electric_emu

I'm a bit late here but I can confirm Psi is a great leveling experience. Even assuming you're not using it on a Tanker: all your essentials come early, endurance problems are not a thing after level 10, and PKB lets you do really silly stuff at level 20 (or exemping to 15). Even completely unslotted the whole set is great.

I will second Ice/anything. Ice Storm and Blizzard make 4/8 remarkably safe (for a Blaster anyway). I really, really like Fire as a secondary generally but it pairs very well with Ice. Hot Feet + Burn + one or both rains from Ice give you a ton of soft control for anything left standing after you click Fire Sword Circle.

I am leveling a KM Brute right now and I am pleasantly surprised by how fun the set is. It does lag in DPS, but it's got really good mitigation (which is especially noticeable since I'm using Psi Armor). I think somewhat lower DPS is probably a fair trade for how safe the set is, but Power Siphon could really stand to be less fiddly and Concentrated Strike is pretty underwhelming despite how... ostentatious it is. Maybe if CS got the ultra-narrow-cone treatment a la Head Splitter/Golden Dragonfly it would feel better to use?

Kinetic Melee's PBAOE? The set could use some love anyway. Come to think of it, would be quite an interesting gimmick if more than one (most?) of Kinetic Melee's powers had a trawl effect. Put those long windups to use!

I'm currently leveling up a Katana/Psi Brute and it is (unsurprisingly) a fantastic pairing, much the same way Katana/Broadsword pairs well with Willpower and Bio Armor.

I enjoy optimizing builds within my character concept (mostly just meaning I have a travel power and ancillary pool set in stone). But I've also found that 3 or more LOTGs and the standard suite of uniques gives more than enough of an edge in standard content without requiring much in the way of creative sacrifice.

I am going to echo min fx requests. Would greatly appreciate a min fx (or any non-bubble) version of Aura of Insanity in particular.

As someone who would absolutely love to combine certain sets for the sake of concept I can't otherwise make, this pretty much sums up my thoughts on it. I'd like a freeform/"Paragon" style AT if had some guardrails or at least an attempt at balancing it against regular ATs.

SR's taunt aura is in Evasion (AoE Def toggle), no? I am fairly certain every single Brute/Tanker armor powerset has a taunt aura.

Outisde of specific secondary powersets, Rune of Protection is your best bet imo. It has a fixed recharge (180s), but decent uptime and can be used reactively (while mezzed). It helps significantly and is otherwise useful for keeping yourself alive when you screw up. Plus it's a great slot mule power.

While Granite Armor makes you as tough as tough can get (at the cost of some offense), you're still insanely sturdy with the 'just' your other powers. You get a little bit of everything - defense, resistance, max HP, regen, even confuse protection. You're near-unkillable on top of getting an extra damage proc from Brimstone. I only took Granite on my Ice/Stone Brute as a slot mule lol

I think this is a resolution/scaling issue. I just got a new monitor (using the same resolution as you, 3840x2160) and suddenly have this problem as well.

I don’t think I have ever made it more than 15 minutes with General Chat visible to me. To me it serves no purpose other than making me angry at people I don’t even know. Do yourself a favor and hide it. The game will feel MUCH more civil and welcoming.

Energy Aura doesn't need much help from IO set defense bonuses, so you can focus on almost entirely on recharge. Just make sure your toggles have their defense values fully enhanced (3-4 LoTG will do, but you can also do things like 1 LoTG unique + 5 Red Fortune if you have slots to spare). I like psi resist IOs wherever I can put them (Dampening Field, Energy Protection, Tough) since it is Energy Aura's only real weakness.

A pop up indicating /cleartray exists would be sufficient. I'm not sure it would be possible to attempt to replicate your pre-respec hotbars or place powers intelligently.