Camoron

This. I don't play MMs but honestly, who at level 50 is playing even level content except to farm merits or something?

Bumping this topic rather than starting a new one. Shinobi is a horrible replacement for Build-Up offering very poor damage potential, and Lotus Drops inexplicably has double the recharge of any other variant with no additional damage to compensate. Shinobi operates similarly to Targeting Drone, only it's much worse in just about every way (other than bundling in Stealth and a negligible amount of Defense), adding a mandatory 30 second timer between being able to receive the "opening attack" damage buff from Stealth and having a pitiful 6.25% damage bonus outside of the also laughable 50% on the one attack that you'll make, if timed absolutely PERFECTLY, once every 30 seconds. Personally, to differentiate it from Targeting drone, I'd keep the low damage buff all the time (maybe buff it to 10% at least) and then MEGA increase the opening attack from Stealth component by a LOT. Like 100%, at minimum, to bring it more in line with Build Up, considering Build Up lasts for 10 full seconds (not 1 attack), and can be fired off every 45s with no effort and every 27s with Hasten. Personally, I'd opt for a 120-150% damage buff, considering it only applies to the one attack, but I also recognize that the power has other utility components as well, so it's not a sticking point. I'd also raise the DEF it provides by a bit % to give the power and set some added utility. Blinding Powder has some crappy mez secondary effects that last a few seconds, but its primary component, -ToHit, is a not so great 7%, and nothing else in the set provides ToHit debuff, like you'd think maybe Smoke Flash would. I appreciate the damage res debuff on Smoke Flash, it's one of the few redeeming qualities of the set, but a tiny bit of ToHit debuff added in would do wonders to help the set jive better together, because as of right now, it's a weird mixed bag of Def Debuffs from the katana powers, small amounts of Def to all and Res only to Psionic (a fairly rare damage type), a single decent resistance debuff, a single okay-ish ToHit debuff, and a rather bad Damage/ToHit/Def/Stealth buff. None of these things seem to really synergize well together.

Looking out over the city...

Also, it sucks. Playing concept heroes is great and all, but you're in for frustration especially if it's an alt for another character with better powers. You won't enjoy it. I leveled a Stone/Energy Melee Tanker to 50 purely because I liked his character (for roleplaying) and as much fun as I had roleplaying the character in Pocket D, I don't think I ever had fun actually playing the game with him. Part of this was due to Stone, but mostly it was EM.

Shield may not be the tankiest tank, but it is well-built for PvE, compliments any team, has high damage output, and with a proper build, has soft-capped positional defenses, fairly high resistances, high HP, and pretty decent regen. Personally I think it's the most well-balanced and fun Defense set CoH has ever made. I've never met any content I couldn't be the lone Tank on at 50 in team content, and I also have the benefit of being able to solo AVs and run high-level content meant for 8-person teams. Almost soloed an ITF once but got kicked in mission 5 or 6 after my fillers dropped. Not sure if I would have been able to defeat Romulus in the final battle, but I had a strategy that I'd still love to try.

I had a bunch of level 50 Tankers (and a few Brutes too). My old main was a Shield/SS Tanker that could tank anything, farm decently well, -and- solo AVs. I once tried to solo the ITF with him but got kicked on mission 5 or 6 because my fillers dropped-- otherwise I think my chances would have been pretty good. It was a ton of fun and I highly recommend Shield. I had an Inv/SS Tank at 50 as well, but it wasn't nearly as fun. Shield is my favorite defensive powerset.

I can login to the normal game servers but am unable to login to the Beta server. I don't need a separate account, right? Is this a database propagation issue? I've had an account for a few days now..