I have a few lvl 50 brutes - dm/wp, ss/fa, wm/sd, and a lvl 45 sm/ela. The /sd seems to be nearly as survivable as the /wp to me, meshes well with wm/, and addes extra damage from aao and SC. The active defense is nice to have too. I really like the combo. My ss/fa does more damage, but is much squishier.
Both will work well, and both should be equally tough with an anything-goes-except-purples build. You'll have less endurance trouble with WP, and you'll have more damage with SD.
WP will be much smoother for leveling though.
/SR: You will get to soft cap quite fast but you will be really unable to tank some mob groups/AVs. Its cool for Scrappers but imo has too much weaknesses if you end up being the only tank in a group with high demands.
/SD SD is great, specially on a brute with has a large damage cap. Overall its very endo hungry and doesnt feel very tough at the low levels. But once you have a 2 billion build with caped def and caped DDR it extremely efficient. Of course like all defense based sets you might encounter problems on soem mob groups but overall its very much more versatile than /SR. And brings fair AoE and aggro on AAO is huge.
/INV Inv is amazing, certainly the best pure tanking set for a Brute (since I find Granite armor very counter productive toward fury and damage hybridity in general.) Tho it doesnt bring any damage and WM somewhat lacks on both ST and AoE damage. If you dont plan on solo/farm much and you expect your teamate to cover the AoE job it will be a great combo (Fireball, Mu lightning ball or Dark Oblit in addition to Judgement will make you less inneficient on the AoE table but it is still nothing compared to Shild Charge or Burn).
/FIRE is very less squishy than I hear around. Fire built for defense is actually very resilient. And the damage it brings is just freaking awasome. Blazing Aura is the highest damage aura, Burn is the best AoE brutes have access to (no really, its huge) and Fiery EMbrace is the only build Up like power that goes over damage cap.
Tho there is no good color to remove the fire armor effects and if you dislike the cosmetic aspect or concept it will drive you crazy after a while.
Overall I would say even if its maybe the least defensive (also I find SR and WP less versatile at high level of IOing) you dont lose much on this aspect compared to the crazy damage boost you get.
/EA If you are talking energy armor I have no idea, the Stealth armor always confuses me for a tanking AT. If you are talking Elec Armor its quite impressive. It has damage aura, passive recharge (therefore is more offensive than Inv), crazy good recovery/sap options, descent heal. Probably the most interesting part is that its a secondary with very good resistance to very commun damage type in the high end part of the game: S/L, Energy, Psy. If you only consider Incarnate Trials and lvl 50 TFs (mostly Apex) and you build it for defense, its probably the best tank you can find.
On the cosmetic part its not very intrusive besides the electric field under your feets.
/WP is good, great for early recovery tools at low levels and very independant. The problem I have with WP it the break point. You ll be most of the time completely unkillable unless... you are not. I mean, if you are fighting mobs that does less damage than you heal back you are fine, if you reach the break point you feel VERY squishy. And on trials or Apex I feel I reach the break piont very often. If you have no problems playing with insp and poping some oranges time to time it is a good set. I d also like to add that threat generation is very underperforming compared to /FA, /Inv or /SD.
I myself have a WM/WP Brute at lvl 32, but am enjoying him a lot! He really brings a SMASH-impression on ya, so you got green light from me to reroll as WM/WP 
The main problem I can see in the build is that the dude here isn't very fond of too much high burst damage, as he ain't got THAT much res, meaning that his survivability also is based a lot on RttC, but I trust you know of these issues if you've played him as a Tank ;P
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Quote:
WM actually has Solid AoE capabilities with Whirling Mace, Shatter & Crowd Control.|
Originally Posted by Nightchill_EU
Tho it doesnt bring any damage and WM somewhat lacks on both ST and AoE damage.
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Shatter actually hits so hard that if you have enough recharge (and recovery) you want it in your ST chain.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by
I am trying to decide if WP is really the secondary I want.
My other choices would be: /SR (I love my SR scraps but never tried it on a brute) /SD (I've never really tried it... kind of doesn't suit the character but I could live with him carrying a sewer lid perhaps) /INV (I have an INV tank and he's nigh unkillable, but will I be as happy with an Inv Brute?) |
Out of those I would drop SR from the list.
Invuln & WP will give you fairly similar results, having played both on Tankers I think you probably already understand the differences.
I like my WM/SD Brute - SD gives higher damage through AAO, another AoE in Shield Charge, a super strong taunt aura & relatively easy to softcap.
Here is a no Purples/PvP IO WM/SD/Energy Build.
Be sure to turn Accolades and Incarnate (Cardiac Core Paragon) on.
Code:
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EDIT: I forgot to mention, in the build above you could most likely drop Superior Conditioning for Maneuvers, slot it with 2 Cytos and then use the added defense to swap out some sets and grab some more Recharge or +HP or whatever.
I love my War Mace/Shield Brute. She was cheap enough to soft-cap as I leveled up (and this was without a lot of alignment merits too). Somewhere on these boards, I had asked for a budget build for her and Twilight Snow came through with a really nice, soft-capped to all 3 positions, and really cheap build. I believe the thread is titled "WM/SD "Budget Build"", or something like that. I'll see if I can find it.
My brute is now my main go-to incarnate. She can hold agro great when there's not a tank in the team and she can tank just fine (indefinitely with support, or without support for short periods), she can do enough burst single target damage to put problem minions out of their misery (thanks Clobber), has no problems with sustained DPS, and she has a plethora of AoEs, that if properly targeted, she can contribute just fine in an AoE fest.
I ended up going Spiritual for my Alpha slot. I found that with Stamina, Physical Perfection, and Superior Conditioning, my endurance usage was just fine. I believe that what really did the trick was that I slotted my attacks with set IOs relatively early (in the early-mid 30's for most of them). That's all it took to go from "tedious" to "okay with the occasional blue in sustained fighting".
I'll reply again with a link if I find the build.
Ah-ha! Here's the link.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=246450
Great replies,
Thanks guys!
Since I've not given Shield a fair shake before, I think I'll go that route and see how it goes.
I really appreciate the input!
Hi Folks
I had a WP/WM Tank that I've decided to re-roll as a Brute because I want a bit more SMASH.
I'm a Scrapper lover who is now giving Brutes a whirl since I can bring them blueside.
Shield was not available at the time when I made him back in the day.
It actually suits the character concept for him to be a little bit less survivable (he's a bit of an overweight, natural-type bruiser.)
I still want to be able to survive... and I'm pretty set on having Warmace as my primary for concept.
I'd like a somewhat minimal effect secondary (which is why I chose WP originally).
I plan to use IOs but not Purples or PVPs - I IO out too many toons to be spending primo inf on each of them.
He's not going to be a farmer or PVP toon - regular content, TFs.
I am trying to decide if WP is really the secondary I want.
My other choices would be:
/SR (I love my SR scraps but never tried it on a brute)
/SD (I've never really tried it... kind of doesn't suit the character but I could live with him carrying a sewer lid perhaps)
/INV (I have an INV tank and he's nigh unkillable, but will I be as happy with an Inv Brute?)
/FIRE (Last resort... having character enveloped in flames doesn't really work... but I could maybe convince myself if I really had to)
/EA (I... know nothing of this set)
I have a SS/Elec 50, and I'm running a Claws/DA brute right now so I didn't include those as options.
Which of these would pair best with WM?
I know I'd be happy with most any of them and it's a bit of a personal choice...
but I'm having trouble deciding... and maybe some insight from the kind people of the boards (and those of you who are not-so-kind lol) will give me some inspiration or get me to think about it in a different light. It seems like WP and SR are the front-runners, but a strong (and pretty) enough argument could perhaps convince me otherwise.
Thanks gang!
SBD