Brutes & Scrappers after Going Rogue?

I'd just like to throw in a mention that the role of the Tanker is to protect the team. This is typically done with aggro control, and survivability is generally done with Damage Resistance. That's not necessarily the case, though: roll a Dark Armor/Ice Melee Tanker like I inadvertantly did and you'll see all the wonders of what a Tanker is supposed to do.

For me personally Brutes > Tankers.

I find its not a question of how tough they are, but whether they are tough enough. A brute with support is tough enough for just about anything the game can throw at them, while doing boatloads of damage.

A tanker purely on their own merits is (imo) unnecessarily tough, and they pay for it in damage. If you want to team with 7 blasters, then great, tanker is what you need. On a team with any semblance of balance a brute will outshine a tanker.

A hp-capped, softcapped WP tanker can tank like 10 AVs at once. Neat. So? Its nice and all to be utterly indestructible, but its totally unnecessary.

By being somewhat squishier the brute benefits more from the team and brings more to the team. They get my vote. Plus the prevalence of tanker primadonna attitudes, but that's not a balance question

A Tanker and Brute have their own places. You cannot say which one is "better". They're both good at what they do.

The phrase "tanking" is not limited to being able to survive. It mostly refers to the ability of capturing, and maintaining enemy aggro to distract them from the less armored members of the team. And that, is what a Tanker does best, given their inherent power, and all their taunt capabilities.

The Brute is much better in dealing damage. As far as numbers and calculations are concerned, a Tanker has a higher survivability than a Brute.

Tankers and Brutes can both gain up to 90% Damage Resistance to any damage type.

The Soft Defense Cap is independent of archetype, and is around 45%.

The Hit Point cap for both Tankers and Brutes is 3212.7.

The only thing that makes a Tanker's survivability superior to that of a Brute is that Tanker get "more bang for their buck". Their defensive powers have relatively higher values, and they get access to all their defensive powers by level 32. For instance, the power Deflection from Shield Defense offers 15% Defense to Melee for Tankers, and only 11.3% to Brutes.

However, in practicality, none of this matters. If a Brute reaches Soft Defense Cap, it's not much different from a Tanker with the same powers as far as survivability is concerned. If there is any difference, it would be either very marginal, or under special circumstances.

That's it for survivability.

Now, we move on to damage. These are the theoretical numbers:

Tanker Melee Damage Scale: 0.8
Tanker Range Damage Scale: 0.5

Brute Melee Damage Scale: 0.75
Brute Range Damage Scale: 0.5

As far as base damage is concerned, Brute falls short by 0.05 units on the damage scale.

However...there is this sweet, sweet thing in our universe called FURY.

A Tanker's damage modifier stops at 0.8. However, a Brute's base damage can be boosted up to 200% on top of its original value. That means that at full fury (which is not something hard to achieve), a Brute is at 2.25 on the damage scale (0.75 x 300% (this is because Fury goes on top of base damage)).

Furthermore, a Brute's damage cap is at 850%. A Tanker's damage cap is at 400%.

So, even if we go by Atheism's hilarious methods of comparison, a Tanker can ONLY beat a Brute's damage potential IF AND ONLY IF the Brute has very minimal Fury. Period. If there is any sort of damage buff involved, the Brute out-damages a Tanker. And if the damage buff is greater than 400%, the Tanker is just humiliated.

In the end, it all depends on the player, and the build. And that's the bottom line. All the numbers are mere theory. But all this theory suggests that under the right hands, a Brute has an advantage in terms of Damage, and a Tanker has an advantage in terms of aggro management. Their difference in survivability is incredibly marginal.

So please, Atheism, next time you try to argue an absolute point, use actual data and facts rather than pure opinions.

Bright Shadow: I agree with most of your post, but it is... well, not mistaken, because I believe you actually do know this, but misleading in one respect.

You can't say that a Brute with fury has a damage scale of 2.25 and then move on to discuss damage buffs and caps the way you do. Fury doesn't modify the damage scale, it's just a buff.

So contrary to what you seem to be implying, the MORE external buffs are happening, the more fury a Brute needs to hit as hard as a tanker. At least until the Tank hits his damage cap, which really doesn't take long.

Example time:

A Tanker has an attack that hits for 80. He puts 100% damage worth of IOs in there and now hits for 160.

A brute has an attack that hits for 75. With a full fury bar, he does 225. Then he puts a 100% worth of IOs in there are hits for 300.

Now a Kin comes along and uses Fulcrum Shift to give them both +200% damage.

The Tanker now hits for 320, while the Brute now hits for 450. The Brute does, as you say, do hit substantially harder than the tanker ever could, BUT contrary to what you seem to be implying, the external buffs favored the Tank, both in absolute terms (+160 DMG instead of +150 DMG) and relative terms (pre-buffed Tank does ~1/2 Brute damage, buffed tank does ~3/4)

Of course, this all goes to hell if you add a second kin, at which point the tank goes home and cries. But teams with large but not insane amounts of damage buff actually let the tank put in a surprisingly good showing.

One good kin can damage-cap a brute, as long as there are reasonably large spawns.

As I said for me it boils down to one fact: a brute can be buffed to the same defensive levels as a tanker, a tanker cannot be buffed to the same offensive output as a brute.

Yes, but it would be nice, wouldn't it?

I certainly prefer Brutes over Tanks. Tanks are unnecessary for 99.9% of the content in this game IMO, you can swap out a Tank for a Brute in most situations and not worry. I mean my SS/Fire Brute...supposedly really squishy as most people think can take on a lot of +2/x8 mobs without buffs. You can pretty much take a Brute over a Tank on a team and never look back.

Tankers are... unpopular? For who? Other than people trying to max the numbers and restrict spots on their teams to only those who "dial it to 11," there isn't any AT that's unuseful or won't add something to a team.

Arguably, Tankers and Defenders have the least useful inherents (and that mostly while soloing), and Brutes are perhaps a tad overpowered for some of their cap levels, but that doesn't change the fact that players enjoy playing all of the ATs, and they can all add something to a team.

People are also going to like more what they are at base, without buffs. I don't like being dependent on other players for being strong enough for certain things, as then I get nervous if the buffs start blinking. AT disparities are over argued and overdone among forumites, in my opinion.