Deus_Otiosus

Positionals are better if you can get enough of all 3 them, you don't really get enough to start with most resistance builds to build off of.

SM/L defense covers quite a bit of ground. Enough attacks have SM/L components that you'll be protected from most attacks. So (I think) everything in melee, as well as a large assortment of ranged attacks.



I go with 5x Oblit or 5x Armageddon on most SS builds + the FF Proc if the build can handle the end costs of Footstomp (which /Ela can).



If you need the recharge, it's another spot for it. Otherwise if it's giving you endurance issues, slot for that instead.





@Zmoosh

I like the build, nicely done.

Out of curiosity why did you go Soul Mastery for Tentacles and Dark Oblit instead of E-fences and Ball Lightning?

Hah!


Yeah this exploit was pretty unreal, and has caused some serious chaos in the market.

For the most part, salvage has gone back to normal - with a handful of uncommons and rares still hovering at higher prices than they were Jan-Feb. Some recipies are still up, others are back down.

With purples, obviously, being in an extreme state.



Pretty much exactly that.





Keep in mind while an unprecedented amount of redside inf was suddenly created, it's probably highly concentrated in the hands of comparatively few players overall.

I disagree.

While the redside purple market has always been a bit nuts, you were looking at 200-400 mill per piece for the more sought after sets (Apocalypse, Hecatomb, etc).

Post 2XP, and the past handful of AE exploits the prices have shot up to the 300-600 mill range.


I agree with you in general, that MMOs work this way and that the redside market in particular is suffering due to lack of supply, but I watch the redside market closely and purple sale prices have definitely increased in the past month or so.

Sure thing, I already know the results though. (Here's a hint, if SoW was affected by Global Recharge, it would be possible for Perma-SoW willpower builds, and it would take less recharge than perma-hasten.)

While you're at it, I'm curious how much global recharge you have if you'd be willing to post it.

Claws/Willpower would be a good combo.

You can have Strike, Slash, Follow Up and Spin all by L8.

Claws is fast recharging, with easier endurance costs than most primaries allowing for good fury generation, once you get QR at 20 you'll be sailing.

Spin is a fantastic PBAoE that you can have at L6, and follow up allows for early +To Hit and +Damage boosts, which will help greatly (especially the +To Hit).

I'm sure other combos could do it, but I think this is one of the easier, faster rides to 50.

Use Ninja run for travel, use Combat Jumping for...combat.

I realize you're having aesthetic issues, but be sure to check the end cost of running Ninja Run in combat plus the fact that it gets suppressed.

Combat Jumping is cheap end wise, gives you added mobility in combat and adds immob protection and a little bit of defense.

Yes.

I know that the T9 Strength of Will is unaffected by recharge.

I'm pretty sure I've corrected this before in this forum, possibly one of your other posts.

You can feel free to check it in game.

Neither SoW or OWTS are affected by slotting for recharge, or global recharge.

So, you get SoW up 2 min out of every 5 and that's it. You're most certainly not clicking it 1 minute after it drops.


It's a power you can easily skip, and fill the gap with T3 Oranges.

And if you've invested into a Willpower Brute, building it's defenses, you have less need of the T9 since you don't need to fire it often anyway.

Alternatively, you can also build for Darkest Night. It has no crash, but a heavy endurance cost and you can use it every single fight if needed (not usually needed)

Shields can sometimes be rough at low levels, especially if...


...you do something like that.

-1x2, or -1x3 at the max for a defense set like shields. Some other secondaries can take it.

Also you'll want to fill your inspiration tray with blues and purples, and refill before each mission.


Vet attacks are fine.

I usually pick up KO Blow early on, but I don't use it as part of the standard attack chain. I use it when I have high fury going, or when I really want to knock someone up. (yes, I know how that sounds).

Seeing as you have Punch, Jab and Haymaker, you might not have room for it pre L20. I always skip the Tier 1 attack myself .

I don't use the T9 for either of them, I don't even have them in my builds.

T9 "godmode" powers become marginalized the more you invest into a character's build.

99% Fury is pretty much a fantasy.

If the actual in game display can be trusted, then I think I've hit what looked like 99% Fury...once.

Considering I play Brutes primarily over all ATs, we're talking a considerable chunk of time.

80-90% is the normal amount. This is on a Brute built to take alphas, to hold and survive aggro on the ITF, LGTF, RSF, and built to farm solo set for anywhere from +1 to +4 x 8 - enemy type depending.


Brutes are a very different animal.

To state they are *simply better* is simply your subjective opinion.

While you can limit the situations a Brute might be in where maintaining Fury is actually hindered by circumstance, those circumstances still exist.

Taunt happy Tankers or other competing Brutes. Teams with lots of pets, or control, or missions where you simply cannot keep up combat to maintain fury (the Hami/Mito fight on the LGTF comes to mind, once the pylons are down fighting the mitos tends to be a fury sink).

Scrappers perform, all of the time. And they are unfettered with needing to hold aggro, or take alphas they may not be built for.


Tankers can tank, without billion inf builds. This is not true of all, or even most Brutes.


I love Brutes, and I enjoy the space they occupy somewhere between Tankers and Scrappers. They have very high highs, but can also have some very low lows.




Back on topic, it'll be interesting to see how the whole epic/patron pools plays out amongst the melees. Looking forward to it, regardless of what it brings.

All good points, my main point still stands though - in PVE stealth as a power is lacking.

I agree completely, and I think the problem with this is the actual Stealth power.

It's too weak, doesn't grant enough actual stealth for the cost and can't even be stacked with Invisibility from it's own Power Pool.

And then when you use Stealth, it actually makes you slower and doesn't provide any -Threat modifier.


Even if the +stealth IOs weren't in the picture, I'd be hard pressed to come up with a reason to take this on a character outside of wanting an LoTG Rech mule.


In my opinion stealth needs to either do more for you and/or be cheaper END cost wise OR be stackable with Invis for it to be more competitive.

I reworked your build.

It's now Softcapped to all positions, has both lower endurance consumption as well as higher recovery and higher recharge (+10%)

On top of that that Fireblast is now a fully functional power.

All of this came at the cost of about minus 4-5% resistance across the board (well worth the trade IMO).

You'll notice a massive difference in Recovery, this is due to my version having the Accolades activated in mids, which I assume you'll be getting (even with the accolades, your build has about 0.30 e/s less recovery).

I added the force feedback proc to Thunderstrike, you could always remove that for something else, or to simply free up a slot.

And this is probably one of the reasons you don't see Invuln talked about often on the Brute boards (aside from people being used to it).

Brutes don't have access to Physical Perfection, but they still run many Tanker style heavy endurance melee sets, and generally need to maintain a constant offense for Fury.

So finding a matching primary is key.



I chose Claws for my Invuln brute due to the lower overall endurance costs.

I chose Willpower for my Superstrength brute, because I felt that was the sturdiest set that would allow me to keep up a constant offense.

VEATs don't also run anywhere from 3 to 5 other toggles while they also run their Tactical Training toggles.

I would caution any melee that does not have access to an endurance recovery tool beyond stamina away from the Leadership pool. The numbers aren't very impressive for scrappers, and the endurance costs are quite heavy when you factor in everything else.

I take Leadership on my support characters, because they generally aren't running other toggles (they also get better values), so this is not something I have against the Leadership pool in particular.

My advice would be to put a build together, even if you can't get it softcapped.

Then post it here for others to give you assistance with.


Unfortunately there are no simple answers to your question, so in my opinion is that this will be your best bet.

It will also help you get to know mids better.

Not really.

Def debuff hurts powersets that have built for defense but lack defense debuff resistance.

To Hit bonuses for mobs hurts Def based toons more severely than those that have simply built for defense because they also have resistances.


This is an extremely important point, and I'm glad that you made it.


Thanks for posting the build.

There's some slotting there I might borrow myself, but I'm working with Brute numbers so softcapping is most probably not on the table.

And thanks for being honest, your build doesn't sacrifice much to be a tank, but it certainly sacrifices recharge and if it were a Brute or Scrapper the further sacrifices needed to softcap would be huge.

That being said, it looks like a cool build. Good luck with it.





While the bonuses vs. Fire/Cold in Aegis are appealing, most will generally 4 slot reactive armors for the SM/L/Ene/Neg bonuses.

The bonuses are smaller, but typed defenses are not always to be found in abundance and those 4 types are the most frequent so you're better off building for them using reactive armor than using Aegis.




That's a fairer assessment than the first, and one I can go along with.


Except as myself and others have said, defense debuffs are commonly prevalent from the early game, into the late game.

What SR also has going for it, is cheap and easy defense. And once you're at the softcap, you're then free to add other things build wise.



Here's the kicker, those other builds who got a different toolbox?

What happens when they don't build for defense? How useful is that toolbox if you don't have any Defense?

Are your self heals, and resistances enough?


As I've said a few times, and as macskull said as well, if you're concern is other sets stealing SRs thunder you have no further to look than Shield Defense.

It has solid enough defense to get to softcap through IO sets, has resistances, a scaling damage buff and a crashless mini-nuke that with enough recharge can be available every 30-45 seconds.



I won't disagree with that.




I think it would be useful to come up with a specific set of ATs/powersets you're looking to compare.


Are we comparing Tankers to Tankers? Tankers to Scrappers?

Def based Tankers vs. Def based non-tankers?

Def based Scrappers vs. resistance or multilayer mitigation Scrappers?


Or are we only focused on SR vs. Resistance based sets that can build for defense?

If you go to the scrapper forums, and someone asks for opinions on SR - you will almost never hear a resistance set recommended over it.

Instead, you usually get something more like 'If you have enough influence, go for shields'.


And this is a point you've yet to address in this thread, or the BoTZ thread.

Hi. I went after one of your posts in the BoTZ thread, because you made some comments I felt were flat out wrong.

I like the idea of starting over in a new thread, because the BoTZ one is just overloaded and any decent discussion just ends up getting avalanched.


First I'd like to address "The claim" that without DDR is useless.

Who's claim? I'm not sure who made this claim in particular, but I don't agree with it.

I agree with the second point. Your defenses will fail at some point.


How often and how fast is an extremely difficult question to answer, considering you can tailor what enemy groups any particular character of yours is going to face.


As others have said, Arachnos and Longbow as well - CoT also have def debuffs and run around Grandville. I think Rikti might actually have some level of def debuff but it's infrequent enough to not be an issue.

I'd also like to point out, that while they don't pack Defense Debuffs groups like Carnies, Malta, Rikti, CoT pack debuffs or mezz of some kind.

Heavy Debuffs is just one of the many factors that pushes Resistance based builds to want/need softcapping as having high defense simply lets you ignore those attacks to begin with as opposed to "toughing it out" which I think is the intended difference between resistance sets and defense sets (thought it just doesn't work that way in actual play on SOs)




I can't really address your math, but there are other points about this issue I'd like to discuss.


Do you mean redside?

Redside you never out level most of the really nasty things. Actually, for the most part it tends to get worse.



Slight divergence:

My response (#950) to your post (#944) in the BoTZ thread never got a reply, but this thread seems to be a continuation of the train of thought you put forth in that thread.


Instead of rehashing that stuff, there was one main point that I was hoping would be addressed but never was.


I don't play blueside very often, so I lack enough knowledge of Ice Armor to speak about it.

1. Fixing BoTZ has mostly to do with positional (edited: I goofed here) defenses and therefore little to do with resistance sets - most of whom build for typed defenses, not positionals.
2. Neither SR nor Shields "gives up half their character" for mitigation. Those secondaries are dedicated to the single best source of mitigation in the game and also get DDR to go along with it.
3. The biggest threat to Defense sets is not resistance sets that build for Defense. The biggest threat is Shields.

I'd Just like to point out, that while a Tanker can do that - Scrappers and Brutes can not.

They must make build sacrifices to achieve softcap even to just SM/L.

I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that you didn't get that "just" from slotting attacks.

I brought up ED Capped CJ, Weave and Cloak of Darkness for a Tanker in Mids and it's showing Almost 20% defense to all positions and typed defenses. (I'm currently leveling my first Dark Armor, I'm not sure if Cloak suppresses it's defense amount in combat, does it?)


I'd be very interested in seeing your build if you're willing to post it because I'm not sure how you were able to get 25% Smashing, Lethal, Energy and Negative defenses "just" from slotting attacks. (If you did that it would be great to see as it would help my own build, but I don't think there is that much to be had from just attacks).


I'd like to point out that this is extremely subjective, and is an opinion.

What one person considers as "nothing" or not important - might very well be considered by another player as important to a build.

And goes afk for a snack.

Fresh tacos.


In Mexico...

The devs were thinking that it would be a rare day indeed when every brute, everywhere would always have 250% global recharge, a totally full fury bar literally all the time, while also being softcapped and focusing their entire build around a single target chain so you can solo all of those nasty giant pylons that show up in missions all of the time...



On a more serious note, those numbers prove very little of anything in terms of actual game play.

On teams, most brutes will be expected to at the very least absorb alphas if not be full on aggro management units.

Scrappers on the other hand are generally unfettered to run around and just punch stuff.

There is also the burst damage component which Werner mentioned. Something which is actually very useful for teams (this is why Elm/SD is such a popular combo).

And lastly, the numbers in Billz' threads did not include outside damage buffs (which was done on purpose), which further skew the end results.

Just to be clear here, I don't believe even a Tanker will be able to survive all the damage/debuffs of the entire Freedom Phalanx without a team of buffers/debuffers behind them either.

The fact is, Brutes CAN and DO in fact tank that fight with support. The same as a Tanker would.

I'm not saying it's not possible, and in fact it would be pretty enjoyable to see it done, but I do not believe a Mastermind could Survive NOR maintain aggro at the end fight of the RSF.

It's a dicey, hard core battle. Even with strong taunt auras, tons of damage output and Taunt - there is always the chance of one or more AVs taking off after one of the squishier members of the team.

With the amount of AoEs and the the fact that even a softcapped brute wants +DEF buffs for most of the fight, I simply do not see a mastermind handling this fight in the same manner.

Brutes are Brutes. They are the fast moving, armored spear-tip of the team.

Capable of maintaining and surviving aggro in varying degrees while simultaneously dishing out excellent damage.

Brute builds, particularly as it pertains to their secondary, dictate where on the scale of survivability vs. damage output each particular brute falls.


I'm not disparaging the fact that MMs can be built to be 'Tankerminds', but game mechanics tend to interfere heavily with regards to the overall popularity of this as a strategy for most teams.

Redside dynamics also come into play as a Tanker in the strictest sense of the term is not really needed due to the design of redside classes. All of whom are generally self sufficiency, and have good damage capabilities.

What is usually sought after, in my experience; is someone who can take the alpha hit, hold a solid amount of aggro and be survivable enough to endure the damage that comes with maintaining aggro.

And Brutes very often fill that need.

Add IOs to the picture, or huge amounts of buffing/debuffing, or both - and Brutes can face down the toughest available content (ITF, LGTF, LRSF).

This is practically the norm in my play experience, so when you say:

I have to assume you are either playing on the extreme low end of teaming, or have a wildly different play experience than pretty much everything I have ever encountered (and all of my in game friends have encountered), or perhaps you've just been REALLY unlucky with the Brutes you've played with.

To put it into perspective, when I build a Brute if that brute can not handle at the very least most content set for +0x8 at a reasonably fast speed and 99% survival rate - I consider the build a failure.

Generally it ends up surviving most content set for +2 or +3x8. Specific debuff heavy (anti-melee) enemies not withstanding.

So unless you're only focusing on sub L40, with zero IOs and a lack of group support - I'm just not seeing it.


Just to clarify, SoW (Willpower's T9) is not affected by attack recharge rates. It will be available for your brute regardless of the amount of recharge you slot it for, or the amount of global recharge you have.

However, having a recharge of 300s (5 minutes) and a duration of 120s (2 minutes) it will be available as often as you describe - generally every other large fight.

You can verify this in game either through right clicking the power for "info" or through the enhancement management page using the detailed info tab.

A few questions/comments.

Anywhere from 2 to 3 sets of Blessing of the Zephyr (BoTZ) is pretty normal for /SD (and other sets) for achieving positional defenses.

Why do you have teleport foe? Recall Friend I can live with, if you team often and like to be able to TP people (though I wouldn't take it personally) - but you really don't need teleport foe, not even for the BoTZ set.

I would look to 6 slot Guassian's in rage, and 6 slot Thunderstrike in Hurl.


If you can afford it, I would look to swap out of Red Fortunes and into 3 or 4 slotting LoTG sets (including the 7.5% rech) into Battle Agility and Weave instead.

As well as putting one more LoTG Rech into CJ and Phalanx Fighting.

You're well over the softcap on all your positions, so you have some leeway in making changes.