How do you compare Electric/Shield Brute vs Scrapper

I've heard that Scrappers might be better than Brutes because of damage caps and pet formulas. I guess the other big difference would be Epics, what powers are available in them. Is there any truth to that? What do people think? In a few months it won't matter which side I want to be on since I'll get Going Rogue.

You're correct, SD is better for scrappers than brutes. AAO buffs base damage and Scrapper base damage is high whereas brute base damage is low. This means with Fury in the mix the Brute is doing comparable damage but gaining significantly less benefit from AAO.

The thing about the pet caps is that pet damage caps at 400% (or thereabouts, I forget). So with 90-100% from enh, 170-180% from Fury BU alone will cap the damage on Lightning Rod/Shield Charge. Which is a shame for brutes, because its their 850% damage cap that allows them to do such obscene damage.

When it comes to Epics, ehhh I would probably give the nod to scrappers. Fireball is a better AoE than Dark Obliteration or Ball Lightning. Gloom is better than Fire Blast imo, but for all the other reasons I'd recommend you go with a scrapper.

Granted, none of this means that elm/sd brutes are gimp and elm/sd scrappers are godly, just that the scrapper is numerically the stronger choice. Elm/SD brutes are still very powerful.

Another factor to consider is Fury vs crits. Would you rather have potential higher damage on your non-SC/LR attacks but need to build/maintain Fury, or have more consistent damage with a lower maximum?

When the primary motivator of an elec/sd is significantly more effective on scrappers, there really isn't a comparison that needs to be made. In this case, the scrapper will run circles around the brute. In game, I see numbers around 300 for brutes and 600 for scrappers in similar difficulties for the mini-nukes.

Not sure if you're talking about 300 and 600 HP but my SC with BU and AAO grants me up to and over 800 hp. On a team, i've hit over 1000hp with SC. I'm not sure how LR works but the numbers are considerably lower. I usually see 2 ticks of numbers (people say there should be 3, but i only ever see 2) and it usually runs around 500-600hp.

You're welcome to see my scrapper version on Justice whenever you like then find a brute to compare.

I run 2/8, so the damage is reduced. The difference between a capped scrapper and a capped brute for those two powers is stunning, and arguably broken.

The smaller third radius of Lightning Rod is what really hurts the power. The best option is to target the strike at the boss in the middle of the mob so the boss recieves the bulk of the damage, while the weaker minions are easily defeated by a fireball if needed.