Erratic1

I do not recall making a comment on ease or difficulty, just which AT is better.

All those people who choose to farm, and they are dealing with the bosses which are there. But what is being addressed here is the contention that Brutes are fine because of the claim they are top farmers (which they aren't any longer).

After a hiatus, I am back to try a couple of character ideas I had. First up is the replacement for my go at a Stj/Inv Brute. Loved the character concept and costume but not so much the end result. So I adapated the costume for his EnM/Inv replacement, Ultracharge: Having an enjoyable Fire/Bio Sentinel, I wanted to try another and came up with a Storm/Ninjitsu character named Zephra:

Because with Kin Melee you are waving your hands around in the air like you just don't care... ...just don't care that any other AT, including Defenders, will have finished off the target before your hit lands.

UKase did not say you need a tank to farm, he said that Tankers were better farmers: If you want to farm on a Defenderwws, it will be slow and painful, but you can do it. But Brutes being the best farmers is an absurd thing to maintain, especially in light of Trapdoor results showing Tankers well outperforming Brutes for clears. Yes, a Brute can farm. A Tanker does it better regardless of your memories of sometime long, long ago. You will (a) survive better as a Tanker and (b) hit more targets with your AoEs than a Brute can. The ONLY way a Brute will pull ahead is if you are farming solo bosses, which I am pretty sure is not what people have in mind when speaking of farming.

Bio/Rad

When anything involving cross-AT testing across various scenarios supports that claim, call me.

I am truly wishing I had a dollar for all the times of late where people in the Brute forum are told, for purposes of dealing damage, go play a Tanker. About the ONLY reason to play a Brute, it seems, is you want to play Super Strength with Energy Aura as that combo is uniquely open to Brutes.

Dull Pain has a cloud like effect, even when set to No Effect.

I ran put together the custom colorizations for an Invulenrablity character I made last night and they were definitely showing throw despite being set for no effects. Will check again once I get back.

Mostly non-existent. Even in its no effects mode a few leak through. Invincibility set to 1, Hasten not toggled on unless it is perma, Fury set at 80. Also I prefer to post builds where the spread between endurance consumption and recovery is at least 2/sec (unless there are endurance recover powers involved).

"Minimized" is not synonymous with "non-existent". I will grant Genetic Contamination is going to be rather present on your screen but that is true of all the damage auras.

Bio has a minimum gfx setting with only one power retaining it's full effect (and can be played as a sort of transformation thing). The lesser effects can be mostly hidden via costume color choices and are no more obtrusive than Invulnerability's effects.

Given the person you are responding to last visited the forums over 3 years ago, I would not hold out much hope for a response.

I try not to change other people's power choices too far from what they have selected because they presumably know what powers they want, but in this case I did do a bit of alteration. I also moved away from my earlier path of looking towards buffing your resistances...in fact, went completely opposite by designing a build meant to run in Offensive stance: A couple of things: There is a base 2.2 end/s gap between endurance expenditure and generation. I do not believe Mid's takes into account Performance Shifter procs, so in reality it build is a bit better off. On top of that you have DNA Siphon and Genetic Contamination. Dark Consumption's only purpose would be as a slow recharging AoE, so I dumped it. Melee Defense is 42.6%. At various points it pushed to 45%+ and E/N/F/C were over 50% but then I got distracted by the bright shiny of... I chose the Darkness Mastery Epic pool for you because Tar Patch was just too good not to get--22.5% resistance debuff...while you are in Offensive stance...with the potential of having used Soul Drain!!! Given the Ablative Shield and ability to pump regen (and recovery) and Siphon Life all on top of Dark Melee's power debuffing To-Hit, I figured not completely topping off S/L Resistance (you do have scaling resistance) and Melee defense was livable. At one point Soul Drain was sitting at 40s recharge instead of the 47s or so it is at now. If it is critical for it to be perma-available you can probably dance things around to get there. Edit: Most people look at Bio and think they should be dancing between stances. I'm lazy and approach Bio from the perspective of mostly staying in one stance and departing from it only as absolutely necessary. All of this to say, you can toggle to Efficient or Defensive stance if needed but the goal is not to do so.

I would change the slotting on Touch of Fear from Scirocco's Dervish to Erradiction for more E/N defense. I would probably look into splitting Superior Avalanche 3/3 between two powers for the extra Fire/Cold resist and doing the same with Gauntleted Fist for the Energy/Negative resist. I would suggest full slotting Environmental Modification with a Defense set and move the Shield Wall IO to Weave. But running late for a long day of work, so no real chance to build something right now.

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.