Morning!
My global handle is @Thilenium and my ingame characters start with or contain 'Thile' in their name - no exception. So far I have played and equipped about 20 characters. ten of which I took through the incarnate stuff. Others I 'swiped left'.
I like my SS/Bio Armor-Brute. But people stating that Bio Armor is not a good Secondary made me doubt. So I started testing other Secondaries. I have tested anyone of them, to see if I like them and if they could replace the Secondary in my main character. So far I only disliked Stone Armor, which I can only imagine being played by masochists. But there is an honorable mention, which I already use on my Scrapper: that is Shield Defense. It offers burst which my original build does not. The handling gets slightly more annoying but it is ok. The build represents the current status of my gear and also my zillion hours of experience in improving and reviewing on character builds (tailored to my tastes - sure. and that is where we might not find common ground. but see for yourself).
all the best, Thilenium
Summary Brute (Super Strength - Shield Defense)
+ solid starting character
+ performs good during any stage of the game
+ good sustained damage, single target
+ great sustained damage, and some burst, area of effect (from lvl 34 onward)
+ can take a beating
+ can be damage dealer and tank for parties (all powers taunt) at the same time
+ chill and smooth to play (7 buttons for 90% of the content, 8 for about 95% - using macros, see below)
+ lots of utility for situational content
- not so suited for tanking very specialized endgame content: some final bosses in trials or tanking SMO's. that is only 5% of the game content, if that. As you do those things with other players, there is a good chance for there being someone specialized in tanking anyway and this is not a problem at all.
Contents
a) The role of a Brute
b) Shield Defense as Secondary
c) Super Strength as Primary
d) Utility through Power Pools
e) Attack chains, single target and area of effect
f) Genesis Incarnate Power and helpful keybinds and macros
g) Mids DataChunk for the build
a) The role of a Brute
The Brute used to be the Damage Dealer and Tanker in vanilla. Now that both sides can pick Tankers and both sides can traverse to each others side, the Tanker role is less pronounced. Also the attuned Brute IOs do not have as many tanky stats as the Tankers IOs. In my case I save one slot by not choosing 'Taunt'. That being said: all attacks still taunt. That combined with the many area of effect skills make tanking for parties very viable.
Brutes have the unique mechanic 'Fury' where repeated attacks increase your overall damage. The faster the activation of any skill, the lesser pauses in between skills, the faster you increase 'Fury'. Of course this build manages this perfectly.
Brutes are masters of sustained damage. But since it is sustained melee damage, you also have to have some defenses to actually live long enough for a few attack cycles.
So when I look at Brute powers - choosing primaries, secondaries and power pools - I look at it whether or not I find enough skills that satisfy those needs. Most Primaries lack in the area of effect-department as compared to Super Strength's 'Foot Stomp'. Some beat it at the single target damage. Theoretically you can use 'Blink Blitz', 'Electrifying Fences' and 'Ball Lightning' on any Brute, but those are not enough to reliably finish all the minions in a large group in one go - an additional area of effect is required for clear. Also cone-type attacks do not replace area of effect attacks. Not when you are surrounded by mobs as you usually are.
b) Shield Defense as Secondary
For a single reason: Another area of effect damaging skill 'Shield Charge'. Long cooldown, good radius and damage. Still i recommend opening up with 'Blink Blitz' every time, since teleporting targeted area of effects can end up in small obstacles between you and your target. There is another thing to recognize in this Secondary: The main crowd control resistances come from the buff 'Active Defense' which you will have to refresh as soon as it comes up. This concept is pretty unique to this Secondary and of course it is awful ^^.
Example Bio Armor
I already made my case for this one, as I find it a very suitable Secondary for Brutes.
Example Willpower
A fire-and-forget Secondary for every Archetype who has access to it. Very solid all around. But I find Bio Armor better since it has about the same defenses and resistances. it also offers a skill that heals you hitpoints and endurance on command. and, what i forgot in my original build, it can go offensive mode for more damage. I forgot because i never used it.
Example other Secondaries
They usually come with things that i do not like all that much. High endurance costs, more buffs that you have to re-activate at intervals. glaring gaps in defenses or resistances. while each of those things can be mitigated to some extent, i did not like them all that much in my SS-Brute.
c) Super Strength Primary
As for the primary Power: Super Strength is probably the best overall Primary for Brutes there is. A great almost permanent buff with 'Rage'. A great area of effect skill with 'Foot Stomp' - a 15 ft area of effect ability, which is rare, with a knockup and decent damage, also rare (on the top of my head I can only think of one higher damage power for Brutes and that is 'Lightning Strike. That one comes with almost five times the cooldown). the somewhat lacking single target attack chain I complimented by taking 'Gloom'. Use 'Air Superiority' from the Flight power pool until you have access to the Epic one and then respec. With all of that and with the first Incarnate Power at the latest we have enough haste to either constantly use single target and/or consistently use area of effect attacks. With the Barrier-Incarnate Power on top of that, doing solo +4/8 any content becomes pretty chill.
With enough cooldown you can double stack 'Rage'. That would also mean two crashes when the buffs wears off so I do not do that.
Example other Primaries
In this build I did not consider other Primaries as its whole point was to find a suitable alternative to the Secondary of my main character.
d) Utility through Power Pools
In the beginning I mentioned that there is also a lot of utility in this build.
+ You have area of effect knock ups and immobolizing powers which helps managing party content.
+ You taunt, debuff resistances, debuff hp regen and endu regen for all mobs around you.
+ 'Blink Blitz' is a great area of effect and utility power for starting any fight and while fighting. This skill sometimes lands you in obstacles. with enough cooldown you can use it on a mob to get out of it again. or you can use the command /stuck.
+ This build (and 95% of my other builds) contains 'Invisibility' which helps with shortening missions. Find the target on the map, buff up right next to it and cancel the skill.
+ 'Recall' moves your teammates to your position.
+ 'Super Jump' lacks vertical movement. Say hello to 'Hover'. Where does 'Hover' come in handy? some missions have literally no bottom, some are fought in the air (Hamidon). and they will be extremely annoying to anyone without flight powers. Activating 'Hover' does not cancel any other toggles.
+ This build has a ranged attack.
e) Attack chains for single target and area of effect
I use the keyboard keys '1' and '2' for single target, '3', '4' and '5' for area of effect, 'Strg+2' for buffs every two minutes. Key 'f' for closing in on mobs (see keybind below). 'WASD' and mouse to move around. Invisibility on 'Strg+1', when I need to skip to the end of a mission or defeat just a single boss somewhere on the map.
Haymaker - Gloom - Punch - Knockout Blow
I found this to work very well with the macros which will reduce the numbers of keys you use to two.
Blink Blitz - Dark Obliteration - Foot Stomp - Shield Charge
With my macros (see below) those four powers can be combined into three buttons. the first two are on a very similar cooldown (~10 seconds), Foot Stomp is six-yish and 'Shield Charge' at about 30 seconds. Usually all minions and lieutenants die after being hit by all four powers. after that it usually comes down to taking on the small number of bosses with single target attacks.
f) Genesis Incarnate Power and helpful keybinds and macros
Genesis Incarnate Power:
Socket Core Flawless Genesis
Helpful macros and keybinds:
/bind f "target_enemy_near$$follow"
>> autofollow nearest enemy
/macro INC "windowtoggle Incarnate"
>> Open the Incarnate window
/macro M1 "powexec_name Hay Maker$$powexec_auto Dark Obliteration$$powexec_auto Gloom"
>> use 'Hay Maker' and 'Gloom' in succession
/macro M2 "powexec_name Punch$$powexec_auto Dark Obliteration$$powexec_auto Knockout Blow"
>> use 'Punch' and 'Knockout Blow' in succession
/macro TAoE1 "powexec_name Blink Blitz$$powexec_auto Punch$$powexec_auto Dark Obliteration"
>> use 'Blink Blitz' and 'Dark Obliteration' in succession
/macro TAoE2 powexec_location target Shield Charge
>> use 'Shield Charge' on your target
/macro Buff "powexec_name Barrier Core Epiphany$$powexec_auto Punch$$powexec_auto Rage"
>> the buff button for rage and, once you have it, the Destiny Barrier Core Epiphany - both conveniently on the same cooldown
g) Mids DataChunk for the build
Using Mids import the following using Menu: Build Sharing/Import DataChunk
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