TW Brute. Which Secondary?

Hello everyone im still pretty new to game. Which secondary would be good for solo playstyle for a Titan Weapon brute, Im really considering dark armor or fiery aura. Any info or help would be appreciated.

In general, for titan weapons you want something that 1: helps with endurance use, and 2: stays out of the way. Titan weapons has monstrous damage output in many ways, and it pays for that with very heavy endurance usage. And given that your damage depends on packing as many attacks as possible into your momentum windows, having your secondary eating into your face-smashing time isn't ideal. You'll probably want a secondary that helps with at least one of those, and having both covered would be the best of all.

For starters I'd look at electric armor and willpower. Both have endurance help - quick recovery for willpower and energize+power sink for electric armor. Willpower is the ultimate 'stay out of your way' secondary, with only two clicks, and neither one you'll use often (the mini-godmode and self-rez). Willpower also functions well in crowds thanks to rise to the challenge's scaling with number of foes, and in a crowd is exactly where titan weapons, with all of its smash-tastic AoEs, wants to be. Electric is a bit more active than willpower (both the heal and end recovery powers are clicks), but it also brings a nice recharge boost, some nice exotic protections like endurance drain resistance, a fury-boosted damage aura, and as a pure resistance set it stacks better with defensive sweep's defense boost than willpower does (willpower's typed defenses don't take good advantage of defensive sweep's 'smashing-but-not-lethal' defense bonus). I personally went with electric, although note that it's probably the most common thing people pair with titan weapons if you care about that.

In terms of other secondaries, I've heard of people being satisfied with SR (a fully passive secondary, and the melee defense from defensive sweep is useful, but no endurance help). Energy aura has similar endurance help as electric, though it's got the same typed defense stacking issue as willpower. And, as always, it's hard to go wrong with invulnerability - a mostly passive set with well-rounded mitigation overall, and in this case notable for having the same sort of crowd-scaling mitigation as willpower, even if it doesn't have any endurance help.

I honestly wouldn't really recommend dark, fire, or regen. Dark is just going to be a nightmare in terms of trying to manage your endurance, as you're pairing what are arguably the two most endurance expensive brute sets out there. Dark also relies very heavily on its heal, so you don't want to be stuck in a long animation right when you find you need to fire off dark regen. The problem with fire, on the other hand, is mostly that titan weapons is the one primary that you can actually make an argument for the addition of burn being overkill. Fiery embrace is still awesome, of course, but titan weapons already has so much AoE that burn has less impact. It's also another set that relies fairly strongly on a fast-recharging heal that you really want to be able to fire off whenever you need it. Finally, regen has the 'relies on clicks' problem on steroids, in that basically everything you do to survive revolves around hitting clicks at the exact right moment. Even though both fire and regen provide some endurance support, they don't strike me as the best pairings for titan weapons.

Mind you, no matter what secondary you take you'll still be a titan weapons brute and therefore inherently awesome, but getting a secondary with some synergy would be good if you want to wring out every last drop of awesome.

Wow thank you for all the information was very helpful, definately considering electric now.

I would recommend Dark Armor, while it may have a reputation as a set with high endurance costs...the right build can easily remedy this and make life great for you.

You will get with Dark Armor:
(A) The best Heal in the game available about every 10 seconds...it is endurance heavy, but slotting properly will remedy that
(B) An inherent defense power which grants status protection and makes softcapped defense numbers far more achievable with much less sacrifice
(C) Arguably the strongest composite resists in the game, especially if you plan to do much end game content as the psi resists in Dark Armor are the highest in the game
(D) Soft control in the form of 2 different auras you can take for fear or stun that will help mitigate incoming damage
(E) Damage Aura to help you deal more damage even when you're not attacking.

With good +HP and +regen bonuses I don't find my TW/Regen brute to be click heavy at all. The occasional "oopsy" sure or for a particularly tough spawn I'll just hit DP before I jump in and usually the regen alone keeps me safe.

I'll admit I rolled it thinking "Oh this may end up being a clicky nightmare but I want the challenge" only to be surprised just how "un-clicky" it turned out. Is the build cheap? Admittedly no. Is the combo fun? Oh yeah.

I would recommend /Elec or /Fire

/Elec I think has better overall survivability and endurance management right out of the box. With IOs and Incarnate abilities, it gets even better.

On the other hand, if you're looking at a 50+ build and not really a leveling build, TW/Fire is a wrecking ball with the right slotting.

Either way, both are fun combinations!

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Wow all you guys have been very helpful and much appreciated, I will say i want the best no matter what the end cost is. So now with these post pretty much confused lol. I do like the titan weapons though they rock.

I had a full t4 max build tw/ele and currently a tw/fire of equal investment. The tw/fire does better damage but no combination is as balanced as tw/ele for a tw brute. I liked the tw/ele more but made the tw/fire more as a experiment. Now with rad armor coming down the pipe I will get back in to playing tw seriously again cause my itxh for tw is there, badly.

I've been playing a TW/Invuln Brute myself, I didn't have much trouble with endurance after hitting the SO range, but I did slot the attacks with 2 End Reduction SOs rather than my usual 1.

of course, now that I've gotten her to incarnate content, it seems that invuln doesn't cut the mustard there with SOs and Common IOs, but that may be the lack of level shifts talking as well.

But overall it was an enjoyable experience, and I actually feel powerful playing it, which is a nice touch.

Well guys i think i have pretty much decided electric, It seems to have a bit of everything. some defense stuff, endurance stuf, dmg aura, and a heal? how good is the heal in electric?

The heal in elec is solid. I think you will be quite satisfied with your TW/Elec. I've played a few brutes and scrappers of different sets and settled on a TW/Elec brute to invest in. He's got moderate investment of incarnate stuff and a decent setup of IOs, though nothing staggeringly expensive. I think he sits around 50% s/l to get a little above the basic softcap for incarnate content and he's rock solid. Very tough, very versatile. He can stand up and fight just about anything, I'm quite pleased with him.

EDIT: Just wanted to add that your endurance bar will be bottomed out until you get the end drain in elec, it's a bit of a rough ride until then but not terrible.

Is the taunt in Titan weapons worth taking or should be skipped?

It is as useful as the taunt in any other Brute powerset. That is to say, nice to have, especially if you want to tank for teams, but not a must-have power. The TW taunt has the added perk of looking really cool, though.

I went with TW/DA and faceplant only happens in very specific situations: unable to heal while being in the middle of a non-momentum animation, overwhelming energy damage spikes, hard-hitting spawns with unusually high defense (because DA's heal needs to hit).

/Elec has a weakness to terrorize effects. It doesn't come up often at first, but the endgame has much more terrorize around than you'll see leveling up. Another thing to worry about is toxic damage, thankfully not too common. Energize gives extra regen for 30 sec, which makes the "faceplant while stuck in attack animation" issue a bit less problematic.

Personally, I have a hard time understanding tank type players who skip Taunt. If all you ever do is solo, it may not be -that- useful. Even then it's an AOE without an endurance cost that doesn't need a to hit check against mobs and cuts the targets' range by 75%. In teams... a Brute without Taunt is either a clueless noob or a highly competent, a bit selfish player.

Wonder how Bio armor will work with TW...