[ QUOTE ]
Tanks have a role. To fill that role they are given specific tools and are balanced accordingly. They are given aggro management and the mitigation to survive it. If I remember my CoH history, tank taunt used to be single target and they didn't have gauntlet, correct? But at that time, they were unkillable as well.
The devs decided that this lacked balance all over the place. So they decreased the mitigation side and increased the ability to control aggro.
Now tanks can fill their role but still be taken down IF the incoming damage surpasses their extreme mitigation.
Still with me? More aggro management means more mitigation.
Scrappers are the flip side to the tank. They don't have gauntlet. Their only taunt is single target. They have very low aggro management. If we left them at that, no one would ever play a scrapper. So what do they have to balance the AT? High damage.
Then we have the brute. It starts out doing less damage than the tank, with less aggro management than the tank and the same mitigation as the scrapper. As with the scrapper, if we left it like this, no one would play it. So it, too, has the ability to do more damage, but unlike the scrapper, it must WORK FOR IT.
[/ QUOTE ]
Just as an FYI, there's a missing element to this line of thought. The CoH archetypes were originally designed with significant self-awareness of the notion of traditional MMO roles. Blasters, Tankers, Defenders, and Controllers were designed with at least some nominal role in mind. Scrappers were actually defined to be the one archetype that wasn't anchored to a team role: it was the "solo-friendly" archetype. Over time, that was blurred by the shifting realization that CoH appealed to soloers much more strongly than originally anticipated, *and* the increasing realization that MMMOs don't automatically imply induced teaming.
The CoV archetypes were *not* designed in that way. They were *all* designed to be much more carefully balanced between soloing and teaming. They were designed as soloers with a team contribution, not parts of a team with some ability to solo. As a result, "role" plays a much weaker role in the design of CoV archetypes. And as a consequence, its much more difficult to state with the same level of certainty and unambiguousness that any one particular charateristic of a CoV archetype is specifically there for some specific team role reason.
It also creates situations which can appear contradictory to some. For example, Brutes are designed to be most similar to Scrappers, not Tankers, in the sense that they are *not* the primary aggro control archetype. Masterminds are the primary aggro control archetype. However, that doesn't mean MMs have the role and the tools exclusively, as Brutes have some of those tools as well. That's not a contradiction, because CoV archetypes were not intended to be pigeonholed in the same way that CoH archetypes initially were. Furthermore, it may seem nonsensical that the archetype whose damage mitigation is most buffable to tanker levels is the brute if the brute is not the primary aggro control archetype, but again that's because Brutes aren't as strongly defined by their team role as Tankers are.
Why do brutes have more health than scrappers? In my opinion, the most likely reason why brutes have higher health (and its not really very much higher) is that it was intended to compensate for the initial "start up" damage that brutes must endure while building up Fury. I don't think there was any additional serious numerical analysis done to determine how much might be necessary, or even *if* it was actually necessary**. The devs have traditionally *not* spent loads of time doing (appropriate) numerical analysis to set the numbers of powersets, and there's no evidence they did so when designing the Brute archetype. They did what they nearly always do in those circumstances: they set the numbers to what they thought sounded like it made sense, then playtested it to see if their assumptions were strongly contradicted. That methodology simply cannot tell the difference really between 105% scrapper health, 115% scrapper health, and probably 125% scrapper health. In other words, its not set to the value the devs want, its set to a value that the devs can't prove they don't want.
** The CoV beta discussions regarding Fury and Ice powers strongly suggest that numerical analysis was either not being done, or not being done properly, with regard to any of the mechanics of Fury. That is separate from the fact that Fury was tweaked more than once, and never with specific calculated numerical justification.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the teamed and buffed scrapper is most likely teamed with a tank. the survivability question is moot.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is a false assumption. I've never evaluated my scrappers performance based on the presence of a tanker. Outside of STF, I could care less if there is even a tanker on the team. I fail to see a tanker's presence as relevant to this discussion.
[/ QUOTE ]
outside of stf's or tf's in general this argument doesnt matter fer crap at all. like i said if all you care about is farming or soloing there is NOTHING to complain about
if you actually CARE about doing the hard TF's and are any other brute than a granite...that is when the disparity of not actually HAVING tanks redside comes out.
how many of you have actually done the lRSF without a nuke bumb-rush? i have. one time. if it wasnt for the GRANITE BRUTE who was io'd to the gills we would have failed miserably. i've tried an all mm LRSF with FIVE FORCE FIELD GENERATORS and with that much stacked defense, back alley brawler one-shot half the team with his hand-clap. we needed a tank. our only option is a brute, and for this SF the better option is only ONE brute build.
Arcanaville,
Isn't the whole Going Rogue thing going to force the developers to reconcile the archetype issues created by the CoH team model versus CoV self-reliance model?
In other words, aren't they going to be forced at some point to deal with the questions raised in this and many other threads regarding the sudden cohabitation of all archetypes?
Be well, people of CoH.
My only RSF was done without temps, on a PuG where only two folks had done it before. We didn't have any radiation corr, stone brute or mind dom. We had several people under level 50.
Claiming the RSF is some kind of uber hard challenge only IOed out teams with nukes can accomplish might work in the general discussion forum, but here, we're in the scrapper boards.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the teamed and buffed scrapper is most likely teamed with a tank. the survivability question is moot.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is a false assumption. I've never evaluated my scrappers performance based on the presence of a tanker. Outside of STF, I could care less if there is even a tanker on the team. I fail to see a tanker's presence as relevant to this discussion.
[/ QUOTE ]
outside of stf's or tf's in general this argument doesnt matter fer crap at all. like i said if all you care about is farming or soloing there is NOTHING to complain about
if you actually CARE about doing the hard TF's and are any other brute than a granite...that is when the disparity of not actually HAVING tanks redside comes out.
how many of you have actually done the lRSF without a nuke bumb-rush? i have. one time. if it wasnt for the GRANITE BRUTE who was io'd to the gills we would have failed miserably. i've tried an all mm LRSF with FIVE FORCE FIELD GENERATORS and with that much stacked defense, back alley brawler one-shot half the team with his hand-clap. we needed a tank. our only option is a brute, and for this SF the better option is only ONE brute build.
[/ QUOTE ]
OK, I've done LRSFs....with out a Granite brute on the team. In fact, I've never done a LRSF with a Granite brute on the team. I have run every TF available to scrappers with out a tanker. I've even run STFs with only scrappers (though we did nuke shivan GW).
I know for a fact LRSFs are run routinely with out any brutes at all. My point remains that TF, SFs, LSRSs, and the presence or absence of Tankers isn't relevant to this discussion.
The issue is scrapper vs brutes; is there an imbalance. Mind you, I haven't taken a position on either side.
SI Radio has many DJs and listeners whom hold City of Heroes close to their hearts. We will be supporting many efforts to keep CoH ALIVE!!
[ QUOTE ]
It goes back to a point made earlier. In order for brutes to maintain their damage output parity with scrappers, they must play like brutes. Meaning running from spawn to spawn resting as little as possible in order to maintain fury.
[/ QUOTE ]
Wait, this sounds just like scrapper-lock. I couldn't imagine playing a scrapper any other way, short of the team telling me to wait for the tank to herd. Hmmm, so in order for a Brute to have damage output as a scrapper does, then it needs to play like a brute, which is very similar to how a scrapper plays like.
[ QUOTE ]
SCRAPPER AND BRUTE DAMAGE OUTPUT IS EQUITABLE. IT IS EQUAL IN THE LONG RUN. IT HAS PARITY.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hmm, so if a scrapper's damage and brute damage is pretty much equal for the most part, and that they have similar playstyles, then what makes them different in the first place?
It has been said that brutes actually have more survivability (I'm going by the numbers, not necessarily by hard research). Okay, so that's the difference. What if we were to make a comparison here....
scrapper damage = brute damage (in the long run, regardless of mechanics)
scrapper survivability < brute survivability (just by the numbers, at least)
It would seem that brutes would be better than scrappers, short of available sets and environment, given the assumptions above. But if that really true?
Now brute damage can only reach scrapper damage if it builds up its fury up to a significant amount. Now many people here on this thread and the one before have said that reaching any given number of Fury is easy and normal in game play, whether that number be 50%, 75%, or even 90%.
That's where the crux of the two arguing sides seem to be. At what fury level does a brute need to equal or even surpass scrapper's damage output? And what survivability risk does a brute assume when trying to reach that fury level? That is would probably be one (but not exclusive, of course) balancing aspect of the two ATs. Now I know there are some uber players here that can do crazy stuff and all, but let's put that aside for right now.
Given a "standard" brute (ignoring how loaded that assumption is), what is its risk when it tries to maintain scrapper damage? If the survivability risk is equal to or less than a scrapper doing the same thing, then yeah, definitely brutes are statistically better than scrappers. But if a brute's survivability risk is greater than the risk that a scrapper takes doing the same scenario, then the brute's damage capabilities is balanced in that "a greater risk would bring a greater reward."
Now consider the same questions but using buffed up, IO'ed, 133+, uber-madd-skillz player brutes and scrappers. Would the answers change in this scenario? Would that need to be taken into consideration for balance?
Most of these are open questions that I really don't have the answers for, but someone out there might know, or know how to get them.
As for risk assessment, I'm also clueless on how to do that, since there are too many scenarios with different risks to make assessments for.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
brutes must play non stop. there is no waiting for people to res. no waiting for people to catch up. no waiting for fulcrum to recharge. no waiting for a fresh sb/fort/forge. no waiting.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hey this sounds familiar.....WAIT A MINUTE that's how I play my SCRAPPERS...all of them.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, you beat me to it!
[ QUOTE ]
Isn't the whole Going Rogue thing going to force the developers to reconcile the archetype issues created by the CoH team model versus CoV self-reliance model?
[/ QUOTE ]
Eventually, yes. However, since villain archetypes are less popular than hero archetypes, at least initially the shift I suspect will occur from (at least some) hero types to villain types will not be seen as a problem. It might be a year or more before any strong reverse skew between, say, scrappers and brutes affects the population numbers enough for the devs to notice and be required to take action.
Also, ignoring powerset availability issues, different players will see different choices between all of the different melee archetypes (and other choices) simply due to playstyle and skillset differences. So many of the differences between the CoH and CoV archetypes won't unilaterally skew in one direction or the other, at least in my judgement. I think more casual, lower performance players will still prefer scrappers to brutes, ignoring powerset availability issues. Higher performance players are likely to skew more towards brutes. But the net skew might be very low. *Which* issues actually become material issues the devs will have to address isn't obvious to me at the moment.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
[ QUOTE ]
*Which* issues actually become material issues the devs will have to address isn't obvious to me at the moment.
[/ QUOTE ]
The (if it ever happens, new) dominator vs. blaster issue seems pretty obvious to me, but blasters are apparently popular, so they may be able to hold on to their popularity even vs. (if it ever happens, new) dominators.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
*Which* issues actually become material issues the devs will have to address isn't obvious to me at the moment.
[/ QUOTE ]
The (if it ever happens, new) dominator vs. blaster issue seems pretty obvious to me, but blasters are apparently popular, so they may be able to hold on to their popularity even vs. (if it ever happens, new) dominators.
[/ QUOTE ]
Given the current population disparity, the skew between blasters and dominators would have to be enormous to create a serious archetypal balance problem. Also, most players play below level 40, and at lower levels (especially below 30) there is still a significant difference in capability and playstyle between dominators (even projecting the Dominator2.0 changes) and blasters.
However I do see Dominator2.0s potentially filling in a niche that has never been adequately filled in the past in my opinion: magically themed offensive controllers are a lot easier to simulate with 2.0 Dominators (with or without pets) than with Blasters or Controllers. Back in the day, one of the more interesting questions (to me) was "what would Dr. Strange be" in CoH. No answer was really satisfying then, but today I'd say without hesitation "2.0 Dominator." The powersets aren't exactly there, but the archetypal design clearly has the best fit.
I think a more problematic archetype comparison is corruptors vs defenders. The problem isn't absolute magnitude of the powers: that's something most players have only a vague sense of anyway. Its more the case that a corruptor is a much more easy to solo defender. The numbers are different, but not so different that the average player is going to notice much on the buff side, but will perceive the difference in offensive due to faster kill-speed and soloability.
I'm not sure how the Brute/Scrapper comparison will play out, because it all depends on the perception of how easy it is to generate and sustain high fury. Whether it is or is not easy is a technical balance question, but its the perception itself that is most relevant to archetype popularity. There seems to be two strong camps regarding that issue, and its unclear to me which is the more popular opinion, and by how much.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
[ QUOTE ]
My only RSF was done without temps, on a PuG where only two folks had done it before. We didn't have any radiation corr, stone brute or mind dom. We had several people under level 50.
Claiming the RSF is some kind of uber hard challenge only IOed out teams with nukes can accomplish might work in the general discussion forum, but here, we're in the scrapper boards.
[/ QUOTE ]
how many times did you wipe on the freedom phalanx as you attempted to split the spawn?
i do NOT consider wiping-on-purpose to split the spawns and get numina and positron down first a valid strategy. yes it works. it's also stupid as all hell.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
*Which* issues actually become material issues the devs will have to address isn't obvious to me at the moment.
[/ QUOTE ]
The (if it ever happens, new) dominator vs. blaster issue seems pretty obvious to me, but blasters are apparently popular, so they may be able to hold on to their popularity even vs. (if it ever happens, new) dominators.
[/ QUOTE ]
Given the current population disparity, the skew between blasters and dominators would have to be enormous to create a serious archetypal balance problem. Also, most players play below level 40, and at lower levels (especially below 30) there is still a significant difference in capability and playstyle between dominators (even projecting the Dominator2.0 changes) and blasters.
However I do see Dominator2.0s potentially filling in a niche that has never been adequately filled in the past in my opinion: magically themed offensive controllers are a lot easier to simulate with 2.0 Dominators (with or without pets) than with Blasters or Controllers. Back in the day, one of the more interesting questions (to me) was "what would Dr. Strange be" in CoH. No answer was really satisfying then, but today I'd say without hesitation "2.0 Dominator." The powersets aren't exactly there, but the archetypal design clearly has the best fit.
I think a more problematic archetype comparison is corruptors vs defenders. The problem isn't absolute magnitude of the powers: that's something most players have only a vague sense of anyway. Its more the case that a corruptor is a much more easy to solo defender. The numbers are different, but not so different that the average player is going to notice much on the buff side, but will perceive the difference in offensive due to faster kill-speed and soloability.
I'm not sure how the Brute/Scrapper comparison will play out, because it all depends on the perception of how easy it is to generate and sustain high fury. Whether it is or is not easy is a technical balance question, but its the perception itself that is most relevant to archetype popularity. There seems to be two strong camps regarding that issue, and its unclear to me which is the more popular opinion, and by how much.
[/ QUOTE ]
i tell ya what i see on infinity.
red side - cap. cap is where all the ae missions start and where the main black market hub is (because it's like 10 yards from the university and a base portal). when ae's form - and they are forming constantly - everyone is invited. you dont see many people standing around in the ae building twiddling their thumbs.
play blueside in atlas - also the hub for the most part (i could be wrong here). what do i see? a building FILLED with people begging for an ae - but nobody willing to actually start one. the few i've been on blueside have been terrible - both farms and straight up story-experiencers.
i'm also apalled at the barrens-quality of broadcast speak in atlas.
there arent many redside players on infinity compared to blue. i dont know if it's necessarily people with hero complexes or people who dont realize just how ridiculously easier it is to do just about anything but find rare io's on the black market red side.
but i know this - if you have to GRIND REP through missions that are flagged villain/hero before you can change, i dont think that many people will change sides. if it's a huge grind, you may change - find it sucks - and how have to grind yet again (maybe even grind even MORE) to change back. i think these dev's have been playing too much WoW and LOTRO.
either way the only people who have to fear brutes are those that suck as scrappers or tanks. because a well played brute will obviously trump a poorly played tank who took all the attacks from their secondary, from the power pools and nothing from their primary. you know we see a lot of those. i bet that less than 10% of this games pbase even reads these boards or gives two craps above anything beyond CONCEPTS. and as we all here reading this know - concepts alone dont make a working character in this game.
Ok I wasn't going to say anything about the LRSF but here it goes
I run a MoLRSF every weekend. We do not use a Granite brute anymore, he switch to his /WP brute. We do split the freedom phalanx and pull them behinde the building. Sometime we get 1 sometime we get 3 sometimes we get them all it happens. We don't use a Mind Dom either. We can do this with about any team make up.
Our last run was with only a /SR brute and we did just fine(we passed too 
) So saying that you need to nuke rush or mind dom or anything is worng. You just need to know how to play the game and learn the SF.
BTW this is a Master Run so no Temps and No dying 
"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
*Which* issues actually become material issues the devs will have to address isn't obvious to me at the moment.
[/ QUOTE ]
The (if it ever happens, new) dominator vs. blaster issue seems pretty obvious to me, but blasters are apparently popular, so they may be able to hold on to their popularity even vs. (if it ever happens, new) dominators.
[/ QUOTE ]
When they make doms capable of massive aoe damage is when they will start to seriously threaten the blaster team role.
As it is right now dom2.0 is a great choice over a blapper, but not a blaster. And blappers are niche players on teams.
At's/powersets that focus on st damage and produce low aoe have historically not been very popular outside of solo players.
Doms are awesome and have a very fun playstyle (likely for more experience players though), but their lack of easy to use aoe damage will be theirdownfall imo. I say "easy to use" because they can actually do ok aoe, but cumbersome powers like slow cones+slow pbaoes really show their weakness on teams using targeted aoes and easy to use pbaoes.
Great choice for solo players though, but they have pretty stiff competition in that department too. Including three AT's so strong in solo play that they reputably solo the hardest content in the game.
[ QUOTE ]
Doms are awesome and have a very fun playstyle (likely for more experience players though), but their lack of easy to use aoe damage will be theirdownfall imo. I say "easy to use" because they can actually do ok aoe, but cumbersome powers like slow cones+slow pbaoes really show their weakness on teams using targeted aoes and easy to use pbaoes.
[/ QUOTE ]
Just like some blasters do better AoE damage than other blasters, some doms do better AoE damage than other doms. I look forward to Dom changes, but I will always love blasters as well, so I am my own evidence against my concerns. That being said, it is still a concern, because, IME, doms already play a lot like blasters anyway and in the future they will be even more blaster like, only much better at handling very tough encounters.
It will be interesting.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
[ QUOTE ]
I think a more problematic archetype comparison is corruptors vs defenders. The problem isn't absolute magnitude of the powers: that's something most players have only a vague sense of anyway. Its more the case that a corruptor is a much more easy to solo defender. The numbers are different, but not so different that the average player is going to notice much on the buff side, but will perceive the difference in offensive due to faster kill-speed and soloability.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not really agree on this.
If you look at CoH, there's already somthing like this.
Def vs Controller.
Controller have already the deffensive sets of defender and top of that got a lot of utility tool and more damaging attack than defender (for this i'm not 100% sure but it's looks like for me).
And you still got a lot of player that play defender, because they want to support the team, and be good at this.
Defender is and will be the only with a defensive set as a primary.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
*Which* issues actually become material issues the devs will have to address isn't obvious to me at the moment.
[/ QUOTE ]
The (if it ever happens, new) dominator vs. blaster issue seems pretty obvious to me, but blasters are apparently popular, so they may be able to hold on to their popularity even vs. (if it ever happens, new) dominators.
[/ QUOTE ]
The problem I see with that is that, in my experience, people tend to link Doms with 'trollers, not Blasters. I've dealt with this a lot lately, and seeing how Controller numbers react to Going Rogue might be more of an issue...
Back on topic, thanks for the info guys! I've just started a major project with my main Scrapper, to see how far I can push her, and math (plus a lack of Mids) is my weakpoint.
Current Scrapper Projects: Elec/Invuln, Fire/SR and the eternal MA/DA adventure
Current Defender Projects: Emp/Psy and Storm/Arch
lol Stalker: Nin/Nrg
[ QUOTE ]
Ok I wasn't going to say anything about the LRSF but here it goes
I run a MoLRSF every weekend. We do not use a Granite brute anymore, he switch to his /WP brute. We do split the freedom phalanx and pull them behinde the building. Sometime we get 1 sometime we get 3 sometimes we get them all it happens. We don't use a Mind Dom either. We can do this with about any team make up.
Our last run was with only a /SR brute and we did just fine(we passed too ) So saying that you need to nuke rush or mind dom or anything is worng. You just need to know how to play the game and learn the SF.
BTW this is a Master Run so no Temps and No dying
[/ QUOTE ]
running with the same group regardless of what at they use makes a huge impact on your success. ie...that's NOT a PuG
and yes SR brutes can do just fine too although there is some luck involved since the freedom phalanx has quite a lot of tohit buffs going on.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My only RSF was done without temps, on a PuG where only two folks had done it before. We didn't have any radiation corr, stone brute or mind dom. We had several people under level 50.
Claiming the RSF is some kind of uber hard challenge only IOed out teams with nukes can accomplish might work in the general discussion forum, but here, we're in the scrapper boards.
[/ QUOTE ]
how many times did you wipe on the freedom phalanx as you attempted to split the spawn?
i do NOT consider wiping-on-purpose to split the spawns and get numina and positron down first a valid strategy. yes it works. it's also stupid as all hell.
[/ QUOTE ]
... Did you already forgot how the last time you made random wrong assumptions about me ended ? I'll give you a hint, it was on the tanker forum. I'll give you another hint, it's not me who ended up looking silly.
So : "Splitting the spawn ?" What for ?
[ QUOTE ]
You just need to know how to play the game
[/ QUOTE ]
This man speaks the truth
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ok I wasn't going to say anything about the LRSF but here it goes
I run a MoLRSF every weekend. We do not use a Granite brute anymore, he switch to his /WP brute. We do split the freedom phalanx and pull them behinde the building. Sometime we get 1 sometime we get 3 sometimes we get them all it happens. We don't use a Mind Dom either. We can do this with about any team make up.
Our last run was with only a /SR brute and we did just fine(we passed too ) So saying that you need to nuke rush or mind dom or anything is worng. You just need to know how to play the game and learn the SF.
BTW this is a Master Run so no Temps and No dying
[/ QUOTE ]
running with the same group regardless of what at they use makes a huge impact on your success. ie...that's NOT a PuG
and yes SR brutes can do just fine too although there is some luck involved since the freedom phalanx has quite a lot of tohit buffs going on.
[/ QUOTE ]
1 You didn't say it had to be a PuG you just said how many times you run and I telling you NONE! But I guess that isn't good enough.
[ QUOTE ]
outside of stf's or tf's in general this argument doesnt matter fer crap at all. like i said if all you care about is farming or soloing there is NOTHING to complain about
if you actually CARE about doing the hard TF's and are any other brute than a granite...that is when the disparity of not actually HAVING tanks redside comes out.
how many of you have actually done the lRSF without a nuke bumb-rush? i have. one time. if it wasnt for the GRANITE BRUTE who was io'd to the gills we would have failed miserably. i've tried an all mm LRSF with FIVE FORCE FIELD GENERATORS and with that much stacked defense, back alley brawler one-shot half the team with his hand-clap. we needed a tank. our only option is a brute, and for this SF the better option is only ONE brute build.
[/ QUOTE ]
2. I didn't say it was the same 8 I say I run it every week. There are only 3 to 4 of us that run together all the time. so the other 4 to 5 are players we pick up, whlie not a true PuG it is mostly a Pug. And agin you never said it had to be a PuG were you came with that it, I don't know.
"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps
[ QUOTE ]
how many times did you wipe on the freedom phalanx as you attempted to split the spawn?
i do NOT consider wiping-on-purpose to split the spawns and get numina and positron down first a valid strategy. yes it works. it's also stupid as all hell.
[/ QUOTE ]
You need to find people who know how to play better.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
[ QUOTE ]
brutes must play non stop. there is no waiting for people to res. no waiting for people to catch up. no waiting for fulcrum to recharge. no waiting for a fresh sb/fort/forge. no waiting.
not all brute secondaries can even play like that. MOST have serious end issues especially playing in a team like this. multiple brutes in a team means one has fury, the rest do not.
[/ QUOTE ]
FALSE. Brutes 'must' play 'non-stop'? No, brutes CAN play non-stop, build high fury, and out-damage scrappers AND out survive them AND out aggro manage them, which means they can outclass scrappers in everything. OR they CAN take their time, at which point they do less damage than scrappers, but still retain advantages in survivability and aggro management.
So in those two play-styles, the brute is better at everything in one, while trading dmg for survivability in the other. And as has been mentioned by other posters, the playstyle where brutes are universally superior is a playstyle shared by both at's and the majority of those who play them. If you still consider that parity, then I guess we'll just have to respectfully disagree.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
how many times did you wipe on the freedom phalanx as you attempted to split the spawn?
i do NOT consider wiping-on-purpose to split the spawns and get numina and positron down first a valid strategy. yes it works. it's also stupid as all hell.
[/ QUOTE ]
You need to find people who know how to play better.
[/ QUOTE ]
not really. i only care about doing it successfully once on any character i care to get the badge for. farming merits isnt as important to me as it is to many others.
i will say though that outside of that one non-nuke rushing lrsf, i havent had a single lrsf team where there wasnt at least one person with a retarded concept build. you know the kind - masterminds with all of their attacks but dont know how bodyguard works at 50.
having 4 'regulars' greatly decreases the odds of you picking up even just one of these unfortunately-normal retarded builds.
as for nihil..i have no use for you. you didnt specify how your group was made up or what tactics you used so i made a fair assumption based on how the lrsf is usually done in a PuG. if you didnt do the normal PuG tactic you should have stated it. you should consider yourself lucky the lrsf have been nerfed as many times as it has in the last year and a half, newbie.
[ QUOTE ]
the teamed and buffed scrapper is most likely teamed with a tank. the survivability question is moot.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is a false assumption. I've never evaluated my scrappers performance based on the presence of a tanker. Outside of STF, I could care less if there is even a tanker on the team. I fail to see a tanker's presence as relevant to this discussion.