Deus_Otiosus

I'm going to assume you made a mistake in there, as otherwise it reads as:

1) You hit L20 on a stalker.
2) Used the stalkers saved tickets for bronze rolls.
3) Converted bronze rolls to cash on the black market.
4) Used the cash to impulse buy everything you wanted for your character - on redside as the character is a stalker.
5) Ended with a comment that was in contradiction to the rest of what you said.




Even if you meant a blueside AT like Scrapper, which I think you did, your fundamental point works out to "Redside doesn't have the supply to support being a casual player who is both lazy and impatient."


If you're lazy and impatient, and get taken advantage of on the market - it's your fault. Just like in real life.


Being a casual player without much time to invest into this game, does not also require you to be lazy and impatient. Smart play is rewarded whether you play for 20 hours a week or 5.

Yeah that's pretty rough. If you don't have enough endurance to run your basic attacks for more than 2 spawns I don't think I would have taken a PPP like Mu either. Although it might be that doing more AoE damage vs. large groups of mobs might actually help alleviate the situation somewhat.

Sounds like the character might require pretty heavy end rdx slotting.

APPS for me as well.

Hell they don't even have to be different, I just dislike that Vill ATs are forced to take a patron for epics.



Although I have to say Bill, I was a little surprised. While my /Invuln brute would make good use out of CP and Phys Perf, I can't imagine my WP brute would ever really need it. While a bit more passive regen couldn't hurt, with a primary like SM I'd happily go mu and never look back.

That "edge" in damage output also assumes very consistent circumstances (like standing there punching a pylon repeatedly for 5-10 minutes), but consistency is the Scrapper's forté, not the Brute's.

To make a good SS/WP build you'd also need kinetic combats.

Keep it cheap, go with 4 piece Smashing Haymakers and frankenslot the last 2 slots for better performance.

Grab some reactive armors for your resistance powers.

Get yourself the accolades, they'll go a long way.

You can already basically do both of those with Merits and Tickets.

You can buy literally everything outside of PvP recipies and Purples through a combination of merits and tickets.


The problem is laziness and impatience.


The problem is people wanting the item they want RIGHT NOW.

You can also run arcs on your higher level characters for merits through the flashback system. It'll never be as efficient as TFs as you say, but it would probably be a good deal faster.


I also think that for solo players, who don't have much time to play and can't get in on TFs that the AE is a better choice for leveling. Tickets come in quite a bit faster than merits, due to not getting any other rewards.

The advantage is that you get to tailor your rewards to the character. No more Mutant origin SOs for your Natural origin character.

You can also focus buy exactly what kind of salvage you need, and can even turn a decent proft from selling off choice pieces of salvage or bronze rolls.

The only disadvantage is that you can't ticket buy specific IO set recipies, but outside of that, everything is there to be purchased without the use of inf.

It's easier to answer the question if you explain what you want to do with the character.

Do you want to solo mostly, or do you plan on playing in a lot of groups.

Do you want to be an aggro magnet on TFs, or do you want to play more like a scrapper who happens to soak up some aggro?

That being said, I agree with Tonality's choices.

SS/Invuln is a pretty classic combo, and a very good one. But keep in mind, that unlike Tankers and Scrappers - Brutes do not have access to Physical Perfection. So you will need to find some way to deal with Super Strength's very heavy END costs (Both from attacks, and rage crashes - IOs go a long way here) along with running Invuln's toggles.

I played a Claws/Invuln to 50 and with IOing the character could have become very strong (I didn't IO because I had other projects I gave priority to). Claws has excellent ST and AoE damage, is relatively light on END usage and pretty much has everything you need allowing you to skip PPPs.


DM/Invuln would be extremely survivable, and would also provide an excellent END recovery tool. It would be a great choice for soloing, and soloing hard challenges. On a team I find the AoE potential severely lacking - but I think you could work around it by going Mu patron for both Electric Fences & Ball Lightning. But that's a long time to wait to be able to deal with crowds.


I haven't played a DB character yet, so I can't comment there.

Sorry for the off topic post, but I kind of wanted to give you a hand.

I invted a friend to play CoH, he started the game in November.

He doesn't have much time to play, maybe 2 or 3 hours a week - 2 to 3 nights a week.

With just a few market tricks I shared with him, he amassed over 50 million by the time his character was L25.

Head over to the market forums and take a browse at some of the strategies available, some very smart people there are very generous with their ideas and are willing to help (you can also send me a PM).

You don't need to spend very much of your time in game on the market acting like you're playing "City of Stock Market" to make some decent inf.

It depends on what your team make up is.

With enough Corrs, tanking is an illusion. It's mostly just holding stuff in place while it gets annihilated.

Some points:

• I filled out boxing, and switched to haymaker from jab. You can add brawl in your attack chain to help you build fury and you need boxing for the fighting pool anyway. In a build using IO sets, with Global recharge I would not slot boxing at all, but this isn't the case here.
• I gave all of your attacks a simple layout for slotting, but you'll need to modify them to your tastes. Having rage means you might even be able to get away with no accuracy enhancements.
• Speaking of Rage, I added hasten into the build which will give you periods of perma-rage, which is good.
• I gave combat jumping just a single defense IO. It doesn't need more slots then this, and it absolutely does not need endurance reduction. If you want to reduce endurance costs, do it elsewhere - combat jumping costs basically nothing endurance wise.
• Mids has all of the powers slotted with L50 IOs, but you don't need L50 IOs. You can drop those down to L35 IOs, they'll be cheaper and you won't really notice the difference.
• I would HIGHLY recommend looking into at least frankenslotting your powers for performance, using cheap sets to do so. A lot of sets can be had very very cheaply, and they will do wonders for your play performance.
• I slotted your defensive toggles conservatively, with both QR and STA you might want to consider 1 End Rdx and 3 Resistance or Defense IOs, depending on the toggle. This is if you decide to not pick up any sets of any kind.

Good luck.

This is how I look at it as well.

Specifically for Ela using reactive armors means you can slot 4 sets of 4 + a 5th set if you take tough, which you probably will.

Then depending on what options your primary gives you for slotting, you can make your decision from there.

Ko Blow is fine, you can solo a pylon with it.

However, I would look at it from a different angle.

You've chosen the Mu patron power pool which is generally chosen for more AoE potential, i.e. Ball Lightning, with the weaker single target attack Mu Lightning.

For better single target potential, you will want Soul Mastery and Gloom with the weaker AoE attack Dark Obliteration.


I also recommend hopping into a rikti spawn before the fight to jump start your fury.
With your current recharge, you would be able to run:

KO Blow > Gloom > Haymaker > Punch > Gloom > Haymaker

With about a .5s gap between punch and Gloom.

And that will definitely allow you to take down a pylon.



Don't get me wrong, Mu Lightning is an ok attack - but it simply has nothing on Gloom.

Understandably, you might not want to respec to Gloom specifically for soloing Pylons.

This message gets the big thumbs up.

As others have said your mez protection is your most vital.

It will also be on the highest recharge of the three.

You also want it stacked as often as possible for the DDR provided by Active Defense.


I used the Zboard Merc. Love that gaming pad.

Your Invuln/SS Tanker also has Rage, which dramatically compensates for the lower accuracy of sets like Kinetic Combat.

I would take Finduilas' advice and look for ways to improve the Acc/Dam of your 4 slotted attacks.

It's a very good point. I think I was going for the recharge, and just throwing the 6th piece in there for a touch extra SM/L def as a bonus. But I agree with you.

It's one of the reasons I don't like Invuln so much for Brutes. I think it suffers some without the option of physical perfection.



It's a nice build though, thanks for posting it. Good to have for future builds.

This build is primarily focused on SM/L defenses, with a decent amount of recharge.


Dull pain is not permanent without hasten running, but it should be fine overall.

You have some options to get flight and build up back in the build:

1) Drop The Mu patron pool, and use both slots for Hover + Flight, drop Combat Jumping for build up.

I personally would hate using Hover in combat, and I would stick with CJ instead or the added defense.

Instead I'd prefer option 2

2) Ignore build up, keep combat jumping, and drop the Mu Powers for air superiority and flight.

You can drop superspeed if you really want build up, and I think that would be better overall than droping combat jumping.

At which point you can poach the slots from Ball Lightning and use them to slot Air Superiority or Boxing with another 4 piece kinetic combat.



And now a couple of comments criticisms on the build you posted.

1) Impervium armor is good at 4 slots, only taking three slots of it means you lose one of the better bonuses in the set (the +endurance), and 5 slotting it is uneccesary - so always stick to 4 slots for that set.

2) Doctored Wounds, you have:

Level 4: Dull Pain Mrcl-Heal/Rchg(A), Mrcl-Heal(13), Mrcl-Rcvry+(13), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(15), H'zdH-Heal/Rchg(17), H'zdH-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(17)

Get that Numina Regen/recovery unique out of there, you want this in health instead. While where at it, switch to Performance shifters, or at least find a way to get the proc in there. You're going to need all the recovery you can get your hands on.

Doctored wounds is a better set here for the 5% rech bonus.

3) Tough Hide is way over slotted, and the Gift of the Ancients there are doing almost nothing for you.

4) I think you're better off with the fighting pool over the leadership pool. It will do more for your survivability and will cost less endurance to run.

5) It might be in there and I missed it, but squeeze a steadfast unique in there. No reason to miss out on +3% Defense with all of those resistance powers.


The build I gave you isn't perfect, but I think it's more solid build than the one you posted overall - particularly the slotting of your secondary.

So basically you want them to add a herculean grindfest.

I'll believe your "100% fury", which is impossible to actually maintain, when you post a demorecord of it.

85%? Sure.

90%, Yes. If you're in an extreme farming situation and are constantly surrounded by mobs.

100%, where the bar is actually completely full? No.

A lot of Brute players I know tend to skip Taunt, seeing it as "The Tanker Power" that adds nothing to their damage output; and then they sit in a corner and complain about not having Fury.




Brawl does not kill stuff, it hurts your DPS, unless you have lots of gaps in your attack chain - in which case you have other, larger problems.

And Brawl does not provide an instantaneous full fury bar - taking alpha strikes does.

I agree.

That's why I don't actually see a problem when it comes to Brute vs. Scrapper in terms of damage output.

Scrappers stack better on teams (in that they don't interefere with each other, or Tankers, or Brutes.) and can do their full compliment of damage in a moments notice.


But they aren't on top of both.

Your own statements about fury illustrate that.

And they aren't on top in terms of Durability, they happen to have enough durability to survive, but that doesn't put them on top in terms of durability.


And I see that as more of an issue with the original design framework of CoH ATs vs. how that design framework evolved in CoV.

Unfortunately, while exciting and something I'm very much looking forward to, Going Rogue is putting all of that into a pressure cooker as the two sides will now be able to coexist in greater measure than ever before.



It's less to do with occasional inconvenience and more to do with volatile, fluctuating performance - which I do feel is a balancing factor.

Even you, who plays brutes, hates the fury mechanic. It's not for everyone, and it's not a relaxing playstyle.

It's full tilt, from the time the mission starts until either you or your opponents are dead.


I have no disagreement with you about Stalkers, but I don't think that has to do with the Brute AT - I think it has to do with Stalkers.

I don't really know enough of the finer numbers on Stalkers to comment further.

Help me if you can, off the top of my head I can't think of a Brute outside of a perma-dull pain /Invuln build that can sit at the HP cap permanently. (honest question, it's escaping me at the moment)



That's true.

But is that an issue with Brutes, or is that an issue with content or perhaps an issue with the much older mentality of Tanker design?

And what happens if Brutes are taken down to where they can not handle the aggro they generate? How much would you enjoy your Brutes if they were longer capable of taking a lead position on teams?

Your own statements on what it requires for you to maintain fury show how important it is for Brutes to be capable of handling a significant level of incoming damage.



Is it a problem with Controllers then, or is it a problem with Defenders?



I agree that you only need "enough" mitigation to hold aggro.

But I don't see what would be a good solution.

Brute's basically play on the fine edge of the line, where they are holding down aggro due to their threat levels and for Fury - any less mitigation and it's faceplant city.


This is my point.

If Brutes were any less durable or any less survivable, would the AT work as it is?

Or would you be left with "lackluster and the low fury and the deaths..." as you put it?


You seem to be saying contradictory points in the same post, that you think Brute's have mitigation beyond what they deserve (even though it's actually a great deal less than what Tankers are given) and then conversely that without survivability fury leaves them with lackluster damage capabilities.


The problem is, there is no middle ground here.

You either an aggro controlling damage dealer, or you are stuck with a very poor damage output and/or dead.

This is how Brutes are designed, they are designed with volatile, fluctuating performance.

They are capable of astounding heights, and truly miserable lows.

Tankers and Scrappers are not designed this way.

They perform, constantly and steadily, for the purpose to which they were designed. They are more reliable in their roles.

Quoted, because it's very similar to the point I've been trying to make.


That's due more to Tanker low damage output, the number of post-IO Scrappers who cannot solo +1x8 is equally as small I imagine.

And the Brute still isn't as tough as the Tanker.

Does the Tanker always require that level of mitigation? No, but my statement is to illustrate that Brutes are not equal to both a scrapper and a tanker simultaneously - all of the time.



Out of curiostiy, why do you hate Fury?

I don't think the difference in survival is marginal, I actually think that the difference in survival is what allows Brutes to build and maintain Fury - especially on full teams.


I'm not sure I see a problem with Brutes being the second most durable, your own experiences with the Fury mechanic show that without that level of durability maintaining Fury is often frustrating and sometimes not possible (If a team has too many brutes, or several tankers & brutes, too much control, etc.)


This is a very important point, and a clear limit on Brute performance.


I don't want to single you out, because your posts have been very reasonable, but I think in general in this discussion too much of the focus is being placed on the ultra-high end of the spectrum, in what I would classify as "excellent" circumstances for a Brute to take full advantage of their design.


I think a lot of players, who play primarily heroside, will be disappointed if they think Brutes are tankers with good damage.



I don't disagree with what you're saying overall, but I think a lot of this is still circumstance dependent.

What Scrappers and Tankers can do is not circumstance dependent.

So if you are capable of manipulating the circumstances to be heavily in your favor, playing a Brute has huge advantages.

If you don't, and you don't have the inf to invest in the character, you could be constantly faceplanting, or playing second (or even third/fourth) fiddle to a lead brute/tanker leaving you without much Fury.


Brute performance is volatile. It fluctuates.

And it requires you to play at full tilt constantly (to paraphrase Julius) to make the most of it.

I think your sentences need the additonal point of "in the right situation" included in them.

Brutes have a HP advantage over scrappers, without which the entire fury + taunt mechanics would easily see Brutes getting killed left and right. The greater HP also increases regen, so Brutes also pull ahead there.

Beyond that however, softcap is achievable by both ATs - but base resistances are the same.

Brutes can pull ahead "in the right situation", which is indicative of the brute AT - a giant buffsponge.

Offensively, you really can't put a price on being able to do your full compliment of damage right out of the box.

I'm capable of maintaining 85-90% fury most of the time, but there are plenty of situations where you simply can't be in a permanent state of combat and you will lose fury.

Off the top of my head, the Hamidon fight in the LGTF when you're taking down the mitos can often see you lose large chunks of your Fury bar.

I'm not saying that brutes can't be buffed to amazing levels, I just think there is something to be said for permanent, right out of the box Damage dealing capabilities (or superior mitigation, in the case of Tankers).



I really dislike the word "useless". The buff cap in particular, as it applies to resistances (since IOs grant all melees the capability of softcapping DEF) is not something Brutes easily achieve. It can happen, but availability of support does not mean you can count on capped resistances all the time.

At best, it's either temporary (inspirations, T9 powers) or requires specific powersets to grant to you.



I think that a player looking to tank for teams, who doesn't want to invest 1-3 billion inf to get the job done (and still not be as tough without enough support), will turn to the Tanker AT every time.

They often do actually.

Many Brutes not heavily IOd or without solid support from other teammates, and in some cases both, are easily overwhelmed by the amount of threat they generate.

This is often the case for Brutes while leveling, and it's the case for Brutes at L50.


I've gotten many tells in groups from fellow Brutes asking how my WP manages to handle things that eat their WP brute alive. I explain that's really just a matter of a focused build and a lot of IO investment.


I run a lot of LGTF & ITF with roughly the same group of players. Sometimes we have tanks, sometimes brutes, sometimes both.

Sometimes the brutes can peel aggro off the tankers, but sometimes they can't.

No one ever claims we should just get rid of the tankers for brutes, or vice versa. Cooperation and communication go along way to allowing each player and the team as a whole to take full advantage of the particular strengths of each AT.


I hope we'll see that on a larger scale when GoRo is launched.

No don't be sorry, I prefer that it gets clarified.

I've got a good "rough" grasp of the overall game mechanics, but sometimes the smaller details like that I still need to brush up on.


Do you mean the actual selectable Taunt power?



You're right, in that most players who don't know that Brutes have a 90% res cap know the exact magnitude of Brute Taunt.


I still think taunt is more readily apparent to the average player as in game Taunt magnitude is listed in every single power description Brutes have. You can't find the limits for things such as Resistance or HP listed anywhere in your power selections.


I disagree.

You can play for a very long time as a Brute and not actually have a clue what the various Corr or MM secondaries are actually doing for you. (I didn't know for a while myself, until I started digging into Paragonwiki and the like. )

You'll just notice that on a full team with a bunch of buffers that you're harder to kill.


On the other hand whether solo, on small teams or teams of 8 - it will be readily apparent that you are "sticky", that mobs are attracted to you for one reason or another.



I agree with you here.

I think post IO sets and L50 content is the area where Brutes can truly shine in an aggro control role.


I agree here too as well.

This is why I play redside heavily, even with the lack of players and the wacky, severely lacking market.

The ATs are designed exceptionally well, are extremely fun to play in groups and solo - and break the mold set by both CoH and most MMOs in general.

I really hope it is the way to the future as you say, for CoX and beyond.



That's true as well.

It's interesting to me because I think we've seen an evolution in other games as well along these lines - 4th ed D&D in particular seems to have borrowed and incorporated MMO concepts like these.

It's also part of the fun of a good redside team, there's less set up and the team is usually a fraction of a second behind whoever is the pointman.