Supermax

Mauk summed it up pretty well. I will also suggest elec/elec. It's very fun. The crazy AoE damage makes you feel very powerful. Dark melee is the exact opposite. Probably the best ST damage of all the sets, but pretty much no AoE at all, which sucks.

In general people don't hand out builds. Post your own, and people will give you advice on it. Or at least they used to. These forums are pretty dead these days, so it may be hard to get advice.

Quick advice: You want to have a ton of KB protection, and as much +HP as you can get. And hibernate or phase shift is 100% mandatory, as are super speed and super jump.

My elec/elec scrapper has become one of my favorite toons lately. But for farming, the scatter of mobs is extremely annoying. They're constantly running all over, which adds time to every single spawn. So for farming I'd say the brute would definitely be better.

For teaming either will work, but like you said, scrappers have the advantage of instantly jumping into a fight and contributing max damage, without any warmup.

Yeah after some more thought, I realized I didn't really want to play dark armor. I've put it off since 2004, so might as well keep putting it off. So I think I will wait for the new EA before making a new brute

I think I found the solution. Stone is out since it doesn't have enough AoE for my tastes. And I think I'll just make both an axe and a mace....one DA and one EA. Any thoughts on which primary would synergize more with which secondary? I'm thinking DA would go well with mace, to stack the stuns with OG?

Thanks for the input everybody. It sounds like all 3 are great sets, so I'm still not sure. To narrow it down, I guess I will have to pick the one that doesn't just FEEL powerful, but actually is the most powerful. Which does the most raw damage?

I really like AoE damage, so it seems that Stone is out, since it seems to clearly have the least of the three. Can others confirm Colossal's claim that WM will generally outdamage Axe? Is WM really better in both ST and AoE damage?

And lastly, I read somewhere that WM will most likely be better on scrappers than brutes. Is there truth to this? I wouldn't want to make one AT, if the same set is clearly better on another.

Yes, I was leaning towards stone, but the end use is what scares me, considering I would most likely be dark armor, another end hog. I'd like to hear from some WM and axe players as well so see their thoughts.

I don't want to have any toons with overlapping powersets, so this leaves only 3 available melee sets for me. Technically DB and KM are also options, but I couldn't stand the KM animations and the DB combos don't appeal to me.

So I'm looking on input on the 3 weapon sets in the subject. What are the pros/cons of each, as compared to each other? Axe seems like pretty much a clone of Broadsword. I already have a BS scrapper, so that's probably out. What about the other 2? Most likely I would be pairing it with dark armor...or maybe the new EA when it comes out.

Also, are any of these sets significantly better on scrappers or tanks (like how claws is clearly better on brutes than scrappers)?

My only brute is a mid-30's claws/WP, which I really enjoy. But claws is not very brutish....it's more scrappering or stalkerish due to its high speed. I'd like to make another, more "brutish" brute.

EA is getting a complete rehaul soon, so I would wait for that before making changes to or planning a new build. It's going to be a pretty different and overall much better set.

What annoys me is the fact that they're still lying about it instead of just saying "No, we don't have any plans to do anything with PvP".

Saying stuff like "We don't know who on our team could work on this" sounds pretty silly. If you don't have anybody on the team that can do it, that means you're not gonna do it. Just tell the truth, and let people move on.

I also like how he completely ignored the actual question.

On mine I wanted more AoE, so I went with blaze mastery for fireball. I got fireblast but don't use it much. Instead I mostly use the chain of CB-JL-CB-CI, which is supposed to be the best for elec.

Probably a better idea would be villain Mu mastery, since I could get about the same AoE, but with 1 less power pick. But so far I've been too lazy to switch to vil side.

But in the end it kind of depends on what you want more of, damage, survivability, or endurance.

For judgement, I think Ion makes sense, since it's an energy attack basically. For reactive, really anything would fit easily, since you could just say that you have a new ammo type with an extra effect. For destiny, probably barrier makes the most sense, since it's like turning on a shield. But really anything other than rebirth could easily fit your theme. And for lore, it's all up to personal taste.

Yes it's still a very good combo. The ST damage is somewhat lacking, but can be made pretty respectable. The AoE damage is amazing though. And the teleport nukes just make you feel very powerful.

Very briefly, WP is horrible in PvP. That said, you should probably just ignore PvP when planning toons, since it's basically completely dead anyway. In PvE, fire/WP is very good. Fire is great, but it does have one negative aspect: zero mitigation. With WP that can hurt, since sometimes you could use a few seconds of not being attacked to regen lost health. Sets with knockback, end drain, etc can help with that, but fire is just pure damage. Still, you definitely won't feel useless anywhere in PvE. In PvP you will get destroyed though, but it's so ridiculously broken, it's not worth the extra effort of planning for it.

Aight, sounds like more people are leaning towards the radial. Thanks again guys.

Thanks for the replies.

Is the damage debuff resistable by AV's? I'm pretty sure it's not, but wanted to confirm.

Without really looking at the specific slotting...

Are you sure you want to go without lightning field? PBAoE auras add quite a lot of damage over time. You're wasting a pick on an unslotted tactics, so you could replace that with LF.

Also, you could probably pick a more useful epic pool. With a well slotted power sink, endurance should not be an issue at all. On my elec/elec I went with Pyre for fireball, but I think the most popular choices are mu or soul from villain side.

So between the core and radial tier 4's, is there a common agreement on which is better? The core essentially has a 20% chance damage proc, while the radial has an increased number of targets and a damage debuff.

Is the extra possible damage from core worth losing out on the extra targets? And what are the exact numbers on the targets? Mids doesn't seem to show them. The damage debuff isn't really relevant to me.