Brutiest Brute?

Historically most of the men who would be considered Brutes tend to lack fear. Saddam Hussein, Brute, wasn't afraid to die to name one. I don't often care what Brutes do, if they ask a Dominator to go and attack Calistix first I lose respect for them.

For me, the brutiest of the brutes have to have screen shake.

Stone Melee and Superstrength provide this, but SS has periods where you don't do damage, which is as anti-brute as it comes.

If I was told I could only keep three characters, they would all be brutes. And they would be my stone melee/willpower, superstrength/fire armor, and fire/stone armor.

The first is tough as nails and hits like a truck. I built for recharge and max hp, not defense, so he's not as tough as he could be... but he can handle the War Zone Challenge and until the fury change could solo rikti pylons. That's tough enough for me.

The second is a pansy who dies as soon as enemies look at him (kinetic combats are too rich for my blood), but backed by a few inspirations (1000 inf on four lucks isn't) transforms into a raging flaming juggernaut of AoE destruction that spawns crash against and die in seconds to. Die. In a fire.

What the last lacks in screen shaking attack action he makes up for with shaking the screen every step and nigh invulnerable fire sword circle shennanigans. Plus he's so cranked for recharge that when there's a tanker on the team and I *don't* run in granite to 'tank' he turns the world to slag.

I get what the OP is trying to say.

Though I might disagree on Sonic/Sonic for defender (Cold/Sonic would work even better, but the OP might have concepts in mind as well).

For Brute...Super Strength/Fire Armor. It brings the SMASH with FIERY FURY!

When I think of a "Brute", I don't think of magical fire, or roiling clouds of
dark, underworld fumes, or a Mudslide Mountain come to life.

No sir.

I think of a mountain-like, biggest, baddest 400+ pound 6'8" NFL lineman
or a WWE wrestler, or humongous Russian Heavyweight Olympic Weightlifter,
hopped up on as many roids as he can eat, pounding you with a huge ham
fist into a thin gooey paste, all the while, laughing maniacially...

Something like Refrigerator Perry huge / Lawrence Taylor mean / James
Bond's - "Jaws" imposing, all rolled into one guy.

Yeah - I think of an SS/WP Brute... Now *that*, to me, is pure SMASH.


Cheers,
4

I don't see a lineman as a brute, they'd be more like a tank.
I'd say a linebacker fits my vision of a brute, combination of strength, mobility, and bad attitude.
So where's the scrapper? He's off on the sidelines trying to pretty himself up for the cameras. "Don't touch me, I'm softcapped."

When I think of the OP's description of a big dumb guy who does lots of damage and shrugs off hits, I think of WM/WP or WM/Inv. Take the Mace and choose either the baseball bat or sledgehammer customization. Now, THAT'S a Brute!

SS/SD. Go in with rage, stack it, footstomp and shield charge when rage is down and not care! That's a real brute.

Okay, my take on this. Looking at the original post, and he examples give, it is very clear the question is the ATest-iest-iestestest.

So what are brutes, how do the differ from tanks/scrappers. They are a trapper? They are a Scranker? Probably more a scranker. So, the problem occurs. In the setup question the premise is to ignore weaknesses and concentrate on doing the job at hand. But brutes are designed to not have any one great weakness, but to just not be the bestest at def/res/dam/control/etc. They charge into battle, surviving all but the riskiest crap, and turn that hate back at the enemy as damage.

Therefore the armor set must be Willpower. It is the best all around set, fitting the parameters of the not the bestest at anything, but darned good at its job.

Having set our defenses, we can look at our attack types. Since we are using will we have end to burn. Here choices will vary. For personal reasons I chose Strength. Other brute playas have their favorites.

In summary, in my opinion, the brutiest bruteness, the best match of the power set to the AT, goes to Willpower secondary, and choose your weapon up to the Brute.

I think this is more of a situation where you have the use the preconceived notions in your head vs what your idea of what an AT should be based on your experience.

For me, when I see the AT's name (example: blaster) I have an idea of what that AT should be based on (let's call it) word association.

Some examples:

Blaster: Ranged. Blammo! Dies easy.
Controller: Locks everything down with hard control.
Scrapper: Quick. Hard to hit.
Tank: The guy you hit in the face with a sledge hammer and he doesn't notice.
Defender: Someone who is more concerned with the lives of others. Buffing would be my suggestion here.

Corruptor: Debuffing mad man. "Corrupts" enemies - traditional warlock Archtype. I made a rad/dark for this concept.
Mastermind: Minions. Lots of them. Ineffective without the support of those minions. Very "hands off".
Stalker: Death from the shadows. Sneaky. Quiet.
Brute: The guy who you hit in the face with a sledge hammer, he notices, and you wet yourself.
Dominator: Complete and utter control of enemies. Deals out death in many forms, but always uses controls.

Using those above (and those are only my perspective), for the brutiest brute, I would suggest SS or WM as a primary. Then WP or Inv as a secondary.

The OP isn't looking for "wow! this is awesome!". He's looking for "Wow! That guy's a brute!"

When you say that in real life - do you say that because the guy is on fire? Or because he looks like he could pick up your car and take a bite out of it?

The OP's reasoning was similar to mine the first time I made a stalker. The sets don't make for the best stalker, but I feel like I got exactly what a stalker should be "conceptually". My EM stalker on the other hand just makes me feel silly every time he's hidden and his hands like up like Time Square when he starts his AS. "don't look at the bright glowie hands that are about to smash you in the face!"

Hey thanks guys, so I gone done away with my silly BA brute and went with a viking helmet wearing, power wrench wielding, underwear toting WM/WP brute and he is ultra brutey. Why is he WP? He's too dumb to die.But thanks all for the help

My 2 inf. I have a wm/wp brute named Little Mike who works for the mob as an enforcer. Picture this. A huge/heavy/tall bald guy with a tattoo on his head and a beard, wearing a dirty white wife-beater tank top with tattoos and jeans and motorcycle boots wielding a pipe wrench and hes angry

Having played many a brute (and having the largest group of my favorite toons be brutes and tanks) - Here's my two cents.

Axe/WP - He's Big, He's Bad, He cleaves masses of enemies mercilessly. Finally - Fiiiiinally, the masses manage to take him down.... And then he gets back up, charges in and the masses go flying as his axe slices through them.

Mace/WP - There the mob is enjoying their day - and WHAM - a giant, musclebound psycho with a mallet shows up and the picnic is over.

SS/FA - The screen shakes as the mobs melt.

The theme - Appears to be that WP epitomizes "Brutiest Brute" while also living up to it in game. Conceptually, Invuln would suit just as well depending on how you twist it. The idea being that bullets just don't stop the Brute. Stone could also play from the "zomg it's a giant stone golem of death come to smack us down!" perspective. Axe, Mace and SS seem to be the attack sets that "feel" amongst the most brutish. Fire melee is great damage and fits brutes conceptually as "Oh hey! DPS!" - but it lacks the high impact, screen shaking "HULK SMASH" That SS, Mace and Axe all have. Stone shares traits with these, but when I think "Brute" I think old skool WWF more than I think "manipulates element in really cool way". Grab a chair, smack the guy. No chairs? Grab a bat! No bat? Grab a shovel! No shovel? Grab an axe! NO AXE? Grab the enemy face and apply it to nearest splotch of pavement >_>

That's brutes in my logic. Brutiest brute? SS-Axe-Mace with WP/Invuln/Stone. Which one makes most sense? Depends what kind of brute. Any mix of those can be a monument of raging brutality - Pick your favorite and you're set.

I am lucky enough to hold the name Offense for a brute on Virtue, and I'll say I went with Super Strength/Fire for my idea of the Brute the epitomizes the AT and that name. I have other brutes of various powersets, but when I play Offense I really feel the power behind it.

A brute's job is not to hold aggro for other people, it is to charge in and SMASH! everything that even thinks about getting in his way. Mobs crowd around to take him down and he SLAMS his fist down into the ground, knocking them all down so he can LIGHT HIS OWN HANDS ON FIRE AND DRAW ON PURE RAGE to give a shoryuken uppercut so powerful the enemy goes up and has CEASED TO EXIST before they hit the ground. Defense? What's that? I AM ON FIRE AND ANGRY AND THAT IS MY DEFENSE.

Also, ninjas can't catch you if you're on fire.

Reaches down and scratches his balls. How bout them Bears? New TV show coming on this fall on G4 and the guy advertising's name is -Dude Manrod Grow a pair!
Thats what brutes are all about and it seems like regardless what set someone is playing they are having a ball doing so!! Woot!

Brutes to me are just tanks that toke one to many shots to the head. said F this and whent on a kill spree.

I know a small percentage of people grok what I mean when I say Tanks are controllers, with a very specialized way to control mobs, and built to handle the job.

Brutes are damage dealers, in quite a few cases edging out even what scrappers can do. (I give scrappers a respectful nod, but there is truth to this.)

I still give the brutiest bruteness title to the secondary Willpower, with most attack sets working. xxx/Willpower is playable when dead drunk, and it still does the job.

My new brute that I plan to run for a year and a half uses a lot more tricks (Dark/Invul), and would be a lot tougher to play dead drunk, too darn many decisions/tactics.

So, for shear stupid, mean, ornery SMASHtastic effectiveness. = "Strength/Willpower" IMO