Nicro

It's a good estimate and will serve well enough for your DPS estimates.

However, it's not exact because the time between procs is not uniform (unless you only have one proc).
Since each attack has a different cast time, the # of procs per AH duration will vary. Accounting for this variance would probably complicate the math more than you'd want.

Willpower has a weak taunt aura, and by weak I mean nonexistent, so it requires an AoE attack to help hold aggro and keep mobs within range of RttC.

Super Strength is good for this because of the fast recharge you can obtain with Foot Stomp, but any AoE heavy set is a good pair for Willpower.

I've been playing a DM/WP and I've found that he is very good when taking on one very difficult mob like an EB or an AV (been able to solo everyone I've come across so far) because of the -tohit debuffs and heal, but he's also been very squishy when dealing with large groups because the majority of DM's attacks are all single target and provide no means of mitigating damage from attackers besides the one you're hitting.

I'm still in the early 40s with him so my opinion might change by the time I reach 50, but I think Willpower needs some kind of AoE mitigation or attack to really shine.

His numbers are correct.

Slotting 3 level 50 Resist IOs provides a bonus of 58.48%.

Here are the Brute's number breakdown:

26.25 (charged armor) + 11.25 (tough) = 37.5

37.5 * 1.5848 = 59.43

The problems I've been seeing with my willpower brute is that range debuffs seem to rip right through it, especially sappers. This isn't really a problem for soloing since the spawns are a lot smaller, but on 8-man teams they start to add up.

Was dull pain wearing off?

I've been on a bit of a techno/trance binge lately so here's a few of my favorites:

DJ Shadow
Organ Donor

Rename
Don't you shock me

Daft Punk
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Daft Punk
Too Long/Steam Machine

Andian
Beautiful Things [Gabriel & Dresden Unplugged Mix]

Imperative Reaction
Drown

I'd like to see a melee set with a -res secondary effect.
Not sure what the set would look like, but sonic melee could be interesting.
Though I can't help wanting to see a "Sonic Boom!"

The awakened PPD use energy attacks with a -def component so you have to rely on your heal and regen against them. That's probably why they seemed tougher than most enemies you face.

As for AoE, you could replace SoW and Resurgence for Dark Consumption and Dark Obliteration to help with it. The damage isn't spectacular, but it's better than nothing. You can also slot the knockdown proc from Ragnarok in DO for some help mitigating damage.

Overall it looks like a good build worth a run on test to get rid of any loose ends.

For my DM/WP, I took a different route and focused on maximizing my +recharge. I'm not sure if will be more or less survivable than yours since I'm still leveling him up, but it might be something to tinker around with in Mids.

Where do you struggle, what normally kills you?
Have you found any weak-points while leveling?

[ QUOTE ]
Well I took it but I don't think it is a good endurance recovery tool by the fact when it crashes it takes half your end.

[/ QUOTE ]

I use it when my bar is practically gone so even with the crash I'm still sitting at 50 endurance above where I started. That to me is an endurance recovery power.

For me it was a decision between it and Conserve Power, of the two it seemed the better choice. Its endurance recovery is good enough to serve as a CP replacement for my BS/SD build, it lasts longer than CP, and it provides a nice boost to my resists/HP for when I get in over my head.

Personally I wish the exotic damage resistance matched the smashing/lethal amount provided. I just don't understand why the resistance bonus isn't the same across the board.

I've found katana to be the most popular and fire melee the least.

Aegis and Eradication are both good sets for typed defense.

You need to soft-cap your defense. After achieving this, the tohit debuffs from Darkest Night and Touch of Fear become unnecessary.

Here are a few suggestions to get there:

Drop Shadow Punch, Touch of Fear, and Darkest Night.
Grab Shield Charge, Phalanx Fighting, and Super Speed.
Slot CJ/SJ/SS with Zephyr's, slot Phalanx with the Kismet unique, and slot Shield Charge with Obliteration.
6 slot Deflection with Red Fortune.
6 slot Touch of Death in Smite.

I'd also recommend dropping a slot from AAO and putting it in Siphon Life to 6 slot it with Touch of Death as well.

This probably won't soft-cap you but it should get you a lot closer.

I'd recommend trying to get around 15% defense and then go nuts with recharge. This way you can pop Shadow Meld to softcap yourself when the need arises.

My biggest piece of advice is to be careful with how you use Thunderstrike. It's a nice AoE, but be careful because those 3 seconds it takes to cast can leave you laying face down on the ground. Long cast times are the bane of regens.

For my elec/regen I held off on taking placate till much later (level 35 I think) since I found taking hasten earlier helped much more and because I found placate to be only useful against EBs and AVs. For defense toons it's invaluable, but for regen it's kind of meh since it's a lot harder to perform an AS while getting pounding on.

Either go Elec/* stalker (resistance sets are subpar for stalkers because of their low hitpoint cap) or go */Elec brute since SS/ is superior to Elec/ in everyway.

Choose the stalker if you want strong nuking powers like Lightning Rod and Assassin's Strike or go with the brute if you want to literally become lightning.

For Stalkers I like Elec/Nin and for Brutes SM/Elec sounds like it would do well.

Here's a build I'm currently working on for my DM/WP.
It's still a work in progress as I've been having a hard time holding aggro with WP's poor taunt aura and DM's lack of AoE.
So it would probably be a rather poor team tanking build.

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Might want to post the build or at least say what your primary and secondaries are.

Thunderstrike is an important part of your AoE; it is the attack you do right after BU+LR because it gets an auto-crit and provides a great deal of damage as part of your initial attack. With just those two attacks you can level most minions and put a sizable dent in LTs. Finishing up with a placate and AS will clear most spawns.

I noticed it wasn't in your build, but I highly recommend saving up your merits and using them to buy the +3% def steadfast IO from the merit merchant. It's a great value and is an IO that you will use for the life of the toon.

Here's a build I'd go with for leveling:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Whispered Thunder: Level 50 Mutation Stalker
Primary Power Set: Electrical Melee
Secondary Power Set: Ninjitsu
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Teleportation
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Havoc Punch -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(3), Dmg-I(3), Dmg-I(15), RechRdx-I(19), EndRdx-I(27)
Level 1: Hide -- Krma-ResKB(A), DefBuff-I(23), DefBuff-I(46)
Level 2: Ninja Reflexes -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(9), DefBuff-I(11), DefBuff-I(19)
Level 4: Jacobs Ladder -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(5), Dmg-I(5), Dmg-I(13), RechRdx-I(15), EndRdx-I(27)
Level 6: Assassin's Shock -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(7), Dmg-I(7), Dmg-I(9), Dmg-I(11), RechRdx-I(13)
Level 8: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 10: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(17)
Level 12: Placate -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25)
Level 14: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(39)
Level 16: Kuji-In Rin -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(17)
Level 18: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(21), EndMod-I(21)
Level 22: Kuji-In Sha -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), RechRdx-I(23), RechRdx-I(25), Heal-I(31), Heal-I(33), Heal-I(43)
Level 24: Chain Induction -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(31), Dmg-I(36), Dmg-I(37), RechRdx-I(37), EndRdx-I(37)
Level 26: Danger Sense -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(39), DefBuff-I(40), DefBuff-I(40)
Level 28: Thunder Strike -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(29), Dmg-I(29), Dmg-I(31), RechRdx-I(39), EndRdx-I(46)
Level 30: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 32: Lightning Rod -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(33), Dmg-I(33), Dmg-I(34), RechRdx-I(34), RechRdx-I(34)
Level 35: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(36), RechRdx-I(36)
Level 38: Kuji-In Retsu -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(40), RechRdx-I(45), EndMod-I(50), EndMod-I(50)
Level 41: Dark Blast -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(42), Dmg-I(42), Dmg-I(42), RechRdx-I(43), EndRdx-I(43)
Level 44: Shadow Meld -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(45), DefBuff-I(45), DefBuff-I(46)
Level 47: Summon Widow -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(48), Dmg-I(48), Dmg-I(48), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 49: Recall Friend -- EndRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Assassination



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[ QUOTE ]
That's cool, but the problem is that brutes are still out-damaging scrappers all over the place. I guess the solution is to give scrappers more access to plus damage. More fuel for the 'SS for scrappers' campaign!

[/ QUOTE ]The problem with this assessment is that these findings are reflective of a small band of build performance. For instance, Chaos's BS/SD scrapper can reach a DPS of 230+ (about an 80 point difference). Then there's Shred's DM/SD who reached 290+.

Bill's findings should be seen as an assessment of the MINIMUM DPS a particular attack chain can achieve, not its maximum.

[ QUOTE ]
And I keep hearing about the damage bonus advantage scrappers have, shouldn't that show up in the DM comparison when SD is charged with 10 targets. I guess gloom is messing up that comparison, maybe bill can fire up the brain for one more comparison and figure out the next best brute chain without gloom, and we can see better what the dmg mod advantage is.

[/ QUOTE ]The advantage is actually showing up. Going from 3 targets to 10 causes a Brute's DPS to jump by 21 points. For a scrapper, this jump is 41 points. This gap will only get larger as more +damage is added to both.


One interesting thing I noticed is that Gloom's high DPA is almost required for Brutes to be on par with Scrapper DPS. I guess that's one reason to keep the power as-is.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I was also surprised to see so much Brutin on the top half of the list. Apparently Gloom is REALLY good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sadly enough, I'm not surprised in the least. The devs love Brutes.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has more to do with the fact that global +damage buffs and secondary buffs aren't taken into consideration, such as Shield's AAO. When those are included scrappers will bypass most of the brute numbers because of their higher base damage.

I'd recommend swapping Soul Storm with Hasten.

[ QUOTE ]
Best DPS is at 222.7
Worst is 135.9
Highest EPS is 5.2
Lowest is 3.46

I'll type up explanations for all my calculations and post the entire thing then.

phew

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you include the base DPS as well as the enhanced so we have the numbers to calculate global +dmg.

[ QUOTE ]
Last request:

Because we don't know the redraw times for Axe, Mace and Spines, I need chains that don't involve pool powers.

Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What's the redraw time of Spines? Bit curious if mixing in attacks outside the primary might help.

[/ QUOTE ]
The redraw is still baked into the powers, so using outside powers shouldn't effect its dps at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

The following is probably your best bet for Spines.

Throw/Dark Blast/Ripper/Dark Blast
DB requires 225% recharge.