The heavy handed history of hammering Brutes...

[Snarky]

Going back to the mists of time...  Does anyone have the breakdown and dates of all the Brute Nerfs we have shouldered over the years?

[Gobbledigook]

4 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Going back to the mists of time...  Does anyone have the breakdown and dates of all the Brute Nerfs we have shouldered over the years?

Also a list of all the times Brutes have reminded us of said nerfs 🙃

[twozerofoxtrot]

The book of grudges!

[merrypessimist]

1 hour ago, Gobbledigook said:

Also a list of all the times Brutes have reminded us of said nerfs 🙃

Wouldn't that be the first number multiplied by ten thousand? 

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, merrypessimist said:

Wouldn't that be the first number multiplied by ten thousand? 

 

That is a finite number. The question is which order of infinity are we talking here...countable or uncountable?

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

Going back to the mists of time...  Does anyone have the breakdown and dates of all the Brute Nerfs we have shouldered over the years?

 

Issue 1: The level cap for Tankers is increased to 50; the level cap for Brutes remains unchanged.

[BZRKR]

So I went through the Homecoming Wiki's "Issues" pages and did a simple search for "brute" and noted what was found. Below is a simple cut and paste or summary of what I saw. This may not be everything, and I leave the "heavy handedness" of the entries to the reader. Please take a look yourselves if you think something is missing.

+++

Issue 7

Visual f/x for Brute Invulnerability powers changed. They are now darker and more villainous.

 

New Power Sets: Brute Primary - Electric Melee, Brute Secondary - Electric Shields

 

Tanker, Scrapper and Brute Taunt powers will now accept Accuracy Enhancements. Note that these enhancements will have no effect in PvE, as the powers automatically hit PvE targets. The change is made strictly for PvP purposes.

 

Brute Patron Powers added

 

Issue 8 nothing

Issue 9 nothing

 

Issue 10

Added Brute buffs to Kheldians

 

Fixed an issue with Brute Energy Punch which could cause it to generate Fury much faster than designed.

 

Issue 11

Gave Brutes Willpower

 

Issue 12

Gave Brutes Battle Axe, War Mace, and Super Reflexes

 

Issue 13

Gave Shield Defense to Brutes

 

Issue 14 nothing

Issue 15 mothing

 

Issue 16

Gave Brutes Claws

 

Issue 17 nothing

 

Issue 18

Brute Fury: Upper end Fury generation made more difficult to achieve, however, the loss of Fury at the lower ends was slowed down so that the Brute was more likely to keep some amount of Fury up. Higher rank foes help generate more Fury.

 

Issue 19 nothing

Issue 19.5 nothing

Issue 20 nothing

Issue 20.5 nothing

 

Issue 21

Brutes get Katana, Broadsword, Regeneration

 

Issue 21.5 nothing

Issue 22 nothing

Issue 23 nothing

Issue 24 nothing

 

Issue 25

Mercurial Blow for Brutes no longer applies Bruising on the target.

Super Reflexes for Tankers now has the correct taunt duration in the Evasion power. The Brute version was already correct.

Scrapper and Brute Quills.Barb_Swipe should now play the correct animation on the foe hit when using customized Spines.

 

 

Issue 26

Changes to Tankers and Brutes including inherent powers Gauntlet and Fury.

Brute:

Ranged and Melee damage modifiers are now equal at 0.75.

Damage buff cap lowered from 775% to 700%.

All Brute and Tanker Epic pools now use ranged damage modifiers.

Note that due to the above changes, Epic Pools should see no damage change at all.

 

Beta Decay (Tanker, Scrapper, Brute, Blaster): the "first target" 10% recharge buff should no longer erroneously stack for all foes in range. The 2.5% per target recharge buff will continue to stack as expected. Max recharge buff with 10 targets should be +35%.

Brute > Fury: Fixed a bug where some auras would passively grant the brute small amounts of +Fury.

Fixed the Tanker and Brute Global Taunt Proc not triggering on aura powers.

Staff Melee > Precise Strike: Brute version should no longer list twice that it accept Taunt enhancements.

A strange Fury power should no longer show up in the Brute enhancement slotting screen.

Fix bug where Brute PunchVoke was not triggering on aura powers.

 

Brute Melee > Battle Axe > Cleave: Max targets reduced from 10 to 5

rute > Katana > Golden Dragonfly: Max targets reduced from 10 to 5

 

Tanker and Brute inherent taunt procs now generate a combat message for the caster, to help determine if the taunt proc is currently working.

Ice Melee > Frozen Fists (Brute/Stalker/Scrapper) Power Description should no longer say it adds -res.

 

Gauntlet and Punchvoke changes:

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Issue_26_Page_4#Tanker_&_Brute_Changes

 

Katana (including Brute Katana) gets "no redraw"

 

Shadow Maul (Tanker, Scrapper, Brute, Stalker) is now a much larger, faster cone that's actually capable of easily hitting multiple targets - especially on tanks!

Arc increased from 45 to 120 degrees

Recharge increased from 8 to 11 seconds

Cast Time reduced from 3.07 to 2.35 seconds

Damage lowered from scale 2.156 to 1.6184

DPS reduction is minor, it has only been lowered from scale 0.653 to scale 0.645

Target Cap increased from 5 to 10 for Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers

 

Issue 27

Added taunt slotting to many PBAoE's

Scrapper | Brute > Energy Aura > Energy Cloak > Fixed a bug where the stealth was not suppressing in combat, preventing the taunt aura from working

Brute | Tanker > Martial Arts > Eagle's Claw: Damage buff from this power should no longer be affected by enemy level

Brute > Regeneration > Fast Healing: This version of the power should no longer ignore healing enhancements

 

Invincibility (Tanker/Brute/Scrapper) - This power now adds a 1.67% toxic and psionic defense for the first target, and 0.33% for additional targets (total 5% against 10 foes, Tanker values).

Resist Energies (Tanker/Brute/Scrapper) - This power now adds psionic resistance.

Energy Protection (Brute/Scrapper) - This power now grants Psionic resistance.

Overload (all ATs) - This power now grants 33.75% toxic and psionic defense (Brute values).

Tank & Brute/Stone Armor/Granite Armor: Now suspends the other Stone Armor armor toggles in the set while transformed instead of deactivating them. Also will suspend travel toggles (Run, Jump and Fly). Suspended toggles cost no endurance while running.

 

Brute/Radiation Melee/Atom Smasher: Was using Smashing Attack, this is now set to Toxic Attack. This power doesn't do smashing damage.

Brute/Stone Armor/Earth's Embrace: Changed the +Max HP effects' stack type to Replace.

Brute/Titan Weapon/Defensive Sweep (Slow): Was missing its endurance cost. Now set to the intended 5.356

Brute/Dark Melee/Shadow Punch: Description fixed.

Battle Axe power order changed

Brute > Melee: Fixed a sorting mistake in with the Spines powerset listing in the character creator.

 

Brute > Fiery Aura > Burn: Fixed a bug while using Fiery Embrace that unintentionally created additional patches

 

Soul Mastery/Summon Widow (Brute/Tanker): Can no longer slot ToHit Debuff Sets.

 

Brute/Radiation Melee/Taunt: Now hits 5 targets (was set to 10 before).

 

New Epic Pools were added for Brutes

Many Epic Pool Adjustments

 

Issue 28 nothing

 

+++

 

[tidge]

1 hour ago, BZRKR said:

So I went through the Homecoming Wiki's "Issues" pages and did a simple search for "brute" and noted what was found. Below is a simple cut and paste or summary of what I saw. This may not be everything, and I leave the "heavy handedness" of the entries to the reader. 

 

Thanks! This is basically what I did (years ago) to try to understand 'nerfs to Brutes'.

 

The biggest one I see is the top value for Damage Buff... I'll leave it for others who routinely and consistently crossed from 700% towards 775% to say how they were affected.

 

I remember many people being upset about 'massive nerfs', and maybe those players favored Brutes? The items in that category are (from memory):

 

1) Defense (& attack) typing changes which meant players chasing single resistances (for example S/L or F/C) became vulnerable to content that they had not been vulnerable to previously.

 

2) Fire melee set changes (that came to include Defense Debuffs), which was most noticeable for fire farmers

 

3) Changes to the in-game rewards, like scaling rewards of Empyrians, lvl 49 XP->Inf going away, conversion rates of Vanguard merits, etc... many of these were targeted at AE (and some non-AE) farm-ish activities for the economy of the game and nothing to do with performance.

 

 

 

It's not a secret that in the early days of Homecoming, 'Farming with Brutes' was typically the default advice (for those who wanted to farm). I'm wondering the 'nerfs to farming' have gotten confused with 'nerfs to Brutes'. None of the three changes I listed were targeted at Brutes, although #1 had a larger impact (from my memory) on ATs that were capable of exceeding a very high resistance cap.

[Erratic1]

12 minutes ago, tidge said:

he biggest one I see is the top value for Damage Buff... I'll leave it for others who routinely and consistently crossed from 700% towards 775% to say how they were affected.

 

I remember many people being upset about 'massive nerfs', and maybe those players favored Brutes? The items in that category are (from memory):

 

I don't think anyone routinely crossed that short of being on teams featuring serious damage buffs ala Fulcrum Shift stacked with others.

[tidge]

9 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

I don't think anyone routinely crossed that short of being on teams featuring serious damage buffs ala Fulcrum Shift stacked with others.

 

That was my guess, but I know there was a lot of discussion earlier in the HC life about how to 'gobble reds', so I wasn't sure if some combination Inps+SelfBuff+Incarnates of solo builds were doing it. 

 

Any guesses as to why the cap was dropped? This feels (to me) like something that might have been included to make "Hard Mode" types of content (where a couple of Kins and large spawns might appear) moar hard.

[Erratic1]

23 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

Any guesses as to why the cap was dropped? This feels (to me) like something that might have been included to make "Hard Mode" types of content (where a couple of Kins and large spawns might appear) moar hard.

 

My understanding is that at cap a Brute would outdamage a similarly capped Scrapper. The oft stated claim was that dps is all Scrapper brought.