AWRocketman

If you've never played Dark/TA, it's an interesing one.

- Siphon Life makes up for the lack of a "Heal Arrow"

- Oil Slick Arrow gives you AoE that Dark/ is lacking in

- With Flash Arrow and Dark's -tohit, you can be very survivable and easily cap defense

The only thing is that TA is much better as a defender with higher base -res that helps make up for the damage gap. Additionally, you get OSA a lot sooner and don't sacrifice any damage in it for being a defender - it's actually higher when you consider that you get more -res from Disruption Arrow and Acid Arrow (-20% each vs. -15% each for a corrupter).

Fire off a Flash Arrow before each fight then start with a TT followed by OSA and you've got immobilized, burning mobs that are on fire, falling down, can't hit you (provided you build up enough Ranged and AoE defense) and have their defense knocked way down. Again, easier on a defender, but still very good on a corrupter.

Related to the topic, but a little off. Does Energy Absorbtion stack?

As the aggro king, does Ice need Taunt or can it rely on it's two auras?

You don't need Swipe at all. I barely fit Strike into my attack chain. If I had it it would be completely idle.

My gut tells me you'll have endurance issues in a protracted fight. I was running Weave, Tough, Integration and Maneuvers with two-slotted Stamina and Quick Recovery. I had to add in a third slot in each for the Performance Shifter +end proc.

First off, thanks for posting this. I'd been holding off playing my DM/FA Brute until I19 hit and you reminded me to do it!

I've had a lot of fun playing mine. Up until I19 I had gone Stamina-less with both the end recovery powers of the two sets. I'm not sure whether I'll keep both going forward or not.

Notes:

- The recent changes to Burn (no fear component) make this guy a ton of fun to play.

- Survivability is an issue at higher difficulties (as with many FA brutes). I'd really like to be able to solo at +x/8, but not doable in my current configuration. Still looking at options there.

- Endurance wasn't an issue without Stamina. With it...

- The -tohit from DM doesn't seem to help a bunch until you get down to a single boss.

- It's fun to line up a few mobs and fire Shadow Maul and Sands of Mu

Overall, I've enjoyed my huy to 40 (where he currently sits).

EDIT: I just went back into Mids and worked out a build that gets to the softcap on S/L using Soul Mastery (for Darkest Night) and slotting Dark Obliteration with -tohit. It also gives 40%+ melee and psionic defense and high 30s AoE. This is without the 3% Def Gladiator IO. With it you'd be close to cap on psionic/melee and well over it on S/L. The idea would be to start every fight by firing off Darkest Night and Dark Obliteration on the way in to drop acc as much as possible then take care of business while most mobs are debuffed.

My recommendation would be to go with a TA/A defender instead. You get the big TA powers sooner and the -Res difference on Disruption Arrow and Acid Arrow help make up the difference in damage. The only thing that hurts is not getting RoA until 38, but the other high level archery powers aren't big deals to wait on.

Also, your biggest damage power (Oil Slick) has the same damage for both.

So I did another respec to get Slash back in and I can see a difference.

As for your build, here are some notes:

- I'm not sure that Perma-Hasten is really necessary. I'm close to Perma and it works perfectly fiine .

- You will want to slot defense in Maneuvers and Weave to get you to the point where Shadow Meld takes you above the soft cap.

- I would put three slots into Hasten

- I ended up slotting most my single target attacks with Kinetic Combat to bump up S/L defense well above the soft cap when SM is up to keep me from getting into a cascading defense fail on a lucky machine gun or sword hit. To me it seemed more important than the couple seconds gain on Hasten that Crushing Impacts get you.

- I put my PBAoE purple set into Spin instead of Eviscerate and I put the damage proc in instead of the Dam/End IO. The Dam/End IO only buys you some end savings (not needed) while the damage proc fires pretty regularly and helps quite a bit. Same thing for the ST purple set.

One thing I would look at is going for Soul Mastery as a patron set. I finally completed all the stuff to get redside and back to get this and Shadow Meld is an incredible add. It totally changes the survivability of my Claws/Regen. Nothing short of amazing.

Additionally, I ended up putting four Numinas in all my heal powers. I've got an extra 26% heal bonus to each because of this and it is noticeable.

Finally, and I know I'll get some hate for doing this, but I took Slash out of my build so I could fit in Revive. I like to play on the edge and a late click of MoG of SM means I faceplant. I like to be able to jump right up, smash the MoG button until it fires, shield back up and go at it. I don't use it much, but when I do I, and my teammates when teamed, appreciate it. From a single-target attack chain perspective I go FU -> Strike -> Focus -> Strike -> FU -> Strike -> Focus, etc. I have enough recharge to make this happen with no delay and it seems to be working for me. I haven't tried to solo any AVs so I don't know if the lack of Slash and accompanying Achilles proc will be detrimental or not yet.

I finally dusted off my Claws/Regen with the intent of learning the Alpha Slot thing with him. I respecced him into a decent chunk of recharge with high, though not capped, S/L defense. Imagine my dismay when I found that running at anything higher than +1/6 would result in inordinate amounts of face planting, especially when my Ice/Traps DEFENDER routinely runs +2/8.

That's when I decided to head over to Red to pick up the Soul Mastery Patron pool and see what Shadow Meld does for me. All I can say is that one power has changed everything. I've changed my build to focus on +rech and defense and I can have Shadow Meld up in 30 sec. That means between Shadow Meld and MoG I have 45 seconds of god mode against anything but psy-heavy opponents (thanks MoG). If there's anything substantial left after that I hit Instant Healing to keep me up for 15 seconds until Shadow Meld is back. I'm currently running at +1/8 with no issues and am slowly amping it up.

Check out my Ice/Kin guide in my sig. Ice is a great pairing with Kinetics. I will be writing an I19 update when I find the time to respec him and test some things out.

Power Buildup + Short Circuit = mostly drained mobs. Also, now you can get Power Sink on the red side as a defender.

My Stone/Fire brute is one of my favorites - I reeeeeeeaaaaallly like playing him and am waiting on I19 for him to be even more awesome.

A lot depends on what you want to do.

For a primary Storm is nice, but really only shines with an AoE immob to allow you to herdcane. That means either going with a Dark Secondary or waiting until 41 and going with Scorpion's patron pool for its AoE immob.

I recently ran both an Traps/Ice and a Traps/Sonic up to 50. The Ice is the best overall big mob killer I've run (that's not a scrapper or brute built for it). Currently I'm running him on +2/8 with absolutely no issues. I've teamed with scrappers who are amazed at the damage I put out.

The Traps/Sonic does better with lower numbers of heavy targets and can solo AVs, something I have trouble doing with my Ice. However, it is definitely not as good as my Ice with groups. The combo of slows in Ice Storm and Caltrops (preceeded by a Soul Drain) keeps mobs from scattering long enough for you to drop Acid Mortar, PGT, and a Trip Mine, which typically, along with ample damage procs in Acid Mortar and Caltrops, finishes the job.

I've run a Storm/Dark up and it doesn't nearly move as quickly as my Traps/Ice. I'm currenty leveling a Storm/AR that I think may get close after I get to 41 for an AoE immob. The thought of herdcaning into a corner and opening up with Ignite, Full Auto and Flame Thrower gets me going

Traps/Pistols defender is a better way to go than a Pistols/Traps Corrupter. The higher resistance debuff values for defenders helps close the damage gap between the two and you can quite easily cap defense on a defender - a little tougher on a corrupter.

Edit: I forgot to mention that AR doesn't fit thematically with a 007 character. Gotta go pistols!

The main thing I'd comment on here is that if your primary purpose is a cone-based blaster then MM as a secondary doesn't fit. Drain Psyche and PS are both PBAoE so to use them you'll be in close, yet cones don't work to their full effectiveness in close. You can potentially do a Sirens Song, jump in, fire off DS, fore off PS then jump out, fire off your cones, but then you'd be jumping back in for PS. Seems like a lot of work.

If you really want a cones-based blaster, look at AR/EM. Lots of cones on AR and when paired with Boost Range it is a thing of beauty (longer range on cones means more is in the area of effect). I love mine - and it works equally well solo or on teams.