Willpower vs. Inv.

I'm making a War Mace based brute and am trying to decide wither I should go with WP or Inv.
I'm making this character based off a concept, and am trying to stay true to the character so please do not post on how much better Stone or SD is, or any of the others.
I just want to hear about WP and Inv and which on is better suited for a Mace wielding brute.

I hear War Mace is quite heavy on end usage, which Willpower can sort out with due to Quick Recovery. In issue 16, you can probably change the yellow glowing from Willpower into another colour of your choice. :3

Both Inv and WP work in a similiar manner to each other; use enemies to fuel Invincibility/Rise To The Challenge. With IOs, both sets can be pretty awesome, so in the end, it's just a matter of choice. :3

Umm, other than having their taunt aura feed one of their stats, they dont work anything like each other.

WP is almost like a lower grade regen with no active heal, but a bit of resistance and def, where as Inv is a massive resist set with a bit of defense.

As far as working with mace, WP has a bit of an advantage in that with QR, especially stacked with Stam if you go that route(I would), end is pretty much a non issue. Inv can burn through some end, and mace is pretty mean on end, combined I can see it being a bit of a drag.

Both can be made tough as can be, but seriously, any of the secondaries can. Out of the box, Inv is going to be stronger, and is probably harder to screw up the build on. But if you plan on going with IOs, they both are just amazing.

At least Inv for brutes doesn't turn you into Rainbow Brite anymore.

Heh, yeah, the pink inv toggles were awful.

Willpower is better out of the box and it's much easier to level than Inv is (I'm looking at you, level 28 Invincibility). With IOs and softcapped both are hard to beat, however.

Does anyone have a recent WM/Inv build using non-purple IO's?
Ive got a lvl 24 WM/Inv and and fairly new to IO slotting and want to try to understand the WHY's of it, not just do what other people have done because they have done it.


Cheers

I haven't played WM, but I do have a BA/WP(very similar sets) at 50, and he's a ton of fun to play. I tend to play pretty aggressively while leveling, and somehow, this guy didn't have his first faceplant until his mid 20's, which is well beyond what I've experienced with any other character. And no, I don't use AE to level. This is all legit missions and street hunting.

Both will be fine toward the endgame. /WP more balanced, while /Inv being stronger against S/L and weaker against other types of damage.

/WP will be easier to level with though and starts to be very good post level 20 with Quick Recovery to solve all your endurance issues. /Inv is a late bloomer and doesnt shine before you get at least Invincibility and Tough.

Good luck

IMO, it basically comes down to this: WP has better mitigation in all but the most extreme situations; Inv excels in those rare situations where a WP would fail, but otherwise is (when compared evenly) weaker mitigation-wise. It's one insurmountable plus is its taunt aura, which is far more of an asset to Tankers than Brutes. While Brutes certainly thrive with more aggro, it's definitely not necessary, as plenty of Fury can be built with only a few enemies attacking you or the rest of the team is out-damaging you anyway and you're already superfluous (IOW, aggro obsessed Brutes are a laugh).

For Brutes and Scrappers, I definitely prefer WP to Inv. For Tankers, it's the other way around, as their non-T9 survivability is already potent, and WP is often either overkill (in standard minion to boss groups) or (in those extreme situations) not enough. My opinion, though.

Both sets can be built for massive typed defense (not Positional, typed defense is defense to specific types of damage ak Smashing/Lethal etc.).

Got an Invuln/SS tanker on the EU servers with softcapped typed defenses (except Psi) and she is nigh-unkillable.

Meanwhile a friend has a WP/SS tanker with the same sort of build and is equally unkillable.

Invuln has a better taunt aura and benefits more from building typed defense since you automatically get a big boost thanks to invincibility.

I would say, as the person above me, Willpower is probably more suited to Brutes and Scrappers, it may lack a self heal and have a taunt aura with a weak taunt (not really needed for Brutes or Scrappers) but it's good all round survivablity and with Quick Recovery combined with Stamina endurance issues aren't much of a problem.

Both of them well built (i.e. decent IO sets slotted) will turn into complete monsters though and can survive pretty much anything thrown at them.

In terms of performance, I would say each secondary has it's own special curve but the end point at 50 is quite solid.

Without IOs, or set bonuses, I would say WP has the performance edge over Inv. Both have their con opener enemies of course, but WP's regen works generally better than INV's +Def, without io bonuses (thats just how defense works).

I thin the MAJOR difference between the two is playstyle. WP's quick recovery is a godsend for brutes and definitely will help you out with the blue bar without the unique IOs. WP's regen, -to hit from RTTC and +Def from HS work wee together.

INV's solid resists are a good start (especially to the abundant S/L) but the +to Hit is kind of like an odd man out, not really complementing any exisiting survival tool built into the secondary (unlike -toHit in WP). I guess you could use it to help out with the attack slotting but even there the numbers are too small to make any significant difference in your +Acc slotting.

Psi attacks will definitely rip you a new one in INV, and elemental damage, without IO support to your DEF will be tougher to deal with than WP. But the new changes that give you exotic resists (slows and -recov) make you slightly stronger against WP's bane (-regen/-recov and slows) but not by a landslide.

The biggest playstyle difference, for me, is Dull Pain. WP has an Auto +HP power with no heal while INV has a +Heal/HP power. Since you are going with mace, Dull pain will cause redraw since it is a click power. Situationally, Dull Pain will work better than WP's HPT, as it will heal and boost you when you really need it. But the flipside is it might be recharging when you need it again.

With IO bonuses, both build can be put to amazing levels of performance, with INV, in my opinion, havinng a sliver of an edge.

I run a WM/WP, and had the same choice. I went with the Recovery feature of WP over Invuln's slightly higher defenses. A Brute should plan on a large part of their mitigation being killing/stunning/knocking down mobs, and that means faster attacks and more End usage. A Tank can depend on just his defenses and get by with slowing down their attack chain if they get tired, so running Invuln fits them better, but I think that if a Brute does this, they are wasting a major selling point of the AT, high damage.

WP runs very solidly overall until you hit difficulties, but like Regen it has problems that when things start bad they go bad fast. Inspiration use can beat this, so be sure to keep a solid inspiration tray ready, and just eat blues, reds, and yellows when they appear (and of course Break Frees), and save the defensive inspirations for the tough spots.

I go Wp at 50 with capped def and Inv at 50 with cap def. Both are potent. At the top end I would say my Invul brute is better same def, more resist and high hp but the wp leveled better.