THIS FIRST POST WILL BE EDITED AS DISCUSSION PROVIDES BETTER INFORMATION.

Issues addressed) -Note that all mentions of absolutes are based on comparison to the other options available.-
-This isn't "what I'm best with", it's what works. I am "best" with a fully dedicated medium operative, Gerund AR with YeoTek, Muzzle Break, Grenade Launcher, and Grip, and the Tampa SMG with speed sling and silencer. All operative and general skills with the only other being Improved Weapon Buff because I had all the skills I wanted already. This thread's "best character" is based on how things work, not the general assumption that if you choose to play a certain way you will automatically succeed that way. The character is not based on bias. If it was then it would be my preferred operative-focused character.
-This isn't lacking in any class; the other skills in each class are just not as useful by comparison.
-The primary, seemingly-unbeatable strategy prevalent here is power-grenading, adrenaline-buffing, and damage-buffing, and using the Seagle at the same time to break through all defenses and kill players that rush your defenses. This tactic uses less time than others.
-LMGs are worthless compared to other weapons. AR dmg, lower accuracy. Suppression means the "suppressed" pop out and kill you with an AR since you're too inaccurate and don't do enough damage to stop them.
-Ease-of-use doesn't mean best. Best means best. At high skill levels is when game balance starts to reveal the truth. A skillful player using the actual best vs an unskillful player using what's easy to use results in the more skillful player winning. Also, this character doesn't require obscene levels of skill to use.
-Buff others, not yourself. Selfishness is up to the player.
-Silent Running is useless because 1: people are alert and most often spot you regardless 2: it's faster to break through than sneak around with a chance of being spotted anyway.
-In public games, human players don't often group up, they run around randomly more. Close-knit groups have been rare in competitive fps for a long time.
-I need examples of good turret usage to see how useful they are. So far, they are helpers, not soldiers. However, your supply pip seems better spent on a more-aware, higher-damage-buffed player than a turret.
-Only the useful skills are used here which is why no single class specialization. Turrets are especially disappointing. An Improved-damage-buffed player seems more useful than a gatling turret's backup. This is based on witnessing the usage of the skills instead of a general assumption that "more points in a class = better version of that class"


Anyway...

The Best Character is as follows:
Weight - light
Primary Weapon - Barnett Light Rifle, Speed Sling
Secondary Weapon - Sea Eagle Pistol, Speed Holster, Up-vent muzzle break, Rapid Fire
Notes:
-Speed Sling/Holster means fast weapon switching with a negligible decrease in stability.
-The muzzle break helps just enough on the Sea Eagle to make it hit the further edges of medium range for headshots.

Skills)
General(4): Battle Hardened, Sprinting Reload, Sprinting Grenade, Resupply Rate Increase, Supply Max Increase
Soldier(4): Grenade Mastery, Scavenge, Frag Blast, Grenade Damage, Armor Piercing Ammo
Medic(4): Adrenaline Boost, Self Resurrection, Increase Supplies, Improved Increase Supplies
Engineer(3): Improved Weapon Buff, Gear Head, Extra Landmine
Operative(4):Sticky Bomb, Caltrop Grenades, Cortex Bomb.

Tactics for this character)
-Always buff teammates instead of yourself. The sacrifice is worth it. Others will end up buffing you with this mentality.
-The Sea Eagle is your primary weapon here. It will be used far more than the Barnett which is reserved for long-range shots or instant-damage then switching to Seagle to finish the job in very close range. Medium range is Seagle primarily.
-Medics save your supply for revivals or adrenaline boost.
-Improved Damage Buffing teammates is the engineer's most important job. Constantly respawning players means constant rebuffing. Mines for blockers when supply is available.
-Caltrops are the most useful counter-rushing item in the game. Sticky grenades and normal grenades also slow the enemy by forcing them to deal with them.
-Light weight, Barnett, and Sea Eagle require high skill to use effectively. Never stop moving and never avoid an opportunity to flank or reload.

Doubts... The Sea Eagle has way too little ammo, and the barnett's fire and reload time are way too long. It seems so balanced that these just barely qualify as "overall best". We'll see how this develops.


The purposes of this thread are to:
-point out the best tactics for success
-find the best single character possible by examining all elements at players' disposal
-bring awareness to unbalanced parts of the the game.

To test these ideas, add "NemesisLeone" on PSN. If anyone would like to lead tests on 360, I'll put the TAG here of whomever seems fit for that job.

Sure, this will be debated which is why it's posted on this forum. Maybe developers should use only the elements that are really needed and balance them to perfection. Either that or make completely unserious games with just a bunch of fun stuff. For now, Brink has taken the popular blend of the two design. However, in a competitive game the best tactics prevail.

IDEA: A "best team" thread? Including team sizes from 2 to 16?

You miss the point of the LMG as a legitimate weapon if you think it needs more damage to do it's job. It's designed as a suppression weapon, and quite well in Brink, and will rack up the kills and assists if you're with a team of guys using other weapons. It's for holding groups at bay.

Second, your "best character" is useless to a lot of gamers out there who can't aim well enough to use the barnett and sea eagle, so it's hardly the "best" overall whether or not it's best for you.

Right off the bat I can tell you that your "perfect" character is flawed for two reasons.

1. He dabbles in too much and doesn't specialize in any class making him a bunch of "meh" classes instead of a cpl "YEAHHH" ones
2. You passed on one of the most important universals (especially to a sprinting and SMART using light) which is silent running. How can this character be the best if everyone on the other team can see everywhere he goes while SMARTing around?

Also like previously said heavy weapons are very good at what they are designed to do (group suppression / group disarray) while those around them get accurate shots. And like previously said what is great for you wont work at all for someone else (the Barnett is a slowwwwwwwwwwww 1 shot weapon with lil ammo which is bad for people with bad shots).

That build is horribad equally in all roles! Congratulations!

There is no such thing as a perfect character in Brink. You play the role of anything you want, from classes, to abilities, to body types, to weapons. YOUR best at whatever YOU do. There is no perfect, there is only YOUR perfect. Just because you find that your best using that character, doesn't mean that everyone else is going to be.

your issues have all been addressed in the first post.

fisticuffs, your sarcastic, arrogant attitude is not proper conversation. Discuss this reasonably which doesn't include being angry at me calling out your behavior.

English, do you speak it?

There was nothing sarcastic or angry about my previous post. Its the truth. Your build seems selfish and subpar in all roles.

Body Type: Based on the fact that you don't have silent running and you want to use the Barnett, light seems like a poor choice. You basically built your guy to be in the back, so why mess around with low HP. Switch to a medium since you're not going to be outflanking anyone.
Weapon Choice: Poor at the mid-range where most of the fights occur
General: No Silent Running means your flanking options are sub-optimal. Good luck trying to catch anyone off-guard.

Soldier: You didn't take any of the specialty grenades, satchel charges, or extra mag. Extra mag is a team skill. It benefits soldiers very little, but it benefits the rest of the team greatly. Molotov is nice for crowd control, but its not a necessity. Everyone agrees that getting flashbanged is annoying, and you can't discount the tactical advantage of blinding the other team. Satchel charges are great for defense and ambushes. As a soldier, you have improved frags and scavenge... You bring nothing to the table for your team that virtually anyone else playing soldier couldn't do.

Medic: You didn't take Lazarus Grenade, which seems fairly greedy since your style of medic doesn't heal. Good job, your whole team got dropped. Revive them one by one. Honestly, if you didn't take Adrenaline boost, you would have the worst team medic build possible.

Engineer: You skipped all the team abilities. You didn't take nerves of steel, so bombs take longer to disarm. You ignored the turrets, which shows you don't understand what they're for in this game. Turret placement is important, and they provide very useful added dps/notification. Also, if you learn how the targetting system works, you can manipulate it to take full advantage of the turrets. Its a poor team build, and appears to be lolselfdmgbuff build.

Operative: You skipped EMP, homing beacon, comms hack, and hack turret. I honestly don't know why you even put points into operative. When you run around as an operative, all your bring to your team are stickies and caltrops? Are you serious? Stickies are feast or famine. They're either awesome or a waste of a pip.

In each class, you ignored key abilities. This makes your ability to contribute, as each individual class, subpar. You can only play as one class at a time, so your build is pretty horrible. You skimped on too much and spread yourself WAY too thin. You can claim that this is only a build for the skillfull, etc, but the reality is that there are a lot of noobs with carb-9s that are going to be standing over your incapped body.

Sorry to disagree so harshly, but there just isn't a "best" character. It's not possible for anyone, no matter HOW skilled, to win the game alone. It's possible for a particular setup to be the "best" FOR YOU, but not in purely objective terms.

There is no single build that you can take which will make you consistently beat others of equal skill. It just doesn't work that way.

The abilities ARE balanced, and DO work as intended.

Also, your character you're "best" with requires you to be cheating, so well done...

That says a Light with a Medium primary and Light secondary. Want to fix your build, or do you just enjoy using exploits to improve your game?

Also, when you only have 2 supply pips, and one teammate nearby, which is going to give your team more of a boost? Buff your own weapon, and buff your teammate's, giving the enemy 2 powerful guns, and 2 targets to worry about, or buffing the player with the most powerful gun (whether that be you or your teammate is irrelevant) and building a turret, thus providing an extra weapon to damage your enemies, AND an extra target they have to worry about attacking?

Do you really think the damage buff is better every time? Yes, a buffed teammate IS more powerful (and versatile) than the turret, but your buff DIDN'T WILL THE GUY INTO EXISTENCE. He was ALREADY THERE. Does your damage buff increase the damage your teammate does by more than the damage output of a turret? Even with a Light Turret, I'm guessing the answer will be no, possibly excepting the upgraded version of the buff, in which case the Medium Turret is probably still a greater increase in damage than the buff. Not to mention 2 players can't be in 3 places at once, 2 players and a turret CAN.

Just run by turrets and spray them. Yes, a damage-buffed player (or bot) is more alert and damaging than a turret. Turret detection and damage are horrible. The equivalent of a player not paying much attention with a pistol (light), smg (medium), or unbuffed AR (gatling). Improved damage buff far exceeds any turret's damage potential, and player (or bot) attention far exceeds any turret's detection. Buffing yourself and the 1 other teammate is better than building a turret. Your teammate is the turret+better attention+higher damage+the skills their class has.

The abilities are fairly balanced in this game, but this is based on actually examining the skills instead of assuming that the game is perfectly balanced.

Also... how did you not notice how inattentive and weak turrets are? It's visible in every match and blatantly so.


This is still an attitude of offense and sarcasm as demonstrated by the first sentence.

-Speed flanks, Silent Running isn't needed. Light takes more skill but not an insane amount more. The Sea Eagle kills at medium ranges far better than the Carb-9 due to its accuracy and doesn't require an insane amount of skill to use. Damage and knifing are very useful in close range as well.
-Your team has enough ammo which you can restore enough to not need Extra Mags.
-Medic does heal, and teammates don't bunch up at all times and die simultaneously at all times rendering the lazarus grenade far less useful than simply reviving with more supply.
-EMP and turret hack not necessary, turrets too weak, homing beacon and comms hack are not worth as much as enemy-delaying stickies and caltrops.
-Nerves of steal is not as useful as damage-buffed teammates defending you as you disarm or never have to due to better-defending buffed teammates.
-reality

Oke first of all u clearly dont know what your talking about and never played 1.6 or source.

Second its a pub spec. If you play a match with your team you are gonna stick with 1 spec,2 tops. Because why would u pick other specs if your teammate can handle his role. The only reason you are putting points into those is because you are scared that u will play with idiots or that there wont be any [insert class here].

So to finish nice and short.

Turrets can be manipulated to fire on enemies even when they're facing the other end of their scan range. I'm not even talking about an Operative using control turret. There are certain things you can do that will make a turret suddenly turn and start shooting the attacking force.


***EDIT***
There's a button that says multiquote. You can click it and it will allow you to quote multiple posts so you only have to make one reply. Stealth editing is generally in poor taste.

Believe what you want, but your build is garbage and demonstrates that you're not a team player.

You also talk about how nobody bunches up, when that idea makes your build seem better. Of course, when its pointed out how horrible some of your ideas are, you talk about your team rallying on top of you. Clearly you're the expert, so I'll let you continue wowing everyone with your superb skills/knowledge. See, that last sentence actually was sarcasm.

This is a good discussion here. Now I'd like to know how you've seen them used well. This is also why I'm editing the first post.




This isn't based fear, it's based on how useful the skills actually are. Your sarcastic and haughty claims that I haven't played CS 1.6 or Source are not the correct way to discuss this.

If you have something useful to say instead of false claims of fear and inattentiveness then contribute that.

Dont get on your high hat here mate. I dont mind discussing how useful the skills are but your the one with putting false info in your thread to backup your theory about the best character. And im not sarcastic at all. Maybe some skills are more useful then others but since u cant play as a medic/soldier/operative/engineer at the same time your waisting stuff.

(Both posts below have been dissected to only show the necessary portions)


Now would you like to actually answer what I was asking?

I didn't say "does the buffed player do more damage than the turret?" - I made a clear point of NOT asking that.

I'll try again though. DOES THE BUFFED PLAYER DO MORE DAMAGE THAN THE UNBUFFED PLAYER AND A TURRET? (I'll give you a hint: The correct answer is "no") CAN THE BUFFED PLAYER BE IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE? (I'll give you another hint: The correct answer here is ALSO "no")

I'm not saying turrets are better than the buff, either, because, as you pointed out, they have flaws - there are certain places they can be placed where they will be REALLY powerful and effective, and other places they're not so useful.

Same way giving a Light player a damage buff when he's at 20% health and trying to charge the frontlines isn't going to achieve quite so much as giving one to a Heavy with full and max-buffed health in a good defensive position.

Each ability has its place, and value, and purpose.

Turrets are brilliant when used effectively, but they're NOT MEANT TO REPLACE TEAMMATES. They exist to help out with supporting fire, or to be an early warning system if you set them guarding a route that you can't watch effectively - hear the turret, and you know someone's coming from that direction.

Point it out so I can correct it.


Your described situation... I thought you meant 2 players, you are one of them, you have 2 supply pips, you are an engineer. If you are alone with only 1 pip then early warning system is a good idea. However, you will still kill faster with a damage buff removing the enemy rushers. Being alert and well-positioned allows you to watch both sides at once. Like hiding under the staircase at the beginning of resort, moving back and forth to look at each doorway while the staircase blocks fire from the one you aren't looking at. If enemies rush, you have to kill them faster than they can get inside.

Your light-type rusher is also a good example of when not to buff. However, why can't the light-type simply wait to regenerate? If they don't, isn't that bad teamwork which is possible in many situations anyway? Also, highly skilled players are capable of killing with a light body type at 20% health without any damage buff.

Finally, I need good examples of proper turret usage from you as well.

I already did in my first post. Thats why i said u never played CS 1.6 or Source. Its not a insult or anything but your saying:

"-Human players don't always group up, they run around fairly randomly. Close-knit groups have been rare in competitive fps since quake 1 and counter strike 1.0"

In 1.6, Source and other games aswell u need to group up or you dead meat. So u can just remove the whole sentence. Or u can put it like "-In pubs Human players don't always group up, they run around fairly randomly"

pubs=public game with random people

You're right about pubs. Friends and clans tend to stick together. I'll fix that part.

The game balance may prove different for true teamwork indeed.

I AM NOT A GOOD ENGINEER.

I'm a good Light Medic/Operative who will occasionally get demolished by a well-placed turret - no, it won't usually kill me, but if I lose 2 - 4 pips of health before I have time to see something shooting me, the turret's done its job - it's loud, so it draws attention, not just from the person who set it, but from anyone else nearby as well. If it takes one of my health pips, then I'm going to need a Medic to get that back. Even if it only drops 2 of my pips before I kill it, it's done a decent job. If it manages to take down a 3rd or 4th pip of health (which it will if it was placed well), then it was worth the ONE supply pip it cost. Particularly if you've set it in a blind corner near a Command Post so it opens fire when someone tries to capture. Also good when it's set inside the room with the objective, in a corner where the tracking covers more than one entrance. Setting a turret in the right place in the Reactor room can turn the tide for your team once you have control of the area (regardless of which side you're on). There are a lot of good places for Turrets when you're guarding the hack objective on SecTower as well, whether defending it against hackers, or after clearing the room so they can do their job.

Turrets are abilities, not the central focus of the Engineer - they cost ONE supply pip to set, and they require up to 3 ability points be spent on them for the most powerful. They do exactly what they SHOULD do, and exactly what SD INTENDED for them to do - they're distractions, they do damage, they force enemies to waste either ammo or cooldowns to get rid of them, they help control an area, and they limit an enemy's options when approaching you.

when playing "what if: chopper down" for the security on hard near the very end when you have to defend the gate controls i placed a medium turret in a doorway where the enemy had to cross by so they wouldn't notice the turret directly because they were going across its line of sight, so the turret had the upper hand against the enemy. I stayed by my turret and peeked out the doorway to kill people along with the turret, when i was hurt i would pull back and wait to heal and if the turret was damaged i would fix it. that turret killed about two dozen people and i managed to win that level on my first try. (I love the turret because it rocks!) Try not placing it where people will be running directly at it, but on the sides, if it has the upper hand it can easily win! Stop dissing the turret if you don't know how to use it!!! please

I never rush turrets, I see them before they shoot me 90% of the time, and I throw a grenade followed by minor gun spraying to disable them. Either that or I go in a different way. However... this wastes my time or a >PIP< of supply, so you're right about that when they are placed well. Badly-placed turrets might as well not exist since you can just run by them.


that map is called Resort. Your example is good too.

The repairable nature of turrets and the dying nature of players makes them seem more useful now. We must test this.

This is called a badly placed turret.

90% of turrets are currently badly placed, because people are still learning how to do so effectively.

Putting them in corners to cover a wider area while staying hidden is a good-sounding idea.
We have no real proof of turret-users' skills nor my detection skills. That's left neutral until we do.

Let's find better places to put turrets then. So far corners near side and main objectives has been the best idea.

considering "best" is purely subjective, I'd say if this build works for you.. go for it. So perhaps a better title for this thread would be... The best character for me

I personally have tried light body types and they don't work that well for my play style.

As for professions, I've only delved into 2. Primary and a secondary (purely as a support/back fill type role) More than that and I feel like I'm essentially trying to multi-task with professions, which if I could use all of the skills in whatever build I was in would be great.. but otherwise, I just feel like I would end up doing a half-ass job in everything instead of a good job in one and being an ok back up in a second.

I did notice that part of your original post was to talk about tactics and then you mention why you went light body type (always take advantage of opportunities to flank and keep moving). The only problem with that is that your entire squad can't be constantly outflanking the opponent. I'm by no means a strategy and tactics kind of guy, but iirc.. the only way flanking is possible is if you actually have some people keeping the main force engaged.

Best of luck to you on your build though.

Heavies have to move constantly to avoid being taken advantage of. It's not a light weight thing to be constantly moving and reloading when possible. Flanking isn't the only strategy, you can face them head on if you want just being behind cover.

It's not "subjective" to have some things actually work better than other things. Things aren't automatically a perfect balance, they are a collection of very specific and precise functions.


Also... I just finished rushing a few turrets in a row that were all in corners... they seem worthless once again. I rushed them as a light with the Sea Eagle and sprayed it then knifed to finish it off every time. There's that and the old "fire one barnett shot then spray with sea eagle" trick for instant high damage. Also, was a soldier and pounded a few of the turrets with a grenade or molotov before firing only a few shots to take them down. I do notice the time it takes them to see me and their scan radius, just imagining those measurements' usefulness makes them seem inferior as well.

Fixed that for you.

There are times it's quite POSSIBLE to be moving, but not a good idea to do so. There are times where you will, even as a Light, want to stop moving and line up more precise shots. There are times where you'll at least want to slow down, even if you're not stopping. There are times where staying still means you have a wall between you and the guy trying to kill you, and when he has more health and a bigger gun than you, that wall is usually going to be quite helpful to you.