This One Tool Is Killing Every Round (and Nobody’s Talking About It)

General Discussion
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It appears the clickbait has captured you. good.

Over the years we’ve had a few things that become popular for one reason or another, but end up making the game worse overall. They usually hang around for far longer than they should.

Right now, that thing is the BRUTE.

This engineer tool can clear multiple walls with almost no risk because of its range. There’s no real counterplay to it beyond killing everyone who has it, and it lets marines punch through layers of defences with ease. One breach becomes two, then three, and suddenly the round snowballs completely as long as the marines are not fear RPing. On top of that, it provides light, clears weeds, and sets things on fire. It basically does everything.

Because of this, rounds have become shorter and honestly just duller. The choke points that usually make fights interesting and allows everyone to get a slice of action, now get deleted in seconds. Both sides lose that tension of trying to hold or break a position.

For builders, it’s even worse. They already have to deal with CAS, mortar fire, OT bombs, breaching charges, and C4(buff B-Cs and C4 also). All of those at least come with some form of risk or limitation, you need to be close, fire on limited spots, or coordinate, or risk friendly fire. That’s what makes them balanced. The BRUTE skips all that and just deletes everything from a distance.

It reminds me of the old tank, for those who remember it, not because it’s overpowered in the same way, but because it’s popular, it looks cool and it’s just poisoning the well of gameplay and its pacing,

This is not exclusive to the Marines too; the Trapper strain has a similar issue. It’s another long-range “delete cades from safety” tool. Marines are forced to play repair simulator until they eventually lose. It’s not fun for anyone. The Queen dropping resin right on top of marines is the same story, it’s not interesting gameplay. (Weeds are fine although,)

Edit: I recently had a round, and while I was half paying attention to a hive siege, I saw marines use a brute 13 times on the hive….this is while I was only halfway paying attention, I am certain more occured. Some of these freed most the captures too, due to the flame effect and structure clearing. It’s clearly not sustainable nor very fun.

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ive mentioned this multiple times to no avail, but it makes hive sieges trivial. engineers can just not use their rockets and wait for the following to transpire:

CAS/Mortars destroy structures leading up to cave, OB destroys structures leading up to hive, Several engineers use their 12+ total rockets to delete hive and free all the caps.

edit: other than that i think the weapon is pretty balanced

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As someone who plays hivelord somewhat regularly, BRUTE is the LOWEST annoyance for me.

CAS is much worse, usually followed by grenadier, then mortar.

BRUTE only becomes a huge issue when there are areas of mostly resin, for example 624s beach.

All that being said, I think BRUTE is in a good place right now if theres 1-2 comtechs useing it. it becomes an issue when theres like 6.

Maybe add a limit to how many comtechs can pick it?

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I’m not sure if I’d fully agree on the “ruining rounds” part but…

I think the big thing for me is that: BRUTE outperforms C4 and Breaching Charges in every way while in a backpack in higher quantities than you can carry C4 or Breaching Charges. BRUTE can clear more than C4 or Breaching Charges, at no personal risk, and with little FF risk (except shrapnel). There’s almost always several Comtechs with BRUTE, and I’ve always carried breaching charges but I’ve recently realised there’s no point for me to use these things when a BRUTE can open more and without the risk of being sent 2-3 screens away. On the Xeno side of thing, with the distance, it’s kinda tuff to push out and stop the CT from firing. :person_shrugging:

If we’re being serious, BRUTE far outperforms all the turrets. If you can win in the offense then you don’t need to defend anything with turrets but I’m not sure :person_shrugging:

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This One Tool Is Killing Every Round (and Nobody’s Talking About It)

TOOL MENTIONED!!! FUCKKK YEAHHHH! MY SHADOW!!! CHANGE IS COMING!!! NOW IS MY TIME!! LISTEN TO MY MUSCLE MEMORY!!! FORTY SIX AND 2!!!


”On top of that, it provides light, clears weeds, and sets things on fire. It basically does everything.”
It barely provides any light for 2 seconds and theres a fuck ton of smoke generated man

”Because of this, rounds have become shorter and honestly just duller. The choke points that usually make fights interesting and allows everyone to get a slice of action, now get deleted in seconds. Both sides lose that tension of trying to hold or break a position.”

What are you talking about? Shorter and honestly more duller? And then you have the gall to talk about how staring at the same chokepoint for hours makes fights interesting and everyone has fun?? And then you say both sides lose tension when they push or fall back? Dude what are you talking about??? The brute is awesome because it makes pushing past hellchokes possible, moving the fight around the map. If losing one hellchoke in the entire map makes you lose you deserve to lose man. If this forum was ragebait you’re doing it right.

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As either faction id like to see tools for xenos to slow the murder ball that arent walls alone. Resin holes and sticky resin are nice, but it feels like there is room for more or something. I dont care for walls being everything

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I think we are just outdated Solid, I do agree with you with everything you said.

What I miss is the fight to win. Remember when winning was a awesome feeling, played for hours to win a round gave so much dopamine, now its over before you even know what happend and you dont even care. Bonding with people during a round before was different because you fought with them for hours and when you see someone die, you did everything to save that person. Now it honestly does not matter because the round is going to end soon anywhy.

Cm have been changed to push to end the round faster. Brute,OT,sensor tower,king and so on.

I do not mind the changes but I do miss the time to bond with with my squad or xenos, only reason I know people in cm is people from back when we had time for it.

Downtime in a round is not something negative for us. But now if there is downtime, it need to be fixed ASAP.

We’re getting old, or maby just me

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BRUTE is good; before BRUTE i could only main builder castes because I shrimply am combat ineffective. But now? Everyone knows there’s no point anymore and thus I am free to die as young runner xx 12 times in one match and nobody will ever suggest I go support and build. We all know

As CT? No one expects me to help build fob anymore. Even if I don’t have BRUTE, I Can just say “I took brute” (no one can see the sprite when I face south so it doesn’t matter) and they believe me!!! Then, I escape FOB and run around the backlines alone until I get captured, having provided 0 value to my team

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“It barely provides any light for 2 seconds and theres a fuck ton of smoke generated man”

  • The light and flames aren’t the core issue. They were examples of how overloaded the BRUTE is as a tool. Even if it didn’t light up or flame at all, the real problem is still the same, long-range, low-risk, multi-wall deletion. The extra effects just stack utility on something that already dominates.

“Shorter and honestly more duller? And then you have the gall to talk about how staring at the same chokepoint for hours makes fights interesting…”

  • You’re confusing ‘chokepoints’ with ‘stalemates’. Good chokes give both sides time to coordinate pushes, rotate, and counter. That’s where the tension comes from. The BRUTE skips that entire phase. You don’t get back-and-forth fights, you get instant collapses and routing.

“The brute is awesome because it makes pushing past hellchokes possible, moving the fight around the map.”

  • It doesn’t move the fight, it removes the core of it. Tools like CAS, mortar, C4, and breaches involve risk or teamwork, and have limits where needed. The BRUTE just erases everything from range, no coordination required, no risk, and it can be done over and over again by one man.

“If losing one hellchoke in the entire map makes you lose you deserve to lose man.”

  • This isn’t about one chokepoint. It’s about how every defensive layer becomes meaningless when it can be wiped instantly from safety. That’s what turns rounds into ten-minute snowballs where no one, on either side, actually gets to play.

And please, if you really want to argue the point, do more than “this is rage bait” and “wtf dude”

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Rose-tinted glasses on somebody who just get bored of a game, a natural thing, but harmfull none the less.

OT has nothing to do with speeding up rounds directly, might as well say that vampire lurker without nerfs was introduced to speed up rounds. Sensor tower speeds up rounds that are already over with 2 runners, one drone and lurker running around the whole map. It does practicaly nothing to a round where xenos still have significant presence. King is only available after 2 hours mark and actually was always less powerfull than old LTB tank that was introduced in those glorious days that you miss, that “fight to win”, or when “winning was a awesome feeling”, “playing for hours to win gave so much dopamine” etc.

Brute is an offensive and more restricted replacement for more defensive and near-limitless breaching shotgun. Sure, one rocket can make quite a big hole in regular and resin walls, but they don’t scratch indestructible wall chokepoints.

It has nothing to do with the current mechanical state of CM. You still can bond with your squad, or xenos, hell with ASS system you could even bond much more with them, nothing stops you, there is as much opportunity now as it was few years ago.

Such things don’t exist on CM.

Finite Brute vs infinite resin.

But maybe there is some truth that all Brute requires is just standing in one spot for a few seconds and shooting rocket pretty much risk-free. One idea I have in my mind is CT chem sprayer that would work like flamer, but was intended for regular metal walls and resin. Some scietific mumbo-jumbo rusting agent etc. It should work like a flamer, so limited range, area of effect (straight line) and leaves harmfull (for both sides) chemicals on the ground for a short while so it isn’t just better breaching charge like Brute is.

That would be a big code work, so nah. Bandaid Brute to not remove weeds, or let it leave green fires for longer.

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I would be more than happy to see BRUTE removed in exchange for hive clusters to get a global pool/cooldown on the number available AND a cooldown on how often you can heal/replenish a hive cluster.

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revert reflective walls reflecting rockets, let it stay an intended mechanics: if the enemy takes a bunch of brute, build reflective walls and make them get in close and melee those walls

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what’s the strain that has the ability to raise a wall of it again? Could be funny, and it opens up an active ability to be even more useful on a cast thats both most tormented by the rockets and very few peoples first choice.

might put us back at a billion resin walls, but might also be interesting gameplay

i dont spell nothin right

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could make a hivelord strain based around parrying certain attacks by raising temp walls. You spawn a 3x1 reflective resin wall that stays up for 7 seconds and it gets refunded if it reflects an explosive or a certain amount of damage, etc.

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No counter play.

Queen scree.

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Thwomper put up a PR that nerfs amount of rockets, but yeah, scarcity is not good enough. There should be a proper counter.

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Not really? He has a point with longer rounds leading to more connections and roleplay between people.

Average round time is not even close to what it was years ago.

They do, the most fun is the back and forth gameplay and not sitting in one place or rounds that end instantly because of BRUTE.

After a BRUTE the marines will naturally push in and you cannot rebuild all of those defences (or really any of them) before they attack you.
With a queen screech maybe you could get one layer of walls/doors.

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Brute is cool as hell.

However:

    • Its not ammo controlled like Mortar, being a restricted Req weapon with pop-scaling roundstart kits. Now that its not the new thing everyone is taking, this is less obvious, but still an issue.
    • Xenos have no counterplay options.
Counterplay options (Eww can't spoiler bullet points?)
  • Full IFF means I can’t even try to tank it for say, an AP rocket stun as defender or crusher. I understand why it can’t hurt xenos directly, but this might be overkill.
  • If I do push out 7 tiles, (and presumably past 3 marines cause of IFF) to try to stun the CT, I’ve risked my life to force him to spend no ammo and just, reset his wind-up timer. Please make it misfire a rocket and smoke marine lines if they don’t cancel the wind-up in time.
  • Resin walls AFAIK don’t reflect brute rockets, just SADAR ones? I kinda get this, as I think smartgun rounds also don’t bounce so its a smart utility thing, but reflective is a hivelord only thing that is literally designed to stop marines from breaking walls from a distance. Either way, reflective’s description has confused a lot of players with it mentioning rocket bouncing.
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Counterplay is kill the CT.

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