Sovera

Used the Fire/Stone Melee build and soloed Posi 2 at 0x8 in 48 minutes, no deaths. Then did Yin, and, surprisingly, did not use inspirations until having reached Clamor. I say surprisingly because I had an unslotted heal, unslotted shields, unslotted Consume, but even so it was done in 48 minutes (again). Still deathless. ...which is not really bad at all considering it's a Tanker and its ST heavy hitter is over level 38. Previous attempt was 46 minutes. The recordist in these 'Yin challenges' is still the Claws/Fire Brute at 38 minutes followed by a Fire/Rad Melee Tanker with 39 minutes and honorable mentions to the Savage/Stone and Rad/Stone Brute at 42 and 43 respectively. Rad Melee is just brutal even without Burn and Fiery Embrace and this is not even counting on how most of its damage is energy/toxic instead of smash/slash.

Yeah, Stone Armor's weakness is rather E/N, though on a tanker we can still pump those upwards of 60%.

After looking at Stone Melee I finally conceded that the problem with its ST rotation was trying to only use the mallets. It makes leveling a chore, it makes the ST clunky, and even at end game it requires everything in place plus an FF proc to be gapless. Once I accepted this I also saw that, y'know what? Actually Stone Fists isn't bad all. I cranked up another Fire/Stone Melee, used an alt to do two passes in a farm map which placed it at level 23 and then went for Posi 1 cranked to 0x8 after having grabbed eight hours worth of amplifiers. The ST rotation was Heavy Mallet, Stone Fists, Stone Mallet, Stone Fists. Repeat. While Hasten was up and even at such an extreme exemplaring the rotation was already gapless and a pleasure to work with. Burn was a good help as usual and the sole AoE since Fault is... well.. it's crummy. and a bit of a noob trap IMO. Large recharge, heavy endurance costs, abysmal accuracy, low damage, weak CC (when the accuracy even allows it to hit). Burn was enough for my AoE needs and with Build-Up I could punch through CoT BS while the FF procs in the mallets helped things along. Only used the inspirations that dropped and did not replenish at the store or AH. Only one death... at the very end... last spawn after the shadow bosses... I was already banking on bragging rights for a deathless run but after surviving eight shadow clone bosses I was out of inspirations and a mix of -tohit aura + force field + earthquake + spammed immobilizes finally got me. Still not bad for a 'squishy Fire Armor' and done in 46 minutes. Also the non weapon aesthetic looks nice with a very brawler feel to it. The usual with my builds: 76.7% resists with one stack of the Tanker proc in Heavy Mallet, a second stack and it's 83.4%, Barrier's 5% and it's 88.4% and once at 90% HP the Scaling Resists IO in Hover pushes it to 89.4%. If desired I can post a leveling build.

Fire Armor has Consume which protects against sapping (the sucking of the blue bar), though it does not protect from -recovery (the stopping of the blue bar filling up). Makes Carnies fine, but not Super Stunner's ressurection. Consume does need to be used before being sapped, but the sapping prevention buff lasts for two minutes (and is a 98% protection if Consume is slotted) and recharges in one minute (if slotted).

Brutes do more damage and can tank everything. It takes reaching the 5% of end game AND be solo to find a Tanker would do better. A well built Brute needs only one 50 inf inspiration to be at the level of a Tanker. What the Tankers have is an easier (cheaper?) way to be very sturdy without investing a lot of money. In return their damage is more mushy (despite what some claim in these forums). Now doing a bit less damage is not what someone who picks a Tanker is really worried about so this is moot. If you have your heart set on a Tanker then I suggest Fire Armor/Ice Melee since it is good straight out of the box. Tankers are pretty tough and there is no need to aim for -more- sturdy since it is difficult to die. Especially with Ice Melee dropping Ice Patches. I you prefer a Brute try a Radiation Melee/Stone Armor. It's pretty much easy mode with Irradiated Ground killing things around you while you're focusing on a boss. I had very good results with a Claws/Fire Brute too, but unlike Stone Armor that one needed to eat inspirations until mid game (around level 30 ish) where the Stone Armor becomes impervious around level 22+ish (needs a good build using all the tricks though). If you need examples I have builds in my signature and how to make money.

Firrrrrrrre/Clawsssss 😄 You can exemp down to level 15 and still be rocking. Or Fire/Ice Melee if you feel you want to help your team. Do damage -and- be sturdy.

The easy solution is to have Focused Accuracy, then you're the one who makes them cry. That would also let you drop Nerve and go for Musculature which ought to be a net gain. Speaking of Diagmagnetic thingy is pretty worthless as well and needs to be tuned by the devs. Either go for the resist (which actually is useless, but the 75% medium DoT makes a difference) or the 75% chance for DoT Degenerative (best middle ground since it helps for regular gameplay and against AVs where neither the res or the -tohit incarnates has an effect on AVs). The procs in Beta Decay are doing you no favors. Might as well have the slots as two +5 recharge in Build-Up so you can punch through more often. Regardless Decimation proc is valueless due to its abysmal 1 PPM, anything you slot in its place will be better IMO. Consider the math on Swipe + Lunge in the time it takes to use Impale (my own ST rotation with Spines is Ripper, Swipe, Lunge, Swipe. Repeat). Since you have a lot of endurance with the Radiation Therapy spam those slots could be scrounged from Health and Stamina. Mids says that the new and improved Impale does 465 in 2.64 seconds. A slotted Barb Swipe and Lunge take 2.9 second to animate and do 379 + 239 = 618. Check this slotting. More damage than the previous slotting (old Impale did 317, new does 465) but some endurance discount, (near) immune to -tohit, bit more recharge, bit more resistances (lowered S/L resistances on purpose since Barrier will give 5% that can be perma), etc. If you're fighting +3 (or +4 while having at least T3 Alpha) you're are 93% chance to hit making the Kismet not needed (if you do fight actual +4 or +5 then keep the Kismet). I sacrificed some of your S/L defenses since they were so low as to only matter statistically. It's pretty difficult to pursue them while going proc bomb in any case. The Swipe and Lunge build:

You do not need to play the game in absolute min max mode. If a ranged character who covers up for the weakness of the tanker friend is something you wish to play then go for it, and ultimately you will make their life easier at the start and at the end (at the start because you provide with endurance and heals and at the end because once their defenses are in place you can pump their (and yours) damage). Two meleers can accomplish the same content though, and not be fussed with CC. You just won't cover for any weaknesses, but even then if you go with Ice Melee you can make something impossible actually happen.

The suggestions so far have all been good. It's true about the CC being a weak point for a ranged character but having a few breakfrees (and the fact you'd be playing with a Tanker who is first in running to danger) should limit this. Remember you can buy more breakfrees from the auction House simply by typing /ah between missions. You can easily go around with six greens and six breakfrees if need be. I would still say a Kinetic for the reasons stated above. At some point heals and defenses are no longer of use (especially in a Tanker duo) since the Tanker is very sturdy and does not require extra sturdy. Helping with the damage and endurance takes over and that makes a Kin helpful through the whole leveling range from squishy Tanker friend to tough-but-slow-damage Tanker friend. In my own experience when we start getting whittled down by the enemies a single 50 inf purple or orange inspiration is enough to turn the tides, and sadly that's what all the contribution from Defenders and Corruptors usually boil down to: preventing that one or two 50 inf inspiration sporadic use. Where they shine is as damage boosters. Honestly, if we were to put a tankermage duo and a tankermeleer duo I have good reason to believe the tankermeleer duo will do everything easier and faster.

Touch of Death is one of the best melee sets. S/L resistance, E/N resistance, S/L defense, comes with a damage proc, decent raw stats spread. It only lacks recharge. Other sets come with bad bonuses (I'm sure someone will pipe in on how tox/psi is useful for their build) or have bad raw stats (Kinetic Combat), or useless procs (hold? Heck). No, ToD is one of the best evenly balanced melee sets IMO and being level 40 really does not hinder this. I'm not against the idea though, but other than having more raw stats by the ten level bump I'm not sure what would be gained.

Not sure the concept has been well thought. You're saying if you fight against someone and lose, they get stronger so you get less of a chance of winning?

Anything kinetics. Maybe Fire/Kinetics Corruptor. They will love Speedboost for their whole career (especially as Dark Armor) and the early healing and later on when the later is no longer necessary it is swapped for the damage boost. Defender if wanting the Kinetic goodies sooner. While the tankers survive a lot it depends what enemies you two decide to tackle. The more exotic (Praetoria, Ward, etc) the more having a source of healing can turn the tides. And when enemies are particularly dire do not discount the Kin's auto-knockdown toggle (with proper IO otherwise it's knockback). Honestly you could go Plants but it's a terrible set in terms of fun. One Seeds of Chaos and there is nothing to fight since mobs are ignoring the team. Very efficient, very powerful, but with an end result of nearly being the equivalent of clicking a button for free XP with only the hassle of moving between mission locations.

People praising the -res need to actually use it in a test and see the results with and without. The prime place where it might shine is the pylon test where stuffing the maximum number of -res sources allows for amazing times (/cold as a prime example) all thanks to pylons being +0. My own tests against +4 AVs (+3 with T3 Alpha) showed something like a 4-7% damage increase because of the purple patch effect. But this is two 20% -res with better uptime since slotted into attacks being spammed. The upside of the '4-7%' boost is that it's 4-7% for each player which makes it a reasonable choice. Outside of AVs/GMs the -res procs have shown to not affect the killing speed as tested on farm maps and the Trapdoor test over the Scrapper forum, and this is with the -res slotted in AoEs unlike WR who is a ST power. Looking at Weaken Resolve on Mids shows it has a 90% chance to make an Achilles' -res go off with a duration of 15 seconds and around 13-14 CD without any recharge slotted. The casting is 2.24 though. My experience on this (take it with a grain of salt, and of course anyone willing to run said testing mentioned above would fix all 'gut feels') is that the power is fine on a support character in a full team against an AV/GM. Any time it is up and the character can choose between tossing a T1 or T2 or using Weaken Resolve it will (probably) help the team more to choose WR thanks to everyone adding their % which is bound to be more than a support character's T1 or T2 damage. That said it would still only shave a few seconds (not a minute) and even less than one might think on quick fights that are short. A damage based character would probably suffer too much from sinking 2.24 seconds into a non damaging character (yes, I know, procs. Procs can be slotted into damaging attacks as well though), and of course that nothing under an AV/GM will be worth using it on even for a support character. Think of it like a /Rad's anchors and if they are worth using on normal mobs. Bopper can probably math this out.

Anything works. Tankers are so tough out of the box that it is hard to go wrong. I see the ITF bandied as a tough encounter and my Fire Armor soloed it at +4x8 with buffed enemies no inspirations used, and that's Fire Armor who is supposed to be squishy. Rather think what you would like as a playstyle instead. Big damage to kill things faster? The traditional 'go AFK in the middle of two groups and return 15 minutes still alive (Fire Armor does not do this btw)? Fancy tanktroller (Ice Melee comes to mind, minus the ITF all other enemies flop around making the team extra safe)? Several sets can do the afk-in-the-middle-of-two-groups shtick so if that's what you want but it's not required. I also did a few of the 801 teams and the squishy Fire Armor did not die, so again, think about what you'd like.

If it did as much slow as RoF does it would almost act like a pseudo agro aura (less effect once fight +4) which might be why? Dunno. could be worth a trip to the bug forums.

Tweaked the Fire/Super Strength to not need to have Tough toggled on to reach 90% S/L. Usual gimmicks of two ATO stacks + Barrier for 90% resistances and 45% S/L. I'm not 100% happy with the ST rotation but the FF proc in KO Blow should mean KOB - Haymaker - Burn - Haymaker - KOB is possible, but if the FF proc does not go off despite KO Blow's phenomenal chance of making procs happen then inject a Jab in there to cover said gap. While leveling and without all the slotting in place it's probably best to go KOB - Burn - Jab - Haymaker - Jab. If it's still not enough then add another before Burn. Punch would be better than Jab, but, Tankers don't get to choose. Boxing is -slightly- better (heck, even Air Superiority might be better considering the 100% CC) but fitting everything early implies using Jab instead. Burn fixes SS's lack of an early AoE and makes leveling a SS character palatable while Rage makes Burn the heavy hitter. Handclap was picked and slotted just for the Rage crash where spamming it and Footstomp ought to give a breather.

Mud Pots' slow must be bugged, which is weird since the set only just came out of a refit and everything was probably looked at. Mud Pots does 40% and has zero effect on enemies (I even paired it with Spines and enemies moved around as they pleased without a iota of difference). Rain of Fire has 40% slow and the enemies visibly run in slow motion. Unless RoF stacks (possible).

Aren't radio missions the equivalent of street sweeping? All in the same area, mobs you can control via notoriety, not much talking? My own experiences with sweeping are meeting purple mobs I need to avoid and trying to find non grey mobs to get XP. Sometimes just a street apart.

Slot your +6% res in what ST attack you do use. No build has an infinite AoE chain and at some point a ST attack will be used. Follow-up, Radiation Siphon, Freezing Touch, etc etc. These are powers we usually don't want to leave recharge and not used. I put mine in low level powers so I can even them when exemplared, and try to put them in a skill I will spam. Sometimes because of constraints I put them in long animation and long recharge powers but that's not good since there will be little stacking

Done some tweaking to the Rad/Stone Brute and got it down to 5:33 from 6-7 minutes. I think the 'secret' might be less the new slotting and just not using Devastating Blow. Smash, Siphon, Smash is 5.8 and Atom Smasher is 6,4. It honestly feels smarter (and better) to wait out that small gap and AoE again. Took it to the pylons and averaged 3 minutes. Which is not super great considering it has two -res procs. EM/Stone got 2:30 without -res but goes past 7 minutes for Trapdoor, and Claws/Fire 2:15-2:30 pylons with two -res but also 5-5:15 Trapdoor. So Rad/Stone is only slightly slower than Claws/Fire despite not having Burn or Fiery Embrace, while also being much sturdier. Regardless the endurance consumption is big. Not a problem in Trapdoor since there was time to recoup between spawns but had to use Recovery Serums for the non stop hitting pylon test.

Difficult to fit everything, and yeah, crash is a worry as always. You do not need to faithfully reproduce the build and can just copy some of the slotting where it looks like an improvement.

Tried the KM/Stone and it was the usual. Yin in 55 minutes and fighting through molasses. Burst is otherwise a good AoE but the 2.9 animation to hit mid two digits is not doing any favors to an already ailing set. Also tried the Spines/Stone, but if the gimmick of slows was the intention it turned out to be a dud. The slows are obviously bugged and do nothing, not even a slight movement delay. Things like Rain of Fire, Tar Patch, not to name everyone, makes the enemies move noticeably slower, but the 40% from Mud pots + the 16% from Quills + another 16% from Spine Burst did zilch. This looks like a bug and I assume the recharge is not working either but no idea if so or not. The damage was... actually quite alright. Did Yin in 49 minutes which is not super super great (Spine Burst sucks very very badly though). The T1 and T2 was enough and Ripper when both were on CD or on a heavy AoE situation. Brimstone should help the weak ST damage but it will never compete since no set can use its T1 and T2 and actually do good damage. But, with two auras at the same time it did not feel particularly slow (T1 and T2 was enough to kill +1 minions and that's all I can really ask for). I'll drop the build over the test server tomorrow for both a Trapdoor and pylon test. I needed one power more to fit Afterburner and was short on slots so ditched Throw Spines which is blasphemy (I don't like cones anyway), but just swapping for Super Jump and scrounging slots from the procs and etc would fit it back in.

First thing: welcome back! I would actually recommend a Brute instead of a Scrapper. The damage difference is minimal until builds are min maxed, Bio is used, and a Snipe is picked from the epic pool. For non such min maxed both Scrapper and Brute are shoulder to shoulder with Brutes having a better low level experience and being generally sturdier as well as all armors having an agro taunt aura. Scrappers only have like half of the armors who can agro. Regardless of which you pick consider that all builds are budget friendly for the simple reason the difficulty can be tailored. But with that I would suggest Radiation Armor since it has an early heal + endurance recovery baked in a single skill (Radiation Therapy with a Theft of Essence proc) that alleviates all the problems usually associated with leveling. Radiation Melee also has a very forgiving rotation, a baked in heal in one of the attacks, and passive AoE that allows you to focus on a boss while the minions are dying by themselves. For money making and a character start check my signature.

The fault is partially to blame on your incarnates. Paralytic is one of those Incarnates that has no discernible effect in game and probably needs dev attention. To fight AVs you need Degenerative. I've swapped Agility for Musculature and added damage procs where I could to help. For example Knockout Blow went from 325 damage in your build to 645. All the defenses were lowered to 40% though (Fire/Cold slightly lower but it is not very important). This is meant to be easier to slot and then rely on Barrier for a panic button since a good chunk of the game is easy enough that 40% is enough and when it gets hard and you use Barrier you stay at 45% defense until Barrier has recharged (incidentally 90% to S/L since the 5% applies to resistances as well). That said you have gaps in the attack chain because KO Blow has a lengthy recharge even with Gloom since KOB recharges in 8.5 seconds and a rotation of Punch - Haymaker - Punch takes 4.7 seconds, with Gloom it goes to 6 seconds. Punch is really terrible (slightly worse than Boxing even, and all power pool attacks are terrible) but you could get around this by adding more Punches. Punch - Haymaker - Punch - Gloom - Punch - Haymaker makes 8.7 seconds allowing KOB to be back up. In practice you will be able to skip one or two attacks in that chain because of the Force Feedback procs in Haymaker and KOB speeding up recharge, so when possible don't use Punch. Assault adds almost nothing to damage (something like 4% despite what the tooltip says (easy to test. Hit something with Assault on, then hit again without. calculate percentages)) but you've a free power and if your endurance can take it *shrug*. Otherwise take Strength of Will as a second mini panic button. Or swap Resurgence for it. If you can scrounge a slot Strength of Will needs only two +5 res IOs. Or even Handclap for when Rage crashes happen and you're surrounded.

But you seem stuck that one test is game play conditions and the other is a DPS test, and that the DPS test is not a gameplay conditions test. Yes, you are correct.