Front_Loaded

That looks pretty strong to me, although as usual I'd suggest Stimulan over Aid Other, I feel you'll get a ton more use out of it and it doesn't benefit from any slotting.

Since you have a "doesn't really matter" pick at 16, I would suggest finding a way to move Grounded up in your choices.

Waiting to 47 to take Soul Drain is a shame, it's a pretty good alternative to Build Up.

Hurdle stacks with Combat Jumping very nicely for fast and mobile jumping, I suggest you try that instead of Swift.

Waiting to 28 for Siphon Life is a pretty long time too. I would swap Conductive Shield, as elemental damage isn't really a huge threat in the early game, in the great majority it's smash/lethal and some energy, with the odd bit of psi damage. The only major amount of fire in the low game that I can recall is from Longbow flamethrowers, and I've never found them terribly threatening. Even the psi damage isn't really what gets to me, it's the -recharge hit (why I'll be picking up Lightning Reflexes).

I think Hasten is overkill for your build, I have no plans to take it for mine. I don't have complaints about recharge for pretty much any of the Brute melee sets.

If Lightning Rod works as has been reported (3 minute recharge, 7.4 BI smashing) - that's a kick in the groin for an otherwise sorta-interesting not-too-awesome set. I don't see any strong single-target damage and this 3 minute recharge for your top tier power is crap. Very disappointing, my interested in this set has concluded.

I'm interested in keeping the -recovery resistance as is, it's impossible to get any other way and it looks to be a pretty good pvp combo.

yes we are very clever
hehe "boing"

heh "boing" hehe

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Just hit 32 tonight and all i can say is Lightning Rod is hands down the coolest (looking) power evr to come out of CoX.

The animation starts with the MoG fist pump follwed by the teleportation, and finishes with the Nova/Inferno animation, all in a fairly short span of time. Now since i only just got the power and have only acc. slotted, i can't say exactly how the damage will be, but it's not all that bad un-slotted (hit an even level minion for 123 damage w/o BU). also has decent KnockBACK (wish it were KnockDOWN but meh, whaddya gonna do?)

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Here's a good person to ask...

Hmm well I'll give it a try anyway and see, 28 isn't really that far in *cringe*

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You know, the fact that I tried keeping fury up using only brawl and fighting, 2 cheapest costing powers in the game. I did not have any shields on and yet still ended up running out. It makes me think that the endurance cut they did just wasn't enough.

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Brawl isn't that cheap, if you have an end reduc in your primary minor attack it's probably lower. I have had the same experience (running out of endo using Brawl) on every Brute primary/secondary combo.

I have just sold myself on Dark Melee/Electric Armor and stamina be damed (although I'll likely still take Hurdle for mobility).

hmm, well what the hell, take it at 49 (nothing else I really want by then)

---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Shock Horror (Brute)
Level: 50
Archetype: Brute
Primary: Dark Melee
Secondary: Electric Armor
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Shadow Punch==> Acc(1)Dmg(40)Dmg(42)Dmg(43)
01) --> Charged Armor==> DmgRes(1)DmgRes(3)DmgRes(3)EndRdx(37)
02) --> Smite==> Acc(2)EndRdx(7)Dmg(23)Dmg(25)Dmg(25)Rechg(34)
04) --> Conductive Shield==> DmgRes(4)DmgRes(5)DmgRes(5)EndRdx(43)
06) --> Shadow Maul==> Acc(6)EndRdx(7)Rechg(15)Dmg(21)Dmg(21)Dmg(23)
08) --> Siphon Life==> Acc(8)Heal(9)Heal(9)Heal(13)EndRdx(13)Rechg(15)
10) --> Static Shield==> DmgRes(10)DmgRes(11)DmgRes(11)EndRdx(50)
12) --> Combat Jumping==> Jump(12)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Grounded==> DmgRes(16)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(17)
18) --> Dark Consumption==> Rechg(18)Rechg(19)Rechg(19)
20) --> Lightning Reflexes==> Run(20)
22) --> Acrobatics==> EndRdx(22)
24) --> Touch of Fear==> Acc(24)TH_DeBuf(31)TH_DeBuf(31)TH_DeBuf(31)
26) --> Soul Drain==> Rechg(26)Rechg(27)Rechg(27)TH_Buf(43)TH_Buf(46)TH_Buf(46)
28) --> Conserve Power==> Rechg(28)Rechg(29)Rechg(29)
30) --> Hurdle==> Jump(30)Jump(46)
32) --> Midnight Grasp==> Acc(32)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Rechg(34)EndRdx(34)
35) --> Power Sink==> Rechg(35)Rechg(36)Rechg(36)EndMod(36)EndMod(37)EndMod(37)
38) --> Power Surge==> Rechg(38)Rechg(39)Rechg(39)DmgRes(39)DmgRes(40)Heal(40)
41) --> Health==> Heal(41)Heal(42)Heal(42)
44) --> Electrifying Fences==> Acc(44)EndMod(45)EndMod(45)EndMod(45)
47) --> Ball Lightning==> Acc(47)Dmg(48)Dmg(48)Dmg(48)
49) --> Stamina==> EndMod(49)EndMod(50)EndMod(50)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Empty(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Empty(1)
01) --> Fury==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Empty(2)
---------------------------------------------

Not the point, there's a whole lot of people who find them highly useful. You don't like them, feel free to not take them. They won't be removing them though.

Uh, Hurdle and Swift both have tremendous use. If the dev team actually followed that boneheaded suggestion, stone tanks would be throwing bricks at the Cryptic building as they crawled sluggishly past, and all the combat jumpers would be mid-air mooning them.

Can't advise you on the Brute version - all the Blaster attacks do knockBACK against any level, but it has been shown that the Brute attacks tend to do knockDOWN unless against lower level critters.

Be realistic guys. They're not going to add a power where you stand in the middle of mobs, do damage, and get a net profit of endurance.

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IIRC, Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch (Blaster versions) are more Energy than Smashing. In fact, I'm near positive this is how it is.

The Blaster Thunder Strike, on the other hand, is almost entirely Smashing.

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Charged Brawl is 50/50, and in the late game it's the attack you end up using about the least. Havoc Punch is about 80% smashing.

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I find it quite odd that Electric Melee is more smashing damage than energy damage. I was kinda expecting it to be the other way around.

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Brute actually got this quite a bit more favorably than Blaster, the Brute versions are a much more even split. The Blaster versions are almost completely smashing.

Oh I think it's fine - I'm just surprised it's so poor at single-target damage, I really didn't expect that after time spent with /Electric Manipuation (where a lot of these attacks originated). Two pretty decent AOEs, this isn't a bad PVM set at all, but it won't be a popular PVP choice.

... I think you missed? Wrong thread?

Take a closer look at what was posted. Both numbers cited ARE pvp numbers (Transferrence drains more like 75 endo with 3 endmods in pvm).

PS: Short Circuit 3-slotted drains more like 70 endo in pvm.

Compared to EM and DM at least, I also have not seen any problem raising fury with this set.

Seems to me the big draw for this set isn't the damage, which frankly isn't all that uber incredible, but 3 forms of AOE knockdown/back.

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That's a 80% reduction in the end drained from the toggle alone...I'd love to see what the toggle and passive can do.

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Then I am pretty confident that for endo drain at least, having both will be close enough to 100% that you won't be able to tell the difference.

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2- If you do a bind like '/bind z "powexec_name Sprint"' and use the bind you can no longer turn off your toggles by clicking them with the mouse. For some reason a single click sends a double click when you try to click off a toggle. So the toggle comes right back on once it recharges. Resetting all your binds seems to make the bug go away, but every bind I tried triggered this bug.

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I have seen something like this as well, and it appears that somehow the client is convinced that the Control key is being held down. I am not completely certain if it's just my keyboard has food in it, or if this is a bug - it does appear to be a bug to me though.

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Add the -recovery lightning field.

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I don't think they will ever do this with any toggle power. Come to think of it I can't think of any AOE powers that apply -recovery.

Oops, Short Circuit. That's the only one I can think of though.

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The Stalker Dark Armor set has a passive, "Shadow Dweller", which has Immobilize protection and +Perception, which is pretty cool for a passive, it might have more as well, but I can't recall (Maybe I'll double check, adn Edit later).

So, its not unprecedented, at least.

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Yeah that's really a pretty nice one.

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Lightning Field: I've never been fond of this style of power in an armor set and I often skip them, but I know other people who love 'em, so... no change to the power.

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It is likely you will be in the very small minority of brute players in skipping this type of power (although I'll be there with you) because your damage toggle is your prime means of getting and keeping aggro in teams. Without the damage toggle, you are a poor "tank" in teams - but on the other hand, you won't be taking near as much aggro or damage and imo a selfheal is a lot less of a must-have.

You can expect little change to Grounded. Compared to just about everyone else's passives in brute world, it's pretty damn good. Same goes for Lightning Reflexes. By the way Lightning Reflexes is in fact described as providing Slow resist (usually "Slow" means both -recharge and -runspeed).

I would like to see exactly what the tier 9 does before entertaining changes to it. "EMP pulse"? I suspect it's sort of like the Blaster electric epic EMP, which is actually pretty damn nice except for the horrible recharge. A PBAOE "large area" disorient (16 targets) that does damage to "robots". I would like to hear from someone who's actually used the Brute power.

Resist/defense powers that also provide some status resist or other are pretty well in the minority.