Fire Melee/Dark Armor Brute

[DiscipleWay]

I found this old build and wanted suggestions for improvements, I want to be tanky with some AOE to run group content. I'm enjoying Fire/Dark, but I'm open to other suggestions. I want to be a Brute for sure. 

 

Thanks, 

DiscipleWay 

Brute_-_Fiery_Melee_-_Dark_Armor.mxd

[Meknomancer]

16 hours ago, DiscipleWay said:

I found this old build and wanted suggestions for improvements, I want to be tanky with some AOE to run group content. I'm enjoying Fire/Dark, but I'm open to other suggestions. I want to be a Brute for sure. 

 

Thanks, 

DiscipleWay 

Brute_-_Fiery_Melee_-_Dark_Armor.mxd 4.86 kB · 2 downloads

 

Its got half decent resists but theres some serious problems with it.

 

The 6th slots in scorch/fire sword circle/cloak of fear/laser beam eyes are doing nothing to help it. They are all defence bonuses on a build with 0 defence.

Stamina has no performance shifter +end.

Dark regen has no theft of essence proc.

Health has no panacea.

No kismet +to hit in the build.

Turn on cloak of darkness and weave and you get some middling defence but endurance issues.

It only has 30% slow resistance. 

 

I suggest you check out some other /dark armour builds. Just type dark in the brute AT section search box. You'll end up with any post mentioning the word dark so you get the melee builds too but there will be a good few well built /dark armour ones in there somewhere, just scroll a few pages in.

 

Something more like this. Still doesn't have great slow resistance. 

 

 

FIRE DARK - Brute (Fiery Melee - Dark Armor).mbd

Edited March 27 by Meknomancer

[Zect]

I am pleased to see the main points have already been covered before I could arrive:

1. slow res
2. theft of essence proc
3. building for def on a defless build [no +3 def uniques]
4. don't take scorch

It's good that the forums are about more than toggling on FF procs and setting invuln to 10 targets to compensate for something. Anyway, to the above I will add that you spend 3 slots in Kick for a tiny HP bonus but lack an unbreakable guard +7.5% def which marks you as someone possibly unfamiliar with the new options added since the demise of live. I want to reiterate that slow res is vital for a resistance build. Without it you will walk into some council, get zapped by some vampyri blasts and all your powers will stop recharging, and you die. And I want to emphasize how utterly broken the theft of essence proc is. When used in a crowd it has a chance proc separately on each target hit which can result in refilling most of your blue bar. I don't use it on my toons, because I know it will get fixed, but I'm guessing you might be happy to enjoy it while it lasts.

 

Most of all, and I post this only because you explicitly say you're open to suggestions, why not try a /rad instead if you're not using the def of /dark anyway? You can color rad dark and pretend it's negative energy. Rad has native slow resist, -KB, better debuff resists, better endurance economy, a better resist hole (cold instead of energy) and it really doesn't heal all that much less. With its superior endurance economy you can take resilient alpha instead of the cardiac that a dark might need and drop energy mastery - I suspect the only reason you took energy mastery is for endurance.

 

Rad is Dark v2.0. Fire wants it, invuln wants to be it. Go rad and never look back. Look what might happen to your build if you just clicked on a different 2ndary in mids:

 

 

P.S. etorrent does KD, not KB on brutes.

Edited March 28 by Zect

[Sovera]

Rad Armor does not heal half as much as Dark Armor. We can consider the absorb shield a heal and then, yes, it heals for roughly 50% of a bar, but on a 40-ish CD. Dark Regen does the same (60% heal with one mob in range) but every 11-12 seconds.

 

But that said Dark Armor's heal is too strong (is that even possible?) and overheals gigantically. It does recharge pretty fast though and is available every 11-12 seconds or so unlike Particle Shielding but the less enemies around the more it becomes problematic since fewer enemies to hit, chance to miss and not get healed, and less returns from the Theft of Essence to pay for Dark Regen.

 

 

Dark Armor is a bit of an odd duck without a real identity other than Dark Regen and the endurance costs are enormous as it is obviously meant to be paired with Dark Melee. Dark Regen has an accuracy check, and even if maxed out there is always the archaic 5% chance to miss which happens often enough to be a problem when fighting a single enemy. Then it has no KB protection which needs to be procured. Ugh.

 

 

@DiscipleWay if you're really sold on the idea of Dark Armor then @Meknomancer's build is fairly on point (I would probably lower the defenses to close to 33% so a small purple will still softcap if the situation calls for a bit more oomph, and then spread the slots to split the Superior Blistering Colds and amp the slow resistance to 95% but it's subjective). Do stock up on Recovery Serums from the START vendor though. But if you're a bit new to the game I recommend an easier pairing like Fire/Stone.

 

I know you said you particularly wanted to be a Brute but a Stone/Fire Melee Tanker is an AoE machine (it gets two PbAoEs unlike the Brute version that only has one) that cruises through the game barely touching inspirations starting at level 13 with minimal investment.

[Erratic1]

53 minutes ago, Sovera said:

I know you said you particularly wanted to be a Brute but a Stone/Fire Melee Tanker is an AoE machine (it gets two PbAoEs unlike the Brute version that only has one) that cruises through the game barely touching inspirations starting at level 13 with minimal investment.

 

I am truly wishing I had a dollar for all the times of late where people in the Brute forum are told, for purposes of dealing damage, go play a Tanker.

 

About the ONLY reason to play a Brute, it seems, is you want to play Super Strength with Energy Aura as that combo is uniquely open to Brutes.

[Sovera]

3 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

I am truly wishing I had a dollar for all the times of late where people in the Brute forum are told, for purposes of dealing damage, go play a Tanker.

 

About the ONLY reason to play a Brute, it seems, is you want to play Super Strength with Energy Aura as that combo is uniquely open to Brutes.

 

Hmm, well, I play both extensively. Brutes do more damage, but the Tanker gets two pbAoEs.

[Erratic1]

18 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Hmm, well, I play both extensively. Brutes do more damage, but the Tanker gets two pbAoEs.

 

When anything involving cross-AT testing across various scenarios supports that claim, call me.

[DiscipleWay]

Thanks for the responses, everyone. I got stupidly busy at work and just had time to get back tonight. 

 

Going to try the updated Fire/Dark build, and I'll make the Fire/Stone tanker and give it a try. 

 

Thanks again. I appreciate the advice 🙂

Edited April 7 by DiscipleWay