Brutes are great! Have a favorite?

[FUBARczar]

Brutes are generally great!  They are in a fairly good place, but this is not the thread for that.... But I digress....

 

Please help inspire me and other players with your favorite pairings.

 

Personally I have a fair number of brutes, but not all that diverse when it comes to sets, both primary and secondary.  My most commonly used sets with their pairings are:

 

Primary 

Rad/ SR, Fire, Elec

SS/ Bio, Fire

EM / Bio, Fire (want to make EA)

Psi/ Fire, Bio, 

WM/ SD, EA

Spines/Fire

MA/ Regen 

KM/ Rad

 

Fiery Aura isn't just for farming, and it truly is one of the best sets.

 

How about you?

And I really want another Energy Armor but what should I pair it with?

 

[Riverdusk]

No dark melee? For shame.  My dark melee/energy aura scrapper was amazing (and crazy sturdy/tanky).  Can't imagine it wouldn't be great on a brute too and even sturdier with their extra hps.

[roleki]

Call me crazy, but I like my Rad/Fire even outside of Farms.  Staff/Regen... not so much.

 

ETA: forgot about Rad/Bio, also fun.  Oh, and SS/Energy.  And TW/Fire is still a roller, even after every update gets done kicking it square in the bundle.

Edited September 2, 2022 by roleki

[ZorkNemesis]

Rad/Dark Brute is a beast.  Solid resistances all around, meaty sound effects, great crowd damage.  A little heavy on the endurance side but correctable through effective slotting.

[Infinitum]

My favorites are anything /electric armor and anything/rad armor. Both are very very stout and can take just about anything the game can throw at them.

 

And add the dmg a brute is capable of throwing out and it is pretty impressive.

[The_Warpact]

37 minutes ago, FUBARczar said:

 

And I really want another Energy Armor but what should I pair it with?

 

I did mine with Psi, it's my ASF killer.

[lemming]

Current list, and I do have a large number of tankers & scrappers for some of the other combos or just to see

 

Electricity/Electricity	First brute on live and recreated.  I don't play them near enough.
Kinetic Melee/Energy Aura	Another reroll, if you can get past KM, fun build
Savage Melee/Bio Armor	I'm just not into Savage Melee
Street Justice/Willpower	Fun combo, though I play the tanker version more
Martial Arts/Willpower	Prefer SJ
Staff/Bio	So many different stances....
Radiation/Radiation	Experiment.   I'm just not into Rad Melee
Battle Axe/Regeneration	Another experiment, and Regen is still quite gimped IMO
Energy Melee/Bio	This combo worked really well.  Solo'd this one up to 50
Claws/Dark Armor	More of a fun concept character and with DA needs better end management.   But Bubblegum Beast does look like a wad of chewing gum
Claws/Fiery Aura	One of my farmers, but been playing it outside AE a lot lately.  (I'm a fan of claws)
Spines/Fiery Aura	The main farmer, but fun outside of it.
Spines/Stone Armor	Haven't played with it enough

 

[Frostbiter]

I may be one of the only people in existence with a Broadsword/Dark Armor Brute and she's one of my favorite vigilantes to play.

 

 

Spoiler

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Frostbiter
Found a pic.

[Xiddo]

I love my Fire Melee/RadA brute. I find the safety of RadA a little dull in a way? So being able to build for damage is fun.

 

The first brute I ever did always has a place in heart: DM/FA. I thought the graphics for Fiery Aura looked so different on a brute to how they looked on a tank - one felt like a furnace and the other felt like a crackling campfire - that it made me love it. The animation for Siphon is one of my faves. I’ve thought about rebuilding but I don’t wanna ruin what I remember of it. He was probably rubbish by today’s standards, but I have a distinct memory of running around St Martial - specially versus the wailers and freaks - in a team and it feeling great.

[PeregrineFalcon]

My Brute is SS/Will. He also has Mighty Leap, and I use Takeoff as a second Foot Stomp. Between the KB>KD IO in Hand Clap and Foot Stomp and Takeoff I'm just constantly juggling the mobs. I'm sure it's not the most effective attack chain ever, but it sure is hilarious fun!

[Bill Z Bubba]

Spreadsheet says I have 8 brutes. BZB brute is fun on teams (claws/sr, of course.) Static Zing is my MA/Elec and I enjoy her whenever I play her. The other 6 will probably never be finished.

[Erratic1]

My active brutes are:

 

SS/Bio - My go to

Elec/Stone

Savage/Elec

StJ/Inv

 

I kinda regret not having an SS/EA or WM/EA...at least not yet.

Edited September 3, 2022 by Erratic1

[Sovera]

Stone/Rad for me. Easy going while leveling with nearly everything being deflected. I vaguely recall 40%-ish defence by level 22 (defence amp running).

[Cutter]

Savage/Rad, Ice/Rad. I kinda have a thing for /Rad.

[FUBARczar]

7 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

No dark melee? For shame.  My dark melee/energy aura scrapper was amazing (and crazy sturdy/tanky).  Can't imagine it wouldn't be great on a brute too and even sturdier with their extra hps.

I know right...  On live I at least had a Dark/Stone.

 

Dark/EA would make a healthy, robust combo

[FUBARczar]

On 9/3/2022 at 5:07 AM, Sovera said:

Stone/Rad for me. Easy going while leveling with nearly everything being deflected. I vaguely recall 40%-ish defence by level 22 (defence amp running).

So Rad melee?

 

I wish Stone (and Ice, at least) had decision trees/choices. In this case for the T9.  I'd rather have Geode and Icy Bastion for their respective sets.

Edited September 24, 2022 by FUBARczar
Typo

[FUBARczar]

6 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Spreadsheet says I have 8 brutes. BZB brute is fun on teams (claws/sr, of course.) Static Zing is my MA/Elec and I enjoy her whenever I play her. The other 6 will probably never be finished.

So which AT had the best Claws experience?

 

I have a Claws/Bio Scapper and  a Claws/SR Tanker, but no Brutes .

 

[FUBARczar]

7 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

I did mine with Psi, it's my ASF killer.

Yeah I really enjoy my psi/fire and psi/Bio on Aeon and ITF!!!

[Infinitum]

10 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

And I really want another Energy Armor but what should I pair it with?

 

I missed this part, at some point I would suggest EM/EnA for unparalleled combination durability and ST dmg output. It is giddy fun to watch hard targets melt. EnA works well with EM on any AT.

 

I also have a Kat/EnA that is fun.

[Sovera]

48 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

 

I missed this part, at some point I would suggest EM/EnA for unparalleled combination durability and ST dmg output. It is giddy fun to watch hard targets melt. EnA works well with EM on any AT.

 

I also have a Kat/EnA that is fun.

 

If I consider having a main it would be my Fire Armor/EM. What a combo of ST and AoE.

[Uun]

4 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

Dark/EA would make a healthy, robust combo

I had one on live (before they added the heal or the +def to Energy Drain) and it was a lot of fun. 

 

My current favorite is Stone/Elec. It's an absolute beast.

[Bill Z Bubba]

9 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

So which AT had the best Claws experience?

 

I have a Claws/Bio Scapper and  a Claws/SR Tanker, but no Brutes .

 

Scrapper for me. Bio/Claws tank would also be pretty damn fun, I think.

[Ukase]

For me, I have really enjoyed leveling spines/fire and SS/fire. Of the two, I think the proc potential of SS in Foot Stomp and haymaker overcame the rage crash easily enough, and it was a faster leveling process. Part of that is because footstomp knocks 'em down, mitigating incoming damage so I could tackle higher level foes. 

I did try SS/Dark - it was, of course, good in the lower levels, but getting to 38 wasn't as smooth for me as fire. 

I have an SS/Bio brute...it's very good, very effective through the entire leveling process. Bio's adapative selection - offensive,  with Rage is quite complimentary. I think SS is my preferred primary on the brute. And it's really hard to dismiss fire as the secondary. 

My biggest issue, however, is boosted ranged and AoE defense, without sacrificing S/L resistance. Fire's just not that great for that, and I do miss the lack of defense debuff resistance. 

And..another thing...I'm always reluctant to take a fire brute into iTrials other than BAF or Lambda. Granted, Healing flames is up in 6 seconds, so no real concern, but occasionally, without timely inspiration use, bad things happen, and that's a message to me that I need to focus more on durability, less on dps. Or run with 2 builds, which I'd prefer not to do. I hate that waiting for the longer recharge powers. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

At 50, I have my stable of:

 

Ditch Digger (Battle Axe/Shield)

Maytag Repairman (Battle Axe/Electric Armor)

Kimyata (Broadsword/Bio Armor)

Jingo Updog Esquire (Broadsword/Regeneration)

Ms. Spaceman (Ice Melee/Dark Armor)

Gideon the Ninth (Katana/Dark Armor)

Defcon Zer0 (Radiation Melee/Bio Armor)

Granny Weatherwax (Staff/Bio Armor)

Hellion Keller (Staff/Fiery Aura)

Staff Sergeant (Staff/Regeration)

Minion Zero (War Mace/Willpower)

 

They are all overpowered, but Defcon Zer0 is ridiculously so.  I tend not to play brutes so much anymore since they are so much easier than scrappers in my opinion.  Don't get me started on tankers.  My favorite to play is probably Jingo Updog Esquire, because he is constantly franticly running around mashing buttons and he's got a fun costume and backstory.

[Shocktacular]

Rad/Bio.  I call her my "super-Brute" and for good reason.  She's just an absolute kick to play, especially with procced out damage auras!  I highly recommend this combo to anybody and everybody who asks for a fun Brute set combo.