Werner

Starting with the last question, with a high-end end-game incarnated build, a Brute benefits from the 90% vs. 75% resistance cap. Outside of that, though, I'd say there's not much difference. It performs well on a Scrapper. Dark Armor is mostly a resistance set. I'd focus first on resistance. It also benefits from adding defense, but don't sacrifice the world for it, because it has no defense debuff resistance, and there are so many defense debuffers out there. Dark Regeneration is your heal, and is in some ways your most important power. Put a Theft of Essence proc in it, and in crowds, it will often be endurance neutral or recover endurance. That lets you spam it, and it recharges fast, and usually heals you to full. If they can't kill you before it recharges, they can't kill you. Endurance can be managed easily with an IO'd out and/or incarnated build, particularly since you get endurance debuff resistance. But it can be trickier to manage while leveling. An endurance tool from your primary, such as Dark Melee's Dark Consumption can help, but don't feel restricted to only primaries that have endurance tools. Here are some ideas: Three blues and one Performance Shifter proc in Stamina Panacea, Numina, and Miracle in Health Theft of Essence proc in Dark Regeneration Slot endurance reduction liberally Sets or frankenslotting in attacks The Atlas Medallion Portal Jockey Conserve Power Superior Conditioning with Performance Shifter Proc Physical Perfection with Performance Shifter Proc Oppressive Gloom rather than Cloak of Fear Know which toggles you can afford to turn off against which enemies I'm not saying to do all of that, as it would surely be overkill. But those are some things you can do to help manage endurance while leveling, and most of them apply to most characters if they're having endurance trouble.

On Dark Armor, I'd take Fighting, Leadership, Speed, and either Leaping or Flight. You want defense and resists, plus recharge for Dark Regeneration. Fire Armor is of course ideal for fire farming. But you can hit 75% fire resistance and probably 45% fire defense on Dark Armor, which should be sufficient. You have the damage aura. You have a stun aura if you want it. So you just need to pick a primary and epic pool to give you lots of AoE. You can probably still pull off AV soloing with such a build. Dark Melee is great for AV soloing, but probably a poor choice for farming due to having low AoE potential. But you have a cone, you could turn your utility AoEs into damage AoEs by loading them up with procs, then go with Mu Mastery to get two more AoEs from your epic. It won't be ideal. You won't compete with the big boys for farming speed. But it's probably doable.

Interesting! I don't know if it's the intended behavior, but I guess it's kinda cool. It seemed a little overpowered for it to not be unique, but this lets you slot more without it seeming overpowered. I'll probably respec out of one or two of them when I can be bothered to make such a minor tweak. Thank you for the additional testing, all!

I wonder if it's different on beta. I have literally never seen more than 1 +75 show up at a time. I have them in Stamina, Superior Conditioning, and Physical Perfection.

That's unfortunately not what I'm seeing on my Brute. I have three of them in my build in auto powers, and I have never seen more than one proc at once, while I very frequently see them proc at the same time as my Panacea. I counted 50 Power Transfer procs in 10 minutes total, for 5 PPM, where we'd expect 9 PPM if they were independent. I suspect that what's happening is that the second proc only gets a chance to fire if the first didn't fire, and the third proc only gets a chance to fire if the first two didn't fire. If so, they're effectively 3 PPM, 1.5 PPM, and 0.75 PPM, for a total of 5.25 PPM, very close to the observed result. Perhaps it's a result of the code to prevent it from firing more than once when used in an AoE. Perhaps the three different autopowers are being treated as a single power with three targets. I would guess that's a bug if so.

Some tweaks mostly for better resistance.

It's been a long time since I've played or built a Regen, but unless something has changed, what you build for is recharge, recharge, and recharge. Think you have enough recharge? Nope. More recharge. And while you're at it, somehow pick up a lot of hit points and resists. Some defense wouldn't hurt either. Anyway, I guess I need to download the "unofficial" Mids' update, as I can't load in your build.

As you say, knockback and endurance management can be fixed with IOs. What can't be fixed with IOs is /Dark's weakness to cascading defense failure, even if it's a weakness shared with many sets. I'm managing that with Barrier and resistances high enough that Barrier caps them for 30 seconds.

This is a quick adaptation, trying to combine my Street Justice/Super Reflexes and my Katana/Dark Armor. I'm unhappy that I didn't quite get smashing/lethal and melee to 45%, but probably some fiddling would get there. (Edit: Never mind - I had Hover turned off. LOL) Chain 2x(Shin Breaker -> Rib Cracker -> Heavy Blow) -> Crushing Uppercut, at least while Hasten is up. Throw in an extra attack or whatever's needed when it's down. Spam Spinning Strike in crowds. Use Barrier when defense debuffed, and kill the defense debuffers in the 30 seconds before you drop under 90% resistance again. Should be very hard to kill if you're on point with Barrier and Dark Regeneration. At low levels, chain Rib Cracker -> Brawl -> Heavy Blow -> Brawl. Brawl probably doesn't do much for you, but it at least makes you feel like you're doing something. (Edit - easy tweaks: Swap out Flight for Leaping. Lose the 20% recharge debuff resistance in Afterburner, gain 7.5% recharge in Vengeance. Or add Soul Transfer. Or the Taunt if you want to play tank. Or whatever amuses you. Could also drop Focused Accuracy if you aren't planning on fighting a lot of +4 enemies with defense buffs and to-hit debuffs.) (Edit - swapped to intended incarnate powers)

I should note for the OP that we've been optimizing around the survival aspect of AV soloing rather than the DPS aspect. DPS will be sufficient with these builds, but you're not going to set any Pylon soloing records. Survival was always my AV approach, but DPS is itself a survival tool.

It worked, and the build looks good to me. +5 those recharge IOs in Hasten to get perma. Be a shame to have all that lovely recharge and an ugly tiny little gap. 😉 Oh, does the interrupt time reducer in Rest make it take effect sooner? I must try that! Winter's Gift is nice to have. I hate recharge debuffs. I'm confused by the Gift of the Ancients run speeds. I guess you like being mobile without having to Combat Jump? It has you at 28.6 mph. You have a flight speed rather than run speed in swift. Is that intentional? Swap to a run speed and you're at the same 28.6 mph while saving two slots. If you want to go even faster, it's not much, but we can hit 29.1 mph by +5ing our run speed in Swift, and budget doesn't appear to be a constraint. Finally, you can stick a blue in Sprint and use it to get to 43.5 mph. Now you're burning more endurance, but running much faster, and have two slots to use elsewhere. An endmod/acc in Stamina, for instance, which offsets much of the additional endurance cost and also buys you more hit points, and you still have an extra slot to play with. Maybe another Preventive Medicine in Health for even more hit points, but there's probably something better somewhere.

I can't seem to open from the link, and I am on v2.6.0.7.

No, not a must have. Just a nice to have to be weighed against other possible uses of the slot.

Ah, I failed to notice that. I agree. In my build, I used Impervious Skin mostly for the +25% regeneration bonus. The status resistance just comes along for the ride, but it's a perk, even if not worth a slot on its own. The regeneration bonus is less valuable on Dark Melee, but it's nice to have. Something to be weighed against other possible uses of the slot. Ah, there is a better use of the slot, even if all we're after is more healing, which is a Power Transfer +heal proc IO in Stamina. I think that's worth over twice the healing on average. Those IOs aren't in Mids' yet, but are available in game. I already had one everywhere I could in my build, but again, not Dark Melee, so I need every bit of extra regeneration and healing I can get my hands on. Anyway, Power Transfer is one possible better use of the slot.

Nope, I am. Sorry for the bad advice. 🙂

That's definitely more along the lines of what I was mentioning, more what I'd do personally. But I worry about you following my lead on smashing/lethal vs. energy/negative resistance, which isn't the consensus recommendation of emphasizing smashing/lethal. One of the reasons I shoot for something more consistent is what feels like a significantly increased amount of energy/negative damage in incarnate content. But if building for incarnate content, you're also building for 59% defense. I don't know what's best for AV soloing, though. If you're picking your AVs, probably smashing/lethal and stick with smashing/lethal AVs for the most part. If you want to be able to handle whatever comes at you, maybe evening out resistances as you have is better. I'm unsure. I think you've gone to a somewhat higher price point. Shield Walls aren't cheap. Blistering Cold and Avalanche are quite expensive. I'm pretty sure the game doesn't allow you to have both superior and regular versions of unique sets. I think it treats them as being the same set so you can only slot one or the other. It's possible I'm wrong, though. I'm surprised Mids allows it, and it's a strong hint that I might be wrong.

No, sorry, Mids is right. I got confused between Scrappers and Brutes. The power order is different, and one of the complaints about Scrapper Super Reflexes is having to wait so long to pick up Evasion, since it's one of your basic critical powers, and it leaves you with an AoE hole for so long.

Seems pretty solid. Hit points could stand to be better, even with the accolades added in. A fairly easy improvement is the Unbreakable Guard +7.5% hit points IO, though I know how hard it can be to find slots, and there's always some trade off. Though it's basically perma, I wouldn't want to count on Soul Drain as my only to hit buff. If you don't want to go the Tactics route, perhaps at least the Kismet +6% to hit IO. Some other IOs to consider trying to work in unless you have them and I didn't see them: Reactive Defenses scaling resist Preventive Medicine chance for +absorb Rectified Rectical +perception (or Tactics or Focused Accuracy, but something for perception)

With the new wider cone, I'd very likely take Shadow Maul now. I don't think I had it on my old DM/SR. I'm on Excelsior.

First goal is to soft cap positional defense. You slightly exceed 45%, which is good to go for regular AVs. Just be aware that you'll see a dramatic drop in performance in incarnate content, where 59% is the soft cap. Or I think technically 58.5%? I shoot for over 59% so as to remain solid in incarnate content, but I use a higher budget and incarnate powers to get there. Also Maneuvers, which you've not taken. You don't need it as currently slotted, but it's something to keep in mind if you start changing things around. Your AV soloing chain is Smite -> Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Siphon Life. For that you need Smite to recharge in 2.112 seconds, and you're at 1.91 when Hasten is up, but 2.46 when it is down. And Midnight Grasp needs to recharge in 4.488 seconds, but you're at 5.16 seconds. You're probably going to need to change how Smite and Midnight Grasp are slotted. You'll also need perma Hasten or close to it. Using enhancement boosters on your recharges in Hasten at least gets you closer easily if expensively, but consider additional recharge as a possible goal. The easiest way to get it is arguably with incarnate powers, but if those are out because you specifically want to solo AVs without them, you'll probably have to get there with more set bonuses. Once those are taken care of, even with Siphon Life, which is admittedly awesome, some additional hit points and healing are good. Definitely at least pick up the accolade powers. It looks like you went fairly aggressively into hit point and regeneration bonuses, so that's good. I was even more aggressive on my StJ/SR, but maybe it's just my higher budget being reflected in higher bonuses, plus I don't have Siphon Life. It may be worth more slots in Health and Physical perfection. It may be worth looking into the new Power Transfer IOs with their healing proc. I don't like seeing regular defense IOs in Combat Jumping. If you go with a couple +5 Reactive Defenses instead, you'll pick up a little more smashing/lethal resistance and hit points without dropping your defense. That's a fair bit more money, though. Anything +5 is a fair bit more money. I'd like to see a set there, though. I haven't checked it, but I'm worried about your endurance consumption. Might be OK. I'd take Evasion earlier, but I've not paid much attention to when you take powers since I think you're talking about end game. You've taken a bunch of damage bonuses. You might consider Assault in addition or instead, but than worsens any possible endurance consumption issues. I'd probably skip Shadow Punch and Touch of Fear and try to use those slots to make improvements elsewhere. It's a Brute and Street Justice and uses incarnate powers and is at a much higher price point, so not really comparable directly, but as a point of comparison I'll go ahead and post my planned StJ/SR Brute build. I'm currently 48 and still slotting it out, so I can't report back from the field yet. But it may show my slotting and set bonus priorities, and may have ideas here and there. Your smashing/lethal resistance is better. Mine's a little anemic. Most people highly prioritize smashing/lethal. I'm more interested in consistent performance across damage types than is perhaps warranted by the distribution of damage types in game. Anyway, those were some initial observations.

What are you saying? Are you often at the damage cap, or most of the time not? It's like i'm talking to David Mitchell from Would I Lie To You. I maybe see the damage cap at least once on 90% of the runs through $Comic Con Fire Farm$. So I'm often at the cap. But I maybe only spend about 20% of my time actually sitting at the damage cap on that farm. Since that's less than half, most of the time I'm not at the damage cap. Often but not most. You seem to have answered your own question. Though with a good team, the exceptions aren't likely to be serious problems either. The game doesn't require survival-oriented builds, but some people like to play survival-oriented builds. What does this even mean? My Katana/Dark Brute can survive more easily in more extreme situations. So my SS/Fire is not my most survivable Brute. But my SS/Fire handles most +4x8 end game content with few deaths when I'm playing with friends. So I consider him to be very solid. Not a yes/no question, but... sure, yes, he's survivable. I think it would be getting into the weeds to explain the fine details of the survivability differences between my Katana/Dark Brute and my SS/Fire Brute, particularly since Katana/Dark would make a poor fire farmer, so isn't a good answer to the OPs question. I felt like it was being suggested that the OP would have to choose between their two desires, "best for AE fire farms, but also great for +4x8 endgame content." My intended point in bringing up my SS/Fire anecdotally is that a */Fire can be built to be great at both, just like the OP wants. Perhaps I made that case poorly, and so what I had intended to say was unclear. This may only exasperate you further, but I wasn't even specifically suggesting SS/Fire, which is perhaps why my "suggestion" seemed so unclear. I do think SS/Fire is a decent suggestion, but my intent was to make a broader point (mentioned above) about */Fire using SS/Fire as my example. Rad/Fire and Spines/Fire, already mentioned, are good suggestions that will farm slightly faster. Savage/Fire and Claws/Fire are also not bad at fire farming. Branching out from /Fire, you mentioned Titan/Bio, which seems a good choice. It's a little slower at farming than the /Fire builds, but not by a huge margin, and has better single target DPS for things like AVs. I also find all the knockdown to be fun, but fun is pretty subjective. My meandering on Rage was really just an aside that I perhaps shouldn't have brought up at all. It was random and directionless. I've put numbers and specificity to those meanderings in the past, but in this thread that would only be getting further off topic than it already was.

Rage normally helps damage output overall, but perhaps by less than some people may think, perhaps typically 10% to 20% in normal content. Good, but not great, and on a survival-oriented build, or if you just hate the crash, perhaps not worth the crash. And as damage bonuses climb, Rage helps less and less, and eventually even starts hurting damage output as you approach the damage cap. So when farming with a highly-efficient SS/Fire build and using keybinds/macros to convert inspirations to reds and chug them down, you can expect similar clear times with and without Rage. So I'd suggest it on a damage-oriented normal content build. But I wouldn't suggest it on a survival-oriented normal content build, or perhaps surprisingly, on a dedicated farming build. I think I'm very much in the minority on that last suggestion, though. As @Psyonico suggests, Rad/Fire would dispute that. I think it's close, but I think the edge goes to Rad/Fire. I love /Dark Armor. It's my favorite secondary. But its energy resistance leaves something to be desired in incarnate content. You can kind of get there though - I have 65% after set bonuses, and Barrier caps it for 30 seconds, as did Melee Core for 2 minutes, but I'm running Assault Core now because for what I fight, I almost never need more than 30 seconds of capped resists during a fight. I haven't run any iTrials on Homecoming, but I'm guessing there are better choices if that's what you're specifically building for. Just guessing, though. I'd love to be wrong. 🙂

Not that you claimed otherwise, but you can build /Fire to be very solid for the game at large and still be only slightly slower on a fire farm than a dedicated farming build. I farm maybe 10% slower than top farming builds on my general-purpose SS/Fire build despite not having Rage, Musculature, or Assault. When fire farming, you have massive damage buffs from combining inspirations into reds and chugging them down. Do additional damage buffs on top of that help? Yeah, most of the time I'm not at the damage cap. But I'm often at the damage cap. And when I'm not, the damage bonus is so high that adding more is of only marginal utility. He's admittedly not my most survivable Brute. But he's very solid, and his massive AoE damage (admittedly much lower outside of fire farms, but still nothing to sneeze at) is probably more useful to most teams than my other Brutes. Yes. Worth emphasizing. There are lots of ways to make influence fast. Farming was just nerfed, and in my opinion for the best, by no longer allowing double influence / no XP while exemplared. So only farm if you think you'd enjoy it, not if you think it would be a punishing grind but the only way to make quick cash. I personally enjoy it sometimes, just turning off my brain and mindlessly destroying huge crowds of enemies, no map, no missions, just pure carnage. It's not what I'm usually in the mood for, but sometimes, and I'm glad I have a "farmer" for those times.

Since I don't use inspirations when I'm pushing myself, I'm currently running Kismet, Tactics, and Focused Accuracy to deal with defense buffs and to-hit debuffs. That was one of the issues I had with my previous build (no FA) soloing Dark Astoria arcs. I need to test out survivability after my recent DPS tweaks, but my average of two pylon runs this morning was 252 DPS with Assault Core, Degenerative Radial, Fury of the Gladiator in Golden Dragonfly, and Achilles' Heel in Soaring Dragon. I'm keeping Cardiac and Barrier. I think I can mostly stay alive without Melee Core, which I rarely touched, but I can't without Barrier, which I use all the time and am to some extent built around. DPS does improve survivability in most fights, so I suspect the build is still solid. I added Longbow on top of the new DPS, and was then able to take down L54 Mother Mahem in a single summon on an AE map, but my Cataphract twice preferred shooting from melee range, so I'm working on Storm Elementals right now, hoping they'll be happier to attack from a distance. I may need to experiment with other Lore pets to see which works best for me. Hopefully then I'll be ready to take on the world again, but with AVs turned on rather than EBs.

Adding regen to Regen is rarely your best option. But I'm so doing this on my StJ/SR in Stamina, Superior Conditioning, and Physical Perfection. Just need to figure out the right build tweaks to fit it in.