Not seeing a lot of /shield builds

[Jolin]

Are shields not good on brutes for some reason? Or just not popular?

[Mr. Vee]

They're good, they're just better on scrappers, who benefit from the damage buff more. Maybe stalkers too, I've not heard.

[Steampunkette]

Shield is a perfectly good set. And it is super easy to softcap it and enjoy the mini-nuke of shield charge. And when shit goes down, One with the Shield is of course wonderful.

 

But it's nothing spectacular. It doesn't excel in any given way over other sets for Brutes. It's really more about theme and style than the min-maxing power available to it, which is what most build discussions on the boards come down to.

 

That said, while Brutes don't benefit from Against All Odds as thoroughly as Scrappers do, it is still a really nice power. It can bring your output up a bit early in a fight and make your Fury somewhat more impressive when you bounce from fight to fight chasing the fury meter. And Shield Charge makes that distance shorter!

 

I love Street Justice and Shields, myself. Particularly how mean some of the attacks can look when combined with a shield. Heavy Blow's left-elbow strike instead smashes someone with the edge of the shield, for example.

[Jolin]

Makes sense. Thanks all.

 

And I see what you are saying about the damage buff, but I also agree with the awesome look of SJ/Shields :)

 

thanks again all!

[jemal999]

My current main is Mace/Shield.  Captain Hammergod! (An obvious mashup of 3 marvelous characters)  ;)

 

It is fun, seems a bit more spread between defense and resist rather than focusing on one or the other, which I personally prefer but is probably less powerful when compared to something more straightforward like stone armor/invul/Reflexes.

 

 

However as with most things, unless you're going into hardcore PVP or trying to farm +4/x8 content, there's not really a BAD brute, just varying types and degrees of effectiveness.