Does it it seem like the villain variant of ATs are more preferred?

[cprice]

Hey guys. So I found out about this great Homecoming server about a month ago. I've been having a blast, but something doesn't sit quite right with me. Throughout all my questing, teaming, and forum sifting, it seems that many villain ATs are preferred to the hero counterparts. Way more Brutes out there than Tanks. More Corruptors out there than Defenders. Doms and Controllers seem a bit equal in numbers (through my experience). Anyways, in my experience, that is the way it seems. The villain variants seem more solo-able. I more of an old school CoH person, so I tend to lean more towards Hero side ATs. Do you think this was the intention? To make the villains seem a bit more offense-driven rather than defensive? I personally wouldn't have any issue with it if the two sides were split and we only met up on the battlefield but as a Tanker purist Brutes tend to annoy me...because they can do my job! And with great offensive prowess! Let's be real here. Yes, Tankers have better survivability and maybe more effective taunting, but when you have a support or two, does it even really matter? Even some scrapper can go in and take the alpha strikes with or without the aid of a support.

 

So, care to discuss? Let's not take this into belligerent and bashing. Just an interesting subject to me.

[markofantares]

City of Villains was an expansion of City of Heroes. An opportunity for the Devs to take what they learned from the playerbase and player response to the Hero ATs and apply it to new ATs. A lot of the Villain ATs are designed to be soloable.  Back in 2005, the Devs had the foresight to see that MMOs were heading towards a solo mentality, conversely, when CoH launched, MMOs were still in their heyday and content was designed to be grouped with others.  These days, most MMOs have a soloing component to them.

 

So, yeah, Villain ATs are favoured because they can be soloed.  That being said, that we can choose whatever side we want at character launch means there really isn't any "Hero" or "Villain" AT.

[Hjarki]

From my experience, I think it's the opposite. You're far more likely to see Blasters, Defenders, Controllers and Scrappers at high levels. The only AT that's really 'villain preferred' would be Brute - and that's likely due to the enormous number of people who build Spires/Fire Brutes as the go-to farming build.

 

Even as people adapt to new mechanics/sets, I don't know that this is going to change. At least for the 'squishies', the hero side AT tend to be stronger than their villain side counterparts.

 

[JnEricsonx]

I think it's also the inherents of the classes.  I click more with Brutes simply because the idea of growing damage just by fighting, there you go.  Stalkers=Assassins, I love pet classes so MM's rock.  I'm probably more likely to make a Corruptor than a Defender because Scourge seems more valuable than Vigilance, etc.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Brutes seem to be more common than Scrappers or Tanks on teams but other than that I'm not really seeing a huge shift towards villain-side ATs. Corruptors and Defenders seem to have about the same level of popularity. Dominators seem to be less popular than Controllers. Masterminds and Stalkers are around but aren't super common.

 

Honestly I think it's less that villain ATs are popular and more that Brutes are REALLY popular.

[Chuckers]

I'm odd, I know.... I play redside and blueside, but I can only make heroes with the CoH AT's and Villains with the CoV AT's. They may cross over to rogues and vigilantes, but I just can't make myself start an AT in the "wrong" side.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

Important to note, the Brute is the counterpart to the scrapper. The MM is the counterpart to the Tank, and the stalker the counterpart to the blaster.

 

Brute and scrapper are the same role, front line dps that while tough takes some effort to be as survivable as a tank.

 

MMs main job is to grab aggro and hold it. The body guard mechanic allows them to basically have 80% universal DR right out the gate. A well played MM can never die no matter what they face.

 

Stalkers while doing it up close, exist to basically nuke groups or alpha strike single big targets the same way a blaster nukes or snipes.

 

Brutes do largely outdate scrappers because constant dps is more in line with meta gamers that dont like to trust to RNG like crits.

 

Stalkers are very close to scrappers now in a lot of ways, but still tend to be squishier then scrappers  and a great many I see eat dirt as often or more often then bad blasters.

[Omnicron]

Important to note, the Brute is the counterpart to the scrapper. The MM is the counterpart to the Tank, and the stalker the counterpart to the blaster.

 

It's tempting to try and find 1-1 comparisons between CoH and CoV ATs but I think it's more like keys on a piano. If a scrapper is E and a tank is F a brute is E sharp.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Important to note, the Brute is the counterpart to the scrapper. The MM is the counterpart to the Tank, and the stalker the counterpart to the blaster.

It's tempting to try and find 1-1 comparisons between CoH and CoV ATs but I think it's more like keys on a piano. If a scrapper is E and a tank is F a brute is E sharp.

Agreed. I actually like Jock Thompson's Mythology explanation for the Villain ATs, it's actually a good way of looking at the comparisons between the Heor and Villain ATs.

 

The first of Statesman's children to find the mirror was Scrapper. Startled by his own reflection, Scrapper did what Scrapper does in these situations, and struck it with a swift blow, cracking the mirror. When he saw what he had done, Scrapper laughed at his own folly and went to tell his siblings of the mirror. Together they came and stood to look into this curious thing. The cracked mirror twisted and blended their reflections. Tanker's reflection mingled with his brother Scrapper's while the crack appeared to twist his face as if in range. Defender and Controller's reflections mingled with that of their brother Blaster. Blaster's reflection split, mingling with his brother Scrapper's in a way that made them both seem thin a gaunt, while fracturing into a multitude of images near where it mingled with his sisters. Disturbed by this strangeness, the Children of Statesman shied away from it, and went to seek more familiar things.

 

Now images and webs both have power to trap, and as the Children of Statesman looked into the mirror some of their essence was caught in the Spider's web. The Spider took this essence and from it spun his own children. Brute from the rage twisted reflection of Scrapper and Tank. The twin sisters Corrupter and Dominator from the mingled image of Defender, Controller and Blaster. Stalker from the twisted and gaunt reflections of Blaster and Scrapper. Mastermind for the multitudinous reflections of Blaster and his sisters. The Spider then gathered together his children, these twisted and cracked reflections of what Statesman had wrought, and commanded them to win the City for their creator.

[Twisted Toon]

My personal thoughts on why people seem to prefer the Villain ATs over the Hero ATs is because the ATS on the villain side were made to work with the Inherents they were given. They were designed with those Inherents in mind.

 

The Hero ATs had their Inherents tacked on around the time CoV came out. for some of them, the inherents really seemed like an after thought. The Blaster Inherent 1.0 and the Defender Inherents didn't really mesh with the ATs like all of the villain inherents did.

 

That could be part of it.

 

Possibly.

 

 

Maybe.

 

 

 

 

???

[OEM61]

I have touched on different things mentioned here in another discussion...

 

Not arguing the point, and it's really going to be subjective, but to be fair here the villain ATs were designed with the inherent ability in mind, while it was added to the hero ATs.

 

The villain inherents should have felt smoother and more a part of the AT because they were designed that way.

 

The hero inherents were going to feel tacked on because they literally were.

 

But again, whatever advantage that may have given the villains in terms of drawing people to play redside disappeared when all of the ATs became available to play as either a hero or a villain.

 

I would be interested in seeing how many/what percentage of primarily redside players are playing one of the old hero ATs compared to how many/what percentage of primarily blueside players are playing one of the old villain ATs.

 

So while I understand the reference to "hero" and "villain" ATs, they don't really exist any more.

 

It's difficult to compare ATs like the dominator and controller.  Sure, they both have control powers as their primaries, but the controller backs that up with buffs/debuffs and the dominator backs it up with offense.

It may be that more people are playing the dominator, but are they doing so because the dominator is "better", or just because they like the offensive secondary more than the buff/debuff secondary?

Same idea with the defender and corruptor;  The corruptor doesn't have to be "better", there just have to be more people that like the offense first option rather than the buff/debuff first option.

 

But I think that comparing brutes to tankers and scrappers to stalkers is a little easier.  They fill the same basic space, or at least they should, so if either side of those pairs is being played in great number over it's counterpart then there may be identifiable mechanical reasons for that.

 

But it is all "fixable" to whatever extent it is broken.

 

I seem to recall seeing something about the devs looking at gauntlet, as in possibly looking at ways to make the tanker AT more attractive.

And that is what it all comes down to.

 

Is the brute that much more attractive than the tanker?  Okay, then is it because the brute is overperforming or the tanker is underperforming?  Once you figure that out then you have a place to start working.

 

But they also can't just turn the tanker into the brute or vice-versa.

Even if they add to the damage that a tanker can deal as part of their effort to make it more attractive, they need to do so in a way that makes it different from the brute.

[Neuronia]

Brutes seem to be more common than Scrappers or Tanks on teams but other than that I'm not really seeing a huge shift towards villain-side ATs. Corruptors and Defenders seem to have about the same level of popularity. Dominators seem to be less popular than Controllers. Masterminds and Stalkers are around but aren't super common.

 

Honestly I think it's less that villain ATs are popular and more that Brutes are REALLY popular.

 

I did an RSF as the only Kin with 6 Brutes, it was...kinda crazy.

I tend to see less Defenders than Corruptors, and slightly more Controllers than Doms.

Tankers are sparse, but I do see one occasionally on ITF, LGTF or so on, and they are quite prevalent at Hamidon Raids and Incarnate content.

 

If anything, the population is on the Blue side, Red side has its fans though...