Single target damage sets?

I am fairly new to brute and CoX and I have been through a number of classes, testing them out before I choose a main. I have tested out the brute before and was unsatisfied but now I have decided to give it another chance and try it. Basically what I'm looking for in my main is a Single Target Damage build that can get me through level and end game PvE with some PvP when I'm bored. So far I've heard some things about Stone being good single target damage and SS being sort of like a all around primary? I'm not entirely sure, but I wanted to know what would be a good Single target damage set that would fit my preferences for later levels also.

Fire melee or Super Strength, with /SR secondary

Stone as a primary has great if not the the best single target dps. I've played most of not all of the brute primaries and none satisfy me damage wise as much as stone does.
Early on warmace comes pretty close but I think the mitigation of the great combination of knockdown with your mallets and disorient from seismic smash will give you the soloability your looking for end game.
Also the sounds and vibration effects of stone onscreen are much more "Bruteish" than the generic slashy sounds of warmace, since when do maces slash anyway :P.

Well right now I'm having troubles deciding between SS and Stone. So far they both seem viable, to me at least.

I would vote for stone I have a stone/eletric and a SS/eletric brutes. Even though the super strength is higher I pefer the stone one. I have nothing but acc and endrance in his attacks and still one shot most things with fury up. I knwo it is not very brutish but I had one mission on a team I had 5 freak tanks bounce off the ground between tremor and sesmic smash ( I think that is the area attack you get at 32). Were I did not kill them I did keep them busy enough for the team to regroup.

Is stone a little viable for some PvPing when I'm not PvE'ing?

If you wanna pvp, go SS. Because of Rage mostly.

I'm probally going to end up going SS/WP for being viable both in PvE single target and for some PvP when I'm bored.

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I'm probally going to end up going SS/WP for being viable both in PvE single target and for some PvP when I'm bored.

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pvp is terrible in this game. if you're that bored, make another brute

the only secondary that can deal with stone melee's insane endurance costs after you start slotting io sets for global recharge is /wp..with stamina.

Hmm maybe. I have both a SM/WP and what I have been working on lately a SM/DA. A few months ago when I was asking questions on this for the most part I was told these two where super end heavy (SM/DA that is). But after getting to 22 with a ful slotted stamina and SO, I'd have to say it does really good. Only two of my attacks really need end slotted in them right now, and like a poster above said, with stone melee most of the time you are almost nailing everything in one to two hits. If I take this character to 50 I'd love to make a guide on it, but I am not so good with the guild making like a lot of the guys here.

But back to the point, I'd have to throw my vote in for Stone Melee as a good ST set. SS is nice, that is once you get Rage, SM is kind of nice right out the box. I guess it's more of what you want more SS or SM.

Edit* doh, miss that PvP part, yeah Go with SS totally! If it was PvE I'd said Stone Melee.

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I'm probally going to end up going SS/WP for being viable both in PvE single target and for some PvP when I'm bored.

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pvp is terrible in this game. if you're that bored, make another brute

the only secondary that can deal with stone melee's insane endurance costs after you start slotting io sets for global recharge is /wp..with stamina.

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Electric Armor and Energy Aura both handle it better than Willpower.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

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I'm probally going to end up going SS/WP for being viable both in PvE single target and for some PvP when I'm bored.

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pvp is terrible in this game. if you're that bored, make another brute

the only secondary that can deal with stone melee's insane endurance costs after you start slotting io sets for global recharge is /wp..with stamina.

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Electric Armor and Energy Aura both handle it better than Willpower.

[/ QUOTE ] Hmm ok I'm sure about stone for primary because most of what I'm doing is PvE not much PvP just here and there but which would you prefer Elec Armor or Energy Aura?

Honestly for pure survival I'd still go with Willpower - with Quick Recovery and Stamina, some +recovery set bonuses/IOs and you'll be going nonstop.

Electric Armor and Energy Aura keep up with your endurance usage by the simple expedient of having a click power that gives 50% of your endurance back per target around you; the higher your global recharge the more often it's up.

Of those two, survivability depends on how you plan on slotting.

Energy Aura has the ability to permanently softcap all damage types except psionic, but when you get hit you're going to feel it. If you slot for it, you'll be more survivable most of the time, but it doesn't have good defense debuff resistance (autohit and/or psi defense debuffs will hurt badly) and tohit buffs will be problematic regardless.

Electric Armor has decent resistances to pretty much everything and capped against Energy, you can boost S/L by running Tough without needing to worry about endurance (after level 35) to have 60% or higher resistance to the 3 most common damage types in the game, and it gives a global recharge boost. Power Surge has a pretty harsh crash but comes with a small-radius (10') EMP at the end to hold the things nearby, but caps all but toxic and psi resistance, and you can cap toxic with slotting.

Of course, Fault covers all of the holes in both Electric or Energy... it's just also downright sickening with Rise to the Challenge running and providing 100+ hp/sec.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

Well, my first thought with single-target damage is Energy Melee. It's slow and not as overpowered as it used to be, but still deals crazy amounts of damage, while it only has one AoE which sucks anyway.

I'm a bit curious what people's opinion of DM is for single target damage. It seems like it might do okay with the recent buff.

I'm surprised people aren't talking about Energy Melee in a thread about Single Target Damage.

Energy Melee does -extraordinary- Single Target damage. With the right sets, Assault, and Fury, you could 3 shot bosses like it's no body's business.

Energy Melee may have had it's damage-per-second reduced. But it still hits really hard for spike damage. Also, you gotta agree the animation for the new Energy Transfer is just epic. :P

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I'm a bit curious what people's opinion of DM is for single target damage. It seems like it might do okay with the recent buff.

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DM is some awesome single target damage, especially when built correctly.

Fire Melee is pretty stout. Fast Animating attacks (scorch, incinerate and fire sowrd) are perfect for +dam procs and building Fury.

I'm running a level 42 Fire/SR brute that eats through content. I will say /sr is a late bloomer, much later then WP.

just base dmg wise, energy melee is at or just below stone melee at any level of fury

what puts stone melee above is the very short animation times. seismic smash is about on par with energy transfer in dmg, but half the animation time.

even with hightly resistant enemies i'm finding the single target dmg of stone melee to be pretty insane - and all it's soft control means that unless a boss has higher than normal hold protections or the mobs are completely immune to kb - i'm very rarely actually being attacked. seismic smash is a mag 4 hold, and fault can be slotted to keep everything else around you permanently stunned (and feeding rttc)

of all the brute primaries i've played - and i've played all but what is duplicated on scrappers as i played the hell out of scrappers before cov launched - this set has the least trouble with longbow bosses. the only one that gave me an issue was an ss/invuln one i came across who two shot me in the late 20's. (had no mind over body or heightened senses, tough or weave at this point). even those nasty spines ones are no trouble even with that nasty quills running. they just flop around till dead.

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Fire Melee is pretty stout. Fast Animating attacks (scorch, incinerate and fire sowrd) are perfect for +dam procs and building Fury.

I'm running a level 42 Fire/SR brute that eats through content. I will say /sr is a late bloomer, much later then WP.

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If I figured everything correctly, a fire/shield scrapper abusing AAO might have the highest sustainable single target DPS. And I didn't even account for damage procs. That was using Incin, GFS, Crem, FS, repeat, which may not even be the optimal attack chain.

I built one of these in beta.

I didn't really even try for an AV soloing build, but I ended up in a swarm of praetorians at one point and found myself having a really hard time with an EB...

Er... oh. not an EB... that would explain it.

Oh wait, he's still going down pretty fast...

Not sure how long it took, certainly not the record times on the scrapper forums, but it was pretty damn fast.

I didn't build in enough durability, so it was seriously touch and go, had to chomp more than half a tray of green.

I PLed a fire/shield brute to 22 to skip the boring levels and he's 24 now. He's my next project. Going for soft-cap, perma-hasten and purpled to the gills.

I haven't even put it together in Mids yet because... well... because I'm scared of the power. I'm afraid of the inevitable corruption.

I'm already giddy with madness.

I'll throw in the standard reminder - "It's no fun unless it's fun".

I started out like you looking for st damage and tried stone but wound up with battle axe. Doing the math is one thing but at the end of the day you have to like playing the character. Battle Axe just feels right to me so that's what I play even if other sets could have better numbers.

It can get a little tedious trying different sets into the 20's but could be worth it to find the best set for you.

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I'm surprised people aren't talking about Energy Melee in a thread about Single Target Damage.

Energy Melee does -extraordinary- Single Target damage. With the right sets, Assault, and Fury, you could 3 shot bosses like it's no body's business.

Energy Melee may have had it's damage-per-second reduced. But it still hits really hard for spike damage. Also, you gotta agree the animation for the new Energy Transfer is just epic. :P

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If you discount the damage type, Super Strength does more single target damage than Energy Melee does now. It does okay on burst (near the top but not being able to fit 2 ETs into one Build Up window dropped it out of first place there, too), but if you're going against an AV - or for most of PvE - burst is meaningless.

The fact that single target (damage and mitigation) is really all it does and that it's middle of the pack in single target damage now is why people aren't going on about it.

Onto the FM/SD Scrapper tangent, if you're abusing AAO to the point where it's that much better than Fiery Embrace, wouldn't Soul Drain put Dark Melee ahead?

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

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Onto the FM/SD Scrapper tangent, if you're abusing AAO to the point where it's that much better than Fiery Embrace, wouldn't Soul Drain put Dark Melee ahead?

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Going off of the times posted in the scrapper pylon thread, it appears that the answer is no. Meaning that DM + saturated SD and AAO isn't quite as good as FM + BU + saturated AAO.

However, I haven't sat down to figure out what the best attack chain for DM is and ran the numbers on it either.