Death before Surrender - an idea for an addition to the Brute fury mechanic

[gabrilend]

Hi, I have a mechanical idea that I think might address the concerns presented in the first 5 pages of this thread.

 

I don't play Brutes often, so take this with a grain of salt. However it has been expressed that their desired role is that of a middle ground between Tankers and Scrappers. This is reflected in their class's distinguishing feature, their Fury mechanic, however it is primarily a damaged focused power, meaning their flavor leans toward favoring the Scrapper side of the AT spectrum. One could argue that their bonuses to threat brings them closer to Tankers, and while true I believe that there should be some alteration to the Fury mechanic to do that, rather than threat.

 

Here's my proposal.

 

Leave everything about the Brute the same, threat, damage cap, fury granting damage, everything.

 

Next, reduce their health by 25%.

 

Then, alter the Fury mechanic such that when a Brute reaches 0 hp, they do not die, but instead damage taken is taken from their fury bar. If the brute reaches 0 fury, they've lost the will to fight, and as such fall unconscious / die (depending on your perception of the fantasy of the game).

 

In addition, while in a 0hp state they cannot generate new fury, as their body is too weak to build up more rage.

 

If they manage to defeat their foes, their fury will continue ticking down and if their natural regeneration is enough to bring them up above, say, 5 or 10% hp before they run out of fury, then they'll live to fight another day. However if they cannot regenerate enough hp (or be healed by a teammate) then they will fall unconscious/die from their wounds, having slain countless foes that litter the ground around them, evoking Boromir or Broxigar.

 

I believe this will grant a new flavor to the Fury mechanic which will set aside Brutes as straddling the middleground between Scrappers and Tankers, allowing them to fight back beyond the brink of death fueled by pure rage, while also dealing more damage the madder they get.

[biostem]

I don't think the problem is going to be rectified by turning a brute's fury bar into some sort of extra/temporary HP.  I think the solution is to give them back their damage.

[ScarySai]

The fury acting as a second life thing is a fun idea I thought up awhile ago, but ultimately, this doesn't help brutes right now, especially if you're going to gimp their HP by 25% to do it. Everything else here would actively make them worse.

Edited April 20 by ScarySai

[Rudra]

So... your take on Brutes is to make them less durable by reducing their health, give them a second health bar that they must build from 0 in combat, make their primary health bar not able to recover while they are on their second health bar, and they die anyway when the fighting is over if their primary health bar does not get back up to at least 5% while not able to regenerate. No thanks.

 

(Edit: Oh, and while I don't know Broxigar, if you are referring to Boromir from the Lord of the Rings? He wasn't a Brute. He fought with discipline. His last stand was testament to his skill, not his fury carrying him. His moment of evidenced rage was from the One Ring's influence and his frustration that what he perceived as a powerful weapon against Sauron was being sent to be destroyed.)

Edited April 20 by Rudra

[CrusaderDroid]

This ain't it. Since it only interacts with your survivability, you're not really doing anything that a Tanker isn't doing. Even if we ignore the HP cut you're proposing, it's harder to ignore that by having your Fury be your new health bar, you're losing damage by getting beat on, meaning that you are less likely to survive the fight since you can't end it as quickly.

 

It doesn't really set up any new directions, either. If anything, since Fury is now locked in as an extra health bar, it pretty much kills any other possible interactions. The fix for Brute isn't going to be giving them a busted up way to compete with Tanker.

[gabrilend]

12 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

The fury acting as a second life thing is a fun idea I thought up awhile ago, but ultimately, this doesn't help brutes right now, especially if you're going to gimp their HP by 25% to do it. Everything else here would actively make them worse.

 

Their HP may be reduced by 25%, but the fury bar health effect would more than compensate. My vision is that 1% of health would equal 1% of fury, meaning it would essentially double their health bar and then reduce it by 50%, meaning Brutes get an overall increase of 50% to their survivability. Assuming my math there is correct, sometimes percentages trip me up... But percentages can be adjusted when balancing. The intention is to bring their unique mechanic (fury) into a position where it benefits both their survivability *and* their damage output, which should help them feel more aligned mechanically to their identity as a "middle-ground" between scrappers and tankers, while also enhancing their flavor as powerful thugs who fight based on their rage rather than their prowess (scrappers) or their power (tankers)

 

23 minutes ago, biostem said:

I don't think the problem is going to be rectified by turning a brute's fury bar into some sort of extra/temporary HP.  I think the solution is to give them back their damage.

 

Would increasing their damage solve the problem? My understanding was that they typically deal more damage than scrappers (not ideal) unless in a team with a kinetics support player who can cast Fulcrum Shift on them, which brings them up to the damage cap alongside the scrappers on their team. This has the effect that scrappers can suddenly deal significantly more damage than the Brute, but only on a team with buffs that bring the brute to their damage cap. Your suggestion is to increase the damage cap, correct? If so, then wouldn't they be unbalanced when NOT in a team that can buff them to the damage cap? A Brute with extra damage would be on par with a scrapper, at least according to the people in the thread I linked to. I do believe that is undesired behavior mechanically.

 

17 minutes ago, Rudra said:

So... your take on Brutes is to make them less durable by reducing their health, give them a second health bar that they must build from 0 in combat, make their primary health bar not able to recover while they are on their second health bar, and they die anyway when the fighting is over if their primary health bar does not get back up to at least 5% while not able to regenerate. No thanks.

 

Their overall survivability would increase by approximately 50%, unless my percentages are wrong. Their "second health bar" is already present as a damage buff that increases over time as they deal damage, my suggestion is to allow them to utilize it as an extra health bar when their primary one is depleted. In addition, I'm suggesting that their primary health bar continue to recover while between 0 and 5-10% hp, but their fury bar doesn't increase. Meaning they can't keep fighting forever, their body has limits, they need to rest / be healed before it's too late or else they'll perish. Rage doesn't keep the heart beating or the blood flowing through veins, though it may lend strength to the muscles.

 

13 minutes ago, CrusaderDroid said:

This ain't it. Since it only interacts with your survivability, you're not really doing anything that a Tanker isn't doing. Even if we ignore the HP cut you're proposing, it's harder to ignore that by having your Fury be your new health bar, you're losing damage by getting beat on, meaning that you are less likely to survive the fight since you can't end it as quickly.

 

It doesn't really set up any new directions, either. If anything, since Fury is now locked in as an extra health bar, it pretty much kills any other possible interactions. The fix for Brute isn't going to be giving them a busted up way to compete with Tanker.

 

I want to clarify, damage taken wouldn't reduce fury unless the brute is between 0 and 5-10% hp. In addition, I don't want it to *only* impact survivability, I want it to have a dual role of being a damage buff as it currently is, and also acting as health reserves should the Brute start to die.

 

If you've played D&D, I'm essentially suggesting that Brutes could continue fighting while they're making death saves.

 

What other "possible interactions" did you have in mind? In addition, you say that they shouldn't compete with tankers, and yet that's originally what they were designed to do - when CoV launched they were the only tanks redside. So they were explicitely intended to compete with tankers, or rather to be the redside version of them. I don't understand that particular concern, can you clarify?

 

Quote

> Even if we ignore the HP cut you're proposing, it's harder to ignore that by having your Fury be your new health bar, you're losing damage by getting beat on, meaning that you are less likely to survive the fight since you can't end it as quickly.

 

Yes, that's intended behavior. If the player character is hurt enough that they *should* be dead, it makes sense that they'd start losing power as their strength fails them.

[Rudra]

4 minutes ago, gabrilend said:

My vision is that 1% of health would equal 1% of fury, meaning it would essentially double their health bar and then reduce it by 50%, meaning Brutes get an overall increase of 50% to their survivability.

 

4 minutes ago, gabrilend said:

Their overall survivability would increase by approximately 50%, unless my percentages are wrong.

Let's start with Brute health as 100%. You reduce that by 25% just from the change. So now their health is at 75%. Now let's run with 1% Fury is equal to 1% of Brute health, so a full Fury bar, which most players can't achieve to the best of my knowledge, gives that Brute 150% of current health. With players like me capping at about 90% Fury, that would instead be 142.5% of current Brute max health. So you're most likely looking at 142.5% of current health. Sure, that's an improvement in survivability, but you're more likely to run into needing that Fury bar as health bar. Bear in mind that since the Brute cannot sustain or build Fury because Fury is now their HP bar, that means that even if the Brute was not under attack from enemies, the Brute's health bar, because it is now the Fury bar, is rapidly dropping. Fury isn't static when built up. So between normal Fury drain from lack of sustainment and enemy attacks now depleting the Fury bar, that 142.5% we started with is not actually 142.5% of current Brute health. It now becomes much closer to the Brute's current 100% health, not equal to, but much closer, because of the double drain on Fury without sustainment.

[gabrilend]

8 minutes ago, Rudra said:

 

Let's start with Brute health as 100%. You reduce that by 25% just from the change. So now their health is at 75%. Now let's run with 1% Fury is equal to 1% of Brute health, so a full Fury bar, which most players can't achieve to the best of my knowledge, gives that Brute 150% of current health. With players like me capping at about 90% Fury, that would instead be 142.5% of current Brute max health. So you're most likely looking at 142.5% of current health. Sure, that's an improvement in survivability, but you're more likely to run into needing that Fury bar as health bar. Bear in mind that since the Brute cannot sustain or build Fury because Fury is now their HP bar, that means that even if the Brute was not under attack from enemies, the Brute's health bar, because it is now the Fury bar, is rapidly dropping. Fury isn't static when built up. So between normal Fury drain from lack of sustainment and enemy attacks now depleting the Fury bar, that 142.5% we started with is not actually 142.5% of current Brute health. It now becomes much closer to the Brute's current 100% health, not equal to, but much closer, because of the double drain on Fury without sustainment.

 

that makes sense to me, thanks for clarifying the math. Sometimes that kind of thing is difficult for me. I think the effects you describe are within the intent of the design as suggested.

 

The reason I say that is because the intent with this proposed change is to increase their survivability against spikes of damage, as they can just "shrug it off" and keep fighting through the pain, while Tankers would be able to handle sustained damage much easier because they are tough and built to take the wounds of the team upon themselves.

 

I believe this would highlight the differences between the Brute and the Tanker by giving them different methods of tanking damage. Thus, they would be differentiated from Scrappers on the damage front (critical strike versus fury bar) and from the Tanker on the survivability front (greater overall defences versus larger risky health bar) without infringing on either of their design space.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, gabrilend said:

they would be differentiated from Scrappers on the damage front (critical strike versus fury bar) and from the Tanker on the survivability front (greater overall defences versus larger risky health bar)

I think that when the original devs proliferated the regular ATs over to both sides, it kind of ruined the damage-survivability-aggro balancing act that existed.  Stalkers should be the most "bursty" damage-wise, scrappers the most consistent, tankers the bottom, (I'm ok with their increased AoEs), and brutes should deal the most damage overall, but should require some work to get there.  I think reworking the mechanic by which fury is generated and how full of a bar one can reasonably maintain should be the first priority.  Maybe further reduce the secondary effects of those powers, (sort of opposite of what defenders get), but raise the resultant damage bonus that fury grants, perhaps allowing them to reach 100% more easily - say 5 foes or such...

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

I don't think the problem is going to be rectified by turning a brute's fury bar into some sort of extra/temporary HP.  I think the solution is to give them back their damage.

 

Which in turn will make scrappers and stalkers need a damage buff ...

 

And probably Night Widows, Banes 

 

Perhaps blasters ... 

[ScarySai]

13 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Which in turn will make scrappers and stalkers need a damage buff ..

 

No, not really.

 

1 hour ago, gabrilend said:

which should help them feel more aligned mechanically to their identity as a "middle-ground" between scrappers and tankers

 

1: It doesn't help brutes in a meaningful capacity even if we assume the most unrealistic best case scenario for your idea.

 

2:  Being the 'middle ground' was never their identity. 

[kelika2]

Fury keeps working as it does but

how about a clicky inherent that costs 25% fury and gives the brute 20% resist and 5% defense for 15 seconds.  possible cooldown

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, ScarySai said:

 

No, not really.

 

 

1: It doesn't help brutes in a meaningful capacity even if we assume the most unrealistic best case scenario for your idea.

 

2:  Being the 'middle ground' was never their identity. 

Thier identity existed outside of COH

 

In COV they were the Scrappers.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, gabrilend said:

 

that makes sense to me, thanks for clarifying the math. Sometimes that kind of thing is difficult for me. I think the effects you describe are within the intent of the design as suggested.

 

The reason I say that is because the intent with this proposed change is to increase their survivability against spikes of damage, as they can just "shrug it off" and keep fighting through the pain, while Tankers would be able to handle sustained damage much easier because they are tough and built to take the wounds of the team upon themselves.

 

I believe this would highlight the differences between the Brute and the Tanker by giving them different methods of tanking damage. Thus, they would be differentiated from Scrappers on the damage front (critical strike versus fury bar) and from the Tanker on the survivability front (greater overall defences versus larger risky health bar) without infringing on either of their design space.

You're also failing to account for Brute power sets. Let's say you have a Brute with Fiery Aura. You used Healing Flames to stave off being driven into your Fury bar for HP, but here you are, reduced to using your Fury bar as HP. Healing Flames times back in, so you pop it, getting back on your actual HP bar which restores your ability to regenerate and build Fury. Your Brute friend over there however is a Willpower Brute. And that Brute has no heal power, just powers that boost regeneration. Driven down to their Fury bar as HP, all that Brute can do is fight with his/her/their/its dwindling Fury reserve unless the Brute has a green inspiration left. That is going to cause a bias towards secondaries with heals. How long until you see Willpower, Super Reflexes, and Shield Defense get abandoned?

 

(Edit: Especially Willpower since Max HP is a factor in regeneration and the OP shot that by 25%. Even worse, Fast Healing stops working because it is just regeneration and Rise to the Challenge loses half its function. Making the Willpower Brute's position even worse.)

Edited April 20 by Rudra

[Troo]

@gabrilend Interesting idea. Keep 'em coming.

 

..and to anyone trying to say Brutes were never in the middle of Tankers and Scrappers for survivability and damage. Please see below:

 

Scrapper Stats
Survivability							7
Melee Damage	10
Ranged Damage	2
Crowd Control	4
Support	2
Pets	2

 

Tanker Stats
Survivability										10
Melee Damage	7
Ranged Damage	2
Crowd Control	5
Support	3
Pets	2

 

Brute Stats
Survivability								8
Melee Damage	9
Ranged Damage	2
Crowd Control	5
Support	2
Pets	2

 

One could say IOs brought the three a little closer and Incarnates a little closer still. 

 

I'm not a super fan of this suggestion but I like seeing interesting ideas.

 

Edited April 20 by Troo

[ScarySai]

30 minutes ago, Troo said:

and to anyone trying to say Brutes were never in the middle of Tankers and Scrappers for survivability and damage. Please see below

 

Ah yes, the same stat page that put blasters as an 8 on melee damage.

Edited April 20 by ScarySai
Typo

[gabrilend]

39 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

1: It doesn't help brutes in a meaningful capacity even if we assume the most unrealistic best case scenario for your idea.

 

2:  Being the 'middle ground' was never their identity. 

 

1. Can you clarify what you mean by "meaningful capacity"? Are you looking for a mechanical change that alters the identity of the class itself? I believe that will be difficult to implement, because players have a lot invested in their characters and their nature.

 

2. I'm sorry, like I said I don't play Brutes. I was mostly pulling that idea from the thread I linked to. Can you tell me more about what your idea for the identity of the Brute is? Perhaps I can come up with an idea that appeals to your ideal while also fitting into the design advocated by others.

 

27 minutes ago, Rudra said:

You're also failing to account for Brute power sets. Let's say you have a Brute with Fiery Aura. You used Healing Flames to stave off being driven into your Fury bar for HP, but here you are, reduced to using your Fury bar as HP. Healing Flames times back in, so you pop it, getting back on your actual HP bar which restores your ability to regenerate and build Fury. Your Brute friend over there however is a Willpower Brute. And that Brute has no heal power, just powers that boost regeneration. Driven down to their Fury bar as HP, all that Brute can do is fight with his/her/their/its dwindling Fury reserve unless the Brute has a green inspiration left. That is going to cause a bias towards secondaries with heals. How long until you see Willpower, Super Reflexes, and Shield Defense get abandoned?

 

(Edit: Especially Willpower since Max HP is a factor in regeneration and the OP shot that by 25%. Even worse, Fast Healing stops working because it is just regeneration and Rise to the Challenge loses half its function. Making the Willpower Brute's position even worse.)

 

I see your point. While the health gains from Willpower regeneration and Fiery Aura's Healing Flames should roughly equal out over time, the spiked healing of Healing Flames allows the Fire Aura brute to regenerate fury while the health regeneration of the Willpower brute does not. This would lead to an imbalance in favor of Fiery Aura. I'm not sure how to fix that.

 

I'm not sure if this would work for every powerset that has an issue like this, but maybe when at 0hp Willpower's regeneration increases your fury bar instead of your health? And once you're at 100% fury, it starts healing you again. That fits thematically with the idea that Willpower Brutes can push themselves even further than other kinds of brutes, while keeping their survivability and damage output roughly equivalent to other characters. I'm not sure if the numbers would work out, but it's worth considering I think.

 

1 minute ago, ScarySai said:

Ah yes, the same stat page that put blasters as a 7 on melee damage.

 

So you're saying Blasters should get a buff to their melee damage - on this we agree 😉

[gabrilend]

17 hours ago, Rudra said:

(Edit: Oh, and while I don't know Broxigar, if you are referring to Boromir from the Lord of the Rings? He wasn't a Brute. He fought with discipline. His last stand was testament to his skill, not his fury carrying him. His moment of evidenced rage was from the One Ring's influence and his frustration that what he perceived as a powerful weapon against Sauron was being sent to be destroyed.)

 

Hi, I just saw your edit. You're correct in saying Boromir fought with discipline, however I'd argue that he's still a brute.

 

What is fury but a state of focused concentration and intention? In Boromir's final moments, his purpose was singular - he gave his life to protect the hobbits upon which the fate of the world rested. A fate which was suddenly precarious due to his very actions taken just a few moments prior, with Frodo. When defending Merry and Pippin, I believe his quality of character shone through the mistake he had just made due to the inherent weakness in the hearts of men, and his honor carried him forth to his final sleep on the river Anduin.

 

(I say sleep because when he appeared to his brother in a dream wearing the golden belt of Lorien, he was described as if he was asleep)

 

When I think of Brutes, I think of fighters who engage in that kind of flow state. Sure, many of them are angry, but you don't have to be mad to be furious. Take for example the Furyans in Chronicles of Riddick (the name gives it away hehe) -> they can enter a sort of "berserker rage" that gives them enhanced combat prowess, however it's more of a state of focused determination rather than explicit anger. I think they'd be brutes because of the build-up of concentration, and that, I think, is what defines fury, rather than a sense of rage or hatred.

 

Consider, if you will, a furious maelstrom. Does the wind harbor hatred in it's heart? Does it act in pursuit of spiting those who it buffets? I think the wind is exultant, that is is a cacophonous burst of chaotic energy borne from the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Tokyo. So too do I believe that Brutes are exultant in their fury, and while that may manifest as anger for the majority of players, I don't believe that it is necessary or inherent to the concept of "fury".

[Monos King]

Really cool and creative idea, so +1 about that. I defer to others on matters of Brute balancing since I use them only enough to be knowledgeable, but it's a fun concept for certain. 

 

I will note that most Brute players are concerned about Brute damage, not survival, and while this mechanic would certainly give them a much higher potential for survival, it would be at the immediate expense of their damage buff (as the fury is ticking down), which many Brute players would not like. Obviously, near invincible slotted Brutes wouldn't need to worry about that aspect, since they won't be dying in general...but in that case all they've gotten is a health debuff and the chance to lose damage if they don't pay attention. 

[gabrilend]

4 minutes ago, Monos King said:

Really cool and creative idea, so +1 about that. I defer to others on matters of Brute balancing since I use them only enough to be knowledgeable, but it's a fun concept for certain. 

 

I will note that most Brute players are concerned about Brute damage, not survival, and while this mechanic would certainly give them a much higher potential for survival, it would be at the immediate expense of their damage buff (as the fury is ticking down), which many Brute players would not like. Obviously, near invincible slotted Brutes wouldn't need to worry about that aspect, since they won't be dying in general...but in that case all they've gotten is a health debuff and the chance to lose damage if they don't pay attention. 

 

I see. Well, perhaps their damage could be increased as well. Perhaps a reduction in their "base" damage, but an increase to the amount of damage gained from fury? Thus concentrating their damage potential in their unique mechanic. And if the reduction in base damage was, say, -15%, the bonus from fury could be proportionally larger, say, 30%, to provide an overall buff to their damage potential when in their element.

 

I do believe such changes are possible with the introduction of the proposed mechanics. I remember reading in the linked thread that there was a general feeling of dissatisfaction with the "Build Up" power, with many voices feeling that it was too similar to Scrappers and that it only affected their damage potential (which is not ideal for a hybrid class) - perhaps an alteration could be made to that power, in addition to the suggestions I made in the original post.

 

How about this:

 

In addition to the proposed changes, alter Build Up such that it is now a defensive toggle. When enabled, your abilities no longer cost endurance, but rather draw from your health bar. Essentially allowing the brute to fight through the exhaustion at the expense of their physical health. Not only would this give them the capacity to fight for longer than Scrappers, but it would also allow for their team to keep them going for as long as they can throw heals at them. In addition, it would provide a much-needed counter to endurance draining sets in PvP, which is a nice bonus.

 

Perhaps throw in a damage buff or something as well, just to sweeten the deal and encourage them to use that power even when they aren't completely out of endurance.

 

To make it even more interesting, perhaps when the Brute is in their 0-10% hp state, this Build Up replacement toggle power would periodically convert some of their endurance into health, thus giving them a way to ensure that they could survive a fight (should they have the resources necessary to actually overcome their foes). This would, in essence, give Brutes three health bars, which is kind of absurd, but, like, Brutes are wild, so maybe not such a bad thing.

 

I think this would not only buff the damage output of Brutes, which seems to be the primary concern, but it would also interact in an interesting way to the additional proposed mechanics of their fury bar acting as a second health bar. Perhaps the Brute wouldn't feel so concerned about spending time in the lower regions of their health bar if they knew that they had a second chance should they dip below 0%.

 

And to be clear, this new idea wouldn't give the Brutes more resources to use, but rather it would enable them to convert the resources into whatever they needed in the moment. I think this added flexibility would give the Brute a new identity that, apparently, they are sorely lacking.

[Monos King]

1 hour ago, gabrilend said:

In addition to the proposed changes, alter Build Up such that it is now a defensive toggle. When enabled, your abilities no longer cost endurance, but rather draw from your health bar. Essentially allowing the brute to fight through the exhaustion at the expense of their physical health. Not only would this give them the capacity to fight for longer than Scrappers, but it would also allow for their team to keep them going for as long as they can throw heals at them. In addition, it would provide a much-needed counter to endurance draining sets in PvP, which is a nice bonus.

 

Perhaps throw in a damage buff or something as well, just to sweeten the deal and encourage them to use that power even when they aren't completely out of endurance.

 

To make it even more interesting, perhaps when the Brute is in their 0-10% hp state, this Build Up replacement toggle power would periodically convert some of their endurance into health, thus giving them a way to ensure that they could survive a fight (should they have the resources necessary to actually overcome their foes). This would, in essence, give Brutes three health bars, which is kind of absurd, but, like, Brutes are wild, so maybe not such a bad thing.

Another interesting idea, but probably verges too much on the convoluted. At this point, for brutes, rather than health behaving the way health does, and the dmg bar behaving the way dmg bar (fury) should, and endurance behaving the expected way...everything is all mixed up. For a power to fundamentally change the way the main bars work might be a bit much, especially when people might have otherwise skipped it for whatever reason. The AT's behavior being based on a power in the primary isn't something that's been done before, even the likes of Vulnerability and Domination are ultimately just sorta buffs. Hide wasn't skippable originally, and even there are multiple ways to get stalker behavior outside of just Hide, like ATO and Placate. So I imagine if something like this were ever implemented, it would have to be from a clickable Inherent of Fury, rather than Build Up, so that it is guaranteed to be apart of the playstyle.

 

Also, while getting more dmg buff out of fury is nice, it would be an endgame debuff because the base dmg of the attacks is lowered, but the cap is the same. I believe a debuff like this is exactly what caused the Brute problem to begin with, as people want the dmg cap to be raised back up and don't see the Fury rate improvement as entirely worth the trade-off. Increasing the amount of dmg bonus you get from fury with the same cap is sort of similar to what was already done. 

 

Honestly, an iteration of the first idea while just making fury give more damage bonus would probably be the best form of this. But I don't know if Brute players would want to see any increased complications to the playstyle, even if it's pretty cool. You'd have to take it up with the Brute forums.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, gabrilend said:

What is fury but a state of focused concentration and intention? In Boromir's final moments, his purpose was singular - he gave his life to protect the hobbits upon which the fate of the world rested.

By that definition, every character ever that fights, especially during last stands, is a Brute.

 

(Edit: To me, a Brute is a primitive fighter. One that is guided by anger or a vicious brutality. The situation, such as a last stand whether heroic or desperate, does not make one a Brute. It is how that person carries himself, herself, or themselves in combat routinely that defines if a character is a Brute, a Scrapper, or anything else.)

Edited April 20 by Rudra

[tidge]

I like this as a sort of alternative path for Brutes, I can see that the sincere, reasonably well-considered suggestions doesn't make Brutes better at defeating more things faster, which is what I suspect most Brute advocates prefer.

 

I (points to self) have this opinion, not about any single AT, based on nothing except watching PUGmates: I get the sense that many players don't see the Health bar as something they ever want to see reduce below full. With the typical defense/resistances of even semi-complete Brutes, I can see why this suggestion would be a non-starter.

[gabrilend]

25 minutes ago, tidge said:

I like this as a sort of alternative path for Brutes, I can see that the sincere, reasonably well-considered suggestions doesn't make Brutes better at defeating more things faster, which is what I suspect most Brute advocates prefer.

 

I (points to self) have this opinion, not about any single AT, based on nothing except watching PUGmates: I get the sense that many players don't see the Health bar as something they ever want to see reduce below full. With the typical defense/resistances of even semi-complete Brutes, I can see why this suggestion would be a non-starter.

 

My understanding is that the identity of a Brute mechanically is that of a hybrid class, placed between Scrappers and Tankers. They should deal less damage than a scrapper but have more survivability, and they should deal more damage than a tanker but have less survivability.

 

If your health bar is never supposed to dip, then what's the point of having one at all? I view it as a resource, and if you aren't fully utilizing your resources then you aren't performing at your maximum potential. People don't like dying, but I think the issue they should fear is the death component, not the process of being harmed. Especially for a Brute, who revels in the slaughter (or perhaps is most attuned to it), being harmed would be a natural part of that experience.

 

Also... what are PUGmates? Like, players you meet in a pick up group?

[Rudra]

5 minutes ago, gabrilend said:

Also... what are PUGmates? Like, players you meet in a pick up group?

Yes.