BigBoss Eyepatch

I was thinking either Diag or paralytic for interface,

For Destiny, I was truthfully leaning to barrier over rebirth. So that's an interesting suggestion.

I don't really have too big an issue with my regeneration though. I have a 24% boost in regeneration from my sets. A lot of damage, I literally seem to just heal through quite efficiently. I don't need to use dull pain very much at all.

Well, I've finished my alpha slotting on my Invul / SS tanker. I went for cardiac and I am a Core Paragon. I now enjoy 45% endurance reduction, 20% damage resistance boost, and 20% range boost. Overcoming 2/3 of ED.

I was kind of sceptical about using this, however I like it. The 45% reduction is a major help, especially with obliteration in my footstomp as there is no end reduction in that set virtually. I can attack, stomp, punch, haymaker, knockout blow, run toggles, and my endurance bar doesn't move at all.

I genuinely feel like this character is almost what I would deem complete. I still need a few more bits and pieces to get there, but Im closing in on the prize and Im genuinely excited everytime I play this character. I haven't done any incarnate stuff with him yet. But, I am thinking the time is coming to get interface unlocked soon.

I thought cardiac was the best choice as I have a 17 or 18% damage boost from my IO sets. Plus being super strength you get 80% from rage. That puts me to almost double damage.

I wouldn't bother putting taunt enhancements in your attacks personally. I mean, they are just not required and take up space for something that could be more beneficial to you.

Between gauntlet and your taunt power itself. Chances are you are going to be fine. If your secondary is something like Electric melee which IMO is ideal for a tanking tanker you can hit multiple foes at the same time and thus taunting them. Gauntlet is great because for every foe you hit, it taunts them, and all other foes in melee range.

Now imagine a successful AOE where you hit everything, you taunt them all for multiple points with one blow. On something like Electric melee, and Super Strength for its footstomp, you can do some serious taunting without even triggering your taunt power. Often, I just run into the mob ony my invul / ss, stomp and stand there, the mobs just converge on me automatically. the only time I use my taunt power these days is literally to pick up stragglers.

In regeneration you have integration, and resilience. Integration is inherent and protects from disorient, hold, knockback, sleep etc... Resilience is automatic and has minimal smashing and lethal and toxic resistance, but is supposed to protect from disorientation.

My question is, as you have integration that does that, is it worth taking resilience as a power choice?

Typically, if you are using Willpower on a brute(primary dual blades), how many slots would you put in strength of will?

Am still toying about with my mids build.

That if I sidestepped when an enemy attacked me, it'd miss me.

That I could actually somehow equip and use that runebound armour I picked up.

There are more, but thos are the two most striking goofs that spring to mind when I first joined the game. Hell, Im still goofing even now 8 months on and after being schooled in the game.

I wasn't suggesting to clear the entire map, what I was trying to say was I dont like it when a character bolts to the end and then TP's the whole team there. Again not saying this is bad or wrong, or that the whole map should be cleared, but its not for me as a play style personally which is why I shy away from ghoster runs.

Which is why when I am on a TF or an SF and everybody wants it done in rock bottom quick time I don't like it, because I feel like Im missing out on the action. I do fully understand that some people have probably done said TF or SF more times than can be counted and know it inside out, but, not everybody has. I've barely scratched the surface on villain SF's, and only just got my feet wet on hero TF's since joining in October.

I don't really have money to burn nor a clutch of level 50's so for me if I have time, and I know I have time, and emergencies notwithstanding, then I don't want to skip to the end of the TF as I lose out on EX-P, inf, recipe drops, salvage drops, the lot.

Besides from what I know from my limited experience, if you have a balanced team, a good aggro holder, healer, and pain disher-outers, then you'll fly through anyway, provided you all stick together.

One other question just thought of, from a brute perspective, are there any powers that could be considered skippable in willpower, or delayed till later?

Im happy to do ANY tf of sf in truth, I enjoy the gameplay and the cameraderie. It also gets me double merits as its the Weekly Target. So I don't mind so much.

What I do mind however is this notion of "ghosting" the missions. Its almost like everybody is in a major hurry all the time, so they miss out on loads of mobs and recipe drops, shard drops, the entire point of the mission itself etc... just so they can power through everything at speed. Then they will write messages in team chat saying, they don't have enough time to not ghost as they have this, that and the other to do. Now, Im just as desperate for my higher tier incarnate stuff too, but if you haven't got the time to spare, then why join it?

Hey all, finally have made my first brute, nearly 8 months after joining the game. I have gone for a Dual Blades / Willpower.

Now I don't know much about brutes, or even the dual blades set. So thought I would ask them that do. My first query about a brute is more of a general one, what is the resistance cap on a brute? I'm going to assume it must be pretty high though.

Also one other thing, if anybody here has rolled a dual blades / willpower before and has a sample mids build they'd be willing to share with me, I would certainly be grateful to have a look at it.

Thanks.

To be honest my idea of villainy is a floating concept. And entirely just depends on the character I am plyaing for what kind of measures or mindset or how I respond the contacts plays out.

If Im on my MM her story is she's a hell goddess daughter of Ares and a vicious underworld demon queen. So she's got power lots of it, she knows she's got power and she is just here on Earth purely for her own entertainment and amusement. The mortals are like attractions to her and it amuses her to cooperate with them purely for her own end amusement, but she really doesn't care what happens to these mortals, if they die, well, too bad. What makes her villainous is that she's using her powers for her own good, she's here for her own kicks and nothing else. She doesn't mind working with other villains to acheive their aims either as long as she gets to destroy and maim she's happy. Really her only goal is just to enjoy herself, and causing destruction and ruining peoples lives to her are how she does that, because with her background, she's all about the eternal torment. She simply wants to take pride in her 'work'.

If I am on my Tanker, then that's different. He's a clone of my hero Tanker an ex Warden, the clone, is an ex Crusader who was created because the resistance missed the help of the original, but, they also decided the original was too soft, and tweaked the clone. So the clone of the hero Tanker is more brutal, more aggressive and ready to kill if need be. He wasn't a Crusader for the sheer hell of it, he really did want to oust Cole from Praetoria and of course given his "tweaks" to his mind, and the fact he's rather disfigured and ugly compared to the original, these are all things that haunt him and drive him. He hates do-gooders and despises the influence of hereos as he sees them as weak and unable to do whats necessary for the greater good. If he is sent for example to make a wireless transaction and leave Protean crippled fiscally, he won't rob the bank after the transaction as he doesn't care about money and wealth these are pointless to him. But he will crush anybody he sees as a bleeding heart do gooder and he HATES Marcus Cole, in ANY reality which is why he will work with Arachnos.

My Stalker is different again. He's a mutant, and a proficient killer, he is a professional and he doesn't really have objections to who he kills really, its never personal, its just business. Heroes don't seem to like that, so they try to arrest him and stop him. So really as being stopped and locked up isn't an option, then they have to be destroyed too. Its all cold, its all about the money and the reputation. He works with anybody as long as they remember to bring their chequebook, and speak with the proper respect.

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So in game, it depends on my character for the reasoning, behind any mission I do.

Lets say its to kidnap and ransom a wealthy business man that's what you get as a mish.

My MM would do it, purely because it'll be fun to scare the bejesus out of the business man, and even more fun to lay the smack down on some heroes. The entertainment value of that would be epic.

My Tanker would do it just to highlight to everybody how pathetic and useless the heroes are. And would make an example of them. But he wouldn't be interested in ransom money, nor harming the victim.

The Stalker would do it too for the money, and the reputation, but its not his style per se, if he got to assassinate one of them heroes that would help his reputation and would ultimately lead to more work... networking.

Hey there all you sneaky hidey people. I recently made a new stalker, Martial Arts / Ninjitsu.

Ninja Reflexes and Danger Sense are probably worth slotting to 4 or even 5 if there are some Defence Set IO's you fancy using. But my question is Hide. Now, there is an interesting little toggle, in as, it doesn't use ANY endurance! And while its running its boosts your defence, so is that worth slotting up to 4 for a set too?

I tried using jab with 6 slots and I didn't really think it lived up. So I just left it with just the one slot, which contains a lvl 50 accuracy common IO.

Punch, Haymaker, KO Blow, Hurl, Footstomp. These are the attacks that do the damage on a Super Strength Tanker, so these are all, naturally, 6 slotted.

I used Call me Awesome's guide, which was modified by a friend on my server who gave me his build which he'd adapted from CMA's. I used this build and I have to say it fits my play style for my character perfectly.

I can't help think, seat of my pants mass destruction... Im more of a scrapper and tanker player so to have a walking nuke like a blaster would be kinda cool IMO.

I'll try it out to lvl 10 and see how I feel. If its not rolling for me, I'll change to fire / energy

Thanks guys, 'preciate it.

Willpower may not have an agro aura, if its paired with something like electric melee, war mace, super strength... that won't matter. As long as he gets a taunt off, and wallops a few things and keeps taunting, it will hold agro.

My Dual Blades / Willpower Brute has actually stolen agro away from a tanker I teamed with in Praet. Said Tanker was electric with lightning field too. A taunt and a few attacks later they were ignoring the other guy. It literally just depends how much interaction you want.

Invul / SS is easy, in a team from my experiences with it now, I can just stand there taunt, stomp, taunt, stomp. I don't lose aggro. Call Me Awesome woudl know as its his build guide Im copying for said Tanker.

Willpower will need a bit more player action granted, it doesn't lend itself to "Lazy Tanking" you do have to make an effort with it. But it depends on the original posters wants, if he wants to be a traditional tank, invul is a great pick, if he wants to be a fighting tank, either is still a great pick. But I think Willpower has got powers that will help a new player a bit more than Invul IMHO.

The stamina recovery, the self res, the super regenerative... These all count.

Dark Melee isn't a bad pick, there isn't much in the game that can protect against negative too well. And of course it has a stamina syphoning power too. The only drawback with Dark Melee is it doens't have AoE's if I recall right.

So given Willpower doesn't have that great a taunt aura, you'll have to be extra vigilant to make sure that you hit everybody with your main taunt, and punches.

Are you completely new to the game? If so, I would say for a beginner either Willpower or Invulnerability is the way to go. Willpower doesn't have a good agro aura, but, really if you are playing your archetype correctly that won't matter. The more you hit stuff, the more attention you get, plus if you cycle your taunts then an agro aura becomes superfluous. You are doing your job correctly, plus, Willpower actually rewards you with faster healing and decreased mob accuracy the more mobs you got round you, on top of that you got some impressive regen and stamina recovery, not to mention a self rez should you faceplant.

Resistance to knockback, being held, slept, you also got some defence in there too to help you dodge attacks.

Yes sir, Willpower is an exceptional powerset IMO. I use it on my dual blades brute, and its flipping supurb. On a tanker its even better again as its your primary powers. Not only that, due to it gives you another stamina recovery power, you can use your toggles and you can hit and hit and hit. Any of the secondaries goes well with it. But my personal picks would either be Super Strength or War Mace.

Why Super Strength? Rage. 2 minutes of 80% increase in damage. Cant argue with that.

Why War Mace, a bit endurance heavy, but, you are willpower, so you'll cope. Once you get your quick recovery at level 12 and slotted at 13, with a few blue insps on hand, you'll do well. War Mace does some high smashing damage, and clobber is just almost an instant death sentence to even most lieutenants after you do your tier 1 attack. So yeah, Willpower is awesome.

Or there is invulnerability. Huge resistances to smashing and lethal damage, and some resistance to other types as well. Impressive defences too, turn your body into a moving deflector shield allowing it to naturally repel attacks and you don't get hit, the downside... you have to wait till 18 and 26 to get them. Plus, invul has got absolutely no counteration to psychic attacks, and fire and negative attacks will give you pause for thought too. It has got an impressive self heal though which for a time will actually increase your max hit points making you tougher again.

But really, you can't go wrong with either, Willpower though would be the one I'd choose. My Brute Dual blades / Willpower, I made before my tanker, but put him on hiatus while I finished my tanker, but he was a beast... and now, Im getting the urge to go brutal again.

That is some sweet advice there my good man. Thanks very mcuh, with the fire / fire combo, I did it for synergy really but, the only ones I was planning to pick out of the secondary were...

ring of fire
fire sword
combustion
Build Up
Blazing Aura
Consume.

Im in work now, but will have a play about in mids later. Will also try the devices and energy ideas too.