BrandX

Originally Posted by Dispari

I hate Fury for basically the reasons you note farther down. Because Brutes fluctuate. CoH is based on stuff always doing the same damage in the same situation. So Head Splitter against the same enemy type will always do the same damage. But Brutes fluctuate too much. Sometimes my attack will kill a badguy and sometimes it won't. The damage is constantly changing. And if I'm not playing a Brute who's getting all the attention, my damage can even be abysmally low. Nothing hurts more than doing a Foot Stomp or Thunderstrike for laughable damage.

I don't have a problem with Brutes being the second most durable, or even high damage dealers. I just question allowing them to be tops on both of those things at the same time. I don't think "occasional inconvenience" is a good balancing factor either. Especially since with consideration it's easy to just play to the strengths and end up with a single character who does more damage than a Scrapper while still performing a full tanking role.

While it's true that randomly assembling a team or carelessly inviting 4 Brutes to the same team with no support can result in some underperforming or dying, it's just as true that a good team will get more mileage out of a Brute than either a Scrapper or a Tanker, because a Brute can do both things at once, freeing up a slot for another useful toon (like a Corruptor!).

On the scale of damage/defense, Brutes rank higher than they should, with Stalkers ranking lower than they should. For being the weakest, Stalkers should have the highest damage output, period, in nearly all situations. And Brutes should not be capable of attaining the same RES/HP of Tankers while simultaneously dishing out more damage than anyone else.

But, things being as they are, Brutes are just very powerful toons. BECAUSE they're so powerful, and so useful, I'd want to have them on the team before a Tanker, if I have the choice. Not that I won't ever take Tankers if I don't have the option, or if someone I know is on a Tanker.

I don't think so, though. Brutes may not have the starting mitigation that a Tanker has, but mitigation is something that you only need so much of. You don't see any teams recruiting masses of Colds and Sonics so the Tanker in their team always has 3200 HP, 90% RES, and 45%+ DEF. Because there's no point in doing that. Once your tank isn't dying, he's not going to be capable of dying even less than never. They've reached the tanking "soft cap."

Brutes have high mitigation to start off with. In fact, it's the second highest in the game. There's another place where this occurs with ATs: Defenders. Controllers are more popular than Defenders, even though Defenders have a higher starting buff power. This is a result of the combination of Controllers contributing "enough," and that Controllers can do two things, while Defenders are focused on one thing. Factually, both Defenders and Tankers also do damage, but they focus so much on their primary role that their damage is exceptionally low.

So between Brutes and Tankers, the choice is essentially between "huge mitigation and low damage" and "enough mitigation and high damage." The key word there is "enough," because once you have enough mitigation, there's no point in adding more. Then you're just comparing two characters that are holding aggro and not dying, but one is doing more damage than the other. If both characters can tank and hold aggro, it doesn't matter if one has 50% RES and the other has 80%. It doesn't matter that one has 2000 HP and the other has 3000 HP. All that matters is that they reach the initial point where they can tank and hold aggro without getting killed.

Again, not every Brute can tank for a team of 8. But nor can every Tanker. Once you start actually adding players for your team, and have some support going, the difference in their starting mitigation is largely irrelevant. But the difference in their damage is not.

And that, essentially, is why I hate fury. Until I started playing lead-tank Brutes with high mitigation (Stone, Invuln, WP), who also have great AoE potential, I saw the lackluster and the low fury and the deaths. But once I started doing things like SS/WP and Elec/Invuln, I got the best of both worlds, damage and survival, and the Brutes gave me a lot of feedback for what I put into them.

Fury punishes a Brute who isn't able to keep a lot of enemies focused on them. So a Brute who isn't survivable doesn't get a lot of fury, and doesn't do good damage. A Brute who doesn't hold aggro doesn't get a lot of fury, and doesn't do good damage.

Still though, even a fragile Brute can get one or two allies on the team, and buff them to the point where they CAN take a lot of damage, and then their fury is tops and they become both a tank and a damage dealer in one fell swoop. A Brute who is properly tanking is almost never going to have poor damage. A Brute who can't properly tank is usually going to have poor damage though.

A Tanker is a tank who just tanks, while a Brute is a tank who is rewarded for tanking by being allowed to do tremendous damage. Fury is a love/hate relationship. You love having it, and hate not having it. But usually it's not that hard to set up a situation where you can have it. Tankers may start higher on mitigation, but both ATs end at the same place (and I don't mean hard caps, I mean the mitigation "soft cap" I mentioned above). And it really only takes one, maybe two other support toons (who should be there anyway, in my opinion), to make any sort of Brute capable of hitting that survival amount.

There's also the fact that redside has never had, nor needed, the higher buff amounts that Defenders offer or the higher mitigation amounts that Tankers offer. And redside having more challenging content, I don't see why anyone would think they ever need to take a Tanker over a Brute. All the redside content has shown that Brutes are more than capable of even the hardest of content, even without Defender buffs backing them.

Originally Posted by Effy_On_Malibu

Redraw is part of the game in a way. If you want to be an Arch/kin ofcourse there's gunna be a delay like in real life. How can you get around the fact you need to pull out your bow after using a secondry power?

It's the way it is, just like if you we're shiooting an changed to a mace, there has to be a delay, it's not realistic if you could swap instantly....

Originally Posted by Part_Troll

Censored censored censored CENSORED censored, you censored censored absolutely censored cre(censored).

Something like that.

Originally Posted by Dante

Ah, ok then. Shame, up until now I'd formed a reasonably good impression of him. A pity.



Back to the OP, I'd say this is the major reason I avoid places like PD or the Ski Chalet. Sure, they're a nice location, but I find they attract all kinds of idiots who have decided that your passtime makes you unworthy of their respect as an individual. Shame that the forum has a few floating around too. There's a huge city out there so I prefer finding those spots that don't attract tools like that. Personally I think that trying to RP in the same area as a contact (especially for an event) is a mistake as both local and broadcast get jammed up with spam. But that doesn't help you with your problem.

I'd say report them and move on is the best that you can do. A shame I know, but unless a GM turns up that moment with a massive BanHammer, they're going to just be an *** and disrupt your fun. If you're with friends, suggest that you all move elsewhere away from the jerk. He'll move onto someone else who either is less polite or complains too. In the end, he'll be the author of his own downfall, pillocks like that normally are.

Originally Posted by Barbie_Ink

I also prefer Brutes on a team to Tanks. That isn't to say I won't invite tanks, but unless I know them, I'm far more likely to invite a Brute.

I've played Tanks. I used to play them quite a bit, but without fail every one has been deleted from my accounts after spending a while at 50. Why? Because becoming nigh invulnerable is easy, but taking so long to kill things is annoying. Playing my SS/Ice (pretty much unkillable outside of a series of massive crits so close together I can't hit my heal OR hibernate) next to a SS/Super Reflexes was an exercise in frustration. My footstomp barely puts a dent in enemies compared to the outrageous damage his did.

Survivability? He stood there and tanked Romulus and Requiem and everything else up to his aggro cap on the top of the platform while I tanked the robots at the computer with the team, and when we got up there there was hardly anything left but the AVs.

That was hardly the first example. People say it's 'mostly just forum goers', but in my experience that's hardly the case. I scrapped all my tanks and made Brutes (occasionally I mourn the loss of my /ice tank, but only occasionally) out of them. My Claws/SR brute can tank +3/x8 vs anything that doesn't have outrageous tohit/acc and routinely 'tanks' the ITF and LGTF, even with the auto-hit nictus at the end.

My Elec/Shield is fully soft capped (above 45% on all three positions), has 93% def debuff, a self-heal from Aid Self, and can run at +4/x8 with no outside buffs while killing quite a bit faster than a fully IO'd tank (with mostly the same build, played by a competent player) running at +2/x8. Further, I can all too easily drag aggro right off of tanks unless they spend half their time spamming taunt (which further drags their damage down).

So why wouldn't I want a brute over a tank, assuming team effectiveness matters to me? And it does, to a point. While it's true that an all blaster team CAN complete objectives, it's also true that someone running a completely unslotted character CAN contribute to a team: I'll still probably choose the more effective option (slotted over unslotted, brute over tank) if I have a reasonable choice.

That won't stop me from inviting my friend's SS/WP tank to the ITF, because she's fun, and my friend. Or another friend's Stone/Inv tank. But in the absence of friends, when searching for a melee char to both soak up some damage AND dish it out? I'll look for a Brute. Failing that, a scrapper, then maybe a VEAT and only THEN will I go for a Tank.

It's nothing personal. I just don't really understand why preferring more damage to quite often unnecessarily high survival rates, is a bad thing.

Originally Posted by Shadow Wail

--Toxic Blast for Defenders/Corruptors

The fact that we have actual animations for powers that shoot toxins at you is great. You have the green venom blasts fro the Life Mages, Bile Spray from the Leviathan Epic, Venom Sprays from the Snakes and then you have the projectile vomit from the MM Zombies. I dont see why we cant have a powerset that gives us serious Toxic Dmg or even Smash/Toxic Dmg.

--Start adding Patron SF's

Just how the Freedom Phalanx have their own TF's how come we cant get Patromn SF's that are offered by the villain patrons? I was looking through Paragonwiki and the number of TF/Raids offered to Heroes pales in comparison as that of villains. To say that the Patron Arcs can be SF's holds true, give us patron SF's.

--New Villain only zones

While the devs said that they learned their lesson from COH and didnt give villains tons of empty zones, they created a villain world that has few zones. I think they should break the rules and give us new zones. There are tons of smaller islands and maybe set up an underground transport system that will link Cap to Croatoa through an Arachnos submarine base.

They cant convert Dark Astoria into a CoOp zone that works as a story enhancer for The Midnight Club. Have Villains and heroes fight to save their livelyhood from the arcane factions that want to control the magic of Dark Astoria.

Give Siren's Call a revamp and make it a regular zone for either villains or heroes.


--Better costumes

All I have to say is "Vines"....no need to elaborate.

Originally Posted by Scotty_Rage

Broadsword Brutes. Villains deserve to have an AT with the ability to use Broadsword AND Shield, and honestly, it never made sense to give the Broadsword to Stalkers to begin with. Honestly, who do you picture more with a Broadsword? A sneaky guy or a hulking barbarian? Just my humble opinion.

Originally Posted by AF_Bill

I am just looking for some general opinions on this pool. I have a couple re-spec openings, so I’ve added gaze, night fall and tentacles to my DM/WP scrapper. I am not planning on using too much inf, but just playing around with build ideas.

My first opinion is that although the powers are fun they are not as effective as others. I skills are very template orientated, but I’m sure people have opinions.

Wish to share yours?


I am still going to play around with it some more, so maybe I'll change my mind later.

Originally Posted by Dispari

That brings up a valid question: Will MM personal attacks and/or the thug minion visuals be upgraded to match DP? They don't have to change effects, just graphics. Otherwise it'll be pretty lackluster after DP is released!

Originally Posted by Da_Captain

Assault/Defense

In theory most Epics are already here. This would probably be the most played AT, and with the right IO's could possibly be the perfect Tankmage.

Originally Posted by Ultimo_

The Range/Defense thing is one I'v been trying to get to for years. I've occasionally suggested the Assault sets for Tankers (no change to damage numbers would even be needed, only Taunt would have to be added somewhere...), but balance would have to be considered.

Either way, I'll be very happy if that sort of thing becomes possible.

Originally Posted by oriand

Defense/Controls? You mean, like Fire Control/Fire Armor?

Sounds like a soul-crushingly boring toon. You'd have the worst damage in the world (especially if you didn't get Containment) but no risk of death. On teams, you'd just be a terrible controller who happened never to die.

Control & pets? You mean, like Thugs/Mind Control?

Well, Control sets already get pets (unless they're Mind Control). This one is more workable than the other suggestion, but I think I'd rather have one set of pets I could buff than two I couldn't.

Originally Posted by Wicked_Wendy

It all depends on the strategy you plan to use Fyre and as for IOs and Accolades the point I was making is take a 50 tank and a 50 level Brute .. neither has any IOs just SOs and neither has any accolades adding end, hp , etc to boost their effectiveness... The Tanker has more HP and a better taunt. Of course if someone spent 6 months farming Purples enhancement and was buffed to almost GODLIKE level they are going to be more effective than that same exact character that is only running with SOs.

There are two basic strategies I have seen used on the ITF... run headlong at Romulus, after clearing everything in fornt of him and just outdamge him. The other involves taunting the healing Nictus far enough away so it doesn't heal Rommi and beating him repeatedly until he devours all the Nictus to REZ. I have been on teams that made each strategy work fine and I never said a BRUTE couldn't taunt and be effective in that role... a TANK is just better at it and since he's taking a ton of damage while doing so the TANK wins out if available.

All I was doing was illustrating to the OP that despite his claim Scrappers and Tankers will NOT be replaced completely by Brutes once GR hits. Both have unique skill that will always be desirable to team leaders.

Originally Posted by Liquid

As a side comment, that's what I think most people were requesting when they wanted Pistol Melee (though not just pistol butt attacks, but maybe one or two point blank shots and/or a kick or two). I'd be totally against Scrappers getting a Blaster-range set.

Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards

Good!

Wait what? So you are not against Scrappers getting Super Strength, but you would want them to change it to look something other than Super Strength?

Lets be clear here, you say the "Scrapper version shouldn't look like", as in look like visually, or as in the numbers aspect? The former should stay intact, but the latter should be left to the developers and not player squabbling.

There is only one thing I expect out of the numbers: it will do more damage than the Tanker counterpart. That's pretty much a "no duh," since damage is our primary, not our secondary.

Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba

Pistols don't fit the devs' concept for scrappers. They've stated it will never happen. SS may or may not. When/if it gets ported to scrappers, we'll know.