Bloodofcaine

My only gripe with shield is that its mez/hold protection is a click power and it's on a rather long cooldown. This can be a bit annoying if you are quickly moving from enemy pack to enemy pack and they have hold spammy types in them. You can carry break frees of course but that's just space taken away from damage inspirations. A minor irritation at best that is shared with other sets such as super reflexes and /nin.

Not a bad build, May use it for my wm/bio scrapper. Just wish there was a decent alternative for those expensive sets. I'm unfortunately not one of those people who just has billions lying around (still not discovered the secret to generate that kind of inf. Farming just doesn't come anywhere close to doing it fast enough)

A concept for me is just that, a concept. I tend to build a character then have an explanation as to why they have their powers, rather than picking powers as I go which end up conflicting with said concept. If I am going to use the epic power pools then I can easily explain away why they have those abilities. In comics there have been cases of super heroes/heroines using abilities outside of their own powersets whether it be from acquiring different tech, using some artifact or other object that grants them temporary abilities etc...so yeah anything can be explained away. I digress though, I can't say I've deliberately skipped an E. TPP purely for reasons of a concept. If I skip an epp it is generally because it simply doesn't mechanically benefit the character I am playing. That si the beauty of this game however, there are so many different ways to build a character, you'll be fine if you don't take an epp. I like roleplay concepts, but I am also a bit of a min/maxer admittedly so I try to fit in both.

I may actually try this, growing a bit bored of my spines/fire brute. Does rad melee take out bosses faster? That's always been my annoyance with spines, grinding down bosses after the minions and LTs melt.

warmace or titan weapons and /bio. War mace is surprisingly good and the hits feel very meaty. It has some respectable cone and pbae attacks and hits like a truck. Titan weapons is great also, but I admit a partiality to war mace swinging a little faster and it's optimal rotation is damn simple.

Super Reflexes possesses a massive amount of Defense debuff resistance though, higher than any other set. While you can be debuffed if the cards stack against you, it is highly unlikely. I'd say as a defensive set that makes it better than shield will ever be. Shield's advantage is that it can do other things and has a great attack in shield charge, but from a purely defensive standpoint, no way is super reflexes "screwed".

One would think it would be enough, in some cases it's true,but it depends on your primary. I have a tw/wp scrapper and even with both stamina and quick recovery along with endurance procs it seems she is still starved for stamina from time to time. My poor SS/inv brute is constantly gasping for a breath even after a few attacks and I have her toggles as well as her attacks slotted with endurance reduction enhancements. I try to just use the toggles that are most needed for a particular enemy group on and I turn the others off and even then it feels like it isn't enough.

Yeah, I'm finding that if I join a pug without a tank, someone will stand behind me and gently push me forward, saying "hey, go aggro them." I don't want to primarily tank, but it seems like I need to be able to fill in as a tank on occasion. To be fair in such a case, that is simply logical. Chances are that as a brute you have superior defenses/resistances to other people on the team with the added benefit that your attacks piss off mobs. You may not be a tank but you can take a hit better than your team with the added benefit that getting hit is good for you anyway as it builds your fury faster. In such a situation I don't see why you WOULDN'T leap in first.

I hear ya, I usually start off creating a character, then in the mid 20s or so another build catches my eye and I reroll. Only character since homecoming came online I've gotten to 50 is my spines/fire brute but that was mainly out of just wanting a farming toon around for funds.

Well it won't set the world on fire or anything. /Ice is a very safe and defensive set that offers good control options like slowing your enemies to a crawl while you pick them off. Due to it's defensive shields you will do noticeably better in the low levels since staff has an attack that raises your melee and lethal defense if memory serves. It will get you through the leveling process, I mean nearly any combo can on just regular enhancements, its just that when you get to 50 there isn't a lot of room to move upward. As others have pointed out, you can spend hundreds of millions on the staff powerset and it will still be rather underwhelming whereas most other powersets only get better and better. All that said, you will do fine on normal enhancements. It's all I used on the character's I mentioned and they did fine at least until I stopped playing them in their 30s, but that was just due to me losing interest rather than hitting any wall that stopped me or anything.

I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of someone who has gotten their staff character to 50 and kitted them out as well. I only managed to get my characters to level 30 (scrapper, brute and a stalker respectively) I find myself liking the overall look of staff fighting but it feels as i got the characters higher that I was only tickling enemies. I dunno exactly what staff is supposed to be, at least in the early 30s it doesn't seem like it's particularly great at either single target or aoe damage except in the stalker's case where their assassin's strike does very good single target damage as stalkers tend to do.

I believe so too, opened about 100 mil worth of these things just to see what the hubbub was about, didn't even break even from it. Since I'm not flush with billions it was a huge disappointment for me. I know my sample size was a bit on the small side, but come on. It's just a bit too unreliable for me personally. I am still boggled at how some folks are sitting on billions in this game. It certainly can't be from this.

Neat, been playing an archery/em myself and was kind of wondering what direction to take her in. This build looks pretty reasonable and at least not terribly expensive. I am liking the character so far and think she will be my first ever 50 blaster. Never got into the archtype in the old days, admittedly always preferred the rather safe gameplay of scrappers and brutes.

rolled up a street justice/sr myself, it really is nice to use a defense set where getting debuffed is nearly no concern at all.

Honestly you can play any of the primaries and they can be summed up as simple. The stuff you're mentioning here is usually done by absolute obsessives who like to time everything down to a science for maximum dps, it is by no means necessary for enjoying your power picks or being able to tackle most of the content that is thrown at ya in this game. In most scenarios, especially when teaming up for regular content, stuff will die so fast you won't have time to worry about rotations. That said, dark melee is a solid choice, it hits hard and its attacks flow together nicely (specifically smite, life drain, midnight grasp) it can also buff its own damage to pretty nasty levels via soul drain. It's a single target set so it fits your style there.

SO enhancements are kind of a waste of money. You will come out better with IO enhancements. You will save more money in the long run because you won't have to swap them out every few levels. if your play time is truly limited you will also save time by not having to stand in a store and replace your SOs

I totally get desiring fun over efficiency except farming, for me, has nothing to do with fun because it's so repetative no matter what build you're running. I farm in order to be able to fund my fun and interesting builds, therefore efficiency at farming is paramount in order to give me more time to run other content on my fun toons and as little time as possible doing the repetitive farming. Spines/Fire Brute fulfills this goal the best, and has the added benefit to not require billions to achieve superior results. This dude here gets it. I was like you OP, I figured if I was gonna farm I would try to use a build I found "fun" except after hours in AE farms, it certainly is NOT fun, so I just settled on whatever at least made the process go a bit faster. Not trying to convince ya on anything, just saying farming itself is dull. I got my farmer, and then I got my characters I actually do fun stuff on like story arcs, archvillains, and working on an ill/rad controller to hunt GMs since it's so rare to see anyone doing those these days and I never got to fight most of em pre shutdown.

That sounds about right, heck, I played coh back when it first came out and even I just floundered trying to play titan weapons. It's so damn slowwwww, and you really feel that as you're leveling up, especially if you miss. As for bio armor, it must be one of those sets that shines only at end game, I tried various archtypes with the set and couldnt stand them, only managing to get them into their upper 20s.

When I joined the game again the very first thing I did was create a character who would be my influence farmer (namely a spines/fire brute) with whom I have been running AE missions since around level 12. She is level 40 now and even with just very casual farming on fire maps she makes enough influence and salvage to sell to fund my Alt-itis. It's already been mentioned but level 25 IOs are the way to go, they can carry you to 50 with a nominal influence investment compared to upgrading SOs every few levels and they can be recycled via a respec to hand down to other characters.

Precisely, all this talk of what is op and what isn't is just assuming a person has a billion influence build going on. I dunno, for me personally I want a class that is fun to play and reasonably able to do content solo if need be AS I LEVEL UP, not off at 50 after millions of influence and incarnates unlocked. It's been said already but after IOs most folks builds can trivialize content.

I am rather new to brutes and I am wondering about something I read in passing on another forum regarding brutes and damage enhancements. When leveling, is it not worth it to slot for damage? I heard the enhancements only increase one's base damage, and a brute's base damage is practically nil of course and is augmented as fury builds up. If this is the case then how do you all usually slot brute powers as you level up, just accuracy/end/recharge or whatever?

I'm having a strange issue with the auction house on Indomitable. I list an item in an attempt to sell it, I set the price and the item just sits in the 'stored' tab for a little while before vanishing completely. Eventually after a while it will reappear in the stored tab, never actually being listed under the "selling" tab. This is becoming a bit of an issue since the auction house is one of the better tools for generating income.