Onlyasandwich

I took both boxing and kick to buff cross punch if that's what you mean. It's very much worth it, as it adds to the base damage of the power, which is then enhanced further by damage buffs.

Yoiuy You don't really need to slot any additional recharge for perma rage. People stack heavy recharge if they want to run stacked rage. Unstoppable is pretty useless. Cross punch is awesome. I use it in place of punch myself, and it is very much worthwhile if you can fit it in.

I'd love to see your build! I'm constantly respeccing my Bio/SS, and am always looking for new inspiration. : )

I had a similar dilemma on my Bio/SS tanker. FS is awesome no doubt, but left me wanting at least one more handy aoe in my chain quite often. The epic aoes are definitely excellent, but may come at some lost defensive slotting opportunities or power picks in a tight build. To be honest, just grabbing electric fences and giving it decent damage/proc slotting is not a bad choice. It recharges quickly, activates quickly, and actually does appreciable damage. I ended up swapping around some of my other powers and picking up cross punch (fully buffed by box/kick) instead. This gives me an ideal place for the fury -resist proc, strengthens my ST attack chain, and gives me a little something to play around with for an extra aoe cone. It doesn't have the impact of footstomp, or the raw aoe power of fireball/ball lightning, but it closes the gap and serves a purpose in a variety of situations. Further bonus that it actually buffs recharge and tohit for everything else as well! The clincher for me was that it kept in-theme for my SS attacks. My particular vision for this character did not involve spewing elemental blasts.

I think @Sovera's build is looking really strong, and agree that /Ice can definitely benefit from a third strong ST attack - I'd definitely love to hear your feedback on Arcane Bolt if you choose to put it into action. I'd personally not really bother with the extra end uniques, and just stick with Panacea. You may prefer to have the strong baseline and not rely as much on EA, however. To be fair, there aren't exactly any amazing places to shift those slots elsewhere. I'm a fan of Kismet when you can fit it in! Alternatively, you could pull those two uniques, plus one +recharge out of buildup (only losing ~4 sec recharge), and drop those three slots in chilling embrace. A 4 slot perfect zinger or mocking beratement would do the overall build good service here. Ice Patch is better than ever with the recent animation cut, but as Sovera said, you may find it most useful when exemplaring. It's still really solid, and most importantly, pretty. I feel you on Hover! I definitely get that Hover combat is not every melee's dream. I have really grown to enjoy it over time, and I now prefer it on any of my Tankers who can incorporate into their theme. It's super smooth, you can fly over mob blockage, you don't get pushed around, and you can easily reposition on multi-level maps. Super plus bonus for being able to hover above the crowd to make better use of cones like Frost!

This is correct! Only Hemo and Rending consume Blood Frenzy stacks. I was confused at first myself regarding Shred, as for some reason Mids power text says that it is a spender. In game it actually builds. Initially, I struggled to choose between Maiming Slash and Shred . Maiming slash would have been a bit better on the ST front, but honestly not a lot better. Shred, on the other hand, provides a solid filler for both ST and aoe, and modest aoe when you exemplar. I was actually pretty sure I'd take Maiming, but after running with both for a while, Shred was the clear winner in practice. The cone on Shred is really healthy with the tanker buff. My /Savage Tanker hovers above the spawn, and it easily hits ten targets in a decent crowd. I just sort of hover there and spam aoes - it works out pretty well! It feels a bit like swimming - I hover up to leap down, shred/rend, then pop up again for another leap down to repeat the graceful diving dance. Hemo is really such a shame, though. I don't believe there is a stinkier high level "big hitter." Most of the other big hitters like Seismic Smash, Freezing touch, or Clobber also come with a CC component on top of superior up-front damage, not to mention the fact that they don't rely on stacking blood frenzy to max out. It even makes Greater Ice Sword look kinda okay. I feel like it deserves either an absolutely gigantic damage buff (like keep the painfully long DoT, but make it HURT), or a third the animation time or less. Honestly even then I'm not sure. A resistance debuff in addition to one of those buffs would be pretty thematic. Anyhow, play and enjoy!

Savage melee is great fun, and I think you'll find it a good fit for any tanker primary. The biggest downsides here are lethal damage and the ST damage in general. It lacks a big heavy hitter, as Hemorrhage is poop. The aoe is very smooth, with a seamless aoe chain between Shred, Rending, and Leap. Leap is especially powerful as a proc bomb and positioning tool. Some people don't like Shred. I find it really nice on a Tanker with our cone buff. It's strong aoe, and usable in ST to round out your chain. Outside of trying to spend my blood frenzy on Rending when possible, I don't pay a lot of attention to the mechanic. You can play around with it to help optimize your ST chain, though, and the end discount is a happy bonus. The long animation time of Blood Thirst (the buildup for Savage) is a little sad, and I believe unwarranted. I don't think Savage is the way to go if you are looking for top-tier optimization, but it has lovely animations and feels good to play. If they fixed Hemorrhage into something useful, I'd be 100% satisfied.

Not that you need to drop them all, but here are the powers you could consider skipping in my opinion: Hurl Boulder: It's fun theme and a good IO mule. Bad DPA though. Stone Fist: It's not the worst tier 1, but it's not exactly great. Stone Mallet: I'd personally take either this or stone fist, but no need for both. I'd probably keep this of the two though. Fault: I actually really like Fault! It's great mitigation, but may not be needed depending on how squishy you feel.

Honestly these are sort of a crime, especially on corruptors and defenders. At least controllers maybe have a little bit of use for a suboptimal aoe damage power like this. What would be an interesting way to change them that still preserves their boominess to some degree, but actually gives them a proper use as a support skill? One challenge is that Traps is already a pretty strong buff/debuff set overall. I'm really not sure what I would add to them that wouldn't step on the toes of other powers in the set. Maybe if Time Bomb were kinda tough and had a taunt effect - sort of like Omega Maneuver?

For all of you that skip Seekers, I would encourage you to try the Decimation Build Up proc! @Nemu gave me the idea a while back, and it is super reliable. It's basically like having a build up power that doubles as a nifty debuff and alpha breaker.

There is no internal cooldown of the FFback proc. It will refresh (though not stack) upon a new activation of the proc. It is generally quite useful to have 2-3 (or perhaps more depending on proc chance) incorporated into your rotation.

I typically run a "convenience" build on upon start, doing things like slotting extra end uniques and grabbing additional single target powers I may not use in my final. I'll typically respec around 40-47 into the build I have put together. I don't wait till 50, as I like to have that power spike of optimization earlier if I can and get a feel for the build as it grows its last couple legs. So generally one respec! If it's a character I actually enjoy playing long-term, I may redo the build a couple times after. There is no end to optimization!

There is plenty to be excited about here, and a few items that I know make some unhappy, but one things stands above all others for me! Enhancement boosters now don't require you to go clicky clicky wait for combine animation click fifty times to apply! It literally takes me like 1/10th the amount of time to boost. I would always sort of dread that final polishing step on my level 50 builds, but this is so much better. Thank you Homecoming team.

I definitely agree! The unique features I see here are its aggro management and end management tools. These are both far above and beyond what any other tanker primary provides. I would venture to say that end management is even better than Rad/. I definitely underrated exactly how great EA would be going in. Hibernate is unique as well, but not much of a game changer for me personally. I feel like this is more relevant for a less IO'd out build. I can't think of a situation I've faced yet where I would have wanted it. I can see it coming in handy as a bit of a "reset" if I become heavily debuffed in a bad spot. After living Ice/ for a bit, I don't think it really needs a facelift. I don't even know that adding more DDR would matter, really, though that would be nice. It would be neat if Hibernate had some secondary element - maybe a neat buff when you break out of the block (like a mini T9). I still have it in my build, but it's a bit of an afterthought.

Now that I have had a chance to play with these powers slotted out at higher levels, I wanted to return with my own impressions. Thank you again Sovera and Myshkin for helping with my build! Energy Absorption is about 10X as good as I thought it would be, and I thought it would be pretty solid. Even running Focused accuracy and spamming stone attacks, it feeds the end beast quite well, especially when I have FFback proccing. This makes up for a lot of what I perceived as Ice's on-paper weakness for sure. I don't feel like I need to hold it in reserve for a refill either - it comes back fast enough to use pre-emptively for its defense buff, and it's back again in time for a refill. It also animates so fast that I don't mind spamming it. I am still only running base slot in health and stamina with panacea and perf shifter proc - no other recovery uniques or additional end slotting other than one endmod IO in Energy Absorption. I actually ended up really enjoying Fault with the slotting I included. The proc damage is not ignorable given the fast animation time, and it chains nicely with Tremor, keeping a reliable FFback stack going, and adding meaningful mitigation when needed. The wonderful tanker 16 target cap helps a lot here as well. What everyone says is true - Ice is the absolute superglue of aggro magnets. I not only have multiple auras to passively taunt, but Energy Absorption does double duty as an aoe Taunt as well. I still need to put it through its paces in a heavy defense debuffing scenario to see how well it stays alive in a potential cascade. ITF here we go!

I'm just so used to tanker tier 1 aversion these days. 🙂 I suppose it is worth noting that even with pretty juiced recharge, stone fist still gets some action in drawn-out ST brawl, and it will be useful in any case while exemping. I like the Might proc for two different scenarios: Doubling down on resists in an AV fight to mitigate damage spikes. Slotted in the right power, I'll consistently have 2-3 stacks, which is pretty huge. Dropping in an aoe damage aura for lazy whatever bonuses. Even here, I'll be running 1-2 stacks pretty much constantly, even in an ST situation. I have so many tanks shooting little skulls out of their hands that it's getting kind of old! Even so, I might end up switching to your build long-term out of desire for that extra crunch.

Forgive me if this is obvious, but how do you check hit chances against different level mobs in Mids? I see the accuracy % totals from enhancement of course, but can't find this output. I've been living in the stone age and calculating by hand or using a chart. 😕

I'm glad you tested! I was going off of someone else's very confident assertation after they corrected me a while back. I was only perpetuating the cycle of misinformation - humble apologies! As for Kismet, the incarnate shift is a fair point, but it is especially useful when exemplaring, most prominently in the earlier levels. I don't really measure FA into the equation. Now I just to to get in there and put up some play time. Thank you both again for all of your help.

I appreciate the detailed breakdown of your experience, Myshkin. I first assumed that EA was auto-hit, which it is as you say, but Mids threw me off with the accuracy totals thereafter. Keeping solid defense slotting there is sensible in that case. I wasn't too terribly focused on "fixing endurance," when creating the build, but responding to the advice of others who responded in the thread stating these concerns. Generally I like to feel a build out with minimal endurance support first and see how I like it in action. If I feel like I'm sucking wind, I can adjust accordingly. I suppose Hasten is almost a force of habit at this point! I do enjoy the tighter rotation of my best ST attacks - I wouldn't say it's entirely useless here, but can understand why you would see less value than usual. I definitely agree that Soul Mastery would be a very optimal supplement to this combo, even more than usual. I am a bit married to the theme, however, and don't want to rely on Gloom and Dark oblit to pick up the slack. Sometimes it's fun to see how far I can get with the tools provided in-set for damage! It does sound like fault is going to be a pretty flat disappointment from what you say, but I'll play around with it and see. Your build is very nice! I think it represents a highly optimized iteration of this combo. Compared to mine, you hold the key typed defenses a little higher, while sacrificing modest resists across the board in favor of stronger proc slotting on your attacks, and a stronger overall attack chain both aoe and ST. Honestly the only thing I don't like about it is the Might ATO proc in Stone fist. Although it sacrifices optimal offensive performance, I typically like the Might set in my tier 3 so I have a good reason to keep the proc in my rotation as much as possible. This is means I lose out on some premium proc beef, of course, but it is a compromise in favor of the Tanker spirit. : ) May I ask if you actually get any use out of the proc with it slotted in Stone Fist?

Thank you for the thoughtful followup, Sovera! To clarify, you will absolutely still get the global +recharge from a level 50 +5 boosted lotg, even exemped. This bonus is not dependent on set levels, but simply on the availability of the power. This works similar to other global bonuses that are independent of IO level such as shield wall +res, Kismet, or even the psi resist IOs. The only reason not to boost here would be cost. I can appreciate why this wouldn't be intuitive - I assumed the same as yourself originally! Edit: I was very wrong! I'm not married to kismet, but the math works very much in its favor against +4's, especially when exemped. I will typically keep it in my build as a priority unless running tactics. In this build, Focused Accuracy is not an accuracy solution, but more of a high level extra bonus. I don't mind the end consumption of FA, as I don't really intend on running it as a rule. It's just there for when I get debuffed, or if I happen to have end support on the team. Currently, I'm relying on those Taunt sets in Chilling and Taunt to shore up my S/L resist and get S/L defense an inch away from incarnate softcap. I know Ice/ can probably get away without incarnate softcaps for the most part, but I'd like to keep this beefy in any case, even just for extra padding against cascade failure given the lowish DDR on Ice/. However, it might be worth exploring scrapping those sets, popping a kinetic combat 4-slot in brawl, and using the remaining slots to accomplish something else interesting. I don't doubt that I may well end up sucking wind to some degree even with FA off! I'll take your advice to heart, but feel it out for myself to see how much I end up having to juggle EA. I hadn't really thought about slotting EA for End. It's not a bad idea at all given the context, as I'm not really relying on its raw defensive numbers to get me anywhere. I also just realized it actually requires accuracy to hit, so may warrant some baseline accuracy which is included in your slotting. Missing the extra S/L and psi resist is not great, but probably not a big deal. I definitely think I'll switch the EA slotting in that case. It does seem a bit of a shame to neglect its defensive component. I wonder if it might be worth dropping the runspeed Synapse IO (and thus lose the E/N resist) and dropping a plussed out Lotg in its place. Would pull ahead even more on recharge, and get a little bit of defensive return. Small tweaks!

Thank you, Sovera! I agree with you broadly on psi damage. My own fire tanker has not found it to be a huge problem, but the heal as you note does pick up some slack. Perhaps this will be fine as is. Thank you for pointing out attunement. I typically put more thought into what I attune and what I plus out, but haven't put together a build in a few months, so forgot! I'll need to make a pass to clean this up. I am aware that procs don't benefit from boosting - I can only imagine a Mids setting is at play if they appeared so. I know that my damage procs in fault don't exactly turn it into some type of awesome aoe, but I plan on using it in my regular aoe rotation for mitigation, aggro, and FFback procs. If I'm doing this, the incidental damage here is a pretty decent return on slot value. I'm going to remove the silly disorient proc though - it only lasts 2 seconds. Boo. I absolutely agree on Hurl Boulder - it is suboptimal for sure. I definitely want one more hard-hitting ST attack, and I want to use boulder instead of an epic for theme. Just a case of giving some love to silly things. If I were going towards a more optimized path I would drop hurl, as well as the energy pool entirely, and pick up gloom in place, as well as some other fun extras like Combat Teleport, maneuvers, or a real travel power. Edit: I went ahead and cleaned up the boosting. Anything not boosted here will be attuned. Decided to drop Hurl boulder in favor of Stone Mallet procced out. Still thematic and serves its purpose, but more efficiently. I think I'm pretty happy with the results! Copying the final build for any who are curious:

This is genius, thank you!

My primary traps character is a Traps/Beam Defender. Basically I just keep the bubble up, open with seekers, drop acid mortar, and blast away. I have Seekers slotted with Decimation buildup proc, which actually procs super reliably upon summon, so they are both an alpha-breaker and a buff for my own alpha. If it's a longer fight or I'm feeling froggy, I'll drop caltrops, which I have procced out. I might shoot my web envelope to keep the mob in there for duration, or I might let the area denial field do its job if needed. Poison trap and triage come in on AVs. Triage is just sort whatever most of the time - I don't use it often. It's okay. Since I have excellent blasts, I don't see much use for the mines/bombs. I think it's silly that Traps trip mine hasn't had the blaster /Devices buff treatment. I guess it's probably sort of useful on a controller. Sometimes I just like to summon everything possible and admire my pile of junk. I even picked up a disruptor bot to join the party. She's mostly just for show, but she does a good bit of damage if you let her!

If you do go down this path, I would heavily suggest a resist shield epic and fighting for sure, otherwise you won't survive enough of a hit to bother healing it back. I'm all for mixing it up from the defense-based meta! It doesn't have to be optimal as long as you like it and it works.

Agreed! I feel like Granite is super mega overkill for a Tanker in today's game, but may be worth building around on a Brute, given their more difficult time reaching the resist cap. Even given that, I'm not a big fan myself. If I had a character theme that suited a giant rock, I guess I'd go for it!