Soloing Brutes?

DrWalnut

I was wondering which kind of brute would be the best at soloing. I know that originally the best was considered EM/Elec, but was wondering if that has changed with the new powers. Is WP a good substitute for the Elec defense set, soloing wise? Is DB as good as EM at doing damage and soloing? I just want to make a Brute that is the very best at soloing. Thanks.

DrowNoble

Understand that Brutes will eat up endurance til you get to 20 and can get Stamina.  So 1-19 you'll be doing a lot of Resting.

Dual Blades just came out so give it time for players to level up and see how they fair.  I know my DB/invul scrapper is soloing quite well, but then again most scrappers do.

I have a SS/invul and an EM/DA brute myself.  I can solo equally well with either.  Obviously you'll do better vs certain types of mobs.  EA does well vs Freaks who use a lot of energy attacks (various "shocker" type mobs), my DA brute does well vs Circle ghosts and my invul brute is good vs Mooks.

Leshiye

I have been playing for a couple years now through most of the patches. I am serious about my brutes because they are the definitive soloing machine in Villains.

 

I have played every permutation of brute so far (including the double blades willpower set) and have yet to find another combo that matches the combination of Dark Melee with Stone Armor. For just plain old smashing your way through anything... this is it.

 

If you like neat graphics and sending bodies flying all over the place then make an electric melee / with stone preferably or maybe invulnerability. Takes FOREVER to lvl these unless you have cheritable friends that will power-level you.

At any rate... good luck and play something you think is cool.

 

Anofalye

Soloing Brutes:

 

1- Willpower solo better then anything else.  No action to do, all toggles/auto mostly...HPS are coming back fast, Endurance is coming back fast...some resist...some defense...and the enemy has a penalty in ACC in close combat.  With no actions required with your secondary...most actions are sets on primary, which is linked to killing the mobs.

2- Fiery armor solo pretty well.  Best self heal and lot of damage bonus (aura and "build up" variation)

3- Energy Armor is fine.  Good defense, stealth.

4- Invul and Dark Armor are decent.  Invul is the comon template, mostly designed for group...DA is not bad and quite particuliar to understand to play...

5- Elect armor is okay, you will have no shortage of endurance, but no healing HP buff at all.  No defense either, but among the best resists in the game.  Prolly the most offensive set...and some peoples would tells you that the best defense is offense.  You have a damage aura, and all yours primary attacks refresh faster...only a fiery/fiery has your damage potential (but then it has to take a fiery primary, while you are free to take any primary).

6- Rock armor...you can solo, but someone also can solo in EQ.  Until 38 you will be the weakest...and at 38 you are the granite brute, which every group would consider having for the better resists/defenses.

 

The primary is less important but...SS is the best overall.  Energy Melee is the best single target damage.  Electric attack is the best AoE attacks (unless your a fiery armor as well, then fiery melee become better).  Dual Blade is somewhere between SS and Energy Melee, if you complete the combos it is really good.

THAC0

"Best" at soloing is relative, and you won't really go wrong with any Brute in general for soloing, but to answer in brief:

/WP is a solid secondary for soloing because of the inherent HP buff, regen and recovery bonuses available w/o delving into pool powers. It's real achilles' heel is burst damage, but outside of a few hardhitting EBs you won't deal with burst damage so much in soloing.

EM> all for soloing. DB is a fun and fast set with flashy effects, but lethal damage is resisted quite a bit in pve and, when resisted, it's HEAVILY resisted.

Pairing the two (which is what I did) is pretty devastating, as having QR + Stamina takes care of any endurance issues with EM -very end heavy set- and the regen and HP buffs really help with recovering quickly from ET.

But if you're looking for non-FotM fun (or at least, not the huge FotM that EM/WP is)- Stone Melee and SS are solid soloing sets that also go well with WP.