Shadowy_Figure

Just a point of clarification. The damage done by DB isn't really DoT (except Attack Vitals). The damage is broken up into chunks, with each chunk delivered with one of the strikes in a single power's animation.

[quoteAnd you're missing Task Force Commander badge, which will grant you another 5% of +hp.

Plus, if you don't mind, please tell me some kind of explanation for getting your only travel power, SJ, at level 47, unless you're just going to farm this toon to 50? =/

[/ QUOTE ]

Speaking for myself, I only include the really, really easy to get accolades when doing a build. I never know if I'm going to get enough time to do a TF, let alone ALL of them, but I know I can take ten minutes and get the Atlas accolade.

As far as the travel thing goes, putting it off is very viable. Remember, you do get the two temp ones from scanner missions, and I thought I heard mentioned it was possible to purchase temp travel packs. If so, leaving a travel power out until the end, as it only benefits you in between missions, is perfectly viable.

Fears are farely rare in the game. I wouldn't worry about having a hole to Fear too much. Just carry a breakfree or two around with you and pop 'em when you need it.

Get Lucky. Having capped -def resist is very important to defense based sets. Getting Lucky will help prevent cascading defense failure, where as Darkest Night's primary function of -tohit is mostly wasted on a softcapped build. Plus, Lucky doesn't cost end

I've recently gotten my SS/WP to 50, and now I'd like to start another brute. I'm unsure of what to try next though. I want it to feel really BRUTISH and to get sucked in the way I did with my SS. Suggestions?

One possibility for it "feeling" like you get hit more is that Freakshow are heavy hitters. They're probably missing you most of the time, but when they do connect you certainly feel it. This means that every succesful hit gets brought to your attention, but every miss doesn't, making it "feel" like you're getting hit more often.

You forgot gelatinous. It's a gelatinous goo layer

[ QUOTE ]
Alright I have a SM/EA Brute at 50 and soft capped to all types except Psi. I also have a couple /SD that are soft capped. I get hit a loooot more when playing EA and it's quite annoying. Is positional defense just better overall? Also, one thing I was wondering about, does EA gain anything from having positional defense bonuses too? All 3 are at 35% and I noticed 0 difference. Even when I popped 3 Lucks, I still get hit a lot more than my /SDs, it feels like.

[/ QUOTE ]

To answer your question, No, EA doesn't gain anything from having positional defense. The way defense works is they take your highest defense and apply it towards the attack. Meaning if a mob throws at you a energy bolt comprised of smashing and energy damage, then your defense to Ranged, Smashing, and Energy is checked and whatever defense type you have a higher value to is used.

My guess is that your two experiences differ because of one or more of these factors:
1. It only "seems" like you get hit more often on EA. Whenever a new issue hits, there are always posts in the scrapper forms about how horribly inaccurate Dark Melee is, when really the hard numbers back up that they're hitting the correct number of times.

2. What enemies are you facing? Enemies that throw out lots of -defense affect EA more than SR because of the difference in -defense resist. SR has capped resists, EA doesn't.

3. As another poster posted, what Bosses are you facing? If you're doing AE missions (or just certain regular content bosses) sometimes they have sizable tohit buffs just to make defense characters squirm.

Siphon Life is now your third heaviest attack, and still has its decent heal attached. As for Midnight Grasp, the damage is now almost entirely front loaded, with a little bit left as a DoT. The only change to the PBAoEs that I know of is to Soul Drain. They front loaded its buff effects, meaning instead of getting a static amount of +dam and +tohit from each enemy, you now get what I think is +50% dam from the first enemy and then a much smaller amount for each additional enemy. Oh yeah, and they upped its cap from 7 to 10 targets.

As for Energy Aura, I believe there's a 3% heal attached to Energy Drain that's fully enhancable. Also, the biggest help to Energy Drain is that IO's now give bonuses to typed damage in addition to positional. Meaning, if a set bonus used to give 3.75% def to Ranged, now it'll give that bonus and another bonus worth have as much to two typed defenses. This allows EA Brutes to soft cap MUCH easier without having to go through all the rigamorale they used to.

No, Eletrical Armor wasn't changed.

To add to this already giant reply lol is the changes to WM. They gave clobber huge damage making it the heaviest hitting attack in the set, and they increase Crowd Control's target cap to 10 I believe.

I can't remember how long ago this happend, but just in case, I'll add it. Rage was changed so that the 10 seconds that used to be "Can Only Affect Self", is now 10 seconds of -900% damage, so all secondary powers like Invincibility or RttC or even Energy Drain still work, but you can't do no damage.

I think that's it as far as changes go. If I'm missing anything, someone feel free to jump in and add.

I took yet another look at it, and what I think I'll do is use just weave when facing non S/L foes, and use tough for S/L. If I get lucky and have a Miracle +recov drop, or if I get enough merits to craft it/random roll it, then I think I'll have enough end to run both.

Thanks a lot for the advice NiHilii! It's very appreciated.

Thanks for the feedback! I actually priced the kinetic combats awhile ago villain side, thinking that the prices on the hero market would be in the same ball park, but I suppose that was naive of me. I'll definitely make the switch.

As far as switching Unstoppable for CP, I think I'm going to have unstoppable until I get to 41 and then I'll respec. I really want to use it, as I've never gotten to use one of the epic tier 9's before, so I'll keep it until the novelty wears off and then trade it in for something that's up more often.

As for adding in Weave, I'd probably replace one of the passives (the energy one) for it. Problem is, do you really think I can handle another toggle? I'd like to be able to move at a steady pace from group to group.

I've wanted to see how good a build I could make on a Inv, with the goals of upping my defense and keeping everything end lite, while also keeping it within 100 mil. How'd I do? Any input is greatly appreciated!

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1399;699;1398;HEX;|
|78DAA5535B6F126110FD16D82E2D508A5868E90568E985B66 C8BFAA056EDDDA4B12|
|4D89AC607B5D9D2B5DD846C098BC6FAE40FA897A86FEA0F31 FE13FD05DE7E03CECC|
|5948DFDDC039EC7C3367CECCB295179B51A55EAD28AD7FA36 E79DEC15EAD69351A7|
|653AF58C74E4D194AA9C14EECA062D76DDBBC67B52CD7CA75 A39BF653DBF56C73DB|
|7DFEACEEDA4DEBD0A93BADB3C4B67B62376DB765767E44ABA 7A775F3AED3726DCFC|
|3CD8E6D351CF738E69F1C9FB4E82E217724E7788EAFB5D570 6AE6FAE9D1D941C5F2|
|5A76F36C888C15E97BCE0EE56AEBAA4A34A102F741BB42A13 DD03ED18CEAC91095D|
|532576952A5A9050945D3743FA65E1BFE01E969D0EB815E18 7A61E8F53D14BDBE23|
|C5556FA82AE857057F063814FD25D4FF1BF44768C0935E037 9A1DB54A5C385AEAF6|
|8AC776915B42674791DB42194DA147A475586786CEB061CA6 E070080E87E0308351|
|33E8758BAA7AD12BD8BBA47168F41AA82C347E5548A7BC08F 254A424A5068562080|
|562DBE2617C0B549084154A88FBDA7168E7A09D83680E2DDE 535EC2DF52E2AF2C24|
|8F2DE5B1A53CB634D912D9C9974261AA4AFAED93399C800AA 014250CFA9607C7259|
|4A6501A9DB4F4F70087CA3F843ED0C9B0EF6118DB2B607B05 6C6F1ADB9BC6F6A6F1|
|B759A3AA114D761E1C09CBEC3321900E32843483FDC3CA181 6FF914259BF6116D31|
|6316D11D316B189390C3D87A1D7A96AC21F7A020DE7D07001 136E50C21464035359|
|9CE44079A12025CC4221348BA751C2B329E16994F06C16AF0 8DDA1F479FF8D989F1|
|585C582D02A9D98FE8989D02212DED2C992EF61E9134D9154 E5CFA07931391AEABE|
|9CF4A14BED5C8C6041D550F78D539A246543DDB7F3BFAEAFD 18E4EEF6E1FE103862|
|AC33EC32386C70C4F182C864302ADC6BFDADFA21DABF1EB6C E806C34D866586734E|
|322204118628438CA19F21CE30C0906448316418BE30B4FF0 1260AEE48|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|</pre><hr />