For oil slick, you can use apprentice charm to ignite it.
On my phone right now, but when I get to my computer I'll look at your build and also give you mine for comparison.
.85 is the actual place KB turns to KD, not .99. so that would explain the +1 thing.
It's also possible that tornado hits with multiple KBs at the same time, in which case it would stack with itself and turn into KB again.
I don't see an Emp->Aether conversion happening because that would be the same thing as the Emp->Reward Merit the devs just removed.
I don't see a problem with being able to buy costumes with Emp merits though.
My Defender that leveled entirely through TFs (well, once he was 8 that is) was a Thermal/DP. Thermal because it has a *lot* of great utility, and DP because it fit the concept that I had.
If I were to do it again, maybe Thermal/Dark? Dark provides -to-hit which is a nice compliment to Thermal's resistance shields.
As I said in the other thread, hard mode content is based around having the various tiers of incarnates slotted. So 4 star is meant for people who are totally T4'd.
Are you saying you need to detoggle to use teleport outside of granite or inside granite?
Inside granite the toggles shouldn't cost any endurance.
Outside granite, if I'm going a really long distance I find I only need to detoggle mud pots.
Post your build and maybe we can figure out what's going on.
You call it cheesing, but using Barrier is in fact a strategy.
Also, the challenge modes are balanced around having all of your incarnate slots slotted, 4 star basically says "your whole team is entirely T4'd"
Something else to consider, regular mobs have a base 50% chance to hit with a floor of 5%. This means that you need 45% defense to floor regular enemy chance to hit. Knowing that, even your 17.33% defense gets your a fair amount of the way there.