Erratic1

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.

Most importantly, advertise the type of TF you are running. Nothing wrong with saying, "+X, kill all". People will join for just about anything sane (i.e. not +4 Synapse).

I accidentally forgot when doing a DFB on my latest tank (who was in his 40s at that point, but somehow I had never gotten the badges from DFB on him) to set the level down and we did DFB at +2. Nobody seemed to notice and deaths were no more plentiful than usual. More intentionally, the last Posi 1 I recruited people for was at +1.

It should be noted that DoTs get nothing from crits but do from Fury. While that is not going to remotely close the damage potential between Brutes and Scrappers/Stalkers it is a perk for the Brute. Edit: See aethereal's correction below

Why? That seems both appropriate (nobody wants to be set on fire) and useful. If you don't want them running, use an immobilize.

What qualifies as durable enough?

Per Wikipedia: Bean bags are fired from shotguns and per US federal law and state definitions (Paragon City is in Rhode Island), shotguns are assault rifles. Flamethrowing...can't really say its fits. So there is room for replacing Flame Thrower and Ignite. But were those powers to go, I would still favor something other than "what every other set gets" ala Aim.

The top bar of Mid's, where the name displays, says what version of the program and database is in use.

It opens in 3.2.17. What version are you using?

You may be biting off more than you can chew if you're running at party size of three while solo at level 23. Compared to Invulnerability, which I have recently started a character with and who hit level 23 at some point this past weekend, while you have increased regen and some To-Hit debuff, your underlying resistances from the set are about two-thirds that of Invulnerability (which does not have the regen or To-Hit debuff). At 23, fighting yellows and whites with no additional adds, a pack of 3 would leave him sufficiently down in health that I would only subsequently engage another pack of three before taking short, kneeling health/endurance break. By contrast it seems you are running into spawns with 2 additional foes--fighting five at a time. Bear in mind that while To-Hit debuff helps, the value you are getting from Rise to the Challenge (according to Mid's) is -3.75%. Even slotted it will end up at just under -6%. So instead of a 50% chance of being hit your foes are hitting at 44% (i.e., you've reduced incoming damage on average by about 10%). You do not mention if you've slotted in damage resistance enhancers yet. If not, try putting some in Mind Over Body (first) and High Pain Tolerance. Also, grab Tough from the fighting pool (on your way to Weave).

Synapse also doesn't pay nearly so well. Having seven characters which needed it at the time, last October when Synapse was up as the weekly, I ran it seven times. I am still mentally recovering from that. Even with new characters needing it I just cannot bring myself to do it. I was originally thinking of putting it off until 2023 at the earliest but may, if I can get a dedicated team for it, be able to tolerate a speed run of it.