An Identity for Brutes?

[CrusaderDroid]

The Bugged Fury ATO thread was starting to stray into "let's talk about Brutes as a whole". I figured that was a good sign to, well, talk about Brutes as a whole.

 

Currently, they're in an identity crisis. It's not immediately obvious to a casual player - if you have a Scrapper, Brute, and Tanker all play in the same team while leveling, the Brute does significantly more damage. That's because of Fury, which grants a damage bonus based on how full it is.

 

Now, Brute wasn't originally a contemporary of Scrapper and Tanker. They were exclusive to Villains originally. That meant Brute needed to be tough enough to survive tanking for the otherwise-fragile redside ATs. Brutes still keep their increased health and resist cap, accordingly, tying them with Tankers.

 

Nowadays, though, anyone can be anything, which puts Brutes in direct competition with Scrappers and Tankers. This is actually pretty bad - when you have this kind of competition in game design, one option almost always obsoletes the others. This doesn't mean it's bad, but it does mean that you're choosing to handicap yourself by not taking the best option.

 

So what's the problem with Brutes? Well, it's damage. Ironically.

 

See, while Fury grants a lot of damage, there's a maximum damage cap that can be achieved by a character. Scrapper, Brute, and Tanker can't reach that cap by themselves, which you think might give Brute an edge...except that this is a team game, and Kinetics' big calling card is Fulcrum Shift. When targeting a full group of enemies with Fulcrum Shift, the bonuses granted to everyone are more than enough to cap out your damage when coupled with damage enhancements.

 

This presents a problem as Fury only grants damage. A Brute that has damage capped at 0 Fury gains no benefit from Fury. A Scrapper that has damage capped can still crit, and modern Tankers have increased target counts on their AoE attacks while enjoying better numbers on their defensive powers.

 

Now, keep in mind Brute's scalars - that is, the multiplier on the base damage that affects where all damage boosts start - are lower than Scrapper's. That means that, if damage boosts are equal, a Brute does less damage than a Scrapper even before crits. Since Fulcrum Shift caps everyone out so easily, it's pretty easy to get to equal levels of damage boosts.

 

End result: Brutes can't compete with Scrappers in damage.

 

But we've got tanking, right? Well...not really? There's a few sets that Tankers don't get, but for every other set, Brutes use Scrapper numbers for their defense set instead of Tanker numbers or an in-between. That means that despite the increased health and resist cap, Brutes have to put much more resources to reach them. There's also no way to offset the increased target count that Tankers get.

 

In short: while they work great on a budget or as first characters, at high levels of team play, Brutes don't really excel. There's no need for the role compression they offer, Scrapper can hit harder, and Tanker can bump up its damage to match Brute since it doesn't need to invest as much in personal defenses due to better armor base numbers. The only time a Brute would be useful is when your team is missing key support players, but an AT that only excels in suboptimal situations is quickly going to find itself irrelevant as the meta shifts and people start trending towards optimization.

 

But the problem here goes way past that. See, we can't actually change Brute in either direction - damage or durability. We can give crits to Brute, but now Scrapper loses its draw. We can bump up the base numbers on Brute armors, but now Tanker loses its draw. It's more than just buffing numbers and being done with it - doing that would just shift the problem AT to one of the others instead, and we've gone nowhere.

 

Now, it's entirely possible you're of the opinion that Brute "feels fine to me". I'm glad you're happy with your Brute! I like mine too. Personal feelings don't get to sway numbers and direct comparisons, though, and Brute comes up short on several comparisons. You could settle for "feels fine", but then you're leaving "feels even better" on the table. Why settle?

 

What needs to happen is a way to define Brute independently of both Scrapper and Tanker. Brute needs its own unique identity that would give it a niche that you can't cover with either of those two classes.

 

Which, uh. That's really hard.

 

So, I'll pitch a few ideas and explain why they can help, and I'd love to see your ideas too. Brute has a fun thematic that I don't think is being sufficiently explored right now, meaning there's lots of room for new things.

 

My ideas are not all meant to be adopted at once. Some can coexist, but the purpose is to workshop possible avenues of change, not pile everything onto Brutes to make them OP.

 

That said, there's a few things that aren't going to work - namely, overly defensive picks and +Acc/ToHit. An overt focus on defense (or CC aura-type effects like Cloak of Fear) doesn't have the same kind of effect on a player as offense - it's much easier to overlook not taking damage than it is to have a big effect happen at the press of a button. At the same time, +Acc/ToHit is invisible - you literally cannot notice it without monitoring the combat log like a hawk. I think there's room for stuff that's appreciably good and visible.

 

Without further ado...

 

---

 

Make Fury Increase Global Recharge

This goes in line with the earlier thread. Global recharge is handy because it means you get to press buttons more, and pressing buttons is the primary means to enjoy playing your character. It feels good to have your powers available more often.

 

This also opens up new ways to balance fury gain. With fury increasing recharge speed, we can pivot and move Brutes into a slow-starting, momentum-heavy attacker that builds and loses fury at a slower rate, relying on that recharge speed to accelerate their attacks.

 

Increases in recharge speed also mean we can step off Fury granting so much extra damage that gets overcapped. This also won't interfere with Scrapper's own relative balance - Scrapper's crits can be offset by more reliable, faster strikes from the Brute.

 

Replace Build Up Powers with Fury Interaction

Build Up features prominently in many builds, but isn't really the most exciting power and ends up getting copy-pasted across powersets. With Brute and the Fury mechanic, we have an easy pick for a change that can add some more dynamic play to the AT.

 

There's a lot of directions we can go with this. My personal favorite is to turn it into a PBAoE nuke that's only accessible at a certain level of fury, without giving up all of the benefits of Build Up. It's flashy, it's an extra AoE attack that the other two ATs don't get, and it plays well with the intent of building fury to do big damage.

 

We can also opt to make it consume fury, instead, for another benefit - healing or a boost to resistances, for instance. This one is better with fury that doesn't take a lot to build up. I don't like it quite as much as most of the benefits here are going to end up being defensive in nature, so it's harder to get away from Tanker.

 

If we have a particularly slow fury gain, Build Up could also increase fury gain or just grant fury. This is going to depend heavily on exact changes to Fury as a mechanic, but it's an option.

 

Have Fury Increase CC Magnitude

Now here's an option that was kinda floated in the prior thread in a different way, where Fury would terrorize enemies. If we have Fury increase magnitude, we can then pivot Brute into a hybrid damage and control AT where things that get hit by Brute have a very bad day.

 

This is a pretty neat direction, but there's several issues that would need to be addressed first, not least of which is that melee sets rarely have enough CC to make this meaningful outside of knocks. You'd need to modify the Brute sets to add more CC for this to pay off. You'd also have to worry about the fact that now we're introducing a very strange competition with Controllers and Dominators of all things, which gets bad for those classes given their relatively lower damage and lack of staying power.

 

It would take a lot of work. It's still an interesting choice worth mulling over, in my opinion.

 

Have Fury Increase Mez/Slow Resistance

This was floated in the earlier thread too. It looks cool on paper - very unstoppable, means high guaranteed uptime on all of your stuff. This gives Brute a niche, accordingly - you could use cleanse-type powers on other allies for similar results, but the powersets with those don't have the same damage boosts as some of the top picks. This lets Brute run in and tank volleys of control and still keep swinging.

 

The main barrier is that armor powers already grant a hefty boost to varying CC types. This would end up wasted for the most part and encourage some very odd meta shifts.

 

However, if we're committing to changing more sets to grant more Brute-unique powers, this gets more compelling. Removing the protection powers to make room for an exclusive Brute trick means this idea has merit. It also means Brute play gets more intricate as you need to manage your fury before running into mezzes.

 

---

 

What do you all think? I like Brute a bunch, and I don't want players to be in a situation where they need to give up the fantasy of "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry" in the name of meta optimization. Brute needs love well past a simple numbers buff to be able to hit that point, and I'm hoping this is a decent start to getting Brute a unique identity that gets it away from the unenviable middle child of Scrapper and Tanker.

[Glacier Peak]

To your question: 

 

4 minutes ago, CrusaderDroid said:

What do you all think? I like Brute a bunch, and I don't want players to be in a situation where they need to give up the fantasy of "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry" in the name of meta optimization. Brute needs love well past a simple numbers buff to be able to hit that point, and I'm hoping this is a decent start to getting Brute a unique identity that gets it away from the unenviable middle child of Scrapper and Tanker.

 

The comic book character(s) I think are Brutes are Wolverine and the Hulk. Whether those two were a design element or not is speculation on my part, but it's also how I see Brutes (or really how I hope they could be). A Berserker of sorts - how this gets applied from a technical stand point is outside of my comprehension. I think Fury is a staple to the Archetype and it should grow as the Brute experiences combat. 

[Troo]

@CrusaderDroid

So your plan is to ask for Brute's Fury ATO to also provide +Rech, again? 😛

 

m0R3 d4m4G3 !! is just not likely. <-- hear me out.

 

Increasing damage quickly trivializes many aspects of the game. That's why some of the buffs like Fulcrum Shift are so noticeable. Don't get me wrong I would love to get more damage and more recharge. However the devs would be fools to implement such a change WITHOUT a significant offset. The Homecoming team are no fools. (do you have an offest in mind?)

 

Raising the damage floor for Brutes might be doable but raising the ceiling probably is not.

 

Fury is a clever way to allow Brutes to not have to invest so heavily in damage allowing them to leverage procs and other aspects such as stun and knockdown controls. +Rech is already one of those available. We are unlikely to get +Rech on top of +Rech.

 

CC Magnitude & Mez/Slow Resistance could be something. I'd love to see stun and fear have larger rolls. Alternately, Brutes being able to fury past slows or PSI attacks a little more than Tanks is also interesting if it could somehow compliment the Tank roll. A scaling AoE radius without increasing target cap could also be something but may not be worth the level of effort.

 

Spoiler

Brutes live to fight, and as a Brute you revel in hand-to-hand combat. With strong offensive power sets to inflict pain and impressive defenses to take it, you're the best there is in a straight fight. Protracted battles only makes you mad, and the madder you get, the more damaging your attacks become. You do lack ranged attacks, which could leave you vulnerable to hit and run tactics without some allies to cover you.

 

[CrusaderDroid]

4 minutes ago, Troo said:

Don't get me wrong I would love to get more damage and more recharge. However the devs would be fools to implement such a change WITHOUT a significant offset. The Homecoming team are no fools. (do you have an offest in mind?)

 

54 minutes ago, CrusaderDroid said:

This also opens up new ways to balance fury gain. With fury increasing recharge speed, we can pivot and move Brutes into a slow-starting, momentum-heavy attacker that builds and loses fury at a slower rate, relying on that recharge speed to accelerate their attacks.

 

Increases in recharge speed also mean we can step off Fury granting so much extra damage that gets overcapped.

 

[TheZag]

Brutes damage cap is 200% higher to account for fury 'getting lost' with team damage buffs.  While it does mean that fury isnt required on teams with high damage buffs,  it also means you have an extra 200% damage right out of the gate on that same team without having to build up that fury.

 

Tanks are more tanky,  scrappers are more damage-y,  and brutes fall in the middle of both most of the time.  Not every AT needs a stand out feature.  Brutes have above average damage and above average survivability,  that is their thing.

 

[Greycat]

58 minutes ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Nowadays, though, anyone can be anything, which puts Brutes in direct competition with Scrappers and Tankers. This is actually pretty bad - when you have this kind of competition in game design, one option almost always obsoletes the others. This doesn't mean it's bad, but it does mean that you're choosing to handicap yourself by not taking the best option.

 

None of the options are "obsoleting" anything.  It didn't when COV came out, it didn't when side-switching happened, it's had years (live, "dark days" and post-HC) to happen if it was going to - and hasn't. And no, picking anything that's not "the best option" (and by what metric?) is not a handicap - you have to work *really* hard to actually handicap yourself in this game ("nothing but pool power attacks" or "TOs only") and even *then* you can work through content without too much hassle.  I've run the exact same sets to 50 on a Brute and Scrapper, and tend to prefer brute... not for any "oh, over time you'll do 3% more damage!" or whatever set of numbers we're looking at, but for the playstyle and overall feel a Brute gives - something that, no, I couldn't put down on a spreadsheet.

 

There's no "competition." There's not a weekly, monthly or yearly limit of how many characters can be made, where every Scrapper made means one less Brute or Tank that can be made before we run out. There's no "you must play this or you won't get the loot/won't win." Other than "we're running an all X AT team," I've never seen a Brute get turned down because we "needed" a "better" scrapper.

 

Frankly, I see this sort of comment and think the person writing it needs to get out of the spreadsheet and just get back into playing the game.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

changing fury to work with recharge instead of damage would make every brute that currently exists have to adjust their endurance.

also wouldn't titan weapons also be unbalanced?

some powersets already have ungodly levels of recharge rate (claws etc...)

adding more wouldn't do much to affect them so taking damage away would essentially be a nerf

The reason brutes don't do as much damage as scrapper is because they aren't supposed to

the reason brutes don't tank as well as tanks is because they aren't supposed to 

the villain AT's are hybrids classes they aren't supposed to replace the pure classes

for example Corrupters don't buff as well as defenders

and they don't do as much damage as blasters

but they do what they do very well

In fact I prefer the Villian AT's over the hero AT's with the exception of MM's

 

I do like the idea of a buildup rework 

that power is so generic it hurts lol

[lemming]

Hmm. This hits into too many other powers, but maybe the more Fury, the more taunt happens with extra survivability. 

 

I'd make it so Fury builds up past 100, but it's effect would still cap at 100, so you could build past to keep momentum going.

 

For each X of Fury, one more max taunt.   I'd add debuff resist and recovery scale as well.   Not sure on damage resist, regen, or defense.

Regen, maybe absorb would be better.

On defense & resist, maybe enhancing their on board powers.   Just adding to either would tilt it toward making a defense or resist set more attractive.

Question is, would this help whatever set bonuses happened?

[Troo]

26 minutes ago, lemming said:

I'd make it so Fury builds up past 100, but it's effect would still cap at 100, so you could build past to keep momentum going.

interesting

 

1 hour ago, CrusaderDroid said:

This also opens up new ways to balance fury gain. With fury increasing recharge speed, we can pivot and move Brutes into a slow-starting, momentum-heavy attacker that builds and loses fury at a slower rate, relying on that recharge speed to accelerate their attacks.

 

Increases in recharge speed also mean we can step off Fury granting so much extra damage that gets overcapped.

Thanks for pointing to your trade off.

Slow-starting, momentum-heavy attacker = yuck, as in lower level and non optimized experience could suffer.

 

If I read between the lines a bit, are you suggesting that there are so many other damage buffs in-game that fury ends up being a non-factor?

 

A Tank just isn't (in general) putting out the <5 target damage a Brute is.

A Scrapper just isn't (in general) on par with a Brute's survivability. These are nuanced differences which just work for different players and play styles. (my opinion of course)

[Haijinx]

Asking for more recharge is just a stealth way of asking for more damage. 

[Ston]

2 hours ago, TheZag said:

Not every AT needs a stand out feature.

 

IMO every AT does have a stand out feature besides Brutes. Except maybe Masterminds...? 

Khelds / VEATs - Too many to name

Blaster - Several tools for more damage / mez protection (interactable)

Controller - Team buffs / containment (interactable)
Defender - Team buffs / more damage while solo (interactable)
Corruptor - Team buffs / scourge (interactable)
Dominator - Permadom (interactable)
Scrapper / Stalker - Controllable crit damage (interactable)
Sentinel - Vulnerability via fury meter (interactable)
Tanker - AoE radius/cap buffs / AoE punchvoke (interactable)
Brute - Fury that you can't interact with and barely changes in combat

Edited April 19 by Ston

[Herotu]

I think a single problem seems to have permeated the game in many areas. That problem is a combination of player expectations and powercreep. 

 

To take us off-topic slightly, you can look at Crashes, for an example. Many Crashes completely debilitate the player by turning off their toggles via 100% endurance drain. This is inconvenient and an element of tactics when you're slowly plodding through a map taking your time, resting after each encounter. That's how we used to play the game. Then came the IO system, greater player understanding, mids and post-cryptic/paragon studios development. 

 

Nowadays we expect faster gameplay, something from other games, no doubt, but that expectation exists. We can't expect the group to wait for us while we rest and our Crash happens in a safe time period after a battle - no, we just keep pushing on, and find we're in the middle of fight #3 when all our toggles drop off, and we drop dead - no problem ofc, there are lots of rezzes in the game and off we go again. This isn't some random rant. It's an example of how players expectations and powercreep have changed, but elements of the game have not changed to accommodate them and/or provide a challenge in another way. Another example: Because we blaze through content, exp debt is imperceptible. Is it a problem for devs or players? No, but

 

TL;DR This is NOT the game the original devs had on post it notes in their office.

-------------------------------------

Back on Topic:

 

If I'm on the character creator screen, what are the ideas of the melee archetypes?

- Tank: Lowest damage but, hit more enemies, absorb vast damage.

- Brut: Impressive defense. Does more damage the longer a fight continues.

- Scrapper:  In hand to hand, no other hero can compare (presumably damage-wise). 

- Stalker: Hide in plain sight, ambush. Unique stuff! Very good. Not this topic.

 

I don't recognise that definition of the Brut, do you? Maybe it's not obvious enough? Maybe I'm doing too many solo story missions and not enough fire farms?

[Troo]

@Ston with respect. When you farm, what do you farm with and why?

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Make Fury Increase Global Recharge

This goes in line with the earlier thread. Global recharge is handy because it means you get to press buttons more, and pressing buttons is the primary means to enjoy playing your character. It feels good to have your powers available more often.

 

This also opens up new ways to balance fury gain. With fury increasing recharge speed, we can pivot and move Brutes into a slow-starting, momentum-heavy attacker that builds and loses fury at a slower rate, relying on that recharge speed to accelerate their attacks.

 

Increases in recharge speed also mean we can step off Fury granting so much extra damage that gets overcapped. This also won't interfere with Scrapper's own relative balance - Scrapper's crits can be offset by more reliable, faster strikes from the Brute.

Revamping Brutes to a slow starter that builds momentum is a niche approach. While there may be brute characters that work that way, none come to mind. I'm also willing to bet it goes counter to the concepts of a great many brute characters in the game, so this proposal would essentially be forcing those players to re-conceptualize their characters or re-roll them as another AT. As much as I don't like fitting more +recharge into things, changing Brutes to start slow and build up speed is so much worse in my opinion. At least the previous thread's flat recharge boost from the proc' doesn't change player character concepts for them.

 

Edited April 19 by Rudra
Edited to remove redundant "also".

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, Ston said:

 

IMO every AT does have a stand out feature besides Brutes. Except maybe Masterminds...? 

Khelds / VEATs - Too many to name

Blaster - Several tools for more damage / mez protection (interactable)

Controller - Team buffs / containment (interactable)
Defender - Team buffs / more damage while solo (interactable)
Corruptor - Team buffs / scourge (interactable)
Dominator - Permadom (interactable)
Scrapper / Stalker - Controllable crit damage (interactable)
Sentinel - Vulnerability via fury meter (interactable)
Tanker - AoE radius/cap buffs / AoE punchvoke (interactable)
Brute - Fury that you can't interact with and barely changes in combat

Mastermind stand out feature: Pets. Lots and lots of pets. Up to 7 before lores if you take the correct secondary.

[Herotu]

16 minutes ago, Rudra said:

a slow starter that builds momentum

Would you say that's different from this?

"Protracted battles only makes you mad, and the madder you get, the more damaging your attacks become." - text from the character creator screen on Brutes.

 

 

Edited April 19 by Herotu

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, Herotu said:

Would you say that's different from this?

"Protracted battles only makes you mad, and the madder you get, the more damaging your attacks become." - text from the character creator screen on Brutes.

Yes. Why? Because brutes typically get stronger when mad in comics. Or more vicious. Or more feral. I don't know of any that get faster. Stronger is easy to emulate, that's just +damage. More vicious and more feral are a bit harder to emulate, but can arguably also be explained by +damage.

[skoryy]

2 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

None of the options are "obsoleting" anything.  It didn't when COV came out, it didn't when side-switching happened, it's had years (live, "dark days" and post-HC) to happen if it was going to - and hasn't. And no, picking anything that's not "the best option" (and by what metric?) is not a handicap - you have to work *really* hard to actually handicap yourself in this game ("nothing but pool power attacks" or "TOs only") and even *then* you can work through content without too much hassle.  I've run the exact same sets to 50 on a Brute and Scrapper, and tend to prefer brute... not for any "oh, over time you'll do 3% more damage!" or whatever set of numbers we're looking at, but for the playstyle and overall feel a Brute gives - something that, no, I couldn't put down on a spreadsheet.

 

There's no "competition." There's not a weekly, monthly or yearly limit of how many characters can be made, where every Scrapper made means one less Brute or Tank that can be made before we run out. There's no "you must play this or you won't get the loot/won't win." Other than "we're running an all X AT team," I've never seen a Brute get turned down because we "needed" a "better" scrapper.

 

Frankly, I see this sort of comment and think the person writing it needs to get out of the spreadsheet and just get back into playing the game.

 

I mean, there's an awful lot of brutes I see out in the wild despite the constant refrain around here of 'Brutes Bad'.

[Shin Magmus]

     Be forewarned, a similar thread to this was started not long ago, and it just devolved into bickering with contrarians who thought that Brutes "felt fine", and we got nothing of value out of it.  Thanks for trying, but giving Brutes better defensive scalars and any actual identity is just off the table for now.  It only takes one Beanbag fan saying that they "don't like" the buff for the devs to revert it and then Brutes stay as-is.

[Herotu]

1 minute ago, Shin Magmus said:

     Be forewarned, a similar thread to this was started not long ago, and it just devolved into bickering with contrarians who thought that Brutes "felt fine", and we got nothing of value out of it.  Thanks for trying, but giving Brutes better defensive scalars and any actual identity is just off the table for now.  It only takes one Beanbag fan saying that they "don't like" the buff for the devs to revert it and then Brutes stay as-is.

Yeah I had a beanbag just dump a "hard no" on one of my suggestions. It's very disheartening.

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Shin Magmus said:

     Be forewarned, a similar thread to this was started not long ago, and it just devolved into bickering with contrarians who thought that Brutes "felt fine", and we got nothing of value out of it.  Thanks for trying, but giving Brutes better defensive scalars and any actual identity is just off the table for now.  It only takes one Beanbag fan saying that they "don't like" the buff for the devs to revert it and then Brutes stay as-is.

That's odd, because I was on those threads. Yes, threads, the bug thread and the ATO revamp suggestion thread. I didn't see any posts saying Brutes were fine as is. Though debates were being had about the fixation of the resolution being more +recharge.

[Rudra]

5 minutes ago, Shin Magmus said:

Not everything is about you.  The title of the thread was "Were Brutes that badly nerfed?", and I didn't make it.  Go away now.

Please link it. I can't find it.

 

Edit: Nevermind. Found it.

Edited April 19 by Rudra

[skoryy]

9 minutes ago, Shin Magmus said:

Beanbag

 

Spreadsheets and High Scores right back atcha.

 

Seriously, though, there's a discussion to be had about lackluster ATOs and making the Fury chase more meaningful that doesn't also mean that Brutes Bad.   Brutes are fine.  They can still be improved!

Edited April 19 by skoryy

[Herotu]

I think I would go back to the drawing board and say, you have to have 4 melee classes.

 

One has to be a stealther.

One has to be a tanker.

One has to do best DPS.

One has to ... er ... well ...  it's complicated.

 

I mean, I like the idea of a protracted combatant that gets stronker during a fight -I don't care if that manifests as cooldown reduction over time or damage increase or if they sacrifice def for dps as fight goes on or whatever. It's a neat idea, but imho should be part of a powerset, not be it's own archetype.

 

Just my 2p.

[Haijinx]

Considering the last brute adjustment reduced their damage so they didn't surpass scrappers, it seems unlikely anything that effects damage is in Gambit's card deck *tm/c/llc/wtfe*