HK008

I think you are giving up too much defense for this damage route, but that is just me. If you plan to go with this I would recommend dropping Combat Training:Offensive since you do not need the accuracy bonus with TT:Leadership. I'd suggest looking into the pool power Assault to stack with the Bane version, and I would move at least one slot to either Build up/TT: Leadership to complete the Gaussian's set. 15% damage, and the Gaussian's chance for Build up would serve you better than another source of +accuracy.

Simple answer to the question in the OP. Willpower has little control over encounters. You don't get a click defense until 38 in Strength of Will, and that is something you want to use before you charge in.

I have couple other simple suggestions I find to be effective leveling new scrapper/brute/tanker's. Don't go hog wild slotting your attacks. This will set you up for ignoring your secondary which can lead to survivability issues especially for Willpower. Pick two solid attacks, and make sure they have a total of 4 slots before SO's. If you have a quick recharging low damage attack you can get by with 3 total slots there. Make sure you take those extra slots, and place them into High Pain Tolerance as the boosted hit points will be helpfully especially at SO's. Take, Rise to the Challenge at 16, and give it the 2 slots you get at 17. You can either go with 1 end reducer, 2 heals, or 3 heals at 22. Then if you still have slots place 2 into Fast Healing (yes take this early). Ta da! You now have some decent regeneration when facing multiple foes, and the foundations laid for SO's.

Look to Quick Recovery at 20, and you can hold off Mind Over Body by 22. If you focus enough on your secondary you should have by level 24; High Pain Tolerance, Fast Healing, Indomitable Will, Rise to the Challenge, Quick Recovery, and Mind Over Body. That's a pretty solid amount of defense for that level range, and I recommend to focus slots into the healing first. By the time you hit 28 take Heightened Senses, and you are pretty much done with the bulk of your secondary. Add some slots of Mind Over Body, and Heightened Senses as you can. Though I find after the regen I go back to my primary for slotting until I feel comfortable with it. Then I'll begin to polish off the secondary.

You'll still have plenty of room for enough attacks, a travel power, and the beginings of Fitness. Stamina is not an immediate choice due to Quick Recovery, and can be delayed into the 30's. To really cement your toughness think about the fighting pool post 40 as those powers further compliment your secondary.

That is how I have played 4 Willpower characters now, and I have never had an issue. I didn't have many issues with the first /WP I made, but since then I have refined my approach to the set. If you have a primary with little to no mitigation I can see some difficulties, but those should disappear by the late 20's early 30's.

Good Luck!

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Are any of you considering 'going blue' with your SoA when the expansion comes out? I think it'll will be fun to take my epic AT's over to the other side...

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How is this "Side Switch" stuff suppose to work anyway? Is there going to be an indicator, or how is it going to work anyway?

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They haven't said in detail how it will ultimately work out. It would seem there will be a morality compass as part of it. In addition to your actions making a difference there are two new NPC contacts that will be involved with changing factions. My guess is somewhere blue side heroes will find Maelstrom to go rogue, and villains can search for Desdemona to reform.

I think the devs knew that few people, especially in a hero game, want to be the bad guy. So they made the AT's much more self contained by lowering support roles, and giving out damage options. I think this logic works out beautifully on the leveling ride to 50. It means that you can still have successful teams villain side despite AT combination, and team size. This dynamic grouping design I find far more interesting than CoH. There is still room for specialized roles in CoV, but that really doesn't come into play until end game. Even then villains get by just fine due to more offensive options.

As far as the best bruting Brute? I think that the best bruting Brute is the one that has the goal of destroying all in his path, and feels that his group's role is to watch his rampage. That's a Brute. Love it or leave it.

I would suggest to maybe eventually switch Dart Burst over to Ragnarok's, and I personally go with Hecatomb in Slash to get the most damage/recharge out of it with a generic end IO to add some much needed end relief. My Follow-up is frankenslotted to max out end/recharge while still providing me with some set bonuses.

Just playing with your build by swapping DB to Rag's, Slash to Hecat, and Follow up to the Crushing I reduced the recharge in Slash to 4.3s. Just some ideas, and hopefully they help!

The the second build has superior numbers, and infamy costs. I'm not so sure it is going to function better than builds that take Slash over Eviscerate though. I still feel skipping Mind Link is a mistake. I just don't think there are good reasons to skip it especially with all the recharge you seem to be planning. It's awesome for your team, and it's going to help you vs defense debuffs. You can make it perma very easy with that recharge you have so it's not like "oh noes it dropped i don't has it for several seconds!!!one". You can activate it immediately after it drops. I also wouldn't 4 slot LotG's since you have so much actual to hit the accuracy bonuses aren't needed. I also don't 4 slot them since you can get enough global defense to cover the missing slots. I would look to cut back on slotting in TT: Maneuvers. Dropping 5% global recharge will only give you a 1~ sec downtime on Hasten. You can then free up some slots to flesh out your offense some more. You have a proc in Dart Burst, but not in Strike. I don't understand the reasoning on that. One interrupt reducer in Aid self should be enough. A full slot for .16s has never really sold me as an effective use of slotting. Just some of the changes I would make. Hopefully the ideas help you.

Well running Mindlink should be second nature as it has no real downside. So the defense while it is active should be more than enough to keep you upright. It's nice to have padding if you face a group like the Romans as you will have more wiggle room if they start getting lucky. Mindlink also has to hit, and psi resistance so it's just all around win. I think you will be just fine vs +4.

Gloom is an awesome power. If you look in the guides section Top Doc swapped out Poison Dart for Gloom in one of his builds if you scroll down. You can get by just fine with or without it. I'd have to shuffle a lot of slots, and a purple set to drop Poison Dart for Swipe. I'm at a point that I do not want to do that, and I am quite happy without Gloom. If you are still in the planning phase you can't go wrong with it's DPA. Good luck!

I don't think Weave is necessary on a Widow. Since you aren't slotting Tough for extra resistance I would say skip that pool. I took Leaping, Speed, Fitness, and Medicine. I don't have a travel power just the prereqs and this was a flavor choice. Well, maybe not so much for Hasten. One big thing that will help you out on the NW at all times is making Mindlink perma. Hasten would help, but our build plans have the same global recharge. What I am working towards in my Mindlink is 3 LotG, and 1 Membrane Exposure. Without Hasten it recharges in 91.5s vs a duration of 90s. I know your build is soft capped without ML, but Widow Defense debuff resist is very low. Running around with more defense at all times works wonders. It also makes Elude pointless unless you want to use it as a recovery tool. I also have TT:Leadership with the Gaussian's 6pc for added hit, and defense. Overall I think the build looks pretty good though. Dropping Fighting would just free up 3 new power picks. You can take or leave Elude depending on your goals.

Hopefully some of this will help you out. Good luck!

You're welcome!

If you have the time to search the older pages of this forum you should find several SS/WP IO builds. A lot of them have the Mu AoE powers. Exact powers aren't the goal though. It's looking at how others slotted for set bonuses to achieve 2400+hps, regen for 70+ hp per sec, and 70+ global recharge. They have expensive IO's, but it should get you an idea of what you might want to shoot for. If you want to go for high defense you might want to visit the Scrapper forums as there are very few in this forum that discuss high defense WP builds. You could even take a look into the Tanker boards, but realize it is much easier for them to hit 43-45% to the typed defenses.

Good Luck!!

Hiya!

Ok, so I see a few things that might be holding you back. First up you skipped Haymaker for Boxing. Haymaker is your next best attack after Knockblow, and before you can get Gloom. Haymaker never gets old, and should be a staple of your attack routine. It provides a chance at Knockdown so you are missing out on some mitigation there. I can understand taking Boxing to open Tough/Weave, but I put all those off until the 40's without trouble.

You have Rise to the Challenge slotted with to-hit debuffs, and not healing. The to-hit debuff is weak, and the scaling regeneration per foe in range is the strength of that power. Your slotting in your other defense powers looks fine though.

Have you always had such endurance trouble? Darkest Night is a wonderful power, but it is an endurance hog. I don't use it all the time, but save it for special targets. At least that is how I use it solo. Teaming I might be a bit more Liberal with it's use. I've used Hasten since level 6. So I have had that crash, and the Rage crash to deal with before I took Stamina at 30. I rarely had major endurance issues if I was mindful of when the buffs where fading. I kept a couple of blues in my inspiration tray for the times when both crashed together. Other than that life got better after Stamina. Blue skittles are always your friend though.

So I would put healing in RttC, and see about getting Haymaker. Both should improve your performance. As far as IO sets I'm a huge fan of Hit points, Regen, and then Recharge. Work on the HP accolades, and Marshall too. They are all well worth the time, and effort.

I don't miss Dark Obliteration at all. I've had it before, and I don't think it's a bad power (or a bad choice in place of Weave). I just don't feel a need to have it. To take it in my current build it would break up my slotting on regeneration, and I wouldn't gain any new IO bonuses for doing so. The extra AoE attack became a luxury, and I decided to drop it. AoE is not the focus of my build anyway.

When I used to play DA I had the eye tendrils aura colored blue. I used to run around with a Dark/Dark defender and be a Dark Servant look-a-like. Good times.

MA doesn't offer any big synergies except with Dark's stuns. So it pairs fine with basically every secondary. My favorites are SR (it's like the PBnJ of concepts), and Willpower.

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Daft Punk
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Daft Punk
Too Long/Steam Machine

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I've always been a fan of Daft Punk ever since Homework. Some of the new Cyborg Booster options make for a great Daft Punk costume. My Brute has a tech theme, and one of his costume slots has the cyborg hat, cyborg visor (I think it's Cyborg 2?), and the cyborg jaw on top of the casual blazer. If you are a fan of theirs steal that costume idea, and enjoy!

When I play my '70's Black Lightening inspired MA/SR scrapper. I have the following as inspiration...

Curtis Mayfield "Superfly"

Bobby Womack "Across 110th Street"

Issac Hayes "Do Your Thing", and of course "Theme from Shaft"

Can ya dig it?

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Yeah, so I reiterate, if you can soft-cap without gimping the build, it can't be that weak, correct?

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I really like playing Scrappers and Brutes. From that experience I found leveling a Bane to be very mediocre. I really like my Bane because the Wolf costume is appealing to me, and so is his character concept. I also liked the challenge in play style it presented to me. After soft capping it really closed the gap on my opinion from my previous AT experiences. My Bane is quite strong considering IOs. Throw enough infamy at a build, and it should be good though. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement either.

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Being soft capped to all at just level 12 or so was awesome.

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I went bane w/ my SoA at 24, but quickly switched to my second build as a crab because I didn't care for it. Can you suggest a very basic (read: doesn't require hero planner) build that's good?

Thank you.

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You might have misunderstood what he's talking about. Back when VEATs opened up there were so many on groups that just about everyone was soft capped due to stacking Maneuvers. You won't find that in a regular build. Besides this forum is littered with builds and most of them are still useful for leveling even with the heavy IO slotting.

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I was wondering which patrons Brutes usually lean to. Though, for my build, I only have room for one power, but it would also help on deciding which one gives the best missions, as this is my first villain as well. I'm leaning towards Ghost widow atm for gloom to get a little -acc. I'm a DM/ElecArm if that matters. Thanks for any advice.

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Best missions in terms of interesting story? Or in terms of the name of the Patron Badge? or in terms of speed of first arc completion to get the badge?

I find Scirocco's arcs to be interesting (also can be good for Mu Guardian kills for gladiator badge), and I like his badge name.

In terms of arc speed, I find Black Scorpion to have a rather quick first arc, the only thing is that he takes awhile to give out his communicator code so you run back to him a lot.

Wont' matter what patron you pick now though since they unlocked the patron pools, so that is a good thing.

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This. I happen to think they are all good, but they are also very similar in some ways. Pick the Patron you want to learn the most about and go for it. Then level up some other villains and play the other arcs.

Darkest Night is still useful if you ever plan to solo and AV. The damage reduction portion of the power is still useful even though the to hit debuff isn't. It's also pretty nice in groups when you fight large spawns. Solo it might not see use depending on the size of the spawns you face, but casual solo is not why people recommend it.

Your power choices look solid to me. Since you are running low on slots Resurgence isn't that big a deal if you keep it or not. You have enough attacks, and you took all the good defense powers. I see no harm in keeping it in your build if you like it. The only power I would suggest is maybe Dark Obliteration, but you don't really have the slots left for it.

Speaking of slotting I would consider putting 1 more into Soul Drain as I feel it's a bit lacking for accuracy. Your build will mulch regular content, but if you want to try to push your limits you want Soul Drain hitting as many foes as possible. A single accuracy IO is good, but you can probably pull something from a set too. Your final slot could either go to Quick Recovery for another Perf. Shifter proc, or Health. Your frankenslotting in your attacks looks fine, but I played with replacing the two non-sets with Pounding Slugfests for 8% more regeneration each power. I think I did that and went with 3 in Health. 2 Numina's, and the Regenerative tissue. I believe it brought the health regeneration to about 717% with 1 target in RTTC for 75hp recovery.

Keep playing with the build. I think it looks pretty good even though I am not a huge fan of trying to build defense on Willpower (My WP tank however... big fan of that logic). Before you respec at 50 maybe think about doing the respec on Test to see if you even like the powers before they are IO'ed. Other than that good luck!

My first high level character was DM/DA before the armors stacked (yeah, back in the day you had to choose what you wanted to be resistant to). It wasn't a very popular set then, and it isn't a popular set now. That does not mean it is weak.

It used to have a very high learning curve as far as this game goes, and it still does to an extent. Once you get Dark Regeneration, and successfully use it on a spawn before face planting you might get hooked on this set. That power is just an amazing thing to have.

I want to play my DM/DA again. Bye!

I will also agree with everyone here that SR is the way to go for the cheap, but while leveling it can be a chore before you flesh it out. Regen is a pretty awesome secondary as well if you want to take a spin with a very active defense set. In fact you may want to make a character with it if you never tried a Regeneration Stalker. It's play style is very different from what Brutes have access to. Scrappers are kind of like tattoos. Once you get one you'll get another. Before you know it you'll have a sleeve.

I (like many) play a SS/WP as well. I have Darkest Night, Tough, and Weave in my build. Weave is a nice boost to defense, but it's not too stellar against defense debuffers like the Romans. I have the room in my build for it though, the endurance to run it, and the desire to keep Luck of the Gamblers in it. For Willpower I think Weave is skippable, but I hardly see a reason to do that when paired with Super Strength. Why? Well, I'll tell ya why!

Fitting these powers into the SS/WP formula is easier than using the Slap Chop. You only need 5 powers out of the primary to be successful (Punch, Haymaker, KO Blow, Rage, Footstomp). Everything but Resurgence in Willpower. Two powers from a travel pool if you want (I like leaping personally), and three powers from Fitness (hurdle/swift, health, and stamina). Add up those powers and you have room for a power to unlock Tough and Weave, Gloom (Yes have some! This attack rocks the socks!), Darkest Night, and one other power of your choice (I like Hasten)!!! There are many ways to slot these power choices and it's hard to go wrong. My power choices may go against your character concept, but really the only difference I can see is swapping Leaping for Flight.

There ya go all the fan favorite powers all wrapped into one very fun to play engine of destruction!

I think this thread is pretty much done. Unless the OP wants to rename it "How Da Captain is always right, and everyone else is wrong". It's stopped being a constructive discussion. I've posted my ideas for buffs that I think would improve the branch, and I'm done with the bickering. Peace be with you, and good luck!

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Its like a blaster not blasting... why fill a spot with a kin that doesn't sb anyone? I didn't even suggest that the entire team be SB but not SB anyone is lazy. It takes seconds and helps the TEAM tremendously. So give me a break about tanks not helping the team... go be lazy somewhere else.

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Tank and stop asking for speed boost.

Pfffft. Tanker asking for +recharge like he's a damage AT or something...

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Moar recharge NAO! Jump kick demands it! A Skul in spaece needs no moar aggro management!

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So what's the whole point of this thread? I started reading it, but then comparisons to /SR were made, and now I'm lost. What is being argued here?

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Banes suck, but only if you don't take a bajillion power pools to beef your defences up and if you pretend your melee powers either don't exist or aren't your primary function. That's what's being argued. And it's essentially correct. As long as you play Banes like Crabs, and as long as you're willing to sacrifice much of your endurance for the use of pool powers, you're pretty good to go.

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Don't forget all the inane discussion comparing other powers but omitting pool powers for only one of the sets in question. Some how the ability to run more pool powers is a boon to an AT, and their reliance isn't a hindrance. I mean the fact you need to dip into multiple pools because your primary/secondary can't cover the function of a AT role is a boost amirite? Also, we shouldn't forget all the helpful "L2P" comments because we all know that immediately results in a better player base. Some folks are just that good at this AT. Some folks are immune to CoT quicksand's auto hit, and defense debuffing EB's. These Bane players are almost akin to "The Most Interesting Man in the World", or even Chuck Norris. I've seen videos, and grouped with only a handful of Banes that bring a tear to my eye. Seriously! The AT couldn't use a couple tweaks. The players are the ones that need the tweaks.

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Ok in that since they are the same, by the way the powers are made up. If I have fire blast that recharges in 4 secs and one that recharges in 8 secs the one that recharges in 8 secs will do more damage. Hince that is why /Elec for Doms has higher damaging melee attacks, because they use more endurance and have more recharge thus making more damage. So in that sense overall the BS pool is not more damaging it just appears that way with the extra end cost and more recharge, so overall they really are the same power.

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You keep using the word "same". I do not think you know what this word means. The powers are similar, but they are not equal. 73 base damage on the Patron blast vs 55 for the Bane blast doesn't just "seem" like more damage either (It actually *IS* more damage). I should be more clear the Patron blast is more front loaded damage.

The Black Scorpion blasts aren't the same as the Bane blasts. The Patron attacks do higher damage at higher endurance, and recharge costs. We would only be so lucky if Mace Beam Blast did the damage of Disruptor Blast. I wonder if we could lobby for changing the single target Patron blast to Jawbreaker/Clobber, and the AoE to Whirling mace!