Zect

I genuinely tried to answer this, but a comprehensive answer would be so broad in scope and touch upon so many variables of power types, threat environments, the prevailing meta, what the IO and incarnate systems are capable of, etc etc, that I could write an entire doctorate thesis on build design theory, and I'm far too lazy for that. However, there is one facet that is pretty objective and easy to address, and that is attacks. For single-target attacks, most toons 1) want enough attacks to spend all animation time, and 2) want those attacks to be the highest damage per animation time ones that they have access to. If you are sitting around waiting for attacks to recharge, then you have unspent animation time and you need either more attacks or more rech. Conversely, if you have so many attacks that more than one (the currently animating power) is sitting around fully recharged and unused, then you have too many attacks and may consider taking fewer attacks - usually dropping the low dpa ones - or less rech. For aoe attacks, guidelines are more fuzzy, but a general rule of thumb is 1 low-rech spammable aoe and 1+ longer-recharging attacks. Most builds will not have enough aoe attacks to seamlessly loop them all, partly because of longer base recharges, partly because minions and Lts die quickly so it is unnecessary. As a guideline, most endgame, IO toons will have between 5-7 attack powers (total of both ST and aoe attacks). Taking too many attacks is a common beginner pitfall because attacks are slot-intensive. Attacks typically have at least 4 usefully enhanceable stats (dmg/acc/rech/endrdx) plus intense competition for damage procs which means core attacks are often 6-slotted. By comparison other categories of powers do not offer as many usefully enhanceable stats, e.g. mitigation toggles and autopowers usually cannot make worthwhile use of rech enhancement. Having too many attacks means not enough slots to properly enhance them all.

In that case, you have to be willing to change your power choices, take an SL def shield, or make other sacrifices. Slot-efficient S/L def comes primarily from ST melee attacks and melee AT's ATIOs, with small amounts present in a select number of other sets. You have too few of the power types required (see how the melee def in my example is higher than S/L -- it's literally easier to put melee def on this build than it is to get S/L). This should alert you to the potential of going for a different mitigation strategy instead such as R/aoe or even tri-vector def.

Take barrier destiny for the last 5%. Corruptor (Fire Blast - Pain Domination).mbd

Most set bonuses are minuscule, but some are not, especially rech, def, res, and acc. 2 purple sets is +20% rech and +30% acc - that's Quickness from SR or Lightning Reflexes from elec armor, plus a free yellow SO in every attack. Set bonuses also do not count against ED, allowing for eg. powers that recharge far quicker than any SO build can get them to. One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far is damage procs: damage procs allow a power's damage to be effectively boosted beyond the ED cap. Procs are a big part of why modern toons do much more dps than they did on live and why the modern meta is so heavily skewed towards dps above all else. Typed is usually more slot-efficient; see examples such as 3x eradication (3.125), 3x aegis (3.125) and 4x kincombat (3.75). Positional bonuses of this size are usually 5-6 slots, 4x unbreakable guard being the big exception. The real advantage of positional is that it is not vulnerable to psi - most psi attacks still have a vector - and more often comes bundled with rech (see oblits, basilisks, manticore, cloud senses, coercive, expedient, etc). The great typed defense overhaul a while back put an end to that (praise God!). Those energy/smashing energy blasts now check only energy def.

Tankers that can fairly easily get 90% res to all and 45% def to all except tox/psi, regardless of 2ndary, in approximately decreasing order of ease: Stone - with or without granite, and it caps its own HP. Shield - cycle melee core/owts/rune. WP - cycle melee core/sow/rune. Unlike shield it has crap DDR so against certain enemy groups (ahem eyeballs) you will lose all the def, but it compensates with absurd hps. SR - provided you are comfortable with using the low hp% scaling res mechanic. Sets that are a little short, can only do it with specific 2ndaries (usually staff or MA), only under certain circumstances (eg 2-3 stacks of ATIO1 proc), or only by going all-in on turtling, in approximately decreasing order of ease: Invuln - it is very close, though, likely close enough not to matter, and it self-caps HP which neither shield or WP do. Dark, rad, fire, elec, the resist sets - take MA and use storm kick. Lack of DDR means that against many actually dangerous enemies, the increase in survivability is questionable. Ice - no +res T9 on tankers (instead it phases you) and the non-cold res is too low across the board. Bio - the non-SL res is too low, and usually you want to run offensive adaptation. Max def/res is not the optimal way to build bio, in any case; you want to leverage the absorb mechanic for all it's worth. Define good. But to answer the implied question, most non-stone brutes will pay through the nose in build capacity to get 90% res and 45% def, and it is usually not optimal for them to try. Brutes are far worse at building for res than tankers and only slightly better at building for SL def, and start off with lower numbers across the board, which hampers their ability to cap both def and res simultaneously. Hami ignores def and res, and the core and mitos inflict -heal -regen. There is lots of support and buffs flying around in a hami raid, so anything your powersets or build can bring to the table is irrelevant. All you need is taunt, KB resist, and a raid leader that will let you do it (ask). If you want to tank the really tough AV's for long periods without support, you should lean to the sets with click heals/absorbs, like dark or rad, since they are much better at self-sustain. For the really tough content, you want to pay attention to debuff resistance, because what typically kills IO tankers is not raw damage but debuffs. You also want good damage output, which not only makes you valuable even when there are other tankers present or when meat shields are not required, but further increases survivability by killing off dangerous enemies, shortening challenging encounters, and reducing incoming dps. Finally, leverage other tools like knockdowns, absorb procs, debuffs and controls wherever possible instead of relying only on mitigation. Heavily layered, multifaceted defenses backed up by strong offensive power will help you be successful and valuable in any situation. Loading up on def/res helps protect against player error, but most of the game is designed not to require 90% res/45% def, and in the remainder ally buffs (especially +def buffs) are so omnipresent and potent they trivialize any differences between armor sets or even IO builds. As a modicum of logic would reveal, the kind of incoming dps that requires 90% res/45% def would make the content prohibitively difficult for teams without a tanker, and requiring specific AT's is not how coh is designed. Instead, the way the game challenges armored toons is typically through debuffs, special mechanics, and irresistible/autohit damage, so once you have a sufficient amount of mitigation, you want to branch out and cover the less obvious bases. Then you'll need to prioritize slotting for knowledge and situational awareness. Maxing out the former makes you immune to any enemy or hazard, while the latter will allow you to identify and appropriately react to any situation. You should also not neglect your experience (not xp); unfortunately experience can only be increased by dying when you don't want to, not by slotting, but the good news is this stat has the property of never decreasing, only increasing, and there is no hardcap on it. Taking the social skills power pool is extremely helpful, especially the powers 'summon allies', 'accept criticism', and 'improved communication'. Sadly, none of the above are available from any IO one can buy on the AH, so you're on your own!

As a former Mako's apostate, I have also been converted from arctic breath into the cult of dominate/psinado. I now believe this is the best all-purpose rad although soul's DN has great value for turtling up and in the really sophisticated threat environments. Your build is mildly glass cannony because you commit fully to procs. However, if you so desire, you can potentially make an extremely tanky but still high dps general-purpose rad/ss/psi with some tweaks. My build has several adjustments including the ATIO2 proc in footstomp, entomb proc in KOB and rad therapy slotted for heal as opposed to procs. While the dps is lower, with absorb procs going off all over the place and massive heals it can solo level 54x8 no insps no temps: Vanguard (harmonic mind actually comes in useful vs the SIGIL round) Rularuu (have to kill the minion eyeballs fast to avoid being held) Longbow Arachnos Malta PPD And just about everything in the game, really. Something to consider for the player who wants a tank that drives anywhere and kills anything.

Your playstyle has issues. There are many ways to get transference buffed at range on a kin - with experience you learn how to stand just within range of it, or jump in and out for a quick buff using a variety of methods. Or just build for def and res and tank everything, it's easily possible on a corr with the vast amount of slot-efficiency a kin has. I don't expect you to take this advice despite multiple people having informed you of this, since you have demonstrated that you are deeply defensive and insecure when confronted with anything even vaguely resembling criticism of your skill level. P.S. Power descriptions in coh have always been wildly inconsistent, incomplete and inaccurate (the newer ones, written by homecoming team, are generally but not always better). The only description that matters is the one in the game engine.

You can drain all end very quickly (1-2 powers), this has never been a problem with properly built sappers (think powerboost + thunderous blast). While I don't think sapping can fully replace a mit layer like def or res, it does reduce incoming dps by a significant amount and you can do funny things with it like heavily delaying cyclopes from using their unstoppable. However sapping was indeed nerfed against hard targets a few patches ago by homecoming, one of the few nerfs in the history of coh I consider a bad idea. EB/AV's/GM's min recovery is now 25%/25%/50% respectively. AV's GM's can still use attacks costing less than 10/15 end respectively. This and the fact that they introduced the Shocked! mechanic for elec blast reflects how dps, over all else, has become the primary concern of both Homecoming developers and players.

You are going to have end issues if you want to actually run tactics and all these procbombed attacks. Chronoshift's recov bonus only lasts 30s (out of the power's 90s duration) and your net eps is only 1.53 without it. That means an endredux alpha eg vigor, or ageless destiny. Power boost increases farsight's def bonus by about +12.3 def to all on fenders, so with a powerboosted farsight on you have 51.7 def to all, 56.7 ranged. This is a lot, and you can give some serious thought to skipping fighting if you like and taking some other def power in its place, like stealth or CJ; but fighting will let you cap SL res so it's not exactly bad either. Temp selection is quite strong for the 31.25% +dmg buff (same strength as Fort) on top of its rech buff if you can keep it up diligently, but time crawl isn't bad either and is beneficial while soloing. I chalk this one up to playstyle differences. Tactics can potentially still be useful even with farsight if you want to exploit putting a gaussian's BU proc in it (it rolls to proc for every friendly buffed by tactics), though you might find this unsporting to the enemies. I would reconsider if you need to proc distortion field when you already have 3 procbombed attacks, 2 of which are relatively spammable. Overall, sound suggestions have already been made and if the "Bopper build" OP based this off is the same one I am thinking of (time/dp) it is actually a very well built one. If you can decide how to fix the end issues this should be pretty good. Don't take my word for it though: you should give it a spin on the test server - you can level up and gear for free there.

The build does have +1 from the alpha ("testing 50+1 SR with aggro cap"). They also do have 50% def to all positions in combat with stealth on (maybe ranged slightly lower at ~49), assuming the values in the tables are without stealth and the ones in the screenshot are with unsuppressed, out of combat stealth. Council were buffed and now do more -def, but nothing an SR can't tank, and while I have not looked at their new powers in detail, as far as I am concerned they are still pushovers, albeit very bulletspongey ones with all the ressurecting wolves. Recently I took an SR scrapper with 50% def to all through some +4x8 council papers and it was fine. I think the issue with the OP build is just a lack of sustain. Mitigation is fine and all, but melee toons soloing on high difficulties need good dps to kill the mobs and at least a little sustain to stay in the fight, or they will die the death of a thousand cuts. Case in point, my scrapper has medicine pool since it's an AV soloing build, and that's probably why it has no issue. Once you get rebirth (visible in your screenshot, though you mention you have only the alpha slotted), maybe some PT heal procs, and a dps interface, things should be a lot comfier. Or just reroll SR tank, the whole 90% resist thing works a lot better when backed up by tanker ATIO's, tanker base HP and tanker defenses.

Re: the thread title, I do not see the "true role" of anything as being very relevant. Things can be designed with developer-intended strengths and weaknesses, however, finding ways to subvert these and develop toons in unexpected directions is part of the fun of games like coh. Ultimately, what matters are the results as opposed to anyone's preconceptions of what something should play like. P.S. I'm very pleased to see more people rightfully calling out forumites on inflated numbers in mids and unrealistic build claims. Keep up the good job!

The answer to this is using good aoe dps to kill off some critters and reduce enemy numbers under the target cap. Homecoming tankers have increased melee damage scalar (.95, or 95% of blaster melee damage) plus increased radius and target cap on their melee cones and epic aoes to facilitate this. In turn, high dps contributes to the tanker's survivability by reducing incoming dps, as dead mobs do 0 damage - equivalent to 100% resistance. Dps is an integral part of tanking these days, and I refer to both the AT and the holy trinity MMO role. A pure meat shield has been a very niche application outside of hami raids for years now. Even in content with really high incoming dps, like 4* TF's, tankers still want to kill the AV's and critical mobs quickly while the mitigation they get from ally buffs dwarfs whatever they could get from set bonuses. I don't necessarily think it is good for coh to become about dps over everything else, as a game that could potentially sport such a diversity of build designs and playstyles and one that has historically not had strict dps checks, but this is simply the way HC is right now.

You're trying to cap SL def with the blistering colds. If you're trying to cap SL def it's almost always worth it to split your scrapper ATIO into 2 sets of 3x, getting the 5% SL def bonus twice. You can try putting one set of 3x in SD (AD + any two of ADR, DER, quad - choose depending on what enhancement value is needed by the power that takes the remaining 3 pieces) and the other 3 slots are 3 damage procs. This should give damage enhancement in the red ED or nearly there with a musculature core.

50% regen is about 5 hps on an endgame rad. (Every 100% regen is 2.5k hp, the approx amount of maxhp an accoladed rad tank, has, over 240s) You have 45 psi res with 1 stack of +res proc, so your 12% psi res brings that to 57. Most psi enemies do not have good dps, even ones that are fluffed as psychics. Look at this IDF Seer boss for example which has 2 mezzes, a T2 blast and an aoe. (Meanwhile the IDF commander is busy using total focus on hapless blasters.) Just based on that, I would suggest the regen. However, I have something you can try. I see this week's wst is LRSF. Go do it because penny yin actually is one of the few enemies that do good psi damage, especially when posi is debuffing you with his autohit toggles, and see how you feel about the incoming damage. Then you could decide whether you want your 12% psi res or if you would rather have a specialized 2nd build (edit: or maybe just some orange insps) for such situations.

If I open the 2nd door on yin, it's because there is a fatty standing in the 1st door getting between me and my glorious sea of freakshow. Let me in out!