Mace/Fire or Elec

parabola_EU · 07-07-2010 08:33 AM

Hi All,

I've recently discovered the joy of SMASH and have been enjoying my claws/wp whirling death machine. I am however a raging altoholic and want to roll another brute to experience another flavour of SMASH.

I'm fancying mace as a primary as it fits the concept well enough and I've heard good things about it since it got buffed. Secondary wise I'm a bit torn between fire and elec (looks and am bored with def sets). I understand elec is generally viewed as the better set but also there is some mention of fire getting a polish with the buff cloth (in the 'Castle sez oh noes shield bash is teh broken' thread).

Without knowing what or when a buff is likely to be I guess the sensible thing is to look at what they are like now. Would I regret fire? Does mace have enough mitigation to cover for the holes? How much better is elec? I'm not looking to tank for a team - just want to be able to crank the mobs up solo and go to town with aoe.

I should also mention that I'm broke on redside but I guess that's not going to matter in a month or so. Also performance all the way through is important - if it's not fun at pretty much all levels it'll end up shelved.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

Twilight_Snow · 07-09-2010 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by parabola_EU

I'm fancying mace as a primary as it fits the concept well enough and I've heard good things about it since it got buffed. Secondary wise I'm a bit torn between fire and elec (looks and am bored with def sets). I understand elec is generally viewed as the better set but also there is some mention of fire getting a polish with the buff cloth (in the 'Castle sez oh noes shield bash is teh broken' thread).

Without knowing what or when a buff is likely to be I guess the sensible thing is to look at what they are like now. Would I regret fire? Does mace have enough mitigation to cover for the holes? How much better is elec? I'm not looking to tank for a team - just want to be able to crank the mobs up solo and go to town with aoe.

The resistance of ElA is a bit higher overall. ElA has psionic resistance, but with a toxic hole (the god mode has toxic resistance though). FA has some toxic resistance through healing flame, but with a psionic hole. FA makes up for the lower resistance with a very fast recharging heal. ElA has better endurance management because power sink recharges quickly, and it has end drain resistance. FA has consume, but it recharges a bit too slowly.

I think you should make a build for both ElA and FA, and see which one you like most. You probably want to take most of the powers in ElA, so you can't take other things after fitness, fighting, and travel powers. For FA, it's ok to skip 3 or 4 powers, then you have more freedom to go deep into the patron power pool, for example.

I think ElA is slightly more well-rounded. The choice depends pretty much on how you build them. Mace provides some mitigation, which helps a bit, but I won't rely on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by parabola_EU

I should also mention that I'm broke on redside but I guess that's not going to matter in a month or so. Also performance all the way through is important - if it's not fun at pretty much all levels it'll end up shelved.

There is usually a huge leap in performance after using IO sets. Before that, you may feel that brutes are a bit squishy in general if you want to crank the mobs up solo without support. I afraid you may shelf many brutes before they mature. Usually, brutes with some tricks in their sleeves, or those with scaling defense (like invulnerability or willpower) will do a bit better on their way to 50.