With most ATs, brutes can be rough before SOs. Teaming will help ease the pain.
I usually invest in my primary first, so try adding some slots into your attacks (maybe killing things faster will stop them from almost killing you). You should also be slotting End Reduction into your attacks over damage (keep the acc) since Fury is your damage for now.
Lastly, I don't know what diff you are on but keep it low for now until you get some more experience with your sets and how you cna maximize your damage and survivability. Experience is key.
Your problem, is your slotting.
A general rule of thumb is that slotting your shields (especially in "defense" based powers) is not important until at least your mid to late teens. Before that, it is PARAMOUNT that you get your attacks slotted up correctly so that you can actually dish out damage and defeat your enemy. The mitigation that adding a meager "Training" Enhancement or even "Dual Origin" is barely noticeable in actual gameplay. In fact, if you monitor your "+defense" attributes when adding the TO, the before and after stats are barely noticeable....like a 1% increase in overall effectiveness per TO...not something I'd waste time on in the lower levels at all.
So, slot and use attacks, because a: Dead Enemy = 100% damage mitigation.
Slotting your attacks to hit more accurately, recharge faster, and reducing their end costs is the most important thing for a Brute. Don't slot damage early, it's not needed until SO's to be blatantly honest. You fury bar and being able to continuously attack due to not burning endurance too quickly will get you ALOT more mileage than a 2-4 pt. damage increase from slotting a TO or DO damage enhancement in your attacks. I recommend either 2acc/2end/2rech or 3acc/2end/1rech as you level up. If endurance woes are still too great, it never hurts to 3 slot end rdx and forego a recharge rdx.
Anyways, hope that helps. Btw, Defense sets never get that good until after SO's, so you need to really bere down and tough it out until lvl 22 to see what comes of the toon. Good luck.
Don't slot recharge, it's the only thing that doesn't help your DPE. I recommend Acc/End/Acc/End...
Brutes are a friggin' pain in the [censored] at low levels. Their damage is awesome, but the darn end usage is a huge problem. I've got three end reducers in all my attacks and rarely run a single toggle and I'm still hurting for endurance all the time on my latest Brute (Stone/WP). Once I get QR it will all be well however.
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I've got three end reducers in all my attacks and rarely run a single toggle and I'm still hurting for endurance all the time on my latest Brute (Stone/WP). Once I get QR it will all be well however.
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hah you wish
once you get qr you'll want to take those end reducers out right?
dont. qr, and stamina, and two perf shifters arent enough for stone. it's an end pig. especially once you start adding wp toggles.
i dont even have combat jumping. i currently have six toggles, sf, both hammers, ss and fault. it wasnt until i started slotting heavy io sets for MORE recovery that i could attack comfortably.
my current recovery is at 4.36. no hasten. attacks frankenslot and all have 60% end recovery or more. now...now i have no end issues
when i was a 3.3 eps and my attacks were not frankenslotted and before i even had all these toggles it was rough.
if i had combat jumping, that'd be 7 toggles!
Fury + AAO (once you get it) should give you a decent dmg surge but the thing with both is that you have to be in the thick of it for either to be optimal.
I will echo that ACC slotting is going to be your main concern in the lower levels (if you're gonna burn END, make sure it's because you're hitting something; not because you're missing something). You can save damage slotting for later.
I will also echo slotting your DEF toggles for END at the early levels.
Make sure you're only using the toggles you need during fights.
You may have to hit smaller mobs until you can get into cheap lvl 15 IOs.
Also, if you happen to be running into a lot of Longbow missions/mayhems... they have some mean S/L Def and Res (and possibly other mobs at that level range); which is making you work harder for your kills.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
Get rid of your dmg slots, get rid of your recharge slots. Slot your attacks for endred, then accuracy. I tried four or five brutes and was frustrated with their low level play until I realized this simple truth:
Fury gives you more of a damage buff than damage enhancements will ever provide. To keep your fury up, you need to be constantly attacking. To constantly attack, you need to have endurance. To have endurance, you need to slot for endred, not damage and recharge. This is especially true for /mace, which is an end hungry secondary. Prioritize endred; you don't have to actually hit anything to build fury. Once your end situation is such that you can comfortably maintain a half to 3/4 full fury bar, start worrying about accuracy.
Something I like doing with a low level brute is fighting large numbers of lower level mobs. They are easier for you to hit, the large number of incoming swings helps keep fury up, and their low damage means you can skimp on your defensive toggles. Especially with mace's relatively early aoe (whirling mace), this might be effective for you.
@Dysc, on virtue:
Virtue blues: Overnight (DP/MM), Kid Ridiculous (FC/rad), Panorama (Ill/time)
Virtue reds: Block Party (SS/SD), Goldcrush (earth/fire), Deadwire (claws/elec), Snowcrush (ice/kin)
As the others have said, slot accuracy and endurance first, don't bother with damage until later. Get at least 4 slots in your attacks before you add any to the secondary.
Turning off toggles you don't need will help, but the main thing is TURN OFF SPRINT. End will still be a problem, but it helps.
Regarding the squishyness, shield is not very tough in the beginning. I have only done a shield scrapper, not a brute, but it was quite squishy until I got parry to help with the defense. You don't have that so you'll have to rely on the mace stuns and knock up to help mitigate the damage.
Thank you all for your advice and help. I just got lvl 13 last night and added slots to my attacks. I am now all Acc/-End for my attacks and I added more -End to my toggles. It seemed to make a difference, now I just need to turn off xp and get some AE tickets to get DO'd out and I'm sure that little difference will turn into a substantial one.
To Silencer... I never had any recharge enhancements, not sure where you got that impression. But after I hit 13 and added 1 slot each to Bash and Pulverize I had some recharge enhc in my inventory and no -End (and I'm poor so I couldn't afford to buy any) so I threw them in. It didn't help my Endurance but it did wonders to my damage output and my Fury. The recharge were replaced by -End as I got them but when I have 6 slots per attack I will definately use at least 1 for recharge. Warmaces fastest attack has a 4sec cooldown, recharge ench definately help.
To Nights_Dawn... I'm not that big a noob that I have sprint on during combat 
, in fact, I hardly ever use sprint since I have Swift. But yeah, for a 'tank' class I feel way too squishy.
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To Silencer... I never had any recharge enhancements, not sure where you got that impression. But after I hit 13 and added 1 slot each to Bash and Pulverize I had some recharge enhc in my inventory and no -End (and I'm poor so I couldn't afford to buy any) so I threw them in. It didn't help my Endurance but it did wonders to my damage output and my Fury. The recharge were replaced by -End as I got them but when I have 6 slots per attack I will definately use at least 1 for recharge. Warmaces fastest attack has a 4sec cooldown, recharge ench definately help.
[/ QUOTE ]As slow as WM is, Recharge definitely helps, but you should have 2 each of Accuracy and Endurance Reduction first. By the time you have more than 4 slots in each attack, you should have enough attacks that Recharge isn't such a big deal, but it's still helpful.
The one thing I haven't seen mentioned is that you should slot an Accuracy in your basic Punch, and add that to your attack rotation any time everything else is on cooldown. It's not much damage, but it keeps your Fury from draining while you're waiting on real attacks.
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As slow as WM is, Recharge definitely helps, but you should have 2 each of Accuracy and Endurance Reduction first. By the time you have more than 4 slots in each attack, you should have enough attacks that Recharge isn't such a big deal, but it's still helpful.
The one thing I haven't seen mentioned is that you should slot an Accuracy in your basic Punch, and add that to your attack rotation any time everything else is on cooldown. It's not much damage, but it keeps your Fury from draining while you're waiting on real attacks.
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I currently have 2 Acc / 2 -End in two of my attacks and 1 Acc in my third. I only plan on slotting a Recharge reduction as my 6th slot... I should have Endurance by then. And about Brawl, one of the best pieces of advice I got was from a generic Brute guide that said to put Brawl on perma status (Ctrl + Click) which I have done. It's really made a big difference on all my brutes for fury gain. Not sure if I have anything slotted into Brawl but the next time an Acc enhc drops I'll throw it in.
Once again thank you all for the advice. Just from the changes I made last night from yesterdays posts my Brutes playability was greatly increased.
No noob calling intended, I just figured I'd mention it just in case because you never know. Also for the benefit of anyone else who might read it.
Regarding brawl, I think an endurance reduction would be best. It still builds fury if you miss, and the damage is low ayway. If it's on auto it will be used a lot and worst case would use 1 end/second. Endurance reduction would lower that cost.
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No noob calling intended,
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I know... hence the winky
OK, so a little background first. I'm a returning player that stopped playing before CoV was released. I'm back now and started again during the 'Meow Madness' times. I took that opportunity to try a lot of different villain AT's out, power level them up, and decide what I liked. I decided I really liked the DM/SD Brute I made (I got him up to the mid 30's). So I picked a new server and started from scratch.
OK, so now I'm level 12 and it's a complete chore to play this guy. I can't go through more than 2 mobs without being in the yellow on health and almost completely out of End. When my fury is up I shine but that hardly ever happens due to my ridiculous End usage. Also I take way too much damage than I feel I should. And when my toggles go down due to End loss I see no effect on my damage mitigation. It seems that all the toggles do is take End, no noticable benefit.
Here is what I'm currently working with for powers/slots.
Bash / 3 Slots / 2 Acc 1 Dmg
Pulverize / 3 Slots / 2 Acc 1 Dmg
Clobber / 1 Slot / Acc
Deflection / 3 Slots / 1 -End 2 Def
Battle Agility / 3 Slots / 1 -End 1 Def 1 Res
True Grit / 3 Slots / 1 Res 2 Health
Combat Jumping / 1 Slot / Unslotted
Swift / 1 Slot / Unslotted
Now I haven't come here without doing some research first. But I cannot find any WM/SD guides and the guides I have found for SD are all end game IO slotting guides, what I need is a leveling guide. I don't have any respecs available so I just need advice for slotting and what direction to take from here out. I really love the toon I made for my WM/SD Brute but it's getting ridiculous playing him.
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance for any help/advice you have for me.