Hello all. I was hoping to get some people's perspectives on how scrappers and brutes felt as compared to each other. I am running a homebrew RPG and a new player has requested to play as a brute. I never played one in the game so would appreciate a little sharing of experiences with them. I know about Fury, but need to put it into perspective compared to an AT that I know more about so I can design the new player character. Thank you for sharing.
Scrappers were like a fighter jet on patrol. As soon as a target popped up, they would go and be at full combat potential from the start. But without support they could easily get in over their heads if the target wasn't one they could cope with on their own.
Brutes were like a fighter jet on deck of a carrier. When a target popped up, they had to launch, get up to combat altitude and THEN they could go at it. But they had some support from being on a carrier, so could survive the climb to full combat potential.
As to how they actually felt when played, I personally liked scrappers. You went from stationary to kicking arse as fast as you could close on the target. Brutes had a certain <smash!> feel to them once you got rolling, but getting there could be irritating at times. Both benefited from support, it's hard to say which benefited more. Scrappers were already tough by the standards of most AT's, Brutes could end up tougher. Brutes were better at holding aggro than scrappers as they were a sort of scrapper/tank hybrid, but neither could hold aggro like a well specced tank.
In the end, to me, a fully buffed crit from a scrapper's high damage power (Golden Dragonfly on my most played Scrapper) just *felt* better than 'hohum, another high damage hit' from KO Blow on my most played Brute. Plus, I reckon could still rotate my usual attack chain on my main scrapper from memory, whereas I couldn't easily do that for any of my brutes.
(the scrapper was 7, 0, Tab, F, 6, 4, 5, 2, 1, Alt+1, 4, 3, 2... to start and then improvise further mayhem, when starting from outside combat with no aggro )