Spiritchaser

Stone applies substantial debuffs. These probably ARE too easy to overcome in a team setting, but certainly solo they are formidable.

I'm not quite sure what you're thinking of invul.

To equate the performance of WP with current ele is not the path of wisdom.

I've got a few level 50 EAs, and I'd say they rely more on pools, or IOs or mitigation from the primary than anything short of /Ele... of course that's getting a buff...

edit: now in fairness, my mako cone blast brute probably cannot exist as anything EXCEPT EA... at least there is one thing the set does that other sets cant.

I think the opinion of the OP IS important.

Not because it's fair to assume everything about a set after playing it for a day, with one build.
Not because I think he's got the best build for the level, he probably doesn't
Not because I think he's got the best idea of how to play the set perfectly, that's probably not the case.

I think the opinion is important because I heard similar from other EA players and I think it probably reflects how a lot of people plan to use EA, and how a lot of people are let down by what they get in the set and when they get it, especially if they play next to brutes who are throwing together random powers from other secondarys and doing well.

In my opinion, every brute, has the right to expect to be able to survive against 5 even con minions provided they're not purely antithetical to your powerset. I know the rule is three, but brutes, in my opinion, should consider the bare minimum to be 5. Most brutes can do this after all.

At some levels, in many builds, EA will NOT be able to do this without pools or IOs. That's a problem

Does EA allow you to IO the bejezuz out of it at high, or even mid levels? probably softcapping before most SRs do? sure. Does EA allow you to run extra toggles for weave? sure. Can you IO for regen and heavy runspeed so you can skip health and swift and then do without stamina and the fitness pool all together? With EA you can. Will Siphon life or fault make you live? Yes, yes they will.

Many players won't want to IO their character, or won't have much mitigation in their primary. They'll try to build an EA and play it with the powers they get in the set, they'll expect any primary to be viable for EA, they'll use cloak to sneak around and only aggro 4-5 mobs... and they will die.

Should they be expected to learn to use the strengths of the set? sure. Learn to use stealth, that should take at least 10 minutes... but stealth won't limit your aggro to less than 5 in many situations. Certainly you can expect to have to deal with 4. In my opinion, you still need to be able to take that many. Fighting Arachnoids as Ele? ok, fair enough, you're in trouble. You should be. Fighting against pure psi as /EA? that's also going to be a problem, and that's ok, that's your weakness... but 5 even con freaks should not be a death sentence against an SO'd build, and if your build relies on EA's powers alone, it can be.

Knowing "how to play EA" requires a more in depth knowledge of "how to build EA" than any other armor set I can think of, and if you do know, if you do spend the inf and build strong, you most probably don't get enough of a payback. With maybe a very few excpetions, your work doesn't get you ahead of what other sets get with similar work. If you have to start lower, you should end up just a little higher. You don't, and that's another valid problem.

EA doesn't need energize in place of CP. It comes too late, and it does too much. Energize wouldn't help lower level EAs at all, and would have higher level IO'd EAs competing with IO'd WP for overall power. EA needs a smaller survival boost that comes much earlier.

Something that lets players like the OP just sneak around and smash stuff.

I think SO balance might be more of an issue when (if) parry becomes available. High melee defence, high HP, regen, QR and then also a solid SL resist toggle would make some things I can think of a bit too harmless... of course quite a few sets would find that to be the case with parry, regen (as you propose it) would probably just be the worst offender of a bad bunch.

I don't think it's all that interesting really.

Regen, assuming similar powers and power order to the existing set, gives you:

-A VERY fast start
-The capacity to pick your moment. You can be very durable when you have to be, provided you have time to recharge your clicks. Against tough single bosses (not so much EBs and AVs) this is good, or of course it's good in PvP... but I think brutes are not currently the right choice in PvP anyway...
-A relatively high solo immortality line out of the box, at the cost of generally somewhat lower burst survival with clicks down, and at the cost of it being rather harder to augment this value with anything but +recharge.

There's a lot of psi redside, and thus a lot of -recharge. There's a real need for brutes to take Alphas on a regular basis, not just when dull pain is up. There's no taunt aura in regen which might be a good thing in some ways, but it won't help you soak aggro any. Brutes cannot yet take parry. Brutes already tend to start as fast as I'd ever really need.

Sure you can perma dull pain. Sure the brute HP cap is high. Sure you can cut down the recharge on IH and MoG, throw on tough and stack IO def. I'm certain it'd be a viable set... but for min maxing? I'm just not sure why I'd pick it over WP for most PvE content. Heck, if they actually give EA energize (doubtful in my opinion but hey, who knows) I'm not sure why I'd pick regen over /EA for anything short of the odd rularuu spawn.

To me an angel is all about a blazing sword and fiery retribution. I'm sure others might fixate on other types of angels, but for me, I'd go either Fire/WP or BS/WP for a scrapper (soon to be fire/WP/Blaze!), or I'd do WP/Fire/Pyre for a tank.

These are all good combos from a game mechanics point of view as well.

Either way, I'd drop the stealth IO into sprint or CJ for a semi-ethereal look, and call it good.

Now, the only actual "Angelic" characters I've made have been fire/EA "fallen angel" Brutes. The combination of the ghosted energy cloak look with the "angelesque" costume parts and with a pitch black skin tone (with or without glowing eyes) under a pale hood makes for a great setup in my opinion, but I'm guessing there's a large conceptual gap between "fallen angel" and what you're probably looking for.

Once they either proliferate EA or they allow porting a character in GR, this might be an option though.

What I don't think it should be is energize.

No confusion on your part, just that it seems most unlikely that EA would be allowed two CPs, and IF the next mu power is CP then it's at least interesting to think about what might happen to EA.

Which, again, raises the question of /EA...

Must... Know... Answer...

heh...

What did that mean for /EA?

or do we know yet?

EDIT: because if EA gets energize, then imo, EA is getting VERY powerful in the late game.

Just pondering what it might be...

1. Tesla Cage single target hold. Useful for nearly everyone, simple, easy, effective. No brute can currently take a ranged ST hold from the patron pool, and I don't think this one would break anything.

2. Short Circuit. A bit less likely here, but still possible. This would be very helpful for /EA and Ele, not so much for everyone else.

3. CP gets replaced on EA as well as Ele, and is added to the Mu pool. A nice thought, personally my "favourite", but to me it seems unlikely. Much as I'd love to exploit energize on /EA, I don't think it's really the right design choice for that set, but hey, who says /EA needs the same power that /Ele gets?

4. Static Discharge... Well, the Mako pool has a couple of AoEs so it could happen.

5. Voltaic Sentinal... Oh dear god no... please not this...

6. Lightning Storm... Hell ya... now you're talking... but not likely to happen in my opinion.

7. EM Pulse. Seems unbelievably unlikely...

The biggest potential issue I see with pyre mastery? It's got two effective ST ranged attacks. That could be fine, but I wouldn't be surprised if they changed RoF to something else.

Single power I'd most like to see in that set, but which I'm nearly certain we never will?
Easy. Heat Exhaustion. They'd NEVER give us that.

Personally I most love the clap powers for their toyistic (is that a word?) value, and for fun utility WITHOUT locking out knockdown. It's also great in the earlier levels before defences have really solidified. It's not fault, but it's still plenty useful.

Now, IF, when the pyre mastery pool is transferred as blaze mastery to scrappers, the ring of fire is traded for minimized fire cages (not a TOTALLY impossible event) then I imagine there might be an opportunity for some very serious trollscrapping.

That said, even with the mu pool option, the clap powers haven't really shown up in my brute end game builds. There are probably things that could require it, rogue vanguard etc. but they're not common enough that I care much. I also rather like the GW or Mako pools.

I wouldn't be too terribly shocked if the power DID make it into the scrapper set... largely because of the concept of the thing, but also partly because of the oddities invoked by imagining what might take it's place... a ST control? Range? a debuff?

What tool would you propose a scrapper should use to prevent clap from KBing most foes out of OpGloom Range?

Walls exist, corners are fine, dumpsters are fun... but it's definitely more situational for a scrapper than for a SS/Dark/Mu or Ele/Dark/Mu brute who can use the immob to lock down the KB.

EDIT: All that said, I agree that clap IS an entirely new capacity for a scrapper. Assuming that it does get ported, it offers a level of AoE control beyond any current scrapper primary.

Clearly the cottage can become a cabin or a chalet. It's just unlikely to become a mini-golf.