Yeah have to say I am gonna have to make an elec/elec brute. Lol suspect they are gonna be about as durable but fire brutes, but as long as they look cool! I wanna look like a gremlin!
Fire is the best for maintaining agro without resorting to taunt, I really dont know where people find space for taunt these days 
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Fire is the best for maintaining agro without resorting to taunt, I really dont know where people find space for taunt these days
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Taunt? On a brute? Sacrilege! I certainly didn't have space for it, nor did I want it - and with Blazing Aura I don't need it. BA gets me all the aggro I want... and often some that I don't 
It's ironic - in early CoV I was one of those players that told teams "brutes are not tankers"... yet I seem to have ended up tanking most of the AVs/heroes on the way to L40 
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Yeah have to say I am gonna have to make an elec/elec brute. Lol suspect they are gonna be about as durable but fire brutes, but as long as they look cool! I wanna look like a gremlin!
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I just hope they're resist-based and not defence-based, but I'm fairly certain Charged Armour from the Blaster Electric Mastery pool will be one of the toggles so there's hope. And yeah I want to look like a Gremlin too
You can stop a person's heart with electricity, so our L32 power should be called "Cardiac Arrest"
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Fire is the best for maintaining agro without resorting to taunt, I really dont know where people find space for taunt these days
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taunt is a selfless power. i dont know why villainous brutes would care to take it. other than to build up extra fury. or maybe if they could of stopped their partners in crime from faceplanting they wouldnt of got faceplanted later themselves. Who knows! as a villain - who cares! i'll take it myself for pvp purposes for sure.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
I would prolly take a stone/fire brute to PvP. Slightly better attack chain than nrg, and fire for the extra BU since you dont have fury.
But hey I prolly wouldnt even bring a brute to PvP. Too low damage IMO.
A Paragon Defender
for pvp i would go either energy or stone primary, then either invul or energy secondary. did agree that fire would be good until i actually made a fire tank for the extra BU and got owned by storm trollers 
therefore either invul for knockback resistance or energy for the simple fact of how fast toggles go back on if detoggled and no stopping for 2seconds to do a pose, u can run and activate toggles at the same time plus IMO overload is a lot more worthwile than unstoppable. and res to TP foe is always nice
I do agree about /nrg being a contender, but then again so is dark. Invu suffers untill unstop.
Stone is for people who care more about dying than actually winning. Granite is an effective way of removing your self from the fight, and stone is subpar outside granite.
Stormies? You're fighting a pvp build with a non PvP AT. Need I say more. Well actually stormies need suppport and are easily fought if they dont have it... just not by brutes.
A Paragon Defender
I have a SS/EA brute as always playing pvp. i have to say the power and damage this guy gives out is amazing. i can 2 shot many trollers. holding most of them in 1 shot and downing them with the next. its great watching the blapper thinking im and easy target then running away crying with very little health if alive at all hehe.
Plus SS can hit through rad which is great i have always struggled against rad i personally hate.
As my Arch Enemy/Friend was the first rad/rad about and murder me something rotten with my regen scrapper its good to finally get my own back.
Like what has already been said /EA cant be tp'd and is not repealed so stormy/bubble trollers/defenders beware.
The downside to any brutes is they cant tank in the slightest. struggle one on one with any good regen scrapper and being outnumbered that seems always the case.
If i hadnt already said i would be part of a hero team for this years S4 i would definatly be part of a villain team with this brute.
Tried most of the brute builds except fire, and my personal prefernece is ss/invul. Been running missions on relentless since lvl 14 with no trouble at all, and pvp, like all builds, has its ups and downs. One on one, can take on most heroes, although struggles with the trollers, and warburg, can take on anything. Energy attacks are superior, and dark is pretty good, although i aint to impressed with the attakcs compared to ss.
I'm experimenting with a EM/Invul build and plan a EM/EA brute to. My reasoning for EM/Invul is that in PvP it will still be the most common damage type although the major problem will be that Invulnerability will be pretty useless.
As for EA I like the idea of running through Artic Air or Hurricane and pounding on those smug defenders and controllers.
One question on Dark; the defence is well rounded but is it not too weak on the S&L front? How would you fare against a broadsword scrapper for example? Does the PSI resist outwiegh the lack of S&L?
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Granite is an effective way of removing your self from the fight, and stone is subpar outside granite.
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Depends how you play Solo sure its monster slow, teamed with a couple of kinetics it becomes something totally different Its not just stormies that excel with the right backup
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oh, im thinking of doing the first respec mish. to switch from leadership to heal, is tactics badly needed in PvP for brutes or is it worth getting rid off?
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i got it on my brute too, tactics is awesome for base raids and warburg, dosn't really matter much in sirens, but it's still handy with some more perception.
thought heal could be interrupted? which, if it can, would make it a weeee bit pointless when you're a brute
I have a Stone/Stone Brute i dont have Granite armor but with many PvP with other Brutes/Tankers i had won.
The big problem was with ice Tankers but i never duel with them.
I had killed many nrg brutes they are easy to be killed when my rage is over 50%.
My granite is so much in non-pvp spec its not even funny and yet I find it hysterical in warburg I have no end reds in any powers aside from mud pots so cant really hammer out enough damage before I have to stand there regenerating. Current spec means I cant really do much damage, can take the squishies tho
That said it was loads of fun fighting SinghMC, waited for him to take me to about half health before turning rooted, earths embrace and tough on, it was like watching my troller trying to damage someone
I do fear kinetics though
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My Energy/Stone is great fun in pvp, i cant stand my ground very well, and if a scrapper, or a mm or some other AT who relies on a steady flow of attack to kill their foe, my fury builds fast, so a quick BU, ET, TF can take out most characters, except for the obvious but as botty said any kinetics or radiation, or any1 with a -recharge power, really gives me hassle as i completetly rely on hasten for the recharge. Once that runs out im just a punch bag till its back pretty much, but unlike botty im slotted for soloing as well as teaming, so i dont have many end problems, and i serve very well in eam pvp due to taunt and the ability to stand my ground(unless a friendly troller stacks holds on me, or a blaster nicely smacks off my roted and tough) i would never change my build for anything else for pvp tbh. Anti-jump and slow sucks, but thats what tp foe is for
SHAUN!!!!! I think thats u anyways lol its lee btw
i personaly think SS/Inv is 1 of the best. i know, lost of people have it but its good and thats why they have it. Think its ok for PvP but not sure 
Just tryed Fire/Inv, thought the dmg in PvE was far better than SS, dont know about PvP tho, prob wont be as good as SS or EM cause most ppl got res against elemental.
about the INV, not so good at low lvl, but when you get higher and unlocks more skills, its amazing (know that from watching ???/inv brutes dueling in Warburg). havnt seen alot of em in Sirens.
Before i thought SS/EA was the best, but im gonna say EM/EA, cause of bonesmasher and total focus. gotta love it.
Reason i dont post much is cause i found it bothersome, i prefare using IRC, would like to know if theres an official CoH/CoV channel on irc and on which network.
Aside from all the issues above, I find that brutes main enemy is end... the way to win with a brute is with a sky high fury bar and its usually end thats my enemy rather than damage (in a team, anyway).
This being the case, the new electric armours / attacks may have some significant value, as well as consume from the fire armour set.
hardly anyone mentioned */FA :/
Is it that bad ?
I have a SS/FA brute, only lvl 6 so far, mainly picked the FA for the visual effects, and it fit my blood red and black costume
Im not into pvp
There's nothing wrong with FA as far as I can see it, for a brute I mean. Its more heldful with FM as the primary because of the damage boost, but still a fine set in its own right
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
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There's nothing wrong with FA as far as I can see it, for a brute I mean. Its more heldful with FM as the primary because of the damage boost, but still a fine set in its own right
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FA is one of the "squishiest" of the Brute sets (along with Energy Aura) - on paper at least, although I've found myself outlasting all the other Brute armours at one time or another when playing my EM/FA Brute. The shields are only good enough for absorbing a small amount of sustained heavy damage - which is where Healing Flames comes into its own, as it's possibly the only thing that will keep you going above other Brutes during tough battles. You have to adopt a very offensive playstyle, and use any control effects you have in your primary to mitigate incoming damage - Blazing Aura does a healthy amount of damage, and complements this mindset pretty well. Fiery Embrace is also useful to pick up for the damage boost, regardless of your primary - running at full Fury with Build Up, Fiery Embrace and Forge (Thermal ftw), Energy Transfer can turn out about 1K damage on a boss (a Tsoo boss, for the sake of reference) - and it'll still affect Blazing Aura (and Burn if you have it, in I7) for the full 20s duration.
The best thing about FA is that it's probably one of the most self-sufficient Brute Armours - with Consume (and the odd insp), I can run at full-bore through pretty much all missions from start to finish, either solo or in teams.
As far as PvP goes, it can be a bit of a nightmare at the moment (and will be until they sort out toggle-dropping). A good Blapper will always beat a good /FA Brute in a 1v1 situation - you have more survivability in the zones than in the arena in this regard. I've enjoyed more success than not on my Brute, doing better than I thought I would initially, but it's hard work.
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
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running at full Fury with Build Up, Fiery Embrace and Forge (Thermal ftw), Energy Transfer can turn out about 1K damage on a boss (a Tsoo boss, for the sake of reference) - and it'll still affect Blazing Aura (and Burn if you have it) for the full 20s duration.
[/ QUOTE ]It will not affect burn before the fix to LBAoE's and player buffs in I7.
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It will not affect burn before the fix to LBAoE's and player buffs in I7.
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That's what I meant to say.
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
For PvE, especially on big teams, I think Fire/Fire kicks out the most damage of any brute, because of Fire Sword Circle's area damage combined with high Fury and both damage buffs (Build-Up & Fiery Embrace) - then you have Blazing Aura to mop up any minions/lieuts that manage to survive. So Fire/Fire is fun if you like seeing lots of orange numbers on your screen and enjoy being the centre of attention (getting aggro in a team is no problem, hehe) - and being able to survive it!
But I'm under no illusions that Energy/* and Stone/* kick out much bigger damage numbers on single targets, and that */Dark and */Stone have better resists. Fire/Fire is probably rubbish for PvP too (AEs, fire/smash/lethal damage, no status effects on fire attacks).
I think you can find good things about all the brute powersets - there is no ultimate brute, just some powersets that are better in certain situations than others. I'd be playing a Stone/* or Energy/* next, probably with */Dark, if Electric/Electric wasn't on the way