Help me choosing Tank/Brute

Hi,

I usually play ranged/support/control characters, but lately Ive been thinking on making some meleers, since I also enjoy being there and protecting the squishies

I want two characters:

One will be Titan Weapon and Willpower.
The other will have Dark Armour and ???. Initially I was thinking on pairing it with Dark Melee, but I'm open to suggestions. No Fire, I already have a Fire/Fire tanker. It seems that DM is pure single target damage with just a cone for aoe

Now, I want at least one tanker. I dont mind if the other is another tanker, or a brute. I dont want a scrapper right now, although is not completely discarded. I like helping and protecting my team, thats why I thought on a Tanker first, but then I remembered that a Brute is also almost as tough as a Tank

What would you choose and why?

If slotting is going to be taken into consideration, budget is ample (but not unlimited). If I enjoy the character I will put almost anything there. Im not going to pay for damage purple sets or pvp ios which cost anyway from 400mill-2bill (at least, not yet). But anything below that is acceptable

I just went VIP recently, so not sure if I will incarnate them. That will depend on how much I enjoy them

So, what are your thoughts?

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I would go with a TW/WP Brute, and a Dark Armor/? Tanker.

Reasoning: Willpower is a bit lacking in terms of aggro control. Certainly, a good Tanker can hold aggro with it, but Willpower and TW as a combo seems like it would be better on a Brute, allowing you to keep attacking and keep momentum going with few click powers necessary.

Meanwhile, Dark Armor is great on a Tanker, providing a lot of mitigation (more than most give it credit for), but is costly in terms of endurance (pro-tip: get a Theft of Essence IO +End proc and slot it in Dark Regen as soon as you can). Dark Melee isn't a bad pairing with it. You get a cone, and two true AoE powers, that are just on longer timers. But one buffs your ToHit and Damage per enemy in range, and the other gives you endurance back for each for in range.

War Mace, Energy Melee, Martial Arts, and Kinetic Melee all have a few stuns in them that you can use to stack with Oppressive Gloom from Dark Armor to stun bosses, and a Dark Armor/Ice Melee toon is a melee controller.

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For DA I'd choose a tank (it's what I did). I picked KM for stacking stuns with OG and have a good time with it. I'd suggest a set that has stuns with it for that very reason (consistently stunning bosses makes for great mitigation of all that aggro you just grabbed). DM is good if you plan on getting CoF since you can stack fears on a boss that way, but CoF is a slot hungry power as is DR so I wasn't able to make it work on my build.

I have Ice/TW Tank and I'm really happy with it. The bruising T1 power is a cone that adds Defense. I'd argue it is the best T1 melee attack in the game. I actually don't like my Willpower tank though, but that could just be that I don't like willpower because you either succeed with it or get too much attention and die with it. Also, from my understanding the Taunt aura in it is bugged on tanks and better on brutes, so you may want to go brute on it.

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Thanks for your opinions! Already made my TW/WP brute, seeing that seems to be the right choice.

As for my DA/ Tank, I like the idea of MA, KM, DM. But im not sure how important will be having a end recovery skill, like the one in DM. This may be the seller for me, although I'm not sure about the damage capabilities of DM

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Some people seem to slot Soul Drain as an attack which might help. The Theft of Essence proc seems to be tailor made for Dark Regeneration in Dark Armor - no really, I can't think of any other power in the game that benefits more from that enhancement than Dark Regen.

...man, Dark/Ice tanks... that sounds crazy - fearing/stunning/falling enemies constantly everywhere.

..but I am thinking the opposite, that the tanker should be WP/TW and that the brute could be something else.

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