I can't speak on TW, as I haven't rolled one yet, but EM? No. Please don't do that. Once, long ago, EM was a great single target set. Then one of the Devs decided to beat it mercilessly with a nerf bat. It does subpar ST damage and terrible AoE.
As far as Fm, I love mine. Great st dps, and fsc is actually pretty decent AoE on it's own. my Fm/Inv is the most fun I have had on a toon in a long time. He's actually the only 50 I have that I still play.
With /EA, you may not need barrier, unless you can use that to boost your ddr. I would recommend t4 rebirth. At T4 that is, I believe a permanent 200% bonus to regen.
Dont do energy melee, the above poster already mentioned why.
I really enjoy my kin/energy brute, but kin melee is better on stalkers and scrappers.
I am currently playing an elec/energy scrapper which is a blast.
the down side to fire melee is no mitigation. Once you get to capped defense it is not an issue, but the way their will be painful.
I took barrier on my kin/energy brute because energize is up quickly. it was a tough call between the two, barrier and rebirth, and i may go for both.
YMMV---IMO
Ice Ember
thanks for the info, i just rolled a fm/ea brute, and i think i will experiment with a few other builds.
hey forum, so i was looking to roll a brute, but the only brute i have ever had is my farmer. my main concern would be doing tfs and incarnate trials, so i was looking at energy aura as my secondary cause it looked like it had good def, along with agility core and barrier. would there be something better i should go with? as for damage, i was thinking either fire melee or energy melee, or would tw be something i should be looking at instead? any other feedback would be greatly appreciated. thanks.