rework A Brutal Conundrum for Brutes + Solutions

[Seed22]

31 minutes ago, Snarky said:

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.  

I honestly think the AT still exists solely because it was around during live and deleting it would cause a mountain of issues both for the game and the community.

 

This very topic has been debated by some of, if not IMO, the best players in the game on CB. No solution could be reached. And being frank I don’t trust the lead powers devs with being okay with any drastic changes or even coming up with anything resembling a good change themselves so…

 

Kind of just…stuck. Which is a sad existence really but at least it exist?

[Snarky]

18 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

I honestly think the AT still exists solely because it was around during live and deleting it would cause a mountain of issues both for the game and the community.

 

This very topic has been debated by some of, if not IMO, the best players in the game on CB. No solution could be reached. And being frank I don’t trust the lead powers devs with being okay with any drastic changes or even coming up with anything resembling a good change themselves so…

 

Kind of just…stuck. Which is a sad existence really but at least it exist?

There is so much that bothers me about Brutes (now). I honestly know nothing good will happen. Maybe, maybe, they will at least adjust the ATO proc not to be a waste of an enhancement slot.  Probably not.  But it is my one little hope for the AT

Edited Saturday at 04:45 PM by Snarky

[FupDup]

Brutes are kinda weird because they sit in-between two other ATs (Scrapper, Tanker) rather than being a "pure" AT specialized into one job. And it's also kind of hard to go away from that because being a bruiser/offtank is a part of their identity, and it's a common archetype in games like these so it really should exist in some form (not everything needs to be a holy trinity specialist). 

 

For now I'd stick to some light to medium tune up changes rather than reinventing the wheel. Namely:

 

1. Increase the base armor modifiers and base HP to sit between Scrapper and Tanker more properly, rather than having equal armor mods to Scrappers and only a tiny bit higher starting HP. For armor, given that Scraps are 0.75 and Tanks are 1.0, I think that 0.85 is the highest we could go without stepping on Tankers' toes too much. For HP, Scrap starts at 1339, Brute is currently 1499, and Tank is 1874. Brute could probably nudge up to the mid-upper 1500's range. 

 

2. Fix the ATOs to ignore level difference, and probably just replace the +Fury ATO entirely (Smashing damage proc?) because of how easy Fury is to build/maintain. Or, maybe reduce the proc rate but make it give a really high value, so that we could actually push our Fury over the standard 80% cap once in a while. 

 

3. Tanks probably shouldn't have 95% of the melee damage of a Blaster, so we could nudge their melee modifier down to 0.9 (currently 0.95, Blasters are 1.0) to make the damage gap between Brute and Tank a little bit wider without crippling Tanks or making Brutes into upgraded Scrappers. 

 

Edited Saturday at 05:50 PM by FupDup

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Seed22 said:

This very topic has been debated by some of, if not IMO, the best players in the game on CB. No solution could be reached. And being frank I don’t trust the lead powers devs with being okay with any drastic changes or even coming up with anything resembling a good change themselves so…

 

Kind of just…stuck. Which is a sad existence really but at least it exist?

 

"Stay the course" definitely feels like the most likely path. As noted, there would be a loud (negative) reaction to pretty much ANY change except a blanket buff to Brutes. As much as I like the (current) Energy Melee changes, my initial reaction to those was closer to "Waaah, not what *I* wanted" than not... and I don't even think I was particularly vocal about the changes.

 

I can imagine that if new melee (and possibly armor) sets are introduced that the Brute variants would get something unique (relative to other ATs)... but even this sort of approach would inevitably lead to some comments along the lines of "Another nerf? Why can't Brutes just get what ____ got?"

 

1 minute ago, FupDup said:

Brutes are kinda weird because they sit in-between two other ATs (Scrapper, Tanker) rather than being a "pure" AT specialized into one job. And it's also kind of hard to go away from that because being a bruiser/offtank is a part of their identity, and it's a common archetype in games like these so it really should exist in some form (not everything needs to be a holy trinity specialist).

 

Even though nostalgia dominates player feels about the game, I'd like to believe that a majority of folks bitter about the Brutes' current place in the game will eventually channel those Brute feels into another AT (most likely Scrapper or Tanker, as noted above) that "does whatever, but better" in the player's mind. Then maybe a particularly strong-willed dev could rework the AT (without changing primaries/secondaries) into something folks can be excited about.

 

4 minutes ago, FupDup said:

3. Tanks probably shouldn't have 95% of the melee damage of a Blaster, so we could nudge their melee modifier down to 0.9 (currently 0.95, Blasters are 1.0) to make the damage gap between Brute and Tank a little bit wider without crippling Tanks or making Brutes into upgraded Scrappers.

 

Not really relevant to the Brute discussion... but as much as I love Blapping, if I wasn't already used to the damage scales being what they are I would think that the Blaster's melee is probably too high.. at least considering all the survivability tricks Blasters have access to. This is not me calling for a nerf to Blasters, the comment is made more from looking at the damage scales as they are and being able to rationalize just about any ratio between ATs... but I'm not sure any one rationalization would make sense when applied to a different pairing of ATs.

 

[FupDup]

4 minutes ago, tidge said:

Not really relevant to the Brute discussion... but as much as I love Blapping, if I wasn't already used to the damage scales being what they are I would think that the Blaster's melee is probably too high.. at least considering all the survivability tricks Blasters have access to. This is not me calling for a nerf to Blasters, the comment is made more from looking at the damage scales as they are and being able to rationalize just about any ratio between ATs... but I'm not sure any one rationalization would make sense when applied to a different pairing of ATs.

 

Blasters having a high melee scale is appropriate because they're an AT that is supposed to be the glassiest of glass cannons. The only issue here is that there are several ways to undermine the "glass" part of that equation while keeping all the "cannon." 

 

Tanks on the other hand are the beefiest thing in the game, so it's kind of silly for the biggest slab of beef to reach similar melee damage as the bleeding edge glass cannon class. 

[Jacke]

I know that Brutes were designed to be the Redside Scrappers.  While Masterminds were supposed to be the Redside Tankers.  But....

 

Brutes were the only Redside AT given Taunt.  If Masterminds were supposed to Tank, why didn't they get Taunt?  Even just a ST Taunt?  MMs can only taunt by flinging their Henchmen at mobs.  And worse looking like easy meat.  Guess if a MM wants to taunt, there's always the Presence Pool (a Pool in a bad shape).

 

I think that was flawed from the start.  It's also a long time ago.  We have to look at the game as it is played now, changing it from that perspective.

 

I like all the ATs, though I'm very weak on some I've not played that much.  Brutes need some love.  For one, I'd give them higher Base Protection Values, Resists and Defenses, than Scrappers.  Beyond that, not sure.

 

 

[Rudra]

9 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Brutes were the only Redside AT given Taunt.  If Masterminds were supposed to Tank, why didn't they get Taunt?  Even just a ST Taunt? 

Because MMs were never the red side tanks. Just like Brutes were not the red side Scrappers. And your own comment shows that MMs were never meant as a tanking class. However, that is still a tangential discussion to the thread.

[Shin Magmus]

6 hours ago, Snarky said:

There is so much that bothers me about Brutes (now). I honestly know nothing good will happen. Maybe, maybe, they will at least adjust the ATO proc not to be a waste of an enhancement slot.  Probably not.  But it is my one little hope for the AT

     Maybe if I keep bringing it up someone will eventually care enough to make one of the Brute ATOs not be a literal waste of a slot, when Scrapper and Stalker ATOs are uniformly excellent and Best-In-Slot build-centralizing effects.

[tidge]

9 hours ago, FupDup said:

Blasters having a high melee scale is appropriate because they're an AT that is supposed to be the glassiest of glass cannons. The only issue here is that there are several ways to undermine the "glass" part of that equation while keeping all the "cannon."

 

Ah, the old melee cannon! Sentinels have an even higher scale for melee than Blasters do. Like I wrote, I think the rationalization falls apart when looking at other pairs of ATs.

[FupDup]

11 hours ago, tidge said:

 

Ah, the old melee cannon! Sentinels have an even higher scale for melee than Blasters do. Like I wrote, I think the rationalization falls apart when looking at other pairs of ATs.

Sents have a much smaller variety of melee powers to choose from and have to wait until epic pools to get them, so Blasters still (rightfully) pull out ahead of them in that aspect. Then there's Defiance, damage caps, weaker sniper replacement powers (where applicable), AOE target caps...The rationalization still holds up in that example. 

Edited 11 hours ago by FupDup

[tidge]

20 minutes ago, FupDup said:

Sents have a much smaller variety of melee powers to choose from and have to wait until epic pools to get them, so Blasters still (rightfully) pull out ahead of them in that aspect. Then there's Defiance, damage caps, weaker sniper replacement powers (where applicable), AOE target caps...The rationalization still holds up in that example. 

 

So keep going and apply that rationalization to the Tanker's Ranged Damage Scale. Once you have to reach into "but Epic pools" I think this is a VERY shaky argument.

[Auroxis]

I said this would happen before the Tanker buffs were implemented, but that's all in the past now. IMO any change to Brutes cannot simply be an indirect buff to damage, it has to add an identity which other AT's do not already possess, and/or build further on what advantage a Brute already has (early game, newbie friendly).

 

My suggestion is to add three Fury toggles:

 

1. Brutal Fury (Same as before, also passively on by default): Up to +200% damage

 

2. Efficient Fury (The new "early game" Fury, obtained at level 10): Up to +150% damage, +20% Accuracy, +20% Endurance Discount

 

3. Inspired Fury (The new "late game" Fury, obtained at level 30): Up to +100% damage, chance to proc damage on an enemy within melee range when it's attacked (like Shifting Tides with slightly less radius)

 

Edited 9 hours ago by Auroxis