Choosing a Secondary for Claws

My next project is going to be a claws brute and I need some advice choosing a secondary. I'd like something that can handle most content w/ a group or solo. I don't plan on soloing any heroes right away, but I'd like to be able to tank them for groups, as well as have the potential for soloing them later on. It would also be nice (for a change) to be able to jump into the middle of a huge +2/+3 spawn and be left standing at the end of the fight. The only thing I'm not worried about for this toon is PvP and farming. At the moment I am drawn more towards defensive based sets; they seem more survivable. The only secondary I have any real experience with is Fiery Aura, so I have a lot of questions about the other sets:

Dark - I like the look and feel of the set, but I'm afraid it wont have the survivability I'm looking for.

Electric - Also worried about survivability with this set. How well does Energize increase this? Is it a reliable heal or would I still need Aid Self?

Energy - I've always heard it sucks, but it looks good on Mid's. Defense softcap should be easy to reach plus it has awesome end management.

Invuln - Awesome resistance, but how well can it stand up to heroes? How well can it solo? Worried about the lack of end recovery.

SR - This is the first set I had in mind. Awesome defense and Quickness, but lacks endurance recovery.

WP - Seems to have the best survivability in groups, but what about vs one enemy?

I have a fully IO'd out farmer on red side so inf wont be a problem over time. Thanks to everyone in advance for all their advice.

[QUOTE=Dr0ne;2759890]My next project is going to be a claws brute and I need some advice choosing a secondary. I'd like something that can handle most content w/ a group or solo. I don't plan on soloing any heroes right away, but I'd like to be able to tank them for groups, as well as have the potential for soloing them later on. It would also be nice (for a change) to be able to jump into the middle of a huge +2/+3 spawn and be left standing at the end of the fight. The only thing I'm not worried about for this toon is PvP and farming. At the moment I am drawn more towards defensive based sets; they seem more survivable. The only secondary I have any real experience with is Fiery Aura, so I have a lot of questions about the other sets:

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Originally Posted by Dr0ne Dark - I like the look and feel of the set, but I'm afraid it wont have the survivability I'm looking for.

You'll be fine. You'll need a bit of buffage to tank ITF and similar stuff, but if you don't have buffs on a TF something is very wrong.

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Originally Posted by Dr0ne Electric - Also worried about survivability with this set. How well does Energize increase this? Is it a reliable heal or would I still need Aid Self?

Same as Dark. I'd say it has more potential for destruction because of Lightning Reflexes. Energize is great when slotted, and especially when you have some global recharge. Defo no need for Aid Self. Elec also has a lot of perks, such as a bit of slow and a ton of end drain resistance, and you can do x8 rikti solo without a twitch.

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Originally Posted by Dr0ne Energy - I've always heard it sucks, but it looks good on Mid's. Defense softcap should be easy to reach plus it has awesome end management.

I'd say it's the weakest choice of the ones here. IMO you could get a lot more mileage out of other sets. You have to slot for typed defense, and that means you'll have a harder time slotting for recharge.

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Originally Posted by Dr0ne Invuln - Awesome resistance, but how well can it stand up to heroes? How well can it solo? Worried about the lack of end recovery.

With this, you can tank anything without loads of exotic damage, and then you'll just need a bit of buffage. Cap S/L defenses, get perma Dull Pain and go to town. Don't worry about end management.

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Originally Posted by Dr0ne SR - This is the first set I had in mind. Awesome defense and Quickness, but lacks endurance recovery.

Softcap and permahaste. Built right, you can tank anything that isn't autohit. Again, end isn't a problem.

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Originally Posted by Dr0ne WP - Seems to have the best survivability in groups, but what about vs one enemy?

You'll be fine vs one enemy. Arguably the most powerful set without IO investment. Again, you won't have problems tanking most content, and those few instances where you'll have trouble will be solved with buffs.

Claws is a relatively light endurance usage set so pairing with a secondary like INV or SR is a good choice. Right now my Claws/INV Brute is level 42 and is pretty fun. I do run into a bit of trouble against Malta for some reason but I can handle most anything else.

I also have a fire/SR Brute that is my favorite by far and probably the strongest of all my brutes. However, I haven't finished planning my build for the Claws/INV Brute so things might change once I put some time and infamy into his build.

In short, if you are looking to 'tank' then WP, SR and INV would be my first choices (in no particular order) followed by Electric, Dark, EA and Fire.

Thanks for your responses. Right now I'm leaning towards /SR and /WP. Which of these do you think has the advantage in survivability while solo? Would /SR need Weave?

I've got a Claws/WP brute, he's my first redside toon and it's pretty much been easy-mode since he made it to the low teens. You get spin at 6 and then it's off to the Fateweaver to raise your difficulty slider because you'll need more bad guys to chew up. Rise to the Challenge at 16 and then quick recovery following that and by the low 20's you'll be ready for x8 on the difficulty slider. QR + Stamina means you'll have to work REAL hard to ever have endurance problems. Plus if you can layer in some defense to your already ungodly regen capacity you'll be nigh on unstoppable. Mine will be softcapped to S/L and E/N by 50 with a solid attack chain. And yea, Spin is just THAT good.

I'll comment on a couple power sets below.

SR is the easiest in terms of good survivability. It is easy to soft cap. But apart from taking tough and aid self, that's all you can do in terms of higher survivability. It is pretty hard to have a significant boost to resistance through IO set bonus. My opinion is that if you want to enhance your brute in some other aspect, for example higher dps, then SR is convenient because you have a lot of room to enhance other things after soft-capping defense.

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Originally Posted by Dr0ne Electric - Also worried about survivability with this set. How well does Energize increase this? Is it a reliable heal or would I still need Aid Self? WP - Seems to have the best survivability in groups, but what about vs one enemy?

Both electric armor and willpower have a lot of endurance. If you worry about survival, one strategy to make use of all the juice is to take darkest night and power pool toggles, and stack with a lot of defense IO bonus. This can effectively soft-cap your character defense while you have the strength of the power sets themselves.

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Originally Posted by Dr0ne Energy - I've always heard it sucks, but it looks good on Mid's. Defense softcap should be easy to reach plus it has awesome end management.

I think energy aura is ok. I think what is bad about it is that you can boost its survivability to a decent level, but other power sets can perform better with the same investment of inf. The reason is that energy aura is predominantly a defense set, but its defense is lower than SR, so you've to take more effort to soft cap. It ends up the other attributes are not that good overall.

If you want to take energy aura, I think you need to love the design concept, mainly the stealth and energy drain. Or maybe you want to try some exotic builds like stamina-less.

I'm gonna throw my hat in on the claws/wp recommendation.
I have a 50 claws/sr scrapper, ss/sr brute, and a spines/wp scrapper, so I have taken claws, sr, and wp all to 50. With that being said, I haven't had a scrapper, or a brute, this much fun straight out of the box. Fun, kills fast, and theres just something satisfying thinking of running your claws into someones intestines, and all they can do is spit blood into your face, cause no matter what they do to you, you will heal. Ok, I gotta go log back onto Khombat and spill some more blood.

A claws/ea would be so fast and pretty!

My Claws/Elec doesn't match the survival or a Claws/WP, but if you're sick of /WP, this will be a nice break. Energize heals, increases regeneration, and reduces endurance cost, so you want it to be as close to perma as possible. This set won't be a god tanker, but I can solo most EBs pretty easily. The only EB I've been utterly unable to solo was Silver Mantis. I find it to be a clicky, fun brute that fires off a lot of AoE damage. Paired with a sturdier brute, he's a monster.

Claws has Shockwave (& focus) which means knockback.
Willpower relies on RttC, which needs enemies in range,
Meanwhile SR, can use that little extra control and benefit,

But lets face it, they're all fun, and all functional

Though WP does need enemies in range to saturate RttC for regen, it does not need to regen health it does not lose because a foe is on it's hindquarters. This gets more true the harder the foe hits; if a WP's regen cannot meet or exceed the incoming damage, then eventually it will fall. Usually it's only the single hard targets that can do that to a WP, and Focus is incredible ST perma-kd, so i can see Shockwave being a toss-up there.

That being said, WP would have its cake and eat it too when knocking a group of foes in a way that keeps them clumped for regen. This is why i love crowd control on my mace/wp brute, it was such a game-changer. While SR could bat foes around willy-nilly solo and have little decrease in (defensive) performance, WP will lose a lot of regen that way. Tactical Shockwave use (into corners) would be a nice tool in the toolbox for a WP user.