Call Me Awesome

I don't have Mid's on my MacBook with me but from memory here's roughly how my Fire/EM was built: Fire Blast, Blaze, Blazing Bolt slotted 6 Thunderstrike Bone Smasher, Power Thrust slotted 6 Mako's Bite Maneuvers, Tactics, Assault. Tactics 6 slotted with Gaussian's Fireball 6 slotted with one of the Blaster sets Rain of Fire 6 slotted with the other Blaster set Bonfire slotted with 5 Posi Blast, 1 KB-KD proc Fire Shield, Rise of the Phoenix (forget exact slotting) No Total Focus Mystic Flight with Stealth IO, whatever the Mez shield is called. Boost Range Hasten - Not enough recharge for Perma, roughly 40% from bonuses without Hasten Combat Jumping with ToHit IO slotted Inferno 6 slotted Purple I have both of the Resist/3% defense uniques slotted as well as the Numina/Miracle uniques. The rest of the build I don't recall at the moment. The upshot gets me around 40% ranged defense, roughly 20% to most other defenses. With the Mez shield activated I'm at roughly 60% res to most damage. I find the build to be highly survivable and quite capable of laying out the hurt. I've toyed with swapping the Thunderstrike in the Snipe for the new Snipe set, it would cost me something around 2% defense to Ranged and offer some offsetting benefits. The character spends most of his time at range or hovering overhead, the two melee attacks are mostly filler... I'm not totally certain that Power Thrust is 6 slotted, that may be a memory of an older build and depends on available slots.

I was afraid of that. I'd made a bind of /bind leftdoubleclick "powexecname lightning rod$$powexecname shield charge" and it fires Shield Charge and then if I hit it again it just gives the "recharging" tone. I hadn't been aware of the powexeclocation target command, I'll give that one a try when I get back... unfortunately I'm away this week at a lovely thing called "work". I'd hoped to avoid a bind load thing, I have a couple of machines I occasionally use and I know I'd end up forgetting it on the second machine.

My default on Scrappers is Blaze; I grab Char/Fire Blast/Fire Ball. The Debuff numbers on Melt Armor weren't high enough to really be worth taking IMO and Fire Blast is a nice ranged attack that recharges fairly quickly, something that's frequently useful as Scrappers tend to be range-challenged. Char isn't much used but it's occasionally useful; I toss an Acc/Mez HO into it and call it good.

I've been trying to get a bind working to Shield Charge at a targeted mob and apparently my bind-fu isn't up to the task. Ideally I'd like one bind that would Shield Charge to a mob, then Lightning Rod on a second push of the key, is this possible?

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. Interesting thought... as if I didn't already have enough alts to level up🤫

Combinations I've played to 50 and enjoyed are Fire/Energy (Live from around issue 5 to shutdown and here on Homecoming... a whole lot of fun and highly effective), Archery/Energy (On Live around issue 18 or so, the king of long range) and Archery/Tactical Arrow (Currently leveling at around 40 right now so not 50 yet but highly survivable with a ton of control, plays like a Controller with lots of damage) If you're looking for Debuffs then Rad, Dark or Sonic would be decent choices. I haven't played the Blaster version of them but I had either Defender or Corrupter versions of each. If you didn't have the redraw issues I'd suggest Tac Arrow for a control/debuff secondary. Unfortunately Archery doesn't really Debuff anything but hit points.

If your set doesn't include KB protection the thumb rule is to either slot 1 KB IO (for MAG 4) or go to 3 (for MAG 12). MAG 4 will handle 90% of the KB in the game and anything stronger than MAG 4 will beat MAG 8 so slotting two is fairly pointless. Electric has quite good KB protection in Grounded so you should not be KB'd by much of anything and do NOT need any additional protection. I've never had any tank with KB protection get knocked back by LR so I don't know what to tell you. You do have Grounded?

Also you must EQUIP the Alpha enhancement. Go to Incarnate Abilities/Alpha/Equip and double click on the enhancement to equip it. If you have more than one Alpha crafted you can equip whichever one you like. When you look at Alpha/Equip you're looking at any Alpha Incarnate you have available to slot, you need to have it slotted into your Alpha slot in order for it to work.

I seem to recall hearing it was a 2% chance to get the monkey... personally either I'm really unlucky or it's higher than that. I've gotten it probably a dozen times on Homecoming including twice while I was in combat. Those two times did not end well...

Well, my main back on Live was Invuln/Stone... I rolled him up in issue 3, hit 50 in issue 4 and regularly played him until shutdown. Obviously the combination worked and was a lot of fun. One downside is that it's fairly end heavy, especially before your build matures. In the interest of full disclosure I'm not a fan of Willpower for tankers due to it's nearly useless taunt aura. I've always thought a tanker should hold aggro and Willpower is by FAR the worst set in the game for that. Yes, it's solid otherwise but the nearly nonexistent taunt aura is a show stopper for me. You'll have to constantly work at maintaining aggro since you can't rely on your aura to help out. You CAN hold aggro but it's going to be MUCH harder to do than with any other set. You'll need to rely on spamming Taunt and constantly swapping targets to keep punchvoke working. Invuln if built well can rival Granite Armor for durability without any of the drawbacks and it's great at holding aggro... the only set better at aggro is Ice.

Mainly that I didn't like being the villain and particularly didn't like being a minion. The zones didn't help but that was the main issue I had with redside. I played a couple of characters to 50 there but it just wasn't me.

Well, BS/Shield is great on Scrappers... I've played it to 50 a couple times here and back on Live. Right now I'm leveling an Electric/Shield stalker and at 30 the combo is working quite well although I'm certainly looking forward to the double nuke in a few more levels.

It looks like the numbers tend to favor option 2 unless that extra 7.5% recharge is buying you a major benefit. Off the top of my head I'd tend to think in terms of the second option without seeing the rest of the build.

IMO Stone Melee is a great set, the only drawback is that it's quite end heavy, something that's problematic until your build matures. Back on Live my namesake was an Invuln/Stone tanker that I played from issue 3 until shutdown. Fault's a great opener/aggro getter, then when they stand back up Tremor knocks 'em down again, then start clobbering mobs with Heavy Mallet/Seismic Smash. I usually skipped Stone Mallet and took Fire Blast/Fire Ball from the epic pools to round out the chain. In the earlier going Stone Fist works as a filler; later on it's less important. Taunt is, of course, highly useful for any tanker and a great place for cheap IO sets with good bonuses (Perfect Zinger/Mocking Beratement)

I've used the Overwhelming Force KB-KD IO in Bonfire ever since the set went live. It makes Bonfire a fantastic control/damage power instead of the PITA and limited utility power it had been... I'd never have it on a character without a KB-KD IO. As far as I know the KB-KD IO in Sudden Acceleration works the same as the Overwhelming Force with the benefit that it's not Unique. I'd assume slotting the set would work the same, with the KB-KD IO negating the +KB enhancement from the rest of the set... which does seem counterproductive.

I tried redside back when COV launched and just couldn't get into it. Once Going Rogue went live I changed my villains to blueside and hardly ever went back. I just didn't enjoy the redside content and storyline so I've stayed blue.

It's a great combination, mine is sitting at ~40% ranged defense and somewhere in the 20% range for other positions. Perma-boost range helps Breath of Fire a bunch and you can stay back out of range if you like, or you can fly overhead and rain hell on the mobs without fear of retaliation. Of course I didn't build for blapping, with the sniper changes I may rethink it and drop the Leadership toggles for some melee attacks. Right now I have Bone Smasher and Power Thrust for when the party gets too close and did not grab Total Focus. Fly in, Nuke, Bone Smasher/Power Thrust a boss, fly out and unload on anything left from overhead.

You can just roll an Archery/TacArrow and never worry about endurance. It's the lightest combination on your end bar I know of... mine is always flying, using all three leadership toggles and only has the default slot in Stamina. It takes a long drawn out AV fight for my end to drop below 50%. The character plays like a cross between a Blaster and Controller... slightly less raw damage output than my Fire/Energy blaster but far more control, both hard and soft.

You can pick up the Mez protection in the Sorcery pool to cover mez issues. It's not perma, but it offers a lengthy protection period and can be used like a break free. On defense, I tend to favor high Ranged defense for squishy characters and avoid melee; that works pretty well most of the time. My main ranged attacker is a Fire/Energy blaster so I most assuredly draw aggro, but building for ~40% ranged defense makes him remarkably durable. If things get "interesting" I always carry a few purples and greens to patch things over. So far I haven't come up with a build offering more defenses that doesn't compromise the character's effectiveness.

I've encountered a possible bug in Stealth on a Peacebringer... in addition to the known display error of providing full transparency it also double stacks in the attributes menu. I effectively have full invisibility to mobs and the menu lists Stealth Radius of -70 feet; showing in the details two stacks of the Stealth power at 35' each. The character is level 25 and I've run a couple of Strigga Island arcs and all the mobs have acted like I had full invisibility until I attack. No, I don't have another stealth power or Super Speed and I've been playing solo. I'm not complaining about this of course 😊 but it does kind of make taking Invisibility pointless. I don't have the power on any other characters so it may be specific to PB's or it may be universal.

I don't yet have an incarnate tanker on Homecoming but here's what CMA had on Live: Call Me Awesome, Inv/Stone tanker Alpha - Cardiac - Stone Melee is very end heavy and the resist bonus was useful for non-S/L Interface - Reactive Lore - Warworks (Currently I may choose another) Destiny - Rebirth - Another heal for when Dull Pain was recharging and I was taking too much damage Hybrid - Assault (This was my default on all my incarnates since it was the only one that seemed to be beneficial)

There's the old standby of Fire/Rad controllers, stacking AM, Rad toggles, leadership toggles and the fire monkeys is a fantastic combination. In the old days a team of 8 Fire/Rads could absolutely destroy anything in the game... I believe they held the record on the Statesman's TF in something like 20 minutes or so. The more you add, the better they get. Any pair that can stack buffs and debuffs can be a godly combination. I once ran a team of 7 all Rad characters... some defenders, some controllers and trivialized content. At level 25 we took down Lusca in less than 5 minutes. Massive amounts of Rad debuffage and massive amounts of buffs from AM and leadership worked wonders.

Frankly if you want DPS I'd go with either a Brute or Scrapper, either can be very tough and leaps and bounds better at damage than a Tanker. Unless you want to tank for a team you'll be happier with either of them than with a Tank. That said, the classic answer for a damage dealing Tanker was Fire/Fire and it's still pretty good today, Fire melee is one of my favorite sets. Shield is another good set for boosting damage and it's quite durable. The ever popular Electric/Shield combination is a staple with Brutes and Scrappers; I see no reason it wouldn't work well for Tankers. Anyway, think it over and decide what you want to do as your focus. Tank and protect the team? Then by all means roll a Tanker. However if you just want to do a lot of damage and survive then consider either a Scrapper or Brute.

I was indeed. Hami tanker back in the old days and many other roles. I think the only AT I never had to 50 was a MM.

The worst I ever played personally was a Stone/EM tanker post nerf. I leveled the character in issue 7 maybe, pre-ET nerf anyway, and it was only marginal then. Once the nerfs hit her I shelved the character... the only level 50 I ever stripped and abandoned. There's lots of combinations with no synergy, kinetic/energy blast or vice versa for example, but that Stone/EM was the worst I played. Some of the best combinations I've run? Broadsword/Shield scrapper, Fire/Energy Manipulation blaster, Dark/Dark Defender, Illusion/Radiation controller, Fire/Radiation controller and several others.