I think I may have a way to further differentiate Brutes and Tankers.

[boss]

What if the taunt for each class did something different? For instance, what if brute taunts did damage (that scaled with fury) depending on the offensive powerset it was included in? Like Fiery Aura could make enemies catch fire when taunted. Or, or hear me out... gives an aura of damage around the brute for a few seconds, that would also give the brute or the enemies a visual tell.

 

What if Tanker taunts, instead of doing damage, gave a defensive type buff to the team, but only in an area around the tank? Yes, that might be dangerous to squishier classes, but if the tank is doing it's job it would be easy. It could be stationary buff that doesn't stack, but puts the symbol for the alignment of class under them when it triggers. 

 

I'm pretty sure more creative people out here could come up with something amazing. To me the two staples of teams in this game are the Brute and the Tanker. We should have those two classes set and in a good place before we do anything else. I don't know, these are just thoughts that came across my head.

[tidge]

10 minutes ago, boss said:

I'm pretty sure more creative people out here could come up with something amazing. To me the two staples of teams in this game are the Brute and the Tanker. We should have those two classes set and in a good place before we do anything else. I don't know, these are just thoughts that came across my head.

 

Fundamentally there is the issue that changes to either AT will run afoul of pre-conceived notions about the AT as well as pre-existing characters.

 

Personally: I'd violate pre-conceived notions about Brutes (they do more damage the madder they get) to implement something with a similar effect but different mechanics that make them better for team play (the madder they get the more they debuff nearby enemies). Of course debuffs are a huge balancing act, so it's not like I think my idea is easily workable for folks with expectations on things like farm times, etc.

[LightMaster]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

Fundamentally there is the issue that changes to either AT will run afoul of pre-conceived notions about the AT as well as pre-existing characters.

 

Personally: I'd violate pre-conceived notions about Brutes (they do more damage the madder they get) to implement something with a similar effect but different mechanics that make them better for team play (the madder they get the more they debuff nearby enemies). Of course debuffs are a huge balancing act, so it's not like I think my idea is easily workable for folks with expectations on things like farm times, etc.

Maybe instead of completely reworking Fury, make it so when going over 50 or 70% of Fury, the debuffs a Brute can inflict with Primary power sets adds an additional stack called [(Fury) Debuff] to effectively 1.5x to double the normal debuff value of a Brute, with the debuff value inflicted by Brute slightly lowered to compensate.

 

For Power Sets that has no debuffing effects, those will deal a -Slow debuff when used by only the Brute, so that enemies trying to run away will get slowed down in the process.

[Lancek]

I think Brutes should have gotten the AOE increase instead. 

[Steampunkette]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

 

Fundamentally there is the issue that changes to either AT will run afoul of pre-conceived notions about the AT as well as pre-existing characters.

 

Personally: I'd violate pre-conceived notions about Brutes (they do more damage the madder they get) to implement something with a similar effect but different mechanics that make them better for team play (the madder they get the more they debuff nearby enemies). Of course debuffs are a huge balancing act, so it's not like I think my idea is easily workable for folks with expectations on things like farm times, etc.

I mean... yeeeah that would be a balancing act...

 

But I also kinda like the idea of the Brute rounding up enemies and then 7 other people basically fireballing the brute.

[tidge]

2 hours ago, LightMaster said:

Maybe instead of completely reworking Fury, make it so when going over 50 or 70% of Fury, the debuffs a Brute can inflict with Primary power sets adds an additional stack called [(Fury) Debuff] to effectively 1.5x to double the normal debuff value of a Brute, with the debuff value inflicted by Brute slightly lowered to compensate.

 

42 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

I mean... yeeeah that would be a balancing act...

 

But I also kinda like the idea of the Brute rounding up enemies and then 7 other people basically fireballing the brute.

 

I freely admit my idea lives in never-never land... but the idea behind it (PBAoE debuffs from Fury) was to make Brutes a different kind of Tanker, rather than have Brutes be a different kind of Scrapper. Scrappers and Stalkers seem to coexist in a pleasant way as being similar ATs, and no one has really cared about Scrappers v. Tankers since... forever, but it seems like (super generalization follows) Brutes are either picking fights or getting picked on by both Scrappers and Tankers.... so I like to imagine a different mechanic altogether for Brutes that still makes sense to have the historical primaries/secondaries/HP/Resistance caps.

 

Realistically, I don't think debuffs would be powerful enough to make up for "lost damage" compared to what (existing) Brutes can do. I simply like imagining a different sort of AT where people aren't clamoring that another AT does more damage than a Brute (under whatever circumstances), and I almost snicker thinking about arguments about which AT should be the better debuffer!

 

[Triumphant]

7 hours ago, boss said:

What if the taunt for each class did something different? For instance, what if brute taunts did damage (that scaled with fury) depending on the offensive powerset it was included in? Like Fiery Aura could make enemies catch fire when taunted. Or, or hear me out... gives an aura of damage around the brute for a few seconds, that would also give the brute or the enemies a visual tell.

 

What if Tanker taunts, instead of doing damage, gave a defensive type buff to the team, but only in an area around the tank? Yes, that might be dangerous to squishier classes, but if the tank is doing it's job it would be easy. It could be stationary buff that doesn't stack, but puts the symbol for the alignment of class under them when it triggers. 

 

I'm pretty sure more creative people out here could come up with something amazing. To me the two staples of teams in this game are the Brute and the Tanker. We should have those two classes set and in a good place before we do anything else. I don't know, these are just thoughts that came across my head.

 

While I do think that the two AT's are adequately distinguished from one another, I can't deny that this is a really cool idea.  I would wonder about the game balance aspect of it, though- and what kind of an impact it would have on PVE play.  Though, I suppose you could implement whatever nerfs are necessary to balance it, if it proved to be overpowered.

[Ukase]

To me, the differences between tank and brute are pretty clear. I'm sure I don't understand why there's a need/desire to make them more distinctive. 

[Starhammer]

I wouldn't mind the differentiation, but I'd still want to avoid turning it into a damaging power. 

I'd suggest something a little more subtle. Give one a -to hit debuff, and the other a -damage debuff.

[CoeruleumBlue]

33 minutes ago, Starhammer said:

I wouldn't mind the differentiation, but I'd still want to avoid turning it into a damaging power. 

I'd suggest something a little more subtle. Give one a -to hit debuff, and the other a -damage debuff.

 

That doesn't help at all, because you can't even say which should go with which, and those have the same effect. If you want to avoid damage on taunts, which I understand, I would just make the brute taunt -regen or -defense. Making one have a -ToHit and the other have -Damage makes them do even more the same thing, but now people with defense armor will pick one, people with resistance armor will pick the other, and people with regen armor will feel ripped off. I think my idea doesn't mess up anyone's builds or the idea at all, even though there might be other reasons not to implement it.

[Starhammer]

you're not wrong. I just don't think there's a "good" way to make them obviously different.

"Hulk is strongest one there is!" can be interpreted in a myriad of ways.

[Steampunkette]

I continue to believe that Fury should also contain some debuff protections for things like -Speed and -Damage. As well as control -resistances-, but not protection, to shorten effective duration based on how much fury you have.

 

It'd be a good solid way to show that brutes, on the whole, are stronger through their fury, and difficult to repress or contain.

[CoeruleumBlue]

5 hours ago, Starhammer said:

you're not wrong. I just don't think there's a "good" way to make them obviously different.

"Hulk is strongest one there is!" can be interpreted in a myriad of ways.

 

I'm under the impression brutes are mostly just better against the big boss, and tankers are better against the mobs, but since brutes can still fight the mobs, I always go with them. I also don't think they're all supposed to be Hulk. Tankers are more supposed to be like Statesman which is like a Superman kind of character, and most of my brutes and tankers are things like psi melee/shield defense, dark melee/stone armor, or radiation melee/bio armor that are not really found on any of the main comics characters, I mean if I just wanted to play someone else's character I'd go play the Marvel or DC game, but even Statesman isn't exactly like Superman any more than Homelander from the Boys is (the fact Statesman's name reminds me of Homelander is not very helpful sometimes, especially since he's also a stand-in for the guy who seems to be based on Elon Musk in Champions.) 

 

But yeah I do think I have a way to easily differentiate brutes and tankers, use brutes if you like tanking big bosses more and tankers if you like tanking mobs more. That still definitely keeps it as a brutes fans vs. tankers fans war as it probably always will be, but I do think they're already easy to differentiate, and they don't have to be based on preexisting characters like the Hulk or Superman either.  

[ThatGuyCDude]

On 11/13/2025 at 10:20 AM, LightMaster said:

Maybe instead of completely reworking Fury, make it so when going over 50 or 70% of Fury, the debuffs a Brute can inflict with Primary power sets adds an additional stack called [(Fury) Debuff] to effectively 1.5x to double the normal debuff value of a Brute, with the debuff value inflicted by Brute slightly lowered to compensate.

 

For Power Sets that has no debuffing effects, those will deal a -Slow debuff when used by only the Brute, so that enemies trying to run away will get slowed down in the process.

This is on-point for the feel of a Brute: their punches leave you reeling and their shouts paralyze you like a deer in headlights.  Having some harder control rates for the ones that pair with the melee sets (and adding ones to those sets that don't have them) would make a noticeable difference in the theme of the archetype, even if the most effective tactic available isn't shifted by it.  For the melee sets that don't have debuffs, pepper them in to taste from among slows, stuns, immobilizes, and fears.

I'd say Fury should affect the Magnitude of these debuffs as you described, so that long fights with a boss or elite boss can actually stack control over time.

[CoeruleumBlue]

24 minutes ago, ThatGuyCDude said:

This is on-point for the feel of a Brute: their punches leave you reeling and their shouts paralyze you like a deer in headlights.  Having some harder control rates for the ones that pair with the melee sets (and adding ones to those sets that don't have them) would make a noticeable difference in the theme of the archetype, even if the most effective tactic available isn't shifted by it.  For the melee sets that don't have debuffs, pepper them in to taste from among slows, stuns, immobilizes, and fears.

I'd say Fury should affect the Magnitude of these debuffs as you described, so that long fights with a boss or elite boss can actually stack control over time.

 

Yeah making brutes more control-oriented than tankers would probably be the clearest way to differentiate. That's probably also a lot of why I wanted to use Dark Melee on brutes even though someone said only use it on tankers once. The other part is everything in the set has to have you attack for it to work, some of the other melee sets legitimately have passive effects, and none of them are blocks. Someone said there should've been an archetype with control set primaries and armor secondaries, but just switching to basically melee controls and doing that on brutes probably works. That would also give some use to the random control powers that are already in some melee sets that don't involve procs or gimmicks such as the Boggle in Psi Melee.