ZemX

Just a thought, but maybe consider just having a primary or secondary theme only. Like all Ice Armor or all Fire Melee. A little more variety then and maybe more interesting. I would vote either all Fiery Aura (think of the Burn!) or all Shields ("This is Sparta!" Would be crazy defense and DDR with overlapping Phalanx.)

Eh.. won't they? If there's no Tanker on the team, don't they turn to the next beefiest and expect them to dive into the pile first? And it's not like you weren't gonna do that anyway Tanker or no Tanker.

If I'm going to run story missions on a new character it's gonna be red or gold side every time. Only a few of the newer blue low-level mission arcs are palatable.

Tricky! Not actually enough info to answer. But here are some rules of thumb: If you have high defense, the answer is probably "take the regen". If you have low defense, the answer is definitely "take the resistance" (caveat: Unless you're already capped in the most common damage res types). The reason for this is that resistance's value depends on how much damage is hitting you, because it takes away a percentage of that damage. Regen is a fixed amount that scales up with your maximum hit points. A 2400hp toon has a base regen of 10hp/s. +25% regen always adds 2.5hp/s to whatever regen you already have, again, if your max. hp is 2400. Scale it from there. Upshot is that you have to be taking about 168hp/s incoming damage before 1.5% resistance equals the benefit of +25% regen. (and note, I mean incoming damage as in "before any of your own resistances or absorb decrease this amount"). A high defense toon might be dodging most incoming damage. At the very least, the difference between taking one or the other on such a toon might be a coin flip in most circumstances. Then again, in any case where the crap hits the fan and you DO start taking a lot of damage, even on that high defense toon, that 1.5% res would easily be worth more than a paltry 2.5hp/s. A lot of what you are doing building a tank for survival is building for those corner cases, because almost any tank can survive the ordinary cases. Like I said... tricky.

They are using Flight and Hover both at the same time, which is possible these days. Travel toggles are no longer mutually exclusive. In that case, Fly speed will come from whichever power has better fly speed, which is Fly... of course. But Hover adds MovementControl which makes Flying a lot more maneuverable.

We usually favor at least a kill most style (as in, "everything between the front door and the target and maybe anything that looks at us funny along the way"). Usually at +1 or +2 at the most because we're not always running a team of level 50 incarnates and while Tanks aren't in much danger of dying we ARE usually in a lot of danger of taking all evening clear that many maps at +4x8. We're not all proc'd out for max. damage, not naming any names... *cough* @Spaghetti Betty *cough*. But we're flexible. Sometimes if something is going to take forever we'll be willing to speed a bit. The goal is usually to get through a task force within about the first hour and then, for those sticking around, to do some level 50 mission teams or another quick TF.

I was just writing the same thing and you beat me to it. 😈 Yeah, you gotta be willing to run the teams yourself. Call it soloing but with team advertisements. Start a mission arc and occasionally advertise in LFG that you are running REDSIDE (yes, all caps) missions. Say REDSIDE more than once because people will still try to join your team from blue side. e.g. "LFM: Running contact missions / papers REDSIDE at level 'n'. Come to REDSIDE and send tell for an invite." And then just run the missions. You may get some people joining you. Also, regarding Everalsting: (1) You don't need to roleplay there. (2) It sometimes, oddly enough, has more people redside than Excelsior, despite having fewer overall people on the server. Server transfers are free so bop back there and test the waters redside sometime to see if it's more active than Excel or not. Not saying it will be. I've never tried to run exclusively red there, but who knows... could surprise you.

TBH, I've been working on this one for a long time. I've shot several other Rad Tankers to 50 in the same time no trouble. This one... it hits hard for sure, but I like big AoEs and glorious as Foot Stomp is, it's the only real AoE in the set. Hand Clap helps with area aggro and has a nice knockdown but it needs that proc to do it. Rad Armor having two proc nukes in the set helps tremendously with that lack-of-AoE feeling. I guess with double Rage you kind of have to view Foot Stomp as more than one AoE. 🤪 But it sure doesn't grab me the way Axe, Ice, and Savage Melee have. We'll see if it's just a late-bloomer in the fun dept. for me once I have it all kitted out. For sure, Foot Stomp puts a smile on my face already.

I'm not convinced Ageless is worth more than Barrier. Maybe a full team that is coordinating and has x4 Barrier and x4 Ageless but I usually don't count on that. I almost always go Musculature Alpha but I've also considered Recharge. Rad has the recovery to fuel high recharge and recharge is life when two of your three main survival tools are a click heal and a click absorb shield. On the other hand, I haven't really looked if that's going to affect any of the proc rates significantly. That'd be the only real downside. Here's the plan for my Rad/SS so far: This is the same basic Rad Armor framework I have on most of my Rad Tankers. I've started switching them over to Teleport for travel because as a bonus it gets me through jammed doorways or out of -jump/-fly traps. It's also just cool to TP into the exact middle of a big spawn and let rip a Ground Zero with its Superior Avalanche knockdown proc while still hovering after the TP. I'll could consider dropping the Absolute Amazements from Hand Clap in favor of that Explosive Strike proc. I'd lose some recharge in the power and 6% fire/cold res but fire would still be capped and cold just isn't that necessary. I dunno. I have it mainly for tanking on teams where the knockdown and wide AoE are nice for aggro and interrupting bad guys from damaging teammates. Finally, I am more or less addicted to Focused Accuracy on my Rad Tankers. It's just great for never being toHit floored. Maybe it's not as critical with double Rage. I dunno. Haven't played this guy a whole ton. Still schlepping through the 40s. This is not even counting Performance Shifters, Panacea, or Theft of Essence, which are huge. Also, and maybe I just need to update Mid's. But it's not calculating Gamma Boost properly for me. I set the slider to 100% health and it doesn't change the recovery. I just never have End problems. It's why I didn't bother slotting Stamina or Health any more than the default.

The Live devs had to know what kind of mess they were getting their GMs into when they designed claws and regen powers into a superhero game.

I'm with you on that. Maybe someone really is just trying to "pay respect" to a favorite character from some other media but... tomato... tom-ah-toe. It ends up looking the same from the outside as any lazy copy anyone else did and that means reporting and GMs having to go judge whether you crossed the line or not when their limited volunteer time could be better spent. Parody is both safer and more respected and (usually) not a copyright violation if you must base a character on some other copyright work. If I see someone with a clever pun/parody that is different enough from the original concept, I have a much more positive reaction.

Does that make the rest of you my minstrels? 😈

Oh it's a joke. It's just the joke is on Rad Armor Tankers. Manti's TF is a lot more interesting these days, especially for RadA. No built in Confuse resist. No defense debuff resist for all those bullets and rad debuffs. Then there's your primary means of damage mitigation, resistance, which can have 42% shaved off in a single unresistible Enervating Field from a +4 Rad PP Elite. Fun! At least RadA has the heal and an absorb shield to supplement resistance. Also has good slow resist built in which is nice for running the hell away from those PP Elites until their stupid EF toggle drops. I bravely ran away a few times last night. 🤪

They killed Statesman again?! Okay, a joke... but half serious here. Killing off major characters seems to be just a thing comics do, innit? Might be more noteworthy in this genre that they haven't yet brought him back to life than that they killed him in the first place.

No, I like this idea better than all the light blasting ones. Fits a more natural theme. For less Warhammer, go Willpower/Staff. Maybe skip the breakdancing PBAoE tho...

When everything is superlative... nothing is.

Oh yeah, that's a whole lotta fun. I have a Ice/Shield Stalker with Provoke and Ice Patch who has tanked for a few PuGs before. Still, it's pretty rare I'll ever get asked to do that on a team. If there's literally any other melee AT or a Kheld, you're off the hook. Unless you end up tanking better than the team's first choice. That's always funny too.

Curious. It has the same set bonus name as a ordinary ATO vs. a superior ATO? I didn't know that.

Might be the +10% recharge available in some purple I/O and superior ATO sets.

Right? The thing I love about playing stalkers is... and this goes all the way back to the beginning of CoV... nobody expects ANYTHING of you on a team. Nobody follows the Stalker. Nobody asks the Stalker to heal or buff them. And if you ever do manage to do something noteworthy, everyone is super impressed like, "I didn't know Stalkers could tie their own shoelaces, even!" impressed. But most of the time nobody really knows what my Stalker is DOING on their team and, this is key, are even less able to tell when I am NOT doing it! It's great!

Remember also that if you are fighting an AV, or any enemy, whose level is higher than yours (and this is often the case) there will be some loss of debuff strength just due to the "purple patch" in addition to any loss from the enemy's resistances. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Purple_Patch

Missed this week due to work but I am also fine with a Rad/SS ITF. I think I might need to pack on a few levels though. Thought he was late 30s but is actually early 30s.

The +13% res(all) from Sky Splitter is definitely of more use to either of those primaries than the melee/lethal def I'd say. I've done Rad/Staff and ignored the +def. I've also done SR/Staff where the melee defense was handy while leveling up and kind of unnecessary later on. But the +res is always gravy.