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I excluded reference to Posi 1 when I wrote this (my first mention of low level TFs).

I believe you mean well, but this sort of advice offers very little in a thread questioning whether or not to take (or not take) Taunt on a Tanker. This advice is applicable for solo play (any AT) or on teams without Tankers.

There *are* ambushes, and of course things happen.

Punchvoke is a thing, but at low levels, those attacks aren't going to be super effective (fewer slots, less likely to have set bonuses, smaller enhancement values). EDIT: If we are talking about characters that are exemplared down and also have a bunch of set bonuses... that is not the point I was raising when I first mentioned Posi 2 and Synapse. Even being exemplared down such that a character has more rows of inspirations makes more of a difference than any one player on a low level TF.

If a character is exemplared, and the TF is run by a higher level player, there is more opportunity to have picked Taunt for those TFs. If a character is running a true-level Tanker at the minimum for Posi 1 or 2, that character is unlikely to have the slots or enhancements to handle the aggro of a room without Taunt.

Fore example: On Positron, there are several maps which include multiple spawns off-to-the-side (minions and Lts) of entrances with larger spawns are up ahead further in the room. I routinely see players jump to that first, more obvious spawn while ignoring those closer to the entrance. This sort of map construction isn't uncommon, but it is on every Posi 2. I'm far less of a stickler for having Taunt on Posi 1, just because of the level requirement... but there are maps and encounters in that TF that demand players pay attention.

Blue side also has the level 20-30 mission which is almost always in Talos... but these are the exceptions. See the post by @Rudra mentioning higher-level red-side. I often out-level the red-side 20-30 (there is just too much fun content red-side in this range to do many alignment missions!) but I do recall being sent from Sharkhead to either both Port Oakes and/or Cap Au Diable via a TIP mission (that wasn't the unlock for Mortimer Kal).

I've created multiple characters with same AT/primary/secondary but very rarely, and only because the later character has a concept that IMO fits best with the "repeat" choice of AT/primary/secondary. Obviously having more than four VEATs an HEATs more-or-less force this circumstance upon players. Specific to melee characters, my thinking is that whatever the new concept is, I can probably roll it as any of Scrapper/Stalker/Tanker. I tend to avoid Brutes, I'm just not crazy about the Fury mechanic... although I have a Savage Scrapper that I am considering re-rolling as a Brute because it already "feels" very much like a Brute. Because each of the melee classes can be made to provide both offense and to be able to survive, for me it comes down to specific power picks and progression in the primary/secondary.

Oh yeah, Fold Space can be a fun power. I particularly like that it feels like a pretty good "capstone" power for a power pool set. At some point in Homecoming, I got the point where I was taking Combat Teleport on the way to Fold Space, and that Combat Teleport was more than enough of an "extra trick" to get and keep control of most rooms and to rescue teammates in trouble. I tend to be slightly anti-evangelical about Fold Space, probably because of the necessary power (and slot) investment it requires for a "trick" that Tankers can pretty much do anyway using just Tanker tools. Sure there can be a circumstance where immobilized or knocked back mobiles may not be standing toe-to-toe with a Tanker, but IMO that's mostly an old-school sort of thinking about herding mobiles for long recharge AoE attacks. MMV of course. The necessary investment in pool choices to get Fold Space has the side effect of limiting what else a player can pick from other power pools and/or Epic sets which also require pre-requisite choices. My guess is that many Tankers with Fold Space also choose to invest in Hasten, which can allow for some optimization of attack chains but that approach to builds feels quite restrictive to me. Those would be two pool picks, and four powers... and the possibility that the travel power (of there is one!) is either Teleport or Super Speed... which for me are my last and second-to-last choices of travel powers... I do use them (rarely), but I disfavor them.

There is also the -Range effect that Taunt has on mobs, which can be an extra help for teammates. There are some enemies where the Tanker wants aggro but doesn't want to be in melee range; for example Clamor, who puts an AoE debuff on a player that can make nearby teammates (such as other melee types) extremely vulnerable. This is my experience (with teammates of varying levels of skill, powers, and enhancement choices): My Tankers are always switching targets (for Taunt and 'punchvoke') and are often very mobile (to get to those stray enemies that may be bothering teammates). The Tanker AoE volume makes it pretty easy to keep attention at the aggro cap with almost all enemy spawns by simply moving a relatively small amount,.. and this takes a lot fewer power choices than Fold Space does! Taunt can make it so that the Tanker barely has to move, if the fight is going to take some time. It also works on enemies that may have been immobilized by an AoE Control. The Tanker Taunt is also a low endurance auto-hit, so it is never "wasted", and by investing just a few slots in it (I often go 6x Mocking Beratement) the duration and recharge times will be such that the Tanker could be at the aggro cap without ever throwing a punch or laying down a patch, or trying to aura-grab, or whatever.

The above was part of the response that I found particularly insightful. It echoes the old Matt Miller statement about (some) players always seeking the easiest path to the most rewards for the least effort. Personally: When I am looking for a quick mission to fight a lot of enemies (x8) with a level 50 I almost always choose a morality mission over a radio/newspaper mission. A lot of the reasoning for my choice is that the eventual alignment missions are something I find rewarding (for merits, as well as for the content), but I also like being able to run )most of them) them in zones I choose. There are definitely zones that are smaller/easier to navigate in than others! Aside from the Safeguard/Mayhem options, my experience has been that the Newspaper/Radio missions all pretty much the exact same content for all levels but with different enemy groups (and sometimes dialogue strings), one of: Defeat Boss and Guards Click Glowie (and defeat Boss spawn) Escort NPC "heist" / "investigate heist"

For me: Taunt is expected, and I expect it to be taken before level 20. In a classic blue-side experience, I strongly dislike being on PUG and it isn't being used by Tankers on the Posi 2 or Synapse TFs. I will grant that some tankers may not quite have the suite of powers to handle all the damage than can come from some of those TFs (Toxic, especially), but I think it is pretty bad to see a "But my auras grab aggro fine when I solo" Tanker run past a bunch of critters that will turn on the rest of the teammates PDQ. Personally, I don't care if it is single-slotted, slotted with only a %Psi, of more completely filled... but to never hear a Taunt tossed in x8 content is embarrassing. It's just about as bad as playing with Sentinels and never seeing the Vulnerability target. I can completely understand why some players wouldn't take Taunt: It does nothing directly for a Tanker's offense or defense, and it isn't passive (aside from possible enhancement set bonuses). Taunt is however, the premier method of aggro control, which is a core game mechanic. A solo Tanker might literally never notice a need for it. I'll finish with this: The efforts I see some builds go through to include Fold Space on a Tanker build yet put Taunt on the "shrug, maybe" list of powers is to me a very confusing choice.

I made one of my three builds a Huntsman (years ago) and enjoyed it... except I was stuck with the crab legs on my costume. I recently decided to make a no-crab Huntsman. I decided to try something slightly different: I intended to use ONLY the gun attacks, and use melee attacks from the Fighting pool. I have NOT stuck with this plan (while leveling up). First: I was not going to skip Placate... and I wasn't going to leverage the Presence pool... and Placate uses a mace. Once I was locked into having to show a mace, I figured "why bother with the Fighting pool?" when the Bane has a pretty good melee single-target and melee cone attack that synergizes with Placate. I can also add those into the build a lot more naturally (and more easily) than with the Fighting pool. I just wish I had a low-tech (a la Baseball Bat) option to use for the Mace! I may eventually decide to use the second build to make a (weaker) version of the same character but strictly leveraging power pools for the Mace stuff. The build would be somewhat clunky, but I've gone to similar lengths for other "concept" characters.

Morality tip missions can be run in any appropriate zone (for the alignment) that doesn't qualify as a "hazard zone"(*1). Occasionally a morality mission will send a player to another zone. Radio/Newspaper missions are tied to the contact, which will eventually offer a level appropriate safeguard/mayhem mission. <- This is almost certainly the reason for the level limit on Radio/Newspaper missions. (*1) For blueside, IIRC morality tip missions can't be run in the Hollows or Croatoa. They can be run in Faultline.

There are very few players I see solo (or even team) fighting Giant Monsters without relying on Lore pets. I definitely see solo Masterminds defeating Giant Monsters without Lores... but not without using other Incarnate powers. Prior to the "rebalancing", almost any AT could solo many of the Giant Monsters (using all the Incarnates), because as @Gerswin notes, the key to defeating everything in the game is to do more damage than the regeneration can overcome. [The inverse, for players, is why the game will never have an old-school pre-nerf Regeneration set again.] The Giant Monsters with actual self-healing (and not just the inherent regeneration) provide a different sort of challenge. A common change the Giant Monster "rebalancing" did was to add significant resistances (and in some cases, more HP) to the Giant Monsters. This combination makes overcoming the GM's regeneration a lot more difficult (because the GMs are sacks of HP) for non-specialized soloists. To the point above: Masterminds inherently have both the offense and the ability to "tank" Giant Monsters (and AVs) via Bodyguard mode. A well-built Mastermind will also bring the other things to the table like inherently high defenses (to keep enemy ToHit chances below 10%), a mechanism for healing, debuffs on the enemy, and keeping aggro (to improve the use of Bodyguard mode). Solo masterminds can do this, but it IMO takes some smart choices of powers, slotting, and play style. I see a LOT of multi-box players using two (or more) MMs to fight giant monsters, and occasionally multi-boxers with one MM and one other random AT. Obviously the multi-boxers are reaping multiple rewards, but I can see based on the strategy (typically "zerg the GM") and the power choices that neither of those characters would likely be able to solo whatever GM they happen to be facing. I get a similar feeling when I watch a team of four or more fight Adamastor, and each player has popped their Lore pets. Using multiple Lores is completely unnecessary, as a single Lore pet with a dedicated GM fighter should be able to defeat Adamastor in 2-3 minutes. Two sets of Lores with any two rando ATs should be enough, unless those ATs are particularly unbalanced.

Just as an FYI, the mandatory respec is also required on the second (and third) builds. If there is one big thing I don't like about the Bane's performance it is that it is slow against single hard targets, and it isn't particularly fast for clearing large spawns of elevated difficulty. A point of reference: On a PUG, my Bane (and Crab) builds are generally fine for surviving entire rooms if they run off solo on any given SF/TF (modulo cascading defense failures), but they stand little chance of clearing a room by themselves. This is different that almost any other AT I've played. The only other AT that comes close to being this slow (in this solo +4x8 sense) are my Kheldians, and I think maybe one of my Tankers... even Controllers and Defenders can usually clear rooms faster. The Banes excel at being force multipliers... but I think you have to lean hard into concept to see just how good they can be. For example, not only are the team-buffing powers somewhat mandatory, but to be a great team asset, the AoE ranged attacks should probably be set up to each include the Annihilation %-Resistance piece (also slotted to give that piece a decent chance to trigger), Surveillance should be included, and the World Wide Web Grenade ought to be up as often as possible...possibly even supplemented with Web Cocoon. The point above about the Soldier VEAT being a good force multiplier is also true for the Crab, with slightly different power options, which is what can make a "Crabbermind" pretty good... if the global bonuses are such that the pets can be 'perma', and some choices are made to toughen up the pets too. Crabberminds are a different sort of play of course.

A "Huntsman" is a Bane that focuses on the Soldier attacks instead of the Bane attacks. A player will still have to mandatory respec the build the first time it hits level 24. Either way (Soldier or Bane) the character will be using a weapon (gun and/or mace) to make attacks. While I echo the sentiment to try the Soldier at some point, I suspect that for DPS, as well as smoother attack progression as you level, a Stalker is most likely what you want. You won't have as many AoE options with the Stalker as with the Huntsman, and the Bane takes a different sort of build approach than Dark Armor to survival. One rather large difference between the two options is that the Stalker's Placate comes much earlier in the build, and with the Hide ATO the Stalker will probably feel more like a "from the shadows" attacker than the pew-pew-pew Hunstman (or "now Imma clobber" Bane).

Masterminds are probably faster than Controllers. At lower levels (such as the Yin TF) my MMs can solo that with little issue, my Controllers can solo it, but take significantly longer. An MM is probably faster than any Controller, all things being equal. The one edge a Control might have over a Mastermind is that an average controller build might have an immobilize to deal with runners... Masterminds can get immobilizes too, but they are IMO pretty much only useful for runners, so don't fit neatly into what a MM wants for 98%+ of the games content, and MMs usually have a choice of powers that are a better fit for that other content.

Personally: I still find the Sister Psyche lore to be entirely too complicated, even without considering Praetoria. The Malaise, Aurora Borealis, Manticore, etc. stuff is simply too much IMO. My only issue with Statesman was that (at launch), he was clearly identified as an Invulnerability Tanker, yet could do a whole lotta things an Invulnerability Tanker could not do in-game. I don't think I saw the game the same way Jack Emmert did, but I have no personal beef with him.

I have Liquify slotted with 3x Accuracy/Recharge (50+5) and 3x %damage: Gladiator's Net, Positron's Blast, and Bombardment. It's the most reliable and widest-reaching %damage power on my /Sonic Controller. I don't have it up quickly enough to rely on it for -ToHit debuff, even with something like 78% global recharge in the build. Sonic has so many more AoE controls that I don't think the -ToHit is doing that much in the grand scheme of things, considering the Attack/ToHit mechanics of the game (the perma 5% chance to hit or miss, no matter what ToHit is.).

Oh my bad!

I'll save the trouble and just attach a bunch of merits, badges, and other rewards to this post. If they aren't here, that means someone else was more enterprising/faster at claiming them.

I've been working on an alt-Soldier/Bane(*1), so I peeked at the first post to see how my choices compare... I noticed that the posted build included two Steadfast Protection: Knockback Protection pieces. I don't use MIDS, so by my rough eye it looks like that build has 11 points of KB protection (including the unique mistake); it would be trivial to move a slot such that the Karma 4pt KB protection could be included. I have a different set of goals for my current project than the posted build, but I do think that 11 points of KB protection is a good target, since: It is pretty easy to hit with Gladiatior's Armor (going to be used anyway) and a pair of 4-point uniques With the SG base 10-point buff, it puts a build over the 20 point FREEM! threshold I've had a handful of other characters (different ATs, mostly Melee with Dark Armor which needs to chase KB protection) where I had the ability to relatively painlessly get to 21 points (protection) from enhancement bonuses but usually I stop at 11, 12, or 14 points depending which sets I am using (11 and 14 are more common for me than 12). *1 The lack of DDR is my biggest concern with my current build. For a hybridized AT, I definitely prefer the Fortunata... but I wanted to give the Soldier another try.

I used to rely on binds for MM henchmen controls (on Live) but for a couple of reasons I stopped using them and just put macros in trays for "all" of the henchmen (as a group): the four actions, and the three stances (green, blue, red). I'm pretty sure I just drag and drop icons from the pet window(s), editing if necessary to make sure the icon affects "all" but here are the actions (like I said, I think I just drag the stances): /macro_image "PetCommand_action_Goto" "GoTo" "petcom_all goto" /macro_image "PetCommand_Action_Dismiss" "Dismiss" "release_pets" /macro_image "PetCommand_Action_Stay" "Stay" "petcom_all stay" /macro_image "PetCommand_Action_Follow" "Follow" "petcom_all follow" I recommend putting "Dismiss" somewhere it won't be clicked accidentally. The main reason I abandoned binds for MM is that I can't remember which "character unique" binds do what (for any given character)! The other reason is that because of a series of accumulating changes to MMs (some from Live, most from Homecoming) I find I don't need to have such fine control (quickly via binds) over all the henchmen. We have really fast resummon times, the upgrades apply en masse to all henches in a radius of the target (no need to specifically target any one henchmen or pet), the cost of enhancements is low enough to make them all obtainable, etc. As a practical matter, there are only a limited set of circumstances when I want my henchmen doing different things... so the pet window serves this purpose just fine. These circumstances aren't rare (for the content I play), but I don't have to change the stances often enough (and I'm not usually in "panic mode" constantly resummoning defeated henchmen). The MM play experience changes while leveling up more than any other AT... so I don't want to completely dismiss the idea of more "fine control" of henchmen, or other alternative (pool) powers that might want specialty binds for (specific) henchmen targeting: Aid Other, Spirit Ward, Enflame, Grant Invisibility, whatever. Specific/Individual henchmen may warrant specific controls based upon playstyle, based upon their attacks... but generally I just direct the henches as a group.

IIRC, the final mission of the Shining Stars (blue-side) arc takes place in "Galaxy City". From memory, it is definitely NOT an "instanced" partial map based on the original Galaxy City but a different map.