what difficulty do you use?

Simple enough question, now that we have a wide range of difficulty options, I'm curious as to what everyone has settled down to.

On my mildly IO'd fire/fire/soul Brute @ 49.5, I'm running at +0/x3. It currently seems like a pretty good challenge, with a good number of mobs for my AoEs, but not too difficult for fire's extra squishyness.

+2/x3 on my 32 SS/WP. Challenge varies with the enemies I fight and how many inspirations I have in stock. But usually pretty nice exp.

I plan to go up a bit once I can throw around more slots in my attacks.

unslotted DM/WP lvl 23 0 x3

slotted EM / WP lvl 50 +1 x6

Cheaply IO'd SS/Shield/Mu @ 50; Usually +1/x8. Will go higher or lower depending on the mob type.

Cheaply IO'd Elec/WP/Mu +2/x8 for most mob types.

My Level 43 Dark/WP/Mu, mostly SOed with a few frankenslotted IOs is running +0x6 with bosses fairly happily, but I'm thinking of switching it to something like +1x5 or +2x4 as I'm having to slog through them one by one a lot (no aoes)

My Level 35 SOed Stone/Fire runs +0x4, with bosses (Stone Melee likes bosses), nice balance of tough enemies for the built-up Mallets & Seismic Smash coupled with a lot of enemies for Burn Patches, Fault, Tremor and Blazing Aura to deal with.

My Level 30 SOed Claws/Elec runs -1x4, no bosses at the mo, AOE fast and furious through them. With her I'm thinking of continuing to milk the AOEs and just raising the Number of Heroes she's equal to.

Level 50 Fire/SR Brute runs at -1/x8 when I'm running the Possessed Scientist map and +2/x8 for everything else. I can survive +3/+4s but I don't have enough AoEs to make it worthwhile. I'd have to lower the amount of critters and I don't want to.

Level 50 SS/WP runs +1/x8. While this brute can provide more AoE carnage I find this overall survivability below that of my SR brute.

Level 27 Claws/Inv is currently set to -1/x6 but I fluctuate the diff much more on this brute. He's sturdy and all but some enemy factions can cause a headache; arachnos, CoT and anything else that isn't council or freaks.

The rest of my brutes I haven't played since I16. The above 3 are my favorite and I just don't see the point in playing my elm/da, em/ela or ss/inv.

I have tried a few of my brutes since I16

50 Stone/Stone - +2/x8 was very easy, will try upping this one some more, but kill speed may suffer at higher setting.

50 WM/EA - +2/x8 is where i have settled with this one. Also very easy and kills much faster than the stone armor one.

42 DB/Invuln - +1/x4 is where I am currently. I don't have everthing slotted where I want it yet, so I should be able to up this one later.

50 Elec/Fire - +0/x8 seems to work well for this one. I tried increasing the level but had times healing flames just wasn't ready in time. Things do die fast, but have to be very active and pay close attention.

I haven't tried my Fire/DA, DM/WP, EM/Elec, or my SS/WP yet

For any given paper in Grandville I run +3/x4 or +3/x8 (with bosses of course) on my softcapped SS/SD/Soul without a problem... you know... just because i can :P It's my first SS/SD and I spent many M$ on it so im still stunned by the AoE ability of that brute. For levelling i ran +2/x4 from level 22 on and it was a fast way up.


Once I'm done contemplating my new toy i'll try out my SS/Inv and DM/WP/Soul and see what they can do.

My new level 32 Claws/WP brute has been running -1/X8 w/bosses & heroes since level 20. You sissies need to step it up a notch and bring your A-game, you're giving brutes a bad name with your low/safe settings.

You fight -1's and call us sissies ? Well i'll be damned ! :P I'm sure x8 fuels your RttC just fine indeed but i prefered fighting mobs that could kill me if I didnt pay attention

Unless he is WM/EA because then at least he is Strong AND Pretty. The sight of it alone is worth telling

I run +2/8 on my Elec/Elec/Mu. Enddrain doesn't really work against +3s and above...

+4/x8 on my ss/wp with no bosses

I use -1/6x to -1/8x on my level 30 Claws/Elec.

I love Spin.

My cheaply IO'd dm/fa/mu brute is currently running 0/8. Now that I hit 47 and have burn + fences, I'm considering slowly bumping it up.

Unless I'm running my patron arcs. The "stop the ritual' mission has kicked her butt. I can deal with the Mu indoor, but that mission with it's lag and the flying, and . . .

I had hoped to get her to 50 without a debt badge. She now has Punch Drunk.

I'm rather curious how you do 0/8x with a dm/fa/mu. I have the same powersets and seem to get pasted by groups if I go 0/4x or more, particularly Longbow.

I'm just about level 46 only skipping Taunt and Shadow Maul from DM and Temperature Protection from FA. My achilles heel seems to be having HF up enough and then getting slowed on top of that (Temp Prot is slated for level 49 right now due to this). I can generally survive the alpha from bigger groups, but then just go down waiting on HF and SL can't keep up on it's own.

I will say that I am not stacking defense bonuses from IO's, focusing more on recharge, +HP, regen, recovery, etc. I know Defense stacking is incredible (I have a /SR scrapper soft capped), just hoping I don't have to go that route this time.

I run a CoT mini farm (boat map) on my WM/SD at +1/x5, no bosses.

I tried it at +1/x8, no bosses... and bosses spawned anyway. The bosses ran from me all the time while the minions and lt's stood their ground, so I went back to x5.

I was playing +2/+3 on my 34 SS/WP last night. Freaks were pretty easy. Carnies were harder and managed to kill me once; I think it was the energy and fire damage ( no Ringmistresses were around at that point ). CoT were also middling hard, again because of the non-smashing/lethal I think. And a map of Arachnos killed me twice before I reset at minimum difficulty to clear it ( it was a timed mission running out and I just wanted it over ). Massed Mu lightning sucked out my endurance, mainly.

My heavily IOed Elec/Elec/Mu can handle everything I've tested her against at 8 Man spawn sizes, at level 50. With some of those, I can crank it all the way to +4 Levels, With Bosses (Rikti, Maps full of Mu). She can handle Malta and Carnies at +2, but only with Bosses turned off (and even then, I need to keep an eye out for the scaled down lieutenant versions). CoT are less of a hassle than I'd expected for her, but still get only a hesitant +1, Bosses on or off depending on how happy I am with my inspiration tray going into the mission. Council gets +2 with Bosses On, and I only get nervous if I spot three or more Vampire bosses in close proximity. Nemesis, I can handle at x8/+0 or even +1/Bosses On, but it's slow going, because I'm so wary of too many lieutenants dropping vengeance at once. KoA, only even level, bosses on. It's not that I'm having that hard a time defeating them, it's that all those stacked caltrops are really murdering my ability to move from foe to foe and keep Fury up. Those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

My much lower level new Elec/Elec, who's getting built for Going Rogue, so I can have one of my favorite AT stay Villain Side and another try the side switching content, just got her SOs and bumped things up to +2/x2/Bosses On/AVs Off, or the old 4th difficulty setting. I may drop the level by one and bump the spawn sizes up by two, but she hasn't got Lightning Rod yet, or been able to fit in Lightning Field, so I wouldn't be able to exploit the AoE potential quite enough to make it comparable in speed to her current leveling.

I currently run +4/X8 with bosses on my heavily IOd elec/shield.

50 fully IOd SS/Fire/Mu runs +0/x8 no bosses on the "Demon Boat" map. Quickest way to get the most rewards. Haven't used him for much else lately.

My new Claws/Elec is in her late teens now and has been doing well on -1/x5 since picking up Lightning Field and Spin. I like AoE.