In the choice between /Dark or /EA on a Brute I would go /Dark hands down.
I'd not go Katana/EA, but either Kat/Dark or Elec/EA should be a blast to play.
Kat will help dark until you can afford to fully IO it out, so you can focus on resists and end reduction and the heal early, and later build up def. And Kat will build defense and Fury at the same time. And more Fury means the dark armour hurts them more..
Of course, Elec/EA is very nice, too. Easy to cap defense to most everything, limitless end... The more enemies around trying to hit you means more fury and more recharge, which means more attacks and even more Fury which means more often LRs and more giggling at teh destruction per LR.
Both of those are winner combos.
I'm sure you could do Elec/Dark, too and it would be effective.
I'd skip Kat/EA tho, as the Parry is fairly wasted on an EA alt, and Parry is one of the nicer utilities in Kat. I guess if you had a thematic reason to mix Kat and EA it would be OK, but I just wouldn't pick that combo unless I was going for a theme build.
I would suggest not playing /dark if you are giving brutes a try. You'd probably have a better time with a powerset that has built in end tools.
Violence has its own economy. Therefore, be thoughtful and precise in your investment.
They can work fine. You just need to slot attacks with Two Acc SOs and Two End Reduce SOs before anything else, as most of your damage and damage bonus is going to come from fury and keeping things rolling without stopping (since Brutes have a very low damage modifier).
I usually slot all of my armors with end reduce too up until when I can start IOing. /Dark isn't that bad with that approach. Just avoid using the self heal at all until you can slot it with 2 x Acc and 3x End Reduce.
With available inf/merits, two slot health and buy a Miracle: +Recovery and Numina: +Recovery, and four slot Stamina and slot 3x EndMod and one Performance Shifter: Chance for +Recovery Proc ASAP.
The ride up to 50 can be plenty smooth with those tactics with /Dark.
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Thanks for the relpies. I think I'll pull the trigger on an elec/energy but before I commit, what are the thoughts on claws/dark?
I personally hate elec melee. It seems a bit light on single target damage, and I dislike jacobs ladder, and find thunderstrike to be merely adequate. Lightning rod is nice though, but not enough for me.
But some people love it.
Claws/dark should be a good set, though dark is one of those sets that requires that you keep your wits about you and proactively work to leverage it. But the payout is high.
Good luck!
Lewis
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Okay. I want to give a brute a try and I have not tried Energy Aura or Dark Armor before nor have I tried Katana or Elecetric Melee. My search-fu is bad as I can't find anything for these combos of brutes. So I am asking the brute community, is an ElecM/EA brute worth it? Katana/Dark better? Dark Melee/EA? What is your recommendations or experiences with these combos? Help please.