damojs

I have a softcapped SS/SR brute that can tank just about any content in the game. Lots of people have */SR that get by very nice owing to all the debuff protection.

War mace is actually pretty good...

I have the name 'Great White Hope' on a L50 Virtue, and 'Fang' on one of the others...Champion or Pinnacle, I think. On a level 2 scrapper I went years without logging into.

Don't forget the steadfast res/def +3% to all defenses.

Personally however, I like weave. With just 4 slots of gift of the ancients, it is super cheap at .16 end and gives nearly 6% more defense. It lets me slot other stuff in other ways. However, if there was a power I just HAD TO HAVE, it wouldn't be too hard to go without weave.

And I would only consider weave optional while playing an SR.

I'm such a dork when it comes to crafting. I've only recently began to take it seriously (since it is hard to, without having a modest base to keep salvage and enhancements). Thanks for the help, guys.

How many common IOs do you need to craft, before you can get the recipe for free?

I've crafted ten level 30 recharge reduction enhancements, and it is still charging me to buy the recipe.

Thanks!

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With QR, Stamina, both the Miracle and Numina's uniques, two Performance Shifter procs and ~50% endred in all my attacks, my SS/WP can still get dangerously low on end on occasion.

Fortunately, that's low on end, not completely out of end.

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Wow...What is your attack chain?

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However, it is worth noting that the majority of scrapper damage dealers are lethal or smashing as well. They only recently got fire melee over there, and yes, it's quite useful along with dark. Yet martial arts, katanas and claws scrappers are capable of generating the sustained DPS needed to take down AVs.

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It's also worth noting that AVs redside are *significantly* harder than AVs blueside (Neuron, Marauder and Bobcat are pansies compared to Synapse, BAB and Mynx for example) so comparing them to scrappers is a moot point. With SS you simply will NOT be able to solo any AVs with a defensive tier 9 or a self heal, which might as well be the majority of the AVs redside. That's why FM isn't only slightly better than SS, it's significantly better (both in DPS and DPE).

If you want to be a mediocre AV soloer while still being able to do lots of AoE damage then by all means go with SS, but keep in mind that FM/SR also does very respectable AoE damage with a Quicken'd FSC

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FM/SR is an amazing combo, and anyone will benefit from playing it, and if your major concern were soloing hard targets, I would definitely choose it.

I was just making the case for 'viable'.

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AV fights tend to be very long when you solo them and I wonder if SS/SR can keep up the continuous attacking without running out of endurance.

SS is an end hog and SR doesn't have any endurance management tools to fill the blue bar back up. So, how long can you maintain the fight and is it long enough?

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That's the real question, when it comes to SS/SR

Conceivably however, depending on slotting choices, it should be quite possible. Slot Gift of the Ancients instead of Red Fortune, (pick up that recharge in other places), get as much recovery and +end as you can, a performance shifter proc, miracle, numina's +recov/+regen. You have endless places to slot a LOTG, so you should be able to be more creative in your slotting decisions instead of obsessing on recharge. And it is not terribly difficult to softcap. I was softcapped by 39, and I could've done it much sooner, but was content with 40-42% for a while.

There's alot of room in a SS/SR build, to go after end/recovery pretty heavily. All the accolades help to.

Is it expensive? Sure. Would it be THAT expensive, compared to a billion inf build? Not at all. Quite viable.

But I would say that if you don't have 500+ million inf around, and alot of free time, you really shouldn't be concerned about Ironman soloing AVs...Right?

EDIT: To put it in perspective, given normal slotting and such, (appropriate set bonuses, +end, etc), even 4 moderate recovery bonuses (+2%), can more than pay for a defense toggle. I have four Gifts of the Ancient, each with +2% recovery and +1.8% endurance, along with a few other things as I mentioned above, and I can't remember when my endurance bar was below half. I just delete blues these days. Four GOTA will give you the full defense boost, and drop most any toggle to about .16 a second. And you can slot a Def/7.5% to run as well, which is neat, packed onto quickness.

I do not have any purples, either. Just your basic run of the mill 500 mill inf build stuff, like LOTGs, etc. If I wanted to solo AVs without any temp or insp help, instead of plowing through TFs or farming, I'd shift some stuff about, sure. But I can definitely see it being 'viable'.

As far as I'm concerned as a player, I'm the mother effin Destined One, and it's a fair fight with them as EBs, and no insp use. I don't care about them as AVs, (without just dropping a nuke on em) because it reminds me of LOTR, where to artificially create a challenge, they would have many parts of the map designed for teams, with even piddly little goblins capable of destroying you, that needed a whole team to fight.

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Super strength is capable of generating the DPS to kill most AVs, given gloom in the attack chain.

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I disagree ALOT. Fire Melee can use Gloom as well, plus it's less resisted damage type makes it much better for AVs whom typically have S/L resistance.

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And footstomping spawns to death, while being able to eat /any/ elite boss for breakfast, is very nice.

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Footstomp is not the greatest tool in the world for AV encounters. Its perfect for mobs but since this thread is about soloing AVs, who cares about Footstomp.

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You're never going to be the /best/ single target, or the best AoE, but being tied for second best in both, is really nice.

It's also more than doable with inspirations.

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Not sure what you're getting at in these posts. Fire Melee is superior to SS for ST DPS but inferior to SS for AoE since BoF is a terrible power IMO.

Since we are discussing soloing AVs, Single Target damage is much more important than AoE.

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I never meant to imply that SS was superior to fire melee in killing AVs. It's not. Fire melee definitely has superior single target damage in that respect.

However, it is worth noting that the majority of scrapper damage dealers are lethal or smashing as well. They only recently got fire melee over there, and yes, it's quite useful along with dark. Yet martial arts, katanas and claws scrappers are capable of generating the sustained DPS needed to take down AVs.

With Gloom in the attack chain and adequate recharge, (which super reflexes will ensure), Super Strength is more than capable of achieving 200+ DPS. In fact, the addition of Gloom alone, IIRC, ensured that optimal brute attack chains were uniformly better than scrapper attack chains. The nature of an AV fight also favors the fury mechanic. Smashing is also less resisted than lethal is (not by much, but it's worth pointing out).

So yes. SS/SR is perfectly viable for soloing AVs, which is what this thread is about. The fact that you can still be viable, while being able to generate great AoE damage as well, is simply icing to take into consideration. Afterall, we're looking at 'viable' builds, not "OMG TEH BEST AV SOLOER EVER WITHOUT INSPS". I think the latter builds are so specialized, as to be meaningless. And if it were that important, everyone should be ill/rads killing GMs.

But yes. You will have an easier time generating the needed ST DPS with fire. And I think both FM/SR and SS/SR are great, and if I was concerned with soloing AVs more than anything else, I'd choose FM. But if I wanted to be great at other things too, I'd choose SS.

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You'd be better off with Fire/SR, both performancewise and budgetwise

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This. Fire Melee is better at ST DPS which is key for AV fights. SS is a good set but not the best for soloing AVS. Two immediate cons that come to mind are the damage type (all smashing) and the Rage Crash, which can eat up your endurance and decrease your surivivability on a defense based toon.

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Super strength is capable of generating the DPS to kill most AVs, given gloom in the attack chain. And footstomping spawns to death, while being able to eat /any/ elite boss for breakfast, is very nice.

You're never going to be the /best/ single target, or the best AoE, but being tied for second best in both, is really nice.

It's also more than doable with inspirations.

I slotted a few 4 slotted sets of Gift of the Ancients, to help my endurance, on my SR brute. It seemed to really help, combined with the endurance accolades.

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Because durability is what we don't have in real life.

In real life, offense is king of the battlefield -- we can destroy stuff from the edge of space with satellite-guided precision munitions. We have nukes, for crying out loud.

What we don't have in real life conflict is high durability. Sure, there are isolated examples like composite armor and battleships and the NORAD bunker. But in general, weaponry is to be avoided because our power to destroy far outstrips our power to endure. We don't even need high-tech...even improvised explosive devices kill and wound quite readily.

So in-game, offense is fun...but it's not a paradigm shift. Sure, the team's Blasters leveled the bank robbers. But we already expect bank robbers to get leveled by SWAT teams in the real world.

But the ability to go into hideously dangerous situations with (at least some) confidence -- the durability to go right into the teeth of all that deadly weaponry and stay standing -- that's the fantasy we do not get to live out in the real world.

Durability, defense, mitigation, whatever you want to call it -- THAT'S superhuman.

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That was unexpectedly insightful.

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I've never had problems transferring infamy. On the toon that needs money i simply pick a low level unwanted enhancement with no bids and sell it for millions of infamy.

No way is someone stupid enough to buy it for that much, if they do, hey great I made money.

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But you get hit with the posting fee. And if someone was selling the same thing for 1 inf, you'd buy theirs instead...

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WP is such a nice secondary for Brutes that you can run it well with pretty much any primary. SS/WP is the FotM, and quite strong, but it's hardly the only choice. Others are as good, or as close as makes any difference in PvE.

Find a good concept that you like, or a primary powerset you've been interested in trying, and have fun...it'll work. WP is that good.

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More like flavor of the decade...

Actually, I think WP might be the better set if you have a billion influence laying around.

Super Reflexes is awesome though, and underused. It does suck end like a madman. But grabbing endurance accolades and slotting for recovery and +end, helps.

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Nope, you pretty much nailed it. They could push their s/l res up to 73% if you have a bottomless wallet to spend on a +3% res PvP IO, but that's about it.

It's not new for people to complain about low availability/size of +res from IOs. (I think some forms of +def are too easy to get, but that's another story.) My guess why defense is more prominent is because it's more variable and easier to bypass. If Castle wants mobs to be very accurate, he has many methods to do so:

*) tohit
*) def debuffs
*) auto hit

That's not to mention that even at the softcap you can get unlucky. With res, it's far harder to bypass (unresistible damage is pretty much it) and it's more stable (no unlucky deaths).

Again, that's just my best guess at why it is as it is, but I could be completely off base.

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Makes sense to me. I do think it would be nice though, if one or two more sets existed that gave something like 3% smashing/lethal resist. That would at least open the door for someone doing something interesting, and maybe ending up with like 85% on a brute.

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thank you for the constructive criticism Fitz.

the rest of you need to grow up.

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I think you received pretty mild and honest replies, with an appropriate degree of skepticism, given some slotting decisions.

Nonetheless, given that it seems to have been a serious question, I hope you will take away not hurt feelings from the various reactions, but a better understanding of what seems to be taken for granted by more experienced players.

Especially considering, it looked like a very poorly optimized 500 million+ inf build.2

Invulnerability is all about resisting physical and lethal damage. It's fairly easy for a tanker to cap it at 90%. But what is the closest that a Brute can get it without unstoppable, while also taking tough? It seems to me, that it might be only 70%. Which is interesting, since Brutes can much more easily get their defense to tanker like levels.

Thoughts?

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I've done it with everything from a duo up to 8 people, the duo was the most painful, simply because of our powerset combinations (a D3 and a BS/Regen don't fair well against CoT in terms of damage) my fastest time on the TF (2:11) was actually on a 6 or 7 man team.

That being said, I think your best bet for soloing it is going to be something along the lines of a Rad/Son defender, decent damage, good debuffs, and a way to enhance your recovery.

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Rad/sons are nice, and verge on overpowered, but I'm not sure they can handle things that well by level 15?

Simple question:

What do you think is the best archetype/powerset choice, and slotting, to most efficiently solo the Positron TF?

I think it might actually be a more endurable, and less painful experience than doing it as a group. I remember once doing it with just a friend, and it wasn't too bad. But when I tried it with an eight man, it was Hell on Earth.

Which damage are rikti least resistant to?

If I were going to play an ELA brute, I would make him the ultimate Vanguard operative, and never leave the RWZ, except to serve as a pure damage dealer in a team that already had a tank.

There are alot of things you can do, focusing on rikti. You could carve out a very respectable niche for yourself as that kind of specialist..

I don't even know what to say...That is quite some build there. Did you already buy and slot all that, or is something you are considering doing?

Maybe if you slotted up your defense powers, you could softcap without so many silly slotting choices in other places? And if you're going to five slot taunt for Mocking Beratement, at least grab the sixth one for the 7.5% recharge. That's like a free LOTG. If you're already dead set on it. (And really, I think mocking beratement in taunt was the smartest choice in the build).

Knockout blow is how my brute dominates AVs.

(It has a hold component!)

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Ugh, I'm assuming SS out performs Fire Melee in dmg then . I'm not looking for control just Dmg. My first melee toon ever is Elec/Elec and while I love him...Elec/ disappoints me when it comes down to gettin' down dirty dmg lol.

Don't get me wrong Elec/ by itself has some amazing attacks...but it feeeeeelllsss soooo slooowwwww lol.

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Fire melee does greater single target damage than SS. But the greater radius on SS's footstomp, means that it tends to hit twice as many, with twice as much consistency, than fire sword circle. Even though the radius doesn't seem that much greater.