Shield tank, brute, or scrapper?

Hello friends. First things first:

/em seduction

Excellent...

*ahem*

I, a humble defender/corruptor/closet controller player, would like to try something different -- one of those melee thingers that run around slapping people whilst blasters find new and creative ways to die despite my very bestest attempts to keep them alive. I have him conceptually planned out but there are a few options available to me:

Fire/SD scrapper
SD/Fire tank
SD/SS tank
Fire/SD brute
SS/SD brute

I'm leaning heavily towards super strength, but fiery melee is also a conceptually viable option thanks to power customization. That said, the totality of my melee character experience involved rolling a stone/stone brute back in i11, getting all swoony over his costume for about three minutes, and then deleting him. I really have no idea which of these combinations are "the best" or if they're going to be slow going, painful characters to build up. Typically, I'm more of a solo player who will pick up a team from time to time.

Any advice on which path to follow is much appreciated.

It really depends on what you want to do with the character.

Tank: With one or two +Def powers from pools and a Steadfast Protection: Res/Def, you can be softcapped to all three positions. Your resistance values will be higher than the other two, and you'll have more hitpoints, so you will be nearly unkillable. Your damage will be lower than the other two, but Against All Odds will make it so that you have more damage than a tank with a different secondary. Adding Rage on top will make your damage even higher.

Scrapper: You'll have to work harder than a tank to softcap your defenses, and your Resists and HP will both be lower, so you'll feel the big hits a lot more than a tank will. You'll still be quite sturdy, especially if you do softcap your defenses. Your damage will be the highest of the three, and since damage buffs work off base damage, you will get the biggest +Dam buff from AAO of the three, though you won't have the option of taking Rage.

Brute: You have the same base defense and resist as the scrapper does. You have a higher resist cap than the scrapper, but neither of you are getting to the cap by yourself, so that's not a major consideration. Your HP are higher, so you're a little harder to kill than the scrapper, but not nearly as tough as the tank. Your base damage is lower than the tank's, but you have Fury, which pushes you up to scrapper levels of damage, before buffs start getting factored in. All buffs work off BASE damage though - including enhancements. The end result is that a brute gets way less benefit from +Damage buffs than a Scrapper will. On top of that, Scrappers have a higher modifier for damage buffs, so they get 25% more +Damage on Build Up and AAO than brutes do.
The Brute will still do huge piles of damage, but if you really start slotting for high-end performance, the scrapper will pull way ahead in damage, and the tank will do the same in survivability. The brute will remain the middle of the road for both.

Scrapper.

There's no question that Scrappers make the most of Shields. Their modifiers make Against All Odds amazing, and they aren't as hampered by the pet damage limit.

If you can get it soft capd, go scrapper. SC hits waaaay harder on a scrapper than a tank. Im not sure about a brute, but i think it outperforms their damage output also. No need to worry about agro, i can pull agro off of a tank with mine. And no need to worry about survival if you can soft cap it because youll kill them ALOT faster than they kill you at 0-+3x8.

AT depends on your attacks. If you go Elec/SD or Fire/SD, go scrapper. If you want SS/SD i'd go Brute for the extra damage from Fury. The faster you kill, the less you have to worry about not dieing.

Ive also seen a nice vid on youtube of a DM/SD scrapper. If you want to go that route. Not to mention it gets a heal for when their hits so land.

As I understand it, both fire melee and shield defense work better on scrapper than brutes because of the higher base damage numbers. Fire's dots don't benefit from fury, and the damage bonus from Against All Odds in Shield is applied to a brute's much lower base damage numbers. If you are considering the tank, then it is because you want the survivability and there the tank really is king.

But as stated by several, Super Strength is the top pick on brutes and it performs very nicely.

Personally, I prefer Fiery Melee to SS, mostly because I -hate- the rage crash with a passion (especially when solo, which is where I spend most of my time), but also because I always prefer dealing fire damage instead of smashing...

I'm also not a huge fan of the brute GOGOGO playstyle, even though I know a lot of people love it... Most primarily ranged and solo players I've seen (as I tend to think of myself and the OP indicates they might be too) tend to prefer a slightly more relaxed pace (actually, it's more like being cautious when being so squishy and alone) than what you feel compelled to do as a brute, especially when solo, where fury is harder to build and maintain (but still not so bad as it was before). As a consequence, my brutes remain at low level, while my tankers and scrappers thrive. I actually push forward hard and fast with the killing with all my character, including the squishies... I just don't like feeling FORCED to do that, or punished if I don't, and that's how fury feels to me. Very personal, I know, but I thought it was pertinent.

I'm currently working on a Fire/SD Scrapper (among other projects), and he's at level 36 or so, so I guess I can give you my impressions:

- His damage output is indeed sick! Very satisfying.

- He feels somewhat squishier than my other scrappers (including Dark and even Regen!, plus Willpower - I also have a invul scrapper, but he hasn't even reached SOs yet, so it's hard to compare). I haven't soft-capped his defenses yet (melee is around 40%, the rest is lower) and he has low DDR, his resists are not so great even with tough, and he has no self-heal (well, heal self, but that's interruptible), not even a healing attack as in Dark Melee nor any mitigation in the form of KD/KB or mez as in other melee primary sets (SS is better than Fire in this department). Willpower has no self-heal either, but the mad amounts of regen make it pretty much easy-mode regarding survival. I figure it will get much better when I'm soft-capped to everything, though.

- To reach the softcap to all positions as a scrapper (without spending too much), I ended up sacrificing some accuracy (including bonuses), end-mod and recharge on his single target attacks. A Kismet +6% to hit I got cheap helped a lot with the accuracy (and we do have a power who gets zero benefits when soloing from any enhancements, so it's the perfect place for that), and the hole in my ST attack chain is usually filled with the AoEs obliterating everything around the bosses (who also tend to die fast), so it's not too annoying most of the time, but it gets a little annoying with tougher targets. Endurance consumption I have to monitor closely sometimes (but that's nothing new to me, and I'm to cheap to buy the uniques that improve end recovery, even though I have the money)... I think I'll end up going cardiac with him, and trusting team buffs to help with my accuracy when fighting those +4s (pre level shift) that pop up in some of the high end content. I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't have gone as a tanker with him to get to the softcap with a more flexible build, despite the considerably lower damage...

He's still a ton of fun to play! So, to sum up, I would recommend a scrapper if you don't mind working a bit harder to get softcapped (or don't care much about being a bit squishier than other melee types) and like the sick damage, or a tanker if you wanna be tough as nails and do a bit less damage (but still above what many other tankers can put out). And I'd recommend Fire over SS unless you don't mind the rage crash. If you go SS, the mitigation from that would also make you feel more durable...

I have a level 50 SS/SD brute. I run him at +1/X8 with no problems, and he's a blast. Reaching the def soft-cap is of course much easier with a def based character, and it makes him very safe. He does use a fair amount of endurance, but since you can get +end Numina and Miracle for just 2 a-merits this was not much of a problem.

Yes


Any of the 3 will be enjoyable.

I've had aggro pulled off my Shield/Fire Tank before, even when I was spamming taunt. And I've pulled aggro off of Tanks with my Fire/Shield Scrapper. Shield Scrapper can steal aggro, even from Shield Tanks, just that if the Tank isn't bad, they'll be able to take it back.

I'm playing a SS/SD brute right now, and it is by far the funnest character I've played in a long time. His damage is flat-out unbelievable, and he's not as squishy as I thought he would be. The only downside is that he's a bit of an end hog, but as long as we're not fighting enemies that do end drain, it's not a big deal.

However, for someone who's going to be mainly soloing, I'd probably recommend a scrapper. Brutes tend to work best (IMO of course) on large teams where there are lots of buffs going around, and big juicy 8-man spawns worth of aggro to keep your fury bar and AaO topped up. The few times I've played my brute solo he wasn't nearly as fun.

Eh, I'd hardly call a couple of foes turning to take a pot-shot then turning back, 'pulling aggro off'. Especially when you consider you can only keep the attention of, like, 16 targets at once.

But even if the aggro of the foes in my aura fluctuates, the Tanker can still be covering your ****. Grant Cover on a Tanker also provides a bigger +def and defense debuff resist on the occasion the above happens.

It's why I actually built my Tanker to be a 'back-up support tank', he can provide melees and other tanks with around 19% defense + debuff resist (GC, Maneuvers and Grant Invisibility). I like having him follow other Tankers/Brutes into the fight but end up drawing the attention, either because of the taunt aura + attacking or some other weird reason I'm not aware of. I don't really know, I only have 2 Tanker characters so far.

All in all, I'd advocate Tanker Shields if only because, as a melee, it does 'enough' damage yet can be practically unkillable solo. And on teams, they can tank well or if there's already a tank, you can just support the other tank by sticking together.

If I had meant a couple of foes turning to take a pot shot before turning back, I'd have said so. I don't see how the aggro cap is germane since again, if I had meant random loose aggro caused by the Tanker being at the cap I would have said so.

I meant properly pulling aggro from the Tanker. For example, Scrapper and Tanker beating on Romulus. Tanker has aggro initially, then Rom turns to the Scrapper and focuses on him for the duration of the fight. I've seen it happen on many teams, including many where its been my Brute or Scrapper who has wrenched aggro off the Tanker.