Nemu

I firmly believe that the regen playstyle and build philosophy hasn't really changed even with more dependable/consistent passive regen and some debuff resistance. More recharge, more slow resist, more recharge, more slow resist - when things go bad it's your clicks that's going to save you, not passive regen. -recharge debuffs were and still will be the bane to your survival. Looking at your new build you have 40% recharge debuff resistance and 50% recharge global bonus, no haste. This might work for easy content but I guarantee you will start to feel the pain as you ramp up difficulty. Look to supplement your toolkit with additional sources of +resist such as rune of protection or melee hybrid. That's the typical and established regen build strategy. But again: More recharge, more slow resist. Get hasten, and then more recharge, and more slow resist.

Again, how are you picking and slotting your powers as you are leveling your tank? You mentioned that you slotted your attacks for acc and end but did not mention damage. Doesn't that correlate to what I said about kill speed making things easier? You said the scrapper is more survivable and that you don't slot scrapper attacks for endurance reduction. Scrappers do more damage than tanks out of the gate, this further bolsters my comment about killing things faster = things seem easier. You kill things in two hits, mobs has less time to hit back, you use less overall endurance - Scrapper You kill things in 5 hits, mobs has more time to hit back, you use more overall endurance, fights drag out longer and you have to spend more time recovering HP and End - Tanks that choose to invest heavily in defense early game instead of go all in on offense, I've experienced this myself as a newbie with 1-2 attack tanks that focused all in on armor into their late teens.

I have not tested it. I had contemplated that while planning the build but I didn't have slots to spare. I need recharge, so my options were 5 piece coercive with the proc, 5 piece absolute amazement with the proc, or 5 piece Fortunata hypnosis. I was leaning towards the stun or sleep set due to the acc bonus since I completely procced my attacks with no acc slotting, but I ultimately settled on the stun set because of the proc. If I had a 6th slot to spare I'd have tried the coercive proc for sure.

I'd focus on this statement instead: IH is better auto insurance when you do get into an accident. Or put it another way: RR covers standard wear and tear, and I firmly believe any well built regen can cover that regardless of RR IH covers when your bumper falls off and when your engine explodes, and even well built regen need help with that.

This is the main context that I'm evaluating IH vs RR. I feel that RR provides little to no value if things are going ok, especially if you supplement the build with heals/ROP/etc... Regen playstyle doesn't really change because of RR, you are still leaning heavily on secondary mitigation and heals to survive. But when you need that big burst of survival, IH delivers.

Probably too squishy for the way you play and build Ultimo, but if you are willing to invest in IOs, you can make a pretty offensive oriented Psi/SS tank that can survive tough situations and deal excellent damage.

You are learning an important lesson here. When things die faster content feels easier. When things are locked down you can take your time and cruise to victory. Early game tank experience sucks. You have too few attacks and the natural instinct when building a defensive AT is to take all armor picks and slot up your defenses. But even if you slot up your defenses early on you have nowhere near a complete toolkit to help you actually tank, which exacerbates the leveling situation where you don't have enough defenses nor do you have adequate offense to level at a good pace. Nowadays I don't even bother adding slots to my armors before 5-6 slotting 3 attacks (for acc and damage, and then endurance reduction/recharge) on tanks (as a general rule, but there are exceptions, especially endurance granting powers). The base slot on armor toggles is just an endurance reduction. I start slotting my defenses more during my 20s and certainly go all in once I reach my 30s and have slots to spare. During the early leveling process your increased bag of HP is your primary defense and the mantra during those levels is to kill the enemy before they kill you. Also if you are solo I run at -1/0, you get more xp via mission completion and story arc completion bonuses than killing higher con/tougher foes and wasting more time doing so.

How I built mine. I treat psy armor as no different than rad/fire/regen armor which depend heavily on clicks for survival. Recharge focus, proc out SS attacks, get enough slow resist. Aura gets stun set to couple with handclap, the 5 pieces contribute a bonus to acc and recharge because those are build goals and the stun proc also debuff to hit which is an added bonus. Secondary goal +max HP where I can fit it in. Guassian proc goes in impose presence, it works just like invincibility in invuln. Asylum Panda - Tanker (Psionic Armor - Super Strength).mbd

I see 2 paths. One that ignores passive regen other than instant healing and one that leans into it and takes reactive regen instead of instant healing. The former saves you a power pick (I wouldn't bother with fast healing), the latter will take everything in regen, and most likely supplement the passive regen by adding physical perfection (I'm going to guess that you can probably get around 100+hp/sec passive regen with this setup if you build for max HP and cram a few of those regen uniques/bonuses in). The optimal builds will still supplement either path with hasten and Rune of Protection + soft controls from attacks/pools/epics, but you need to make some sacrifices in power picks if you want to fit all those in now. I'd ignore passive regen, aside from the debuff resistance auto, which reduces some taxes on IOs that I need to invest in slow resistance, and 1 less skippable power in revive, nothing else has really changed. +rech/+slow resist/mitigation, those are still the build priorities

It's easier for your fingers to reach down to hit the bottom row of keys than it is for them to extend up to hit the number row. I also need to curl my hands up more so my thumb can hit the space key with the RDFG config. I don't even bother using keys for turning, that's what mouselook is for.

Also, use ERTF as your movement keys. it gives you more keyboard estate for your pinky and ring finger. I just bind keys directly to trays nowadays and I keep it consistent across all characters in how powers are assigned to trays. For example, build up type powers are always at the same tray location for each char, same for nukes, pets, etc... The only powers I click with my mouse are toggles, as those are set and forget and I don't mind the "extra work" using my mouse on those. I also put my toggles on a separate tray so they are all together. With the additional 2 columns of keys on your pinky side, you should be able to map all your click powers via direct key presses and shift+key presses without also needing to dip into alt and ctrl + key presses.

Have you tried chaining thunder strike and force of thunder? The latter with a KD IO? I recommend you read through the entire thread. The build went through some updates but more importantly I discuss some of the reasons for why I did what I did.

What do you feel underwhelming about the combo? Damage? Style? Cool factor? Survival? What would you like this combo to do? What's the barrier that makes it feel underwhelming?

When you can get comfortable using your melee attacks, that's when you know you made it as a bona-fide blaster badass.

I would recommend you learn to embrace melee as a blaster. That's when you become damage incarnate. You can both do long range blasting AND at the very least, make sure that those get in your face regret their decision to do so.