_Krom_

There was a discussion about this the other day on this board and someone (name escapes me) was saying that they prefer to play SS\ELA offensively and that the two AoE's in Mu Mastery output more AoE damage then just dark obliteration. I suppose if your SS\ELA was more IO'ed out footstomps KD would be less necessary than a straight SO build. I have my SS\ELA with soul mastery currently, but I'm going to give Mu Master a try...see if the AoE is that much different (I bet it is).

I don't see how if you're getting your fury high. I have a claws\dark and he never felt weak....but I've been playing brutes for many years. I have a habit of setting brawl for auto, which early on really helps get fury up there when you don't have a full attack chain. If your not getting high fury, that's probably why. Try that.

Could be that I read the question wrong....I was thinking we wanted /DA. If we're talking ANYTHING dark...then yes....dark\shield is quite the awesome combo.

What is not intimidating by the big french bread looking mace (and yes...I created a brute a looong time ago named French Bread just because of that mace).

Off the top of my head I'd think stone melee\willpower. You have some serious single target damage and you' have an AoE KD\disorient to keep the minions\lt's on their backs (while providing you the regeneration you'd need to last). You'd also have the endurance needed to keep the stone melee attacks going.

I'm sure there are others, but that's what comes to mind.

Where are you seeing that it's supposed to have a really high DPS? It may have back in the day, but that has long since been nerfed with the ET change.

Base recharge for Foot Stomp = 20 seconds
Base recharge for Lightning Rod = 90 seconds

While it's true that Lightning rod does more damage, it takes almost 5x longer to recharge then foot stomp. Also Rage +20% toHit and +80% damage...it lasts for 120 seconds 9and can be made permanent outside of the crashes every 120 seconds)...vs. buildup's 10 second duration (and 90 second base recharge). Over time rage will just produce a much more noticeable boost in accuracy and damage.

To sum it up...ELM is a nice set for AoE...but quantity of AoE's doesn't equal quality of AoE's. Foot Stomp is a fantastic AoE that really stands out, especially when combined with rage (and hi recharge).

For a brute, unlimited endurance (with a nice little heal to boot) is a BIG plus. The cloak's stealth function really doesn't affect my EA brutes as I pick up taunt and slot it and set it to auto. Now naturally an EA brute would be a bit squishy doing this if there wasn't some decent level of mitigation you can get from your primary. This, to me, is where WM shines. WM is a VERY endurance heavy set...and it's also a very AOE intense set (with some really nice single target attacks as well)..so pairing it with something that has unlimited endurance works really well. I've actually tried a few times to soft cap my wm\ea brute w/o the cloak, but it was too much of a pain in the ****.

I'm not saying it's better then a shield brute. I look at a shield brute as being more offensive minded and sets like SR and EA being more defensive. There's also the fun factor...even when my WM\EA brute was just SO's...he was really effective due to the synergy...and the unlimited endurance had a lot to do with that. Shield brutes don't have the luxury of unlimited endurance (or a heal for that matter unless you go DM/SD) and so have to play things a bit differently (and are more reliant on IO's to address those issues).

As the proud owner of Pretty and Strong (WM\EA)...one of my favorite brutes now...I can say that I see why some might not like EA as I've leveled him up...especially looking at the numbers. But it goes exceptionally well with sets that offer up some good mitigation (and decent investment in IO's), in particular in levels 30+, before that it's a long road.

With a fully IO'ed out INV brute, it's not really needed...essentially. At least that is my position on it.

EA = Energy Armor .... not Electric Armor (that's ElA)

Yeah...that's the thing about dark melee...when paired with survivable sets like invul or willpower...it can be quite insane.

DM is nice...it meshes well with just about everything. The only real problem with DM is it's lack of AoE...so if AoE is your thing you might be a little disappointed.

But by the same token with healing flames, you can heal back any damage you take much faster with /FA then /ELA. I think, in the end, healing flames is really what makes FA desirable...the rest is meh.

I could swear there was a mission (I thought part of a patron arc) where it was in a cave filled with crab like guys (humanoids) who always sliced through my ELA brutes with ease...I was pretty sure they did toxic. That and the archnoids have always been somewhat problematic with my ELA brutes (snakes were never really a problem).

You need to pre-order Going Rogue.

It's no joke :-p.

Fire melee isn't a high pick, in my opinion as it has no secondary affects that can help mitigate incoming damage. All the other brute primary's have some form of mitigation, but fire has ...well...just more damage. Don't get me wrong...I love my fire melee brutes...but I can certainly see why they're not 'popular'...and I'm ok with that...I like to be different .

Something to consider, but in PvP, defense sets are not very effective (generally)..especially on melee sets. Resistance sets with a heal tend to do a little better (but not much). I don't have personal experience with this, but I would think since single target damage is really what you want in PvP with a decent resistance set...either SS/Fire (which you have) or... preferably, fire/fire would do reasonably well as the single target damage should be quite good.

I've tried PvP'ing with my brutes and while I've had some success, it's much more frustrating to PvP as a brute then it is as a corruptor, dominator, or stalker (for me brutes are tied with MM's in terms of PvP frustration).