tl,dr
All around, fire/fire tanks are better than brutes, because they get moar AOE's to leverage reactive from, and are MUCH MUCH more durable when not popping candy.
In my experience, ss/fire brutes are the only melee toon consistently faster than a fire/fire tank (a little), but they pay for it with considerably more fragility. Now, they are still not delicate! They're just less tough than the tank.
Inside farms, ss/fire brute. All around, fire/fire tank.
Does it matter? Totally up to you.
1. It depends on what you want your brute to do. If you are exclusively doing fire farms, then you can rely on purple inspirations to be your defense while your 90% fire resist takes care of the rest. This allows you to optimize all IO sets on recharge. Some go for 32.5% defense vs. fire (one small purple inspiration from the soft cap) to reduce the dependency on purple inspirations--which still leaves lots of room to build up recharge. For an all-round build that can do more than just fire farms, you'll want at least 32.5% defense to smashing/lethal and perhaps to other damage types too. Again this will still leave you with room for a decent amount of recharge.
2. If you have a seamless attack chain, then there is no need for low damage filler attacks. It is really easy to get and maintain 60+ fury.
3. Some brutes never take taunt. Those that do tend to save it for the late 40s--you likely don't want the undivided attention of every enemy until you have set IOs anyway. The power takes some decent sets if you have the slots to spare.
4. I tend to jump in and make things dead--I'm not sure how much that helps. By the time you have IO sets and such, you can easily take the hits. When grouping, if I don't think I can handle a sustained beating from all the enemies, I will wait a few seconds before using all my AE abilities, which lets the Mastermind pets or whatever take a few of the hits. If I think I can handle the beating, I start right in with my AE attacks, happily drawing the attention.
Quote:
1. You want enough def to keep you alive, then as much +rech as you can get. generally at least 32.5% s/l|
Originally Posted by Ukaserex
1. In my mind, recharge = damage. Is defense a better thing to build for? Let fury do what it's designed to do and build for defense?
2. Are brawl, punch and kick commonly used to build up fury? They have quick recharge off the top, use little end and help to build the fury bar.. 3. When in the life of the brute do you fit taunt in the build? I was level 25 on a moonfire taskforce, and kept looking on my power tray for taunt, and I hadn't picked it for some reason. Other powers seemed more critical. (tough, weave, fire sword circle...) 4. If I'm going to play a brute - I should not play it like a tank, unless there is no tank on the team....right? The game has definitely changed. Only very rare occasions make a tank necessary for success. A tank just covers up a teams weak spots, in a way. Does a brute just play like a scrapper? |
2. They are useful during the lower lvls, not so much afterwards. The thing is, people attacking you builds most of your fury. Adding brawl into an attack chain can lower DPS if you are IOed.
3. This depends, i do think you do want it though. 4 slotted mocking is really awesome. It it also a great utility for getting ranged critters to come closer, so you can then light them on fire.
4. You should find yourself tanking, but not because you are actively trying to keep aggro off of the "squishy" toons. You want aggro on you to build fury and create as many dead bodies as possible. As a brute it is more important you keep up the dmg, as we all know dead things do no dmg. You killing stuff NOW means both you and your team are safer.
If you want to be a brute i would recommend SS/ over fire. On tanks FM is better as they get 2 PBAoEs. But broots only get the one either way, and SS gets the epicness that is rage.
"I have ridden the mighty moon worm!"
-Al Gore
Fiery Aura is only good for farming, I'm cereal
@Caucasiafro
Thanks! Given the info, I guess I'll stick with my tank. Far safer to chew reds than to have to chew purples and oranges.
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase
Quote:
1. Kind of? The most important thing to get out of your recharge is an attack chain that you're happy with. That requires a certain amount of recharge, which varies from set to set and by the character's purpose. Most build for perma-Hasten by default and then go from there. Spiritual alpha helps a LOT here and is my general recommendation for Alpha slotting, barring a strong case for something else.|
Originally Posted by Ukaserex
1. In my mind, recharge = damage. Is defense a better thing to build for? Let fury do what it's designed to do and build for defense?
2. Are brawl, punch and kick commonly used to build up fury? They have quick recharge off the top, use little end and help to build the fury bar.. 3. When in the life of the brute do you fit taunt in the build? I was level 25 on a moonfire taskforce, and kept looking on my power tray for taunt, and I hadn't picked it for some reason. Other powers seemed more critical. (tough, weave, fire sword circle...) 4. If I'm going to play a brute - I should not play it like a tank, unless there is no tank on the team....right? The game has definitely changed. Only very rare occasions make a tank necessary for success. A tank just covers up a teams weak spots, in a way. Does a brute just play like a scrapper? |
2. Not once you get out of the earliest levels. Brawl is a nice Fury generator early on, because it costs no endurance. Once you get into your 20s or 30s, you shouldn't have to bother much with lesser attacks. I'd never use Boxing or Kick, too much endurance for too little damage.
3. Depends on the Brute and how you want to play it. For my Brutes, I tend to slap Taunt in when I don't have a better choice staring me in the face. That usually ends up somewhere in the 20s. I've put off Boxing/Tough/Weave on some builds until 44/47/49 before, just because I knew I wasn't going to have max defense outside of 47th level (due to exemplaring and loss of set bonuses).
4. What's important to the team is that spawns are tightly packed for AOEs and that aggro focuses on something that can take the damage. Brutes love Fury and enemy attacks feed Fury, so the more aggro you can get (up to the point where you start dying), the better. You'll often out-aggro team Tankers due to the damage differential, which is fine, as long as you can survive it. Having more than one aggro-hound on a team just means that your team won't sweat it when multiple large spawns pop up near each other. Scrappers have lower survivability than Brutes and many lack taunt auras, so they aren't necessarily the best comparison to Brutes.
My gaming has made a progression from playing an electric blaster so completely lacking in how to slot, I was slotting for ED before it was ever heard of. The lack of success with that toon led me to play an empath/electric defender, assuming that the heals would allow me to survive what the blaster could not.
While this was an error filled assumption, teaming got me through the rough spots, and teammates would wonder why I would not have fort, or clear mind at level 30. Because they didnt' help me kill anything. And so, the education began...
I was more than happy to roll an ice blaster, and that led me to a fire blaster, whose secondary led him into melee...alot. It was a lot of fun in melee. Especially Fire Sword Circle. But, even with a purple inspiration, that sometimes was not enough to survive in melee. It was fun, but there's something about a fire tank, executing the same maneuvers (admittedly with less damage) but surviving it.
I love my fire tank. She needs a respec, and there are several things I've learned to make her better.
And so, in my global channels, I see a conversation about brutes and a 675% damage cap.....how damage % goes up as the fighting continues.
I hear that the fire/fire tank is no longer the speediest, most survivable killing machine. (if it ever truly was -opinions will vary) I hear super strength/Fiery Aura Brutes are now the flavor of the month, so to speak.
In another thread, not wanting to thread jack, someone chimed in that you can chase recharge or defense - not both.
Surely there is a balance - but is the balance the best way?
So much depends on play style- - farming or teaming - or both.
So, I rolled a fire/fire brute. I'm familiar with the powers, so I figured I could adjust to the differences between brute and tank.
Not getting burn until level 28, though - that hurt my feelings.
I am familiar with Mids. Though I tend not to use it to plan an entire build, but just to compare IO sets, not the bonuses.
Is it true that a brute with high recharge will by default have lower defense?
I had rolled a kin/shield brute, and he sits at level 40 in dire need of a respec, but he'll wait until I more fully understand this battle between recharge speeds and defense.
I have had toons that were high in defense before. Some mobs I could jump in the middle of and have a snack and they'd barely been scratched when I resumed paying attention. Others, even with the same defense, I'd get debuffed and just clobbered - in seconds. Longbows were really good at that.
I think that to play a brute well, it would require some ability to survive long enough to get fury as high as I can so that I can clobber things faster - before they clobber me.
So - my questions before this expert panel - (aimed specifically for a fire/fire brute)
1. In my mind, recharge = damage. Is defense a better thing to build for? Let fury do what it's designed to do and build for defense?
2. Are brawl, punch and kick commonly used to build up fury? They have quick recharge off the top, use little end and help to build the fury bar..
3. When in the life of the brute do you fit taunt in the build? I was level 25 on a moonfire taskforce, and kept looking on my power tray for taunt, and I hadn't picked it for some reason. Other powers seemed more critical. (tough, weave, fire sword circle...)
4. If I'm going to play a brute - I should not play it like a tank, unless there is no tank on the team....right? The game has definitely changed. Only very rare occasions make a tank necessary for success. A tank just covers up a teams weak spots, in a way. Does a brute just play like a scrapper?
I'm very comfortable with the hero ATs. I knew what to expect of each, and what was expected of me. But with the villain ATs, I'm not that familiar. It seems as if there are no hard fast rules of thumb. For those of you that team with your brutes with tanks on the team - what role do you take? Just run in next to the tank and start scrapping? or make your own little pile of baddies to wipe out? Is it really as simple as just doing what I feel like doing?
Yeah, blasters can be long winded. Particularly this one. I appreciate your time.
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase