Post by HotGril on May 30, 2016 16:28:37 GMT -5
Hey everyone!
I started this thread to discuss strategies, guides, math, and tips to playing the Brute. I enjoy playing the Brute as a DPS bruiser. The Brute uses less resources than the assassin when solo'ing due to the naturally higher health pool and (typically) higher armor values of the Brute. Additionally, the Brute make use of any weapon in the game fairly easy whether it be a bow, 1h, 2h, or sword and board. The Brute's damaging abilities are based off of weapon DPS, so make sure you're always touting the best bang for your buck. Weapon speed is not as critical as it is for the assassin so feel free to take on whatever weapon you'd like.
Talent Analysis
Lvl 1. Double Strike- A brute's bread and butter. Max this first.
Lvl. 3. Extreme Training- Arguably the most OP 1 point you can spend in the game in my opinion. The armor you select will give all the enchantment bonuses as well. I would hold off on getting this talent until you find a solid piece of enchanted armor to fill the slot.
Lvl 5. Concussion Strike- 1 point wonder. Great for defensive purposes.
Lvl 12. Primal Rage- The talent I max 2nd. This gives you some durability as well as lots of damage. This talent will also allow you to tank more effectively by giving you additional health and threat.
Lvl 14. Throw Weapon- Great additional damage ability. It's very easy to pick your weapon back up, often times I don't even notice it was gone, so don't let that deter you from taking this additional ability. I would give this a point before maxing primal rage, although you may wait until after if you don't have a great DPS weapon.
Lvl 18. Shield Bash- Horrible talent. The most amount of stacks of the armor reduction you can realistically get on a mob is 2. Definitely not worth it. Avoid.
Lvl 20. Pillage- This is a controversial talent for me. Most brutes take it, and there's no sense in stacking the buff during raids. During solo play, I don't use 1h+shield so I find the armor bonus rather negligible. Obviously this talent scales as you level, so if you're interested in investing in this talent, I'd wait until you had DS and Rage maxed. I would only advise taking this talent if you are going 1h+shield to maximum armor bonuses while solo'ing.
Lvl 22. Cleave- Cleave is never a good option at this point.
Lvl 26. Bloodlust- In my opinion one of the worst talents in the game. It has a niche use in cooldown RESET builds, so I've heard. Rumor also has it that the crit associated with Bloodlust resets other cooldowns. I'd say that keeping track of all that nonsense for this garbage talent is not worth the effort. This would probably be the worst investment you could make with your talent points.
Lvl 50. Charge- I wonder if any standard player has ever even seen this ability in action....
Talent Summary
Priority- Double Strike, Extreme Training (1 pt), Concussion Strike (1 pt), Primal Rage, Throw (when you get a decent enough weapon probably around level 18+), Pillage (if you want it)
Gearing
The Brute has many viable builds. I have only got to try out a couple, but I have been hard at work thinking about other builds. If anyone wants to help test these out and provide feedback, I'd appreciate it!
Crit Brute
Stat Priority- DPS = Crit Chance. With this build, you can easily be beyond 50% crit. This build will pump out the big numbers for you. Big DPS weapon with high crit values. That's all that matters. You can lifesteal some pretty big numbers with this build too, just as a fun fact.
CDR Brute (my personal favorite)
Stat Priority- Cooldown Reduction (NOT RESET) > DPS > Crit > CD Reset
This build is the most fun Brute build in my opinion. Weapons will typically not have reduction so I select the weapon with the greatest DPS first and foremost and then crit value. CD Reset is nice, but with double strike being active just about every second, it won't see much use outside of a lucky extra weapon toss or something. I have noticed that many pieces of gear do not have both reduction and crit values on them, although helmets seem to be the most likely candidate for the relationship. You can get some pretty high reduction values on chest and leg pieces as well. With Primal Rage, you will already have a somewhat respectable crit chance. Right now my build is sitting at 40% crit so this build doesn't fall that behind from the crit brute (I was at about 60-65% can't remember).
Tank Brute
Stat Priority- Health % > Dodge > Armor > Damage Reflect = Lifesteal
Reflect is better for when you're super geared and lifesteal is better when you're still building your armory. Reflect = DPS Lifesteal = Sustain (less pots used). I don't know a whole lot about the tank brute, but I know that you're darn near unkillable when you're solo'ing and taking on raids is pretty easy, even without the best gear. As you get closer to end-game, Dodge% becomes a higher priority than health. I haven't tested out effective dodge values, but avoiding damage in the first place will always be superior to taking it even with a buffed up health bar.
Chaos Gear
When you get chaos gear as a Brute, things start to change. The stat you choose to stack is mattering less because of the overwhelming DPS upgrade from the chaos sword. In this case, either reduction or crit, based on what is available to you, will do just fine. I would advise taking crit over reduction because your double strike will be doing some serious damage with your enhanced crit levels. The chaos armor will provide you with some serious tankiness so even looting the chaos armor is a big increase to your solo potential.
Math
A point of clarification about Armor %... The % is taken from the gear's armor value, NOT from your total armor value. Keep this in mind when comparing two pieces of gear.
Cooldown Reduction Math
This math applies specifically to the Brute, I am entirely unsure what reductions effect on other classes. There's no guarantee it matches up.
I ran 3 tests of Weapon Throw, a 30 second cooldown with 235 reduction points.
On average (I used a manual stop watch), the time was 24.75 seconds to refresh. This means that 235 reduction points yields a 17.5% cooldown reduction. In other words, approximately every 44.75 reduction points, your cooldowns will be reduced one second. I further calculated that 1% time reduction is equal to ~13.42 Reduction points. This value may be applicable for other classes/talents. Keep in mind that throw is on a 30 second cooldown, so these values apply specifically to 30 second cooldowns. I do not know what type of effect reduction points would have on greater/lesser cooldowns, so I'll leave that up to you guys to figure that stuff out.
EDIT: Diminishing returns seems to be a thing with reduction (not an actual mechanic, allow me to explain), there comes a point when having more reduction is not benefitting you as much as it should or could. This point seems to be in the mid 200s range. After having a decent amount of reduction (200+), I would advise crit stacking your other slots.
Tips
Reminder that Extreme Training allows you to equip two enchanted pieces of gear. You can use this to your advantage by finding a light armor piece with great stats. The armor benefit from the talent is only the cherry on top.
I started this thread to discuss strategies, guides, math, and tips to playing the Brute. I enjoy playing the Brute as a DPS bruiser. The Brute uses less resources than the assassin when solo'ing due to the naturally higher health pool and (typically) higher armor values of the Brute. Additionally, the Brute make use of any weapon in the game fairly easy whether it be a bow, 1h, 2h, or sword and board. The Brute's damaging abilities are based off of weapon DPS, so make sure you're always touting the best bang for your buck. Weapon speed is not as critical as it is for the assassin so feel free to take on whatever weapon you'd like.
Talent Analysis
Lvl 1. Double Strike- A brute's bread and butter. Max this first.
Lvl. 3. Extreme Training- Arguably the most OP 1 point you can spend in the game in my opinion. The armor you select will give all the enchantment bonuses as well. I would hold off on getting this talent until you find a solid piece of enchanted armor to fill the slot.
Lvl 5. Concussion Strike- 1 point wonder. Great for defensive purposes.
Lvl 12. Primal Rage- The talent I max 2nd. This gives you some durability as well as lots of damage. This talent will also allow you to tank more effectively by giving you additional health and threat.
Lvl 14. Throw Weapon- Great additional damage ability. It's very easy to pick your weapon back up, often times I don't even notice it was gone, so don't let that deter you from taking this additional ability. I would give this a point before maxing primal rage, although you may wait until after if you don't have a great DPS weapon.
Lvl 18. Shield Bash- Horrible talent. The most amount of stacks of the armor reduction you can realistically get on a mob is 2. Definitely not worth it. Avoid.
Lvl 20. Pillage- This is a controversial talent for me. Most brutes take it, and there's no sense in stacking the buff during raids. During solo play, I don't use 1h+shield so I find the armor bonus rather negligible. Obviously this talent scales as you level, so if you're interested in investing in this talent, I'd wait until you had DS and Rage maxed. I would only advise taking this talent if you are going 1h+shield to maximum armor bonuses while solo'ing.
Lvl 22. Cleave- Cleave is never a good option at this point.
Lvl 26. Bloodlust- In my opinion one of the worst talents in the game. It has a niche use in cooldown RESET builds, so I've heard. Rumor also has it that the crit associated with Bloodlust resets other cooldowns. I'd say that keeping track of all that nonsense for this garbage talent is not worth the effort. This would probably be the worst investment you could make with your talent points.
Lvl 50. Charge- I wonder if any standard player has ever even seen this ability in action....
Talent Summary
Priority- Double Strike, Extreme Training (1 pt), Concussion Strike (1 pt), Primal Rage, Throw (when you get a decent enough weapon probably around level 18+), Pillage (if you want it)
Gearing
The Brute has many viable builds. I have only got to try out a couple, but I have been hard at work thinking about other builds. If anyone wants to help test these out and provide feedback, I'd appreciate it!
Crit Brute
Stat Priority- DPS = Crit Chance. With this build, you can easily be beyond 50% crit. This build will pump out the big numbers for you. Big DPS weapon with high crit values. That's all that matters. You can lifesteal some pretty big numbers with this build too, just as a fun fact.
CDR Brute (my personal favorite)
Stat Priority- Cooldown Reduction (NOT RESET) > DPS > Crit > CD Reset
This build is the most fun Brute build in my opinion. Weapons will typically not have reduction so I select the weapon with the greatest DPS first and foremost and then crit value. CD Reset is nice, but with double strike being active just about every second, it won't see much use outside of a lucky extra weapon toss or something. I have noticed that many pieces of gear do not have both reduction and crit values on them, although helmets seem to be the most likely candidate for the relationship. You can get some pretty high reduction values on chest and leg pieces as well. With Primal Rage, you will already have a somewhat respectable crit chance. Right now my build is sitting at 40% crit so this build doesn't fall that behind from the crit brute (I was at about 60-65% can't remember).
Tank Brute
Stat Priority- Health % > Dodge > Armor > Damage Reflect = Lifesteal
Reflect is better for when you're super geared and lifesteal is better when you're still building your armory. Reflect = DPS Lifesteal = Sustain (less pots used). I don't know a whole lot about the tank brute, but I know that you're darn near unkillable when you're solo'ing and taking on raids is pretty easy, even without the best gear. As you get closer to end-game, Dodge% becomes a higher priority than health. I haven't tested out effective dodge values, but avoiding damage in the first place will always be superior to taking it even with a buffed up health bar.
Chaos Gear
When you get chaos gear as a Brute, things start to change. The stat you choose to stack is mattering less because of the overwhelming DPS upgrade from the chaos sword. In this case, either reduction or crit, based on what is available to you, will do just fine. I would advise taking crit over reduction because your double strike will be doing some serious damage with your enhanced crit levels. The chaos armor will provide you with some serious tankiness so even looting the chaos armor is a big increase to your solo potential.
Math
A point of clarification about Armor %... The % is taken from the gear's armor value, NOT from your total armor value. Keep this in mind when comparing two pieces of gear.
Cooldown Reduction Math
This math applies specifically to the Brute, I am entirely unsure what reductions effect on other classes. There's no guarantee it matches up.
I ran 3 tests of Weapon Throw, a 30 second cooldown with 235 reduction points.
On average (I used a manual stop watch), the time was 24.75 seconds to refresh. This means that 235 reduction points yields a 17.5% cooldown reduction. In other words, approximately every 44.75 reduction points, your cooldowns will be reduced one second. I further calculated that 1% time reduction is equal to ~13.42 Reduction points. This value may be applicable for other classes/talents. Keep in mind that throw is on a 30 second cooldown, so these values apply specifically to 30 second cooldowns. I do not know what type of effect reduction points would have on greater/lesser cooldowns, so I'll leave that up to you guys to figure that stuff out.
EDIT: Diminishing returns seems to be a thing with reduction (not an actual mechanic, allow me to explain), there comes a point when having more reduction is not benefitting you as much as it should or could. This point seems to be in the mid 200s range. After having a decent amount of reduction (200+), I would advise crit stacking your other slots.
Tips
Reminder that Extreme Training allows you to equip two enchanted pieces of gear. You can use this to your advantage by finding a light armor piece with great stats. The armor benefit from the talent is only the cherry on top.
Improvements to the forums forthcoming!