Optimal Brute

[Snarky]

I got inspired by the min/max thread for a concept toon. Normally i build to theme and end up with an undead or a robot. In fact this will probably be skinned that way

 

But the premise is this: Build not for concept, but for the absolute optimal choices in the game

 

I am leaning toward Invul Armor  rite as the base.  I know i could get more damage with a set with an Aura but believe that in this situation Invul is the right choice

 

the real question is Primary.  I normally roll Super Strength or Dark Melee. But i believe they may not be the optimal choices.  I have been looking at Scrapper thread for ideas

 

The concept is for late game content. So incarnate abilities are part of the calculus. 
 

Any suggestions about attack set, incarnate powers, and even logical reasons for moving from invulnerability are appreciated

 

also suggestions for pool powers and epics are wide open. I am in the safe CJ Haste and usually Maneuvers rut there. Good chance that will go into this. But again open for suggestions 

 

This is not a “farmer” bit a TF and Trial toon, optimized for surviving handily while dishing out tons if damage in a wide variety of situations

 

Thanks in advance for ideas

[Mitchman]

No expert by any means

 

But, invul is a great set that can easily get you your softcap/resist numbers. I personally LOVE bio armor for the absorb, the self-heal, and the damage boost. But, it is extremely overplayed. I know radiation is also very very strong when it comes to a defensive set.

 

As for attack primaries, my preference has always been SS but lately the Rage crash triggers me lol. I believe Claws, War Mace, Street Justice are all well-balanced versatile sets. Great ST, Good AOE. Titan Weapons is also very strong, but the slow buildups when you don't have Momentum are a drag.

 

I always on any of my builds run fighting, leadership, Hasten, Hover or CJump.

 

[Apparition]

Invulnerability is a very good armor.  You'll be just fine with it.  Bio and Radiation are also very good.

 

For primaries, Titan Weapons is currently #1, but it's due for a nerf at some point.  War Mace is a very strong second.  War Mace/Invulnerability will do you very well.

 

As for Incarnates, the Alpha and Destiny depend on your build.  Judgement, Ionic Core is always a good way.  Degenerative Core is always a good way to go for Interface.  For Lore, Banished Pantheon Core, Carnies Core, or Longbow Core depending on taste.

[Snarky]

Thanks. I been thinking about War Mace.  I normally dont like weapons.   But there is just something satisfying about hitting something with a stick. Could be be optimal and primal lol

Edited February 7, 2020 by Snarky

[Snarky]

I tried war mace. I am very costume oriented and did not quite live anything that goes with the weapons. 
 

i tried TW and was able to drop in a abandoned but liked costume and match it to one of the weapons there

 

i will have to get used to momentum. Of course it really is slow at low levels. But it supposedly rocks at high levels which is the goal

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by Snarky

[ThrillMill]

Y'all missing out on the beauty that is TW/Elec. 

[Snarky]

Heh. I love a damage aura. But i love just ignoring EVERTHING that is not Nova Fist even more

[Outrider_01]

Mace. Best way to describe it.

 

Sex. Pure Sex.

 

If only it had a water pipe option to bash heads in, wrench is good but got to change it up sometimes.

[Rokkeb]

19 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

Mace. Best way to describe it.

 

Sex. Pure Sex.

 

If only it had a water pipe option to bash heads in, wrench is good but got to change it up sometimes.

I recently made a clown  that uses the carnie mallet. But I'm thinking about trying to make a zombieland carnie alt costume with disfigured  face and zombie arms. 

[Snarky]

Okay. You just reminded me of an alt a ran for a while back on live. Laughy. Yea the name was available. Full clown outfit. The colors ooof. I was looking at art theory and took a long time making every piece be opposed to what it was next to while shifting through all the colors as i moved from piece to piece

 

that was a SS Will. I think we need a mace invul clown. Who is laughing now? 

[JackDaniels]

On 2/8/2020 at 9:51 AM, ThrillMill said:

Y'all missing out on the beauty that is TW/Elec. 

do you have a build for that for a scrapper? i have one at lvl 38 at the moment and have stopped playing him for now and off to another toon till i can find a good build.

 

[Slithershot]

My main scapper is a war mace/shield. Pretty sure it would be just as good on a brute, if not even more durable (she does not die already). Mace is already stupidly strong with rediculous AOE. Add in shield charge and against all odds? Mass destruction and huge ST numbers. 

Edited March 19, 2020 by Pizzamurai

[Without_Pause]

On 2/8/2020 at 4:20 PM, Snarky said:

Heh. I love a damage aura. But i love just ignoring EVERTHING that is not Nova Fist even more

Rad/invul would give you one.

[Snarky]

46 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

Rad/invul would give you one.

I need to revisit rad/invul. While half of my game is madly min maxing toons the other half is deep seated perfectionism in concept. That is one major reason certain ATs and sets never even get tried. Water Blast. So many things i wanted for so long.  Water.  Conceptually i can’t do crap with water. It does not fit my personal style. Thankfully i found a way to live Dark Blast. Rad/Invul i have concepts for. Just need to continue rolling them around

[Obus Form]

Optimally, by numbers and risk mitigation (i.e. ability to AFK tank incarnate level AVs or mitigate risks against lucky attacks via resists + self heals), it's either /Dark Armour or /Radiation Armour.

 

Damage wise, you're single target is something like TW > Claws > Dark Melee = Stone melee = Super Strength (but double stacked rage crash + hasten crash will drain you over an 5-8 minute non stop DPS fight).

 

Anecdotally I think street justice is also good for Single Taraget but I've never used it.  StJ seems good at single target per Damage per Animation Time per mids.

 

Damage wise, you're AOE is TW > Spines

[Sovera]

I'm going to try MA/Bio next. /Bio has a hard time pushing S/L up, and 'lo, Ma gives a stupendous 7.5% to -all- defenses. This completely changes the slotting.

 

While Katana, Broadsword, TW and Staff also have defense raising moves they are limited to two types only (smash and melee, for example) and are usually not part of the rotation, where Storm Kick very much is.

[oOStaticOo]

My vote is for Katana/Energy Aura.  So far it's my favorite Brute.  Can do some major damage and stand toe-to-toe with just about everything.

[Snarky]

10 hours ago, Obus Form said:

Optimally, by numbers and risk mitigation (i.e. ability to AFK tank incarnate level AVs or mitigate risks against lucky attacks via resists + self heals), it's either /Dark Armour or /Radiation Armour.

 

Damage wise, you're single target is something like TW > Claws > Dark Melee = Stone melee = Super Strength (but double stacked rage crash + hasten crash will drain you over an 5-8 minute non stop DPS fight).

 

Anecdotally I think street justice is also good for Single Taraget but I've never used it.  StJ seems good at single target per Damage per Animation Time per mids.

 

Damage wise, you're AOE is TW > Spines

I have a Dark/Dark Brute that is stupid Insane powerful.  It is practically a farmer.  Although instead of one damage type/farm it can jump into +4/x8 of anything.  This has to do with the insane recharge and using all the PBAoE buffs/heals/end recovery as a freaking attack chain.  With the side ...mmm benefit, yes, of having ENDLESS buffs, health, stamina  The thing is a buzzsaw, basically doing its own melee version of a constant rotating fulcrum shift.  Enemies get -tohit debuff, tons of damage, feared, confused, Character gets +Dam, +toHit, +Health, +Endurance and it rolls constant, including having a damage aura.  

[Obus Form]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

I have a Dark/Dark Brute that is stupid Insane powerful.  It is practically a farmer.  Although instead of one damage type/farm it can jump into +4/x8 of anything.  This has to do with the insane recharge and using all the PBAoE buffs/heals/end recovery as a freaking attack chain.  With the side ...mmm benefit, yes, of having ENDLESS buffs, health, stamina  The thing is a buzzsaw, basically doing its own melee version of a constant rotating fulcrum shift.  Enemies get -tohit debuff, tons of damage, feared, confused, Character gets +Dam, +toHit, +Health, +Endurance and it rolls constant, including having a damage aura.  

For once, we agree on something haha 😀

[Rooster Gold]

Tanks can't pick Regen I would start there. Also they're great for Hami raids.

[Myrmidon]

14 hours ago, Snarky said:

Water Blast. So many things i wanted for so long.  Water.  Conceptually i can’t do crap with water.

Mine is a Water/WP Sentinel (Bio would likely work even better) and once I have all of the T4s, it will be the end of your surface dweller ways.

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

I have a Dark/Dark Brute that is stupid Insane powerful.  It is practically a farmer.  Although instead of one damage type/farm it can jump into +4/x8 of anything.  This has to do with the insane recharge and using all the PBAoE buffs/heals/end recovery as a freaking attack chain.  With the side ...mmm benefit, yes, of having ENDLESS buffs, health, stamina  The thing is a buzzsaw, basically doing its own melee version of a constant rotating fulcrum shift.  Enemies get -tohit debuff, tons of damage, feared, confused, Character gets +Dam, +toHit, +Health, +Endurance and it rolls constant, including having a damage aura.  

I am actually looking to try out something like this on a Tanker.

[Sovera]

The MA/Bio brute is being better than I expected. The 7.5% defense in Storm Kick is huge for a /Bio but to my surprise I'm one shotting even level minions with Crane and Crippling Kick. Reaching 26 for Dragon Tail was a huge pain. God, never again doing Posi and killing every little gear.. one... by... one...

 

The AoE is pretty satisfying too. Fast animation (fastest PbAoE even that I've seen for melee characters), KB. Incidentally both the 100% KB in Crane and Dragon Tail make for some much welcome Force Feedback proc triggering.

 

 Overall not the fastest animations but not the slowest either, 1.8 , 1, 1.8 is very acceptable.

 

This seems like a keeper.

[KelvinKole]

I've spent some time thinking about this question and have arrived at either Electric Armor or Radiation Armor. Both have built in sourcea of damage, +recharge, endurance management, and super solid resistance numbers. The all encompassing nature of these sets will let you go all in on damage incarnates. 

 

Primary is a harder choice for me. Titan weapons is obviously broken good, but I just dont like the momentum mechanic. Katana, Spines, and psi need to be mentioned for their combination of fast single target attacks and solid Aoe. Spines may fall all out of favor slightly with less IO proc potential. 

[Vea]

Here is a list of primaries ranked based on an average of high recharge and low recharge assumptions. It's from a scrapper DPS sheet for ST builds so the numbers don't mean anything except really the ranking. You can use this as a starting point and add any other knowledge you have to it and how you intend to build. I'll also comment in the melee sets i've used.

 

Spoiler

 

I won't talk about TW we all know it's strong some people get along with it. If you only care about DPS go for a scrapper.

 

Savage Melee is a set that's slept on but probably this is due to a lack of understanding of the set and hasn't had the scrutiny or experience that other sets have. The positives (other than its rank) is two AoEs, the build up mechanic is nice and its cast times are all low (which is a personal preference). The negatives are it's numbers are based on including the damage over time and doesn't have much mitigation. 

 

Fiery Melee - Haven't played. But meh.

 

War Mace - Haven't played.. but will. Knockdown procs are fantastic.

 

MA - I have a MA/Elec brute. It has some additional utility in powers like +DAM in eagles claw and +Def in Storm kick. The lack of AoE is noticeable in this powerset.

 

Rad Melee - Damage Aura is nice. A self heal in the attack chain. -res procs. My personal opinion on this is that I don't like it because I can't count the amount of times i've cast Devastating blow for the critter to die before its fully cast.

 

Ice Melee - Freezing Touch is amazing. Greater Ice Sword is not worth using. Using Cross Punch is better than using GiS but I think Gloom would be even better if that fits. Frost also can take range enhancements which increases AoE capability. Frozen Aura is similar to footstomp just without the +rech proc and smaller radius.

 

There isn't a Stone Melee/SS comparison here but I believe Stone would sit slightly above Fiery Melee. Superstrength would be quite far down I'd imagine around Spines/Dark/Staff (this is due to rage).

 

Optimal is quite a loaded term and really depends on your build and incarnates. Another thing to consider is how often you play as a team and the composition of that team. If your damage capped all the time those powersets without build up will suffer (claws, DM, staff etc.) 

 

For a general build I think you need the following: Mitigation, Proc variety (and chances), A strong ST attack chain, A strong AoE attack chain and access to different attack types if possible. 

 

Now secondaries are a little easier to discuss. It's all about layering damage mitigation where the new Armour types shine. (Bio and Rad)