Sovera

Do read the rest of the thread first though. Despite OP's good intentions it is a big waste to use merits on SOs.

I'd go with Titanium Coatings for more resistances all around. The other sets just add more defenses that SR should not be hurting for.

The top of the hill in the ITF's first mission.

Kinda. Impossible to be at health cap with a Fire Armor since we don't have a big HP buff like Invuln or Stone has. Only the small passive from Consume but at best 2.9k (2.6k without) but the cap is 3.4k. The rest like Energy resists (of course, 90% to most except psi 25-30% and Toxic at near 50% by stacking Healing Flames), defenses (Martial Arts version with 45% to melee/ranged/AoE or any other secondary and just 45% to S/L). It's the Turtle build in my signature.

Remember also that as Yomo said that the CC has a duration. You might not notice it on a +0 or +1 enemy but since you're not a controller you won't be slotting for duration and instead for damage. Because of that the stuns will happen but be blips. The only one who will make longer duration stuns is indeed Energy Melee since every attack has a chance to stun and those will stack up fast enough you can even stun AVs (while their triangles are down). The talk of slotting stun procs usually misses this angle. The stun may or may not go off, but then it lasts for a very short duration.

Welcome aboard, new friendo! There's a guide in my signature for these moments. Use the /help and /lfg channels liberally for questions as everyone's pretty friendly to newcomers.

If you're building for melee you're automatically building for S/L as well. So if those ranged attacks have a S or L component it's helping.

Even with fully saturated Drain Soul it's middle of the pack. Which isn't bad since it's a middle of the pack that packs (heh) a heal AND an endurance recovery which is otherwise unheard of in any melee set (Radiation Melee has a heal but that's it). So it's pretty useful and it can make smooth the edges of sets that are difficult, like Shield, by providing the heals and endurance they lack. But it is a pre-incarnate set. Nowadays once at 50 the incarnates fix all heal and endurance problems so that utility-in-exchange-for-damage becomes simply a damage loss. Still brutally good for the ones who like exemplaring and soloing. Especially solo. In teams we don't have the time to pull off a glacial Drain Soul before all minions are dead (same problem that any Kin has with FS). But it can be said if the team is bulldozing then does it matter if SD was saturated or not? If we bulldozin' we bulldozin'. Which is why it shines more when solo. No one kills the minions before SD goes off, no buffers in the team means the healing and endurance are appreciated ,etc. Obviously we can't have that kind of utility on top of top damage because then what's the point of playing anything other than the set that heals, has endurance recovery covered, AND does top damage?

Yes, but only kinda. ED is still a thing.

6/10. You did ask to be rated 😄 Some obvious mistakes: You want an Overwhelming Force proc in Shockwave. You might even want a Force Feedback as well to get the extra recharge. Eviscerate is not great (though it's not game breaking to take it and use it either). But you can do a complete attack chain with Follow-up, Slash and Focus with just a small gap. Or trade Slash for Eviscerate and not have a gap at all. Speaking of Focus you might want a Force Feedback proc in there as well. I'm not sure what you're aiming with Experimentation. Is it just the Super-Speed simile? Because Combat Jumping (or Hover if you're into fighting while floating as I am) would add another 2% which would finish capping Negative and let you ease up on the slotting for the other defenses. I have a Claws/Energy you can take a look at and copy some of the slotting ideas. Scrapper (Claws - EA).mbd

Mids says 51% for Stone. Without Granite.

And Stone. 55% defense, 81% (if we consider two stacks of the ATO as perma) to all except psi, but psi has 56% defense and doesn't DDR. And HP almost capped... I mean, the cap is 3554 and the build has 3553, so it's not capped. At that point we can argue for resistance armors... for the 9% more that they bring to the table 😄 I could change Musculature to Resilient and be at 85%-ish. Or even Cardiac though the endurance is handled. The only 'downside' is the lack of a heal. It has to survive on 63 HP regen.

*looks at all their Tanker builds at 70% being advertised as '90% across the board'* Y-yeah!

I have the same every once in a while.

Somehow? Come now, Dian, you cannot be that naive. It's not like we haven't spelled things out when ever you post. You just ignore it. Anyway, glad you found a Tanker you liked. Try the (near) immortal in my signature, the framework, and (near) immortality, starts at level 13. Everything else from then on is just adding more power or more bells and whistles, and, yes, you can two shot three fourths of a group by level 20 in the first 10 seconds of combat while still be (near) immortal.

For a grumpy snarky snarkster he sure gets around, uh?

Yeah, and the nictus are particularly nasty as they debuff like crazy. Ain't no hail mary when at agro cap with so much debuffing. But it did sour me off T9s at realizing they were not miracle workers. Of course now in HC there's Barrier who IS a hail mary miracle worker, and everyone can have it 😄

Lets just say that between you and me who has the most experience with Tankers? I'm not talking out of thin air, y'know? What you seem to need is an actual build. You don't like Tankers anymore, I get it, but I keep peddling the (near) immortal Tanker in my signature for a reason: it starts at level 13. It's comprehensive since it's made for newbies. Now you still won't control a three packs at once. As we all said that's just not going to happen. But as was also said let people who did the mistakes pay for them. If you do like your Controller then stick to it. The name of the game is having fun.

Reminds me of my disgust at using Parasitic Aura in the nictus ambush in the first mission of the ITF way way back in live and then dying anyway. It's how I never took a T9 again.

They have the same defense values as a Scrapper, perhaps just the slightest of less % values but in this day and age of IOs it's not a deal breaker.

I hunt them all the time on my Tanker, so ST damage doesn't need to super duper optimized. That said I've taken as long as 7 minutes to kill some of the sturdier ones which would leave most of the Scrapper crowd cringing 😄 My suggestions would either be Energy Melee (exceptional ST damage with a tsunami of CC effects) or Fire Melee ('minimal' damage loss, much easier to achieve ST rotation, better AoE than Energy Melee). Rad Melee and Dark Melee might appeal thanks to their baked in heal but their ST damage is not amazing and Rad Melee in particular got hit by the 'fix' to Irradiated Ground. For a secondary you'd need good heals, good recovery, solid all rounder. To be honest anything would work once throwing enough IOs at it but I'd pick Energy Aura. On a Brute or Tanker I'd go with Stone Armor which is a bit ridiculous. The small regen debuff Bio or Rad does is inconsequential. Bio does add damage and is the choice for pylons, though pylons are a skewed test since it amplifies the -res that Bio does. I don't consider it as all rounder as Energy Aura but this is an AV hunter so it might be what's desired.

As Onlyasammich said and depending on your choice of secondary you should consider Stalker. The secondary is the armor. I said depending on because some of the Scrapper armors have agro auras but the majority have not. If you're picking a secondary without an agro aura then you might as well go Stalker as they are neck to neck in terms of damage with a Scrapper but NONE of their armors have agro auras. Agro auras are only a concern if you're soloing, but without them the enemies will run away once at 20%-ish HP. The Sammich has already pointed the advantages of Stalker's Staff. Staff has three forms that have some useful aspects such as reducing endurance costs. But they are a trade for a traditional Build-up power that most sets get with a big boost of damage for 10 seconds. Staff also is lacking in the single target damage and the Stalker's Assassin's Strike helps tremendously in that aspect. With all of that said if your vision is a Scrapper instead of a character with baked in stealth that's valid too, just let us know. Also, as a new/returning player check the guide in my signature for newbie tips like making money.

Sure, but it costs no money to ask these questions and anyone not interested can abandon the thread. In the meanwhile the OP has had several answers that showed alternative options for their goals so I think that there was a point.

To be fair the answer would be 'pop a luck or two'. Or an orange. Same benefit, no downside.

MMs are not a good choice for tanking. On paper it may seem so, but in actuality the minions are weak and paper thin so a few hits and they are all dead and it's resummon, re-upgrade, they died, re-summon, re-upgrade. Even top builds with minions at defense caps the minions remain paper thin. MMs are great, IMO, for an offense oriented buffer playstyle. Any other AT has to choose whether to click the buff button or click the attack button, but a MM will let their six minions run around do damage while they simply focus on healing and buffing the team (minions included). But it's not all roses. A regular buffer can also drop a nuke every 40-ish seconds that will do most of what the MM minions would have done but in three seconds and then not worry about the endless resummon and re-upgrade cycle.