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'.
While I had a lot of fun with some of these characters, this Brute build here still is the best well-rounded build I came up with so far. 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 - Bio Armor)
+ very solid starting character
+ performs great during any stage of the game
+ good sustained damage, single target
+ great sustained damage, 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
+ very chill and smooth to play (6 buttons for 90% of the content, 7 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. For some perspective: I can solo the Winter-Event Eochai Giant Monster (takes about 4 minutes). I can solo +4/8 maps with 'Malta' or 'Paragon Police' as enemies (have not tested all the groups there are, but those two have very annoying endurance drainers), or firefarms. The latter takes slightly longer than it would take my dedicated Fire Farmer to do it, but that is acceptable.
Contents
a) The role of a Brute
b) Bio Armor 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
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) Bio Armor as Secondary
A lot of people say Bio Armor is not the best secondary power (you could choose Willpower for example). In my mind, at least where Brutes are concerned, Bio Armor is pretty solid:
1) Bio Armor has higher hp (currently 2656 hp) and also some kind of life leech (yup). either of which is good for tankiness.
2) there are no big gaps in resistances
3.1) Bio Armor has enough endurance regen and also a castable spell to gain hit points/endurance over time when the situation requires it. that spell also does aoe damage and debuffs regen in enemies. overall a + for Bio Armor in my books
3.2) that spell mentioned is also great for the Super Strength's 'Rage'-crash, where you loose some defense and endurance. offsetting the only annoying thing about that primary.
4) Bio Armor has good resistances against slow and endu drain which are probably the most annoying debuffs enemies can bring to the table (sappers begone).
5) status protection is good. no stunning (except maybe for two groups in the biggest trial: the Underground Trial), sleeping or whatever. No annoying reactivating of toggles.
Overall Bio Armor is a decent choice for sustained fighting, with decent resists and a useful situational power.
Bio Armor has a unique interaction in a skill called 'Adaptation' that allows you to choose from three different stances. each stance is mutually exclusive to the others. Take 'Defensive Adaptation'. it improves overall defensive stats and gives your champ life leech, meaning you get like healing from every dmg you dish out. Since I started writing this, I tried to get estimates on what those numbers are but I only found that harder hitting attacks like 'Knockout Blow' give more, like 25 hp, while a tic from the pbaoe-damaging toggle gives you like 2-3 hp. What I am sure about is that any area of effect gives hp for any mob hit, though the max number of targets you can leech from seems to be capped. 'Efficient Adaption' gives you better regen, which is just a different form of better defenses, so do not bother. 'Offensive Adaptation' gives more damage at the expense of resists which might be a good choice for someone like a Scrapper who can burst enemies, but not so much for sustained fighting.
Most Secondaries are decent enough, so that part is up to you.
Example Dark Armor
Great Resistances and I use it on on my Tanker. But it will hamper your early gaming experience because it is endurance hungry.
Example Fire Armor
If you are looking for the highest sustained damage Secondary, this is it. But as with the Titan Weapon Primary I see its use more in a firefarm and less in general content. Also endurance hungry until later in the game.
Example Invulnerability
Solid resistances and a buff that increases your own maximum health-points. If you do not mind using that every two minutes then this is a good, tanky choice as secondary. For me, it is one button too many.
Example Willpower
A fire-and-forget Secondary for every Archetype who has access to it. Very solid all around.
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 'Air Superiority'. 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 constantly use are 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 Dark Melee
Terrible primary - long cooldown on area of effect skills. For general content you can maybe balance it out with the Fire Armor or Shield Defense Secondary. Maybe good for PvP >shrug<
Example Electrical Melee
Great area of effect burst later on. Only ok single target, needs an additional attack like 'Air Superiority' as well to fill the gap. More for Scrappers which do not even have to build up Fury. My Electrical Melee/Shield Defense Scrapper is good fun.
Example Energy Melee
Great Single Target damage later on. With two small area of effect skills only somewhat ok against groups. I think the early game is a bit slow and you might as well play a Stalker. My Ice Melee/Willpower Stalker does the same thing and comes online a lot earlier.
Example Radiation Melee
A possible alternative. The 'Contamination' Interaction is fun and pretty unique. The main area of effect skill has only a 10 ft radius (compared to the 'Foot Stomp's 15 ft) and its activation time is 2.9 seconds (compared to the 'Foot Stomp's 2.1 seconds), also its recharge is slightly slower (+2 Seconds).
Example Titan Weapons
This would be a great one, in all aspects, but for one thing: it feels a bit clonky. I use it for firefarms, where the mobs come to you, but for any other thing Super Strength 'feels' better. the interaction with general content 'feels' more immediate.
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 lacks a ranged attack for pulling enemies and has to use something like 'Nemesis Staff' for it. but the number of cases where I needed to do that is effectively zero (ITF - pulling the endboss from the topfloor in the third mission), so you can ignore it too, I guess.
e) Attack chains for single target and area of effect
I use the keyboard keys '1', '2' and '3' for single target, '4' and '5' for area of effect (see Macros, '6' for DNA Siphon), '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.
Very chill.
Punch (auto) - Haymaker - Air Superiority - Knockout Blow
If you perform 'Punch' between a couple of these, or even everyone of these, you will have no gaps
Foot Stomp - Electrifying Fences - Blink Blitz - Ball Lightning
With my macros (see below) those four powers can be combined into two buttons. the first two are on a very similar cooldown (~6 seconds) as are the last two (~10 seconds). you can also use DNA Siphon to add another area of effect. but I rarely find the occasion for that. Usually all minions and some 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. There are no gaps with the area of effect chain, as you immediately start working on the bosses in any group, and for that you can weave in single target attacks. The whole combo does something like 700 damage + small fry damage through your procs and aura.
Taunting and Tanking
You may not have a dedicated taunt skill, but all your skills taunt themselves. Just use the area of effects you would use anyway on the groups to have them focus on you. For AVs and EBs use the single target attacks. If you are ambushed and everything else is on cooldown or you get low on hitpoints or endurance use 'DNA Siphon'. Use it also to reduce the regen of bigger enemies.
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$$follow"
>> autofollow nearest enemy
/macro INC "windowtoggle Incarnate"
>> Open the Incarnate window
/macro TAoE "powexec_name Blink Blitz$$powexec_auto Punch$$powexec_auto Ball Lightning"
>> use 'Blink Blitz' and 'Ball Lightning' in succession
/macro PBAoE "powexec_name Foot Stomp$$powexec_auto Punch$$powexec_auto Electrifying Fences"
>> use 'Foot Stomp' and 'Electrifying Fences' in succession
/macro Melee "powexec_name Haymaker$$powexec_auto Ball Lightning$$powexec_auto Punch"
>> use 'Haymaker' and 'Punch' in succession, Punch stays auto-activated. after that you can use 'Air Superiority' and 'Knockout Blow'.
/macro Buff "powexec_name Barrier Core Epiphany$$powexec_auto Ball Lightning$$powexec_auto Rage"
>> the buff button for rage and, once you have it, the Destiny Barrier Core Epiphany - both conveniently on the same cooldown
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