Sovera

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.

Players are not dependant on Build-up to hit enemies barring when seriously debuffed or the enemy is under a T9. The To-Hit portion of BU/Power Siphon is just fluff outside of those situations. BUT, they are important situations. I can say my resist based characters makes heavy use of BU to go through certain BS like Vampyr debuffs or CoT bubbles+debuffs. It's just that both are rather niche.

REcharge from procs does not affect proc chance. But I agree that sticking a recharge proc in Kick would be useless at the best of times. An attack chain should be complete and gapless. Sneaking in a a two second animation (?!) in a power not slotted for accuracy, not slotted for damage, with a terrible damage baseline, for a CHANCE at a proc? I say thee nay.

I have Fire/Rad in my signature, somewhere. Rad Melee took a bit of a hit when Irradiated Ground was 'fixed' but if you enjoy it then it works. The new hotness is Fire Melee that had a 'recent' tweak which made it into the new AoE god and top tier ST as well. Tankers get the best AoE version of the set but not the best ST version. Remember that if you desire to switch that all gear is account bound so you lost nothing in gearing up a different alt. Taking a gander at the build and yeah, it needs some work. You got the basics down though so it's not as much as a mess as you might have thought. In no particular order: Consume is your endurance tool and should be slotted for endurance. I usually use Synapse Shock. You lack your ATOs. If you look in the AH you'll see in the Resist, Healing, Knockback, etc sections one that is 'Tanker Archetype' and in there you'll find two. Well, four, since one is the normal version and the other is the superior version. If you were leveling you'd pick the normal version and if already 50 then the superior version (you can also buy the normal version and then use catalysts to turn them into the superior version. Check prices between normal and superior since catalysts are only 1 mill). The proc from the Superior Might of the Tanker gives a stack of 6.7% to all resistances so it's an enormous at least near 14% to resistances in that. I say 14% because getting and keeping a third stack rolling is unreliable as all it takes is a miss or the proc not proc-ing for one of the stacks to fall off, but two stacks is reliable. For farming in specific your Fire defenses are still a bit too low, but that's easily fixed as you forgot one of the two defense uniques (Gladiator Armor in resistances). Since you're at 39% it will boost you to 42%. Two more slots in any of the places you've slotted three Aegis will finish putting you at 45% which is where you want to be. You can take out Stealth (unless you like Stealth) and instead take Combat Jumping from Leaping. Almost same defense but one costs 0.31 to run and the other 0.06, on top of Combat Jumping being good for doing small bunny hops to move while in combat which I notice you have lack of for combat mobility. I would usually take Hover and have it running all the time for the movement in combat and the defense it gives, but not everyone likes fighting in melee with Hover. You can still take it since you have Fly anyway as it make Fly behave better and it's another place to slot a Luck of the Gambler 7.5% even if the power is toggled off. Radiation Siphon is a heal which you might enjoy. Devastating Blow is super slow, but you can make a simple attack chain of Radiation Siphon, Contaminated Strike, Radioactive Smash, Contaminated Strike, repeat. You could/should dump the slots in Electrifying Fences as the damage is nothing special and it stops mobs from getting close to you and Burn, then instead work the slots for the two ST attacks I mentioned above as once its down to bosses they need to be taken out. You can further boost your resistances by taking the Shield Wall 5% and the Reactive Defenses: Scaling Resists which gives another 3% for a total of 8%. Remember you can't have more than 90% so any more is a waste, which in turn means you can change the slotting and remove some of the excess to put it somewhere else. For example your fire resistance is at 138%, WITHOUT the Superior Might of the Tanker ATO procs OR the two resist uniques 😄 You can swap a good chunk of those Aegis and take Titanium Coatings or Unbreakable Guard for more Energy/Negative resistances. Because of the Tanker ATOs your aim should be 84%. Mids only accounts for 1 stack of the ATO so that's 84% with one stack and then we need to remember to think it has another 6.7%. If you take in account Incarnates and Barrier (you will want Barrier at some point) then it adds another 5% so you can further split your slotting so it reaches around 77-78% with one stack. Then a second one makes the resistances reach 85%, then Barrier accounts for the last 5%. But if not wanting to think about incarnates just yet then aim for 84%. Because Barrier gives both resistances and defenses at least 5% (it gives a giant amount of resistances and defense but they slowly decay over time after the activation. It is perma as it lasts 2 minutes but also recharges in 2 minutes) you can also consider it and keep your Fire defenses at 40% and then use Barrier for the 5%. Again, this allows to put slots towards other goals than things like Fire defense. But you WILL want to mess with Incarnates. The sooner you get your Alpha to tier 3 the sooner you get a massive buff of making all mobs -1 (while at level 45+, not 44 and lower). That makes +4 mobs into +3 which is massive for offense and defense.

Those +5s aren't doing much because of ED, and if you exemplar further than 47 all the bonuses are lost.

This is how I would build it. You can change it to the Sorcery pool instead of Flying and scrounge slots from the Shield Walls into two Reactive Defences. The Phalanx Fighting in particular needs no slots and is just a mule for the bonuses. Tanker (Shield - Fire Melee) Final build.mbd

What makes Scrapper ahead is the Scrapper ATO, and the best version of that is the superior one. So, while leveling the Brutes are on par or ahead. And at 50 Scrappers easily pull ahead.

I will be your friend, Snarky. I'll make my new Stone/Fire Tanker there since I was going to level one again for funsies. But I will wear a necklace of garlic. My blood stays inside and no need to bat those eyelashes at me because it's a hard rule.

No, the joke is how DB can only mimic a fraction of Katana's power.

Good point. I thought it about the DDR only after having posted. Even if Stone's DDR is not the bestest it still nullifies part of the incoming debuffs.

Brawl is just a filler for very early levels so no slots there. Pool powers: the only 'good ones' can be boiled down to: 1- Travel power of your choice. First thing to pick. I like Flying and I'm permanently using Hover but pick whatever. I suggest Super Jump if you don't don't like Fly and always have Combat Jumping turned on to do small jumps for mobility while only using Super Jump for long distances. Remember to turn off your travel power of choice while in combat since it consumes endurance, but Hover/Combat Jumping should be left always on as it costs near zero endurance and gives a small 2% defense boost that adds up (both defense uniques give 3% so it's 6%, then another 2% from Combat Jumping or Hover makes it go to 8%, then Maneuvers for another 2% and it's 10%. Bio Armor's Environmental Modification gives 11.2% native defense and with three slots it becomes 17.8%. With those 10% stacked up from above you're now at 27.8%. You want 45% so it's already half way there). 2 - Hasten from Super Speed. Big 70% recharge boost while it is on. Triple recharge in it. You can save a travel power by just picking Super Speed next. While Super Speed doesn't do vertical well you can also pick Combat Jumping to go with it (and have that 2% defense) or buy a 5k jetpack from the START vendor and activate it for those moments. 3 - Maneuvers from Leadership. It's a small 2-3% defense boost but it adds up. 4 - Fighting. Punch/Kick are just forced picks and not meant to be used. The real picks are Tough which increases smash and lethal resistances and then Weave that increases all defenses. There are a lot of other pools but quantity does not mean quality. Attacks from pools will always be worse than your primary attacks as a design choice so the four I suggested are pretty much the usual all builds go for unless aiming for something niche. It's worth noting that you could take Sorcery and use Mystic Flight as your travel power and then pick the Rune of Protection for a one minute defensive boost but due to its downtime its not something you can rely on other than a panic button.

The (near) immortal build is purpose handpicked for being cheap and start early, and it has starter leveling builds. I really recommend starting with this as by level 13 it lives to its namesake and you can play at 0x6. Now, there are no fast and easy answers regarding the Spines/Bio. To improve you will need money. Start selling those Merits as you earn them, keep the difficulty low, keep doing missions from contacts to the end for said merits that come at the last mission. To improve on your survivability you will want to always keep your inspirations stocked up and though the base teleporter costs 1 million it's pretty useful in that aspect since you can use it every 10 minutes and hit a base between missions to replenish on Lucks and healths. Every other inspiration is not as useful as having just purples and greens. Keep one purple up all the time, use a second one if you feel that you're in trouble. They cost 50 inf so there's no point in saving them. The rest costs some money. You will want both defense uniques for a nice boost (the same the (near) immortal build uses. They are a staple on nearly every build), three defense slots allocated to both Hardened Carapace and Environmental Modification. Don't bother with Inexhaustible just yet Once you get Adaptation you have three to choose from. Stick to Offensive for more damage since the faster you defeat mobs the less time they have to hurt you back. Get DNA Siphon and Ablative as soon as you can and slot three heal and three recharge right away. For attacks stick to one accuracy and three damage. Add one endurance reduction and one recharge when you have the free slots. Slotting with SOs (the vendor gear) or generic IOs is so simple it does not actually require builds. Don't place more than three of one kind (accuracy, damage, resistance, etc), put defense in defense slots, put resistance in resistance slots, one accuracy and three damage in attacks, etc. It's very straight forward. The trouble is when we enter actual IOs because of all the bonuses involved. One thing that will help you is simply to team. CoH thrives on teaming unlike other MMOs where you're supposed to be solo until max level. You can start teaming at level 1 and that will improve your XP, your survival, etc, because there will be buffs and people to share agro. Soloing is fine (I solo all the time) but without at least some gear and a solid base you will feel squishy and slow which might turn you off the game. Since all gear is account bound this slow start is a... well, pretty much a one time thing. You can pass the money and the expensive gear to another alt so it doesn't have to start with nothing. Speaking of part of your squishyness would be mitigated if you had Amplifiers but now it's too late as they grow more expensive with each level. Never forget to pick them up at level 1 since you will get 8 hours of strong buffs for a meager 23k.