magikwand

I will reiterate the point that WP, aside from EA and possibly SR, is probably the weakest aggro secondary. If there are other brutes on the team, particularly a shield user or invulnerable brute, you probably won't be able to pick up aggro as easily as you like.

One thing that brutes and tanks do have in common is a lust for aggro. Of course, with a brute, it pays (in fury) to have aggro. You need to have as many incoming attacks as you can reasonably manage to benefit and boost your damage.

You might not miss taunt, however. A lot of critters will be attracted to your "gauntlet-lite". Most attacks carry something like 400% taunt, so most other villains won't pull your aggro unless it is a spicy /kin with a Fulcrum Shift. I typically don't take taunt on brutes, but I do have a few with it built in.

As for how often will you die? That depends almost entirely on you and your build. I have seen some brutes that could probably outlive the toughest of tough, and some that seem to be made of wet toilet paper. WP is good out of the box, and becomes fantastic with a great build and critters nearby to boost your regen. It seems like you already know your way around WP, so you shouldn't have too much of an issue adjusting to things on the other side of the law.

Oh yes, and as for fury keeping you upright? Yes, it will grant you a considerable damage bonus. The best debuff is -hp.

Most will agree that Elec melee is better for AoE. I prefer Fiery melee personally. It has more ST options.

I would steer clear away from EM. Shields makes for a very aggressive and powerful with excellent damage. Adding SS to the equation would give even more damage. In their current incarnations, I feel SS is a superior set to EM in all categories.

EM has laughable AoE, and the stuns are problematic for a tanker who likes constant aggro. Also, the set is slow, and still feels underwhelming. It may not be true, but I find a good KO Blow is vastly superior to Energy Transfer or Total Focus, and it comes earlier and has no penalty attached.

Sure, SS has the whole rage penalty crash to work out, but it is completely manageable.

Also, I feel like a SD/SS is much more in line with your concept than a SD/EM.

I am of the belief that a tanker is made by his primary and not so much by his secondary. You seem to constantly tie in the performance of the secondary as indicative of the performance of the primary. I don't agree.Tanking ability in, many circumstances, has little to nothing to do with your secondary. On that note, Energy melee is a secondary for tankers and NOT a primary. Please understand that.

Sure, adding more dmg to Whirling Hands would be nice, but I don't see the correlation between you being relegated to a secondary tanker and this single underwhelming power. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the power is fantastic, but I don't see how you are tying the two together.

If you are all that concerned about damage- be it AoE or ST, you probably should have just rolled a scrapper to start. So yes, I will nitpick on your point there- if you want a damage heavy AT, why would you start with one that you know will be extremely hard pressed to achieve on the high end what a poorly built scrapper can achieve on his worst day? It is pretty much a fact that it is considerably more effective and easy to make a scrapper achieve survivability that is close to a tank than making a tank achieve scrapper levels of damage.

And you seem to contradict yourself, you are saying you want EM's aoe dmg potential increased, and you seem to be jilted by the fact that scrappers do more damage than tanks, but then you say that the damage should not have more damage than scrappers. What do you want?

WP tankers have a little more trouble maintaining aggro sometimes, and that is probably the only secondary I would see having issues with a secondary like EM. If your primary is Ice Armor and you have problems maintaining aggro- you are doing something wrong. I will say it again- if you are an Ice Armor tank and have issues with aggro, you are doing something wrong. I believe Ice armor is the most aggro ******* set available to tanks. I would also not throw Invulnerability in the same pot as Willpower for aggro management. Invuln is far ahead of willpower in the taunt department.

One more point. As far as "nerfs" go- there is never a promise of receiving anything in return of a powerset being nerfed. I don't know why you would expect it to be so.

Thanks everyone for coming and posting comments- it is refreshing to hear what other people think about the subject. For the record, I wouldn't go into a thread where someone is asking for a complete build be made for them and start a ruckus. I suppose that is the point of discussing the matter here- we can discuss and I don't have to worry about griefing anyone about something I don't personally subscribe to doing.

I think Unstoppable is the most skippable power in the set. In my early months of play, I took it and thought it was great, but then I paid attention to the fact that a properly slotted build just flat out wouldn't need it. The costs far outweigh the benefits.

I would probably go for the bane. I have a softcapped SR brute and she just isn't anywhere near as fun as I imagined. SR never did wow me on a brute. If you want to go the defense route, maybe roll a Fire/Shield and have more fun killing at a much faster speed. Sure, it is trickier to get softcapped, but it is so much more rewarding when you do. Now that my /SD brute is capped and TF ready, I just don't know if I can go back to the /SR. This is just my experience and opinion of course.

I think Tonality covered things fairly well. I will just echo point 9 once more.
EM... Really? DM, yes. SS, hell yes. WM or BA, perhaps. But EM? Really?

I agree with the Elec shield part, but I think a scrapper or brute would fit the bill more. Both of those types are a bit more violent and lusty for battle than tanks in my opinion. Tanks are, from a conceptual standpoint, more concerned about protecting squishies than flat out frying enemies. Make it a brute or scrapper!

Am I the only person that sees something wrong with players coming to the forums and asking for other people to make them a build? No, I am not talking about people who post up their own builds and ask for a review or assistance or comments. I am talking about people who just come and flat out ask for someone to make a build for them that is "Godly". It comes across as many things, but lazy is pretty much at the top of the list.
What are your thoughts?
Personally, I enjoy making my own toons and builds the way I like. Sure, I peruse the guides found here online and take advice from friends, but I can honestly say I have never just copied and pasted an entire build from someone else into creation. Part of the fun for me is picking powersets, picking costumes, and enhancing the toon the way I like. Does anyone else feel like that?

Ok... I know it seems like I am trying to push you into Fire Blast here, but honestly- why repeat the same combo? Try something different. I suggest fire blast as that is one of the few primaries not available to defenders as secondaries. Maybe Ice/kin would work too. I have seen a few in action that are positively amazing. If you were underwhelmed as a kin/elec I doubt you would be blown away as an elec/kin.

I have, both at 50, an kin/elec and a fire/kin and I can say that, even at low levels, the f/k felt just right. Fire blast *hurts*. Truly. Elec. blast is just bad in my eyes. I am a self confessed pyromaniac in-game, but there was no way I was going to make the elec/kin thing redside after doing it to fifty blueside. As was already stated, it is going to start out better than defender's paltry damage mod, but I wouldn't go for that build outside of concept or possibly building for some kind of funky sapper.
PS, if you are going for the sapper thing, you won't drain nearly as much end from mobs as you might think.

I have both EM and dual blades. At least Dual Blades looks good and does subpar damage. EM is just plain bad. Unbearably bad. Slow, clunky, no AoE, and just bad. Just my opinion- so feel free to disagree. The most exciting thing about my EM brute is changing the color of her pompoms and turning on ninja run and running backwards.

If you have a concept that you want to see rolled into virtual reality, go for it.
I wouldn't personally, however. Some people say that mitigation is critical, but I think a stone melee/ Dark armor build or even a dark melee/stone armor build is mitigation overkill. Sure, stone melee is no pushover for damage, but as you mentioned the endurance issues would be critical with that combination. Even with stamina fully slotted and some clever frankenslotting, I wouldn't touch that combo.
I am out of breath just thinking about it...

I believe i have grav anchor in mine.