Brute should be removed because marines already have breaching shotgun which basically works in the same way, but for some reason they decided to also make brute which is less risky to use and more rewarding with same purpose just remove it or make it less effective, such as reducing blast radius and the flame spread.
(didn’t know it was removed, but if we had breaching shotgun why did we get brute it just doesn’t make sense.)
2 (they wouldn’t have to sacrifice defensive firepower if they had shotgun I mean they serve almost same just brute being way much better I just don’t think it was necessary to replace scattergun with brute)
3(Fun but it literally has zero risk and high reward ratio, you can quickly blast two layer of weed and spread fire from blast radius and keep pushing and pushing with the scatter gun you had to take risks sure you stand still to aim for few second but its like bootleg SADAR)
Breaching shotgun was removed. The Brute is a replacement for the breaching shotgun and cannot be vended with turrets, which means combat techs are basically sacrificing defensive firepower for an offensive pushing power if they choose to pick brute over a turret.
XM51 was removed around the same time that the BRUTE was merged, which honestly seems to be a nifty nerf and a tiny buff as well, CTs don’t need to haul stationary sentries every round which requires good positioning to be effective, letting them make more offensive-based loadout than defensive. At the same time its not like every IO or RFL will be able to take a breaching shotgun and remove every structure out there
Pretty sure the biggest issue with BRUTE is how many there are. Spare rockets are really expensive in Req last I checked, but if you have 4 of 6 CTs take it, that’s 16 choke points blown up inside caves at minimal cost to the greater operation.
They should just be limited to 1 per 3 or 4 CTs, maybe with how mortar used to be a sentry token but only one could be grabbed? (IIRC atleast, never played CT really)
EDIT: I’ve just been informed you don’t need Req, you can buy 5 extra rockets with vendor points. 9 rockets per engi, RIP hivelord mains.
well you know the young hivelords always build better…
I have been playing a lot less hivelord since BRUTE got merged. Whether that’s me trying to branch out or finding it somewhat pointless since BRUTE got merged is a mystery to everybody, even myself.
It feels a lot worse to play against than XM51 IMO, especially since it’s a lot better in caves, where the XM51 was MUCH less useful. I also think the flames may exacerbate the issue. Perhaps a testmerge without the flames? I know the flames are minimal, but they prevent rebuilding even if you have the xenos to do it. It really feels most egregious when near the hivecore
just few facts, xm51 is still in code and like one memeber of one ERT team or shit spawns with it. brute rockets cost half of sadar rocket, req wise it is more effective for engi to buy metal and req to buy brute rockets in exchange.
some observations
Most rockets are used on solid mapped walls not resin ones. when brute is used on resin walls it removes on avrage around 5 walls
brute is a tool for breaching and supporting pushes, complaining that it does that is same as complaining that walls stop pushes
brute is 3,5,5,5,5,5,3 widths, it is 31 tiles, but we do not have 31 tiles of solid walls laying around, except for hutjevo that has one in west madbay for whatever reason, usualy when used on metal walls it takes out 7 - 10 when used on corner
they can and even with fob rework we have sandbags
I think one thing to consider when comparing the XM51 to the BRUTE is that the XM51 was a uncommon issued Req only weapon, there was a hard cap on the amount of weapons and ammo available unless Req were prepared to buy more, whereas the BRUTE can theoretically be issued to every single CT, and they can spend vendor points to buy more rockets for it.
idk this is kinda waht I meant, if you shoot it at unrealistic scenario it looks strong, but when you aim it at some usual walling pattern not so much. lets say xenos are using 2x2 with two doors in between and you get SIDE shot at it, then you hit two 2x2 blocks and about 6 doors and that takes about half of one hivelord plasma to rebuild out of reinfoced walls and can do it under a minute. when marines do not fallow up on the shots it is useless, and xenos can fight to prevent fallowups, thwomp was not interested in limiting, the issue will be solved with sentry rework I hope, as making sentryguns more fun will just lead to less brutes on the battlefield.
tbh I am not sure what hivelord players expect to be able to do, it looks like most of them assume that they should be able to compleatly outwall marines from having any chance to advance and that is not super fun way to look at the game
not even contending with the number of tiles you’re hitting here, I don’t understand your logic when it comes to rebuilding the walls, as thick resin walls cost 170 to build, 8 of them would be 1360 plasma total. You do recover plasma in that time frame, but usually a hivelord can build 4ish resin walls without resting to make more. In the meantime, they are being shot because a huge hole has been opened in WHATEVER preparation has been done, assuming it’s not a permanent wall.
It just really sucks when the 3-deep walls in front of the hivecore are destroyed from 6 tiles away and it becomes difficult to rebuild. “within one minute” is a useless timeframe when you’re talking about marines destoying a hivecore or attempting to hold any area in general. Yes, marines can fail to follow up in almost any situation, but by that same token, xenos should be able to recover from situations. There’s a reason that we don’t allow OBs on the hivecore (I personally think that we shouldn’t allow HE OBs as close to the hivecore as we do, but I legitimately have more problems with being able to BRUTE the hivecore area than my issues with HE OBs, as I have managed to recover from several OBs but have yet to recover from a BRUTE assault on the hivecore)
e: also I want to state that BRUTE is awesome, is a reason I want to play comtech, and should not be removed. I think it needs a gentle nerfing.
Is there currently a counter-play to BRUTE as xeno?
Perhaps a misfire or some such when a BRUTE is winding up if the engi is knocked down, wasting a rocket and possibly making smoke/flames in the marine lines, encouraging the marines to defend the green laser man.
The BRUTE has a windup where you cant move, unlike XM51 where you could blast and move whenever and wherever you want.
You COULD target them with a pounce or prae acid spray to knock them down, hell, resort to a sentinel if its that bad.
Or anything that can stun from a distance like a direct boiler hit, queen screech IF she’s fighting. Or you can just be ready to rebuild as soon as the flames go out i guess
