Maelwys

Also worth pointing out that whilst Stalkers and Scrappers have a substantially lower Resistance cap than Brutes, they do get access to a few different tools (such as Shadow Meld) which can let them situationally "turtle up" more easily than Brutes whilst still maintaining a *lot* of build wiggle room. As an example: I have a built-for-damage-output EnergyMelee/RadArmor Scrapper - aside from a 6th SCS IO in Barrage; all of their slotting is focused on damage procs and +Global Recharge rather than on providing any additional mitigation. They constantly sit at the 75% S/L Resistance hardcap and they aren't hugely far off cap to many of the other types (easy enough for RadArmor, so nothing to get overly excited about!) plus ~13.5% Defence to Melee/Ranged/AoE (again, pretty poor... although at least it stacks with the ~8.5 -ToHit from Beta Decay). However they can choose to temporarily Softcap all their Defenses by popping Shadow Meld (duration of 15s; recharge + animation time less than 30s so 50% uptime). As a result, even with their ordinarily-sub-par mitigation they can still wade into any huge +4/x8 spawn of critters + pop Whirling Hands > Ground Zero > Radiation Therapy > Whirling Hands and come out smelling like roses. All without touching incarnates.

The post you quoted was by VenetiaSilver (not me! 🙂) I agree with your point that Tankers don't need extra buffage to shine. My followup was just pointing out that even the "Katana" powerset contains multiple useful AoE attacks; and so in practice even a WP/Katana Tanker should still have some advantages over a Katana/WP Brute. (In my experience it's a rare toon that doesn't take an AoE or two?!?) To restate my stance: honestly Brutes currently seem to be the "middle of the road" melee AT (more survivable than a Scrapper/Stalker but worse at Single Target damage; and less survivable than a Tanker but better at Single Target damage). And that might be fine from a design standpoint, but it's bad from an efficiency and desirability standpoint. Especially once you factor in Inventions and Incarnates and acknowledge that Stalkers/Scrappers can be made more than survivable enough to go toe-to-toe with just about any single target in the game (and Tanks are miles better at AoE damage....)

Even on Katana, Flashing Steel and The Lotus Drops and Golden Dragonfly all benefit drastically from Gauntlet. (Back on Live my old Kat/Regen Scrapper would have given their right arm to be able to reliably land Golden Dragonfly on multiple targets...)

Technically nope, the character creation screens lock VEATs into starting on Primal Earth redside in Mercy Island. However you can immediately run to Pocket D and talk to "Null the Gull" and swap to blueside.

Are you looking for attacks; debuffs; Crowd Control or Summons? Here are what IMO are the standout powers in Soul Mastery across the various ATs: + Gloom - Single-target ranged blast. Powerful; but it deals most of its damage over time and so may not feel impactful as there isn't an instant "Blam! --> Dead" reaction. + Soul Storm - Single-target Hold. Will hold a LT out of the box; and is stackable with itself to hold Bosses. Deals roughly the same damage as Dark Blast as a DOT. + Moonbeam - Single-Target Snipe. VERY good damage; even during combat whenever it switches to "fast mode". Typically a top-tier pick. + Dark Obliteration - Targeted AoE. Fast activating, Large radius and High Target Cap. Its base damage is OK; but it takes LOTS of damage Procs. Another Top-Tier pick. + Dark Embrace - Self +Damage Resistance Toggle. Primarily buffs Smashing/Lethal resistances, as well as a bit less to Negative/Toxic. + Power Boost - Increases many effects of other abilities. Use before a relevant long-duration buff like like Forcefield Bubbles or Farsight. Top Tier for specific powersets. + Shadow Meld - Large +Defense buff to self. Not perma, but 50% uptime is doable. Beware the long activation time. Useful situational utility ; especially when soloing. + Darkest Night - Large radius enemy-anchored AoE -ToHit debuff; very good at grabbing aggro. A Top-Tier aggro management power for Tankers/Brutes. + Midnight Grasp - Single-target Melee attack with a built-in Immobilize. Very useful. Long recharge but procs well. The other abilities are IMO either more situational or outright less useful. + Dark Blast - Single-target ranged blast. Decent Damage, but just not as powerful as Moonbeam and it's only available on the same ATs. + Soul Drain - PBAoE +Damage/+ToHit. Decent buff but LONG recharge time. + Dark Consumption - PBAoE +Endurance. Decent buff but LONG recharge time. + Night Fall - Cone attack. Decent DOT damage; but a very narrow arc. A filler attack at best. + Oppressive Gloom - PBAoE Stun. Mag2 SO ONLY AFFECTS MINIONS! May be useful if you melee and you've another Disorient power to stack with it. + Soul Tentacles - Cone Immobilize. Reasonable DOT damage; but a very narrow arc. AoE immobilizes are best used to keep things in damage or knockdown patches. Most Tankers, Brutes and VEATs will do very well by going [Gloom] plus either [Dark Obliteration] and/or [Darkest Night]. Likewise most Scrappers and Stalkers will do very well just by picking up [Moonbeam] and possibly [Shadow Meld]. Most Controllers and Dominators will benefit from going [Dark Embrace] plus [Dark Obliteration], which opens the way to a (very optional) Fortuna Pet. Corruptors and Defenders will benefit from [Dark Embrace] plus [Power Boost] providing they're Forcefield or Time Manipulation. The rest will have better Epic Pool choices. For Masterminds? [Dark Embrace] is useful, but the rest are iffy unless you really want to stun minions. Flame or Mu Epics simply bring far more to the table. For Blasters? [Dark Embrace] is useful, but unless you already have an AoE disorient (like Mental Manipulation) I'd pick another Epic Pool. For Sentinels? [Darkest Night] is the real standout; but you need to take another power as a prerequisite. [Midnight Grasp] is brilliant... however if you don't want to melee then you're stuck with [Soul Tentacles]. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - As for the summons: + Fortuna Seer [Controller] [Dominator] - Ranged, Decent Damage. Blows through Endurance. + Fortuna Mistress [Defender] [Corruptor] [Sentinel] - Ranged, Damage and CC. Blows through Endurance. + Night Widow [Scrapper] [Stalker] - Melee, Damage and Debuff. Blows through Endurance. + Blood Widow [Tanker] [Brute] [VEAT] - Melee, Damage and -Regen. Blows through Endurance. The Night Widow is almost always going to be a trap option unless you're trying to shave a few milliseconds off your pylon kill times. It doesn't do wonderful damage and neither Scrappers nor Stalkers can keep it alive. The Blood Widow is a bit better. It can be vaguely useful against AVs with the -Regen it inflicts; and it deals quite high damage as long as you can keep its Endurance bar filled (slot it for EndRed and use specific Incarnate abilities like Talons Radial Lore or Ageless Destiny). VEATs can buff its Defence to help keep it alive in regular gameplay. It'll typically still die pretty quickly at higher difficulty levels unless you're using Spirit Ward and Barrier on it. Neither of the Fortunas stands out. Having an extra pet may help Controllers (and to a lesser extent Defenders and Corruptors) when soloing; but they don't have much in the way of inherent damage resistance or Hitpoints so it'll be a struggle to keep them alive at higher difficulty levels.

If previous postings are any indicator, it really doesn't matter. Because they'll have taken all their blasts and intentionally neglected everything else entirely (under the guise of "it's PRIMARILY supposed to be dealing damage therefore a REAL Corruptor shouldn't take any powers from their secondary and the rest of the team should be handling all the buffing/debuffing" or similar nonsensewaffle)

Click the "Villain" Button? Also: Crab Spider Soldier - Crabbermind V0.1a Range.mbd 😉

@Troo - retrieve your beer from whoever you handed it to and re-read my previous post. The OP (who I actually quoted!) linked the Page 7 Farming Microguide thread by America's Angel, and also posted an older Page 4 Brute Mids file created by America's Angel as the current build that they were actively using and building towards. My comments were in relation to THAT thread (which is useful and informative, but is focussed on a very narrow niche rather than general PVE gameplay) and THAT build file (which is waaaay out of date even for it's intended purpose). They were not in relation to the three links you posted nor any build contained within! 🙃 - - - - - - - - - - All that said, despite possessing multiple Brutes that can and still do occasionally AE Farm... these days my #1 recommendation would be to go Tanker, not Brute. Tankers reach the 90% Res cap and Defensive softcap with far less effort compared to Brutes; their Maximum HP is higher (meaning greater base regeneration so AFK farming survivability thresholds are much easier to hit) and their larger AoE radiuses and Target caps mean almost any melee set will deal more damage in a farming situation than on an equivalent Brute. If the OP is set on a Brute Farming toon... the two defensive powersets that currently perform best on Brutes for that content are Firey Aura (because Burn doesn't benefit from Gauntlet but does from Fury) and Stone Armor (because Brimstone Armor procs are affected by Fury). Whilst all the Melee sets will deal better AoE damage on Tankers, Super Strength is higher performing than most since Rage means you can avoid slotting any Accuracy in favour of more damage procs, and Footstomp's 15ft radius covers a lot of ground even hitting just 10 targets rather than 16. The "least clicky" Farming Brute I have is currently a non-Granite RadMelee/StoneArmor. They're also the only Brute I still trust to AFK Fire Farm in a fully stocked Asteroid Map at +4/8. (Enter Map with all Toggles on and Atom Smasher on Auto >>> Make cup of tea >>> Next map) - - - - - - - - - - For a general PVE toon, rather than a farmer specifically, I'd still recommend the OP try Super Reflexes for Melee... but if they fancy a Ranged toon there are some recent examples in this thread. The alternative is a Mastermind. MMs are insanely strong whilst levelling up; and many combinations (Mercs + Marine Affinity in particular) are capable of blitzing through almost all endgame content too. But they're very busy, and I suspect the only one you could really get away with going on Autopilot for would be a Bots/FF. [EDIT] - Since I'm now back at my PC after dealing with kids birthday weekend madness, I can finally post a few example Mids builds... For a RadM/FA Brute; personally I'd probably veer towards something like this for levelling up: Brute (Radiation Melee - Fiery Aura Lv38).mbd And one of these for endgame content (taken from my stable - Combat Teleport beats Fly performancewise but the latter was more thematic for the character!): zBrute - Rad Melee - Fiery Aura (No Taunt).mbdzBrute - Rad Melee - Fiery Aura (TProt).mbdzBrute - Rad Melee - Fiery Aura (Rez).mbd FWIW, this is my current RadM/Stone Brute (a "do everything" build that can also AFK Fire Farm): Brute - Rad Melee - Stone Armor (Fold Space).mbd And this is my other relevant Brute, a BattleAxe/FA (a "do everything" build that can also Active Farm S/L or Fire) Brute - Battle Axe - Fiery Aura (Taunt).mbd The latter is more fun (Axe Cyclone "vacuuming" things into Burn range is hilarious) but the former needs far less attention + clicking. None of these are the fastest at farming by a longshot... for that check some of the up-to-date Tanker builds in the originally-linked Page 7 Farming Microguide (Dedicated Active Farming builds will tend to lean heavily into Procced-out Epic/Patron pool AoE attacks etc. Dedicated AFK Farming builds will take Leadership pool and stack other passive buffs. Both types will forget about most of your damage mitigation in order to concentrate on just one single form of incoming damage!)

First off, the build you linked is a Page 4 Fire Farmer Brute. It was designed to be good at one thing (killing lots of a very specific foe on a very specific map within the mission designer "Architect Entertainment" at level 50). So it was not intended to be a particularly great build when it comes to levelling up; let alone doing other non-AE content. And it's also a good few years out of date (more up to date farming builds can be found in the thread you linked) - so ever since "Page 5" (2022) it will actually have started to struggle at farming the maps it was designed to farm; mainly because of changes to how "extra" mobs will now attack you whenever you are already at the aggro cap. Whilst you can still build a RadM/Fire Brute to Farm AE missions; it now needs to be considerably more survivable and also won't beat the performance of a dedicated farming Tanker. The traditional "Dont' need to click anything" build is a Super Reflexes Tanker - combine it with RadM or DarkM and you even have a regular source of self-healing. The other standout would be Stone Armor (you don't need to take Granite Form). However if you don't want to solo at +8 (e.g. "I'm equal to eight teammates") then instead I'd recommend a Scrapper or Brute or even a Stalker or Sentinel; as you won't be seeing much benefit from Tanker's larger AoEs. Out of those, Brutes probably get the easiest ride to 50 (due to the bigger Hitpoint pool and the fact that slotting their attacks for damage is less necessary); and once *AT* Lv50; you can respec them and Farm if you choose to do so. There are various "how do you slot when levelling up" threads, but some basic guidance is stuff like: (i) Slot your attacks with at the equivalent of least one Single Origin Enhancement's worth of Accuracy and Endurance Reduction (ii) Take the Panacea and Miracle Procs and stick them in Health (iii) Don't leave Sprint or your Travel Power (including the START powers) active whenever you're inside missions - instead use Combat Jumping or Combat Teleport to move more quickly between spawns. You can also pick up some Recovery Serums at the START vendor for emergencies. Once you hit level ~27 you can swap from Single Origin Enhancements to Level 30 Common Crafted IOs - which are pretty cheap on the AH and don't need replaced every 5 levels. RadMelee/FieryAura isn't actually half bad for general PVE levelling; providing that you follow the above advice, and stick at least two EndReds in Blazing Aura and Irradiated Ground. And take + use Consume. And stick an Attuned Blessing of the Zephyr Proc in your Travel Power for some Knockback Protection. Once you're at level 50 and have all your IO set bonuses and Accolades in place; you can respec and rejig things.

Yes, it affects its Gatling Gun. As does the Soulbound Proc. You can slot both those procs if you don't mind losing out on a bit of Damage and/or Taunt Duration slotting. Tri-Cannon's Taunt *AURA* is unaffected by Taunt Duration Enhancements, so the only thing slotting Taunt Duration in it does is lengthen the duration of the Taunt in its Gatling Gun attack. Sometimes that's important (e.g. for keeping the attention of higher-level AVs) however with base duration a +4 "Non-Raid" flagged foe or +3 "Raid" flagged foe will remain taunted constantly as long as the Cannon doesn't miss more than one shot in a row against it; and the "Taunt Aura" will likewise keep any nearby +3 foes anchored on it. My typical setup is 4x Expedient Reinforcement (skip the Acc/Rech and the End/Dam/Rech) plus the Soulbound and the Perfect Zinger Procs. But if you like soloing AVs, swap the Zinger for a Taunt Duration (or an Acc/Taunt/Rech D-Sync if your pockets are deep enough!)

I mean, you could 6-slot Hasten and the extra Slots would shave ~12.5s off the recharge time rather than ~3.5s...? But at some point the additional slot investment becomes a waste; and bang-for-your-buck-wise that's almost always at the 3rd slot mark. Personally I'd almost always opt for more global recharge instead of overslotting Hasten once it hits the ED-redline; because whatever it is that I'm trying to get up sooner by building for Perma Hasten is going to benefit from that extra global recharge as well. The only exception actually would be if I had a very specific attack chain that required the extra +70% from Hasten in order for there to be no noteworthy gaps in the chain... and even then, I'd usually still opt for Global Recharge if I had any long-recharge-time clickies in the build. (Or just take Ageless Desinty instead of Barrier...)

Using Enhancement Boosted Level 50+5 IOs instead of regular old Single Origin Enhancements in Hasten results in you hitting severe Diminishing Returns from Enhancement Diversification after two enhancements instead of three. Recharge Rate Reduction Enhancements are Schedule A, so one maxxed-out Enhancement of each type will give you 38.33% (a +3 SO) and 53% (a Lv50+5 IO). Three +3 SOs grant 115.0%; reduced to 97.2% after ED. Two 50+5 IOs give 106%; reduced to 95.9% after ED. So before we had Boosters available, you really wanted to three-slot Hasten in order to "ED-cap" its recharge rate. But these days you only need to two-slot it. You can certainly choose to overslot Hasten with a 3rd enhancement slot; but you'd only really get much use out of the 3rd slot whenever you're exemplaring below level 32.

We used to call them "Skittles". TASTE THE RAINBOW DAMMIT

Yeah 15% Base, so ~23.5% when ED-capped (2x Level 50+5 -ToHit IOs) and you could feasibly get it up to ~25.6% by taking a Musculature Radial or Intuition Radial Alpha slot. And as ToHit Debuffs get subject to the Purple Patch, typically at endgame you'll actually be seeing 65% of each of those figures (and much less versus Archvillians) I imagine most throw either 2-4 pieces of Dampened Spirits or Dark Watcher's Despair into it; or 1-2 Enzyme Exposure HOs.

This bit? That's just a flag to say what sort of attack type it counts as for the purposes of target defense. You can see it halfway down the CoDv2 entry on the left hand side: If Darkest Night were not autohit; then there would be a chance for its effects to miss your target. And in that case any Defence your target possesses that counted as either "Negative Energy" (typed) or "AoE" (positional) would give them a better chance of having it miss them. However since Darkest Night is autohit; this will have zero impact (other than perhaps influencing the ToHit checks of Damage Procs, should you decide to slot any in it. IIRC these require an additional ToHit check when slotted within AutoHit Powers and I imagine it probably relies on the attack typing of the original power!)

I'm guessing Mids may be including the +50% Radius buff from Tanker Gauntlet, but the power itself is only 15ft base. Also agree 100% it's a great pulling tool!

The -Damage affects ALL damage types; and the -ToHit applies against the accuracy rolls of any ability (so as long as an attack isn't autohit; it'll be affected) https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=epic.brute_soul_mastery.darkest_night&at=tanker Darkest Night is a foe-anchored AoE toggle with a 70ft range, a 15ft Radius and a Target cap of 10. When you select a foe and toggle it on it will apply two autohit debuffs to that foe and up to nine other foes within 15ft of it: a -30% Damage debuff; as well as a -15% ToHit debuff (which you can enhance; and becomes ~23.5% at the ED-cap with the equivalent of 2x Level 50+5 -ToHit Debuff IOs in it). -ToHit directly affects the chance of enemies to hit things. You can think of it like adding extra +Defence(all) to yourself and your allies against the affected foe(s). However it gets resisted by enemies that are higher level than you as well as resisted HUGELY by Archvillains. So realistically at endgame you can expect it to be inflicting about 65% of its regular effect vs standard enemies.

The current speed clear leaderboards hosted by Koopak are using a particular AE map: "Galaxy Brain's Office Mission Simulator" (Arc ID: 57885, Test Server Arc ID: 23878) which as far as I'm aware is an updated version of this. Those board times are far from a perfect science - as many of the builds aren't exactly what you'd choose to run with day-to-day; and unfortunately the only Melee AT I see posted on the Office map is a Tanker, with a best time of 4:05 (beaten only by an Infinity Changeling Peacebringer at 3:21 and a VEAT Crab at 3:11). Pylon times for the listed Melee ATs are missing Tankers, but the rest are coming in at 0:55 (Brute), 0:28 (Scrapper), 0:26 (Stalker) This. (See the above gap in Pylon times; where the "best Brute" took roughly twice as long to drop it as the "best Scrapper" or the "best Stalker"; despite the fact that the Brute was using a Signature Summon and the others were not!)

I honestly don't have the time or headspace to attempt to provide a comprehensive comparison of all Melee powersets here; so highlighting a few specific relevant examples is the best you're going to get I'm afraid. If you think that constitutes a depthless surface-glance argument then apologies. That said, I was trying to highlight that when we look at a powerset which benefits highly from BOTH Fury and Gauntlet then Tankers pull ahead - even whenever the map in question used for the comparison contains a balance of both Single Target and AoE target opportunities; let alone on a Farming map or ITF with constant AoE target saturation. Tankers are similarly 21 seconds ahead on SPINES - a set which likewise has both Fury-affecting DoTs and multiple AoEs which benefit from Gauntlet's Target Cap and Radius buffs (plus a damage aura that does NOT benefit at all from Gauntlet: Quills!)... so we can't just dismiss Fiery Melee offhand here as an anomalous data point. It's also worth noting that the listed Scrapper Pylon times in that same linked thread for Fiery Melee are 1m 16sec - a difference of 24 seconds or 31.6% longer than for a Brute. So if this specific Brute powerset ranks second best at both ST Pylon times (Scrapper wins!) and AoE+ST Trapdoor times (Tanker wins!) then Brutes are demonstrably never the best AT to use this powerset on. Whilst there is certainly an argument to be made that Brutes being "somewhere in the middle" constitutes them being in a good place balancewise... as mentioned upthread, I really think Brutes need to shine at something; otherwise why invite a Brute to a team over a different AT? ...and as a complete aside: did you notice the listed ST chain used for Firey Melee Brutes and Tankers in the Pylon times? Greater Fire Sword > Gloom > Fire Sword > Cross Punch. Half of those attacks are not Fiery Melee abilities; and IIRC Gloom's recharge time has since been lengthened so I'm not sure it's even a viable chain any more...? 😆

Firey Melee's Trapdoor Performance from that link is a decent poster child for the argument. It's a power set with lots of DoTs, so you'd rightly expect it to benefit a fair bit from Brute Fury. And its main AoE (Fire Sword Circle) also benefits from both the target cap and radius buffs of Tanker Gauntlet. The result? It's Trapdoor times are 4:25 on Tanker, 5:04 on Brute. That's a difference of 39 Seconds, or 14.7% longer on the Brute.

This. Also Brutes have to make build concessions that Tankers do not in order to hit major damage mitigation thresholds; for example. I had to make a conscious decision on my aforementioned /Stone Brute to slot fewer damage procs in order to hardcap their Fire Resistance and Fire defense. Whereas a Tanker would be procbombed to the gills...

This is 100% true - Tankers only win as long as their AoEs are saturated. They have wider cones and bigger radiuses, which means it's easier to catch more mobs than a Brute - but if you're consistently hitting the same low (e.g. not >10) number of targets on both then the Brute will pull ahead; no question. So if your playstyle means that you're not dragging the stragglers with you into the NEXT mob (e.g. unsuppressed movement via Combat Jumping or Combat Teleport or Sprint or whatever) then Brutes and/or Scrappers will be better off. Players don't always have to plonk every single AT solo into one of those big mad triple-boxing-MM AE farm maps (just us crazy ones... 🤪 ) That said, IIRC the Trapdoor test was intended to give a fair representation of a mission that contained a decent range of targets - both clumped AND spread out. It wasn't perfect and AFAIK it's since been replaced by different AE missions; but Brutes still trailed noticeably.