Erratic1

It was, on both accounts. At a certain point it goes from being a train wreck... ...to a train wreck witnessed from an RV while having Thanksgiving Dinner with the one uncle with odious political views during a natural disaster. However, I am proud of the four others who stuck it out out of the eight we started with.

Not sure I have ever seen something like this before:

Does not sound passive in the least. Just aggressive.

Depends on how they are doing damage. With greater area and greater survivability, the arena where Brute does more damage is confined to single target. And yet the primary draw of any Fire Aura build is area damage, particularly when damage boosted via Claws/Follow Up. I do not believe it is controversial in the least that Tanker deal more area damage nor is it controversial that damage boost are less immediately meaningful to Brutes than any other AT. If I am reading City of Data correctly, Tanker Burn deals 110.3 base damage whereas Brute Burn deals 87.08 base damage (Mid's gives other numbers but the Tanker is likewise ahead). The Tanker never has to ramp of Fury and has less downtime to recover from combat regardless since their defense values are inherently better. Damage is more than just raw numbers but a matter of how frequently you can deliver it and Tankers have Brute beat in that department, IOs or not. I have been running an increasing number of Tankers, and I up the difficulty on missions far sooner on Tankers because it becomes so easy to herd things up and take them down. And if I have to spend a little more time on a Tanker working on a boss, well, I spent a whole heck of a lot less time taking the trash down and at far less risk. So let's not just simply toss out the line, "Brutes do more damage"--it simply is not true. I have run Tankers solo while levelling and it is not only not a slog like in the old days...it is in fact pretty darned zippy. The number of bodies around on an AT that oozes taunt is limited only by the caps the designers have put in.

I know I have asked for it before, and there was explanation, but still... Short sleeve tights would be awesome.

Given the area increase on Tankers, why is Claws/Fire not better on a Tanker (before we consider greater survivability on the Tanker achieved sooner and far easier)?

Atomic Smash has the highest chance of your attacks to apply Contaminated at 35%. Always follow Atomic Smash with Radiation Siphon. Not as effective as picking the advertised target but requires no evaluation.

If you're told not to do something and do it anyway, it is no longer an accident/screw up. Its malicious.

That was the point: You cannot look at Claws (or any set) in isolaton. The secondary matters and the combination must be considered as opposed to just the pieces of it.

This isn't World of Warcraft where one person doing the wrong thing at the wrong moment wipes the entire party. Closest you will likely come is the accidental pull of a second group, most times--which still should not cause a total wipe.

Per City of Data, Brute Spin hits for 78.8276, Scrapper Spin hits for 98.8472. Factor in recharge and you're looking at 5.63 dps vs 10.74 dps. The scrapper will slot to enhance damage to the ED cap and be near double his base at 21.48 dps. To match that the Brute needs to multiply his damage by 3.8 times. Base damage gets him 1, shooting gets him 1, leaving 1.8 for Fury. I typically consider Brutes to be working a bit below that at 1.7, so the gap is not that big. Yes, the Scrapper has crits, but that is true for every offensive set. So I am not sure the Brute is being crushed in the area damage department as much as 14s vs 9.2s suggests. It may be, at least at times, too reductive to look at individual sets in isolation. Two of the defensive sets with damage auras are resistance sets--which everyone agrees work better on Brutes. One is hybrid (Bio), and so while better than a pure resistance set for Scrappers still favors Brutes. One is defense based (Ice). Claws/Electric probably is better on a Brute than a Scrapper and would have some pluses compared to Claws/<non-damage aura> on a Scrapper. Claws/Ice...yeah, play a Scrapper or Tanker.

Decided to give a red side Blaster a go in the form of Energy Blast/Ninjitsu.

I always pay some attention, but I pay more attention when playing a buff/heal AT.

I'm looking at: A bit better S/L resistance but that is not so much that there is going to be a significant difference in feel I'd think. Keep in mind on WM/Bio you have an ablative absorption shield and the ability to majorly ramp regen on top of having a heal as compared to Ninjitsu having a heal but neither of the other two. On tradeoff, Nin is giving you stealth, crit from stealth, a bit of DDR, am a To-Hit debuff/sleep/confuse.

Are you only relying on Defense and have not done anything with your resistances?

When a rogue Circle of Thorns falls in love with a rogue Fortunata, their offspring is unlikely to have what society would call an acceptable view of how the individual is supposed to fit into society. Flame Sauvage, my new Fire/Claws Tanker is going to have things her way...she's sure of that.

Keep in mind Kinetic (and Psionic, which was missed) are underpowered, and Staff and Electric are mediocre. As for a suggestion, you might give Savage/Electric, Savage/Bio, or Savage/Fire a go--depending on what flavor or perks you want from your armor set. SS/Bio is my primary Brute and works well. (I have an SS/EA I am casually working up and she works well too.) My most recent Brute (for redside play) is an Energy/Electric and has been enjoyable (at least up to level 35). Electric will not perform better on a Scrapper or Stalker, and you get a damage aura increased by Fury (a trick Tankers cannot match). Add too that while Tanker do get more area for their area attacks, Energy Melee's big hitters are single-target. It is painfully obvious Brutes need something but we cannot even have the conversation as when the issue pops up, people who never post in the Brute forum (other than to suggest whatever power combination is under discussion would be better played on another AT) and sometimes admit they do not even play Brutes show up to insist Brutes are fine. So for the time being, look to the specific combinations which either cannot be had on other ATs or which in combination emerge better for Brutes.

Energy Aura has Energy Drain, which on top of recovering endurance boosts Defense based on the number of foes hit, with the boost lasting 45s while the base recharge is 60s.You should easily be able to boost your defense to offset rage crashes.

Tankers out damage Brutes on 14 of the powersets and tie on one. So, consider Brute if you want to play Electric, Kinetic, or Psionic Melee (all of which suck), Staff Fighting (mediocre), Titan Weapons, Dual Blades, or Broadsword. And on top of any of that, the Tanker will be more survivable. @callador0630 do not waste your time on a Brute unless you are considering playing armor or offense sets, or a combination of both, that cannot be found on other ATs. All the advocates of other melee ATs won and forced Brutes into a position of having nothing role-defining they bring to a team. And lest someone try to claim Tankers are walking uphill, both ways in the snow when it comes to levelling or dealing with bosses, my last couple of Tankers have far more easily upped the difficulty setting upward to make opponents pay more experience on top of having more of them to defeat and get even more experience because the Tanker is not going to die--and the damage is fine because you mostly spending your time clearing trash. Ohhhh, I may have to swing a few more times on a boss...how horrible. Those extra seconds are more than compensated by not having to waste time healing up (because while Brutes may have equal resistance caps, they do not reach it as easily). There are reasons why there is far more discussion going on in the Tanker subforum and it why three threads out of four IN THE BRUTE SECTION invariably turn to playing a Tanker. In fact, I dare say, if you look across the various AT subforums you will find the subforum with the most references to some other AT will be Brutes and those references will be to Tankers.

So started with this image from the costume customizer at Icon: Used the prompt: Filipino man with lightning bolt emblem on chest having brown fauxhawk hair with blonde highlights Set AI Strength to 0 Used CGI model Did Quick Enhance to get: Enhance and Upscale yielded:

If anything, there is content you only see in the alignment missions. There is a series of missions I played back on Live when I worked a character around the wheel of alignments I have never seen since. I have considered doing that again because the missions were so cool.

You know some people don't change their characters alignments? And others only do it by playing the missions to do so? The ONLY time I change a character's alignment is if I want a Patron power on a hero--which is not that common. It is also the only reason I've ever used Null. L

So can Group Flight be turned off by itself, or are other powers impacted as well? I've no desire to turn off Team Teleport just to avoid Group Fly.

I use Krea.ai. The steps I follow are: Upload image saved from game scale it to fill screen Set ai strength low. 0-4 is what I typically use Select photo mode (cgi and concept mode might appeal too) Describe the character you've uploaded. I typically include gender, build, ethnicity, type of clothing, chest emblem, and aura if necessary. I think I used something like, "muscular Filipino man with faux hawk hair dyed blonde at ends wearing t-shirt with blue lightning emblem, radiating electricity" On the Generate page there is a "Quick Enhance" button. Use it to get a see what the ai strength and prompt will do. Modify your prompt to correct results. There is also a "Variations" option to make minor, random tweaks once you are basically satisfied. Once everything is good do a full upscale and enhance. This is what eats your time allotment, so use only on what you think is good.

You say you need to be out of the fray, not your robots need to be out of it. Fly puts you out of the fray. Moreover, in order to get to Group Fly you have to take other powers first...so the option to be out of the fray is already there .