Phosphorescency

QR--
Banes don't desperately need a buff, but something small to make them more even with the other VEAT types wouldn't be too out of line. I'd like one of two things

1) Some defense debuff resistance.
2) An alternate version of CT in Bane Spider Training offering melee defense. With a toggle saying one CT or the other, but not both.

I don't think the second one is even technically a buff, just a way to customize my defense so it fits how I choose to play the character.

You're OK so far, no bad choices. Don't slot Power Thrust very much--if any.

Burst, Slug, Buckshot, Flamethrower, Full Auto, Build Up, and Boost Range are must-haves. Take those and slot the attacks well and the buffs with plenty of recharge.

Everything else is flavor, I like Bone Smasher for early leveling, and Beanbag for help soloing. Ignite is hard to use with /Energy, but anything in AR is beyond the above can be helpful.

[ QUOTE ]
For the simple fact base wise with just SOs Reinforcements are up 73% of the time and Mind Link is up 30% of the time. Most times my Bane finishes a paper mish in less than 4 minutes.

3. Looking for other defense sets with passive mez protection to compare it to...looking...looking...now looking in all regular AT sets for passive mez protection...looking...looking...not found. Didn't mean to be an A$$ about it but how can you compare it when there is nothing to compare it to.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mind Link lasts 90 seconds, and assuming you took Mental Training, it recharges in 200 seconds. Which starts as soon as you hit the power, not after it finishes. How is less than 30 percent a simple fact?

What I'm comparing is not to other characters with passive mez protection, but to ANY form of mez protection. That it doesn't use any end is nice...but it's low mag isn't a good thing, and not something that can be ignored with hand-waving, especially before you get serious IO'ed out and get powers from outside the Bane primary and secondary. Fighting some Malta or Tsoo, anything with a melee mez with 22% melee defense and mag 4 mez protection---ouch. I have no idea why the devs set Bane mez protection so low.

[ QUOTE ]
I keep trying to figure out why you all keep calling Bane Spiders Melee toon, I haven't seen any melee sets with pets in the primary or secondary.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I'm trying to figure out why the author of a guide entitled "A guide to the Melee Bane" would ask this question.

If you don't take the Wolf powers, the majority of your best, most damaging powers, are melee attacks.

[ QUOTE ]

If that is the case then you need to work on your Bane build, because on an SO level Widows have a total unsuppressed defense of 33.6 and Banes have an unsuppressed defense of 31.6 plus passive mez protection, 12% resist to all, and a 20% hp buff (one of the QoL issues was to let us enhance the hp don't see that as a buff though). Did not include Mind Link as it is not perma with SO's nor did I include CT for either only increases one aspect of defense so either would still have two to worry about.

Widows = Very High Melee Damage and High Defense
Crabs = Pets, High Ranged Damage, Debuffs, and High Resists.
Banes = High Melee, High Defense, Minor Resists, Pets, Debuffs, and One good range attack.

I would say they are balenced, it is just when you compare straight up damage and defense to a Widow Yeah a Widow is on top, but you can't do that because Widows don't get pets.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, clearly I'm doing something wrong in my Bane build, I just tested mine. As a primarily melee character, I'm by far most interested in melee defense. My Bane gets 15.6 defense from TT:M and another 6% after suppression from CD. Leaving me at a pretty unimpressive ~22% defense.

Given that I operate in melee, CT is a bit questionable to ignore. The fact that my NW can with SOs get 34% melee defense after suppression is a huge, huge difference. Less range defense than a Bane, but if I have to pick which to be low for a melee character it's a really, really easy choice.

A Bane's mez protection is passive...and the lowest of any melee character out there. Especially if you skip the Wolf Spider Armor as you advise.

You make special point of Banes getting one good range attack (presumably Poisonous Ray) but Poison Dart has far better DpS and longer range, better DpE, and nearly the DpA. Both have a debuff. They're pretty comparable.

It seems a bit specious to omit Mind Link from the defense comparison because it isn't permanent, then include Pets in the damage comparison.

My experience has been that Banes and Night Widows play very similarly as stealthy melee killers. But my NW is noticeably tougher with SOs and does both better single target and AoE damage (especially compared to a Bane that skips the Wolf powers to avoid the redraw). Bane has stronger Maneuvers and Surveillance is nice, but as long as my Widow times it so that Mind Link is up at the boss, it's at least as useful. IOd out so it's permanent, it's overall better.

For two character types that occupy basically the same role, Night Widows just do far more things better than Banes than the reverse.

The dropoff in pricing on some recipes when you go down a few levels is just....stupid.

Reactive Armor Resistance level 40, last 5 sold are 5 to 8 million each. Level 39s are 1-2 million each. Level 38 and below you can get one of some decent level for less than a million unless you need it NOW. I got a level 35 for just over 300K today.

And the level 40 IO gets you 0.5% more resistance than the level 38, if you outfit completely with level 40s vs. level 38s you might net an additional 1% total resistance after the ED effect kicks in.

FYI--The price on Reactive Armor has spiked pretty significantly recently. And I blame you personally, CMA

Edit--for the OP though, I just bought a set in the last two days. It's still manageable if you're patient and you're not hung up on having level 40 of everything.

[ QUOTE ]
I am build solely for team play. And while my team may at times provide support, I'm far too often teaming up with a random group where there's only empathy for damage migration....but I would like to find a way so I'd be able to take an alpha from non-smash/lethal enemies.

Or do I really have to roll a stone tanker to get a high resistance to everything?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're on a team with an empath and they aren't putting Fortitude on you, that' a bad empath. Add 15-25% defense on top of what you have and you should be really hard to kill.

Good news is that you get Foot Stomp in a few levels, that will help your survivability quite a bit, take that ASAP at 38 and lead with it for the knockdown.

Don't judge your build based on how it does against some MA content, if it's set to Extreme some of it gets pretty insane.

QR--
I like Dark Armor. It gives solid protection to pretty much anything you might face, really nothing is your kryptonite. Toxic damage hurts, but it's incredibly rare. You're moderately weak to energy damage, but not critically. Things like Carnies that most fear, you eat for breakfast.

I do think Cloak of Fear could use a little buff. The endurance cost is just huge for a power with accuracy that makes controller AoE holds look good, a fear which isn't that long (7 seconds)--and only mag 2, and a 5% resistable ToHit debuff that isn't anything to write home about either. To top it off, it only fires every 5 seconds, with no control on when it fires.

It's a fun power, and it looks good, but I think the end cost is a bit high for a power that has all of those things working against it.

War Mace and Axe are very similar. With the buffs WM got in I13, WM is probably a bit better overall but not much different. BA is better early and against small-medium groups, WM is better late and against large groups.

The issues are similar, Bash is your high DpS low DpA fury builder you might respec out of later. Clobber is an amazing take ASAP power. Shatter does a touch less damage than Cleave but it's easier to hit multiple targets.

You can mostly interchange the two in this guide, just expect less mitigation early from knockdowns and a bit better area damage late with Crowd Control.

Some good stuff in this guide, but there have been some significant TA changes, especially activation times and a partial fix to the OSA+Pet bug (which barely affects Bots in any case). I'd recommend you also look at This Guide on bots/ta, any guide to Robots, and Luminara's TA guide and combine the info.

I'd say that an attack power over Flash Arrow is definitely a valid choice, especially early. I found Flash Arrow more useful late game, stacking the -ToHit on the bots defense and letting me position my Bots before attacking for maximum carnage without worrying about being noticed.

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, if you look at City of Data, Mastermind's repulsion bomb does 1.113 knockback, whereas Defenders does 0.67 knockback (which is knockdown unless enhanced).

The knock value for MM's is just larger for whatever reason.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not exactly... the knockback value for MMs just scales with level for some reason. Defenders and controllers get 0.67 knockback from Repulsion Bomb regardless of level. MMs have 0.89 knockback when they first get RB, scaling slowly up to 1.113 when they hit 50

[ QUOTE ]
Its important to remember, that while similar to a Stalker, you are not one, as a Bane you have far more HP, a better variety of attacks, and the ability to buff for group support. Like a Stalker you may use your cloak for criticals, but are not driven by it, your higher hp allows for dealing with larger enemy mobs(while not to the degree of a brute).

[/ QUOTE ]

Just a note here, Bane base HP is actually LOWER than stalker base HP. A stalker at 50 has 1205 HP, a Bane at 50 has 1071 HP. Bane Spider Armor Upgrade raises your HP by 20%, so assuming you weren't insane and took that power the Bane should have 1285 HP. With all the +HP accolades, 1499 HP compared to a Stalker at 1445. Not a huge difference IMO.

The Bane HP cap is far higher than the Stalker cap, so any outside +HP buffs like Frostworks benefit you dramatically more.

Might make a mention at least of Mental Training, a very nice power for its recharge buff and resistance to Slows. Some feel for prioritization would be nice, since taking all the powers you recommend plus Mental Training and Stamina fills all but 2 slots, which would presumably be a travel power. Hard to know which of these powers are Must Have Now vs. good to get eventually.

The main problem people have with Banes is that they have only good defense (27% to melee and AoE, 39% to ranged) with somewhat inadequate melee defense for a character that plays heavily in melee, doesn't have a self-heal, and doesn't have much real control or fantastic DPS. Night Widows can play similarly and have far greater defense and higher DPS. I think your guide should discuss these issues and not just dismiss those who don't appreciate Banes out of hand.

My Bane spider rolls along quite nicely, but it took adding regular Maneuvers, CJ, and the Steadfast IO before I was truly happy with his performance. Now he's a machine.

Is this a guide to how to make a cap runner or a question as to how good this build is?

Typically the two different types of post go in different boards. One in Guides and one in Questions.

Close enough to complete, it is time to release this Axe/WP guide upon an unsuspecting world.

Be the Barbarian!

IO BUILD

This is an IO build, meant to be primarily an inexpensive build. Relatively few things here cost tens of millions, and no purple sets listed.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.4006
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Barbarian IO build: Level 50 Natural Brute
Primary Power Set: Battle Axe
Secondary Power Set: Willpower
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Chop -- C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:45(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:45(7), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:45(13), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg:45(34), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:45(42)
Level 1: High Pain Tolerance -- Numna-Heal:45(A), Numna-Heal/EndRdx:45(5), Heal-I:45(11), ImpArm-ResDam:40(39), ImpArm-ResDam/Rchg:40(40), ResDam-I:45(43)
Level 2: Gash -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg:35(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx:35(3), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:45(5), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:45(15), Mako-Dmg/Rchg:45(43)
Level 4: Fast Healing -- Numna-Heal:45(A), Numna-Heal/EndRdx:45(7), Heal-I:45(13)
Level 6: Swift -- Run(A)
Level 8: Swoop -- C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:45(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:45(9), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:45(9), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:45(11), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:45(15), F'dSmite-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:40(42)
Level 10: Indomitable Will -- S'dpty-Def:40(A), S'dpty-Def/EndRdx:40(46), S'dpty-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:40(46)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff(A)
Level 14: Health -- Heal-I:45(A), Heal-I:45(37)
Level 16: Rise to the Challenge -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx:45(A), Numna-Heal:45(17), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg:45(17), Tr'ge-Heal/EndRdx:30(21), Taunt-I:45(37), Taunt-I:45(40)
Level 18: Whirling Axe -- C'ngBlow-Acc/Dmg:45(A), C'ngBlow-Dmg/EndRdx:45(19), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:45(19), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg:45(25), C'ngBlow-Dmg/Rchg:45(25), FrcFbk-Rechg%:45(37)
Level 20: Quick Recovery -- Efficacy-EndMod:45(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg:45(21), EndMod-I:45(42)
Level 22: Mind Over Body -- TtmC'tng-ResDam:45(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx:45(23), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:45(23), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(36)
Level 24: Super Jump -- Jump(A)
Level 26: Cleave -- C'ngBlow-Acc/Rchg:45(A), C'ngBlow-Dmg/EndRdx:45(27), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg:45(27), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx:45(29), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg:45(31), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg:45(39)
Level 28: Heightened Senses -- LkGmblr-Def:45(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx:45(29), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:45(31), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg:45(36)
Level 30: Stamina -- EndMod-I:50(A), EndMod-I:50(31)
Level 32: Pendulum -- C'ngBlow-Acc/Rchg:45(A), C'ngBlow-Dmg/EndRdx:45(33), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx:45(33), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg:45(33), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:45(34), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg:45(34)
Level 35: Build Up -- AdjTgt-Rchg:45(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg:45(36), RechRdx-I:45(40)
Level 38: Strength of Will -- ResDam-I:45(A), ResDam-I:45(39), ResDam-I:45(43)
Level 41: Kick -- Empty(A)
Level 44: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam:40(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(45), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:40(45), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx:45(45), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(46)
Level 47: Weave -- S'dpty-Def/EndRdx:40(A), S'dpty-Def:40(48), S'dpty-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:40(48), Ksmt-Def/EndRdx:30(48)
Level 49: Taunt -- Zinger-Taunt:45(A), Zinger-Taunt/Rng:45(50), Zinger-Taunt/Rchg:45(50), Zinger-Taunt/Rchg/Rng:45(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- EndRdx-I:45(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Fury



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PLAYING THE BUILD
Axe/WP is a fun, strong build pretty much right away in Mercy Island and all the way up. Fury building early is a bit more annoying than on some builds but not as bad as some detractors suggest. Fighting Mu in the early going is frustrating since you won’t have enough endurance after swing a big Axe around to have somebody draining the blue you have left. Spectrals are annoying, since they debuff accuracy so much and are hard to kill with lethal damage.

Once you have Rise to the Challenge in your build, and have it slotted up a bit, you become fairly durable. It’s probably obvious, but having a few minions near you as you fight is a Good Thing. If you’re up against a tough boss, you’ll actually survive longer if you’ve dragged a few typical minions into melee range into the fight. Be sure to kill the minions last!

Later, virtually the only things that you will need to fear are endurance drain (especially the horrible carnie Mask of Vitiation), hard hitting single enemies (mostly AVs and AVs reduced to EBs) and occasionally alpha strikes from large spawns that do primarily non-smashing/lethal damage. Anything with big -regen like Lingering Radiation from some Longbow Warden is also bad news, but thankfully these powers are rare in PvE. One other thing to be a bit cautious of is Cimeroran Traitors. These soldiers do heavy lethal damage and leave a significant defense debuff on you. In addition, if two or more soldiers fighting you have drawn their shields out they all get enough knockback resistance that you’ll never knock them down, reducing your damage mitigation dramatically. I’d recommend not spending too much time in Cimerora until you have Tough added to the build.

One of the IO set bonuses I highly recommend is +Health, or +HP. Don’t forget the traditional way of accomplishing this as well, accolades. Born in Battle, High Pain Threshold, and Invader combine to add 20% to your hit points which is extremely helpful for the Willpower set.

Once you have all the powers in Willpower slotted up, with Tough and Weave running as well, very little in PvE will be able to kill you. Enjoy the carnage.

IO BUILD GOALS

Many IO builds focus on +recharge. Axe/WP benefits less from +recharge than the vast majority of builds, so this isn’t the best place to invest in hideously expensive Luck of the Gambler IOs. Recharge doesn’t really affect anything in WillPower, and Battle Axe, has, mostly, a large number of similarly good powers. Is getting good recharge nice in order to have Pendulum up as often as possible? Heck yeah. But beyond that I wouldn’t worry about most of the rest of the powers. The Force Feedback “Chance for +recharge” IO is relatively reasonably priced these days, and slots in every single Axe power, including both your main AoE powers where the chance for recharge is quite likely to fire. Put one in Whirling Axe and enjoy!

Common goals in a WP build include +Health (hit points), +regeneration, +def(energy), and +def(fire). The Steadfast Protection +3 defense +3 resistance is ALWAYS a great thing, of course. Increasing hit points is better than increasing regeneration, but it’s far easier to boost your regeneration and the HP cap on a brute is high enough you won’t get to it without outside help. Increasing smashing and lethal resistance would be nice too, but nearly impossible with issue 12 IO sets.

Nearly all the single target melee sets have +hit points as the bonus for slotting three from that set. The damage bonus from Touch of Death and Mako’s Bite for slotting 4 from that set is OK, but not really noticeable on top of Fury until you have a few from that set. Crushing Impact is the only set that’s really worth slotting 5 or 6 of, otherwise consider Franken-slotting 3 of 2 different sets in an attack to get as many +hp bonuses as possible.

The PBAoE sets that you can slot in Cleave, Whirling Axe, and Pendulum are largely not great. Cleaving Blow gives a tiny bit of +recovery and a tiny bit of energy defense at 2 and 3 slots respectively. Scirocco’s Dervish gives some HP regeneration at 2 slots and some accuracy at 4 slots.

The Healing sets you can slot in a variety of powers have some good bonuses. Possibly the best is Numina’s Convalescence. Both +HP and +regeneration? Nice.

A few of the resistance sets have worthwhile bonuses for slotting 3: a solid amount of HP from Titanium Coating, a bit of energy defense from Reactive Armor, and some fire/cold defense from Aegis.

Your best defensive set is Luck of the Gambler, with nice bonuses in all of the first 4 slots. It’s quite expensive, so if you can’t swing it, Serendipity is a reasonable alternative.

SAMPLE BUILDS

Here’s an example build for how your budding barbarian might look leveling up. I tend to push out travel a little bit red side since there are so many good temp travel powers. You could easily flip Super Jump and Health in order to get travel at level 14. The power I haven’t taken yet at this point that I would love to have is Build Up. Very useful for dealing with bosses and annoying accuracy debuffing foes like Spectral Demon Lords. Quick Recovery is only 2-slotted, I found this sufficient with good endurance reduction in the attacks and eventually 2 level 50 IOs give you 83% enhancement with 3 giving you 99%.

At 35 and 38 I recommend either Build Up/Strength of Will, or Kick/Tough. I prefer Build Up/SoW slightly since I like Build Up, and SoW is much better than Tough when it’s up--40% of the time. If you prefer consistent damage mitigation, Tough is superior.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.4006
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Barbarian Leveling: Level 34 Natural Brute
Primary Power Set: Battle Axe
Secondary Power Set: Willpower
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Beheader -- Acc(A), EndRdx(7), EndRdx(13)
Level 1: High Pain Tolerance -- Heal(A), Heal(5), Heal(11)
Level 2: Gash -- Acc(A), EndRdx(3), Acc(3), EndRdx(5), Dmg(15)
Level 4: Fast Healing -- Heal(A), Heal(7), Heal(13)
Level 6: Swift -- Run(A)
Level 8: Swoop -- Acc(A), EndRdx(9), Acc(9), EndRdx(11), Dmg(15)
Level 10: Indomitable Will -- EndRdx(A)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff(A)
Level 14: Health -- Heal(A)
Level 16: Rise to the Challenge -- EndRdx(A), Heal(17), Heal(17), Heal(21)
Level 18: Whirling Axe -- Acc(A), EndRdx(19), Acc(19), EndRdx(25), Dmg(25)
Level 20: Quick Recovery -- EndMod(A), EndMod(21)
Level 22: Mind Over Body -- EndRdx(A), ResDam(23), ResDam(23)
Level 24: Super Jump -- Jump(A)
Level 26: Cleave -- Acc(A), EndRdx(27), Acc(27), EndRdx(29), Dmg(31)
Level 28: Heightened Senses -- EndRdx(A), DefBuff(29), DefBuff(31)
Level 30: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(31)
Level 32: Pendulum -- Acc(A), EndRdx(33), Acc(33), EndRdx(33)
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Fury



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BATTLE AXE

Slotting for all attacks is similar, and addressed at the bottom of the section.

Brawl:
Have to mention this, since you’ll be using it A LOT. As mentioned above, control-click brawl so it’s an auto attack and building Fury gets much easier. Throw an endurance reduction or maybe 2 in Brawl, you really don’t care if it hits, you just want to build Fury for your real attacks. Brawl doesn’t do enough damage for you to care if it makes contact or not. Pool attacks like Boxing, Kick, and Air Superiority make you put the axe away, brawl doesn’t.

Beheader
This is the most questionable pick in Battle Axe. I mentioned that almost all the attacks use the same damage per activation; this is the one that doesn’t. It’s a very useful attack to have early since it has a short recharge time and contributes greatly to your damage per second when you don’t have a full attack chain. After you do have a full attack chain, it costs you a bit of DPS. Take early and respec out of it if you can. Like almost all the attacks in Axe, it has a chance for Knock-Down. Against foes below your level, or ones weak to knockback, this will translate into Knock-Back instead—which can be annoying.
End Cost: 5.2
Recharge: 4
Cast: 1.33
Damage 41.7

Chop
This is your other possible starting pick. Roughly 160% of the damage of Beheader in the same cast time, with twice the recharge time. Take this if you don’t want to do a respec since it’s a better attack than Beheader starting around 27, certainly by 33. Beheader is more useful until then.
End Cost: 8.53
Recharge: 8
Cast: 1.33
Damage 68.4

Gash
Take this one—a fraction slower than the first attacks, but worth it. Longer recharge, more damage. Gash is average in all ways, but a good, solid attack.
End Cost: 10.2
Recharge: 10
Cast: 1.5
Damage: 81.7

Swoop
Again, Swoop does little more damage, with a little longer animation and recharge. This is a great attack for damage and your best attack for damage mitigation. Swoop does Knock-Up where other attacks to Knock-Down Be somewhat careful using this on ledges, since you may knock things slightly off to the side, and off the ledge. Swoop is a great choice against things like Sappers, since it has a 70% chance of Knock-Up where most of the other attacks have 40-50% chance of Knockdown.
End Cost: 11.9
Recharge: 12
Cast: 1.83
Damage: 95.1

Taunt
Taunt is optional on a Brute. You aren’t a tank, but once this build is fleshed out you ARE awfully close. If you play regularly on large teams, this can be useful to help you hold aggro and to keep enemies in close range to you. Where they are debuffed by Rise to the Challenge, and simultaneously boost your regeneration rate.

Whirling Axe
The damage from Whirling Axe is pretty modest. It’s basically a 360-degree Beheader, hitting up to 10 targets in an 8’ radius. It is, though, the only easily useable AoE attack you get for a while, and it’s a GREAT damage mitigation tool. Charging into a spawn you aren’t sure you can handle? Jump into the middle and hit Whirling Axe. Around 5 enemies are now sitting on their butts while you get a chance to get your regeneration rate up to full speed. Cast time is a touch long, it seems like there is an unnecessary pause at the end of the animation. Not a good single target attack, it doesn’t really help build Fury and it’s inefficient for endurance against one foe.
End Cost: 13
Recharge: 14
Cast: 2.67
Damage: 41.7

Cleave
Your second AoE, but it’s mostly a single-target attack. Cleave is a narrow 20-degree cone, 10’ long. Use it as a straight line when you first get it, ideally targeting an enemy standing directly behind another. You can also jump one step back, hit Cleave, and jump forward again. This is your heaviest hitting attack, so even against one target it’s great. When you hit 2 or 3, it’s positively barbaric. Cleave is your other good mitigation against targets like Sappers with an 80% chance for Knock-Down.
End Cost: 14.4
Recharge: 15
Cast: 2.33
Damage: 115.1

Pendulum
Now here’s your real AoE damage attack. Swing your axe in a huge 180-degree arc, knocking things off their feet while doing solid damage. Laugh as your barbarian sweeps the legs out from underneath your foes. Cast time is reasonable, too. Only negative to Pendulum is that it’s only a 5’ radius cone and it is only allowed to hit 5 targets. Other than that, it’s a nice tier 9 power.
End Cost: 14.4
Recharge: 15
Cast: 2
Damage: 79.2

Battle Axe slotting is pretty standard. Early in your barbarian’s career, slot almost exclusively for accuracy and endurance reduction. You want 1-2 accuracy and 1-2 endurance reduction in every attack (except Brawl, no accuracy required there); ideally 2 end reduction. Beyond that, slot damage and perhaps recharge reduction. Once you have both Quick Recovery and Stamina, you can afford to slot only a single end reduction and now you can slot full damage.

WILLPOWER

High Pain Tolerance
For a no-endurance cost auto power, this is just amazing. 20% additional hit points un-slotted, and up to 30% with slotting which is almost as good as resistance to all damage types. And if that’s not enough, it provides 5.6% resistance to all damage types. Take it immediately.
Slotting: 3 health as soon as you can, 2-3 damage resistance before 50

Mind Over Body
This toggle gives you resistance to Smashing, Lethal, and Psionic damage. Since it’s a toggle, it’s a constant drain on endurance you probably don’t have early on. The 16.9% resistance to smashing and lethal is nice but this is a power you can delay until after you have Quick Recovery
Slotting: 3 damage resistance, 1 endurance reduction, by the mid-20s.

Fast Healing
Another auto power, this boosts your hit point regeneration rate. It’s a 75% regeneration rate boost, which while only nice at first it starts to get really good when slotted and purely awesome when stacked with Rise to the Challenge and Health
Slotting: 3 heals, as soon as you reasonably can

Indomitable Will
Your mez protection toggle, you need this at level 10 when it’s available, or by level 14 at the absolute latest. It also provides defense to psionics, but it’s a long time before you need both resistance and defense to psionic damage. Indomitable Will is one of the better status protections, since it gives you comprehensive protection to disorients, holds, immobilizes, sleeps, knockback, repel, sleep, fear, and confuse.
Slotting: 1 end reduction only for a long time, 2-3 defense by the early 40s

Rise to the Challenge
This power does a LOT of things for you. It boosts your regeneration rate dramatically. It debuffs your enemies. It taunts your enemies. It’s a great, great power. Up to 10 enemies in melee range boost you regeneration speed, with the first enemy giving the largest bonus. So you would really prefer to have everything you’re fighting up close and personal with you! Once Rise to the Challenge (RttC) is slotted up, a nearby minion typically makes you regenerate health significantly more than that minion is able to hurt you. RttC also applies a mild, resistable ToHit debuff on your enemies, initially 3.75%.

Finally, RttC is your taunt aura which makes enemies attack you instead of other possible targets. Taunting is NOT what RttC does best. Most Brute taunt auras are identical to tanker taunt auras, a mag 4 (boss level) taunt lasting 13.5 seconds, typically firing every 2 seconds. Rise to the Challenge is a weak taunt aura on tanks and for whatever reason it’s reduced even further on brutes, to a mag 3 (minions and lieutenant) taunt lasting a mere 1 second, firing each second. It can be worth slotting some taunt in here, since it lets you fill the job of “tank” better if that is needed, and it encourages enemies to come and fight you—which is right where you want them.
Slotting: 1 end reduction, 3 heals as soon as you can, 1-2 taunt or 0-2 ToHit debuffs as a low priority

Quick Recovery
This is Stamina, but better, with no pre-requisite powers. It boosts your endurance recovery by 30% un-slotted (Stamina is 25%). It doesn’t do anything else, but it does what you need.
Slotting: 2-3 endurance modification; worth 4 slots if you get the performance shifter chance for +end. 2 level 50 IOs are nearly as good as 3 if you’re using regular IOs.

Heightened Senses
Willpower is a blend of resistance (mostly to smashing, lethal, and psionic damage) and typed defense to “exotic” damage, everything except toxic. Heightened Senses is your defense to smashing, lethal, fire, cold, energy, and negative energy damage. This power makes attacks less likely to hit you in the first place. Heightened Senses gives you a token amount of defense to smashing and lethal damage (2.5%) and a decent amount of defense to other damage types (9.8%, 15.2% slotted). Heightened Senses also improves your perception so you are less likely to be blinded and gives you resistance to defense debuffs. Some people say this power can be skipped. Those people are foolish; take this so your warrior fears nothing.
Slotting: 1 endurance reduction, 3 defense, quickly but not necessarily immediately

Resurgence
Finally an optional power in Willpower, Resurgence is a fairly basic self-rez. You get back up from death with most of your hit points, half your endurance. You’re a bit stronger than usual for the first 90 seconds after you rez, then a bit weaker for 45 seconds after that.
Slotting: 1 heal

Strength of Will
Berserker rage! This is your tier 9 power, a bit less of a “god mode” power than some tier nine powers, but honestly you’re awfully hard to kill outside of Strength of Will (SoW) so a god mode power isn't really needed. Strength of Will boosts your resistance to smashing and lethal damage by 18.8%, and your resistance to everything else (including toxic) by 9.4%. Your endurance recovery is boosted by 30%, and SoW also boosts your status protection, something only infrequently necessary in PvE play more nice if you PvP. SoW lasts 2 minutes, and recharges in 5 minutes. At the end of 2 minutes you are drained for half your endurance. This is ideally used proactively before charging into a dangerous spawn, rather than reactively when you’re already in trouble. The recharge time is not enhanceable, so this will never be a permanent power
Slotting: 2-3 damage resistance, soon.


POOL POWERS

There are 3 main pool powers to consider: fitness, fighting, and travel. Brutes just aren’t that good at leadership (you’re a bloodthirsty barbarian, not a natural leader), you generally aren’t very stealthy, and medicine really just isn’t needed.

Travel
I recommend Combat Jumping and Super Jump for travel. Super Jump is a fine travel power and CJ gives you a little bit (almost 2%) of defense to stack with Heightened Senses. Flight is an option, but Air Superiority causes redraw with Battle Axe, which is something you want to avoid.

Fitness
Not necessary, but very nice. Quick Recovery and Stamina together and you can fight indefinitely without worrying about the endurance bar. If you are rich or lucky and have the Miracle and Numina’s unique IOs to slot, fitness is unnecessary. If you don’t have them, life as a brute is much more fun with both QR and Stamina. Health boosts your regen a nice 40%, and swift lets you move faster in missions, getting to that next spawn a little quicker while Fury is still high.

Fighting
Also not necessary, but this turns you from really tough into just stupidly hard to kill. Your smashing/lethal resistance jumps to around 53% (82% under Strength of Will) and your defense to most damage types to around 23%. One Good Luck or two Lucks. puts you at the PvE soft cap. Boxing and Kick both cause Axe redraw, so I don’t recommend planning to use these powers. Both make great IO mules, though, so if you have spare slots you can throw a Stun set into Boxing or a Knockback set into Kick for some nice IO set bonuses.

Speed
This is a reasonable pick if you like Hasten, but really unnecessary. Hasten does nothing for Willpower, and Axe really doesn’t need it either.

Patron power pool
You really only get to choose 2 of the 3: fitness, fighting, and patron. In the current issue 12 version of the patron pools, I prefer fitness and fighting to any of the patron power pools. None of them are particularly thematic with a barbarian, all have multiple powers that cause redraw. If you have enough good +recovery IOs that you just don’t need Stamina, I recommend Soul Mastery for some nice damage and the –ToHit stacking with your other defense and –ToHit.

[u]Be the Barbarian—Axe/WP[u]

Chop! Gash! Swoop! Cleave! Destroy your feeble adversaries with your mighty Battle Axe, rending them asunder whilst you stand unmoved and unsullied. This is the power of the Barbarian.

Axe is one of the newest primaries for Brutes, and loads of fun to play and watch. Axe was given some of the very best weapon customizations, and all of the attacks in Axe have the chance to do knockdown, which gives you time you need occasionally for Willpower to help you regenerate your hit points. It’s a very strong, fun combination.

If you want to farm, it’s probably not your best choice. It’s also not a build to sink a half billion infamy into since it doesn’t benefit from all purple IOs as much as some. The animations are a bit lengthy, and the damage is all lethal. Is Axe/WP the ultimate Brute build? Nope. Is it loads of fun to play and very strong? Yep.

Battle Axe is an interesting set. Solid single target and AoE damage and solid mitigation, it’s good at everything without being the best at anything. It’s one of the better internally-balanced sets, with nearly every attack using the same damage per endurance and damage per activation. None of the animations are short, but none of them are eternal either, and they’re beautifully rendered. You can pick almost any combination of attacks and you won’t go far wrong.

Willpower is a good match with Axe, since one of the banes of Axe is having to take the thing out again. Only Strength of Will in Willpower causes redraw. One of the designed weaknesses for Willpower is that it doesn’t get a self-heal, and Axe helps Willpower out by giving it some breathing space for Willpower’s huge regeneration rates to kick in. Enemies knocked down are still boosting your regen, even though they aren’t hitting you for a moment.

Other brutes with damage auras will do more damage than you do on teams. But Willpower lets you fear almost nothing in the game. Barbarians should fear nothing, and Willpower has few holes in its armor. Very little other than a stoner in Granite will out-survive you and you don’t pay the price tag of running in Granite.

FURY AND YOU

The key for any Brute doing good damage is in Fury. As you attack and are attacked, you build Fury. Eventually your berserk attacks leave only pieces of your enemy in your wake. Note that being attacked builds Fury, not being hit.

Brute attacks initially do only decent damage, but as you build Fury you rapidly do more damage. At 50% Fury you double your starting damage, at 100% Fury you do triple damage (though you won’t be at 100% with any consistency) and attacks fully slotted for damage and with 100% Fury do quadruple damage. So getting and staying at 75%+ Fury is more important than slotting for damage on a Brute, especially at early levels.

Axe has a bad reputation for being hard to build Fury with. This reputation is only partially deserved. Between Brawl, Beheader, and 1-2 more attacks it’s not too hard to build Fury though not quite as easy as on a Brute that has a fast recharging, fast animating attack like Jab or Shadow Punch. The fact that an Axe user can’t cleanly add pool attacks like Boxing or Air Superiority to their attack chain due to Axe redraw complicates matters. But Brawl on auto simplifies matters and it’s not as hard to build Fury as some claim.

Once you have Willpower fully slotted, take advantage of your toughness and the fact that being attacked builds Fury—drag a couple of spawns of minions together so you have more things trying to hurt you and merely instead helping you regenerate health and build up your Fury!

You might be relying on Mids too much. Mids hasn't been updated in several months, and the Gaussian's set was recently changed.

http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/G...e_for_Build_Up

[ QUOTE ]
If so, the author of that guide may have failed to list it in the Tankers FAQ and Guide post.

[/ QUOTE ]

Possible. The only guide I've written is for a scrapper, so I've noticed the lack of updates there and presumed (especially after Serps' note) that it was fairly widespread. I posted notice to my guide everywhere appropriate, for example. On the scrapper list, there are no fire, dual blades, or willpower guides. Those guides do exist, just not on the list.

This is definitely a part of it... not many of the archetype guide lists have been updated recently. The best guide I found for building my Ice tank recently wasn't on the guides list, for example. Some of the old guides really need removing, or moving to a different section of the list.

Building guides post-IOs is definitely more complex. Lots more to consider, like what IO goals are best for the build. Multiple build examples may be needed, an SO build, a basic IO build, and a super-purpled IO build. Takes time. Add in the reduced chance that your guide will be added to the main list, and it's possible that hardly anybody will see the guide that you invested all that time in.

Very, very nice. Love the information, and the format explaining why you took the powers you did, why you slotted them as you did, and why you skipped certain powers. I'd suggest including some numbers on defense, resistance etc. but that would be nitpicking and probably reflect my numbers bias anyway. Excellent guide.

Played my somewhat dormant WP/Axe tank recently and this helped me revamp his build plan quite a bit.

Fair enough reply--- I would note that Surveillance is usually aggro-free, which is nice if you play a Stealthy solo Bane. It lets you run Surveillance, debuff the target, and still get Executioner's Strike. If the proc fires, stealth goes away. So you gain an additional 20% -res for 10 seconds but take aggro sooner and lose the stealth strike bonus damage. A tradeoff you've chosen, but one I think worth explaining to the reader.

I always slot some end reduction in Maneuvers, that thing's a bit of a pig for what it does, really. But my build has it too. I tried running CT:O only, I loved it early but personally found it insufficient once I was running Ruthless/Relentless. Still needed one accuracy or I was frustrated.

Good guide overall, not sure who's one-starring you. The one thing I was looking for when I started was some thoughts on why Bane in general. A ranged Bane build seems slightly gimped, but a melee Bane build really doesn't seem to do a lot that a Night Widow can't do much earlier/cheaper in the build. Which is frustrating. Regardless, a Bane is still fun to play and quite a radical change from level 23 to level 24!