Warshades

Updating mid's will at least update the toxic res from Static Shield. Duration on Power Surge also looks accurate, not sure on the resist values and it still displays the crash effects which aren't there anymore. Did a quick build to see if I could cap toxic resist and it's certainly doable on elec armor with the recent changes, don't even need barrier, just 1 stack of SMoT proc and resilient alpha slot (assuming mid's values are accurate).

This is a quick alteration based on the slotting I use for invuln with some sets and powers moved around. It does use resilient core alpha instead of agility to reach higher resists. A single SMoT proc puts you at 80%+ resist to everything, stacking it twice will get you to resist caps for everything but psionic. Laser Beam Eyes would be a better fit as a usable attack instead of Hurl if it wouldn't break your theme. Captain Citadel v3.mbd

I'll link a sample build, be sure to set invincibility to 0 foes and then back to 1 in mid's to get accurate defense numbers since mid's still doesn't load in invuln builds with proper defense values when invincibility is toggled on. The values in the screenshot are with 1 foe in range of invincibility and 1 stack of SMoT proc. Add in T4 barrier which at minimum always applies 5% def/res and you're hitting 50%+ def to everything but psi/tox and 90% resist to all but psi on a permanent basis with just 1 SMoT stack still. A second stack of SMoT would then cap off psi resist. Alternatively, you can move a slot into a resist power (either a power transfer +heal or performance shifter +end procs) to put in another Impervium Armor +psi resist unique and you'd cap psi resist with just 1 stack of SMoT and T4 barrier as well. Invuln can be built to have no resist holes, a lot of other pure resist based armor sets can similarly be built to reach 90% to everything or nearly everything as well with careful planning. In theory, it may be possible. Hover and Fly can be directly swapped with CJ and Super Jump as I have them in my build (though your fly speed using Hover might be low with no other buffs to it). Bigger issue is finding a diverse secondary attack set that can take appropriate IO sets to soft cap typed defenses. You could technically still take Hurl and slot it just for the set bonuses, but theme tends to conflict with trying to reach certain defensive/resist benchmarks as you're limiting what powers you can pick and indirectly limiting what IO set types can be slotted as a result. Super Strength in particular is more limiting since outside of 1 AoE attack in Foot Stomp and 1 ranged attack in Hurl (which you can't use with flight), everything else is single target attacks. That places some limits on what sets and bonuses you can get. Hurl can be slotted with Superior Winter's Bite (same defensive bonuses as Superior Entomb, I went for the entomb set because of the absorb proc in it), but you'd be unable to slot a 3 piece eradication set to get the e/n defense. If you do so in Foot Stomp, you miss out on the psi/tox resist from Armageddon. A quick solution would be taking Cross Punch to have an additional cone that can take PBAoE sets. Tanker (Invulnerability - Dark Melee)7.mbd

That's just flat out untrue. Several other sets are capable of capping all resists at 90%. Personally I wouldn't put radiation in top 3 for survivability and it's likely outside the top 3 for offense as well after the recent Radiation Therapy nerf (at minimum, I currently have bio, shield, and fiery as providing higher offensive buffs than radiation). Defensive sets, especially those that are able to supplement that defense with high resists, are much better for survivability. While there are niche situations that having an absorb shield is useful, several armor sets are sturdier for survivability than radiation. Invuln can hit 90% resists to all dmg types while also reaching 45% soft cap def to all typed dmg other than psi/tox, that also with with some decent DDR and 1 foe in range of invincibility. The def will scale higher with saturated invincibility. Stone is able to easily soft cap/hard cap everything but psi with Granite, and even then, stacking psi resist bonuses and unique IOs from aegis/impervius would allow it to hard cap psi resist. Like invuln, stone gets good DDR as well. Shield is also extremely tough with easy positional soft cap, provides team support, and offensive buffs. With a focus on resist bonus, you can easily hit 90% s/l and ~70% to the other damage types. Combined with high DDR, shield is significantly more durable than radiation even with the lack of a heal. SR, due to the scaling resist buffs it gets from its passives, can hit 90% resist across everything but psi. With a focus on resist bonuses, it can do so at ~40% HP left at which point your health bar will practically not move with the capped 95% DDR and huge positional defense soft cap buffer. Energy, while being typed defense with a psi/toxic hole, does get higher starting resist from the passive buffs, a reliable heal/regen, and higher max HP than SR. It's an excellent set for survivability when IO'd out, but definitely a late bloomer. Bio provides more offensive buffs compared to radiation and also gets higher absorb shield values. This is more of a mixed set relying on absorbs, regen, resists, and defense. While I do like radiation armor, I don't believe it's in the top 3 of the available armor sets. Others have much higher advantages, either for survivability, damage, or in some cases both. Having said all that, any rating/opinion will have bias and you're certainly able to continue enjoying rad armor. All armor sets can work for all the content in the game, some just have higher ceilings that they can reach. My personal rating would be something like this in general (including incarnate content): Invuln Stone or Shield (relatively equal, depends on preference and secondary pairing). Energy or SR (relatively equal...) Bio Dark or Psi (relatively equal...) Regen Ice Radiation Fiery Electric Willpower This is mostly a survival rating, although offense also factors in (ex. fiery being higher than electric because of the superior offensive buffs it provides for my list). For specific situations, these can change. As an example, for 4 star content where a team cycles T4 barriers, resist/defense becomes irrelevant and heals/absorbs/offensive buffs would get much higher value.

I went the same way originally on my regen/ss (for the same reason as you with my regen tank being close to capped HP without SW) but after testing and playing the combo for a while, I have to agree with @Spaghetti Betty that having a second heal in Second Wind is useful to have as it isn't just a max HP boosting power. I ended up skipping Fast Healing since the base regen rate on it is pretty low, but I think having both Reconstruction and Second Wind is to useful to pass up. I also feel that Second Wind would actually be a bit less useful with just SOs due to the highish base recharge (not to mention being more susceptible to recharge debuff effects as you'd be missing the recharge debuff resist bonuses without IOs). With IO sets and a focus on recharge bonuses, it increases its availability/reliability as a heal power.

Don't think I ever ran through this one. Generally speaking, tanks have the easiest time surviving against heavy hitting mobs and also do excellent AoE damage to help reduce the mob size (though it would likely take longer to clear through the bosses/EBs). With regards to Warshade/Nictus spawns, reaching 100% recharge debuff resist should fix any annoyances here since their powers primarily debuff recharge and not accuracy iirc. The bigger issue would be Cimeroran Traitors as most of their attacks cause defense debuffs and once your defense is floored, you'll end up taking some heavy damage (this issue is worse for scrappers who max out at 75% damage resist caps compared to tanks/brutes being able to reach 90%). Generally speaking, I would run a tank if I wanted to do this at +4/8x with minimal risk of dying. Invuln in particular stands out since they can easily hit 90% s/l resist and can hit high defense values with invincibility when surrounded by mobs. I would also try to pair it with a heavy damage dealing and damage mitigating secondary attack set, most likely Battle Axe. The one downside to invuln is it doesn't directly provide any damage buffs via attacks or buffs from the armor set, so it would take longer to kill mobs. Shield should also be capable when built for heavy s/l resist and would be much better on damage output, but it does have lower max HP while lacking a heal, so you may end up wanting something like rebirth radial destiny slot. Stone armor should also be capable with a stronger focus on s/l resist buffs, I would certainly still run it outside of Granite. Energy aura, when fully built out, should also be able to handle this arc at +4/8x, but it does have a bit of a weakness to negative damage. SR in theory should manage just fine if you focus on resist bonuses. With it's 95% DDR, you literally have 0% chance of your defense failing and falling below 45% and in theory, you should be able to cap your s/l resist at 90% at around 40% HP left (from the passive scaling resist effects), but at that point it's kinda down to RNG. You could easily slot power transfer chance for +heal in stamina/harmonic mind and some other uniques like panacea and preventive medicine in health for sustainability, but you may still want rebirth radial in case you hit a particularly bad string of luck and get hit more often than 5% of the time. If you want something other than a melee char, MMs with marine affinity should be able to manage just fine even with additional EBs in mobs as long as you're just fighting 1 mob at a time. Demon/marine, merc/marine, and necro/marine would all work well. If you want to take a slower approach, Phantom Army on a controller is an option. Illusion is unfortunately dreadful for clearing mobs so I wouldn't recommend it, but they are a safe option that will eventually kill everything once you hit perma PA. Lastly, anything that can stay at range by hovering and building for high range defense would in theory be able to manage just fine. Fortunata Widows have solo'd ITF at +4/8x and outside of some extra EBs, it should manage just fine for this also. Cimerorans in particular are extremely weak to psi damage.

For me, the set bonuses vary widely depending on what power sets/AT I'm playing and what my goals for the char are. Global recharge is always useful, but I don't particularly care about getting perma hasten unless the power set/AT is heavily dependent on maxed recharge, in which case I'll end up achieving perma hasten anyway simply because I'll focus heavily on global recharge set bonuses. Recharge debuff resist is something I tend to chase more of partly because I often play melee chars or play in melee range. This goes a long way for characters that aren't defense focused and/or rely on clickable powers for their sustainability. Regarding defense/resist bonuses, that more so depends on the char and/or armor set that I'm using. Generally speaking, defense focused sets like SR, Shield, Stone, and Energy can easily hit soft cap value, particularly on a tank, with very little need to invest in defensive set bonuses. For those cases, I'll prioritize resist bonuses. On other ATs like scrappers, stalkers, brutes, and sentinels who get lower defensive values from toggles/passives, I may have to shore up some of the defense values to reach soft cap. On resist focused armor sets, I stick to resist bonuses and make sure that recharge debuff resist is at 100%. I think Invuln is the only armor set where I'll end up heavily chasing both defense and resist set bonuses. For some set bonuses like max HP, I only ever occasionally try to get them on tanks that can't easily cap their HP through the armor set + passive accolades powers. Accuracy is something that depends on if I'm procing out the attacks on the char or not. In some cases I don't bother with accuracy bonuses since powers are fully slotted with sets instead of procs. KB protection is an interesting one and may depend on who you ask. Personally, I often don't bother to try and build it very high unless the armor set completely lacks any KB protection (like dark armor used to before the Cloak of Fear change) or I have extra slots and nothing else worthwhile to invest them into (which doesn't happen often either). Those are pretty much the main set bonuses that I'll ever really focus on when building. For others, I don't really consider them very relevant or worth chasing. Endurance can be easily solved with ageless, temp powers, or even setting up macros that convert/pop insps to blues if you're exemplaring below incarnate level content.

I'd suggest pairing it with a good damage mitigating secondary, usually in the form of knockdowns. You can also dip into sorcery pool for RoP and melee core embodiment hybrid. Cycling between these 2 allows you to stay at 60%+ resist to everything (70%+ when counting the minimum 5% resist from T4 barrier core), closer to 90% on s/l resist. I'd focus set bonuses towards resist buffs since regen doesn't have enough DDR to make defense bonus chasing worthwhile IMO. I've linked my current regen/ss build if you wanted some ideas on slotting. I do highly recommend making sure you hit 100% recharge debuff resist as regen is a set that does rely on click heals and emergency powers like MoG at times and you don't want those stuck on cooldown because of recharge debuffs. High resists with regen allow you to take less damage and indirectly gives you more time to regen HP (as well as needing to regen less with higher resists because you took less damage). Tanker (Regeneration - Super Strength)5.mbd

Good shout. I usually look more at the HP/sec regen rather than the % values since the amount of regen is also heavily affected by the max HP and also still remembering the old regen set before the buff having very middling regen % values outside of instant healing being activate. You are right that regen can definitely hit 1000% range even with 1 foe in range of Reactive Regeneration. My regen tank very nearly does so (and would have if I went a healing alpha incarnate slot instead of musculature).

I don't think you'll reach 90% cap to everything like you can on Tanks, but you should still be able to reach high values. S/l resist should still be easy to cap. There are a few things working against invuln Brutes reaching 90% resist to all. No SMoT proc which contributes a significant amount and can be easily double stacked, lower base resist values, and no way to double stack a 6% e/n resist bonus like tanks can from splitting Superior Gauntleted Fist into 2 sets of 3. You'd be looking at closer to 90% s/l resist and ~70% on other types, but I can play around with Brute invuln to see where I can get it to when I have time. Edit: mid to upper 60s% range is where I was able to get resits other than s/l on a brute for invuln, this is with resilient core alpha slot on but without factoring the 5% def/resist from barrier T4. Counting barrier, you can hit 70% or very close to it for the other resists.

Personally, the only reason to get any defensive powers on regen is to use them as LotG +rech mules (small exception being MoG which I would add some additional slots to reduce recharge). Regen just doesn't have enough DDR or any permanent, inherent defensive powers to make boosting defense an effective investment. One thing you can do, which works very well for regen, is take sorcery pool for RoP. You can cycle between RoP and melee core embodiment hybrid incarnate to keep up high resist values, which aside from taking less damage per hit, will also give you additional time for regeneration to work. Cross Punch is fine to take, but I probably wouldn't invest an extra power slot to pick both Boxing/Kick just to boost it's damage. Spring Attack isn't worth taking either imo, the recharge is way to long for it be a consistent source of knockdown for you. I would also check your recharge debuff resist on the regen build in particular as that needs to be at 100% or as close to it as possible. Recharge debuffs are extremely common and nothing will kill your regen char as easily as getting recharge debuffed and unable to use your clicky heals, attacks that do knockdown for soft mitigation, MoG, etc. With regards to your SR build, I'd suggest 4 slotting more Shield Wall sets in the defensive toggles to get the e/n resist bonus. I usually like to slot the auto passives with 1 LotG +rech and 2 Red Fortunes (for the s/l resist). In one of the auto passives, replace the 2 Red Fortunes with 2 Reactive Defense to get the scaling resist unique and same s/l resist bonus. Elude is worth skipping entirely unless you're taking it for theme reasons. Also, the regen on WP build seems low unless you just have RttC set to 1 foe. It looks like you have Reactive Regen on the regen build set to 10 based solely on the regen numbers in your pictures.

This build might have endurance issues so worth testing first and adjusting if it does, but should give you an idea of how to slot. Scrapper (Claws - Super Reflexes).mbd

I'll add one more sample build for invuln/ice, this one I haven't built in game yet but do plan to once I settle on a final version that I'm happy with. I'm getting close to that point. This one might not be as tough/resilient tanking AVs since /ice doesn't have a self heal like /dark does, but it should be near impossible for any mobs to ever bring this tank down with ice patch in the mix, which could also be more beneficial for teams in general when exemplaring for content. The main part I'm not yet happy with is that I wanted to include taunt in the build and ended up dropping GIS for it and moving the slots to Kick for the defensive set bonuses, but otherwise this version includes the LotG +rech slots that I mentioned in the previous post and adds Psionic Tornado with FF +rech proc to get Dull Pain permanent. With the auto +max HP accolades and DP, the HP will be just slightly shy of the tanker cap. The slotting of invuln can be done very similarly or even identically across any secondary pairing, but depending on the type of attacks the secondary provides (ST, AoE, range, target AoE), some of the secondary slotting or epic pool power choices may need small adjustments to reach near the resist cap and soft cap def with 1 foe in range. Tanker (Invulnerability - Ice Melee)5.mbd

It's not without sacrifices elsewhere. Recharge is definitely on the low side and Dull Pain isn't really permanent, You could get a significant amount of recharge back if you remove all the slots from Maneuvers, give it LotG +rech, move the shield wall unique into Weave, and then distribute the 3 slots to Invincibility, CJ, and Tough Hide to slot 3 more LotG +rech. Still keeps you at soft cap with 1 foe in range and nets you +30% rech at the cost of 4.5% e/n resist.

Sample of an invuln/dark tank, hits near E/N resist cap with 1 SMoT proc and soft cap def with 1 foe in range of invincibility. A second stack of SMoT or the minimum 5% resist/def from T4 barrier will get you to resist cap. Tanker (Invulnerability - Dark Melee)7.mbd