With several people in the SG having characters in the mid-20s, we've been tending to run some bigger teams. Meaning, bigger groups of mobs. Meaning, very very big Fury bars.
My brute (DM/Fire) and a pal's (EM/Dark) generally stand back-to-back, beating the snot out of our respective sides of the pile, with the dual damage auras broiling anything in range. Our regular Corruptor teammate swears a lot on Ventrilo - he feels like a Kinetics-bot because the mobs go down so fast he has problems targeting them for blasts. Between the flying fists, ragdoll physics and swarm of damage numbers, I feel like I'm standing in a lawnmower.
Good times. 
SMASH!
Mr Slovakia, 50 DM/Inv Scr
Miss Slovakia, 50 Dk/Dk Def
Mr Czech Republic, 50 Earth/Sonic Ctrl
Miss Czech Republic, 50 Claws/Regen Scr
Miss Israel, 50 Rad/Elec Def
Mr Ireland, 50 Sonic/Fire Blst
And many, many Triumphant alts
"I'm not sure if I should offer congrats or a tylenol"-Catwhoorg
It's interesting...on my brute I've actually find it very hard to get my fury full when teamed with moderate to large groups, especially if there are masterminds present. Between the tendency to stop and rest between fights and not being able to engage many targets before the 'mob' wipes the floor with them, I find my fury never really has a chance to build up.
[ QUOTE ]
Yep, enjoy it while you can, scrappers and some tanks use to be like that...
[/ QUOTE ]
Last time I checked my Scrapper was still fun.
And last time I checked, Brutes are not gods. They can be defeated quite easily if you make a mistake or miss a crucial hit. If I take on more than 4-5 even cons, it's a good chance that I will be pretty hurt after the fight, especially if it's a group of guys like Arachnos or Goldbrickers that do more than just Smashing/Lethal.
HAHA, I'm playing my 25 brute on relentless missions solo. I'm fighting some lost, I don't think my health was ever above 20% after the first few fights the entire mission. I was hitting any and every inspiration as it landed in my tray and just kept right on some SMASH!ing mutate tail. Hrmm, 20% health, oh look full fury!!! I think I got an inspiration... hrmm I see a purple Prelate Pariha, a red Anathma, and a orange Mutate Buckshot. Bleh, just run in an hope one of those big swords doesn't one shot me.
Funny thing, I didn't die that whole mission 
Kept getting the inspirs I needed to keep on chugging and dropping.
[ QUOTE ]
My favorite moment in CoV (think I was around level 10 at the time):
25% Health, very low Endurance, high Fury, only a single Inspiration left (Defense), spawn of 3 minions in front of me. Rest is recharge and I'm about to hit it when I think screw it, I'm going in. Luckily the first guy dropped a Heal Inspiration. Not sure if I wouldn't made it without it. Fury makes you do dumb things. 
[/ QUOTE ]
Fury Lock... even Achilles had a weakness.
[ QUOTE ]
*Runs into the thread with a full head of steam, Build Up and 3 Enrages*
*stops, looks around....*
*calms down, and turns off the Pink Poms Poms of Death.*
carry on.
[/ QUOTE ]
I thought *I* was the only one who called a full Fury bar "a full head of steam"! Also, smash.
Hello, my name is Paydirt...
*crowd of Brutes* Hello Paydirt!
...and I am a SMASH!!!aholic.
It's been 22 hours since my last SMASH!!! and...I'm going to have to do it again tonight!!!
[ QUOTE ]
Sadly, I have never gotten to the fury cap...and I'm level 27 :<
[/ QUOTE ]
How is that even possible? do you stop between fights? I have a lvl 9 fire/fire brute (that i haven't been playing much due to having an awesome SG to back up my rad/thermal corruptor) and my fury bar tops out sooo fast.
Are you not attacking enough? attacking seems to build it faster than getting attacked.
There are missions when I go SMASH and have fun but too many where the new lack of Status Protection and Toggle drops is making the character a pain.
I can't keep my Enhancements from goung RED and can't hit with the Accuracies I can manage to afford.
I haven't played mine in a week.
[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I do have a question. I play a SS/Invul Brute, but I've never gotten my fury bar 100% full. I've gotten close, but never full. Does anything happen when you hit 100%? Like big SMASH! letters above the damage like Critical or Domination?
[/ QUOTE ]
IIRC, above a certain point, your own attacks add less to the Fury Bar. So it's very difficult to actually increase Fury on your own. But you can easily keep your Fury Bar topped off. You need mobs attacking to help push you over that hump to get a full Fury Bar.
[ QUOTE ]
Sadly, I have never gotten to the fury cap...and I'm level 27 :<
[/ QUOTE ]
You're not playing stupid enough. Stop thinking so much about whether or not the next battle is good for you and start rushing things. You'll get there in time.
I too like brutes, and I hate melee characters usually.
SMASH! is too addictive. I've had to switch off my Brute and play MM for a while because I was too hooked on SMASH!. My friends told me I had a problem, but all I wanted to do was SMASH!. Don't cave in to peer pressure. If someone tells you to try SMASH!, because it'll make you cool, you should say "No, I don't do SMASH!!"
I recall being in situations where I'll SHUT OFF MY TOGGLES so I could get a few extra punches in. Sprint? Don't need that. Defense, nah I don't need that! Mez protection, no worries, this next punch will do it! D'oh!
I thought dumb things made you do fury?
Scorus
Been there, SMASH-ed that, bought the T-Shirt.
I was in Sharks Head this morning to do the Cape mission and was jumped by an Even Lvl Boss and 2 Lt Family dudes when I spawned at the contact.
They got me down to 1/2 Health. Popped Rage, TI, and UY and went to town on em. I finished with the contact, went around the corner and ran smack into 6 Minions. I hadn't gotten past 1/2 Health, I had a few more seconds of Rage and an 80% full Fury Bar.
So.....Beat em all down and nailed the last guy with less than 10% health left just as Rage dropped.
Scrapper-lock doesn't hold a candle to SMASH-lock.
Yep. I actually named my Brute "Suicidal Tendencies" mainly because every thing I saw about Brutes in beta tended to promote those tendencies in the archtype
[ QUOTE ]
Yep. I actually named my Brute "Suicidal Tendencies" mainly because every thing I saw about Brutes in beta tended to promote those tendencies in the archtype
[/ QUOTE ]
That's not quite right though. It's not that we WANT to die, it's just that when in the pursuit of SMASH! nothing else, not even one's personal safety matters. ALl that is important is that all important moment, when you realized you are truly one with the concept of SMASH!
I got a bit to add.
I was unwilling to run my toggles because that took away endurance I could use for Smashing.....
Then I ran through maps like a berzerker with a migraine.
(Virtue/Champion) Neil Fracas: Inv/SS
(Virtue) Gideon Fontaine: MA/SR (Sc), Generic Hero 114: Ice/Cold, Marcus Tyler AR/En, Project F: Spines/DA (S)
(Champion) Jenna Sidal BS/SD, Generic Hero 114: En/En (Bl), Loganne Claws/WP (Sc)
[ QUOTE ]
Yup and I'll tell you why.....
As my sig states I am a habitual Defender or habitual support character. When CoV came out I stayed true to form and rolled Doms and Corrs.
One day while minding my own business I was struck with the idea to try a Brute. Well heck why not? Noone was around to see me and the door to my room was locked so.........
Now I can't play anything else!
I don't want to log in to any other toon!
Now, all I wanna do is SMASH!!!
Now I'm addicted to the SMASH
AND I now need to change my sig
I need some sort of 12-step now...
Darn Brutes.................................
[/ QUOTE ]
An old quote, however, I started off as a mastermind in beta, of the fun of controlling a henchman, however, notcing how they were about as squishy as a regen scrapper made out of a bean bag chair upon stronger and higher lvl mobs, I rollef a brute, ss/invuln, did good, liked the damage, died a few times because of low res, didn't slot RPD and TI well enough, plus, all the energy and other non smashing/lethal foes drove me away, and then beta ended, however, on my 21st birthday, which was on november 13th, I get CoV, what do I do when I get back from school since I had to go from presents to school over night till thursday? why, I roll an MM, same crap, nice, but squishy, last night, or rather, thursday afternoon... (???) I rollef an Energy Melee/Energy Aura science brute who looked exactly like my invuln/ss tanker, Proton Sentinel (Blaster's best friend or 'The Wall' were my favorite nicknames, still are too) on the Liberty Server, except, my tanker's secondary color is bright green, Proton Destroyer, my brute, his secondary colors are bright red, and he has no cape.
However, what happened earlier on friday astounded me, I do the timed mish of fighting hellions in the base, I see that damned that made my mm take a dirt nap in beta, I pop a green, blue, and red, (hey, those slammers are nasty without resistance powers taken) and I walk up to him, wave, barrage, energy punch, barrage, and bone smasher his sorry butt into the ground... the bone smasher, did about 60 damage.... if my parents or anyone else wasn't sleeping or in the house when I four-shotted a lt with boss powers from CoH, I would have scream out this, "Brute SMASH puny weakling!!"
I will do so if I ever get the opportunity to do so without my parents sending me to a nut hospital for thinking their son has gone off the deep end...
so, in closing words, pets are fun, assassin's strike is useful...
however...
the power of SMASH!!! has consumed my very being, I live only to smash now.
Global - @Proton Sentinel
Jack Devon Crab Spider VEAT; Virtue
Mordigen Earth/Storm on Liberty and Virtue
Technological Terror Bots/FF; Liberty.
50s: Zul Vakirol Thugs/Poison; Virtue. Kiyujin Katana/SR
[ QUOTE ]
ALl that is important is that all important moment, when you realized you are truly one with the concept of SMASH!
[/ QUOTE ]
For me, it was yesterday. I had been a SMASH! addict for a while, but...well, let me give you the background...
My Brute is a level 29 Invul/SS big bad wolf, right? Okay, so in the SG, we got this level 23 corruptor with the Sea Witch mission and she can't find anyone to help. She says she doesn't care about the XP. Neither do I, really. I had been leveling pretty steadily and was in the mood to be a good SG neighbor. So, I joined her.
Oh...my...lord. I conned Sea Witch at white. I laughed out loud. I knew it was going to be fun.
What I didn't realize was how much HP she had, and what that meant for me. See, she couldn't hit me. At least, not badly. The worst part was getting tossed around and stunned occassionally, but no big problem.
However, it never occurred to me that since she didn't go down that quickly - and I had plenty of blues for end - my Fury was about to max.
I did my usual KOB to start the fight and just kept the Brawl-Punch-Jab-Punch with an occassional Haymaker for good measure. She was getting slaughtered, but her HP bar barely moved. KOB recharged and I hit it again. Still, not much movement on her HP bar.
Until it recharged again.
Words cannot describe the feeling I got when - SMASH! - 496 points of oh-so-yummy damage. I was ecstatic. I had to yell it out in SG chat...lol. They probably thought I was nuts. (I am, actually, but that's beside the point.) But it just felt so good to do that kind of destruction.
Oh, and I just realized...all my damage SOs were red at the time. Okay, now I'm getting goosebumps.
Thank you, devs, for the glory of SMASH!
(For the record, in another 10 levels I'm probably going to look back on this one and laugh at that puny damage. And that makes the addiction all the more prevalent.)
[ QUOTE ]
(For the record, in another 10 levels I'm probably going to look back on this one and laugh at that puny damage. And that makes the addiction all the more prevalent.)
[/ QUOTE ]
I know that exact feeling! I was estatic when my Total Focus was hitting for just over 200 Damage in my teens... Then I gained 10 levels, added three Damage SOs, and the universe just seemed to... bend just the right way to get me up against a Freak Tank with .8 Fury and a Build up.
I almost cried when I saw the 500+ damage shoot over his head and his HP drop to nothing. I love my SMASH, and I wouldn't trade it for all the minions in the game!
[ QUOTE ]
lol it's not nuclear science. Brutes are so popular simply because they're the strongest AT in the game. as in overpowered. just like every other 'popular' AT in the game. once they get balanced, it'll stop. City of Blasters was stopped, City of Scrappers was the next wave, then it got stopped. City of Tankers happened. Got stopped. Hard. Now we're currently in the City of Brutes stage. Guess what's comin'?
[/ QUOTE ]
You're right about one thing, but it's not that Brutes are overpowered. Brutes are popular and it is simple as to why. Because they're the closest either CoX game has to true comic book characters. The distinction made for CoH between Tankers and Scrappers is so artificial it's not funny. Brutes actually allow people to make reasonable facsimilies of their favorite comic melee characters. All other AT's fall short of allowing such a close connection to the characters people grew up reading about and falling in love with.
I have made quite a few scrappers/tanks in CoH, but they always had one or more (usually more) of the following problems early on:
Not enough damge.
Too squishy.
Fast end drain
I made a Dark/Fire Brute, and it seemed to lack all these qualities. I get constant high damage, Resists, two self-heals, two end recovery attacks, two damage boost powers, excessive attack chain, slots to spare for defense because the attacks are already great damage. I can pop a Luck if I need more survival ability and I feel covered.
I was able to solo seawitch at level 17 (elite boss that gives a badge that everyone was saying is hard). Missions on normal mode are always fast and easy, and I end up using Rest for endurance only, and lots of times I'll go without shields to save end if there are no mez's being thrown around. With full fury, I out damage everything non-brute in a team as my damage shield ramps up really fast.
Could I do any of this with a scrapper or tanker? No. A tank could probably hold agro much easier then me as I have to get the mob in my damage shield and constantly change targets to spread the hate. I think scrappers would have a hard time keeping up with the pace I go at currently, and I get all my resists/status protection in two powers.
Scrappers and Brutes actually seem to have lots in common but are not quite the same. They both have high damage caps, same resist caps, Melee Primary and Defense Secondary. The difference is that Brutes have a larger variety of power sets and can self-boost their damage to high levels off the start, where scrappers have a slightly higher base damage and the potential to do output the most devistating attacks in the game, but this requires the assistance of many fortutide or Kinetic buffs to pull that off.
Freeedom
H: Victra Defile (Rad/Dark) & Hot Hits (Fire/SD)
V: Spike Cream (NW) & Crescent Wind (Nin/Storm)
Sub Hero Inc ARC: 1541
--If you don't like what I have to say, it was probably a typo you are refering to.
[ QUOTE ]
The power of SMASH! compels you!
[/ QUOTE ]
LOL
not reading this entire gigantic thread.. but this was worth the first page
I also remember a post on the CoV beta boards about City of Masterminds.
And Stalkers own PvP.
You get the idea.
Summary: All of the CoV ATs are quite powerful in their own right. We're in the Brutes forum here, so obviously there are a lot of fan posts. I'd say you can probably find just as many in the other CoV AT forums.
Yep, enjoy it while you can, scrappers and some tanks use to be like that...