magikwand

There is a good DB/WP build for brutes in the brute how to section. As Helin said, empower is not a fave for brutes because we already have a superb +damage mechanic in fury. I personally use sweep first and attack vitals right after.

Some stay away from One Thousand Cuts because of the long animation time, but I find I like it just a bit more every time I do it. DB has great AoE and cones and you will love it. I just got my first db combo to 50 a few weeks ago, and i have been having a blast.

I doubt you will find a DB combo written with FA as a pairing, but I will say that sweep would be good for you in providing a bit of mitigation (in knockdown) to heal or whatever. Sounds like a hot combo.

I make new friends in the game fairly often. One thing I do enjoy doing is meeting new friends and turning them on to new things. I have met a few people in the architect and ended up turning them on to TFs and SFs. Some people, especially the new ones, don't realize that there is more to the game besides powerleveling noobies to levl 50. Take it upon yourself to show them that there are real zones to explore and things to do.

Furthermore, you can become a leader and do what ever you like in the game. When I first started playing, I noticed a trend of people in-game to complain about how difficult it is to find a team. At that point, I started running my own teams and haven't looked back. I never complain about not finding teams because I start my own.

I only use the keyboard myself. I play mostly on my laptop, but occasionally I will play on a desktop. I have my alternate trays keyed in (intuitively for me) to slide right and left as I press the left or right alt keys. This works for me. I even tried using a mouse the other day, and it didn't work so well.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. (pun intended)

I agree that the two will be completely different in concept and playstyle. I don't think that FA will leave you out in the cold as far as endurance goes though. The best FA builds will have loads of recharge, so consume will be available often as well as healing flames. I don't think that the survivability gap is all that great once one gets used to FA either.

To add to that, Stone melee will add some nice mitigation to whatever perceived squishiness and add some survivability to Fiery aura.

Just think about your concept and if you can stand looking at a person on flames perpetually. It's that, or look at the dull yellow glow of WP working.

Maybe I am just odd, but I would want a shirt that has #1 on front and #3 on back. Those two are my faves.

Those are great shirts! I will take one of the 1st and 2nd in small please.

I used to do situps and pushups etc when my pc was loading zones. But of course, at that time I was running 512 MBs and teams would finish maps before I loaded. hehe

Yes, as Silas said, you must be careful of groups with a high degree of accuracy. Groups like Nems will hit you for that reason pretty solidly.

Even though Super Reflexes has been around longer than Shield defense, it is still relatively new to brutes, so there may not be too much in the way of guides available to you.

I think SR may not be the best farmer because it has no heal component and no damage aura. I might be wrong in your eyes, but that is how I see it.

I see, I misunderstood the point regarding the debuff component.

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You are apparently incorrect:

Tank taunt: Max target 5 Autohit Foe
+41s Taunt (mag 4) PvE only
+10.25s Taunt (mag 4) PvP only, Not auto-hit
Range -75% for 12s [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
Unknown Null +1

Brute Taunt: Max targets 5 Autohit Foe
+41s Taunt (mag 4) PvE only
+10.25s Taunt (mag 4) PvP only, Not auto-hit
Range -75% for 12s [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
Unknown Null +1

The two taunts are identical in every way.

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Have you used both a Tank and a Brute Taunt against ranged foes, monitoring the behavior of targets other than the primary in the AoE of Taunt?

I have. I am 99% positive that the Brute's Taunt only applies the range debuff to a single target-- the one that the recticle is over.

Just because the descriptions read the same doesn't mean that the coding is the same. Please, test this and actually check my results from gameplay, bacause from my in-game experience there are three tiers of "Taunts" available:

<ul type="square">[*]Confront/Scrapper-- single target taunt, single target-75% range[*]Taunt/Brute-- AoE taunt, single target -75% range[*]Taunt/Tank-- AoE taunt, AoE -75% range[/list]
The method is quite easy. Log in as a Brute, Taunt the Goldbricker spawns in Cap Au Diable, and watch as just ONE of the Goldbrickers runs towards you to shoot while all the others draw a weapon and fire.

Log in as a Tank, Taunt a group of Hellions/whatever, and watch as the entire spawn runs towards you to draw a gun and shoot.

Let me know if you get different results from actual gameplay...

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I have read for quite some time that taunt from brutes is supposed to only be single target, but I am fairly sure that it is not just single target. I never expected it to work as a single target thing, but I always get more than just one mob if I activate taunt in a circumstance similar to the one you described. I think the tank might pull more with his taunt, but there is certainly a degree of fallacy to an assessment that brute taunt is single target only.

To clarify, I am not speaking of getting in range of an aura picking up taunt, but simply of the distance taunt. On both a brute or tanker, it will pull more than a single target. To be honest, I am not sure how confront compares as I have never used the power on any scrapper of mine. Perhaps someone could chime in and say whether or not confront is truly single target?

Edit- I should also say that i always take taunt on both brutes and tanks and am quite familiar with how it works on both ATs.

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Tanker. Brutes are just another squishy AT.

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Pfft- tell that to all defender/corruptor/controller/dominator superteams that roll through content with speed and safety that would make both tanks and brutes sad. I think that is the tanker mentality that turns off a few players from all over. The tank is not the hub of the team, and it is not needed for any team to be successful. The only element a team needs to survive is an inherent that many players in the game have across the board: strategy and intelligence.

With that said; it is a fact that a brute can achieve the same mitigation cap that a tank can, so your statement won't mean much if a brute has just a couple of buffs tossed his way. He will be as capable a meat shield as a tank while dealing damage a tank would never be able to touch.

And please don't dismiss the effect of outside buffs in this particular discussion, because the question deals explicitly with teams. In teams, there is a very high likelihood buffs will be had.

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Sounds like a buncha squishy-talk to me.

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Are you serious or just kidding?

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As far as people blaming death on "lack of tankage" or complaining about a brute or tank not using taunt, you probably need to learn to survive on your own instead of depending on other ATs and people to protect you.

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I disagree, because teammates should try to assist one another. Of course, no tank, brute or other AT can save someone who's playing like a moron, but for my part, a team should be more than eight people soloing on the same map.

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I never said that you should not try to help your team mates. Allow me to clarify. If we are teaming, and I am playing my brute or tanker, and you die- don't blame me for not standing there spamming taunt like a robot. I have other things I enjoy doing as much or more than taunting enemies away from team mates. Placing blame on me for your death is not fair because you are denying responsibility that you could have done something do save yourself.

Quite the contrary, being on a team means each person should pull some weight. I will do my part as you should, but I just don't like people passing blame for faceplants.

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Tanker. Brutes are just another squishy AT.

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Pfft- tell that to all defender/corruptor/controller/dominator superteams that roll through content with speed and safety that would make both tanks and brutes sad. I think that is the tanker mentality that turns off a few players from all over. The tank is not the hub of the team, and it is not needed for any team to be successful. The only element a team needs to survive is an inherent that many players in the game have across the board: strategy and intelligence.

With that said; it is a fact that a brute can achieve the same mitigation cap that a tank can, so your statement won't mean much if a brute has just a couple of buffs tossed his way. He will be as capable a meat shield as a tank while dealing damage a tank would never be able to touch.

And please don't dismiss the effect of outside buffs in this particular discussion, because the question deals explicitly with teams. In teams, there is a very high likelihood buffs will be had.

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Tanks alreaedy do this. Taunt for Tanks causes -75% range on all foes, often drawing them into mellee range. Taunt for Brutes is limited to debuffing only the target hit. The end result is that Tanks "clump" spawns much better than Brutes.

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You are apparently incorrect:

Tank taunt: Max target 5 Autohit Foe
+41s Taunt (mag 4) PvE only
+10.25s Taunt (mag 4) PvP only, Not auto-hit
Range -75% for 12s [Ignores Enhancements &amp; Buffs]
Unknown Null +1

Brute Taunt: Max targets 5 Autohit Foe
+41s Taunt (mag 4) PvE only
+10.25s Taunt (mag 4) PvP only, Not auto-hit
Range -75% for 12s [Ignores Enhancements &amp; Buffs]
Unknown Null +1

The two taunts are identical in every way.

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Thanks for this information in both of your quantitative posts, BillZBubba. I guess I was wrong, brutes do get identical taunt to tanks. I suppose the missing element I wasn't weighing was gauntlet.

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(I reject the whole "mobs die in 10 seconds" mentality; they can drop that fast, but there are too many instances of fights lasting a while for me to buy it's the standard. Besides, if a spawn drops that fast, then the extra damage a Brute has is likely overkill.)

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Well stated, and I agree completely. When doing co-op content on high end teams without a tank, I often find that the only ATs who do complain about the lack of taunt or apparent "meatshield" behavior are predictably blue ATs, but those complaints are unheard of if a person is experienced enough to have really mastered his art and use his given tools with potent efficacy. On such teams, things roll pretty darn smoothly.
I will say this as well: I think that the added survivability that tankers have is in fact overkill in much of the game. There are a few circumstances in which a tank is just pretty handy to have on staff, but much of the content of the game doesn't require one to achieve that level of survivability. More importantly, it seems that tankers achieved this survivability at the expense of some ability to fluently deal damage.
(I am an avid lurker of both tanker and brute forums btw- so don't be mad if I have paraphrased a few poster's points here... hehe).

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Let me preface this by saying I'm a blueside player; I've never played a villain past level 15. With that said, I have teamed with several high level Brutes on various ITF's.

To play, Tanker. I've tried Brutes to the mid-teens (highest I've gotten anything redside) and I find Fury to be detrimental to survivability. Brutes are way too unpredictable; I know exactly what my tankers can do, and they'll do it in any situation. The Fury mechanic causes too much extreme variation in ability. And, of course, Brutes don't have the aggro handling abilities of a good tanker.

To play with, assuming I'm NOT playing one of my tanks, definitely a Tank, provided he's competent. Absent a competent tanker give me a good Scrapper any day. I've teamed with many Brutes on ITF's and frankly I've found them to generally be squishier than some Scrappers, to say nothing of a true tanker. I haven't ever teamed with a Brute who didn't decide to run off and taste the floor. Tanks are much more team friendly.

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Perhaps you are falling into the error of assuming that brutes are supposed to be tankers. That is what is sounds like to me. Not everyone plays their brute like a red tank. Some do, but some don't. One reason why brutes may end up over their heads is that people expect the brute to tank. I have been in situations on a brute where people stood around, expected me to herd or something, and watched me die under the hammer of a mob. I think some brute players may expect a team to descend on a mob at once instead of waiting for them to establish aggro. Brutes are not tankers. Stop expecting them to tank. Once you accept brutes for what they do and what they are- neither scrapper nor tank, things roll more smoothly.

I also think you fail to realize that in the absence of a tank, and sometimes even while a tank is present, a brute is often capable of pulling a good amount of aggro onto himself. That being said, yes, you may notice a brute attracting a much larger amount of attacks to himself and even dying more than a scrapper might in any given situation. Just look at the aggro auras on a brute vs aggro aura on a scrapper- I don't know the numbers behind the two, but logic stands that the brute aura is stronger. Meaning he will get more attention. Look at the taunt. Brutes get a weaker version of tanker taunt, meanwhile, scrappers get a version so far removed it has to be called confront.

But since you have said yourself that you have never played a villain past lvl 15 I wouldn't expect you to have seen very many well built/played brutes. Not all brutes participate in co-op content like ITF. What you may have encountered may have just been a poorly built brute, a poorly played brute, or maybe you shoehorned him into the role of being a substitute tanker. Or maybe he was just the victim of a faceplant- it happens to all of us every now and then.

I will make this statement in direct response to your clause on if a tanker is absent and taking a scrapper, in the same scenario, I would take a brute over a scrapper any day. Given a competent playstyle, outside buff for survivability, he will be at the tanker mitigation cap, providing group aggro instead of the single target aggro control a scrapper can provide, and in the heat of the moment, he will be dishing out comparable damage to your scrapper. So if team wants a tank, team can't find a tank, I would prefer team find a smart and appropriate brute (who is aware of your expectation of him to be a pseudo-tank) to fill the role over finding a scrapper to be a substitute tank. Before I looked to a scrapper to fill the role of aggro control, there are much more capable entities like controllers and dominators who can do this better.

Bottom line- a brute is from the other side of the tracks and used to the playstyle of the redside. Teams arguably are more fast paced and they tend to steamroll content differently than blueside. So while you may be used to a playstyle from hero side, the brute may be used to another style of play.

I bookmarked a guide for softcapping inv for tankers a few weeks ago, not sure if it works the same for brutes. Let me see if I can find the link for you.

*no beans, sorry. I know there is one in Player Questions or Guides section.*

I have done DB on a scrapper and brute. Felt similar and I liked both. I don't feel as if DB is very smashy, but it still fits brutes fairly well. So I think you should ask yourself if you are a stealthy assassin or an in your face animal. Then, decide if you are a hero or a villain. (Not that this will be much of an issue for too long with Going Rogue looming...)

Funny story- on an ITF the other day with both a brute and a tank, and a fair number of buffs (emp,rad, kin therm), the team would sometimes split and most of the team would rally behind the tank. I saw no problem with that until I realized that the kin was glued to the back of the tank. Using fulcrum shift on a buffed brute is likely to be a much better return on investment than ignoring the brute and fulcrum shifting only on a buffed tank with a notably lower damage ceiling.

If you have to chase fury, you are doing it wrong. Just start scrapping, and the fury builds automatically. Besides, just glancing at my attribute window and seeing the beautiful 750% dmg bonus in blue always brightens my day.

I don't think one is solidly ahead of the other as far as survivability goes either. Sarrate brought up ITFs- I have seen a well built scrapper tank/solo the whole thing and I have seen stone armor tanks get owned in the first few mobs. It all depends on who is behind the wheel and how well they use the tools given them.

I like them both, but I would rather play with a brute because it is more rewarding to be an aggro magnet. Brutes stack much better than tanks do, in my eyes. 2 or 3 or 4 brutes can be a lovely thing. That many tanks on one team makes for a safe and dull progression.

I would rather team with a brute because chances are, they are moving at a faster pace than a typical tank.

As far as people blaming death on "lack of tankage" or complaining about a brute or tank not using taunt, you probably need to learn to survive on your own instead of depending on other ATs and people to protect you. (That wasn't directed at anyone here really, it is just something I encounter sometimes.)

I like DA much more on a tank vs a brute. That said, it is a set that is not for everyone. Sort of like fiery aura. Most say it sucks, but it has strengths and weaknesses like everything else.

There was a tanker thread I found of interest in which someone called shields the new fiery aura. Trading a damage aura for a +dmg aura and both being on the somewhat squishie side out of the box. I think it comes down to personal preference. Do you prefer a secondary that is purely resistance based or one that relies heavily on defense? Does your toon concept fit one of a person on fire? Both powersets are fairly thematic, and differ greatly from one another. I think you have to make a decision based on which one you want to look at for 50+ lvls.

I think the playstyle will be fast and hard hitting either way. Both secondaries lend themselves to aggression and dmg. It seems like FA has a bit more involvement than shields does in Burn, Consume, and Healing Flames of course. There is no end recovery or major heal in Shields, and that may turn you off. On the other hand, you get a neat ally buff and a cool teleport type attack.

I say you roll both to 24 or so and make a decision then. At that time, you can also make the decision on whether shields is an end hog because you will have access to both stamina and SO enhancements.

For me, I prefer fiery aura, but I think both sets are more involving and engaging than Willpower for example.

Also, someone may explain a bit more of this, as my knowledge of SS is lacking, but doesn't Rage give you a notable -defense crash? That might factor into whether you decide to logically roll with a defense or resistance based secondary.

Shield defense will require a bit of patience to master. The defense isn't as good as SR out of the box, but you get a nice +dmg aura and ally buff power. If you plan on bruting with others or teaming a lot, shields is great. If you plan to solo, it is still good, but will take more patience than WP would. I know you said you don't want to IO and spend tons of cash, but people have found that a shield def brute can be pretty nasty if built the right way.

SS has its merits. And you can avoid the "crash" of rage by making it perma. This is done easily enough, I understand, with just recharge SOs. The overlap will do away with any kind typical crash penalty. I don't like the SS action myself, but if you want a brute that is out of the box capable and doesn't require a lot of money to be solid, you might consider SS/WP.

I have been having a lot of fun with a SR brute lately. She is end heavy, but easily soft capped for not a ton of cash. Pick a primary like DM and you are rolling nicely. DM will give you a nice heal that will fill in the lack of regeneration from SR.

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No "best" team would have two tanks, that's for sure. I wouldn't even have one on my "best" team.

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Amen. Load up on Fire/rad trollers and corruptors and call it a day.

I would go with speed pool and hasten yourself up.