pflorian

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May I also suggest building your IO sets toward melee defense. Stacked with your DM -tohit, an extra 20-25% or so melee defense from IOs would make those swords whiff 95% of the time. Throw in Darkest Night later on and be untouchable and unkillable even if they do hit you.

Take Taunt with this advice, the -range is crucial to making things close to melee where your defenses are strongest and they can be within reach of Soul Drain and Lightning Field. Melee is your friend.

Slot Lightning Field for endurance [u]drain[u] as well as accuracy, damage and endurance usage. By itself with enough time and slotting it can drain an enemy to 0. Combine with Power Sink and you have a whole additional level of mitigtion, since you can drain most mobs and keep them at 0 indefinitely.

Punch/Tough/Weave can come in extremely handy. This build is probably the one time I'll actually recommend Fighting in its entirety, since you won't have much else you'd want more and endurance should never be a problem. Since you're DM you can skip Medicine. With a travel power, Fitness and Fighting (and probably Hasten if you want to buzzsaw) you should be fine on pools. Set Punch to auto for Fury generaton and you're golden.

DM/ELE is the original buzzsaw build. Take Shadow Punch, Smite, Siphon Life and Punch and just rotate then furiously. You'll see what we mean. Toss in a Dark Blast and Midnight Grasp every now and again and you'll be shocked and amazed at what you can accomplish.

[/ QUOTE ]This is one of many posts in this thread that I have found useful and gives me an understanding of how the set plays, but I have a question.

This post suggests the use of 11 pool powers (Boxing+Tough+Weave, Swift/Hurdle+Health+Stamina, Prereq+Travel Power, Hasten, Prereq+Darkest Night). This requires dropping five primary/secondary powers. In the plan I'm currently operating from, I'm currently dropping four, and one of those is Taunt (Shadow Maul, Touch of Fear, Taunt, Conserve Power); if I take Taunt, it means I need two more powers to drop.

I suppose I could save one slot by just going Hasten/Super Speed, but Mercy Island architecture already has me head-desking. Does it get less bad later on?

For people who like to take a lot of pool powers with this build, what in DM/ElA do you drop?

By the way, I have my DM/ElA Brute to level 8 and it's getting more fun as it goes. Thanks to all for the advice.

Thanks for all of the advice.

I'm going to go with DM/ElA. While some of the other primaries may be equivalently effective despite the resist differences, I like the idea of hitting the Rikti where they're soft (or at least less hard), and ElA does everything I want it to do (I mistakenly thought it had a Psi hole) and a resist-oriented character works better for me than a defense-oriented character. I will be taking Tough.

So...at this point I could just dive in and learn on my own, but some pointers would be welcome.

Is Stamina necessary here? I ask only because of the several endurance tricks this combo has.
Hasten Y/N?
I'm having a hard time finding primary/secondary powers that I might want to skip for pool powers. Right now my best candidates are Shadow Maul and Taunt. Would I miss either of the Tier 9's? Are any of the ElA powers less essential than they look?

Thanks again.

Edit: 5/21 - I've settled on DM/ElA. I have some questions on how to develop it, see my post farther down.

So I'd like to create a Brute that at fifty would be tuned to be about as good against Rikti (with compromises to be about as good in solo and group play) as possible.

From what I'm read, Rikti are tough against Smashing, Lethal, and Energy, so that would seem to suggest Fire or Dark as a primary, and based on their attacks, I would at least like to avoid holes in Energy and Psionics defense, so for secondary, that's...WP or Dark?

Has anyone done anything like this? Any advice on slotting and pool powers would be welcome. Please note that I would have to earn my way into whatever enhancements I get.

Thanks in advance.

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Level 50 is the CAP. It's the end of the story.

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Not necessarily.

Once I get my main to 50 (which is a ways off, he's 30 now), I can start focusing my limited playing time on other things. I can hang around and roleplay (yes, my characters are on Virtue) with a fully mature and experienced character. Through exemplaring, I can offer help to pretty much anyone who needs it.

I plan on having a lot of fun with my character once he hits 50.