Sovera

If you like the Psi Mastery then it can be reworked in. Respecs are cheap and all gear can be sold back or given to an alt anyway so there is no loss if it does not work out.

Check the normal Will of the Controller. It's usually 8-10 million. A Catalyst from the AH is invariably 1 million.

.... FIRE BREATH.

Cremate is godly. 100% chance of KU on demand and decent damage. But Combustion ALSO is godly as two PbAoEs makes maping a breeze. A pity we are not allowed to have both.

Yes, as the peregrine falcon said. If you want to have zero taunt you should play a Stalker or a Scrapper, but even with a Scrapper some of the armor sets have agro auras. So, Stalker is safe since it has zero of that.

If you use Mids you can see the direct damage improvement of slotting a proc. Recharge time and animation plays a factor and sometimes slotting a damage proc can be as little as seven points of extra damage averaged out. But it's easy to slot for damage, look at the numbers, then slot a damage proc and look at the numbers again and just compare. Even so much as single damage procs are nearly always an improvement but more than that usually costs things like IO bonuses and recharge. Sometimes its worth it, sometimes its not, sometimes the build is made for level 50 only with incarnates and/or full team coverage providing buffs to cover the deficiencies the slotting has wrought.

I suggest sticking to Ourobouros and just do random arcs. I would not recommend soloing TFs despite being nearly the same as Ouroboros as TFs always end with an AV which you might or might not be able to solo. Ouroboros lets you log off mid-way and come back to it later and you do not outlevel the mobs or the contact. With half hour gaming sessions that exclude teaming this is the way to go. Don't do random AE mission arcs or radio missions as these only give XP and random loot (since double XP cuts off influence). Ouroboros will also give XP and loot, but always give merits as a reward for the final mission. If you CAN spare an hour then ITF is the absolute best bang for your buck.

Focus is KD, not knockback, and Shockwave has the the IO to make it a KD as well. Shockwave can do a lot for survival since it is a wide and 40y deep cone constantly knocking things on their butts. That said neither my Claws/Fire Brute nore the Tanker take it and just went to town with Burn and Spin. My own dragon used a mix of Vanguard claws colored firey since they glow and look cool, and then an 'in combat' tailor aura (which is when we pop out our claws) to further make fists wreathed in flame with one of the firey auras. If you took Maneuvers you can safely replace it with Combat Jumping as it gives almost the same defense and costs 0.06 instead of 0.28. If you don't want to use Hover (though you could have wings and flap flap in combat) then Combat Jumping is great for combat mobility. I never bothered to use Cardiac of ageless in any of my builds. Consume is enough. It's not as high as it looks because A) Focused Accuracy costs half than what the tooptip said since this last patch but Mids did not update that, B) there are four endurance procs in the builds that Mids does not account for. At worse just toggle off Focused Accuracy and only use it for debuffing mobs but I can say I never bothered to. If I meet recovery debuffing mobs I can always fall back on Recovery Serums. Other mobs that make other combos quake like Sappers are a joke for Fire Armor since Consume makes us immune to endurance debuff (just not *recovery* debuffing). S/L defense is still useful-ish as not ALL attacks were changed, just some in some factions. The devs did not want to castrate that approach and just wanted it to not be so OP. So it's not what will save you if you're in too deep, but then rarely does salvation come from one single thing. It's just another layer for mitigating danger. You can skip it if you want, but, I don't see much else to go for barring some super procced out 4-procs-per-attack approach. You don't really need to take SS if you want more KB protection. Replace the LoTG for a Karma -KB. Or do take SS. Same end result. Tbh I barely noticed KB, but, I also play with Hover and Evasive Maneuvers and EM has a ton of KB resistance and when in Hover even when get KB we just do a lil twirl in the air. If you're not hovering your mileage may vary.

Nowadays Fire Melee is just entrenched as #1, we can't beat two PbAoEs AND early AoE AND fast animations AND exotic damage. I just haven't updated that thread in a while. But Claws and MA then I'd say MA. Dragon's Tail is amazing even if Spin does more damage and it is satisfying to build the Turtle and have each block slide in place.

You can still take it, and the penalties were even alleviated in the last Stone Armor rework. There is just not much of a point nowadays as the rework made the other armors pick up the slack that Granite was carrying by itself.

You can't increase the magnitude of powers except with procs. Two magnitude CCs minions, three magnitude CCs lieutenants, four magnitude CCs bosses. But you can't make a 2 mag CC stun, for example, work on a lieutenant. They CAN stack though. So if you have one power that has 2 mag and a second that has 2 mag and you use them both on a boss it will CC the boss. Or if the power recharges quickly enough you can use the power twice. You probably knew this but just to make sure. So if you want to, say, hold a boss but your Hold is a mag 3 (they usually are) you want to stack it twice. That's where increasing the % and recharge comes in. If it lasts 10 seconds and you max it you get 15 seconds of the CC lasting on the boss. It won't do anything since it has not reached the threshold, but it's there. But that gives time for your Hold to recharge and use it a second time and have it become a 6 mag. With that said the chance a power will have of working is not beholden to anything in your power. If it's 50% then it's 50%. As the others have pointed out you can slot KB procs into the power if applicable to give yourself two chances of applying the power though there is a chance of both happening at the same time and the stacking making it a very large knockback (unless you're using the Overwhelming Force unique which works with different mechanics). First, if you have a KB that is at least one magnitude it will push enemies away. Less than 1 magnitude will make the enemies just knocked down. Knocked down is the much less obnoxious version and is a good source of soft CC with the mobs spending time getting back up and not using their attacks. If you have powers that knockback then consider slotting the appropriate procs that turn KB into KD. And then you make more powers do KD if you like the idea. Keep that power with the 50% as is, but slot the Avalanche proc in any other PbAoE or aura, slot the Overwhelming Force proc in any power (it works in all powers as it is an universal set) and now you have three powers doing KD.

Rad is resistance based. Brutes get resistances to 90% instead of 75% and a bigger HP pool so Brutes. There is the interaction of Fury boosting DoT numbers which is Savage's thing. Ultimately there is the 'are going to level it or play it?' because for leveling Brutes feel a lot better than Scrappers do. The thing about Brutes not having Fury in teams is pretty obsolete. Brutes have little problems with Fury even in teams after the Fury pass the HC devs did precisely to mitigate this problem.

It doesn't 100% if wanting to reach certain thresholds but you can level it just fine and worry about respecs once/if at 50. For leveling you just slap the usual culprits on since reaching thresholds while leveling is not easy or even necessary. Tbh I'd stick with Claws/Fire purely on playing the game without looking at theme. Savage Melee can feel a lot like flailing at the air since it's a DoT set and you notice bosses melting when the DoTs stack but for hitting a minion it kinda feels bad to flail three times to kill it since the DoTs take a while to get going. But if the heart wants Savage then listen to the heart. I happened to just have fixed a Savage/Fire Brute for someone else so I'll respost it here: Master Rune Brute (Savage Melee - Fiery Aura).mbd Since it was for someone else it doesn't have Fly as I usually take but it's not hard to move things around.

My dude, I have this, like, whole thread about Fire Armor being made for general content. 😄 My own dragon was a Fire Armor/Claws and how I got into Fire Armor. Rad Melee isn't that great (wasn't to begin with) and didn't get better with Irradiated Ground being fixed, but if you skip Devastating Blow (it hits hard and it increases your ST damage instead of the alternative, but, slow ass animation) and go with just Radiation Siphon, Contaminated Strike and Radioactive Smash you have a pretty simple and forgivable ST rotation. Do try Devastating Blow though and it might click. Keep in mind that the tailor lets you faff around like wreathing your body, or just the hands, or just the eyes, in a dozen different auras likes flames or such so you can take something else and dress it up.

You could say that 😄 Most of your questions, and others, can probably be found in my signature. The build you want is the Turtle.

Fire/Fire? You mention beast running, so maybe Savage Melee for the clawing?

Consume seems to be underslotted. Six slotting Gaussians is not the best bang for your slot since you're only getting 1.25% to S/L which is the only defense you should be building for. Two Rectified Recticle will give 1.88% and if you add three Adjusted Targetting you even get 3% E/N. There is no particular reason to give Temperature Protection more than the native slot. There is also no reason to slot Fire Shield, Plasma Shied, and Tough, the way that you did. It is giving you E/N defense you're not even building for. You're slotting towards S/L defenses but did not use Blistering Cold that would give a fat 5% for it. You forgot both the Shield Wall 5% resistances and the Reactive Defences 3% resistances for a meaty 8% to all. There is not much reason to go psionic Mastery if you're not slotting Dominate. You can go Energy Mastery and become near immune to accuracy debuffs and still have a Harmonic Mind simile in Physical Perfection, and if having a free power then Superior Conditioning is a little extra for endurance recovery. Or if wanting an extra AoE then aim for the usual culprits like Fireball or Dark Obliteration. Despite the slight nerf Gloom is still a valid ST power which Savage Melee is lacking. Even if you do keep Psionic Mastery the slotting in Psionic Tornado is adding very little to the build as you're not, again, working towards E/N defenses. I'm not sure how sold you are on using Shred for a ST power considering the slow 2.3 second animation, but otherwise the 'usual' ST rotation eschewing Hemo is Vicious Slash, Savage Strike, Maiming Slash, Savage Strike. With enough recharge or outside buffs one of the Vicious Slash-es can be removed. You're not yet at the minimum of 85% to S/L resistances but slotted Panacea that gives almost nothing of interest barring recharge instead of Preventive Medicine that comes chockful of good bonuses. You're wasting your big damage proc from Armageddon by slotting it in an aura as it only checks for damage procs once every 10 seconds. Combining everything this is how I'd go at it: Master Rune Brute (Savage Melee - Fiery Aura).mbd Now you have 84.3% to S/L and when you use Barrier it becomes 89.3%. Your S/L/M defenses will also go from 40% to 45%. See what you'd like to adapt from this to your build.

Friends don't let friends build while drunk 😄 There are a few mistakes like Lightning Rod, Chain Induction, and Jacob's Ladder being attacks and not slotted for damage. C'mon man, you're a Tanker but you still need to defeat mobs by hitting them 😛 You also forgot Rock Shield Armor. It depends if you want to be permanently in Granite form or not. Nowadays there is almost no need to and we give up a lot to even be in Granite. More than just the penalties listed in the Granite tooltip since Granite also turns off the recharge AND the psi defense from Minerals, the damage proc from Brimstone, and the recovery from Crystal Armor. Which also means there is almost no point in slotting these powers as they are only mules. If you did NOT intend to be in Granite form all the time then Rock Shield Armor is your source of S/L defense. I have a Stone/Elec in the Stone Armor thread in my signature that has 45% defense to all (50% with Weave turned on, 55% with Barrier's 5%) and 70% to all resists except psi (but it has defense to psi), 76% with a second ATO stack, 81% with Barrier's 5%. Granite is not even taken but can replace Weave since Weave is basically a LotG mule and buffer in case of meeting defense debuffers.

I always go Musculature Radial on near everything, even though the actual numbers are lower than on paper thanks to ED (Musculature's 45% damage actually being 15%, which makes the shift to Radial cost less than at first apparent (about 11% damage boost by going Radial instead)). More damage and more endurance recovery is always a thing near all builds can universally enjoy where most of the other alphas are pretty conditional. I've managed to never take Cardiac on any character so far. Either I have the endurance problems licked by 50 or the character is a bust. I've taken Intuition on my Ice Melee characters but missed the lil bit of endurance recovery so shifted back. Considering the damage boost is pretty small there is good reason to explore the other alphas though.

He fits both. I did put him for Super-Reflexes.

Some of my best Brutes were EM/Fire Armor where EM's mediocre AoE was shored by Fire Armor and EM's already high damage was further pushed by Fire Armor. Claws/Fire Brute still has my record for doing regular content. Other(s) were the new Stone Armor that does not involve Granite. Just one minute shorter than the Claws/Fire was a Rad/Stone Armor, but cruising lazily, impervious, not needing inspirations, near immune to debuffs. Rad Melee did get nerfed since but there are other pairings such as Fire Melee though Fire Melee would only give one AoE and semi-late at that. ... I long for a Claws/Stone, I really do, but I'm not doing it on the other ATs that have it but have no agro aura.

Stone is the odd duck in my opinion. It screams resistance instead of deflecting attacks. Or we play a Tanker and it does both. I have my build at 70% resistances, 76% with a second stack, 5% from Barrier puts it at 81%, and, if a third stack happens to come my way, 87% and change. Who needs buffers anyway! But back to the topic even the comics don't help much. Most heroes who are 'fire' or 'electricity' don't usually have invulnerability which makes their powers 100% defense based. Either they melt the bullets (perhaps we can see that as resisting if the attack is too big and they can't melt enough of it?) or they dodge the heck out of the attacks, or they get knocked out. Some could be said to be pure defense if they turn into pure fire or electricity forms. Some/most firey ones also play with the concept of using thermals (ignoring physics and how hurricane like such thermals would have to be to have such an effect). My own Fire Tanks usually were based on the idea they flew using thermals and their resistance was about their auras being so hot that either bullets melted or someone wanting to punch them would pull back... Which makes a certain amount of sense as who plunges their hand into a fire?. Obviously invulnerable people! Which is how she actually got hurt in-game. Either hit from a blind side or hit a number enough of times to weaken the protection or be tough enough to ignore the fire. Invulnerability does come in different flavours. We could argue Superman is so tough his resistance turns into defense as things just bounce off and rarely actually hurt him. The Hulk, on the other hand, tanks everything and gets stabbed, every once in a while even gets horribly mauled, or burned, or chunks of his body torn off which is more of a resistance thing. And then there's variable invulnerability where Thor bothers to dodge bullets but also swims in the sun, or Wonder-woman tanks Superman blows and swims in lava but almost died from a regular gun, both of which could be said to be easily more deadly than bullets. Dark is so esoteric we can make our headcanon. Is it dampening the blows? Is it draining the power from the blows? Who knows! Willpower is pretty much a Spider-man thing. You're tougher than average (Spider-man tanks blows from Colossus or other super strong foes, but still gets shot through by regular bullets) but can withstand it part through grit and part from said tougher-than-average-skin-and-muscle-tissue to heal up again. Even though he doesn't have a 'real' healing factor like Wolverine he still heals broken bones in very few days. Very comic book like that works until the healing is overcome by more damage than it can recover from. Seems on point. Super-Reflexes ought to be a mix of mild Flash (don't go demi-god because it doesn't work even in the comics) with seeing things in slow motion. Or danger sense. Spidey is the poster child for super-reflexes and could/should dance around everyone. Good luck hitting someone who can dodge bullets point blank with a punch that does NOT travel at the speed of even a small calibre bullet. But since the writers don't want him to easily win his opponents constantly hit the streak breaker.

Snarky:

That's me on Claws. Claws is great 90% of the time. And then the times a burst is needed, be it damage or ToHit, and I'm longing for BU.

I don't see 'Snarky' in the poll so I could not check a box. Edit: Wait, I lie. I see 'im. Voted.