Question on late game spines/fire theory

[QuiJon]

Ok so like about 99 percent of the rest of the server I am made a spines/fire combo. In my case as a brute. So over the last few hours I have soloed him from 25 to 41 in the AE just doing fire maps and gradually boosting the difficulty as he can handle it. This is really why I made the character just to farm drops and influence for the mots part I am not normally all that interested in playing melee in game on teams.

 

I am level 41 I have taken the slower first single target attack, impale and then the 2 cone attacks and spine burst and quills. Obviously I have the lion share of the fire set other then I have for now at least skipped firey embrace ( ihave build up but considering I only have burn and the aura that do fire damage I decided to skip it for now) and I skipped the self rez simply because it feels self defeating to take it. Being that I skipped the last two powers I was kind of just at a loss as to the route to go. So I took that epic power for energy and took the boost to end. Then at 38 I took Boxing (figuring I was going to take tough and weave) and at 41 have taken the recovery boost preparing for yet another toggle or two to run. Figuring 44 will be tough and 47 perhaps weave.

 

But that is where I come into question. Looking at the fire set there really is no inherent defense at all in it. And weave iMO is not that great of a boost in and of itself. So I am wondering do I really need it? I am not that familiar with the melee sets and don't know when I get into IOs, if I choose to at some point take this character off the farm, would the sets I get for this build be giving me set bonuses to Defense that would stack nicely if you had weave or are most the sets going to boost resistances? I know most the other resistances in fire don't seem all that great for doing other types of damage enemies. But being that you already have some resistances do most people try and boost those or is it more bang for the buck to boost defense and have things like weave or combat jumping slotting for defense as well?

[Wiseguy]

IMO, as any melee-focused character, it's definitely good to reach defense softcap in smashing & lethal and/or melee. This is more than possible to do with a Spines/Fire combo.

 

Reaching 45% defense will net you a ton of extra survivability, moreso than stacking resists. You will need to use many IO sets to achieve this defense softcap.

 

45% defense will mean that any attack of X type or position will have a 5% chance to hit you.

[HelenCarnate]

FE adds fire damage to all attacks not just fire based. Not a skippable power imo.

[Corruption]

I concur, Fiery Embrace is a must have power. Seriously, don't skip it.

 

Not only does it add a damage bonus to all of your fire based attacks, it adds a fire damage component to every other attack. Think of it as a 100% chance of fire damage proc while that portion is active. It's even better since the added fire damage works off of the damage bonus of the attack.

 

It really shines when you have a kin on your team since it doesn't become useless after you reach the damage cap.