Brutes & Scrappers after Going Rogue?

Too eaches own, I have one brute that gets no play time, and a plethora of Scrappers that hardly get time to even get a day job.

I don't like the Fury Mechanic and Brutes seem a little lackluster to me (just to me) and I am pretty sure I am not the only one that feels this way. So just because you think brutes are better doesn't mean everyone does.

I don't think any ATs will be extinct. Defenders have the highest buff/debuff values, just because you can build for defense doesn't mean that IO's are enough, on ITF's I still perfer a FF with my softcapped WP, because def debuff is one of the most common in the game.

Doms and Trollers are two different ATs, like trying to compare Corruptors to Blasters, yeah they have the same primary but there secondaries put them on way different playing fields

Tanks, Blaster, MMs each have their own player base some like to live easy, some like to kill quick and die trying, some like the easy button.

I don't like Stalkers at all, but just because I don't doesn't mean that they don't have a playerbase.

GR will not put an end to any ATs.

I've done LGTF and ITF, and brute is never a second choice that i'll only look into if tankers arent there. When the brute can solo the 3 firsts missions alone, i much prefer to have him and his damage then the overkill protection of a tanker. So it's totally not true that everyone prefer tankers over brutes.

As for the "without IO enhnacement and Accolades boosts" that's pretty irrevelant because there is brutes and tankers with them. Picking a non-IOed tanker over an IOed brute because that brute would be less tough without them..... that's like picking a lvl 3 fire blaster over a lvl 50 elec, because if it wasn't for the level, elec would do less damage. =P

Yes, if we all played based on sheer power and capability of the maximum build, this would be City of Warshades and Bots/Traps MMs.

Huh. I've done dozens of villain-only LGTFs and ITFs, and always done just fine with Brutes. And of course the hardest task in the game, the LRSF, is always done without Tankers.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I have to wonder what you're talking about here. Are you assuming a stalker will sit around with their thumb up their butt and wait for hide to kick in so they can AS? Do you assume everyone who plays a stalker is a moron or something?

AS from hide is immense ST burst damage which I doubt can be matched in the game. We're talking a base of 139+250 = 389 base damage at 50.That's a damage scale of 6.99 BTW. This is in 3 seconds so DPA is 129 before enhancement. Energy Transfer does 252 for a stalker at that level base, and ET only animates in .33 seconds less. ET thus has a DPA of 94. Not even close.

Once hide is up, AS does scale back to 139 damage (DS 2.5) which is nothing special. However it can be fired off for full whenever a placate is ready even if you are in continuous melee (so 30 seconds or less).

You claim that placate consumes time. Yes it does, but only 1.5 seconds, and if leveraged to make a strong attack hit for double, it easily makes up for that time. If I leverage it for an AS, that's huge. If the situation does not permit AS because of interruption, I can use placate to double the damage on some other heavy hitter. Say I'm DM and I thus double the damage of MG. That's a great deal since I've gotten double the damage for a power which uses 2 seconds by only spending 1.5 seconds.

Though on a defense built stalker (and honestly I don't see any logic in the non defense builds, but that's me), you should be able to pop off that non interrupted AS every 30 seconds from placate.

I am tempted to work out stalker attack chain DPS values (assuming they don't exist). I don't really see them lagging much if any behind a scrapper.

I would welcome any attack chain you could come up with that could once and for all convince people to stop avoiding Stalkers.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Maybe I'll do it when bored over break. I'll have my laptop handy after all.

I think a lot of blueside only players often forget that on redside, players "manage" to complete the LRSF regularly without Tankers or the higher buff numbers of Defenders.

Master of, no less.

This works both ways though. Why take a Brute when you have a Kin, Pain, or Thermal along who can Fulcrum/Painbringer/Forge a Tank. Certainly, there's a very large difference in damage cap, but I thought I'd just lay that out there <3

Probably because you can Fulcrum/Painbringer/Forge the brute to even higher levels of damage? They do have a 750% damage bonus cap, as opposed to the 300% on a tank, in addition to the higher base damage.

No matter how you slice it, the brute will always do more damage than the tank in the same situation.

Basically, villains have been without Tankers and Defenders from the beginning. We've never had high self-defense or high buff numbers, and our content is even HARDER! And we still do just fine. We aren't going to suddenly start needing Tankers and Defenders when we can cross over.

Heck blueside doesn't even need them now -- that's why they're such unpopular ATs.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

/facepalm

....

....that was like, reflex. Seriously, I was sitting here resting my chin on my arm and scrolling down. When I read that, my chin slipped and my forehead went into my palm...I didn't even *mean* to, it just happened.

[/quote]

Actually, Brutes' base damage is lower than Tanks. Tanker base damage is 0.8 while a Brute sits at 0.75. Pretty minor, but it is indeed lower. A Brute needs ~6.5% Fury to equal Tanker base damage.

True.

But Dechs' point still stands, the Brute soaks up Fulcrum/Painbringer/Forge better than the Tanker ever could.

Besides, my Brute get's 6.5% fury when someone Farts in his general direction.

I however feel the need to explain it to the poster.

Stalkers aren't hit and run anymore.

The only time my stalker hides in missions anymore, is when I happen to reneter hide when running to the next mob, or when I use Placate.

Stalkers aren't hit and run anymore.

That said, I never played that way before the buffs to Stalkers. :P I played my Stalker the same was as they are setup to be played now. Only, now it's even better!

Even more to the point, a Fulcrum Shifted Tank at the damage cap isn't that far ahead of a Brute at 90% Fury with 95% Damage socketed in its attacks.

Throw a similar fulcrum shift on the Brute while adding Rage, Soul Drain, or Build Up, and its a smashing good time.

Thank You for posting this....Oh btw everyone.


Stalkers aren't hit and run anymore.

Thanks for the correction. I'm still not very familiar with tanks or brutes.

Thanks for backing me up.

My point was that there exists no set of circumstances where will a tank do more damage than a brute, all other things being equal.

Right, I never said that Brutes weren't better at dealing damage than a Tank, I was merely pointing out that a Tanker does have a higher damage mod than a Brute for the sake of accuracy, not because I thought you were trying to be deceptive, or anything.

Yes, all other things being equal, the Brute will deal more damage than a Tank. I agree, and that should be how it is. (I think giving Brutes the 90% res cap was a mistake.)

I do more PvEing than PvPing as well. Still, for those times I feel like PvPing, this (or having the option to decide which at creation) would make me happy.

RTTC is better of course, not denying that.

I honestly think taking away the 90% res cap was a mistake - at least leaving it taken away after the GDN and ED prevented Scrappers from coming anywhere near Tanker numbers. It's just a penalty to resistance sets to pile on top of the relative rarity of resistance (compared to defense) in pool powers and set bonuses and the completely out of whack relative imbalance of resistance vs. defense inspirations. Dropping the resistance cap to 75% made sense when it happened, but right now it really serves no purpose beyond driving home beyond doubt the absolute inferiority of resistance vs. defense.

1. There are no "resistance sets" that are unfairly penalized by lower resistance caps except for one: Electric Armor ported to Scrappers. The lower cap almost certainly alters the intended effect of Power surge. However, in all other cases where the cap comes into play, it seems to be doing so specifically *for* game balance reasons, not contrary to them.

2. Resistance and Defense are not competitors, they are not sides, they are not teams. Saying something is fair or unfair to Defense or Resistance as game mechanics is practically nonsensical. Only powersets can be disadvantaged. A game mechanic itself cannot be.

Back in the old days, there was a need for the +Def mechanic to have certain specific balance properties because there were two sets bound to it specifically: Force Fields and Super Reflexes (Ice was to a lesser extent). But there was no pure resistance set that placed singular balance requirements on the mechanics of resistance.


Hey, how about the +health mechanic? Who's defending that? 75% mitigation is huge compared to what you can get with +health. Even the archetype with the best +health max caps can't even reach 50% mitigation. Where's my 75% mitigation with +health (i.e. 4x max health)? Where are my +health power pool powers? Where are my +health inspirations? The devs hate +health, even though the bar is green and not red.


Waitaminute. Technically speaking, the +health mechanic *is* a resistive one. There's two resistive mechanics and only one defensive one. That's not fair. Until Elusivity is ported to PvE, defense has only half the options that resistance has.


If I haven't made my point yet, just let me know. This is not unfamiliar territory. Saying Resistance or Defense as mechanics have unfair advantages is like saying certain Setmodes are underutilized and need to be better represented. If you have a specific gameplay complaint that the resistance caps create a provably unfair skew, its important to be specific. Specific problems are possible (like Power Surge mentioned above). But the general principle is rubbish.