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 June 26 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.)

[SomeGuy]

On 6/27/2025 at 11:13 AM, aethereal said:

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

 

I don't have my tanker/brute builds proc bombed and tankers are still darn close in ST DPS to brutes. 

[Paragon Vanguard]

Believe me, tankers are not on the good end of any of this. I play both, and I would not delete any of my brutes yet! I love both, and I do not see where brutes are less than tanks. Different, I do agree, but not less. Much better now with the tank nerf. I would not suggest running to tanks. 

[tricon]

Well maybe theHC devs should take a balancing pass for the underperforming ATO sets. Brutes would be on the list but so are others like the Fiery Orb for Dominators is still something that I consider insulting.

 

No need to nerf Scappers/Stalkers ATO sets but the others should be brought up to the same lvl.

[tidge]

29 minutes ago, tricon said:

Well maybe theHC devs should take a balancing pass for the underperforming ATO sets. Brutes would be on the list but so are others like the Fiery Orb for Dominators is still something that I consider insulting.

 

No need to nerf Scappers/Stalkers ATO sets but the others should be brought up to the same lvl.

 

Scrappers only outperform Brutes on any of the forum-favored tests because of the Scrapper ATOs. Asking for a an improved Brute %proc ATO, to either make them sturdier than Tankers or do more damage than Scrappers is crazy talk. You may as well propose reworking Fury.

 

I don't disagree that the Brute %proc ATO are somewhat meh, but they aren't the only AT with mediocre %proc ATOs. There are several other types of enhancements that offer far worse options.

[tricon]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

Scrappers only outperform Brutes on any of the forum-favored tests because of the Scrapper ATOs. Asking for a an improved Brute %proc ATO, to either make them sturdier than Tankers or do more damage than Scrappers is crazy talk. You may as well propose reworking Fury.

 

I don't disagree that the Brute %proc ATO are somewhat meh, but they aren't the only AT with mediocre %proc ATOs. There are several other types of enhancements that offer far worse options.

Crazy talk, huh, did someone hurt your feelings today.....

 

If I look on one of the "favored" test like this one from Ston

 

 

 

I think there is room for improvement.......

 

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, tricon said:

Crazy talk, huh, did someone hurt your feelings today.....

 

If I look on one of the "favored" test like this one from Ston

 

 

 

I think there is room for improvement.......

 

It's even worse than that actually.

That's from Ston's old Trapdoor results thread.
Mission mobs scatter and Scrapper Willpower RTTC has a rubbish 1.25 base duration Taunt; so it's having to deal with runners. Stone even notes this in his disclaimer.

  

On 12/8/2022 at 4:53 PM, Ston said:

***Note***
- Willpower has the weakest taunt aura of any Scrapper set. This will cause Scrapper times to be lower than Bio/Rad/Shield relative to their Tanker/Brute counterparts.

 

That said; I agree with Tidge that "Asking for a an improved Brute %proc ATO, to either make them sturdier than Tankers or do more damage than Scrappers is crazy talk".

IMO we should in fact be asking for TWO improved Brute ATOs... one of which noticeably boosts survivability (but not quite as much as a Tanker SMoT Proc) and one of which noticeably boosts damage output (but not quite as much as a Scrapper SCS Proc). The idea here being for Brutes to remain a bit behind Scrappers in damage output, and a bit behind Tankers in survivability. At present whenever ATOs are considered Brutes are almost OK in terms of survivability; but noticeably sub-par in terms of damage output. So it's either that or nerf the Scrapper and Stalker ATOs... 🧯🔥 🚒
 

Edited Thursday at 02:01 PM by Maelwys

[BZRKR]

How about we change the 6th IO in Unrelenting Fury to something like Luck of the Gambler's global  Increased Recharge Speed:

Unrelenting Fury: Rech/ 8.75% Rech Time

Superior Unrelenting Fury: Rech/ 10% Rech Time

 

The IO is unique, so the most someone could stack it is to slot a regular and a superior one, +recharge would help attacks and defensive click powers, and it would be unique among the AT's Probably eye-wateringly overpowered too, but hey, while we're throwing spaghetti at the wall....

[tidge]

Ston's test results show more variability among primary/secondary than they do among ATs... so ATO %procs aren't going to address those discrepancies.

 

You've also got to look at the builds, content and attack chains Ston used... it isn't exactly just focused on primary/secondaries. IIRC if ATO had been removed from the Ston tests, Scrapper times would have gotten noticeably worse, Tanker times would not have changed, and Brutes probably would have gotten worse times, but by how much depends on "how bad/good" the Brute ATOs really are.

[Erratic1]

12 hours ago, Maelwys said:

hat said; I agree with Tidge that "Asking for a an improved Brute %proc ATO, to either make them sturdier than Tankers or do more damage than Scrappers is crazy talk".

 

Tidge's only concern is keeping Tankers number one by Tidge's standards. Not sure anyone has advocated making Brutes better tanks than Trankers but you can rely on Tidge to object to any and all Brute changes because it might cast the game back into the old days of Tankers being whipped by devils, uphill both ways in the snow.

 

Brutes not strughling as hard to reach still inferior survivability is not going to supplant Tankers.

Edited Friday at 02:10 AM by Erratic1

[Troo]

Scrapper>Brute>Tanker & Tanker>Brute>Scrapper are not as neat and tiddy as some may like. Toss in Stalkers, VEATs, and HEATs and it gets messier for melee characters.

 

Who should be doing the most damage is very situational and also target dependent.

 

Tanks and Scrapper could excel on teams as they can focus on what they do best. Brutes could be better solo with a balance of survivability and damage output, but that is my opinion and an oversimplification that doesn't take into account player skill, primary & secondaries, build choices, team buffs, incarnates and a myriad of other factors.

 

[aethereal]

Scrapper's ATO2 is really bad design.  The fact that it doubles in effectiveness from normal to superior is weird.  The fact that it's, like, entirely responsible for Scrapper overperformance compared to Brutes and Stalkers -- that so much of Scrapper performance comes down to this one proc -- is weird.  The fact that it's so incredibly sensitive to having a power which has a decently long recharge time and little animation-time-after-effect is frankly kinda dumb.

 

I get that from the perspective of the build minigame and only that, it's fun to agonize over exactly which power should take this AT-defining proc in exactly what rotation, but for everyone who's not an all-in micro-optimizer of builds, this just makes wild annoying power swings.

 

The Superior ATO2 should be dropped to PPM 3 (as it has always claimed it is!) and probably dropped to like +35% crit chance and the Scrapper inherent and/or the ATO1 should get steady bonuses to their crit chance to smooth out Scrapper performance (and lower performance a bit for the best builds).

 

Also Stalker's chance-to-hide should have the lockdown period removed (and perhaps the PPM tweaked if that means too great a performance).

 

And Brutes should be given ATOs they can get a little excited about, even if they don't greatly change their performance profile.

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Tidge's only concern is keeping Tankers number one by Tidge's standards. Not sure anyone has advocated making Brutes better tanks than Trankers but you can rely on Tidge to object to any and all Brute changes because it might cast the game back into the old days of Tankers being whipped by devils, uphill both ways in the snow.

 

Brutes not strughling as hard to reach still inferior survivability is not going to supplant Tankers.

 

Blatant lies. Don't confuse my "there was no reason to change Scrappers/Brutes/Tankers" attitude with someone who thinks "haw haw, this AT should be best." Is this the only concern for Erratic1? Maybe, but I wouldn't attest it to her/him.

 

If I have an "only" concern its this: Choice of which AT players pick to play shouldn't result in typical content (read: a mission from a contact, like "defeat all") taking times to clear that vary by an order of magnitude.

 

I have this opinion: fretting about which of Scrapper/Brute/Tanker can "come out on top" in a sub 5-minute challenge to clear +4x8 Arachnos/Council with a level 50+ build is a pretty limited measuring stick, and when the results show those three ATs within seconds of each other there is no reason to boost or nerf any of those three... unless we are nerfing ALL of them down to something like non-changeling Kheldian performance levels (which I am not advocating). 

 

Edited Thursday at 05:32 PM by tidge
esplling

[tidge]

3 hours ago, Maelwys said:

That said; I agree with Tidge that "Asking for a an improved Brute %proc ATO, to either make them sturdier than Tankers or do more damage than Scrappers is crazy talk".

 

Thanks for actually reading what I wrote, and not assume that I've got some hidden agenda about keeping Brutes down via (of all things, an argument about an enhancement piece).

 

To be clear: Brutes aren't hurting for damage or resistance by all the commonly cited performance metrics... so asking for a change from Brute ATO %proc (Brute's Fury) proc to make them sturdier or dish more damage simply isn't needed for performance reasons. Related: asking for a nerf to the Scrapper ATOs so that Scrappers don't outperform Brutes seems to be simply  petty. It's not as if my search-fu has found a lot of people asking for the Brute's Fury %proc to be turned into %Energy Font.

 

I'm not oblivious that there is a limited design space where the Tanker's ATO (Might of the Tanker) makes it easier for Tankers to get to "even better" resistance levels (which may or may not be marginal in totality), when Tankers have an (obviously, because primaries are a thing) easier time boosting certain resistances without leveraging things like power pools and set bonuses... but there is no fungible reward for simply resisting damage. It is more complicated for Brutes to reach certain Tanker levels of resistance... for same armor chosen... but is that some sort of bias against Brutes? 

 

[Erratic1]

5 hours ago, tidge said:

Thanks for actually reading what I wrote...

 

12 hours ago, tidge said:

Scrappers only outperform Brutes on any of the forum-favored tests because of the Scrapper ATOs. Asking for a an improved Brute %proc ATO, to either make them sturdier than Tankers or do more damage than Scrappers is crazy talk. You may as well propose reworking Fury.

 

 

Maybe you should read what you actually wrote, since you are suggesting there is talk which is utterly lacking in evidence.

 

5 hours ago, tidge said:

Related: asking for a nerf to the Scrapper ATOs so that Scrappers don't outperform Brutes seems to be simply  petty.

 

Has anyone actually asked for such? 

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

Has anyone actually asked for such? 

 

8 hours ago, aethereal said:

Scrapper's ATO2 is really bad design.  The fact that it doubles in effectiveness from normal to superior is weird.  The fact that it's, like, entirely responsible for Scrapper overperformance compared to Brutes and Stalkers -- that so much of Scrapper performance comes down to this one proc -- is weird.  The fact that it's so incredibly sensitive to having a power which has a decently long recharge time and little animation-time-after-effect is frankly kinda dumb.

 

...

 

The Superior ATO2 should be dropped to PPM 3 (as it has always claimed it is!) and probably dropped to like +35% crit chance and the Scrapper inherent and/or the ATO1 should get steady bonuses to their crit chance to smooth out Scrapper performance (and lower performance a bit for the best builds).

 

Also Stalker's chance-to-hide should have the lockdown period removed (and perhaps the PPM tweaked if that means too great a performance).

 

And Brutes should be given ATOs they can get a little excited about, even if they don't greatly change their performance profile.

 

I want to point out that @aethereal correctly notes that the ATOs for Scrappers need to be put into an appropriate power and made part of an attack chain... so it's not like a Scrapper ATO being added to a build magically makes Scrappers 'better than' anybody else.

 

Among some of the suggestions I've seen for Brute ATO's is to give them something akin to the %+Res of the Tanker ATO... which would presumably be to make the Brutes sturdier.

 

I'm with everyone who thinks the Brute's Fury is lackluster (certainly for high-performing Brutes), but the game has got bigger enhancement balance issues than one middle-of-the-pack ATO.

[aethereal]

6 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

 

I want to point out that @aethereal correctly notes that the ATOs for Scrappers need to be put into an appropriate power and made part of an attack chain... so it's not like a Scrapper ATO being added to a build magically makes Scrappers 'better than' anybody else.

 

Among some of the suggestions I've seen for Brute ATO's is to give them something akin to the %+Res of the Tanker ATO... which would presumably be to make the Brutes sturdier.

 

I'm with everyone who thinks the Brute's Fury is lackluster (certainly for high-performing Brutes), but the game has got bigger enhancement balance issues than one middle-of-the-pack ATO.

 

Your gloss that I proposed "nerfing the Scrapper ATOs so that Scrappers don't outperform Brutes" is a misreading, however -- what I proposed was that the power budget of Scrappers be redistributed from the ATO2 into the ATO1 and the base inherent, primarily for reasons of intra-Scrapper-set balance.  Lower the ceiling on the very best Scrapper builds (which are extremely high DPS) in service of increasing the floor on most Scrapper builds.

 

To the extent that I do propose inter-AT balance changes, I'd actually suggest that it's Stalkers who suffer the most from high Scrapper DPS -- they really do have an AoE deficit compared to the other classes, and it's a little sad how much their ST DPS lags behind Scrappers.

Edited Friday at 01:47 AM by aethereal

[Erratic1]

8 hours ago, tidge said:

Blatant lies. Don't confuse my "there was no reason to change Scrappers/Brutes/Tankers" attitude with someone who thinks "haw haw, this AT should be best."

 

I apologize for mischaracterizing your position.