City of Heroes

I write this on another website, and figure, wth, might as well put it here...here are the changes which I think would be necessary to BALANCE the game a little more, PvE-wise

This post is an exercise, if you want to compare datas, feel free to use Mid Hero Designer to evaluate my "decisions".

If I was in charge of game balancing at NCsoft I would:

Brutes:

- Divide the impact of Fury by 2....+100% damage has too many impacts on other aspect of the game and make it a rush-and-run non-stop game.  Fury serves a purpose to be FUN, it is currently crippling if you don't capitalize on it.

- Grant a mag 1 protection vs all status except confuse, and another point vs Fear...it is hard to affect someone furious. (come with fury)

- Increase their damage output by 33%. They are currently 7-8% behind tankers, which mean...they have 2 secondaries and no primary...this would make them 25% ahead of the Tankers and about 15% behind the Scrappers...then tankers have 33% more resists/defense and 23% more hps...and the brutes have about 15% more hps then Scrappers but same defense/resists, yet they have much better caps then scrappers, which means the scrappers deserve better damage caps (unverified, no idea where is the damage cap of a scrapper vs a brute).

- Build up increase to 100%, like a scrapper and not like a tanker...it is a primary and they already do less damage...80% of 66%(current form) is about 52% of the damage output of a scrapper...for 2 classes with primary melee...that too much of a difference.

- Reduce their damage cap to 500% instead of the current 800%.  Normal players won't see that anyway, and uber player still start 33% higher...which mean about the same damage in the end, it is just more human to reach for a normal player who succeed more or less with this Fury gameplay.

Stalkers:

- Increase their damage output by 15%...a "Thief" as in D&D isn't popular, peoples want to play "Rogues". Possibly needs to re-up damage later.

Scrappers:

- Give a minimum amount of critical hits...every 4 attacks, next attack is a critical hit if none so far (reset this counter each time a critical hit happens). A random % isn't fun if it ain't happening ever...it will mostly affect minions and lieutnants...stuff they already kill easily anyway, and they would feel a LOT better.

Buffs:

- Give the choice to lose 5% endurance for each buff you want to make permanent (as long as grouped and in the same zone), this 5% endurance doesn't come back, your bar is lowered by that amount. Additionnal buffs would reduce your endurance by a lesser amount, the player never goes under 40% endurance as a maximum for his bar. It isn't fun to rebuffs constantly.

Powers:

- Invulnerability: Okay, this set is popular for ARTISTIC REASONS. The devs just nerfs it because they want peoples to be evenly spreaded...that ain't working here, this set should be the most popular, everyone wants to be like Superman...even Stateman, BAB, Citadel and countless other heroes agree with me, the devs pick this power most often as well, for ARTISTIC reasons...let's review what it need fine tuned... --- It is the most defensive power in the whole list, Rock armor deal damage with mud pots, fiery armor give damage bonus/dealdamage/give endurance...etc....thereby, it should be very close to the best tanking set if not the best. A- Improve each auto power so it give the same global % as every other auto power in the game B - Improve temporary Invul so the lethal damage reach damage cap. With these changes, you would still have about 20% less resists than a granite armor in most resists, but you would be almost as high in smashing and at cap on lethal...

- Energy Melee & Super Strenght: As much as I hate to say this...it deals too much damage. It is not normal that a tanker with this set outdamage a scrapper with Broadsword despite the fact a Scrapper has a 40% more damage for the same template. Energy Transfer & knockout blow should have a small animation after the attack (spitting blood/restoring your balance), so it take more time to stack damage on damage.

- Electric Melee: Althought it is decent on it own, it mix very poorly with electric armor...lowest damage output primary with lowest defense setting for secondary...this combo should power up each other. I would favor a resist increase on all electric shield for 60 seconds each time you use Build Up from electric Melee...about 15%, would make it almost as good as very strong sets for tanking, but not quite...considering you have a very low damage output, you deserve the tanking bonus.

- Energy Armor and Ice Armor require some twinking up. They are too weaks. Everyone agree. I would like to try a formulae where they are immune to Energy/Ice attacks respectively, no more resist or defense, just plain immunity...and gain either endurance or a damage buff everytime someone attacks them with their respective elements.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about what would balance the game a bit more.

I didn't read all of your post, but the things I glanced over seemed to be the attempts at balancing the game for PvP.  Which is one of the reasons I quit, lol.

*edit*:  What you seem to be missing is the fact that Brutes aren't supposed to be as good as Scrappers or Tankers.  They're a hybrid class (as is almost everything in CoV).  They shouldn't have as much HP or damage output as either of the aforementioned, because they're not supposed to.

Tankers tank, so they have high resists and HP.  Scrappers deal damage, so they have higher damage output.

Brute is a bastardized attempt to do both, and so therefore, has neither of those things.