According to shannon from the dark/dark thread, she seems convinced that Dark Consumption is ALL you need to keep the endurance train rolling and stamina is unnecessary. With /elec it might be golden though. Nice combo.
As for Dark Melee...My experience does not match Shannons. The cone for Shadow Maul is very small (level 1-14 I think it hit multiple enemies about 6 times total) and the animation is kind of long and really embarassing looking if you miss. While Smite and Shadow Punch do less damage, if I respec I might grab them only because they recharge faster, use less endurance, and I can get off like two attacks from Dark Punch in the time it takes to get Shadow Maul off the ground. Then again, if it does connect it's pretty nice. Up to you, but I'm finding Shadow Maul is really slowing me down...particularly when I have to set myself up in combat with surgical precision if I even want to pretend that Dark Maul will hit more than one. Though, when it does hit more than one, it's a brutally awesome attack. It just doesn't happen very often for me.
And yet again, Shannon's experience with DM is different from mine. She's seen the higher levels, I"m still at 14.
-jared
I currently have a similar power on electric, jacobs ladder think its called and it has a small cone. I don't mind it and I do liek the shadow maul animation.
With no stamina in my build though I have power picks to spare so I will take it but I think I'll take the other two first then.
Very cool...you'll have to let us know how the Dark/Electric thing works out.
By the by, Siphon Life does not slot well for Healing. Triple slotted with level 15 IO's should make a difference...but it's really minimal. It's a lot like slotting Caltrops with damage enhancers, if that makes sense to you. The gain is trivial.
That might change with better enhancements, but the triple slot trick only gave me an extra 3 or 5 hit points per use. I'll recheck the numbers when I log in tonight, but it went from 40 HP gain to 44 HP drain after the healing slotting I was far too excited about. As soon as I have the infamy, its going to get recharges all the way around.
-jared
reading the description (on Mids heroe designer) it heals back 10% of your health I suppose 3 SO's and thats 20% so not to bad on paper. I guess your not noticing much of a difference now because of your TOs/DOs? and the fact you don't have much life atm.
For what it's worth I'm using IO's...but if it's actually 10% and can be boosted to 20%...later down the road, that's not too bad. I was just surprised at how minimally effective 3 Healing IO's were to the HP gain. You have a point with the life total though.
right I get your point on smite now, its ncie when I get it to hit 2 or 3 but I do see rage dropping a bit. Tempted to get air superiorit instead now, could SS/Fly then without losing any other powers.
For what it's worth, I played a Dark Melee/Fire Aura Brute almost to 30 at one point. Running Fire Shield, Plasma Shield, Acrobatics, and occasionally Blazing Aura, I rarely had End problems using Dark Consumption and Consume. The biggest Drain on End was Blazing Aura, which is similar to Lightning Field
And a Great Tactic is using Soul Drain in a big group, building Fury up, and Turning on that Damage Aura (make sure to slot for damage, it'll add up in the end) and just melting through enemies.
cool thanks, I;ve currently planned lighting field for just after conserve power, see how my end is later and I might take it earlier.
I have a dark/elec at 23 (which I haven't played in ages) and haven't taken Stamina. It's probably doable, but you need to slot EndRdx generously and slot up Dark Consumption asap (I also took Hasten+LR). I'm still undecided on whether to stay Stamina-less until Power Sink though (I don't expect CP to help that much tbh). I think it really depends how much you plan/want to solo and it's probably OK if you team a lot (with buffers).
CoX 50s: <ill/rad> <ice/ice> <fire/kin> <grav/sonic> <ice/storm> <earth/kin> <kin/elec> <cold/psy> <thugs/dark> <fire/dark> <dark/elec> <night widow> <EM/ninj> <mind/icy>
I took my DM/EA Brute to 50 this week without Stamina and from an endurance point it's pretty much the same as Elec.
Dark consumption is good, especially with its near 0 end cost, but its recharge is fairly long - it may not seem long, but your endurance drops pretty quickly when you're attacking constantly and Brutes don't get a lot of time to stop and rest - and it doesn't recover a huge amount per mob without slotting for end mod.
Energy Drain is up much more often and can recover more end, but it does cost more - I believe the Elec counterpart is Power Sink and I can't really vouch for its efficiency.
Finally you get Conserve Power, which makes a huge difference while its running, but it has a very long recharge - I think it's down for about 4 minutes with 3 recharges. That said, with my planned IO build I should be able to get that down to a 90 second downtime.
In summary, it's quite possible to do, but you struggle a little until you get your 2nd end recovery power and you may have trouble against end-draining mobs like Mu or Carnies.
As for DM, Siphon Life is very important as you don't get a self heal in EA/Elec and it can't be interrupted (Although it does have a ToHit check). Personally I've got it slotted for 2xAcc, 3xHeal - though my IO Set slotting is slightly different.
Also, don't overlook Touch of Fear - many eschew it because it slows their fury buildup, but it is extremely useful against bosses and/or for removing problem mobs from combat until you can deal with them (Bane Spider Scouts come to mind - stops them placating you).
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oh I wouldn't miss out on fear, its my favourate status effect second only to confuse :P. Just checked energy aura and wow they are quite similar. I see the two end drain/reduction powers are the opposite way round thoguh. Think I;d prefer a drain first.
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As for Dark Melee...My experience does not match Shannons. The cone for Shadow Maul is very small (level 1-14 I think it hit multiple enemies about 6 times total) and the animation is kind of long and really embarassing looking if you miss.
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I have had plenty of herding experience. I have had 6 foes around my icetank once with CE on just one of em (there was actually 10 foes stacked in one spot). I never have probs multihitting with Shadow Maul i am afraid and its great if ya can do it cos how ever many you hit your obviously doing more damage per endurance than normal.
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 thought the only reason to go dark/elec was to go staminaless . . .
thePhilosopher Martial Arts/Regen/Fire Scrapper
theRegulator Empathy/Energy/Soul Defender
Total Inertia Ice Blast/Kinetics/Psy Corruptor
Total Inferno Ice Blast/Thermal/Leviathan Corruptor
someone in my group last night said "I know a certain brute that desperatly needs stamina" (me, only lvl 9 atm). Then I said I was trying not to have stamina and explained what I was gonna do instead. Then he made the very excelent point that I'm still having to use 3 powers to keep my end going. Although I'm quite happy with that and now the only powers I won't have from the primary or secondary is taunt.
I do like shadow maul, I shall leave my judgment for when I join a big team with lots of mobs then 
.
Dark Consumption does damage, Energy Drain/Power Sink drains foe end - hurdle doesn't.
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someone in my group last night said "I know a certain brute that desperatly needs stamina" (me, only lvl 9 atm). Then I said I was trying not to have stamina and explained what I was gonna do instead. Then he made the very excelent point that I'm still having to use 3 powers to keep my end going. Although I'm quite happy with that and now the only powers I won't have from the primary or secondary is taunt.
I do like shadow maul, I shall leave my judgment for when I join a big team with lots of mobs then .
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In teams you may find yourself doing more damage per endurance due to better chance of fury, mobs will be finished whilst your only at a certain ep, your also probably getting buffed. When i solo i herd 10 defeat 10 and in teams it has paid to run off ahead and grab mobs before other people get to them so ya do have a better chance for leeching. For my end not to run out my shadow maul has to hit more than one at a time. If in a duo then whoever the other person maybe they maybe actually making me do less damage per endpoint through not helping me make the right terms and if so make the fight duration last longer. Prior to SOs its actually not at all easy and SOs are 2 lvls past when most people get stamina. People tend to want stamina from the result of their TO or DO build and lack of most beneficial dynamics and not see the result from a SO build.
My staminaless elec/elec prior to SOs came out of every mob (still herd 10 defeat 10 when solo) looking like she had an unstoppable crash in most missions. She not only needed end but hp as well whereas my dark/dark would be full health and maybe low end (which is ok cos i can get it running into next group) but a combination of dark/elec would tell me that it is actually aid self that is a good idea. Her fight duration was fast but her downtime between was payback but elec/elec is tighter and gets good later anyway. /Elec is more painful to lvl than /Dark, on a respec itll be aid self thats the must take early.
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 take back what I said about Siphon Life. I ended up rampaging a bit last night and it kept me alive many, many times. I re-slotted it for recharge since I figured an attack that heals me is better if I do it more often rather than an attack that heals me more but less often. It makes sense, I swear.
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For my end not to run out my shadow maul has to hit more than one at a time.
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This scares me a bit. I got a lot better last night at hitting more than one enemy, but many, many times enemies were right next to each other, practically standing on each other's shoulders and the shadow maul would still only hit one of them. Any advice on this? If the stamina-free build is reliant on getting Shadow Maul to hit more than one, methinks I may have a problem.
-jared
It depends.
For Elec, I would agree with you; for EA, however, as you're not going to get hit as often, a big heal is often more useful.
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If ya ever see a crate next to a wall with a thin gap between then a short run along the side of the crate (cos often many foes tend to follow exact path) and then positioning just into the gap should make the type of pull ya looking for to see the best stacking to look for. Then Id target the rear but in range one and use it. Often i just position myself about any 2 foes front to back and line them up. I am not looking for them to be next to eachother but more directly behind eachother.
Stamina free builds are about playing to get the most out of attacks and slotting for low eps during the attack chain and then making some end recovery between fights until ya really do need an end buff with just dark consumption (i used to have it hastened but I dont have haste now since soul drain) and use that on as many foes possible without being tohit debuffed to hell at the time. Death shroud is used as well cos its multihit and whilst i am done dropping 4 its already weakened the other 6. Fury increases the amount of damage you do per attack and thus makes it so that it takes less attacks per mob and thus save end. I also have taunt cos i am a leecher and if i need mobs to come with me or to me i need them to want to. In an extreme sense i liken much of the need for stamina no different to needing it cos some sonic defender has always put sonic repulsion on your dark brute every time ya get low on end then preventing you from leeching end. This is cos team dynamics either go for you or against you. If i am teamed i pretty much would like to run off ahead, quick herd, do a bit of damage, leech, then the team gets there and i go off again leaving them to finish, basically looking like a tank that dont stay to clean up and fury can sometimes be kept up quite nicely.
Powers like footstomp if hitting the full 10 does 4 times the damage to group than what knockout blow does in a slightly less action time. Say for example you have 8 ss brutes in one team then on a group of 10 mobs you can do the equivalent of 32 knockout blows in 2.23 seconds flat by everyone doing footstomp. It would be 32 knockout blows for the price of 8 knockout blows in endurance terms. Even if ya had a herdtime of 8 seconds the 2 second fight duration can still be worth it, alot of the time foes are close enough and maybe just need a little bit of coiling up.
Dark consumption would take the pain out of levelling my stamina less elec elec but aid self would so be wanted. Looking at my elec elec i think pure build + aid self till 20, then vet respec in stamina but keep aid self till powersink then perhaps respec out stamina. With Dark Elec id prolly get by without stamina but still would like aid self.
I try for pure builds for a challenge and to find the essences of them plus with many toons i like different worries.
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.
As Spad has said, DM/EA, despite it's borked appearance (and it's actual borked state) it's not that bad a combination. I got by at lower levels with shadow punch, Smite Shadow maul and air sup and using Dark Consumption at the beginning. Now I have the mass Immob from patron and Midnight grasp to help out, but you can certainly manage with just those 4, no problem.
Of course, being able to go without stamina (and I miss hurdle and sprint more than stamina itself TBH) helps loads cos it frees up more power choices.
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@Miss Chief
I do have a Dark/Elec brute at lvl 50. And after much pondering I decided to have Stamina.
Thanks to IO sets, I have dropped haste, by the way.
Electric Armor wise I have all the powers. From dark, I dropped Taunt (with the patron area and the PBAE toggle I can keep most mobs looking at me anyway, and single target the superb sustained damage does the trick) and Dark Consumption (which I respecced out).
What made me take this decision was the way I see brutes. And that is: being able to keep up with both bars full all the time. And while Dark Consumption is great... it is just too slow. I can take great use of Swift (my travel poser is flight) and Health (more regen is great for brutes), so the simple addition of Stamina, which is working all the time is just perfect. Even with Stamina, running 3 toggled shields plus the toggled PBAoE damage, sometimes when I finish a group of mobs, it may have descended to half bar (specially if I use my 'toolbox attacks' which I will explain later), I just apply power sink when I start the next one and... voila... power is full again. The end drain is also great, specially since your PBAoE also keeps the endurance down (and when you are grouping and there is another group member with power sink, you keep all the mobs without end very easily).
I believe dark melee is great because, while it does not pack as great a punch as other brute melee sets, it offers great utility powers, being mainly for me Touch of Fear and Siphon life. Even when there might be mobs that would be ressistant to the fear status effect or need more than one application, the accuracy debuff is *very* noticeable. And about siphon life, you have just to slot enough accuracy on it (and having a ton of +acc set bonuses does not hurt). I suggest at least 1 or 2 lvl 50 acc IO.. I only went back to 1 to have 5 doctored heal IO (to get the -5% rech bonus) when I got at least 27% acc bonus from other sets. The lack of initial melee damage is very mitigated with fury building, and the very fast animation times of all attacks save your cone/flurry attack (which makes great damage anyway when it connects, so it is more than alright).
Dark consumption was just too slow, and thus too situational, when you have power sink. And Stamina helps it make it so.
Electric armour is... just too good. So incredibly good that I am afraid there will be a nerf coming for us at some point. I think it's the only set I have ever taken ALL the powers from, in any high level character I have ever built. Everything, is incredibly useful, and I am not meaning only the fact you have a very well spread ressist to most type of damage (including psionics). Normally you would even disregard, having Stamina and Power sink, the Conserve Power effect, but in the very long fights, when you are fighting just one tough mob (and thus your power sink will not be gaining back too much) or when the enemy debuffs your recovery (such as dark ring mistresses) it helps tons. Heck, even the god mode is the best I have ever seen (specially when you compare it to the stupid moment of 'glory' which everybody and their mother can overcome with enough accuracy or psi powers... at least with this one it does help for end recovery even when you are fighting psi and it does *not* take you down to 20% health during the fight itself, plus, looking like a Cape Au Diable goblin is cool, specially if you are playing the huge character template, makes you feel like Deathsurge).
With this builds, all missions are like a breeze when soloing, in relentless difficulty. Only toxic would give you some trouble, and things such as the Arachnoids Elite bosses can still be soloed with the god mode and some red pills (the rest can be managed with touch of fear).
I think I *could* manage without Stamina, keeping my power up with constant use of power sink and dark consumption. But for tough mobs such as Elite Bosses or particularly hard bosses (such as Carnival mistresses, or bosses that manage to debuff your accuracy such as Death mages) I would have trouble power wise, since with just one mob at your side the end recovery is not too great (unless you have 6 slotted with 3 recovery and 3 recharge both powers and I feel that's a waste).
And in groups, the powers that *really* help are the two PBAoE (to keep the crods thinking of you, and Soul Drain to REALLY make most power ups look at you with shame), the power sink (if there is other member of the group with power sink it's awesome) and the Targetted area of effect you will get with the patron powers (usually the only one worth taking). Not only this combination is great to grab the crowd attention (jump into a crowd, do the soul drain, then the ball of darkness - I got Ghost Widow - and then power sink and you will see what I mean, specially when you keep them with you thanks to the lightning field), but it will leave you in each mob with great initial damage and full of endurance, with ALL mobs damaged and MOST mobs with half (or none if you have somebody doing the same) endurance.
the worst thing in the world, stamina! I;ve never seen dark consumption before but reading the other thread (dark/dark) I checked out Dark consumption. Wow, an end replacement you get really early.
So now I am considering deleting my electric/electic (though I like it) and making a dark/elec. So is Dark consumption/conserve power enough to go stamina free? I would really love to finally have a character that doesn't have stamina.
With 3 recharge, hasten and lightning reflexes from /elec that dark consumptions is gonna be up quite often (70ish seconds).
And while we're at it any tip[s on dark melee, I tried it a long time ago and can't really remember much.
edit: ooh I see power sink too, forgot about that. This looks really tempting now :P.