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I always find myself reaching for MOAR melee positional Defense on Tankers, for reasons like I can always move into melee range melee secondary attacks punchvoke I can (almost) always Taunt enemies to come into melee range Often any given scrum gets to the point where it looks like all melee all the time, but part of me wonders if Melee positional defense is really helping me absorb alpha strikes.... it seems like so many enemies will do some sort of ranged attack as part of their alpha. I can't argue that melee defenses don't work, it is more that (especially while leveling up) those various ranged attacks seem to stand out... especially the ones that apply -Defense debuffs.

I put a thumbs down, pretty much because both Tough and Weave are incredibly potent power choices for muling Enhancement sets, in addition to their inherent powers. I know there is the whole "IOs don't factor into balance", but Resistance and Defense are core elements of the game, they really shouldn't be made (even more) trivial to come by. Even though it is rare that I lean into 4+ powers from the Fighting pool, I think it is one of the better "legacy" power pools, considering everything it offers and how the powers compliment each other. It has far less of an opportunity cost IMO than Presence, and the way Fighting's attacks boost each other is more natural IMO than the Flight pool's toggles or even the Medicine pool's progression.

I have a couple of characters that aren't exactly unique in their approach, but turned out to be surprisingly good at clearing maps and/or surviving when maybe they shouldn't. My most-favorite weird character is a Mind/Poison/Energy Controller. He was build explicitly to make enemies fall down (so also, Force of Will) or otherwise stumble, tremble, whatever. With his controls, debuffs and a good bit of %damage he turned out to be brutally efficient across a very wide amount of content. A slightly less imaginative pairing is my Dark/Dark/Soul Controller. This one doesn't win any awards for clear times, but it ends up mostly not falling to large spawns that should (on paper) completely outclass it. It wasn't built with surviving in mind, it just so happens that the combination of powers and slotting choices make it weirdly (weird to me anyway) able to handle live through some pretty grueling encounters.

This is IMO key. Eventually you will get enhancement sets (this isn't the Day 0 game of Live) so the attacks will have some recharge... it isn't like you will be standing around with nothing to do. There are a handful of Blaster combos that I feel lend themselves to taking more attacks than would be otherwise necessary (especially if character concept is a factor), but generally I don't plan to take all of them. As for how I choose? AoE is generally superior to single-target. My #1 rationale is that RNG is a cruel, cruel mistress. I find very little in the game to be as frustrating when trying to drop an enemy with ST attacks and missing two out of every five (even at 95% ToHit). At least with AoE when I miss some, I still hit some. AoE also have better options IMO for slotting with enhancement sets. While leveling Blasters, I tend to try different things. Sometimes powers like melee attacks work really well, other times not-so-much. The only sorts of powers I have mostly (*1) given up on trying with Blasters any more are single-target controls. I'll take one if I can double-up on the same type of control for increased magnitude against a chosen (single) target, but otherwise I feel like I am not leaning into what a Blaster does best: damage. I'm aware that single target attacks (Holds especially) can be slotted with a lot of %damage... but often I find whatever slots could be put into a single-target power could probably just be put into other powers to increase their output. (*1) By all means, try them... no matter how many times I read the same rationalization for a single-target immobilize, I'm pretty much never going to take such a power if I can help it considering that the arguments in favor of such a thing are either for 1% of game content (AVs that eventually run) or get can possibly be leveraged into peculiar combos (e.g. Atomic). I simply am at the point at which I can't justify the investment in either slots or power choices for a typically niche power.... and I take single-target Fears!

This should be my current Assault/Plant/Arsenal build: Some comments: While playing, I found very little synergy between the primary and secondary "attacks". I found it too clumsy to try to use the secondary attacks. It was more convenient for me to leverage cones and AoE without trying to get in close most of the time. The Epic Arsenal simply reinforced (or leveraged) my choice to go minimal on the Plant secondary. So much %damage! There is a healthy amount of damage-over-time in this build, so I wanted more "up front" %damage... and when possible off-brand damage types. I didn't exactly skimp on set bonuses, because... ...So many attacks! I wanted to lean-into doing all sorts of rando-stuff with the Rifle! I didn't necessarily want a 'clean and simple' attack chain. This is NOT a tank-mage. It has weaknesses... but it was built to be all about FIREPOWER. It is hella fun.

My Arsenal slotting ended up as: Body Armor: 4x Unbreakable Guard Cryo Freeze Ray: HO Endoplasm (Acc/Mezz), 5x %damage Sleep Grenade: 5x Fortunata Hypnosis LRM Rocket: Ragnarok Accuracy/Recharge (+5), 4x %damage I realize I haven't shared my build, I'll try to do that within 24 hours. I took a somewhat crazy approach leaning much harder into %damage than I would normally recommend (for a Blaster), yet it kinda works. I practically ignored the secondary to be able to focus on all the gun action. I didn't take Surveillance. My build already has Weaken Resolve (much earlier), and with only two more power picks I needed mules for KB protection and a Shield Wall.

Another data point: The final three rifle choices in the Assault Mastery set (for Blasters) do not appear on the costume when selected in the costume creator. One of these IIRC is teh Shard Cannon.

"almost always"

I made my points earlier in the thread about my preference for the Redside content, yet I typically play Blueside. I think my reasons are: It is easier to level at whatever pace (slow, fast) I choose. That's not to say it is impossible to level quickly redside, but because I like the arcs more, the red starting zone being harder to travel in, fewer players all contribute to this. The Red starting zone is a PITA. Grandville is also no cakewalk/cakejump/cakefly. Aside from the travel being "complicated", I kinda hate the "defeat 5 snakes" early mission when I have to travel around for 15 minutes trying to find some open-world spawns of them. Content is more familiar, and useful accolades are mostly more straightforward/easy to work towards blue side. This is like, just my opinion, but often I will take villains blueside to get two of the statboosts, whereas I only take heroes red to get one of them.

Force of Will has a lot to offer, especially Tankers IMO. My typical choices go something like this: #1 Mighty Leap as the travel power. It's a PDQ zone travel power and it has the fun "Takeoff" option for an occasional lulz moment in PBAoE combat. (Tanks!) #2 Weaken Resolve as the hard target debuff. Accuracy is all it needs, but does accept a further %debuff or %damage at reliable proc chances. #3 Wall of Force as an early-build ranged AoE cone. I find this to be a wonderful addition to a Tanker's arsenal of tricks for getting the attention of distant critters. There are a lot of different ways to slot this as well. I try to configure a Tanker build to get those three powers as early as possible. Often this just requires delaying the choice some power (often a toggle) from the primary. It always feels like my character has gotten their Epic power pool powers before level 20! After taking those three powers, it isn't a hard choice to pick up Unleash Potential. I typically will try to 6-slot that power because I am a fan of a couple of different 6-slot bonuses from either Heal or Defense sets, and not every primary/secondary offers me the chance to slot those sets. The long timer on Unleash Potential doesn't really bother me on a high-HP character, especially if there is some Scaling Damage Resistance in play. The only Health Enhancement for muling would be IMO the Preventive Maintenance %absorb piece. There are of course several Defense globals that could go into it as well. I don't think I'd ever consider adding EndMod procs to it, YMMV. I have at least one character that picked Project Will instead of Weaken Resolve... but that was a case of specifically wanting to have a single-target ranged attack for Enhancement set slotting reasons.

FREEM! knockback can be protected against, IIRC it is magnitude 20. My melee types have been targeting 14 points of KB protection via build/power choices, a +10 point KB protection from a SG base buff (90 minutes duration) seems to nullify FREEM! I'm ok with the FREEM! addition, as magnitude 12+ KB is a rather rare type of enemy control, typical seen only on unique individual critters. If we need a head-canon reason for it, let's just pretend that it is where all the knockback from slotted KB->KD enhancements go.

@Spaghetti Betty point about team buffs is a valid one, and related to my comments about not necessarily needing to turn on Resistance toggles, as well as it not being necessary to slot them particularly deep (modulo Enhancement set bonuses, 'natch). I'm particularly flummoxed about how the Invulnerability Tanker was running out of Endurance without taking attacks (beyond the level 1 and Taunt picks I suppose). I kinda want to see what that build looked like, especially below level 10. Even simply picking primary powers before level 10 would have been two auto powers. I suppose if the player was somehow relying on START/P2W attacks, yeah those could burn through Endurance.

Funny thing about this... resistance toggles below level 10 are IMO barely worth toggling on, and really not worth slotting... especially for "SO" theory crafting. So exactly what is an "Alpha Tanker" doing with the build before this point?

It is IMO pointless to engage with the OP with anything approaching constructive dialog, based on the long history of the OP Starting blunt, nuance-free threads explaining "how ____ is bad, and that's just how it is" (often the blank is filled with an archetype) Offering a tangential rationalization for the blunt statement, often with some peculiar baseline Harboring an apparent unwillingness to rethink any part of (1), no matter the topic or to reconsider an review of (2), because... there is no such thing as a shared reality? Even when good advice is posted on one of these threads, I don't think the advice benefits anyone... because players looking for advice wouldn't start with such a thread and... I want to believe... those other players would ask "what am I missing about ____?" and not immediately start with judgemental nonsense. In this particular case, the thesis of the OP is prima facie absurd. Viewed in the context of other claims made by the same account in the last 24 hours (been playing since hour 1 of Live, hosting teams for 4.6 years) it is inconceivable that this player has seen a team "frozen before battle" or "cracked the code" and come up with the tank that has now saved the game for the rest of us. Does anybody really think that Invulnerability is a bad Tanker primary after having tried it? What could possibly have been the metric? Fighting Vahzilok at level 6 in the early days of Live? Y'all have been sweethearts, but we've seen this before.

I know it was changed, the steps and conditions I am referring to are: keeping an eye on the henchmen, to decide if it would be worthwhile to detonate resummoning henchmen, and buffing them EDIT: so for me, this is more mental bandwidth to juggle for keeping the squad alive (including bodyguard mode) and defeating enemies.

I'm mostly familiar with Traps as the MM secondary. Quickie: Don't put %procs in anything that doesn't "leave behind" a thing. A %proc might trigger on cast, but otherwise this is usually a waste of a slot. Hot takes on the MM secondary: Caltrops is my preferred first pick. Patch Slows have a more general use than... Web Grenade is skipped. It has uses, but they are very limited. Triage Beacon is skipped. It isn't bad for what it does, but what it does is of limited use for many MMs. Probably more useful for leveling builds than for level 50s. Acid Mortar is a must take. Force Field Generator is a must take. Poison Trap is a must take. Seeker Drones is a power I like, but I skip. Not enough utility for my taste. Trip Mine is skip for me. I find I'm too active to use this, and I don't have the slots to invest in it. Detonator. I haven't swapped into this. I can see how it could be used, yet this feels like too many steps and conditions to leverage for better damage than just having the henchmen do damage. Basically it comes down to me picking only a limited number of "drop in place" elements, and focusing on the things that speed up defeats via debuffs to act as a force multiplier.

I enjoy watching the Fake Nemesis pop a personal force field and then fall to a damage-over-time attack.

It wouldn't be my approach to the build, but the only piece of common wisdom that I think you are cutting against is putting the %Hide piece (and set) in the T1 power instead of in Assassin's Blade. The consensus opinion is to have the %Hide in the attack that would become slow when you are hidden so as to not slow down your attack chain. I use the Experimentation pool frequently, I wouldn't use all those slots in Experimental Injection. I typically just use it as a mule for Preventive Medicine... but you already have that (set) elsewhere. I'm not crazy about the Numina set bonuses (except for 2x on Tankers). You won't get the Regeneration/Recovery bonus unless you use the power. Are you sure you wouldn't rather move that piece to an auto/toggle power (e.g. Health) instead? Without recommending a radical change to the build, I'd suggest replacing Experimental Injection with Toxic Dart, as there are several useful set bonuses that can be had from a ranged attack. I typically only slot Adrenal Booster with 2xrecharge IOs, as I think it has far too long of a recharge to invest the Gaussian's set in. That set is best in the Primary's Build Up IMO, as you should have that power ready every 30 seconds or so (or less, depending on Global recharge bonuses).

For "maximum DPS" from MM henchmen, I believe it is all about debuffing the enemies, and making sure the henchmen are focused on the debuffed enemies. IMO: It's the secondaries that should be looked at first. Tar Patch (from Dark) is the earliest available, and IMO best of the MM debuff powers. I would not sleep on Traps, because Caltrops / Acid Mortar / Poison Trap are all excellent debuff sources. Traps also includes Trip Mine and Detonator, although I use neither. Having written about choosing secondaries, it is entirely possible to slot both primary (MM attack) powers and secondary powers to apply %-Resistance via Enhancements.

My Tanker's slotting for Shield Charge: (A) Mocking Beratement - Recharge (*) Mocking Beratement - Accuracy/Recharge (*) Eradication - Chance for Damage (Energy) (*) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Damage (Psi) (*) Scirocco's Dervish - Chance of Damage (Lethal) (*) Force Feedback - Chance of Global Recharge Against All Odds definitely boost the damage for this slotting, but with the long recharge time on Shield Charge I typically use Shield Charge to get into the next swarm of enemies and then followup with an AoE melee attack

Checks name of OP.