Incarante Thoughts
Musculature is almost always a poor choice for brutes because of the low damage modifier. You will likely get more damage out of one of the recharge boosting alpha powers. That said, I recommend Agility. Defense and recharge is a phenomenal combination.
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The Defence wont do a whole lot for you since you dont have any big number Defence powers.
If you have Weave and Combat Jumping, you'll at most gain 20% of (3.75 + 2) or about 1% Defence from slotting Agility.
Spiritual may be a better choice, since you get the recharge and some meaningful boost to Energise's heal. (Plus a small boost to regen off Health)
I agree that Musculature should be avoided.
Cardiac isn't bad as it boosts Resistance and end redux - I used this on my Elec tank.
If you've got Tough and Charged Armour fully slotted (37.5% base resists) then a Tier 3 Cardiac will add at most about 5% resistance. From just under 60% to just under 65% resistance isnt a massive change - its better on a Tanker since you're closer to the cap.
Resilient offers the same figures, or a bit more if you go Core.
The improved Recharge and Heal from Spiritual probably does more for your survival.
I'd recommend Spirtual.
Amazingly timely thread as I too have a Dark/Electrical/Soul and was trying to figure out what path to take.
Under construction
What alpha should brutes normally go for? I have a claws/WP, SS/Shield, and SS/fire all at 50 and I'm honestly at a loss as to what road to go down with each of them so i've just been sitting tight.
I'd say Spiritual as a general rule. There are very few builds that dont benfit from extra recharge, and you often don't have good powers slotted for full ED-capped Recharge.
If you have important heal-based powers (Willpower, Fire) all the more reason to go Spiritual, and the Stun will often have some minor use, eg Rise of the Phoenix.
I did this for my Fire/SS and havent regretted it, as it brings Footstomp and KO Blow up faster and makes my heal faster and more potent.
If you dont have heals, check out Agility for the other Recharge route, with a side of End Mod, which will at least boost Stamina. Shield also beneifts a little bit from the extra Defence, although these numbers are never huge you'll get a few more percent out of this.
Claws/WP is an exception that won't benefit from Recharge as much as most builds. (No build up, smooth attack chain, no Shield Charge or click heal). Vigor is the other heal tree, but you probably dont need the end redux (Claws is end light, WP has QR) or the accuracy (no-one does really at level 50). Resilient will give you a smidge more resistance and improve your Taunting.
None of the Alphas really stand out for this pairing as an obvious choice.
I'd say as a general rule:
Spirtual - if you have heal powers
Vigor - if you run out of end or dont have a heal
Everything else
Musculature - hardly ever because the damage buff gets lost in Fury.
IMO, the two Alpha's to look at for a /Electric Brute are Spiritual and Cardiac. Cardiac boosts resist, and helps with end costs, though /electric has some tools for that. Spiritual, as other have said is a sort of combo offensive/defensive boost with recharge and healing.
For a DM/Electric Brute, I would go for Spiritual for a number of reasons. The recharge increases uptime on Energize and Soul Drain. More Energize uptime means more healing,more regen but also more uptime on the end reduction it gives. The recharge boost generally doesn't help a DM attack chain, since Smite/SL/Smite/MG is fairly easy to get, and anything better then that is really hard to get. The increased uptime on Soul Drain does help with damage though. The other reason Spiritual is nice on a DM/Electric is that it has multiple places to benefit from the healing/regen boost. Energize and Health are obvious ones, but SL also gets a big boost from Spiritual. A lot of builds can't always slot for a lot of healing in SL, and even if you did manage to get a good amount of healing into SL, a tier 3 or 4 Spiritual will still give a good boost. Considering how often SL is used on a DM character, that extra 2-4% per SL adds up pretty quick.
Hell all. I have been away from city for a few years and started playing again. Right now I am playing my Dark Meele/Electiric/Soul brute and starting to work on incarnate alpha slot and would like some thoughts on choices.
Ok first I am thinking agility for the end mod to make power sink just sick, the recharge to get closer to perma haste and the end slot with defense boost will not hurt.
Next thinking Musculature for damage and the end mod for power sink and stamina sense I only single slotted stamina.
I thought about cardiac for the end reduce and to get more resist
And I thought about resilliance for resist. Nothing like being able to get closer to 90%.
Right now I am leaning torwards agility because all ablilities seem useful but I would like some thoughts from poeple that have already slotted. Thank you for any help.