TheBruteSquad

Gaining 20 dps from pushing gloom down the chain and throwing in throw boulder? Definitely nothing I would have suspected. Nice and smashy though... as long as the boulder doesn't blast them halfway across the room (then it's SUPER smashy, but not as effective). Then again anything I'd want to use said chain on would be immune to said knockback - everything else is dead a few seconds later anyways.

I'll give it a shot.

How about a chain for when hasten is running? Hasten's not perma, but it's only down for 20 seconds... two chains every two minutes.

I'm looking to update this character to I20... but frankly I have no idea where to start. I have hundreds of hours of playtime on him but he still faceplants more than any other melee character I have. Much of that is a fundamental playstyle mismatch between Regen and me, I'm suspecting... still, he was my first 50 blueside so I'd rather see him a Can Opener of Doom than at long last deleted (I've stopped at the 'type character name' phase four times with him).

Alpha boost is tier 1 spiritual. Unlike most of my characters I have no 'concept' powers that I can't do without here, including having a travel power - ninja run actually suits him better, so tinker away.

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I shouldn't try math at 5 in the morning. I'm not particularly good at it at the best of times.

I figured out where I went wrong (on the bus to work a few hours later after my brain had finished cold booting). That 1.4 was completely out of left field, but that didn't matter much because I was attempting to apply it to the enhanced power numbers rather than the base.

Using the base numbers (roughly half) and multiplying by 2.4 (240% for 99% enhancement and 140% fury) gives me 138 which is about what I expected unless I'm still doing something wrong.

Here's the chunk for the slotting numbers (if it works) to see if someone can come up with a better chain with what I've got, but the power selections are final (as much as I wished concept let me dump the god damned useless self rez for taunt).

edit: And the alpha boost I'm using is tier 3 spiritual - Partial radial revamp

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My current favorite chain for my stone/wp brute is Seismic Smash, Gloom, Heavy Mallet, Stone Mallet, Brawl - repeat. I know it's not ideal but it's seemless and visually gratifying (I hate stone fist).

I've calculated it at 161 dps (767.99 damage divided by 6.67 activation time for 115.14 dps x 1.4 to represent 140% bonus from 70% fury) but that seems... high?

Death Shroud is amazing over time. By sheer virtue of how many thing it hits at once (it's brawl every pulse to everything around you) it ends up being my top damage power after a play session every time.

It doesn't break cloak of fear every pulse... it interrupts it. Instead of them standing there cowering and not giving you fury they get to attack once every six or seven seconds then go back to cowering.

In combination with Fault and oppressive gloom there's every possibility that Death Shroud will be your biggest damage dealer by sheer virtue of being able to peg the goofs as they stagger away, and the Taunt component ensures that (most of the time) the enemies come running back to you after the stun wears off as opposed to running for the hills.

80 *IS* a good number. Hmm. Urge to alt... rising....

Second Arcanaville on that. Siren Song, power thrust to send my chosen target flying, tier one blast, tier two blast, tier one blast to kill a minion usually before they finish standing after their flight. Total focus to rudely awaken a lieutenant and stun them, followed by whatever I want to finish them. Total focus and Disorient to stun a boss.

Personal force field if something's gone wrong.

Even long before Total Focus (which is level 38 of course) she could quite serenely sleep and demolish hazard zone sized spawns without fear of reprisal thanks to a stealth IO in sprint letting her get close enough to sleep an entire spawn with ease (was the Stealth power until I got said IO and respecced out of it). Only bosses are remotely tricky... and by remotely tricky I mean 'have a chance against me'. Robots, which are sleep proof, usually aren't stun proof (Disorient) and quite often smash vulnerable (not a good thing to be against someone packing Sonic Blast, let alone Energy Manipulation).

edit: Heh. This post made me log in and play mine. After running the 50 tip missions I must add Fungoids and the little brass tanks from Nemesis to my kill first list, and master illusionist to the 'anyone get the number of that truck?' avoid at all costs list.

It's been a long time since I've played an /inv brute but I didn't think it's smash/lethal resistance plus toughness passed 75%, which is the scrapper cap, outside of Unstoppable. Am I misremembering? If I'm not how is the resistance wasted on an IO'd scrapper since resistance bonuses are so hard to come by?

I'll agree with everything else said in the thread so far 100%, though. I'll also add that in addition to Dull pain, which has been mentioned, Siphon life heals a brute more than a scrapper because of the difference in health. It adds up.

Since the game is built to allow emp/rad defenders to solo missions if they want to NO ARMOR SET is unplayable.

The thing with energy armor is that there are two other sets that do what it does better. Even on SO's shield defense gives you better damage, similar defense values, more resistance, and bonus health. Even on SO's Super Reflexes gives you faster recharge and more defense debuff resistance.

As an aside I am interested in seeing Test Rat's 'keep its softcap down to level 20' build, though.

There was an issue of the West Coast Avengers where they basically told someone on the team to stop freaking out at the thought of going up against Satannish - that it, like Dormammu and all the other 'demons' and 'gods' was really just a very powerful extradimensional extraterrestrial , not the actual devil.

I've never had a problem with this explanation because Thor, Odin, Loki, and all the rest have at one time or another gotten their butts kicked by mortal men, robots, and other aliens.

They bleed. What kind of god bleeds?

That said, it's still one of my favorite animations in the game and part of the reason that stone melee is my favorite attack primary, despite it's low damage potential compared to other sets (though of course what it lacks in dps is makes up for with burst damage and control). With a second tier spiritual alpha and 125% global recharge with hasten running my pylon time is 18 minutes - a far cry from other sets with similar alpha and recharge.

But no... stone should not be in the running for 'strongest aoe potential' in the context of this thread.

Yeah, but footstomp has an advantage tremor can't hope to match. Rage. Superstrength's numbers are misleading like that... Rage is *meant* to be run permanently - that's why slotting 3 recharge does it. (Now, meant to be stacked is more questionable).

Well, according to city of data Ball Lightning does 12 energy damage and 4 ticks of 7.5 energy damage for a total of 42 damage. Dark obliteration does 37 negative energy damage. Both have the same recharge and cast time.

While 5 base damage does become significant once you add enhancments, fury, Rage, red insps, etc does it become 33% significant? I'll take your word on it.

(Unless you were using electrifying fences as well... but soul tentacles does more damage so I don't know how that would help things.)

Even if you do like to farm I'd suggest soul. Gloom is sexy as hell backed by 300% or more damage bonus, and even the fairly anemic dark obliteration is good enough to finish off whatever lived after burn and footstomp.

Well, lets throw some real numbers into the mix. All numbers are without enhancement of any kind (fury, Rage, build up, set bonuses, even SOs). Just raw unslotted powers.

We'll start with the three that are mentioned the most: claws, ss, and fire.

Spin does 78 damage per 14 seconds. 8 Foot radius.
Footstomp does 59 per 20 seconds. 15 foot radius.
Firesword Circle does 32 lethal, 32 fire, with an 80% chance of doing 4 ticks of 4 fire damage. 10 foot radius.
Breath of Fire does 2 ticks of 28 damage, with an 80% chance of doing 4 ticks of 4 fire damage every 10 seconds. 15 feet range/radius.

All numbers are from
http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/

It could be noted that 'slotted for range' Fire breath is beyond 'at best decent'. It's animation time sucks but 80% of the time it's the best damage/recharge cycle here.

re:The resistance thing

I did some testing last night with my broadsword scrapper and discovered what REALLY kicks lethal sets in the teeth is a combination of high resistance and con difference. Most orange con late game bosses I tried - Rikti bosses, Malta bosses, Arachnos Bosses, Longbow bosses, and Council bosses reduced my damage from headsplitter from 330ish to the 220s (rough numbers on both. Didn't write them down.). That's a 30% resistance by eyeballing. I'm sure someone has the real numbers but I was just doing the 'hit it with the sword and look at the damage' thing. Rikti in particular.

A red con Rikti boss reduced this to just below 200. Somewhere around the 45% damage resistance mark (more than 165 damage so less than 50%).

That's a lot of loss for a primary to deal with for a common enemy group.

Mind you it didn't stop me from making Rikti stew. Even being resisted by 45% STILL put my single target damage above most other ATs.

As for the original question Spin is positively awesome at low levels (because it comes at a low level) but I think Footstomp edges it out once it shows up... the damage is similar, the recharge is... similar(?), and Footstomp has knockdown.

Either are better than the set designed around AoE (Electric), which is too bad really.

You pretty much nailed it. It's a solid resistance set, looking a lot like fire armor.

It's advantages over fire armor is an unlimited endurance tool (power sink is just that good), a godmode tier 9, a built in recharge buff, in set knockback protection, energy drain resistance (what's a malta sapper?), and the always handy psi resistance.

It's disadvantages compared to fire armor are a slower recharging heal and less damage.

One nice thing about electric armor is that the only group they're afraid of is Arachnoids. They aren't defenseless against any other group. Back before IOs electric armor was the armor of choice for many brute players because it didn't falter in the post 40 game where the exotic groups began showing up with more frequency. Carnies? Not a problem. Malta? Pathetic. Arachnos? Chumps (besides the always dangerous Bane Spider Executioners).

Your caveat is a big one, Test-Rat. Money fixes all armor sets problems.

(That said pre-Energize Fire/Elec was the combination that would have you weeping tears of bitter agony and anguish. Roll one of those, skip Energize, and only use SOs and enjoy your masochistic crawl to 50 2007 style.

When I use MY heals is whenever I'm dumb enough to take a carnie mission. None of my other brutes or scrappers are quite as fragile in the face of a Master Illusionist... not even my ss/fire brute, and he *should* be since they both rely on click heals and have no resistance to psi.

OP:

For 'general' gameplay I'd throw my support behind WP. It's tough enough to get through most content on SOs. It has defense or resistance against everything except toxic damage. Backed by Divine Avalanche the combo hits its stride at level 18 with 'Rise to the Ha Ha Ha Ha I'm Parrying Everything So Whatever Sneaks Through Will Be Regenerated By the Time You Hit Again' and never looks back.

If you want to see the fury mechanic in action set brawl on auto, walk up to an easy to hit enemy (like blue or green con), and watch its damage increase.

Energy Aura does NOT like Arachnos, Carnies, nor anything with a machine gun or sword thanks to its low defense debuff resistance. I have a dark melee/energy aura and she does Ok. Not good, not bad, kind of in the middle. Not what you'd expect from a softcapped defense build but yeah.

EA's largest problem at the moment in my opinion is that anything it can do Super Reflexes can do better (except use energy drain or hide their costume). For some that energy drain might be enough but for me keeping the defense level you worked hard to achieve trumps it any day of the week.

Then again since EA also has resistance perhaps a better defense set to compare it to is Shield Defense?

Maneuvers *does* make reaching the softcap easier by a few percentage. The endurance isn't as big a problem as you might think, even pre-Cardiac. Plus it helps your team out as a fringe benefit.

The reason being everything has died horribly before you run out... and there's a good chance a blue dropped. Most of your endurance problems will come from rage and/or hasten crashing, not toggle drain.

That being said Assault is crap for a brute, especially one stacking Rage. Focussed accuracy these days is also crap, in my opinion. The -tohit debuff resistance is the nicest thing about it in the IO age... and again, Rage makes it a waste of endurance.

What they said. The only thing I put damage procs in besides damage auras (and I'm not even sure they work in damage auras, really) is... brawl if a build is still at the point where brawl on auto is a key part of building and maintaining fury. And I'd use something cheaper than a Ragnarok for it.

Nabbed a slot from stamina for gloom. Cardiac alpha made it totally un-needed. That's really about all I could figure. (Yes, I burned a respec to move a single slot. ).