Infinitum

Out of curiosity what do you do to gain more aoe attacks - Mu Epic?

That is an easy answer - just go ageless core and your issue is solved. You dont even need cardiac with ageless core. I use ageless radial and it is enough for my playstyle on any of my builds except my Troller builds, my Stoner tanker, and my farmer. For those i go ageless core.

Yeah i can see how that would be an issue on a stoner. On all of my non stone builds it isnt an issue though. Literally hundreds of hours on each one also.

I don't usually notice having it being and endurance issue.

I think thats more of an effect of the powerset you chose - greater aoe range and cap for tankers + contamination + a crap ton of -def and some -res+ energy and some toxic dmg. Yeah its going to aoe the crap out of mobs but thats more the powerset than the fact its a tanker - some powersets will be more efficient on tankers than other ATs. Take EM nothing will beat the feels of a EM/NRG Stalker - or even a EM/Shield Stalker - EM just fits best on a stalker but is still decent on other ATs. Try a Rad/Elec Brute and compare it to a Elec/Rad Tanker. The Brute is better - because the powerset fits better. Not a design flaw but a synergy that exists with every AT in the game and certain powersets - that doesnt mean the tanker changes overpowered the AT because on the baseline its right where it needed to be with outliers on either side.

Theres yer whimsy.

My favorites out of the box (for me): Fire EM Tanker - can be built fairly strong but my gah the burst dmg ST and Decent AOE to boot. Beam Rifle Ninjitsu flight Sentinel - debuffs - dmg boosts - hover blast without any real danger. Elec/Storm Troller - i have taken this buind into +4/8 fire farms and literally hovered as close to the ground as you can get right in the middle of the chaos and neutered the whole lot of em. Slowish in taking them out but fun to watch them powerless to effect me. Em/Energy Stalker - best ST boss killer in the game. Melts things with burst and attack cycling

Anything with a damage aura wins, but fury generation in these days wont be a problem with any set.

That sounds like some car manufacturers also - cars from 15-20 years ago are still more reliable than the crap they peddle today - selling all the fancy screens voices and gadgets - but the thing that matters most the mechanics of the car is crap.

Any of them will work but with its increased recharge and endurance tough to get along sets like TW get a lot easier. Mine was a Rad/Elec Brute and it was my first Vet Level 100 character ~3 years ago. You can do some really cool thematics with the electric armor graphics - think Thor, Zeus, Raiden, haha even sonic the hedghog - go with superspeed and claws in a blue color palette. I am not sure why elec armor doesn't get more love especially on Brutes but i have always gotten along better with it than Rad, Bio etc. Aside from Dark i think in the right hands its the second best resistance set on Brutes and probably the 4th or 5th best Brute set overall. Its just such a good spot for them, but overkill on tankers so it just doesn't feel as good.

I have a Dell Optiplex 790sff. That has been gutted and modified, upgraded to SSD, SFF NVidia graphics and Maxed out RAM. I built 5 of them actually a few years ago to network Champions Online in the house. Then COH returned and Champions probably won the dog in the divorce.

That makes sense - When I am rolling a scrapper or stalker I will get dual incarnates in hybrid and alpha depending on what the situation will dictate. When I am on a tanker or brute I almost always opt for the defensive route - cause you never know when you will need to bail a blaster out when they get in over their head. But as I said earlier - on the build I posted - it hasn't had any trouble surviving or taking enemies out on the energy version of that - and psi actually has the capability to run in line with energy if you play the insight game correctly. Leverage insight for damage - leverage energy drain for survivability and you shouldn't have any issues.

You miss out on more if you get dropped or cant stay in a fight for its duration. Without agility's bonus it puts you either below or right at the softcap - which isn't the playstyle i follow for a brute whose function is also survivability - which is why they have a 90% res cap and taunt IMO. I play most things with a tanker mindset thougb - so i may have less damage, but if anything drops me they have earned it Without observing the issue Warpact has its hard to say, but i have played Psi melee to where it seems hard to dish out dmg against a few enemy groups that resist it heavily.

See - procs aren't a selling point to me - i build for survivability first and losing out on the points of defense agility yields is a no go for me. That's just my point of view - not saying your playstyle is wrong. Psi melee has enough burst damage that heavy recharge favors it - the faster you can run through attacks the faster enemies drop without worrying about proc rate - and also the future of procs perhaps being drastically different one day in the near future. Utilizing buildup in sequence with insight is pretty devastating.

Hah - no such thing if the bar hasn't turned red yet. That is just my preference though. Ageless also provide valuable debuff resistances. Agility is strictly for the defense - recharge is an added bonus for both.

Were you fighting anything that resist psionic dmg heavily like bots of any kind?

I just reread and grasped this. Was your main complaint the kill time and not survivability?

try that, but also take a look at this. Here is a build I put together - I had energy melee instead of Psionic Melee but just swapped the two. - You lose a little damage on Greater psi blade and mass levitate but gain a lot of mitigation on this. The increase in Melee Defense, Fire/Cold and then the Res in Toxic and Psionic should be huge - plus the regen factor is a good bit higher. Hope this helps - but my build is pretty rock solid on just about everything I have thrown at it. Keep in mind that is pinging off 1 target with Energy Drain - if you hit multiples those numbers should also go up. a Comparision screenshot: Brute (Psionic Melee - Energy Aura).mxd

One question before I dig in. are you firing enerny drain at the beginning of mobs and then spamming it as it is avail?

That is the best summary to that question possible. To add a few more points to this - because Rad/Elec was my first uber build on HC - it was the engine that led to the rest of my builds with what i learned on that one 1. With shrewd slotting you can even get Fire/Cold to the 80s 2. Melee Defense to 45+ 3. Use Ageless Radial for the DDR 4. That leaves the only hole to negative energy and toxic (I think - will need to check my notes from back when) then use Melee Core when needed to cover those. Now you are as unkillable as any tank with roughly twice the damage in most scenarios.

Updated the primary post and revised all stalker builds - explanation in primary post. Also added a Dual Blades/Energy Aura Stalker.

What is wrong with your psi/energy aura brute?

How to make Regen Overperform - a Guide by Infinitum. Chain pop inspirations.

If one was enterprising enough you could actually build the regen in those up to respectable levels through set bonuses while sacrificing the native stats and STILL be better off than Regen currently is 😎