Erratic1

KM has issues with animation times and a substandard mechanic. Do yourself a favor and avoid it. I say that as someone who played KM to 50 on a scraper. StJ is bland, but otherwise okay. You would be better off with EM or MA, but StJ works. Any of the listed defenses work. I am partial to some but any listed will work.

This is my current target build: Keep in mind, Battle Axe is the new hotness and should work comparably. I am happy with WM and besides, I have the name Ghosthammer. I think that sounds better than Ghostaxe. 🙂

I think a lot of people see the ability to change stances with Bio and think they are supposed to. Choose a stance and depart from it rarely. Easy. Other than stance dancing, there are 3 click powers which should only be invoked as needed. Energy Aura has 3 click powers and yet nobody ever calls it clicky. Likewise Electric Armor has 3 click powers and is also never called clicky. Probably a good thing Fire has been discounted as it has 4 click powers. But Rad Armor was not discounted and has Radiation Therapy, Particle Shielding, Ground Zero, and Meltdown all as click powers. Oddly, it too is not ever called clicky.

You don't know if you like a 70% chance to crit hit by attaching from stealth? Is that like not knowing if you like cake and ice cream? You do you. Personally I enjoy making AoE critical attacks from stealth.

Do they have an advantage over Stalkers? No? Then why are Stalkers not in the crosshairs? They are different, but they are also difference between the two ATs in the sub-50 range. With the same resistances and defenses on the table, the Brute does have to recover and always has to build back up to his damage max. When you crit off the top, or let's say you don't crit but your first two hits kill the target because you started with more damage on the Scrapper, that is damage you did not have to endure on a Scrapper. Meanwhile, Mr Zero Fury is never entering a fight fresh and defeating the opponents in two hits. It is going to take hitting and being hit to increase Fury and that is more endurance spent and hence more time spent recovering. Yes, until you run low on health or endurance, you can get up to nice values but that means the situation is looking at the difference between one racer who maintains a more consistent pace versus one who sprints then stops and catches their breath while the first continues on unchanging. I was not arguing against but echoing you in reference to the OP.

Are we having an conversation about the long, long, long ago or are we talking about here, today? Because 2010 was a long time ago. And last I looked, ATO do exist and the AT with the the absolute worst is Brute, not Scrapper. Not even remotely. And since it flies by on most ATs quickly (one wonders how the Brutes can be so absurdly overpowered if it is flying by), one wonders what the complaint is? That Scrappers have a 10-20 level range out the gate where they do not outshine Brutes for DPS, like they will for the rest of eternity?

While I suppose some people try out an AT for 6 levels, then try out another one, I am going to guess that is not how most people figure out what they want to play. If starting out with 60% more damage on the first hit, decreasing as the Brute works up their Fury while losing health, is sluggish, what exact metric are you using?

Scrappers start off with 50% more damage on their attacks, from the moment they engage, unlike Brutes who have to work up Fury. Factor in crits, and Scrappers are at 60% base. A Brute would need to be at 32 Fury to be where a Scrapper's first hit starts at. 85 is a sort of practical limit while fighting but... Brutes have no higher defenses or resistance values than Scrapper do, only having more hp. Their endurance bars are the same. Maintaining whatever level of Fury someone thinks Brutes do means continuously spending endurance and health because if you're not gaining/maintaining Fury, you're losing it. And if you've rested to recover health or endurance, you're back at zero Fury. Oddly enough, you do have to rest and recover from time to time. I am not sure the picture painted of low level Brutes is accurate. But I am pretty sure the time spent running up from level 1 to 20 is pretty short in the existence of a character, regardless of AT. Meanwhile at level 40, with nothing beyond SOs slotted, I have a level 40 scrapper whose routine is to toss out damage like the following, which Brutes can dream of: So if a Brute gets to level 20 in 3 hours versus 4 hours on a scrapper (numbers pulled out of the air, but honestly, it is just not that long regardless of AT), I have to question how meaningful that really is.

War Mace/Ninjitsu has been a ton of fun. Brutes and Tankers do not get Ninjitsu, Stalkers do not get War Mace. So not like you were doing this on anything but a scrapper. It is so very satisfying coming of stealth with an area attack and crit hitting an entire group.

I do enjoy it, though it is worth remembering both it and Foot Stomp have alternate animations.

If nobody had been comparing archetypes Brutes would not have received the nerfs they did. Your statement is like coming to the person who was robbed who wants the their property back to stop worrying about what others have. How could Brutes need a nerf outside of comparison to other archetypes? As for poor, poor Scrappers, this is from play on one of my scrappers earlier this week: He is level 41, but he's had the ability to turn out criticals like that for a while...without IOs.

A Brute requires 13 Fury to deal equivalent damage to a Tanker. They will pretty much exceed that amount by making an attack while being attacked in return. And reaching higher resistance caps should they build for it (which nearly all Brutes using a resistance based set will do and a lot using defense based sets do).

The healing on Radiation Siphon requires you to hit a contaminated target, so can be a bit like whack-a-mole. It is not really a primary source of healing so much as a bit of extra from time to time. Radiation Siphon is primarily a damage power. I will note however it can be slotted with healing enhancements, and as such you can slot Theft of Essence: Chance for Endurance. Again, it is not something which is going to be firing off all the time, but on a DA/Rad character, every bit of extra endurance is an absolute godsend.

One weakness of SS is its relative lack of area attacks, compared to other powersets. That can be addressed but you have to grab area attacks from pool powersets. Otherwise you will not have an area attack until you get the set's last power (level 26) unless your armor set provides something. Another is that the damage of the set is balanced around having Rage. You do not get that until level 18, and certainly have no way to cycle it quickly at low level. As for Invulnerability, it is considered in the top of protection sets by about everyone. The psionic hole is its only real downside.

I am unaware of any powerset where the true feel of it is manifest by level 22. Granted, they have changed power accessibility a bit, but the number of slots at 22 is still pretty low and you will have just gotten SOs. The 30s is where I typically make the call, and even then there have been a few builds I've done which didn't really gel until the 40s (very few).

I have long joked Dark Armor/Radiation Melee was the combo for people who hate endurance. Every experience I have had with Rad Melee has marked it as endurance heavy and Dark Armor is infamous. Another thing which seems slightly off is not taking Radiation Siphon, but that may be a matter of playstyle than efficiency.

Your endurance recovery to expenditure ratio looks low. FF proc is...well.... You know that if a power does not reset within the window of the proc's effect its recharge reverts to what it would have been if the proc had not gone off? This does not make the FF proc useless, but short of continuously staying within it, limits its valule somewhat.

Seems a bit slow to me, but if it interests you, go for it. Being inspired with a build is one of the best ways to find all the tricks to making it rock.

And yet I have a WM/Ninjitsu Scrapper who very much goes without being seen and crits from stealth. And were I to turn the dial to 11, I could make a Titan Weapon/Ninjitsu scrapper who could do the same while being fantastically even more absurd as a practitioner of ninjitsu.

I have never won a costume contest, so I guess I am helping others win.

What follows is the plan for me DM/EA Scrapper. As a Brute I would probably work to push the S/L resistances a bit higher.

They quasi-disagreed on one, tiny aspect of how important Psionic resistance was and both gave good builds, either of which will serve you in upwards of 95% of the game. Psionic damage is a thing in the game, so if you want to cover all bases, go with Infinitum's. As for Tanker vs Brute, do you want to be better at taking down tough solo targets with a bit less survivability in the end but a must faster starting experience or do you want to be better and bringing down crowds with maximum survivability and don't mind a slightly less smooth start? If more the first then Brute, if more the latter then Tanker.

I am old enough to remember when "min-maxer", "powergamer" and "munchkin" had different meanings. And do not even get me started on "pay to win".

Perma-Energize be thy friend.

Tankers get higher values on their defensive powers than Brutes do, so you would not be able to simply copy a Tanker build and end up with a good Brute build. This thread has a couple of builds in it: