Good duo partner for a Fire/Fire brute?

[Grouchybeast]

My duo partner wants to reroll his fire/fire brute from live.  It'll be used for playing regular content, not AE farming.  I'm looking for something to play with it that has good synergy.  I generally play ranged and support, but I'll consider anything.  Any suggestions?

[The_Warpact]

I typically run a broot/tank and the missus does support. Heck anything would help, /emp or /pain great heals/buffs, /cold or /therm for the shields plus debuffs, /kin for rech/end recovery +dmg boost, /rad for AM and great debuffs, etc.

 

Support is great but dont count yourself out if a fight a good sonic/kin can be lethal, or a Ill/cold troller is a AV/GM killer, find a toon that will not only help the meat shield but fill the holes on the other toons weakness.

[Fan Mail]

Ice/Cold or Ice/Kin Corruptor would pair well.  Your defensive shields with Cold help his resistance armors round out his survivability.  And your single target Ice attacks help put down the harder targets.  Kin would boost +END and provide good heals/buffs. 

 

Honestly, just pick what you want to play.  Pretty much anything will work.  It's about the enjoyment of playing and all...

[Grouchybeast]

Some cool suggestions, thank you.  I don't ever remember having an Ill/ controller or a /kin, so I think I'll look into something along those lines.

[biostem]

12 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

My duo partner wants to reroll his fire/fire brute from live.  It'll be used for playing regular content, not AE farming.  I'm looking for something to play with it that has good synergy.  I generally play ranged and support, but I'll consider anything.  Any suggestions?

How about something that is the antithesis of the destruction a fire/fire brute would bring;  A nature affinity/water blast defender!

Edited January 26, 2020 by biostem

[Gorgar]

Dark defender would be my choice.  Illusion/dark would also be pretty nice.

[Bossk_Hogg]

Cold/Sonic defender would be my go to. You shore up cold resistance and provide defense to make it easy for the brute to cap defense. Frostwork buffs HP, which is something fire tanks/brutes don't have. It covers end regen with Heat Loss, as fire/fire is kind of an end pig when going full blast. You have a large amount of reist debuffs to melt foes in sleet/howl as well as your two single target attacks. It matures early, and with force feedback and sudden acceleration in Shockwave you can keep foes on their ass as well as buff your recharge.

 

There's a good amount of freedom in the build too, as Infrigidate, Snow Storm, Shout (a dps loss) and Screech are highly skippable. I personally ended up taking medicine for aid other/self on mine.

[MunkiLord]

Ice/Fire Blaster. Sure there is no support, but shit will go down so fast it won't matter. Really the Brute will be your support. 

[Corruption]

I'd suggest either a Fire/Kin or Fire/Cold Corruptor. Support that complements the Brute and also does damage. 

[Heraclea]

Somewhat different from the other suggestions - which are also good - Water/WP (or whatever) sentinel.  Water is good for slowing down large numbers of mobs and keeping them in place.  Water/Ice may be even better for that purpose, if you have a patron with major inf or merits to give to the cause.  (Will need endurance relief.) 

[Ironscarlet]

Anything that doesn't taunt off brute and buffs brute. So a illusion controller would be bad because it's Phantom army has taunt. I would recommend a kinetic buffer or cold debuffer or a poison MM that can throw box gas on brute. 

 

Optimal

Kin/Sonic Defender

Edited January 28, 2020 by Ironscarlet

[Grouchybeast]

Lots of fun sounding suggestions, thank you all :-) 

 

I think my final choice is going to be either a cold/cold or cold/kin corr.  Probably.  The main problem with this game is too much choice.  The important thing, though, is that I have a costume and a name ready!

 

 

 

[Shred Monkey]

Fire is the "raw base damage" king.  They don't bring their own buffs/debuffs.  I'd pair it with something that has some -regen and -res. and maybe some friendly defense buffs.  Perhaps something with traps.  A Traps/DP defender can be a lot of fun.  With enough recharge you can soul drain-Nuke every other spawn so you'll feel like you're contributing damage as well.

[Grouchybeast]

52 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

Fire is the "raw base damage" king.  They don't bring their own buffs/debuffs.  I'd pair it with something that has some -regen and -res. and maybe some friendly defense buffs.  Perhaps something with traps.  A Traps/DP defender can be a lot of fun.  With enough recharge you can soul drain-Nuke every other spawn so you'll feel like you're contributing damage as well.

Nooooo, not more choices!  No, but that sounds interesting because I love Dual Pistols (it looks so cool) and I've never tried Traps on any AT but that sounds like it could have some fun character concepts.  Would Traps be a bit slow and fiddly for keeping up with a brute?  That's the impression I've always had of it, but as I say, I've never actually played it.

[siolfir]

32 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

Nooooo, not more choices!  No, but that sounds interesting because I love Dual Pistols (it looks so cool) and I've never tried Traps on any AT but that sounds like it could have some fun character concepts.  Would Traps be a bit slow and fiddly for keeping up with a brute?  That's the impression I've always had of it, but as I say, I've never actually played it.

I ran a DP/Traps Corruptor to 50 on Infinity; FFG will give you some mez protection and defense all the time, but you won't use the rest of your secondary all that much on a quick-moving team (or duo) unless something gets away from the Brute. If something does come your way you have several ways to deal with it, and you'll be able to debuff anything into oblivion given time.

[Shred Monkey]

39 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

Nooooo, not more choices!  No, but that sounds interesting because I love Dual Pistols (it looks so cool) and I've never tried Traps on any AT but that sounds like it could have some fun character concepts.  Would Traps be a bit slow and fiddly for keeping up with a brute?  That's the impression I've always had of it, but as I say, I've never actually played it.

There are others with more experience on this then me, but my feeling is that it would depend on your difficulty settings.  You'll be able to set your difficulty for higher levels and more teammates comfortably with a traps defender along.  But if you don't crank up the settings, then yes, the brute is probably going to out-run your debuffs.

[Dr Causality]

Will the Brute almost exclusively duo with your character?     Because if so there will some be very specific support sets that would free up the Brute to really optimize their build into something very incredibly deadly.     Mainly, you're going to want to free them up from chasing +Def set bonuses allowing them to tune their build towards Rech, Dmg and Resistance bonuses.    If you do that then /Fiery Aura can probably be made into the highest DPS of the melee armor sets.  

 

 

Broken down in more detail:

 

Fiery Aura - Already has damage, Self-heal, Endurance Recovery, and some decent Resistance

 

What's missing from the set:

 

Survivability

• Defense
• Mitigation like Mezzes, Debuffs (-Tohit, -Rech etc.), and Knockback/Knockdown
• KB Protection (but easily filled from IOs if you have spare slots...)

Offense

• -Regen
• -Res
• +Rech (which also helps with survivability since /Fiery has it's own heal)

 

Look at sets that provide those things.  So for support sets I would look primary at:

 

• Anything /Time  -- since you get access to Powerboosted Farsight for from +22% Def on MM's to +33% on Defenders, (with Controllers and Corruptors in the middle...)  Time would also give a sizable +50% Rech bonus, some decent debuffs.
• /Darkness Affinity Controller -- Not the Dark Miasma that Corruptors, Defenders and MM's get, only the Controller version 'Darkness Affinity because it has Fade which can be Powerboosted up to around +27% Def.   Add in Shadowfall +6% Def and Maneuvers +3.6% Def letting you easily get over +35% aoe Def team buff.    This would be top surviviability because Dark also has significant +Res in Shadowfall, great Heals, a massive +Regen and +Rec buff (Soul Absorbtion which again only Controllers get), -Res, -Tohit and -Regen (bc you use Howling Twilight as a debuff on AVs...)     Oh and you get a healing debuffing pet.     As for pairings for your duo, I'd go Fire, Darkness, ILL, Grav or Earth since they can all do respectable damage (some like Earth requiring proc monster builds to get their...).      Plant is also a great set and pairing with Darkness Affinity.  But you might not choose it for your duo because while powerful and high damage with procs the Carrion Creepers and Confuse can make it more challenging for your Brute hold aggro and tightly pack mobs into their Melee flames....
• Anything /Cold   --   Ice Shields + Artic Fog let you offer close to +23% Def on MM up to nearly +30% on Defender.   Frostwork is a Massive HP buff.  Your resistances are largely wasted on /Fiery Aura since it already has strong Fire and Cold resistance.  But where /Cold shines is single target debuffs.....it's an AV/GM killer.     But two notable differences from the other options:  (1)  /Cold cannot buff their shields with Powerboost and (2)  /Cold cannot shield itself, so you will not be as sturdy and will have to depend more on the Brute taunting to stay safe.   Unless you go Controller and pick something like Dark or ILL that has taunt pets for mitigation...    But this makes for a playstyle difference in that /Time and /Dark Controllers builds can be built sturdy enough that they can fight from melee range using Stone Mastery Epic attacks.    /Cold is never going to get the personal defense to comfortably do that (and trying for it in set bonuses means weakening your primary powers since you'd be giving up +Rech bonuses needed to make your /Cold debuffs up often...)

 

If none of those are appealing:

 

• VEATs -- could also be made to work since they can stack Def bonuses from multiple higher power Maneuvers and they get access to many spots to place -Res procs.   But you'll be missing -Regen in your Duo.   For a support build you can pick up 'Spirit Ward' from Sorcery so you can have an Absorb buff to give the Brute. And you pickup the Medicine pool to become a single target healer.  
• Traps -- I find it a bit slow moving for the pace of the game, since most of the powers are stationary and Force Field Generator is slow moving.  But /Traps checks all the boxes:  +Def, -Regen, -Res.     One honorable mention is the Force Field Generator gives you some mezz protection lacking from the other support sets. 

 

Something to consider when making your choice is some of these sets get their central Def support powers at very difference levels.   I won't go into too much detail.  But all Cold versions gets their def shield power almost immediately.  Defender /Time gets Farsight at lvl 18.   Darkness Affinity gets Fade at lvl 20 and Shadowfall at lvl 16.      MM and Corruptor /Time will be a late bloomer not getting Farsight until lvl 28.    And you don't get Powerboost until you have Epic Powers unlocked, so the top Defense numbers won't be available through most of the leveling process. 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Dr Causality

[Bossk_Hogg]

2 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

Nooooo, not more choices!  No, but that sounds interesting because I love Dual Pistols (it looks so cool) and I've never tried Traps on any AT but that sounds like it could have some fun character concepts.  Would Traps be a bit slow and fiddly for keeping up with a brute?  That's the impression I've always had of it, but as I say, I've never actually played it.

I have a  fire/fire tank and a bots/traps mastermind. Traps honestly sucks on a fast paced team. You can get the -regen from other sources (envenomed daggers are honestly normally sufficient), and it offers nothing particularly special. By the time your ff generator waddles to the spawn the brute is likely moving on to the next one. Time Bomb is garbage, as is web grenade and triage beacon. Trip Mine is useful solo, but falls into the "why bother" category if you're with a brute. 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Bossk_Hogg

[Bossk_Hogg]

1 hour ago, Dr Causality said:

 

 

 

• Anything /Cold   --   Ice Shields + Artic Fog let you offer close to +23% Def on MM up to nearly +30% on Defender.   Frostwork is a Massive HP buff.  Your resistances are largely wasted on /Fiery Aura since it already has strong Fire and Cold resistance.  But where /Cold shines is single target debuffs.....it's an AV/GM killer.     But two notable differences from the other options:  (1)  /Cold cannot buff their shields with Powerboost and (2)  /Cold cannot shield itself, so you will not be as sturdy and will have to depend more on the Brute taunting to stay safe.   Unless you go Controller and pick something like Dark or ILL that has taunt pets for mitigation...    But this makes for a playstyle difference in that /Time and /Dark Controllers builds can be built sturdy enough that they can fight from melee range using Stone Mastery Epic attacks.    /Cold is never going to get the personal defense to comfortably do that (and trying for it in set bonuses means weakening your primary powers since you'd be giving up +Rech bonuses needed to make your /Cold debuffs up often...)

 

 

 

Something to consider when making your choice is some of these sets get their central Def support powers at very difference levels.   I won't go into too much detail.  But all Cold versions gets their def shield power almost immediately.  Defender /Time gets Farsight at lvl 18.   Darkness Affinity gets Fade at lvl 20 and Shadowfall at lvl 16.      MM and Corruptor /Time will be a late bloomer not getting Farsight until lvl 28.    And you don't get Powerboost until you have Epic Powers unlocked, so the top Defense numbers won't be available through most of the leveling process. 

REALLY good analysis, just wanted to comment on a few things. The brute is going to have IO's of their own, so it's not like powerboosted shields are required (see numerous complaints about force fields being obsolete in endgame). Plus I wouldnt get too attached to Power Boosted fade/farsight (fade in particular seems to be a bug).

 

As for personal defenses, while he's no tank, my cold/sonic defender has positional defenses of 35/35/40%, capped SL resistance, and energy/cold/fire/psi resist between 40-50%, which is a reasonably sturdy foundation to build on given that there are often other support characters/maneuvers etc in the team. Benumb isnt quite perma, but with a 20% stacking resist debuff on his attacks, stacked with sleet, it doesnt really matter much. Hard targets die ridiculously fast.

[Grouchybeast]

3 hours ago, Dr Causality said:

Will the Brute almost exclusively duo with your character?     Because if so there will some be very specific support sets that would free up the Brute to really optimize their build into something very incredibly deadly.     Mainly, you're going to want to free them up from chasing +Def set bonuses allowing them to tune their build towards Rech, Dmg and Resistance bonuses.    If you do that then /Fiery Aura can probably be made into the highest DPS of the melee armor sets.  

This is all awesome, thanks so much for the write-up. 

 

I've just finished levelling up a Bots/Time which did indeed turn into a monster at higher levels.  A Darkness controller sounds like another interesting option, and I had a dark/dark defender on live that I enjoyed a lot.  Hmm...

[MunkiLord]

All the answers here are wrong, the correct choice is Scrapper. And every time yall play together, send this link to your friend:  

 

 

Sure technically the Brute can hold aggro better, but that only matters if things are left standing. And as a Scrapper, enemies left standing shouldn't be a thing.

[quixoteprog]

Ice/Ice blaster?

[Rathulfr]

50 minutes ago, quixoteprog said:

Ice/Ice blaster?

[MunkiLord]

15 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

New thread rule(can I do that?)!!!! All suggestions now must be accompanied by a music video or song gif that some how relates to the suggestion. 

[Haijinx]

Force Field would also be a good support set for Fire Armor defense.

 

FF can also cap their own defense easier. 

 

Thematically plus synergy?  Maybe a Demons/Dark Mastermind.