Lord Mayhem

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I play /Inv and /Stone both of which are FAR superior in terms of defence/resistance, it wasnt a statement about damage or anything like that, it was a personal opinion which was stressed in the very sentence that you quote.

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I realise it was your opinion, just like most of our posts here are - and I realise most brutes probably seem squishy to someone used to playing a /stone Tanker/Brute post-Granite - I just keep seeing lots and lots and lots of people saying /Fire is squishy/weak (both on UK and US forums), as if it's a powerset to avoid - and we all know how prevailing opinions can affect both game balance and players' attitudes to teaming.

Personally I prefer the all-round protection of /FA and /DA - of course I know Smash/Lethal is far more common in the game, and I don't mitigate that as well as /Invul (Healing Flames covers the gap) - but I've teamed with /Invuls who dreaded certain mobs/spawns that did big Fire/Energy damage (Cold, N.Energy, Tox and Psi being so much less prevalent, of course, that they're barely worth mentioning) - especially Arachnos & Longbow - factions that make Fire/Energy more common damage types in CoV than they were in CoH.

And FAR superior? In resist terms there is hardly a huge gap in Smash/Lethal between /Invul and /FA or /DA - according to most of the planners/builders/forums, with toggles 3-slotted, it's the difference between 65-ish% S/L (/Invul + Tough) and 52-ish% S/L (/FA or /DA, + Tough). That certainly seems about right in gameplay terms - I've never felt /Invul's were mitigating massively more S/L than my /Fire and /Darks, until they hit Unstoppable of course (and I grouped much of my 30s as my Fire/Fire with Mr & Miss Marvellous' Stone/Dark and Stone/Invul brutes, so I had plenty of direct gameplay comparison).

In typical gameplay I guess you have to ask if its worth an extra 13% S/L resist, plus a bit of defence (depending on Invincibility and spawn/team size), in exchange for dropping 10-50+% resist against all the non-S/L damage types. I think it's a fair trade-off - hardly far superior though... unless you were also considering Unstoppable - which of course /FA and /DA get no equivalent to, but which is also situational and can't be used more than 3mins in every 9mins (if you also have Hasten).

Despite quoting you, my post wasn't aimed exclusively at you - I just see a lot of blanket statements flying around about /Fire being weak - without counter-opinions popping up I just think a lot of people would dismiss the set out of hand. I actually think /FA might make the game perhaps a bit easier in some ways for a new player - there are very few damage types you really fear (except Cold and the Tox/Psi that everyone except /Darks fear, but they're hardly common), and incoming damage is more regular/predictable in spawns with mixed damage types.

Just my opinion, of course

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Gremlin Pah!

I wanna look like deathsurge

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He is a gremlin, though admittedly a big one!

I'm really looking forward to both Electric powersets as well.

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I kept Back Alley Brawler virtually perma stunned/disoriented yesterday, admittedly he was -3 lvls but clearly it is possible

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Cool, I'm glad it works. Be pretty handy against Calystix and Infernal then to stop them summoning, I'd think.

I've only fought and tanked Brawler and most of the other AVs/Heroes as a Fire/Fire Brute, so I couldn't do anything fancy apart from punching them in the face, setting them on fire and cutting their heads off

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As an MM remember you have by far the lowest hit points of any archetype

[/ QUOTE ]AFAIK, MM's have the same amount as defenders and controllers, and possibly dom's and corr's as well.

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nope its way less than all of them im quite sure

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Yes its much much less - Masterminds have 75% of the HPs of Corruptors. Fortunately I have proof of this as my MM and my Corruptor are both L20 atm - my Corruptor has 449.3 HP unbuffed, while my MM has 337 HP - exactly 75%.

That leads me to believe the HP chart I copied off the forums in CoV beta is correct. Testers had compared HPs on their villains to their heroes at various levels and found the following HP bases to apply, with Corruptors and the Epic ATs as the 100% base:

175% = Tanker
140% = Brute
125% = Scrapper
112.5% = Blaster
100% = Corrupter, Peacebringer, Warshade
95% = Defender, Stalker, Dominator, Controller
75% = Mastermind

Although belief/assumption is a dangerous thing, as this thread has shown, so I can only support the Corruptor/Mastermind figures myself

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All a matter of opinion of course, I find FA far to squishy

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I really don't understand this commonly held opinion that /Fire brutes are squishy. There were very few occasions in my 40 levels as a Fire/Fire when I felt squishier or took more damage than the many many other brutes I teamed with: At L38+ I felt squishier than /Stones in Granite, but I'm glad I don't have their penalties. Against AVs/Heroes I felt squishier than /Invuls when they turned on Unstoppable... but only for 3 mins. If there were many mobs in CoV that dealt Cold/Psionic I'd probably have felt squishier than /Darks, but there are hardly any so I don't. And I always felt less squishy than /EAs.

In typical gameplay, both solo and in teams up to 8-strong, I never felt squishy - in big teams I'd usually be the one taking the alpha-strikes (unless it was against a spawn with loads of CoT spectrals as they do Cold damage) and I've tanked most of the AVs/Heroes in CoV too. Most of the time as a /fire you won't take more damage than Healing Flames can handle against smash/lethal/energy/neg.energy damage, and fire damage might as well be raindrops.

So /Fire isn't weak for a Brute and perpetuating that fallacy does nobody any favours. I wonder if that thinking comes over from CoH, where Tankers were generally better off with /Stone or /Invul for herding (before Invincibility got nerfed), so /Fire and /Ice (which brutes haven't had since beta, of course) were seen as weak.

Imho the few drawbacks /Fire does have - Burn being poor, being weak to Cold/Psi damage, CJ/Acrobatics being necessary to get full status protection (/Darks need Acrobatics for Knockback protection too) - are well worth it in exchange for:

1) resist shields not being toggle/End heavy (so you can run Tough if you want, no problem)
2) being incredibly resistant to Fire damage (my alts know how much Behemoths, Damned and Chief Plasma Scientists can hurt)
3) getting both a Heal and End-recovery power (consume) in the same set
4) getting a second build-up power with longer duration for Fire powers
5) getting the best damage aura available to brutes (Blazing Aura) - which with Fire Melee primary (which has the best Brute AE damage attack in Fire Sword Circle) means you will do more damage than any other Brute in PvE... easily.

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deleting my brute... please wait

damn I hate fire since i4 was released
im like yeah gather em all up... Mwhahaha burn £$!%! dont run away :/

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But you're making a Brute now, not a Tanker.

I found Fire/Fire to be a very good combination - it's certainly the best PBAE damage combination of any brute. I can decimate an entire spawn with Fire Sword Circle & Blazing Aura boosted with Fiery Embrace + Build-Up + full Fury (& maybe Forge and Fulcrum Shift if you're lucky) - the team only has to focus on injured bosses and lieuts because the minions are all dead or dying.

Of course without Fire primary, and with Burn unaffected by buffs/Fury, I can see how you'd get dispirited at your AE damage (I didn't take Burn - it looked crap on paper and nobody had a good word to say about it). But don't write off the whole Fiery Armour set just because of Burn - it's a great set, despite having one duff power.

I keep hearing on the forums that /Fire is a weak armour set and it's complete rubbish - my Brute is not at all fragile by comparison with the other secondaries. Providing you take CJ/Acrobatics to fill in the status resist holes (and you need Acrobatics for /Dark too) it's a perfectly good set - just a bit behind /Dark on all-round resists (but way ahead of Invul & EA, and just ahead of pre-Granite /Stone) - /Fire costs less End than /Dark too, so you can afford to run Tough for better S/L resists than anything short of Invul (with Tough - though Invul is crap for non-S/L resists) or Stone (post-Granite).

I love Fire/Fire as you can probably tell, although I'm playing SS/Dark now until I7.

I've got EM on my Stalker, had it on my Tanker in CoH and considered it again the other day for my second Brute.

The best thing about Barrage is its one-two animation, but I think I'd skip it on an EM Brute then at L6 take Boxing (faster animation, better damage, opens up Tough, costs slightly more End), or maybe Air Superiority (yummy knockdown, but maybe animates a bit slow and costs a bit too much End for an auto-power) - that's if you can spare a power pool choice. I have both on Lord Mayhem (Boxing as auto-power) and never regretted it, but then both were better than Scorch any day. I also just picked up Air Sup again on my new SS/Dark Brute (Jab as auto-power).

Whirling Hands looks a bit poor to me - quite low damage for an AE - but maybe I'm just comparing it to Fire Sword Circle's bigger area and far superior damage. I guess if you want an AE as an EM brute there's no other choice.

Stun looks great on paper (Mag3 disorient - though TF is Mag3 as well), and I plan to take it on my Stalker, but for a Brute I probably wouldn't bother unless you plan to PvP a lot... and I know you don't PvP much, Miss Actually if some AVs/heroes could be stunned (I have no idea if they can) you could reliably stack disorients with TF & Stun, but I guess that's a bit situational to be worth a power pick.

We'll have to link-up again for some all-brute teaming - I've been missing the SMASH!ing fun you, Mr M and I had levelling through the 30s, bulldozing everything in our path!

The OP's main problem isn't that he picked a Corruptor instead of a Blaster - it's that he picked both a primary and secondary powerset that take a while to mature, so isn't very "blast-y" nor powerful in the beginning, hence why he thinks Kin is poor (lol). I'm amazed he hasn't come to the same conclusion about Assault Rifle, but I guess he really likes the look of that gun

I had an AR/Kin at L10 which I deleted when I realised Fire/Rad suited my playstyle better, because I like dealing damage. The difference between both at lower levels was astonishing, both solo and teamed - Fire/Rad kicks out incredible damage and hardly gets hurt while doing it - the AR/Kin felt gimped by comparison (nothing short of a concept build could make me try AR again).

But teaming with /Kins in the late game has shown me the incredible power of the set at higher levels - nothing boosts a whole team quite so well as a Kineticist. So I'm considering a /Kinetics Corruptor just for teaming with friends (probably with Energy Blast because it looks cool and can kick out some good single-target damage). But if I needed a solo kineticist then I'd consider Ice Blast or Dark Blast instead for their secondary effects.

I think it's good that all AT builds are different - you just have to play a few different sets to find what suits your playstyle and needs.

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As long as there is no hero/AV/Gm in a spawn I will quite happily take the alpha strike in any team I am in(unless facing a lot of reds/purples). As a /FF MM I can quite happily TP into the centre of a big group with PFF running to take all the nasty aggro and then let the pets and other team members thin it out so it is managable. If there is no brute on the team and we need tanking I will always volenteer to do it. As a result of this I am considering getting provoke and 6 slotting it just to pull aggro when required - ie fire off provoke and then hit PFF.

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Yeah PFF is good for that, as is Phase Shift - but I'm hardly ever in teams with one of those powers available.

With my Fire/Fire Brute I'm always up for taking an alpha (great way to build Fury in a team), especially when I have Corruptor shield buffs, unless the spawn contains things that I know will kill me before heals (my own, or from a Corruptor/MM) can save me. Fortunately most of my teams have multiple brutes, so they all charge in together and pray one of them isn't unlucky enough to get the entire alpha.

Most MM builds have ways to keep their own pets alive, whether heals or buffs. Prioritise the players and only buff/heal pets if you can without compromising the team - that's a judgement call you'll have to make depending on team/circumstance.

When playing my Corruptor I'm lucky that my desirable buff (Accelerate Metabolism) and my heal are PBAEs - with AM it is the MM's responsibility to get his pets in range after I announce "gather for AM".

When playing my MM I don't expect my pets will get buffs from Corruptors, though I am grateful when they do. My robots certainly aren't capable of tanking, no matter what buffs you stick on them - even necro pets struggle at extended tanking without lots of healing behind them.

When playing my Brute I expect to be prioritised for buffs/heals, because I should be taking most of the aggro/hits (especially as I'm a Fire/Fire, so getting AE aggro is no problem at all).

In my experience team-wipes usually happen after the Brutes faceplant - prioritise them. After them Corruptors & Dominators tend to get most aggro, depending on build/playstyle, then Stalkers (though inexperienced/impatient and/or scrapping Stalkers can attract more aggro than Corrs/Doms sometimes) - although stalkers do have tools to manage their aggro. So I'd put Masterminds at the bottom of the buffing list, just above their pets - yes MMs have the lowest hit points of any archetype in CoV, but in my experience they have to do something pretty serious to take aggro away from the other ATs - their pets do great damage cumulatively, but the aggro is spread around and not all on the MM.

As for tanking, in CoV beta and early CoV I insisted "brutes are not tankers!" but in retrospect I have tanked most of the AVs/Heroes in the game with my brute and it's the only villain archetype really suited to traditional tanking WHEN it's required. But CoV teams only need a dedicated tank against AVs/Heroes/GMs. Otherwise it's up to each individual in a team not to bite off more aggro than they can chew - otherwise the consequences are their own (it's the selfish villainous way!).

Though as a team leader I've sometimes asked an MM to send a pet in first against a big spawn as a sacrifice to take the alpha strike - especially if none of the Brutes could survive it (e.g. I know as a /Fire I struggle against the alpha of a spawn with more than 4 Nerva Spectrals in it) - not sure that counts as pet tanking though

But if an MM loses his pets, doesn't have enough End for re-summons (or his summons aren't recharged), then you have to let him run (he's probably looking for a safe corner to Rest, re-summon and re-buff) - there's not much else he can do except die! If losing one team member is dooming your teams then you may need to look deeper for other problems - maybe tactics or difficulty level, or inexperienced teammates. You should always keep something in reserve for unexpected situations (teammate dying, ambushes, unexpected adds).

You definitely want Accelerate Metabolism (I got that at L6 - love it) and you may want to consider Lingering Radiation as well (I'm getting it for my next power-pick at L22 on my Fire/Rad Corruptor) - I've read and heard it's very good.

I'm leaving Enervating Field until L26 - I wasn't sure it was really necessary until AVs/Heroes started to appear (L25+) and I haven't really missed it, because RI is just so good. I have RI six-slotted with ToHitDbf DOs (will be 3 ToHitDbf SOs and 3 DefDbf SOs from L22) and solo using RI I can just about survive tanking 9 yellow +1 minions long enough to kill them all with my AEs. Sure, the -resist portion of EF would enhance my damage, but the -damage debuff part wouldn't get used because something infected with RI doesn't get to hit that much. Also in fast teams you'll rarely have time to get the best out of RI, let alone EF, and again in normal situations nothing will hit much with RI applied. I think EF will mainly shine against the big stuff (EBs, AVs, Heroes & GMs).

After much deliberation I've decided to go without Choking Cloud (mainly because of the End cost) and I'm also skipping Fallout (very situational) and Mutation (didn't have room, plus the recharge and the after-effects make Awakens preferable for most people), but I'm getting everything else from /Rad. It's an astonishingly good set, even by comparison with the equally yummy /Dark Miasma.

I picked up Shadow Fall at 18 on my MM and its amazing. Unless you only solo the fact it's an area stealth will come in handy when you're teaming (it has a wide area - as an MM it means my bots are stealthed as well, and gain the resists/defence from it too, which can be very handy).

The resists are very noticeable, even unslotted - iirc the protection to Energy, Neg Energy and Psionic is 20% base and over 30% 3-slotted (that's better than some Brute toggles).

As an MM remember you have by far the lowest hit points of any archetype, so if something tries to melee you remember to follow the example of Brave Sir Robin and "Run away!!!"

I'm guessing you're not a Robot/* Mastermind or you'd be far more annoyed about your bots getting stuck to each other (are they headbutting each other or kissing? ), or getting stuck on railings/fences/anything. I'm beginning to wish there was a badge for casting Recall Friend 1,000 times - I'd have had it by now

I have experience of using both Darkest Night (I struggle to spot the anchor myself) and Rad Infection (anchor is easy to distinguish) at mid levels and teaming with users of both at higher levels.

When teaming with friends and solo I'd like DN's anchor to be a bit more visible, sure. But in pick-up teams I see no difference with either power - the anchor always dies early, even if I choose an Lt/minion at the back of a spawn and notify my team. So in teams now I tend to just use DN/RI as a boss debuff that I stick on the most dangerous enemy (preferably not one a stalker is getting ready to assassinate). Anchor debuffs really shine in AV/Hero/EB fights, of course.

Notifying the team which enemy will be anchor doesn't help much - there are usually multiple enemies in the same spawn with the same name - and it becomes meaningless in the chaos when everything is moving around and lots of particle effects are going off. Also if you can find a uniquely-named enemy in the spawn to be anchor then it tends to be a mob that needs to die fast because it's especially dangerous.

Perhaps debuff anchors should have a symbol of an actual ship anchor above their heads to mark them out as such. It might be immersion-breaking for some, but surely no more than having the UI onscreen in the first place.

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When I first heard of masterminds, thugs were the minions I thought off. I'm kinda hoping for the basic thug type attacking with baseball bats but it does seem unlikely.

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Ditto - for Thugs powerset I think we'll get Hellions/Skulls type gangers with pistols/uzis and baseball bats. What I want is Family type mafioso thugs with shotguns (and maybe have the 3 MM direct attacks use a sawn-off shotgun too).

I think Statesman said Pirates would be the next pet powerset (after Thugs), with Elementals/Demons and Carnies as future possibilities (i.e. so far in the future we'll probably never see them). I'd rather see Arachnos Minions (Wolf Spiders at L1/12/18, Tarantulas or Night Widows at L12/24, Crab Spider at L26) or Warwolves as pets though

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Stick and endurance redux in Rad infection.

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You find that it needs it? Personally I find RI to be a very reasonable toggle in Endurance terms - I'd be surprised if the saving on RI added up to more than 1 extra End every 10secs - I think you'd save more End over time by sticking that EndRdx into one of your main attacks (like Cosmic Burst or Irradiate).

On my brute I found slotting EndRdx in often used attacks saved me noticeably more End over time than slotting the low-End toggles (obviously high-End toggles, like EF is supposed to be, benefit much more from an EndRdx) - a /Rad corruptor is certainly less toggle-heavy than a brute.

I agree with you on Radiant Aura though - for a weak heal it sure costs a lot of End - thankfully I rarely need it

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Hope it helps!
Having those 2 AoEs early on should be good fun

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It is.

Admittedly my Corruptor is Fire/Rad, but same principle. By my early teens I was able to solo 9 yellow +1 minions at the same time (3 groups of 3) by pulling a whole room with RI, running round a corner so they stacked up within it, then using Fireball (AE) & Fire Breath (cone) til most were dead/running, then I'd pick off the rest with Fire Blast. Sure sometimes it gets dicey (usually if some decided to run early, but then changed their mind and came back immediately), but it sure is fun

Hasten + AM were necessary for me (16sec base recharge on Fire Ball/Breath - not sure what the recharge is on Rad/ AEs though) - and I recommend RI six-slotted with 6 ToHitDebuff DOs (til L22, then I plan to go 3 ToHitBuff and 3 DefDebuff SOs) to make sure that even elite bosses struggle to hit you

I thought my Corruptor would solo slower and be a lot squishier than my Brute - so far I'm levelling faster and dying less (L19 atm).

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Because a ranged single-target Immob with -Recharge and -Fly is really poor, especially when it's easily stacked - right?

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Maybe it's just me, but I don't like immobilises - because things can still attack you at range. I've given up on Grav/* dominators/controllers, a TA/Archery defender and a Ninja/TA MM because I felt the control was a bit weak. I'm sure immobilises are great for PvP but for PvE give me any other status effect (except perhaps slow, which TA has too, hehe).

I've tried several different MMs and grouped with tons as well. Here's my opinions/observations:

Trick Arrow - Glue Arrow is nice for the -recharge, but I think you'd want Hasten and 3 Recharge SOs because it takes a while to come back up. The Flash and Poison Gas arrows didn't seem to be doing much for my defender (together with Entangling arrow that persuaded me to delete him).

Force Field - ditched my Robot/FF MM at 14 because the two mini-bubbles just made the pre-mission buffing even more of a chore (if it was that bad with 3 pets I didn't want to find out what it was like with 6) and I didn't have enough to do in combat. It did seem effective, just not for my playstyle.

Poison - my friend has a 38 Ninja/Poison - the debuffs are great against AVs/heroes/EBs/bosses (very noticeable when we duo) but with many being single-target I'm not sure you'd use them on anything lower than that. Also from all the teaming I've done with various Corruptors/MMs I think /Poison has the best targeted heal in CoV.

Dark Miasma - still amazed this is an MM set as its so effective for Defenders/Corruptors. I've always been impressed with how /Darks can debuff a whole spawn so effectively (like /Rads, which my Corruptor is). It's the secondary I've chosen for my MM - I just have to keep a tight rein on the pets to make sure they don't kill the anchor I'm using for Darkest Night til last Add to that +stealth/resists, cone fear, hold, PBAE heal (though radius seems much smaller for MMs), an extra pet and a rez thats also useful while solo - yummy

Traps I can't really talk about as I have no experience of using it and only a little from teaming with it. The /Traps MM I did group with on a Baphomet run didn't seem to set up many traps, but with the pace of the team he may not have had time.

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Wing ??? Wyverns

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Wing Talons

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Has anyone tried using consume with haste but no stamina with atleast 1 end redux in every attack and 3 end redux in tough if you have it?

consume itself maybe better 2 acc 1 end 3 recharge

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Probably possible, although Hasten can only be up half the time with 3 Recharge SOs. Whether that would be tolerable comes down to personal preference and gameplay habits I guess.

Plus I had 2 Acc SOs in Consume at one stage (the 10 levels I relied on it before Stamina) - there were still times I couldn't depend on it solo (e.g. against targets that heavily debuff accuracy, like CoT spectrals and Tsoo sorcs). By comparison Stamina is always on, so gives more predictable/stable results over time.

Also using Hasten+Consume would take some personal discipline in keeping your damage below optimal to balance End-use: I have Hasten and Quick Recovery (like Stamina) on my Scrapper and the only time I find my End dropping is when Hasten is on - I find it just too tempting to wheel out the big attacks as soon as they become available - admittedly his End doesn't drop much, even with an End-heavy set like Broadsword, but he doesn't have his biggest attacks nor combat toggles yet.

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Well I like playing without haveing to look at my endurance bar. My EM/Inv Brute is slotted with many End and I never run out of it, except with end-suckers...

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So do I, but I'm too much of a min-maxer to use slots from elsewhere to put so many End Reducers in shields - I like to make sure every attack is fully six-slotted and every shield has 3xResist/Defence SOs (depending on powerset), so I'm usually struggling for slots in all my builds. I'm hoping that the patron powers I choose at 41-50 don't need much slotting, because I still want to fill up Fiery Embrace & Build-Up with the full 3 Recharge SOs, and stick another Jump SO in SuperJump so I hit the jump cap

Also SherkSilver's planner, which I use, reckons Fire & Plasma Shields only use 0.24 and 0.22 End/second (Acrobatics is 0.24 too), which is fairly cheap for a toggle so heavily slotting for End Reduction won't save you that much (Blazing Aura is 1.04, Tough is 0.33).

Cynic - I don't find the draw-time noticeable, because the Fire Sword is created in hand, not drawn (and Greater Fire Sword uses a totally different broadsword to the scimitar used by FS and FSC). Fire Sword is nice and quick with good damage - it's been my staple attack since L1 and I'd only recommend avoiding it if it went against your character's concept.

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Incinerate has a very good damage to end ratio, if you have end issues its worth taking (and can one his with full fury, all be it with DoT)

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Yeah the damage is great and it’s very End-efficient if all ticks have time to apply, but it’s very slow, both in animation and execution. That wasn’t such a problem in the early game, but it became one as I levelled up.

Its poor for building Fury (counts as one hit, very slow), yet you really need to lead with it to get all damage ticks applied before the target dies. In teams that just isn’t practical - sometimes targets died before the first tick applied! - so it became less End-efficient. Also after Fire Sword Circle most minions, and even lieuts (depending on Fury/buffs), only need a small hit like Boxing to finish them off, so I’d only use Incinerate on bosses. Then Greater Fire Sword became my “big hit”, so I was only using Incinerate on EBs/Heroes/AVs/GMs - too specialised.

Still I nearly didn’t drop it. Solo at full Fury it’s great fun to stick Incinerate on a minion then move on, knowing he’ll die - plus I like the fiery particle effect But with Scorch having the same slow character animation my attack chain was suffering - I needed to drop both for faster attacks. Fortunately I took Cremate on respec, which has Incinerate’s particle effect with a much more satisfying (and faster!) character animation (the overhead smash from Air Superiority).

So now I do more damage because animation time is a major factor in Brute attack chains, both for Fury and End-efficiency in teams (i.e. not using a big hit when a small hit is enough to kill). And I also don’t need it because I’ve cured my End issues

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Well dResari's post put me off this idea entirly anyway :P

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I thought the suggested slotting in Dresari's post was overkill, but I guess it got the correct point across

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I wasn't planning on running it 24/7 on mine. Certainly at the moment my endurance management is not in good enough order to even consider it. However with some more slotting it may be feasible.

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Yeah it took a lot of tweaking for me to get both Blazing Aura and Tough running permanently. Until then I just found myself not using Blazing Aura or forgetting about it, because Tough was usually higher priority for me. I realised if I couldn't get BA running permanently then I might as well drop it.

I don't have any experience of Rage, but I envy your Acc boost from it - I still miss the accuracy drop when I switched out the second Acc in all my attacks for an EndReduc - even though common wisdom says 1xAcc is enough for PvE, I don't think it is. I'm still praying one of the patron pools will have Focused Accuracy

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Fire is the best for maintaining agro without resorting to taunt, I really dont know where people find space for taunt these days

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Taunt? On a brute? Sacrilege! I certainly didn't have space for it, nor did I want it - and with Blazing Aura I don't need it. BA gets me all the aggro I want... and often some that I don't It's ironic - in early CoV I was one of those players that told teams "brutes are not tankers"... yet I seem to have ended up tanking most of the AVs/heroes on the way to L40

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Yeah have to say I am gonna have to make an elec/elec brute. Lol suspect they are gonna be about as durable but fire brutes, but as long as they look cool! I wanna look like a gremlin!

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I just hope they're resist-based and not defence-based, but I'm fairly certain Charged Armour from the Blaster Electric Mastery pool will be one of the toggles so there's hope. And yeah I want to look like a Gremlin too

You can stop a person's heart with electricity, so our L32 power should be called "Cardiac Arrest"

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And are damage auras worth the END?

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Blazing Aura is probably worth running against >3 enemies. It does 0.555 BI damage every 2 seconds, Ideal slotting is 3x end rec, 3x dam. I worked out ( but didn't test ) that it does more damage than Foot Stomp in terms of both damage per second and damage per endurance. However single target attacks are about 3x better damage per second.

Also I hoped Blazing Aura would work in a Rage Crash, but whilst it still animates it appears not to hit or do damage in those 10 seconds.

So I am now seriously considering getting Blazing Aura as my level 32 power...

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It's certainly a struggle to run Blazing Aura before you have access to End Reducer SOs, but I'd say the slotting depends on how you use it. The animation for activating it is quite long, so I wanted to run it permanently and slotted End Reducers (2x) accordingly. It missed a lot so I slotted 1xAcc so it would reliably hit more than even level minions to mop up after my Fire Sword Circle alpha-strike

As I inferred I only switch Blazing Aura off against large CoT groups with loads of nerva spectrals, because getting so much aggro with all that cold damage is pretty much instant death for me (unless I have cold res buffs).

I might as well post my build, to show what it takes to be balanced as far as Endurance-usage (if you want to run all your toggles). Ignore the slot numbers - I just added slots where I felt they were most needed as I levelled up.

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Exported from Ver: 1.7.5.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
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Name: Brute - FieryMelee + FieryAura (to L40)
Level: 50
Archetype: Brute
Primary: Fiery Melee
Secondary: Fiery Aura
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01) --> Fire Sword==> Acc(1)EndRdx(3)Dmg(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(5)Rechg(7)
01) --> Fire Shield==> DmgRes(1)DmgRes(7)DmgRes(9)
02) --> Cremate==> Acc(2)EndRdx(9)Dmg(11)Dmg(11)Dmg(13)Rechg(13)
04) --> Healing Flames==> Rechg(4)Rechg(15)Heal(15)Heal(34)Heal(39)
06) --> Boxing==> Acc(6)EndRdx(17)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Dmg(34)Rechg(34)
08) --> Air Superiority==> Acc(8)EndRdx(17)Dmg(19)Dmg(19)Dmg(21)Rechg(21)
10) --> Build Up==> Rechg(10)
12) --> Combat Jumping==> Jump(12)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Plasma Shield==> DmgRes(16)DmgRes(23)DmgRes(25)
18) --> Blazing Aura==> Acc(18)EndRdx(23)EndRdx(31)
20) --> Consume==> Acc(20)Rechg(25)Rechg(33)Rechg(39)
22) --> Acrobatics==> EndRdx(22)
24) --> Hurdle==> Jump(24)
26) --> Fire Sword Circle==> Acc(26)EndRdx(27)Dmg(27)Dmg(29)Dmg(29)Rechg(40)
28) --> Health==> Heal(28)
30) --> Stamina==> EndMod(30)EndMod(31)EndMod(31)
32) --> Greater Fire Sword==> Acc(32)EndRdx(36)Dmg(36)Dmg(36)Dmg(37)Rechg(37)
35) --> Tough==> DmgRes(35)DmgRes(37)DmgRes(39)EndRdx(40)
38) --> Fiery Embrace==> Rechg(38)Rechg(40)
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01) --> Power Slide==> Run(1)
01) --> Power Quick==> Run(1)
01) --> Sprint==> Jump(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Rechg(1)
02) --> Rest==> Rechg(2)
01) --> Fury==> Empty(1)
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While levelling up I had Scorch (instead of Boxing) and Incinerate (instead of Air Superiority), but I ditched both in a respec at L32 - glad I did as I can build Fury more easily with Boxing & AirSup and the disorient and knockdown effects are handy too, so I highly recommend both. Boxing is set as my auto-power.

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I fail to see why getting 3x end mod SO's in consume would help you at all other than you'd gain more End if u used it and only hit 1 mob. AFAIK it only takes 2-3 mobs to completely fill you end from just above empty to full...

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It's 4 hits to completely fill from empty with no EndMods, but you're risking a toggle-crash if you let your End get so low - in practice 3 hits will more-or-less fill your bar because you'll fire off Consume as soon as you get below 25% End. If you exclusively spend time on big teams then you probably don't even need an Accuracy in Consume, because 3-4 hits are easy to get with lots of minions around. Like you say, EndMods are a waste - even solo a single Accuracy will be more useful than 3xEndMods.

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Got an Nrg/Fire Brute and I run out of end every 2-3 fights or during one long one - often find myself plinking the last mobs with barrage to keep my toggles from dropping or turning off sprint to save a little more end. Got 1 endred in all attacks and shield toggles and 3 in blazing aura and still have to toggle it on and off in fights. Hoping consume and SOs will sort my problems once I hit 20.

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Getting SOs at 22 will definitely help, as will Consume - I think you'll still want Stamina eventually, though.

Sprint is definitely bad for eating End on top of your normal toggles - leave it off in combat. Personally I can jump faster than I can run (Hurdle & Combat Jumping) so I use that for combat movement. For me jumping also makes it much easier to get into the middle of a bunch of enemies to maximise the damage from Fire Sword Circle, although that won't be a concern for you with Energy/*.