Brutes & Scrappers after Going Rogue?
By
Airhammer,
Posted on: 2009-12-15 17:57 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Why do people act like support toons are needed? I've been on all Tanker and Scrapper teams and not noticed the lack at all.
See what I did there? That's the way CoX is... you don't NEED any one AT, or any particular combination. You can run with all Blaster teams, etc. That's what is great fun for me about the game, though it can get potentially too easy sometimes, given that.
For the record, I have never done what you said: "acting like it's unacceptable to require buffs for team-content." I'm fine with some good challenges.
It's good to note what you said, though. No team "needs" a Tanker. Nor does any team need a Brute. Or any character, for that matter- any team can interchange AT combinations and succeed. People have done all Blaster STFs, for crying out loud. So no more of this AT disparity stuff. People will play what they want, and they all have a place on a team.
To a large extent, excluding certain ATs or powersets from a team in CoX says a lot more about the person doing the excluding, rather than the true balance of powers and ATs in Cox.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
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Hell, I've done that IRL
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
That's not Scrapperlock. That's just fighting. Important for both ATs Brutes and Scrappers, but not Scrapperlock.
Scrapperlock is when you suddenly realize your group is dead, and you didn't realize because you were busy killing everything around you. Scrapperlock is when the silly team is planning and talking about what to do, while you're three rooms ahead unaware that you don't have a team behind you. Scrapperlock is a state. If you're thinking about what you're doing, you're not in Scrapperlock. This is why folks who compare it to maintaining Fury are dead wrong and I doubt they've ever really experienced Scrapperlock. Scrapperlock is actually scary when you come out of it sometimes. I've literally been standing over a lot of dead mobs and suddenly realized I have no idea how the last 3-5 mins. went down. I've come out of Scrapperlock and looked over at the chat bar to messages of the team telling me to run.  Brutes can be in Scrapperlock, but worrying about Fury is an impediment to achieving Scrapperlock. I love both ATs and I am sure neither has much to worry about. They play very differently. My current favorite Scrapper my Fire/Shield is frightening. The equivalent Brute would not be as good. However, my DM/EA Brute is a monster in another way. I won't be giving up either AT and I doubt I'll be the only one. |
The more people I meet, the more I'm beginning to root for the zombies.
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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.|
Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
Why do people act like support toons are needed? I've been on all Tanker and Scrapper teams and not noticed the lack at all.
See what I did there? That's the way CoX is... you don't NEED any one AT, or any particular combination. You can run with all Blaster teams, etc. That's what is great fun for me about the game, though it can get potentially too easy sometimes, given that. |
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.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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I also prefer Brutes on a team to Tanks. That isn't to say I won't invite tanks, but unless I know them, I'm far more likely to invite a Brute.
I've played Tanks. I used to play them quite a bit, but without fail every one has been deleted from my accounts after spending a while at 50. Why? Because becoming nigh invulnerable is easy, but taking so long to kill things is annoying. Playing my SS/Ice (pretty much unkillable outside of a series of massive crits so close together I can't hit my heal OR hibernate) next to a SS/Super Reflexes was an exercise in frustration. My footstomp barely puts a dent in enemies compared to the outrageous damage his did.
Survivability? He stood there and tanked Romulus and Requiem and everything else up to his aggro cap on the top of the platform while I tanked the robots at the computer with the team, and when we got up there there was hardly anything left but the AVs.
That was hardly the first example. People say it's 'mostly just forum goers', but in my experience that's hardly the case. I scrapped all my tanks and made Brutes (occasionally I mourn the loss of my /ice tank, but only occasionally) out of them. My Claws/SR brute can tank +3/x8 vs anything that doesn't have outrageous tohit/acc and routinely 'tanks' the ITF and LGTF, even with the auto-hit nictus at the end.
My Elec/Shield is fully soft capped (above 45% on all three positions), has 93% def debuff, a self-heal from Aid Self, and can run at +4/x8 with no outside buffs while killing quite a bit faster than a fully IO'd tank (with mostly the same build, played by a competent player) running at +2/x8. Further, I can all too easily drag aggro right off of tanks unless they spend half their time spamming taunt (which further drags their damage down).
So why wouldn't I want a brute over a tank, assuming team effectiveness matters to me? And it does, to a point. While it's true that an all blaster team CAN complete objectives, it's also true that someone running a completely unslotted character CAN contribute to a team: I'll still probably choose the more effective option (slotted over unslotted, brute over tank) if I have a reasonable choice.
That won't stop me from inviting my friend's SS/WP tank to the ITF, because she's fun, and my friend. Or another friend's Stone/Inv tank. But in the absence of friends, when searching for a melee char to both soak up some damage AND dish it out? I'll look for a Brute. Failing that, a scrapper, then maybe a VEAT and only THEN will I go for a Tank.
It's nothing personal. I just don't really understand why preferring more damage to quite often unnecessarily high survival rates, is a bad thing.
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You lost me at the end.|
Originally Posted by Barbie_Ink
I also prefer Brutes on a team to Tanks. That isn't to say I won't invite tanks, but unless I know them, I'm far more likely to invite a Brute.
I've played Tanks. I used to play them quite a bit, but without fail every one has been deleted from my accounts after spending a while at 50. Why? Because becoming nigh invulnerable is easy, but taking so long to kill things is annoying. Playing my SS/Ice (pretty much unkillable outside of a series of massive crits so close together I can't hit my heal OR hibernate) next to a SS/Super Reflexes was an exercise in frustration. My footstomp barely puts a dent in enemies compared to the outrageous damage his did. Survivability? He stood there and tanked Romulus and Requiem and everything else up to his aggro cap on the top of the platform while I tanked the robots at the computer with the team, and when we got up there there was hardly anything left but the AVs. That was hardly the first example. People say it's 'mostly just forum goers', but in my experience that's hardly the case. I scrapped all my tanks and made Brutes (occasionally I mourn the loss of my /ice tank, but only occasionally) out of them. My Claws/SR brute can tank +3/x8 vs anything that doesn't have outrageous tohit/acc and routinely 'tanks' the ITF and LGTF, even with the auto-hit nictus at the end. My Elec/Shield is fully soft capped (above 45% on all three positions), has 93% def debuff, a self-heal from Aid Self, and can run at +4/x8 with no outside buffs while killing quite a bit faster than a fully IO'd tank (with mostly the same build, played by a competent player) running at +2/x8. Further, I can all too easily drag aggro right off of tanks unless they spend half their time spamming taunt (which further drags their damage down). So why wouldn't I want a brute over a tank, assuming team effectiveness matters to me? And it does, to a point. While it's true that an all blaster team CAN complete objectives, it's also true that someone running a completely unslotted character CAN contribute to a team: I'll still probably choose the more effective option (slotted over unslotted, brute over tank) if I have a reasonable choice. That won't stop me from inviting my friend's SS/WP tank to the ITF, because she's fun, and my friend. Or another friend's Stone/Inv tank. But in the absence of friends, when searching for a melee char to both soak up some damage AND dish it out? I'll look for a Brute. Failing that, a scrapper, then maybe a VEAT and only THEN will I go for a Tank. It's nothing personal. I just don't really understand why preferring more damage to quite often unnecessarily high survival rates, is a bad thing. |
If you're looking for a tanker, you're looking for aggro management. If you're looking for aggro management, you are not looking for a Scrapper or VEAT.
That's not to say a scrapper or VEAT can't be made to tank. But if this is a PuG, I wouldn't bet on said VEAT or Scrapper being that type of build.
Id even put less money on them having gone the presense route to actually have an AOE aggro ability.
Sorry, but my Scrappers have had aggro pulled off them easily by blasters and other squishies as have my VEATs.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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I think your sentences need the additonal point of "in the right situation" included in them.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
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...
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Brutes have a HP advantage over scrappers, without which the entire fury + taunt mechanics would easily see Brutes getting killed left and right. The greater HP also increases regen, so Brutes also pull ahead there.
Beyond that however, softcap is achievable by both ATs - but base resistances are the same.
Brutes can pull ahead "in the right situation", which is indicative of the brute AT - a giant buffsponge.
Offensively, you really can't put a price on being able to do your full compliment of damage right out of the box.
I'm capable of maintaining 85-90% fury most of the time, but there are plenty of situations where you simply can't be in a permanent state of combat and you will lose fury.
Off the top of my head, the Hamidon fight in the LGTF when you're taking down the mitos can often see you lose large chunks of your Fury bar.
I'm not saying that brutes can't be buffed to amazing levels, I just think there is something to be said for permanent, right out of the box Damage dealing capabilities (or superior mitigation, in the case of Tankers).
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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At best, it's either temporary (inspirations, T9 powers) or requires specific powersets to grant to you.
I think that a player looking to tank for teams, who doesn't want to invest 1-3 billion inf to get the job done (and still not be as tough without enough support), will turn to the Tanker AT every time.
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If I'm looking for a tanker, I'm looking for an increase in team survival for whatever reason, probably through damage mitigation, (perhaps the team is heavy on squishies, in a situation where their usual mitigation is less effective, like different types of controllers whose controls don't overlap well, on an ITF). Based purely on the observations of how things have gone down in the past, if neither a Brute or Scrapper is available I'd probably take a Night Widow/Fort or Crab (not so much Bane) for the team defense buffs and damage output they provide before I'd go for a Tanker, if both were equally as much strangers to me.| If you're looking for a tanker, you're looking for aggro management. If you're looking for aggro management, you are not looking for a Scrapper or VEAT. |
Yes, if I -absolutely- need aggro control for whatever reason, I'd go Brute, then tank. But very rarely have I found aggro control to be so absolutely necessary that I'd need to do that.
This thread has turned into a Brute vs. Scrapper + Tank debate, and the Brute is winning. :-P
In all seriousness though, most posts are giving Brutes too much credit, and are often forgetting the wide spectrum of performance that the Brute AT has. I don't disagree that the Brute is a performance dervish, but this requires playing at full tilt constantly, or being buffed up the wazoo.
A Brute with full Fury surpasses a Scrapper in damage, but the amount of time the Brute isn't Fury optimized, or during periods of BU and/or a realistic external +damage buff, the Scrapper will indeed pull FAR ahead.
The biggest issue with Tanks and Brutes is that IOed Tank level survivability is rarely needed even at +4/8. GR and some new end game content might remedy this situation, but Tanker issues are largely emblematic of the game's current challenge scale in relation to IOs and City of Soft Cap.
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That's City of Soft Cap +95% DDR.
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Originally Posted by Barbie_Ink
Playing my SS/Ice (pretty much unkillable outside of a series of massive crits so close together I can't hit my heal OR hibernate) next to a SS/Super Reflexes was an exercise in frustration. My footstomp barely puts a dent in enemies compared to the outrageous damage his did.
Survivability? He stood there and tanked Romulus and Requiem and everything else up to his aggro cap on the top of the platform while I tanked the robots at the computer with the team, and when we got up there there was hardly anything left but the AVs. |
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Most of my opinion is based on play time in the end game, which I suppose is a qualifier I should make, as I spend 90% of my play time on level 50 chars running Task Forces, missions, farming or PLing, blah blah blah. The number of Brutes I've seen, post-IOs, who cannot solo at least +1/x8 with good speed (far better than I've seen/done on tanks outside of extreme cases of skill disparity), is almost nil. I can't recall the last time I ran into one that couldn't, really.| In all seriousness though, most posts are giving Brutes too much credit, and are often forgetting the wide spectrum of performance that the Brute AT has. |
So maybe not as wide of a spectrum as all that, given the qualifier of endgame, post-IO.
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| A Brute with full Fury surpasses a Scrapper in damage, but the amount of time the Brute isn't Fury optimized, or during periods of BU and a/or realistic +damage buff, the Scrapper will indeed pull FAR ahead. |
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| That's City of Soft Cap +95% DDR. |
Really, I'd just like to see the tanker have its damage raised some, in some way. I'm not enough of a numbers person to really say how, though. Something to make soloing less painful, and the disparity between Brutes and Tanks less than it is. Or at least less than it feels like. I'm playing a SS/WP and a SS/Shield right now, and both are chewing through missions (solo and teamed) far faster than my SS/Ice or SS/Stone (yeah, I know, I know) ever did.
Okay, real, honest look at how it is.
Solo: People will play whatever they feel like, and whatever your personal feelings are, people do like all of the ATs and play them. Even the slow soloers. Some people will want to melee and do crazy things like take on AVs solo, sure. But everyone plays where they want to be, and that includes all of the ATs.
Teams: If you're going to be REALLY honest, the fastest, easiest teams do NOT need melee damage. You want copious amounts of ranged AOE, and enough ST damage to get you through bosses and such. Melee damage is extraneous in such situations. If I want damage blueside, I'll prefer a Blaster over a Scrapper anytime. Going for the extremes, I'll want lots of ranged damage and support, and someone to soak up the damage that does get through. In certain content, I want someone to hold the attention of the AV while we all pound on it. So at the most, you could prefer one melee character, as they're tougher. For the rest, give me ranged damage, debuffs, and buffs.
Thankfully, we don't have to only go with overpowered teams in CoX, as I've said before. You can invite whatever the heck you want and make it work most of the time (there will always be some players that boggle you with how badly they have built their character, or how badly they play). And thank goodness for that. If I had to play like some of the people posting in this thread describe, I'd have left this game long ago: the fun and flexibility of this game is what keeps me going with it.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
Does it really matter if Brutes will decrease the Tanker and Scrapper population?
Heck, people don't know WHAT will happen. We just like to quibble over things, argue, and some like to argue that "mine is bigger than yours."
I'm going to roll a Brute and bring it heroside after GR, but mostly because I don't really like playing a villain, and I have a ton of Tanks and Scrappers already. Even if you see a lot of Brutes blueside after GR (or Scrappers or Tanks redside) after GR doesn't mean much. It's the new shiny. Whenever there are new powersets, you see a ton of them running around, but once they're there for a bit, they tend to balance out with existing sets.
A year from now, I'm not sure if the new shiny will have worn off from GR. I hope not. But even then, only the devs will know how much people play each AT- and even then, just because one AT is played less doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad AT.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
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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.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
If you're looking for a tanker, you're looking for aggro management. If you're looking for aggro management, you are not looking for a Scrapper or VEAT.
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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.
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Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
I think your sentences need the additonal point of "in the right situation" included in them.
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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.
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| Beyond that however, softcap is achievable by both ATs - but base resistances are the same. |
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.
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Offensively, you really can't put a price on being able to do your full compliment of damage right out of the box. I'm capable of maintaining 85-90% fury most of the time, but there are plenty of situations where you simply can't be in a permanent state of combat and you will lose fury. Off the top of my head, the Hamidon fight in the LGTF when you're taking down the mitos can often see you lose large chunks of your Fury bar. |
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.
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| I really dislike the word "useless". The buff cap in particular, as it applies to resistances (since IOs grant all melees the capability of softcapping DEF) is not something Brutes easily achieve. It can happen, but availability of support does not mean you can count on capped resistances all the time. |
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.
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| I think that a player looking to tank for teams, who doesn't want to invest 1-3 billion inf to get the job done (and still not be as tough without enough support), will turn to the Tanker AT every time. |
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Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
Teams: If you're going to be REALLY honest, the fastest, easiest teams do NOT need melee damage.
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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?
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| If I want damage blueside, I'll prefer a Blaster over a Scrapper anytime. |
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Quoted, because it's very similar to the point I've been trying to make.|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
In all seriousness though, most posts are giving Brutes too much credit, and are often forgetting the wide spectrum of performance that the Brute AT has. I don't disagree that the Brute is a performance dervish, but this requires playing at full tilt constantly, or being buffed up the wazoo.
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Originally Posted by Barbie_Ink
Most of my opinion is based on play time in the end game, which I suppose is a qualifier I should make, as I spend 90% of my play time on level 50 chars running Task Forces, missions, farming or PLing, blah blah blah. The number of Brutes I've seen, post-IOs, who cannot solo at least +1/x8 with good speed (far better than I've seen/done on tanks outside of extreme cases of skill disparity), is almost nil. I can't recall the last time I ran into one that couldn't, really.
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And the Brute still isn't as tough as the Tanker.
Does the Tanker always require that level of mitigation? No, but my statement is to illustrate that Brutes are not equal to both a scrapper and a tanker simultaneously - all of the time.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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I don't think the difference in survival is marginal, I actually think that the difference in survival is what allows Brutes to build and maintain Fury - especially on full teams.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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. |
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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I don't want to single you out, because your posts have been very reasonable, but I think in general in this discussion too much of the focus is being placed on the ultra-high end of the spectrum, in what I would classify as "excellent" circumstances for a Brute to take full advantage of their design.
I think a lot of players, who play primarily heroside, will be disappointed if they think Brutes are tankers with good damage.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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. |
What Scrappers and Tankers can do is not circumstance dependent.
So if you are capable of manipulating the circumstances to be heavily in your favor, playing a Brute has huge advantages.
If you don't, and you don't have the inf to invest in the character, you could be constantly faceplanting, or playing second (or even third/fourth) fiddle to a lead brute/tanker leaving you without much Fury.
Brute performance is volatile. It fluctuates.
And it requires you to play at full tilt constantly (to paraphrase Julius) to make the most of it.
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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.|
Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
Out of curiostiy, why do you hate Fury?
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| I'm not sure I see a problem with Brutes being the second most durable, your own experiences with the Fury mechanic show that without that level of durability maintaining Fury is often frustrating and sometimes not possible (If a team has too many brutes, or several tankers & brutes, too much control, etc.) |
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.
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I don't want to single you out, because your posts have been very reasonable, but I think in general in this discussion too much of the focus is being placed on the ultra-high end of the spectrum, in what I would classify as "excellent" circumstances for a Brute to take full advantage of their design. I think a lot of players, who play primarily heroside, will be disappointed if they think Brutes are tankers with good damage. |
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.
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I don't disagree with what you're saying overall, but I think a lot of this is still circumstance dependent. What Scrappers and Tankers can do is not circumstance dependent. So if you are capable of manipulating the circumstances to be heavily in your favor, playing a Brute has huge advantages. If you don't, and you don't have the inf to invest in the character, you could be constantly faceplanting, or playing second (or even third/fourth) fiddle to a lead brute/tanker leaving you without much Fury. Brute performance is volatile. It fluctuates. And it requires you to play at full tilt constantly (to paraphrase Julius) to make the most of it. |
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.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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You're missing the point. Ranged damage can be applied over a large area and all the time, without going into melee range. If you are going to really min/max, then lot's of ranged damage is going to outdo melee damage: you don't have to move as much or activate as many powers.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
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? |
You're missing the other part of my post where I said thank goodness we don't have to min/max to crazy amounts. Foot stomp and other aoe melee powers are pretty nice. As are some melee attacks. But I'm never going to say that any of my Scrappers are going to outdo my Blasters for sheer damage output. If you're min/maxing you don't care that melee attacks can be decent, you want the most speed at all times. Large amounts of ranged damage fits that bill, as defeat speed is what most makes up the speed of a team in this game.
To sum up, any argument saying "my Brute's damage is teh win over your Scrapper's" is moot. Because people making those arguments tend to show how they min/maxxed their Brute, Scrapper, etc. to high amounts and did some crazy thing in game. And if you really want to min/max, as these people seem to, melee damage doesn't do as well as ranged damage.
Even more, the whole AT disparity thing is MOOT. People will play what they want to play, and there is no AT in CoX that is so weak or unliked that no one will play it. The game doesn't call for such min/max levels, and any arguments using such are mostly people trying to show how powerful they made their "supercalifragilisticexpealidocious" hero or villain of the week/month/issue.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
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My arguement for Brutes vs Tankers isn't as much about how a Tanker is a better choice.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
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. |
My arguement is, when you PuG...you're most likely going to get a tank when you choose the Tanker, than you will with a Brute.
I've seen more Brutes built/played like a scrapper than I have seen Brutes built/played like an aggro sponge.
So if I'm looking for an aggro sponge in a PuG, I'm going to look for a Tanker first, Brute second (and then hope they can tank).
If I'm just looking for an alpha taker...then shrug...alot of ATs can cover that area. And usually this is all I'm looking for admittedly. However, I've been on some teams, where the difference has been between can the "tank" survive the continued damage and keep aggro.
Usually this pertains to the ITF admittedly as it's one of my favorite content things to do.
I've seen it fail because a team needed the aggro management, and I've seen it succeed without any aggro management. So alot depends on the team makeup and players.
And this is why I think you'll still see Tankers around...and people still looking for Tankers...and people still playing tankers.
Because sometimes teams aren't optimal for whatever situation. Truthfully, if I have the right set of Buffers/Debuffers on the team, don't even need the melee ATs or DMG dealers.
So, if we played to be beasts 100% of the time, one wouldn't play anything but the Buff/Debuff classes :P Because those ATs teamed up really destroy anything.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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I agree.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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That's why I don't actually see a problem when it comes to Brute vs. Scrapper in terms of damage output.
Scrappers stack better on teams (in that they don't interefere with each other, or Tankers, or Brutes.) and can do their full compliment of damage in a moments notice.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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Your own statements about fury illustrate that.
And they aren't on top in terms of Durability, they happen to have enough durability to survive, but that doesn't put them on top in terms of durability.
And I see that as more of an issue with the original design framework of CoH ATs vs. how that design framework evolved in CoV.
Unfortunately, while exciting and something I'm very much looking forward to, Going Rogue is putting all of that into a pressure cooker as the two sides will now be able to coexist in greater measure than ever before.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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Even you, who plays brutes, hates the fury mechanic. It's not for everyone, and it's not a relaxing playstyle.
It's full tilt, from the time the mission starts until either you or your opponents are dead.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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I don't really know enough of the finer numbers on Stalkers to comment further.
Help me if you can, off the top of my head I can't think of a Brute outside of a perma-dull pain /Invuln build that can sit at the HP cap permanently. (honest question, it's escaping me at the moment)
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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."
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But is that an issue with Brutes, or is that an issue with content or perhaps an issue with the much older mentality of Tanker design?
And what happens if Brutes are taken down to where they can not handle the aggro they generate? How much would you enjoy your Brutes if they were longer capable of taking a lead position on teams?
Your own statements on what it requires for you to maintain fury show how important it is for Brutes to be capable of handling a significant level of incoming damage.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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Is it a problem with Controllers then, or is it a problem with Defenders?
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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I agree that you only need "enough" mitigation to hold aggro.
But I don't see what would be a good solution.
Brute's basically play on the fine edge of the line, where they are holding down aggro due to their threat levels and for Fury - any less mitigation and it's faceplant city.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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. |
If Brutes were any less durable or any less survivable, would the AT work as it is?
Or would you be left with "lackluster and the low fury and the deaths..." as you put it?
You seem to be saying contradictory points in the same post, that you think Brute's have mitigation beyond what they deserve (even though it's actually a great deal less than what Tankers are given) and then conversely that without survivability fury leaves them with lackluster damage capabilities.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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You either an aggro controlling damage dealer, or you are stuck with a very poor damage output and/or dead.
This is how Brutes are designed, they are designed with volatile, fluctuating performance.
They are capable of astounding heights, and truly miserable lows.
Tankers and Scrappers are not designed this way.
They perform, constantly and steadily, for the purpose to which they were designed. They are more reliable in their roles.
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Quoted because it is a very good point, and one I had not considered. My play style, regardless of AT, tends towards the crazed and smashy. I use my Earth/Rad controller to herd entire maps back to my team so that it's one long battle instead of a bunch of smaller ones. My Archery/Energy blaster is usually tossing off Rain of Arrows at the next group even as the first one is in it's last thrashes of life. So on and so forth. It's a play style that simply works as a brute, and on teams with brutes, and one that finds the slow and steady (and reliable) style of tankers to be frustrating.|
This is how Brutes are designed, they are designed with volatile, fluctuating performance. They are capable of astounding heights, and truly miserable lows Tankers and Scrappers are not designed this way. The perform, constantly and steadily, all of the time for the purpose to which they were designed. They are more reliable in their roles. |
For the record, I am not in the 'Brutes outdamage Scrappers' camp, as most of the time that isn't the case, or at the very least it's a close enough thing it doesn't matter. I just prefer Brutes because of their higher HP. I've got a Spines/DA, Broadsword/Shield, and Claws/SR scrap who are all monsters and have 'enough' mitigation for most things anyway.
But back to the point above: I had not considered the reliability aspect of Brutes vs Tankers, and it is a very good thing to keep in mind for why many people might prefer Tanks over Brutes. I'm just never going to be one of them, since my style and means (inf pool across characters) is always going to put my Brutes on a mitigation level close enough to Tanks for 99% of the game's content, and a damage level that far exceeds theirs.
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Not just other aggro magnets depress a brutes contribution. If the team is a fast team it can be very hard to develop fury. Without a large damage buffer such as a kin the brute can wind up contributing little more than unneeded aggro management
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Originally Posted by Jabbrwock
In team dynamics, Scrappers stack far better than Brutes. Brutes depend on high Fury (or amazing levels of buffs) to reach or slightly exceed Scrapper damage. Maintaining high Fury typically requires that you hold aggro. There's only so much aggro to go around, and generally, it's going to be focused mostly on a single character. If that one character is a Brute, he's golden. If it's a Tanker, or some other Brute, well, any additional Brutes will grossly underperform compared to Scrappers.
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Am I the only person in this thread who has no trouble maintaining 100% Fury in a full team, without being the lead Brute?! What's all this nonsense about Brutes having a hard time reaching Scrapper damage in teams?
A lot of Brute players I know tend to skip Taunt, seeing it as "The Tanker Power" that adds nothing to their damage output; and then they sit in a corner and complain about not having Fury.
All you need for a high Fury (enough to exceed the average, overall damage output of any melee Archetype in the game, with the possible exception of Widows), are at least 3 minions, and a full attack chain. For me, that is it.
If I'm the lead Brute, yay! If I'm not, all I need is Taunt to steal a few enemies off my teammates and use them as Fury-juice.
Why are people making such a big deal out of maintaining Fury?!
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Probably, seeing as getting attacked by 17 AVs (aggro cap) and using a chain of brawl - shadow punch - repeat I could only maintain 95ish%. | Am I the only person in this thread who has no trouble maintaining 100% Fury in a full team, without being the lead Brute?! |
Semantics aside. Personally, I hit 90% quite often but it's rare I stay there for more than a few seconds. Travel time between each group is enough to make me drop to 70% at best (and worst than that if it's long). In some maps, caves for example, I sometimes see my Fury dropping from 90 to 20-30 if not 0 during travel from group to group, and that's using Hurdle + CJ for the four seconds after the last mob dies and real travel powers after that.
Getting 90% Fury with 3 minions simply isn't happening for me if I use my normal attack chain. They'll be dead in a few seconds and I'll be at 30-40, which will dip back to 15-20 by the time I reach the next group.
More importantly than my own experience, most of the brute players I see go slower than me, and end up with less Fury. So I think maintaining Fury is actually a pretty big deal, at least for PuG players.
Don't see this as me complaining about Fury, though. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that maybe the mechanic isn't for me - and I still enjoy brutes despite that. I'm just saying I feel I'm not alone in having trouble to maintain Fury, and for people like me brutes have lower than scrapper damage for most builds.
One other quirk of Fury - it benefits greatly from fast attacks and suffers from slow ones. For example, assume that two Brutes have attack chains that dish out equal DPS, one is Claws and the other EM. The Claws Brute will be miles ahead of EM, despite the fact their attack chains should deal equal damage. The Claws Brute will be generating Fury much faster than the EM one. If the EM wants to build Fury faster, it would have to lower its damage output by dropping ET from the chain to maximize it's quicker attacks.
It's just another annoying disparity. At least on a Tank you're not shooting yourself in the foot by using a slower attack.
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After they made brawl cost zero endurance there is no reason why any brute should not have 80% fury at all times. Just put brawl on auto fire and watch stuff die.|
Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
My opinion is exactly the opposite. A brute feels like a scrapper only if there's a lot of fury. Otherwise, she's subpar. A scrapper is consistenly strong from the get go.
I have multiples of each, and while I enjoy brutes, I don't think they're way stronger than scrappers. Equivalent to...maybe, and only under certain conditions. And certain flavors of shield defense scrappers completely blow brutes out of the water in what they are capable of. |
Personally I see corrupters being killed off except in certain powerset combinations. Anything thats Ice/* and Archery/* will do ok because I believe their nukes on are blaster pets. Outside of that why not just roll as a defender for the better support. Prior to the dom damage changes I had my doubts for them and pretty much considered them to be extinct, but now they can do real damage without the containment gimmick I can see them being very interchangeable with a controller unlike before. All they need is illusion to be complete.
Tankers might have some competition with brutes for general missions but not for stuff like STF where having a real tank would be better. I can see stalkers eclipsing certain scrapper builds because of the superior burst damage and boss killing potential. An all stalker team would set a huge record on the KHTF, and I dont even want to talk about how fast they would do a manticore tf being able to kill pps before they mog. Post going rogue is going to have some very interesting possibilities on teams. I just wish they would allow you to start on whatever side you want without having to go thru all that Praetoria crap first missing out on other content.
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Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
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Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
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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.