magikwand

Even with any unconfirmed set bonuses looming, I doubt they would be able to make you durable enough to take some of those nasty alpha's and keep rolling. Sure, you could T9 your way out of some things, but that won't help you all the time. I don't think/regen will work for brutes. Hell, I even think we will get /ice armor before we get regen.

I just love how this whole dichotomy of Brutes not being Tanks and all that jazz comes into any thread.

Don't be intimidated by stalkers that do a lot of damage. That is what they do. They are really sort of your assassin companion. Generally (and especially) when a new spawn is opened up, you as a brute are the distraction, and they are the nuke.

As far as the endurance drain, it is always rough before brutes pick up stamina. Just having to run armors/toggles is a bit difficult and attacking on top of that can make things appear worse. I suggest adding one or more end. reduction in just about all attacks and secondary powers. You don't really need to slot for dmg with brutes, Fury takes care of that pretty nicely.

I won't be supporting it mathematically, but I would guess that /WP's quick recovery would be more adept at keeping your blue bar filled up than Elec Armor. I might be wrong, but I just don't have issues with endurance/recovery on any of my WP meleers. And one other thing, QR is actually numerically superior to stamina for end modification. So if you do decide to roll a /WP, be sure to keep that in mind. There are even some people who run QR and skip stamina.

Here is a recent thread that discusses this particular combo:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=137474

Also, don't feel bad about Carnies raining on your parade. Just because you are a brute doesn't mean things like Mask of Vitiation can't stop you in your tracks. A /SR can be great for its high debuff resistance, but there are till things out there that can ruin your day.

I suggest you shop around and try leveling different primaries and secondaries to about 25 or so just to get a real flavor of what you want. Leveling is faster than ever (no, I am not just talking about AE powerleveling) so just try different things out for size. I tried and found my favorite secondary on the first try, but even so, I do have about 4 brutes with different primary/secondary sets that I thoroughly enjoy.

I use numpad 1-8 for all of my toons, and I find it priceless for any toon that buffs teammates. I only like one tray out, so I use binds for powers and numpad 1-8 when on my /kin. I have bound h for heal and b for boost and so on.
Just a couple of examples I use: "/bind h powexec_name transfusion" and "/bind b powexec_name speed boost" that way, I can just use my one tray for attacks and commonly used powers.

I forgot to add that I would not personally pair EM with any secondary that doesn't have some kind of regenerative or +hp component. I personally have a EM/SR Brute(largely a concept build) and you might be surprised at how much of a toll constant Energy Transfers can take on your HP bar. Of course, you can have aid self, but I would rather not. I suppose though, with ELA, you may already have aid self in your build.

On the subject of taking an alpha strike- I strongly believe FA is currently more capable of taking it and continuing to roll. If the alpha is that bad, you can just heal yourself up and keep going. I am also a confessed lover of FA, so don't mind me... lol. I have seen some very impressive FA/ and /FA people in action. I love mine!

I don't pvp much, so I will answer your question from the pve perspective.
I think that would be an underperforming combo currently.
Energy melee is S L O W. Extremely slow. Underwhelmingly slow. Oppressively slow. Sure, it hits hard, but if you team a lot, you will face frustration. Before your attacks fully animate and take out any mob, chances are a team mate will take out your target first. The set is just not what it used to be. Some might even say it was one of the biggest nerfs this side of the whole regen debacle.
IMO- Electric Armor is subpar currently. Sure, it is one of the most respectable resistance oriented sets, but the problem is that it is virtually a one trick pony. Almost all of the other sets have layers of mitigation built in naturally, but ELA doesn't. Inv has Dull pain and scaling defense. WP has scaling regeneration and easy ways to push the HP cap. Dark Armor has some mezz and a great heal. Fire has a great heal + offensive boost. Shield has offensive boost, team buffs, peddling resists and superior defense. ELA, with its end drain, just doesn't seem to stack up to these other sets. ELA lacks versatility, and you will find it does well in only very particular scenarios. It doesn't have scaling resists, defense, or regen. It doesn't have a heal. It doesn't offer ways to boost HP. It does have a nice T9, but most (including myself) are of the opinion that one shouldn't have to pop T9 constantly in order be effective.
The good news is that ELA is receiving a buff in the form of a new power selection in i16. I won't go into the details here, but there are two threads which do. Some are even speculating that the set may become the new FotM with the change.
Good news for Energy Melee... hmm... well, in i16 you will probably be able to turn in your pink pom poms of doom for blue ones or whatever you desire. There have been no announcements for any mechanical changes to EM of which I am aware.

On my /SR I have PB on auto. I am sometimes forgetful about pushing buttons, and I would rather miss a hasten anyday than miss PB. For that reason, and also I only have one tray visible at a time on my screen, so I put all armors, rarely used powers, Ouro/Pocket D things and auto powers off to tray 2 or 3.

Well, I agree that the majority of players simply don't understand how to play MMs with a notable degree of efficacy.

I personally think that, for all intents and purposes, brutes hold aggro very well. Sure, it isn't on a tank's lvl without enhancement, but with a threat lvl of 4 and mini-gauntlet, a brute is pulling plenty of hate. Sure, brutes want aggro for fury's sake; and most of the time, they get it. On all of my brutes, except for a SR, I never have problems grabbing and maintaining aggro.

Alas, we are two people with different play experiences. I am glad you know how to use your MM in such a way. Perhaps you could hold a webinar on the matter and toss out invites to some MMs with comparatively poorer skills. I have teamed with a few recently that were in desperate need of such tutelage.

I am excited about this. I only have one MM, but I find the whole summon, resummon, summon again bit to be tiring. This also applies to doms and trollers with their pets?

I would say that recharge has always been and perhaps always will be the best friend of a fiery aura meleer. Sure, the attacks are plenty quick on their own, but one of the strongest tools in the natural arsenal of a fiery aura brute is healing flames. You may not admit it here, but I will honestly say that there have been times that healing flames being available just a second or two earlier may have made the difference between life and death. Having it up as quickly as possible makes a tremendous amount of sense to me. Therefore, I think you should strongly consider taking hasten for your build. Recharge is never a bad thing.

I also would suggest taking consume. Things may look ok just dealing with typical enemy groups at 25 or so, but when you reach lvl 50 and are having protracted battles with massive spawns and archvillains can be taxing on your blue bar. I loathe the idea of being completely dependent on (and an annoyance of) a good kin by spamming for SB all the time. Obviously, I would fire consume off if I need to pick up some endurance points, but I also use it to grab a bit of aggro if it spills off onto a nearby squishie.

When you start swimming with IOs and all, I hope you look into using IOs to plug the KB hole and respeccing out of Acro. I find that my 50 build for /FA does well using IOs to cover KB and it is completely absent of Acro.

Currently, I don't have BoF in my build, and a lot of people find it to be skippable. I do enjoy the animation of the power though, and it always helps to have cones/AoEs in your build. Some people claim it is too difficult to "line up" mobs to burn with BoF, but I find that just by not using it as an opener, you can avoid that issue. After all, just standing any place for a moment with Blazing aura running, you are going to have a few mobs swarming over you.

If there is something else to build for with IOs, defense is a great thing. It can be easily had and with IOs that aren't too expensive. Just remember things may be a little rough until you get all of the pieces you really want to have in your build, you may even use dual builds to work on your partially IOd build until you have all of the pieces in place, and use an SO build for normal duty.

I won't post a build using mids, and I hope you find this helpful.

I think as long as you take the time to learn the ropes and read power descriptions in the game, you can make an effective brute with any primary and secondary. One might say the real test of building a strong toon is how well one can use the tools given rather than squabbling over which tools we have.

No one really takes hand clap from Superstrength. So you aren't the only one that feels unsure about it. SS's real strength lies in Rage and footstomp. Without those two powers, the set is mediocre at best

Fire does well for damage, and that is its secondary effect as well. My main brute uses fiery melee and I am never let down. You have a few hard hitting single target attacks, one of two attacks good for multiple opponents, and it looks pretty nice. Downside is that it provides zero mitigation outside of the additional damage.

Electric melee has long been maligned for being flashy but inherently weak for ST action. I like the teleport power, and word on the street is that the bugs have finally been removed from chain induction.

Luckily, Invulnerability is strong enough with SOs and and even more so with IOs that you can pair each one of these primaries with it and still come out a winner. I have a Inv/fire on blue and I thoroughly enjoy her. Even with SOs, she still is very strong. With inv, I find it wise to build for recharge to get Dull pain up as quickly as possible.

Most who frequent the forums look down their noses on Freedom, but it is server with the highest population. It puts the multiplayer in this MMO. I think it would be wise to have at least two servers where you are active.

WTF- I am late to this party, but extremely irritated with the lag, mapserves and dc's. I would ask them to fix the issues, but look what happened with the last maintenance they did...