Why a Brute?

[Story Archer]

This is in no way a troll post, please don't think that for a second. I just 'finished' my first Brute (Staff/Elec) and I started brainstorming on what my second should be, but I kept running into the wall that every concept I came up with seemed like it would be better served by either a Scrapper or a Tank, both of who's inherents don't have to be actively 'managed'. I'm very open to the possibility that I'm missing some aspect of Brutes which makes it stand out from the other two, but it seems like more of a relic from a period of the game when it was the only melee option available to redside players which necessitated a less effective compromise between the two. Please know that I'm certainly not here to debate - I'm having the same struggle trying to find a viable concept for a new Defender after leveling my first (Kin/Sonic) to 50 in a world where everything seems so much better as a Corruptor. I just want to learn and (hopefully) get some advice on my next build from players more experienced with the AT.

 

These are my thoughts, and PLEASE correct me if I'm incorrect in any way. I would expect this character to have about a 75/25 mix of solo/team play.

 

• I feel like a Brute is best served by being able to go-go-go in order to maintain Fury, so when looking at power sets, I'd like something that will offer me some +Rech and something that will help me manage my Endurance issues, without which the first 30 levels or so seem like a frustrating slog at times. It also seems like you don't necessarily want to prevent foes from attacking you so much as you want to mitigate those attacks when they come.
• With the higher Res cap and more HP than Scrappers, it seems like Brutes benefit more from Res-based secondaries which has me leaning strongly in that direction.
• It seems like damage auras tend to benefit Brutes more than Scrappers, especially through the early and mid-levels, though this only exacerbates the Endurance issues. I assume that the 'pulses' of damage auras don't benefit Fury? Similar to Tankers, it also seems like damage procs benefit Brutes more than Scrappers since procs don't crit.

 

At the moment, I think I've got the defensive side down to /Dark or /Rad.

 

• For /Dark, I like the damage aura, the Heal and the +End, but I feel like I'm leaving something on the table if I don't plan on taking the Fear aura or the Stun aura, which I don't. I've never played anything with Dark Armor, which is a selling point, but I can't help but wonder if (yet again) it may be a better choice for tanking.
• For /Rad, I absolutely love Beta Decay and the two mini-nukes, and I feel like the absorption shield is under-rated in how effective it is. Its also nice having a Tier 9 with little to no drawback. The only cons to it imo are 1) no damage aura and 2) I've already played 2 different Tanks to L50 with Rad Armor, which is why I know it so well.

 

I'm open to other options, but I've ruled out Def-based sets, Willpower and Bio. Fantastic as Willpower is for the levelling grind, I feel like it has a much lower ceiling when it comes to high-level content, especially when soloing and going toe-to-toe with hard targets. Try as I might, I still struggle with my dislike for Bio's visuals and, it just doesn't seem to have the level of solo survivability I'd prefer. Maybe I'm missing something about it, if so please enlighten me.

 

Offensively, I'm think I've also got it down to two options in Claws/ and DM/.

 

• Claws is in the lead right now because I've never played one to 50, I love its mix of single target & AoE as well as its ranged options which are rare on melee types. Its reduced End cost relative to other sets also makes it a plus. The only negatives, if you want to call them that, is that I've just started a Claws/SR Scrapper and I know that lethal is a heavily resisted damage type.
• The only reason why DM is trailing is because one of its biggest selling points, the self-heal, seems a bit redundant with either of my secondary choices and its big gun Shadow Maul eventually starts to feel a bit too repetitive to me.

 

At the moment, I'm leaning strongest towards Claws/Rad. Combining the mini-nukes with Claws' excellent AoE's should let me clear the maps pretty efficiently and I'd like to think that I could leverage enough +rech to get a solid single target attack chain going. Will it have enough survivability and enough damage output to go mano-y-mano with EB's and possibly even AV's?  And, as mentioned at the start of all this, why should I play this combo (or any other) as a Brute over a Scrapper or a Tank? What unique advantages does it offer with regards to damage, survivability and/or play style?

 

Thanks so much in advance for anyone who chooses to weigh in.

[Erratic1]

7 minutes ago, Story Archer said:

Try as I might, I still struggle with my dislike for Bio's visuals and, it just doesn't seem to have the level of solo survivability I'd prefer. Maybe I'm missing something about it, if so please enlighten me.

 

Bio has fantastic survivability. You just have to know when to use its three click powers. If Bio were any better, it would be nerfed (something some already think should happen). As for the visuals, even on minimal setting there are some. Best you can do there is color to not stand out against costume.

 

As for why Brutes, Scrappers/Stalkers don't get Super Strength, Tankers don't get Energy Aura, and damage auras are best on Brutes. Also offensive powersets which are more single target focused are better on Brutes than Tankers.

[Lunar Ronin]

At the end of live and at the beginning of Homecoming, Tankers were seen as a bit of a joke AT, with Brutes seen as the main tank AT.  Homecoming buffed Tankers in 2020, but they buffed them too much.  Tankers are now overpowered.  I expect a nerf to their AoE damage at some point as they simply do too much of it.  Secondly, Brutes could use a bit of help with their defenses, to make them more of a midway point between Scrappers and Tankers.  Thirdly, the Brute ATOs need help compared to the ATOs of the other three melee ATs.  The combination of the three is why Brutes are now seen as a bit of a joke AT these days, but again I fully expect Tankers to be nerfed at some point in the future.

 

Brutes do slightly more single-target damage than a Tanker, and damage auras are simply better on Brutes.  Unlike Scrappers, all of the Brute secondaries include a threat/taunt effect, and Brutes get punchvoke, so getting mobs to stay on you is much easier than on most Scrapper secondaries.

 

A Claws/Rad Brute will definitely have enough damage to take out EBs.  AVs are a bit more questionable, but doable.

 

Personally, I can't help you with the Scrapper question.  I honestly see no reason to play a Scrapper when I could either play a Brute or Stalker instead.  But that's a bit of personal bias as I strongly preferred the red side ATs on live, and now strongly prefer the ATs that started out red side.  I find Defenders and Tankers boring to play because both ATs are too safe IMO, and whenever I play a Scrapper, I think "Why am I playing this when I can just play a Brute or Stalker instead?"

 

 

Edited October 14 by Lunar Ronin

[Maelwys]

This topic came up a few threads back but to summarise:

Brutes aren't currently the "best" at anything.
Scrappers and Stalkers are better than them at Spike Damage even before ATOs. After ATOs they leave Brutes in the dust.
Tankers are better than them for AoE damage and survivability.
On teams and farms, generally a Tanker will be better than a Brute.

Brute's niche (if it has one) is that it's extremely easy to level up solo before you're fully IO'ed up.

However Brutes at endgame are still more survivable than Scrappers/Stalkers and they're still better than Tankers at Single Target damage. Some of the melee damage powersets (notably Super Strength which isn't available on Scrappers) also perform pretty well overall on Brutes due to Tanker's Gauntlet not increasing Radius on certain AoEs (like Footstomp) and the fact that Damage Procs raise damage equally regardless of your base damage scalar (e.g. a Single-Stacked Rage can provide enough +ToHit to facilitate 6-slotting Footstomp with procs!)

There are also specific defensive powersets which perform better on a Brute than you might expect... such as Fiery Aura (because Fury buffs Burn but Gauntlet does not) and Non-Granite Stone Armor (because Fury buffs Brimstone Armor's additional damage) and attaining 90% resistance to certain damage types on those sets plus Softcapped Defense is doable.

[Gobbledigook]

I have a SS/Bio Brute that i have built more for damage. She is still very tough, tougher than a Scrapper would be. She could off tank or step in if the Tank fails but primarily she is damage. Less damage than a Scrapper of equal build but much tougher, especially with buffs boosting towards the higher caps.

 

I feel Bio works well for a Brute. It gives extra damage and good survival, but requires a little getting used to.

 

If your aim is to be a tank then i would probably roll a Tanker. Brutes are good but a little more would be good.

 

 

[Without_Pause]

I still think Claws is good on a Brute. It's just not Scrapper Claws. The damage resist aspect is true. Depending on the build, you might just want to factor in taking Musc. for Alpha and/or using more procs. I have a couple Dark Melee Scrappers at 50. I'm currently working on improving the damage for my Dark/sr as my Dark/shield is good to go, but that's due to /shield.

 

In terms of the armors, I have too little experience to offer genuine feedback. I might just lean on Dark due to preference of playstyle and far too early of returns. My highest Rad is 30, so that's just as giant ball of whatever. 

 

Claws/rad. Absolute blender. Rad's damage can help fill in for Claws. I have wanted to do Claws with additional damage support, but my Claws/cold Scrapper just never clicked. This has been on the 'some day' list for awhile.

Claws/dark. Given weapons customization, this could look really great. Claws plays fast enough the lack of +Recharge is less an issue. The damage aura is going to compliment Claws's damage type well.

Dark/rad. I had a Brute and Tanker Dark/elec as part of a Ironman SG. Part of me has wanted to reroll it into this for HC.

Dark/dark. It's a classic. I might at least copy @Snarky's build, pop it on Beta, and give it a run.

 

One recent aspect at least for me in terms of Tanker vs. Brute is while a Tanker gets the +Res proc, you can of have to spam it to max it out which may or may not go against how you want to attack.

 

Def. vs. Corr. All I'm saying is getting to the Debuff limit is far harder than the Buff one. 

[lemming]

Most of the time while choosing what AT between Scrapper, Stalker, Tanker, and Brute is purely concept.

 

And one handy thing for Brutes is,  you are not automatically assumed to have Taunt.

[Maelwys]

They can also AFK AE farm (albeit not quite as fast as a Tanker even with sky-high Fury and Brimstone Procs). So there's that too.

[Octogoat]

Why not EATs?

[Sovera]

Play what ever you like. You're in a blessed moment where every one of those ATs is viable instead of one of them being so bad that only hardcore RPers would pick it up (your day will come, kheldians!). I like Tankers because I like feeling like a super hero early in the game. That means going 0x6 by level 10 and +1x8 by level 20. But I also peak early and my sturdiness lets me walk all over mobs but my damage does not significantly improve

 

But to answer the question I'm currently chatting with someone who dislikes how braindead Tankers are and how they are never in any danger. I keep pushing him to try Brute since he wants to work for it and it seems smarter to push the envelope on a Brute than to purposefully nerf their Tanker build to inject some variety.

 

 

Others have already chimed in but I'll add my own two bits:

 

- If you like Rad and Dark then consider Fire as well. My best Brute both in ST and AoE clearing was a Claws/Fire. Yes, the mini nukes of Rad are great, and yes, ultimately thanks to them Rad is actually better than Fire in AoE despite having Burn. But Rad will do little to improve ST damage where Fire Armor will, just like Bio is good for ST damage but Fire is better for AoE. So we can say Fire is more balanced helping both ST and AoE instead of just doing one of those.

 

- Don't poopoo on defensive armors too much. I don't know what builds you're playing to say much about them but stuff like Stone Armor is next gen and it also comes with a healthy amount of resists. Now, it is a lot easier to build defense on a Tanker which can lead to the silliness of the (near) immortal build in my signature by level 13, but with propping up from IOs it will get there. Ultimately my opinion is that defense is better than resist for 90% of the game up until meeting mobs that bypass armor. But they are not THAT common. In the meanwhile resist based armors have a harder time leveling since they depend on their heals who are either slot starved or stat squished by the leveling. And they will eat every debuff under the sun while defense armors will literally dodge them.

 

In the meanwhile a defense based armor reaches at least 33% defense somewhat easily even in the early leveling (amplifiers, defense unique IOs, SOs) and from them on will subsist for long periods of time by dint of a small purple inspiration at regular intervals until IOs make up for that difference and they replace the small purple inspiration. Brutes in particular have access to Energy Armor which is top tier chef kiss if you don't like the aesthetics of Stone Armor (but Stone Armor has a lot of extra bells and whistles including recharge, a damage aura, a damage boost proc to all attacks, recovery, psi defense (which is kinda rare).

 

- Endurance issues are common in the early game which is where we should slot early goodies (such as Panaceia proc, Numina proc, Miracle proc, Perfect Shifter proc) as soon as possible. It is better to slot endurance reduction in attacks than in toggles and to always carry a few (or a lot) of Recovery Serums from the START vendor.

 

 

 

I don't know how new you are to the game so at the risk of coming off condescending check the guide in my signature and perhaps drop what builds you're using so we can see if any improvements could be found.

[Grimm2]

Claws/Rad Brute sounds great to me, I always wanted to do one. Cycling Meltdown/Rune of Protection/Melee Core would actually keep you at the 90% resist cap, a scrapper could never feel that tough. Though you have less returns from Followup's damage buff compared to Scrapper, you could still stick a -res proc in Slash, and another in Rad Therapy. Claws is primo for FF +rech procs, I'm sure you know how much Rad armor loves that. Grab that Focused Acc and build for slow resist.

 

I usually find resist armors fun to play only when they've been IO'ed from the toes to the teeth and back again...I have 2 rad armors, but several Stones, EAs, Nins...Defense armors I find more forgiving in the leveling process, due to how much a small Luck insp gives you once you reach 32% def on your own.

[Apogee]

I have played a lot of Brutes and hands down the single fastest Brute IMO is Savage Melee.  Savage/Bio is one of my favorite combinations.

[Ukase]

7 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Tankers are better than them for AoE damage

I do not agree with this for a second. 

SOME tankers might be a little bit better for a few seconds here and there. That's it. 
Brutes, with fury dish out so much more damage it's not even close. NOT EVEN CLOSE. 

I have played a tank. I have played a brute. The brute wins the dps competition EVERY single time. No exceptions. 
It doesn't matter that a tank has more targets. It never comes into play - at least, not the way I play. I jump in a mob, hit the AoEs, move to the next mob. I play them the same way. The only real difference is I take taunt on the tanks. 

The tanks are certainly more survivable, I'll grant you that. But the same thing that makes the brute's single target damage better than the tank's is the same thing that makes the brute's AoE damage better than a tanks. Fury. 

That's based solely on my anecdotal evidence. I do not believe your assertion for even a split second. Brute with burn kills faster than a tank with burn. Brute with shield charge does more damage than a tank with shield charge. I've yet to see an exception to this with any tank I've played. 

[Erratic1]

35 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I do not agree with this for a second. 

 

You should. It is not really remotely open for discussion:

 

 

Those are the times for Trapdoor per Ston. The lower the bar, the faster the finish. Trapdoor favors dealing area damage.  We used to have another thread where people would post their times and Brutes were not beating Tankers. Per the graph above, using Titan Weapons, Dual Blades, Psionic Melee, Staff Fighting, or Broadsword Brutes come out ahead. Most of those are considered crap powersets. And for the powersets which are good (the left end), Brutes are not remotely close.

[Maelwys]

  

7 hours ago, Ukase said:

I do not agree with this for a second. 

SOME tankers might be a little bit better for a few seconds here and there. That's it. 
Brutes, with fury dish out so much more damage it's not even close. NOT EVEN CLOSE. 
...
It doesn't matter that a tank has more targets. It never comes into play - at least, not the way I play. 

It's actually the other way around.

SOME Brutes might be a little bit better than SOME Tankers in particular circumstances.
However the vast majority of the time; hitting more targets for high damage is better than hitting fewer targets for very high damage.

There are a few edge cases where the mechanics of a specific power favours Brute Fury over Tanker Gauntlet; and you specifically mention Burn and Shield Charge further down your post. Both of these are good examples of an edge case.

 

7 hours ago, Ukase said:

the same thing that makes the brute's single target damage better than the tank's is the same thing that makes the brute's AoE damage better than a tanks. Fury. 

That's based solely on my anecdotal evidence. I do not believe your assertion for even a split second. Brute with burn kills faster than a tank with burn. Brute with shield charge does more damage than a tank with shield charge.

 

I showcased how Burn is better on a Brute in that same thread I linked above but the TL;DR version is that Burn doesn't benefit from Gauntlet's radius or target cap increases but it does benefit from Fury; and it also has the Brute 700% Damage Cap rather than the regular Pseudopet 400% damage cap. And as a result, the additional +damage% bonus from a Brute's Fury will outpace a Tanker's higher base damage pretty quickly.

The relevant graphic is below, for ease of reference:




Like Burn, Shield Charge also does not gain any benefit from Gauntlet's increased Target cap or Radius; and it inherits the owner's "boosts" (meaning it benefits from Fury).
However unlike Burn, Shield Charge does NOT inherit the owner's "modifiers" (and so it uses the Pseudopet 400% Damage Cap rather than the Brute 700% or Tanker 500%).

With ED-damage slotting, a Brute will only need about 27% Fury to break even with a Tanker... however the Tanker version will peak at 507.17 damage compared to the Brute's 400.39. Shield Charge will therefore favour Brutes at lower levels of damage buff (soloing) but that low 400% Pseudopet damage cap will greatly restrict the Brutes from gaining any benefit from additional damage buffs (such as Build Up; let alone Fulcrum Shift!) so Tankers will tend to pull ahead at higher levels of damage buff (e.g. when teaming).

  

 

7 hours ago, Ukase said:

 I've yet to see an exception to this with any tank I've played. 

 

This is the crux of the matter, I think.

The increased +50% Radius/Arc and Target Cap buffs granted by Gauntlet; alongside the Tanker higher base damage scalar will virtually always win out over Fury; assuming that you take and use your AoEs and you can keep a sufficient number of targets around you (which, I suppose is where playstyle might come into it - as if someone never fights more than 10 targets then their AoE powers having a target cap of 16 is irrelevant!)


Most Tanker AoEs benefit from both the Radius and the Target Cap buff, such as Fire Sword Circle (10ft Radius and Target Cap of 10 becomes 15ft Radius and Target Cap of 16).

 

Some Tanker AoEs only benefit from the Target Cap buff, such as Foot Stomp (15ft Radius and Target Cap of 10 becomes 15ft Radius and Target Cap of 16)
This is coded via disallowing the "Radius" Strength buff on that power.



A few Tanker AoEs only benefit from the Radius buff, such as Blazing Aura (8ft Radius and Target Cap of 10 becomes 12ft Radius and Target Cap of 10).
This is coded via setting their "Max Targets Hit" value to a static number (rather than to "See Expression Above" and referencing the Gauntlet formula). 



There are also a couple of AoEs that do not benefit from either the Radius buff or the Target Cap increase (mainly Pseudopets and Quills)


Whilst you really need to check CoDv2 to pick up on the nitty gritty details; you'll almost never encounter a situation in the game where a Tanker deals less AoE damage than a Brute. The sole exception I'm aware of is a Fiery Aura toon that relies on Burn for the bulk of its AoE damage output... however those are a rarity these days (a Spines/FA Brute with Quills and Blazing Aura running and Burn on Autofire might still technically be a better AFK AE Farmer than the equivalent Tanker... but only as long as you ignore the fact that Brutes require far more build investment to actually survive AFK AE Fire farming on x4/8 ever since the critter aggro behaviour changes!) and even then Blazing Aura having 12ft radius (Tanker) vs 8ft (Brute) makes the Tanker version a smidge better at aggro control.
 

Edited October 15 by Maelwys

[Sovera]

Well, it's moot. I agree that the testing has been done and Tankers are ahead. I just don't think the average player is using 4-6 procs per attack and relying on inspirations/incarnates to go through their whole gameplay session. Doing it for one mission for 'testing', sure, but not a couple of hours and constantly juggling stuff. But that's all subjective. Maybe all players are.

 

 

Unfortunately until procs are touched there is no balance to be found since the game is 'not balanced around IOs' which allows the 10% to do silly things destabilizing the ecosystem.

[Maelwys]

3 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Unfortunately until procs are touched there is no balance to be found since the game is 'not balanced around IOs' which allows the 10% to do silly things destabilizing the ecosystem.

True that.
However they can tackle the ATO imbalance whilst they're at it.
If the HC Devs reworked one or both of the Brutes ATO sets so that the proc/global is brought up to par with the Stalker or Scrapper ones then they'd recover in a heartbeat.

Brutes aren't in a bad place as long as you ignore ATOs and dealing maximum AoE damage at level 50.
Pre-50 and expensive IOs, when soloing or on smaller teams they're still decent (and often better than an equivalent Scrapper) and I imagine that's where a lot of "the 90%" experience them...
 

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

Well, it's moot. I agree that the testing has been done and Tankers are ahead. I just don't think the average player is using 4-6 procs per attack and relying on inspirations/incarnates to go through their whole gameplay session.

 

If the average player is not using IOs then Brutes are even worse off because they do not have anywhere near the survivability of Tankers, so the Tankers not only deal more area damage, but they are also staying in combat longer and generating xp faster.

 

I had noticed my Tankers being able to increase the level of their missions sooner than my Brutes some time ago, but only relatively recently did it occur to me to instead leave the level alone and simply up the team size (while soloing). More guys hitting as hard versus same number of guys hitting harder in theory has a balance point, but the gradations on team size are finer than the level size. And of course you do not have to do any herding, the spawns all give you more targets to bring down at once. 

 

I recently finished leveling a Bio/DB Tanker, who because of the increased resistance/defense values plays in Offensive stance and has plenty of AoE attacks and he zipped through the levels. My current Fire/Claws Tanker--perpetual Follow Up +Dmg bonus combined with Burn, and area attacks, likewise melts groups that a Brute would have to take time recovering health for engaging.

 

Better single target damage for a Brute? I guess if you're fighting a series of single targets that is wonderful, and certainly this past weekend while doing ToT I had some eye-watering hits while playing my EM/Electric Brute and buffed by a Marine Controller...but teams are focused on getting the mission/TF/trial done sooner rather than later and solo, well, if you want to spend more time getting a clear so you can occasionally see higher number single-target hits, be my guest.

 

 

Edited October 15 by Erratic1

[Without_Pause]

16 hours ago, lemming said:

And one handy thing for Brutes is,  you are not automatically assumed to have Taunt.

This has been my deal breaker most of the time. I even recently tried making a Tanker version of something only to realize I was missing Taunt.

 

Tankers are more durable as they should be, but they can be to that way to the point of being boring. As in, I don't even look at my health bar in a mission. I can also make a Controller or Scrapper that can solo at +3/x8 which I prefer for the sake of speed. Will it take longer to get there? Sure, but I'm also not one to simply shelve a build once it hits 50. Those builds will likely get more play time at being able to solo that diff setting than the time getting to that point. 

 

If leveling speed is the draw, duo box on Indom or Reunion. 

 

In other news, I enjoyed doing a few missions on Beta with a Savage/sr Brute so I rolled it to my home server.

[Ukase]

I have too many words to share. And most of them are dull and boring. 

@Maelwys I appreciate your taking the time and effort to showcase why you think the way you do. It was a lot of work, I think. Probably took you more time than I would feel comfortable with, if it were me. You also took note of my specific mention of certain powers which explained why I thought what I did. 

I can't dispute math. But, I can try to bring up the realization different players will build the same AT powerset combos differently. And, often, the net result is one player will crash and burn, and another player will burn and thrive. There's a lot of knowledge about the damage cap, attack chains, layering defenses and resistances that many players, if they even know, don't think about. I often don't think about any of that stuff until I suffer defeat and can't see the reasons in the combat logs or my combat attributes. 

Why a brute? Well, brute over a scrapper because of higher resists and HP. 
And a brute over a tank because of more damage when fighting single targets like the EB/AVs in Maria Jenkin's story arc, and easier time leveling up.

But - @Story Archer I foolishly forgot the most reasonable solution: 
We have 1000 slots. Make all three. Then come back and you tell us why, or why not. 

[tidge]

I avoid, and have always avoided, Brutes because I have never enjoyed the Fury mechanic.

 

19 hours ago, Story Archer said:

• I feel like a Brute is best served by being able to go-go-go in order to maintain Fury, so when looking at power sets, I'd like something that will offer me some +Rech and something that will help me manage my Endurance issues, without which the first 30 levels or so seem like a frustrating slog at times. It also seems like you don't necessarily want to prevent foes from attacking you so much as you want to mitigate those attacks when they come.

 

 

I have tried several Brutes because of concept, but Fury keeps getting in the way.

 

I don't think Brutes are in bad place at all, my own "mental model" of why it is easy to see mental anguish about the current (2024, Homecoming) state of Brutes is because for so much of the game it was trivial to argue for the supremacy of Brute over Tankers (in terms of damage, and thus clear times) and the survivability of Brutes over Stalkers/Scrappers (which can lead to a much more laissez faire play style, blah blah blah Fury).

 

"One simply trick" for maintaining Fury was (PB)AoE, so when Tankers got improved AoE (to make them better at Tanking, which was IMO a very smart and effective change (with the effect of speeding up Tanker clear times), it wasn't possible to argue (or gloat in some cases) that Brutes are superior to Tankers. So now the simple argument that "Brute better than Tankers" has become, in the minds of many "Tankers better than Brutes"... which for some folks hurts. Of the vocal critics of "where are Brutes now" it is still (weirdly, IMO) common that an argument is made that "the way to fix Brutes is to nerf Tankers." I find this weird because Brutes were never under-performing by any metric, but Tankers were, by several metrics.

 

As an aside: in the early days of Live (pre-CoV) it was already obvious that Scrappers could out-perform Tankers, especially when it comes to map clear speeds. The difference in survavibility between a Scrapper and a Tanker rarely manifested itself in most content. Once Brutes could be played on the more populated Hero side, it should have been a no-brainer that the popularity of Brutes would eclipse that of Scrappers, for players that wanted faster clear speeds AND fewer face-plants.

 

[Erratic1]

53 minutes ago, tidge said:

I don't think Brutes are in bad place at all,...

 

You don't play Brutes by your own admission, so how would you know? Oh....

 

53 minutes ago, tidge said:

my own "mental model" of why it is easy to see mental anguish about the current (2024, Homecoming) state of Brutes is because for so much of the game it was trivial to argue for the supremacy of Brute over Tankers (in terms of damage, and thus clear times) and the survivability of Brutes over Stalkers/Scrappers (which can lead to a much more laissez faire play style, blah blah blah Fury).

 

...its because you have an unsubstantiated view of how people think.

 

I play all the melee classes, as do others...as did Ston. Your resistance to the actuality of where things are....well, I could suggest, in keeping with what your supposition on motivations, that someone who didn't play an AT admits to disliking it calling the AT fine is self-serving.

 

But I will stick to the facts brought to the table--you don't have the background to support the assertion. It would be like me commenting on Kheldians, which I have yet to really get into and making claims of their performance/balance. So far as I can tell, you only show up in the Brute subforum to oppose the notion of Brutes being not well off: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/search/?&q=Brute&type=forums_topic&quick=1&author=Tidge&nodes=22&search_and_or=or&sortby=relevancy

 

Edited October 15 by Erratic1

[tidge]

12 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

You don't play Brutes by your own admission, so how would you know? Oh....

 

I have played Brutes, but as I noted, the Fury mechanic is something I find annoying enough that I actively dislike playing the AT. I feel the same about Dominators, even with getting them to perma-Dom. Sentinels I rarely even pay attention to the extra bar. The OP's comment on go-go-go spoke to me, sorry-not-sorry that my entire post triggered you.

 

All the melee ATs outshine the other ATs, except for Blasters (modulo surviving), in map clear times... my experience can add MMs to the discussion on fast clear times, but I think MM times are more depending on content.

 

I like Ston's analysis, but I'm unmoved by Brutes being "10% (or whatever) slower" on something like a full-up Trapdoor or Rikti Pylon test... because that's not the content *I* play regularly. I'm also not interested in divergence in AE farm times... not because I'm judgemental about AE, but because that is another one of those solo activities that really isn't affecting game play between two different players.

Edited October 15 by tidge

[Erratic1]

5 minutes ago, tidge said:

I like Ston's analysis, but I'm unmoved by Brutes being "10% (or whatever) slower" on something like a full-up Trapdoor or Rikti Pylon test... because that's not the content *I* play regularly. I'm also not interested in divergence in AE farm times... not because I'm judgemental about AE, but because that is another one of those solo activities that really isn't affecting

 

It's not about Trapdoor--you play that once in accessing Incarnate powers. Its about what it demonstrates.

 

The question is what would convince you? Given you only show us in the Brute section to naysay Brute problems, I'm genuinely curious.

Edited October 15 by Erratic1

[tidge]

11 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

The question is what would convince you? Given you only show us in the Brute section to naysay Brute problems, I'm genuinely curious.

 

I'd be convinced if it could be demonstrated that Brutes are measurable worse, in absolute terms, now compared to where they were in 2019. I am unconvinced that they are now worse because other ATs have surpassed them by whatever metric.