Sovera

Try to hit a mob in the center of other mobs, and don't use Radiation Siphon. The damage splash isn't big though.

That's explained. I had removed the two -res procs from Irradiated Ground because 'logically' it was 'common sense' that with low HP mobs it was better to do direct damage than do a -res effect. Swapped the damage procs for the -res procs and it was done in 44 minutes. Makes me think if the Rad/Fire had the -res procs or not when I tested... As much as I hiss at -res procs it's true that the damage they bring is amplified by lower level mobs. Definitely slot these up when leveling, brethren. And probably just keep them in regardless since IG is such a good carrier. Actually revived my interest in the oldie Fire/Rad Tank that I had... I must look it up again.

I went into Yin and tried to brute force the sturdyness. Which did not went super well with one death after pulling two groups and trying to face tank without inspiration. Still reasonable I suppose since slotting is in no way finished. Had to eat a purple for Yin since the three heals were not enough, and, interestingly enough, I'm now wondering what shenanigans did I pull for the Stone Armor version having finished his almost ten minutes sooner. Stone Armor finished in 45 minutes, Rad Armor in 54 minutes. Despite all the endurance available and having endurance recovery debuff I kept getting detoggled which did not happen with Stone Armor who mostly ignored Super Stunners ressurection.

It's good to see you come out of your oyster, Dian. To that and other questions you ought to check the guide in my signature since it's not usually a one-answer-fits-all. I fell into that 'trap' of making my own generic IOS (generic IOs are IOs that have no bonuses attached to them) and like you I got tired from all the crafting. As it turns out level 25 IOs are super cheap. Akin to 50k each or something. If you're doing random missions to level up try doing Positron part 1 (Steel Canyon, big statue in the center where the trainer is), it has low value in merits but you come out with roughly 2.2 or 2.3 million worth in merits. You can do it at level 8 and that one alone pays for all of your generic IOs. In my experience fully slotting a character in generic IOs costs something like 2 million and something.

There is nothing new here. There was a fad where Rad/Rad builds were like hot cakes so after it there is nothing new under the sun, but here's my take on it. There is not a ton of synergy going I think. The heal from Rad Melee is nice but feels superfluous when we have an absorb shield and a recovery-clicky-that-doubles-as-a-heal (or vice-versa). Rad Armor does lack a damage aura and Rad Melee does have one, Rad Melee does go heavy on the endurance and Rad Armor swims in it, and Rad Melee does take a FF proc which helps speeding Rad Armor's clickies. Rad Armor does not push the damage (the mini nukes are fine if people like them all procced but eh) but as I recently saw Rad Melee works very well on its own (Rad/Fire with Burn only five minutes ahead of a Rad/Granite that didn't even have Brimstone yet). So that said it came out as pretty sturdy. 45% to S/L defense and 90% to S/L/E with Negative at 78% (all of these numbers with Barrier's 5%, so remove 5%). Other than Negative these are nearly Tanker numbers and self sustained too. One ST heal, one AoE heal, one absorb shield, fat recharge from Beta Decay and the Force Feedback proc in Radioactive Smash to keep things moving, and of course a beautiful list of debuff resists: I'll be giving it a go to compare against Rad/Granite and Rad/Fire. If there is a call for I'll whip a leveling build. This is what I leveled with. The levels at which the slots were placed are auto arranged by Mids, but focus on attacks first, Irradiated Ground and Radiation Therapy having precedence until six slotted. I also placed five Brute's Fury in Radioactive Smash until Atom Smasher had six slots, then placed Brute's Fury there and swapped to what is here.

At least the enemies you can tell by turning on their names and health bars. I have that somewhere in the guide in my signature.

Level 7 is a bit early to be going in at +1x8, Dian. But I'm not a farmer. That said I do solo Posi 1 at level 8-10 at +0x6 or x8, but it heavily depends on the AT and combo while also cramming with IOs. At those early levels common sense dictates you want it fast in and fast out since you have a tiny inspiration tray which you will be spamming to survive. Consider leveling in the Tunnel Witches map until you're 15 and then swap over. Consider also Radiation Melee instead of Spines. Spines is a tad obsolete where a Rad/Fire boasts of three PbAoEs while also getting some heals from Radiation Siphon. Irradiated Ground is a truck compared to Quills.

Interestingly enough Rad Melee skews things enough that when I tried a Rad/Fire Burn only shaved 5 minutes off Yin, and that with guzzling inspirations. It makes me rhink of what other less damage oriented combos I could try with Rad. Maybe even rad/rad.

Only a regular Elec/Fire, so it's meant for the whole game and not just farm. You might be luckier over the Guides section of the forums under the Farm Fresh thread.

Pretty much all. Some are pretty difficult like Market Crash, Lady Grey, Lord Recluse and a few others, but where there are no special mechanics things can be whittled down. The normal ones we do under level 50 have no special requirements.

Went into the ITF +1x8 at 46 anyway. Due to DDR being downscaled I only had 40% instead of the 51% Mids promised, but regardless it did not seem to do a thing. I was debuffed into the red in seconds according to luck of the draw though I did notice that even a small purple seemed to stem the flood for a while which means that, yeah, it was doing something, just not enough. The defense needs a bit of a buffer for the DDR to do its thing but this is as far as the Brute will go without dipping into Martial Arts, in which case might as well go Tanker since they get Dragon's Tail at 20 and better defense values. At least Brimstone comes at 26 to help the Tanker damage a bit. As my first character with DDR I had unreasonably high expectations but if I am to be debuffed into the red I might as well continue with Fire and the approach of killing everything before it kills me. That said surviving wasn't difficult: just keep an eye on defense and once it dips into the red float a bit higher up in the air. In less than ten seconds the defense went back to normal, dive back in. Or try using Granite for those moments, but retoggling everything seems like a pain so I'd rather float out of the way. Barrier as a panic button also ought to fix the DDR issue and may handily replace Granite.

Since it's a new toy and I'm putting it through its paces I've soloed Numina. Nothing special except the Devouring Earth at the end. No deaths but it was close and I quickly got into the habit of going in, dropping Atom smasher and then get the heck out of dodge, break line of sight, then kill them. Any attempt at face tanking would be instant death I reckon, no fancy regen or heals would have made a difference. The AV did not require Daggers despite being tagged as GM. I'm still without Tough or Weave though, and still shy of level 50 so I'm not really interested in soloing the ITF (at just +1 until I incarnate) just yet. The endurance is not getting better and I'm dreading adding Tough and Weave at bare minimum in there. My initial thoughts that 3 Performance Shifters procs plus Panaceia would be enough were vastly optimistic. So far all of those plus 3.50 EPS and without Tough/Weave/Focused Accuracy nearly drain my endurance in a fight (not the final slotting on attacks though). With accolades and Musculature it will shoot to 4.39 though, but I will also go from 1.79 to 2.67 with those three toggles. Living off Recovery Serums does not seem appealing so Cardiac is looming ahead.

120 seconds recharge for 67 damage. Shadow Punch recharges in 3 seconds and does 57 damage. I know it's an AoE, but, still.

Street Justice has no powers, it's literally kicking and punching. So there is no rationale, you're kicking and punching, be it from StJ or Fighting Pool. Now Psi and Ice are powers, we get FX each time one is used. Upside of Street Justice is also the very fast recharge. Spring Attack is frankly terrible. You're glossing over Air Superiority in Fly though. It recharges fast and is a nice CC. You can't perma Rune of Protection, and Field Medic is just terrible. I squeezed it in many builds and tried to make it work, but it's a 4 second interruptible animation, so two slots are dedicated to interrupt reduction which still isn't enough if you're standing on fire. As someone who has lost their powers I don't see you using Hover or even Combat Jumping, but Athletic Run and Sprint is all you're going to need (though, y'know, running faster than a car seems pretty super powered still). For a secondary I don't recall how FX intrusive Bio is but it's what I'd suggest. You get the anti-CC toggle, regen&recovery, and a S/L res toggle by level 4.

And since I was pondering a Dark version I checked the damage difference. One Rad rotation: Devastating Blow (2.9 seconds, 775 damage), Radioactive Smash (1.7 animation, 303 damage), Radiation Siphon (2.4 animation, 434 damage), Radioactive Smash (1.7 animation, 303 damage) = 8.7 seconds for 1815 damage. One Dark Melee rotation with 1 person in Soul Drain: Siphon Life (2.1 animation, 436 damage), Shadow Punch (1 second animation, 174 damage), Smite (1.2 animation, 275 damage), Shadow Punch (1 second animation, 174 damage) = 5.3 seconds for 1.059. That gives time for another Siphon Life and Shadow Punch (2.1 + 1 = 3.1. 3.1 + 5.3 = 8.4, bringing damage to in-the-time-a-single-Rad-ST-loop-happens for DM to do 1669. Round it to 1700. Neither calculation is perfect. Rad Melee has Irradiated Ground ticking all the time and Dark Melee can and probably will get more than a single target in Soul Drain. Now Midnight Grasp is much better damage than Shadow Punch but comes super late. That means leveling and exemplaring with just two attacks. But for the sake of argument: Midnight Grasp (2.3 animation for 650 damage), Smite (1.2 animation, 275 damage), Siphon Life (2.1 animation, 436 damage), Smite (1.2 animation, 275 damage) = 6.8 seconds for 1636 damage. That still gives time for one more Midnight Grasp so 8.1. I could squeak in a Smite and just run over a bit but I won't. That leaves damage at 2.286. Again, lets not forget Irradiated Ground hits decently hard and is passively ticking in the background. The Midnight Grasp also does not clutter the start where trying to cram all the powers at once is pretty difficult. Even so I could only squeeze in Earth's Embrace at level 30. Trying to squeeze Shadow Punch would force me to push back... something. I'm not sure what. I don't want to push Rooted back. Someone who does not take Fly can put Rooted at level 24. I'll leave the MG build here. The free slot in Soul Drain is for Gaussian but I didn't put it in so it wouldn't skew my numbers:

It's not perfect but here's a version with Granite.

Update: Soloed Moonfire and Citadel, nothing special to report, same ol'. I'm not the first one to think it but Atom Smasher feels superfluous. Hit the boss, by the time ti's dead so are most minions from the double auras. But it does have its use to hurry things along when we don't want to be debuffed or be hit. Manticore. Manticore was painful. Four deaths. The revamped Crey hurt. Granted that my amplifiers had run out and I had 38% defense with no Tough or Weave in yet. I had not noticed on the Fire/Stone Melee Tanker but the new rad PPs debuff resistances instead of defenses and they were pretty much responsible for all deaths as I wandered around with 16% resists to energy. The -res debuff seems to have some weird interactions in my opinion. My defenses show as untouched, but my -res plummets into the red, and suddenly I'm dead. If mobs were not hitting me before why are they hitting and killing me in a few seconds once resistances are on the red? It's the Shepherds all over again. Strange. Regardless all things that were a bother for the Fire Tanker were ignored by the Stone Armor. No confuse shenanigans, no blinds, Stone Armor handled all of that. I kept leveling and adding slots and was back to 40% defenses and up to 28% resists to E/N by the end of Manticore. Unlike the Fire/Stone Tanker I had no need to get Envenomed Daggers and killed both AVs without inspirations either defensive or offensive (but Stone is pure Smash and Rad is Smash, then chunky Energy and some Toxic so a more exotic spread). Not bad considering it's a leveling build still and has no damage procs in Radioactive Smash and only one in Devastating Blow. The praises to Radiation have been sung and its downsides are common fodder in the forums, but one thing I seldom see mentioned is how well tailored the devs made the ST rotation. It's just too pat for me to believe it was random coincidence. Devastating, Smash, Siphon, Smash, loop, is something that starts early, is forgiving, and is simple. It's the opposite of StJ and EM whose awkward recharges force piano play and long rotations to not have gaps while waiting for the big hitters to return. Thoughts: Having a panic button in Granite might have saved those deaths. The easier answer would be removing Combat Jumping and then rearrange the slotting to find 2%. 2% to psi, E/N/S/L might be a case of completely reconstructing the build though. Or take Atom Smasher out for Granite, but Atom Smasher has its uses not least being a perfect mule to six slot Brute's Fury. In any other attack it would eat one or two damage procs. Dark Melee/Stone might just be the superior variant to this. Dark Consumption would fix the endurance handily (I counted, I currently have 9 toggles. End game build has 12. No wonder endurance can't keep up), Touch of Fear - Shadow Maul - Touch of Fear is decent AoE, the ST is ok without being super but without being Elec Melee bad, and it comes with the small heal. The ST from Rad Melee is going to be handily better though.

You have Ice Patch, you don't need more KB IMO, and yeah, there's that risk too.

I don't think it stacks for Tankers though.

I'll wait and see what the devs would do with the rest of the set, but IMO once Burn is 'fixed' then Fiery Embrace won't be enough to carry Fire Armor.

A aNemu said. Shield is melee, ranged, aoe. Parry is also melee. I suggest taking it while you level to shore up your defenses. I also think that you can work it in and change slotting dedicated to melee defense into something else though wirhout looking at Mids I do not know how useful this approach would be.

Pretty much anything can solo an AV at the end of a TF. The one that would most likely be a stop over is... whatchamacallit, I forgot the name, but the last one at Manticore's TF. That's because he's literally a tank with the resists that go with it. My Fire/Stone Melee Tanker was progressing so slowly I gave up and went to get Daggers from the P2W vendor. In Yin I could see the chunks of HP being taken from the AV. Every hit was a noticeable bit of HP off. Now, if it's really top tier? I dunno, I remember that 1:45 time on a pylon, but it had three -res sources which play -very- well with pylons. 1:45 isn't super amazeballs either (but it's top tier good) and it was combined with Bio. I'll give it a try on the Brute just to compare and also to check the times with and without Brimstone. It's not going to be 1:45 though. Scrappers do more damage and this gal is neither with three -res sources nor Bio.

It was on a Bio, but my Scrapper Rad did the pylon in 1:45. I'll grant it had three sources of -res though. Added to the OP, and say hello to Willow for me 😄

Welcome back, Dian. As someone without levels 50 and who has no special experiencea with Tankers you should consider playing how you see fit instead of trying to tell others how to. It comes off a lot as someone who plays soccer the weekends trying to explain to Ronaldo how do do it.

Stone Armor does 'fix' some of the squishyness a Brute has. Part of it is the lower HP noticed in things like Market Crash with the -HP debuff the last boss applies, Stone now has a lot of bells and whistles between recharge, perception, recovery and the faster HP buff. I also ran out of powers to take Granite but it is a good one slot wonder (+5 defense in there imo). Someone not taking Fly can squeeze it in.