Help with Build: Staff Fighting/Fire

[Tempyr3]

I never really played a brute back in the day but would love some help in building a staff fighting/fire brute for farming/pvp.

[Hobbes]

Staff Fighting seems poor for Brutes.  Long Animations for most of the attacks so your Fury bar doesn't build very fast.  Seems a better scrapper set, IMO. 

[joyispunkrolex]

Staff Fighting seems poor for Brutes.  Long Animations for most of the attacks so your Fury bar doesn't build very fast.  Seems a better scrapper set, IMO.

 

Staff seems to me to be a minion-destroyer. Hop into a horde and let their piddling attacks max out your fury bar.  I watched a Staff/Fire while I was on my SoA today and boy was it a winning combination. The long animations balance well against the AoEs and plus it looks REALLY cool in-game.

[joyispunkrolex]

Over the weekend, I took a Staff/Bio Brute to 41. I took all powers from both sets and I'm reasonably well appointed with  IOs. I got a couple lucky drops that put some decent set bonuses on the table.

 

Staff fighting is an absolute beast for large groups of minions and LTs. Animation times largely aren't a problem because you have a full PBAOE attack chain if you want it. Holding aggro is not a problem and frequent reelection of targets means  nothing but bosses lives very long. You're basically a blender.

 

Bosses are rough. You do very steady damage over time, but there's no huge high alpha hit. Skysplitter would be a level 28 power in most melee sets.  This is a problem most urgently felt if the boss you're fighting is strong to your armor type. It just has a chance of knockdown for mitigation. It's not much compared to most melee sets.

 

I'd call end costs reasonable with IOs. I basically only worry if I'm fighting Freaks or Carnies (the melee radius end drain is horrible). Recharge is a bit long but easily corrected by taking most of the set.

 

Staff has modes but to be honest I leave the offensive mode on all the time. The damage resistance debuff is the most powerful option nearly all the time and I'm too busy to micromanage.

 

Taunt and the short ranged attack are situational picks. I hardly ever use the single target ranged power, though it has very reliable knockdown and does decent damage. I just forget I have it, mostly because I haven't prioritized its slotting. The first power in the set is not great, but it's a good filler or you have a break in your attack chain. And it does build perfection, so I think it's still a good pick, but I've hardly bothered to slot it at all.

 

 

My brute is very comfortable at +1x6 or 8, but I did most of my leveling at 0x6, because absurd numbers of minions play to her strengths and give the fastest rewards.

 

Bio armor has a lot of versatility. It has modes too, though I mainly stay defensive. Bio reminds me of the intersection of Regen and Fire armor. Most of its survival comes from bonus hit points and increased healing, though it does have some typed defense and DR. It has a taunt and damage aura, but it still feels squishy. Even with good recharge on the clicky powers, it's prone to have cascading defense breakdown if something defensive misses. Like fire and elec, I think it's pretty squishy for a brute, even being very defensive slotting . I start most fights with my heal aoe and extra hit points and  use purple and orange pills liberally to make things easy.

 

For Staff/Fire, you are going to want massive t taunt bonuses an or an immobilizer power;  you need stuff to stay in burn. You're also going to need healing flames more. That being said, you'll be a king of Ape, so if you want to farm something, you're beautifully equipped for it.

 

[Rockfall]

I never thought of ElA as squishy on a brute, but my ElA brute was pre-going-rogue, pre-incarnate.

 

Hop in a spawn, throw power sink. You know what nobody is squishy vs? Brawl. You know what they had the end left to use? Maybe one real power, and then... Brawl. -81 end between the first tick of lightning field and power sink, and their blue refill is suppressed.