Most all round OP brute build

[Killing Legacy]

I’m not a brute guy, but my friend is brute obsessed.  Problem is, we just started playing after a 10+ year hiatus and there are quite a few new brute sets.  My question is, what would be the most powerful brute build with the least amount of investment?

 

in terms of primary, secondary and power pools, which is all round best, if there is such a thing.

[PLVRIZR]

Depends on what you want...

 

A tanky brute?  SS/Inv would fit that bill and you'll find several "unkillable" builds, in this forum.

 

Massive damage?  RadMelee/Fiery Armor does that, but not as tanky.  Massive single target damage?  Energy Melee is your huckleberry.

 

I've never built one, but some swear by Stone Melee/Stone Armor on Brutes.  

 

Fire farmer?  One gazillion builds are available and posted.

[Killing Legacy]

A perfect blend of survival and kill power is what he’s looking for.  How would rad melee/invuln be

[Erratic1]

There are things you have not listed in your consideration which may influence your enjoyment of certain builds.  Rad Melee hits like a truck dropped from orbit but it is also about as fast as an object dropped from orbit...you wait for powers to cycle. This is of course fixable to an extent but the effort to do so means not going down other build paths involving the powerset. Rad Melee was also a bit endurance hungry in my experience and Proton Sweep is a miserable power. 

 

Do I enjoy my Rad Melee/Shield Scrapper? Yes, absolutely. But the feel of melee combat on it is quite different than other melee builds I have.

 

However if dealing with those issues are not off-putting, Rad Melee/Invulnerable will be tough and hit hard. I personally tend to lean a bit more towards combos featuring endurance recovery and/or a more frequent healing power but (a) I do not always confine myself that way and (b) with sufficient toughness and slotting Dull Pain can take you far.

[Killing Legacy]

What about rad melee/elec armor?

 

that should help with recharge speeds and energy issues, no?

[Nemu]

There is only one... single... all round OP brute build.

 

Often imitated, but never duplicated, the one, the only...

 

Staff/Regen with Whirlwind. That last part is half the OP, maybe 75% of it.

 

Preach the Gospel of SPIN!

Edited July 20, 2021 by Nemu

[Sovera]

Tell your friend to try a Tanker instead. Times have changed with new patches. Fire Armor + Claws will deliver, or Martial Arts.

[Erratic1]

16 minutes ago, Killing Legacy said:

What about rad melee/elec armor?

 

that should help with recharge speeds and energy issues, no?

 

Elec Armor is one of my favorite defensive sets and I had an absolutely grand time back on live with a DM/Elec Brute. 

 

I have never tried Rad Melee/Elec Armor but nothing leaps to mind immediately to suggest any problems with it and as you note Elec Armor has powers to offset some of the downsides of Rad Melee. I had thought one about trying Rad Melee/Energy Aura but only so much time in a life.

[Bastille Boy]

Welcome back to the game!

 

I have a bunch of melee characters at level 50, but only one brute. I've avoided playing brutes for arbitrary, eccentric reasons (TL;DR: Brutes make terrible roommates.) So take this advice with a grain of salt.

 

Secondaries / armor sets:

• Energy Aura is a powerful armor set that is not available for tankers but is available for brutes. It has a good mix of layered defenses: easily softcapped typed defenses, solid defense debuff resistance, some damage resistance, a self-heal, a +endurance power, and (on brutes and scrappers) stealth. It lacks a damage aura or a +dam power. If I wanted to play a non-farmer brute, this would be my top pick.
• Shield Defense is arguably the best tanker armor set. It is very tough, and the +dam power is helpful. The big limitation is the lack of a self-heal. My best tanker is SD/EM.
• Invulnerability is a great set. It is beginner-friendly, and it will also age well, especially if toughness in hard content is one of your goals. It lacks a damage aura or a +dam power.
• Super Reflexes makes it cheap to get softcapped defenses. It is tough in the endgame, though the scaling resistance mechanic may leave you feeling on edge. There is no self-heal, damage aura, or +dam power. I think this set is strongest on ATs with relatively higher HP. (My SR/Mace tanker is much better than my Mace/SR scrapper.)
• Willpower is beginner-friendly. In the late game, the lack of defense debuff resistance can be a problem. It's not a bad set, if it fits your character concept, but if you want layered defenses and don't have a specific concept in mind, I'd take Invuln or EA instead.
• There are four resistance-based armors with damage auras: Rad, Elec, Dark, and Fiery. My personal preference is for armor sets that include defense, but resistance-based armors can still work well on brutes and tanks. I would steer you away from Dark for your first character on Homecoming. It's potentially very powerful but requires investment and careful building.
• I have not played Bio, Ice, or Stone, so I won't comment on those.

Primaries: There are many good choices. Here are a few worth considering. War Mace has a good mix of AoE and single target damage, and it plays well at all levels. Energy Melee is arguably the best melee single target set at high levels. It's not as much fun in the lower levels. Street Justice may not be top tier for brutes, but it is solid. It has fast animations and plays well at all levels. Dark Melee is a bit weak on AoE but great on single target. It has a self-heal and a useful secondary effect.

 

Pools: Most players take the Fighting pool (Boxing or Kick, Tough, and Weave) and Speed (for Haste). Many builds include Combat Jumping, Hover, or Maneuvers to increase defense.

[Xiddo]

I've got a fiery melee/ radiation armor brute that I think is pretty all-round. Nice AoE and ST damage, strong resists to most (I'm capped on s/l/f/e I think, with some strong healing. I join the odd fire farm quite comfortably, run TFs, do missions, can solo and team. 

[Krazie Ivan]

2 hours ago, Bastille Boy said:

Super Reflexes makes it cheap to get softcapped defenses. It is tough in the endgame, though the scaling resistance mechanic may leave you feeling on edge.

if you intentionally build to utilize & take full advantage of this mechanic, you'll excel in content that tends to sink most characters (Defense DeBuff) & brush-off most of the rest. gettin Positional Def into the upper 40's is the easy bit... but by gettin SLENFC Res into the mid 40's, you provide the scaling Res with a huge base layer to start from, quickly ramping up to full Res cap with quite a bit of HP left.

then you want +HP & +Regen bonuses (don't forget Accolades), which pull more weight when working alongside capped Res, mitigating small HP losses as they sporadically come. having Rune on top for soaking up the alpha is helpful too, making Seers, DE, & sewer Pylons/Hydra far less daunting & completely/consistently survivable. 

and the last part of the equation is to take a set with fast recharge attacks (KD mitigation is a huge plus), as you likely won't have too many power picks left, and these sets make Haste and/or +Rech bonuses a bit less critical. ~75% +Rech, 20% Quickness, & single-slot Haste is plenty to chain 3-5 attacks in the right sets.

by L50, you can let Agility + a teammate or two icap your Def for Incarnate content. if you play in the super far deep-end of hard content, you'll spend a lot of time hovering around 20-25% HP & freaking out anyone who feels compelled to heal - but their time is better spent on others, as you don't need it. "basically unkillable" gets tossed around a lot, but... ...yeah. ;D

[Shocktacular]

I've recently had fun with a rad/bio brute.  It is slightly squishier when not using the defensive adaptation, but IMO that's why that adaptation power exists; so you can tweak your character to fit the situation.  It can be a bit clicky because I rely somewhat on the heal power and absorb power to stay alive sometimes. I use mids, but I'm not too much of a min/maxer, so I'm sure a sturdier version could be built (with incarnate powers, I can usually run at +3x8 for solo missions.  I could probably do +4x8 for most enemy groups, but I find that +3 is more efficient).

 

The most fun part, however, is the DOUBLE DAMAGE AURAS! I put procs in them. 😄  Mostly, I just round up a mob or two, start hitting the bosses, and by the time they're dead everything else has melted.  Actually, Irradiated Ground is technically a pseudo-pet which can stack TWICE in the same area, so it's kind-of like having a damage aura and 2 automatic PBAoE damage patches!
 

I also have the tank version of this (bio/rad), who I play like a Brute.  That one's tougher, but a little less damage.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Shocktacular

[Snarky]

My main when I came back was a build by Hyperstrike: SS/Invulnerability.  Then I mained a Dark/Dark for about 6 months.  If I wanted to main another Brute I would have to say Energy Melee/Invulnerability would be in my sites.  EM recently (finally) got the revamp we waited a decade for.  And it was good.

 

The most powerful (bulletproof...) Brute I have run?  Dark/Invul.  Hands down.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Snarky

[DreadShinobi]

On 7/20/2021 at 10:31 AM, Sovera said:

Tell your friend to try a Tanker instead.

Honestly the best advice here. The recent tanker update that brought tanker base dmg, dmg cap, and aoe radius all up was far more than a QoL change for the archetype. Brutes are still great, the tanker update didnt make a brute worse by any means, however the archetypal lines blurred here. A tanker is more competitive with brute damage and has a substantial advantage in defense and resist base numbers that make hitting build goals that much easier. Hitting survival goals easier = more slots available for increasing offense.

 

For brutes in particular, fiery aura does that which no other set can do. It really isnt hard to achieve wanted survivability goals with any secondary. The offensive capabilities from fiery aura cannot be matched.

 

For tankers there are a few sets that just work better for them compared to brutes because brutes have low base damage that is buffed by fury. This makes the damage buffs available in sets like shield defense and bio armor feel muddled on brutes and significant on tankers and scrappers with better base damage.

[Lazarillo]

Though as noted elsewhere in this thread, it's probably not great for new players, when I think all-rounder in terms of secondaries, I think Dark Armor, generally because it's biggest "holes" (lack of KB protection, low defense, and even slow resistance) are rather easily plugged by IOs and pools, moreso than other secondaries (for example, there's no way to protect against Terrorize for the vast majority of sets).  However, since you have to build around it, it's not great for beginners, but once one gets the hang of such things, while /Dark won't necessarily do better than certain specialists in their areas, you can will be manage-ably strong against basically everything, at a point where you also have little-to-no weaknesses (maybe PPD Kheldians...haven't done too much against them with my /Dark Brutes yet).

 

As for the best primary to use, I've played around with Energy and Claws the most, and both do quite well.  Energy gets the big takedowns making it a very effective boss-killer (along with stuns to ensure that the more annoying ones that like to pop godmodes and such don't get the chance), while Claws sacrifices some harder control, and deals with more resistance, but instead can crank out some crazier AoE.

[Outrider_01]

Savage melee / Electric, build with smash/lethal defense to avoid 75% of incomming attacks and a resist spread to 75% for all damage types; 90% eng and your weak spots are Neg/Tox/Psi (40%).  Pop the heal, get a regen bonus which is negated by CoT bosses.  Savage melee flows smooth with animations and a port attack that beats Electric Melee.

[Snarky]

I ran Invulnerability Brutes on live for over a year on SOs.  They are great.  I stand by my Dark/Invul choice.  Great without any investment (when the synergy is very good). On a built up high recharge build? (This combo thrives on recharge) its like turbo charging an engine, then putting in nitrous and launching it with a aircraft carrier catapult. 

[Erratic1]

My favorite Brute back on live was Dark/Electric.  Yeah...it seems like you're double dipping in the realm of endurance recovery and healing/regen.

 

You are. Its a good thing. 

[nihilii]

Rad/Inv and Rad/Elec are both excellent picks in their own right.

I'll also third the suggestion to look at Tankers. Elec/Rad and Inv/Rad Tankers are probably stronger overall than their Brute counterparts.

[Bill Z Bubba]

54 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I ran Invulnerability Brutes on live for over a year on SOs.  They are great.  I stand by my Dark/Invul choice.  Great without any investment (when the synergy is very good). On a built up high recharge build? (This combo thrives on recharge) its like turbo charging an engine, then putting in nitrous and launching it with a aircraft carrier catapult. 

 

Two issues with DM, I have.

Shadow Maul's hit fx continue on the target after the attack animation has already completed.

The best single target attack chain is MG, Gloom, SL, repeat, which are all left handed attacks. It gets REAL boring after a while.

 

But yes, 100% agreed that having a self-heal as part of the attack chain and tohit debuffs adding on to Inv's defense is a very powerful combo.

[Lazarillo]

54 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

The best single target attack chain is MG, Gloom, SL, repeat, which are all left handed attacks.

So what you're saying is that DM has a...sinister theme?

[Krazie Ivan]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

all left handed ... REAL boring after a while

exactly. at some point ya look for a wife...

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Two issues with DM, I have.

Shadow Maul's hit fx continue on the target after the attack animation has already completed.

The best single target attack chain is MG, Gloom, SL, repeat, which are all left handed attacks. It gets REAL boring after a while.

 

But yes, 100% agreed that having a self-heal as part of the attack chain and tohit debuffs adding on to Inv's defense is a very powerful combo.

A strangely similar fate killed mace for me. A solid  set i was levelling and enjoying.  Then i noticed “it”.  All the character was doing was raising one arm and lowering it.  Again and again and again.  I plan on levelling one during the holidays and dressing them as a nutcracker soldier

[Ceejer]

Brute Kat/EnA, slotted up they're not impossible but very hard to kill. See this post, 801. 

[nihonsean]

On 7/20/2021 at 12:19 PM, Bastille Boy said:

Shield Defense is arguably the best tanker armor set. It is very tough, and the +dam power is helpful. The big limitation is the lack of a self-heal. My best tanker is SD/EM.

Fun fact you can slip in Power Transfer, chance for +Heal (heals 5% of your health on average 3 times a minute) into any electric attacks that will take endurance mods (Jacobs ladder, Havoc Punch, and Chain Induction) AOEs work better. You can slot them in any +endurance power, like Stamina as well. If you load up on Luck of the Gamblers as well the first 2 will give +10% regen, the 3rd +1.15% health. I've been fooling around with this set up on my Elec/SR Brute, works really well. Still have to eat a green from time to time, but if you're soloing missions you should be getting those off of mobs pretty regularly.