New archetype, need informations and advices

[Elleriel]

Hello fellow heroes and vilains 😉 

 

I'd like to test a brute based on defense rather than resistance. 

I wanted to know if it could better to go toward Willpower or Energy as secondary set (I don't like shields as secondary).

As primary is there a set with a good synergy ? 

Bio would perheaps be a good option too but don't really know good this special secondary tool.

 

I wish you a nice end of week-end and thank you for your help 😄

 

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Elleriel

[KC4800]

Willpower is more based on resistance than defense. Don't know anything about Energy.

 

Katana/SR would be a good defensive pairing, since Brutes don't get Ninjitsu.

[ChocolateMercenary]

Super Reflexes is good if you want almost pure defense, but you get the taunt aura late'ish. Energy Aura is a solid set the goes good with pretty much anything.

[Uun]

Willpower is primarily a regen/+hp set. It has damage resistance to S/L/P and defense to F/C/E/N/P. Bio relies on damage resistance to S/L/T and defense to F/C/E/N/P supplemented by absorb and regen. The defense based secondaries are Super Reflexes, Energy Aura and Shield.

• Super Reflexes is positional defense, so works against anything except a few psi attacks that don't have positional vectors. You can easily hit incarnate soft caps to all vectors without the T9. Has damage resistance that kicks in when your health drops below 60% and increases the lower it gets. Has capped defense debuff resistance. No heal or end management tools.
• Energy Aura is typed defense. Can hit incarnate soft cap to S/L/F/C/E/N but its only protection to psi and toxic is in the T9. Has some always on damage resistance. Defense debuff resistance is OK but can't be capped without the T9. Has a very good heal and end management tools. 

Both SR and EA are very solid. 

[Elleriel]

thank you for all your informations 😉 

[Psyonico]

Energy Aura is one of the best defensive sets in the game.  You really can't go wrong with it.

[SeraphimKensai]

Ice armor as a brute is a pretty good defense based set.

[Without_Pause]

I like EA over WP, and I have one of each in Brute form. SR is solid. I only have Scrapper one and at 44. My one recommendation for SR would be to grab the Sorcery pool to get Rune of Protection. Even at base numbers, you are going to get rather solid Res to all, and it is fine with just slotting in the +3% Def Res based IOs in it. This is what I did for my Scrapper.

 

For primaries:

 

Savage. End friendly and helps with recharge. Fury loves DoT so the AoE damage will be really good.

Ice. Ice Patch makes this incredibly safe. Damage type is great in pretty much every map.

Fire. See Ice but without the mitigation. If you solo, I would grab a Hold or similar mezz type of power in an Epic attack because things like Sappers happen.

Energy. Obviously works thematically with EA. One of the best for ST damage.

Dark. More specifically for SR as it offers a heal which SR lacks. 

BA. It wants +Recharge and the End to pull it off. EA offers that.

[Snarky]

19 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Ice armor as a brute is a pretty good defense based set.

I have run an ice ice Tank.  If the Ice Ice Brute performs anywhere near that level you will be ecstatic

[Doomguide2005]

My choice would be DM/SR if I wanted something familiar but new pairing (had the pairing on Live haven't run it here ... yet).  Otherwise EA or Ice.   My Claws/SR scrapper is very hard to kill despite a lack of self heal.  I can see why @Without_Pauserecommends RoP as especially on a Brute with their higher resistance caps even if the scaling resists have kicked in hard Rune has room to push you higher without "wasting" the provided resistance.  

[Without_Pause]

2 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

My choice would be DM/SR if I wanted something familiar but new pairing (had the pairing on Live haven't run it here ... yet).  Otherwise EA or Ice.   My Claws/SR scrapper is very hard to kill despite a lack of self heal.  I can see why @Without_Pauserecommends RoP as especially on a Brute with their higher resistance caps even if the scaling resists have kicked in hard Rune has room to push you higher without "wasting" the provided resistance.  

I had thought about going Brute for my Dark/sr, but went Scrapper. One note about RoP. You can't reduce the recharge of it, but that's fine. End game build would also have Hybrid Melee so you could rotate both of them for even more consistent on hand Res. Plus, Hybrid Melee gives you +Regen.

[Uun]

32 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

I had thought about going Brute for my Dark/sr, but went Scrapper. One note about RoP. You can't reduce the recharge of it, but that's fine. End game build would also have Hybrid Melee so you could rotate both of them for even more consistent on hand Res. Plus, Hybrid Melee gives you +Regen.

I took Unleash Potential on my Psi/SR scrapper (slotted w/ Preventative Medicine). The defense buff is superfluous, but the +regen/+recovery is pretty good. 

[Without_Pause]

6 hours ago, Uun said:

I took Unleash Potential on my Psi/SR scrapper (slotted w/ Preventative Medicine). The defense buff is superfluous, but the +regen/+recovery is pretty good. 

I think that's the direction for my Shield/fire Tanker. At least until I can get End management down. I stuck the Preventative Med proc in Spirit Ward for my /sr.