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So which of these 4 would you go for, or did you go a 5th route on your own brute? Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks 
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e) Aid Self. At least that's what I did on my dark/elec. Makes you much more survivable although you still won't be able to take every alpha without buffs.
High recharge and regen will help a bit but don't bother trying to play a sapper (use PS for +end and slot LF for dmg).
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>
f) Get Tough
g) Get Aid Self & Tough
I'd say e) or f) but g) is doable 
@Jay Leon Hart
Kerensky: this has nothing to do with underwear
Zwillinger: I put on my robe and wizard hat...
Synapse: I had to resist starting my last post off with "Yo dawg!"
h) Team with reasonable players/builds. Dont take somewhat inefficient power choices (unless for concept) to cover for other's inadequecies. (E.g. 7 blasters demanding a tank rush in and absorb every iota of damage).
Seriously, a good dominator or corruptor should keep you from falling down to often.
Otherwise, I would prefer tough over aid self. If you really intend to "tank" 8 man spawns, the attacks on you will run quick and fast, and you have no defence. Without a dominator or other support to slow / hold / debuff those fast attacks, you will be hampered in how often you can fire off aid self.
So for kicks i just used a respec on him. I dropped aid self which i've had since lvl 14 and picked up tough instead. I also dropped fault (meaning less mitigation). The major difference in slotting is im running with around five end redux in total, four in attacks, one in lightning field. This means I have two damage SOs in each attack now where prior to the respec I had none. So more damage, less control, more resistance.
I solo ruthless much smoother than I did before. In my eight test missions at ruthless I had to use 1 green vs a freak tank. Now with the changes I can almost earn health fighting three oranges. I just need to test it on a team now, see how it goes.
On a side note I'm still working out some endurance issues. I have six toggles (the four elec shields, tough, combat jumping). The first four missions after the respec I ran with just two end redux, one in seismic smash and one in lightning field. Power sink had no chance to keep up. I placed three more end redux in my attacks, one in each of the two mallets and one in the fist. It's working much better now aslong as i can power sink atleast two mobs. I fear this means vs. an AV im screwed. But maybe I can turn off something, like lightning field. Anyways Surge in six bubbles, thats three minutes of no end worries :P
I prefer Tough over Aid Self. Aid Self only really works best if you have an AoE disable (like Fault) because of the interruptibility, and when you're not the main tank. Mostly a solo tool in my humble opinion.
/Elec can make for a good Sapper build, but only when paired with Electric Melee (and Mu Mastery helps).
Certainly f) and h) are good choices. I didn't list Tough because I assumed you had it (since you mentioned taking Weave). If you're having endurance issues, do you also use Conserve Power? Anyway, things change (a lot) after Surge
edit: Lightning Field can certainly use 2EndRdx. Or you can get some nice slotting with sets: I have 45% acc 90% dmg 67% endrdx + a dmg and a stun proc + 10% regen from set bonus.
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>
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If you're having endurance issues, do you also use Conserve Power? Anyway, things change (a lot) after Surge
edit: Lightning Field can certainly use 2EndRdx. Or you can get some nice slotting with sets: I have 45% acc 90% dmg 67% endrdx + a dmg and a stun proc + 10% regen from set bonus.
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I am having endurance problems because I am trying to see how much I can push power sink, so my end problems is completely on purpose. I am using SOs, not sets atm so a slot not used on end redux is a slot I can use for something else.
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So which of these 4 would you go for, or did you go a 5th route on your own brute? Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks
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Yea i went route 5 and deleted my /electric at level 40, worst brute out of 7 iv ever made 
What attacks do you have and how do you enter groups? Is it Fault, Tremor then Seismic or what?
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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What attacks do you have and how do you enter groups? Is it Fault, Tremor then Seismic or what?
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Hi. I do wanna note that after the respec i mentioned a few posts back it his survivability has improved tons.
As far as tactics go I usually run in and tremor stuff, and keep tremor'ing till all are dead Doing this I did managed to run into a 6 man orange+ carnie spawn and not die even with /afk healer.
After fighting against some nullifiers I definitly think I am gonna go for some layered defenses, either alot of regen or alot of defense, not sure which yet.
Whereas he's my best out of 7. Playstyle counts for a lot, eh?
@Jay Leon Hart
Kerensky: this has nothing to do with underwear
Zwillinger: I put on my robe and wizard hat...
Synapse: I had to resist starting my last post off with "Yo dawg!"
I wouldn't really recommend /Elec as a tanking secondary myself, unless you've got some good buffage/healage going on. I play my Brute as more of a Scrapper/offtank, seems to work well. I don't have Taunt and don't really plan on ever taking it - Every single team I get in has at least 2 to 4 Brutes anyway, including myself. Someone else is probably /Stone or /Willpower.
Hell, up until not too long ago I didn't even have Tough... I have to say, the difference in damage taken isn't that noticeable when you first get it, but the next time you survive a pull gone bad with a thin red strip of HP you're gonna think "Damn, I would've died without Tough". Assuming you're fighting stuff that does a lot of physical damage, of course.
Though, if you can make your /Elec function well as a tank that doesn't underperform, by all means go ahead and do it. Tremor and Fault should help lots, especially with the ridiculously short recharge you can get on Tremor with Lightning Reflexes and Hasten.
The idea was never to tank per se, I just wanna be able to jump in as the first and not die. Whatever sticks to me trough tremor and lightning field is what I am tanking.. Though I do tend to try to keep bosses off squishies.
In going into groups I sometimes aim to alpha them instead or I make a pull to have them come to me so they attack me at different moments.
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.
Only got experience with Stone Melee up to level 20, but I'm pretty sure opening with Fault helps...
As Elec Melee I just Lightning Rod into the mob and they're all on their backsides, no alpha to worry about.
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Only got experience with Stone Melee up to level 20, but I'm pretty sure opening with Fault helps...
As Elec Melee I just Lightning Rod into the mob and they're all on their backsides, no alpha to worry about.
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Yep and with TP I can even pull them back around a corner while they recover!
@Jay Leon Hart
Kerensky: this has nothing to do with underwear
Zwillinger: I put on my robe and wizard hat...
Synapse: I had to resist starting my last post off with "Yo dawg!"
As a Stone/Invul, what i do is run into a mob and either Fault or Taunt-Fault. this not only disor them but leaves me with a good few seconds to wipe a mob.
also get Tough and aid self
I am seriously debating getting the leadership pool so I can get resists to confuse and fear. IF I do that I can't get aid self. Fitness, leaping, fighting, leadership. That's my four pools.
Btw, teamed a bit with a sonic last night, perma power surge mode <3 Damn those sonics are nice.
Yes, yes they (we) are
@Jay Leon Hart
Kerensky: this has nothing to do with underwear
Zwillinger: I put on my robe and wizard hat...
Synapse: I had to resist starting my last post off with "Yo dawg!"
I prefer getting aid self to tough- all that annoys me really is neg damage, the rest is fine. Tough is only for s/l, Aid Self covers all damage. This is on my SS/Elec by the way. Aid self slotted with two interrupt reducers can be fired off pretty much all the time. It's a great boon to my abilities.
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a) get combat jumping, weave, possibly maneuvers and slot for positional defenses. In this way he could reach as high as 20-22% defense to aoe, melee and ranged.
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I'd strongly agree with that in sets such as DA or Fire Armor where you can have a self heal on top of that. On the Elec Armor case, I'd go for Tough plus a well slotted Aid Self, making your pools travel, fitness, fighting and medicine.
I'd look for other forms of dmg mitigation on top of that, such as end drain, +regen (lots of sets give you +regen when two SIO's plus there are the uniques from Numina and regenerative Tissue), KB/KD and/or tohitdebuff.
I have Aid Self (with 2 L50 IntRdx IOs and almost capped for heal/rchg) and Tough (capped for Res & EndRdx) on my EM/Elec and he feels just as solid as my Fire/Fire, who has Tough as well (slotted identically - with his heal also capped for heal/rchg). Actually the /Elec feels much tougher because he has Power Surge to fall back on, less resist holes, better protection and high energy & psi resist is more useful than high fire resist, while the /Fire has no godmode. My SS/Dark brute feels more solid than both, but he's not 50 yet so it may not be a valid comparison (plus Footstomp & Opp Gloom gives him better AE mitigation).
The only slight issue with Aid Self is that with my slotting it is prone to being interrupted if I'm being hit by more than 10 mobs, especially ones with damage-over-time attacks (though with careful timing I can usually get it to work), and Aid Self (like other interruptible powers) will never work if you're on a patch like Quicksand/Caltrops, or any Rain, or in a toggle debuff like RI/EF (mobs rarely use that, except for Positron, though a small proportion of Ice Thorn CoT use Snow Storm which also interrupts) - basically any continuous effect that ticks more than once per second. And none of those are that common, unless you're fighting Knives of Artemis or tons of CoT mages. But I always carry green insps for those moments where Aid Self will be unreliable.
Hi all. I need some advice :P
I got my stone/elec brute up to 37 and so far he's fun, but also a very soft target. Obviously I don't have powersurge to help in a tight spot but in the end I'd prefer a brute that can take an 8 man alpha from most enemies without having to resort to his tier9.
So. I was looking at ways to improve my brute and I've come up with the following solutions:
a) get combat jumping, weave, possibly maneuvers and slot for positional defenses. In this way he could reach as high as 20-22% defense to aoe, melee and ranged.
b) aim for lots of regen powers, havent really checked out how much he can get and I'm unsure how much this would help with alphas.
c) slot for recharge and live in power surge mode, obviously the most expensive and I'm in no way rich.
d) powersink / lightning field with max end mods and drain enemies that way. I've played a bit with it from 35 to 37, with just 2 end mods in the two powers. I'm not terribly impressed tbh but maybe some of you have had more luck.
So which of these 4 would you go for, or did you go a 5th route on your own brute? Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks