Brutes -- the perfect AT, or what?
By
Black_Assassin,
Posted on: 2012-01-03 11:48 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Not from what I can see. I seem to be teaming with a lot of new tanks, for starters. And it's hard to say we're seeing "more" corruptors made when we couldn't make any blueside before (yes, you could work on making them rogue and/or hero, but that isn't really relevant at lower levels.) IOW, yes, we're seeing "more" corruptors made because there are more than 0 in Atlas now. |
Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
Tankers and Defenders seem to be going the wayside, since their benefits over Brutes and Corruptors respectively are, in a lot of cases, negligible.
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That said, I still prefer a defender in most cases, just because they'll get their powers faster.
Wanted: Origin centric story arcs.
If you've only played an AT once (one set combo) and "hate" it - don't give up. Roll a different combo. It may just be those sets not clicking for you.
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I should hope not. With as many serious, fundamental problems as Blasters have, making Stalkers anything like them would be a severe demotion of the entire AT, when what Stalkers really need is an improvement of some fashion. I'd like to see how much the Assassin's Strike changes help, but they may well be enough to save the AT.
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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
Heck, Stalker's still going through core revisions six years later, but I'm hopeful this next round will finally make them the melee equivalent to Blaster they were always intended to be.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I dunno. Rend Armor Crit is so nasty, I don't even bother fully slotting my attacks. I had to go the Brute slot method of foregoing dmg slotting for endurance redux slotting on my Scrapper if only because the attacks just hit that hard...especially when they crit. Sitting at lvl 37 now, my TW/WP finally got around 80-87% dmg slotting in some of his attacks (Rend Armor, Defensive Sweep and AoD are only around 60% though) but focuses on recharge slotting which is around 60-75% on most attacks and 30-60% on endurance.|
Originally Posted by Bosstone
Yeup, depends on the character. I can't see Titan Weapons on anything BUT a Brute, really, and I love it. Meanwhile, I recently rolled a Broadsword/Shield Scrapper, both because Shield is better on Scrappers and because it's a concept that calls for controlled, consistent damage.
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I think the real benefit of TW scrapper is Build Momentum which is basically a free dead boss when you pop it whereas a Brute will need to build up to that first.
Meh, nothing bad with TW Brute, just TW Scrapper has a lot more freedom with your attacks. Just like on Stalkers, you can *start* with your high end attacks which just so happen to put the foe on their rumps...
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
If we're talking about concept, however, I see things like this: Any character who is defined first and foremost by being incredibly dangerous becomes a Scrapper. Any character who is defined first and foremost by being hard to kill a Brute. It's somewhat simplistic of an approach, but the simpler the rules, the easier the decisions. I do play Stalkers, too, but Stalkers tend to be characters I'd define as "cheaters." They're the ones who may or may not be able to win in a fair fight, but just don't like fighting fair for whatever reason. |
For me:
1. If the character's concept emphasizes combat as a viable means of defense (i.e. subdue the foe before they subdue you) because they themselves cannot just stand by and be pounded on = Scrapper
2. If, for whatever reason, they draw on additional power through a catalyst they cannot control (emotion, pain, injustice, damage) and the concept of their power hinges on that lack of control = Brute
A. Overrides either of the above. If combat is not emphasized by the concept or the concept is counter to combat, the character is either not any type of fighter or = Tanker (note: think pacifists, non-competent fighters, extremely competent fighters, guardians or those that aren't focused on purely smashing things to bits because they don't honestly have to)
B. Overrides all of the above. If control is the emphasis of the concept's combat style (control of the enemy, control to focus their power, control of the situation through foresight, knowledge, skill, power, control of fate, etc etc) = Stalker (note: I don't consider low survivability or high survivability as factors as to whether or not the character is a Stalker or not. Stalkers have capabilities to make themselves as sturdy as they want...for short amounts of time...so one can be depicted as unkillable (the main theme of my DM/WP stalker), unphasable (one of the central themes of my Elec/Regen stalker) or untouchable (my Kin/EA stalker))
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Citation needed. Blasters look just fine from where I'm sitting.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
With as many serious, fundamental problems as Blasters have, making Stalkers anything like them would be a severe demotion of the entire AT, when what Stalkers really need is an improvement of some fashion.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I should hope not. With as many serious, fundamental problems as Blasters have,
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... you can't be serious.
Some SETS may have some issues, but blasters as an AT? No, no "serious, fundamental" problems.
Wanted: Origin centric story arcs.
If you've only played an AT once (one set combo) and "hate" it - don't give up. Roll a different combo. It may just be those sets not clicking for you.
For me the only thing wrong with blasters is that a corr is more appealing to play. Which does not equal "blasters have problems".
Now, my DP/Devices blaster, on the other hand...
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
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My Fire/Dark would like me to ask you what problems those are. He's level 23 and hasn't died once in x5.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
With as many serious, fundamental problems as Blasters have
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My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
Thanks to street justice I finally made a brute, a counterpart of sorts to my SJ/EA scrapper. Brutes're pretty decent. The damage sucks less once you're IOed out and don't have to stop moving in normal circumstances. Sadly not all circumstances are normal so sometimes it gets a little ho-hum. Overall, though, the damage deficit is small enough that it is still fun. I don't really see a big difference in survivability since both of them can solo AVs blindfolded, but the difference between regen on the brute and a hypothetical SJ/Regen scrapper would be fairly pronounced I imagine.
The main reason why I never will switch over to brutes over scrappers in general is that sinking feeling I get when I'm running up to the first spawn in a mission, or the first spawn after a short pause in the action, et cetera. Hit build up if you want but those first few hits will still have defenders trying to hide their laughter.
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You're making the fury build up sound like a much bigger issue than it actually is. Before the fury changes I could potentially agree with you, with some reservation.... now? Absolutely not. It's so easy to get to and hold 70% or so fury now it's barely worth mentioning unless you have an abnormally slow playstyle or you play at work or something. After taking an alpha (and I would hope you would be taking the alpha) you should have enough fury to start hitting hard enough.|
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
Thanks to street justice I finally made a brute, a counterpart of sorts to my SJ/EA scrapper. Brutes're pretty decent. The damage sucks less once you're IOed out and don't have to stop moving in normal circumstances. Sadly not all circumstances are normal so sometimes it gets a little ho-hum. Overall, though, the damage deficit is small enough that it is still fun. I don't really see a big difference in survivability since both of them can solo AVs blindfolded, but the difference between regen on the brute and a hypothetical SJ/Regen scrapper would be fairly pronounced I imagine.
The main reason why I never will switch over to brutes over scrappers in general is that sinking feeling I get when I'm running up to the first spawn in a mission, or the first spawn after a short pause in the action, et cetera. Hit build up if you want but those first few hits will still have defenders trying to hide their laughter. |
Then there is also frenzy, which I don't use personally, but you can use it before you run into the spawn and it brings your fury to 100% when popped if you are pure villain.
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Nowhere. Tankers don't exist in my roster because I will never play the AT.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Lol and where are Tankers in there?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Blasters all the way, with scrappers a close 2nd (for when I feel like melee), and I do like stalkers as well.
Corruptors? Bah, wimps. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot (sigh), shoot, shoot, ah, finally Scourge so now I can do blaster level damage. I can defeat 3 mobs with a blaster while a corruptor defeats 1. Corruptor buffs...what good are buffs if they don't buff ME?
I like the new Defiance of blasters as well; love putting in chance-to-hold procs in the first 2 attacks.
I just wish I had more variant secondary powerset options for blasters, too many melee attacks in them 
. Although, I like Power Thrust for those "get away from me, you creep" times 
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(Also, I hate playing buffbots)
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I'm trying to resist the urge to make a "serious, fundamental problems" joke, but you're not making it easy!
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Tankers don't exist in my roster because I will never play the AT.
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Honestly, fury builds so fast I haven't even noticed a significant difference between starting at full fury vs none...|
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
I don't like Brutes. They only do well if they are doing well. If you have trouble in a fight and need to rest, you start the next fight with no fury and do poorly at that one.
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| I have no high end characters, I never get IO sets, never play level 50's. So to me brutes are just tanker wannabe's that hit like a defender. |
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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All Corruptor secondaries increase their own damage output in varying degrees (as well as everyone else's damage, with therm and pain on the low end and kin and cold on the high end). If you look at corruptors as buffbots or if you look at them as blasters you aren't looking at them in the right way. Corruptors are sort of like Doms in that they effectively have 2 primaries. Both their blasts and buffs have equal importance in playing one and if you don't value one of course you are going to get the scenario which you described above. When played right and depending on your powersets, you can do competitve damage with blasters AND apply force multipliers for your entire team, which can push the total team dps far higher than a team with a blaster instead of a corr.
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Originally Posted by Gaming_Glen
Blasters all the way, with scrappers a close 2nd (for when I feel like melee), and I do like stalkers as well.
Corruptors? Bah, wimps. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot (sigh), shoot, shoot, ah, finally Scourge so now I can do blaster level damage. I can defeat 3 mobs with a blaster while a corruptor defeats 1. Corruptor buffs...what good are buffs if they don't buff ME? I like the new Defiance of blasters as well; love putting in chance-to-hold procs in the first 2 attacks. I just wish I had more variant secondary powerset options for blasters, too many melee attacks in them . Although, I like Power Thrust for those "get away from me, you creep" times . (Also, I hate playing buffbots) |
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I've seen this kind of comment so many times.|
Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
You're making the fury build up sound like a much bigger issue than it actually is. Before the fury changes I could potentially agree with you, with some reservation.... now? Absolutely not. It's so easy to get to and hold 70% or so fury now it's barely worth mentioning unless you have an abnormally slow playstyle or you play at work or something. After taking an alpha (and I would hope you would be taking the alpha) you should have enough fury to start hitting hard enough.
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Over the years I must have played with, literally, thousands of different players, and there's maybe 1% of that population that I see playing faster than me, and that's being generous.
Yet, I am slow enough to not stay consistently at 70 Fury while playing.
Much of the time, sure, perhaps even most of time in certain easy missions if we discount time spent out of fights running to the next group, but there's those few seconds at the start of each fight for mobs to react at all and attack and build up Fury, those 2-3 seconds during my attacks are going to hit for less and in a 20 seconds fight, that's a significant part of your time, and the performance hit is worse than rough numbers would indicate as the start of a fight is where you want to do as much damage as possible with your AoE salvo and all.
Then there's soft and hard control blocking mobs from even attacking. Then there's spawns where minions are wiped before they even get to attack. Then there's speeding TFs with objectives that aren't necessary fighting back. Escapee phase. Blue cave. Collecting glowies. Defense missions. The list goes on and on, and more and more that "hold" on 70% seems right up there with those fabled war mace farming tankers hitting 8-9 targets with Crowd Control every single time without losing a split second to reposition.
I'm not saying this is impossible. I'm always open to the possibility that I just haven't seen the light, that they are people playing much better. However, claiming that hypothetical level of playing is the norm just doesn't fly when at least 99% (again, conservative number) of the playerbase out of thousands, thousands that also include some of the very names on the boards who used to claim to sit at 90 Fury all the time before / sit at 70 Fury all the time now, that very wide majority doesn't play at that level. If it is possible to keep 70 Fury consistently, then that is the abnormal playstyle, most definitely not the other way around.
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I dunno. I'll lose my fury at times, sure. However it only takes a matter of seconds to get it back and keep it there for as long as I need it. If your mission objective is just to collect glowies why would you need fury? If it's just 1 glowie along the way you shouldn't be losing much fury over a 2 second glowie click. I assume by escapee phase you mean BAF? I don't really have fury issues there unless I don't have confuse protection so I can't sit on a door.|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
I've seen this kind of comment so many times.
Over the years I must have played with, literally, thousands of different players, and there's maybe 1% of that population that I see playing faster than me, and that's being generous. Yet, I am slow enough to not stay consistently at 70 Fury while playing. Much of the time, sure, perhaps even most of time in certain easy missions if we discount time spent out of fights running to the next group, but there's those few seconds at the start of each fight for mobs to react at all and attack and build up Fury, those 2-3 seconds during my attacks are going to hit for less and in a 20 seconds fight, that's a significant part of your time, and the performance hit is worse than rough numbers would indicate as the start of a fight is where you want to do as much damage as possible with your AoE salvo and all. Then there's soft and hard control blocking mobs from even attacking. Then there's spawns where minions are wiped before they even get to attack. Then there's speeding TFs with objectives that aren't necessary fighting back. Escapee phase. Blue cave. Collecting glowies. Defense missions. The list goes on and on, and more and more that "hold" on 70% seems right up there with those fabled war mace farming tankers hitting 8-9 targets with Crowd Control every single time without losing a split second to reposition. I'm not saying this is impossible. I'm always open to the possibility that I just haven't seen the light, that they are people playing much better. However, claiming that hypothetical level of playing is the norm just doesn't fly when at least 99% (again, conservative number) of the playerbase out of thousands, thousands that also include some of the very names on the boards who used to claim to sit at 90 Fury all the time before / sit at 70 Fury all the time now, that very wide majority doesn't play at that level. If it is possible to keep 70 Fury consistently, then that is the abnormal playstyle, most definitely not the other way around. |
I could also agree with you in that it could well be us that is the abnormal scenario, I don't have a whole lot of insight into what others experience. I should have said that I /personally/ do not see such outstanding issues with Fury that would result in me deeming brutes to have sucky damage compared to scrappers.
Also, what is the Blue Cave? >_>
Yeah I'm not typically accused of being slow either, heh, though of course this being the forum one could hardly be expected to guess that. Recent WTFs have been extremely illustrative of the problem with brutes compared to scrappers as I've been able to run the same primary on the same TFs with builds of approximately the same cost. Anything where you're stealthing, the scrapper is twice as fast, straight up. I feel as though I've failed when a teammate catches up before the boss room is cleared which is bad news for my brute. On kill alls the difference is far less meaningful, but this goes back to the difference between "the majority of the time" and "virtually always."
On the other hand, I can see why people prefer brutes on farms. If you know your target caps are going to be saturated in the first place then what's the advantage for scrappers?
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A scrapper is not twice as fast as a Brute when stealthing. The only thing I do in CoH is run content on speed. Brutes aren't disadvantaged compared to scrappers when running speed content. |
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
Anything where you're stealthing, the scrapper is twice as fast, straight up. I feel as though I've failed when a teammate catches up before the boss room is cleared which is bad news for my brute.
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Ill just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euK0vPcqdjM
This was a video of a pre-i19 speed ITF (2 secs short of the record at that time) that I lead. It was recorded by Cam who was playing his brute (and also lagging pretty heavily from running fraps) and it gives a pretty good demonstration of fury levels throughout the TF and at no point was he having any issues dealing effective damage (though there was quite a bit of fulcrum shift flowing, but his fury bar is still there to look at). This would be an extreme example and at a slightly slower speed it would probably be easier to keep fury as well as more time in each spawn to build it, and even with the other people on the team running ahead of him preventing alpha absorbing he was still quite capable of getting the 70% fury.
Overall I'd say it is a pretty good demonstration of fury generation in speed content.
Now we're fairly far off topic but the ITF is not a good demonstration of speed content in general. Each of its missions lets you string together a series of objectives in a way that never existed in any previous content and has really only existed since on a couple of the trials. Speed TFs in general include the ITF and every other TF. Manticore, as you may recall from recently, is loaded with giant, stealthable missions that you do not fight through at all. You reach the last room and start from nothing. Brutes are not as fast in this circumstance and never will be.
That may have sounded grumpier than I intended. I'm not saying brutes are bad at speed stuff, rather that I find their drawbacks particularly obnoxious on speed stuff. If you don't, more power to you. Most of the time I just want to be able to kill that boss right now which is less a strategic concern and more a personal foible.
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The ITF video was the only thing I had on hand (and I was pretty suprised it even worked as an example at all). |
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
Now we're fairly far off topic but the ITF is not a good demonstration of speed content in general. Each of its missions lets you string together a series of objectives in a way that never existed in any previous content and has really only existed since on a couple of the trials. Speed TFs in general include the ITF and every other TF. Manticore, as you may recall from recently, is loaded with giant, stealthable missions that you do not fight through at all. You reach the last room and start from nothing. Brutes are not as fast in this circumstance and never will be.
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For manticore and any other mission that is just a boss at the end; You either start the mission with nothing and 5 seconds later you have 70% fury or you run to the end and you start combat with nothing and 5 seconds later you have your 70% fury. Regardless, you are going to have to build that fury at some point, so I don't really see it as a big deal as to when you initiate combat and start building it, and while you are building your fury you're still doing damage, and usually its enough to get the job done efficiently enough til you hit your fury cap. Will they be as fast doing low level speed content? Well, maybe, maybe not. Fury isn't the only thing to take into consideration.
Brutes have SS/FA, which Scrappers as of right now can't live up to, I would hardly consider /FA scrappers viable as they can't hold aggro worth a damn, the closest thing would probably be a fire/sd scrapper (it's really unfortunate shield defense can't be paired with titan weapons). I consider a fire/sd scrapper equal to a ss/fa brute (it's close enough). Being able to hold aggro is a large part of being a melee on the team, and as I quote from Silas' melee guide, a melee brings 2 things to a team, damage and aggro control. SD is really the only secondary scrappers have that can do both at it's best.
Lets say team A has 1 melee and 1-7 squishies, and team B has the same. The melee on team A is dealing more damage than the melee on team B, but the melee on team B is able to hold and control aggro because they're a Brute with a damage aura and taunt. The melee on Team A runs into a mob and drops their aoe and kills most of them, in sight of seeing everything die the boss/eb/av starts running all over the place because the melee on team A is a scrapper that isn't /SD. Team B's boss/eb/av stays in place and the team is able to dps it more thoroughly(sp?). Team B finishes before Team A even though the melee on team A is dealing more damage.
However let's say the scrapper is fire/sd. They're probably going to be doing more damage than the brute upfront and be able to hold aggro equally well. However once the brute gets going (which takes a matter of seconds) it's going to be keeping up with the scrapper in damage and potentially outdamaging it because it's an ss/fire. A Scrapper could potentially be TW to keep up with SS/FA's dps but they wouldn't be able to pair it with SD, which means they either keep the taunt aura with a non damage boosting secondary or (worse) lose their taunt aura to get a damage boosting secondary that can pair with TW. I'm only comparing the top combinations for each as it's too difficult to compare more. The raw numbers for scrappers might point to scrappers performing better, but brutes have access to alot more effective secondaries and alot more utility and ultimately perform better in more situations.
YMMV.
However you're right in that it's getting offtopic. Sorry for derailing the thread in any measure.
On Topic: Brutes used to be the perfect AT for me. I've logged ALOT of hours on my stone/stone brute before IO's. I have 3 brutes at 50 but have since quit playing them. I used to only play melee AT's but I grew bored of them and now I just play squishies. I only have one non-squishie that I play(TW/EA Scrap) while the rest are mostly controllers.
Off Topic: I have 3 AT's that I refuse to play and those are Tanker, Mastermind and Blaster. I hate the low damage of a tank and I'd gladly trade slightly lower survivability for alot more damage of a brute. I like teaming with masterminds but man I can't stand to play them since they bore me to death. I would like to play a blaster but they feel to one trick pony to me.
Elec/Cold Troller AV/Pylon/GM/TF/SF Soloing Antics
everytime...he gets me everytime.... DAMN U BOOMIE
-- _Ilr_
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
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I'm fine with them being one trick ponies, I just wish their trick was more impressive.
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Originally Posted by Boomie
I would like to play a blaster but they feel to one trick pony to me.
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Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
I went back to my ages-old Blaster after leveling my Stalker. It hits more targets, sure, but it was mildly depressing just how much more damage per attack the Stalker was able to put out (again, fewer targets).
I do have a level 50 fire/kin corr, and I love her. ^_^ I tend to like more self-contained characters, even if I team a lot, so the character that can obliterate everything on their own is what I favor. But with a corr I can play support and still solo very well when on my own, and there's nothing quite like being essentially a self-buffing fire blaster.
my lil RWZ Challenge vid