magikwand

My main brute is fire/fire. The combo is deadly, but unless you know some good methods to make it work, and a pile of cash, it is a tough ride. The only mitigation you can count on is Burn causing enemies to run away and allowing a moment to catch your breath.

Once you are able to get some IOs and figure out the quirks of the combo, it is quite rewarding. My fire/fire is easily one of my most played toons ever. Besides, nothing beats someone telling you that they didn't know /FA could do that.

Superstrength is another option that works very well with FA, as others have said.

Like others have stated- Demon Summoning has pretty much demonized the act of bringing pets to the market. I never realized how much of an annoyance this was until DS came along. The problem I have with those pets is that they are noisy and large. I honestly don't care much for teaming with MMs these days, but I won't exclude any from a team/SF I am forming. But at the market? That is just not needed.

Dragging the gaggle of pets to the BM is worse than any annoying aura to me, because my concern is not performance related. It is both those God awful sounds and the fact that the pets can make it difficult to get to the BM contact. It is bad enough sometimes with other actual players there- but if there are a few Demon summoners (which there always seems to be these days) standing around, things get crowded too quickly.

You must be teaming with some pretty bad players- stalkers can be a poor addition to any team just like tankers, scrappers, dominators, blasters, controllers, brutes, defenders, masterminds, corruptors, VEATs, and HEATs. Conversely, any one of them can also lend some worthwhile help to any team if they are well played.

There are only bad players, not bad ATs.

Are stalkers fragile compared to scrappers? Certainly. Does that make them gimp? No. As others have pointed out- there are a number of things stalkers do that scrappers simply cannot.

This question has been answered, but there was some clipping issues with the two working properly together.

There are many different ways to do it, but it depends on how it is organized.
There are four basic types of ITFs, at least as far as I am concerned.

1. Master of ITF- exactly as it sounds. Takes about 1.5-2 hrs. Not the longest, but (hopefully) the safest run.

2. Kill All ITF- making a deliberate effort to wipe out any and all Romans that you see, no matter how much time it takes. This is good for a team looking for purples/ drops. Takes 2+ hrs. Maybe more depending on how bloodthirsty the team is for drops. Don't commit to this unless you have hours to burn.

3. Comfortable speed ITFs. Objectives are completed, but not meant to be run at breakneck speed. Some regard given to less than optimal builds, and accommodating 2-3 low level characters. Some concessions are made to keep time reasonable, but not to the extreme of the type of cuts required for a speed run. Takes about 1hr.

4. Speed Run ITFS. Only the bare minimum of objectives are completed with *no* time spent on killing anything non-required. Not good for Low level characters or poorly slotted ones. (Those are welcome to run, but will struggle to contribute as much to the run as other toons). Good for players who like a fast and hard challenge and are reasonably self sufficient. Aims for less than 30 mins.

Before you start, I suggest everyone agree on a target time and roll forward. I know of many team collapses resulting from people wanting to get different things from an ITF.

I think DB is best on scrappers and tanks. Stalkers don't always cycle through all of the attacks needed to complete combos. Brutes suffer with the combos as they can potentially mash up fury generation.

Theme- I prefer the looks and animations of MA over that of DM.

FYI- much of that text is not visible for those of us using the City of Villains forum skin.

SC is notoriously overpowered on scrappers, so many /sd scrap farmers will be taken aback when the power is "rebalanced" in the near future. It is a bit broken on brutes and tanks too, but there will be a notable reduction of damage and recharge very soon.

If you are in AE, a SS/SD brute with a good build will probably be the best choice. ELM is better on stalkers and scrappers, but SS/SD will mop the floor with a ss/wp. No +dmg aura or just classic dmg aura hurts the kill speed of a ss/wp. It can be sturdy and safe and versatile, but if you are farming non-super high acc enemies (ie NO Nemesis) it is hard to beat SS/SD.

It depends on what you are going up against or farming really, but I agree with Silas. SS/FA will do better on the redside classic Television farm because Nems with stacking vengeance will make mincemeat of a defense based secondary like /shield. That, and all of the damage is something that /FA can take almost in stride.

Both will be costly to make into unkillable beasts, but both are tremendously rewarding. The SS will just clear enemies faster than the DM because of the nature of the AoE focused SS and ST focused DM.

If you roll the brute now and secure patron powers- they will remain yours unless you respec after crossing over. Then, you will lose access to your hard earned patron powers and be forced into hero Ancillary pools.

One question- could the concept of your character work with DM or SS? Both will have similar animations (no weapon combat) to EM but I think both tip the scales as more favorable.

I think the idea is just awful personally. Fiery aura benefits from having either a primary that offers lots of mitigation or something that kills fast. Unless you are constantly up against single hard targets, and even if you are, I think there are other sets that offer better choices than EM. It is slow, not numerically top dog vs. single targets, and one of the heavy hitters does damage to the caster.

Bottom line- the combo isn't a top shelf combo for survivability. EM does nearly nothing to help /FA's mitigation void. /FA boosts EM's AoE issues(complete lack of), but not enough to convince me that it is an acceptably wise choice.

Willpower comes to mind immediately. SM has some useful mitigation tools that will help out a lot with Rttc. Also, with SM being somewhat of a thirsty set, having the option of taking stamina and QR is very appealing.

Fiery aura will also benefit from SM's mitigation while offering its own Endurance recovery in Consume. I have heard good things about this combo as most people consider /FA to be best when paired with a primary with heavy mitigation.

If you don't find Grandville villainous enough, why on Earth would RWZ be any better?

I disagree- I find there to be tons of unsettling, evil, dirty, and downright villainous things to do as a senior villain.

Oh- and skipping the Patron arcs if you are in search of good content and villainous action is just heresy. I enjoy doing Villain patron arcs almost as much as unlocking the powers and using them. Perhaps is it is just my opinion, but the Patron arcs are superb.

I will get on the Fiery Melee train here. It has ST, AoE, a cone, Hard hitters, and reasonable endurance costs. For sure one of my fave primaries and one of the top performers. Unfortunately for some, all of that awesome comes at the effect of having no secondary effect outside of additional damage.

Superstrength is great, but can be tricky. It is easy enough to go permaRage, but the crash can be problematic depending on your secondary and playstyle. Skewed heavily towards ST, but Footstomp makes up for it in the end.

I think WM/BA are undervalued. They are both very balanced as far as ST,AoE are concerned, and have some useful mitigation for all secondaries. Stone melee is similar too, but can be thirsty.

ELM is very AoE oriented.
DM is ST oriented.
Dual Blades is ok, but I don't like that it doesn't feel like it has a heavy hitter.
Energy melee is bad. Hits hard, but you might wonder why it has to feel so gimped to do what it does.

I would say FM, SM, or SS for mixed group play.

The only power that isn't exactly stackable is vengeance. It used to be, but now you have to do some trick with tp to stack it.

I realized this days before I deleted my ma/ stalker.

Well if you are after AoE in your primary, I would avoid both DM and EM. DB is ok for aoe, but why not try something that stalkers don't have access to? FM, SS, and WM/BA all have decent AoE options and will give you something fresh to enjoy.

If you go with DB, WP is a solid choice. The knockdown in sweep gives you a bit of breathing room to supercharge your Rttc.

Going with electric armor is also pretty decent, as the mitigation in sweep can be useful to allow a moment to catch your breath. Also, Lightning Reflexes can be nice to stack some recharge into your attacks.

If it were me, I would go for DB/elec armor because I don't see them all the time. Also, the addition of a damage aura is helpful to fill out your desire for AoE.