Erratic1

Definitely Electrical Armor judging by the Negative, Toxic, and Psionic numbers. While Electrical Armor does not have any DDR, I would probably still go for the second build because not everything you fight has Defense Debuff (or at least that is what I am doing with my recently 50 Energy Melee/Electrical Brute and I have no complaints so far, though instead of capping S/L Defense I capped Melee Defense).

A bit of a necro, but just to have it on the record.... The proc does fire in Lightning Field and the number of targets drives up the likelihood of it firing. I tested by leaping into groups of Super Arachnoids in Grandville. But it does not fire that often and you need to be in a crowd to really notice it. However, stick the proc in Stamina and Holy Hannah...it goes insane: 2024-11-16 00:21:03 You are healed by your Power Transfer: Chance to Heal Self for 74.96 health points. 2024-11-16 00:21:13 You are healed by your Power Transfer: Chance to Heal Self for 74.96 health points. 2024-11-16 00:21:23 You are healed by your Power Transfer: Chance to Heal Self for 74.96 health points. 2024-11-16 00:21:33 You are healed by your Power Transfer: Chance to Heal Self for 74.96 health points. 2024-11-16 00:21:43 You are healed by your Power Transfer: Chance to Heal Self for 74.96 health points. 2024-11-16 00:22:03 You are healed by your Power Transfer: Chance to Heal Self for 74.96 health points. That is with it slotted in only Stamina. It missed firing at 21:53. Still, 450 health back in a minute. On a build with no self-healing or one which is slow, it seems like a real plus.

Almost certain some would not see those things as incompatible. And certainly others would not see a need for the clear derision packed in the question.

I don't dislike cones a priori. But Proton Sweep does not cover a particularly large arc at 75 degrees. With 12 o'clock directly ahead of you, 60 degrees would be from 11 to 1. 75 degrees being 25% larger makes the range go from 10:45 to 1:15. And Proton Sweep only has a 9% chance at contaminating what it hits.

Has anyone yet found a reason to take Proton Sweep from Rad Melee?

Going to revise this to its usefulness depends upon crowd size. Been playing more x6-x8 lately and it is quite handy there.

Hmmm...I almost never take Build Up on Brutes, and when I do its late with little investment.

I am unusually satisfied with the latest costume for my red side Brute, Dreadshock. Not a complicated costume but I like the lightning bolt striking upward out of the darkness on his chest.

A lot of times yes, sets will get used in a repeated fashion across attacks or defensive powers. But it is all constrained by the limit of 5 set bonuses of the same type and of course the needs of the build.

You get one bonus for each extra piece of a set you slot in a power past the first. By slotting from more than one set, you are paying the initial cost of not getting a bonus more than once--slotting two 3 pieces of two different sets in a power gets you two bonuses from the first set and two from the other for a total of 4 bonuses as opposed to the 5 you could have had by slotting from one set. The other drawback to split sets in a power is some bonuses only come at 5 and 6 slots. But there are times you will do so because you do not need the higher bonus (either you have maxed out on the attribute, or it does nothing meaningful for you) and/or because you can get the lower bonus of high value twice by splitting the pieces across two powers. As example, Superior Brute's Fury gives +5 Defense bonus to Smashing/Lethal. You are going to be hard-pressed to find +5 Defense anywhere else on non-special sets at only a 3-piece requirement. Do it twice and you now have +10 Defense bonus to Smash Lethal and 3 slots in the two powers who are available for use. Splitting Superior Brute's Fury that way loses 4% Damage Buff, +10 Global Recharge, and +6% Smash/Lethal Resistance but there the character in question was already at max Smash/Lethal resistance, is not missing the 4% Damage Buff, and difference of 10% Global Recharge is minimal, even applied to all powers compared to the gain for the character in terms of defense.

Well it has a very limited damage boost via crit from stealth, no? I am currently working up an Energy/Ninjutsu Blaster and enjoying it. An Energy/Ninjitsu Sentinel would trade some damage but be a better protected. Might consider a Ninjitsu Sentinel (with some other primary than Energy) at some point.

That you can change stance doesn't mean you have to and a click heal and damage shield are pretty obviously better to have than not have and easy to determine when to use. I never take my Fire/Bio out of Offensive Stance. While a properly built Bio can stand in melee pretty well, if you treat them like a ranged class with status protection the one remaining click power on Bio doesn't see much use. SR doesn't click anything? Well that also means no healing if it comes to that. You can play Bio as Invulnerability, just with an added damage shield.

I am not particularly inclined to lookup set bonuses and do the math to figure out your global numbers because you didn't post them and didn't use Mid's, but Energy Aura is a top tier set and it has holes just like every armor set does (e.g. Shield is beloved by many yet does not heal you, provide endurance, or increase recharge while Energy Aura does each of those). I believe the last comparisons I made between Scrapper and Brute yielded faster kills for the Scrapper but they were not identical guilds, but rather builds to lean as heavily as possible into the defensive sets which best benefitted from each AT's mechanics--damage auras for Brutes and shield for the Scrapper for extra damage-backed crits. I have a Savage/Energy Scrapper from my early days on Homecoming, when I was less adept at building. I think I was leaning heavily into the +Recharge aspect of the Blood Frenzy stacks coupled with Entropic Aura. You're never going to get the sheer numbers of something like Battle Axe/Shield but the idea was to try to maximize the volume of the crits performed. I have four charters I am currently focusing on with another four waiting behind them (though there is a chance some of these may fall to the wayside), so it could easily be next year this time before I could find time to seriously go at retooling my Savage/EA. OTOH, he's got the influence and mats...shouldn't take much time or effort....

I almost strictly PUG and have done countless 4*s with the overwhelming majority of them proceeding without a hitch because most people do not set things that high without the capability to back it up and advertise how they are running so the people coming know what to expect and judge if they are a fit. But I do not have a problem with people going off and forming groups to fit their taste. If that floats their boat, that is fine...they do not owe others anything.

It would take so very little in the way of changes to push the S/L resistance a lot closer to 90%. Just a rush job to see what could be done on S/L resistance with various powers and slots freed (was going to do a full build but had something come up). Might work on a full one later.

I am not greedy nor grabbing names to reserve. I renamed a character to the name he had on his original server when I moved him and it was being held by someone apparently not playing. Renamed a character to a name which a certain Marvel character shares whose theme is utterly different but completely fitting of the character I am playing. I checked and have not lost any of the plentiful names I have on characters which are now freed up. I am not going to take steps to hold those names. If someone wants them, they are out there to take.

I do not find it often the extra targeting capacity of Energy Focus mode Power Crash is meaningful. As for the initial question, you already are playing a Claws character, so on balance Energy Melee would probably be the choice between the two. I can very much get behind the notion of taking Cross Punch (something I do on SS characters) because EM is a bit weak area wise compared to other powersets. The other merit to Energy Melee paired with Rad Armor would be its support for using Energy Transfer (in Energy Focus mode) as quickly as you can get Total Focus to cycle as regen will help offset the health loss.

The thing about black holes is...they're black. And the thing about space is...its black.

Villa...come here...I need you.

Film for visual lushness, series for plot/action.

Completely untrue. A Brute will never, ever, EVER tank as well as a Tanker. Period. They will also never, ever, EVER do as much damage as a Scrapper or Stalker. There is no choice. They will be second place no matter what they do. You object to something which was not said. Using the procs is a matter of slotting them. Good luck surviving if you go proc happy as a Brute relies heavily on set bonuses to reach maximum Brute survivabilty and proc'ing out will hinder you getting there. *LOL* And Brutes were never mentioned in the above. So an utterly meaningless aside.

Ston was a rather prolific collector/tester of AT performance and the image was taken from his thread: You can click the above and go to the thread. Mind you, this is only a portion of of the totality of his work and discusses on Trapdoor, which favors area attacks and more importantly procs--something it is somewhat hard to load up on as a Brute as compared to a Tanker because Brutes have to bend their slotting towards survivability. Pylon is another common metric. And before this thread, there were others where people both reported their performance and often video clips of their runs. In the previous Trapdoor thread (in the Scrapper subforums I think) Ston would regularly challenge people's notions on exactly what type of performance could be managed on Tankers. You can catch him doing so in the following thread (which predates the one above) here: Posting the image I did is a remind to some of the participants of this thread they participated in those other threads and did not find near the objections they have managed to find in this one.

But a very few Brute builds, buffed to the gills in a team setting, was a problem requiring nerfing all Brutes, eh? You are engaging in tactic of disassembly--arguing no specific point proves an end conclusion as distraction from the assembly of points meaning something. I asked above what specifically would constitute proof of one of your fellow naysayers and got nothing specific in return. I leave you the question.

The primary advantage Brutes have over Scrappers is more hit points and a higher resistance cap. That last bit does not mean much until IOs come into play and the first is possibly not that meaningful if the Brute is using a defense set as opposed to a range based one as it is hard to cap defenses and then push past 75% on resistances. Add on top that unlike with Tankers vs Brutes in terms of survival, Brutes get the same value out of their armor sets as Scrappers do. So yes, your impression of the survivability advantage of Brutes to Scrappers is correct.

Something like the following: