I am done with Brutes

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Erratic1 said:

Not sure if that involves building differently on the Brute or it emerges from how those doing so build as a group.

I think it’s just that eight people cycling Barrier make armor almost completely unnecessary.

[aethereal]

Just now, Erratic1 said:

The hard mode people I am aware of tend to think as you do from what I have seen. Not sure if that involves building differently on the Brute or it emerges from how those doing so build as a group.

 

My understanding is that basically the DPS check of Hard Mode is in fact high enough that people do want characters to each bring a lot of DPS, and that because of team buffs including rolling Barriers and the bonuses that HM enemies get, the difference between the mitigation of "an indifferently slotted armored class" and a "go for broke maximum mitigation armored class" is de facto very small.

 

But this is all hearsay, I may be missing nuances.

[Maelwys]

16 hours ago, Sancerre said:

the discussion around brute's usefulness is foundationally biased here with regards to brute vs scrapper -- all this chatter about scrapper doing more damage than brute so why bring a brute?  flip the script.  if a scrapper did less damage than brute, why bring a scrapper?  there are four (4) melee ATs here all competing for validation (yes stalkers exist too, not that anyone here seems to care). 

 

in a world where you are chasing META -- if one is 'better' then the other is 'worse'.  period. 

A lot of the time the groupthink boils down to "Scrappers should be STRONGEST, Tankers should be PRETTIEST, Brutes should be both STRONG and PRETTY."

Then at some point the thinker remembers about Stalkers and has to backpeddle a bit so that they can be the REAL strongest.
(Just maybe not against groups. Unless they're Primary X and Secondary Y. Or if it's a Tuesday...)

However in reality there aren't just two desirable and potentially opposing dimensions (personal survivability vs personal damage output) but lots of other things to consider.
Aggro control and debuff/buff capability; at a bare minimum. 

I think it's fair to say that each of the four Melee ATs should be capable of soloing at a reasonable pace; and each of them also ought to be a valuable addition to a team.
However YOU DO NOT NEED TO DEAL THE MOST DAMAGE OR BE THE MOST SURVIVABLE IN ORDER TO BE A VALUABLE ADDITION TO A TEAM.
Defenders are a prime example of this. They do not personally deal the most damage or take the most hits - but they act as a force multiplier; allowing the team as a whole to deal far more damage and/or withstand far more hits.

IMO each of the four melee ATs should simply have something unique which makes them a potentially desirable recruit for someone putting a team together.

CoX is currently lacking a melee AT that acts as a force multiplier (other than very specific VEATs with double leadership auras...) so from what I can tell there is a bit of a gap in the market there (although I'm sure it's not the only one!) which is why I said this:

  

On 7/19/2025 at 8:37 PM, Maelwys said:

I do however think (and have suggested previously) that in order to give Brutes a decent niche it might be a good idea to have their ATOs grant a noteworthy beneficial effect which extends (at least in part) as an AoE to nearby allies... let Tankers be lower-damage aggro magnets (just increase their aggro limit!), and Stalkers and Scrappers be the high-damage damage dealers (stealthy Single-Target and non stealthy All-Purpose), and Brutes can be the middle-men who aren't quite the best at anything but can still hold their own whilst buffing their teammates' damage and survivability a bit.

Altering the dynamic in this manner would allow for different team compositions whilst maintaining similar levels of performance.

As an example: On Four Star Content people tend to bring a Kinetic (for +Damage) and a Tanker (for Aggro Control) whilst spamming endless Barriers. But if Brutes were capable of inflicting a sizable amount of -res debuffs or granting a sizable amount of +damage buffs then a similar level of performance could potentially be achievable by taking that Brute instead of the Tanker and swapping the Kin for a different buff powerset (like Thermal or Marine).
Team variety increases. More characters become "desirable". Merriment ensues.
 

Edited 20 hours ago by Maelwys

[Wavicle]

I just want to throw out there that I think it’s just about completely impossible that the class with the best combination of survivability and damage in the game is also going to be given team buffs.

[Maelwys]

13 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

I just want to throw out there that I think it’s just about completely impossible that the class with the best combination of survivability and damage in the game is also going to be given team buffs.

Masterminds? They already have 'em.

[HowlingBlade]

Forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't using something like Dark for the -toHit, or Rad for -Defense, or Ice Melee for the Ice Patch shenanigans be considering "bringing utility" to the table? Sure, none of them are inherently direct buffs, per se, but all of them are going to help make things "easier" by providing a backend gain? Or, because of the Incarnate system, IO system and ATO system those bonuses are made defunct and irrelevant?

 

Sure, none of the above really bring the best to the table in terms of damage, but they seem to be offering more than just "punch X target to dea...I mean arrested".

[tidge]

Similar to what @Maelwys is talking about, in my own alternate world I'd have the Fury mechanic generate an AoE debuff... that way teammates wouldn't have to be close to the Brutes to benefit. This alternate class would have to have a revisit of balance (for damage... because debuffs don't translate to damage, for aggro, for PToD) but it would be a melee class that does something different.

[Ringo]

19 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

.

Edit:  Nevermind.  This is not a discussion I want to participate in

Edited 14 hours ago by Ringo
Reality

[Sancerre]

6 hours ago, Maelwys said:

A lot of the time the groupthink boils down to "Scrappers should be STRONGEST, Tankers should be PRETTIEST, Brutes should be both STRONG and PRETTY."

Then at some point the thinker remembers about Stalkers and has to backpeddle a bit so that they can be the REAL strongest.
(Just maybe not against groups. Unless they're Primary X and Secondary Y. Or if it's a Tuesday...)

However in reality there aren't just two desirable and potentially opposing dimensions (personal survivability vs personal damage output) but lots of other things to consider.
Aggro control and debuff/buff capability; at a bare minimum. 

I think it's fair to say that each of the four Melee ATs should be capable of soloing at a reasonable pace; and each of them also ought to be a valuable addition to a team.
However YOU DO NOT NEED TO DEAL THE MOST DAMAGE OR BE THE MOST SURVIVABLE IN ORDER TO BE A VALUABLE ADDITION TO A TEAM.
Defenders are a prime example of this. They do not personally deal the most damage or take the most hits - but they act as a force multiplier; allowing the team as a whole to deal far more damage and/or withstand far more hits.

IMO each of the four melee ATs should simply have something unique which makes them a potentially desirable recruit for someone putting a team together.

CoX is currently lacking a melee AT that acts as a force multiplier (other than very specific VEATs with double leadership auras...) so from what I can tell there is a bit of a gap in the market there (although I'm sure it's not the only one!) which is why I said this:

  

Altering the dynamic in this manner would allow for different team compositions whilst maintaining similar levels of performance.

As an example: On Four Star Content people tend to bring a Kinetic (for +Damage) and a Tanker (for Aggro Control) whilst spamming endless Barriers. But if Brutes were capable of inflicting a sizable amount of -res debuffs or granting a sizable amount of +damage buffs then a similar level of performance could potentially be achievable by taking that Brute instead of the Tanker and swapping the Kin for a different buff powerset (like Thermal or Marine).
Team variety increases. More characters become "desirable". Merriment ensues.
 

 

i would personally just take game balance in a different direction.  you are looking for ways to push (effective) brute damage higher through party amplification -- the more fundamental problem here is that scrapper resilience levels are already sufficient when team buffs are applied.  double HP and bumping resistance caps from 75% to 90% makes a huge difference numbers wise but also is completely unnecessary in most situations.  defense is entirely too powerful.  Brutes and Tankers need to be markedly be more resilient in a way that actually matters.  why are resistance soft caps bumped but not defense soft caps? -- or really why does a random frail blaster get to achieve the same level of dodging capabilities as the super hulk mega tank... being colorful there for fun.  choosing to pick the tanky class should have more impact than being a punchvoke bot.

 

also to address the other point of party scaling -- there have been vocal folks in this thread that are unsatisfied with brute SOLO performance, much less a team environment.  cant please everyone anyways.........

 

the point of my post anyways is pretty close to what you were getting at -- if you want to homogenize everything down to the PURE roles and only bring the absolute necessities with the highest value (chasing the META), these roles that are 'somewhere in the middle' like brute and sentinel do not serve a purpose.. and you could argue defender as well (because general opinion right now is that corruptors are 'superior').  when chasing the META, the conversation will flip instantly when game balance shifts even 1%.  This design 'imbalance' can NEVER BE SOLVED.  Someone is going to be the 'loser' even if that 'loser' is only 1% worse.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Ringo said:

Edit:  Nevermind.  This is not a discussion I want to participate in

 

You do know you can fully delete (well, hide) a post via the drop down on the upper right side of a post (assuming of course you're not just being performative)?

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, Sancerre said:

also to address the other point of party scaling -- there have been vocal folks in this thread that are unsatisfied with brute SOLO performance, much less a team environment.  cant please everyone anyways.........

 

Who?

[Sancerre]

21 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

No, I am not. That has been the question. There is quite literally a thread in these, THE BRUTE FORUM, asking the question: 

 

 

Stalkers do far close to Scrapper damage than Brutes do and have better survivability options than Scrapper too.

 

 

Unless you've read all my posts, perhaps less speculation on what I have done and what I have not done is in order?

 

Actually your whining in this thread started in regards to others posts noting the difference between Brute and Scrapper damage. Morever, someone who tosses out the line about some spreadsheet jockeys and goes with it should not be talking about anyone doing work.

 

Something which (a) every Tanker in these, the Brute forum, insisted would be both a return to Brute Uber Alles and make Tankers utterly unplayable, and (b) could arguably be said to come about because nothing was done to boost Brute so--going by your logic--something had to be done about Tankers.

 

Oh, and I will note, my first 50 post the previous patch was a Tanker. So I think I can say something about how things actually turned out in reality. 

 

 

 

why bring brute ever to what? i cant remember the last time anybody rejected anything i played on account of the AT i was playing.  Hell, you often just whisper 'plz invite' and the party leader doesnt even know what they are inviting until you are on the same map.  where is this misguided energy of constant brute rejection coming from?  but if you do want to carve out the role that brutes are best at... brutes are 100% the winner at farms.  not particularly pinnacle content but you get rewarded handsomely all the same.

 

where do you imagine stalkers have better survivability options that scrapper?  the defense/resistance values are generically the same and they have lower base/max HP.  depending on the armor set, stalkers needing to have hide inserted into their tree can be a serious active detriment (replacing a critical skill), other times it can be a benefit (when it replaces an outright skip power) but hide isnt even that good.  the point of the comment is that......... going by the seemingly suggested formula of more durability = less damage, more damage = less durability... then stalkers should reign supreme on the damage scale because they are the least durable of the 4.  yet somehow you are suggesting that stalkers are more durable than scrappers.... i can only imagine in bad faith but you can go ahead and provide some looney toons explanation on this one.  i can look forward to a sensible chuckle.

 

regarding tanker aoe damage -- i certainly understand you dont want/need to justify yourself in every single topic to every random forum-goer with the latest spreadsheet backing up your statements.  that said, i have seen empirical evidence from others contradicting your statements about brute vs tanker damage after the tanker nerfs.  but i guess i should believe you over others?  i view you as uninformed with the recent updates on this topic, but we can agree to disagree here if your ego is getting in the way.

 

i actually dont understand what you are trying to get at regarding my 'whining'.  sure sure -- i didnt do any of the 'work' like the spreadsheet jockeys have.  we can go in circles here about opinions being worthless.  we invalidate each other!  i wonder why you even bothered replying to someone pointless like me in that regard.

 

i dont understand your assessment of Ston's research.  again -- brutes fit snuggly in between scrappers and tankers at that time.  now tankers have been nerfed, so brutes are RELATIVELY CLOSER to scrappers damage wise than they are to tankers (because tankers have drifted further away).  that should be a good thing for your stance?  are we agreeing here?  a lot of your argumentation is around relative power levels.  tankers get nerfed so that makes brutes relatively stronger, but you dont view it that way because brutes were not buffed directly.  convenient.

[Sancerre]

52 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Who?

 

you want people to talk with you, i get it.  hello friend.  go ahead and provide your dissertation that AKTHUALLY you never cared about brute solo performance.

[Maelwys]

37 minutes ago, Sancerre said:

you are looking for ways to push (effective) brute damage higher through party amplification -- the more fundamental problem here is that scrapper resilience levels are already sufficient when team buffs are applied.  

 

I am not, and it isn't.

 

I am looking for a way to ensure that a Brute, a Tanker, a Scrapper and a Stalker can each provide something beneficial to the team that is sufficiently different that each of those ATs ends up filling a separate worthwhile niche and being attractive as a team member (albeit perhaps more attractive for specific content or team compositions).

 

Brutes' current placing of being "slightly more survivable and dealing significantly less damage than a Scrapper" is unfortunately simply not a worthwhile niche. They therefore are not currently chosen for what the AT can mechanically bring to the team, but because of other factors (such as being friends with the person playing them, or there are no Tankers/Scrappers available, or the difficulty level of the content is so trivial that team composition simply doesn't matter).

With the recent Tanker AoE damage nerfs, Brutes lot has improved slightly, but in most content they will still mechanically pale in performance compared to a Scrapper with a Taunt Aura (and Confront, for facing AVs) and for 4* content a Tanker's larger buff caps and MaxHP pool will win out - because the melee AT's native defensive powerset buffs are irrelevant since with alternating Barrier spam your toggles might as well be switched off.

 

There is certainly a valid argument that teams nowadays steamroll through missions so quickly that the differences in Melee AT offensive and defensive performance become largely irrelevant. And if all you need is someone to take the Alpha and occasionally taunt AVs then you might as well just bring a /Devices Blaster or Illusion/ Controller or Arsenal/ Dominator or whatever. But I do firmly believe that getting each of the melee ATs to a point where they can each be seen as attractive to a team in different ways would be a good design goal. And the fact that a well built and intelligently piloted Scrapper can survive most content in the game is IMO not a bug... because the same applies for a well built and intelligently piloted Blaster (and often an unintelligently piloted and/or soundly inebriated one!!) especially when teammate buffs are applied - heck, even back before IOs and crashless nukes and sustains a single Empath plus a Blaster could tackle most things in the game... 

 

 

[Erratic1]

39 minutes ago, Sancerre said:

 

you want people to talk with you, i get it.  hello friend.  go ahead and provide your dissertation that AKTHUALLY you never cared about brute solo performance.

 

If you cannot back up your claim by giving names and pointing to posts, then just say you were making things up.

[Maelwys]

27 minutes ago, Sancerre said:

brutes are 100% the winner at farms.  not particularly pinnacle content but you get rewarded handsomely all the same.

 

where do you imagine stalkers have better survivability options that scrapper?  

 

Also, just to address these ones:

 

(i) Brutes currently win at Passive (AFK) farming. But for Active Farming (where you are present behind the wheel to combine inspirations and press buttons) speedwise they are not even in the top three... unless you're intentionally limiting yourself to the traditional four melee ATs only (and even there Scrappers still beat them into the ground) because survivability simply isn't a major issue when you can customise your enemy type and trigger inspirations and click buttons.

 

(ii) Stalkers have two major advantages over Scrappers when it comes to survivability. Firstly, Hide - this not only allows them to get off a heavy opening hit without immediate retaliation, but it increases their Defense by a non negligible amount making it easier to reach the softcap. Secondly, Placate - since the rework in i27pg3 this has very much become worth taking for both offensive and defensive purposes.

Now personally I think that Scrapper's higher base HP and HP cap probably make up for at least some of that. And you're correct in that those powers come with an opportunity cost since Stalkers lose access to some other abilities. But to my mind the biggest performance difference between Stalkers and Scrappers comes from the availability of Taunt Auras in the latter.

[Wavicle]

43 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

Brutes' current placing of being "slightly more survivable and dealing significantly less damage than a Scrapper" is unfortunately simply not a worthwhile niche.

This claim is no less unsupported after being reiterated many times than it was the first time.

 

 It might be true, but it needs real support, not just constant repetition.

[ThatGuyCDude]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

Similar to what @Maelwys is talking about, in my own alternate world I'd have the Fury mechanic generate an AoE debuff... that way teammates wouldn't have to be close to the Brutes to benefit. This alternate class would have to have a revisit of balance (for damage... because debuffs don't translate to damage, for aggro, for PToD) but it would be a melee class that does something different.

I've been dwelling on this kind of approach too recently.  Given Tanks are currently under revision, I went down memory lane about possible Brute niches.  My suggestion last year was an activation power for Brutes that would hold a group of enemies, building on the notion that control is a form of damage mitigation that doubles as threat management for the entire party, and playing off Dark Armor's existing terrorize mitigation design.  Having slept on that idea for a year, it's clear a click isn't the solution, but a Fury-based debuff could be.

Anything but a hold won't make a difference, though, because of the Interface Incarnate Slot.  A Brute applying -toHit penalties with their primaries won't be any different than somebody else doing it with all of their powers anyway.  Perhaps instead a toggle that--when on--gives all Brute attacks a chance to apply a hold, with probability based on how much fury the bar has.  Holds slow fury gain [lack of 'being attacked' generation], but if the bar is closer to full that's less of a problem.  Also, being a toggle, you always have the option to turn it off if the control portion of the party has it covered (or in situations where you don't WANT the enemy to be held, like when you're leading them to a vantage point).

...Call it "Paralyzing Fury" or something.  I dunno... workshop it.  Under the hood it'd have to be a bunch of separate Mag 1 hold abilities separated by tier so they could stack; that's not a problem though because then the trigger rate by Fury percentage could be adjusted for recharge time.

Edited 10 hours ago by ThatGuyCDude
Missing punctuation

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

I am looking for a way to ensure that a Brute, a Tanker, a Scrapper and a Stalker can each provide something beneficial to the team that is sufficiently different that each of those ATs ends up filling a separate worthwhile niche

 

There has not been a real case made, just unsupported claims, to say that all four need SEPARATE roles, and that the currently OVERLAPPING roles are not just fine.

The claim has been made, but I have never seen any real support for it.

[Wavicle]

Maybe it's people who are used to WoW and other similar games, where roles are almost totally separate? That's not how this game has EVER worked.

[Neiska]

Personally, if it was up to me, I would separate tanks and brutes like this -

 

Make tanks the solid, consistent, steadfast and reliable option. Pretty much how they perform now.

 

And make Brutes the high risk/high reward tank/threat. Increase their damage more than what it is now, but with that, also make them take more damage once it gets beyond a certain point. They would need some kind of tool to mediate/control that. Sort of like rage up to 60% is fine, but beyond that and they start getting -res penalties or something of that nature. With a "rage dump" power that would reset it to zero and let them build it back up again. That way, some builds could stay at max rage if they wanted to but would also take more damage in the process. And those that wanted to avoid that in certain situations could "dump" early before that point.

 

It might not even need to be just DAMAGE either, maybe a modifier to melee effects would work too. Like a stronger -tohit debuff from dark melee, maybe a bigger dot from savage and spines, a more powerful slow from ice, so on. Maybe if all of the brutes additional effects were stronger when raged at a certain point could also work. That way people could build more around these special effects, instead of just damage set of choice and survivability of choice. There could possibly be some real synergetic builds if brutes were turned into a quasi-debuff tanker kind of class.

 

Ergo - make brutes the riskier, but damaging and aggressive tanker. Want to hold threat and do more damage? Sure. But you are going to risk yourself by "pushing the envelope." I'm not sure if something like this is even feasible with all the different combat mechanics in play. I also imagine such a thing would be a pain to create, especially with the current dev team. The damage boost would have to be worth the penalty though, and that's where it gets tricky to balance out.

 

Honestly this suggestion is more just me musing. But if we had a magic wand that could make anything possible, I think something like this for brutes could be worthwhile. You could even make the penalty be different things for different sets - some might have a -res penalty, or a -def penalty, so on. Maybe even an increasing -max hp debuff or something like that. Even a penalty to debuffs or CC might work too. Something to further differentiate the sets on brutes, more than "x sets good on tankers, x sets good on brutes." And this would give an entirely new form of gameplay that many might find engaging. Being the tank can sometimes be a chore or boring. At least this way people who prefer more interactive play but want to tank have it.

 

But if people wanted something that set "brutes apart" then I think something like this might do it. Sort of like the old Barbarian tabletop where they could rage and do more damage but got armor class penalties when they did so.

 

I make no claims that this would be fair or even balanced. And I expect such a system for brutes would require a lot if big brains to compare notes and math on. But at least it would be "something" that would definately set brutes apart from the rest - Tankers would still be the most durable, scrappers would have crits, stalkers still have all their tricks, and brutes would have the increasing damage (or effect)/penalty feature.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Wavicle said:

This claim is no less unsupported after being reiterated many times than it was the first time.

 

 It might be true, but it needs real support, not just constant repetition.

🙄

 

Hit Points - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki

 

Brutes have, at base, 1.4/1.25 = 12% more hp than a Scrapper. Powers and buffs (TFC, IO set bonuses) which increase health provide the Brute 12% more hp than the Brute. So if a Scrapper achieves 1600 hp, a similarly built Brute would have 1792 hp.

 

Hence with Regeneration, the gap is 12%

 

Defense caps for everyone are effectively the same--you reach a point where only 5% of hits land. So with Defense based armors, the gap is 12%.

 

Brutes get higher resistance caps than Scrappers, which is why you see fewer Scrapper players running pure Resistance armors than Brutes, but they do exist (in which case arguably the survivability is a bit bigger, at least when merely considering incoming damage vs mitigation. What this means however is the Scrapper would have to heal more often. So long as the Scrapper can do so, they will survive, though the breaking point between Brute and Scrapper would greater than the above 12%.

 

 

Does that work for you, or are you looking for a pillar of fire etching words into stone?

 

[Erratic1]

55 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Maybe it's people who are used to WoW and other similar games, where roles are almost totally separate? That's not how this game has EVER worked.

 

Yeah, nobody in this game has EVER asked for someone to join their party provide buffs and healing. Absolutely never occurred.

[Wavicle]

3 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

🙄

 

Hit Points - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki

 

Brutes have, at base, 1.4/1.25 = 12% more hp than a Scrapper. Powers and buffs (TFC, IO set bonuses) which increase health provide the Brute 12% more hp than the Brute. So if a Scrapper achieves 1600 hp, a similarly built Brute would have 1792 hp.

 

Hence with Regeneration, the gap is 12%

 

Defense caps for everyone are effectively the same--you reach a point where only 5% of hits land. So with Defense based armors, the gap is 12%.

 

Brutes get higher resistance caps than Scrappers, which is why you see fewer Scrapper players running pure Resistance armors than Brutes, but they do exist (in which case arguably the survivability is a bit bigger, at least when merely considering incoming damage vs mitigation. What this means however is the Scrapper would have to heal more often. So long as the Scrapper can do so, they will survive, though the breaking point between Brute and Scrapper would greater than the above 12%.

 

 

Does that work for you, or are you looking for a pillar of fire etching words into stone?

 

The claim was regarding whether the niche is worthwhile, not what the niche is. We all agree what the niche is. Simply spelling it out for me, because you still think for some reason I don't know it, does nothing to support the CLAIM that the niche is worthless.

Literally, nothing in this post addresses what I was saying.

[Wavicle]

3 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Yeah, nobody in this game has EVER asked for someone to join their party provide buffs and healing. Absolutely never occurred.

 

Similarly, not at all what I was saying. Just a convenient strawman.

People do invite folks for buffs and healing, of course, but nobody really cares if the person they invite is a "dEdIcAtEd HEALZOR" or a DPS with some buffs. The game is not divided into discrete roles. There is tons of overlap, always has been and that's just fine. Why it's fine for support but apparently not fine for melee is unclear, still.