Tonality

I like slotting Shadow Maul with Obliteration.

Before you switch, make sure to compare the base damage of Ball Lightning and Dark Obliteration. While I use the AoE of Elec Fences and Ball Lightning on a few brutes, you get better DPA out of Dark Oblit than Ball Lightning, and I cycle gloom on a secondary focus to deal with the DoT.

Yup, simply switching Crushing's Acc/Dam with Dam/End/Rech would make a big difference.



To the OP:

Endurance is going to be something you may want to focus on now. You're going to have endurance issues quicker than you'll have dark consumption up again. If tough is just a mule, don't run it. However, if you want to run it, get a another slot in there to frankenslot some res/end bonuses, because tough has a pretty high end cost.

Midnight Grasp is an incredible attack. You're doing a disservice by not having it recharge quick enough. In general, focus on offense rather than defense now on your build - you've already softcapped yourself. The meager -to-hit you have is plenty without slotting.

Rectified Recticle is more useful on a typed defense build than a Positional. I wouldn't slot that in Soul Drain. You want to hit the ED cap for recharge on this power, get a decent amount of accuracy, and go from there. Since you'll lose your capped melee defense, consider either a multistrike set or obliteration in Shadow Maul. I'm guessing you'll go with multistrike. Then you'll have even more AoE defense, which leads us to:

You are well above the cap for AoE defense. Save some slots where you can and move them to more useful powers, like getting tough a little better slotted.

I'd take another look and tinker with it a little more. You can get some better efficiency without increasing the pricetag.

I'm a big proponent of using Lightning Field's damage aura for..damage. If you have room to slot for end drain after damage (you can!), go right ahead. I've done a lot of recording for performance in herostats on various /Elec builds, and that aura puts out more AoE damage than a lot of attacks (footstomp, lightning rod, and similar ones still deal more). If it pulses every 2 seconds and deals around 25 dmg per tick per 10 enemies hit, that's 250 dmg every 2 seconds while you're using other attacks. I would argue one would see a 25% boost to kill speed simply by slotting and using damage auras. It's incredible when you have plenty of enemies around you.

Yes, however there are builds that can focus on HP/regen. I can think of a handful of circumstances that my multi-billion inf defensive builds crumple while that regen build still is standing. But, if my defenses hold, I'm significantly more survivable than a regen build.

My SS/Elec build has 39% S/L def, and is about a 4 billion inf build. I built it to be able to deal tremendous amounts of AoE damage and take very little damage in return. However, endurance on that build is a serious problem. If you aren't looking for the absolute best in high-end performance, aim for 32.5% defense and then focus on hp/recovery, and you'll be much happier. My SS/Elec requires constant attention to powersink and energize for endurance management while I watch for rage crashes. If you don't want a very intense playstyle, don't build for 40% defense, and sacrifice about 8% of that defense to add some recovery.

Without a VEAT or a bubbler to stack my defense enough to avoid cascade failure, I have not liked taking my /Elec brutes on the ITF. It trashes their defense in about 5 seconds, and I am dead in 10. Those cims really debuff your defense quick. But a single VEAT gets me well above cap, so I'm safe.

I find certain recipes will spike well above crafted price. I imagine some players don't bother buying crafteds because they believe them to be more expensive. I've actually saved money at times buying crafted recipes.

If a certain recipe has a limited drop rate and a decent demand, it is incredibly vulnerable to spiking the price. Obliteration during the AE craze was a personal favorite. I'd buy stacks of ten across many characters and resell them to the buy-it-nao crowd for about a 100% profit. So many impatient new 50's to rob blind.


It depends on the niche. My oblits lasted for about two months. Crushing Impact still is a good set, and has been for at least 5 months. The only reason is that the level of profit isn't too great, so players don't bother. But it's a great mid-range profit.

I strongly disagree. If anything, the reason you have trouble holding aggro is your lack of AoE in your primary. There is one brute set that doesn't have a taunt aura, and SR isn't the one.

I think you mean Mercy Island.

I also hate that dump, but those levels fly by.

Mercy Island again I think, and agreed.

Same, but make sure my magic character at least gets something worthwhile in a natural zone.

Demonic Aura is on. Uncheck it from the accolades to fix it.

Sharp eye! Definitely great advice.

This is where we might disagree. If in the process of gaining resistance you are losing +HP, it is not worth it. If you can add +resistance without sacrificing +HP, then by all means, go ahead.

You gain 2.79% resistance to all slotting HPT with two resist IOs, which isn't very much. Applied to this build we will assume the first 3 slots are*:

Numina Unique
Numina Heal
Numina Heal/End

With two empty slots of either
1) Two resist IO's to gain 2.79% more resists to all
2) Miracle Unique + Miracle Heal to gain 17.5% recov and 40.8 HP (unique+set bonus)
3) Generic Heal IO + Generic Resist IO

Now, we calculate the maximum amount of Damage (not over-time, as +hp/regen skews results even further) both options will give. I'm turning off accolades as well for the moment (you can turn them on and get similar results, but I wanted this test based on the build)
1) 2200.12 HP, 52.4 S/L res, 8.4% E/N res
2) 2240.84 HP, 49.6 S/L res, 5.6% E/N res
3) 2241.798 HP, 51.1 S/L res, 7.1% E/N res

So, I'll multiply the HP by 1+(res) and so forth to get these numbers:

1) Max S/L dmg: 3352.98288, Max E/N dmg: 2384.93008
2) Max S/L dmg: 3352.29664, Max E/N dmg: 2366.32704
3) Max S/L dmg: 3387.356778, Max E/N dmg: 2400.965658

In this particular case, slotting for 1 resistance and capping HP does more than two resistance IOs. Slotting for HP and gaining 17.5% recovery sacrifices some survivability, but is more noticeable against lower resistance values.

However, as a rule of thumb, if one sacrifices hitting the ED cap for +HP on HPT for resistance, you lose survivability. I usually choose to gain more recovery in my slotting, so I sacrifice some survivability, but as you see, it isn't as much as you would think.



*Currently, there are more than 5 1.88% hp bonuses, so HPT could be redone in 6 slots of Numi Heal, Heal/cheapest, Miracle +recov, heal, 2 generic resists to get both more resists and hit the ED cap for HPT's +hp. Achieving the best numbers would use IO's to cap HP in 4 slots and use 2 slots for resists, at a cost of two unique IOs for regen/recov.

Onto the OP.

The biggest thing I see is that you have one too many 1.88% HP bonuses.

There are little things you can think about, like reslotting gloom with 3 devastations to sacrifice 2.5% defense for +HP. Tough call, and both have advantages in game against certain enemies.

Rage is not quite perma w/o hasten and the FF proc. Obviously this means you'll be running hasten, or slotting another recharge in rage (which could be a generic recharge or two IOs from adjusted targetting for the minor 2% dmg bonus)

I'm assuming you'll also follow Finduilas' comment on MoB, so you have a free slot to consider what to do with.

Well, thank you for the compliment.

Here are a few things I spotted:
-I really don't know how effective you'll find static discharge to be at end drain, given you have no other real tools available like power sink. I would probably either skip over this power, or use it for damage, even though the damage is quite lackluster compared to the others.
-Hasten is always nice to have. Getting footstomp to fire faster is wonderful. So, I'd drop static discharge, and move two slots over into wherever you want. I liked getting more HP by getting a 3rd LOTG bonus in two powers.
-You have a lot of accuracy in Elec Fences, and could probably use others in that set for more efficiency. Maybe drop the acc/end for an end/immob if you like that set.
-You won't use boxing that often to need the 5th frankenslot. I'd leave it at the set mule and be done with it.
-I'm not a big proponent on slotting for +res on High Pain Tolerance due to the base numbers being so low, while the +HP value is a lot more effective.* You do want to hit the ED cap first on HPT and then you can think about other things.

This last comment is the complicated one:
-You're over the limit for 1.88% HP by two, so you aren't getting any benefit from some. That means you have some options:
1) Drop the two Performance End/Accs for a generic End Mod in both for more recovery.
2) Drop the bonuses in HPT and RTTC. HPT will be 4 slotted with 2 miracles (+recovery&heal) and 2 numinas (heal&heal/thecheapest) for more regen.
3) Drop Gaussians and something else.
4) There's also the possibility of 4 slotting stamina with your two free slots from dropping static, 3 of those being efficacy and 1 being the perf proc for more HP/recov.

I personally like option 2.


*Shown below is how much damage your brute could take if you slotted an additional slot with either a heal or resist IO. The Heal IO is more effective outright, besides increasing your regen over time, widening the gap even further! I'm not strong at math, but this is pretty basic.

Slotting 1 additional resistance IO into HPT gives 1.43% more resistance to all (2190 on this build)
*Max S/L dmg with resists at 51.1% -> 3309
*Max E/N dmg resist with resists at 7.1%/8.9% -> 2345.49/2384.91

Slotting 1 heal additional IO into HPT gives +49 more HP (2240 on this build)
*Max S/L dmg resist at 49.7% -> 3353.28
*Max E/N dmg resist 5.6%/7.5% ->2365.44/2408

I suppose that in issue 2 you could choose alternate animations too? It sounds to me like you are asking for something that we have only recently seen in game.

The ability to choose alternate animations, unless I'm mistaken, came out in issue 16. I don't know why SS and MA were the two sets chosen for alternate animations over others, but these were the two the devs chose to prioritize.

I also suspect that more of this is in the works.