Kalgoras

Aye the Article describing the powers on the Front page says:

Calls one massive Bruiser. He is strong, tough and has a mean temper. As a Brute, he will generate Fury and deal more damage the longer the combat lasts. His Super Strength powers means he favors hand-to-hand combat. He has resistance to Lethal and Smashing Damage and some resistance to Fire and Cold Damage. You may only have one Bruiser under your control at any given time. If you attempt to summon another Bruiser, the power will fail. (Recharge: Very Long)

Sounds very much like a variation on Invuln with resist elements Although I doubt we will really see any obvious powersets on henchies...we don't on the other types, so I suspect no visual clues hehe

I'm interested to see what sort of damage he puts out at full fury....

Fear and holds etc. definately reduce Fury as you are not contributing yourself by attacking.

However you still build fury by being attacked, so in a group of 10 or so enemies your fury will stay high (however if stunned/held this isn't ideal :P )

I like the Thugs set, but I'm still debating a secondary. I was originally going to go /dark as it's one of the most powerful, but I want something more 'concept'y' and something different hehe

I am pretty much thinking End game as I do with all my chars, so the Thugs set is the one which actually has it's henchmen split into 2 types, with the exception partially of Necro.

Tier 1 and 2 are ranged, tier 3 is melee (Necro Lich is close ranged, rest of necro all mainly melee).

I think the thugs will be great, as the biggest, strongest pet is also the melee'r so you should get the best return on buff powers etc. compared to the other sets, where you can't rely on the tier 3 to soak up the agro.

Admittedly the lower tiers look more AoE so will draw some agro later on, but at least you can send the big guy in to absorb the alpha

So now I need a secondary that can help Thugs the most.

1) Dark: Great AoE heal, great AoE debuffs for damage resist, accuracy and also fear. Plus a Rez...hmm still about the best.

2) Poison: Weak heal (but no hit roll), great debuffs but mainly single target. Last power looks great to cast on the big boy. Decent Rez..

3) Traps: Decent Damage resist debuff in acid mortar, some nice utility with force field gen, and some fun mines for a more 'set up' approach. This could be a pain with a pet that uses fury.

4) FF: Great def, especially with changes in i7, however no heal or -dam resist powers, and the final power is a sod with a melee pet.

5) TA: The dark horse Awful starter set, however has some neat tricks later on and decent debuffs, but needs tons of powers...tough to fit everything and some key pool powers in.

Overall I'm leaning towards poison now for a change from the tons of /dark's we may see

Dark still has the best stuff, however maybe with some future tweaks the other sets can be brought up to compete a bit

I recommend reading Zap's guide

He is to Masterminds, what John Motson is to football.


***Removed comment about Motty's age and eyesight now for possible legal reasons He is a fine upstanding commentator who never misses anything obvious, especially when shown from 10 different angles in slow motion...*cough****

Considering Sin's number of deaths per mission I wouldn't count on it!












[j/k Sin hehe ]

Yup that's all it needs...the holy grail that is kinetics. It basically corrects all the flaws of granite with SB and Fulcrum....ah last night it was 4 brutes and 2 kin's...doing relentless missions in a few minutes

Fire sword circle with 2 fulcrum shifts almost brought a tear of joy to my eye even in Granite ;(

Great fun!

Cheers TI

That was an insane few hours hehe! Ah well...what to do next we wonder...

True Starfox Although I took taunt and it works wonders hehe. Brute taunt still hits 5 targets just like the tanker version, however the gauntlet effect from hitting mobs only hits one, unlike the tanker version.

But fire sword circle, firebreath and mudpots generates tons of agro with full fury too!

The damage an ice/ice cor can kick out at high level is stupid They can decimate whole spawns in seconds with their - Res powers and rains with slows to keep mobs in them.

The more mobs there are, the more they get to kill quite simply hehe

Aye the disadvantages of granite are huge too...it's unlikely the tank can kill you easily, but you need some specific tactics to hurt them Detoggles or end drain cripple granite completely...and the less said about -Recharge powers the better...

Cheers folks! That's actually improved my day as one of the (millions of) /Stone brutes out there...

- Kal

Hi folks,

I have been believing that the brute resist cap was 75% same as scrappers, but from looking at the USA boards, it seems over there most people think it is 90% same as tankers.

The main difference is that Brute secondaries have lower base stats than an equivalent tanker, but with a bit of help from a friendly /Sonic or /Thermal or many more, you could get up to tanker resistances?

Anyone any thoughts/knowledge or links to Dev responses on the official Brute resist cap?



*** As an aside, if the cap is 90% it seems another nail in the poor tankers coffin...with a bit of help brutes get the same resists with a ton more damage... Especially if they ever do this mad thing about allowing villans and hero's to swap sides! Madness in my opinion!! ) ***

My build is pretty similar with stone skin and tough...however if anyone could tell me if sherksilvers numbers are correct that would be great, as it looks like granite caps S/L resists with 2resists in Tough and 3resists in Granite itself.

(may have to test it out!! and possible respec out of stone skin)


This puts S/L over the 75% cap for brutes/scrappers (Tanks are 90%, Khelds are 85%)

***Edited as I scared SG members earlier hopefully those numbers are still current!***

Otherwise I recommend taunt and 3 recharges too, and hasten

Aye go with Sin's suggestion

I took taunt, so I went with the damage even for teamplay!

(P.S. Taunt as granite rocks...fastest way to generate fury = 10 mobs all beating on you...full fury in a few seconds!...gets round granites -70% recharge penalty on your attack chain, but you still get the -30% damage penalty as well)

(P.P.S. Find a Kinetics Corr, and chain them up in a gimp suit to be released whenever you play... )

(P.P.P.S. Slotting Granite 3 Res/3 Def is great too )

- Kal

Mudpots is highly recommended

Crystal does provide a bit of Def to Energy/Neg, but I'm a granite man myself

Over time mudpots is extremely damaging, I went with 6 slots: 2 End Red, 3 Dam, 1 Acc.

It's accurate and with full fury ticks away nicely along with the slow effect (and yes the slow is pure movement only )

The slow part of mudpots is auto-hit I beleive, but the damage is very accurate but does actually require a 'hit check'. It generates a lot of agro with the slow and damage, so well worth using it

I can't really recommend slotting for taunt, as it taunts a lot anyway...although I have Fire sword circle and Firebreath on my toon to keep them interested too...

Duh...because it's Ty of course!

*It's like trying to ask the tide not to come in today so we can have a bit more beach to play in...*

Grats Trix My Stone Brute loves you!

- VolKalno

OK I've had a think about bodyguard for a bit now, and I actually think it could end up working as intended!

It's real use is in PvP to prevent 1-shotting, but requires you to have your pets in defensive follow.

I was worried about the PvE aspects, and in all honesty I can't see it making a huge difference to PvE.

The main issue PvE, is that there are only minimal situations where the mastermind actually has any agro, as the pets generate a lot themselves. The pets are still squishy and will not bodyguard each other (that would be awesomely overpowered!...3 or 4k hitpoints total anyone? )

The chars which will benefit most I suspect are Forcefield, as with Force Bubble up you generate a lot of agro pushing mobs away until the pets attack them (often with the AoE's from robots), so having bodyguard can spread the incoming damage. Dark when applying Darkest Night can draw an alpha strike, but I often send the pets in as I'm applying it, so they agro first anyway just as Darkest Night hits

Overall I think that the limited uses will be more beneficial to the PvP environment to prevent one-shotting while moving about, however you will be limited to supremacy range.

In PvE the benefits of focussed firing and using the 'Goto' command will mostly outweigh the bodygaurd advantages which will probably split your henchmen's fire too much on multiple targets.

Only time will tell....

I don't know if this is fixed yet?

Missions with Freaks:

When a freak rezzes, the pet's will automatically rush back to kill the freshly rezzed freak and constantly try to go back and kill them after following an attack order on another npc. I don't know what makes the freshly rezzed freak top of their kill list!

[This could have been fixed by now, not played any of my MM's in a while ]

Cheers, tho it's only over by about 4% with Green SO's, so for most of the time it will be about right

That's the (probably flawed) theory anyway!

Oh just as an aside with regards to 40-50

The patron sets don't look too exciting for Brutes, however there are some handy powers in there.

I intend to get Build Up at 41, as I simply could not squeeze it in before!

then definately the AoE attack from a Patron Pool which would require either a single target or cone pre-requisite.

However the jury is out over the pet for this build, as I don't know how it will survive in the middle of a big group of NPC's

Anyway, I will have to let you know how it works out in practice!

[Not for a while yet though, with Elec/Elec brutes on the Horizon, ElectriKal must be made first! ]

...or are they?

OK Brutes are a big damage dealer, but sometimes it would be really useful to have somebody to take a big alpha or 2, so I decided to try my hand at one!

Anyway here is the result:

---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: VolKalno Post Respec
Level: 38
Archetype: Brute
Primary: Fiery Melee
Secondary: Stone Armor
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Fire Sword==> Acc(1)Acc(3)EndRdx(3)Rechg(5)
01) --> Rock Armor==> DefBuf(1)
02) --> Stone Skin==> DmgRes(2)
04) --> Earth's Embrace==> Heal(4)Rechg(5)Heal(7)Heal(7)Rechg(13)Rechg(13)
06) --> Hasten==> Rechg(6)Rechg(9)Rechg(9)
08) --> Cremate==> Acc(8)Acc(11)EndRdx(11)Rechg(15)
10) --> Teleport Foe==> Acc(10)
12) --> Swift==> Run(12)Run(15)Run(29)
14) --> Teleport==> EndRdx(14)
16) --> Rooted==> EndRdx(16)Heal(17)Heal(17)Heal(19)
18) --> Health==> Heal(18)Heal(19)Heal(34)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20)EndMod(21)EndMod(21)
22) --> Mud Pots==> EndRdx(22)EndRdx(23)Dmg(23)Dmg(31)Dmg(31)Taunt(31)
24) --> Breath of Fire==> Acc(24)Acc(25)Dmg(25)
26) --> Fire Sword Circle==> Acc(26)Acc(27)Dmg(27)Dmg(37)Dmg(40)
28) --> Boxing==> Acc(28)Rechg(29)
30) --> Tough==> EndRdx(30)DmgRes(34)EndRdx(34)DmgRes(36)DmgRes(36)
32) --> Greater Fire Sword==> Acc(32)Acc(33)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Dmg(37)
35) --> Taunt==> Rechg(35)Rechg(36)Rechg(37)
38) --> Granite Armor==> DmgRes(38)DmgRes(39)DmgRes(39)DefBuf(39)DefBuf(40)DefBuf(40)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Run(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Acc(1)
02) --> Rest==> Rechg(2)
01) --> Fury==> Empty(1)
---------------------------------------------


I will try and explain a few choices in powers:

Powersets:

Fire: I went fire for the 2 AoE's from Fire Sword Circle (really large PBAoE) and for Fire Breath (More situational short cone) and the fact that fire seems to annoy NPC's a lot so I could grab some agro

Stone: Maximum sustained tankage via granite. Granite has huge penalties to your damage output from the -70% recharge and -30% damage along with the slow movement, however for taking damage...it rocks! (pun intended :P)

Power Choices:

Just to explain a couple, I took tough to cap out my S/L damage and combined with Stone skin puts me just over the cap so I can take a hit or 2 from Sonic's etc without uncapping I took taunt as there is no way a granite holds agro as easily otherwise due to the lack of damage. Plus the range pull and saving the squishies is great.
Teleport to move is a given, and useful to get to awkward spots in mish's and for teleporting into groups of NPC's.
Hasten to counter Granites recharge a bit every now and again when it's up.
Lastly I slotted the lower attacks for an attempt at a fury chain when soloing (not ideal ) and slotted the large attacks for damage, especially FSC for when things really need to die with high fury.
Mudpots kicks out great damage over time as the ticks aren't slowed by Granite, so I slotted for damage. Extra damage seems to taunt as well as extra taunt, so I'd rather hurt them a bit more...the number of times Mudpots finishes a Mob and allows you to attack something else is amazing

Well I hit level 39 today and I can say it performs as well as I hoped it would!

This was a respec I did at 38, which is why the powers are in an odd order. I went a fairly normal stone brute route to get to 38, getting tough and mudpots after stamina.

It was quite a long road, as Fire has no secondary mitigation effects like disorient or knockback, just pure damage. That works out perfectly in granite as you want them all hitting you as it's your main fury builder, however it's a sod while you are getting there

Overall it was 37 awkward levels, and it's been 2 great ones so far in teams!

Anyone out there who wants to try making a Tanky Brute, I highly recommend Fire/Stone!

- VolKalno

Yay! Grats Zap

Aye, far too much time helping others...you need to be a bit more selfish next time!

Fraid so

Looking forward to these fellows myself!

Booohooo, another CoV pioneer bites the dust

Sigh....the fact i7 is taking soo long to come out isn't helping us preserve the long term players....I just hope it's as good as it's portrayed to be!

Laters Confess/Flick, I've enjoyed reading your posts, so don't stop doing that