rework A Brutal Conundrum for Brutes + Solutions

[LightMaster]

The Brute Archetype. The “middle child” of Scrapper and Tanker ever since CoH and CoV becoming one game, and the one who orient around the Fury mechanic.

 

In theory, it is meant to hit harder than Tankers and tankier than Scrappers, but in practice, it can be seen as a master of none. Not helping is that as of 2024, Tankers have an even more admirable AoE DPS compared to Scrappers and Stalkers thanks to their Gauntlet Inherent.

 

It is not like the Brute is underrepresented, as there are still a lot of players who do enjoy and make the most of Brtues, myself included. That being said, for harder contents like Incarnate Trials, I believe the Brute need something that allows it to stand out from the other Melee-oriented archetypes without stepping on their toes.

 

The Conundrum

As said before, the Brutes are seen as the middle ground of Scrappers and Tankers. However, other than the Fury Inherent, the Brute does not have anything that the other melee Archetypes cannot do better, including AoE Melee as the Tankers does a way better job nowadays.

 

Of course, the problem isn’t easy to solve.

• If Brute’s damage output is buffed, then they’ll end up overshadowing Scrappers.
• Obviously, they should not be tankier than Tankers. Alongside, increasing the power input of the Brute’s available melee AoE in power sets would only make it too similar to Tankers as the latter is still superior at tanking things.
• The Brute’s Epic Power Pools are a good addition to it, so they don’t need to receive major changes. If anything, the issue have to do with the Archetype itself, not the Epic Power Pools, so buffing these Epic Power Pools would not make it exciting for Brutes who got overshadowed by Tankers in mid-game contents and can be overkill for Brutes who are doing fine in lategame content.

 

Nothing said that Brutes are beyond repair without nerfing Tankers, because there is another villain-original melee Archetype that managed to stand out from it’s hero-original counterpart.

 

Scrapper vs Stalker, the Damage Scale and Fury Inherent

At a glance, the Stalker have less damage output compared to the Scrapper. However, not only the Stalker have access to Hide and Placate, which fits it’s lore and playstyle, but also their signature attack of Assassin’s Strike (or a variant depending on the Power Set), giving it a powerful single-target burst damage when in and even out of Hiding.

 

This allows Stalker to play similar to a Scrapper with less damage, but able to sneak around and take down important targets, then escape from one threat or even more.

 

The Brute can be seen as the villain-original counterpart of the Tanker, but it only managed to hit harder than Tankers due fo the Fury Inherent, not by inherently having higher melee damage scale.

 

With that said, the Ranged Damage Scale of Tankers have 0.800 despite having little to no ranged attacks from their Secondary Power Sets. The Brute isn’t far behind with a 0.750 damage scale, but they themselves have little to no ranged attacks on their Primary Power Sets.

 

Another interesting fact is that the Brute’s Fury Inherent doesn’t just boost their melee output, it also increase their ranged damage output. This means the Brute is able to deal a deceptively high ranged melee if allowed to, which is why it is able to deal high damage on ranged Prestige Attacks like Nemesis Staff and Blackwand once it’s Fury is high enough.
 

But if Fury alone doesn’t make Brute enticing enough to be a tanky offensive melee attacker, then maybe allow the Brute to take advantage on the Fury Inherent than just “stay in the fights to deal more damage”.

 

The Solutions

Here are the following solutions that intend to take advantage of the Fury Inherent in order to help the Brute stand out without strictly overshadowing the other Melee-oriented archetypes. One or more may be implemented.

 

• Allow Fury Inherent to have To-Hit / Accuracy bonus: This one is straightforward but allows Brute players to worry less about putting Accuracy and To-Hit Buff Enhancements as the Fury also boosts the To-Hit chance by up to a whopping 50% (maybe lower) as long as they keep fighting.
• Replace a generic Taunt by a powerful coned / targeted AoE Ranged Attack with Taunting effect, but costs some Fury: Given that Scrappers have Confront while Stalkers have Placate, the Brutes could have a whole new ranged attack that can be used to both deliver high damage and provoke enemies, but can only be performed if the Brute’s Fury is 80 of higher, and cost some Fury at that. This not only allows Brute give a distinct niche of having an occasional ranged attacks, but also allows them to provide a powerful burst ranged damage that neither the Scrapper, the Stalker and the Tanker could achieve easily. This devastating attack is called an Outrage Attack.
  • Ice Melee Example: Frost Wave which is like Energy Torrent but with Ice FX. Hits all foes that were ahead of the targeted foe for a Superior Cold/Smashing burst damage.
• Replace PBAoE melee and disruptive powers by Ranged Powers Equivalent (or close proximity): Given that Tankers are far better at melee-ranged crowd control than Brutes nowadays, it’s only natural that the Brute may prefer to hit some fleeing saps to take advantage of the Fury Inherent and to keep it’s Fury from draining when chasing a fleeing foe. This will also allow Brute to be mixed akin to Blasters and Dominators, albeit to a lesser extent, and can even take even more advantage of Power Pools and Epic Power Pools that has ranged damage more than before by having additional ranged tools in their Primary Power.
  • Ice Melee Example: Ice Patch is replaced by Frost Breath for Brutes. Meanwhile, Frozen Aura is replaced by Glacial Fist, which launches a Bitter Ice Blast as the Brute punches the air and deals Extreme Cold/Smashing DMG.

 

Anyone else have a suggestion how to make the Brute able to stand on their own?

Edited December 19 by LightMaster

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, LightMaster said:

 

• Allow Fury Inherent to have To-Hit / Accuracy bonus: This one is straightforward but allows Brute players to worry less about putting Accuracy and To-Hit Buff Enhancements as the Fury also boosts the To-Hit chance by up to a whopping 50% (maybe lower) as long as they keep fighting.

If the devs agree, then sure, sounds interesting.

 

1 hour ago, LightMaster said:

Replace a generic Taunt by a powerful coned / targeted AoE Ranged Attack with Taunting effect, but costs some Fury: Given that Scrappers have Confront while Stalkers have Placate, the Brutes could have a whole new ranged attack that can be used to both deliver high damage and provoke enemies, but can only be performed if the Brute’s Fury is 80 of higher, and cost some Fury at that. This not only allows Brute give a distinct niche of having an occasional ranged attacks, but also allows them to provide a powerful burst ranged damage that neither the Scrapper, the Stalker and the Tanker could achieve easily. This devastating attack is called an Outrage Attack.

• Ice Melee Example: Frost Wave which is like Energy Torrent but with Ice FX. Hits all foes that were ahead of the targeted foe for a Superior Cold/Smashing burst damage.

I'm against taking taunts away from Brutes. I don't enjoy playing Tankers. I do enjoy playing Brutes. And a Brute's taunt is an AoE effect that forces mobs to move closer to my Brute and that I can use nearly at will to yank enemies off my friends when we play together. Nerfing Brute taunts so that you can only use it when you have 80% or higher Fury, even as a damaging ranged attack, takes that away. Worse, you are adding an attack that can only be used when the character has 80% or higher Fury. And every time you finally get to use it, it drops your Fury.

 

1 hour ago, LightMaster said:

Replace PBAoE melee and disruptive powers by Ranged Powers Equivalent (or close proximity): Given that Tankers are far better at melee-ranged crowd control than Brutes nowadays, it’s only natural that the Brute may prefer to hit some fleeing saps to take advantage of the Fury Inherent and to keep it’s Fury from draining when chasing a fleeing foe. This will also allow Brute to be mixed akin to Blasters and Dominators, albeit to a lesser extent, and can even take even more advantage of Power Pools and Epic Power Pools that has ranged damage more than before by having additional ranged tools in their Primary Power.

• Ice Melee Example: Ice Patch is replaced by Frost Breath for Brutes. Meanwhile, Frozen Aura is replaced by Glacial Fist, which launches a Bitter Ice Blast as the Brute punches the air and deals Extreme Cold/Smashing DMG.

This would just put Brutes into the unfortunate position of being compared to Scrappers, Tankers, and Blasters Sentinels, rather than just Scrappers and Tankers.

 

Edited December 19 by Rudra
Edited to correct "Blasters" to "Sentinels".

[PoptartsNinja]

1 hour ago, LightMaster said:

Anyone else have a suggestion how to make the Brute able to stand on their own?

If I could do anything with Brutes, I'd change Fury from a spectrum to a series of tiered plateaus, where you receive the full bonus of fury upon achieving the tier. This puts less pressure on maintaining fury, and because it's tiered, would make it into a spendable resource. To compensate, Fury would only build from the Brute's own attacks, with fury generation per attack based on animation and recharge time; and how likely the set is to have a dead zone in their attack rotation.

 

I'd give them a ~.85 to ~.9 base damage scale, but set their damage cap at tank level, so they reach their damage cap more easily than tanks (the same way tanks reach their resist caps more easily than Brutes).

 

Then I'd replace Build Up (and Fiery Embrace) with a power that burned a Fury Tier for a big damage pop on the next attack. This power would only go on cooldown if the Brute popped it enough to reach Tier 0, so a brute could burn fury and damage dump or play more conservatively for higher DPS. That would make Brute a tactical damage dealer looking for opportunities to gain and expend their fury. Most of the brute's Fury damage would be moved into this active ability, with Fury instead providing a global recharge bonus (so keeping it high would still be beneficial).

 

 

I'm pretty sure that change wouldn't fly though.

Edited December 19 by PoptartsNinja

[Lazarillo]

(Small note, Brutes were designed to be the villain equivalent of Scrappers, not Tankers, but consistent redesigns over the years shifted a lot of those original concepts.)

 

With that in mind, Brutes already kinda have their niche, with the low-base-high-potential situation they're in.  While they start out with worse damage than Tankers or Scrappers (and defensively a little in-between), they can get to close-to-Scrapper damage while having closer-to-Tanker defenses.  I think they serve pretty well in that regard as-is.  Rather, I think most of the issues the AT has comes more from perspective, particularly on the tanking front.  A Brute might not out-tank a Tanker these days, but people may already be forgetting that when the game re-opened under HC, playing a Tanker was considered sub-par because Brutes were so much better at it...and nothing on that front was diminished when Tankers were buffed.  They don't need to do better at something than one AT or the other when they can be (and are) such an effective halfway point for both.

 

As it is, the AT isn't quite at bottom of the list of ones that need the whole once-over treatment, but they're pretty well down from the top.  More might effectively be done by encouraging people to build their best Broot, and not trying to go for just one side of their potential or the other.

Edited December 19 by Lazarillo

[Aracknight]

I kind of like the idea of the taunt being replaced with a ranged attack that fits the power type (fire, ice, energy, a rock, whatever) with the taunt added in.  Maybe scrappers could get an ST version, brutes a Cone, and Tankers a TAOE?  Obviously not a nuke but a little something damagy could be nice.

[PoptartsNinja]

13 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

(Small note, Brutes were designed to be the villain equivalent of Scrappers, not Tankers, but consistent redesigns over the years shifted a lot of those original concepts.)

 

This is not true. It gets said a lot, but it's incorrect.

 

The original CoH was designed with the Everquest Tank/Support/Mezzer triangle, and DPS was a secondary consideration. Scrappers were off-Tanks and Blasters were off-Mezzers (which is why Blaster primaries and secondaries have so many stray disorients and knockbacks). CoH pre-dated World of Warcraft, so a lot of WoW's design concepts weren't considered when it was released.

 

CoV was designed with the World of Warcraft Tank/Support/DPS triangle in mind, but because the Tank, Healer, and DPS roles were already so heavily (accidentally) filled by the base game, the CoV ATs were "X but also DPS!"

So the Brute was "Tank, but also DPS!" The Corruptor was "Support, but also DPS!" The Dominator was "Mezzer, but also DPS!" The Stalker was designed as a melee Blaster (with PVP in mind, its PVE performance was always secondary), and the Mastermind was never intended to be CoV's tank. It was designed because people who enjoyed Controller pets were clamoring for a pet class. People found out relatively early that "Tankermind" could be done, but it wasn't their intended role.

 

If Tankermind was the intended role, Masterminds would have launched with an AoE taunt.

Edited December 19 by PoptartsNinja
Edited for clarity.

[Lazarillo]

3 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

If Tankermind was the intended role, Masterminds would have launched with an AoE taunt.

See, this is the mistake you're making: confusing what happened in development later with what was originally intended.  "Tankermind" building in its current form works because of Bodyguard which didn't come until later.  Mastermind "tanks" were intended with the idea of the MM not taunting because the pets were supposed to go in and soak up damage first.  It worked terribly and thus, changes were made, but just because it didn't work doesn't mean it wasn't what they intended it to be.

[PoptartsNinja]

Going to need you to source an OG dev quote stating that Masterminds were intended to be the tanks, because I was there when they released and that was never said.

 

They were always presented as "Pets! (+ DPS!)"

[Lazarillo]

Going to need you to source an OG dev quote stating that Masterminds were intended to be Pets! (+DPS), because I was there when they released and that was never said.

 

They were always presented as "use your disposable minions to tank".

[Rudra]

There was a comment about the time when CoV was released about MMs being intended as villain side tanks because it was expected the enemies would spend all their time fighting the pets rather than going after the MM, but that comment never made sense and it never came from a dev as best I can remember. I heard it from players trying to explain the (at the time) new ATs. I have never heard of MMs being considered Scrapper equivalents, because that was held for Stalkers. (And was a large complaint at the time about Stalkers for their planned crits rather than just getting crits.) The only official comment I ever saw about MMs was that MMs were the villain pet class. Not the Tanker equivalent or the Scrapper equivalent, but a whole new concept that focused exclusively on pets. And the way the AT worked, that comment made sense. MMs never worked as off-tanks or pseudo-Scrappers, at least not until after Bodyguard Mode was added, and I only ever heard players claim that was their purpose, never the devs. And yes, Bodyguard Mode was added after, but that was in response to players complaining that mobs would consistently ignore their pets and just rapidly kill them, making them feel like the AT wasn't really playable except with a team to protect them. (Edit: So Bodyguard Mode wasn't added to fix MMs failing to be tanks as designed, but to fix that for too many players MMs struggled with basic survival because mobs preferred to ignore the pets.)

 

Edit again: Oh, and as far as MMs originally being designed to be Tankers or their equivalent? That runs face first into the fact that not a single MM pet has any means of taunting enemies. And without the ability to taunt, until Bodyguard Mode was added, the pets had zero ability to actually protect the MM, let alone anyone else with the MM. And that should have been evident even in beta testing. (Especially when you see just how much squishier MM pets are compared to Controllers and Dominators.)

 

Edited December 19 by Rudra

[Enamel_32]

Back to talking about brutes: replacing one or more powers for every brute out there is a big thing to ask for. Regardless of whether I like the end result, having to respec several level 50s sounds like a chore.

 

Fury requires some time to build and continued activity to keep at high levels, and the end result is closer-to-scrapper-than-tanker levels of damage. I definitely agree it would be nice to have something beyond "somewhere between scrapper and tanker" but It's also worth mentioning that some players consider that summary to be inaccurate now that tankers have increased target caps. Increasing a brute's target cap, even if it's tied to fury, even if the cap is lower than what tankers get, may be hard to sell given people's opinions on AE farming and how a change like that would make it easier.

 

To me, they've always been the "freight train" archetype and I'd like to see more aspects of momentum built into the inherent. If that sounds vague, it's because I haven't come up with anything especially satisfying 😂 but I'll keep thinking about it.

[PoptartsNinja]

1 hour ago, Lazarillo said:

Going to need you to source an OG dev quote stating that Masterminds were intended to be Pets! (+DPS), because I was there when they released and that was never said.

 

They were always presented as "use your disposable minions to tank".

 

I went fishing in the Wayback machine because I was pretty sure there was a big post by Zeb explaining the ATs in the lead-up to CoV's launch. Unfortunately, I couldn't track it down after an hour of searching.

So instead, I'll just show the old AT blurbs from the CoH and CoV websites explaining how the Devs view the ATs in question.

 

 

 

And back to the OP's question at hand: The Brute was intended to be "the best there is in a straight melee fight," so I could see a fun argument being made for removing their ranged powers entirely in favor of some sort of PBAoE replacement. Them not having the same AoE advantages as tanks doesn't matter if they've got an extra Melee AoE to fire off.

I'm not sure that's a change I'd actually make, but it would be interesting.

Edited December 19 by PoptartsNinja

[kelika2]

Fury in itself is kinda stupid since their base numbers are balanced around having a lot of +dmg

and if its easy to build and maintain fury then its just their baseline and that kinda makes their inherent not special

 

maybe throw them a bone by adding scaling +resist/def/hp with their fury bar?

[LightMaster]

Certainly a mixed but understandable reception around. From what I gather:

• Replacing a power entirely might turn Respec even more of a shore for level 50s, so a rework for power sets specifically to Brutes is out of question.
• Brutes do at least fulfill their role as “Fright Train” of melee combattants, very well even. There are also some here, and I assume many even, who do like Brute because they are an intermediary of Scrappers and Tankers.
• The real issue I’ve seen is Fury itself, which isn’t even an unique mechanic given it is just glorified critical hits of sort. Reworking Fury itself, or rather buffing it, might help Brute’s own Inherent to be unique or at least give another good justification of using Brutes over Tanks.
• My suggestion of Fury increasing To-Hit chance as Fury builds up is pointed by a replier that it’s plausible if the devs agreed. Defensive buff built in Fury (like +Resist) might be too familiar to Tankers.
• Overall, Brutes feeling inferior to Tankers is just a manner of perspective, which the perspective might not even be accurate depending on who you ask. However, it can be agreed that Fury itself may be outdated, which might be a reason of such perspective, given how effective the other Archetypes’ inherents are, including Sentinel’s current Inherent as of 2024.

[PoptartsNinja]

Fury is the reason I like brutes, they are sustained and steady damage encouraged to spend as little time between fights as possible. But I also feel like Fury is badly designed, and if they do spend too long between fights they can get frustrating..

Fury currently goes from 0 to 90% in ~two seconds with minimal player input; but on a full team that isn't operating like a well-oiled machine (i.e. letting the Brute absorb the alpha) it can feel impossible to build Fury at all.

 

The simplest way to "fix" brutes would be to adjust their base damage a bit and then alter Fury to only build up with the Brute's own attacks. Making fury more directly player-controlled encourages brutes to keep up their onslaught. I could genuinely see a world where Brutes and Tanks shared the same overall stats, but tanks hit the resistance cap more easily and brutes hit the damage cap more easily.

 

 

Fury also becomes much less useful on a strong team or league with +dmg buffers.

 

The other-other "easy" fix to Fury would be to make it a pop of bonus damage, like the Incarnate Hybrid Assault; perhaps with a proc rate based on current fury level (and expending fury whenever the damage procs to encourage the brute to keep building that fury). That would de-couple Fury from normal damage buffing, so brutes would benefit from Fury no matter how many Kinetics users were around.

[Enamel_32]

3 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

Fury currently goes from 0 to 90% in ~two seconds with minimal player input; but on a full team that isn't operating like a well-oiled machine (i.e. letting the Brute absorb the alpha) it can feel impossible to build Fury at all.

 

I know the villain alignment power grants brutes 100% fury... why couldn't Build Up, Follow Up, etc. also grant some amount fury?

[Greycat]

Only thing I'm strongly feeling is a "no thanks" to replacing the taunt with anything. I use it as is, and tend to Brute more than Tank or Scrapper.

 

Other than that, interesting ideas throughout on tweaking and adjusting Fury. The Fury mechanic I think is why I just like Brutes... I've had the same set pairings on Brutes and Scrappers and I'm pretty sure it's the "feel" of Fury I prefer on the Brutes (to where I've converted some characters that were scrappers on Live to Brutes.) I'd hate to lose that feel in any sort of rework.

[Techhead]

13 hours ago, Enamel_32 said:

 

I know the villain alignment power grants brutes 100% fury... why couldn't Build Up, Follow Up, etc. also grant some amount fury?

I often end up using Build Up on Brute as a stopgap for when I haven't built fury yet, so it just straight up granting some fury would certainly cut to the chase for me.

 

I guess my kneejerk suggestion for making Brute better at what it does is up the base damage scales a bit but also make fury drop off a bit faster at levels above 50%. The intent being that your high points are even higher but it's harder to reach that full throttle, you need to keep taking attacks to maintain ~80% level.

[tidge]

I appreciate all the replies from folks talking about what they like about Brutes, and what they use in their builds. It is pretty easy to find posts about how "Brutes was nerfed" associated with some talking them down because, by some arbitrary benchmarks, "others are better."

 

17 hours ago, PoptartsNinja said:

Fury is the reason I like brutes, they are sustained and steady damage encouraged to spend as little time between fights as possible. But I also feel like Fury is badly designed, and if they do spend too long between fights they can get frustrating.

 

Fury is what *I* don't like about Brutes! That is to say: to me, building up that self-buff always felt like it was more effort than it was worth, given other build options. I'm also somewhat non-plussed about how I see many Brutes played on teams... where they just sort of assume they'll always have aggro... and when they don't they don't seem to perform as well and the squishier teammates can start to take a lot of grief... put another way "bad tanking" but I digress.

 

I've played since launch, so I remember pre-CoV when Scrappers essentially made Tankers somewhat superfluous in most content. It came as no surprise to me that when Brutes could go/start blue-side that many folks would gravitate to them... my thinking may be wrong, but because it was so much easier (less investment) to make the Brutes "tougher" *and* for those willing to push the value caps, as tough as Tankers, it was kind of a no-brainer (especially for AFK-like play).

 

I don't have a suggestion for Brutes, but I can suggest something different that would make me more interested in Brutes (with a Fury mechanic). I'd be interested if Fury wasn't tied to either making the Brute hit harder (the current damage buff) or survive better (as is sometimes suggested). I'd kinda like a melee class that applied an enemy debuff (in PBAoE) sort of complimenting how Sentinels (now) work. This sort of things ought to be somewhat acceptable to those seeking MOAR damage and would give Brutes a pretty good role on teams.

 

Obviously if Fury was detatched from the damage buff, some rebalancing of offense is probably necessary.

[Uun]

21 hours ago, LightMaster said:

With that said, the Ranged Damage Scale of Tankers have 0.800 despite having little to no ranged attacks from their Secondary Power Sets. The Brute isn’t far behind with a 0.750 damage scale, but they themselves have little to no ranged attacks on their Primary Power Sets.

The ranged damage modifier for both brutes and tankers is largely unused. While there are exceptions, most ranged attacks in brute/tanker primaries, secondaries and epics use the melee damage modifier.

[Shin Magmus]

     I agree that Brutes need some sort of help.  Unfortunately, I also understand that this community will never agree on what those changes should be.  In addition to legitimate issues with Brute performance relative to Scrappers and Tankers, Brutes have been numerically "wrong" since their inception.  Factoring in Fury and the base damage scalars, Brutes should be getting the highest (significantly higher than they are currently) self +Damage modifier of all ATs in the game just to ensure parity with all other ATs.  What I mean is that when a Brute clicks Build Up or Follow Up or Rage, they should get the same proportional benefit after clicking those powers that other ATs do.  Unfortunately, Brute balance is super wonky because both the Live devs and the HC devs see no real issue with a Brute clicking BU and their effective damage output only increasing by ~20%... why even click the power... why even take the power?

 

     Additionally, this discussion about Brute balance mentions that their +Fury ATO is bugged: this bug is still unfixed.  Here is a link to the proc itself on CoD.  You can see that the proc is missing the purple icon and flag to "ignore level differences" i.e. ignoring the purple patch.  This is causing the ATO proc to grant only 0.65* the listed amount of Fury when fighting +3 enemies.  In the best-case scenario, the Brute ATO should grant a significant amount of Fury which is just +dmg.  In the worst-case scenario (with a Kin on the team), the Brute ATO proc does literally nothing.  That's a bad starting point, but to also have the +dmg be reduced to such a degree because of a bug is pretty sad.  A change to the Brute ATOs to fix this bug and do something to make them more useful would go a long way towards fixing some (but not all) of the issues the AT faces.

[Enamel_32]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

I don't have a suggestion for Brutes, but I can suggest something different that would make me more interested in Brutes (with a Fury mechanic). I'd be interested if Fury wasn't tied to either making the Brute hit harder (the current damage buff) or survive better (as is sometimes suggested). I'd kinda like a melee class that applied an enemy debuff (in PBAoE) sort of complimenting how Sentinels (now) work. This sort of things ought to be somewhat acceptable to those seeking MOAR damage and would give Brutes a pretty good role on teams.

 

Obviously if Fury was detatched from the damage buff, some rebalancing of offense is probably necessary.

 

That's an interesting thread to pull on. I think a damage-adjacent debuff like -Max HP has potential, but maybe that's too strong for a PBAoE.

 

 

But then my thoughts wandered to making fury provide more reliable damage. What if fury provided a smaller damage bonus, but let you bypass a portion of enemy resistances? You'd keep most of the status quo for the other melee ATs, and brutes would occupy a "hard target specialist" niche where they'd be uniquely equipped to beat up big beefy baddies. Like minotaurs, for example.

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Enamel_32 said:

But then my thoughts wandered to making fury provide more reliable damage. What if fury provided a smaller damage bonus, but let you bypass a portion of enemy resistances? You'd keep most of the status quo for the other melee ATs, and brutes would occupy a "hard target specialist" niche where they'd be uniquely equipped to beat up big beefy baddies. Like minotaurs, for example.

 

I won't argue against trying to mechanically use Fury to directly increase damage in some way, except that is (to my eyes) always what its been... but in terms of gameplay I've only ever  seen a Brute played the same as a Scrapper (probably 90%) or a Tanker (maybe 10%). Apologies for comparing against the original ATs from CoH, but the timeline is what it is. I don't think there is another way to play a Brute... as there is no mechanical reason to (EDIT) not push every character as fast as it can go. I don't think there *is* another way to play a Brute!

 

I realize that it can be tempting to point at Scrappers and Stalkers, but those two AT have enough different powers in each primary that there is room for obvious variation, even if (by some arbitrarily chosen metrics an optimized-for-that-metric build of) each may be comparable.

 

I'd prefer that Brutes got a role not filled by Scrappers or Tankers, and preserved their primaries and secondaries. I don't think it is productive to start from a place where the idea is that the AT has to be better than another AT. The Tanker buff (at least the AoE-related one that is sometimes called the 'Brute nerf') was to make Tankers better at tanking, which had the side effect of making them able to fit (and ultimately defeat) more enemies at once... again, this is a somewhat arbitrary metric.

 

Ultimately this is just my way of saying that I'd prefer an AT that offered both a different sort of playstyle and not just "this one gets the same powers but at a different level" or "this one gets the same powers but has different caps". I'd rather not have wholesale changes to the powers or caps, even if they would have to be tweaked to accommodate whatever the Fury mechanic ends up doing.

 

Edited December 21 by tidge
added a not

[Seed22]

15 hours ago, Enamel_32 said:

 

That's an interesting thread to pull on. I think a damage-adjacent debuff like -Max HP has potential, but maybe that's too strong for a PBAoE.

 

 

But then my thoughts wandered to making fury provide more reliable damage. What if fury provided a smaller damage bonus, but let you bypass a portion of enemy resistances? You'd keep most of the status quo for the other melee ATs, and brutes would occupy a "hard target specialist" niche where they'd be uniquely equipped to beat up big beefy baddies. Like minotaurs, for example.

Stalkers already fill that niche. Thats their entire thing, beating up hard targets.

[Snarky]

On 12/19/2024 at 9:24 AM, LightMaster said:

The Brute Archetype. The “middle child” of Scrapper and Tanker ever since CoH and CoV becoming one game, and the one who orient around the Fury mechanic.

 

In theory, it is meant to hit harder than Tankers and tankier than Scrappers, but in practice, it can be seen as a master of none. Not helping is that as of 2024, Tankers have an even more admirable AoE DPS compared to Scrappers and Stalkers thanks to their Gauntlet Inherent.

 

It is not like the Brute is underrepresented, as there are still a lot of players who do enjoy and make the most of Brtues, myself included. That being said, for harder contents like Incarnate Trials, I believe the Brute need something that allows it to stand out from the other Melee-oriented archetypes without stepping on their toes.

 

The Conundrum

As said before, the Brutes are seen as the middle ground of Scrappers and Tankers. However, other than the Fury Inherent, the Brute does not have anything that the other melee Archetypes cannot do better, including AoE Melee as the Tankers does a way better job nowadays.

 

Of course, the problem isn’t easy to solve.

• If Brute’s damage output is buffed, then they’ll end up overshadowing Scrappers.
• Obviously, they should not be tankier than Tankers. Alongside, increasing the power input of the Brute’s available melee AoE in power sets would only make it too similar to Tankers as the latter is still superior at tanking things.
• The Brute’s Epic Power Pools are a good addition to it, so they don’t need to receive major changes. If anything, the issue have to do with the Archetype itself, not the Epic Power Pools, so buffing these Epic Power Pools would not make it exciting for Brutes who got overshadowed by Tankers in mid-game contents and can be overkill for Brutes who are doing fine in lategame content.

 

Nothing said that Brutes are beyond repair without nerfing Tankers, because there is another villain-original melee Archetype that managed to stand out from it’s hero-original counterpart.

 

Scrapper vs Stalker, the Damage Scale and Fury Inherent

At a glance, the Stalker have less damage output compared to the Scrapper. However, not only the Stalker have access to Hide and Placate, which fits it’s lore and playstyle, but also their signature attack of Assassin’s Strike (or a variant depending on the Power Set), giving it a powerful single-target burst damage when in and even out of Hiding.

 

This allows Stalker to play similar to a Scrapper with less damage, but able to sneak around and take down important targets, then escape from one threat or even more.

 

The Brute can be seen as the villain-original counterpart of the Tanker, but it only managed to hit harder than Tankers due fo the Fury Inherent, not by inherently having higher melee damage scale.

 

With that said, the Ranged Damage Scale of Tankers have 0.800 despite having little to no ranged attacks from their Secondary Power Sets. The Brute isn’t far behind with a 0.750 damage scale, but they themselves have little to no ranged attacks on their Primary Power Sets.

 

Another interesting fact is that the Brute’s Fury Inherent doesn’t just boost their melee output, it also increase their ranged damage output. This means the Brute is able to deal a deceptively high ranged melee if allowed to, which is why it is able to deal high damage on ranged Prestige Attacks like Nemesis Staff and Blackwand once it’s Fury is high enough.
 

But if Fury alone doesn’t make Brute enticing enough to be a tanky offensive melee attacker, then maybe allow the Brute to take advantage on the Fury Inherent than just “stay in the fights to deal more damage”.

 

The Solutions

Here are the following solutions that intend to take advantage of the Fury Inherent in order to help the Brute stand out without strictly overshadowing the other Melee-oriented archetypes. One or more may be implemented.

 

• Allow Fury Inherent to have To-Hit / Accuracy bonus: This one is straightforward but allows Brute players to worry less about putting Accuracy and To-Hit Buff Enhancements as the Fury also boosts the To-Hit chance by up to a whopping 50% (maybe lower) as long as they keep fighting.
• Replace a generic Taunt by a powerful coned / targeted AoE Ranged Attack with Taunting effect, but costs some Fury: Given that Scrappers have Confront while Stalkers have Placate, the Brutes could have a whole new ranged attack that can be used to both deliver high damage and provoke enemies, but can only be performed if the Brute’s Fury is 80 of higher, and cost some Fury at that. This not only allows Brute give a distinct niche of having an occasional ranged attacks, but also allows them to provide a powerful burst ranged damage that neither the Scrapper, the Stalker and the Tanker could achieve easily. This devastating attack is called an Outrage Attack.
  • Ice Melee Example: Frost Wave which is like Energy Torrent but with Ice FX. Hits all foes that were ahead of the targeted foe for a Superior Cold/Smashing burst damage.
• Replace PBAoE melee and disruptive powers by Ranged Powers Equivalent (or close proximity): Given that Tankers are far better at melee-ranged crowd control than Brutes nowadays, it’s only natural that the Brute may prefer to hit some fleeing saps to take advantage of the Fury Inherent and to keep it’s Fury from draining when chasing a fleeing foe. This will also allow Brute to be mixed akin to Blasters and Dominators, albeit to a lesser extent, and can even take even more advantage of Power Pools and Epic Power Pools that has ranged damage more than before by having additional ranged tools in their Primary Power.
  • Ice Melee Example: Ice Patch is replaced by Frost Breath for Brutes. Meanwhile, Frozen Aura is replaced by Glacial Fist, which launches a Bitter Ice Blast as the Brute punches the air and deals Extreme Cold/Smashing DMG.

 

Anyone else have a suggestion how to make the Brute able to stand on their own?

Do you know NOTHING about CoV history.  
 

I started on Brutes.  I have Brutes.  I… used to… love Brutes.  
 

just…walk away.   Anytime the Brutes AT is “adjusted” it comes with a giant nerf hammer.  Sometimes a conciliatory lollipop is shoved in a random orifice on the way out of the Devs office.