The thing with Electric Armor is that its a Resistance set, unlike Energy Armor or for instance, Super Reflex for scrapper wich are Defense based.
Is it bad? Yes and no. Electric Armor doesn't have a Self Heal, wich is not that bad because anyone can pick up Aid Self. Problem is, the armor is Resistance Based thus you'll get hit and often. Whereas its not so much of a problem to not have a Self Heal (Dull Pain, Healing Flames ect) if your armor set is Defense based because you get Hit less.
Hehe well all of this I am well aware of but they werent asked in any of my questions =)
Hehe maybe I werent clear enough but thx for answering anyway =)
I have a Super Strength / Dark Brute at L20 which seems to be working well. Endurance was a problem pre-Stamina (I had to be efficient using my toggles), but I think that's always going to be the case whatever brute you pick, especially before SOs. I picked that combo because I thought it would be a good defensive brute from the perspective of controlling enemies (with the later dark auras, plus tons of knockdown in primary which is great against bosses). Endurance problems can be overcome with slotting, Stamina and an end-drain if the set you choose has one (my Fire/Fire can run 7 toggles and fight continuously).
I couldn't really recommend Fiery Melee with Dark Armour, because I feel the greatest synergy for a Fire/ brute is with Fiery Aura, because of the second build up (fiery embrace), more AE damage (which is what Fire/ should be specialising in, as its fantastic at it) and the fact the secondary supplies both a heal and an end-drain (which you'll need with that combo).
The other primary I have a lot of experience with is Energy Melee (albeit on my Stalker). Don't write the set off as it does fantastic damage against single targets and has tons of synergy with Dark Armour - especially the higher level aura Oppressive Gloom, which causes mag2 disorients which will stack with the disorients on all of the Energy Melee attacks. My friend has a L38 Energy/Dark Brute (and another L30 one because he loves the combo so much) and it seems to be working out great for him.
I've never played Stone Melee (looks like a slow set and I hate the look of the mallet), nor Electric Melee much (a few levels last night, hehe). I don't like Dark Melee (low damage, long animations on some attacks), and have little experience of it, so I don't know but assume it complements Dark Armour well, especially because that combo would give you both a heal and an End drain.
I have a Stone/DA brute and he does drain end faster than other brutes it seems, but stone melee does feel the smashiest of all the primary sets. Nothing can beat Fault and Seismic Smash (which will hold bosses). After Stamina and alot of endred slots I don't have alot of problems, I just have to keep popping blues 
But then again I use Seismic Smash whenever I can, instead of using it when fury is high. It really drains alot 
Can't comment on the other sets, because I've only seen and heard them.
Hehe ok thc for the answeres abit more knowledge =)
1) Not enough
2) Far too much en, but that's because its powerful, most single target damage I've seen in game anyway
3) i managed to make my /Da pretty light, and I dont suffer much from end issues. I had issues when I tried stone, but it was my first villain and I ballsed up the power choices
4) Possibly not, didn't notice that much from it when I played on Test, but it did seem to somtimes almost cover the cost of the moves. Elec will not make up for DA.
5) Its resistance, its all faily good, better than DA on average, but no self heal. It has two end recoveries though, which is a bonus.
6) I was two shotting +1s with my AoEs on test in a mayhem mission, I then took down an EB fairly quickly, it has good AoE and Single Target balance, not top of either but good with both.
"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!"
Sweet thanks, pretty much all i needed to know =)
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The thing with Electric Armor is that its a Resistance set, unlike Energy Armor or for instance, Super Reflex for scrapper wich are Defense based.
Is it bad? Yes and no. Electric Armor doesn't have a Self Heal, wich is not that bad because anyone can pick up Aid Self. Problem is, the armor is Resistance Based thus you'll get hit and often. Whereas its not so much of a problem to not have a Self Heal (Dull Pain, Healing Flames ect) if your armor set is Defense based because you get Hit less.
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Actually being hit is a good thing for Brutes, it helps build your fury up.
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The thing with Electric Armor is that its a Resistance set, unlike Energy Armor or for instance, Super Reflex for scrapper wich are Defense based.
Is it bad? Yes and no. Electric Armor doesn't have a Self Heal, wich is not that bad because anyone can pick up Aid Self. Problem is, the armor is Resistance Based thus you'll get hit and often. Whereas its not so much of a problem to not have a Self Heal (Dull Pain, Healing Flames ect) if your armor set is Defense based because you get Hit less.
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Actually being hit is a good thing for Brutes, it helps build your fury up.
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Actually its based on if they try to hit you, not if they actually hit you.
With energy they can try and hit you and fail, thus genrating Fury and not losing HP, but with electricity they can try and hit you, and probably will, thus generating Fury but at the same time losing HP as you are only lessing the blow not avoiding it out right.
Avoiding is for weaklings, taking a hit to the face is for real Brutes 
Yes a /DA speaking here 
As a DA when you say a hit in the face, you mean from the floor 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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As a DA when you say a hit in the face, you mean from the floor right?
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Then my self rez kicks in, allowing me to aggro all mobs around me AoE's are good on brutes, with or without fury
I dont have the self rez, I work on a kill fast and live method
"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!"
Ummm... 20% resistance and 20% defence are pretty much the same - you will loose (on average) 20% less hit points over the same course of time from attacks. Neither have any advantage over the other in terms of lessening the damage you take...
The differences, as far as I can determine, are:
DEFENCE offers the prospect of the "run of awful luck" - you can get hit a lot for the full whack very quickly. Whilst this is unlikely, resistance is superior in that such a string of full damage hits is NEVER going to happen. The AVERAGE loss of HP is the same, but whilst you could loose NO hit points with Defence, you may loose them all...
(This is less of a problem with high HP characters like tanks and brutes who can normally survive a string of bad luck)
DEFENCE is superior because with mixed damage attacks (like a clockworks energy/smash punch), the highest defence bonus is used (wheras with RESISTANCE, the separate damages are reduced). This means defence is slightly superior to resistance in cases of mix/damage attacks
DEFENCE is superior because you also miss out on the secondary effects of the attacks - like the holds, slows, end drains, debuffs, etc... This is really why defence outshines Resistance.
However, if you are looking purely at HP loss, Resistance = Defence (except for mixed damage attacks).
Evading holds is always better in PvE/PvP than getting hit by a less damaging one, that's why /DA and /Fire should be happy they have to pick Acrobatics, it has a tiny bit of extra hold res.
In PvE the damage between a resistance or a defence set isn't really big, but in PvP most resistance sets will be taken down faster due to lower defence.
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Evading holds is always better in PvE/PvP than getting hit by a less damaging one, that's why /DA and /Fire should be happy they have to pick Acrobatics, it has a tiny bit of extra hold res.
In PvE the damage between a resistance or a defence set isn't really big, but in PvP most resistance sets will be taken down faster due to lower defence.
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Unless your opponent uses Aim/Build-Up (or both, in the case of blasters) then that entire defence set won't really count for much and you'd be better off with some resistance.
In most other games, for tanking damage, mitigation (CoV/H resistance) is always better than avoidance (CoV/H defence) because the rate of incoming damage is far more predictable than with the spikes you can get from an unlucky run of bad avoidance "rolls". Makes it easier for the healers and for you yourself to judge what you can and can't handle.
My personal view - defence becomes progressively superior the higher your HP...
Since - a) "Bad streaks" dont become lethal and b) you can survive the few seconds the blaster whips up his Aim + BU.
My experience of the RV event on test server a week ago led me to experience Ice tanks as the absolute nightmare... (and Im talking from both sides of the fence)... Fire is just to offensive and thus can just be worn down, Invunrability dosent shine against single targets doing non S/L damage, and "unstoppable" will wear off leading almost inevitably to death...
Granite tanks are NEVER a threat (didnt see on kill by them on their own), and saw a fair few taken down by end drain...
Ice tank? Just how are you meant to kill them? Highest Mez resistance, cant take down their end (innate resistance + sky high defence), you are slowed and debuffed when in melee, they have +percep vs stalkers.... and even when you finally wean their hp down (after they have hit hoarfrost for any unlucky streaks), they hit hibernate - and bang you are back to square one... I gave up even approaching ice tanks because there was no way to take one down and they could be a genuine threat with their slow aura. And playing one - I had a team of EIGHT villians attacking me who eventually gave up because my hibernate recharged faster than they could take my hp down...
So defence seemed to rule the day in PvP at least for high HP tanks. As I said, when you are a stalker - a few lucky punches and its game over...
And if anyone could tell me exactly how on earth you take down an Ice tank in PvP, let me know. I understand Ice/EM tanks are the current FoTM in PvP these days...
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And if anyone could tell me exactly how on earth you take down an Ice tank in PvP, let me know.
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I think you'd probably need an awfully large amount of Psionic damage (the only thing an Ice/ tanker has no defence nor resists too) - failing that a large amount of Fire damage, especially if they haven't taken Permafrost (the auto-power that I've seen many Ice/ builds skip). Toxic would work too, but I don't think any player attack in the game does pure Toxic damage in large amounts.
Whichever you chose you'd probably need several players of those damage types able to time their alpha strike to kill the Ice tanker before he hibernated
Either that or get a ton of Fire/Rad Corruptors and debuff him into the ground before nuking him to death, but I have a feeling he'd Hibernate if a load of RI/EF debuff icons popped up on his icon bar suddenly
Unfortunately (from Ice armor descriptions) Ice seems to have the most debuff resistance, as well as a practical immunity to slows...
I suppose Fire trollers / Dominators are probably the only way to realistically do enough damage to ice tanks. Psionic damage is all very well, but defenders /trollers arent going to do vast amounts of it. And anyway, you get stuck in that chilling embrace and its bye bye - cant mez em, hard to escape, and meanwhile your are doing -14% damage and slowed recharge even if it is fire damage / psionic.
IRRC Fire damage is defended against by glacial or frost armour to a small degree - so even if permafrost is missing its not like pounding away with psionic damage...
IIRC The only time I got pounded in RV was when there were 3+ dominators who finally mezzed me out of my armours long enough for me to take damage (from AS usually) and so i couldnt hoarfrost / hibernate. But its ridiculous - it took at the MINIMUM 5 villians all of pretty optimal anti-ice builds to take me down.
I'd like to point out one minor tidbit.
A lot of people refer to defensive set self-heals as self-heals. Which I suppose is fair enough, since they do heal yourself. They tend to be rather unreliably high on recharge though.
IMHO missing out on a self-heal and taking aid self is not the same, even without looking at the interruptability. Most (all?) self-heals will also boost your maximum HP for quite a while and this can be enormously helpful, for instance if you have a lot of regen, or aid self will heal more too, or if there's an AV/Hero with a type of damage that you have no/low resists to so you won't get one shot, etc.
Easy to overlook the max HP buff effect, but it's pretty important IMHO. I more see Earth's Embrace as a HP buff than a heal.
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1. Anyway the dark melee's heal as ive heard is [censored], whats the maximum you can get off in a heal and at what rate, slow or can u slot it fast to make up the amount of healing?
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It does do damage and heal so its endurance cost is going to be high so having any faster recharge than ots 15 sec base will end drain you. An advantage over aid self does exist in which you dont lower your dps as much through using it and do damage and -acc debuff at the sametime. How good and useful it is will come down to the rest of the build
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3. I did look over stone melee but since i plan on taking dark armor as 2nd will i drain end like hell or is it playable? more overall since the days when I played CoH only thing I heard about dark that it was a real end drainer.
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it is, slotted right, playable but you are better of taking stamina and dark consumption.
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4. If I go electric melee with dark, might sound over optimistic since having trouble believeing this myself, but will I be able to do _ok_ end transfer with electric melee?
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not substantially good from the electric melee alone, with elec armour fitness is possible to forget about once ya have powersink.
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5. And electric armor looks nice, but saw someone writing about it being [censored] at taking damage but awesome at draining it?
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Its not bad resistance, you have no heal which is more of a problem but elec relies on keeping foes endurance down to avoid foes and at the very least causing their heaviest endurance costing powers which tend to be their best ones naturally unuseable.
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6. Another thing with electric melee, does it do good enough damage, if you read on them it seems too many are on the lower part then the rest of the damage sets, think I saw 1 extreme damage while others have 1 extreme and/or superior.
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Not all sets are as good as eachother in great damage because each set has attacks that also do in part add to survivability aswell to varying degrees.
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.
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IRRC Fire damage is defended against by glacial or frost armour to a small degree - so even if permafrost is missing its not like pounding away with psionic damage...
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According to SherkSilver's planner Frozen Armour gives 12.5% Fire resist (non-enhanceable, as that toggle only seems to take defbuffs for the smash/lethal) - and that's it for Ice/ if you don't take Permafrost. So we're talking less fire resist than even an /Invul Tanker (or a Blaster/Controller/Defender with the Fire Mastery Shield). With Permafrost you can push it up to 32% with slotting.
Your point about Psionic damage is well made (heroes have more psionic-based sets than villains as well) - although I'm sure a Dom's Psionic Lance would sting with enough enrages+domination. Fire corruptors aren't so rare, though, and I know from playing my own that they can do serious damage, especially once you get below half health
Yeah I think a fire/psionic dominator is about the only chance anyone has 1:1 vs an Ice tank. (Of actually beating it anyway).
Playing my Ice tank I even managed to take down a granite tank who had let his end slip a bit, by Using energy absorbtion - detoggled - Granite recharge so.... slow.... because of chilling embrace. Meantime, Air Superiority and Ice Slick keep him bouncing up and down whilst I slowly whittled his hp away...
Hey.
Since i've mostly done ranged attacks in CoH/CoV but have one tank im just wondering about a few power(sets) not to make the ultimate killing machine(although that would be sweet =P) more to make a brute i feel complement with its sets.
1. Anyway the dark melee's heal as ive heard is crap, whats the maximum you can get off in a heal and at what rate, slow or can u slot it fast to make up the amount of healing?
2. I was on the erge to make a Energy melee but have made a few alts with it and feel that ive worn it out.
3. I did look over stone melee but since i plan on taking dark armor as 2nd will i drain end like hell or is it playable? more overall since the days when I played CoH only thing I heard about dark that it was a real end drainer.
4. If I go electric melee with dark, might sound over optimistic since having trouble believeing this myself, but will I be able to do _ok_ end transfer with electric melee?
5. And electric armor looks nice, but saw someone writing about it being crap at taking damage but awesome at draining it?
6. Another thing with electric melee, does it do good enough damage, if you read on them it seems too many are on the lower part then the rest of the damage sets, think I saw 1 extreme damage while others have 1 extreme and/or superior.
Many of the questions are regarding the new set, since ive tried many of them from before and just curious i don't wanna lvl it 20+ just to realize I hate it hehe.
All answeres are appreciated.