Is this viable? I'm Ice power/brawl. I've maxed out all the augments I'd normally need (might set & tank set), so I thought I may as well upg the precision ones that are currently sitting there doing nothing. I'd imagine at least one issue would be that it's a close up power so I might be a bit squishy but thought the Ice shielding might help with that. Would a different power lend itself better to the notion?
If you're wanting to make a precision build, that's melee based, I would suggest filling up with some shields (being ice and relying on weapons) to help with damage. Ice has some good shields, and hard-light shield (iconic) is great as well. Obviously weapon buff, maybe a SC, and shields. As far as a good power for melee, Rage is my preference. Even if using precision, you can use the Severe Punishment (absorbs most damage), and cancel crash with E chain. You can run the weapon buff, remorseless recovery, and have a shield as well, then a SC too (or RSK) depending on play style.
Shutiken mastery for brawling is a good range option, and it’s even competing with other might powers for range aoe. Haymaker from brawling can crit for 80k+. Since you’re ice, you want to use snow devil, you can clip it with a shield ( the one that does damage), or phase dodge when it comes off cool down. A non doom spin, Ice prec can definitely be competitive
Actually, brawling is one of the better all-around weapons now. Haymaker clipped properly was the second highest DPS parse after Doomspin. Enhanced Shuriken clipped properly was close to flurry shot jump-cancelled poorly. And Shuriken Storm was almost identical to DW Explosive shot. It was the only weapon other than hand blaster that had good range aoe, melee, and single target options (and hand blaster's single target is melee only).
I'll play with builds once I think my augs are levelled enough, and see if it works for me. Obv, arts would be another consideration but I'll worry about that later for obvious 'can I be arsed upg'ing yet another set right now?' reasons.
Well I've slowly built up some brawling swag and one of the main things I've noted is that the damage range seems quite wide. On practice targets, a full 5 hit combo might do 50k and it might do 100k, sometimes to the point where the weapon buff/venom wrist seem pretty moot.
I've been using brawling wm as a prec dps. I completely agree that there is a disparity across their combo damages. In addition to this, I havee recently noticed that brawling range WM was somewhat-somehow nerfed(?). I was hitting 7k non-crits per tick of the shuriken storm mastery and now I was hitting only 4-5k on the same setup, plus I feel its a lot slower than before. Although, I am not sure about the nerf, if anybody else can confirm this so I can shun it altogether. Just not worth playing if you want to at least contribute.
I did have to laugh the other day. I've been getting more comfortable with the new loadouts and whatnot, mainly concentrating on punching, flight powers and heat vision to maintain the purist 'superhuman' thing - kind of the point of the build, to use strength/speed rather than 'magic' (which all the powers are, basically, despite being labelled 'meta'). So I'd been doing a lot of open world stuff with this build, even the odd boss, and thought I'd do a duo with it to see how it goes. Got towards the end of JLD: Pub Crawl, which I thought was going OK, and my CR308 fellow ice powered partner says 'afterwards let me give you my build'. lol
Sooooooooo... In general, precision heavy brawl DPS blows big time lol. Slow, clunky and imprecise. Useless for raids, barely tolerable in open world. BUT... Due to using the flight offensive powers with the punchy build, I have discovered I enjoy them a great deal, particularly with the armour mod to combo swoops. So I've kind of made the 'purist superhero' I previously mentioned, for which I'm using a Might build, 4 flight attacks, heat vision, and a shield. Woosh bang-a-bang swoosh zap. Feels a lot more 'Superhero' than 'Fantasy Mage'. If I didn't pop the occasional ice shield, you'd never know which power I am lol. Probably still not that useful in raids but fun on a bun elsewhere.
I have been using that, as well as other combos depending on the enemy. But a full 5 hit combo takes time where a 3 hit backhand combo would do IF the damage was predictable, and once you're committed to a combo you can't switch it up. Like I say, clunky and imprecise.
I had the exact same problem. I might keep my brawling DPS exclusively for solo play, because he just won`t work on raids AT ALL.
Brawling can be used as DPS but you must do 2H and MA weapon mastery to be effective. Doom Spin style moves for close up and MA shuriken wm for range. If you can't spec that way or don't want to spec into wm with all the additional required sp's (if you have lower sp) then only use brawling if you're primary play is under tank role. I for example use brawling, my dps is set up with MA wm for range and more is spec'd into powers than weapon. On my full tank I use brawling with 2h wm for the doom spin and other move but spec into resto and dom (powers based) for shields and such. I also run a Hybrid tank which out dmg's most DPS who play. Remember that you don't need to use the exact same set up (but spec either prec or might) you can actually differentiate your play-style per armory and really tailor your armories for specific situations or set them up for new content where as the previous dlc, you had them set up differently. Example: Age of Justice you could hybrid easier than you can currently, some DLC's and how the adds act (movement/weapon style/timing i.e. interrupt ability and constant use of) can also determine your loadout, for example Frost Blast can be interrupted but if you time it right when adds are knocked down/stunned you can almost always pull it off).
Before SP truly mattered though ^ it was a blast to spec as Brawling and HL, you'd start off slow then hit them with HL combos in Arenas, sorta like Forest Gump before and after the leg braces lol.
In the center of a group of adds? I'm speaking of 2h wm for mainly tanks. When I DPS, I use MA wm for range and only powers (even though weapon is still brawl).
