Solo Brute?

I have my first, a level 12 brute that dies twice every group. When can a brute solo? Do you have to powerlevel him to SOs first? I really really hate brutes at this point.

Superstrength Shields: 3 SS attacks: jab, something worthless, and haymaker.
4 shield powers: melee shield, ranged shield, mez shield and high pain tolerance.

The only thing to be certain of is that health and end decrease in the square inverse proportion to the increase of fury.

Ok, its True Grit, not High Pain Tolerance

low lvl brutes are prolly more equivalent to scrappers in terms of survivability, however brutes can solo fairly well once you get up higher (you should be fine since you have your shields, just need mroe attack and some end slotting)

also, a question, what enemy groups are you fighting and what difficulty are you set on? because ive never had issues running brutes at low lvl solo on the default diff (+0x1 no boss no AV)

I have never had this happen to me on a brute. On my SS/will i actaully patroled all the way to the trainer in port oaks with lvl 2 powers. At about lvl 12 I was runing diff lvl 2 solo and it was still easy.
Now, i dont know but you must be doing it wrong. Sounds like you need more attacks. That 'something worthless' isnt hand clap, is it? You need KoB and punch ASAP.

You're doing it wrong.

SS is easy mode. Shields, SR and EA aren't great until SOs because they are defense based, but unless you've cranked your difficulty up, your damage output is so high thanks to fury that it doesn't really matter.

Are you using brawl whenever it's up? How are you slotted?

There is not a brute combination that can't solo with complete ease. Except perhaps stone armor. It sucks due to the -movement.

Anything else is a cakewalk.

I was informed by an in-game friend to crank up the spawn count, go -1. So I am set at -1, X4, I didn't think I could handle X8 to get the fury where it needs to be, but I can't survive building fury now.

I don't have knock out blow yet. I was going to skip it since it activates so long, going for jab, sucky punch, and haymaker being quicker hitters. I hit all attacks as they come available. I suppose using the the Vet staffs is taboo since they might not count towards fury, but I can't resist the three man cone hits of Sands of Mu.

I never got into dominators, they couldn't survive the end drain prior to domination and I feel the same way about brutes with fury.

At level 12 you shouldn't be fooling too much with the difficulty. -1/x2-3 would be ok with no bosses.

A couple things to note...

1. Build Fury first. Use Brawl (costs NO endurance) and Jab to build Fury quickly. Then you can drop the heavy hitters for better affect

2. Vet attacks nom nom nom Endurance. It's true.

3. Toggle shields based on enemies. If they are melee type, then de-toggle Ranged Shield et al.

4. Slot some DOs. Sure, it sounds stupid but if you are having this much trouble then slot some END RDX DOs into your attacks and so forth.

To be honest, I found Shields to be pretty lame in the lower levels but I did choose to slot some DOs at level 12-17 which seemed to help out.

Ok. I see the problem.

Don't herd. Don't try to let the enemies build your fury for you. Do that with your attack chain running spawn to spawn.

Bind sprint to some key. I use G. Once a spawn is down, I hit G, run to the next spawn, hit F for Follow, hit G to turn off sprint when I'm close enough to attack, go into my attack chain.

At 12, you should be fighting with brawl, punch, jab and haymaker for fury building.

Sands of Mu is a great filler and yes, awesome when you've got some enemies lined up for it. All attacks, including the staff and wand, help build fury. However, those temp powers are not Affected by fury.

If you are slotting damage in your attacks, don't. At 12 you should have acc/end-red/rec-rec. A single Damage DO adds 17% or so. Fury can be adding 180%+.

If you took handclap, I'd respec out of it now. Fury backed KOBlow will be one shotting stuff left and right. Same rule applies, though. Acc/rec-red/end-red.

Don't slot damage.

I have 2 Acc DOs and an End redux DO in all SS melee attacks, no damage. I was advised to let fury build dmg. I have defense and end DOs in the shields, I have one recharge redux in active defense and 3 DO's for resistance in True Grit. Money is not an object for an experienced Black Market trader.

I didn't take hand clap. At level twelve, with jab, punch, haymaker, true grit, two shields, active defense, and superspeed, I have NO room for anything else.

BillZ are you saying X4 is too high? I don't fight with SS on but I do push thru the mission ASAP between mobs.

I don't ever buy TOs anymore, but I slot what I get if its useful. I always bounce up to fully slotted DOs at 12 just to note what difference it makes in a build.

On my main, a SS/Will brute, I soloed the entire game, at standard setting. When I say the entire game, I mean every story arc, every contact. Took a little over 2 months, and I had to suspend earning experience about 3 times in the early levels. Now any brute before 20 (pre-stamina) is at a disadvantage. Our main power comes from the rage bar, but we have to keep stopping to rest. Ain't life a bummer Still, it is doable, just takes a while longer. Do not ask me why I did this, we all have our own brand of crazy.

Now after 20 things got way easier for my WP brute. Not sure your shielder willl have the same experience. The only shielder I have leveled was in AE, and that is a different experience entirely.

The only problems in the later game came with heroes like Valkyrie, a true B!t@#. To be honest, I saved those fights for after I leveled, effectively making them -1/+0 without ever once in my career going to the fateweaver.

Now, I have a lot of experience redside, and most of these fights were not new to me. I have soloed 1-30 previously on various brutes, but always got distracted. And since I have a number of 30+ toons, and a few 50s I had experienced a portion of the later game content as well. So experience helps. But in truth, my most valuable tool was a +stealth enhancer i dropped into fly from freebird. I could "brute stealth" most glowie or kill boss group missions. The few random minions I ran into that saw me I just let whoop on me as I raced to my target. THe opposite of scrapperlock basically. I goal oriented every mish that was not a kill all. At below 20 most brutes (at the correct setting) can do this with simply running. Minions should mean nothing to a brute, LTs basically nothing with jam.

Just posted this to brag, er, I mean let you know it is very doable. GL, and keep going. If you love the concept, victory is in your sights.

Is -1/x4 with bosses too much for a defense build at level 12? Maybe. If you were SS/WP I'd say no.

You might consider slotting True Grit for heals instead of dam-res. You're not getting any S/L dam-res from that. Only elemental. It's Deflection that gives the S/L dam-res.

I bet if you make that one change, you'll notice a difference.

Hmmmm, I need more slots for Deflection shield too, to cover the dmg resist component. I will get those while I take my fitness powers before level 20.

Deflection Shield is a weird thing. Good thing IOs exist for frakenslotting.

But yea, 3dr/3def in deflection shield, 3heal/3dr in truegrit will be the way to go. 1end/3def in battle agility.

The thing that REALLY puts me off about shields is that most of the defense debuff resistance comes from the mez protection click, and to get capped DDR, you have to double stack your mez protection. Which hurts DPS.

On the other hand, SD's AAO means that your damage output goes through the farking roof.

On my brutes I only slot end reducers when I reach level 12 and can slot DO's. You really don't need acc enhancers if you are fighting -1's and the biggest issue with every pre-stamina brute is endurance. Slot them in all your attacks and toggles and your endurance problems go away.