Dispari

We all must be Deadpool with the frequency at which we break the 4th wall while "roleplaying our character."

Yeah, I like Blasters too.

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.

Hmmm, it may be time to make Captain Pacifist. A person who levels to 50 entirely on badges and dropped missions.

If you're looking for a tank, it's true you should look to Tanker or Brute. But if you're just looking to give the team a general boost to survival, you have tons of options. Tanker, Brute, Controller, Corruptor, Defender, Mastermind, VEAT, or even Dominator. If I'm looking at a team that needs a bit more help, I'd probably start with getting a tank. If I can't get that, I'd shoot for more support.

Not every team needs a tank of course. But if we do need a tank, I'd go for Brute. Failing that, Tanker. But more often than not, just adding a Controller or Corruptor would be just as useful.

Well, everything I said about Brutes vs Scrappers is based on personal experience. I used to play all Scrappers. I used to hate fury (still do, kinda), and talk about how Brutes need to hold aggro to do good damage and how fury drops, and how the difference in survival is marginal.

But then I started playing lots of Brutes who took lead-tank roles, who went far over the HP a Scrapper can obtain, and over the RES a Scrapper can obtain, who always have 85%+ fury as long as there are enemies on screen (as if takes maybe 2 seconds to build up fury to full if you're in the middle of an 8-man spawn).

It's not that I just loved Brutes when they came out. I viewed them as Tankers and preferred the fast and instant playstyle of Scrappers. But over time I tried Brutes more, was amazed at their performance, and now most of my toons are Brutes.

Base resistance yes, but I pointed out that under the right conditions every Brute set except SR can go over 75% RES by themselves. Some only rarely, some fairly consistently.

DEF sets do narrow the gap between the ATs though. SR is SR no matter what. If you take a soft-cap of every melee AT, they all have the same level of mitigation. The only difference then is their HP. Which would mean Brutes are still the second most durable. But it also means the difference between a Brute and Tanker is only HP.

I don't know. I used to think that, but in practice, the times that I can't get fury are so few and far between that it's not even worth worrying about. It's kind of like worrying about how Cimerorans resist mez, so that means you should just not play Controllers at all, in any content. It can surely happen, but from a general perspective, it's just not worth worrying about.

Granted there is one very real situation where fury can be a bother, and that's when there are already 1-2+ Brutes or Tankers on the team. As I said, I started playing lead-tank Brutes, which means my EM/WP was shelved because she's very bad at getting aggro. So if I'm ever in a situation where I'm not the lead character, my damage drops severely. To avoid that, I simply stick with 1, maybe 2 Brute/Tanker archetypes, and then start looking for Scrappers or other damage dealers.

Well, the RES cap isn't necessary to tank for a team. All you really need is "enough" mitigation, which is easy to obtain with a Brute and just one or two buff-oriented ATs.

My Invuln Brute for instance passively has 70% S/L RES and 23-27% E/N/F/C, along with S/L DEF that's usually (but not always) soft-capped, and 31-42% E/N DEF and less for F/C. She also has Dull Pain but that's not often necessary. All of those are within the realm of what even a Scrapper can be buffed to, so you don't have to go over the preset baseline caps.

So for instance, take any SR Brute whether or not he has IOs, and pair him with one Empath, Traps user, FF user, Cold user, or VEAT and now he's soft-capped and can easily tank for a team of 8. This would apply to a Scrapper, if Scrappers were capable of drawing and holding aggro on the same scale as Brutes and Tankers.

Similarly, toss a Brute in with Sonic, Thermal, or Pain and now he's RES buffed and is likely capable of tanking for a team of 8. And the right combination of good debuff sets can soften enemy attacks enough that the Brute has no issues too.

So it's not about hitting the RES cap or even the DEF cap for that matter. It's about boosting the Brute up to the point where his mitigation is good enough to tank for a team of 8. Which given the starting point of most Brute sets, their high HP amount, and the nature of buffs in this game means that with a minimal investment, a Brute has enough mitigation to handle pretty much all of the game's content.

And really, considering there still exist Tankers that can't solo +2/x8, I'd still want support on the team anyway. So it's not like I'm drastically changing my gameplan for the sake of Brutes.

Nah, I'd still take SOed Brutes every time. Because the way I build teams always relies on having 1-2 support toons to help speed up kills and keep the squishies relatively safe just in case tanking or AoEs go horribly wrong. In those conditions, basically any Brute can tank for any content, IOs or not.

This is wacky, as melee attacks can be some of the strongest abilities in the game. There's no way I'd devalue a Foot Stomp, Sweep combo, Lightning Rod, or Spinspam just based entirely on the fact that they're melee.

The position of the attacks does not matter. A team merely needs damage, regardless of where it's coming from. And seriously? The "fastest, easiest teams" are the ones that get damage capped from a kin and are doing insane amounts of damage. And the only way to get that is to be in melee range. At which point your attacks may as well be melee, right?

Well yeah, but that's more because the Blaster does more damage, not because ranged attacks are so great. I'd want a Blaster because they tend to have 2-3 large area AoEs, and nuke powers, and can easily self-buff to huge damage levels.

It's also possible to research this stuff on the wiki if you need a better look at the parts. While it's not something I'd expect every user to know or do, people who are seriously worried about wasting their money have the option. And that way you know exactly what you're getting.

You don't need support, any more than you need a Tanker or Brute, as you said. But like I said, avoiding support is doing the whole team a disservice. A support toon is basically the most useful thing you could add to a team.

However, there's nothing a Tanker can do that a Brute can't. But there are things a Brute can do that a Tanker can't. So if you're forming a team where you want a tank, I don't see any reason to ever take a Tanker when you can take a Brute. Unless you're forming a very flimsy team with zero support, which I would never do because there's no reason to run a team that has no support.

It also seems like the sort of thing they'll explain and elaborate on here on the forums. It's not NDA material, and just knowing how to connect won't allow you to connect unless you're actually in the beta. So even if you don't get the email, there should be another explanation somewhere, when the time comes.

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!

Why are people acting like it's unacceptable to require buffs for team-content, while on a team? Maybe not every Brute can solo +2/x8 (notably, not every Tanker can either). But if you're on a team of 8, fighting enemies set for 8, it's not even close to rare that there will be some buffers on the team available to support the Brute and make him capable. And logically, it seems like the game SHOULD be designed that you're "dependent" on a team to run team content. If nobody needed a team to do team content, well, just repeat that sentence and listen to how silly it sounds.

Do people really form teams of 8 without any support at all and rely on the tank to save everyone? I don't see why one would. By not having any support on a team, you're not just doing the tank a disservice, but everyone else on the entire team. A good buffer/debuffer is not only making the tank more durable and safe, but the rest of the team as well. Not only is the Brute up front capable of taking more damage, but so is the Blaster, and the Corruptor. And also making the enemies easier to kill. I make sure I always have at least 1 or 2 (if not 4 or more just for fun) support-oriented toons on the team.

Otherwise, the only time when you might "need" a Tanker would be when you intentionally underbuild your team and artificially create a scenario where a Brute can't handle the incoming damage because there's no support. Although, again, it's worth noting that there are plenty of Tankers who can't handle +2/x8 with just SOs either. Because in my book, there's no excuse for not having support on a team.

Also an epic AT, and only has one primary and one secondary.

Here's the thing:

The article is written in a rather negative light. It sounds like it's written by someone who's in the same state as you, which is to say on the verge of quitting but wants to talk about why they're quitting.

Also, I could easily disagree with almost every point they make. If I did this would make for a very long post, of course. However, it's worth noting that I disagree that AE was the devs "giving up" on making new content (considering Praetoria is right around the corner?).

I also disagree that there's a lack of things to do at 50, considering you can literally do any content in the entire game at 50. And just like in competing games like WoW and the like, we have a crafting and bonus system that allows us to work our characters up to more powerful levels. There is a ton of 45-50 content, with a bunch of 35-50 content as well, plus some high-end content like Hamidon and Mothership raids. When people say there's nothing to do at 50, all I can imagine is that they expect there to be 500,000 level 50-only missions waiting for them, in some alternate dimension where none of the other millions of things you can do (any TF in the game, GMs, every story arc in the game, AE, PvP, invention system, badges) count.

Also, you're reaching into a dangerous territory. The devs are releasing things that people like and want. People wanted power customization, so we got it. They wanted to make their own missions, so we got it. We want to side-switch, so they're giving us that. We wanted shields, and dual pistols, demon summoning, willpower, Stalkers and Doms to be more useful, more TFs (i15). People like the booster packs, or the devs wouldn't still be making them. It's not a one-sided diabolical plan where the devs release pay content and then money is generated out of thin air. If nobody wanted the stuff, the devs wouldn't still be making it.

What you're essentially saying is that the devs should stop making things that people want, and focus on the stuff that you think the game needs regardless of whether it would make anyone (besides you) happy. The last guy who tried that was named Jack, and people didn't like him very much.

I actually agree with this to an extent. For the longest time I was a Scrapper-lover, and still am. When you get right down to it though, and compare the two, Brutes are not only more defensively capable than a Scrapper, but can be more offensively as well. I tried to hang onto facts like Scrappers not needing to build fury and things like that, but once I started working with defense-heavy Brutes like Invuln, WP, and Stone which can handle +2/x8 just fine, I reluctantly settled for Brute for most of my melees. A Brute that's built for the task of sitting up front and having aggro will do more damage and be more survivable than a Scrapper.

Additionally, he will more or less make Tankers useless as they have the same buff caps, the same aggro cap, and more or less the same taunt capability. I have Brutes who don't even use Taunt who still have no problems keeping 17 enemies focused on them. So the right playstyle will result in Brutes that do more damage and are more survivable than Scrappers while simultaneously being survivable enough and do more damage than a Tanker.

Thus, I'd never intentionally take a Tanker over a Brute if I had both. And I would only grab Scrappers after I already have a Brute (because Scrappers can stack in ways that Brutes can't, due to fury).

And I do think this is an issue with Brutes being too good. They can do everything that all other melee ATs can do. And when buffs enter the equation, they do more damage than Scrappers and are just as durable as Tankers. But none of the other melees can be buffed to match. In my head, the more damage a melee does, the less durable it should be. The scale doesn't work this way though. Brutes rank higher on the scale than they should, with Stalkers ranking lower than they should.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I wanted to propose a standardization of some stats at one point, but the whole proposal came across as me saying "nerf Brutes."

I wanted to make every AT's HP cap be exactly +100% its base AT (except EATs, which have many exceptions on stats due to their nature). This is enough room for powers like Dull Pain or True Grit+OWtS to take their effect, plus accolades, plus a further 20% for buffs and other advancement (IOs). It would nearly be impossible for any AT to self-cap its HP, and what I felt a much-needed change for certain classes like Stalkers who suffer from low HP cap. However, besides EATs (who I exceptioned above), Brutes are the only AT that would warrant a decrease in their max HP stat. Every other AT would actually need to be increased, save MMs who are already at +100% their base HP.

Yes, while some ATs are less than 34% from their HP cap, Brutes are the only non-epic AT currently that has a cap that's more than twice their base amount. I still feel it would be fair though, because a Brute would have to have either Dull Pain or True Grit+OWtS with Accolades and a bit over +20% HP from IOs to self-cap and have it be a nerf over the old value. My Invuln Brute has +15% HP from accolades, and even that was a chore to obtain.

Additionally, Brutes are the only AT that I would reduce the RES cap on. If it were up to me, Brutes would be at 85%, with Scrappers at 80%, and everything else stays the same. I would also settle for 85% Scraps and 80% Stalkers, or just 80% Scraps. Even though on some level I feel that each AT should be able to get the same RES values, since they can all soft-cap DEF and get the same amount of mitigation.

And of course Brutes also have a crazy-high max damage potential, though damage caps are more complicated and not something I'd want to dive into and start suggesting changes for.

So yes, I do think it's partially the fact that Brutes are just too good that they're able to fill the roles of both Scrappers and Tankers. Right now, Tankers are already an unpopular AT. And the only thing keeping Scrappers from filling the roles of Tankers on most teams is the fact that they can't grab aggro the same way. Brutes can both scrap and tank. They can deal high damage, they can hold aggro, and they can survive lots of damage. With the ATs as they are now, my first choice is always Brute.

I had others written up a long time ago. Like Fire Aura+Thermal Radiation (Thermal Rad without the debuffs, with personal fire shields, but no self heal), Invuln + FF (Autos and Invinc swapped out for FF shields), Empathy+WP, Ice Armor+Cold Domination, and some others.

Same here. I don't care about DPS except on a couple select toons. What I do care about is that after I use any power besides something in my primary, the next attack I try to do won't go off as soon as I hit the button. It only goes off after a redraw animation. And the more often I have to use non-attacks, the more often I get slowed down by redraw.

In my experience, I'd tend to agree. A Tanker may be able to use Punch and get the attention of enemies he didn't hit, but both of them can Foot Stomp and get the attention of everyone. And as long as you're already in melee, using AoE powers and with a taunt aura, all those enemies are already paying attention to you. The only primary I have any worries with aggro on is Energy Melee. And only if the secondary is also lame.

At the same time though, the Tanker's bonus defense probably isn't contributing to the team either.

I've been in plenty of teams where minions and even sometimes lieutenants evaporate on impact. But there's a few seconds still where the bosses need to be downed, at the very least. And if that person that goes AFK happens to be the kin, you'll notice a quick decline in the kill speed. And not every team has a kin or even that high amount of damage output.

Not just that, but there are plenty of situations where it's impossible to attain a level of damage where more damage would be wasted. Fights against EBs, AVs, and GMs for instance. Along with fights against things like Pylons, the computer in the ITF, any enemy that buffs its RES up really high or is just generally hard to kill for whatever reason.

Take ITF, LGTF, and LRSF for example. Those have large quantities of EBs, AVs, and other challenging encounters. In all those situations, it's almost trivial to boost a Brute to the point where he/she can sustain the incoming damage. But it's also impossible for a team to have "too much" damage when fighting the hordes of RES capped Cyclopses, super-durable computers, Hamidons, and Miss Liberties. In any TF situation, I'd rather have a Brute.

And even in regular PUG situations like newspapers and things, I'd much rather have a Brute. While it's possible that our damage is so high that all the regular spawns are melting, it's also equally possible that the bonus damage will help. And most of all, it's almost a guarantee that the Brute will be able to handle the encounter, if we're talking about a team that's full of the buffs/debuffs/damage that would be needed to quickmelt spawns like we're talking about.

Or in short, in any situation where a Brute can tank, his damage MAY be wasted. But exchange him for a Tanker and his damage IS wasted. And so is his increased mitigation.

Assault/Defense would be a better choice I think. If done as a mix, the damage scales can be altered to favor one over the other. In the same way that Doms currently are. For example, scales of 1.05 for melee with 0.95 for ranged. So the AT can bounce into melee and do good damage, though still has the option of range at the expense of slightly less damage.

There's also the fact that ranged sets might be pretty nutty between nukes, mini-nukes, and stacking AoEs if the user has no fear of death. Assault Sets tend to have 1-2 AoEs, while some Blast sets have 3-5.

It also wouldn't make that much sense to have secondaries like Shield, Invuln, and WP if the character has no melee attacks to combine with the melee-oriented secondary. An assault set would always have at least a couple melee powers to use, and if the scales are higher, would favor melee.

There are some conflicts though. Assault sets as they are occasionally borrow powers from defense sets. So Mud Pots, Fiery Embrace, Consume, and Chilling Embrace would have to go/be replaced by something. There's also the fact that Drain Psyche might be too nuts (though possibly not as nuts as Dark Melee already is).

However, I'd love to play some sort of Psi/WP toon.

Eh, even if they gave a Control/Defense AT a huge amount of damage, you really only get about two ST powers and two AoE powers, and the AoEs are going to be impractical for different reasons (one for end, one for recharge). Some sets like Mind or Gravity might be a little better off, but you'd have to boost the damage crazy high to make it anything significant. And if you did that, their pool and epic powers would do too much damage.

So either they can't have epic attacks and they get maybe four powers to attack with, all of which have a long recharge, or they do essentially no damage until 41+. And since you can't buff or debuff either to speed things up, it's going to be a long trek.

Isn't that what I said?

I also have a hard time pegging how their stats would look. If the only thing they can do is control, they'd have to be really good at controlling. Which would mean that their defense/HP would be pretty low (Stalkerish possibly). But if their defense was too low it would defeat the purpose and then they'd just have one meh primary.

I can already fill my screen with pets on some MM toons, so always having a bunch of extras around would be nuts. Necro/Fire could have a pretty consistent 10 pets around all the time. Fun lag! Thugs/Plant could get an inconsistent but absolutely ludicrous number of pets on screen under the right conditions.

Some I might like:
Range/Defense OR Assault/Defense

These would probably have stats on-par with VEATs. They'd have 1.00ish damage and squishy (~1k) HP. They'd have to have their stats low enough so as not to invalidate existing ATs like Scrappers or Blasters, but not so low that there's no point in playing them. A very careful balance, but VEATs are already more or less Assault/Defense.

Melee/Buff

Sort of like a melee Corruptor. The only thing is, being in melee all the time could result in dangerous situations for the character. They'd probably need to have a little bit higher HP, like Blaster/Stalker range (~1200) to be more able to sit in melee and smack guys without just dying all the time. Assault/Buff may also work. Giving them Placate could also help (as long as they don't remove all the AoE powers from all the sets ala Stalker).

After that, I honestly can't think of other combos that would seem to work with any degree of success. Damage, buff, and control have already been paired with everything that would make sense. Control would probably suck as a secondary. And pets sort of need assistance, so Pets/Damage or Pets/Defense would just be tragic.

One thing that might work though would be a VEAT-esque secondary which is a mix of personal defense and team support. Kind of like how Assault is a mix of melee and range. You wouldn't be as durable as a normal defense toon, or as supporty as a normal support toon, but you get a mix of both that fits into just about any solo or team scenario. Some example sets with this might be like:

1) High Pain Tolerance
2) Mind Over Body
3) Healing Aura
4) Indomitable Will
5) Heal Other
6) Quick Recovery
7) Fortitude
8) Resurgence
9) Adrenaline Boost

1) Death Shroud
2) Dark Embrace
3) Twilight Grasp
4) Darkest Night
5) Murky Cloud
6) Shadow Fall
7) Obsidian Shield
8) Fearsome Stare
9) Dark Servant

Or something like that... just thrown-together so don't take them too seriously.

The whole point of the merit system is to give you content-appropriate rewards for your effort. Because it makes no sense that a 10 minute TF and an 8 hour TF give you the same ending reward.

Keeping that in mind, you're saying that they should absolutely not reward people for fighting harder enemies (which is not only more challenging, but takes longer), and everyone who wants to get the content-appropriate rewards for their effort should do it on the lowest difficulty available?

Merits are far more valuable than sheer influence and prestige (and I don't know what "increased drop potential" means, because enemy level does not influence how many items they drop, AE tickets aside, which is why people farm on +0 or even -1 for drops). Merits are pretty much the whole reason to run task forces. People running task forces for the rewards (not just for fun) are doing it for merits, not for inf/prestige. If they wanted raw inf, they could just grind newspapers or run their local farm mission.

That would drive me nuts.

I don't know what kinds of Tanks you own, but it's impossible for you to do anywhere near the damage of a Brute. Unless you're setting some amazing records with Ice Melee or something.

I have two Brutes who can solo +2/x8 without buffs. I can't imagine why I would need to be more durable, especially if it's at the expense of about 50%+ of my damage.

I acknowledge that Brutes have lower mitigation in situations where their lowered mitigation is still enough to do any content in the entire game, thus invalidating the need to have more.

That's the thing, my Brutes don't need buffs. Your Brutes do. I already solo +2/x8 with my Brutes, no buffs, so throw me on a team with 7 Blasters. It'll be faster than your Tanker.

And there's no Brute anywhere that would need seven buffers to keep them alive. One or two, maybe.