Sovera

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.

MUH FIRE ARMOR!! A-ahem, I mean... Not complaining. I'm just what the heck at, y'know, having pitted Fire Armor and Burn and all offense (Fiery Embrace and inspirations) against uber defensive Stone Armor, and Stone Armor won 😄 Okay, okay, the strength of Tanker builds is being able to reach end game and then be able to make tight builds with plenty of procs and such. So it is not fair to compare two leveling builds slotted similarly instead of two end-game builds tweaked to their AT's strength.

You're making a big thing, plus rolling with assumptions, on a topic I'm not particularly sanguine about. Nothing that you have said so far has struck me as original or something I have not encountered or even personally played instead of watching others do it. C'mon, am I Diantane or something? Do I go around making false claims or proclaiming my opinion as gospel? I say it as I see it. It ranks as pet peeves, not something that makes me come to the forums to rant on. My post history is available, I don't think I have ranted about mass immobilizes or even knockbacks. I do grumble when someone has made a topic about it and I pitch in. Even this thread was not one I started, yet others feel like I do, obviously. The bottom line is still the same: enemies don't wander away from the tank (if the tank goes first). A Blaster can nuke with full impunity because once agroed the mobs are sticking with the tank. Mass CCs are useful for when things get dicey: tank dies, two spawns are agroed, ambush comes from behind. Mass CC is not useful when things are steamrolled. Now please, Ninja, I bear you no ill will since we can have an argument without it, but do stop trying to make it look like I'm a lunatic who has just first set foot on the game and has not touched a Controller.

I'm seriously disgusted at this. Damn thing soloed Posi 1 and 2 at 0x8, with Posi 2 finishing in 45 minutes. That was faster than my Fire Armor/Stone Melee who has Burn and did it in 46 minutes and that I had made a thread giving an impressed nod. Then I tried Yin since it left that super low level zone where Fury is OP and at +1x8 it was still soloed in 43 minutes. Again, faster than the Fire/Stone who now had access to Tremor on top of Burn. But as further insult I was blinking at the speed I was going through mobs and decided that despite not yet having Earth's Embrace/Rooted slotted to stop using inspirations to not skew things, so unlike the Tanker I was not stuffed in purples and reds and whatever else dropped. The only moment I used inspirations was to tackle Yin who debuffed me faster than my downleveled DDR could stop so a medium purple to tackle her and the ambush at the same time. Even so 43 minutes. And super safe (no inspirations used after all). The upside of a Tanker having more HP gets shut down by Earth's Embrace pushing HP to 3k something once at max level. Not capped but a fat bonus that needs to be ablated. For all of the spreadsheet and talks the chunks taken out of the AV (without benefit of reds, Fiery Embrace, Burn, or Brimstone) makes my Tanker green with envy, and Brutes who are supposed to be squishier simply are not with Stone Armor being strong as it is. Despite having slotted all but one of the recovery uniques as well as having slotted both IOs in Stamina and Crystal Armor the endurance keeps on going down (currently 3.26 EPS) and there is still Brimstone, Tough, Weave, and Focused Accuracy to come so it's a tad worrying for someone used to Consume. For now I use Recovery Serums once my blue bar dips under 20% and it's always available by the time it has returned to 20%. Considering how cheap Recovery Serums are and how it's just the leveling phase I'll carry on doing it and then see how the build behaves at max level with accolades and Musculature 33%. I'll drop the build here though I don't know how correct it is because of Mids being currently borked. I know the HP bonus, recovery, and stats in many attacks are simply not working or doing double than what they ought, but the IO bonuses seem to be working so I pushed for the usual goals and will revisit when Mids has been fixed. Should be fixed, but may need a manual download. I got mine from their Discord. Different build replacing Devastating Blow for Contaminated Strike. No, no, contain your sneering, there is MATH! If there's interest I'll whip a leveling build. Leveling build:

The logic is sound but as @InvaderStych it is not how it works. There are not two rolls for each attack, just one against the one that is higher. If it's melee then it rolls against melee, but if it's Smash then it rolls against Smash. There is value in adding more of what you have highest in terms of buffering defense debuffing. Stone has a decent defense debuffing resistance but not enough to be considered immune to it. Also a small part of the content is not softcapped with just 45%.

I'd aim for more resists as long as above softcap. This is a good enough approach for 98% of the game. When the slowly expanding difficulty options catch up to the rest of the game it will be common to bring buffers and then the middle-of-the-road approach will benefit more than over-the-cap-so-buffs-do-nothing. IMO.

Not add them, but swap them for something. Preventive Medicine in Rooted would give 2.5% S/L. Can be done in Earth's Embrace as well. Or just try to give the full Preventive Medicine in Rooted and five Panaceia in Earth's Embrace.

The new Mids is out though you might need to download it from the site instead of the auto updated. It seems currently bugged in a few ways though so perhaps hold off. I confess I've been tempted by this combo.... but no agro aura... I've played Stalkers before and it was the deal breaker so I know it will be for me. But the combo sounds good. Looking at the build now you do sacrifice a bit more than I am comfy with. I'd really throw all those 'chance for heal' procs into Rooted or Earth's Embrace. You have two 1.5% S/L resists past the limit of 5 so change for something else, perhaps LotG for regen instead. I'd throw a FF proc into Shockwave to help Hasten too. You seem a bit worried about F/C defenses and resists. Before Aeon I would say it's not really something to worry about but nowadays I don't know if fire or cold are important for that specific TF. Otherwise I'd also throw a FF proc into Focus.

Not sure if super durable is really a necessity. The TF is not one to be face tanked from what I've read (didn't do it yet). Just like Psi melee... Well, it's not great. But if it' the mob's weakness then perhaps that's what's needed. Are they impervious to CC like ITF mobs? Because Ice Patch might be a good help. Probably EM to focus fire on the important mobs that need to be put down ASAP.

Yes, MMs sort of need a way to heal their pets. Cold Domination is great and all, but even if you had softcapped defense for your pets (which can be achieved with Cold but is going to require more than level 20) hits will still happen and heals will still be needed. Something perhaps easier since you don't mess with IOs would be changing to Thermal. Your shields will help your pets live longer and your heals can keep them up. It still has anti-AV tools like Cold has.

Proof's in the pudding, git in there and tell us how it went!