Without_Pause

Ill/dark. I really do like my Fort, but as per description, Ill/dark every time.

I have two Dark Scrappers at 50. I have done Claws to 50 something like 5 times. By all means, yes, Dark is lower on the damage side, but the OP said 'Damage doesn't have to be top-notch.' They wanted something which can jump into a bad situation and whittle down the enemy until he stands victorious.' Apparently your Dark/shield can't do that. From the person I believe most known for Dark/shield, 'SD and AAO you'll be able to steamroll most +4x8 groups.' And listen to Linea. You mean the 'I'll second the "Defense Armors". Really, any of the defense armors will do' part? So basically if you grab a Def armor you are good to go? FYI, I'll also recommend the often slept on Ice. Damage type is good across various mobs versus say Claws against things like DE, and still puts out solid damage overall. Ice Patch is cheat mode for survival. I would have rolled a Scrapper version if not for my Tanker version. While not current, it still places Ice in S tier for Scrappers.

It is likely the admins deleted it.

Positional Def cap is also rather difficult to do unless the set is naturally build for it. Typed Def would likely get better results. Since Psy's mitigation is mixed, you won't have that great of DDR. From what I have seen people focus on Res.

I use inspirs to fill in whatever the build might be lacking so needing greens on hand isn't that big of a deal. Oranges are helpful as well. I do use Chance to Heal procs where I can, see Stamina. The thing is, Def based sets are going to by a default have some if not max amount of DDR so getting hit isn't really that big of an issue. More so if your primary offers mitigation in stuns, KD, etc. I had a Shield/mace Tanker and dying really wasn't an issue. SR can be insanely sturdy once it comes together despite being a 'one-trick pony.' SR fears +ToHit more than anything. In all honestly, dealing with end usage would be the bigger thing to deal with for a Axe/shield Brute than being vertical.

Dark/shield. They compliment each other rather well. Dark's DPS is on the lower side so Shield helps it. Shield can use a higher amount of end and has no heal. Dark takes care of that. #2 pick would be Dark/sr.

As in take notes from Star Wars and realize there is more to the universe than the Skywalker family.

IIRC, they only use SOs. Outperforming the OP is such a low bar I can't imagine tripping over it.

Within the list of wrong, this begs the question of what is a tank. Because a Brute using SOs can tank in all of the ways a Tanker can.. I have Scrappers who can take alpha with various amounts of support. I have Scrappers who solo on +3x8. I have and have used various support characters who can take/minimize alpha with little to no real support. I have a controller who can solo 'any map' at +3x8 and doing so not at max difficulty is more about speed than safety. Last night I did a mission where a mob was right on top of the portal I went through and didn't die. So if a non-Tanker can do the "tank's primary role," then yes, a Tanker can add in attacks and be fine.

I found it to be really good until debuffs started to stack up. On teams it can be great, but if you are soloing and trying to push the envelope, that's where problems can come in.

The level of believability in propaganda in 1925 compared to 2025 is a world off difference. Try and wrap your head around deep fakes for movie stars being done in 1925 on the level we can do them in 2025. Case in point: https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/tech/tom-cruise-deepfake-tiktok-company And that's from four years ago. Now imagine how many people would be conned into thinking how real AI generated Marilyn Monroe porn would be if 2025 level of AI was used back then.

I took a nice sized break from the forums and still instantly figured out who wrote the OP without looking. The rest isn't worth a reply. They are a user who's vision of MMOs is something that CoH never was, but they are willing to repeatedly lecture its base on the 'proper' way to play.

I got a Axe/stone Brute to 50. Axe is end heavy and slow, but if you were willing to level TW, it should be fine.

How I learned how to do it was by looking at builds and asking why things were done that way. Why do so many people 2-slot Stamina in the same way? You will find that characters without a heal tend to 3-slot Stamina in a specific way. Why is Hasten 2-slotted with Level 50 IOs which have been boosted +5 in levels? Why are certain IOs 1-slotted? (See above article I linked to) Etc.

EA is in the conversation.