Current FOTM

Hey guys,

I'm an old player returning and enjoying the many changes I've seen.
I left shortly after the incarnate stuff was starting so I'm a little lost as to the status of old builds.

Thus, my question. What is the current flavor of the month for Brutes?
I have an old SS/SR that I was working on but last I heard Def is worthless in the incarnate trials.
Is this still true or is Def still the best choice?

Thanks,

Staff is FotM for everyone that can use it far as I can tell. TW runs a close second, but it annoys anyone who isn't a hardcore type pretty early on as far as I can tell, so you see a lot of them stall out at 10-20. The old old school sets are experiencing something of a resurgence now because of the new sets, too, Stone and /Stone being rare and exotic almost. SS pretty much never went away, Dark and /Dark remain an expensive niche favorite, and when in doubt everything goes well with /Fire. The revamped /EA seems to be relatively popular too. Claws is pretty popular as always, as sort of the evil mirrorverse to TW, since it seems to have a smooth ride till the upper levels just where TW finally starts to hit it's stride.

I don't think Def is particularly worthless in iTrials, either. While incarnate critters have a higher ToHit, as mentioned (requiring more defense to softcap) - don't forget that you'll have 15 or 23 other league-mates to buff you. With all the leadership toggles, shadowfalls, steamy mists, destiny buffs, and bubbles (okay, maybe not bubbles ;P) you'll be fine for survivability.

According to the numbers gurus, TW is close to SS in terms of AoE farming capability. I wouldn't know, I've never run the numbers. I CAN say that I enjoy TW quite a bit. My TW/Dark armor is a rolling freight train of destruction without a namby-pamby rage crash . She gets a slow attack every once in a while to make up for it, but it's still a lot less annoying to me than losing a big chunk of end and doing pathetic damage on a set timer.

Bottom line- find something you enjoy playing and play it (Brute builds I've personally played in incarnate trials and had fun with: DM/Elec, War Mace/Shield, TW/DA. Brutes I've not had fun with: None). In the incarnate trials I've run, I'm generally buffed to the gills and I don't really need to be awesome to survive and contribute*.

*Unless I want to do stupid scrapper/brute/nightwidow/defender tricks and try and solo spawns in the lab or warehouse on Lambda sector. It's good for laughs, but not necessary for the team to succeed in the trial.

**Edit**
Oh, and welcome back!

It is not that DEF is worthless (in fact it's quite the opposite), it is just that it is very easy to slot for +Def bonuses. Because of that, a Resist Set that slots for Defense can get 'better' layered mitigation. However, most Resist sets have no DDR compared with Defense sets, so they are more vulnerable to cascade failures (but have strong +Resist to fall back on). Brutes have a high Resist cap (90%), so the prevailing opinion is that Def sets work better for Scrappers and Resist sets for Brutes. That is not to say that either AT can't be very successful with any secondary, resist- or defense-focused.