Def based secondary vs Def based secondary. Yup.

A simple question really. Energy Aura and Super Reflexes are both defense based sets. At a very fast fast glance (never tried either of them), the chief difference is a heal for Energy and a speed boost for Super Reflexes.

Yet, everywhere I read, people praise /SR without end and call /Energy Aura the worst brute secondary.

So how are they different, what makes one king and the other dirt? I'd like to try one of them with maybe Dark Melee. Might as well be informed!

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SR is positional defense; melee, range and AoE.

EA is typed; smashing, lethal, fire, etc etc

I have limited experience with EA but my experience with SR tells me it doesn't take much (IOs or power pools) to become highly effective).

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Positional Defense is considered superiour to typed, but SR is a very late bloomer. It takes the majority of the set to achieve a "safe" level of defense.

On the other hand.. EA's heal is relatively minor, it won't save your [censored] like say healing flames or dark regen, but it can take the edge off. EA also has a huge amount of endurance mangement, you will never run out of end with it. BUT, any non-typed attack will cut right through you (like a lot of Psi) and the lack of a taunt aura is very jarring. Also the concept of unsurpressed stealth seems so.. un-brute like to most. EA is also harder to soft-cap (though the past change in IO sets helped) Where as SR can softcap using pools and generic IOs mostly, EA requires more of a Set investment.

It ultimately comes down to personal choice. With DM, both can be amazing. EA will gain more from DMs debuffs and SR will gain from it's heal. It really is 6 of one and a half dozen of the other- try them both I say and see where they go.

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"Well, there's going to be some light music and a short note of apology saying, 'The universe ended last week, we're really sorry, we don't know what you're doing here, didn't you get the message?'"- Steve Moffat

Hmmm, I've just read that 10 pages long SR vs EA topic that was closed a while ago. I think that everything I needed to know is there.

EA seems like it's the underdog but it has something I love: a +end +heal click. I'll go ahead and try that.

Hopefully, this won't be a short lived alt.

Thanks guys!

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One other point that hasn't been mentioned - SR has top of the line (ie: almost unparalleled) def resistance (95%), so defense debuffs (rad attacks, Cimerorans, etc) are next to ineffective. To put it in perspective, SR characters resist def debuffs stronger than AVs.

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<QR>

EA has two advantages over SR, and is worse in every other way.

It's not as tight a build, which can matter to some people - I planned out a DM/SR and was looking at how long I'd have to go before I'd have everything covered, then scrapped the idea and made a DM/EA instead.

The other advantage is Energy Drain - for DM it matters less because of Dark Consumption and Siphon Life, but being able to top off your endurance as needed is a huge benefit to a Brute.

As for SR? Higher defense, for the most part no defensive holes (there are two powersets that have nonpositional attacks, but there's no such thing as toxic defense and the psi defense is low), over the course of your hp bar (100%-0% health) SR has higher average resistance due to the scaling resistances (which also affect all damage), capped defense debuff resistance means that you only really worry about to-hit buffs on mobs, and a +recharge passive with slow resistance, and it even has a taunt radius in Evasion added for Brutes to keep things on you so that you're not having to chase mobs to keep your Fury up.

Does this mean that with the right power choices/IOs that EA is horrible? No - just that SR is better. My level 38 DM/EA is soft-capped to S/L/E, at 41% F/C defense, 38% N, and is waiting for slots to continue adding IOs for set bonuses to end up with all of those softcapped; she does rather well against most everything (even Carnies - most of their debuffs are typed N) but absolutely hates DE (quartz emanators) and CoT Earth Casters (stacking autohit defense debuffs ftl).

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After a long night of missions, AE and regular alike, this character was bid farewell and sent to the recycle bin.

I'm in love with DM's fast pace but Energy Aura reminded me of a poor man's version of /ice armor, without the cool toys. And I -love- /ice armor. Just didn't cut it, I spent half my night running back from the hospital. It looks like /EA needs too much IO slotting before it can even become viable.

Or maybe I just suck. Who knows.

I'll restart as DM/ELA, make a really fast build, see how it goes.

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/ela performs just as badly in ae missions man. there are some seriously tough mobs in there especially the custom ones.

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[ QUOTE ]
I'm in love with DM's fast pace but Energy Aura reminded me of a poor man's version of /ice armor, without the cool toys.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's because it is, Ice Armor was removed due to being counterproductive for Fury. Energy Aura isn't exactly one of the best secondaries out there, but it's not that bad.

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The problem with Energy Aura isn't that it's a bad protection set. It holds its own pretty well and has a few neat tricks you'll appreciate. The problem is that when you compare it to everything else, all the other protection sets are better in every way. Invul used to have the same problem.

If EA is a delicious slice of pie, the other sets are the same kind of pie, except the slices are bigger and they have whipped cream and a cherry on top.

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Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball

[ QUOTE ]
The problem with Energy Aura isn't that it's a bad protection set. It holds its own pretty well and has a few neat tricks you'll appreciate. The problem is that when you compare it to everything else, all the other protection sets are better in every way. Invul used to have the same problem.

If EA is a delicious slice of pie, the other sets are the same kind of pie, except the slices are bigger and they have whipped cream and a cherry on top.

[/ QUOTE ]

Worth noting that an Electric Armor is inferior to an Energy Aura if the enemies are higher level than you - ElA only shines when it can apply it's End Drain.

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Deamus the Fallen - 50 DM/EA Brute - Lib
Dragos Bahtiam - 50 Fire/Ice Blaster - Lib
/facepalm - Apply Directly to the Forehead!
Formally Dragos_Bahtiam - Abbreviate to DSL - Warning, may contain sarcasm

[ QUOTE ]
Worth noting that an Electric Armor is inferior to an Energy Aura if the enemies are higher level than you - ElA only shines when it can apply it's End Drain.

[/ QUOTE ]
Now, if Energy had a damage aura, I'ld be all over it.

As it is I keep thinking about making an ice tanker just so I can get a defense based set with a damage aura. Oh, the horror.

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Worth noting that an Electric Armor is inferior to an Energy Aura if the enemies are higher level than you - ElA only shines when it can apply it's End Drain.

[/ QUOTE ]
Now, if Energy had a damage aura, I'ld be all over it.

As it is I keep thinking about making an ice tanker just so I can get a defense based set with a damage aura. Oh, the horror.

[/ QUOTE ]
Tanker? What is this "Tanker" if which you speak?

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For the record, Electric Armor is the worst Brute secondary. EA's buff was enough to put it up beyond Electric IMO.

Super Reflexes is one of the best PvE sets in the game, and unlike the Stalker/Scrapper version it gets its AOE protection at a reasonable level. It's the king of Defense Debuff protection, the scaling Resists are awesome, and 1 small Luck gives you an on-demand god-mode like few other sets can achieve. It IOs out cheaply and very effectively. Right now it's screwed in PvP, but in PvE it's a solid performer.

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The best comics are still 10�!
My City of Heroes Blog Freedom Feature Article: "Going Rageless?"
If you only read one guide this year, make it this one.
Super Reflexes: the Golden Fox of power sets!
WARNING: I bold names.

[ QUOTE ]
For the record, Electric Armor is the worst Brute secondary. EA's buff was enough to put it up beyond Electric IMO.

Super Reflexes is one of the best PvE sets in the game, and unlike the Stalker/Scrapper version it gets its AOE protection at a reasonable level. It's the king of Defense Debuff protection, the scaling Resists are awesome, and 1 small Luck gives you an on-demand god-mode like few other sets can achieve. It IOs out cheaply and very effectively. Right now it's screwed in PvP, but in PvE it's a solid performer.

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I think that if ELA is to be based around "draining endurance" then it needs to do a slightly better job at it, in both pve and even pvp. Seriously, if it's "protection" is based around a mobs endurance levels, then it really should be adjusted and work better. Right now, most mobs (especially Boss's and EB's) can STILL pop off some VERY devastating attacks, even if they only have 5-10% endurance! That right there is very discouraging for any ELA Brute...


My suggestion would be to up the endurance drain of Lightning Field for starters. Not a huge increase, but right now it's "base" end drain is -0.03% on a mob, which is basically -3 end per second. Unslotted, most mobs don't even notice the drain of this power...and to notice it, they have to be firing off ALOT of attacks...like crazy, which sort of defeats ELA's "end drain" defensive options.


I suggest this:

[u]Lightning Field[u]

<ul type="square">[*]Endurance -0.06 per mob (pve only). [*]Endurance -1.0 per player (pvp only)[/list]
Basically, I'm asking to simply "double" the amount of endurance drain that Lightning Field currently does. Once slotted, this would have at least a decently significant impact on most mobs you'll be facing in pve, and it'd even be slightly more helpful in pvp (though not hugely helpful in pvp). It still wouldn't do hardly anything to certain EB's and most AV's (ELA would still suck there) but at least for the majority of the "pve" game, it'd be alot of help. This means that once slotted, you'd see around a [u]-10 endurance drop[u] on mobs every 2 seconds, which would definately help and add up alot faster than it currently does (more effectively negating thier +recovery) which would give ELA a pretty decent survivability boost.

[u]Power Sink[u]

<ul type="square">[*]Available: Level 28 (as opposed to the current lvl 35)[*]-1 Recovery for 10 seconds (80% chance) (pve and pvp)[/list]
Ok, basically, for powersink, the only two changes I'd like to see for the "Brute version" is that first off, it be moved to lvl 28 vs. lvl 35. I just think that if "end drain" is suppose to be one of ELA's "boons" to damage mitigation, it should be available ALOT sooner than 35. That is just foolish to have our primary means of mitigation placed so late in the game. EA get's Energy Drain at lvl 28, and I feel that ELA should get Power Sink at lvl 28 as well. It just makes sense.


Furthermore, I think that Powersink should provide a "higher" chance to cause -recovery. Right now it's a 30% chance, which while not bad, isn't enough imho for a set that pretty much lives by endurance drain. Even with Lightning Field on, mobs have been able to regen enough endurance to fire off plenty of attacks on my ELA Brutes. The -recovery is invaluable to this Brute's survivability in that for a short while it would protect against those mobs recovering endurance and attacking too often. On top of that, I also think the -recovery should last alot longer than 4 seconds...that's measly and almost useless. I suggest that the -recovery last at least 10 seconds. That would make it alot more useful to the Brute, whithout being too powerful either, imho.


Anyways, those are my ideas for ELA. Imho, these changes would not only help ELA in pve, but even in pvp. Granted, in pvp it wouldn't help all "that" much, but it'd definately be more helpful than it is currently.

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Oooook, I was under the impression that ElA was the next best thing after toilet paper.

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[ QUOTE ]
Oooook, I was under the impression that ElA was the next best thing after toilet paper.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope.


It was "decent" in pvp for awhile (with the over-abundance of energy damage in pvp) but since the pvp changes/nerfs and since people have learned how to cope with ELA, it's definately one of if not THE [u]worst[u] pvp secondary now. I'd go as far as to say that DA is actually better in pvp now than ELA...yea...ouch.


In pve, ELA has never been the greatest. Decent, but not great.

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Power Sinks recharge is waaaay too long for endurance drain to work as a decent mitigation. Electric armor sucks and no amount of end drain modification will change that.

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[ QUOTE ]
Power Sinks recharge is waaaay too long for endurance drain to work as a decent mitigation. Electric armor sucks and no amount of end drain modification will change that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yea, that's basically why I suggested above that Power Sink's "chance for -end recovery" be increased, as well as it's duration. If Power Sink had an 80% chance (30% currently) to cause -recovery for 10 seconds rather than the mere 4 seconds it has now, it'd be a MUCH more effective tool for draining a mob dry of endurance, and keeping them there.

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So what would you guys suggest I take with DM to become a PVE killing machine?

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Invulnerability.

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[ QUOTE ]
So what would you guys suggest I take with DM to become a PVE killing machine?

[/ QUOTE ]

sheild

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So what would you guys suggest I take with DM to become a PVE killing machine?

[/ QUOTE ]

sheild

[/ QUOTE ]

Second that

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Onibi---Fire/Fire/fire Blaster

I'm ready to burn it all.

Lets Fight!

ParadigmX City help the city.

Rerolled into dark/shield cause I'm so easy to influence.

So far = so good.

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