TheBruteSquad

Since it's predictable you could always carry a few large purples (the +25% defense ones) for such rare occasions. Especially since preventing def from dropping is technically a bug. Prepare now, less raging later in the unlikely event someone fixes it.

Greens and browns. I love earth tones.

Paired with a Stalker your single target damage won't be as important as your aoe damage, to spread Gauntlet around and keep the enemies on you. Fire, Battle Ax, and War Mace are pretty good - many AoEs at low levels. Superstrength is 'king' of AoE *eventually* but since you'd have to wait until 38 for Footstomp that doesn't do your brother spine-spamming brother any good.

Without healing you're going to have to be able to patch yourself up. Dark, Fire, Elec, and WP are all good for that.

I'd suggest a WP/Fire tanker. Fire's many aoes make up for Rise to the Challenge's weaker than average taunt aura. WP is sturdy as hell with minimal investment and little need for external buffing.

Lead with Taunt, go in first, and hit Combustion. Nothing besides AoEs should be hitting your brother for the rest of the fight after that.

edit: The situation Aett describes - aggro being split upon the spawn seeing you - is the reason to lead with Taunt to nab the entire group's attention. If you have superspeed or a stealth IO you can get close enough to do this without any chance of overflow going after the stalker and ruining his assassin strike.

I was hoping either Statesman or Recluse would be teleported in by a mysterious voice that was guiding you through an escape from an alien slave ship during the tutorial finale to help you destroy it.

His agility and dexterity are superhuman and he's a genius. I don't find tailoring too far a stretch to pick up quickly for someone with those things going for him.

It will come down to the story and the acting for me. If he's a convincing Peter Parker and a convincing Spider Man in a decent plot I'll be happy.

The number is legion. I don't play characters with less than two paragraphs bio (usually 800 to max characters is more common) and I've deleted dozens of characters ranging from level 2 to 38.

Stand outs include

Singularita - grav/kin controller. A 'magic girl' type who considered hero work a lot of fun and games... until the Banished Pantheon sacrificed her best friend. Deleted because after 33 levels the grav sound effects finally got to me.

Hugh Manatee - an ocean dwelling mammal-man mutant, come to Paragon to explore the world above and do some good. Deleted for being a man-imal.

Phantom Porcupine - A delusional 'martin stu' (in his own mind) spines/sr scrapper. Really fun to play, especially faceplanted in a mission. Deleted for getting powerful enough to live up to his boasts.

Smartlink - A Shadowrun Street Samurai inspired character design who has been every AT possible that features AR or DP, as well as a Thugs and Mercs MM. Just haven't found one that wowed me enough to want to put the effort in (traps is closest, but I have a bots/traps at 50 and don't like the set enough to level another).

Victoria Strange - A Cthululian horror inspired tentacle monster in a womans body. Used flesh colored plant control for the effects. Deleted because some guy fell in love with 'her' at the D, and I felt bad for him.

Granite's not that bad on brutes. The damage penalty really isn't all that noticeable and the recharge penalty can be worked around by slotting more recharge in your attacks than you otherwise would (unless you habitually slot 99% in each). Or taking an extra attack or two.

That said a well built inv or wp will be almost as unkillable while retaining the ability to leap over curbs.

Pre-40 CoT are pretty mean too. That's probably it.

Earth casters utterly neuter your defense, spectrals flatten your accuracy, pre-granite you don't have a lot of resistance to negative energy which is what they're using, and conversely their ghosts resist negative energy.

In short they floor your defense, floor your accuracy, resist your attacks, and do more damage than you're used to with their own.

You'll get your revenge post 40 when they become one of the weakest factions in the game.

Nope. There have been no changes to Stone Armor. Are you sure you're not just spending more time fighting Longbow or Arachnos or Carnies or Malta? All four are pretty dangerous in their own way, even if you're running Granite.

I actually have a level 33 elec/nin who escaped purging because I really liked his story and costume. He just hadn't been played for 215 days. I've read your guide... it's interesting to throw the pseudo-pets in for extra dps. After reading it I did a quick respec and went on an zone boss murdering spree (my preferred way to level a stalker. More reliable levels of bosses about than setting a mission for x2). It's got potential.

Or perhaps in the modern game the true complaint is too many melee DPS ATs.

Outside of anomalous builds currently I believe it breaks down something like this:

Scrappers - High damage, moderate-high survival, limited team aggro control (single target primary, some secondaries have a taunt aura)

Brutes - Moderate-High damage, high survival, team aggro control (multi target primary, every attack made primary, every secondary has a taunt aura)

Stalkers - Moderate-high damage, moderate survival, no team aggro control

Bane/Night Widow - Moderate-high damage, moderate survival, no team aggro control, heavy team buffs

Tanker - Moderate damage, very high survival, superior team aggro control (multi target primary, multi target every attack made primary, every secondary)

If you're looking for damage, why not take a scrapper? If you're looking for tanking why not grab a brute or a tanker? If you're looking for stealthing a TF why not grab a Night Widow or Bane (similar damage, buff the team to boot)?

(Lets disregard that an argument can be made that you can answer all of the above with 'why not grab an illusion/rad controller' )

(And my own personal 'like' order is Brute - Stalker - Tanker - Scrapper. While I have yet to get a Stalker to 50 they tend to survive longer before being deleted than my Scrapper attempts, and I'll never level a second Tanker to 50).

It doesn't get more Brutish than Stone Melee.

Screen shake so nice, I Incarnate leveled it twice. (Sm/Wp, Sm/Elec).

You've got big stone hammers, you have Seismic Smash, you have screen shaking punches, you have a foot stomp that sends everything staggering at level 8, you have Seismic Smash, you have a jump in the air and hit the ground so hard everything falls over tier 9 attack. And you have Seismic Smash.

It. Is. Glorious.

(Also endurance intensive with any kind of recharge. Best paired with a secondary that can help with that.)

If you care more about damage than toughness then yes. The two things the brute has going for it are more health, so those defense numbers and resist numbers go further, and a higher resistance cap so they can buff themselves to 90% resistances with oranges in a pinch.

Yeah, I was figuring that the new character gen screen is a little optimistic.

Regardless, I'm thinking I might go with Dark again. It's my favorite melee set and it's not heavily resisted so the assassin strikes should look impressive even late game. Maybe the last time I tried it the secondary (elec) was bumming me out. Dark/elec is a decent brute pairing but it just didn't work for me for some reason as a stalker.

I thought I'd heard somewhere (probably in a global channel) that auras suppress when hidden these days? If so, /dark could be interesting - a character with a use for the mez auras and the low hit points don't mean much with the amount of healing overkill dark regen is notorious for.

Correct. You have to be a full villain to start the Patron Arcs.

Screencaps of the new playstyle tab in the I21 character creator floating around at Massively describe the melee damage role like this:

"Your playstyle focuses on devastating attacks made from melee range, with Archetypes like the Scrapper, Stalker, and, to a lesser extent, Brute."

I've always wanted to level a stalker to 50 - traditionally I like stealth classes in MMOs - but have always found their damage a little anemic compared to their other melee brethren. To be fair I've only tried Spines, Ninja Blade, Dark Melee, Energy Melee, and Electric Melee to post SO levels (and deleted them around level 33-34). Which combos blow Brute damage out of the water, assuming both are using SOs of course?

Between the two I'd say WP.

Inv's resistances are great against smash/lethal but only fair against everything else on a scrapper or brute. Wp's resistance is good against smash lethal and practically non-existant against everything else.

Inv has dull pain, which is handy. WP has basically Instant Healing as a Toggle, which is insanely handy.

Once you get your defenses into the 32%+ range really it's THEM that are doing the heavy lifting in keeping you alive. Resistances underneath are great, unquestionably, but so is rapidly regenerating every little bit of damage that gets through.

Arachnos and Vanguard will make mulch out of many armor sets. Including Inv. Don't go by them. That said I happily plow through Arachnos on x8 with bosses on with my SM/WP - same as I do every other enemy group.

However, with enough investment I'm convinced the King of Raging Death Machine is Electric armor.

Once your defenses are higher than 32% (hard to do, but worth it) you have its resistances underneath. They include heavy smash/lethal resistance, capped energy resistance, functional immunity to energy drain, and even psi resistance. It has a 50% heal that recharges faster than dull pain and even boosts regen and lowers endurance costs for a bit.

For other tools Power Sink gives it unlimited endurance and it even comes with a 25% global recharge boost from lightning reflexes. And it has a damage aura.