Erratic1

Supperior aggro management, superior survivability (more hp and higher defense/resistance) and 92.5% of the damage output of a Brute sounds equitable? What is your gain for making a Brute exactly? But can you do so without hurting damage? Because if you end up with Tanker equivalent survivability and less damage on top of having a harder time maintaining aggro then you made a serious mistake in playing the Brute.

Keep in mind that Bio's Offensive Stance lowers your defense in exchange.

My twofold response would have been: Asking, "You expect Brutes to build to not survive just so they can have more damage?" If you don't like Claws then give me another offensive set to work with, but do NOT dare dream that you then get to complain about it as it will have been your choice.

Given damage does not occur once you're dead nor are people going to do suboptimal things when building a character, I would assume validity would require (a) satisfying survival criteria first and (b) then maximizing damage. If that requires different builds between the ATs for the same powersets then that is what is valid.

No, the debate is now:

Highest reward for least effort is a strategy that allows the species to be here at all. Wasteful species tend either to not survive or quickly become more efficient when resources drop depending on how quick the drop is. As for short-sightedness, we tend to fall short of what we know we could do. Compared to other species? Leave a bag of open dog food accessible and go away for the weekend while leaving the dog at home. Most dogs would not understand you having a big metal box full of food which you do not immediately and completely empty by stuffing yourself. But yeah, talk about weird hangups... I will visit a farm from time to time because it can be neat to see someone operating at such an extreme. But the thrill wears off quickly and I depart. But invite me to a +4/8 PI Radio Mission team and even though its effectively the same thing, its engaging. My higher brain has not figured out why the one is boring and the other not.

True but only meaningful if needing the 5 or 6 slot bonuses from the available sets. Bonuses to Recharge and Toxic/Psi Resistance look to be the most common and desirable bonuses on those slots which might be hard to get elsewhere (not to say there are not other desirable things in those slots).

Fury should also increase the damage from the damage aura. Granted, that is not going to be a major thing.

Tankers don't get Fury (extra damage for being attacked/making attacks). I am not saying I think WM/FA is going to be god's gift to any AT but there should be a noticeable difference between its performance on a Tanker and a Brute or Scrapper.

Beaten to the statement but yeah, your powerset choices have merits on both sides of the fence. Crits are a beautiful thing but then not having to deal with runners is not just a plus for annoyance sake but the more things attacking you the more Fury you build and the more damage your attacks and damage auras deal. Like Dark Dove, I would probably lean more Brute on this one.

Fair point. I think part of what troubles me is that eve with all of the qualification on what the ranking of powers is meant to indicate some chunk of the populace is simply going to hop to the last pages and walk away with, "X good, Y bad". KB->KD took Energy Blast from 9th to 2nd. But perhaps its okay to stop there and leave it to players willing to go beyond the simple take away to see if they can push Energy Blast (or any of the KB sets) further up the list by milking Force Feedback.

Forced Feedback is as fundamental a shift to function as KB->KD. Moreover Force Feedback is dirt cheap on the AH. I cannot think of any other IOs which stand to do so much for so little investment.

Thx! Will check it out.

Psi/Kin, at least at level 24, just wasn't doing it for me. 😢 Not a power (as in what could be soloed, because being able to put part of a group to sleep definitely had its uses), just it wasn't clicking for me. Put the Psi/Kin aside midway through the Protean story arc and created a Water/Kin. Hadn't touched Water since Live and had forgotten what fun it is. Manage to get back to the Protean story arc and finish it, even taking Protean down solo (admittedly with some elevator scumming). Kinda wondering if I can cap her on ranged defense without warping her build.

Pretty awesome. So much so, you inspired me to riff on it. Thx!

Because they both occur. The sections would have to be different if one part has 100% and the other 0% (unless they could set the 'after 0.5s' part to zero damage).

Awesome costume, but I almost demand you give a more thematic rendition of the name. Something like...

Yeah, I was noticing the disparity in what it looks like would minimally suit my new brute versus what it is running on the scrapper I am currently working on.

I've collected 2/3rds of the IOs I have planned and am at 58 million spent so far. Most purchases have been under 2 million (I am pretty patient) and none have gotten to 4 million. I do have one purple set planned, but think I'll be under 100 million for everything else. Thx for the feedback. It is cheap until I decide to go insane and make it not so cheap (but really, 6% Fire/Cold/Toxic/Psionic Resistance along with 15% Accuracy and 10% Recharge...just too good to not try for).

So how much does a typical (not crazy top end, not crazy, cost cutting low end) IO build run? I'm curious since my goal was to try to put together a "relatively" inexpensive build but then realized I had no idea what qualified as inexpensive.

Put your truck in neutral, have a (good) friend stand a foot in front of it, and then push the car with all your strength at your friend. I am not thinking that is really going to cause a lot of damage to your buddy. I think the notion (and mind you, I am not supporting it, just trying to explain it) is that while you are not granite, your strength is going fully into your attacks. Once you become granite some of your strength is taken up just making your limbs move, so less energy is available for melee attacks.

Yeah, when the potential energy of height is converted to the kinetic energy of motion...hence the need for a pocket Kinetics player. 😝

Was invited to join a supergroup on a server other than my usual and my choice on whom to transfer came down to the two most recent characters I've made--a brute and a corruptor. You've seen the one earlier in the thread and I do not consider the other's outfit to be anything all that special. But the image I made to leave the choice to the supergroup I am somewhat proud of.

I don't disagree with the assessment on Offensive Adaptation. I've got a SS/Bio Brute I have been working up and initially had been thinking Offensive would be a nice bump but found out that Efficient and Defensive are where it's at. In Efficient mode he can punch indefinitely. Defensive I only pull out when it looks like things are going to be a bit nasty, but can only maintain that stance for a fixed amount of time before Endurance drops to critical levels. But yeah, Fury dwarfs Offensive Adaptation. The weird thing is a KM/Bio Scrapper who is a few levels higher and he feel's squishier but I have checked the resistance and health totals and they are comparable. It may be because I am trying to run the Scrapper in Offensive whereas on the Brute I don't bother.

I have a Fire/Bio Sentinel and can verify it works very well there.