Siolfir

So are the free server transfers extended as well? >.>

I keep running out right around 3-4 hours after they refresh!

Changing things up a bit, I'm going with Sleet/Freezing Rain.

Sure, it's only -30% defense - but it's also -30% resistance, does half the damage of Ice Storm, acts as a mini-Ice Slick both in KD and slow, the -def/-res is sticky even if they leave the area, and it recharges quickly enough to be stacked with good slotting and a bit of +recharge. If you're doing -defense, I'm assuming that it's because you want to kill something faster; this helps that a great deal and does it each and every spawn.

In terms of "powerful", I'll take that. Melt Armor is only even considered a worthwhile power since it's one of two debuffs in an otherwise pure buff set - the stats on it are garbage in comparison to other debuffs (Anguishing Cry has more -def on a shorter recharge) - and that it's a ranged, target-based, relatively long-duration click debuff (40s)... factors which matter when you're trying to chase down someone in PvP when they may or may not go where you want them to for location-based debuffs and debuff toggles are so easily shut off.

Happy holidays to all (except for those pesky Winter Lords - they can die in a fire).

Does EM need more AoE damage? Ehh.... well, Whirling Hands certainly shouldn't be worse damage than Whirling Mace, given that they're the same radius, same animation, same chance to stun for the same duration, same endurance cost, and same recharge.

If not a boost in base damage for Whirling Hands, then a guaranteed stun (and to whomever suggested 45 seconds to match Flashfires, go look at Hand Clap, Lightning Clap, Fault, and other melee AoE stuns. Or just shut up since you obviously don't have any idea what you're talking about). It lacks in AoE damage and AoE mitigation. Stone Melee is arguably worse for AoE damage due to Tremor's ridiculously long animation time, but has great AoE mitigation and similar single-target damage on an average recharge build (and far better potential due to Seismic Smash and Heavy Mallet).

I only kept my EM/Elec Brute after the nerf since she was my badge collector and I didn't want to have to get Weathergirl again - but after two years of sitting on mothballs the addition of Energize gave me a reason to try her out again. Yes, my SM/WP (who incidentially has more recharge) does more damage to a single target, with more safety. But Willpower doesn't have a damage aura, and with Ball Lightning, Lightning Field, and even the underwhelming Whirling Hands (!) the EM/Elec can put out better AoE damage, get close on single-target, and still provide enough survivability that I don't feel like I'm completely wasting my time (although admittedly, most of that is due to Lightning Field). Yes, I could do substantially better than that with a different powerset combination - but I already had this character at 50, and the difference in speed isn't worth levelling up another Brute with a more AoE-happy primary to me. The difference between "bottom feeder" and "great" isn't as large as the drama you see here occasionally would have you believe.

Will I make another EM Brute? Hell no. The feel of the set changed, and you just won't get that same feel back. I miss the feel of the old EM, and that's what got me started playing DM. If the only reason it was nerfed was due to how far out of the "standard formulas" the powers were, then they should at least get powers that are below the spec up to par - thus a buff to WH.

And as for "the [Brute] primary of choice for soloing AVs"... I made the SM Brute prior to the changes to EM because I was tired of taking so much self-damage from ET. At the time I made her, the animation times for both of the mallets were 1.13 seconds (they were raised to 1.61 and 1.63 prior to the EM changes), which made SM better than EM - even with a 1sec ET for sustained single-target at high but not extreme recharge, and at extreme recharge ET was crippling yourself due to the self-damage and you had to take time out of attacking to heal or you'd kill yourself.

There was no reason whatsoever to take EM for anything outside of stacking stuns on a single target to break mez protection and extreme single-target burst... which was only useful in pre-i13 PvP. It simply wasn't the best at anything else, even then.

Don't forget Gloom in your attack chain (and Dark Obliteration for AoE).

As for survivability, you probably could cap to S/L and either E/N or F/C, but I don't really think it'd be worthwhile. Just having Fault, Rise to the Challenge, Indomitable Will and enough recovery to maintain them is enough survival for 99.99% of the encounters in the game. If you're really worried, pick up Darkest Night since you'll be taking Gloom for DPS anyway.

My SM/WP has Tough and Weave, and a focus on recharge (roughly 152% global with at least 60% in every attack). With roughly 18% S/L defense, upper 20s for E/N/F/C, and without DN, I rarely ever even have to hit Strength of Will: usually it's more for endurance recovery than anything else. If your hit points drop to half, hit Fault and watch them shoot back up.

My DM/EA/Soul skipped Dampening Field, Energy Protection, Conserve Power, and Overload... of those, the only one I'd think about adding would be Overload, and that's solely for the +hp. If nothing else, look at Energy Cloak as a savings on the build of around 100m worth of IOs (on the low end) to make up the ~6% defense to all.

She has Darkest Night on top of 44.2% (Neg)->54.2%(En) defenses, S/L/F/C at 47-48%, with positionals at 22.6/27/24.8 (M/R/A) and Psi at 17%. Those numbers combined with Siphon Life and, if really necessary, Energy Drain keep my hit points topped off against almost everything (DE Quartz are a problem, as are Earth Stone Casters - I don't run into much trouble with Arachnos despite the Tarantula Mistresses since they're less frequent). I could rearrange things to get better numbers in several areas, but I also tried to get at least some global recharge out of it (she's at ~124%).

I don't consider it worth the extra amount of recharge needed to make it "perma" vs just a 2-3 second downtime - I'd need to get roughly half again as much recharge as I already have to get rid of the downtime, and that'd involve some drastic changes which would lower the overall survivability of the build just for the sake of 3 extra seconds of Energize.

A newt?

Realistically, I'd say that you can ignore the amount of time it takes to get things into the radius of the 15' AoEs, a little time for 10' (mobs aren't exactly fast to move), and a couple/few seconds for 8' - roughly as much as you'd spend lining up a cone to max it out. If you end up herding, then the amount of time waiting on trailing mobs eats into it and the only thing you care about at all is AoE burst (insert Elec/Shield - Scrapper specifically - here).

I'm also very curious how you figured out cycle time - considering that my SM/WP Brute runs at ~150% global and at least 60% slotted in each attack, I'd say that a huge chunk of Tremor's cycle time is eaten up by the animation (which is, incidentally, why I don't have it and use Dark Obliteration for AoE damage).

The -health didn't count towards the numbers; it would've been an interesting way to artificially inflate the numbers, tho!