An Identity for Brutes?

[Haijinx]

4 minutes ago, Herotu said:

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.

Made sense when COH/COV were never going to live together.

 

But like dogs and cats, mass hysteria! 

[Herotu]

Further to my essay above...

 

I think the way we blaze through content has affected Brute negatively because instead of remaining in combat with a single group of enemies for a protracted period, they now have to go through group after group. This is a clear case of powercreep that has caused a different playstyle to emerge. 

 

This effect gives more reason to push through content in a hurried manner.

Edited April 19 by Herotu

[Shin Magmus]

1 minute ago, Herotu said:

 

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'm going to elaborate on this, not that you had it wrong.  I just want to be specific.

 

Stalker - Stealth is half of the identity, single target burst dmg is the other half.  Mechanically, Stalkers have much more direct control over their Crits than Scrappers do, which feels pleasant to play.  Stalkers have the trade-off of losing a lot of AoE dmg potential for this.

 

Scrapper - Meathead that does the most dmg but is also the most random.  Pretty simple really, Scrapperlock is a great concept and a great word, and Scrappers work the way they should right now, with the exception of enemies running away if you pick "the wrong armorsets".  A QoL pass to give every Scrapper set a weak Taunt aura would fix their only issue.

 

Tanker - Tankiest of them all is half of the identity, best at Aggroing tons of enemies quickly is the other half.  The reason that Tankers have bigger AoEs which hit more targets is not so that they can be the best AE Farmers.  Some bad math made them a bit OP currently but that was not the point of those changes.  It was always so that Tankers could more easily apply Gauntlet's Taunt procs to every enemy in a group faster than Brutes could apply their on-hit Taunt procs.  Bigger AoEs feel nice especially when you're the first one into a fight, and hitting all the enemies is a more effective way to get aggro than trying to click the Taunt power onto all of them.

 

Brute - Identity is being poorly balanced with lowest dmg scalar but highest dmg cap, yet not having the built-in tools to really make that dynamic matter.  Brutes get the least benefit from Insps, all self-buff powers (including set-defining stuff like Rage), and all team buffs as well.  Yet the ceiling for Brutes is not high enough for them to have any real worthwhile advantage over Tankers.  15% dmg advantage on single target powers and damage auras isn't an identity... and it's not even good enough to justify picking them over the other 3 ATs.  The theoretical idea that Brutes can use the powers in these sets more quickly, and for less Endurance, than the other ATs is a concept that approaches an identity.

[Herotu]

1 minute ago, Shin Magmus said:

 A QoL pass to give every Scrapper set a weak Taunt aura would fix their only issue.

Or put AoE on Confront. 

[Ston]

52 minutes ago, Troo said:

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

 

I hope farming isn't supposed to be a convincing argument for any archetype mechanics. I use a Brute, but can just as well use a Tanker. Anything that has a damage aura that I can leave alone and be confident it won't die for periods of time. 

Pretty sure tankers are preferred farmers lately anyway.

Edited April 19 by Ston

[skoryy]

4 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

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*

 

Two things that can be done to improve the brute, just off the top of my head:

• Replace the Fury building mechanic with something like Quick Form.  It starts building the moment you're considered in combat, and it builds on a logarithmic scale so you have to stay in combat longer to get more out of it.
• The fury ATO builds Fury quicker and/or unlocks Fury above 90.
• Honestly, the really big thing would be making Fury 100 obtainable again.  Why have a whole bar if you're never going to use more than 90% of it?

[golstat2003]

26 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

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

 

That's cause the playerbase at large rarely if ever reflects the forums. I always take complaints on the forums with a grain of salt

 

Seeing how the devs can actually datamine who actually plays what . .. 

[Shin Magmus]

1 minute ago, golstat2003 said:

Good luck with this approach.

Thanks, good luck in your endeavors as well.

[golstat2003]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

What does the number of posts have to do with anything?

 

 

 

 

 

Absolutley nothing. Just more bait making it easier to get this thread perma locked.

 

EDIT: If folks actually want to debate this and take it seriously, maybe personal attacks should be left off the table. But that's just me.

 

Saying "I don't agree with the proposed change to Brutes as it would change how I and other play brutes" is not a negative thing or an attack.

 

Not every suggestion is going to be meant with a chorus of "yes I agree". Pointing out the cons of a suggestion does not go againts the ruiles or point of this forum.

Edited April 19 by golstat2003

[Troo]

in before the memes.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Indystruck said:

 

What does saying people spend time in a spreadsheet have to do with anything?

Nothing really. 

 

Though you hope the Devs do look at spread sheets when the do balance passes.

[Indystruck]

Yeah, I would generally agree that spreadsheet nerds are more important to the health of the game than forum "well it feels fine" types.

[golstat2003]

1 minute ago, Indystruck said:

Yeah, I would generally agree that spreadsheet nerds are more important to the health of the game than forum "well it feels fine" types.

 

I mean . . . the devs are the ULTIMATE spreadsheet nerds  . . . so yeah.

 

EDIT: And yeah . . . "this feels great" for balancing a game . . . err would not be great. LOL

Edited April 19 by golstat2003

[skoryy]

2 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

 

I mean . . . the devs are the ULTIMATE spreadsheet nerds  . . . so yeah.

 

EDIT: And yeah . . . "this feels great" for balancing a game . . . err would not be great. LOL

 

There's a balance to strike between 'this is what the number crunching says' and 'this is what the players are actually doing.' 

[Haijinx]

If the ATO for fury is broken then it should get fixed. 

 

I don't see how you can make any other assumptions till that is done.

 

After all the whole Tanker/Brute/Scrapper damage balance was supposed to take the into account.

[macskull]

46 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

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

Empathy is the most popular Defender primary but still manages to be the worst support set in the game, what point are you trying to make?

[Indystruck]

Well, on the subject of the old powers datamine...  I remember saying before the VEAT tweaks, "Hey, do Widows really need confront, how many people even take that" and the answer I got back was, yes, of course they do.

 

4% of Widow players, (25 people) in total picked confront at the time of the last datamine.

 

So, hey, number crunching can help show what the players are actually doing too.

 

8 AR Corruptors took Beanbag, 11 AR Defenders took Beanbag, and 88 AR Blasters took beanbag, one of the more bottom picked powers in general for Def/Corr, and at the very least the least picked power in the set for Blaster AR (31%).

 

We still kept it around though, god bless, I guess.

[Shin Magmus]

     The popularity of an AT (or powerset) has no bearing on how good it is.  If popularity determined quality, then Call of Duty would be the best video game of all time.  Empathy would be the best buff/debuff powerset of all time (when it's actually currently the worst choice you can pick since the FF rework and so many buffs to its other competition).  Just because a lot of people made AE farming brutes: doesn't mean anything.  Don't use popularity as a reason for anything in a discussion like this.

[Lyone_Manes]

2 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

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

I think the big issue here is...They don't really Tank any better than Scrappers and don't do more damage than Brutes. Individuals they may do more, but the Tanks hit more targets  with fairly similar levels of damage.

They should have HP set to be between Scrapper and Tank....They're too squishy atm. For Damage...I'm not really sure. The Damage Auras should, in my opinion, be their real "Key Skill" Maybe make it tick a little faster for them than others based on number of enemies or something? Or something.

[ScarySai]

And since then, Tanks got turbo buffed, and one of the only reasons to make a brute - fire armor, got nerfed into essentially irrelevance.

[skoryy]

7 minutes ago, macskull said:

Empathy is the most popular Defender primary but still manages to be the worst support set in the game, what point are you trying to make?

 

That actual players are okey dokey with what the forums would consider 'bad' and 'worst'.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

[macskull]

5 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

That actual players are okey dokey with what the forums would consider 'bad' and 'worst'.

Hi it’s me, an actual player who doesn’t at all care if someone enjoys playing a bad set or AT but who would also like the set or AT to not be bad so that I could enjoy it too.

[Lyone_Manes]

As someone who plays "Bad" options, I would prefer we not base corrections on popularity. 😛

 

Being popular just means it should be even more heavily considered for proper balance, as more people are affected by it.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

16 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

And since then, Tanks got turbo buffed, and one of the only reasons to make a brute - fire armor, got nerfed into essentially irrelevance.

 

what happened to fire armor?

I don't farm so I'm apparently out of the loop