yes and yes. depends on what your trying to do but they kill end with Mu patron powers and powersink in PVP. for pve they will be awesome for anything rikti and if u can get your s/l def to 35 and s/l resist to about 60 and melee def around 30 then they will be set for other enemies. i have darkest night on my elec/elec brute and it helps so so much imo. keeps them from hitting u and -dam taken and my heal rechs in 36 sec w/ just under 800 heal. and i can easily do +4/8 against rikti/energy type damage
So thats my two cents.
To back up what he said, regardless of your primary, Gloom will almost always be your best attack. So going darkest night gives you access to gloom as well. =)
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
/ElA is a very good set for IO investment. You can get near permahaste and good defenses, even about 20% to all positions (without more for S/L) is enough. Combined with your resists, clicky heal and good regeneration (remember that Energize does both), you'll be quite survivable. You won't be as tough as some other builds, but you will be able to solo LGTF. However, survivability isn't the selling point of an /ElA toon, it's the damage output. With near permahaste, a damage aura, endless endurance, and especially with double-stacked Rage in your SS/ElA case, you'll be an engine of mass destruction few can compare with.
Be warned, however, that a SS/ElA requires A LOT attention to play, and can sometimes be tiresome. You have to constantly watch your green and blue bars for the need to refill them with your clickies, and your blue bar especially will pulsate wildly. If you're not careful, a Hasten or Rage or crash will easily detoggle you (you'll have to deal with about 3 of those in a two-minute time span, with Rage crashes being worse). Plus, if you're not careful you can accidentally waste a Knockout Blow or Foot Stomp during a Rage crash, although using FS during a crash can be a good idea sometimes because of the knockdown.
For your patron pool, I really suggest Soul Mastery, as both Dark Obliteration and Gloom will be invaluable - more AoE is always good, and SS is a bit lacking in ST damage output (besides Knockout Blow you have one good attack in SS, the others are quite wimpy). Add in a sprinkle of Darkest Night if you can spare the power pick for extra goodness. But for example, I can't if I want to maximize my damage output.
I have a very old EM/ELA brute. Did the recent buff do anything to help ELA or does it still need a mitigation heavy primary to keep it moving?
Virtue:
Miserya - 50 EM/ELA Brute (Perma-shelved)
Adriana Rayne - 42 Katana/Dark Scrapper
Cyberpulse - 26 Super Strength/Willpower Brute
Steel Heart - 24 Invuln/Super Strength Tanker
Without set bonuses, it's somewhat stronger, but not that much. With set bonuses, it's a lot stronger.
Quote:
Yup, it helped quite a bit. Energize is a good heal (same heal value as Healing Flames, but on a 120 sec recharge instead of 40), but also provides you with +regen (200% with ED capped heal) and endredux (59,3% according to Mid's) for 30 seconds. |
Originally Posted by Dr_Unholy
I have a very old EM/ELA brute. Did the recent buff do anything to help ELA or does it still need a mitigation heavy primary to keep it moving?
|
Was there any other buff? I don't recall now.
But imo unless you build for defense it can be quite fragile with say, Fiery or Elec Melee.
My Stone/ElA Brute actually tanked a SF (the sky raider one) at 23 and everyone else was at 25 (no SSK at the time, no Energize either), but the only reason I could tank +2s for 6 squishies during an entire SF was Fault and Seismic Smash (Mallets helped too with their chance to KD). Lol I used Fault so much I ran out of end while speed boosted (all my attacks had 25 SOs with only acc and endred because stone melee is so end heavy).
But well Energize alleviates the end issues on a leveling /ELA and gives you a nice heal, I'm leveling a DB/Elec scrapper and it's noticeable with 3 SOs worth of recharge and 2 Heal SOs.
I don't melee much, but /ela is my second favorite armor (dark is first, but for scrappers - but I'd never do a /DA Brute because I find it too end intensive and counterproductive to Fury. And on Stalkers I find DA lol, must be irritating to toggle on and off your mez aura(s) and one of the reasons I love /ELA and /DA is the damage aura which Stalkers lose).
I like /ELA a lot, even before the changes. +recharge bonus, damage aura, heal, psi resist, capped energy res with SOs (I think my scrapper hit it with DOs but scrappers cap at 75%) and higher base resists on s/l on the toggles than Fire and Dark Armor.
I haven't gotten my SM/ELA to 50 yet (she's old too, she's at 37-38 and with Aid Self lol) but a good idea might be s/l def. I usually prefer typed (my db/elec is going for melee/ranged) but you'll already be at 90% energy resistance since level 22, leaving negative as your weakness, fire/cold is rare anyway and lots of fire/cold attacks have a s/l component.
See, she's EM. And that was fine when EM was OMG unbalanced because she killed EVERYTHING so damn fast that I didn't need a great deal of mitigation, that and the mag 4 on TF kept most really tough bosses stumbling around and not hitting me.
The changes to EM sort of killed her, her offense slowed down and ELA wasn't even hardly sturdy enough to pick up the slack.
Virtue:
Miserya - 50 EM/ELA Brute (Perma-shelved)
Adriana Rayne - 42 Katana/Dark Scrapper
Cyberpulse - 26 Super Strength/Willpower Brute
Steel Heart - 24 Invuln/Super Strength Tanker
Even back in Issue 7 with out aid self I totally loved my SS/Ela Brute. Now days she is my favorite and one I continue to fall back on and play. I have a modest IO build that I built when IO's came out and tweaked a little here and there.
I think my out of pocket was around 150M for this build. Loads of fun especially with all the potential end draining opponents in the COV 40+ game.
Not to mention you seem built to crush Rikti.
Pinnacle
Arch light L50 INV/SS
Psiberia L50 Kin/Psi
Screaming Mentallica L50 Sonic/MM
Infinity
Arc Voltinator L50 SS/Elec
Mind Fire Kinesis L50 Fire/Kin
Flaming Screamer L50 Fire/Sonic
Quote:
I totally understand. While I loved all the kill stealing on teams and the fast activation of Energy Transfer, I think I miss TF's mag 4 stun more on my EM Stalker.
|
Originally Posted by Dr_Unholy
See, she's EM. And that was fine when EM was OMG unbalanced because she killed EVERYTHING so damn fast that I didn't need a great deal of mitigation, that and the mag 4 on TF kept most really tough bosses stumbling around and not hitting me.
The changes to EM sort of killed her, her offense slowed down and ELA wasn't even hardly sturdy enough to pick up the slack. |
I'm hoping that ELA gets better with IOs cause at L24 it's been rough on me. Granted I am working claws/ela so not much for mitigation in the primary yet but it's still a hard row to hoe. Not used to having to stick with low difficulty levels on brutes, but when I get overwhelmed by hubris and ramp it up I get stomped flat in short order.
Is it any good? I'm currently leveling a SS/Elec brute and just wondering if it's going to be any good at the end of it all.