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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2 of my main characters currently are brutes. Other than the wind-up time when momentum fades on my TW brute, I have never been what anyone would call "slow". Fury builds so fast it's almost constantly full. So, I don't know what the hell you people are doing wrong, but your claims are wildly different from my experience. And I'm NOT what one would call a great player. Might be a little slow building fury at very early levels ( Up to 20 at the absolute highest ), but that changes quickly. It doesn't really make a big difference at those early levels anyway.
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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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Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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I like what I like. When I first started playing this game, I was 19 or 20, I forget, was just graduating from University and did not have a job, so I had practically unlimited free time, enough to toss away on things I had marginal interest in without a second thought. These days, I'm 27, I have a job, my mother has retired and depends on my income and I teach classes at that same university. My free time is no longer unlimited, and it's getting crowded with other games I like popping up. It just doesn't make sense for me to play an AT I don't like. Even if that's "mild dislike," I can't justify spending time on that when I could be spending it on something I like playing a great deal, like Brutes, Scrappers, Stalkers (tentatively) and Masterminds, as I recently remembered.|
Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
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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I have nothing against Tankers, in particular, nowhere near on the same level of problem I have with Blasters. They're just not an AT I enjoy. Unlike most people, I don't feel that Tankers are losing their reason to exist in City of Heroes. Sure, if we assume everyone's power-built to the max and sporting Incarnate powers, maybe. I wouldn't know. But in the basic game with basic, causal builds, Tankers still blow even the sturdiest of my Brutes out of the water and tank ten times as well as I could when I try the hardest. I can appreciate having that on a team, I just don't want to be the one doing it.
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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'm terrible with brutes. Seriously. I am the worst brute player. Hand me a brute and I will faceplant faster than if you hand me a blaster. I'm actually that bad.
I do have a wicked melee fortunata, though.
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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
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).
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I'm curious as to what type of Blaster you were playing and what type of Stalker?
Because Numbers wise a Blaster should be outdamaging a Stalker in most scenarios. Aside from a Hidden AS, Stalkers can only out-damage Blasters in certain edge cases.
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I got bored once and built a fire blaster in mids|
Originally Posted by DMystic
I'm curious as to what type of Blaster you were playing and what type of Stalker?
Because Numbers wise a Blaster should be outdamaging a Stalker in most scenarios. Aside from a Hidden AS, Stalkers can only out-damage Blasters in certain edge cases. |
I slotted for +dmg buffs and i think i had upwards of 65% +dmg
Blaze ED slotted for damage and +45 dmg musc with BU+Aim was doing about 920 dmg
excluding the nice purple proc I had slotted as new Mids doesnt count them atm (bugged i believe)Dont know if a stalker can do 920 damage? dont play them :P
[Union Chat]Sebaddon: If you want to, we will, if you think it's weird, no, that's damz, not us.
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The game seems to be calculating average damage for Fire Blast attacks incorrectly. Blaze deals 132.63 damage followed by 5 ticks of 80% for 14.08 additional damage. This means its average damage is 132.63 + 5 * 0.8 * 14.08 = 188.95, but the game reports 170.49.|
Originally Posted by Black_Assassin
Dont know if a stalker can do 920 damage? dont play them :P
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In any case, Hidden base damage for Assassin's Slash is 389.28. Even without buffs or Enhancements, a single Stalker attack is still twice the damage of Blaze.
For comparison:
Assassin's Slash (Not Hidden, solo, average): 152.93
Assassin's Slash (Not Hidden, team of 8, average): 182.129
Assassin's Slash (Not Hidden, spike): 305.86
Head Splitter (Hidden, average): 216.88
Head Splitter (Not Hidden, solo, average): 159.04
Head Splitter (Not Hidden, team of 8, average): 189.41
Head Splitter (Spike): 318.08
Disembowel (Hidden/Spike): 218.00
Disembowel (Not Hidden, solo): 119.90
Disembowel (Not Hidden, team of 8): 142.79
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Originally Posted by DMystic
Aside from a Hidden AS, Stalkers can only out-damage Blasters in certain edge cases.
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Again, Stalker's main weakness is in its single-target restriction, which Blasters don't have to worry about. While Blaster attacks won't outright exceed the damage of Stalker attacks, they can still deal more damage total because they can hit more targets.
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Last time this came up, Arcana insisted that the DOT cancels on a failed roll, therefore each subsequent DOT tick would have a smaller chance of occurring than the previous one, essentially, 132.63 + 14.08*0.8 + 14.08*0.8^2 + 14.08*0.8^3 + 14.08*0.8^4 + 14.08*0.8^5 = 170.4950624 by my calculator. In other words, that's not 80% chance for 5 ticks, that's 5 ticks of 80% chance, where one failed tick cancels the ones after it.|
Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
The game seems to be calculating average damage for Fire Blast attacks incorrectly. Blaze deals 132.63 damage followed by 5 ticks of 80% for 14.08 additional damage. This means its average damage is 132.63 + 5 * 0.8 * 14.08 = 188.95, but the game reports 170.49.
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I don't have enough data to claim one way or the other, but that's last I heard on the subject.
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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 see, the Real Numbers guy described it incorrectly, then.
Oh well, that just pushes the average damage for Blaze down, and I'm totally fine with that. (-:
I guess I had some numbers wrong then.
Hm, I recently hit 50 with a claws/elec Brute, IOed her out, only T2 alpha so far, but it's a blast. Over the years (playing since release) my preferences changed quiet a bit though. Back when it was City of Blasters my main was an AR/DEV (still sitting at lvl 48) and now I don't have a single blaster, I just cannot play them.
Then I got a ******** of defenders, but after ED (which was a good thing for the overall game, not so much for defenders though) I prefer Corruptors and deleted all of my defenders.
Now I am playing a mix of melees (Brutes, Scrappers, only 1 Tank though WM/SD), Corruptors, Controllers and Dominators and VEATS. Can't make myself play blasters, defenders, HEATS and Stalkers.
Originally Posted by Megajoule
We're being invaded. Again. This time, instead of aliens, zombies, or eyeballs with teeth, it's the marching band.
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A bit of investigation into this kind of sequence led me to geometric progression, which enables us to devise a formula like this:|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
132.63 + 14.08*0.8 + ... + 14.08*0.8^5 = 170.4950624
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AverageDoT = Damage * (Chance - Chance ^ (Ticks + 1)) / (1 - Chance)
For our Blaze situation, our values are as follows:
Damage = 14.08
Chance = 0.8
Ticks = 5
The equation comes out to this:
14.08 * (0.8 - 0.8 ^ (5 + 1)) / (1 - 0.8) = 37.8650624
Add that to the flat-rate 132.63 and we get 170.495062.
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So, every AT, then?
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
I love all the damage ATs, personally.
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Where to now?
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Furthermore...
Turns out there's a "cancel on miss" flag set for most player DoTs that will result in this geometricly progressive behavior--where it cancels on miss, bluntly. It's set for Blaster Blaze:
Notice the wordage there: "5 Ticks of 80% chance for"... This makes use of the formula in my previous post.
If you take a look at [Blood Widow.Poison Dart] instead (an NPC power), you'll see this:
This time it's "80% chance for 21 Ticks of" because CancelOnMiss is false for that effect. This makes use of the following formula instead:
AverageDoT = Chance * Ticks * Damage
what
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
What what?
Scrappers used to be my favorite AT for fast leveling, but now it is Brute. Brutes have better defenses than Scrappers and better dps than Tankers. That middle-ground is perfect for my playing style. I'd rather be really good at both than be the best at one and noticeably deficient in the other.
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
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What makes you say that? AFAIK the values of their defensive sets' powers match exactly. The only difference I can see is brutes having slightly more base HP.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Brutes have better defenses than Scrappers
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11.2joy
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Maybe it has just been a huge misconception on my part all this time. Brutes were the closest things to Tanks that redside had originally, so I always thought that Brute defenses were somewhere between Scrapper and Tanker. Are you saying that Brutes are equivalent to Scrappers in terms of defenses, but with weaker dps? What possible value do they add to the game then?
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Originally Posted by Tenjoy
What makes you say that? AFAIK the values of their defensive sets' powers match exactly. The only difference I can see is brutes having slightly more base HP.
11.2joy |
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
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Brutes get the same defense/resistance numbers as Scrappers. However, they also have higher caps, higher HP and a slightly-less-than-Tanker-level-robust Taunt component.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Maybe it has just been a huge misconception on my part all this time. Brutes were the closest things to Tanks that redside had originally, so I always thought that Brute defenses were somewhere between Scrapper and Tanker. Are you saying that Brutes are equivalent to Scrappers in terms of defenses, but with weaker dps? What possible value do they add to the game then?
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People who play Brutes generally want more survivability and HP than Scrappers (Scraps can't cap resistance at 90%) and more damage than Tankers.
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."
brutes have the same defenses as scrappers but their hard cap is that of tankers (or close) - so they can be buffed up to act like tankers
their base damage is lower than scrappers, but with enough fury they do more damage than scrappers.
their initial reason for existence was that scrappers and tankers did not exist redside so they did not compete with them.
That was actually changed when the Fury changes went through.
Brutes can no longer outdamage Scrappers at the top end. Though during normal play enough Fury will put you ahead of Scrappers assuming no external buffs.
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Seriously, try to play a brute and tell me you're not doing more damage than any scrapper at level 10. Till 25-30ish you can only slot your attacks for end reduction, have great damage and aggro control, plus more hp.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Maybe it has just been a huge misconception on my part all this time. Brutes were the closest things to Tanks that redside had originally, so I always thought that Brute defenses were somewhere between Scrapper and Tanker. Are you saying that Brutes are equivalent to Scrappers in terms of defenses, but with weaker dps? What possible value do they add to the game then?
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In the endgame, unless you're an av soloer/DPS maniac or whatever, you will have to struggle to find that some scrapper is outdamaging you on a team with a noticeable margin. And you get aggro control, so good you may strip it from the Tanker due to doing a lot more damage. So you can be a great off tank too.
Sure in some scenarios (prisoner phase in BAF) you won't be with more than 50% fury unless you're AoE heavy and camp on a door, but on most others you'll have so much aggro on you (I personally pick taunt on all my brutes) that fury is a non-issue.
Hell I did the 1st costume mission killing grey tsoos on my TW brute and scrapper last week, the brute was 1 or 2-shotting them after the first mob because fury doesn't decay fast like before so I could run to the next mob and do plenty of damage and have more end since the scrapper really needed some damage SOs in her 20s, the brute can wait till I get more slots and use only acc/endred/rech.
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That's what I thought! But someone seems to be trying to tell me that is all just a false perception of Brutes. |
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
People who play Brutes generally want more survivability and HP than Scrappers (Scraps can't cap resistance at 90%) and more damage than Tankers.
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NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
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.-- - ..-.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Are you saying that Brutes are equivalent to Scrappers in terms of defenses, but with weaker dps? What possible value do they add to the game then?
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Brutes have a good 12% more base HP than Scrappers. This makes them 12% sturdier from the outset, makes +HP buffs more effective, makes damage resistance more effective, makes self heals more effective...
And as has already been mentioned, Scrapper resistance caps at 75%, where Brute's caps at 90%.
The perfect AT for me would be controllers because they can do basically everything on high end builds with epics. A close second would be corrs, which is an AT I've been enjoying more than trollers because all my trollers have tons of keybinds, corrs are simpler.
That said, Brutes are the perfect melee AT imo after the Fury change. My SO'ed brute slotted all over for endredux can kill mobs faster than my scrapper (both TW) because the scrapper needs damage slotting so he has more end woes in the 20s.
In teams playing hard content (+3) in the 30-49 range I can be 'tankish' and if I'm doing 10-20% less damage than the scrapper it doesn't matter to me because I'll be holding aggro better and in seconds my fury will be high (all my Brutes have Taunt, love that power, and I use a lot it even when I'm not the main tanker). I like protecting squishies since I started playing trollers and doms and stayed with squishies for more than 1 year, and since my first 50s were a mind/emp and a fire/kin I have this 'carebear' mentality to protect the team even on my Stalker, I go out of my way to AS or ET a mob that is pounding the blaster or whatever. And I see so many Tankers who care so much about being at the aggro cap all the time that they end up letting some dangerous mobs go out to attack squishies so Brutes are perfect for off tanking too.
On Blasters.. I've been enjoying for the first time one of them (first one to get a nuke woohoo), she's energy/ice but... I'm finding I really like energy blast and from my secondary I only use chilblain and shiver regularly. I love chilblain, but I thought I'd like Ice Patch more... I should've checked first that the power has a tiny 10' radius and a 3.47 sec cast time, so not that useful on teams, and solo I don't really need it. The problem with Blasters imo is that they only have two secondaries that really stand out (EM and MM), the rest is just more attacks (or utility in the case of /ice but the debuff and control sets have a ton of powers that outclass shiver and patch for example). Only reason I don't reroll her as an nrg/nrg is that I've done all the boring TFs to get the accolade and I really like the concept.