Fiery Aura is fantastic on brutes. You give up a bit of survivability compared to some of the other brute secondaries, but with some investment it can be built to 'tank when it needs to'. However, depending on your definition of 'able to tank', you may find that chasing defense dominates the build and precludes building for very high recharge. (I use two builds on my /fa brute for this reason, one high-recharge, moderate defense, the second 43% s/l/e/n with low-ish recharge).
Electric melee, not so much, imho. Or, maybe just not my cup of tea. Lightning Rod gets hit with the 400% pet dmg cap (vs the much higher brute dmg cap). You mention possibly killing AVs in your goals- Elm has comparatively poor single target damage.
Brawl. Definitely. Brawl/SR or Brawl/WP. You'll love it.
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
For serious, ElM is great for taking out hordes of Minions and Lts, but when you get to those few Bosses, your ST damage is so anemic in comparisson that you'll just be praying that the blaster would kill the jerk already (and I personally LOVE ElM as it's my first 50's attack set and I still get giddy rolling through masses of enemies). If you go FA, you don't need much more AoE to ruin minions' and LTs' days, you'll want some good ST damage. For that I'd suggest StJ, DM, Stone, and SS. All those should give you that and will enjoy the damage from Fiery Embrace. You won't be the most survivable Brute without a big investment, but you are surviving by doing DAMAGE to those punks who thought to mess with you. The fools, FOOLS I TELL YOU muhahahahahaha!!!!! er....sorry. Yeah, that's my thoughts.
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Originally Posted by Neutral_Nexus
Okay, so my first experience with a brute was bad, I was a KM/EA brute before the new EA buff and well, looking at the sets with some new experience and research under my belt, those were very poor choices at the time and still sort of poor choices now even at level 50.
Right now I'm looking for a better brute, something that actually feels brutish and powerful to fight in a PvE scenario. My first thought immediately was Elec Melee/Fire Aura, the idea of a gigantic AoE spawn-killer felt like a lot of fun to me. But I've been wrong before, in fact I've made a lot of poor choices in powerset choices when making a new toon, and a brute is not something I like starting over with. My questions are simple if an ELM/FA brute would be an effective toon in most PvE content or should I be looking at other powersets? My goal for this new brute is trying to be a decently powerful, all-around brute for spawns, possibly AVs, can tank when he needs to, and possibly some PvP encounters with friends(Though this certainly isn't the focus). What powersets should I be looking at for this sort of thing? |
I really enjoy my kin/energy brute. I was at 49 when the changes took place... and oh my did it make a difference. It does well in the incarnate trials too.
YMMV---IMO
Ice Ember
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Due to the pet damage cap, Lightning Rod is most effective on a Scrapper. If you want to do electric melee, I'd point you at a scrapper.|
Originally Posted by Neutral_Nexus
My goal for this new brute is trying to be a decently powerful, all-around brute for spawns, possibly AVs, can tank when he needs to, and possibly some PvP encounters with friends(Though this certainly isn't the focus). What powersets should I be looking at for this sort of thing?
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Given that you want an all-round generalist, I'd point you at an 'opposites attract' build: Namely, a strongly defensive secondary combined with a strongly offensive primary, with balanced offense/defense epics and incarnates.
Specifically, I'd point you at a fm/wp/soul brute. It doesn't do the most damage. But it does a lot of damage. It isn't the toughest. But it is very very tough.
More importantly, it can do just about anything you want to, at a good clip. It has many internal synergies between the powers that serve to increase the power of the build steadily all the way through the leveling curve, while never being 'weak' at any point.
You will like it.
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That's exactly what I was looking for, something simply versatile enough to adapt to any situation. I don't need to be the best in my group, just good enough so I'm helping out my team. |
Originally Posted by mauk2
Due to the pet damage cap, Lightning Rod is most effective on a Scrapper. If you want to do electric melee, I'd point you at a scrapper.
Given that you want an all-round generalist, I'd point you at an 'opposites attract' build: Namely, a strongly defensive secondary combined with a strongly offensive primary, with balanced offense/defense epics and incarnates. Specifically, I'd point you at a fm/wp/soul brute. It doesn't do the most damage. But it does a lot of damage. It isn't the toughest. But it is very very tough. More importantly, it can do just about anything you want to, at a good clip. It has many internal synergies between the powers that serve to increase the power of the build steadily all the way through the leveling curve, while never being 'weak' at any point. You will like it. |
Thanks, I think I'll give that a shot!
I second the vote for Fire/Willpower.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
Titan weapons/Willpower kicks butt if you can manage to score some defense.
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
If you want to feel brutish and like an active playstyle go for stone melee / fiery aura. Take hasten asap, throw in an endred into your heavy hitters and damage aura. Done.
I have a super str / electric armor brute that feels like diet coke (yes even after footstomp) compared to the sm/fa.
Violence has its own economy. Therefore, be thoughtful and precise in your investment.
Take a look at Dark/Fire-
Survivability out the yingyang and a decent meatgringer if you avoid clunkers like Shadow maul. Seriously, you get 2 self-heals, 2 End Recovery powers, a great self-buff and as others have said, Fiery Aura is crazy good on a Brute.
You won't be throwing out HUGE damage numbers like SS or TW.... but you will be CONSTANTLY tossing out damage.
"Well, there's going to be some light music and a short note of apology saying, 'The universe ended last week, we're really sorry, we don't know what you're doing here, didn't you get the message?'"- Steve Moffat
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I've heard that Dark Armor Sucks on a Brute.
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Originally Posted by Neutral_Nexus
My goal for this new brute is trying to be a decently powerful, all-around brute for spawns, possibly AVs, can tank when he needs to, and possibly some PvP encounters with friends(Though this certainly isn't the focus). What powersets should I be looking at for this sort of thing?
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Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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I've been playing Claws/Dark Armor, inspired by what I've read by Dechs... It has far surpassed my expectations. I modified his build to accommodate something a little more "level" friendly:|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
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My go-to Brute for years was SS/Invul. I have solo'd Redside with it. I currently am soloing Blueside with it (stalled at 34). it works great solo. It works great on teams. It can Tank using just SOs and a little inspiration mgt. It feels powerful, it feels "Brutish". Built right it is completely unstoppable, and has vicious ST and punishing AoE. Granted, it has limitations. To get you one attack AoE up regular requires global recharge. To deal with Rage crash requires Global Recharge. More S/L defense always helps, and End mgt is an area needing love. But I ran a SS/Invul on SOs for a year before I knew crap about builds (I know not much more now, but I steal glances at smart people's builds) and the thing felt very powerful. Enjoy.
I am running a DA/WM and having fun with it. Its in the high 20's so far. Its a bit end heavy but I dropped the miricle proc in it and is not bad.
Anaku
Okay, so my first experience with a brute was bad, I was a KM/EA brute before the new EA buff and well, looking at the sets with some new experience and research under my belt, those were very poor choices at the time and still sort of poor choices now even at level 50.
Right now I'm looking for a better brute, something that actually feels brutish and powerful to fight in a PvE scenario. My first thought immediately was Elec Melee/Fire Aura, the idea of a gigantic AoE spawn-killer felt like a lot of fun to me.
But I've been wrong before, in fact I've made a lot of poor choices in powerset choices when making a new toon, and a brute is not something I like starting over with. My questions are simple if an ELM/FA brute would be an effective toon in most PvE content or should I be looking at other powersets?
My goal for this new brute is trying to be a decently powerful, all-around brute for spawns, possibly AVs, can tank when he needs to, and possibly some PvP encounters with friends(Though this certainly isn't the focus). What powersets should I be looking at for this sort of thing?