Two Powers Brutes get Tanks do not...

[Snarky]

So... I am always trying something new.  And stupid.  I think back to my "Tank Mage: Invul Tank, Kinetic Melee"  Ranged Tank.  Just....odd.

 

So looking at the lists real quick I notice only two powers different between Brutes and Tanks.  Brutes get Regen and Energy Armors.  Tanks do not.  I have not come up with a Regen idea that works yet.  Energy Energy Brute might be worth a go however.  

 

Anyone have experience with these two "exotic" armors?  I realize Regen is just....wow, build for +health and carry insp?  But Energy looks like it is great.  Until an AV makes the shot lol.

[Rigged]

Energy Armor is arguably the best armor set in the game. It is very easy to softcap, gives some resists, comes with stealth, two END management powers, free +recharge, has a self heal. Resists END drain and slows. Lots of defense powers to stick LOTGs in. It is great out of the box, not much extra work needed. With Tough you can get your sm/let resist to about 45% or so depending on build. Your weakness will be Psi and the fact that your defense debuff resist is not as comprehensive as SR's, so you can suffer cascade failure.

 

You must take every power except the last two Energy Drain and Overload (EDIT: sorry, got confused with the scrapper power order). It is entirely feasible to skip them. Energize will reduce your END issues significantly unless you are using a very END-heavy set like Axe or TW, and it is completely possible to softcap defenses without Energy Drain. Overload can still be taken as a resist set mule - It doesn't actually massively increase your survivability once you softcap, except that it raises your HP and also gives you some defense debuff resist. And of course you can always grab Ageless in endgame to solve all END issues.

 

Keep in mind though that EnA is very shiny and pretty.

 

The main issue with EnA for brutes is that... you don't really make the most of a brute's increased resist cap and it is not practical to try to reach it. EnA is still primarily a defense set and it's great at this. It also has no particularly strong regen bonuses, so your increased HP is not taken advantage of either. This does not change the fact that EnA is still an amazing set with solid mitigation and tons of QoL utility. 

 

I have written a guide for Regen separately here.

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Rigged

[biostem]

Dampening field can give you just that little bit of extra survivability you need to survive any hits that get through, and I usually stack a stealth IO w/ energy cloak so I can get into the middle of a group and hit energy drain to really top off my defense.  Though you can use energize's end discount proactively, I find it best to save it as an "oh sh!t" heal.  I'm also a bit biased here, but I like savage melee for the extra +recharge blood frenzy grants you, and if you don't care about the element of surprise as much, use savage leap to get into the enemies' midst to hit energy drain.

[RobotLove]

Energy Armor on Brutes always feels like it has a bit of a glass jaw. It feels fine on Brute, until it's suddenly very not. Scrappers and Stalkers just wear it better.

 

Out of the 100 or so toons I've run up to 50, the only one I've ever actually deleted (instead of stripped and shelved) was a SS/Regen Brute. Let's just say it wasn't Super Strength that raised my ire...

 

To summarize: Happy place, happy place, happy place, DEAD.

[Snarky]

1 minute ago, RobotLove said:

Energy Armor on Brutes always feels like it has a bit of a glass jaw. It feels fine on Brute, until it's suddenly very not. Scrappers and Stalkers just wear it better.

 

Out of the 100 or so toons I've run up to 50, the only one I've ever actually deleted (instead of stripped and shelved) was a SS/Regen Brute. Let's just say it wasn't Super Strength that raised my ire...

 

To summarize: Happy place, happy place, happy place, DEAD.

I just gotta have a die hard Regen Brute now.  

[biostem]

7 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I just gotta have a die hard Regen Brute now.  

I'd pair it with a primary that offers useful debuffs or soft control to kind of buy you time so your regen can keep you standing, like battle axe, stone melee, or even dark melee.

[Psyonico]

I've got a Martial Arts/Regen/Soul brute that I built to be as study as possible.  Never actually finished the build because I never really got that into the character, so he's languishing half built at 50.

[Major_Decoy]

52 minutes ago, Rigged said:

Overload can still be taken as a resist set mule - It doesn't actually massively increase your survivability once you softcap, except that it raises your HP and also gives you some defense debuff resist.

 

It gives you about 35% DDR without any slotting, which is pretty nice. The -100% endurance after three minutes, less so. It might be more useful after I pick-up portal jockey and the atlas medallion.

[Zect]

Regen on brutes can be very survivable, if relatively high-effort and late-blooming. You can pretty easily get nearly 50% resist all from Tough and IO set bonuses, then cycle defensive clickies one after another to get to the hardcap or nearly there, e.g. something like Rune of protection > Melee core hybrid > Barrier core epiphany > (repeat), then you have IH, reconstruction and mog to back up all of this. It will be painful in the midgame before you have access to all your tools, though.

 

Scrapper regens don't have a 90% resist cap, but they do have access to shadow meld from soul epic. So regen on a scrapper relies on using shadow meld as an alpha absorber (on a recharge build, it has close to 50% uptime) and killing most of the spawn while it is up. You should only ever have to tank 1-2 bosses, if even that, for any length of time.

 

There; in 2 short paragraphs I've already given you more useful information on the set than @Rigged could ever hope to!

[twozerofoxtrot]

3 hours ago, biostem said:

like battle axe

 

This has been my favorite Regen Brute to date.

 

The KD is inconsistent but every single power has it. Which means you can put +FF procs in everything. Including the 3 AoEs.

 

Soft Control: B

Recharge Potential: A+

[Troo]

Regen: I absolutely love the reactive nature which rewards situational awareness and experience with timing activations.

 

That said:

• Regen punishes players who prefer more passive mitigation. (it requires attention)
• Regen punishes players that want to use long activation powers. (can't heal while in the middle of a 3.6s animation)
• Tactics which enhance Regen survivablility are readily available for other sets. (but my not be as needed on the other sets).
• Regen can suffer when recharge is debuffed significantly.
• Regen can impact offensive effectiveness. (can impact tight or gapless attack chains.)

Regen is not for everyone. I like that.

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Troo

[Rigged]

9 hours ago, Zect said:

than @Rigged could ever hope to!

 

Not at all. It's just that @Snarky asked for advice specific to these two powersets and I thought that "Get 75% extra resist to everything from Tough, IO set bonuses and cycling godmodes" was just a tad generic, considering we give similar advice (albeit with lower power values) to blasters who inexplicably want to tank. But then again, jumping through the same hoops for survivability as blasters is actually very appropriate for Regen.

 

However, if you do consider this specific enough advice for Regen, then I suppose out of diligence I ought to also add that the same tactics will work very well to make Energy Aura nearly unkillable.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Rigged

[Rigged]

10 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

It gives you about 35% DDR without any slotting, which is pretty nice. The -100% endurance after three minutes, less so. It might be more useful after I pick-up portal jockey and the atlas medallion.

 

This is absolutely correct. This is why it is a good idea to take it as a set mule even if you don't plan on using it much. IIRC the crash can be mitigated with Ageless.

[0th Power]

14 hours ago, biostem said:

14 hours ago, Snarky said:

I just gotta have a die hard Regen Brute now.  

I'd pair it with a primary that offers useful debuffs or soft control to kind of buy you time so your regen can keep you standing, like battle axe, stone melee, or even dark melee.

it pairs well with ice melee too

Edited May 11, 2023 by 0th Power

[Uun]

I had a DM/EnA brute on live (before EnA got Energize and Energy Drain got +def) and I currently have an EM/EnA stalker. It's a really good set, but I don't think there's anything about it that makes it better on a brute. I don't recommend skipping Energy Drain. While you won't need the added defense, being able to refill your blue bar every 30 seconds is useful and the end drain can be used offensively. You can't sap a foe to 0% from 100%, but you can if they're under 50%. 

[Sir Myshkin]

Actually a bit of discussion on Brute Regen over in this little diddy of a thread:

 

 

Documented a few key case uses myself including completion of 4* ITF and I didn't even use the optimal build for it.

 

[XFUNK]

My main on live was an Energy/Energy Brute. With all of your accolades and io's, you can become a god.  

 

1. Know how to time Overload's crash with energy drain so you don't lose your end and detoggle. 

2. While Overload is down, use your barrier and/or demonic aura (i forgot the hero accolade equilivant) to keep your defenses through the roof.

 

Hit me up in game @xfunk and I can show you what it can do.

[Spaghetti Betty]

On 5/11/2023 at 12:59 PM, Sir Myshkin said:

Actually a bit of discussion on Brute Regen over in this little diddy of a thread:

 

 

Documented a few key case uses myself including completion of 4* ITF and I didn't even use the optimal build for it.

 

That was a fun thread! I'm still waiting on our 3 man Regen ITF

[catsi563]

On 5/10/2023 at 10:31 PM, Snarky said:

I just gotta have a die hard Regen Brute now.  

I have a Mace Regen right now shes fun

[Psi-bolt]

On 5/10/2023 at 9:04 PM, Snarky said:

Anyone have experience with these two "exotic" armors?  I realize Regen is just....wow, build for +health and carry insp?  But Energy looks like it is great.  Until an AV makes the shot lol.

 

I have experience with them both.  

 

My Regen Brute built for tanking is honestly the stronger of the two.  She has capped Sm,Le resists and 38-44% resists to all other damage types.  In addition she can up that by 25% using Sorcery's click resist power.  One of the sturdiest Brutes I've ever made.  She has a negligible amount of defense (like 10% to the positions) that came along as set bonuses with capping Smashing and Lethal resists.  This was an experiment to see how difficult it would be to cap smashing and lethal and it worked so much better than I expected.  

 

I've had a Energy Aura Brute as well, but I haven't played it in awhile.  As you might expect, it's easy to soft-cap defenses, and it has a bit of healing and resists on the side which makes it reasonably sturdy.  End management is pretty good.  I feel like for tanking it has the same problem that all defense sets do, in that when defense works it's great, but it has the tendency to spectacularly and quickly fail on occasion. 

[Psi-bolt]

On 5/10/2023 at 9:29 PM, RobotLove said:

Out of the 100 or so toons I've run up to 50, the only one I've ever actually deleted (instead of stripped and shelved) was a SS/Regen Brute. Let's just say it wasn't Super Strength that raised my ire...

 

To summarize: Happy place, happy place, happy place, DEAD.

 

Interesting, my SS/Regen Brute is what I was talking about in my post above.  I've found it to be amazing, but I built it almost exclusively for resistance. 

[carroto]

On 5/11/2023 at 1:40 AM, Troo said:

Regen can impact offensive effectiveness.

 

This is the main point that has kept me from the set.  I tend to favor armor sets that contribute in some way to offense.  My favorite contribution is a damage aura, but I'll take what I can get.  Regen is the set that more than any other goes in the opposite direction.  Not only does it not contribute to offense, but the time spent on the clicks reduces time available for offense.

 

That said I did play it pre-shutdown and I remember it being fun.  I enjoyed the feeling that it rewarded skill and thoughtfulness rather than just a "toggle and forget."

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Psi-bolt said:

I feel like for tanking it has the same problem that all defense sets do, in that when defense works it's great, but it has the tendency to spectacularly and quickly fail on occasion. 

 

I've had that happen on resist tankers too though.  Not having defense, for example, leads to more mez stacking.  Not enough to break through melee mez protection in most cases, but if I wander through a couple spawns worth of enemies that have good holds/stuns (e.g. Malta, Longbow, Carnies, to name a few) then I have been held and quickly defeated.  There are also a few instances of un-resistible res debuffs in the game and whenever that happens to someone who relies entirely or mostly on resist... death can be swift if you aren't keeping a very close eye on it.

 

Much as I prefer resist, and specifically Rad Armor, Defense armors are still kings for their built-in DDR.  That makes it more effective to add resistance via IOs to a Defense armor than to add Defense via IOs to a resist/regen armor.  The added resist makes defense failure, if it ever happens at all to a defense armor tanker/brute, less of an instant death situation than it once was.  You at least have time to deploy some countermeasures usually.

[Gobbledygook]

On 5/12/2023 at 5:44 PM, Spaghetti Betty said:

That was a fun thread! I'm still waiting on our 3 man Regen ITF

Sorry, been away for awhile.

For the record, going back to school in your 40's is highly frustrating.

Let me know when a good time is for you guys though.

@Sir Myshkin @Spaghetti Betty

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 hours ago, Gobbledygook said:

For the record, going back to school in your 40's is highly frustrating.

 

O.o

 

In all seriousness, I wish you all the good stuff on this. I'm pretty sure there's a torture building in Hell based on on this concept.