Frostweaver

STJ/Ice, stj/wp if you prefer not concentrate too much on your defenses, stj/regen, stj/bio (If you love constant clicking) And the statement "Street Justice is slightly better ST further, but has no appreciable AoE." is patently False. Spinning strike is 16 seconds recharge and does the same damage as atom smasher (vs 22 seconds). It also has sweeping cross, which is simply superior to radiation sweep. Not to mention that both can benefit dramatically from combo points. Don't get me wrong, I love Rad melee, but irradiated ground, while an absolutely lovely proc mule, doesn't contribute appreciably to your damage by itself. STJ's AOE is considerably better than several other sets, including Rad and SS.

Maybe they just wanted to cripple it to balance out the rest of devices getting way more awesome?

I wouldn't skip permafrost either. Chilling embrace can keep 3 full spawns debuffed and slowed, as long as you can MOVE. Speed debuff resistance is rare enough outside of universal movement IO sets that it's worth keeping... and it's also a good place to slot a steadfast and gladiator unique and an impervium proc so that you can 6 slot aegis into tough.

Electric melee works great on my radiation tanker.

Maybe this is their way of nerfing sets until they all balance with electric blast. Gum Drone is now even less useful than voltaic sentinel.

ahh, Makes sense. if I stuff in concealment I usually like to take it early so I can stealth ouroboros stuff.

Skip Hybernate

This is Frostweaver's build. Tough as a safe, designed to deal with the ITF's overloaded spawns and defense debuffs with ease, and to be extremely Tankery as well as putting out respectable DPS in an inspiration-light environment. Also more than capable of handling the Farming she had to do to get her incarnates maxed. She ignore Malta, laughs at Arachnos, and even eyes Carnies with skepticism. +4/8 is her normal working environment, and easily herds for MSR's and ITrials. Her teams are very, very safe for a brute. She moves around constantly and is almost impossible to slow down and was a tanker back on live. She could probably be improved (Making the psi hole smaller), but from my point of view she's as close to an ideal Hybrid brute/tanker as she can get. I haven't put down her accolades because I haven't finished getting all of them, but right now she's got Tanker-level HP and is about as unkillable as a defense hybrid can get without that counterproductive pile of slush that is hybernate. She can cripple 3 full spawns at a time, and steamrolls with the best of them. And, umm, she also tends to yank her team back when they get split. and keep an eye on status effects. Some folks don't care for that much, but I figure that if you are teaming you should be a team... There's an AE in every zone and lots of solo missions for people who just want to solo harder content.

Looking at your build, it is a little confusing. You don't like cones?

heh. chilling embrace is the most important part of Ice outside of it's status protection. It gives -15% damage, -32% racharge, slow, and the most powerful taunt aura in the game. Mud pots comes close, but stone doesn't get a secondary aura. You can use it to debuff and slow a LOT more than the 16 target aggro cap, but Icers tend to jump around a lot to keep everything debuffed. In that respect, CE is actually slightly superior to defender debuffs, since defender debuffs are generally hard capped and targetted/area. CE has a 13 second debuff, and a 5 second pulse, so keeping 30+ mobs debuffed at one time takes little more than bouncing around. Great tanking. Icicles is it's secondary aura, and it's pretty much like the rest of the taunt auras everyone else gets. I use it as a dumping ground for ATO's, since with no secondary effects, it's not such a great proc monster, and damage procs on brutes are third rate. Without it, Ice would just be a Weaker version of EA. Sentinel version of Ice armor is like an entirely different set.

Why do you have so many attuned? You can get far greater effects (edging closer to ED caps) with some of those IO sets boosted, and the 'boosted' effect will carry over when you exemplar to the minimum level of the enhancement set. I also don't get all the minor damage bonuses. Sure they stack up, but all told they will get you maybe 5% of the way to your damage cap, absolutely NOT worth all the slots, as well as missing an LOTG proc opportunity. Rage will already put you darn close to the damage cap, if not over it. do you really need 60% positional defense even with the crash? Why is concealment so late in your build, since it's not really a mule?

I just drank a cup of coffee, so I am going to try to state a lot more clearly and make a TL/DR version. Taunt won't make you a tank. but in general content, it's almost always worth getting, If only for the awesomeness that is a mocking beratement mule, and for keeping your fury up/screwing with enemy Rangers. But then, you are a Brute. You kill stuff a Tanker would just hold aggro on. If you REALLY want to keep that AV's aggro, Aura and attacks likely will not be quite enough, unless you are /ice or you are the only real DPS on your team. Perma-SD is not worth making a build around. Dark Melee's aoe sucks, and that is not in question... But with the secondaries that Dark melee synergizes with, it becomes near-godlike (Firey Aura, Shield, willpower, Electric) On sets it does NOT innately synergize with, even War Axe is better. Oh, and if you ever get the chance, NOTHING will ever feel more like a God of destruction than being the sole DPS on an ITF team full of Rads and spiders. IMO, these are the combinations with 'super synergies' from the ones you were interested in: TW/wp,electric,ice,ea Most of the rest just don't have the end management or are too clicky to synergize well, even when you get to incarnates. DM/FA DM/Rad,elec,sr,sd are notable FM/just about every secondary that doesn't need help from your primary for mitigation...stone/Rad/inv/ice/SR/Dark are notable And weirdly enough, stone armor has three primaries... Savage, Claws, and KM, which make it really tankery and HUGELY compensate for some of it's downsides. and Like Ice, it has a hell of a taunt aura.

The taunt auras are not really enough by themselves, not for a brute (except /Ice). For a tanker, yes, but they get an improved taunt affect. You can help that by slotting taunt enhancers for duration, and spines has a taunt-slottable aura of it's own. But in my experience, even a well-built sentinel can peel off part of your aggro without too much trouble until you have gotten at least six seconds worth of aggro in. six seconds, though, is often enough for a well-built brute to kill off over half the spawn. Basically, if you want to keep boss/AV aggro there's pretty much no getting around taunt, and you don't NEED to keep the trash aggro because you are a brute.... by far the game's most efficient steamroll aoe killer. Yeah, most stalkers are able to put out a little more ST DPS than you, and most blasters have better burst AOE, but steamrolling content is what you DO. As a brute, 'tanking for the team' is better served by taking taunt, 6 slotting it with mocking beratement, and then just forgetting you have it until it's time to fight Romulus. You are never going to be a tanker, but with you around teams won't need a tanker that much. But it could take... time, on an ST chain, to peel aggro off that dominator who jumped the AV prematurely... unless you have taunt. Time in which a fragile dominator, controller, defender, or corrupter could easily get two shotted. [Completely Personal Opinion] Soul Drain on a scrapper kinda kicks butt, on a brute a bit less so. Perma SD kinda feels like it's just trying to make up for the rest of Dark's aoe problems... I would never pair dark with any secondary except one that greatly benefits from it's -to-hit, (which incarnate content kind of ignores) or It's heals, Perma SD is still slow enough (I have never gotten it below 28 seconds) that even slotted for procs/damage it is NOT a decent AOE, and will NOT help you steamroll. However, It does make for a much more tankery build, and it has quite decent single target attacks. The thing is, once you get heavily into incarnates, even build-up and it's various powerset equivalents are not as useful on a brute. Some folks still use them for Gaussian double buildup, but unless your team is abysmally slow (unlikely since you are a brute) you get a LOT of junk inspirations coming in. Once you invest in an 'auto convert' bind, staying at or near damage cap (around 550% with good slotting and incarnate buffs) starts to become almost trivial. This is, of course, assuming you are playing a decent (reasonably expensive, 600-800 mil) build and have some incarnate slotting. Two or three decent PBAOE's (ball lightning and cages can fill it out) will absolutely help you deal with all the trash in most cases without having to touch any build-up power except for maybe Assault Hybrid. A Team with brute is almost always a steamroll team, but I, personally love having Taunt on a 'general purpose' brute.... Not so much for aggro control or acting tankery, but to deal with all those range monkeys and gather them up for easy disposal. [/Completely Personal Opinion] if you have two billion, you probably already have a Farmer Brute... which means you probably already know all this 🙂 Jack of All Trades or master of HULK SMASH! BTW, as you probably already know, these rules utterly change when talking about Farming brutes. Sorry for this post being a little disjointed, it's 4 AM here and I am very groggy.

recoloring it red/orange and white and calling it 'liquid plasma' or 'magma' works too.

what electric needs is actual damage reduction to go with that end drain and -recovery. If every attack caused 7% -dam, (no stacking with itself) the 'weakness' secondary effect might have some real utility against something other than minions (which are easily wiped)

WP can handle it's own aggro. But it won't make a great meatshield without significant IO investment or a strong mitigating primary.

stj/bio makes a really good all around killer. as does claws/dark. That being said, though, firey aura is... really powerful in specialty builds (farming) but requires significant IO set math to be decent for all around content tanking. The thing is, almost any set combination can be really outstanding at all-around tanking. The only sets that do not 'tank as well' are wp and sr, since their taunt auras are weaksauce... They are not weak for survival, just for playing tank. the best damage primaries are not the best primaries for mitigation or team tanking. except for TW, which has it's own problems. Fire is pretty high damage, but on brutes it doesn't have one of it's best tools to shore up taunt weakness (combust). It is also not the highest-damage set depending on the circumstances. It does have good all around damage, but there are better ST and AOE sets.

It's a fun, distance-spanning aoe with knockdown and a good place to slot a -rech proc. Surer, it's not as sexy as actual powerset attacks, but few things are. as a mitigation, boosting tool, though, it's pretty awesome, especially for something like wp, Bio, or Regen where splitting an alpha can be extremely useful. Stand outside of aggro radius, BOOM! half the spawn flops, and you have plenty of heal time between attack waves. or enough time to smash a good chunk of the spawn with a REAL Aoe without ever letting them attack. It's not a nuke. It's silly to expect one from a pool power.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but some of my attacks are two slotted with a very rare damage +5 and a crap set accuracy/damage or accuracy/damage/end +5. They hit just as hard and as often as the 6 slotted attacks, while giving you slots to use elsewhere. You'd be amazed at how destructive the whole fighting pool can be simply two slotted while you let your other IO sets and hasten deal with accuracy and recharge.

Bear in mind Ice USED to be nearly a fully defense-based set. That was the reason that before I7 it was considered a joke. Today, the only people who consider it a joke are the ones who have never played or teamed with one.

Umm... Ice is most definitely a Hybrid set. It's a defense set, sure, but it also has heals, +hp, exotic resistances, -recharge, -speed, and -damage. The 'defense sets' are nin and SR. Heck, half of it's mitigation is -15% damage, -32% recharge aura, and a frequent massive heal (hoarfrost) and less frequent massive resistance buff (Bastion). Try playing it as a 'defense set' sometime... It's not impossible, but it sucks.

I am Retired. My favorite Toons are Tankers and Stalkers. I have played EVERYTHING, much of it to level 50. Even a 50 wp/tw, several other wp toons, a 43 sr/spines, 36 sr/rad, 36 sr/dark and 35 sr/stj. I tend to invest in sets and set bonuses rather early, including a full set of LOTG -rech as early as feasible (usually around level 27). Yes, spines shores up SR's rather glaring weaknesses, with a decent secondary taunt aura and poison slows, plus taking full advantage of SR's recharge and proc madness. I have 3 other spines (1 brute, 2 tankers) and I can state unequivocally that virtually EVERY other primary performs much better with it. It helps SR's holes, but even with quills it simply underperforms in it's job as a TANKER. It is not unplayable, and is great at lightweight mission farming, but soloing lightweight mission farms is not even remotely what tankers are FOR.... a brute or even scrapper would likely outperform it in those roles. Yeah, you want to turn this into an argument about semantics. Congratulations, you win da intarwebz. Enjoy all the valuable prizes.

Let's put it this way. I made a character back in Champions, PnP, called Undestroyable Thing. (based off another player's undestroyable thing). He used every trick in the book... triple armor piercing resistance, insane levels of damage reduction, knockback immunity, damage immunities, as well as every cost-reducing measure you could imagine to bring it all down to 250 points... massive weaknesses, staged activation rolls, multipowers, Elemental controls, package deals, etc ad infinatum. I literally had 3 sheets of notebook paper covered with all the special limitations and powers he possessed to be unkillable. Two of those powers filled a page each. At 250 points, he could stand toe-to-toe with Doctor Destroyer, Mulch Menton, and make Hellstorm look like the fool he is. Only the 'blind deaf crippled guy at the center of the universe with the planet destroying ray and endless range that requires 16 activation rolls and only works at the center of the universe' could even dent him. His value to the team was precisely Zero. Why? because despite his personal one-punch man combat style and godzillaesque physique, He couldn't make enemies fight him. he couldn't catch them, and they relentlessly proceeded to turn the rest of the team into Hamburger while he stood there, magnificently immortal and untouchable, and easily avoided. If you don't bring more to the team than just unkillability, crappy tanker damage, and the occasional taunt to peel off 5 or so minions, you aren't playing a Tanker. You would probably have more fun playing something much more dangerous and letting someone who actually cares about damage management and being the rock around which the rest of the team is anchored play tanker instead.

Sure, as long as you realize that if you actually spend a few hours on a saturday running the farms, you can very very quickly afford the super-expensive high-performance builds with a boatload of cash to spare. keeping your farmer build low-performance simply means that for the next toon you need to grind out a set of Very Rare for, you get to spend two or three times as much time simply getting them ready to play in the big leagues, rather than out doing the content with the shiny new smexy alt you just levelled. Farming, after the first few dozen runs proving to yourself how much of a badass you are, just isn't as much fun as real content with a real team. If you alt at all, investing your early farming hours on an 'uber' build can and will save you an enormous amount of time spent on 'work' before your alts can have 'fun'. Advice to leave your farmer barely capable of doing what a farmer does is simply bad advice. Good early builds are extremely valuable, you just need to realize that you need to replace that Honda Civic with a Shelby GT500 using the money you won racing ASAP. preferably in a matter of hours. It only took my rad/fire 5 hours from level 50 SO's to '4 minute build' using only money she earned herself, buying super packs and ato packs, and a few hundred converters. Spines/fire has even better tools to earn the inf for leetness from ground zero at speed.

Ahh. See, I don't use hasten in my build and I can still achieve those speeds. I suppose it's a philosophical difference, but I am quite pleased to run effective builds without needing auto-hasten as a crutch. Frees up slots for more utility and improves my performance as a team tanker at the same time as my farming.