close to 50% defense for S/L/E/NE/F/C on top of decent resistances, without doing anything really extreme with the build. Energy Aura is more than overkill for a defensive based brute and it isn't even an option for tankers. 

 

Apart from Energy Aura I think any set that has higher than average values would be a good choice for a brute, things such as Shield Defense, Super Reflexes, or Electric Armor. Regeneration has it's bulkiest option in brutes but I would hardly consider it worth playing unless you are wanting a challenge. Bio Armor and Rad Armor are also great choices for brutes because they increase damage and recharge, both which help with the general direction of brutes. 

[Sanguinesun]

On 6/15/2023 at 4:14 AM, MattBold said:

I was wondering this because someone tried to talk me out of making a /shield brute, saying that there was not much reason to play a brute compared to a scrapper, because the defense numbers were the same and a scrapper base damage will benefit more from Against All Odds.

 

Is there anything like this for Brutes where a set(primary or secondary) is objectionably better on brutes than scrappers or tanks?

 

 

Your question is quite frankly too general and too subjective/relative... making answers go all over the place as you've seen from responses thus far.

 

If you want to tank, be a tanker.  If you want to scrap, be a scrapper. 

 

If you want to be a decent damage dealing toon that can also tank within reason, be a brute (caveat as with any set combos/enhancer/etc in ones build choices mind you of course but thats true of -any- AT).  

 

If you want to active fire Farm, be a rad/fire brute.  If you want to be an active s/l farmer, be a stone/ma tank or similar. If you want to be an afk farmer, other considerations come into play. (And let's also be clear regarding farming, not a small amount of that has to do with the designed farm and map choices as to effectivity of that too in one's inf/exp per hour considerations.

 

Starting to see how one's goals affect one's choices?   That's CoH.

 

If you're not going to focus on doing 4star hard modes or being some sort of influence farmer; and you're just wanting to do content relaxed and casually, then most anything is going to be relatively fine. 

 

Most people talking you out of xyz(and Im guilty of this with some people in discussions with them) are trying to more or less to steer someone with min/max considerations for example.   But when I realize someone is instead more or less exemplifying that they're not hyper focused with specific content and just casually wanting to play, then I back off that advice (usually).

 

Arguably, 90% of the player base are not min/maxing. They're either playing stuff casually with expectations that teams supplement their deficits in their builds (as for example an MSR raid totally obscures any one toon's lack of anything) or they use cookie cutter builds made by others who have refined builds for various purposes.

 

The other 10% focus on min maxing, and having that become a hobby within the hobby, so to speak, with 2% of those being extremely obsessed with doing so for 4star hard modes or making different toons with different build variations for specific game play content otherwise also.

 

So all in all, if you do not fall within that 10%, for now, just play a set combo that you like, and then if it feels like something you want to stick with and not park at 50, then see about refining it further to be as optimal as possible for the play goals you have with it.  But if you decide that you want to play less casually, then you have to start making more concerted decisions to do X set combo's with X build min/max'd considerations.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Sanguinesun

[JasperStone]

Play what you want.

[Hjarki]

A strong argument can be made for Super Reflexes. While you can't stroll around with passive Relentless soft-cap like a Tanker does, you can still easily reach levels of Defense more than sufficient for ordinary play. Moreover, since almost all of your resists come from set bonuses or scaling resists (which are the same for Tanker and Brute), you're about the same toughness on that front as well. The Brute ATO (regen/end) tends to be more practical than the Tanker ATO (+resist).

[Zect]

Brutes are intended to be an intermediate between tanker survivability and scrapper dps. For the most part, they do fulfill that role well; and it's a remarkably optimal tradeoff, given that in coh, the jack of all trades, master of none, is nearly always better than a master of one (except for certain specialist applications).

 

While scrapper's higher base damage scalar benefits more from shield's AAO, shield brutes are stronger defensively with 90% resist cap and superior base and max HP. And depending on the content you're doing, you may find either ratio of damage : defense more optimal, but it's hard to categorically say a shield brute is weaker than a shield scrapper.

 

The big anomaly right now is actually brutes vs tanks. Currently, optimally built tanks will both out-tank and out-scrap brutes on identical powersets. The reason is that 1) tankers build for damage (through procs) much more effectively than brutes build for defense, 2) tankers also build for defense much more effectively than brutes build for defense, 3) tankers have a powerful offensive inherent in gauntlet, and 4) tanker's higher base survivability synergistically boosts their offensive power.

 

Tankers need an offensive nerf, but the problem is likely not going to be completely fixed until the aprocalypse - which I await with glee.

[MattBold]

23 hours ago, Zect said:

Brutes are intended to be an intermediate between tanker survivability and scrapper dps. For the most part, they do fulfill that role well; and it's a remarkably optimal tradeoff, given that in coh, the jack of all trades, master of none, is nearly always better than a master of one (except for certain specialist applications).

 

While scrapper's higher base damage scalar benefits more from shield's AAO, shield brutes are stronger defensively with 90% resist cap and superior base and max HP. And depending on the content you're doing, you may find either ratio of damage : defense more optimal, but it's hard to categorically say a shield brute is weaker than a shield scrapper.

 

The big anomaly right now is actually brutes vs tanks. Currently, optimally built tanks will both out-tank and out-scrap brutes on identical powersets. The reason is that 1) tankers build for damage (through procs) much more effectively than brutes build for defense, 2) tankers also build for defense much more effectively than brutes build for defense, 3) tankers have a powerful offensive inherent in gauntlet, and 4) tanker's higher base survivability synergistically boosts their offensive power.

 

Tankers need an offensive nerf, but the problem is likely not going to be completely fixed until the aprocalypse - which I await with glee.

 

How does guantlet help offensively?  Isnt it just a passive taunt?

[Hyperstrike]

2 hours ago, MattBold said:

 

How does guantlet help offensively?  Isnt it just a passive taunt?

Taunting enough enemies and keeping them in range of AoE attacks.
Not having to waste time chasing them all down.

[Bopper]

Radiation armor might be worth your consideration. A Rad Tank can build for enough resists to where Meltdown doesn't have to be taken, while a Brute can take the power and put you into 90% resistance mode temporarily (something a Scrapper can't touch) while still enjoying your fury advantage (pairing with RoP is a nice combo, too). Tankers may still have the edge with their higher base HP, but you can work with it.

 

Stone Armor is another interesting option. Fury goes well with damage auras like Mudpots, plus it will buff Brimstone proc. You won't hit the survivability of a Tank, but you will have a taunt inherent and aura that a Scrapper lacks. Overall it lands in a nice middle ground. 

[kelika2]

Most arguments will boil down to City of Heroes/Villains being so easy anything can work.  Coupled with personal anecdotes, 1000 character slots, and jusburself.

 

When the sun, the moon and the stars align, a scrapper can outperform a brute.  Scrappers base damage is higher than a brutes to compensate for Fury.  A damage capped Scrapper with proper ATOs will out damage a brute.  However being damage capped is somewhat rare.  And even in someones personal anecdote someone will bring up 50 people with Lore pets.  This is not applicable to sets, both primary and secondary, where crits do not effect abilities.

 

So with those aside.

Savage Melee's DoTs are effected by Brutes Fury, but they are not factored into Scrappers crits.

[Parabola]

Honestly the point of difference between brutes and tanks that I struggle to get past these days is aggro management. Brutes just aren't as sticky as tanks and the current mob ai being what it is has mobs peeling themselves off and running for the hills far too often. I actually really enjoy the way brutes play other than that, I certainly prefer them to scrappers for the most part. But every time I have to chase down a runner I'm thinking 'that wouldn't have happened on a tank'. I wish they would tone that down a bit...

[Hjarki]

4 hours ago, kelika2 said:

When the sun, the moon and the stars align, a scrapper can outperform a brute.

In general, you need about +70% damage above what you could expect from just slotting your attacks with +damage for a Scrapper to start pulling ahead of a Brute.

 

If you're at the damage cap, the Scrapper would deal about 18% more damage.

 

In contrast, even at the damage cap, a Brute would be dealing about 10% more damage than a Tanker. Where Tankers can out-perform Brutes is with AE attacks. If you've got enough targets, a Tanker's Cone will deal 35% more damage than a Brute's even with just basic +100% internal damage.

 

 

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Hjarki

[Zect]

10 hours ago, MattBold said:

 

How does guantlet help offensively?  Isnt it just a passive taunt?

 

It increases aoe radius and arc.

 

Have you met my friend the 22.5ft radius, 16 target dark oblit with fender tohit debuff values?

Edited June 18, 2023 by Zect