Damage/Tanking, what's good? ?/WP

Hey all, I was having a conversation on BMT of Champion today about good brute power sets for SF and Hami raiding. My SS/Elec seems ok damage-wise, but really can't tank that well. So I'm looking for other options.

The idea here is that while playing for fun is the key, face-planting isn't fun, so I'd like something that works well in addition to being fun.

I was advised on BMT that Willpower is probably the best all-around tanking secondary right now. What about Claws? Is that good or does the Lethal damage get resisted too much at higher levels? I'm looking for good concept here too (at least imo) so just Fire/WP 'cause it's FOTM doesn't appeal to me as much.

How about Dark/Dark? I'm having fun with a low level Dark/Dark brute (not on Champion though.) Is it hard to get to where it can tank? Or are the lower resists and reliance on self-heal too much to over-come?

Any help is much appreciated! I'll post a build or whatever once I get some idea of the general direction I should take.

Anything can be made ridiculous with the right amount of influence/infamy. As far as WP is concerned- it is fairly strong out of the box. It has a native and very strong Endurance recovery tool working in Auto with Quick Recovery, and is basically Regen-lite with strong HP regen. It lags a bit behind other sets in resistance and defense, so taking alpha strikes can be tricky before you invest in IOs.

With electric armor- it is a sturdy secondary. Especially with the recent buff. Naturally, it has superior end mitigation options. Combine that with excellent resists and a great heal on a reasonable timer, you get a strong set. The complete lack of defense can be patched up easily with IOs, and you can add in some more recharge to make Energize come up fairly often.

Yes, Claws is a lethal dmg set, but even so, you will find that (with fury backing you) things still will get sliced quickly and mercilessly.

Dark/Dark can be strong, but you have to overcome some pretty sever endurance issues before it becomes a real powerhouse. I certainly wouldn't call the resists low though. And reliance on a self heal is tricky, but the heal is more of a back up. Dark armor is a sturdy set in and of itself.

As far as Fotm, that would likely be elec/shield for brutes now. Though I hear /shield is next in line for a big nerf, I am not certain it will be nerfed in the brute version. Scrappers, on the other hand, should be counting down the days to when shield charge gets some of the gas siphoned from its tank.

So, my friend, it all comes down to how many coins you can drop to get what you want. I loved my fire/fire brute above anything else, and I played around until I found a build to make her nigh-unkillable and a death bringer with no mercy. It also cost me more money than I care to recall. Unless you want to get stuck with stone armor, any kind of real tanking with a brute will come at the expense of a sizable investment.

I want what you're looking for, a Brute that can tank with SOs or generic IOs and I'm going for Invulnerability. (And that isn't /Stone, lol...too slow).

With my understanding from what I've read, the three secondaries that can accomplish this are Willpower, Invulnerability, and Super Reflexes.

Super Reflexes works with positional defense (melee, ranged, and AoE). With just SOs it can get you very sturdy defense, it's the easiest set to soft cap for defense which is what most people consider to be the goal of survivability. It has no resistance, though, so if they're able to get through your incredibly high defense, and everything will always have some chance to do this, you'll be hit pretty hard.

Invulnerability stacks great resists with solid defense. The defense isn't as good as Super Reflexes, but with Invincibility and a load of enemies in range it provides a significant survivability boost. It comes with a powerful self heal that gives +max HP for a long period of time but in exchange the heal has a long recharge. The bulk of its resistance is to smashing/lethal, which nearly every attack in the game has some part of, but when you pop Unstoppable and it's slotted for resistance you can get 90% resistance against everything other than Psionics for 3 minutes. It lacks any natural Psionic Resistance or Defense so those guys will tear you apart.

Willpower will give you some, not a lot, but some defense/resists to work with on top of a load of Regeneration with Rise to the Challenge. Because it lacks the defense of SR or the resistance of Invuln, it is more difficult to handle alpha strikes. After that though it's pretty much dependent upon whether or not your opponents can out DPS your regeneration. Its also got a good deal of Psionic defense and resistance so compared to a /Invuln you'll be able to handle them better. But they're not that common compared to everything else.

Even though softcapping defense is considered to be great- I would still rather take my inv brute SFing over my sr brute. Don't get it twisted- my sr is positionally capped with excellent DDR, but a few unlocky rolls will quickly land in HP points in the danger zone. RNG has a bad way of ruining my day. I prefer the high resists and reliably scaling defense of invulnerability over the high defense and oh ***** scaling resists of super reflexes.

AOE Damage I would say SS, Elec, maybee stone?

But the most survivable tanking brute with pretty good fast ST damage I think is Dark/WP.

I would*nt go SS/ without /WP. The rage crash is brutal. My SS/Shield is fun as heck and damaging, but he cant sustain himself for very long, even with Stamina and end. reduc.


*WOULDNT

Just be prepared to spend some cash.

The only brute secondary out of the box solid for tanking is /Stone.

With reasonable investment, any secondary can be made solid. It doesn't take long to make what you need to make your toon strong if you do it smart, and concentrate on one toon.

I have ALOT of money invested into my first brute, a Fire/Invlun. And frankly, it's really starting to pay off.

He has... 63% S/L resists, 20% to the rest. With one mob in range, he has 40% S/L defence. 33% E/NE. And like 25% to F/I. He regen is alittle better then twice the base rate, and he's got about 20% HP boost. Not to mention signefient single target damage, esspecally over the long haul. (kind of light on burst damage) And one of the better PBAOE's. And with a mircle prog, a numina prog, and a performace shifter prog, the endurance is pretty managable. Attacks are slanted for recharge, so they are fast. A to hit prog shores up my somewhat underslotted ACC. (about 60% per) I'm pretty much capped, esspecially when invinc starts kicking in.

I've still got work to do. I need to upgrade my Smashing Haymakers to kinetic combats... that'll softcapped S/L. (and it's REALLY expensive too..) I need my last HP accolade. (invader.. need to figure out what i'm missing... god i hate trying to get old MM mission badges...)

Once he's done, he'll be a monster. But it's cost me a TON. But IMO it's worth it.