Sovera

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.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned -two- tests, one of which is 'normal game play conditions'?

Pylons are a metric, flawed as it may be. At least we know how much damage gets done. But chasing the maximum better pylon time has ruined the concept of testing a build since it's all about stacking -res procs and effects despite the minimal effect they have in regular gameplay. As for 'unless double stacked', double stacked is the normal way it goes in any minimally IO slotted build that has Hasten in. It's not chased, it just happens on its own, and actually requires an effort on the part of the user in not letting it double stack.

The devs don't need to be defended. It's a suggestion forum, suggestions are made. Devs see them. Devs decide to implement them. Or not. Lawyering from players is not a part of the equation.

Gloom improves every build it is inserted in, but honestly give Sav/Stone a try. Very sturdy and Fury pumps the bleed DoTs, Brimstone DoTs, Mud Pots, while Sav with its two AoEs can keep on clearing groups. When I tried EM/Stone Whirling Hands and Brimstone did not make AoE clearing feel good.

I've taken a break from the game but I'm actually pondering making a new Tanker and come back since CoH is my comfort game. Tbh and not something people want to hear in the Tanker forums, but Brutes are just better to play the game. Game does not ask or require uber tanky and anything that kills a Brute will also kill a Tanker. When both survive without a problem the question is why pick the version that does less damage. Which, despite some -very- vocal people (love ya, Bill) the Tanker firmly is. Perhaps in a world without Incarnates or 50 inf inspirations that can be restocked between missions. Reasons to pick Tanker is for the combos. Which is why despite what I just ranted about Tankers I'll be making one. I've refined my oldie Fire/Energy Melee, with its two early-ish AoEs and EM to counter a Tanker's lower damage, to not need Tough toggled on and have Energy Punch instead of Barrage (Barrage 'steals' Focus). Barrage still needs to be taken but it is going to be muled and I want to test if the leveling experience feels better with it. To be honest it should have replaced Fire/Claws as the 'dragon' option, but I've a soft spot for Fire/Claws. I'll post the pylon times later if the leveling felt good, and maybe replace Claws with it.

The damage was lower than I liked and DoT damage is not a good mesh for CoH. Perhaps if there was a mode with harder enemies. The AoE is nice and three PbAoEs are good for clearing faster though. The Brute version came out pretty amazing, especially the Savage/Stone with Brimstone helping and Fury pumping out the myriad DoTs. But even that one it ended up slowly turning boring with the very fast attacks doing delayed damage. On tougher enemies Savage shines combined with it's Build-up mechanic that ensures 100% bleed chance. Start hitting things and see the numbers climbing. Hit a hard enemy and see its HP disappearing a flurry of whittled numbers. But then fight the minion by its side and here we are hitting it 3-4 times, and often hitting it a fifth just to be sure it dies after having experienced enemies alive on a sliver of HP after trusting the DoTs to kill it. That slows the actual gameplay, or it did with me.

Super Strength is one of the strongest sets. This is not gut feelings. We have tests. Tests have been posted. It both clears maps (Trapdoor test) and beats up pylons in pretty top tier echelons. But it does so only when double stacked even when it creates a loop of 10 seconds down and 50 seconds up. So simply asking for a buff won't do. What the set has is clunkyness and unacceptable downsides with the crash. Lets keep in mind it is 'top tier', not the best. Energy Melee has no downsides (the HP loss is tiny and countered by regen alone, and that's if the armor set does not have a heal) on top of phenomenal CC that can stun even AVs, on top of being the top tier damage. So reworking Super Strength to not have Rage's crash should not be a big deal. Handclap definitely needs to do damage though (sonic damage, yes?) because all sets should have an early AoE. A better rework than Fault though since Stone Melee -still- has no early level AoE thanks to Fault being a terrible power even after the rework (yes, it can CC, but the damage is crummy and the accuracy coupled with the recharge compounds how it is a level 50 power-when-all-the-IOs-are-in-place). I would say lower Rage's power to... 50% or something. Two stacked it would grant 100% instead of 160%. Claws goes around with 70% with two stacked Follow-Up. Or rename Rage to Adrenaline and make it a mini-Fury mechanic where the longer the fight goes on the more Adrenaline is pumping and the damage gets higher (I favor this approach since it is proactive, people do not just hang around while their Rage stacks gets higher merely by existing). 'Adrenaline' is a good concept, but it can be called whatever. Even 'Seriousness' (but it does not roll off the tongue) because even Super-man or Goku will invariably start the fight with taps and as they realize the enemy is not being defeated they up the strength of their blows. So it's less Hulk raging and more 'oh, okay, you're not stopping, but you're also not dying, so it's safe to hit you harder'. What a lot of people seem to forget is that these power-ups do not exist in a vacuum. Despite Claws going around with a perpetual 70% damage boost it has not crushed the competition (it's actually a well made set, but tests have not shown it to be a monster and what it does comes more out of being able to slot two -res procs), and this is because the damage of the attacks is slightly lowered to compensate. Same as Super-Strength being mathematically pretty bad without Rage. So walking around with a mini-Fury effect does not have to be OP when the rest of the rest is balanced around it. What really matters is the mechanics of Rage and 10 seconds twiddling thumbs is -bad-. It is not fun. Unfun designs have no place in a -game-.

Fire Armor is one of the reasons to go Brute instead of Scrapper. Burn is very sweet and on a good recharge compared to the 'mini nukes' like Shield Charge who have the recharge of a nuke but do just a bit more than a regular PbAoE (regular PbAoE outdamaging handily Shield Charge in the time it takes to recharge). On a Tanker in particular it makes all the non palatable sets with no early AoEs something that can handle AoE situations. The fancy Fire-Armor-for-Scrappers is Radiation Armor because it has -two- pbAoEs in the secondary. Sadly in my experiments Radiation Therapy is not the equal to Burn in making sets-with-no-early-AoE palatable, but once out of that early phase the burst of primary-based-AoE followed by Ground Zero and Radiation Therapy does decimate things. The Trapdoor thread in these Scrapper forums has a lot of data and shows that Rad Armor is the 'new' big fancy, but also that Bio Armor lacks such and still gets about the same times on account of its mechanics (that said Rad Armor is beefier).

I'm sure some would use Discord. It is a different culture though and there's not much to be done other than adapting to it. Personally I don't look much at what others are running because I log in and play what I want. Do I want to do an ITF? A Tinpex? An arc? I advertise and people join me instead of the other way around.

Keep in mind Slow debuff protection protects against recharge as well. It is the main reason anyone builds for that. Not all enemies do -recharge, but those who do can neuter attacks -and- defensive clickies. Again, just something to come back to if you notice this is a problem. You can probably add 5% from Barrier. Barrier is a good Destiny slot to use as a panic button. Between the ATO stacks and Barrier to be honest most of my resist tanks don't even have Tough toggled up and it is only taken because I have to to reach Weave. Just playing Devil's Advocate but in theory you'll be using Siphon in AoE situations anyway since you do not have enough AoE to just keep on cycling. If you were to take Touch of Fear you can actually do a rotation of ToF, Shadow Maul, ToF, Siphon. Repeat. While ToF is not great the spammability of the power makes the gap closer between other AoE powers. When we're in AoE situations we usually want to continue AoE, not use ST powers. This is an old build I gave a quick polish before posting. S/L at 40% for Barrier's 5% to finish capping, everything but Cold and Psi requiring one more ATO stack and Barrier to reach 90% (or just three stacks of the ATO), powers slotted, damage procs, Tough still needs to be toggled on but meh, Radiation Armor sweats endurance. As a bonus it has Gloom and Dark Obliteration and the travel powers can be subbed for whatever, Tactics isn't needed (it's no FA). Considering the damage I'd consider ToF instead of Dark Obliteration since Dark Obliteration is 160 damage on a 10 second CD while ToF can be obtained sooner (push Gamma Boost to 30 or such) and goes for 133 damage on a 2.5 second timer (ergo ToF, Shadow Maul, ToF). Two ToFs makes 260 damage and it's already ahead of Dark Obliteration while this one is still recharging. Bigger radius on Obliteration though, but thanks to the Tanker increased radius it's 9y wide which is decent-ish on top of soft CC. Anyway, see if some of the slotting ideas are of help.

Posting your build would let us tweak it, though that would usually involve a lot of moolah. Though it is not hard to earn. About two weeks of playing the game once at 50, or less if playing with merits. Best part is that once earned the gear can be thrown at your next alt preventing re-grinding all the cash again.

Bit more resistances (except fire/cold, but they are not terribly important or common, unlike S/L and E/N), immunity to -ToHit debuffs, less AoE thanks to not having Dark Obliteration, maybe more ST despite having Gloom just comparing (Fury at zero for both, but added Musculature's 33% to both as well) ET (435 VS 617) and TF (430 VS 492). Though Gloom's so OP it may still come out ahead despite its slotting. We would only know if tested on a pylon/trapdoor. Rest of the slotting is a bit all over the place tbh, and I do dislike powers underslotted. Anyway, can see for yourself.

One stack of the ATO Another near 14% from the other two stacks, another 5% if going Barrier for whatever reason. The heal from Radiation Siphon probably counts as 'resistance' if Bopper was reading this since it adds 'time until defeat' in the alphabet soup of a math that he uses.

You don't need to go over 90% resistances. Your Tanker ATO will give three stacks of 6.7% of which Mids only accounts for one, and even that single one you're already over 90%. Anything over 90% is wasted. Instead try aiming lower and leave two stacks (roughly 14%, or in Mids lowering the resistances to 83%-ish. This will free some slots. Nvm, I see Meltdown was toggled on. Swapping the slotting between Shadow Maul and Siphon Life ensures you get the ATO stacks during ST as well as during AoE situations, where you'll not be using Shadow Maul in purely ST moments. Also, slash and psi are not great procs, so swapping them for their energy and negative counterparts is a bit of easy min maxing. No need for Kismet since your attacks are already good enough to hit +3 enemies even without it and without Soul Drain who definitely puts them over the hit cap. Now, unfortunately I feel obliged to say these are just minor min maxes. To truly min max it you would have to rebuild it near from scratch since you have a resist based tank who is not resist capped and doesn't have enough S/L defense to help survival (though some disagree about the use of S/L defense since it gets shorn off by -def attacks). The heals and the shield will help and for, say, 80% of the content you will probably survive (especially since Melt down and/or Barrier can be panic buttons, as well as inspirations being a thing), but truly min maxed you'd be at 90% (with two stacks of ATO and 5% from Barrier, so roughly 77% on Mids) on top of 45% to S/L (with 5% from Barrier, so 40% on Mids). The game does not REQUIRE brutal min maxing to survive though so you might find your build to be enough to handle whatever content you decide to throw it at, but if you find yourself squishy then consider these points. I did some minor tweaks which I recommend.

Radiation Melee is #1 on a Brute in my book. Not that it does the best ever damage, but seeing it from all angles. Exemplars well with an early AoE, forgiving and easy ST rotation, built in heal (won't do miracles, but it does top off HP that's being whittled). For a new player I would recommend Stone Armor since it achieves greatness, but if wanting to go offense then Fire Armor. It's squishier but can be made sturdy and survives on the merit of killing stuff before they have the time to kill you (not joshing. Dropping Burn is enough to kill half a spawn with that one click). Energy Melee hits the hardest but has a more complicated rotation, gaps in the rotation, weaker AoE, and, capital sin in my book, exemplars worse. It's what I would recommend when desiring to always play at max level though. CoH being what CoH is you'll probably just make and play them all.

Made one. Same ST as EM/Fire, worse AoE, much sturdier.

As Pulverizer (sorry man, I can't make myself misspell the name :D) said I've a Fire Armor/Stone Tank in my signature. Fire is pretty sturdy though it mainly works on kill first instead of 'go in and AFK in the middle of things' like most tanks like to brag about. It was not the combo I liked the most (though I loved the lava skins in Stone since it made the combo so visually thematic) but it has built in CC and good sources for Force Feedback procs which further help with survival.

My own build for pointers. I've taken to use it as my 'main' due to how exemplary it exemplars despite EM/Fire being brute damage without -res finnickyness. It does behave better in the Trapdoor test than the EM version though. I did not pick Shockwave though. Burn and Spin is all the AoE the build needs (IMO) with Shockwave actually slowing down the arresting. It has value for mitigation with the KD but I don't feel that I need it and I noticed the skill was just gathering dust, hence it is not picked. Your build does reach the mitigation values needed and wanted but it lacks some QoL like procs in Burn which elevate the damage from warm breeze to blowtorch. Regardless pick what slotting seems useful and incorporate in your own build.

Something like this? One free power to take whatever. Taunt, maybe?