Most will agree that Elec melee is better for AoE. I prefer Fiery melee personally. It has more ST options.
Words to the wise aren't necessary- it's the stupid ones that need them.
"You're right...I forgot...being constantly at or the near the damage cap is a big turn off. Definitely not worth it."
- Vitality
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AoE? Electric. Fire doesn't even get an AoE attack until level 18, and only has two total.|
Originally Posted by Plusone
I wanna go with a /wpr build but am torn between fire and elec for my primary. Which one is a better AoE killer?
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Electric gets an Arc attack (Jacob's Ladder), a small-radius AoE (Thunder Strike) the jumping lightning attack of Chain Induction, an AoE KB/Stun power (Lightning Clap), and a Tele-Nuke (Lightning Rod.)
Even ignoring Lightning Clap, you've got some significant AoE there.
For Brute AoE, you also might want to consider Claws or Dual Blades.
-This Space Intentionally Left Blank.-
i thought claw's spin with double stacked follow-up gave the best aoe against non-resisting targets?
Best AoE for a Brute? That would be SS, although you have to wait till 32 to get the AoE lol. Even though it's only one attack minus the epic AoE it's the best. FS + Rage is great and has a huge radius.
Why do you think SS/Fire and SS/Shield are considered the best farming builds?
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
i'm sorta thinking that it might be a carry over from needing rage to hit nems pre-AE farms.
have you looked at the claw's numbers?
If it's just a choice between ElM and FM, I'd say ElM has greater AoE damage potential, but FM is more consistent. You have to keep in mind that ElM AoEs have pretty small coverage outside of Lightning Rod, and they all don't hit for full damage on secondary targets. I personally would go FM with WP, but that's just me. I find FM a bit lighter on the power choices, so it'd be easier for me to fit in things like Soul powers.
Also. Remember that Electric's staple, LR, doesn't take damage buff's past 250%. So that glorious LR doesn't add up after you're able to buff yourself or get buffed. Whereas , every other aoe does. And Thunder strike and jacobs ladder doesn't hit everyone near you, so... I would go with Fire Melee. FSC hits everyone, can be buffed past 250%, and recharges faster than LR.
What's the point in an AOE if it only hits 3 or 4 baddies out of the 8 or more around you?
That's why i've re-rolled my Electric melee into something else.
Full buffed LR, 250% may do more than FSC or FS. But considering a brute can go way over 250%. FSC or FS can do the same, or more damage than LR with some buffage, or popping reds.
And let's be honest, most people roll a electric melee for LR. When other AoE's can do far more damage, and more often than LR.
Oh, and. Yes. Claws, Spin really is that amazing. It puts FS to shame. Just has less range. and an earlier level.
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Dead wrong. Claws beats SS by far in AoE potential, SS hedges it out on single target(barely). SS is more popular, not better. |
Originally Posted by Fiery-Enforcer
Best AoE for a Brute? That would be SS, although you have to wait till 32 to get the AoE lol. Even though it's only one attack minus the epic AoE it's the best. FS + Rage is great and has a huge radius.
Why do you think SS/Fire and SS/Shield are considered the best farming builds? |
Of fire and electric, fire is the better choice. A well slotted fire sword circle will do more damage overall than Electric's AoEs because elec only has one truly decent AoE attack. Jacobs ladder is not an AoE, its a single target attack capable of hitting an enemy or two extra if they are standing directly behind the target. (I know its classified as an aoe, but hitting 3 enemies of 30 packed around you just does not count imo)
Fire will give you excellent single target damage, and FSC makes for decent AoE, if you really want more AoE, take a patron AoE and slot it out to give you a three move chain with build up, which will be fine for high level farming. Fire breath is also superior to most of Elec's AoEs if you really want to take it.
To be honest I never took a real good look at Claws and that's my fault. Haven't really been in the game much lately, but after looking over Claws in mids I'm impressed. Will have to test one out in game to really compare the two fairly. Although Spin does more damage than FS, I'd still pick FS over the two just because of the monster radius makes it easier to use and be able to hit more targets, which factors into killing speed.
I'm thinking of rolling a Claws/ELA as my next toon now. 
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
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Yes, have you looked at Spin's radius?
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Originally Posted by black_barrier
have you looked at the claw's numbers?
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First, Electric has more AoE than Lightning Rod and Jacob's Ladder. You have Chain Induction (which is no longer bugged), Thunderstrike, Jacob's Ladder, and Lightning Rod.|
Originally Posted by spiritfox
Of fire and electric, fire is the better choice. A well slotted fire sword circle will do more damage overall than Electric's AoEs because elec only has one truly decent AoE attack. Jacobs ladder is not an AoE, its a single target attack capable of hitting an enemy or two extra if they are standing directly behind the target. (I know its classified as an aoe, but hitting 3 enemies of 30 packed around you just does not count imo)
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Second, Jacob's Ladder is a cone. Players treat it as a single-target attack with a chance to hit others, but it really isn't that hard to reliably hit more than one target without slowing down your attack chain.
Thirdly, when it comes to dealing AoE damage to multiple opponents at once, no other melee power set has as many AoE attacks to consistently deal damage to more than one opponent. It suffers a lack of single target damage for this.
It is also true that the pseudo-pets have a lower damage cap, which means that Lightning Rod is much more effective on a scrapper, having a higher base damage, and not being limited by fury.
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| Fire will give you excellent single target damage, and FSC makes for decent AoE, if you really want more AoE, take a patron AoE and slot it out to give you a three move chain with build up, which will be fine for high level farming. Fire breath is also superior to most of Elec's AoEs if you really want to take it. |
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I really do like fire breath. I got used to it on my first character (fire blaster) and have loved it ever since. The real key to FB is to jump back from the spawn, blow, it, then jump back in. If you do that when a spawn is clumped around you, and you can hit the target cap easily with it and it does a pretty respectable amount of damage. I take combat jumping on all my melee characters, so hopping out and back into a spawn has just become second nature, and the half second delay is worth it in how many enemies I hit with it.|
Originally Posted by Tonality
First, Electric has more AoE than Lightning Rod and Jacob's Ladder. You have Chain Induction (which is no longer bugged), Thunderstrike, Jacob's Ladder, and Lightning Rod.
Second, Jacob's Ladder is a cone. Players treat it as a single-target attack with a chance to hit others, but it really isn't that hard to reliably hit more than one target without slowing down your attack chain. Thirdly, when it comes to dealing AoE damage to multiple opponents at once, no other melee power set has as many AoE attacks to consistently deal damage to more than one opponent. It suffers a lack of single target damage for this. It is also true that the pseudo-pets have a lower damage cap, which means that Lightning Rod is much more effective on a scrapper, having a higher base damage, and not being limited by fury. I agree with everything except for your claim about fire breath. I would not place FSC+FB in the same AoE category as LR+CI+JL+TS. I don't think any other set offers the potential for a completely sustained AoE attack chain. |
As to elec, I've honestly just always felt that none of the attacks other than lightning rod have a decent reach, and chain induction on a brute is just disappointing after my elec/shield scrapper. I really, really hate thunder strike with a passion. Most melee AoEs are either a forward projecting cone or a PBAoE, but TS is a targeted AoE with a tiny radius that requires you to be in melee range. Honestly, TS turned me off of elec permanently, so I'll go ahead and put that bias out there.
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I wish you could see my elec/elec/mu in action. I maximize every single AoE I have available, but it has taken me a year to squeeze out as much performance as I have, both from the build and playstyle. I even like it more than my elec/sd/blaze scrapper, even though the scrapper has more AoE damage potential.|
Originally Posted by spiritfox
I really do like fire breath. I got used to it on my first character (fire blaster) and have loved it ever since. The real key to FB is to jump back from the spawn, blow, it, then jump back in. If you do that when a spawn is clumped around you, and you can hit the target cap easily with it and it does a pretty respectable amount of damage. I take combat jumping on all my melee characters, so hopping out and back into a spawn has just become second nature, and the half second delay is worth it in how many enemies I hit with it.
As to elec, I've honestly just always felt that none of the attacks other than lightning rod have a decent reach, and chain induction on a brute is just disappointing after my elec/shield scrapper. I really, really hate thunder strike with a passion. Most melee AoEs are either a forward projecting cone or a PBAoE, but TS is a targeted AoE with a tiny radius that requires you to be in melee range. Honestly, TS turned me off of elec permanently, so I'll go ahead and put that bias out there. |
I'll never kill single targets anywhere near as quick as Fire. But in terms of pure AoE capability, nothing touches Elec. In terms of team performance, any AoE build suggested will work great. However, lately, I enjoy soloing 3/8 on my brute and I am always beyond the aggro cap, which means every AoE attack is being used to its full potential. You don't get that lucky on teams.
But, spin looks impressive. I really don't need another brute.
Wait, what am I saying?
Yes the numbers on spin looks nice, but the tiny radius makes me sad.
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
Eh, I have both a 50 FM and ELM brutes (both 1+ billion inf builds) and I personally prefer FM more if you're talking about raw AoE damage potential. On paper ELM is an AoE machine (which is why I chose it to be my 2nd brute in the first place) but I am only moderately satisfied with its AoE performance. When it comes to AoE capability, it's not necessarily always about how many AoE attacks a powerset has but the recharge time for it's bread and butter attack. It's the same logic which made people dub SS the AoE king prior to the arrival of Claws. Lightning Rod is a beast of an AoE attack for sure but with about 35-40% global recharge, you can put out 2-3 Fire Sword Circles in that 30 or so seconds it takes LR to recharge. That equals significantly more damage in favor of FM, especially when you're at the damage cap. Let's not also forget that Fire is one of the least resisted brute damage types in the entire game.
Now don't get me wrong, ELM is still a very capable AoE set with good mitigation (the one major advantage it has over FM if your secondary is a bit squishy). Still, in terms of actual in-game AoE performance, I would only rank it 4th best after Claws, SS, and FM, followed closely by War Mace. And yes, I have level 50 brutes with all but one of those primaries as well (Claws at level 26 right now).
My favorite set for AoE is War Mace. With just a moderate amount of +recharge I am able to use the 3 AOE attacks as my attack chain and through Clobber in there for the harder targets. I prefer it to both Fire and Elec.
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this this and this.
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Originally Posted by Silverado
Yes, have you looked at Spin's radius?
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@Psycho Jas
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(SHHHHHHHHH we dont speak of brute claws here !! |
Originally Posted by black_barrier
i'm sorta thinking that it might be a carry over from needing rage to hit nems pre-AE farms.
have you looked at the claw's numbers? |
we dont want "you know who"to take a look at em .)Ummm. claws suck!! Dont bother looking at its numbers . Move along nothing to see here !
The -only- thing Footstomp has going for it is it's radius (15 vs 8) and it's knockdown. In the time it takes someone to use FS twice (assuming enhanced/hasten buffed recharge time of 7 seconds), I can have used Spin 3 times (assuming enhanced/hasten buffed recharge time of 4.5 seconds), and done over twice as much damage per target. While an argument can be made that the nearly double radius of FS makes up for this, in my experience almost all enemies have melee attacks and make it into that 8ft radius almost immediately.
Add to that the fact that FS comes at level 32, while Spin comes at level 8? Yeah, I'm comfortable saying Spin > FS, and that for AoE, Claws > SS by miles by virtue of having -other damaging AoEs-, which SS does not.
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Originally Posted by Barbie_Ink
The -only- thing Footstomp has going for it is it's radius (15 vs 8) and it's knockdown. In the time it takes someone to use FS twice (assuming enhanced/hasten buffed recharge time of 7 seconds), I can have used Spin 3 times (assuming enhanced/hasten buffed recharge time of 4.5 seconds), and done over twice as much damage per target. While an argument can be made that the nearly double radius of FS makes up for this, in my experience almost all enemies have melee attacks and make it into that 8ft radius almost immediately.
Add to that the fact that FS comes at level 32, while Spin comes at level 8? Yeah, I'm comfortable saying Spin > FS, and that for AoE |
I'll make my comments here as someone who plays both an SS Brute and a Claws Brute and who loves both sets.
I love spin, spin is awesome. It most certainly does more DPA than FS hands down.
The radius is sometimes not a problem, and other times it is.
On teams in particular, Foot stomp's radius has a clear advantage. I've often been frustrated with spin's radius on teams, where I know I would have gotten another 2-4 mobs in if it had been foot stomp.
I also personally look at Claws as a 'Scrapper' set. And it excels at dealing damage, with all the other choice benefits it brings to Brutes (chiefly, lower end cost and rech - both of which are great for FURY).
I look at SS as the tanker (or maybe Scranker) style set.
It doesn't have the same damage dealing as Claws, but it does have excellent damage dealing and also provides TEAMWIDE mitigation through Foot stomp's Knockdown.
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By miles ? That gets me a little confused. SS has been considered the best AoE/Farming brute primary for so long, the most obvious choices for a farming brute still being SS/Fire and SS/SD. And we know farming is about AoE more than anything else in the game.|
Originally Posted by Barbie_Ink
Yeah, I'm comfortable saying Spin > FS, and that for AoE, Claws > SS by miles by virtue of having -other damaging AoEs-, which SS does not.
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Never heard about Claws/Fire or Claws/Dark farming scrappers. And I don't think the proliferation of the set to brutes has changed much to that.
Sure Claws has very good AoE options. But in reality at level 50 with a decent IO build, and as far as methodic AoE clearing goes, I think SS is above. You can easily get FS on a 6-7 sec recharge, and slot a FF +rech proc in it. Also +87.5% radius approximately equals +250% surface covered if you want to specifically compare Spin and FS. Spamming FS allows you to methodically get rid of the whole spawn's minions/lieuts, whenever they're ranged or melee, while focusing on the bosses with Haymaker and KOB, you can also factor in the decent AoE options you get in the patrons.
Of course, we're talking about level 50 well IOed toons. If you want to take 1-50 leveling into account, it's a different matter. But when people compare powersets on the boards, they usually consider their endgame potential above all.
I think you hit the nail on the head. At level 50 fully IO'd out I would pick the SS Brute over Claws. Double proc'd FS is just...amazing. The FF +rech proc goes off VERY often on my SS/Fire which brings the recharge down to 4.5 seconds when it does. Because of the big radius you can hit FS as soon as entering a mob and hit the target cap of the power.
I'm still saying FS > Spin based off the radius alone, having pretty much double the radius makes a HUGE difference. Granted I've never played a Claws toon at a high level, but I do have a SD/Fire Tank. FSC has a larger radius than Spin and even with using that I see how much more effective FS is do to its radius. That's with enemies crowding around me do to AAO.
Not saying Claws is bad in any way, far from it. Although I consider FS + Elec Fences + Ball Lightning + BA + Burn a considerable amount of AoE power, especially on a high recharge build.
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
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fixed that for ya |
Originally Posted by Barbie_Ink
Add to that the fact that FS comes at level 32, while Spin comes at level 6?
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The Porcelain God - DarkKinetics Corruptor
Meat Juice - DarkDarkSoul Brute
Pretty and Strong - Do you really have to ask?
Ack! Yes, 6, not sure where my head was.
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I dunno, my Claws/SR farms Council at +3/x8, and I occasionally duo it with a SS/Shield. It's not /fire, sure, but Shield isn't exactly a slouch. We're both soft capped, have multi-billion IO builds, but I'm moving spawn to spawn faster than he is by a noticeable margin. Not like 'ZOMG LEAVING IN MY DUST', but enough that by the end of the huge ruined city map I'm three or four groups ahead.| By miles ? That gets me a little confused. SS has been considered the best AoE/Farming brute primary for so long, the most obvious choices for a farming brute still being SS/Fire and SS/SD. And we know farming is about AoE more than anything else in the game. |
It's possible he's just slower on the clicks than I am, as I do get pretty spastic with Claws, or that he didn't go for the +rech proc in Footstomp though I can't imagine why not.
As for the comment on soloing, my Claws/SR Brute is the primary 'tanker' for the ITFs I run pretty frequently. It's possible that's coloring my view somewhat as Traitors aren't all that susceptible to knockdown, and do tend to charge into close melee range almost immediately.
At any rate, it is possible my perceptions of this are somewhat skewed. Clearly, the answer is to level up a SS/?? Brute and see for myself.
Now I just need to farm/market myself up another couple billion to really outfit it. Hmmm. I'm not fond of resistance sets, though, no matter how nice /fire is. Maybe SS/Shield or SS/SR. -.-
I wanna go with a /wpr build but am torn between fire and elec for my primary. Which one is a better AoE killer?