Darkness Bound- a Guide to Dark melee/Energy Aura

Darkness Bound- a guide to the Dark Melee / Energy Aura brute, just add luck.

This guide is intended to dispel some of the myths and misunderstandings associated with Energy Aura. Dark melee is already a well-understood set, although there are some ramifications of it's use that will become clear later.

Brutes, more than almost any other archetype, are concerned with the synergy of their primary and secondary sets. A lot of guide start with 'why this powerset, why that powerset, and why the two powersets together.' but in this case, the two powersets are so intertwined that it's almost impossible to seperate them that easily.
Instead, I am going to start immediately into the power descriptions and how they interact, some strategies for their use, and some slotting tips. I have some very strong opinions on a lot of things, and some people might not necessarily agree with them, but please, don't post something after this like 'EA sucks'. An intelligent, well-written objection to an interpretation may cause the guide to be re-written, or it may simply be refuted.

A note on attacks and fury: Energy Aura breaks the mold for brutes, quite a bit, since it has an unsuppressed stealth effect instead of a damage shield. It is also the closest thing to a nearly-pure defense set, and thus a slightly more cautious approach is usually called for when fighting. Fury is built by two things: attacking mobs and getting attacked by them. Since energy armor does not usually face the same level of aggro that other sets dwell in, attacking aggro is usually far more important. Remember that attacking a mob gives you the same amount of fury as if that mob had just swung at you twice. This will be a highly important factor, and leads to a lot of interesting slotting decisions.

Glossary:
Proc IO's- Proc IO's are invention origin enhancements that, instead of giving a bonus to the attributes of the power directly, add a percentage chance of a secondary effect occuring, such as extra damage, knockback, disorient, and endurance/hit point recovery.
Frankenslotting: This is when you slot set IO's for specific values, instead of trying to slot entire sets to gain the bonuses for that set. Frankenslotting usually allows you to make a single power much more powerful for much cheaper than slotting up an entire set, but you don't gain very many, if any, global bonuses for this power.
AOE- Area-of-effect
Perma- This is the act of using recharge reductions and IO sets to bring a power that has a set duration closer to being constantly 'always on'. It is easy for some powers, difficult for others, and nearly impossible in many cases... but for certain powers people will try.
Streak Code- The bane of all defensive sets, streak code is a code that has been implemented to ensure that no matter how lucky you are and how high your defenses are, if too many attacks fail to hit you in a row due to the random number engine, the next one (or several) attacks are GUARANTEED to hit you.
Aggro- the number of monsters currently angry and/or beating on you.
Mob- Mobile. An old holdover term from text-based online games of the 80's, it means 'enemy non-player-character' and usually only refers to stuff that is mobile and you can kill. Immobile killable stuff such as cars and rikti defense towers are not usually referred to as 'mobs'.
PvP- player versus player. Dark Melee/Energy Armor brutes can PvP, but it takes a lot of practice and skill to gain regular player kills. There are a lot of pitfalls, and these are addressed in the section on PvP
PvE- Player versus Enemy. This means fighting Mobs and is the most common mode of the game.

A note on debuffs- most Dark melee attacks have a debuff effect of one sort or another. Higher-ranked enemies such as elite bosses, Heroes, and Arch-Villains have a resistance against debuffs that reduces the effectiveness of these debuffs against those enemy types. This attack debuff is very useful, but except in certain rare circumstances the cumulative debuff of several attacks will be far more effective than an individual debuff effect, and thus you usually won't slot to maximize this debuff.

Please bear in mind that the initial descriptions are for PvE, PVP will be covered in it's own, later section.

PRIMARY POWER SET

Melee set: Dark Melee
Dark melee is a set that is strong on controls, and has some extremely fast moderate attacks, but doesn't have much burst damage. Instead it has a variety of auxiliary effects that greatly improve your survivability, and fast-recycling attacks that can both build fury very quickly as well as allowing an amazing amount of sustained DPS (damage per second). It is the preferred set for 'chainsaw builds' (builds where a small number of quick-recycling attacks are enhanced with added effect invention-origin enhancements, such as psi damage, smashing damage, or debuffs).

1)Shadow Punch- This attack has a very quick animation time, a modest amount of damage, and a fast recycle time. Scrappers often will not choose this attack because of it's low damage, however, it's extreme speed makes it ideal for building fury as well as for slotting damage proc IO's. It also does a decent amount of damage for a brute, adding well into any chain. As an added bonus, it also debuffs an opponents to-hit chances by 5% for 6 seconds. This power is highly recommended.

Slotting advice- At low levels, push accuracy to get as close as possible to 30% total so that you will have few or no problems hitting bosses and lieutenants. Of secondary priority, a good 50% endurance reduction will help most, and after that recharge... before about level 30, these things take priority over damage enhancements. Once you can afford it, frankenslotting for accuracy/recharge/endurance reduction, and 2 damage proc IO's, Mako's bite chance for lethal and touch of death chance for negative, will turn this simple attack into a brutal killer. Dark watcher's despair chance of recharge debuff and deflated ego chance for recovery debuff are also highly useful things to slot into it... My own build currently has all four chances, 1 recharge and 1 accuracy slotted for maximum utility.)

2)Smite- similar to shadow punch, smite does about half again as much damage, but for twice the recharge. It's animation is also extremely fast and it is likely to be the staple power in your attack chain. The 5% to-hit debuff on this power lasts for 10 seconds, and will stack with the debuff from Shadow punch. This power is also highly recommended.

Slotting advice- similar to shadow punch above, the two of these punches combine to turn opponents into hamburger in record time with proc IO enhancements.

3)Shadow maul- This power is atainable at level 2. You quickly shower your opponent with a flurry of blows. It can catch multiple opponents if you are VERY careful with your placement. This power is kind of a gift and a curse. It does amazingly high damage for such a low-level power, and you are likely to curse it every time you get caught in a 3 second loop of whiffing. The animation is slow, very slow. It is so slow, in fact, that you are actually likely to LOSE fury while the animation plays out. It has a high 'coolness' factor, but it's drawbacks are great enough that I would recommend putting it off until level 26. Or level 36. Or forever. It also has a ten-second -5 attack debuff that stacks with the prior two punches in this set.

Slotting advice- Since you will most likely be putting this attack off for some time, This is a good place to dump slots for the unsual sets... you will want to add damage and LOTS of accuracy since it won't be used often... and sitting through 3 seconds of swishing totally sucks. Once you get rich, you can 5 slot armageddon into this puppy, with the chance for fire damage, and add in 1 scirroco's chance for lethal for more aoe proc goodness. This is definitely something to put a full io pbaoe set into, however, since in the end it's a pretty straightforward cone damage attack.

4)Touch of fear- Another gem of this set, ToF can be chosen at level 6. It does no damage, but it DOES give you a tick of fury when you use it, Approximately equal to two attacks from whatever you are targetting. The fear on this power goes hand-in-hand with a massive -11.3% to-hit debuff. The important thing to remember is that the fear lasts 22.4 seconds, and the debuff lasts for a whopping 20 seconds. This fear is a powerful mag 3, which will cause most lieutenants and minions to tremble uncontrollably in front of you, and with two applications of this easy, 8-second recharge power you can catch most bosses and even a lot of elite bosses. The fear itself is a powerful attack mitigator, since most attackers will only attempt to hit you back once every few attacks that hit them. The duration of the fear is worth enhancing even if the attack debuff duration fails, because you can still use it to take a troublesome enemy 'out of the fight' while you deal with the rest. At 8.5 end per use, you do not want to overuse it except when you really need it until later, when you can slot in some endurance reducers.

Slotting advice- the trick to touch of fear is twofold. Spread it around in order to increase the number of mobs you can kill at one time, and layer it onto dangerous foes to turn them into helpless kittens. Accuracy is not a first priority, since it has a high (90%) accuracy to start with, but later on you should slot at least one accuracy to deal with tougher foes. This is a prime candidate for either glimpse of the abyss or dark watcher's despair, as either of these sets will give enormous benefits and they are often quite easily obtained and/or inexpensive.

5)Siphon Life- This is probably one of the most important powers of the set, and not taking this will make your build much more... 'challenging'. This attack has a -5% to-hit debuff, which lasts a whole 10 seconds, similar to smite. The attack's damage is moderate, but the most important part of the power is the fact that it heals you for 10% of your hit points each time it hits. The combination of health drain and to-hit debuff makes this an incredibly useful utility power, although at entry level the hefty 12 points of endurance per use means that you are nearly swapping blue-for-green at a 1/1 rate.

Slotting advice- This is an odd one. You do NOT want it to miss, so accuracy is at a premium, the heal is important, you want it available as often as possible, AND you want to reduce the staggering endurance cost to something manageable. Frankenslotting is king here, as you want to get as much acc/heal/rech/end reduction as you can squeeze out of the slots. Damage is definitely the lowest priority, since if you want damage, you will usually have something ready in a heartbeat that is far better and more efficient.

6)Taunt- Most brutes will tell you to skip taunt, since you are not a tanker, and most brutes have other ways to hold, and maximize aggro without resorting to this tool. For most brutes, they would be right. Now that that is out of the way.... Taunt on an /EA is actually a highly useful tool. It is what turns you into a 'master of aggro' instead of simply an aggro magnet. With energy cloak in place, taunt will allow you to easily pull apart two close-together spawns without aggroing the second one, and if you start to feel a little neglected, this is a highly useful tool to make sure things start paying attention to you again. Most brutes would skip this little ability, but as an energy Aura brute, you might want to consider taking it... especially as a holster for some excellent taunt IO sets. Taunt grabs up to 5 targets in an aoe radius of 15 feet around the original target. This is enough to gather a small spawn and can be used as both a pulling tool and as a way to gather fury-granting minions about you like a warm blanket.

Slotting advice- This power doesn't need any real accuracy unless you are going PvP, and thus is best slotted early for... nothing. Default slot should get a taunt enhancement. If you feel like slotting it, however, this would be a perfect holster for Perfect Zinger or Mocking Beratement.

7)Dark Consumption- This ability can be obtained at level 18, and it casts a reasonable damage aoe around yourself that drains endurance similar to the way siphon life drains health. The more foes around you, the more endurance you regain. For energy Aura, however, this has a few downsides that you may wish to consider- The recharge time of 180 seconds is obscene for either an endurance drain OR an AOE attack, and you get much, much better tools for endurance management in your secondary starting at level 28. For a lot of builds, I would say unhesitatingly 'get this', but for Energy aura, the combination of long recharge, an accuracy check, low-end damage, a small radius(8'), and lack of a secondary to-hit debuff makes it something that's easy to skip.

Slotting advice- obviously accuracy is a big deal, followed by endurance modification and recharge. The end cost is less than 1 point, so slotting in end reduction is kind of pointless. This would be a good place to 3-slot scirroco's dervish for the negative resistance, but leave out the damage unless you have a ton of cash and slots... considering the terrible recharge, the damage proc would be almost wasted. An end modification with 3 slotted dervish brings this up to 4 slots, which is quite acceptable if the dervish is accuracy/damage/recharge IO's.

8)Soul drain- Very similar to dark consumption, except that soul drain gives you a very nice accuracy and damage buff for a huge amount of time (30 seconds) for each and every enemy surrounding you. It does require an accuracy check, but each opponent is hit for damage midway between shadow punch and smite, is taunted, and gives you a 5% accuracy and 12.5% damage boost. Once again, this is PER OPPONENT. I have heard varying reports that 7 to 10 opponents can be affected this way, but a 30 second accuracy boost of 35-50% and a 30 second damage boost of 90-120% is brutal and killer and all the other lovely nasty adjectives you can think of for turning someone into a killing machine outside of fulcrum shift. This power can be, and should be, taken at level 26. It is not perma-able, because of the 120 second recharge, but it sure comes close with the right IO sets, and it's utility magnifies the closer you come to making it permanent.

Slotting advice-Accuracy and recharge are once again key to this power. After you get some cash, this is a great place to slot in guassian's or recticle, or another dervish. Because of it's quicker recharge, dervish's damage proc would come in handy. I also get good results 5 slotting adjusted Targetting, which can be much cheaper than gaussian's synchronized fire control, gives good bonuses, and leaves room for an accuracy mod.

9)Midnight Grasp- This is a very useful power, but due to it's end cost, long animation, and long recharge in comparison to it's actual damage, it becomes more of a situational power used for it's immobilize effect than a staple of the attack chain. The Mag 3 immobilize will come in quite handy for stopping runners and keeping 'big hitters' from wreaking havoc among the back lines while you clean up the trash, and with a couple of recharge enhancements it's 18 second duration is easily stackable, It IS your largest single-target damage attack, but unlike most melee tier 9's, I would take it and slot it with a full set and then keep it on my second-rank bar with the other situational powers instead of in my attach chain. Like most other dark melee powers, it provides a nice defense debuff of 5% for it's duration.

Slotting advice-This power benefits well from accuracy enhancements, end reduction, and recharge. Since it accepts 3 kinds of sets it can be difficult to decide what would be the best to slot into it, although I hover towards immobilize since it will allow the coveted, and ruinously expensive, gravitational anchor set to be utilized.

SECONDARY POWER SET

Defensive set: Energy Aura

As previously mentioned, Energy Aura is a bit of the black sheep of the brute secondary sets for three reasons. The first reason is that it is a defense set instead of a resistance set, which means that while it's status and debuff protection is second to none (a status effect or debuff that fails to hit you has no chance to effect you) and it's damage mitigation is highly effective, it is subject to 'streak code'. This means that sooner or later a series of strikes are bound to hit you, and you can either shrug your shoulders, accept the streak as inevitable, and accept the debt and the trip back from the hospital, or you can build your set to have some form of back-up mitigation to give you time to react when a streak sets in.
The second reason is the fact that instead of having a power that increases the amount of aggro that you take, it actually possesses an aggro mitigator, in the form of energy cloak, that allows you to pick and choose your fights, and the amount of mobs beating on you at one time, to ensure that streak code and incoming damage are within your capabilities.
The third reason is that Energy Aura is highly misunderstood. Most sets that came to brutes as secondaries started out as tanker sets originally, and thus focus on surviving as many foes beating on them at once as possible, and damaging them in turn to prevent them from killing you before your resistances failed. Energy aura, however, was designed for brutes from the ground-up as a combination of super reflexes and ice armor. It was designed to allow a more thoughtful, and tactical approach to fights, and to control the ebb and flow of your aggro in a way far more proactive than most people who concentrate on 'smash' are able to appreciate.
What this means is that if you try to pretend you are a tanker like most brutes, you will epic fail. You will accumulate debt badges at an unprecedented rate, and will compete with blue-side blasters for floor space as you are smashed under the weight of your own preconceptions. Like blueside SR scrappers, you must remain acutely conscious of the EXACT amount of enemy hatred that is directed at you at all times, and if you can think tactically, pushing yourself right up to your limits at all times, you can succeed in a way that will surprise and discomfit many of the more 'traditional' brutes.

Now that I have finished alienating many of my brothers and sisters on the brute boards, let's start to talk about what Energy Aura actually DOES:

1)Kinetic Shield- This is going to be a mandatory power pick, but that's alright... it's your most valuable armor and will be what you turn on as soon as you log on your character anyway. The special effects are quite subdued, surrounding you with a hazy barrier that quite resembles a stylized atom. This armor defends against smashing, lethal, and energy attacks, all at the same time. This is exceptionally powerful, since those three damage types are the top three most-used effects in the game, and it blocks ALL damage if ANY of those types are present in an attack. Over 80% of all attacks used by enemies AND other players contain one of these three components, and so this shield, alone, is a bit of a no-brainer. The default protection is 12.8%, and slotted with defense enhancements it can come quite close to 20% defense all by itself. That means nearly half of the attacks that a white-conn minion that uses one of these damage types as part of it's attacks that would usually hit you will miss completely instead. This power also blocks 17.5% of all incoming defense debuffs, which will help enormously against things that debuff defense, like devouring earth emanators, and a lot of weapon attacks.

Slotting advice- 3 defense SO's, or 2 level 50 defense IO's, and I call this power finished. It and power shield can potentially be good holders for red fortune and luck of the gamblers sets, however.

2)Dampening field- This power gives you a nice, 7.5% resistance against smashing and lethal damage, the two most common damage types in the game. Many brutes and tankers will advocate against getting this passive, since the amount tops at about 12%, but this resistance stacks admirably well with other smashing and lethal resistances, such as tough, and is a valuable aid to minimizing streaks and surviving the occasional extreme-damage attack that manages to penetrate your defenses. This is available at level 2 and is not to be confused with energy protection, below.

Slotting Advice: 3 resistance SO's or 2 resistance level 50 IO's and I call this power finished. It would be a good holder, however, for 3 slotted aegis (with the special) the 3% steadfast defense IO, and 2 slotted impervium armor.

3)Power Shield- Available at level 4, many brutes put this off for a little while because the utility and versatility of kinetic Shield make it almost redundant until you get to higher levels where more 'pure' energy and environmental damage can be found. It provides a healthy 15% defense to energy, fire, and cold damage, and a more moderate 10.5% defense against negative energy. Combined with kinetic shield, this is a whopping 28% defense UNSLOTTED against energy damage, which most higher-end enemy groups use excessively for their 'specialty' attacks as well as status and debuff attacks. At lower levels, however, more enemy groups use a majority of purely s/l damage for most of their effects, so you can easily put this off until the teens while you get your attack chain into shape. Like kinetic shield, this shield gives you a 17.3% resistance to defense debuffs.

Slotting advice- 3 defense SO's, or 2 level 50 defense IO's, and I call this power finished. It and Kinetic shield can potentially be good holders for red fortune and luck of the gamblers sets, however.

4)Entropy shield- Available at level 10, entropy shield is your status protection. It is amazingly powerful, giving you mag 10 protection against sleep, hold, knockback, knockup, disorient, and immobilize. It also gives you status protection from two more unusual effects, repel and teleportation. As far as I know, this is the ONLY set that has resistance to repel effects, and very few other sets innately resist teleportation. In combination with your defensive shields, you can shrug off nearly any status effect situation with relative ease where a pure resistance set would be struggling just to keep their toggles up in the face of tsoo, lots of rikti, and high-level enemies such as carnie illusionists. Like the shields, this toggle gives you another 17.3% resistance to defense debuffs.

Slotting advice- Entropy shield appears to currently accept no sets or defense improvements, so I usually just dump in an end reducer and call it finished.

5)Energy protection- I have been campaigning hard to get this power upgraded, as in it's current form, with the amount of energy defense you posses, this power gives about 10% energy resistance and 7.5% Negative energy resistance. Of all the powers in this set, I would consider this to be the most skippable, but during fights with carnie ring mistresses and circle of thorns you may have cause to bless choosing it. I personally believe that it would not be out of place to give 10% resistance to fire and cold damage as well, and a resistance to energy drain, but until that happens this power will remain out of my own builds, to my chagrin.

Slotting Advice: 3 resistance SO's or 2 resistance level 50 IO's and I call this power finished. It would be a good holder, however, for 3 slotted aegis (with the special) the 3% steadfast defense IO, and 2 slotted impervium armor.

6)Energy Cloak- available at level 20, this is one of the defining powers of the Energy Aura set. It is a stealth ability that does NOT suppress when you attack or taunt (Meaning you can taunt one group from fifteen feet away and leave the other group completely unaffected), you get full defense from the power equal to weave whether you are noticed or not, and your movement is completely unsuppressed by the power. This is not 'complete' invisibility, but you can get remarkably close to mobs without their noticing you at all, and, in PvE, when combined with super speed, you become nearly completely undetectable against anything that doesn't have perception bonuses, such as rikti drones. This power gives 3.75% defense against EVERYTHING just like weave, and has only 2/3rds of the endurance cost of weave, per tick. It allows you to control the flow of battle, when combined with taunt or attacks, in a way that only is unique to the set... no other set save dark armor can do the same aggro tricks that Energy aura can, and they cannot do it as well, since their stealth suppresses after they are discovered. Once again, campaigning is in place to give this power a +perception bonus, but even without the bonus this power is what sets you apart, and is a must-have for any energy brute.

Slotting advice- 3 defense SO's, or 2 level 50 defense IO's, and I call this power finished. It and the other 2 shields can potentially be good holders for red fortune and luck of the gamblers sets, however. Adding a stealth IO to one of your movement sets can make this power a nearly-perfect stealth power, as well.

7)Energy Drain- This is another power that sets Energy Aura apart from other sets. It is not quite as powerful as electric Armor's energy drain, but slotting a single energy modification enhancement can fill you completely up on endurance from only three mobs, and fully-slotted you can fill up from 13 endurance to full on only two mobs... and the mob's endurance will be reduced by 2/3rds if they are a minion. Due to a lack of anything to KEEP the endurance away, this is unreliable mitigation at best, but it is good for keeping an enemy from using their biggest attacks as frequently, and it's 60 second recharge ensures that you will very seldom have any endurance problems. Energy drain may be taken at level 28, a lot earlier than electric armor gets theirs.

Slotting advice- Frankenslotting a combination of endurance mod, recharge, and endurance reduction will serve this power well, but a complete set efficacy adaptors serves it SO much better. If you DO choose to frankenslot, however, throw in the energy manipulator special for a nice disorient, but not the performance shifter special... due to the power's effects, the performace shifter special's +20% endurance would be almost worthless.

8)Conserve power- Conserve power cuts your endurance expenditures by half or more for 90 seconds, and is useable every twelve minutes. It is highly situational, but can save your bacon against brutally end-draining bosses such as carnies. If you get the recharge down low enough, a stamina-free build becomes very attractive, but you will frankly be trading slots for powers. This power becomes available at level 35, right when you need it the most. If you have overload, Conserve power may seem superfluous.

Slotting advice- Now THIS is a place where performance shifter special could come in handy...except that this won't accept it. Throw in a few recharge reducers and you are set.

9)Overload- One of the best tier 9's defensive powers in the game, with no slotting at all this power gives you 45% defense against everything except psionics, massive endurance recharge, as many hit points as dull pain, and maximizes your defense debuff resistance. Overload has the standard End crash of most tier 9 powers after using it for 3 minutes, but... remember that you are the master of aggro control. Once your three minutes are almost up, with energy cloak running, make sure you finish off what you are fighting and find a place to wait out the crash... nothing else will likely aggro you while you are looking for a good spot to rest. That makes Overload incredibly copacetic with the rest of Energy Aura since most other sets have to pray that they can find a safe place to wait out their tier 9 crash...that is, if they even HAVE a good tier 9 power. Even if you are not finished with your mobs when it crashes, popping a quick blue, using conserve power and/or energy drain or Dark consumption will bring you right back into the fight with barely a slowdown.... and remember those passives? Those can definitely help you stay alive for the heartbeat it takes to bring your defenses back on-line. The crash, fortunately, only lasts a mere 20 seconds, plenty of time for a well-used conserve power to bring you back into the action. This power has a brutal 1000 second recharge, and is usually only used once or twice a mission, when it really counts. Considering the fact that it would take 600% recharge to make this ability permanent, it falls outside the realm of possibility with the recharge cap as it is. Bear in mind though that unlike dull pain, increasing your hit points with this power does NOT heal the damage as well... it might startle you when your health bar looks the same after popping it, and your self-heals (aid self or siphon life) do not gain in effect from your new hit point cap. You would gain more effect by popping aid self or drain life before you pop off overload.

Slotting advice- Unless you intend to PVP, using anything but recharge reductions and healing boosters is almost a complete waste of slots and/or cash. It is amazingly good on it's own, and 2 level 50 IO recharge reducers, plus 2 IO heals will make it even better. You can, however, slot in efficacy adapter or luck of the gamblers and do well, but bear in mind that this is the ONLY power you get without delving into power pools that can accept the numina and miracle uniques.

POWER POOLS

General Sets: Concealment

1)Stealth- This power is...well, completely unneeded, since you have the exact same effect in energy cloak, only energy cloak does not suppress, and cannot stack for greater concealment with this ability. The extra 1.88 defense is far inferior to energy cloak's 3.75 percent, although when you are undetected the defense for both is the same.

2)Grant invisibility- This power is actually worth taking so that a teammate or two can travel along with you in your stealthed state, although generally it is more prudent, if you wish to stealth missions, to simply teleport friend to bring them to your location when you get where you are going instead.

3)Invisibility- This power has a slightly better version of stealth than energy cloak, but is suppressed when you attack. Worse, it does not stack with energy cloak, and you cannot attack something back when it bumps you.

4)Phase shift- This ability is quite useful for defusing an alpha, although the 2 powers that must be taken in order to use it make it less than ideal. It is amusing, however, to phase shift into a large group of baddies, soak up their alpha, and then return to normal space and tank for a little while with the enemy's most dangerous abilities already wasted.

General Sets: Fighting

1)boxing- This pool attack is actually quite nice, since it's fast, hits rather hard, has a chance to disorient, fits well thematically with dark melee, and slips right into the attack chain like a penguin slips into the ocean.

Slotting advice- At low levels, push accuracy to get as close as possible to 30% total so that you will have few or no problems hitting bosses and lieutenants. Of secondary priority, a good 50% endurance reduction will help most, and after that recharge... before about level 30, these things take priority over damage enhancements. Once you can afford it, frankenslotting for accuracy/recharge/endurance reduction, and 2 damage proc IO's, Mako's bite chance for lethal and touch of death chance for negative, will turn this simple attack into a brutal killer. This set can also accept absolute amazement, and razzle dazzle's chance to immobilize can make for interesting encounters, although I would not, truthfully, choose to slot it in.

2)Kick- this attack has a higher chance to disorient than boxing, and slightly higher damage, but it is very slow to animate and can disrupt your chainsaw attack chain badly. For slotting advice please see boxing.

3)Tough- This power is actually highly useful since it stacks another 11.3% smashing/lethal resistance, the most common damage type in the game, onto dampening field's 7.5 resistance. This can help greatly in surviving streaks and runs of bad luck. I would slot similarly to dampening field. The endurance cost is not great, but you might find one end reducer to be helpful.

4)Weave- this could almost be the reason to take the fighting pool in the first place. It can, fully enhanced, stack another 5% defense to all onto your build, and with a defense-based set like energy aura, this can easily cut the number of attacks you take in half. Slotting would be similar to energy cloak, but you might want to consider adding in an end reducer to deal with weave's high end costs... but you would do better to slot the end reducer into an attack first, and only use it in weave if you have the slot and the attack is already spoken for.

General Sets: Fitness

1)Swift- Swift is highly useful for speeding your flight speed up if you choose to take the flight pool as your travel power, but for the speed pool or leaping as your travel power, you'd probably do better choosing hurdle. Drop in one or two run or fly speed enhancers and you will be set.
2)Hurdle- Hurdle will give you some much-needed height for travelling difficult zones if you have no travel powers or are using super speed, and will increase your jump speed and height if you are using superleap as your travel power. Drop in one or two jump enhancements and you are set.
3)Health- health is a bit of a challenge, since it can greatly increase your survival and can be used to slot healing set uniques. The problem is that because stamina is not strictly necessary, there is a lot less incentive to take this power over something else, such as another attack.
4)Stamina- Stamina can always be handy, but the combination of dark melee and energy aura has so MUCH endurance modification that it's really not necessary. You might choose to get it at an early level and respec out, however, as it can be a very long grind from level 20 to level 28.

General Sets: Flight
1)Hover- This is a very good power, and with swift slotted for fly speed and hover slotted for fly speed, you can choose to forgoe any other travel power... as long as you don't mind traveling between missions very, very slowly. The defense boost against everything is useful in conjunction with energy armor's defense, and worth slotting, but a lot of melees have a lot of trouble hovering while they fight. Hover plus energy cloak makes it easy to stealth missions over the heads of enemies without ever getting detected, though.
2)Air Superiority- This attack, like boxing, adds a lot to your attack chain. It is also highly useful at lower levels before you get midnight grasp as a way to stop fleeing enemies in 'stop X from escaping' missions. It is not quite as fast as the rest of your attack chain, but is well worth using all the way up to 50. Slotting will be similar to boxing, above, except that I believe you could slot force feedback's chance for recharge or explosive strike's chance for smashing damage...although don't quote me on that, I haven't done it and I am not certain that it takes knockback sets.
3)Fly- for the slowest travel power in the game, it's still very quick when properly slotted. As a brute, however, you may not wish to blow the slots to properly slot it. It is very quiet and matches stealth well, for the same reasons as hover, and is very graceful as well... my first flying character literally spent hours simply swooping and swooping and swooping just because of how cool it looked. Fly, like hover, will accept the freebird stealth IO which stacks very well with energy cloak for nearly unpierceable invisibility.
4)Group flight- It has been much improved in recent patches, but if you turn on group fly in a mission your team is likely to cuss at you. It is slower than fly, and people with lag tend to 'drop out' regularly. Not a reccommended travel power for a brute.

General Sets: Leadership
1)maneuvers- unfortunately, with a brute's numbers, maneuvers are not terribly efficient for a brute, although the extra 2% defense DOES stack well with all the other defenses you have.
2)Assault- the 10% damage buff is not really much more than a drop in the bucket added to the nearly 170% we regularly sport. This power is not recommended, maneuvers would probably be more useful.
3)Tactics- For PVP, I would recommend tactics unhesitatingly. For PvE, you will probably not need that much accuracy very often, especially once you get soul drain well slotted.
4)Vengeance- If you choose to go the leadership route as far as tactics, vengeance makes it all worthwhile when a partymember faceplants. This ability adds a HUGE 18.8% defense buff to your already high numbers, and the accuracy and damage, while not remarkable, will help you quickly finish whatever killed your teammate. For a team-based DM/EA, this power will be highly useful.

General Sets: Leaping
1)Jump kick- I want to love this power, I really do. But due to a plaguey animation time and a much lower chance for knockdown than air superiority, this attack will do little more than interrupt your attack chain. Slotting advice, should you find a use for it, will be similar to air superiority above.
2)Combat jumping- a diamond in the rough, combat jumping's defense stacks well with all of your other defensive powers. The -immobilize is not really needed, but is valuable regardless, especially when fighting mobs that throw out lots of web grenades. This power costs almost no end, so slotting should be confined to defensive/jump and defense sets.
3)Superleap- the fastest travel power once you add in laggy hardware, load speeds, and massively insurmountable ground obstacles, superleap is definitely a favored travel power. A jump enhaqncement or two should make it fast enough for nearly anyone.
4)Acrobatics- due to energy's excellent hold and knockback protection, you should not need acrobatics unless you are hunting controllers in PVP or you are truly paranoid. It has a hefty endurance price, so slotting an end reducer will be helpful.

General Sets: medicine
1)Aid other- Unless you are bucking for healing badges, you will probably be too busy in combat to give this power the attention it deserves. Useful for downtime teammates, but stimulant below is probably more useful. Slot in a couple of heal enhancers and interrupt reducers or end/recharge reducers and you should be good to go. I wouldn't waste more than 1 slot, however.
2)Stimulant- This power is a good enough 'protect the squishy' power that, if thiungs are not too hectic, it might be worth taking a moment out of combat to use it. It protects against mmob, sleep, disorient, and hold, and is great for dealing with a teammate who just popped an awaken. The end cost is a bit high, so definitely use interrupt reducers.
3)Aid self- More most energy aura broutes I would suggest aid self without fail... but you have siphon life, a combat heal. Siphon life connaot be used OUT of combat, though, so you might still have a place in your build for aid self. 2 interrupt reducers, 1-2 recharge, 2 heals and 1-2 end redux, frankenslotted, can make this a valuable survival addition.
4)Resuscitate- well, at least if someone DOES die, you can bring them back and then hit them with stimulant... however, taking this power is enough of a waste that you would be better able to keep them alive by choosing a different power.

General Sets: Presence
I am not going to give a numbered list here. I mean, come on, every single thing you do in presence, save for a group fear that doesn't even have any debuffs, you can already inherently do better. Leave presence alone.

General Sets: Speed
1)flurry- Okay, I will admit that chaining flurry, sands of mu, and shadow maul looks REALLy cool. Beyond that, this power doesn't have a cone, does a quarter of the damage, lowers your fury gain,and is basically a completely wasted power pick. If you want the speed group, choose hasten instead.
2)Hasten- I don't personally use hasten, since with airsup-sp-boxing-smite I have a very fast, very complete attack chain, but hasten CAN help bring that brutal soul drain, dark consumption, and overload speed down a LOT. I will definitely not recommend avoiding this power, although I personally do not use it. It has a ton of utility. Dropping 3 recharge slots into hasten makes it come up a lot faster.
3)Super speed- This has marvelous synergy with energy cloak, allowing you to dance naked among the trolls without them even realizing you are there. There are problems with travelling some of the rogue isles, however, which will make this power much more acceptable if you have a jump pack, jet pack, rocket pack, gve jump jet, or some other form of vertical clearance. Remember that you can repeat the mission which rewards the goldbricker rocket pack through orobouros if you run out.
4)Whirlwind- Exceedingly cool animation leads to out of endurance, dead brute. Enjoy the animation, keep it in your pants in a mission. Slot end reducers or die. The only other use I have found for it is to use it as a makeshift taunt, since things you toss around with the whirlwind really want to kill you.... but then, that's understandable because your teammates will likely want to kill you too.
General Sets: Teleportation
1)Recall friend- as a natively stealthed character, the synergy of being able to sneak through a task force to the end and then port your teammates to you will not be wasted. The only problem is, that stalkers do it much, much better, and can generally spare the power selection more easily than you can. While this is recommended, it is done so only guardedly... and only for brutes that have a regular team.
2)Teleport foe- In PVP, this power is scary... you have stealth, tp foe makes you into a nasty trapdoor spider that can pluck blasters out of the air like candy. accuracy is a must for this power, but little else is. Also, if you tp a foe in PvE and energy aura is active, it does not seem to aggro the rest of the spawn. Cool.
3)Teleport- if you have a fast connection, this is a blazingly fast power.... and you are virtually untouchable in pvp as long as you keep moving. /EA has inherent teleport protection, and this power plus energy cloak helps ensure that you are not going to wind up surrounded by tripmines with a blaster that has a targetting drone and a lot of little yellow circles ready to strip away your pride.
4)Group teleport- This power is a great idea, but seems to fall short of the ideal. It does not tp your entire team to you, instead it seems to only move you and the rest of your team, if they are surrounding you, someplace else. If you are the survivor of a team wipe, this is a useful power for picking a place away from the spawn to die and rez, but it doesn't seem to have much more use.

PATRON POWER POOLS

I don't generally use patron power pools, as I feel there are too many good things in the regular pools to waste my time on, but I have included them here for general synergy. I have not personally used any of them, and do not intend to, but hopefully these will provide some clarity and depth for those that wish to try them.
These will not be in as formal a setup as the rest of the guide, since I am not trying to be the definitiove source on these pools, but will instead be a description of synergies I have picked up or extrapolated based on watching them in use, and trying them on other builds.

Leviathan mastery
the graphics are cool, and with your ability to line up a cone while stealthed, you can get good use out of them. Unfortunately though, by the time you finish lining up a cone and waiting and sneaking, your fury will usually be nearly flatlined, so it loses a bit of it's effectiveness.a pet will hurt you through attracting unwated aggro far more than it could be useful, which applies to all the patron sets.
Mace Mastery
knockback is your bane, why would you want more of it? Web envelope COULD be useful, as a setup for your AOE's, but it's primary purpose would be to hold everything still so that the disruptor blast doesn't scatter them to the four winds... not a very efficient set of powers for an aggro-control specialist.
Mu mastery
now, this set could be truly worthwhile. With a combination of good AOE damage and endurance sapping, as well as a good ranged attack, this can help greatly in turning a spawn into a mess of brawling, tired halflings.
Soul Mastery
while this set makes sense thematically, it does so by being all dark damage. Dark damage which you already have in spades. I would avoid it simply because of the fact that I already have enough trouble beating up undead without adding MORE dark damage to the mix.


Next up- Synergy and tactics!

This page intentionally left blank for tactics

This page intentionally left blank for build examples/styles

good description of the sets and the powers. I've never been comfortable with the shunning of Shadow Maul and Midnight Grasp that the majority of Brutes do, but the advice for those powers is consistent with general Brute knowledge.

I already see things that most people are going to disagree with or argue with you over your phrasing in your EA section. I'm sure there will be plenty more for people to disagree with in your Tactics section.

Tactics for Utilizing dark melee/energy Aura


One of the first things that you need to realize about DM/EA is that it doesn't have nearly as much "SMASH" as other brute combinations will. There is no wilting hordes of minions with a damage aura, gathering the entire aggro cap and trying to AOE them all before dying, or relying on a steady stream of heals and greens to keep your fury bar filled

The taunt/Energy cloak combo

Having energy cloak up at all times means that the amount of aggro you gain is entirely based upon what you feel comfortable with. If you have invested lots of recharge reducers in soul drain, you can reasonably engage up to the aggro cap by taunting mobs from seperate spawns into range, popping soul drain, and then tearing everything apart with one-shots from smite, two-shots with boxing/air superioity and shadow punch, Midnight grasp, or getting the perfect cone with shadow maul. However, you do need to remember that energy cloak does NOT protect against longbow death squads in bank missions! No stealth power will prevent you from being visible to them, so if you see the magical blue 'stop in the name of longbow' appear in your chat window, it's often a good idea to listen to them... stop, pound them into meatloaf, and then continue as you were doing.

Siphon Life vs. Aid self

Energy Aura has no heal. As a defensive set, however, it is entirely possible to slot aid self and actually get it to go off while you are getting pounded. Dark melee has siphon life, however, which makes this tactics unneccessary.
The upsides are that siphon life is not interruptible, does not require another power choice, recharges slightly faster, applies a to-hit debuff, and slips smoothly into an attack chain for great heaqlth maintenance and additional damage.
The downside is that it does not heal as much as aid self (10% vs. almost 20%), it is not useable out of combat, it does not give you disorient protection, and it has to hit to be useful.
The choice of which to take is entirely up to you, however, as I have seen successful builds with either one, both, and neither. Aid self is a better heal for between fights and siphon life is a better health maintenance tool, and if you have both, you can easily rival the healing power of a fire armor brute.

The fighting pool and combat jumping

The fighting pool is a very hard choice for most dm/ea brutes. I personally tend to reccomend it, as the added s/l resistance from tough, the extra fast attack in brawl, and weave's global bonuses stack very well with the fast, low damage nature of dark and help fill some of it's defensive holes as well as lowering the 'streakyness' of the sets.
Big, front-loaded smashing and lethal damage is VERY common in the game, and can end you before you get a chance to respond if a streak hits. Tough can greatly mitigate this effect, giving more time for the streak to end or a little breathing room to get off aid self/siphon life before it's too late. Weave stacks with energy cloak, giving you a total of 10% fully-slotted global defense, which adds very nicely to your already high typed defenses.
Fully slotted energy cloak, kinetic shield, combat jumping, and weave (2 level 50 defense IO's) give you a total of 33.1% s/l defense as well as all attacks that have s/l as a component of their attack. fully slotted tough and dampening field give you another 30% resistance to s/l damage which can go a LONG way towards allowing you to survive even the nastiest alphas. add in the debuffs from your attacks, and enemies are going to be nudging the 5% to-hit basement easily, or even get nervous and pop a tiny purple... just try to avoid standing back and letting enemies beat you from range.

I was originally going to make the tactics and build sides seperate, but I realized that each particular KIND of build requires a completely different set of tactics to perform successfully, so I combined them to try and keep the tactics and the build choices together.

Build 1: the levelling Build

This is the build I am currently using, it is useful at a variety of levels and requires very little to get it functional. I am including IO slotting for cheap, useful sets, since I eventually plan on replacing these when I respec into a specialty build. Because the build is designed to be useful across all levels, it contains a lot more endurance than appears strictly neccessary, but this helps quite a bit whenfacing sapping enemies such as carnies. This is also a 'maximum hit point' build, with a little extra defense to deal with debuffing enemies. The build, all told, only ran about 30 million total with a lot of farming and buying stuff on the cheap, but it doesn't have any of the 'biggies' like the numina unique.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.30
http://www.honourableunited.org.uk/mhd.php

The levelling up build: Level 50 Magic Brute
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Energy Aura
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Fitness
Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Shadow Punch -- Acc-I:50(A), T'Death-Dam%:40(3), DampS-ToHitDeb/Rchg/EndRdx:50(5), DampS-Rchg/EndRdx:50(11), P'ngS'Fest-Stun%:30(17), DefEgo-RecDeb%:20(31)
Level 1: Kinetic Shield -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(19), RedFtn-Def:50(40), RedFtn-EndRdx:50(40), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg:50(43), GftotA-Run+:40(43)
Level 2: Smite -- T'Death-Dam%:40(A), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:40(3), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg:40(5), T'Death-Acc/Dmg:40(15), DarkWD-Slow%:40(21), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx:30(34)
Level 4: Dampening Field -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(A), ResDam-I:50(37), ResDam-I:50(43)
Level 6: Air Superiority -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:50(7), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(7), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(21), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg:50(27), T'Death-Dam%:40(40)
Level 8: Siphon Life -- Numna-Heal:50(A), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg:50(9), Numna-Heal/Rchg:50(9), P'ngS'Fest-Acc/Dmg:25(11), F'dSmite-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:40(17), P'ngS'Fest-Stun%:30(34)
Level 10: Entropy Shield -- EndRdx-I:50(A)
Level 12: Boxing -- T'Death-Dam%:40(A), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:40(13), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:40(13), T'Death-Acc/Dmg:40(15), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg:40(25), Stpfy-Acc/EndRdx:30(34)
Level 14: Fly -- Flight-I:50(A)
Level 16: Swift -- Flight-I:50(A)
Level 18: Health -- Heal-I:50(A), Heal-I:50(19)
Level 20: Stamina -- Efficacy-EndMod:50(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc:50(23)
Level 22: Energy Cloak -- DefBuff-I:50(A), DefBuff-I:50(23)
Level 24: Power Shield -- DefBuff-I:50(A), DefBuff-I:50(25)
Level 26: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(A), RctvArm-ResDam:40(27), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:40(37), RctvArm-EndRdx:40(37)
Level 28: Energy Drain -- EnManip-Stun%:20(A), RechRdx-I:50(29), EndMod-I:50(29), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx:50(31), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg:50(50)
Level 30: Weave -- DefBuff-I:50(A), DefBuff-I:50(31)
Level 32: Soul Drain -- GSFC-Build%:50(A), GSFC-ToHit:50(33), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg:50(33), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx:50(33), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx:50(46), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx:50(50)
Level 35: Touch of Fear -- Abys-Dam%:50(A), Abys-Acc/Fear/Rchg:50(36), Abys-Acc/EndRdx:50(36), Abys-Acc/Rchg:50(36)
Level 38: Overload -- Numna-Heal:50(A), Numna-Heal/Rchg:50(39), Efficacy-EndMod:50(39), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg:50(39)
Level 41: Electrifying Fences -- TotHntr-Dam%:50(A), TotHntr-Acc/Rchg:50(42), TotHntr-Acc/EndRdx:50(42), TotHntr-Acc/Immob/Rchg:50(42)
Level 44: Ball Lightning -- P'Shift-End%:50(A), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg:50(45), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg:50(45), EndRdx-I:50(45), Dmg-I:50(46), RechRdx-I:50(46)
Level 47: Midnight Grasp -- T'Death-Dam%:40(A), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:40(48), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:40(48), Acc-I:50(48), RechRdx-I:50(50)
Level 49: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I:50(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- EndRdx-I:50(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- EndRdx-I:50(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I:50(A)
Level 1: Fury
------------
[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]<ul type="square">[*]+11.5% DamageBuff[*]+3% Defense(Smashing)[*]+4.25% Defense(Lethal)[*]+3% Defense(Fire)[*]+3% Defense(Cold)[*]+4.25% Defense(Energy)[*]+3% Defense(Negative)[*]+3% Defense(Psionic)[*]+5.5% Defense(Melee)[*]+5.5% Defense(Ranged)[*]+5.5% Defense(AoE)[*]+25% Enhancement(Accuracy)[*]+5% Enhancement(Immobilize)[*]+10% Enhancement(RechargeTime)[*]+2.75% Enhancement(Terrorized)[*]+10% FlySpeed[*]+297.9 (19.9%) HitPoints[*]+10% JumpSpeed[*]+MezResist(Held) (Mag 2.75%)[*]+MezResist(Immobilize) (Mag 13.8%)[*]+2.5% Recovery[*]+32% Regeneration[*]+1.26% Resistance(Fire)[*]+1.26% Resistance(Cold)[*]+17.5% RunSpeed[/list]


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This build is intended to be a lot more proactive than a lot of others, combining good recharge, debuffs, and a little area effect for flavor. It can do a little of everything, and is a jack of all trades soloing build rather than specializing in being a one-trick-pony. One trick ponies are nice, but when you aren't facing a particular villain group or when you are thrust into a role for which you are not prepared, it is nice to be able to perform well.

Combos-
This build lacks shadow maul but has a lot of pbaoe, so that you can eat your enemies regardless of your positioning. It gives up a little in single target mayhem in order to maximize it's survivability versus larger groups, and ball lightning plus energy drain will turn most enemies into kittens in short order.
5 second recharge and 30 seconds of fear in touch of fear will allow you to spread ToF around liberally for added mitigation, and electrifying fences from mu mastery plus midnight grasp should help you lock down foes in those annoying 'stop X from escaping' missions. I am not sure how easy it would be for you to get all the touch of death negatives, but I bought like 7 at one time for only about 120k each, so I don't consider them horribly expensive. Most of the other procs are also procs that many other people ignore or disregard.

This build is made especially for hunting up arcane salvage, able to shrug off the majority of arcane group status effects with ease, and even those that land tend to have little or no effect on you.


Due to timing out on the edit for the prior posts, more builds and strategy/tactics section will follow.

[ QUOTE ]

I already see things that most people are going to disagree with or argue with you over your phrasing in your EA section. I'm sure there will be plenty more for people to disagree with in your Tactics section.


[/ QUOTE ]
heh. so promising.

seriously though, most people will disagree with some things in the /ea section probably because I was deliberately inflammatory in the opening statement, and I will freely admit it... but when you spend as much time defending a set as I have, you tend to get a bit defensive even when no one is attacking it

Besides, I expect the '/EA is teh G1mp' monkeys to flood the thread breastbeating about how horrible the set is instead of figuring out how to play it well, just like they used to do with energy blast, storm control, and bubbles.

I've got no problem with creating guides that give tactics and build advice to make a set play better. More power to you for writing such a guide. I think you always have good advice for making EA work well. I don't particularly agree with your opinion of the set's power in relation to others, but I've never had a problem with your straight up build and tactical advice, which I think are rather good.

If your guides purpose is to give advice on how to make an EA brute perform the best, I think you can do it. I think it would be more informative and helpful to a new /EA user if all the... colorful discussion was kept out of here, keeping the advice to noise ratio high.

That would probably be a good idea. I mean, if it weren't too late to edit it and all.

Due to some TREMENDOUS changes to /ea AND dark melee coming in I13, I am going to add an addendum to this guide. From what I understand, the changes will not alter the basic advice significantly, but will certainly add appreciable levels of both survivability and tactical potential to the build. The changes do not seem to be massive enough to warrant a re-writing of the guide, but more info to come when I13 is released!

re: my last post here

Frostweaver, I've had this done with an older guide that I posted that needed to be deleted. You can post a brand new guide and then you can give Lighthouse the link to the older guide and he'll delete it for you.

Bah, you just want me to get rid of the scathing commentary :P

I'm just trying to help the newbies, that's all.