Blue_Centurion

Yeah, Sappers suck. I also noticed against Carnies (my main is a Dark/Invul brute) that they resist End Drain. Shouldn't matter as much with Sappers, since they are surrounded by nonend drainers, but the thought crossed my mind.

also, i was fighting the Cap GM, ol' Sparky, and he drained me of nearly all end twice. I drained him right back for a full bar each time, and he was the only one around. that boy is just full of good endurance.

Dark/Fire has TWO End recovery powers that should fill your bars, are sappers really that bad? i would assume this Brute would be better off against sappers than most.

okay, i was gonna slow grind to test powers, but I will try to get PL'd whenever possible. Shouldnt take me more than a week to hit 40s and a couple to 50. actually planning on using this guy as a farmer mebbe. But I believe set mules are not the answer here, I think capping S/L defense will work. Have you tried that?

I started a DM/FA Brute just because of some of the posts in here. From 1-4 it was not healthy. Did not like the costumes/names, so rerolled 3 times. got to 4th each time. Tried once in AE, disaster. tried once in Mercy, not good. Now in Praetoria, also struggling. I have 2 Vet attacks, so it shouldn't be that horrid, but it felt that way. Anyway, heal comes in at 4th, solo'd a mish, did not go bad. I'll prob get 10 to 16 by late tonight, if leveling in Prae stays at all constant. Lot of ToTing though, and that screws team building. Will let you know. (Laughy - 4th DM/FA Brute)

DM/FA actually should not be a bad build. It is gonna require a lot of playing like a Blapper however. I do not believe it will ever feel "tanky" But with 2 heals that are almost always available, and Brute Hit Points, you should be okay as long as you avoid the Alphas. (unless it is fire damage alphas...there are some serious Fire farms right now)

As far as Blapper, yes, it will do serious Damage. Dark Melee has some of the best Single Target Damage there is, paired with a nice (possible best) damage aura going from Fire Armor. There are ways to pump Fury besides eating the Alpha. A new one is to go Villain, and go Big. By Tip Missioning Villain you get the FURY is 100% now power. Not a bad trick. But seriously, after 30-60 seconds in combat your Fury should be at the now standard 75%.

You may need to do some patching to feel comfortable. I do not like Fire Armor, but have tried it for concept builds. I had real problems with knockback. It interrupted things like, well, heal. And it placed me where I did not want to be. Bad combo. Either picking a pool power that helps negate knockback, or adding Procs that do so are the only way I would play Fire Armor, or Dark Armor for that matter. Knockback is not good for a Brute, not the way I play them. It got me dead many a time, and is one reason I still shy from these armors. I have to plan carful (and maybe be willing to spend some BM money) to even start a concept toon in that direction now.

With a serious damage dealing combo going, you can either push that element, or start I/Oing to softcap DEF. Will be expensive, maybe not possible, but anything you can do to pump those numbers will make life easier.

Anyways, Dark Melee/Fire Armor is a strong combo, it is just not a straightforward Super Strength/Willpower, or Super Strength/Invulnerabilty Brute. You gotta think careful how it will interact with mobs, and come at the mobs in a way that you always win. You know, be evil. Good Luck next time out with this pairing if you try.

i've never tried it, cause it looks so uninviting compared to the rest of the sets. Course, the Devs go way off on descriptions sometimes. They use completely different adjectives in descriptions to mean exactly the same thing. Also, they use exactly the same adjective other times to mean wildly different things. They might as well say JHJH Damage, and TYUI Range. In other words, figure it out for yourselves.

Would you believe I can almost double stack Dull pain? 112.5% Global Recharge with no Hasten power pool. That is how I get Dark Consumption up often enough to power this beast lol. The other benefits (like having Gloom and Dark Obliteration spammable are just sweetening an already great deal) Dark/Invul is solid and Tanky with no Global Recharge, with a ton of Global Recharge it is beautifully horrid destruction walking.

If you can run that without Dark Consumption, that tells me I can probably run it on my Dark/Invul with Dark Consumption (especially with the recharge I got running, that thing pops up fast). So I will be taking that added Soul Mastery power when i19 hits and three extra one slot powers opens up. Thanks for the thoughts

Now, worst Brute? (Are there really any bad ones, besides the ones you just do not like?)

How about Dual Blades/Stone. That sounds horrid from concept to completion.

Not to sidetrack this discussion, and not to stray too far from the OP. But I noticed that you have a Dark Melee/Willpower Brute listed BillZ. Now my main is Dark/Invul. Do you think Dark/Will drives better than that? I am trying to imagine the pairing of Dark with Will at high levels. Do you need that much End? Do you use the End utility Dark power? What, are you running all 3 leadership toggles? lol. Or....(thinking...) are you running that Darkest Night power from soul mastery regular?

I play few Blasters (I mostly Brute). I actually love Energy/Energy. Iknow, I know, the knockback. It is a mixed blessing definitely. To have a Blaster that can lay into mobs with real fury and no KB, it is sweet. My Fire/Psi I am not comfortable with, unless I am blapping, due to various personal issues prob. The Assault Rifle forces me to get out and line up my cones, which really helps me think about dismantling mobs.

I was running a SS/Will Brute as my main for the last year. (Now on to a Dark/Invul Brute) Of the two a Dark/Invul is even easier to drive, believe it or not. Especially now that I have I/O'd him at 50. But even before, SO'd out for both, the Dark Melee/Invulnerability will win and just be a pleasure to run. With a combat/attack heal, a endurance replacement power (AoE attack), great armors, and a huge heal in Dull pain, it does not get easier than this folks. The mitigation from your secondary (pure survivability), mitigation from your primary (-ACC) along with your green/blue maintenance powers from your primary, allow you to do what Brutes are made for.....grabbing Fury and using it to SMASH!

Is it just me, or is the AR powerset really really useful? I have leveled a few Blasters. Solo'd a Fire/Psi in AE to 50 before the great nerf. Have a 40 Ice/Ice that is just too weird to run. Now have a 39 AR/Dev and man, is he ever easy to offer team support with. All I have to do is get a clear spot with an angle on a crowd, fire off 2-3 attacks, find another sweet spot, repeat. To assist in this I have caltrops and stealth. Did the Devs forget to screw this pairing up? When does the nerf hit? i19?

My only soldier is a 50 Crab I built when they first came out. Leveled to 50 in 5 days, and somebody halved my time (actually a lot of people beat me I hear, lol) I haven't played him much since, mebbe once.

Anyways, got fortunate with a name, I guess.

Arbiter Death.

beats "Flamsey", which I saw once, and my wife sttill laughs about.

And exactly how long is the buff duration?

Longtime Brute (lotsa 50s), rare Scrapper (highest mid-30s). But enough about me.

I just started a Kinetic/Regen Scrapper. I have little idea what I am doing, but I kind of like the guy.

What is it with Kinetics, how does the build up thing work? It says you can stack it up to 5 times, but that makes so little sense to me I feel like either I am drunk reading it, or they were drunk writing it. I'd be lucky to stack it twice with a buttload of recharge, and if I tried to stack it 5 times I'd really not be attacking at all, I'd just be spamming build up. Seems counter productive. But just as a one-off no stacking thing, is it worth it? (I know most build ups are, but I am used to 2 minutes of Rage, so kinda unimpressed by a few seconds of glory.)

Anybody got some decent experience with Kinetics they can share? My last main was a Willpower brute, so I think I got a grip on Regeneration, a little more manic/button mashy, but Willpower is the essence of not pay attention secondary, so ya gotta expect some work sometimes.

Willpower is a great secondary to build on. It is playdoh, you can do a lot with it. Unfortunately, it is playdoh, and a little squishy unless you work to correct that. On the bright side Willpower "fixes" a lot of problems with various primaries. Like endurance eating sets, like not enough mitigation sets, like what was I thinking sets.

Invulnerability is tanky, and since you are coming from that, it will be comfortable for you. However, my first 50 (and my 3rd) was SS/Invul. Both had Endurance issues. My current main is a Dark/Invul, and I paired it that way partly because dark melee has an Endurance Recovery power (works like a damn charm).

What I am saying is you might enjoy EM/Invul, but you could have "manic phase" problems. What I call it when a Brute is great for a couple minutes, then has to take a breather. Various solutions for this, working with a kin, carrying a lot of blues, etc., or giving up attacks in your 41-49 powers for the epic fitness. As a Tanker you know about teamwork, 'nuff said. If you plan to do a lot of soloing, or small team stuff, you might look again at Willpower. It is a solid platform to generate the sheer energy that is needed to keep a Brute grinding at full Fury. Fury is the name of the game in Brutetown, do whatever you have to to get it, it is the abused substance of choice amongst the followers of the Fist emblem. Good Luck.

I have absolutely no figures, but I was making close to 1500 tickets a run in less than 10 minutes when i was finishing my Brute 44-50 on x2/+8 in a random warehouse farm I wrote down. This was with SOs. Now that I have respec'd him and dropped a ton of good stuff on him I am sure I could do it in much less time. I have very little interest in farming for anything besides levels however, when I get good stuff, so much the better. But if I can find a random farm with a 44 Brute purely SO'd that can generate these kind of tickets without looking in less than a day, the Devs have to be drunk on the job not to know it's there.

Danged, I forgot all about VEATs. I leveled my Crab to 50 in 5 days on Freedom when they first came out. (The fastest 50 was like 2 1/2 days lol) I never played him again after that, well, maybe once. My opinion has been Crabs work best on Crab teams, so I just parked the big fat guy. I started my Brute Claws. i used the big hands and Fortunata claws to cover the claw animations, still hate the sound/redraw/feel. I went Claw/Invul, cause i wasnt brave enough to try electric armor, and thought claws would not be an end eater (my constant prob with invul)

Since then I started a Kin/Regen scrap. I like him, love his look. (yes, altitis is a disease, anybody got a cure?) I'll probably stay with him, er mebbe, I never leveled a scrap past mid 30s I realized. My Brute Kin/Will I decided was just wrong, parked him at 20, cause Kin is antithesis to Will healing.

I do not think he will be my "ranged tough guy" -mebbe I will try Epics. Always wanted a Squid Redside, they look like H P Lovecraft monsters anyways. Whoever thought they were heroic took way too many drugs and studied way too little fictional archetypes. Bad combo in a character designer.

Okay, it's gonna sound Ugly. it sounds ugly to me anyways, but here goes: drum roll.....

Claws/Electric Armor/Mu Mastery.

To get rid of my claws problem I can take the widow claws and the huge forearm thingys mebbe lol.

Any thoughts? (not about the graphics, about the potential build)

I do not have any experience with electric armor, and Claws only to about 20.

I see after a little recon that you are correct Nal. Forgive me, since they both say Mod in the documentation. Mod is a huge scale I guess. It looks like Claws wins that one, claws down. Too bad the range scale Close and Short is exactly the same. Humph, this game reads like stereo instructions. Plays nice though.

I guess Scrapper +damage is just on their primary attacks? whereas Bute Fury applies to all we throw downrange? Decisions decisions, which way to take the Frankenblaster.

Okay, I rarely run scrappers. Mostly cause I suck at it, but for this experiment I will throw it in the hat as an experiment. Still though, any word on Range for kinetic Melee?

The other reason Kinetic Melee is still in the running (the first being I do not see claws attacking 40 ft, does anybody even think about these things but me?) is the levels you get the powers, and comparable damage. Claws High dam ranged ST at 18, KM at 26. Claws Cone Mod Dam at 32, KM at 8. So even though you wait a few levels for the high damage (lets face it, 18-26 is a hot afternoon) the diff between 8 and 32 is a lifetime.

update, range and target cap for attacks are the same, Claws, Kinetic Melee. But, it looks like damage for Claws 30ft attack is better than KM. also, the Claws have 90 cone, the KM a 45. So, thematically KM has an edge, but game mechanics say Claws. +Claws has that nice melee attack vs 5 targets at 26th level, another 90 cone. Now I just gotta figure out if I am going Scrapper (Scrapper Regen would be wicked for a Blaster lol), or gonna Brute it. I doubt I can keep at range, no matter the theory, which is why I am taking a Frankenblaster look at stuff instead of a Blaster approach, so Rage should not be a problem if I Brute. However, in a nod to theory I need to stay away from Willpower, since i will be trying to stay at range. I need to either get a buffing secondary, or a pure survival one.

I'm looking at both closely. Range for claws is a 40' 1 person attack, 30' 90* cone, plus a PBAoE, and a melee cone 90*. Not bad

Kinetic Melee offers a Ranged Cone, and a Ranged High dam att, plus a PBAoE. Anybody know the ranges for Kinetic Melee attacks? they work better thematically. How the heck do claws reach 40'?

Okay, I know this is a strange one. But I am bored. I love blasters, hate squishy. True supervillains stand and laugh and blast at range. My Blasters tend to blast at range and faceplant. This is a three part question.

What powersets in Brute have the most ranged attacks? (yes, short range here counts, cause that's about all we got)

What AoE we got? Also, AoE is helpful. The more the merrier. Obviously these will usually be PBAoE.

So, which Epic Sets (and ancillary sets) will add to the I will get you at range sucka feeling?

oh, 4th part, which seconday helps with this either through AoE, or whatever else?