Before the rumors start

So then...go ahead and ask for a damage cap bump...because you want to do more damage than brutes as tanks that's an ok excuse I suppose...don't know how well it will fly...because Tanks are clearly more survivable...if they did MOAR damage than brutes that would be a bit OP don't you think? If the cap now is 300% I could see maybe 400%...but a 100% damage cap increase is ALOT.

I'd rather see Tankers buffed than Brutes nerfed for the simple fact that already there is so very little reason to play a Brute over a Scrapper.

For all of Johnny's reasons. The extra survival of a Brute (like a Tanker) isn't needed for most of the game, so why NOT take the AT that never sees its damaged diminished by play style factors, buffs for damage better - self or party, and hits hardest out of the box. Once they get Superstrength any other melee AT will be a hard sell.

Then again, there are those saying that there's little reason to play a Scrapper with the new Stalker changes - high damage, on demand crits, similar durability.

So delete Tankers - Brutes are better. Delete Brutes - Scrappers are better. Delete Scrappers - Stalkers are better.

Stalkers have inherited the earth? How did we end up in Bizzaro-CoX?

Did you factor in bruising into the equation?

*facepalm*

derp. I didn't. Johnny's 545 number works if you count Bruising as a 20% increase.

It's a less crazy figure, but I still don't agree with the reasoning that led to it.

Looking at the caps and scalars of all 4 melee ATs, here is what I would do:

1) Increase Scrapper and Stalker resistance cap to 80%. This would put Scrappers at somewhat less than 80% of Tanker survivability.

2) Increase Tanker damage scalar to .9, which would put them at exactly 80% of Scrapper damage, and would have nearly the same net result as Johnny's proposed 545% damage cap. It would also help Tankers who are not sitting at their damage cap consistently. Raising their damage cap to 450% from their current 400% would not be particularly unbalancing.

3)Adjust Brutes accordingly. I would start by reducing their resistance cap to 85%, and their damage cap to 700%.

Given the same attack with a base damage of 100, at those damage caps a Scrapper would deal 562.5 with that attack, a Brute 525, and a Tanker 486 (to a Bruised target). That's a 37.5 point difference between Scrapper and Brute, and a 39 point difference between Brute and Tanker. Stalkers would come in at 500 damage with that attack, but their ability to land a crit when they want to more than evens the score, and actually puts them on top (because a Stalker player will leverage things to deal 1000 damage with that attack)

With the Scrapper and Stalker resistance cap increase to 80%, and the Brute decrease to 85%, it would put their survivability in reverse order, by just about the same margin of difference between them. Stalkers don't really need much, but it wouldn't be fair to increase Scrapper resistance without giving them the same.

Voila. Everyone but Brutes win, and Brutes just don't get to be overpowered compared to their melee brethren anymore. I would call that balancing rather than nerfing. It would put Brutes exactly between Scrappers and Tankers, where they are allegedly supposed to be anyway.

The end result would be that this:

Delving a little deeper and taking Criticals into account for Scrappers and Stalkers, the average damage over 20 attacks for each AT would be:

Scrapper: 590.6 (at a base Critical chance of 5%, one attack will crit)
Stalker: 550 (at a base Critical chance of 10%, two attacks will crit)
Brute: 525
Tanker: 486

But, since a Stalker player has a great deal more control over when they Critcal than a Scrapper player does, the average damage over 20 attacks will be much higher for a Stalker in actual gameplay. Probably in the 700-ish range, but I can't really average out something that is entirely dependent on an individual player's choice.

Given that, perhaps Brutes should be at 720% damage cap. That would make the difference between Scrapper and Brute 50.6 damage, and the difference between Brute and Tanker 54 damage.

Your proposal, which is an increase of the Tanker damage cap to 545% with no other changes, correct?

Have you even looked at the effect that is going to have on every OTHER AT? Not just melee ATs, the others as well.

Using a theoretical attack that deals 100 damage as a comparison point, and a Tanker cap of 550% to make the math easier:

Tanker Damage: 528 (With Bruising)
Brute Damage: 581.25
Scrapper Damage: 590.625 (average with Criticals)
Stalker Damage: 550 (average with Criticals, but control over when you crit puts the real number higher, more like 600-625)

The others:

Blasters: 562.5
Corruptors: 375
Defenders: 220
Controllers: 220
Dominators: 500
Epic ATs (all 4): 400
Mastermind: 220 (pets make the real number much higher)

Your new cap would put Tankers at around 90% of Scrapper damage, while Scrappers still only have 75% of Tanker survivability. Not fair in my opinion.

It puts them just about even with Brutes, at 10% away from each other in each category.

Now, look at the rest of the ATs. Your proposed Tanker cap would put Tanker damage higher than every one of them except Blasters. Do I really need to run the numbers to show a survivability gap there? The only squishy AT that even comes close is Dominators.

You keep talking about Scrappers and Brutes surviving too well for the damage they do? If you got your way, Tankers would be more broken than either of them in survivability to damage ratio. And INCREDIBLY broken compared to the other 10 ATs.

Tell me, do you REALLY think it would be fair for Tankers to out-damage all those other ATs, and survive so much better at the same time?

Fine.

My hypothetical, exactly 100 damage attack would deal EXACTLY 523.2 damage on a Tanker if you count Bruising. What a huge difference it made.

You still have not explained how it is fair for a Tanker to deal more damage than all of these ATs:

Corruptors: 375
Defenders: 220
Controllers: 220
Dominators: 500
Epic ATs (all 4): 400
Mastermind: 220 (pets make the real number much higher)

.....while having much better survivability than all of them.

You're only 5% lower than BLASTER DAMAGE. I will let that sink in for a second. You are seriously proposing that the toughest thing in the game have a maximum damage potential that is only 5% lower than the squishiest.

Also, since this is using YOUR rules, as in "everyone is at their caps to everything all the time", you make Defender primaries, and Corruptor, Controller, and Mastermind secondaries completely useless. What good are buffs if everyone on the team is capped to everything already? What good are debuffs if nothing can hit you? The only debuff that would be worth anything is -resistance.

Look at the numbers for those ATs' damage output again. When everyone is capped and half of those characters' abilities are useless, all they have to bring to the table is that amount of damage.

And you think it is FAIR and BALANCED for a Tanker to out-damage the majority of them, while shrugging off damage that will one-shot all of them? Unbelievable.

Also, since Tanker base values are so much higher, they need less help than anyone else to reach their survivability peak.

All the above points are why I am in favor of Brute maximum potential being reduced.

And the most unbelievable thing is: You actually believe that is a perfectly sane and reasonable request.

There's already 1 broken AT in the game....why do you want there to be 2? Wouldn't it make more sense to fix the one that's broken instead of breaking another one? (Most reasonable people would answer "yes" here, but I know you're not going to)