A Good Armor Set for the End Game

I'm interested in making a brute, but I'm finding myself torn between which armor sets to pick and I'm hoping some experienced brute players could chip in with some suggestions.

As the title suggests, I want a brute that should have no problem dealing with the current end-game TFs i.e. ITF, LGTF and the LRSF. I often run speed runs with a group, so ideally I want a brute that can hold their own be it against an army of cimerorans, nictus or rikti when it's time to split up objectives, and can act as the main tank for the LRSF too.

Am I asking too much? You tell me.

Edit: Just to add that you can assume that inf is no objective, though the pvp sets are likely beyond my scope.

if your looking for something that can hold its own against varied enemy groups, and being the main tank on hard hitting sf like LRSF, i would go with stone armor if you didnt mind the slight downsides of granite

if you dont want to do stone armor, then prolly invuln would be a good 2nd pick

You can never go wrong with Invulnerability or Willpower. I don't mention Stone because I do not like the debuff of Granite, but Stone does give you the power of immortality, aka Granite Armor.

Willpower is the most well-rounded for endgame stuff. While I've seen the RSF tanked exceedingly well by an /Inv Brute, the Psy protection in WP helps a lot.

Build for defense and +hp. Without support in a big spawn of Cims or Nicti you are vulnerable to cascade failures, but you can always eat a purple or two and the benefit of WP is you can easily get well over 2k health. Even at negative defense 2.5k health to chew through is a fair amount of breathing room.

The exception is of course the Freedom Phalanx. Undebuffed (or you unbuffed) most of them can easily drop any Brute in 1-3 shots. Make sure to bring orange/purple insp and Demonic.

While as the others have said /Stone is by far the sturdiest, the drawbacks are significant. I saw you said it'll be for speed TFs, which excludes /Stone right off the bat IMO. Even if you've got a Kin on the ball keeping you permanently SBed not being able to jump severely hinders your ability to keep up on a speed TF.

You didn't mention primaries so I'm not sure if you've already got one in mind or not, but I'd recommend SS or Stone. Both have good AoE and mitigation tools to help out with keeping you on your feet. Both have good ST damage for the AVs and bosses on TFs.

I vote Dark Armor.

All of it's holes can be plugged through IOs.

It starts with resists but has defense. You can layer more defense on that and combined with the heal, you'll be amazingly survivable. End drain resistance and +perception are there too. Psi damage will never be a problem for you either.

Thanks for the great suggestions so far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silas You didn't mention primaries so I'm not sure if you've already got one in mind or not, but I'd recommend SS or Stone. Both have good AoE and mitigation tools to help out with keeping you on your feet. Both have good ST damage for the AVs and bosses on TFs.

Currently I'm considering going fire. I've ran a Stone/WP to 50, but I've lost a lot of love for her when they significantly slowed down the animation times for most of the ST attacks, plus Tremor is very blarg.

I do like SS, though I initially avoided it as I was wary of having any chance of a rage crash occurring for a build that I wanted to be as sturdy as possible.

Invul ftw

challenge- Dark Armor

Boring set- willpower (yes its a evry boring set and is only good with IO's)

Medium- high - stone, i say medium cos of the very slow movement with rotted n granite making u take teleport as a power.

I am no brute expert, but was wondering why /elec has been left out of the mix? I know out of the box it does not really compete, but I have seen some exteremely survivable /elecs at end game with the right build.

Definitely Willpower. It just keeps getting better the more resources you throw at it. Especially if you play redside with the tougher mobs. On the plus side though, a well built one only needs a Therm and a small orange and purple to tank tough content.

Stone gives you Granite + a Kin and you're pretty much all set until you hit psi and need to dig up a few Dark corrs to cover that hole.

Dark is decent in increasing power with IOs and having lots of bases covered, but unlike all the other regen or resistance armor sets, it's lacking an endurance recovery power, so it's got a huge hole that IOs can't really fill even with a ToE in Dark Regen. Although adding a Kin usually solves this, the horrible Energy resists for the 3rd most common damage type in game makes this a better option for a Tanker than a Brute.

Shield is a better option than Invul IMO because of the positional defense covering for part of the Psi hole and better DDR. Again, a bigger issue redside than blueside due to the preponderance of Arachnos and Longbow.

Just an update: I've decided to go forward with a Fire/Dark brute. Invuln was definitely tempting and perhaps the safest choice, but now I'm also curious with just how much I can push Dark. Thanks to everyone that responded.