I am done with Brutes

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, Gobbledigook said:

They certainly won't be now.

 

Check the Tanker forums where the claim is now that Brutes should have been improved. You'll find some of the same people who said Brutes were fine just months ago.

[Gobbledigook]

Just now, Erratic1 said:

 

Check the Tanker forums where the claim is now that Brutes should have been improved. You'll find some of the same people who said Brutes were fine just months ago.

They were mostly fine and still are. A decent ATO would have been good as many agreed, even me. Tweaks were mentioned but Brutes tended to want the old glory days back.

 

Don't get me wrong the Tanker buff was OTT and should have been tweaked but not like this. Two wrongs aren't making a right here. They got it wrong before and they got it wrong yet again.

 

Brute players should have been more constructive and vocal about Brute improvements, which still sit in an awkward position,(i'd still pick a Scrapper/Stalker), and less damning of another AT which had vastly improved and become actual fun. 

 

[Wavicle]

I agree the ATO should be improved, but the class as a whole is fine.

[SomeGuy]

On 6/24/2025 at 8:32 PM, Wavicle said:

Brutes are in the right place now that tankers got nerfed, slightly tougher than scrappers, not as tough as tankers, slightly more damage than tankers, not as much as scrappers. Exactly where they should be.

 

Curious. By what metric are you justifying this by? I am just seeing people sharing their anecdotal opinions and not gathering any data for themselves. I literally only noticed brutes doing roughly 16% more ST DPS TODAY. That is single target. Tankers still do noticeably better AOE. This isn't even talking about the base AND max HP difference of the two. And the fact tankers have noticeably higher resistance/defense out of the box.

 

Brutes needed love back in 2011. It's 2025 now. The AT was OP and got toned down to far. Tankers stayed relatively the same up until recently then they got massively over tuned. Tankers definitely don't need to be back to what they were, especially considering that genie is now out of the bottle. Brutes need to be tweaked and made relevant again. 

 

I say this primarily as a scrapper player. Scrappers just straight up sprint away with DPS when compared to brutes. Brutes, imo, should do that when compared to tankers. This used to be the case. Certainly isn't now.

[Wavicle]

18 minutes ago, SomeGuy said:

 

Curious. By what metric are you justifying this by? I am just seeing people sharing their anecdotal opinions and not gathering any data for themselves. I literally only noticed brutes doing roughly 16% more ST DPS TODAY. That is single target. Tankers still do noticeably better AOE. This isn't even talking about the base AND max HP difference of the two. And the fact tankers have noticeably higher resistance/defense out of the box.

 

Brutes needed love back in 2011. It's 2025 now. The AT was OP and got toned down to far. Tankers stayed relatively the same up until recently then they got massively over tuned. Tankers definitely don't need to be back to what they were, especially considering that genie is now out of the bottle. Brutes need to be tweaked and made relevant again. 

 

I say this primarily as a scrapper player. Scrappers just straight up sprint away with DPS when compared to brutes. Brutes, imo, should do that when compared to tankers. This used to be the case. Certainly isn't now.

 

In normal content, a Brute will hit the same target harder than the Tanker. The Tanker does better in AoE, for a few attacks, and then the numbers come down and the Brute pulls ahead again.

 

Take into account also the levelling process and what level powers unlock. The Brute is doing FAR better offensively than the tanker until late in the game. I understand that many people play as if level 50 is all that matters, but that's not how game balance decisions are made.

 

In 2011 Brutes were INSANELY OP. They did NOT need love. They got toned down so that they were not better at offense than Scrappers. Tankers are not back to where they were. They are still far ahead of where they were before they got buffed.

Scrappers SHOULD do better DPS than Brutes, as they do. And Brutes SHOULD be tougher than Scrappers, as they are.

 

EDIT: I could see a slight Brute DEFENSIVE increase, but increasing their offense will push very quickly into Scrapper territory. There was a time when SCRAPPERS were the class people complained wasn't worth using (even though they were exactly as good then as they are now).

Edited yesterday at 05:28 AM by Wavicle

[Wavicle]

I mean, I guess the argument is that Brutes were nerfed too much in HC?

Maybe they were, but if so it's not by that much, because BEFORE they were OP compared to other ATs, just like Tankers were until now.

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, Wavicle said:

I mean, I guess the argument is that Brutes were nerfed too much in HC?

Maybe they were, but if so it's not by that much, because BEFORE they were OP compared to other ATs, just like Tankers were until now.

IIRC prior to the introduction of ATOs, Brutes were the top tier Melee AT.

They were able to deal more damage than a Scrapper (or at least very similar damage to them - there were a few edge cases depending on your powerset and whether you were fulcrum shifted or not) but with better mitigation and inherent taunt.
ATOs and the Stalker Crit mechanic revamp rocketed Scrappers and Stalkers ahead in terms of damage output.

Tanks were never really on the board at all for damage output until the revamp on HC. They were simply low damage aggro magnets and a Brute could almost equal them in terms of mitigation with sufficient investment and/or buffs.

Then i26p4 hit.

Tankers got their base damage buffed and their damage limit increased and their target caps increased and their cone arc size increased and their AoE radius increased and their buff modifiers increased and their power ordering tweaked to provide better AoE capability.
 

Quote

Tanker:

• Ranged damage modifier increased from 0.5 to 0.8, Melee damage modifier increased from 0.8 to 0.95,
  • Bruise has been removed in favour of a flat damage scale increase.
• Buff modifiers increased to match Controller values.
• Damage buff cap increased from 400% to 500%.

 

AoEs

• Most Tanker Melee AoE powers have had their target caps increased. 
  • Most cones now have a 10 target cap. 
  • Most PBAoEs now have a 16 target cap.
• Tanker now gets an inherent buff to the radius of AoE attacks and arc of cones.
  • +50% for AoEs.
  • +50% for cones.
  •  Some powers are unaffected by this buff. This is noted on the power description.

 

Power Acquisition Levels

To improve Tanker AoE capability during level up progression, the following powers had their acquisition levels changed:

• Battle Axe > Whirling Axe = 20, Swoop = 28
• Martial Arts > Dragon Tail = 20, Focus Chi = 28, Crippling Axe Kick = 35
• Stone Melee> Tremor = 28, Hurl Boulder = 35 
• War Mace > Whirling Mace = 20, Clobber = 28

Brutes got a slight reduction in their damage limit (nerf) and their ranged damage modifiers were increased (buff) and Fury generation was tweaked so it built up faster and didn't decay as quickly (buff).
 

Quote

Brute:

• Ranged and Melee damage modifiers are now equal at 0.75.
• Damage buff cap lowered from 775% to 700%.

Brute Fury Generation

• Hitting AVs no longer gives bonus Fury, but Fury generation for attacking has been increased in a variety of ways:
• Brute Fury generation now takes into account the cast time of the attack for successful hits.
  • Any attack slower than brawl will now generate bonus Fury if it lands a hit.
• Brutes now get bonus fury generation in teams - the larger the team, the larger the bonus.
• Fury now takes 10 seconds without attacking to start its accelerated decay, instead of 5 seconds.
• The goal of these changes is to improve Fury generation in teams when the Brute is not the only brute, or is in the company of another tanking AT.

Brute performance remained roughly the same (if Fulcrum Shifted they went from being slightly better than to slightly worse than a Scrapper, before ATOs)
Tanker performance went through the roof.

Overnight Tankers almost closed the gap on the other melee ATs in terms of Single Target damage; and began dominating in terms of AoE damage.
At least when you discount ATOs.

In practice, the Scrapper and Stalker ATOs are sufficiently powerful that those ATs were capable of remaining well ahead of Tankers (and Brutes!) for Single target damage... but for AoE damage things are very different. Because whilst a lot of ATO'ed-up Scrappers (and possibly an Elec/Shield Stalker) are capable of putting out very high big red numbers in their AoEs; without any inherent Taunt they find it more difficult to herd mobs up and cope with "runners". And whilst Brutes possess an inherent Taunt, they don't get anywhere the same level of damage boost from ATOs to ramp up their damage output. Tankers though now have inherent Taunt, decent base damage, larger AoE ranges and higher target caps. Mechanically-speaking there was no contest at all.
Whilst it's possible to build an AoE-focused Brute, it generally relies on leaning into things other than the offensive powerset. Epic Pool attacks (which have a 15ft radius and 16 target cap by default) and/or edge cases where Fury affects a specific Secondary Powerset ability (like Brimstone Procs and Burn ticks) but Crits and Gauntlet do not.

IMO Tankers needed their AoE damage output reduced because it was outright mechanically unbalanced (bigger target caps + larger coverage range + high base damage)
I believe that currently Brutes are only really let down by their utterly rubbish ATOs; which are especially pants compared to the Scrapper and Stalker high-performing ones.
If you took everyone's ATOs away then the four Melee ATs would actually be pretty well balanced now (barring a few extra minor tweaks to Tanker "overcap" values etc.)

[aethereal]

It is totally wild to me that Scrapper's Superior Critical Strikes proc continues to claim to be 3 PPM while actually being 4 PPM, and that adjusting it to 3 or 3.5 PPM doesn't seem to be on the table.  Clearly a strong way to reduce Scrapper overperformance for the most optimized builds while not affecting the average player very strongly.

 

@Maelwys's account of Tankers vs Brutes is pretty good, but I think you also really have to consider damage procs.  Procs are really strong!  A big chunk of Tanker overperformance came from:

 

1.  AoE procs in Tankers having higher proc rates than they "should've," due to area factor.

2.  Just the ability of Tankers to hit durability goals without searching for lots of +resist/+def bonuses in their attack slotting, so being able to put more procs in their attacks than scrappers/brutes were able to.  (This was maybe mitigated by Hard Mode.  It is underrated how weird Hard Mode is.)