Scrapper or Brute

The simple answer is, if you want to be the "good" guy, roll a scrapper. If you want to be a "bad" guy, roll a brute. You said yourself your not worried about "uber" builds, and if that's the case, the difference between the two class are, IMO, just not relevent enough to matter. Both will work. So, pick the side of the game you cant to play more.

Brutes, IMO, have the POTENTUAL to be the hands down BEST melee toons in the game. They blend the tanks caps in HP and defence, with scrapper level damage, and to round it out, have decent argo tools if you develop them. But they can only acheive them highs if they build for it and get good teammates. A rarity in my expearince red side... a pitty really. I can't wait for GR. Once it hits, it may well spell the end of the scrapper and tank AT in my case. Esspecally if they keep proflifating powers like i hope they do.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

Whats funny is that I enjoy being the good guy. But what I have done is created a character concept that will take into account the fact that my brute will go good once GR comes out. This way I can have the right mindset now to play a villain, yet still end up a hero in the end.

My natural preference would be for the scrapper.

Redside forces you into places you don't want to go. I did make a claws brute, but it's rather slow going levelling the character exclusively through Mission Architect to get past the 20-25 hump where so many of my redside characters stall. I have another goal for the character: to get to level 50 without any Longbow or Arachnos defeat badges.

Blueside, there is simply more content available to you. Accolades are easier to come by. You don't get stuck with level 30 Carnies, kinetic Tsoos, Succubi, and endless missions full of Longbow and Arachnos. Your bank missions don't generate ambushes keyed to a five-man team solo. I plan on rescuing most of my redside characters once Going Rogue goes live, and have put most of their levelling on hold in anticipation.

Both Brutes and Scrappers can be built for tanking if that's what you want. I'd go with a defense set that has

• a taunt aura,
• a defense component, and
• something besides defense to fall back on

. There are several good options, including Shields, Willpower, and Invulnerability.

I would so argue that point. Since the redside change there's far less farmy stuff required. It doesn't take that long to work off the debt or get the damage badge. Damage is even something that you can do while AFK.

Comparatively, redside might require one GM, or one half of a task force (in SEPARATE accolades) while blue ones require 6 TFs in one badge, or 2 GMs + 1 TF + 1600+ kills for one. Or 13 specific AVs for one.

To date I've earned the full HP/end set for no less than 5 villains, because I can easily earn all of them in about a day or two, with only having to fight one GM and do one (half of a) TF. Demonic is the easiest one to get redside. Force of Nature I've only earned twice, because it is admittedly pretty grindy.

Blueside, I've only earned Portal Jockey and Geas one time, because they're so taxing and time-consuming. The redside ones may be grindy but they're the sorts of things you can do solo in an hour or so, sometimes even AFK. And to date I've never earned the Task Force Commander or Magus accolades because the requirements are just so right-out.

In fact, blueside accolades may be a prime factor in deciding whether I side-switch some toons or not. I have 26 characters and I just can't be bothered to run 182 task forces when I could earn the accolades redside in a couple days.

Really, just for fun (HP/end accolades only):

Blueside:
10 Exploration Badges
3 History Badge
1 Story Arc
700 Kills
13 (specific) AVs
6 Task Forces

Redside:
15 Exploration Badges
3 History Badges
3 Story Arcs
460 Kills
1 GM
1 (half of a) Task Force
1,000,000 damage
200,000 debt

If you go Geas/FoN/Magus/Demonic it may change. Geas and FoN are both a big pain to get, both requiring over 1500 defeats. FoN is actually MORE defeats (over 2000), but in general stuff you should fight a lot of in your career, unlike Geas which is over 1600 kills on units that only appear in one zone that is easy to skip. Magus, well... +700 defeats, none of those being fun. Yeah.

Just one character blueside, to get the HP/end plus the two clickies, has to do 3065 defeats, 7 TFs, kill 2 GMs, and 13 AVs. Redside it's 2705 defeats, 1 (half of a) TF, 1 GM, and 4 AVs (technically you have to kill 4 to get Marshal). So for 26 characters:

Blueside:
79,690 defeats
182 TFs
52 GMs
338 AVs

Redside:
70,330 defeats
26 TFs (or 13 if you consider them half, and don't do the second half)
26 GMs
104 AVs

Red please.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Not to derail the the thread but accolades are about equal difficulty on both sides. (Pretty damn easy). The one exception would be invader, which while not proof that the devs hate villains, it sure is an indication they hate power levelers.

It looks like the choice is between an energetic, upside down <famous company> "swoosh" and a Steel Clad Fist.


Well that settles the debate for me then!!

If I can earn the other side's accolades (not double-dip, mind you, just earn the ones I don't have) without having to fully switch sides, and there are no game-breaking penalities for going grey, I'll totally be bringing my heroes redside for Demonic and Invader. High Pain Threshold is really a toss-up between sides. A good team can bang out Portal Jockey much faster than someone can do Born in Battle (1 million damage still takes a while to AFK farm and 95% of PJ's requirements, including the exploration badges, can be done via Ouro flashbacks, not to mention BiB requires finding a GM that's not always around). I would likewise bring villains blueside for Geas since Force of Nature's always been grindy and the reduced badge requirements for it in I16 were more or less wiped out by SSK making it so you can't just sweep a lowbie's mish for the badges. Atlas Medallion/Marshal are a toss-up as well, though I'd give the nod to Atlas Medallion since it doesn't require you to run a task force. I haven't bothered with the pistol accolade on more than one toon (my main hero badger) since it's no good for anything but show, and I haven't bothered with Megalomaniac/Vanguard since I13 because of the mez changes in PvP.

Of course, this is all hinging around me being able to just go grey without too much of a penalty and grab the accolades I don't have. If I have to fully switch sides, I'm a lot less likely to do that and I'll probably continue to have toons without some of the accolades.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

i'm guessing we'll be able to earn accolades by fulfilling the requirements of whichever faction we're a member of and that once it's unlocked it doesn't matter if we fulfill the unlock conditions twice, we'll already have the accolade. Sort of how the game announces that we've unlocked EATS every time we hit 50.

Of course i don't know this for certain. It's possible even the Devs don't at this moment.