New Player Questions about Fury and Primary Power Sets [SM]&[WM]/[SD]

Hi everyone, I am a pretty new player and have some questions that have been lingering a bit.

Thus far I have played a dominator to 30, a mastermind to 30, a crab spider to 45, a brute to 50, and since then rolled just about every brute imaginable under the sun (with varying degrees of success).

I can honestly say the AT is a thing of beauty and I love it.

The current brute I am ripping through gold-side content with is a Stone Melee/Firey Aura brute.

The insane damage on the single target attacks is just scary.

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But I really wanted to try a positional defense set as well, and people seem to love Shield Defense on scrappers.

To be totally honest, I wanted to create a character with subdued visual effects that played similarly to the style of stone melee with huge bone-crushing attacks.

So I rolled a WM/SD scrapper.

Both the scrapper and the brute are at level 10 right now. Both of them are super fun to play, and it's great to just smash stuff. The lack of AoEs can be somewhat annoying given the number of ambushes in Praetoria and other oddities.

I often feel very unprepared when I am faced with a number of targets. I suppose this is where those 2 sets will really diverge, with the War Mace character picking up as much in terms of AoEs as my level 50 staff fighting brute.

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But I noticed something strange that started nagging me. I took every single attack on both characters as soon as it became available so I could get a feel for which attacks I liked, and have good rounded out options for a decent attack chain.

Well I didn't feel any significant difference in the damage between the two characters...if anything, the scrapper definitely feels like it does less damage.

So I went in and looked more at the powers. I realized Clobber is the equivalent of Seismic Smash (a power I've never seen or used), and that means I've actually been comparing Clobber and Heavy Mallet.

Furthermore, I decided to run 2 missions (the same mission) on each character, and that's where things got really scary. I realized the Brute was doing A LOT more damage.

The reality is that the SM attacks at that level should all be inferior.

Additionally, even with pretty minimal fury, the scrapper attacks vs. the brute attacks aren't that dissimilar in damage.

The problem is the actual mission performance. Once the brute gets into the thick of things are the heat starts rising on the old fury bar, there is no way the scrapper could possibly compete. I have no problem staying above the 50% or so mark, and that means my attacks were doing A LOT more damage than the scrapper.

What is going on?

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Here is why I'm confused.

As a new player, there are tons of posts comparing the two ATs and saying that Scrapper vs. Brute is really just like choosing between two flavors of ice cream.

What am I missing? Experientally this doesn't appear to be the case.

In some cases the Brute is easily doing 40% more damage.

I realize that there are tons of factors in place like teaming in the higher levels,etc.

But in all honesty, for the majority of solo content I can't really imagine how the scrapper version could ever keep up with the brute's massive damage bonus from fury.

My understanding is that the attacks would be stronger to make up for the lack of fury. But within maybe 5 seconds of fighting that minimal difference in attack strength has erroded. And once the fury bar is chug-a-lugging up there, I can't imagine many scenarios in which maces would be worse on a brute.

Did I pick the wrong AT?

I feel that there has to be SOMETHING I'm missing, I just don't know what it is.

If even at the damage cap the differences are minimal, why would you endure the duress of being so lackluster at all other moments of your career when you WEREN'T there, and the consequences of not having fury were so real and tangible?

To confirm, you're comparing level 10 characters?

Your observation then seems spot on. Brute is a pretty clear winner at level 10.

At level 10, your attacks aren't properly slotted. On both Scrapper and Brute, what few slots you do have would go accuracy and endurance reduction. So both are doing base damage.

The damage scale for Scrappers is 1.125 and for Brutes is .75, but let's add a 10% average chance of critical to the Scrapper and call it 1.24. By the time your Brute hits +65% damage from Fury, which is trivial, you've caught up to the Scrapper. In fact, you might well bump up on +150% damage from Fury, at which point you're doing 1.875, or about 50% more damage than the Scrapper. Or as you say, "In some cases the Brute is easily doing 40% more damage." Yep. Scrappers aren't even close at level 10.

But maybe sometime in the 20s, you'll have damage SOs slotted in your attacks. Let's call that +90% damage. You'll also have Against All Odds. It varies, but let's call that +40% damage. Now the Scrapper is doing 2.85 and the Brute is only doing 2.21 at the previous draw-even point of +65%. The Brute now has to max out at +150% to draw even. So by then, in practice, the Scrapper is ahead.

Other damage buffs continue to push the Scrapper further ahead, because they're buffing a higher base. So when you hit Build Up, the Scrapper is getting more out of it. If you add Musculature, the Scrapper is getting more out of it. (Edit: If you surround yourself with more enemies, which might be typical at higher levels, Against All Odds will give you much better than +40% damage, and the Scrapper will get more out of the additional bonus.)

On the other hand, my understanding is that the Brute ATO set is drastically superior to the Scrapper one for adding damage. And I think (I could be wrong) that the Lore pets are a straight add unaffected by archetype, so would bring the two closer together regardless of which is ahead. For that matter, many procs are straight adds, so again would bring the two closer together regardless of which is ahead.

So it can be a complex picture. Heck, I've probably made some error above. But yes, I believe the general consensus is that a Shield Scrapper will put out more damage than a Shield Brute.

Except at level 10, of course, where the Brute wipes the floor with the Scrapper.

And be prepared for the terrible teens. The teens are just evil for my Scrappers, where my Brutes coast right through them. Price of admittance for later awesome.

Wow, what a great answer.

Now everything makes sense.

Although the base damage is a factor, the missing link for me was how damage scales.

I didn't realize the big difference was that +X% damage was applied differently between the two ATs.

In order to help wrap my brain around some of these break points I made some tables to help.

I figured I would post them here if someone had a similar question.

If anyone sees an error, please let me know.

By the way, neither of them have any enhancements slotted, since I wanted to compare apples to apples.

Turns out that was my problem...brutes are significantly better without any enhancement slots, but that isn't a

situation that models playing the real game at all, and therefore is not very relevant to making a decision.


1) Comparing Scrapper to Brute damage with no SOs and no Damage bonus:

SCRP 0 1.2375
1 1.2375
2 1.2375
3 1.2375
4 1.2375
5 1.2375
6 1.2375
7 1.2375
8 1.2375

BRT 0 0.75
1 0.9
2 1.05
3 1.2 (Breakpoint as Werner mentioned)
4 1.35
5 1.5
6 1.65
7 1.8
8 1.95

(These are the fury levels in 10% increments)

*I listed SCRP fury levels even though it's not a real mechanic because I found not getting more powerful as a

fight progressed a difficult mechanic to adjust to versus Fury.

2) Now with SOs [Nothing Else]

SCRP 0 2.35125
1 2.35125
2 2.35125
3 2.35125
4 2.35125
5 2.35125
6 2.35125
7 2.35125
8 2.35125

BRT 0 1.425
1 1.575
2 1.725
3 1.875
4 2.025
5 2.175
6 2.325 (Break for SOs)
7 2.475
8 2.625

(The Brute will take some time to catch up in this fight)

3) 5 Target AAO (SOs)

SCRP 0 2.7534375
1 2.7534375
2 2.7534375
3 2.7534375
4 2.7534375
5 2.7534375
6 2.7534375
7 2.7534375
8 2.7534375

BRT 0 1.66875
1 1.81875
2 1.96875
3 2.11875
4 2.26875
5 2.41875
6 2.56875
7 2.71875
8 2.86875


4) 10 Target AAO (SOs)

SCRP 0 3.155625
1 3.155625
2 3.155625
3 3.155625
4 3.155625
5 3.155625
6 3.155625
7 3.155625
8 3.155625

BRT 0 1.9125
1 2.0625
2 2.2125
3 2.3625
4 2.5125
5 2.6625
6 2.8125
7 2.9625
8 3.1125

5) AAO(10)+SOs+BONUS

SCRP 0 3.650625
1 3.650625
2 3.650625
3 3.650625
4 3.650625
5 3.650625
6 3.650625
7 3.650625
8 3.650625

BRT 0 2.2125
1 2.3625
2 2.5125
3 2.6625
4 2.8125
5 2.9625
6 3.1125
7 3.2625
8 3.4125

*Bonus is defined as 1 small red inspiration with the Offensive Amplifier running


So I definitely learned something new today.

Thanks for the great post Werner.

(I hope I didn't make any mistakes)

Methinks Arcanaville may have an acolyte, of sorts.



Good work with this! Also, don't forget about the survivability portion of the equation; I'll sacrifice a little damage to last longer in a fight, everytime.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarthWyrm But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.

Oops!

Can confirm I did use same AAO numbers for both calculations.

I definitely appreciate the explanation though...time to get some SOs and see what scrappers have to offer!