Brute Maturity

After playing a Brute for about a week I am curious about something. When do Brutes typically come into their own? I know that each AT has a time when it just comes into its own and I have find those on the ATs I have played, but being completely new to Brutes I haven't really found it yet.

Granted my Brute is only level 29, but I am finding that she isn't as sturdy as I assumed she would be. I know when my Spines/Willpower Scrapper was level 29 a long time ago it was already into its own, but I am not having that same feeling with this Brute. It could be my complete lack of AoE which I will have at level 32, but it seems like she just drops way too quickly unless I used insps or have a healer of some kind around.

Is this typical of Brutes or just SS/Willpower for Brutes?

I usually find my brutes are rolling once they get stam, or the moment I get QR in the case of WP.

Are you saturating your RttC? WP is a very sturdy set when the conditions are right, unless you are simply biting off way more than you can chew.

I'm sure it has more to do with biting off more than I can chew beacuse at the moment she can't handle +1 x7 (comparatively I had my Scrapper exemp down and did those same settings and he was completely fine, but he also has area of effect damage where as this Brute is all single target until I get to 32 to take Foot Stomp.

I am going to try to see if she can handle +1 x4 in a moment. I never solo, but I like to use high spawns as a test for what my Willpower characters or any melee characters can handle.

I actually did a quick respec and took Tough and she is a lot nicer with that added smashing/lethal resistance.

I think once I get Foot Stomp I should be good or at least I hope so. I don't use IO sets until level 37 (she's loaded with level 30 commons at the moment) and that is when I know she will be nasty.

Endurance has never been an issue on this character, recharge on the other hand is a pain in the rear.

I'm playing 3 new brutes right now (claws/WP, SS/FA and BA/ELA) and they all feel a bit different as far their maturity in the context of their respective levels.

The claws/WP has been a beast as far as leveling speed goes. The last time I checked at it had only taken me 33 hours to get to level 34. That's all solo play, no PLing. I was running -1/x7 at level 28. WP is a great compliment to claws' early and awesome AoE (Spin) and the fast charging attacks, backed up Hasten, turn it into a buzz saw. I have so far are SOs in the build.

The SS/FA has been pretty good, leveling speed wise, but no where near what the claws/WP is capable of. I've played SS before so I know it's a slower road to Foot Stomp at 32. I'm excited about the i18 changes to FA because Burn will now become a very usable AoE. I just picked up Tough at lvl 30 (I'm now halfway through lvl 31) and it helped a lot with survivability. I'm also starting to drop in some Franken-sets to maximize my lack of slots so far.

The BA/ELA was really slow until I respec'd it (at level 23) to drop Swoop for Whirling Axe. I just prefer to have 2 single target attacks and 1 AoE as soon as possible.

Yep - Tough is a big help. I neglected it at first as well - to my detriment.

As for coming into its own, my SS/WP didn't really have an issue wtih that
although there were some distinct "phases" he went through.

Early (L1 - L25)

* I built for End and Acc, and let Fury handle the damage side.
* Also, I found out the early importance of S/L Resist and Regen after
having a lengthy "numbers" discussion with a friend of mine (by which time
I needed a respec to fix it).

Those two factors really helped the early going (esp when that friend
wanted to run the L19 Zig mission in Ouros repeatedly for fun and merits).

In fact, it was that situation which prompted the discussion (& respec)
because I hadn't considered survivability (point 2) well enough initially
until we did that. The respec (which included Tough along with other
tweaks) made a Big difference.


Mid-Level (L25-L40):

* Fully slotted attacks (with the sets I wanted)
* All the Heals and End powers
* HP Accolades & specialty IO's

From about L25 to L40 (he's at L37 or so now) this has been his focus.

Early, he was survivable and playable. Boost the HP (he's over 2000 now),
the damage output, along with sets, set bonuses, and specialty procs (he
has a couple LotG's, and the Numi, Miracle and Regenerative Tissue procs)
and now he is survivable AND lethal. As I mentioned elsewhere, he's now
my 2nd toughest AT from a rather large collection of alts.

In PvE, he has to actually do crazy-stupid stuff to die -- he can literally
stand in a pack of mobs that would kill most (if not all) of my other alts
and be completely immune... He can (and has) brawled them to death -
just for the amusement of it (at least, I found it really amusing)

For me, this guy IS mature in a build-sense at this point.


High Level (L40+):

* FootStomp
* Finish slotting to reach Mid's maximum regen, resist, def, HP
* See what he can do...

Right now, he's still Single Target focused. He's virtually indestructible, but
I lament not having the AoE yet, so he is still a bit "slow" at killing riff-raff.

He's got most of his survivability handled, but there's stilll some slotting to
do, and some of the benefit will come from L50 Purple/PvP IO's I have waiting
for him when he hits L50.

At that point, I want to see how he does with the "crazy" things like AV's,
GM's etc. I want to plop him into some PvP zones just for fun (he's not a
PvP toon, I have Stalkers and Blasters for that, but still...).

I started him originally due to a PvP player who has one. His approach to
PvP (while ineffective in many ways) amused the heck out of me, to the
point where I decided to build this guy to do the same thing.


So, as usual, another long-winded answer from me but in terms of the
original issue, I always found this guy to be "in his own" from the get-go
(if a bit sub-optimal initally), although there have been some distinct phases
where that term had different nuances.

Unlike some AT's I've played, this guy has been fun from minute one.


Regards,
4

I guess my problem is that I am spoiled when it comes to melee characters because my Scrappers and Tankers have all been matured pretty much as soon as I started playing them, but for some reason I am not getting that same performance from this character.

Since I am new to Brutes I think I need to just adjust to playing them because they do not play like Tankers or Scrappers, at least SS/WP doesn't and then I will be fine in the long run. I know that once I get her to 32 and then 37 she will be nice. Right now regeneration is just not what I want it at or what I am used too with Scrappers and Tankers using the same set.

I think your suffering from slightly rosy glasses. /WP brutes are going to be stronger defensively then a scrapper because they have higher base HP, and that is what really matters for /WP.

Now comparing Spines to SS, you are going to see a difference there. Spines gets a good portion of it's AE damage early. So when fighting at higher settings with bigger spawns, you are going to do better on a Spines then a SS pre-32. Super Strength has no AE until footstomp. Once it has footstomp it does just great, but until then, it's really a single target powerset. So if you are comparing SS pre 32 and Spines pre 32, you are definitely going to see a big difference.

The maturity of any SS character is based on Rage and Footstomp. Up until you get both, it's an underperforming set. Rage should've been available to a Brute at 18 and you'll get Footstomp at 32. It could be worse: you could be a Tanker waiting until 28 & 38, respectively.

True it coule have been worse being a Tanker and waiting much longer and that is the main reason why I went with a Brute rather than a WP/SS Tanker even though the Tanker in the end would have been a lot nastier in terms of survival due to the higher health and regen factor.

She hit 33 today and her survivability increased drastically with Foot Stomp and slotting of the power. Now that I have hits the 30s it will be nice to finally be able to slot up powers with some damage to add to Fury and Rage.

I have to wonder exactly what you would consider a mature toon, before I can give any kind of reasonable response. But without it I will say a few things.

I have 3 SS/WP brutes, not just because I like the set, but I built each to do different things. Never mind, all the other attacks except energy and fire, pair with /WP as well.

My goal with one, was to be able to handle most TF's but especially the ITF and RSF.

Recently the group I tend to run with, let me be main taunt bot for both. And I did not seem to have that many issues. But then I was backed up by quality peeps that knew what to do and how to make my job easy.

So..I would call that build mature.

As I leveled that one up, I remember being happy with 0 x 5 settings, until I had Footstomp fully slotted and then upping things to +2 x 6.

But I am found the best time to be a SS/WP was after getting and slotting Darkest Night. That single power seems to help take the set over the top in the kinds of things it can pull off.

What I noticed is that much of the time, Rage is helpful, but really, Fury helps more. I would rather build that up and leverage its force multiplier until I was going up against hard to hit bosses or those annoying hard to hit at times Rikti Drones.

I got used to that play style and it served me well. Good luck.