Wait, so brutes are supposed to be tanks now!?

I took taunt on my wp brute . but only for selfish reasons the more aggro the faster my regen an the bigger my fury bar . an i dont like to share me aggro ! Brute Smash !!!!! I tell the squishies to stay back with there holds an mezez if u aint healing or speed boosting go hide untill i either face plant or kill every thing lol. Tanks & Brutes are like Superman an the Hulk while supes is tryin to save you Hulk only saves you by default.

Largely I agree with most of what's been said already in the post. Taunt on a brute depends on sets, player, and situation. That being said, it seems that a couple of points have been understated or glossed over. Starting with this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Alt_oholic Brutes were never supposed to be the Tankers of CoV ... Masterminds are the Tankers of CoV.

Not picking a particular bone with you Alt, but this argument comes up again and again, both in game and on the forums. It may have been the initial intent of the devs that pet tanking would be the primary alpha soak for villies. That wasn't really the case at CoV release though, for a couple reasons. It is a *drag* to summon/resummon and buff pets, even post change. The second is that MM pets have never, and will never, recieve full support from the rest of the team. Without an AoE heal (better than the MM version of Twilight Grasp) your minion/lt's WILL get toasted, which brings us back to the first problem. Teams don't want/are unable to keep pets up reasonably, and certainly don't want to wait for a resummon every second group. BG mode is a nice trick, and helps somewhat. Make no mistake though, BG mode was a bandaid emergency fix for PvP problems. The boards were rampant with players getting one shotted by blasters, who oddly enough were unwilling to target your army instead of you.

The side by side comparison also tends to divide folks, with some falling on the scrapper side and others on the tanker side. Brutes are in fact *neither*, but they are the closest thing to an actual tanker that vils have. You get to float at 5/6 tanker HP, with tanker resist caps. Both of those are very important in a group setting where you will have a variety of support options available. That's also the only reasonable time a taunt argument would arise.

Also, the set version of taunt accesible to all brutes is a 4 target AoE (like tankers) the set version for scrappers is a single target (someone correct me if that's wrong please). Taunt is also extremely effective and efficient slot wise. Two taunt/rech IO's is all you really need. PZ and MB also have attractive set bonuses depending on your focus as well.

All told taunt is a power that I will fit into most any brute build. For ease of use, and teaming purposes. It tends to go in rather late. The question I have for the "Lol taunt"ers is ...... what did you take at 49 that you couldn't live without?

I honestly do think tanks should have taunt. I like tanks, I run tanks. But, fergodsakes, I do not care what you spend on that build, what primary/secondary you got, whatever. In the end, your damage is mediocre. Mediocre. In a super game.

For Brutes, which I really enjoy, I have taken taunt maybe once. My main is a SS/Will. I once posted on the boards asking if I needed taunt, very specifically for Master class runs, no deaths allowed. After very good discussion it was pretty much a "it can help", but not necessary. A team needs to realize that brutes have their own way.

I will match my SS/Will brute versus any tauntless tank for grabbing agro. That is right. Will has a poor agro aura, but that does not matter for me. I have a very very expensive build. Not saying I spent the money wisely, just saying I have the tools to grab a lot, a whole lot, of attention really fast.

While it may (or may not) be a tanks job to grab agro, Brutes WANT agro, NEED agro, LOVE agro. Trust me, most brutes know exactly what they can do to piss off as many mobs as possible, and they do it.

I have a DM/SR brute that has Taunt.

I took it at level 49 because I wanted a power that doesn't need to be slotted. It comes in handy on ITFs when the team can't quite manage to bumrush Nictus Romulus and his pets. So, being more or less unhittable, I pull the healing nictus away.

That's about the only time I can recall it being especially useful.

I don't usually go into the tanking mindset on my Brute, but I keep an eye on the de/buffers so that they can have an easier time to apply their stuff. Even keeping the mezzers occupied is enough most of the time.

Personally, I see the purpose of taunt differently on Brutes than my hypothetical Tankers.

I used to think Taunt is useless for Brutes. That's mostly because most of my Brutes were rather squishy (they were more of Stalkers than Brutes; purely concept reasons). That's until I got my DB/SR Brute! She could withstand a lot of bashing, and I finally took Taunt on her; and that's when I realized how useful Taunt is to steal aggro in order to raise Fury faster and faster.

Especially when you're not "the primary alpha-taker" on teams.

You only "need" taunt if you are playing an Energy Aura brute. Taunt auras work fine enough

I'm not denying the MM's are tough Eiko. I'm glad to let an MM take point if that's thier thing, they can eat the alpha all they like. When I'm playing my FM/WP though the alpha is all the aggro they are going to see. That's not what I would call tanking. A provoking BG mode MM could conceivably do it. I've just never seen it done as well, or as consistently, as a like minded brute. Under the best of circumstances I simply do not see a Tankermind holding the entire freedom phalanx on them, or Reichsman+aggro cap. You can have the entire team eat a tray of oranges to stay at the resist cap in the RSF, or sleep for single pulls with an awesome dom. Again, neither of those are done by merit of the MMs tanking prowess. Coupled with the fact that level 50 MMs looking for group are about as common as hens teeth at the bottom of a haystack >shrug<. It could be you've found the games best kept secret.

As for fighting nemesis at +1/x8, sorry, I just don't see it happening with a def toon. That will stay the same until they come out with a dif setting to remove Lt's.

Above all I was disputing the intial dev quote "Masterminds are the redside Tank". That statement was made prior* to BG mode being added. It was made on the basis of the go-to/aggressive ability. The idea was that MMs would send pets in first, group soon to follow. That is not how MMs do, or are able, to tank. BG mode was added later to address an unrelated issue. Conversely, it seems to me, that Taunt was adjusted away from the scrapper version for brutes. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It seems to me that the AoE and -Range aspect was added after CoV launch. Brutes have everything available to them in thier primary and secondaries to build a tank (sorry /EA). Masterminds have nothing in either to allow them to pull aggro once the battle starts.

*edit*

Sorry Eiko, that sounds really flamey. I didn't intend to come off jerky. I should have prefaced the statement with the fact that I feel tanks are the most overrated group role in the game. Barring a few encounters/mob types, I'd just as soon have another troller/dom on the team than a taunt monkey.

The issue with the Mastermind/Brute debate is that if you're on a team with a Brute and a Mastermind, the Mastermind simply cannot overcome and steal the aggro from the Brute (this is assuming the Brute is a classical Brute definition, and the Mastermind is a mastermind build for tanking, WITH minor aggro management).

The threat level of a Brute, combined with the fact that almost all their attacks generate aggro, simply makes it nearly impossible for a Mastermind to effectively keep the attention of enemy on themselves and their pets.

Tanking is not the same thing as surviving. Sure, a Mastermind can out-survive a Brute. Hell, sometimes my Blasters die less than my Brutes. Just because you can solo a +1/x8 enemy group on your own, it doesn't mean you can be a psuedo-Tanker. The primary purpose of a tank is to keep the enemy off the team, and the secondary purpose is the ability to survive the aggro resulting from the first action.

A Mastermind, even with Provoke, simply cannot fulfill the primary purpose, for a variety of reasons. Or I just haven't ever seen it done effectively! :P

K, I'm not trying to get into a pissing contest, but yeah, some brutes can survive it. It depends on a lot of factors, I am not saying brutes can survive anything. Heck, my main has a resurrection as a power lol.

But on a pretty standard very tough fight on a 8 person team, my brute will not faceplant. Now I have to do tricks, like using inspirations, terrain, etc. (playing smart) Brutes are not tanks, and have a little less survivability. My main is a SS/Will, and he is I/O'd out. I went to put a 5th purple set on him today, but couldn't find where to place it. He has Procs, and LOTG, and a buncha other bells and whistles. But he is a will brute, and while tough, he shines at killing ST and holding Agro with 2 AoE attacks (no taunt, no room, see above about 5th set). His tier nine is available very often because of a buttload of global recharge, the drop is nothing to him, so I use it very very regularly. That brute pops uber about every other mob, or every mob if it is a long fight. This makes him pretty survivable on even tough strike forces like the ITF.

Again, every brute is different, and every powerset/buildout has a different focus. Many people (like me) came to the game wanting a tank, and were shocked at the mediocre damage they do. So, redside brutedom here we come. And players like me build for survival first, and damage second. While my damage was my second priority, it was huge. I want ST damage comparable to a tough blaster or a scrapper, and I went and got it. But in order to lay out that pain I had to build tanky enough to survive. My first 50 was a SS/Invul brute. Ach, I cry. The end issues, the Tier 9 stupidity. Sigh. I only bring him up because he is about as tanky as you get blueside, and can survive stupid amounts of everything. The only 2 tankier brutes I know of are Dark/Invulnerable, and whatever/stone.

Hmm, that was rambling. Hope it helped cause I aint editing it. Time to Smash!

lol wow, complete opposite side of the spectrum. I'm always nice to the SB machine on teams, but sometimes you wind up with a Turkey, but I guess it just depends on who's behind the wheel on said kin.