Erratic1

If you are playing a Resist set Tanker you are not going to have much in the way of Defense powers, meaning Weave will be operating on its own. With a base value of 5% Defense (All), Weave when first taken will mostly be an endurance drain of minimal value, taking your chance of being hit by an even level opponent from 50% to 45%. In most circumstances that is not going to be a noticeable difference.

Alpha Barrier is the LEVEL ONE POWER in Radiation Armor. What could be more out of the box than that?

Best I can come up with is it was someone who was in the process of being power leveled and did not have time to train before the TF was announced. Were it not a power level situation I could still see being short a level or two--the team is on a roll and you don't want to leave it, but at six levels I would think power level.

To paraphrase a line from David Lynch's Dune, "Many strange behaviors on Excelsior."

The point was my Brute, who works with SCRAPPER level numeric values, gets to respectable S/L resistance values on what is ostensibly a Defense armor set. If a Brute can get there a Tanker should have no problem.

Electric Armor's Charged Armor gives 35% resistance to Smash/Lethal. Invulnerability hits 40% resistance to Smash/Lethal via Temporary Invulnerability and Resist Physical Damage. So Invulnerability is ahead by only 5% if you (a) take two power at low level and (b) maintain twice the number of slots in them when you probably hardest pressed to do so because powers and slots are least plentiful at low level. To maintain that lead it needs to spend twice the number of slots. Put one extra slot in Charged Armor and give it two SOs and you're at 52.4% Smash/Lethal resistance. Put one extra slot in Temporary Invulnerability and give it two SOs and combined with Resist Physical Damage you're at 54.91% Smash/Lethal resistance. I am not sure how 52.4% is mediocre while 54.91% is worthy of respect. I am not sure any resistance based Tanker needs to take Tough. My first pass on my current Radiation/Claws, which only has base 30% S/L resist via Alpha Barrier, was over 90% S/L resist value. If I can get there with Alpha Barrier, Charged Armor can get there.

I am infinitely more likely to want to join a kill all ITF than a speed one. But I have been on speed ITF PUGs and they went perfectly fine.

With the exception of the one TF I do per week with the SG one of my characters joined, every TF I do is with PUGs. Most PUGs I do run perfectly fine without hiccup. The last problem I had on one was one guy ignoring requests to not zip ahead to the next mission and complete it before everyone could even zone in and that caused the leader to quit and the rest of us to disband. The previous problematic PUG TF does not even come to mind as it is that rare an occasion. I honestly wonder what sort of "Christmas in Heaven" experience people are supposedly getting out of their committed TF groups, because I am thinking it has to be like taking some sort of mix of LSD and unicorn horns with the absolute condescension displayed towards PUGs.

*Glances at the S/L Resists on his Stone Armor brute and is confused* I was going to object to the claim Electric Armor has mediocre S/L resist number, then noticed my Elec/Rad tanker's S/L resists are only 89.88% and thought, "Maybe he means for a Tanker they are mediocre...like, not 115% or higher?" I would have thought Toxic would be listed as the weakness for Electric Armor.

I stay with the group barring someone doing something actively annoying to the character I'm playing (which generally involves me playing a melee character and either someone knocking everything all over the place or a trigger-happy controller locking things down while they are still spread apart). I do not begrudge the person with knockback or the controller wanting to use their powers, but I want to use mine too.

I have no recollection of doing Posi at anything beyond +1, which is itself a rarity--most Posi TFs I do are at stock, unmodified, +0. What server are you on?

My Electric Melee/Stone Brute seems quite functional, though to be fair, it is the first time I have ever enjoyed Electric Melee enough to stick with it to level 50.

Two melees have different failure points than a melee and a ranged and you will play differently accordingly. With two melees, while neither of you is going to be mezzed, neither of you is going to do all that much to help the other if they are low on endurance or health. I am not sure one is pairing is generally easier or faster than the other. As example, last weekend (or perhaps the one before that) while playing my blaster, I joined with another blaster for what started as a two-man team. Great fun and no deaths were had. Then we invited a third blaster. All squishy, subject to mez, and with the soft controls blasters get combined with all that damage it just was not a problem.

Invulnerability does not come with tools for regaining endurance so one needs to either pick a damage (or epic) set which does so or choose appropriate enhancements to that end. DM/Inv is an example of addressing endurance issue via damage set. But in theory one could happily go Titan Weapon, pick Energy Mastery as epic, and rely on Superior Conditioning, Physical Perfection, and how they are slotted to get by.

Speed of Sound looks at Super Speed + Teleport and places a phone call to Stealth, "Hey, whatcha doing tonight?"

You are duoing with a Tanker. There should be very little in the way of status effects coming your way.

If you start off with Hasten as a goal and are up against the 4 pool limit, sure--I do not doubt that happens. I just do not know how often it happens. I see a lot of builds where Hasten is tacked on as a near last power pick and as you noted, you would have to be up against he pool limit. FWIW, my Energy/Shield Stalker has Speed of Sound and Hasten. In this case the consideration was Adrenal Boost and trying to minimize its recharge--every 160.8s, which is not too shabby for a power with a base cooldown of 600s.

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.