P: Some brush presets only work with certain tools (eraser, brush, clone, etc)

Trust me, you were not randomly chosen to unknowingly download a Ps beta release... i'm 99.9% certain the rep was wrong.

As far as your issue, yes, Adobe changed the behavior of brushes and tools - it's in the release notes:
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/whats-new.html#brushes

I download from the creative cloud ap.  Tool works properly in Photoshop 2017 (which the support rep had me download.  Not in my version of the current CC.l  Not on my desktop with Windows 7 or my laptop with windows 10.  Cristen Gillespie (previous pos)t is not having the issue.  How about you?

To my knowledge, I was not offered nor have I chosen to participate in a beta test.  This support rep who told me this was much more knowledgeable than the previous 3 (in my view) and that's what he said after checking which version of CC I was running.

Having this tool behave the way it does on two different computers with two different operating systems kind of rules out the normal glitches.

I'm really confused here... how did you receive the beta? I'm thinking the person who you were speaking with doesn't have a clue what they were talking about.

Adobe doesn't ever randomly seed beta tests out to users who haven't signed a strict NDA...

Or maybe you've downloaded a pirated cracked copy from somewhere?

Yes, I would too.  There is no way I have found to contact Adobe directly with this issue.

Oh I believe you. I'm just finding it difficult to believe that Adobe would mess with someone's professional life so cavalierly. 10% of users worldwide is a heck of a lot of users, too. With no permission granted? They do ask permission (or used to?) to collect anonymous data from you so they can "see" what features in the program you use—something like that. I remember seeing that request a couple of times and I said sure, go ahead. I'm sure lots of other people decided no, that's too intrusive. But they weren't changing anything in the app itself.

They also have technology previews in Preferences, if you haven't looked at yours recently.  And everyone gets those options. And I've never seen anything that would change the behavior of brushes there, though I may have forgotten something. But by now, it would have been incorporated fully, since I see only one Technology preview, and that's for upscaling.

So if they asked for that permission to collect anonymous data, and have a technology preview preferences section, how could they possibly not ask to give you a feature that changed the behavior from the one everyone, including you, paid for? I mean heck, they kill off features or change them between versions without asking, but those are advertised.<G>

I'd sure like a response from Adobe on this.

Well, that's what the fellow told me. He said only 10% of Photoshop users worldwide received that update, that it was a beta version and that they were waiting to receive feedback before sending it to the other 90% of Photoshop users. In the end I figured it had to have been an update from Adobe because the tool works the same on my desktop computer running Windows 7 and my laptop running Windows 10. After telling him that he told me about me being given the beta version.

You are kidding! I've never heard of that. That sounds perfectly awful if there's any truth to it. Yes, definitely it should be an opt-in program if they want your no-doubt valuable input. But the notion that anyone would think  "Hmmmm, this person uses this tool a lot, so s/he must really need it. Let's fool him/her and see how s/he likes it. . . "  Changing the tools you depend upon is tricky at best when it's out in the open. This sounds SO wrong for so many reasons, so wrong I'm even feeling skeptical about it.

I really want someone official from Adobe to comment on this. I don't trust Support. It's outsourced, for one. And no matter how pleasant they've been, the few encounters I have had haven't encouraged me to trust them to know what they're doing.

Goodness. For all of us, that's an entirely frightening prospect.

After another 2 hours with Adobe support, I found out that Adobe randomly sends out a Beta versions of proposed changes to random heavy users, without their knowledge or agreement.  Lucky me, I got the beta which included the tool changes I have described.  This is an intentional change by Adobe, which even their tech support reps (mostly) are not aware of and try to fix.  Jeez!  At least the tech support reps got paid for the 4 hours I have spent on this problem. I am self employed and for me this is just wasted time and money.  I can see the usefulness of this tool change for some users (not me).  However, this should be an option, not a switch of purpose and use.

And if Adobe is going to give me a beta version to test, it should be with my knowledge, agreement, and explanation of changes!

> and the tool does not work properly or least like it used to.  It resizes itself  and then does not erase where aimed. WTF!  Incidentally, I'm trying to use the splatter brush tip. >

I'm not sure what's going on. I rarely use any of Adobe's brushes apart from Kyle's and the basic round brushes, but there is no setting for the brush that I can find that would offset the Spatter brush from where you directed it. It's not dynamic by default, certainly.

As for resizing itself, it's the size of the brush I selected, and once I resize the Eraser to the size I want, it stays there until I resize it again. You're placing the original tool's settings on your new tool, but after that, they're completely separate and you can adjust all the settings while keeping only the tip. If you want, you can save it as a New Preset—with size settings and/or with tool settings (your Eraser)  just how you like it if there's a setup for the Eraser that you always prefer to use.

I loaded it and used it as both a brush and as an eraser. It hit the mark each time. I tried it at very small sizes, such as you are likely to use for a mask.  I was even able at pixel view to quite easily follow a single pixel line with the tool. Still nothing went wrong. Are you really using the Spatter brush as a one pixel brush?

Is it possible you need to reset the Eraser before you start a session to clear out any changes that might have been introduced?

If you see nothing unexpected in either the Brush Settings panel or the Options bar, and resetting the tool doesn't help at all, nor does creating and saving as a New Preset your own Eraser with this tip, would it be possible for you to make a short screen capture video demonstrating how the eraser doesn't line up with where you expect it to be? Someone here might spot something.

It sounds like there might be corruption somewhere if there aren't any settings to make this happen.

Thanks much.  At least I know why Adobe made the change (though I disagree with it).  However, I tried to use the eraser tool for the first time after FINALLY being able to select the brush I wanted, and the tool does not work properly or least like it used to.  It resizes itself  and then does not erase where aimed. WTF!  Incidentally, I'm trying to use the splatter brush tip.  This was a very handy brush to use with the eraser to define a hairline when knocking out a background from a head shot.  And yes, I use the define and mask tool and that is helpful, but is not the be all and end all for this type of task.  I still have to go in and manually adjust to make hair look it's best.  It is very tedious when using a single point brush and it looks like that is what I now must do since Adobe has made Photoshop less functional with this change.