Maelwys

The "Quick Start" manual is what my old CoH Deluxe box came with. I've a copy of CoV with the redside manual that's slightly bigger.

BR, obviously. Waving TWO sonic screwdrivers at your enemies would look EXTRA ridiculous...

Expand the posts, right-click the build link and pick "Save as". It'll save it down as a *.mxd file (which is an older filetype but Mids Reborn is still able to open). You may need to tell your browser it's safe to download and/or to "keep". Alternatively, just open these (I did the above and resaved the two posted builds as *.mbd files): mids_build (Brute).mbd mids_build (Tank).mbd Worth pointing out that neither of these builds are defense-softcapped with one foe in range of Invincibility; nor do they have perma Dull Pain. Both of which for me are essential on an INV. Compare those numbers to an all-rounder INV/SS Tanker I have in my character stable (add another 6.7%-13.4% res to all via SMoT Procs): zTanker - INV_SS (CrossPunch).mbd Incarnate clickies can make things silly. Melee Core Embodiment will cap them to all but Toxic and bring their regeneration to a hair under 100HP/Sec.

Sure, all badgers are a little crazy; but that just sounds relentlessly masochistic...

For sheer damage output I highly suspect Plant has the edge. The additional damage from Shifting Tides skyrockets the more allies you have due to its rising tide effect. Not sure if intangible Phantom Army count but Creeper Vines definitely do. And so does Audrey. And maybe Confused Enemies... (haven't tested that personally!) (Also: try throwing a Gaussian "Chance for Build Up" proc into Shifting Tides with lots of pets wailing on your target and see what happens... 😇 ) The other thing Marine is really good at is adding to pet survivability. It can hardcap Stoney's resistances to everything and cap their MaxHP and shove quite a bit of +Defense and +Absorb their way. Similar deal for Singy. And it might even allow Fire Imps to hang around long enough to matter 😜

Super Sponger? Dynamic Deadbeat? Mega Moocher?

Interesting take on the comparison format. My money is on the Controllers, especially if you're running with teams of randos at x8 on powersets like Plant and Arsenal which have hefty AOE CC and damage. My take on the debate (is it still a thing these days?) is that Defenders are usually more valuable to an optimized team and Controllers more valuable to an unoptimized one. Defender's greater -Res Debuff strength plus low animation time attacks (which can often produce decent DPA via Procs) makes things faster. Controller's range of CC lockdown effects (and the occasional immortal tanky pets) makes things safer. The only buff/debuff sets that IMO always work better on a Controller are Kinetics (as getting the team to the damage cap generally takes 2x Fulcrum Shifts regardless of the AT) and Dark (because Affinity is just plain better than Miasma). Whilst there's also an argument to be made that AoE immobilizes are required to keep things in Debuff patches and/or clumped for AoE attacks, IMO as long as none of your powers have KB effects and the team has a competent Tank or AoE -RunSpeed effects that's usually superfluous. And let's face it, on high end teams things just become a Steamrolling race, so hitting the same mob twice (to set up and then leverage Containment) hardly ever applies. All that said, I imagine Corruptors would like a word, as Scourge is a vastly more useful inherent for hardmode teaming than Vigilance 😜

IIRC Midnight Grasp > Smite > Siphon Life > Smite is the basic ST damage chain; but it needs a lot of recharge to get it seamless: +185% is needed for Smite; +117% for Siphon Life and +235% for Midnight Grasp (although MG can cope with +12.28% local Recharge% slotting before 3.5PPM procs start dropping below a 90% activation rate). If you have less recharge than that then you'll need to swap in other powers and/or Epic Blasts (Gloom is still very good).

FWIW, I found this summary by Carnifax from a few years ago regarding testing Damage Procs in Volcanic Gasses. The TL;DR is that Hold Procs are worth it providing the spot you place VG contains a decent number of mobs for a good portion of the 60s duration. (The fact that its effect keeps reapplying and can affect NEW mobs is another reason that I consider it to be one of the only AoE holds worth a spit!) Also I prodded at my previous build a smidge to give better AoE damage output: zController - Earth - Marine.mbd Swap Stalagmite slotting around depending on whether you lean towards damage or global recharge + disorient duration. (although as before; the only things that see much benefit from containment will be Fossilize and Poisonous Ray unless you swap Epics to Earth or Ice for more damage but less -res)

Earth is still a very solid set. Stone Cages + Stalagmites and Earthquake + Quicksand give you a lot of AoE CC ability. Adding Tidepool and Whitecap from Marine almost gets ridiculous. Volcanic Gasses is one of the better AoE holds (IMO most are trash) because it's coded very strangely - instead of one long-duration effect or a single pseudopet; it spawns several pseudopets over a 50s duration, most of which apply a Hold effect rather than damage (the only one that deals direct damage or inherits damage enhancements is the initial Pets_Volcanicgas pseudopet). So it procs a little better than most pseudopet powers... especially with procs from Hold Sets... but I'd still not rely on it as a regular source of AoE damage output. The Pet benefits greatly from Toroidal Bubble - throw the two +10% Pet Damage Resistance globals into the mix and they can reach the 90% hardcap to everything. Alongside the +MaxHP and healing they become very solid and can comfortably tank most tough single-targets (AVs/GMs/etc) in the game. Don't bother with a KB>KD proc (its Hurl already inflicts KD). Soulbound is OK if you can spare the slots for it, but keeping Shifting Tides up will be more important. Last I poked at an Earth/Marine (back in July from the looks of it) I came up with the below, although I've not personally played it except on Brainstorm. You could easily move a slot from Brine to Animate Stone for the Soulbound proc: zController - Earth - Marine.mbd Assuming you're keeping Barrier up it'll have Softcapped S/L Defense and hardcapped Fire/Cold Resistance; plus a <68s cycle on Power of the Depths. It's also worth pointing out that /Marine is one of the few Controller builds that I'd try to take a patron pet on (and possibly veer towards Core instead of Radial Lore!) since both Shifting Tides and PoTD play so nicely with them; and you can shore up their mitigation drastically (Barrier Reef + Maneuvers + Aura IOs is ~27.7% Def to all; throw in Barrier Destiny and/or Support Hybrid and that's softcap territory. Toroidal Bubble + Aura IOs = ~40% Res to all; on top of Barrier and any inherent resistances like Stony's. Then there's the +MaxHP from PoTD and all the Healing/Regeneration...)

The additional damage is, yes. I'm guessing what I was thinking of was set bonuses, so have edited appropriately... but I'll chalk that one up to toddler-related sleep deprivation. Apologies!