Erratic1

Range doesn't mean near so much without enough damage to prevent targets from closing the distance.

Psst...Bio has a damage aura.

I was on a melee character and intentionally avoided going anywhere near the stunners in question. My only guess at this point is perhaps the 25 yard limit was breached by one of the ranged characters.

...if nobody was nearby when they died. But twice tonight seen them rezzing with nobody around when killed by ranged attacks.

Probably not but the damage aura is a minor portion of the damage either would be doing and the Scrapper is going to be further ahead in that realm. The question is if you value more the greater survivability of the Brute or the greater damage dealing capacity of the Scrapper.

I had never noticed this (mostly I fight on the ground even if the character has flight) so just logged in to test it. The circles do not appear if you are flying and do disappear if you leap, but if you return to the ground they reappear too.

Seismic Blast works while flying (or at least using a jet pack).

Not saying anyone is wrong (you gotta play how you like to play) but a lot of builds here do not seem to cap S/L resistance and F/C/E/N defense. I would lean towards something which does so. As an example of reaching that goal based off the build posted by @Deuce Spade:

Or maybe rather than being terrible advice I make better builds which do not need to pop Ablative Carapace and DNA Siphon on every spawn.* Btw, Parasitic Aura's base recharge is 270s. Most people who build for recharge build to reach perma-Hasten and no further. Assuming +100% Recharge through slotting of the power that puts them at a divisor of 3.75, bringing the recharge on the power down to 72s. I will also note that a person is not always engaged in killing the hardest things they can survive. Case in point, last Sunday a guild member was short five levels of being able to run the TF the guild was going to be forming teams to run that night. I invited them to party with me as I ran +3x8. I can do +4x8 but for purposes of generating xp for the fellow guild members I picked a level where (a) they would not be dying all the time, (b) I would be able to be pretty lax in paying attention to survival. Admittedly, at that level it is not really that Parasitic Aura as going to see a ton of use in any event but that is a reason to not be increasing notoriety settings. *Edit: It occurs to me I typically play Bio on a Brute so perhaps more hp/higher resistance cap allows for less use of aforementioned powers.

I do not disagree, but that does not change that the goal is to not be defeated or that there is embarrassment when it occurs.

What follows is what you get when you take my SS/Bio's build, swap the setting in Mid's from SS to Rad, then swap a few powers around to accommodate Radiation instead of SS. No doubt it could be refined some: | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1435;694;1388;HEX;| |78DA65945953134110C76793898190881C31C17019EE2B108F7745E0018904289E5| |36B1860356C7013AAF43368A980C79355E0F10990C3F3C90F23A756F9A455D6DAD9| |FE6F81C55625BFED9EEE7F777A6692BA3F149C9D1DB926B48A1B39BD50C80C5A4B4| |5E59FCA1ACACC2A414F68DACCE6CD7B4BCAD26FE7949F3C312726935239A51293FA| |8CA1178DBCC97613AF0DA95965165462D0C867C6AD39DD34B299EBD642DE12A1743| |E9F4B8C1873F345C39C0B3AD698D217C90838C6D4A25233151C952B85550F2F1AD9| |C4B06E15E73329BD5054D6832875D14A9F87EDF4A595BA14B657A40971293C13E02| |4534E31375A8E83A518A0B7242D5E669EB90226890D529445988FA882E656D050A1| |0C1502A81040058DA6E31508F69682A352042798672741046F523B3E28FB7CB55CE| |E5C18FC2D1C56FF01FF326B6F7A9D362354C98F64E18FB1F309F55AEE2A963F958E| |B37699797E055C65469F3193CF995BD44E0592EDF764845CA5D077968FEE322FEC8| |387CCFA3DF080E9A5DE2ADD395762CE8D4910736EBCCA6CBEC449CBD47B154627AA| |7A84E3FC446DD468CE9ED9DE1A283543A9193B77118A8F4921EC8E246CD3233E527| |E04A2323286F814788BD9320EA6992BA453E7FEF6BA356EAF659DD9FA1A7C03BE65| |B6BF637EA68A3174EC89ED799C4D6B3F000F999206D4800A9E8623CEECF80586B98| |D556AA3894F9E2D9B7639B3178A7DFB2094FBA0FC85CAC75DE538923A10D485A0AF| |14D4C637C1F6B5CD7B9C725D067887D97D17CC810BCC55EAB21323F574BEE27DEA5| |D03D799BB41217ADCCDECE967E70BCA4CB8C722B1C1CEFE4D700BDC66267798711A| |D50094B4011C8B2438229D0B3DED1CD97A29DCC72ED9B4FD63A75D69E9FE05904B7| |35C8781E31B0ED7D169D78FFF5CA3F4D621C5CF134E4D5BE109055F32BF75D31545| |297BB4867CEEEDDA295D357765FBA4F1E1A4F10FB51EE5F7| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

It will function on a scrapper, just you stand to be dissatisfied when you are swiping at a target and another player comes along and one-shots it because your crits do not apply to the DoT portion on your damage. That will happen to the Brute too occasionally but not as often because the DoT portion of their damage gets boosted by their Fury bar. Because of this you will want to build to keep your fury bar up, so you will want to be durable and endurance efficient so as to not have to rest often to recover health or endurance. I went Savage/Electrical, but I certainly do not see a problem with Invulnerability--you should reach health durability easier with Invulnerability but will probably have to focus on ways to be endurance sufficient. You can find more details at:

Is there a reason to play a Scrapper rather than Brute, given Scrapper Savage DoTs will not get crit bonuses and Brute Fury will impact both direct damage and DoTs?

While I understand why it was changed and fully support that change, I kinda miss the original version of the respec trial in Terra Volta which was hard to succeed at unless you had a good team with good builds... ...the precise type of builds which did not need a respec.

Frostfire was regularly run, announced and recruited for on Torchbearer until it seems half the population ran off to Excelsior.

Depends on what you consider endgame. If running regular level 50 missions and taskforces at modestly boosted or less levels is your thing you will be fine. If you want to solo +4×8 ITF, you may need a bit more. I have a 50 Tanker who I have not yet started the set IO process on who is perfectly fine soloing +2×6 radio missions in Peregrine Island. For harder content I would break out his fully set based big brother.

Having come across the assertion Savage Melee is better for brutes than scrappers (killing the SM/Shield red side scraper I had just made), I decided to give a Savage Melee/Electric Armor brute a whirl. I picked Electric Armor because I wanted a damage aura and the other sets with one had issues I did not feel like wrestling with and Electric Armor also brings +Recharge to the table. According to City of Data 2.0, Blood Frenzy rewards you with 4% Recharge and 6% Endurance Discount per stack. At max stacking that should be 20 Recharge and 30% Endurance Discount. While you do get 20% Recharge, in game I do not recall the Power Monitor showing more than 23.6% (or so) Endurance Discount. 20% Recharge from Blood Frenzy at max stacks combines with 20% Recharge from Lightning Reflexes for 40% Recharge, which applies to every power and is quite noticeable. Faster cycling attacks would normally have the downside of increased endurance expenditure but the Endurance Discount of the Blood Frenzy stacks mostly negates it--140% attack rate (7/5) at 75% endurance cost (3/4) = 21/20 = 105% actual expenditure. The points above really drive a Go, GO, GO!!! style of play since you want to maintain Blood Frenzy stacks and you want to maintain Fury. When health or endurance forces you to rest, typically you are able to maintain 35% Fury though you do lose your Blood Frenzy stacks. Blood Thirst compares poorly to Build Up, giving only 10% To-Hit and 33% Damage compared to 20% To-Hit and 80% Damage. That being the case I use Blood Thirst AFTER spending full Blood Frenzy attacks on Rending Flurry. Rending Flurry gets damage boosted by spending the stacks, locks you out of gaining stacks, then Blood Thirst gives you full stacks. So you maintain your Recharge bonus and Endurance Discount. When another melee with Super Strength, Energy Melee, or whatever powerset with a massively hard hitting attack rolls up on the foe you have been 《SNIKT》 《SNIKT》 《WHACK》 《WHACK》 working down and one-shots it you will wonder what possessed you to waste time on Savage Melee. Keep in mind that is front-loaded damage and the power used is not on a short cooldown. Knockout Blow has a base recharge of 25s. Total Focus has one of 20s. There is a joy in dispatching a Freakshow before there can do their heal or laying low Paragon Protectors before they can get off Moment of Glory--both of which occur with enough damage over time flowing while you apply direct damage. You also get to steal killing blows surprisingly often while the other hero's power animates or they are waiting for an attack to cycle.

There are definite differences in difficulty depending on where your character's weak spots are. I suspect nobody has trouble with The Council. For my primary brute Carnies are only dangerous if multiple Master Illusionists are involved that can override his mez protection and drive detoggle him. But Arachnos are deeply unpleasant because he spends so much time blind they can nickel and dime him to death. Crey, Malta, and Nemesis aren't big problems. For others brute build I am sure the difficulty spread would be different.

If you can't just snap your fingers when you enter a map and defeat everything you're obsolete. More seriously, is there any AT which cannot solo +4x8 at this point?

Claws/Energy Aura -- Follow Up wants recharge and in a crowd you'll get plenty to start up the Cuisinart. Dark Melee/Invulnerability -- A classic Dual Blades/Super Reflexes Energy Melee/ Shield Defense -- 《BAM》 You're Dead! 《BAM》 You're Dead! 《BAM》 You're Dead! Katana or Broadsword/ Radiation Armor Martial Arts/Dark Armor Staff Fighting/Ninjitsu War Mace/Bio -- This could tradeoff with Energy Melee/Shield with primaries swapping secondaries.

People complain about Bio being clicky (I disagree, but people do), and this sounds like the land of clicking.

I had an AR/Poison Corruptor back on Live. While Pain would probably be worse, that's almost cheating.

It is pretty minimal as is. Invulnerability, which nobody complains about, is on the same order when running Unyielding.

Electric does not do anything against Toxic, something Unyielding provides Invulnerability and Energy Protection provides Energy Aura already. The fact that you use the word, "except" means Ninjitsu doesn't cover everything. Its status protection is a click power with longer base recharge than its duration so (a) you must spend slots to get to permanent coverage which most other sets have and therefore do not need to waste slots on, (b) if you do so you have to set it as your auto-click power--again something auto/toggle sets do not have to do, and (c) when it triggers its animation will interrupt anything else you were doing, let trying to beat opponents into submission before they do so to you. Last I looked Scrapper are a popular AT. You do not see a wealth of Ninjitsu scrapper running about. Heck, I am not even sure you see a wealth of Ninjitsu Stalkers running about. The reporting in this thread suggests otherwise by people who have tested it. Or maybe I missed the, "I got wrecked" posts because of all of the, "Not a big deal posts" by those who have tested.

More well-rounded? Invulnerability and Energy Aura are considered amongst the best sets in the game. Compare how often you see in game or in forum discussions Ninjitsu or Electric Armor and it's not even close because people far more gravitate to Invulnerability and Energy Aura than those latter two.