Sovera

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.

You don't need to farm if you don't want, but you can farm if you do want. You can build a character that works for all content and then do farming if you feel like it or go out and play with others or go solo missions. My signature has some tips for money making. If you do want to farm with a Tanker then I'd go with a Fire/Fire and depending on how it's build you can throw four AoEs every few seconds while still having good single target. If the main goal is to farm you can skimp and cut some corners. I would still advise to check the Farm Fresh thread over the Guides section of the forums since it's all farmers with tips and builds being posted.

No, passive powers check for procs every 10 seconds. Passive powers aren't even affected by recharge since they are passive. You can slot IOs that have recharge but they won't do a thing.

Tankers do substantial damage for actual gameplay. While leveling I hit Build-up, use my two PbAoEs and all minions are dead and lieutenants are at half HP. Can other ATs do this? Yes. Can they even do more? Yes. Do they more damage? Also yes. Does this mean Tankers hit like crap and it's a slow whittling of enemies? No.

Welcome back! You can't, but, there's double XP and a solid economy where no one needs to spend a billion for a single enhancement. Even taking it easy in two weeks you can be fully geared with incarnates and all. Check the guide in my signature for stuff you might find use.

Hey, I read you. I used to play with someone who was like that. They would DC without warning and then show up again either in a few hours or the next day, no excuse, no mention about what happened. After the.. fifth or sixth time when they mentioned about playing together I said no, I mentioned their DCs, they said they were in the military with a bad wifi, and I said sure, so it's not malicious, but you still DC each time we play so in the end I still don't want to play with you, sorry, best wishes, etc. This with Mythic keys in WoW means if one player DCs the key is bricked and the run is void and since the reward is gated by finishing the dungeon then there is no reward for having stuck to it. But this isn't the case in CoH. If need be a single reasonably IO-ed character can solo the rest and if there another six lending support or just helping to kill then a missing team mate has absolutely zero consequences. I've lost count of TFs I've ran that started with 8 people and finished with 5 or less and nothing happened, the difficulty wasn't even lowered, we just continued playing and finished it. That's why I don't grok this thread. Unless the team was full SO geared squishies and the person who disappeared was the Tanker what difference does it make if someone DCs or maliciously decides to leave?

If you pug a lot and don't know what the wind will blow to your team then a Tanker wins out. Build it to be self-sufficient and no need to fish for specific buffers or wish that they were available. If playing with SGs or with people who care to build teams 'right' then a Brute can replace the Tanker as buffs fill up the gaps that Brutes cannot reach alone and a Tanker does. In terms of damage they are toe-to-toe which has made many Brutes very sad. This is mostly due to a complete abuse of procs and tossing as much as four or even six into all attacks and then rely on a mix of incarnates and a Tanker's innate higher defense to not need to spend as much into shoring said defenses with IOs. Brutes do more damage, but then lose that edge by spending more of their slotting budget shoring their defenses, and even then they will have gaps which buffers need to cover. In practice anything that is actually tough (hardmodes, that's it, even Trials aren't consider hard anymore) the team will not be random warm bodies and those buffers will be present to a point Brutes or Scrappers replace Tankers. Tankers have a huge HP pool which cannot be replicated by IOs or buffs as it is hardcapped and that huge HP pool allows to soak hits and heal back up where a Scrapper cannot (at best there is always a 5% chance of being hit and Scrappers only boast of 75% resists. A Brute has 90% resists but still not the HP of a Tanker). Tbh if you're not in hardmodes this worry about playing the very best AT that can save a team is just amusing for the vets reading this thread. Normal non-HM content is easy enough most people just solo it at +4x8 and so much as bringing a second person already doubles the carnage. I stopped teaming because we are at a point where the difficulty is not in surviving or keeping a team alive but finding a target we can actually hit before it has turned into a corpse before we have finished animating the attack.

How did you get that from what I said? 😄 I *love* my Stone/Fire Melee who is the (near) immortal Tanker in my signature because it balances strong offense with strong AoE and ST. It replaced my Fire/MA as a solid damage dealer with good AoE because it also cruises through the game and the leveling without bothering with inspirations. Where Fire Melee needs some babysitting through the levels up to 30-40 and is a definite defeat-first-before-they-defeat-you. Fire/MA is still strong because of a resist based armor being able to reach softcapped defense. The synergy between Dragon's Tail and Burn makes the AoE pretty good and the extra offense goes well with MA. Realistically Fire/Fire is the most damaging of the trio (no, duh) but not for the obvious reasons. It is because it's one of the few builds that has triple PbAoEs with zero time wasted in repositioning on top of the obvious reasons. This is all based on me being mostly a soloer these days. For someone who wants to play in teams and be absurdly tanky then sure, consider Stone/MA and be self-buffed at incarnate defense caps on top of having roughly 80% resists to most things AND be at HP cap.

They already are penalized though? They didn't get the rewards from finishing the TF.

I can't stand Controllers myself even when I teamed which I don't anymore. Plant has nice things but mainly lives and dies by Seeds. And since Seeds is always available and a whole spawn is neutered by a single click you can just focus on the busy Kin with buffing and debuffing. Plus Seeds will make coming close to FS much safer.