WM/EA Brute Journal: Is it REALLY Strong and Pretty?

So we've all seen the thread, but how many of you have MADE a WM/EA brute to see if it's really worth it?

I decided to try it out, and made a Mutation WM/EA brute on Freedom server. His name is The Konsultant.

So I figured I'd give an account of it from level 1 to however far I make it. I'm one of the people who pays attention to numbers, and understands them in vague terms of "okay that's good" and "okay that's not so good," so you'll be more likely to get sentences like "(blank) power didn't hit worth (blank)!" than a list of accuracy percentages and average damage output. My brain just isn't wired for continuous mathematical thought.

Here goes!

Entry 1:

Rolled up, and ran around Mercy killing things with wild abandon until level 4. Face it, all brutes are awesome at that point, and having a baseball bat feels very brutish. I started with Bash, then skipped over Pulverize and chose Jawbreaker at level 2. Level 4 was Konsultant's 2nd toggle, Power Shield. By that time, cleaning out Kalinda's missions was a breeze and I skipped Mongoose, going straight to Port Oakes at level 6.

Port Oakes has much harder enemies, so running around and playing baseball with random enemy heads wasn't as easy. Energy Aura started feeling REALLY weak while surrounded by all those reds and purples while running to the missions, but the missions themselves were pretty easy as long as I didn't rush in without checking Konsultant's health, as is usual for PO. Clobber at level 8 was what finally broke Kon's endurance bar. It sucks a LOT of endurance (more than 15, I think) for a pre-stamina brute, but anything short of a boss that takes a hit will almost always drop dead once the rage bar is about halfway. By the time Konsultant's rage engine is properly revved, both Jawbreaker and Clobber are 1 shotting minions, and lieutenants are dropping like flies. Endurance is tight, though, and so Clobber has to be used sparingly lest Konsultant run out of endurance and have to rest, losing all his accumulated rage. Whenever things get too hot for Kon's Energy Aura to handle, a couple of small purples makes him nearly invincible, so I try and keep two in the tray at all times and save them for emergencies and potentially suicidal bum rushes.

Joined a lv 50 Malta team with some people in my coalition around 10pm. The mission took about 45 minutes, and Kon bumped up to level 10. Malta kicked his butt, but one of the Corrupters had SB, so there near-limitless endurance to play with. WM really felt weak in that mission, and did little damage compared to the two other brutes on the team. I dunno if it's because of WM's rumored weakness, increased Smashing resistance in enemies, or my having been a low level lackey.

I was glad to hit level 10, though. I picked up Entropy Shield, Konsultant's mez protection. Those Malta Gunslingers won't be so irritating next time. I went back to missions in PO and solo/PUG'd it to level 14, getting Hurdle and SJ. The lack of Stamina is REALLY felt now. On teams I usually click down on blue insps as soon as they show up in the tray. WM/EA seems fairly hardy still, but other brute primaries are starting to catch up in terms of damage. Solo, the KD and Stun in Konsultant's WM attacks keep most minions and lieutenants from hitting me at all. DO'd, EA is fairly sturdy, though I still keep purples in the tray.

I plan on getting Health at level 16 and either Build up or Whirling Mace at level 18, with Stamina at level 20 and Energy Cloak at level 22. Level 24 will be whichever power I: didn't choose at level 18, and I THINK that Shatter comes in at level 26. Won't swear on it without looking it up, though.

Start: lv 1

End: lv 14

-Powers Gained

War Mace: Bash, Jawbreaker, Clobber.

Energy Aura: Kinetic Shield, Power Shield, Entropy Shield.

Leaping: Combat Jumping, Super Jump

Fitness: Leaping

Opinion:
- So far, WM/EA is solid solo, but has trouble keeping up in teams due to endurance issues.
- VERY fun start, until the endurance starts to run low.
- WM effects useful for keeping enemies from attacking at all. Stuns and KD are always fun, but might make earning rage bothersome.
- Strong hits, but they cost endurance.
- EA solid, pretty, has somewhat annoying sound effects (but I'm used to that, since I have a lv 49 Sonic/MM Blaster).
- Overall fun = 3 out of 5: Pretty okay.

Personally, I'd stay away from whirling mace. I took it on my WM brute and then eventually respec'ed out of it. Just does too little damage for the endurance that it costs (which, as you noted is something of an issue).

Good luck with your 'strong and pretty' though. I've been tempted for quite some time...every time I see the 'thread' updated.

Bubbagimp is my WM/EA. He has been at 50 for awhile now and I really enjoy playing him. I think you will find that it is a good combo and EA isn't nearly as bad as most will let you believe. I hope you enjoy the journey with yours as much as I did.

I think I would have taken Pulverize instead of Jawbreaker for a more consistant fury building.

Energy absorbtion will get rid of all endurance issues when you get it.

On my WM/EA I found the low level game to be very different from the high level game. Right now you are mainly single target, but once you have Shatter, Crowd COntrol, and Whirling mace you will shift to an AoE style predominantly. I still have all of the low level attacks but rarely use them. I have enough recharge in my build that my attack chain is just the 3 AoE attacks with Clobber thrown in on hard targets. Another thing you may want to look at is adding taunt in if you team a lot. I found it very hard to tank in the early levels with out it. At 50 it isn't a problem since I throw around so much AoE and fire off Energy Drain every 25 seconds.

Another thing is IO's make a huge difference on EA. My current build is soft capped and can take on pretty nuch anything out there. That wasn't the case pre-IO's. I had some frustating times and the early 40's were real tough. I hope you can push through any hard times because the end is well worth it.

Entry 2:

Logged in at lv 14 pretty late in the evening. Struggled up to lv 15, mostly by going solo, and was consistently creamed by CoT ghosts. I reset the difficulty to fight +0 enemies which spawn as if my character was actually 2 standard villains, and it worked well when the missions obeyed the rule, but I kept running into red CoT ghost lieutenants that made climbing to 16 hard. When Konsultant's DOs turned yellow, and someone on my coalition offered a high level team, I jumped on it and hoped for bigger experience. Unfortunately, the leader, my coalition friend, began to suffer from a migraine and logged about halfway into the mission (I hope you feel better, Deasile), so Konsultant only made it halfway to 17.

My that time it was late, so I ran solo missions and grinded through to level 17, so that I could replace my DOs with shiny new ones.

At level 16, I picked Pulverize, an attack I'd previously skipped, in hopes that using it for now and scaling back on Clobber use might help my endurance problems and rage (Star_seer suggested it, and I didn't want to at first). I will freely admit that I was surprised at how much it could stretch my endurance bar without making the fights more dangerous. It might do to skip on Clobber until later levels, if you're just starting a new WM brute. I still use Clobber to pretty good effect once my Rage bar is around 3/4 full to mow down a tough enemy or full health minion, but it's not a power that I click anymore just because it's recharged and the others aren't.

After hitting lv 17 and loading up on new DOs I ran a paper mission. The enemies were CoT, and they dropped quite a bit faster than they did before. Pulverize and Bash were good for building rage and slapping minions around, and I started using Jawbreaker on Lieutenants every now and again. Brawl is a very nice rage builder, and I threw it in as soon as it recharged, unless Konsultant was about to die and had another high-powered attack he could use. Endurance is still running out sometimes, but I popped a purple inspiration and brawled a couple of Defender/Archer/whatever CoT minions (the ones who only shoot crossbows and attack with knives in melee) to death with the bare minimum of toggles on until the blue bar came back up. It took forever, but Konsultant didn't lose his rage bar while he was recovering.

Now I guess I'll get Health at level 18, Stamina at level 20, Energy Cloak at level 22, Build up at level 24, Shatter at level 26, and Energy Drain at level 28. I'm going to look at a few builds with Suckerpunch to see what looks right (I just got a mac, so I can't use mids anymore to do the numbers and IO thing for me). I'm thinking about getting Ghost Widow as my patron in a zillion levels so that I can use Darkest Night in conjunction with EA's defense toggles.

Start lvl: 14

End lvl: 17

Powers gained:

War Mace: Pulverize

Opinion:
- Endurance problems make this build hard and not very fun to play solo.
- Teaming seems like the best way to earn experience right now, because there are some enemies that Konsultant has an extremely hard time killing.
- Pulverize made my chain much nicer for now, but the onset of SOs and stamina might lessen its usefulness later on.
- Did I mention endurance problems? Because they are a factor.
- Overall fun solo Pre-17 DO refill = 1.5/5: Slow and hard to level, very little fun to be had.
- Overall fun teaming pre-17 DO refill = 3/5: Team mates with Speed Boost make my life much easier, but I didn't do enough damage due to being lackeyed.
- Overall fun post-17 DO refill = 3/5: Much better, and much higher survival rate. Feel like EA is actually blocking attacks, and War Mace started connecting with meaty thumps again, though Endurance downtime is still annoying.

Things like CoT will always be hard because they have a good amout of smashing resistance if I recall correctly. Other stuff will be much easier to SMASH. So far it looks like you're not hitting any road blocks that are normal for brutes. That ride to 22 can be tough sometimes because of the way brutes tend to be played, but stamina tends to really help the endurance issues. I'm sure things will get better for you when you hit 22 (and later...28 ).

- Endurance problems make this build hard and not very fun to play solo.

Most brutes have endurance problems at this level. One of the things I like to do is slot my attacks with at least 3 end redux DO's, sometimes 4. I don't worry too much about Acc or anything else till SO's are available. This works real well with the new difficulty settings since you can increase the number of mobs with out increasing their level. I actually tend to fight -1 foes to speed up kill time and just push up the number as far as I can.


- Teaming seems like the best way to earn experience right now, because there are some enemies that Konsultant has an extremely hard time killing.

This is how I got through the rough teen levels. Find a team that can give you some support and they will fly by.

- Pulverize made my chain much nicer for now, but the onset of SOs and stamina might lessen its usefulness later on.

I leveled mine up before the changes to WM came out so clobber wasn't a damage attck at the time. I used the the first 3 attacks for my attack chain.

- Did I mention endurance problems? Because they are a factor.

These can definitely be minimized. I have level up a lot of brutes and pretty much don't have endurance issues anymore. This isn't an issue with this build specifically, but with brutes in general.

- Overall fun solo Pre-17 DO refill = 1.5/5: Slow and hard to level, very little fun to be had.

I find this to be true on a lot of characters in general. If I can get to 20 then I am happy and things really take off from there.

- Overall fun teaming pre-17 DO refill = 3/5: Team mates with Speed Boost make my life much easier, but I didn't do enough damage due to being lackeyed.

Teaming always makes things more fun and faster.

- Overall fun post-17 DO refill = 3/5: Much better, and much higher survival rate. Feel like EA is actually blocking attacks, and War Mace started connecting with meaty thumps again, though Endurance downtime is still annoying.

Once you get SO's you will think you actually have a secondary. It is one of the reasons I have a hard time leveling defense sets.

Won't be playing today, and maybe not tomorrow. RL and all, blah blah blah.

Entry 3:

Been off for a while due to RL. Family member got hurt and is immobile, so I've been playing man-nurse whenever possible. Logged in at 11pm just to say that I did something.

Soloed due to the late hour. Climbed up to level 18 with paper missions. Grabbed health, and after 2 missions with 2 different teams, bringing me halfway to 19, I called it a night.

Teaming with Corrupters is a lot of fun. They give buffs or pre-chew enemies, and their attacks are nice additional damage right now, since I'm lacking AoEs. Dominators are slightly less fun at times, since their holds interfere with Fury building. Other brutes suck, since most of them are outshining me right now, and Stalkers are...well they're Stalkers. Banes and Widows at this level are so eager to gain XP that most of them quit as soon as there is more than 10 seconds of downtime.

I started buying blue and purple inspirations to keep myself going longer. I'm okay on money for now, since I auctioned off a couple IO recipes I got when teaming with the level 50s. I might want to start buying more wisely after getting my level 22 enhancements, though.

Starting level: 17
Ending level: 18
Power(s) gained: Health

so far, so pretty? GJ So far, keep up the good work!

When I was in the late teens with mine I picked up taunt so I could hog all the aggro on teams and I loved having VEATs to team with since they boosted my defenses. Keep it up, it will get a lot better in just a few levels.

Entry 4, or Ding! Lv 20:

Logged late at night again (11:30pm), so I went solo for most of the evening until my Coalie Typhonus invited me to his team, where I kept on until Konsultant was about a bar from level 20. Typhonus's team was level 12, so the DOs weren't on. Made me realize exactly how much they were helping endurance management.

After hitting level 20, I ran a few missions just to see what the difference was. Stamina always wows me. Even unslotted, it makes a significant change to endurance recovery. With this toon, more endurance means that Konsultant don't have to hold back as much on the heavy attacks, so enemies drop faster. Enemies dropping faster means that they have less time to wallop Konsultant, so his health doesn't drop as fast. More health and quicker recovery make for less downtime, so there's less chance of Fury completely disappearing.

Once I pick up the Martial Arts pack, I'm going to drop a Super Jump from Konsultant's build. I'll miss having it, but losing those two powers will give me enough leeway to add in Aid Self, Weave, and Darkest Night. Jury's out on whether Konsultant will need Aid Self yet, but even if he doesn't doesn't then he can still get Weave much sooner without delaying the acquisition of too many important powers.

Starting level: 19
End level: 20
Powers Acquired: Stamina
Fun level: 5/5 for finally having Stamina

I leveled my WM/EA from 1 to 50 without Aid Self. There were times it would have been nice to have, but I just can't stand the long activation on the power so I did without it. Once you get Energy Drain slotted up you won't miss it, at least I didn't.

You are getting close to the AoE goodness of WM. I picked up shatter at 26, whirling mace at 30, and crowd control at 32 when I first leveled up. Once you have those slotted and a little recharge those 3 plus clobber will be an excellent attack chain.