I am done with Brutes

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

The post-graduate level of analysis to leverage a Scrapper ATO (plus, ya know, actually having and slotting the ATO) just to exceed performance of Brutes with pretty meh ATO is the best reason to touch neither the Scrapper nor the Brute ATOs.

 

This is one of the few aspects of the game where applied knowledge of basic math really pays off.  

[SomeGuy]

6 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Well, let's be honest, the problem isn't the ATOs, it's the ATO procs. 

 

Scrapper ATO procs make you do a bit more damage, or more than a bit more if you are able to apply some knowledge (that's one reason I really like scrappers).  Tanker ATO procs give you a significant amount of resistance and absorb, which enables you to skimp on your defenses and put slots towards damage procs.

 

Brute ATO procs aren't that good and the good that they are are not very noticeable.  The Fury one is nonsense -- if you play a brute for even five minutes total you are going to see that you are going to be running at about 80% fury consistently with or without this proc slotted.  It takes you seconds to reach 80%, and getting above that is difficult and marginally ineffective (which is why I would like to see fury be a slower builder and have a wider damage range, but I guess people used to exploit that so whatever).  And the regeneration/end reduction one isn't as noticeable -- if they switched it from rates of healing regeneration/endurance recovery to outright heals/endurance gains, people would probably notice it more.

 

 

I already had issues with ATO1 for brutes. I didn't need a reminder why it's bad too. 😄

Edited yesterday at 06:39 PM by SomeGuy

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

The post-graduate level of analysis to leverage a Scrapper ATO (plus, ya know, actually having and slotting the ATO) just to exceed performance of Brutes with pretty meh ATO....

 

I think there is a significant difference between the bolded words above and the ones below:

 

1 hour ago, tidge said:

AFAIK the only reason that some players aren't observing a major performance disparity between those ATs in game is that fully leveraging the Scrapper ATOs requires a very detailed knowledge of your attack timings

 

Brutes and Scrappers are roughly on par when you consider the 0.7 scalar of Brutes and the base damage of Scrappers starting higher and factoring in crits. (100% base + 95% from Enhancements + 170% from Fury) * 0.7 = 255.5% versus (100% base + 95% from Enhancements) *1.05 = 204.5. Yes, that is lower for the Scrapper, but the Brute enters combat at 0 Fury and until the streak breaker gets involved, randomly good things can happen for the Scrapper ala:

 

 

The Scrapper ATOs both permanently increase the base chance to 7/8%-9/11% depending on target and give a temporary boost on top of that of 50%. Non-fully leveraged, the temporary boost is, as noted above, a sea change which swamps all other considerations for the AT.

 

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 06:56 PM by Erratic1

[Erratic1]

28 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

So we agree that Brute ATOs aren't at the top of the list to be improved?

 

That is determined empirically by no changes occurring. An honestly, if Kinetic Melee cannot be changed to be better than it is, I am dead certain doing an ATO pass for one AT, let alone all ATs is so low priority as to be indistinguishable from nonconsidertion.

[Maelwys]

53 minutes ago, tidge said:

So we agree that Brute ATOs aren't at the top of the list to be improved?

 

The list of everything across the whole game? Heck no.

 

The list of ATOs though? I'd say so, since Brutes are one of only two ATs that have utterly garbage tier globals/procs in BOTH their ATO sets... and unlike Sentinels they have two rather close sister ATs (Stalkers and Scrappers) which don't have such a handicap and so outperform them in almost every conceivable scenario (ignoring passive "AFK" AE Farming).

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, SomeGuy said:

Scrappers do way more than just 30% compared to brutes when both are fully kitted out. Lets's use my fastest recorded average for scrapper and then brute for example.

 

61s vs 122s.

 

You don't even need to do the numbers to already know that's more then a 30% difference. 

 

I assume that's a Pylon time rather than a Trapdoor or mission simulator run?

 

My own recent testing (as of open beta i28pg2) put Scrappers roughly 30% faster than Brutes, and 60% faster than the originally proposed Tanker changes on Brainstorm on a Mission Simulator map at +4x8. Post patch (with the base damage changes reverted) I'm observing Tankers only getting beaten by about 40%.

 

In any case my point was that whenever ATOs are being considered then an optimized Scrapper will beat an optimized Brute into the dirt, rather than it being anything like a close race. So that 30% figure was meant to be a rough indicative ballpark rather than a hard rule.

 

IME whilst there are individual powers and/or powerset combos that play more to a Brute's strengths than to a Scrapper's (like Stone Armor's Brimstone Procs and Fiery Aura's Burn patches) it's still typically not enough to make up the difference whenever ATOs are a consideration... and given the non-superior versions can be slotted from low levels? Nah.

And whilst I can certainly understand the reason behind Tankers not getting any ATOs that notably directly buff their damage output, the same is very much not true for Brutes.

 

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.

 

Edited yesterday at 07:47 PM by Maelwys

[Parabola]

Two things that are broadly true for my two inf:

 

1) Scrappers out damage brutes more than brutes out survive scrappers under most circumstances.

 

2) I still prefer playing brutes over scrappers under most circumstances.

 

The point of difference is aggro management. I simply cannot abide playing melee without a decent level of stickiness. If I have to hit every enemy an extra time that is a small price to pay to limit having to chase enemies around the map.

 

Of course there are scrappers that muddy the waters by having taunt auras. Shield is a set I'll never play on a brute, because what is the point? If a claws/shield scrapper was possible I might not play any other character ever again! But for the vast majority of sets I'll go brute every time.

 

On the subject of ato's, yeah brutes get a little hard done by. I'd argue that the concept is fine, one offensive and one defensive proc seems to fit the position of brutes between tanks and scrappers. The numbers could do with a tweak though to make them both more impactful. 

[venetiasilver]

7 minutes ago, Parabola said:

Two things that are broadly true for my two inf:

 

1) Scrappers out damage brutes more than brutes out survive scrappers under most circumstances.

 

2) I still prefer playing brutes over scrappers under most circumstances.

 

The point of difference is aggro management. I simply cannot abide playing melee without a decent level of stickiness. If I have to hit every enemy an extra time that is a small price to pay to limit having to chase enemies around the map.

 

Of course there are scrappers that muddy the waters by having taunt auras. Shield is a set I'll never play on a brute, because what is the point? If a claws/shield scrapper was possible I might not play any other character ever again! But for the vast majority of sets I'll go brute every time.

 

On the subject of ato's, yeah brutes get a little hard done by. I'd argue that the concept is fine, one offensive and one defensive proc seems to fit the position of brutes between tanks and scrappers. The numbers could do with a tweak though to make them both more impactful. 

To work within Parameters, The offensive ATO should be a clone of the SoA Global Toxic Damage thing.
To make sure its uniform, it would copy the main attack energy type Fire for Fire Melee, Cold for Ice Melee. etc.

[Maelwys]

23 minutes ago, Parabola said:

I'd argue that the concept is fine, one offensive and one defensive proc seems to fit the position of brutes between tanks and scrappers. The numbers could do with a tweak though to make them both more impactful. 

 

This.

 

Last time I back-of-the-enveloped it, I came up with one Global ATO that lets their attacks apply a non-stacking -res debuff that scales with Fury (roughly 1 point of -res for every 4 points of Fury, so capping out at roughly 20-22%) and one Proc ATO that grants 5% MaxHP, 5% Resistance and 2.5% Defense in a 60ft AoE Aura that is stackable up to twice (or possibly scaling with Fury once again up to a similar maximum value rather than utilizing PPM).

 

I've never found the existing +Fury ATO useful, best case it's bringing me from ~90 to ~93 Fury whenever I'm in full hulk mode. The +Regeneration/Recovery one occasionally helps take some of the passive regeneration threshold pressure off in AFK AE farming runs, but in regular gameplay is utterly ignorable.

 

Edited yesterday at 08:16 PM by Maelwys

[venetiasilver]

How do you like my more simple idea @Maelwys

[Maelwys]

7 minutes ago, venetiasilver said:

How do you like my more simple idea @Maelwys

 

The one about merging Tankers and Brutes together then forcing them both to act mechanically identical to Brutes prior to reaching level 24?

 

I already replied to your PM about it 4 hours ago, but since you're asking again here...

 

I think if the Devs actually did that then the playerbase would be extremely incensed. Really the only thing the proposed change would result in would be the removal of all Tankers below level ~24. Whilst it's true that Brutes don't have much of a niche, somehow I suspect that taking things away from Tankers again is not the way to go about fixing that. My preference would still be to make Brute ATO effects (i) more powerful and (ii) provide a reasonable benefit to their teammates.

 

[venetiasilver]

10 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

 

The one about merging Tankers and Brutes together then forcing them both to act mechanically identical to Brutes prior to reaching level 24?

 

I already replied to your PM about it 4 hours ago, but since you're asking again here...

 

I think if the Devs actually did that then the playerbase would be extremely incensed. Really the only thing the proposed change would result in would be the removal of all Tankers below level ~24. Whilst it's true that Brutes don't have much of a niche, somehow I suspect that taking things away from Tankers again is not the way to go about fixing that. My preference would still be to make Brute ATO effects (i) more powerful and (ii) provide a reasonable benefit to their teammates.

 

No about the Clone of the Soldier of Arachnos Global Toxic proc. But it mirrors the damage type of the primary

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

. let Tankers be lower-damage aggro magnets (just increase their aggro limit!)

 I hear what you are saying, but one of the things that make me fury ous with the current devs is their policy of “let’s make basic game mechanics work differently (and markedly better) for tankers than any other AT).  I’m happy to play around with how taunt works, but HC powers that be should not (and should not have since they have already done so) change game mechanics for a single AT.  In my opinion.  I don’t mind giving some classes better range for their ranged powers, but I would not like it if they just eliminated range for corrupters while keeping it the same for every other AT.

 

and I realize the original safety/damage balance of the game is askew for damage and armor ATs but I look at this like some sort of risk/reward chart.  Do you want an average 10% return with high risk or a 5% return with low risk?  That’s an individual choice.  Scrappers are a 10% return with high risk.  Tankers are a 5% return with no risk.  Brutes are a 5% return with high risk and thus are not on the efficient frontier and in finance terms would never be played by a rational investor.  On the other hand, none of us chuckleheads are all that rational.

[Maelwys]

6 minutes ago, venetiasilver said:

No about the Clone of the Soldier of Arachnos Global Toxic proc. But it mirrors the damage type of the primary

 

The VEAT global Toxic damage Proc tends to contribute quite a lot to their performance. In Soldiers (which can apply considerable additional -res to Toxic damage via Venom Grenade) it can be particularly good, but replicating its baseline effects would still certainly constitute a buff to Brute performance over their current "chance for Fury" ATO.

 

However it'd not help Brutes carve out a different niche for themselves, so best case they'd just draw a bit closer to Scrapper/Stalker levels of damage output.

 

Also, having a Proc's effect vary depending upon the damage type(s) within the triggering attack is to the best of my knowledge currently impossible (at least without including an additional "Fiery Embrace" style conditional element within each and every potentially affected attack power!)... but if the intention is just to inflict a different damage type depending on the owner's selected primary powerset then that might be more doable. It'd still be considerably more straightforward to just pick a single damage type though. Like Smashing. Brute SMASH. <INSERT CLICHÉD TABLE FLIP ASCII ART HERE>

 

 

[Maelwys]

32 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I’m happy to play around with how taunt works, but HC powers that be should not (and should not have since they have already done so) change game mechanics for a single AT.  In my opinion. 

 

To be perfectly honest I think Aggro caps should scale a bit depending on the AT... say Regular ATs including Scrappers ~17, Brutes and Kheldians ~22-25, and Tankers ~27-32.

 

The target limit on most wide AoE abilities caps out at 16, so I can understand why 17 is the default aggro limit. But I personally would prefer it if a Tanker's larger target limits actually allowed them to reliably hold the attention of a few extra enemies (so having a Tanker on the team makes that team safer, especially whenever Blasters are nuking every other spawn, rather than simply faster) instead of having the HC Devs continually fixate on getting four melee ATs' damage output balanced just right.

 

That said, if the Devs hadn't decided that Tankers were apparently supposed to be the melee "AoE specialists" then I'd be perfectly game to stampede off in an entirely different direction... (for the benefit of anyone who didn't read the i28p2 design notes, the relevant snippet is: "Tankers will... ...be AoE specialists among the Melee AT's. We believe that this is a more balanced take for their intended role compared to more damage-focused counterparts." however currently a Tanker hitting 16 targets with an AoE will deal roughly 1% to 11% less damage than a Brute hitting 10 targets with that same AoE... so if they're demonstrably not AoE specialists whenever it comes to damage output, surely that just leaves aggro control?)

 

Edited 22 hours ago by Maelwys

[Neiska]

37 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

 

The VEAT global Toxic damage Proc tends to contribute quite a lot to their performance. In Soldiers (which can apply considerable additional -res to Toxic damage via Venom Grenade) it can be particularly good, but replicating its baseline effects would still certainly constitute a buff to Brute performance over their current "chance for Fury" ATO.

 

Honestly the Global Toxic proc is probably my favorite one. Not the best and so on, but it's quite nice to have a chance for "every" attack. See it go off pretty constantly!

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

 

The target limit on most wide AoE abilities caps out at 16, so I can understand why 17 is the default aggro limit. But I personally would prefer it if a Tanker's larger target limits actually allowed them to reliably hold the attention of a few extra enemies (so having a Tanker on the team makes that team safer, especially whenever Blasters are nuking every other spawn, rather than simply faster) instead of having the HC Devs continually fixate on getting four melee ATs' damage output balanced just right.

I hear you, but in my head this comes down to what is currently intended versus what is an exploit, and that’s largely a matter of opinion.  Should a tanker be able to hold aggro on an entire +4/x8 spawn and keep everyone safe?  Sure!  But the blasters are blasting the next two spawns.  Should a tanker be able to hold aggro on two or three spawns?  Maybe?  I think no, you think yes.  But at the extreme you get tankers aggroing entire Dreck maps into a dumpster, and we know that the former powers that been didn’t like that so stopped it.  What will the current powers that be want?  I don’t know.  It’s a mystery, so I don’t know if my personal vision is any more appropriate than yours.  Not much transparency from these overlords!

[Maelwys]

11 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Should a tanker be able to hold aggro on two or three spawns?  Maybe?  I think no, you think yes.  But at the extreme you get tankers aggroing entire Dreck maps into a dumpster, and we know that the former powers that been didn’t like that so stopped it.  What will the current powers that be want?  I don’t know. 

 

I think as long as one single character can't reliably damage more than 16 enemies with a single attack (Judgement Nukes and Rain Powers notwithstanding!) then we're probably OK.

 

The HC Devs seem to keep gutting stuff that has the potential for runaway exponential damage stacking (like Fiery Aura Burn, Assault Bot Incendiary Swarm Missiles, Plant Control Vines, etc). I know part of that is in response to AE Farming, but it could just as easily apply to "mega corner pulling/dumpster diving" shenanigans.

 

It's already pretty easy to drag nearly two mobs worth of foes directly on top of another two mobs worth of foes. So clumping things up isn't an issue, but keeping things clumped absolutely is, since you really need a long-duration AoE mez for the first 10-16 plus a Taunt for the next 17. And whilst it's currently possible to juggle that sort of thing on a Tanker or Brute; it isn't pretty or particularly safe for your teammates... 😇

 

[SomeGuy]

5 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

I assume that's a Pylon time rather than a Trapdoor or mission simulator run?

 

 

 

It is, but new Trapdoor times aren't viable any more, and I collected times on my scrappers before the changes. I made the brute after. And anecdotally, I can definitely say my scrappers are doing way faster AOE times then my brutes. And that brute I have as an example? A Fire Armor brute. It just can not out pace my scrappers in any damage scenario.  

 

Both brute ATOs are pretty crap, with the ATO2 standing out as WTF levels of bad. ATO1? Whats the point? ATO2....really? Were they even trying when they came up with it?

[Wavicle]

What we need to see are new scrapper times, brute times, and tanker times all compared. With the same offensive sets for each, and similar quality builds.

 

I’m not really sure if it should be +4×8, because I don’t really think that gives a realistic picture of the game, but it doesn’t really matter that much as long as they are all the same I suppose.

 

If it turns out that brute is squarely between tanker and scrapper, then all of these complaints are nonsense. If it turns out tanker is ahead of brute, that’s a problem.

[SomeGuy]

35 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

What we need to see are new scrapper times, brute times, and tanker times all compared. With the same offensive sets for each, and similar quality builds.

 

I’m not really sure if it should be +4×8, because I don’t really think that gives a realistic picture of the game, but it doesn’t really matter that much as long as they are all the same I suppose.

 

If it turns out that brute is squarely between tanker and scrapper, then all of these complaints are nonsense. If it turns out tanker is ahead of brute, that’s a problem.

 

 

I'd like this too, but that is a massive undertaking. I did it with Scrappers only for ST times and that was...a lot. Doing all three ATOs and then doing a full map clear which could range from 3-5 minutes? Yikes. I do not volunteer.

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, Wavicle said:

What we need to see are new scrapper times, brute times, and tanker times all compared. With the same offensive sets for each, and similar quality builds.

 

I’m not really sure if it should be +4×8, because I don’t really think that gives a realistic picture of the game, but it doesn’t really matter that much as long as they are all the same I suppose.

 

If it turns out that brute is squarely between tanker and scrapper, then all of these complaints are nonsense. If it turns out tanker is ahead of brute, that’s a problem.

 

I'd love to see that sort of testing too, although as @SomeGuy points out Trapdoor isn't really a great example of an average mission these days, so something like Galaxy Brain's Mission Simulator map might work better.

 

I'm not sure about the premise that Brutes "should" be squarely between Tankers and Scrappers. A lot of players feel that Brutes, Scrappers and Stalkers should be dealing very similar levels of damage output. Personally I subscribe to the notion that the less survivable you are the more damage you should be dealing, but since non-Resistance focused Brutes are very close to Scrappers there it's rather difficult to put a firm number on it.

For Pylon times I think it's fair to say that Stalkers ought to reign supreme but Tankers come dead last, but for AoE heavy content (like active AE farming) and for mixed "regular mission content" things get a bit murkier since most Stalkers have poor AoE capability and Tankers are supposedly meant to be AoE specialists. Really depends on just where the Devs feel it ought to sit.

 

There are any amount of Pylon time threads out there, and even in Ston's original threads (which lean heavy into Cross Punch and "old" pre-recharge-time-nerf Epic Snipes, and don't quite make the best use of Scrapper ATO2) you can clearly see Scrappers drastically outpace Brutes in those metrics. By about 30-35%.

 

My own far more limited testing using Galaxy Brain's Mission Sim has Scrappers being about 130% faster than Brutes, 140% faster than Tankers and also comfortably beating Stalkers (although by how much drastically depends on the Stalker powersets, as something like an Elec/Shield will be a lot closer than a NinjaBlade/SR or EnergyMelee/EA). Unfortunately my free time is largely still being taken up by toddlers so I'm currently not in a position to put together an exhaustive comparison. My gut feeling is that Tanker performance should be a smidge better (roughly where Brutes currently are) and Brutes should be a lot better (still beaten by a Scrapper, but only by 10-15% tops!) 🤓 📋

[venetiasilver]

On to more positivity. 

Brutes are Good with most any primary and secondary, they have good consistency across the board. They come more complete than most Archetypes, Its like Defenders who are so good they don't need any inherent so the best they could get was endurance discount and even the ATOS they get are kind of "Oh okay"

They're a good archetype to recommend to anyone starting this game; and they deal damage reliably.
Scrappers may get Crit Strikes but even I sometimes get screwed by bad dice roll on some attacks and hell not every primary is good for scrappers. You hit the proc on Broad Sword with Headsplitter and Whirling Sword eats up all your ArcanaTime to activate. 
Brute doesn't have to deal with the headaches involved. Just hit enemy.

The only small buff I would want is the Secondary to have the halfway point between Tanker and Scrapper.
Which I think is Feasible and wouldn't be too difficult on the Dev Team to increase.

Example: Temp Invuln baseline raise from 22.5 to 26.25.
With 3 SO's or 80% Resistance Boost. = 47.25 Resistance to Smashing and Lethal.
Contrasting with the original 22.5 = 40.5

[aethereal]

I do think that benchmarks tend to overstate Scrapper performance slightly: again a consequence of the ATO2 proc being, like, "The entire class's power budget."  A big downside to Scrappers if you kinda have to choose whether you're AoE focused or ST focused.  If your ATO2 is in an AoE attack, then that's great for clearing spawns, but your DPS gets catastrophic in ST situations.  If your ATO2 is in a ST attack, then alpha-ing a crowd gets hard -- you kinda have to alternate between ST and AoE in order to get good performance.

 

This certainly leads to Scrapper overperformance in pylon tests (where you can brutally optimize totally ignoring AoE and eking every last tick of the proc window out of your ST chain with no concerns about repositioning), but I think it also leads to milder overperformance in Trapdoor tests, and certainly these solo tests make Scrappers look better than their team performance (though I'm not sure that Scrapper team performance is that much of a concern).

 

Anyway, none of this should be taken to mean that Scrappers don't overperform even adjusting for this -- I think they do.  But it is true that Brutes offer more reliable performance once you have basic damage mitigation and endurance concerns sorted out.

[Maelwys]

  

2 hours ago, venetiasilver said:

Defenders who are so good they don't need any inherent so the best they could get was endurance discount and even the ATOS they get are kind of "Oh okay"

 

Vigilance is a pretty rubbish inherent, but at least it boosts their damage output when soloing/duoing.
I find their ATOs rather decent personally - the Heal proc is particularly useful on Sonic/FF/Cold/etc, and the Absorb Proc is useful for everyone.
_{(Although if they weren't AoE then it'd be another story...)}
 

  

2 hours ago, venetiasilver said:

Scrappers may get Crit Strikes but even I sometimes get screwed by bad dice roll on some attacks and hell not every primary is good for scrappers. You hit the proc on Broad Sword with Headsplitter and Whirling Sword eats up all your ArcanaTime to activate. 

FWIW, with the ATO2 proc in Headsplitter you should get 4.25-(2.508-1.32)=3.062 active buff time remaining afterwards.
That's more than enough leeway to trigger both Hack (Arcanatime=1.584) and either Whirling Sword (ATBE=1.2 sec) or Disembowel (ATBE=0.733 sec).