Scrapper/brute... how do you choose?
By
Bosstone,
Posted on: 2011-01-23 23:16 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I have to say after leveling three scrappers and one brute to 50 that I really prefer scrappers. What bothers me about the brute is the constant go-go-go playstyle in order to maintain Fury and keep the damage up. That means that I can't call a halt to recover end/hp without throwing away my damage and it takes a group or two before I'm cooking on damage again. It's too much of a yo-yo for my liking. I gave it a try with a Fire/WP brute and he was ok but my scrappers offer more consistent performance.
If I'm looking for durability then I'm running a tanker.
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This is no longer true since the Fury revamp. The Brute damage cap is now 775%, which means that a Scrapper, when counting Criticals, will do slightly more damage. (Criticals can exceed the cap since they double both the base damage and buffs. Fury will only increase base damage, it merely stacks with buffs)|
Originally Posted by Ghostwind_EU
Brutes can have their damage buffed more than a scrapper. This rarely comes into effect in actual play though.
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The old damage cap of 850% was greater than that. But now basically a Brute will get more out of defensive buffs, but less out of offensive buffs.
Also, snickering at the flowchart which ends up with selecting a Dominator. I too think Doms should be considered more like meleers than they seem to be.
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Obviously alot of folks feel this way, but for the life of me I don't get it. Solo and sitting at 0-Fury, my Brute can jump into a Spawn and within a few seconds I have more than enough Fury to smash everything to smithereens. On teams, especially teams with Tankers, it can be a bit slower to build Fury but still to me it's nowhere the Snail's-Pace some of you describe. *shrug*|
Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
I have to say after leveling three scrappers and one brute to 50 that I really prefer scrappers. What bothers me about the brute is the constant go-go-go playstyle in order to maintain Fury and keep the damage up. That means that I can't call a halt to recover end/hp without throwing away my damage and it takes a group or two before I'm cooking on damage again. It's too much of a yo-yo for my liking. I gave it a try with a Fire/WP brute and he was ok but my scrappers offer more consistent performance...
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Oh well, that different strokes thingy I guess...
uhm...well, personally....I find scrappers are like a mini melee blaster, but I do find them less surviveable.
The way I've built my brute, It's almost indistinguishable from a tank(I actually almost made him a tank) the only difference....is that my brute does alot more damage, faster, and has sliiiiightly less HP.
I'm a fire/shield brute and I've tanked TFs just fine....it's pretty much the same as a Shield/Fire Tanker except that I mow everything down faster.
fury+ against all odds= my best friend.
Phalanx fighting isn't bad either :3
there have been situations where I've been outshined by tanks, obviously....but as far as survivability and damage goes, I'm on top.
I find it odd, however, that I'm still not as unhittable as my Fortunata.
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It's not that the fort is more unhittable, its that the fort is (possibly) using ranged attacks, doesn't have a taunt aura and doesn't have a mag 4 taunt component on every attack.
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Originally Posted by Rintera
u
I find it odd, however, that I'm still not as unhittable as my Fortunata. |
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You probably won't notice much of a difference damage wise, however Brutes can leverage the damage auras you listed better since they have a taunt component to them.|
Originally Posted by Gearsinger
What about the effect of Fury on damage auras? Is that added area damage enough to make a large difference for those set that have a damage aura and can be both scrappers and brutes (Dark, Electric, and Fire Armors)?
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I prefer to play those armor sets on a Brute because of that reason, while other sets like Shields is more fit for a Scrapper.
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
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Actually, Brutes benefit more from damage auras because scrapper damage auras (from secondaries) don't crit; Brutes need less fury for damage auras to match scrapper damage auras, than for the other crit-able attacks.|
Originally Posted by Fiery-Enforcer
You probably won't notice much of a difference damage wise, however Brutes can leverage the damage auras you listed better since they have a taunt component to them.
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Of course, scrappers do also have the option of getting another crit-able damage aura from spines..
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Oh how I wish I could roll a spines brute...
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Originally Posted by Signpost
Of course, scrappers do also have the option of getting another crit-able damage aura from spines..
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I see a flaw in here.|
Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
Basically solo, a Scrapper and a Brute are about equal. They have the same defenses, so the Brute will last a little longer on his hit points -- but will use them up building Fury. So it comes out to a wash.
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Solo wise, you say the Brute will eat up that extra bit of health building up Fury. But all things being equal, solo wise, won't that scrapper being jumping into the same size spawn as the brute? And thusly the brute will surviva better.
It's not like Fury is built on hits connecting. It's just being hit at (and of course dishing out your own hits).
The more I go...I'm liking Brutes more for Fire and Electric Armor. As both of those on the Brute can reach 90% Resist to their specialty resist type. Also, Brutes can make out on the Damage auras more.
Also, if I recall correctly, Brutes make out on Fire Armor's Fiery Embrace more to.
Now, I tend to pick Scrappers over Brutes, because when solo, I tend to get up during a mission and do things, or I'm chatting away in globals, or whatever...basically something will at some point stop me from non-stop attacking (that isn't death or mission completion).
Also, Scrappers just feel like the typical comic book superhero to me (except for the fact they're missing so many primaries, some we're waiting on, some we'll never get).
I actually thinking of making a Brute for Double XP weekend, but I'm still undecided, only have time to work on one new character due to new job (why couldnt they wait a 9 days till they hired me
).
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Personally, I more or less just flip a coin if the sets I want are available on both ATs.
I'm generally not thinking so much about survivability when it comes to scrapper versus brute; for me, it's crits versus Fury. And even then, I like both mechanics equally. There are some times when it's a drag to have to build up damage to make the AOE count, and I rather like being able to do hefty damage from a standing start. Beyond that, though, Fury feels natural, like it's how attack mechanics are supposed to work. Even on my current Scrapper, I'm using Kinetic Melee, so I've still got mini-Fury going regularly.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Yes, but the scrapper jumps in doing full damage right away.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
I see a flaw in here.
Solo wise, you say the Brute will eat up that extra bit of health building up Fury. But all things being equal, solo wise, won't that scrapper being jumping into the same size spawn as the brute? And thusly the brute will surviva better. |
I know that brutes jumping into a full spawn reach their full fury very quickly, but the truth is they still do less damage than scrappers, if only by a hair.
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Yeah, that's the logic. While the Scrapper is dealing more damage to the first foe, the Brute is eating HP. Then the Brute catches up and finishes off the spawn on basically the same HP (left) that the Scrapper has. Technically the Scrapper should also take a little less damage since he will finish off the first foe first. |
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Yes, but the scrapper jumps in doing full damage right away.
I know that brutes jumping into a full spawn reach their full fury very quickly, but the truth is they still do less damage than scrappers, if only by a hair. |
HOWEVER, (and this is a big "however", thus the caps) as long as the Brute can charge into the next spawn without losing Fury, he will no longer need to take that extra time. So as long as the Scrapper has the HP to continue on to the next spawn, the Brute should be able to as well. And he'll lose no more time relative to the Scrapper.
I like the allusion made by another post earlier that a Brute is like a freight train. (I've said that myself) Once the Brute is "up to speed", the Scrapper's advantage in time to kill is gone, and they'll both run through the mission in equal time. It's just those few seconds you need to build up Fury that is tacked on to the Brute's time.
(I will add that the above is theorycrafting, I'm not going to claim that ALL Brutes will lose exactly 12% of their HP building up Fury to the max. Obviously it's not that predictable. However, I believe that's the reasoning behind the design)
(And I will also say if you have never tried a Brute, you owe it to yourself to try it. You may hate the Fury mechanism, but if turns out you like it, it will still be fun for you even if you can't personally get as much out of it as the Scrapper)
Srappers don't get angry. Brutes do. buff said. I don't do dainty.
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How do brutes survive longer if both are softcapd? Just from a little higher Health meter? The only Brute i wanted was a SS one because brutes out damage tanks and scrappers dont get SS. Other than that, i'd like to see posted numbers of damage saying brutes out perform scrappers. Even with Fury.
Elec/Sd would be the best to compare due to having two big AoE attacks. Before the nerf to SC is was able to hit 850 points of damage. My pics were posted on the forums and may still be able to be pulled up. Since the nerf, its only hitting around 500ish. Whereas my LR is hitting over 700 points of damage. Anyone here with an Elec/SD brute care to compare damage output? Ive never seen one in action.
An Elec Shield brute would hit the pseudopet damage cap of 400% easily. 65% (AAO) + 150% (75% fury) + 95% (IOs) + 100% base is 410%. Because of this, scrappers can likely do MORE damage than brutes when using shield charge or lightning rod with buildup.
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Higher health does two things. It makes you harder to kill (obviously) but it also increases how many HP / sec you regen since regen is based on a percent of your max health. At the softcap even a relatively small increase in HP adds up since you don't take damage that often. Resist based sets also benefit from more HP and on teams with resist buffs the higher resist cap helps. The difference isn't nearly as extreme as a Tank vs Scrapper, but it's there.
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Originally Posted by eryq2
How do brutes survive longer if both are softcapd? Just from a little higher Health meter?
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One thing I noticed recently with my old scrapper that I dusted off, after playing my brute, that often goes unnoticed: runners. I hate runners. Playing my scrapper I wondered why an enemy would take off so often...then I realized- the taunt in brute attacks makes enemies more 'sticky.' They just won't leave a brute half as easily while the gauntlet/taunt thing is going on. Of course, this is comparing a /regen scrapper (no taunt aura) to a /dark brute. (crazy numbers of auras)
The only secondary that I would absolutely choose Scrapper over Brute is Shield Defense, since softcapped, there survivability is close and the Scrapper can get more out of AAO and SC.
On the other end, I would choose SR, Elec, Fire, and Dark on a Brute over the Scrapper just for the fact the Brute gets a taunt aura. That just leaves WP and Invuln, in which I don't think it matters much which one you choose, other than the Brute will be more survivable for obvious reasons.
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