_Krom_

Not a correction, just wanted to add, for me it was:

Defence --> recharge --> HP

Recharge because you really want energy drain up as often as possible and any good aoe attacks you may have. On my wm\ea brute my actual attack chain is whirling mace, shatter, and then crowd control (possibly adding in an epic aoe when I finally decide what I want). By the time I'm done with crowd control, whirling mace is back up.

For the most part, I feel like my Pretty and Strong brute (wm\ea) is exceptionally durable. I've tanked with him in 8 man teams (as the only meat shield) and even plowed through malta and carnies solo, which as a general rule everyone hates (not that it was easy mind you, but doable).

With EA, the trick is you need lots of baddies around you to stay alive (similar to other brute secondaries). Only 1 or 2 around and you really won't get much out of energy drain.

Also, a primary that has some form of AoE mitigation is really helpful (like war mace's crowd control) and makes a big difference.

I had a claws\dark brute for awhile that got to the mid-20's. Didn't make the cut for me, but there was nothing technically wrong with it..I've even regretted the delete, but it as nice having death shroud to widdle some health off guys and then firing spin to finish them off (or the other way around), that plus dark regeneration and claws lower endurance cost really worked well...Even makes me want to give it another shot as I talk about it. For me, the only problem with dark armor is that dark regeneration is prohibitive to use unless you have the theft of essence proc in it, which on my dark\dark brute changed the whole game around.

My war mace\energy armor brute is at (or well over) the soft cap to everything but Psi (and that's at ~20%) and it really wasn't hard to do (surprisingly so). Before soft-capping he was kind of rough around the edges, but now, unless I run into something that has -def I steam roll though stuff. I even ran with some 8 man pugs yesterday as the only tank\brute on the team and tanked (spamming taunt with my AoE's) the entire time (that's right!) and my green bar barely moved if ever. EA's biggest weakness is that it has no -def resistance, so IF something with -def hits you, you'll get the full effect.

Normally soft-cap is all you really need as the rest is a waste, but I argue that with energy armor, it's a different story because of its hole in -def resistance. Going off memory, I have over %50 def to s\l\e and that has served me VERY well. I can look later if you're interested on some ideas on just how to get to the soft-cap (and over it), but I do know that I didn't use one set from kinetic combat, which is where most people go.

I feel the same way about my WM\EA brute .

dark\dark is a rare, but effective combo that's good in small and large scenarios.

I'd add to this that pretty much ANYTHING combined with traps will solo well. I took an electric blast corruptor, solo, into the low 40's with traps and if I can do that with electric, it'll work with any set. Traps is just THAT good.

ST = single target attack (as opposed to multi-target (area of effect or cones)
Mitigation = A way of preventing incoming damage.

Fearsome Stare is a MASSIVE cone fear (terrorize, they don't run away) with a strong un-enhanced -11.25% -tohit attached. Most slot it for -tohit, which can get the -tohit around -17ish if I recall. Combine that with dark's other -tohit powers it makes a significant impact to the incoming damage.

On any dark miasma toon (corruptor, defender, or mastermind) Fearsome Stare is always a must have as soon as you get it. It's a fantastic power and in most scenarios it's pretty easy to hit an entire spawn with it.

Would be nice wouldn't it?

For some it's a measure of build\farm effectiveness that way you don't rely upon them to measure how good your farming is.