DM/FA Dark Fire Brute Build for Critique

I would appreciate any comments on my below build for a dark/fire brute. I've been fiddling with the build for quite a while, but now that my brute is approaching 50 I need to finalize the build. I felt very squeezed for slots and everything was a tradeoff.

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A lot of slots where i wouldnt use them. And soul drain NEEDS more. Looks like you wanted to be within 1 purple of s/l/e/n soft cap?

I agree. with both points. As I said, I am looking at this build as a starting point. My final version will be different.

One thing I noticed is that Fire has no debuff resistance for defense. Should I even run the get defense dog and pony show when I will be looking at that much nerf in high end trial/tf?

I was thinking instead as running this as a fat blapper, with a lot more room for making ugly mistakes. Just getting a bunch of attacks and coming in hard (and always avoiding the alpha)

Lastly, I know resistance is the ugly stepvchild to defense, and I know why. Still gotta ask, should I (could it even be done to a significant degree?) consider trying to get resistance up on this beast? After all with a heal in both offense and defense whatever doesnt kill him quick goes away fast.

Defense debuffs are only heavy in ITF. There are a few critters per spawn that can debuff outside of ITF, but it isn't as much of a problem.

Set bonuses do not provide significant resistance and are not worth chasing. Defense is the only method of increasing survivability by any noticeable amount on all but Electric Armor and Stone Armor for Tankers only. Everyone else needs defense to survive longer.


Looking at the OP's build, Soul Drain should have two recharge IOs instead. It provides a significant damage bonus. Losing the Rectified Reticle set will not drop defense below 32.5%.

Once i got soft capped on my /FA def debuffs because a non issue. Attacks have such a small tohit a critter will be dead long before they can get a single attack to hit. Not to mention dark oblit (from soul) has AoE -tohit with is pretty much extra def. DM/ does an even better job by adding a ton of this for ST taking care of bosses which, with such epic AoE, are the only things that cause any possible threat at all in an average mob. Imo you wanna build /FA for survivability, still get some +rech of course, its offence is just that awesome already.