Meant to be a brute, but can't stick.

It can be perception, though if you stack rage too often, your crashes can be counter-productive. Numbers-wise, without rage, SS's attacks are sub-par to other sets.

Your builds often show a lot of predisposition to being a tank, and I think that's the big reason why you're struggling with brutes. They have the potential to be tanks with tanker caps, but shine best when they are offensive powerhouses. Intelligent inspiration use, effective slotting, and a good supporting team are what turn brutes into monsters.

To start with, you aren't a terrible builder, so before you freak at this enormous amount of text, your builds really only need tweaking.

Overal Themes:

-Often defense oriented at the cost of offense
-Too much focus on accuracy/to-hit
-Not always end-efficient
-Rage often is stacked more than it needs to be, causing frequent crashes and increasing endurance issues

Oh, before we get started:

1) For some reason, I don't think datachunks ever include the alternate slotting.
2) Yup, endurance problems is what I'm seeing. Might I suggest taking a look at SS/Elec (and these tweaks)?




Modified Elec/SD Build

Well, elec IS terrible for single target damage. The patrons do offer some extra ST damage if you grab Gloom or Mu Lightning.

Shield benefits greatly from carting around oranges and greens. For tough encounters (or x/8 soloing), rely on oranges to get you through the fights. Also, the four auto-accolades help a TON toward survivability.

But, I can see some things that might make life more difficult for you. For starters, focused accuracy will leave you gasping for endurance. You already have good accuracy bonuses and the to-hit unique. You really don't need FA.

I'd drop Mace completely for the patron. The redraw from mace blast would get annoying for me, I know. I'll swap it out with elec, grab mu lightning for single target dmg, and move gaussians to buildup. I'll grab superspeed as a travel to add in blessing of the zephyr. This will free you up in the future for adding some purple sets, or allows you to swap a mako out for a Touch of Death to get your defense above the cap to help prevent cascading defense failure. It's up to you on what you want.

So now, Mu Lightning can be slotted more. You have several choices. You can grab ruin for AoE def (which is silly if you pick up SS and 3 slot it with BoTZ), or decimation for an affordable 6.5% rech bonus, or thunderstrike for more range def - or a future purple. As far as that goes, now with SS slotted, in the future you could throw an armageddon into thunderstrike, apoc in mu lightning, and hecatomb in chain induction for a drastic increase in recharge and a very noticable increase in performance.

You will find now that the bulk of single target damage actually comes from three sources: Jacob's Ladder, Thunderstrike (yes, another AoE), and Mu Lightning. Mu Lightning is a great power - quick animation, good damage, and good recharge. Unlike Gloom, the damage is front loaded, and doesn't quite do equal damage to gloom, but I liked the thematic approach. Otherwise, you could pick up gloom and grab dark oblit for some to-hit debuff to layer on some more insulation to avoid that cascading failure. (don't slot oblit with tohits tho, slot for dmg) But, I liked grabbing the travel as it added some efficient defense bonuses.

It's not cheap, but grabbing a membrane hami-o and slotting 1 in active defense will help your DDR.

True grit needs more heal bonuses for +hp. Move that numi unique over to health and get some more HP. Then reslot health, grab the miracle heal IO with that proc for more recovery. You lose 4% in enhancement bonuses, but still manage to gain more regen/HP/recovery.

You have some more options now. You're above the defense cap for range and AoE, so you have some options. You can go back to 4 slotting stamina and look at maybe picking up some more +HP by slotting up your toggles with IOs. If you keep it slotted as is, you have room for 3 purple sets without compromising your AoE def (which isn't a big deal if you do anyway).


SS/WP Modified
I see you're going for softcapping S/L def. You'll be more than tough enough heading to 30%, so you don't have to gimp yourself to get those numbers.

Some similar advice:
drop focused acc. You have rage and accuracy bounuses. If it still bugs you, grab a kismet. Drop maneuvers/tactics as well.

Consider gloom/dark oblit for your SS. You'll layer on some to-hit debuffs with your lower defense and increase your damage potential.

For me, if I slot too much recharge in rage, I find that the crashes become too frequent and actually get in the way (yes, you can use veteran attacks during the crashes). So, if you drop the recharge down enough so it's perma w/o hasten, you'll be happy. Speaking of hasten, get it. The more rech for footstomp the better.

Footstomp: The ideal for quite some time has been 5 armageddon and the Force Feedback recharge proc. IT recharges that AoE unbelievably quickly, and that knockdown is unbelievable mitigation. You might Consider that FF proc instead of that oblit set (just swap out the oblit proc for the FF proc)

I'd take out the kinetics in boxing and move those slots to slot my other attacks better. But, I had surplus slots in my completed build, so I put them back.

What matters to a brute is living long enough to flatten mobs.One you're sure you can live through a fight, all that matters is how fast you flatten the map. The build is too defensive and not offensive enough.

Web Envelope adds KD protection, which hurts your mitigation of footstomp (the exception would be if you were SS/Fire and dropped a burn patch and wanted them glued in place)

I am starting to see a pattern: you really hate missing your attacks, and overcompensate. You don't need that much accuracy/to-hit. With rage double stacking, tactics, and focused, I'm seeing numbers in mids like 400% accuracy, which is just overkill.


SS/Fire

Ah, here's the FF proc in footstomp.
Elec/Fences Burn. Great.
Rage isn't as recharge heavy - good.

In general, you don't even need end mod in Consume, because if you hit 5 mobs, you get 100% end unslotted. What you want most is to hit the ed cap on recharge (oblit works nice here, especially since the power has a low end cost).

A 4th slot in stamina with the perf shifter would help with your end.

I think burn is overslotted. It's nice but you can save some coin here.

You want more recharge in Knockout Blow. At 19% recharge, the power isn't coming up quick enough.

Plasma Shield needs to be slotted for resistance. This is your nrg/neg resistance, and Rikti are going to rip you to shreds even more than normal for a FA brute.

Obliteration isn't the best choice in a toggle like Blazing Aura. The end consumtion is going to hurt. If you want slot efficiency, the least amount of slots to achieve good performance is:
Scir: Acc/Dam/End, Dam/End (10% regen)
Multi: Acc/Dam/End, Dam/End (some stupid bonus)
That gives you good dmg/end redux, and modest accuracy. You can add some neg resist if you add a 5th slot with another scirr and pick up more acc, but it's not necessary.

If you think your rage is still crashing too often, put in a single rech IO into rage instead of the two adjusteds. With your rech bonuses, you are still perma rage w/o considering hasten/FF proc.

IMO, your SS/Fire brute is your best build. It has a good balance of offense and defense. Now, /Fire is incredibly reliant on the heal to stay upright, and stacking that extra melee does help.

Since this isn't a defense-oriented build, I'm turning weave off and leaving it in as a mule for a LoTG 7.5.

There's still plenty of tweaking that can be done to this, but it's a start in the right direction.

edit: BTW, the titles on the builds are links to builds

That option traditionally is SS/WP, because of how versatile it is. You have good regen, knockdown for mitigation, great recovery, and are well equipped in AoE and ST dmg with Footstomp and Knockout Blow. I'd suggest tweaking your current build.

If you are able to afford an armageddon set for footstomp with a FF proc, you will change your tune. Footstomp alone is all the AoE you need. If you want more, grab the patron AoEs.

Now fire is an interesting beast. It is effective farming nemesis (because vengeance SUCKS), though you need a 3 KB IOs to deal with the insane KB they do. If you aren't fighting nem, though, only 1 KB IO is usually enough for most encounters.

Fire is very dependent on the heal. It does very poorly with Rikti because of the poor energy resists. It is suited very well with AE where you can fight only fire-type mobs. However, with the advent of other sets and improvements to Electric Armor, there are generally better options for farming and all-around performance.

WP gets the greatest boost of survivability in regen and RTTC. Since RTTC has a weak taunt, you need to ensure things stay aggroed on you. Your current build had a ton of S/L def, but could have a little better nrg defense. If anything, I'm guessing what really hurt was that NRG damage from Positron or the Rikti in the LRSF.

If you revise your WP build, I think you will be very pleased with the performance.

You aren't alone in this. Typed defense sets suffer from having that psi hole where positionals offer some protection to it.

SS/SD is significantly better than Elec/SD. Once you hit the soft-cap, the big focus will be recovery, because endurance is very painful. Now if you're willing to give shield another try, consider DM/SD. You get a built-in heal and shield charge adds some AoE to DM's limited dmg. The to-hit debuffs also stack nicely while leveling up on a shield.

I really hate to see you scrap that elec/sd. It still performs well, but it is squishy and you have to work around that. That and pseudo pets suffer by not having a lower dmg cap, which means Lightning Rod and Shield Charge miss out on a lot while a scrapper version offers a tremendous boost in damage (approximately 600 vs. 300 when adding enemy resistances and whatnot).

Here are the 3 Elec Builds I have played and know very well:

DM/Ela was great when elec didn't have energize. It added a much-needed heal and some -to-hit to layer with the resistance. You are the Rikti's worst nightmare. It even does decently with PvP.

SS/ElA has tremendous AoE Potential. Lightning Field slotted for Damage can potentially do more damage over time than Ball Lightning will. Add to that the marvelous endurance tools and the only time you'll run out of endurance will be when you're tired and not paying attention (I hate that!). My SS/ElA sports 30% melee defense, great recharge (and armageddon in Footstomp). It doesn't die easily. It's easily my fastest-killing brute, but my elec/sd/blaze scrapper can kill about 150% faster. Actually, I cleared a map in the time it took two SS brute builds to do it.

Elec/Elec was my first 50. It took a lot of tweaking to get it where I wanted it, but it is my second-most survivable build out there, second only to my WM/Stone. It is a fun set, and power-set customization has been incredibly friendly to electric melee and electric armor. (Lightning Rod is awesome in any color)

What I don't recommend:

Fire/Elec: There isn't a lot of mitigation in fire. Knockdown does help Electric Armor's survivability.
NRG/Elec: Ew. NRG.
DB/Elec: I just don't like Dual Blades. Miss and a combo is blown, and well that 5% chance of missing annoys me.

What I think will also work well:

Mace/Elec: A nice balance of Single Target and AoE Damage.
Stone/Elec: No end problems here! Good knockdown.
Axe/Elec: Mace is better now that clobber got buffed.

That sounds like a pretty solid SS/Fire brute. Outside of the lib farm how does the character farm in SFs, ITFs, etc? Is it a character you use exclusively for farming or do you find that it stands up well in those other activites?

It is great for all around play, I bring it on TFs all the time and is actually pretty decent in PvP also. Some mobs like Cimerorians is pretty squishy against since it's all resistance base, the bosses hit really hard, but you'll have a team to back you up.

Well, I put together a quick build for a SS/ELA with the advice you gave me earlier in the thread, Tonality.

I'm just wonder how ELA manages to survive as well as Fire without a very quick recharging heal. 30 seconds is a far cry from 12. Even though an extra 200% regen and a massive endurance discount is pretty nice trade.

I do, however, like the growth potential of ELA. But, I will probably do SS/Fire and build that up as a farmer doing the lib farm for purple drops and then consider building up a SS/ELA when I can afford it.

Here is the build:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

If you farm at +1/8, or even at +2/8, the reason that ELA might have higher survivability is -Endurance. Lightning Field + Powersink is still pretty effective against +2s, and even against +3s. ELA's second layer of mitigation, aside from resistance, is still its -endurance, which makes it the only set that relies* so heavily on a debuff for protection. You last forever when most of your opponents are using their lowest tiered attacks or doing nothing at all.

The heal and +regeneration are arguably just tertiary effects that let you last long enough for -endurance to take full effect. The total amount of mitigation that -endurance provides for ELA is much higher.

*(Sets like Ice, Dark, and Shields use debuffs too, but they are far from their respective second layer of mitigation, and offer values much lower than the combination of Power Sink and Lightning Field.)

You'll want a different approach to building Elec compared with other builds. With other builds, you have to worry a lot more about endurance. With elec, you only need worry about staying alive.

Stacking 30% Melee defense or 30% S/L defense keeps you alive easily in most scenarios.

If you do Lib TV, SS/WP or SS/Fire are more survivable. I personally find it easier to farm tickets to pay for purples than to farm for purples.

Now the build:

- You don't need impervium armors. Endurance issues are a thing of the past.
- I'm not sure I'd waste the slots on Boxing, even though you are clever using stupify
- 5 doctored wounds will work in energize. Drop the Heal/End for a Heal/Rech. The numbers aren't that different to warrant the 6th slot.
- You get the same set bonus if you swap the miracle Heal/End for a numi Heal/End, and a slight more regen.
- I find I don't need powersurge that often. For gameplay, you'll pop demonic close to the crash of powersurge, have a blue insp, energize ready, and if you time everything right, you can actually get through the drop before you lose anything. It's still tough to pull off in the midst of mobs - a lucky hit and you're dead.
- Powersink is Auto-Hit, even though mids calculates accuracy values. All that matters is end mod/rech.
- Don't use the single-aspect purple in armageddon. That chance for fire Proc is incredibly handy for footstomp (it rolls a chance on every single mob footstomp hits, the same as force feedback).

Now here are two SS/Elec builds I've built in the past. I settled on Melee Defense, but going S/L defense is a viable option (and has some advantages). I picked melee as it covers all damage types and the bulk of damage you will face will be melee. You can generate very impressive numbers with S/L defense without compromising the build. As for not taking a taunt, I taunt things by punching them.

Here they are:

SS/Elec - Melee Def
- My Elec/Elec has slightly more defense (32%) which actually is noticeable compared to this 27.7%.
- The KB Protection in grounded is there because when you aren't on the ground, you lose your KB protection, and I like to jump around.
- Modest pricetag, with only one purple set.


SS/Elec - S/L Def
- 37% S/L Defense, without gimping the build.
- 14% NRG/Neg Def
- One purple set used, so semi-modest cost (kinetic combats are expensive)
- Less resists than the melee build, but significant gains on defense.

Well, the advice is well taken Tonality. You and everyone else that responded educated me quite well on what I was missing out on with my brute. I respeced my SS/WP brute and even though I cannot afford all the sets right now he is still perfrom heads above what he was doing. He is actually fairing +1/x8 spawns without any difficulty at all. I still plan on building a more specialized farming brute when I have more infamy, but I think SS/WP is my jack of all trades for now.

This has to be one of the most helpful threads I've been privy to be a part of. Thank you very much all of you.