Erratic1

This is good as there is absolutely no reason to play a Brute, unless you like being second or third class in whatever you're doing.

Quibble: 67 slots, 24 powers. Full slotting every power would require more than twice as many slots as one gets (and that ignoring inherents--so Stamina). Another thing is that while they have made power acquisition faster, some powers are going to be missing to you at level 20 and an optimized level 50 build may rely on some of those missing powers and have skipped other powers all together. But a person who has optimized for exemplar playing can pull off some incredible feats.

Am running the story arc that features endless Dark Warwolves on my Bio/DB Tanker right now, and am so thankful for having the knockdowns.

While I have it paired with Storm on a Corruptor, I imagine Seismic would be pretty impressive. As for theme, waves crashing against rocks.

Appears to only apply to specific versions of the cpus, not all 13th and 14th gen cpus, if I am reading Tom's Hardware correctly.

Why not both?

Its a crap set even on Tankers but Tanker make the most of it.

I suspect most people love Kinetic Combat for only consuming 4 slots to get to 3.75% Smash/Melee Def, particularly if their defensive set uses typed, not positional, defense.

And some content is harder than others, particularly depending on AT and that has always been the case.

Reiterating and supporting what you wrote.

Chernobog can be quite unfriendly at the level you would naturally encounter him and has been in the game from before the changes being complained about. It being my favorite arc, I do it on every character. Always interesting to me which ones can take him solo and which cannot--and the varies even within each AT.

You are relentlessly missing the point. You DO NOT have to consider too close if your goal is avoiding similarity. I do not want to be exposed to radiation, so instead of asking how close to Chernobyl I can go, I make no plans to go anywhere where the question would come up. My signature Brute is a super strong, super tough character...from Argentina...who doesn't fly...whose costume colors are those of the Argentine flag. I don't have to ask how close he is to Superman as there is nothing beyond strength and toughness (hideously common when speaking of super heroes) that he shares. Any story involving the problems of being a superhero, the duty, personal interactions, etc work with him because the question isn't, "last of his race", "rocks from home are deadly", "can I mate with my cousin to save the race", etc. That is what staying in the realm of, "You don't have to ask" means.

Then we return to what I wrote originally: Avoid being close enough to need to ask and don't be a pedant who can't figure out what is close without a exhaustive set of guidelines.

Yes, Hyperion and the rest of the Squadron Supreme, based on the earlier appearance of the Squadron Sinister, were JLA references.

There not being a concrete definition provided in no way means something isn't close or that objectively some things are quite different. Thor is nowhere near Superman in concept, Hyperion--what with near idntical powers, being from a destroyed world, and having an alliterative name in secret identity, is much closer (go figure, his creator admits he was patterned on Superman).

Homelander does not "borrow" from Superman, he is a commentary on Superman and The Seven are an analog of The Justice League (originally founded by seven heroes). Thor, Ant-Man, Wasp, Iron Man, and The Hulk are the original members of the Avengers--created by Marvel because they'd seen how popular The Justice League were and wanted a team. Not a single one of them is an analog of a DC character and to this day The Avengers remains a popular comic book team. So, you do not need to get arbitrarily close to established characters to make a point. That is to say, name, power similarity, and character details can be quite different and still tell stories about being heroes, their problems, their relation to society, etc. Is there a reason to get so close you have to ask the question how close is acceptable?

5 AoE controls on my Assault Dominator. Stone looks to have 6 AoE controls. Dark has 4. Electric 5...does not seem like a shortage of AoE control on Dominators. Cannot say I have ever paid that much attention because either way life is easier with one around.

You can team perfectly as well on a Dominator as you can on Controller. The controller brings buffs for the team whereas the Dominator is bringing damage. Both buffs and damage are team useful things.

Just like on Shield, you set the power to auto-cycle.

Thank heaven I did not see this thread before starting my Bio/DB Tanker, which turns out to be a surprisingly fast and fun build (at least around level 30). On the other hand, if Katana is all that....

Apparently, I am on a Tanker kick. Not the first time I have gone with a mecha theme but wrapping around Bio is different (no reason one cannot release toxins). Paragon-07

Greatly enjoying the Assault/Martial I made last week. So much so the first 38 levels have flown by and I have no plans for an end build.

From the basic SO/IO standpoint, it has felt less awesome than the DM/Elec brute and DM/EA and DM/Inv scrappers I have played. But on the DM/Elec Brute you have a damage aura being boosted by both Fury and Soul Drain and amazing survivability due to the twin healing options, on the DM/Inv Scrapper you have decent damage just for the AT, boost it with Soul Drain, and Dark and Inv combine to again boost your survivability to high levels, and DM/EA is wallows in synergies that makes it nice to play (boost your own defense, reduce their To-Hit, get to cycle Soul Drain more often due to standing in crowds). As I understand it, Rad brings a lot of proc bomb capacity. Alas, I do not lean towards that style of building. I am going to have to rely on Soul Drain cycling to try to make the build amazing.

Giving Dominator another go and have come up with a bounty hunter hero, Retributive.

Play it in a group and watch things die while you're still waving your hand around like you just don't care.