Cainus

Hah. Guardian was the first server I ever played on until I moved to Protector to hang out with some real life friends (and stayed ever since).
Anyway, I'll be there.

Sorry I missed the event. I ended up heading out for a couple pints with the friends I went to the movie with.

As for the movie itself, it was really well done. They did a really good job with capturing the style of the WWII era. The acting was okay, the costumes were well done, the props were very cool as well. I really enjoyed it. Oh, and definitely stick around through the closing credits.

Crap... might be a bit late. Captain America starts at 1:15 EDT, but the theater is less than 10 minutes from my house

If you're looking as Electric Melee and Shield Defense, I'd suggest taking a Shield/Electric tank rather than the scrapper. I know that the scrapper will be putting out more damage, but the defensive capability of the tank cannot be overlooked. It is by far the most enjoyable and indestructible of all my 50s (granted, not a whole lot, just a Stone/Energy/Fire tank, Fire/Fire/Fire tankFire/Kin/Stone controller, and Broadsword/Shield scrapper).

I'd just be happy with turning Repel to Knockback. That way, my Earth/Storm controller could effectively use Stone Cages to keep mobs from being pushed back by Hurricane.

You could also give BS/Shield scrapper a shot, as they're quite powerful. BS deals relatively high damage, and has the bonus of Parry which adds nicely to the defensive capability from Shield (which is already relatively easy to soft cap to positional defense).

For Fire Melee, if you wanted to break the Brute/Scrapper mode, I would suggest an Ice/Fire tank. It's incredibly fun, and quite survivable.

My badger is my Shield/Elec tanker, mainly because he's my favourite guy to play with.

My Badger is a 2 year old pure black Turkish Angora that I rescued a couple years ago and brought back to Canada.

My hope for the PEATs would be the new PPD and Resistance powersets.

I really like the look of the PPD defensive powers with their glowing digital overlays rather than physical overlays (almost like localized force fields rather than physical armour). Plus, their powerglove attacks are a nice mix of melee and ranged attacks that are similar to, but still different than, existing powersets.

On the Resistance side, I... want... heavy... weapons

I cant comment on the stalker debate, as I've never managed to level one higher than lvl 15 (nor have I tried either KM or ElecMelee), but I can talk about the Electric Control. I've tried multiple Controllers/Dominators, and generally prefer the former to the latter. However, with Electric Control, you might prefer it on a Dominator (I do). The Dom gives you a blasting/melee mixed Assault secondary which helps with the damage being dealt.

While you lose the extra damage that the controller's Containment brings, Domination brings it's own bonuses, with the additional magnitude bonus to all the hold/immobilize powers, and a free refill of the End bar.

As for Electric Control vs other primaries, it depends far more on "soft" controls, such as sleeps and end drain while Earth or Fire (as suggested above as a more newbie friendly set) deals more with stuns and slows, which do not break as easily.

Most of the attacks have are 4-slotted with Acc,Dam,Dam,End. Parry replaces one of the Dam with Def. Soaring Dragon (? the second highest damaging attack, not the tier 9) has an extra Rech as well.
All of the armours are Res,Res,Res,End. The damage aura is Acc,Dam,End,End. I dont remember the rest, but you're right about being short on slots.
I'll definitely give the Theft of Essence proc a shot. That should be a big help. I think I've got a Heal enhancer in there that I could trade for another End.

One of the first characters I ever created was a mythical dark samurai, combining the offensive power of the Katana with the shadowy "ninja-esque" Dark Armour. The concept is one that I love, but after 5 years, I've managed to drag him, up hill, in a snow storm, to to the lofty heights of level 30.
No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot make him viable. He drops like a fly, despite having the Katana version of Parry on auto, and alternating it between other attacks.

I added in Tough and Weave, to help with the survivability, but that leads directly into the second issue:End.

I find that I'm spent at the end of one or two groups. I think one of the main problems is the usage of dark regeneration. That takes out nearly a third of my blue bar with every use, a move that seems quite mandatory just about every time it comes up.

I'm at work, so I cant put up a Mids breakdown, but I'm currently mainly using SOs, with the occasional non-set IO.

Any help would be appreciated, as I really like the guy, I just cant play him more than a single mission at a time, as its just too slow and painful

Between the damage aura, and Chilling Embrace, do you need additional aggro management for an Ice/* tanker? Even without Taunt, I've never had a problem on my Ice/Ice (of course, he's only mid 30s, so that's not necessarily a great indicatoer)

When I first saw the EU tour was coming up, I was sad that Protector (where I have all my 50s, including a couple Tankers) was being missed again.
But then, I started thinking about it, and realized that there are a couple new powerset combinations that I wanted to try out, and that I might as well make them on the EU servers.

I'll do my best to be on this week and next.

Damn it, now there are two more combos for me to try out (Ice/Elec and Ice/KM), and I'm all out of room on my main server. Thank goodness for Tanker Tuesdays, which allows me to run characters on other servers, and still have a good time.
I've only tried out Ice/Ice and Ice/Fire. Of the two, Fire is probably my favourite secondary, as the AoE damage output is fantastic for a Tanker. /Ice seems far more single target oriented, and can draw out fights against large mobs.

If you're throwing in different weapon options, the same thing can be said of Katana/Inv, as it has an attack that is almost identical to Parry. Although, I dont know if Brutes have access to Katana.

Just to play devil's advocate, although the level shift from the rare and very rare enhancements do not work outside of the new Trials, the bonuses that the enhancements provide do apply. So, I could see how someone might want to slot the 75% chance to debuff Interface enhancement, or get the best pet, even if all they play is the solo content.

I'm glad someone posted something about this as it appears that the WST was changed. I checked the sticky on the announcement page as recently as Saturday, and it was still showing Sister Psyche's TF as this week's target. After reading this, I quickly checked the Sticky, and it has indeed been changed.