Heavy/Flashing Blade and Brazens?

As an addendum, most specials or stat-based skills take into account any non-visible buffs into their activation. So spurs, drives, and goads all count towards the HB proc, and Bonfire includes all defensive buffs applied to the hero. The only things that don't do this, to my knowledge, are out-of-combat effects, like the AoE specials, which is the one place where Defiant Attack becomes better than a Brazen, simply because it is a visible buff.