Erratic1

The toggles all have a minimal setting except Genetic Contamination, whose effect is pretty minimal anyway.

Should probably note, I tried to stay with your power choices in my offered build above. I think I would pick up at least another melee attack (Cross Punch) because other than Punch and Haymaker it looks like you would otherwise be waiting for an attack to cycle.

The slotting bothered me in place where multiple sets are used to get 2 piece bonuses (e.g. High Pain Tolerance, Fast Healing) but losing out on the extra bonuses which might have been had by staying within set (four slots for two bonuses in two sets versus three bonuses in three sets). So I decided to give a whirl at how I might go about things. I typically toggle off Hasten if it is not perma when evaluating a build and toggled off Strength of Will given its negative side effect when the power ends. So that is why the comparison numbers for your build may look different from what you had set. S/L Defense is comparable but Melee Defense on my build is higher. So people shooting at you will have no real difference in hitting you, people punching you will. E/N Defense is improved but nothing else meaningfully changes. S/L Resistance is higher. I also slotted Reactive Defense: Scaling Resistance so all resistance will scale up as you lose health. E/N resistance is a bit lower but keep in mind higher E/N Defense. F/C resistance is meaninglessly and T/P is basically the same. You generate 0.59 end/s less with my build but you also consume 0.79 end/s less (both with Tactics running) so in reality you're up 0.2 end/s for spending purposes. Global Recharge is boosted to 76.25% from 56.25% Regen is lower by about 52 hp/s +To-Hit (from Tactics) is lower by 3.64% There are three slots leftover in what is posted below. You could get To-Hit back to the same value (though if you're using Rage I am not sure Tactics is really necessary) or you could expand the Recovery gap.

Went ahead and filled in all the slots. Not sure it is sane but maybe it can be useful towards finding what you are looking for:

This is not a completed build but it goes down the line I am thinking of how on might go about SS/Shield on a Brute, which is to seriously overcap your Melee defense, so that when -20% shows up you are still in a pretty good spot. Won't help you so much if you're also facing defense debuff but.... With 21 slots remaining you have 59.18% Melee, 35.58% Ranged, and 38.08% AOE defense. S/L resistance is at 60.47%. You have +66.25% global recharge and +16% To-Hit with Focused Accuracy going. On your to-do list is: Address Recovery Raise Ranged and AoE defense values Raise resistances. I'd frankly focus on F/C/E/N since I suspect those are most likely to be delivered by ranged and AoE attacks. Raise global recharge Whatever else suits your fancy I did not proc monster because I was focused on getting Melee up to a suitable value. You might be able to monster proc to your hearts content by shifting things around.

Is there a reason to play SS if you're not taking Rage? Isn't the consideration the set underperforms without Rage? True, you have Against All Odd, but that is a candle compared to the bonfire that is Rage.

I never much cared for Blasters on Live and it was only on Homecoming I finally found a Blaster I could get out of the low 30s with and take to 50 (BR/MC fwiw). Having finally succeeded in taking a blaster to 50 I decided to try another one, this time Sonic/Trick Arrow despite the charts saying how miserably it compared to other blast sets. It helped to think of him as my support oriented blaster. I got him to 50 then put him aside as there were just too many, "...well the damage is not great but it's okay because..." moments that frankly just were not true. I came into CoH during beta playing Defenders, had a Defender as my first character to max level, and played Sonic on live and again here on Homecoming as a Defender. I appreciate the debuffing it does for Defenders but...the secondary effects of secondary powers should not be so central to a Defender. Yes, secondary debuff effects have always been better for Defenders than for other ATs but the primary powersets are "primary" for a reason. You put Enervating Field down or drop Tar Patch for an ongoing, big -Res effect. It is hard for me to see saying, "I cannot squeeze out ultimate value on a team due to the secondary effects of my secondary powerset" as a good reason for the set to be miserably behind the curve for when it is being used as a primary set for three other ATs. Perhaps the AT should never have been ported to Blasters (I get grief when I object to the notion that every powerset should be available to every AT) but that ship has sailed (bring on the Super Strength scrappers and Energy Aura tankers and let the good times roll). A blast set which trails all others at dealing damage should be improved in that function. This change does that.

Electrical Affinity is a perfectly good support/healing set but it also tends to be a bit needly timewise since for your chains to leap you want to build static charges--so either you need to keep using EA powers or you need to drop Faraday Cage which will build them for you but that means needing to drop it whenever your group moves. I would suggest looking towards a primary set whose impact will lessen your need to have to toss out healing. Seismic is a good choice because it comes with two area knockdowns (well, one is technically a knock-up but foes end up on their butts is the important part) with timers short enough you can cycle them and keep a group on its collective butts. Or knock the group down, spread some healing. I was sold on Seismic back when it was on the test server when my mid-20s level character took out an entire group in Talos without any of them hitting me one due to the knockdown.

Yeah, I used to be the same with repeating sets. At a certain point, if you keep making characters though, you have to repeat. 😛

Some depends on what you are qualifying as "end game". One need not incarnate to play level 50 missions.

Dark is a resistance set. Bio is a hybrid set where you will rely on S/L/T/P resistance and F/C/E/N/T/P defense backed by absorption and regeneration. Clicking is pretty minimal given two of its three click powers are reactive and not on particularly short cooldowns (you don't heal unless you're damaged and you do not throw up an absorption shield unless your life is low). The one remaining click power is a pro-active thing best used when jumping into large crowds. If you have decided on Spines, then all well and good. But Claws does come with ranged attacks and Follow Up (which you should be familiar with from the land of spiders).

Can you tell my latest character's background involves being a cop?

Water/Kin is a lot of fun. And you might give Seismic a try.

Its not like Blasters, Corruptors, or Defenders (solo with their AT passive) solo horribly. And depending on Controller....

If you have never played Claws, give it a go. Its fun. Somehow I never tried it live and have enjoyed it without reservation here on Homecoming. I have to say I have been thinking about Claws/EnA. Stackable +To-Hit/+Dam from Follow-Up with +Recharge based on the number of nearby foes from Entropic Aura. OTOH, been wanting to try out Rad/EA because +Recharge helps with cycling its powers (and I would be taking Cross Punch anyway since Proton Sweep is a wet sack of dog poop waiting to drop on your pants and shoes, Devastating Blow is painfully long in animating, and Cross Punch also helps with +Recharge) and you get the Endurance support Rad Melee so desperately craves.

Sorry to disappoint, but I was not the snake. I do agree on the tanking though.

No, Brutes are not obsolete. They are on the whole sturdier than Scrappers/Stalkers and generally deal more damage than Tankers. Yes, there are exceptions to that on either side and depending on circumstance, but there are places where Brutes do better in the overlap realm too. As to being needed, no AT is. I did Tanker Tuesday last night where there were only Tankers teamed together. I have done all ranged groups, even all Blaster groups and it turns out no individual AT is necessary for a group to do well. So do not worry about your Brute's contribution, the Brute is contributing in a way that only Brutes can.

From the Synapse run on Torchbearer

Well, I mean come on...you insulted their mother. 😁

I do not see why anyone ever got in a ring to let Mike Tyson throw punches at them and yet people did that. But most people I know would run quickly from someone with a flamethrower. And given a choice between the two, I'll take getting in the ring with Mike Tyson in his prime any day over running at someone with a flamethrower.

Its live!

He started as a test of concept character. Only last night, after getting him to 50, changed his build's filename in Mids from Project 11 C to his actual name. Presenting my latest Tanker (Rad/Claws):

Tankers get increased area sizes now, which while it will not help take down a single target any faster does a decent job on groups. I was quite happily abusing that and Tanker survivability last night while pushing my latest Tanker to 50 having set the number of foes appearing in missions up.

Pretty sure the Def crash is going to be there. I never notice on my Brute, but he is SS/Bio not SS/Shield and so a goodly chunk of incoming damage is going to hit his unaffected S/L Resistance just like normal.

I am pretty sure for most (not necessarily all) opponents there are brute builds which can do that.