Erratic1

Power Transfer: Chance to Heal is a nice offset for the health cost of Energy Transfer and can help keep you going, so slot it early. Whirling Hands + Power Crash in Energy Transfer mode can quickly work down groups. Will edit to add as I think of things.

What is the advantage? Thinking most people would happily take receiving double pay for their work with a 6% chance over just receiving their pay because they come out ahead. Do explain why you wouldn't.

It's a tempting idea....

You are claiming it is some sort of advantage for damage values to stay clumped together as opposed to spiking due to crits?!? Well...guess not winning the lottery gives me more consistent income and so is better than winning millions of dollars. You have not remotely seen condescension yet.

This line: contradicts this line (which isn't true): Either they do damage the best or they don't. And the following line... ...is like saying a Ford Mustang is faster than a Bugatti Veyron if you exclude fuel from the Bugatti. As for the following: The cards dealt in Blackjack are random but understanding the nature of probability allows gambling houses to stay in business with far more losers paying the houses than the houses pay winners. Likewise, Scrappers and Stalkers can leverage the ability of their ATO which increases crit chances to reliably deal more damage than a Brutes over time. Regeneration is crappy for any AT that gets it. It is not a top armor set. In fact, I seem to recall having a picture which illustrates where Regeneration is...

There is a mission arc named, "The Tsoo Coup". Think that suggests how it is pronounced.

Yes, generally damage auras are on resistance based sets, but Bio breaks that being a universal truth. As for being better off with a damage aura, if everything were the same between two tankers except one had a damage aura and one did not, then the one with a damage aura would be ever so slightly better off in terms of aggro holding, but.... One of the two Tankers I am currently working is a Bio/Dual Blades. Yes, he has a damage aura. I am also sure the thing which is most meaningful to the parties I am in is that what I am dealing with is spending significant portions of fights getting back up off the ground as I have two knockdown attacks. I see some party member has drawn attention from a few foes and the damage aura may eventually get those foes attention but knocking them all down really solves the problem far faster (as would hitting them all or taunting them). I would not let damage auras drive my choice of armor set.

While true, it is also not likely to be necessary as everyone is pretty survivable against what is being fought at unless difficulty has been turned up.

I would recommend Taunt to someone who has never tanked before because it is a useful tool and it is probably better for all involved to learn to not use it while you have it as a fallback tool.

As I recall, the final nail in the coffin for my Willpower Tanker was being hit with so much -Recharge his attacks were slated to be available the next time the world's continent's merge to form Pangaea. SR has some resistance and on any defense set, the attack has to land for the nasty to occur.

I run a lot of Positions (so many I remind people of the groups unseen to the left and right of that door and the ambushes in the penultimate mission). Those groups being left have less to do with having or lacking Taunt than rushing without thinking. Granted, Taunt would allow you to pick up one of those groups presuming it wasn't wasted on the group containing Ulcer. Posi 1 can be joined at level 8, before Taunt is available. Posi 2 can be joined at level 11, which given Taunt comes at level 10, means it might not yet have been taken in lieu of key offense and defense powers. The earliest I would expect a Tanker to have Taunt would be in their 20s. There are certainly enough power slots that working Taunt in is a easy and just a matter of when. What bothers me are those who treat it as their mandatory opening at range...particularly when I am standing near them on a squishy character, as I dislike AoE responses hitting me because the Tanker decided to unnecessarily range pull with Taunt.

WTF are they running to? Even if I am herding, I am coming back to the first group. And in that case I will not have engaged the first group but zipped past them so there should be no illusions about them paying any attention to me. And its not like you cannot let people know the plan before engaging. I may be less communicative when there are multiple takers in the group but at that point there is plenty of aggro control.

Seems to me to be more expected by Tankers here on the forum than something anyone is going to notice you not having/using. Definitely has its uses, but on my most recent Tanker, I took it late and keep forgetting it is there. Nobody seems to notice.

But Electric Armor has a damage aura.

I've played Dark Melee, and I've played Shield (not on a Brute) but have never had a desire to pair them. Still, thought I'd toss out something incomplete which may give you some ideas.

If you want to go Shield, let me suggest Energy or Stone, both of which hit hard but are not endurance hogs. For a slight bit more endurance work but easily managed, Battle Axe.

Had a Rad/Shield scraper and endurance was always a struggle. Heck, it was a struggle on my Elec/Rad Tanker and Elec has tools to help (solved with Alpha choice). Rad hit hard but it drinks much too. But if you like suffering you could go Dark/Rad.

It has been a bit of time but IIRC, the thinking was that while not quite capped to S/L resist: The build is close to S/L resist cap The scaling resistance IO in Weave needs something to do The ATO would also pretty trivially get there All the above would apply without paying the endurance cost of Tough By having both Boxing and Kick, Cross Punch's damage and recharge bonuses are both improved. Certainly, Tough could be used. I just didn't think it was absolutely necessary. I have never been a big fan of Proton Sweep (though it is not so completely horrible that there is agreement it should be skipped--some like it, some do not) and figured there was more mileage to be had out of Cross Punch. It has comparable damage and speeds recharge. The primary benefit of Proton Sweep is Contamination, which you can get elsewhere, and you should not need the healing from consuming it. Some parts of builds are aspirational (i.e., something you work towards after other things are in place). While waiting to collect the pieces of Avalanche, Obliterations were slotted and the only thing of significance which were missed thereby was 6% Fire/Cold resistance--not likely something you are going to be defeated by.

This is my retired Elec/Rad Tanker:

TL;DR: A tier, feels good. In the past few weeks I got my EM/Elec brute to 50, significantly IO'd him, and started the Incarnate process. He's solid fun to play and does a superior job compared to most other brutes I've made, working well against both groups and solo targets. Why A tier and not S? While Electric Armor is a decent set as goes survivability, Bio, Invulnerability, Radiation Armor, and Stone are better and Bio in particular comes with a damage aura and recovers endurance only slightly less well (pushing it to S Tier in my guesstimation). Even so, EM/Elec is no slouch and I look forward to seeing how far I can take it. Edit: Should have noted Bio's got better survivability tools than Elec.

Admittedly it is on a Brute, but my EM/Electric Brute melts through crowds with Whirling Hands and Power Crash (supported by Lightning Field). Definitely recommend having both.

Without Shadow Meld, it looked like your positional defenses were all in the mid-30s, and your S/L/E/N were roughly 40% (with F/C being 45%). As for Perma-Hasten, Hasten default rechare time is 450s and you need to get it down to 120s. So you need 450/120 - 1 = 275% recharge. Hasten itself will be giving you 70% and slotting it with the +5 Recharge Reductions you have is worth another 95.9%, so that leaves 109.1% to be provided globally. As Mid's display tosses in the 1 previously accounted for, you would need it to be showing 209.1% as opposed to the 178.75% it does. Keep in mind, sometimes perma-Hasten is not strictly needed depending on goal. If with Hasten toggled on its recharge time was 125s it might not be worth the cost to push to actual perma-status. But that depends on exactly what you are shooting for. Shadow Meld cannot be made perma as its base recharge time is six times its duration. So pushing to perma-Hasten is not going to get you that and if that is your primary reason for Hasten, then I would probably not worry about true perma-status on Hasten.

Without perma-Hasten, Shadow Meld is up for 15s every 45s--without which the defense numbers are about 55% of what is shown. Shadow Meld as an, "Oh @#$@!" button strikes me as potentially fine if the default numbers are sufficiently high to guarantee survival between cycles of Shadow Meld, but I am not sure they are generally, let alone against foes with defense debuff.

Think he said he was done with melee for now. Ninjitsu blaster does fit the theme. So too Ninjitsu Sentinel (got a Dark/Nin Sent I am currently working up). But I think since Snarky has been diving deep into Blaster for a while he is wanting something a bit further removed (though honestly, Sentinel...Fortunata....there are certain similarities there).

While the right controller is a beautiful thing, I would put my money down on Fortunata as you have protections your other options either don't get or only visit from time to time.