WP/SS or SS/WP for Scranking

Abstract, general question, just want to see what y'all think.

I have a SS/WP Brute optimized for scranking (perma but not stacked rage and lots of HP and defense from IO's), but I often wonder if I had done a WP/SS tank and optimized for damage (double stack rage and go for all the recharge I could get and maybe some damage procs?) how that would compare. Would it be much different at all? Would the double stacked rage be almost as good as perma-rage plus fury? Would the less optimized tanker be significantly tougher than a toughness-focused brute?

As far as playstyle, I HATE being defeated, solo or on a team, and I like to do enough damage to solo on very high settings but I don't need to be a damage god. So far my ghetto tank brute is doing this pretty well. If I got to make a wish, I'd like to be even tougher and I wouldn't want to do much less damage. I can live happily with the damage I do now--but then, who wouldn't want a bit more if they could get it .

The only thing that I'm sure about is that I hate rage crash and wouldn't enjoy the double rage crash on a double rage tanker, but if he did roughly comparable damage and was even harder to defeat, it might be worth it.

Whatchy'all think?

Ok first off let me say I have both a WP/SS tank and a SS/WP brute. Think of it this way Brutes are damage dealers period, tanks or aggro control and can take lot more then a brute can. Tanks will never be able to do as much damage as a brute unless the brute is poorly slotted for damage. On the same note a brute will never have the same survivability on a tank unless again poorly slotted. I my self like to do mish on both at a 4x8 mobs and have no problem with either one on survivability as for my brute might kill faster then my tank he still gets hurt worse then my tank as well. I can give you a prim example of that on my tank I was standing in a mob just chatting away while the baddies was attacking and I hardly got any life taken away, while on my brute i could not.

Thanks for the reply, LSK!

I know that's generally the case between tanks and brutes, but would that still be the case on a brute with just single perma rage vs a tank with perma double-stacked rage and damage procs? To accomplish this the tank would probably take a bit of a toughness hit.

I guess another way of putting this would be--if you took both toons and tried to meet in the middle using IO's and without gimping, would you be able to, or would the tank always be tougher and less damage and the brute always more damage and squishier no matter what?

I'm especially curious about: perma double-stacked rage on a tanker vs single perma-rage on a brute as far as damage, and if a WP brute with lots of defense/hp set bonuses could be as tough as a base (let's say well slotted but no set bonuses) WP tanker.

Thanks!

Stick with the SS/WP, the extra mitigation tanks get is mostly unneeded when you factor IO's into the equation.

Ok, I figured as much. The way I made my brute he's damn hard to kill and has a decent enough sting to get through solo, but the temptation to be UNKILLABLE!!! is still strong :P.

Just from the itch of curiosity, I'd love for one of you awesome numbers dudes (English Major here, math hurts my pretty little head) to show a detailed break down in DPS between a Tanker with perma double-stacked rage vs a Brute with normal perma-rage--solo with no external buffs except insp. I don't even know quite how to go about doing that with the different base damage modifiers and percentages. Off the top of my head it seems like it could end up nearly even... ?

Word to all your mothers!

OH! And I should stipulate--in the hopes that someone will take me up on my request for a number crunch--use normal/conservative around 150% damage bonus rage, not "max rage", cause that almost never happens. When I said that it seemed like they might end up nearly even, I mean't in actual solo gameplay, not theoretical optimum cases or when buffed to the gills on teams.

Thanks!

I can crunch some numbers together. I'm assuming recharge isn't an issue to run the top ST attack chains for both builds?

That sounds good. That way it's apples to apples. It may be that a really tanky brute wouldn't have the very top single target chain, but at that point we're getting into detailed build vs build comparisons, and that's beyond what I was interested in.

Interested to see the result and thanks!

Here's a rough calculation, I didn't factor in Rage or Hasten activation times and I calculated 0 damage during the Rage crash.

For the Brute I used the attack chain of Gloom > KO Blow > Haymaker > Gloom > Punch > Haymaker. With 95% damage enhancement, 80% bonus from Rage and 150% from Fury, it comes out to 207.1 DPS before the Rage crash and 191.79 DPS with the crash.

Now for the Tank I used the attack chain of Jab > Gloom > KO Blow > Haymaker > Gloom > Punch > Haymaker. With bruising, 95% damage enhancement and a constant 160% bonus from stacked Rage it comes pretty close before factoring in the crash. Before the Rage crash it comes out to 203.79 DPS and 175.79 DPS after.

Bruising helps a lot, but you can only rely on it against one target, the AoE damage between the two will be even further apart.

I don't disagree with Fiery-Enforcer's numbers, and yet I have a different take on it.

To look at the difference in damage, as both characters use the same powers and Bruising doesn't always work out as nicely as it does in paper (at least for me personally), I find it easier to just look at the base damage :

Tanker 0.8(1 + 0.95 + 1.6)= 2.84
20s/120s of crashing, or 100s/120s of doing damage.
2.84*10/12 = 2.36

Brute 0.75(1 + 0.95 + 0.8 + 1.5)= 3.1875
10s/120s of crashing, or 110s/120s of doing damage.
3.1875*11/12 = 2.92

2.92 - 2.36 = 0.56

It's roughly a ~25% increase going from Tanker to Brute. Personally, I wouldn't be able to tell unless I looked at it closely (especially as the difference in pure damage numbers isn't going to be as big, as a significant part of the damage loss comes from spending twice as much time under Rage crashes), whereas I can very easily notice the difference between 50% S/L res and 70% S/L res, as enemies using that kind of damage will hit for almost twice less.

It is true that from a pure performance point of view, the survivability a brute offers can be more than enough and so going tanker adds nothing. However, for someone who hates death, would like to be tougher, and is fine with decent damage rather than absolute best, I would argue for the tanker, because personally I still manage to die quite a bit more than I would like on IOed out WP brutes or scrappers (just like on most characters that aren't SD, SR or tankers, for that matter). Your mileage may vary. Additionally, also hating the rage crash, crashing twice as much isn't nice, and perhaps that QoL aspect makes the brute better in the end regardless of the damage/survivability ratio.

Alright! This is the kind of discussion I wanted!

So, for solo when you don't like defeats, you end up pretty well on the tanker, though the price you pay is twice as much "time out", which is annoying (I think Rage crash is silly. Just charge more end.)

That's a hard choice.

Ad into the mix that to get the defense and HP you need to really have an undefeatable WP Brute you won't have the recharge for that top attack chain, IMO.

I think, in the end, I'll settle for being just a bit squishier than I'd like to be, like Fiery said, so that I don't have to spend twice as much time in "time out" for decent damage.

BUT, man, the significantly increased UNDEFEATABILITY for not that much less damage is intriguing.

Solo playstyle, I guess, in the end. But, if the penalty for Rage wasn't "time out" but just more end drain that could be mitigated, I think in the end I might go Tank for undefeatable solo!

Thanks for the discussion .

Well, it makes sense that you could have it all if you could throw enough influance at the build, but I mostly solo or play with RL friends and don't have a SG, so I don't and probably will never have mad inf and currently have a "ghetto" (mostly yellows) build and I'm aspiring towards a "moderate" (mostly oranges) build--so for me, for practical purposes, I couldn't have both max brute undefeatability and the very top attack chain.

Currently my build is really, really tough but has a sub-optimal--but servicable--attack chain. Because of that, in the back of my head I wonder if I didn't just turn a brute into a tank when it would have been easier to just start with a tanker in the first place.

He's tough enough that I find myself running point on PUGs alot, and, while with slotted taunt I do pretty well holding aggro by alternating taunt and foot stomp, I wouldn't mind gauntlet helping out and I LOVE "cushion", as you say. Yet, I suspect that to get the damage I'd want, I'd need to double perma-stack rage, and, man, those extra rage crashes would be annoying.

I think the final answer is that either way, tanker or brute, would have been feasable for what I want, and each has different advantages, but I probably did the right thing by going brute for the kind of "scranking" I like to do.

I really do appreciate the feedback from more experienced and knowedgable players, thanks guys.