I want to roll some new Brutes: /FA /Claws /ElecArmor... Need advice on combos
By
Angelxman81,
Posted on: 2011-10-26 06:35 in Brutes
When played in an "average" way, scrappers do slightly more damage, and brutes are slightly more survivable.
But the most notable difference is that as a brute, you must chase fury to do damage. If that's not your cup of tea, go the scrapper way. But fury also means you'll have a much smoother leveling experience because scrappers do crap damage until 3 damage SOs in their attacks, while brutes can just slot acc and end redux and be fine.
A big plus for brutes, however, is that all of their secondaries have a taunt aura, while only /WP, /Inv, /SD and /EA have a taunt aura on scrappers. And without a taunt aura... lets just say that in teams you'll go nuts if you like AoE and don't have a good tank by your side. You'll also farm noticeably slower.
Regarding StJ... /FA is the squishiest secondary, and /ElA is somewhat better in that regard. Not among the top survivability secondaries, but noticeably more survivable than /FA. /FA does much more damage though, so it's up to you. But if you don't have much experience with melee toons, I'd advise against going /FA without a primary with great mitigation.
Some synergies for /FA, for example:
- DM/ will increase your survivability via Siphon Life and give you another end management tool. /FA will on the other hand fill the gap in its AoE capabilities and the two will produce some decent AoE (Soul Drain + Fiery Embrace + Burn + patron AoEs) and terrific ST damage.
- Katana will greatly increase your survivability via Parry by letting you soft-cap melee defense. It can also produce some nice single-target DPS. AoE will be poor unless you take the two Mu Mastery AoEs in which case it becomes decent.
- SM/ will also greaty increase your survivability via Fault and a bucketload of knockdown. You'll have great ST damage, but your AoE will be poor (no patron AoEs) to average (with patron AoEs).
- SS/ is the ultimate damage combo for /FA - a SS/FA brute is the single most damaging melee toon in the game. You'll be squishy without a very expensive build though.
- WM/ is another set that will nicely increase your survivability (100% chance of knockdown on 10 targets in its T9, a 100% mag 3 stun in its best ST attack, and a smattering of stun and KD in the other powers) while giving you great ST and AoE damage output.
Other primaries I wouldn't pair with /FA because they either don't provide enough mitigation to justify their offensive contribution, or are inferior to one of the above-mentioned sets (for example BS/ and BA/).
On the other hand, I could see pretty much anything paired with /ElA because it has quite better survivability.
I want to roll a StJ... Not sure if pairing it with /FA or /Elec Armor
A /Claws, maybe with /SR, or something with a taunt aura. /FA and /Elec Armor are options too...
Im so confused between primaries, secondaries and choosing between Scrapper or Brutes.
I always made some weird combos in the past, like MA/FA scrapper and Elec/Elec scrapper... Need to roll out some combos with good synergies and the right archetype to get better performance.
Thanks in advance.