The way I play my SS/Fire brute may not be that helpful as it is only lvl 10 but I have found that the firey aura is great when used at full fury so dont have it on until you have built up fury to about 50%+ as it doesnt help generate fury just drain end. I currently cycle through my 3 quick attacks - brawl, jab, air sup - to build rage and when teaming to get rage I ask the team to leave the toughest enemy per spawn alone unless I am in trouble this way I can get so good hits in to build fury even if its just by brawling.
I took Blazing aura early on but I've since found that it is largely an end drain. Yes, the damage output increases with fury but it doesn't increase fury itself. (At least this is how it appears to me, anyone know different?) It also has an irritating habit of missing... 
It seems to need some slotting but I'm only lvl 17 at the mo, so I'm not sure how it would pan out with an acc SO in it but, as of now, I'm planning to respec it out...
Generating Fury ( not Rage ) in teams is hard. I just gave up. Fury is less important when you get Rage ( level 18 power ) as that provides a great deal of your damage boost +80% IIRC.
I took Jab, Punch, Boxing and Knockout Blow as my 4 early attacks ( at levels 1,2,6 and 8 ). I got Haymaker at about level 26. I haven't got Blazing Aura yet.
Make sure you take Healing Flames and 6 slot it ( 3xheal 3x recharge ). It's one of the best powers in Fiery Aura and it gives you something to do when Rage crashes.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
Anyone have any thoughts on consume? I'm planning on getting it (for the obvious reason 
) but is it worth it or would stamina and careful attacking suffice? Would an end redux in each attack help?
Didn't get knockout blow yet, slow recharge and want to keep attack chain going. I find jab, punch and haymaker plus damage taken more than sufficient for building fury but I do solo a lot...
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Anyone have any advice for a new brute, not into PvP but am enjoying it so far. Only real problem I have is generating rage in teams.
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As others have pointed out, you ain't gonna generate rage in teams. You'll get some but nowhere near that full bar.
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And are damage auras worth the END?
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Blazing aura needs lots of endreds. It's good for smoking minions while you pound a boss or lt, but you're almost better waiting till you've get consume and/or stamina.
With my nrg/fire brute (lvl 18) I'm finding that I'm only now starting to get a handle on my endurance problems since slotting both my aura and all my attacks with DO endreds (3 in aura, 1 in each attack) - and I still have to turn it off between groups and rest about every third group (up from every 2).
UNION @Flitz 50, Lead Hose 50, Red Rag 50
DEFIANT Rose Bloodthorn 34
VIGILANCE Captain Caledonia 20 - Yeah, I made toons on the French server coz we only had 4 back then (might have to transfer/recreate them on one of the US servers)
..and many more!
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Anyone have any advice for a new brute, not into PvP but am enjoying it so far. Only real problem I have is generating rage in teams.
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As others have pointed out, you ain't gonna generate rage in teams.
[/ QUOTE ]Yeah, because it's a power that doesnt need generating 
The best way to generate fury in teams is taking taunt IMO.
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Anyone have any thoughts on consume? I'm planning on getting it (for the obvious reason ) but is it worth it or would stamina and careful attacking suffice? Would an end redux in each attack help?
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I have 1 end rec in all attacks and toggles and stamina and I am still having minor endurance problems ( caused mainly by Tough ). I haven't got Consume or Blazing Aura.
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Didn't get knockout blow yet, slow recharge and want to keep attack chain going. I find jab, punch and haymaker plus damage taken more than sufficient for building fury but I do solo a lot...
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That's a shame, having access to an attack that good at level 8 really helped me. KO Blow is truly awesome, able to knockout a minion in one go with Fury. When I was planning my build I realised that I could only get one of Haymaker or Knockout Blow in the early levels.
However I got Boxing ( prerequisite to Tough ) which allows me to have a nice attack chain before Haymaker even with the long recharge of Knockout blow.
Also another bit of advice, get the Jumping Pool. You can get Combat Jumping for Immob protection and Acrobatics for Knockback protection.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
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Yeah, because it's a power that doesnt need generating
The best way to generate fury in teams is taking taunt IMO.
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Picky!
Just wanted to add that Blazing aura is actually good for genrating fury in teams because it's an aggro magnet. However as you ain't a tank, grabbing all the aggro in a big team can have painful consequences - so make sure you're defences are fully slotted and healing flames is ready to go! I find I don't actually use blazing aura much in teams as it tends to attract too much aggro in addition to draining my end every couple of spawns!
And as Unthing pointed out - Jumping pool is almost mandatory for fire brutes for the status protection.
UNION @Flitz 50, Lead Hose 50, Red Rag 50
DEFIANT Rose Bloodthorn 34
VIGILANCE Captain Caledonia 20 - Yeah, I made toons on the French server coz we only had 4 back then (might have to transfer/recreate them on one of the US servers)
..and many more!
Hmm... I was sorely tempted by KO blow alright but the recharge time put me off... With a good 50%+ fury going a lot of the time, I find my other attacks doing plenty of damage but now I'm wondering how good KO blow would be with that much fury 
Also going to get boxing/tough for the extra attack/damage res but end drain is always a concern... *sighs*
Way ahead of you on the CJ/SJ side 
and planning on acrobatics too but (friendly 
) advice is always appreciated, thanks.
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Hmm... I was sorely tempted by KO blow alright but the recharge time put me off... With a good 50%+ fury going a lot of the time, I find my other attacks doing plenty of damage but now I'm wondering how good KO blow would be with that much fury
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Very! Especially with Perma-Rage too adding another 80% on to your damage. Thinking about it you probably made the right decision, unless like me you took a power pool attack early on.
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Also going to get boxing/tough for the extra attack/damage res but end drain is always a concern... *sighs*
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Boxing is like a slightly more damaging, slower recharge version of jab. It is a nice fury builder. Tough spoilt my wonderfully planned low end consuming build, I'm hoping that consume will fix it.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
Have to say even in teams, I dont normally have any issue raising fury, in fact about 10-15 seconds after starting a fight my bar is normally at max. Knockout blow is a great attack tho when you have full fury. It is even better if you have rage up at same time. Hits of 700+ are quite normal and hits of 900+ are that unsual Something satisfying about duking it out with an AV and watching their hp bar move when you punch them
Nope. Just jab, punch, haymaker (and brawl, of course, mustn't forget brawl ). Getting boxing on top of them, I found it's damage quite good on my scrapper and have pleasant thoughts about it's potential for my brute.
Now. Perma-rage? Only lvl 17 at the mo but was planning on health next lvl to get stamina at 20... I am intrigued... Perhaps delay health/stamina for rage? Though I really would like stamina...
Rage needs 3 SOs of recharge to perma. I waited until level 22 to get it and slotted it at 23, stamina was just too important to miss for another 2 levels. Rage has a large end drop when it finished, so if you are at less than 20 endurance, bye bye toggles...
It does mean that I could drop all the ACCs in my attacks ( although I kept one in KO blow ). However I have started to add to hit buffs to it too, as I am still missing oranges and harder 15% of the time.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
Ah, of course. Just getting carried away there thinking of big orange numbers
Yeah I have perma rage, kept 1 acc in all powers and put 2 to hit buffs in rage. Does mean you hardly miss, last slot in rage has an end redux to reduce the crash effect.
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Yeah I have perma rage, kept 1 acc in all powers and put 2 to hit buffs in rage. Does mean you hardly miss, last slot in rage has an end redux to reduce the crash effect.
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Does the end red actually reduce the crash or just the activation cost. Someone posted in a previous thread saying that it doesn't make any difference to the crash, only the activation cost.
I think Rage is a 20-25% to hit buff, so with 2x To Hit Buffs you would be between 28-35% to hit buff. At the lower end of the scale, you cap on Purples with an ACC SO. At the upper end you will cap at purples+1.
If you didn't slot ACCs you would be at about 75%-85% against purples and 80-90% against reds. Capping on yellows to oranges. However in PvP you will pretty good against pesky defence based builds.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
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Boxing is like a slightly more damaging, slower recharge version of jab. It is a nice fury builder. Tough spoilt my wonderfully planned low end consuming build, I'm hoping that consume will fix it.
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Consume should fix it. Without EndMod SOs Consume will get back 25% of your Endurance for every enemy you hit with it, and it's a wide area AE, so against four or more enemies you're pretty much guaranteed full Endurance, especially if you slot one Accuracy SO to make sure, like I did. It recharges in 3 minutes, but I slotted 3 Recharge SOs and its up every 90secs or so. The damage is minimal, even with high Fury and Build-Up/Fiery Embrace so I wouldnt bother slotting for damage.
Tough
Someone mentioned to me that most of the character planners are wrong about Tough's End usage as it was changed to cost almost double. That certainly seems plausible as I dropped an End Reducer SO in Tough and it made a noticeable difference.
Endurance problems
On my Fire/Fire Brute I took Consume at L20 and managed to hold off from getting Stamina til L28, but getting Tough at L35 stressed my End usage again. To fix it I reluctantly put an End reducer in each of my attacks. I had been running 3xDmg, 2xAcc, 1xRchg in all of my attacks to that point - so I dropped an Accuracy SO to slot the End Reducer SO - I miss slightly more often in PvE, its noticeable against reds and purples (especially when further -acc debuffed, e.g. by Nerva Spectrals), and if I was serious about PvP at the moment I'd probably reverse that decision, but I can cope with a few extra misses better in PvE as its not costing me so much Endurance anymore. Also I really hope one of the Ancillary/Epic pools at L41+ has Focused Accuracy like in CoH, but then again it would be another toggle to run.
But my slotting worked - my brute has so much End now that the only time his Endurance bar drops significantly is against mobs that drain End, like Mu Stalkers. Otherwise I can just keep fighting continuously and occasionally use Consume to top up my bar if it falls below 25%. That's very handy for the missions with constant ambushes, notably the Arachnos one on the ship (forget the name) and Technician Naylor's final mission in the shadow shard which gets very hectic (and fun!), especially in an 8 person team. Its also handy against tough Heroes/AVs when you tend to run low on Endurance over the long fight, especially if they summon like Infernal does, then you can Consume the summoned demons to top up your End.
I can even run Blazing Aura constantly now (Accuracy, 2 End Reducers - yes the Accuracy in it makes a big difference) and not notice the extra drain. My other toggles are Fire Shield, Plasma Shield, Acrobatics (1 End Red), Combat Jumping and Tough (1 End Red). And I use Fire Sword Circle (a high damage AE attack, quite costly in End terms) pretty much every 15secs - when I had to be careful about using it before, because of the End cost, but now I can just fire off whichever attack I need without worrying about my End bar.
Fury & pool attacks
To get my Fury high in teams I often take the enemy's alpha-strike by jumping in amongst them and using Fire Sword Circle (after triggering Build Up and Fiery Embrace so I get +200% damage). It's a job that few are willing to volunteer for
That does three things:
1) it makes the enemies all go for me, so they are nicely grouped for Corruptors and Dominators to drop their AE debuffs/holds, and for my Blazing Aura to hit them too,
2) it does tons of damage, especially if I have Fury left from the last fight, leaving most of the minions very close to death - then you can easily clear them up by having another AE build, like a Fire Corruptor, drop an AE attack soon afterwards, (or we can just ignore the minions and Blazing Aura will mop up most of them)
3) all the enemies attack me, so my Fury bar rises VERY quickly.
Then I just have to survive the aggro, but Healing Flames (3xHeal, 2xRchg) helps there, along with my great resists and the occasional green or orange insp. Sure I die occasionally, but all those big orange numbers look so good I don't mind The only time I make a point of avoiding the alpha is against CoT if the enemy group has more than 3 Nerva Spectrals - all that cold damage can make a real mess of a fire brute - that's when I'd ask a Mastermind to sacrifice one of their pets to take the alpha, or any player with Phase Shift
I use Boxing as my auto-power - the rest of my attack chain consists of Greater Fire Sword, Fire Sword, Cremate and Air Superiority. I have no problems building Fury solo because I can just cycle Boxing, Air Superiority and Brawl on the first group of enemies to get full Fury, then go through the rest of the mission with my normal attack chain. It's probably not necessary but I have one recharge in Brawl, as I only use it briefly when solo for Fury building - it used to have an Accuracy SO but you don't need to hit to get Fury up, you just need to attack, and Brawl does poor damage anyway so I dont care if it hits or not.
Fiery Melee isn't as quick as some of the primaries (Super Strength, Energy), but I'm much quicker since I respecced out of Scorch and Incinerate (animation time seemed slow) in favour of Air Superiority and Cremate. Boxing and Air Superiority are really nice pool attacks - fast animation and quick recharge (good for Fury), and despite poor damage (another reason I dropped Scorch) they have nice secondary effects: Air Supe's great knockdown, and Boxing's disorient (which seems to take effect once every 4 or 5 hits for me). Both should work great in any Brute build - I have them fully slotted and I highly recommend them.
So in teams I mostly depend on being hit for my Fury, but solo I mostly depend on my own hits. And I kick out some serious damage in PvE with full Fury (though I realise Fire/Fire is probably not so hot in PvP, excuse the pun) - the main reason I went Fiery/Fiery was for AE damage but also Endurance efficiency (/Fiery has less toggles than /Dark) and with full Fury the carnage is wondrous to behold - I'm a walking inferno of death that doesn't burn out too quickly
Hope some of that helps.
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And are damage auras worth the END?
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Blazing Aura is probably worth running against >3 enemies. It does 0.555 BI damage every 2 seconds, Ideal slotting is 3x end rec, 3x dam. I worked out ( but didn't test ) that it does more damage than Foot Stomp in terms of both damage per second and damage per endurance. However single target attacks are about 3x better damage per second.
Also I hoped Blazing Aura would work in a Rage Crash, but whilst it still animates it appears not to hit or do damage in those 10 seconds.
So I am now seriously considering getting Blazing Aura as my level 32 power...
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
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And are damage auras worth the END?
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Blazing Aura is probably worth running against >3 enemies. It does 0.555 BI damage every 2 seconds, Ideal slotting is 3x end rec, 3x dam. I worked out ( but didn't test ) that it does more damage than Foot Stomp in terms of both damage per second and damage per endurance. However single target attacks are about 3x better damage per second.
Also I hoped Blazing Aura would work in a Rage Crash, but whilst it still animates it appears not to hit or do damage in those 10 seconds.
So I am now seriously considering getting Blazing Aura as my level 32 power...
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It's certainly a struggle to run Blazing Aura before you have access to End Reducer SOs, but I'd say the slotting depends on how you use it. The animation for activating it is quite long, so I wanted to run it permanently and slotted End Reducers (2x) accordingly. It missed a lot so I slotted 1xAcc so it would reliably hit more than even level minions to mop up after my Fire Sword Circle alpha-strike
As I inferred I only switch Blazing Aura off against large CoT groups with loads of nerva spectrals, because getting so much aggro with all that cold damage is pretty much instant death for me (unless I have cold res buffs).
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It's certainly a struggle to run Blazing Aura before you have access to End Reducer SOs, but I'd say the slotting depends on how you use it. The animation for activating it is quite long, so I wanted to run it permanently and slotted End Reducers (2x) accordingly. It missed a lot so I slotted 1xAcc so it would reliably hit more than even level minions to mop up after my Fire Sword Circle alpha-strike
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However with Rage Perma'd I'm not planning to slot ACC, just 3xEnd reds and some Damage. I'm going to use it so I can leave those minions with only a sliver left.
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As I inferred I only switch Blazing Aura off against large CoT groups with loads of nerva spectrals, because getting so much aggro with all that cold damage is pretty much instant death for me (unless I have cold res buffs).
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I wasn't planning on running it 24/7 on mine. Certainly at the moment my endurance management is not in good enough order to even consider it. However with some more slotting it may be feasible.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
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I wasn't planning on running it 24/7 on mine. Certainly at the moment my endurance management is not in good enough order to even consider it. However with some more slotting it may be feasible.
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Yeah it took a lot of tweaking for me to get both Blazing Aura and Tough running permanently. Until then I just found myself not using Blazing Aura or forgetting about it, because Tough was usually higher priority for me. I realised if I couldn't get BA running permanently then I might as well drop it.
I don't have any experience of Rage, but I envy your Acc boost from it - I still miss the accuracy drop when I switched out the second Acc in all my attacks for an EndReduc - even though common wisdom says 1xAcc is enough for PvE, I don't think it is. I'm still praying one of the patron pools will have Focused Accuracy
Anyone have any advice for a new brute, not into PvP but am enjoying it so far. Only real problem I have is generating rage in teams. Any tips?
And are damage auras worth the END?