TheBruteSquad

Praetorian clockwork have flamethrowers so if anything I'd put them in my 'mixed' list. Also they have -regen, which reduces Energizes healing by a lot if your numbers are accurate.

I may be, but I don't believe I am. Enemy groups that have fire damage usually have energy damage (Carnies, Council, Malta, late game Circle of Thorns). More have energy damage but no fire (Arachnos, Tsoo, late game PPD, the Rikti, Freakshow) than have fire but no energy damage (Longbow outside of a few Wardens, Cimerorans) so I'll give you that energy damage is more common than fire damage. Elec's area of expertise comes up more often. However, I didn't think I was downplaying it. I'd already listed several late game groups as 'problem groups' that elec all but ignores.

I've never noticed energizes regeneration bonus to play a factor is how long my electric brute stays on her feet, but that's anecdotal evidence instead of quantifiable. How large a bonus is it by the numbers?

Well, let's look at the numbers. Before enhancing - Elec/Fire

Smash/Lethal: 26.25/22.5
Energy: 61.9/22.5
Negative Energy: 22.5/22.5
Fire: 26.25/67.5
Cold: 26.25/22.5
Psi: 26.25/0
Toxic: 0/15 after healing flames

Resistance wise they're very close to each other - electric armor ignores energy damage and fire ignores fire damage. Electric armor does get psi resistance so it does come out slightly ahead by base numbers.

Until their self heals are factored in: Healing Flames heals for more and recharges faster (40 seconds vs 120 seconds).

With similar numbers (except for one area of expertise each) and with Fire Aura having a self heal that comes up three times as often at base numbers how is electric armor NOT squishier than Fire Aura against 'most things' as I stated?

(Note: I didn't mention Electric Armor's god mode because like all god modes it's unreliable in general play. It's there, though, and it's a thing of brutastic beauty.)

If it ain't broke, don't fix it?

Most of my characters got a respec or two to accommodate inherent fitness but there are a few that just... don't need anything else. They have all the powers they want slotted how they want them. The build COULD be reworked to include a few new toggles from the fighting pool or leadership but that just messes with their current endurance sustainability for no useful reason.

WP doesn't offer much for offense, no, but there's a lot to be said for not dying. I beg to differ about the 'average' survivability of a pre-IO WP. Against smash/lethal enemies who are NOT level 40+ longbow WP is well above average in its survival and its well rounded defenses in heightened senses mean there are very few kryptonite groups out there for you.

Elec is squishier than fire against most things but it does get the ability to say 'screw you' to several troublesome enemies (Peacebringer PPD, Malta Sappers, Carnies in general) to make up for it. Like fire it gets a lot better when you throw defense bonuses at it... but since they're both about the same cost to softcap you have to ask yourself which is more important to you: unlimited endurance (Elec) or unrivaled damage (Fire).

Fire is lousy in large mobs until you start throwing defense bonuses at it, as mentioned... then it becomes a primordial force of nature.

In summary:

WP = cheap, dependable, able to handle large mobs of several common factions on SOs. Elec = pricey, damage aura, recharge bonus, unlimited endurance. Fire = pricey, unrivaled damage output.

No, it's not too good. It has empty slots because she's only got 20 million inf and I haven't bothered giving her some more. I rate sets based on their SO performance so it's a mostly SO build because she's not level 50 yet. My contention, light as it is, with energy armor is NOT its performance once you've turned it into a well honed death machine like ANY OTHER ARMOR set with that much money dumped into it. It's with the trip up. That's why comments like 'I farm +4/x8' mean nothing to me where comments like 'softcapped exemped to 25' DO.

Eventually I *may* stop being lazy and slot the two sets of kinetic combats to be softcapped without having to hit anything to get there. Eventually. That said it IS functionally softcapped most of the time... opening with dark obliteration for the --to hit pushes every position to above softcap values at +0 difficulty. My dark melee chain stacks something like -15% to hit in about 4 seconds against whatever poor ******* I'm attacking. Dark makes everything better.

Running Darkest Night on top of it for another 12(?)% to hit debuff pushes most values to 60% defense or higher unless they have to hit debuff resistance. No need for the extra defense overkill for Ajax, really. It's nothing using Overload or popping one of the many, many large lucks I carry, which are several billion cheaper for those rare times when you need to pass the softcap. A large luck even softcaps psi (bye bye psi hole).

And she's a monster. A destroyer. A ruiner of enemy hopes and dreams, able to crush any enemy faction or any elite boss she's ever encountered effortlessly. I use Dark Consumption more than I use Energy Drain because I need the enemies damaged far more often than I need healing. Until I try and tank for a large team, where 50% DDR compared to SR's 95% begins to show. *Especially* against high level PPD in tip mission teams (and I am softcapped to energy... 48%... without launching a single attack) but Council and Longbow can get their licks in too (even a x2 spawn will usually reduce my defense 4 to 7%. That's when I'm tanking for my friend, a Crab Spider, so his leadership buffs are softcapping all my defenses).

I'd still like to see your softcapped when exempted to level 25 build. I'm not being snide or doubting when I say that. I'd honestly like to see. There would be a lot to learn about slotting Energy Aura from it.

Ah, the glory of shield paladins.

In my opinion in SO leveling play without taking primaries into consideration or applying all the IO set shenanigans to bring regen's defenses up Regeneration is one of the squishier defensive sets - literally living or dying based on how fast its powers recharge.

There are boss types I just won't engage without dull pain and instant healing running because they will *kill* you faster than reconstruction animates (Bane Spider Executioners and Master Illusionists are particularly good at this trick). If you're playing at a setting that gives you one or two bosses per mission that's fine. If you're playing at a setting that gives you one boss per spawn... it's less fine. Doable of course - My bs/regen without any defensive set bonuses took out the better part of 17 or 18 arachnos bosses over the course of 'One Good Spider' - but he had to work for it, where my other scrappers/brutes doing that mission (wp, sr, and shield) didn't.

Once you do apply all the set based shenanigans it's one of the stronger secondaries - when damage does get through to you, you'll always have a heal (or three) to deal with it.

If you were to use the table to hit armor class 0 you'd want to build a melee to have as low an AC as possible. -10. Which is AC 30 in 3rd and 4th edition, which isn't impressive at all. No, kids these days compete at -20 to -25 AC. Dang whippersnappers. In my day, you had a -10, were hit on a 2 or higher on D20 by everything anyways, and you liked it!

(Sidenote, 4th edition is my favorite edition and I've been playing since 86. Once its splatbook cheese catches up to 3rd edition levels, which killed 3rd for me, 2nd edition will retake its place as my favorite.)

When I'm looking to form a PuG to do something I tend to favor Tankers over Brutes because I can trust them to do their job better accidentally - they're tougher by default so build is less important, they AoE taunt with every attack so they're stickier by default.

A good brute build will beat a good tanker build most other times, though. Toughness is key - you do no damage when dead - but as mentioned it's easier to make a brute nigh-invulnerable than it is to make a tanker a dps force of nature (though that is possible. Shield/SS tankers actually outdamage a fair number of brute builds.)

Putting someone in a costume just triggers flashbacks of watching the 60s Batman tv show for a lot of people, I'm sure, including writers and actors but mostly the audience. Superhero costumes are inherently silly. They bring a level of camp just by their very existence in a television show.

Batman gets away with it (ironically enough) in the movies from the 80s on because it's armor. It looks like armor. It acts like armor. People get the need for body armor. The fact that it's dull black helps, too, and helps people get over the fact that he's wearing a cape.

A brute. Any will do. Brutes do SO levels of damage within a few seconds of hitting 'play'. Grab a secondary that gives you your mez protection at level 10 (most of them), turn it on, and let your damage take care of the rest.

I'd make it so that no pictures of female werewolves anywhere had breasts.

Interesting build. I like the six slot integration as a place to dump the numina and get some ranged defense. Very pricey, but undeniably effective. Even just adding a few makos for ranged defense might help my woes a little, as would going redside to grab shadowmeld (Ghost Widow must feel utterly jilted by now by all the scrappers who promise to serve her, learn her tricks, and then scamper back to Paragon).

Food for thought. He lives another day.

Hmm. Well, I can certain throw a few billion at the poor guy and get that defense up. I know it will help I just don't know if it's worth the investment. Since it starts with no defense like any resist set wouldn't said resist sets with a heal be more effective in the long run? What can a bs/regen with high defense do that a bs/fire, /dark, or /elec can't? (Let alone a bs/wp or /inv with aid self).

But those concerns are ultimately unrelated to the thread. Defense will indeed help out the bs/regen. Anyone have a build example? I've build enough high smash/lethal defense builds to know kinetic combats, weave, steadfast, maneuvers, and combat jump backwards and forwards but haven't played with the other defense types or untyped defense builds enough to know where to start.

Pretty dull overall, and the 'rise to new levels of power' section in particular. Without knowing what was going those 'incarnate' powers just look like all the other powers used in the video: Showing the effect of them on enemies (blowing a room full of minions to bits at least) would have helped.

The music was nice and Praetoria looks as shiny as ever.

When discussing epics you might want to put some thought into what Darkest Night from soul mastery can do for a dark armor brute. Its -to hit stacks nicely with cloak of fears and sort of indirectly cloak of darkness's defense. Its -dam gives your native resistances to *everything* a boost.

For my dark/dark/dark running Darkest Night is the difference between x8 with ease and x4 with ease. Granted, Fault and Oppressive gloom stunning everything around you diminishes its usefulness for a sm/dark but against heavy hitters it's still worth its weight in blue bar in my opinion.

Which, of course, is the downside. It's Yet Another Huge Endurance Drain.

This was the first thing I did with the animal pack for one of my characters pretty much the hour it went live. Of course you're not so much smoking as smoke-hyper-ventilating but it gets the point across.

Most of the 'healthy' cereals contain at least 9 grams of sugar per bowl. Sure, they have higher levels of fiber and much better vitamins and minerals when compared to Captain Crunch but CC's sugar levels, at 3 more grams per bowl, seemed an odd thing to be slamming it for.