_Krom_

I've been running around with my dark MM and the Lich's Torrent seems to do KD instead of KB. Has Torrent been changed or is this specific to the Lich?

You're right..i just left the window open and it's moving. Strange that you cannot monitor it...thanks.

While I was steamrolling over stuff last night with my thug\dark MM, I decided to open up my bruiser's combat monitor and watch his damage bonus from fury, since he is supposed to get a bonus...right? I ask because the damage % bonus never changed and 'from fury' never changed from 0%. Is this 'normal' or is the bruiser's fury broken? He was easily fighting non-stop in 8-man spawns that I was solo'ing for a good 4-5 minutes...where any other brute would have a high fury by the middle\end.

Things like CoT will always be hard because they have a good amout of smashing resistance if I recall correctly. Other stuff will be much easier to SMASH. So far it looks like you're not hitting any road blocks that are normal for brutes. That ride to 22 can be tough sometimes because of the way brutes tend to be played, but stamina tends to really help the endurance issues. I'm sure things will get better for you when you hit 22 (and later...28 ).

Am I reading that right that the second set of results puts brutes fire melee on top (gloom,incinerate,greater fire sword)? I've started playing my fire/ela recently with the energize changes and it, to me, seems to have a huge punch at a good pace.

Personally, I'd stay away from whirling mace. I took it on my WM brute and then eventually respec'ed out of it. Just does too little damage for the endurance that it costs (which, as you noted is something of an issue).

Good luck with your 'strong and pretty' though. I've been tempted for quite some time...every time I see the 'thread' updated.

thanks for all the responses...much appreciated.

I've never done a flashback (villain side specific here) and I saw someone mention somewhere else on the board that they'd just do flash back missions when they get to level 25 to earn some merits to get some IO's they wanted. I've been reading through the Wiki about it (http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Flashback) and I see that'd I would have to go to someplace called Ouroborrus (never been there) through the use of a temporary power that makes a portal.

I'm a little confused on how exactly to get this temp power (let alone at level 25) as looking at the wiki that talks about the needing to get the Entrusted with the Secret badge, which seems like quite the chore for a level 25 character to do. Is there a relatively easy way for a level 25 character to get the portal without having to defeat one (or more) of the signature heroes in Recluses Victory?

Time to reserve a proper name for my Grammaton Cleric.

So there are a couple things that are a little stacked against you with ToT's. A lot of the stuff that comes out on tricks does stuff that in the early levels you really don't get exposed to normally (dark damage, holds, and to a degree kb). Your primary does smashing damage, which will be resisted by a lot of the stuff that comes out of the doors and your secondary, while providing some resistance (assuming you have both charged armor and conductive shield) to the types of damage that they deal, doesn't give you anything to heal it back (and they tend to hit pretty hard with dark attacks because they're coming from bosses or lt's). To make things a little more complicated, if you have all 3 shields by lvl 11 you're going to be eating a lot of END by running all 3...especially with mace, which is a surprisingly heavy endurance user. I have a WM\WP brute and much to my surprise, even in the high 20's he had end problems with both stamina AND quick recovery (although it has more todo with my playstyle I'd assume).

I'd, as you say, soldier on. It will get better, but ToT's really shouldn't be a good measure of how powerful your brute is at it's given level. You're facing stuff that you're not really prepared for yet. In the mid-to-higher levels, I think mace\ela will perform much better, but it's one of those late bloomer combo's that'll do well in the late game (high damage, nice damage mitigation, a self heal, end usages reduction, recharge bonus, and end recovery).

With thermal's shields I'd argue that it's not completely reactive (sets like pain, on the other hand are all reactive for the most part...at least early on), but with ninjas you are right...I have a ninja thermal in training and on large teams they can be a little bit frail (small to midsize they do just fine). I deal with their fraility by picking up provoke and slotting it up and setting it to auto. I actually do this on all of my melee MM's and honestly it makes a BIG difference on my minions ability to survive. So thermal shields + provoke really helps things out a great deal with Ninjas.

So far ninja's with thermal is actually working out quite well...funky ninja AI aside (which is actually what makes them annoying to me...being paper dragons isn't a big deal to me..I accept that going in). Yesterday I was in full body guard and it was triggered as the Jounin were fighting, but the Genin were just sitting there picking their noses...for the entire fight. I thought about ordering them into action, but it was not the kind of fight where you want to drop body guard.

Been working like a champ for me. I've had some issues with running the test client..but normal stuff I haven't had any real issues.

2 many 2's

I think most people would recommend WP, because it ends up being a relatively easy secondary to play for new brutes. In the mid to late game they actually are far from squishy, especially if you IO them out. DM\WP seems to be universally known as bruting on easy mode since you get good single target damage, heals\regen + endurance recovery in both primary and secondary and it has -tohit debuff . After dm...super strength is probably the most common thing paired with it which gives some decent damage mitigation to let the regen kick in.

these particular missions are torture for melee MM's...I've always had a really hard time with zombies and ninjas on mayhem missions...kind of always been that way. so...yeah..you kind of have to micro-manage pretty much almost your entire team.