Willpower,Brute or scrap?
By
4c3Player,
Posted on: 2012-07-26 03:20 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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No, but Brutes generally get the better end of the deal in high-buff team situations, because they can approach Tanker survivability. To the extent that Scrappers win with respect to damage buffs, they don't win by as much as Brutes do on the survivability side.|
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Brutes lose in high-damage buffing situations? What advantage do you mean?
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And you'll note that I've already acknowledged that Scrappers benefit more from damage-buffing Primary sets (like DM). That's one of the main reasons I said that StJ doesn't favor Scrappers. (Combat Readiness is a small damage buff, relative to the field.)
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At the damage cap: Scrappers (1.125(Base mod) * 1.05(base crit chance))*(damage cap)5= 5.9 Brutes .75 (Base mod)*(damage cap)7.75 = 5.8 That's against minions. Against higher ranged critters it's better for the Scrapper. |
The damage-buff argument really only favors Scrappers by a notable amount when you're discussing lower-end buff scenarios. For example, a DM/Shield Scrapper will have a significant advantage, self-buffed, over an equivalent DM/Shield Brute build. Or let's say you have one Empath in your team; Fortitude will give a generic Scrapper a noticeably higher boost in damage output than it gives a generic Brute. But at the cap? Eh, who cares?
The one compelling thing you can say about the damage cap is that the generic Scrapper can hit his cap easier. Standard damage slotting + Build Up puts the Scrapper roughly 200% in base damage bonuses away from his cap. The same set up, and 80% Fury, puts the Brute about 340% in base damage bonuses away from his cap.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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If we're being honest it's also worth noting that the first set of brute ATOs only helps them generate more fury, accelerating them along their trajectory toward the same old damage cap. Scrappers and stalkers gain effects that effectively increase their damage caps by increasing the number of critical hits they generate. This is fine for brutes most of the time in normal play but in ideal high end circumstances it is an advantage for non-brutes.
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This is only so true. The "problem" with damage-cap scenarios is that it starts to become less about how much damage your attacks do, and more about the NATURE of your attacks. How quickly they animate, how quickly they recharge, how many attacks you have, and most dramatic of all, how many AOE's you have. What AT modifiers you use matter much less. |
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
If we're being honest it's also worth noting that the first set of brute ATOs only helps them generate more fury, accelerating them along their trajectory toward the same old damage cap. Scrappers and stalkers gain effects that effectively increase their damage caps by increasing the number of critical hits they generate. This is fine for brutes most of the time in normal play but in ideal high end circumstances it is an advantage for non-brutes.
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Scrappers will still have an advantage in regards to ATO bonuses when fighting enemies that can withstand punishment at such high level of damage enhancements, but the playing field becomes significantly less balanced at that level of maximum performance due to the limiting factor of enemy HP.
Brute's and Scrappers have comparable damage on paper, and the reality doesn't deviate from this a lot, but there *are* small discrepancies which we do not calculate for (due to complexity) that allow Scrappers to excel to some indiscernible degree.
For a good portion of your leveling career your Brute will depend upon enemy attention in order to build a respectable amount of fury. The sort of "double-edge" to this is that enemy attacks typically have debuffs attached to them which can greatly diminish your ability to deal damage. This can become very apparent in teaming situations where you have a large portion of the enemies attention upon you. You can mitigate a lot of this depending on your team composition, or at very least stay alive, but you will be at a disadvantage for it.
Brutes also tend to work less well with others than Scrappers. As mentioned, Brutes need some "balance" of attention in order to maintain good fury, and if you have more than a few Brutes in the same team you may find this difficult to do. Compared to a group of Scrappers, the total potential damage of a Brute is going to be lower as they're all competing with each other for a somewhat limited resource in fury.
Brutes also lose fury as they jump from spawn to spawn. If you don't lose fury, then you'll probably be using more endurance to sustain your fury, and if you aren't careful you can crash that and wind up in a very unfavorable position.
Or sometimes you just need to use the bathroom and lose all your fury. That can happen too. It also makes eating food during combat a little more intense.
All of that said, these are not insurmountable problems. Eventually your Brute will have a tight enough attack chain that it will not require enemy attacks to build fury in a quick fashion. Eventually your defenses will be built up enough so that you can endure sustained enemy fire, and you will probably grow as a player to know which threats require attention before others. At top performance Scrappers and Brutes tend to blend into one another.
However, as you are leveling up and even for some time at level 50, you are likely going to notice that Scrappers have ONE advantage you do not, and that is a sustained play-style that not dependent on multiple factors happening around them. Scrappers do not care if there are other Scrappers and their damage doesn't suffer for it, they don't take on more attention than they need too and they don't indirectly suffer from a Tanker absorbing all the attention. Scrappers are much more CONSISTENT than Brutes, and at higher levels have comparable survivability, by which I mean nigh-unstoppable.