I've not played all secondaried, but those i have played.
Elec armor - Strong Energy, good end management, weak smash/lethal
Shield Defense - Good overall, vulnerable to non positional psi and toxic damage, vulnerable to defdebuff. Needs IOs to be really good. But with IO it's pure awesome imo 
Shield charge is ace.
Super Reflex - Good overall, vulnerable to non positional psi and toxic damage, vulnerable to defdebuff.
Willpower - Very good set, no real drawbacks. But limited versus single enemy. Best vs larger groups to get all regen.
It's a shame that you've decided not to go with WP - it outperforms the other sets in a serious way, and would be the secondary of choice to hit 50 fast.
I'm not hugely up on the other secondaries; my 50 energy aura brute only blossomed very late, and for most of the game it took a force of will to log him in and play.
Inv used to have lots of holes in its defences, the very varied damage types in cov tended to shred my inv brute pretty quickly. May have changed with the Inv passive changes.
I found stone too slow for a brute; when your mez protection slows you to a crawl it's not inducive to carefree smashing.
I think, if you're definitely not going with WP, elec or shield would prove the least painful way of getting to 50. Shield, however, can't be coupled with SS, which is very smashsome.
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Pants! Turkey Magnates! A man in a box! Rogue AI! Come one, come all, to arc ID 10107 - It's [i]'Not as long as some other arcs'[/i]!
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Shield, however, can't be coupled with SS, which is very smashsome.
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I think my SS/Shield char would disagree Wilf...
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prove the least painful way of getting to 50.
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Brute = Easy mode.
There is no powerset combo that would make it difficult to get to level 50 solo.
I really should do something about this signature.
i rolled a dm brute and soloed on relentless from level 1, i giggled a bit.
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There is no powerset combo that would make it difficult to get to level 50 solo.
[/ QUOTE ]Stone Melee/Dark Armor. Especially for a first-timer.
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There is no powerset combo that would make it difficult to get to level 50 solo.
[/ QUOTE ]Stone Melee/Dark Armor. Especially for a first-timer.
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Damn you were there before I brought up my Fire/DA (fairly painful end wise and no mitigation in the primary despite a fiery death)
I found Fire Armour to be the most fun secondary on a brute and I cant really get my WP going in comparison. I do love WP on my scrappers though and my FA ones tend to get left behind
"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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Super Reflex - Good overall, vulnerable to non positional psi and toxic damage, vulnerable to defdebuff.
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Pretty sure each passive along with the toggles all have resistance to Defense Debuff, making you almost capped if you choose to take them all. And that's where the problem lies, in order to make full use of Super Reflexes, you need to pretty much take every power, with Elude as an optional choice if you're not going for softcap.
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SR does havethe best defdebuff protection, but it's still quite possible to get hit with a couple of successive -def attacks. I'm sure any defense based brute who jumped into a heap of longbow can tell you that Biggest problem is that once one hit, the others will hit easier.
Even if i have 70% defdebuff resist i'd still be vary of going up against a group who does it. Even if only one hit in 20 will land, if there's 15 attacking, the odds go up alot
Both Shield and SR is nice defence sets at softcap. SR with its higher debuff resistance and Shield with its static resists and +hp.
SR tends to die more often to just plain bad rolls than actual DefDebuffs resulting in gimped defense numbers, what with having 95% DefDebuff resistance.
I dare say any defense powerset would be more fun than SR though, assuming both are softcapped, because SR is pretty much -only- defense (the joke resistance from passives at low HP doesn't count, really, and the +recharge doesn't help survivability much unless you have a spammable mez), while other powersets have other nice tricks up their sleeves, such as Shield Charge.
Dark Melee/Super Reflexes
The start can be a little slower than other combinations, but that doesn't matter because the start is fast anyway. Once this bad boy gets going, it's pretty much just cheat mode. You're almost impossible to hit anyway, and then you have a heal in your attack chain. Not even fair, and at 18 you get a monsterously powerful Endurance Recovery power.
SS/WP as a twink build is for the farmers obsessed with Foot Stomp, and idiots riding the bandwagon. You can't get it wrong, you have quick recovery and a load of aggressively mundane attacks. DM/SR takes a little bit more thought and care in places, but even the slightest bit of brain reveals it to be utterly mental, by filling the real weakness that holds back Super Reflexes and while not having good burst damage (probably one of the things keeping the SS/WP whinge brigade from noticing us), has got awesome DPS made even better when SR provides yet more delicious -Recharge! Forget alpha strikes, you are the grinding machine, the enemy will be mulched one by one.
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DM has great dps at great recharge.
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SR tends to die more often to just plain bad rolls than actual DefDebuffs resulting in gimped defense numbers, what with having 95% DefDebuff resistance.
I dare say any defense powerset would be more fun than SR though, assuming both are softcapped, because SR is pretty much -only- defense (the joke resistance from passives at low HP doesn't count, really, and the +recharge doesn't help survivability much unless you have a spammable mez), while other powersets have other nice tricks up their sleeves, such as Shield Charge.
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Hi Col,
I was just wondering why the hate for SR?
I've only recently started playing villains again since an aborted attempt to get into CoV at launch but I've got good experience from playing Scrappers blue side.
I've found SR to be a decent Secondary and holds up well against other Secondaries even at the lower levels where its supposedly a bit gimp.
At the higher levels it's the secondary of choice for soloing AV's and is probably the most powerful secondary if your going to throw inf at it.
From a play perspective it's one of the most passive secondaries but that just allows you to concentrate on attacking which plays to the strengths of a Brute.
I've played most Secondaries up to a reasonable level so I feel that I'm unbiased in my opinion.
The "toggle and forget" or "all or nothing" of defense might not be to everyones taste but that doesn't make it less fun or inferior, it's just different.
As I said at the start just wondering why the hate for SR?
L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR
Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller
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The "all or nothing" of defense might not be to everyones taste
[/ QUOTE ]This is exactly why I dislike SR. Other Defense sets can be softcapped too. It'll take more inf and a tighter build, but in the end the other sets have other sources of mitigation to fall back on when Defense fails, unlike SR which only has some comedy relief level Resistance that's only progressively available as your HP drops below 60%.
Invul has Dull Pain and resistances, Energy Aura has a self heal and a better godmode, Ninjitsu has a self heal and various other toys, Ice has a Dull Pain clone, debuff aura, and can actually softcap itself on SOs, Shields has a softnuke, Widows are just plain overpowered, and Spiders have pets and devices.
SR is a one trick pony, and I can't stand one trick ponies.
Which is also the main reason I prefer Villain Archetypes (and Kheldians) over Hero Archetypes.
So, the reasons are largely personal - if other people prefer a set that's cheap and easy to softcap but lacks any other useful tools besides defense, well, more power to them. /e shrug
Fair enough, as you said it's not to everyones taste.
By the way - the main reason for me looking at Villains was to have go at some sets that aren't available Blue side.
Based on an earlier post of yours I've made a Electric/Energy Aura Brute - you seemed to sing high praise of EA.
Electric Melee was my only option for a primary - do you know how well this works with /EA?
Some of the attacks show as knockback in Mids which would be counter productive to the heal/End Rec in EA, do you know if it is KB or KD?
L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR
Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller
Elec Melee and Energy Aura have no obvous synergy that I can think of off the top of my head, but neither set is weak on its own (despite what certain people keep stating; these are the same people who don't read patch notes and think Stalkers and Kheldians still suck, too).
The only knockBACK power in Elec Melee is Lightning Cr-... Clap. Thunder Strike and Lightning Rod are both very good attack powers that deal AoE knockDOWN, which is all good and fun.
Since EA's self-heal is not frontloaded and is -not- Dark Regeneration, and since Electric Melee is an AoE-focused primary, I recommend you team a lot for larger spawns, which will let you unleash your power more efficiently.
By the way, when I referred to patch notes in regards to EA, I'm not saying the addition of a heal component to Energy Drain somehow made the powerset great. It helped, but it wasn't the main thing. Same goes for the Invulnerability buffs.
The main buff to those two armor sets was when Typed Defense set bonuses were buffed to not suck - neither set ever underperformed as drastically as people made it sound when in an SO-based situation. As always, the main reason for most people to rant and rave about how every defense set that isn't SR sucks is because SR is the easiest and cheapest to softcap, since it has the highest base numbers (to make up for not having anything else other than a +20% recharge and +40% slow debuff resistance passive), and ignorant people ignore the other powers in the powersets, such as EA's heal (which is as good as Reconstruction/Kuji-in Sha versus large spawns on top of draining endurance and taunting), or Shield Charge.
[Edit]: Don't know if you'd consider this synergy or not, but Elec Melee partially makes up for EA's lack of a taunt aura by causing loads of AoE agro on its own. And the stealth lets you position yourself for a Lightning Rod opener into the next spawn better (don't take too long, though, wouldn't want Fury to drop~)
i completely agree with khorack, DM/SR brutes are really good for the same reason : having heal and endurance tools with SR completely rules ^^ . My "Dead surfer" brute is one of these, at that's it, he surf on the dead minions that cannot hurt him ^^ .
At lvl.20 you already can easily be a brute that never stop to smash (with dark consumption and different shields correctly managed) ; that's why brute are made for imho !
(we've got the same synergy with DM/SR scrappers, and with DM/nin & DM/SR stalkers, but that's a fact, the combo is more risky with a stalker whom not have a lot of hitpoints, and the scrapper don't have the same benefit due to the brute fury ...)
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and the scrapper don't have the same benefit due to the brute fury
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True but they do have higher base damage and Criticals that do double damage.
Based on my experience so far with Brutes the damage is lower than Scrappers.
I find I'm struggling to maintain Fury
At low levels the attacks on you that build Fury can obviously kill you.
My opinion might change as my Brute gets to the higher levels, but certainly at the low levels - advantage Scrapper.
L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR
Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller
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with Brutes the damage is lower than Scrappers.
[/ QUOTE ]False, here's your problem:
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I find I'm struggling to maintain Fury
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with Brutes the damage is lower than Scrappers.
[/ QUOTE ]False, here's your problem:
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I find I'm struggling to maintain Fury
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Based on my experience so far with Brutes the damage is lower than Scrappers.
I find I'm struggling to maintain Fury
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As I said it's based on my experience so far which is probably largely due to a lack of expertise with Brutes and maintaining Fury.
However having played both I would still say that a well played Scrapper will out damage a well played Brute over a mission at low levels for the following reasons:
- Fury is too hard too maintain from mob to mob.
- Brawl appears to be standard part of of a Brute attack chain.
Those are my thoughts so far at the low levels, as I said that might change as I level up.
L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR
Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller
Since all attacks build the same amount of Fury per use, Brawl is actually good for that purpose, due to being quick-recharging. I don't know about other Brute players, but I usually choose to replace it with either Boxing or the minor damage melee attack at later levels, though.
You do have a point with low levels, though. As a lowbie Brute, I strongly advise you to ignore Damage slotting for now and let Fury take care of that, and to focus on Accuracy and Endurance Reduction. Brutes really start rolling once they get to the point where they can go from spawn to spawn without rest breaks. Swift helps for keeping Fury up between spawns (by getting to them faster), and most Brutes will want Stamina anyway, to keep going without pausing. A Brute's playstyle revolves around its Fury bar; I may be blowing this out of proportion due to being a Brute-lover, but you really get the most out of them when you start to see the red mist of berserking rage in front of your eyes that your character would be seeing.
You should start feeling more like an unstoppable powerhouse by SOs at the latest. Brutes don't take long to turn into steamrollers - I recommend converting most of your insps into blues just so you can keep your Fury up.
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So, the reasons are largely personal - if other people prefer a set that's cheap and easy to softcap but lacks any other useful tools besides defense, well, more power to them. /e shrug
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I find /SR to be insultingly rubbish if not paired with Dark Melee myself. No other Brute or Scrapper primary has enough utilities normally found in the defense secondaries that can fill the gaping holes in /SR. And then put together the combination is, as far as I'm concerned of course, orders of magnitude more unbalanced than any other combination for all round PvE efficiency. You just ain't gonna die, and can smash the f*** out of almost everything.
God bless negative energy, somehow dipping into the myriad horrors of a nether dimension is way more useful than poncy hippy magic.
Chairman of the Charity of Pain; accepting donations of blood and guts.
Prophet of the Creamy Truth; "If it's empty, fill it with cream."
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Since all attacks build the same amount of Fury per use, Brawl is actually good for that purpose, due to being quick-recharging. I don't know about other Brute players, but I usually choose to replace it with either Boxing or the minor damage melee attack at later levels, though.
You do have a point with low levels, though. As a lowbie Brute, I strongly advise you to ignore Damage slotting for now and let Fury take care of that, and to focus on Accuracy and Endurance Reduction. Brutes really start rolling once they get to the point where they can go from spawn to spawn without rest breaks. Swift helps for keeping Fury up between spawns (by getting to them faster), and most Brutes will want Stamina anyway, to keep going without pausing. A Brute's playstyle revolves around its Fury bar; I may be blowing this out of proportion due to being a Brute-lover, but you really get the most out of them when you start to see the red mist of berserking rage in front of your eyes that your character would be seeing.
You should start feeling more like an unstoppable powerhouse by SOs at the latest. Brutes don't take long to turn into steamrollers - I recommend converting most of your insps into blues just so you can keep your Fury up.
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^^ Completely and totally... This
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I'm looking at making a Brute character as I have heard that they are the easiest villain AT to solo with.
My objective is to level to 50 as quickly and painlessly as possible to give the new VEATs a try. Is brute the right AT for this?
What secondary powerset should I choose to support myself solo? I've heard that WP might be best, but I'm not a big fan of WP really.
Could someone give a brief run-down on the strengths and weakness of each secondary AT please and recommend one for me.
Thanks very much.