Erratic1

If you're playing with a Dark Tanker I would look towards a corruptor/defender who can: Buff damage output for both of you Keep both of you in endurance Exercise some level of control from a distance Primaries: Ice, Water Secondaries: Kinetics (honorable mention Dark Miasma)

Nothing prevents you from having both Speed of Sound and Hasten.

A truly wonderful thing for dealing with vertical challenges.

For years Electric Blast was considered to be relatively weak in terms of damage. It got revamped last year though. Probably some chunk of people like me who have not gotten around to playing it up (go wrapped up in other revamped/new powers like Seismic Blast, Stone Armor).

If Stone and Ice are out for obscuring the character I am not sure how Rad is not out as well. Those atomic orbitals are glaring.

In minimal only Ablative Carapace and Parasitic Aura shows anythin remotely tumor-like and that only for the duration of the animations, not the effect. Admittedly that is still a deal breaker for some.

You hear good things about Energy Aura because it is indeed good. And all the other Brute secondaries you mentioned are solid performers. Bio is considered by many to be a bit overpowered, though some dislike it (I am not in that camp--my avatar is of my SS/Bio Brute). I have been enjoying Stone (Graniteless) on my current Elec/Stone brute project but have only recently gotten to the point where I am IO'ing her out.

Swap Zapp to Calibrated Accuracy. Loses 1.25% Ranged Defense but gains 5% +Recharge. Swap to Preemptive Optimization in Short Circuit. would drop the +Recharge from 6.25% to 3.75% but gives 3.75% more Ranged Defense (see next line) Swap from 6 slotted Artillery to 5 slotted Positron's Blast in Ball Lightning. You then gain 6.25 +Recharge while losing 3.13% Ranged Defense (see previous line). Overall +3.75% Global Recharge, +0.62% Ranged Defense Swap the Luck of the Gambler enhancement in Infiltration from Def/End to Def/Increased Global Recharge Speed--gives the same Defense value and only costs 0.09 End/sec more for 7.5% +Recharge Swap to Expedient Reinforcement from Blood Mandate in Voltaic Sentinel. Gains 6.25% +Recharge for losing 0.62% Ranged Defense Drop the Obliteration and Eradication procs from Frozen Aura for two more Armageddon enhancements. The proc potential drop by one-third but you pick up Accuracy on the power and 10% +Recharge. Swap one slot from Shiver to Hasten. Boost Recharge enhancements to +3 Drop Victory Rush for Tesla Cage. For its slots drop the Slow Enhancement from Frigid Protection, the Psionic Status Resistance from Tough, and extra slot for Gladiator's Armor (keep the +Defense IO). Slot with Basilisk Gaze to gain +1.25% Ranged Defense and 7.5% +Recharge [I know you said the power selection is fixed, but one-slotted Victory Rush is probably not going to serve you as well as reaching for perma-Hasten.] Would leave you with 6.8 seconds in every 126.8 seconds outside Hasten while keeping you at pretty much the same Ranged Defense value.

Who clicks the power? You set it auto and let it renew when it recycles. Having to click it is a really good way to die.

As I consider Gamma Boost, I am not sure it deserves slotting for any reason other than set bonus muling. The Recovery Gamma Boost provides starts at its max value and declines as your health does, so if you were reliant on it to not have endurance problems you risk being back in problematic territory if your health remains reduced for any significant period of time (admittedly a goal to be avoided but these things happen). If you buff the amount it provides to get around the reduction health loss inflicts then you are going to be running with spare when not at reduced health and that is no benefit. The Regeneration it provides when at full health is 5% of base. When you are about to die, at 5% life, Gamma Boost will double your base Regen but that means that over the course of 60 seconds (were you willing and able to stay at 5% life) it would provide you with 25% of your health bar in generated healing. Slot it up for double the impact and Willpower and Regen (which Tankers can't get their hands on) are looking at you as some unfortunate who does not really understand health regeneration.

Radiation Therapy is up every 60 seconds by default. As you have it in your build it is up every 14.82 seconds (assuming perma-Hasten). Like I said, I assumed you chose Armageddon for the set bonuses. I presented the option I did because you still retain perma-Hasten, which seemed to be the largest calling card for the set. The bonuses Armageddon is getting you are: 4% Recovery 6% Fire/Cold Res10% Mez Res 15% Accuracy 10% Recharge Time 6% Toxic/Psi Res10% Mez Res (1) Without the bonus your global Recovery shrinks from 2.8 to 2.73. Ignoring my proposal gives you more endurance per usage, if losing that 4% recovery breaks your build you probably need to reconsider anyway. (2) This seems to be the most pertinent bonus provided given Radiation's refusal to grant Cold Resist. (3) This is the only +Accuracy you have across all your powers. Given how common it is on sets, it did not look important. Will also note the proposed slotting give you +9% (4) Again, you reach perma-Hasten without it. (5) Without this bonus Toxic remains at a respectable 86.58% Resistance. Psionic drops to 60.45% (1) and (4) are not giving you much. (3) Global Accuracy is not meaningless but some goodly chunk of your powers are already in the ED range and the loss is meaningless (like Power Transfer dropping from 190.3% to 184.9%). So the question is if (2) and (5) are worth the trade off on the healing. I cannot answer that for you. All I can do is present options and the rationale behind them.

Recovery/Recharge/Absorb/Endurance (while Dark is swallowing your Endurance like a black hole). As for Dark Armor having the best heal in the game, let's compare the two.... Healing (base) Dark Regeneration: 562.22 Radiation Therapy: 206.15 + 41.23 per foe hit Radiation Therapy's healing, being dependent on foes being hit, requires 8.64 foes to break even with Dark Regeneration. So in a group of 9+ minions you will get more healing from Radiation Therapy, in a group of fewer than 9 you will get less. Against an AV you would probably prefer to have Dark Regeneration. Endurance (base) Dark Regeneration: 0 Radiation Therapy: 5 + 2.5 per foe hit Dark Regeneration not only does not give you endurance, it costs endurance to use--a hefty 33.8 (according to City of Data 2.0). Radiation Therapy is free if you have 3 foes around and is generating endurance beyond that. Damage (base) Dark Regeneration: 10.57 negative Radiation Therapy: 10.57 energy + 2.64 toxic every second for 4 seconds Radiation Therapy deals twice as much damage. This is not to Rah! Rah! you over Radiation Armor or down sell Dark Armor. Like you I am currently trying to figure out the best care and feeding for Radiation Armor on a Tanker, and for this next bit I need someone to tell me if I am going down the wrong path. You have Armageddon slotted in Radiation Therapy, focusing I assume on the set bonuses and damage output. As slotted, on a proc you deal 130.2 damage and otherwise rely on the base healing/endurance recovery of the power. If you were to instead slot it with Touch of the Nictus [H/A, A/H/A, Neg] and Power Transfer [Em, D/Em, Heal] you still end up with perma-Hasten since the 10% +Recharge loss does not take you beneath the global recharge necessary. The damage on proc is 96.19, so about 75% of what you had but in exchange your healing is 450.1 + 71.29 per foe hit instead of the 214.4 + 42.88 you have with your slotting, and your endurance recovery is 8.45 + 4.22 per foe hit versus the base 5 + 2.5 per foe you have. The real gain is the healing. With six foes you're approaching Dark Regen fully slotted for healing and with one foe you're still at 50% equivalent. But that presumes the healing proc from Power Transfer, which I think will have a roughly 50-50 chance of going off when dealing with a single target (AV).

While my first character on Homecoming was a Rad/Psi tanker, once I got her to 50 I got distracted with alt-itis and have not played her much sense (as much as I enjoy tossing groups in the air, there is no real synergy between the sets --they both do what they do). Wanting to give Rad another go, I just made (as in yesterday) a Rad/Claws Tanker who is 27 now. Biggest drawback I see, having played with builds, is the miserable Cold Resist value you are likely to end up with. Psionic will not exactly be grand either. And keep in mind, I'm talking from a Tanker standpoint here. On a Brute you are going to need even more effort to reach for resistance caps. No DDR means that while you can certainly build up your defense, anything with an ability to debuff it will wipe it away like the Sun wipes away the morning dew. Endurance is definitely not a problem and as mentioned above the regen/absorb is nice. The +Recharge while standing in crowds is noticeable. The character I created is an "I'm bored and do not feel like working on a character I should be working on" character. But my thinking is to not waste effort on Defense but rather to focus on Resistances (obviously), Regen/Absorb, and to go the opposite of upping my Defense but instead debuffing their To-Hit.

Another costume update, this time for my Electric Melee/Stone Armor Brute, Earthshock. While I like her original costume, I have wanted to play up the double meaning of the name--both a reference to her primary and secondary powersets and a reference to a meteor striking the Earth--by having her costume more reflect the meteor strike side of things. So her costume is the meteor just above Earth's atmosphere.

Due to a combination of lack of faithfulness to CoH (friend of mine drags me into whatever new thing he is playing) and altitis, I only got my Elec/Stone Brute to 50 this past week. She is still using basic IOs, though I have been storing up merits/influence for her transition to set IOs (she has a very few slotted where I could slide some in). I have hope the investment will prove worthwhile because she handles well as is. My current target build for her is: I would have liked to have gotten a bit more S/L resist and to have brought F/C resist at least up to 80% since what I have is straddling the line of, "Why didn't you make it a Scrapper instead?"

I cannot speak to most but my first characters to max were my initial character, a Defender, and a follow up Scrapper. It was not until near the end of Live that I first gave Tankers a go. I mostly soloed, and was careful when teaming to point out I was new to Tanking, to set expectations. But my goal as a Tanker was to tank.

I am not the one making the claim. The '?' at the end of the italicized portion indicates a question, specifically a question based on a claim put forth,

Probably should skip Tanker Tuesday when its a team with 8 Tankers. I have a lot of fun with them though.

*Considers asking, "If Tankers can keep pace with Brutes for damage but Brutes cannot keep pace with Tankers for survivability, what good are Brutes?", but then remembers the last flare up of the Brute/Tanker wars and decides against*

Most squishy with skill use the Tanker (or really any willing individual) to take the alpha and then go about their business. It is what allows some of my still unfinished melees the confidence of leaping into a crowd they would not otherwise survive--that shortly everything will be controlled or killed, I just have to survive that long.

Context is key. I was referring to TFs, which was what the OP was talking about. On a farm...*shrug* I noted my Brutes do not come with Taunt. Someday I may give a go at building a Brute dedicated to tanking but so far I've built tanks towards that end. In fact, was toying with working up another Tanker just earlier today.

A Brute not holding aggro is not that surprising. I do not think any of my Brutes have Taunt and I do not feign being a Tanker unless there is literally nobody else who could do the job (though if I do have to do the job, I try to do it appropriately). A Tanker not holding aggro, even without Taunt, sounds like a malicious act.

It is. My Energy Melee/Shield Stalker gets Hide, which is useful despite supression.

The problem with Active Defense and high recharge is each activation locks you out of attacks for the animation--something which will not usually get you killed but does impact dps.

Will they in its present state? Stackable damage buff with crits.... Who cares if you crash because everything is dead? Edit: But if while you were raging you couldn't crit.....