What's your wife playing?
She will be paying a brute as well. mace/shld
lvl 50 AR/EM, lvl 50 SS/Shld brute, lvl 50 Shld/SS, lvl 50 Stone/SS
lvl 50 Dark/Fire, lvl 50 WP/EM, lvl 50 WP/Fire, lvl 50 Fire/Kin
lvl 50 Emp/Dark, lvl 50 Thug/Pain, lvl 50 Fire/Shld, lvl 48 Ill/Rad
lvl 45 BS/Regen lvl 42 Ice/EM
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If you both have access to IOs, shield alts can become pretty sturdy. Consider making a shield scrapper to compliment your wife's character, and pick a different weapon like broadsword or axe. |
Originally Posted by GSXR1
She will be paying a brute as well. mace/shld
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That way, you both get to play with shield charge which is a lovely power. Pros and Cons of Stone:
Pros: Has lots of resistance and defences, arguably the strongest when it comes to survival
Cons: Reduced damage, reduced recharge, reduced movement speed when using tier9 granite mode, many stone toggles cover costume, granite replaces it completely
Pros and Cons of Energy:
Pros: Defences can be softcapped, multiple tools to recover endurance
Cons: Light resistances, toxic and psi holes, stealth toggle hides your costume
Ideon's Paragonwiki page
Member of Paragon/Rogue Knights
Arc: 60092 - Supa Rumble in the Park
"Keep living the dream, and never let any jerk tell you what to do."
-- High-Roller
Energy armor is really good now when coupled with IO's and you can soft cap. Stone armor is great...but. My stone tank is dormant now. It isnt needed in the I-trials. It was an awesome toon to play and IO. But my energy armor brute is more fun. I unfortunately chose kinetic melee, which is also great... on anything but a brute. (I HATE power siphon)
If you do make energy armor, you will not see your costume. Which is no different than any of the other armored sets for the most part.
YMMV---IMOIce Ember
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Actually dark armor allows you to see your costume, turn off fade/pulse in the color window as you set up the tint of the powers.|
Originally Posted by Ice_Ember
If you do make energy armor, you will not see your costume. Which is no different than any of the other armored sets for the most part.
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Fire Aura, WP, Regen, Shield, SR, Invuln, Electric Armor, all allow you to see your costume.
Actually EA is the only one I think besides stone that covers it unless I am totally missing something. (which is quite possible)
Currently Playing:
Rage King - SS/Regen Brute (50+3)
Soulfire Darkness - Dark/Fire Tank (50+2)
Deaths Final Embrace - Kat/Dark Brute (50+3)
ULTIMATE REGEN GUIDE I22
Honestly, EA doesn't even hide your costume that much with the stealth anyway. Once you enter combat you become visible.
I've a SS/EA Brute on which EA has been absolutely wonderful. Endurance recover, boosting defenses, stealth(*), and a heal--EA comes with nice tools.
*Things will aggro if you get too close while running Entropic Aura (which you should never turn off).
Under construction
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While it is true that Stone Armor has some cons, the cons can be easily compensated for with certain IO's. My stone armor alts all have at least 70% recharge bonus from IO's which negates granite's recharge penalty, and my two brutes have about 90% run boost and my stone tank has 100% run boost which greatly reduces the combined 160% run penalty from granite+rooted. Also they are nicely defense softcapped and are all working on getting Agility for their Alpha so they can remove Cardiac.
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Originally Posted by Ideon
If you both have access to IOs, shield alts can become pretty sturdy. Consider making a shield scrapper to compliment your wife's character, and pick a different weapon like broadsword or axe.
That way, you both get to play with shield charge which is a lovely power. Pros and Cons of Stone: Pros: Has lots of resistance and defences, arguably the strongest when it comes to survival Cons: Reduced damage, reduced recharge, reduced movement speed when using tier9 granite mode, many stone toggles cover costume, granite replaces it completely Pros and Cons of Energy: Pros: Defences can be softcapped, multiple tools to recover endurance Cons: Light resistances, toxic and psi holes, stealth toggle hides your costume |
I gave up on stone because it was just way too slow. Also if she is a brute you really don't need to tank as you will both have taunt auras running (plus sheild tanks fine as is). Are you looking at these two choices for a theme? I have done ELA, EA, WP, and Inv and they all tank great when properly IO'ed. So if the choice was between EA and stone it would be EA hands down. Though with defence you can get from pairing with a shield brute, you may be better going for a resist set or sheild yourself (so you both get the bonus).
I've played a Stone/ tank and a /Stone brute to 50, and my most-played character is an SS/EA brute. I've got another /EA at 31 that's suffering from TMAS (too many alts syndrome). My SS/EA is, far and away, my most fun character to play. It's got great tools, as has been noted, and if it's a little weak to defense debuffs, well, there had to be something.
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Used to be, when someone would argue that /EA was great with IOs, there would be those who jumped in and said something to the effect of, "Yeah, but if you made the same investment with a different secondary, it'd be that much better!"|
Originally Posted by Nericus
While it is true that Stone Armor has some cons, the cons can be easily compensated for with certain IO's. My stone armor alts all have at least 70% recharge bonus from IO's which negates granite's recharge penalty, and my two brutes have about 90% run boost and my stone tank has 100% run boost which greatly reduces the combined 160% run penalty from granite+rooted. Also they are nicely defense softcapped and are all working on getting Agility for their Alpha so they can remove Cardiac.
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The same logic kind of applies here. Getting 70% global recharge on a stoner means that you're back to having no penalty. Getting 70% global recharge with any other secondary means that you now have the equivalent of perma-hasten.
That being said, I'm from the weird school that doesn't believe stoners should live in granite. We have to keep Rooted on, sure, what with it being our mez protection. But granite flat-out isn't needed in most content, and particularly for a brute, you don't want something that reduces your damage output right off the bat. Yeah, if you're in granite, you'll almost never die. (Unless you're going up against psi-users. I love the "WTF?" moment when a granite tank teleports up to the psi AV in the STF and faceplants in two seconds...) You'll also provide way less damage to the team's cause. The team is only as fast as its slowest member. Personally? I hate being That Guy.
Of course, I also don't think the movement debuff is particularly meaningful once people get used to the shift+lbutton teleport bind. If somebody gets to a spawn before I do on my stoners, they went to the wrong spawn.
It comes down to a playstyle choice. Having done both (over a thousand hours on the stone tank, over 2,000 on the /ea brute) I know that /EA fits my playstyle better, so that's what I'd recommend.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
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You are quite right in that granite isn't needed for everything, I also maintain S/L cap with rock armor and my run bonus from IO is enough to negate rooted's penalty on its own so with rock armor plus rooted my only penalty is can't jump or fly but that is easily bypassed.|
Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
I've played a Stone/ tank and a /Stone brute to 50, and my most-played character is an SS/EA brute. I've got another /EA at 31 that's suffering from TMAS (too many alts syndrome). My SS/EA is, far and away, my most fun character to play. It's got great tools, as has been noted, and if it's a little weak to defense debuffs, well, there had to be something.
Used to be, when someone would argue that /EA was great with IOs, there would be those who jumped in and said something to the effect of, "Yeah, but if you made the same investment with a different secondary, it'd be that much better!" The same logic kind of applies here. Getting 70% global recharge on a stoner means that you're back to having no penalty. Getting 70% global recharge with any other secondary means that you now have the equivalent of perma-hasten. That being said, I'm from the weird school that doesn't believe stoners should live in granite. We have to keep Rooted on, sure, what with it being our mez protection. But granite flat-out isn't needed in most content, and particularly for a brute, you don't want something that reduces your damage output right off the bat. Yeah, if you're in granite, you'll almost never die. (Unless you're going up against psi-users. I love the "WTF?" moment when a granite tank teleports up to the psi AV in the STF and faceplants in two seconds...) You'll also provide way less damage to the team's cause. The team is only as fast as its slowest member. Personally? I hate being That Guy. Of course, I also don't think the movement debuff is particularly meaningful once people get used to the shift+lbutton teleport bind. If somebody gets to a spawn before I do on my stoners, they went to the wrong spawn. It comes down to a playstyle choice. Having done both (over a thousand hours on the stone tank, over 2,000 on the /ea brute) I know that /EA fits my playstyle better, so that's what I'd recommend. |
My SS/EA brute is sitting at 49 as I wrap up some details on some other alts, then I'll get that alt powered up to 50 and incarnated.
hey all. i want to make a brute to team with my wife and ill be tanking mostly (but i dont want to make a tank lol) so i was wondering if anyone has experience with Energy Aura and stone armor Brutes? what the pros and cons are between the sets? ive made stone armor tanks but i know you loose a little when it becomes a secondary power and i have no exp. with EA.
thanks a lot for your guys help
lvl 50 AR/EM, lvl 50 SS/Shld brute, lvl 50 Shld/SS, lvl 50 Stone/SS
lvl 50 Dark/Fire, lvl 50 WP/EM, lvl 50 WP/Fire, lvl 50 Fire/Kin
lvl 50 Emp/Dark, lvl 50 Thug/Pain, lvl 50 Fire/Shld, lvl 48 Ill/Rad
lvl 45 BS/Regen lvl 42 Ice/EM