Call Me Awesome

As a general rule if it misses you wasted the endurance and did zero damage so accuracy is paramount. HOWEVER, a few years ago the Dev's introduced something called "beginner's luck" into the 1-20 game... this acts as a massive buff to accuracy (Or is it tohit? Can't recall at the moment) that starts off at level 1 nearly capping your accuracy and slowly drops off to the standard 75% chance to hit by level 20. What this means is that your chance to hit mobs in the pre-teens is already boosted considerably.

Because of that you may think that pre-12 you want damage in your attacks; the problem with that is that TO damage enhancements do so little to boost your damage that you really won't notice anything unless you slot like 4-5 of them into an attack.

What I would suggest instead is below level 12 slot only accuracy and endurance reduction; that will offer you the most return on investment. Once you can slot DO's that changes. Frankly I generally don't even bother with slotting before level 12... if something useful drops I'll slot it but I don't buy anything.

Actually you can't use the SAME set IO twice in a power... I think that's what you're saying but the way you worded it was slightly ambiguous.

You get the bonuses for slotting more pieces of a particular set into a specific power; as an example let's take the Smashing Haymaker set and your tier one attack Jab.

You've slotted the Acc/Dam piece in... you get no set bonuses.
You put the Dam/Recharge in the second slot... you get the 2 slot bonus (immobilize resistance of 2.2%... worthless)
You put the Dam/Endurance in the third slot... you get the 2 slot bonus and the 3 slot bonus (1.125% additional hit points)
You put the Dam/End/Recharge into the fourth slot... you get the 2 slot bonus, the 3 slot bonus and the 4 slot bonus of 1.875% S/L defense.
That will give you the bonus you're looking for from the set, but it'll leave your attack under slotted for accuracy and damage; the easy solution is to add a 5th slot to the attack and buy an Acc/Dam/Recharge IO from the Crushing Impact set to max out the damage, give enough accuracy and a little more recharge in that attack.

You can get a given bonus up to 5 times in a build by slotting sets that give it in 5 powers, so you could put the Smashing Haymaker set into 5 single target attacks and get all of those bonuses 5 times giving you (among the other bonuses) 9.375% S/L defense total.

You can also slot four pieces of the Reactive Armor set into 5 resistance powers and get another 6.25% defense to S/L and to E/N.

All of this does get complicated pretty fast as with set IO bonuses you can really change the way your character works. Want the defenses of an Ice tanker layered on top of the resistance of an Invuln and the regeneration of a Stone tanker? IO's can give your Invuln that.

Your bankroll is MORE than enough for everything in my guide; you've enough to get some of the extras as well. Purple sets would be stretching things somewhat (frequently 400 million per IO or more) but they really won't help you all that much. You should be able to buy everything in my guide for under 500 million provided you use a moderate amount of patience.

Ok, did you have to say that while I was drinking? Now I have it all over my monitor & keyboard

Did someone call?

Anyway Zeus while my soft cap guide was written a couple of years ago in issue 13 it's still applicable to today's game and it's the least expensive route I know of to building an extremely tough tanker.

There have been some things change since I wrote it but nothing that affects the slotting... the main difference is the Fitness pool has become an INHERENT pool that everyone gets free at level 2, this opens up room for three new powers in your build. You'll need to respec your character in order to take advantage of this assuming you took Hurdle, Health & Stamina on your character originally.

At the time I wrote that guide the basic build could be done for around 20 million or so... with today's market prices that's roughly 150-200 million if you're patient and willing to take lower level IO's. As an example those level 40 Reactive Armor will cost a fortune but you should, with some patience, be able to get level 30-35 Reactive Armor recipes for 10% of what the level 40's sell for. Be aware that you aren't really sacrificing much either... the difference in your resistance from slotting all level 40 RA vs all level 25 is only ~2%. Smashing Haymaker is still an inexpensive set and Mocking Beratement is practically free on the market... last I looked most of the MB recipes were selling for a few thousand inf each.

I generally prefer 6 Thunderstrike for 3.75% E/N defense myself; I don't find F/C to be prevalent enough to go looking for more defense to it and getting a significant amount tends to require some fairly significant compromises in the build.

This.

There's really no way for anyone to offer meaningful advice without knowing what you may enjoy. I know one player who absolutely loves controllers but can't stand playing melee characters... I have another friend who hates playing control characters. Offering a suggestion of a melee combination would be pointless to the first player while suggesting a control combination would be pointless to the second player.

In order to offer you anything useful in the way of advice we'd need to at least know what your desires are.

Do you enjoy protecting your team and being an unkillable brick wall? Well, we could suggest several Tanker combinations. Do you enjoy simply bringing massive amounts of pain on the baddies? We could suggest Blaster or Scrapper combinations that could fit that bill.

Indeed. With several major new systems being worked out that we know of now plus undoubtedly much else we don't know about yet we can safely assume several weeks of closed beta followed by at least a couple of weeks of open beta at a minimum.

I would be surprised if it went into open beta much before mid-August... that would put it close to September as a minimum assuming nothing game breaking was found in the open beta to stretch that out. Bottom line though is that nobody, even the Dev's at this point, probably really knows for sure. I'm sure they have a target in mind but if the closed beta players find something horribly broken it could run long... always assuming Marketing doesn't pull a bonehead and overrule them.

I can say for dang sure it won't go live next week and I'd be very surprised if it was delayed into December. Other than that who knows? Probably not even Positron for sure.

It'll be released when it's ready at which point it'll be really cool, it won't include anything for <insert item here>, it'll be loaded with bugs, it'll be the best ever, it'll be the worst ever, dogs and cats will live together and it'll be mass chaos.

I just wanted to get all the opinions out there

Taunt does NOT need a tohit check vs AV's, but normally autohit taunt auras like Invincibility, Against All Odds, Chilling Embrace and the like DO have a tohit check when facing an AV.

It's another reason why Taunt is such a useful tool in tanking; for most things you can rely on your aura to do the heavy lifting but if you're facing an AV, especially a +level AV, you can't count on the aura holding the aggro.

Interesting, I leveled my PB back in issue 4 and leveled my WS most of the way in the issue 5-12 era. I know that at least at that time (pre-real numbers) I had considerable problems with accuracy on Antagonize and needed two accuracy SO's in it for it to be reliable.

I'll admit that I haven't played either in situations where Dwarf taunt was really critical in a long time; the PB was pretty much retired when issue 9 hit and the WS has been a "play a day or two, leave a month (year) or two" most of the rest of that time.

Apparently I'm largely basing my thoughts on Antagonize from the state of the power in the issue 4-8 era without realizing it.

Don't feel too bad there, I didn't think of it either.

That's something that tends to happen mostly in the lower levels before builds mature; I've mainly been playing tankers in the mid-high levels for the past several years where that doesn't come up very often. Also I usually play with the same people and we tend to play a "damn the torpedoes" style.

Hmm, checking with Mid's it looks like at some point the accuracy of Dwarf Antagonize was raised and it also claims a -range now. I was not aware of those changes from when I leveled my Kelds; back then it was a near direct port of Provoke. I imagine that happened a few issues ago when Kelds were buffed. Looking at the Mid's numbers I'm tempted to dust off my pair of long retired 50 Kelds.

Here's the numbers for Dwarf Antagonize and Presence Pool Provoke:

Dwarf
Acc - 112.5%
MAG - 4
Duration - 35 seconds
-Range - 75%

Provoke
Acc - 75%
MAG - 4
Duration - 14 seconds
No -Range

I would still lean towards slotting an accuracy into Antagonize since you're likely to be facing a fair number of +2 or higher and you'll want it to hit.

Er, no. Fulcrum most assuredly has a tohit check; it has the standard 75% tohit base. This is one of those no brainer powers for slotting as your only real option is to toss 1-2 accuracy and up to 3 recharge into it. It doesn't take any IO sets so use common IO's or SO's for it.

Keldian Dwarf taunt is a port of the Presence Pool power Provoke and is NOT autohit in PvE, it needs accuracy in order to be useful.

Tanker Taunt, Brute Taunt and Scrapper Confront are all autohit in PvE but require a tohit roll in PvP. Considering the PvP vs PvE population I'd just as soon that they removed the ability to slot accuracy in those powers altogether; the fact that you CAN slot accuracy leads many to think that they NEED to when they're actually wasting a slot.

Another oddball power is the Stone Armor aura Mud Pots; the taunt component is autohit but the damage component has a tohit roll. I believe there are several other similar powers.

Don't worry, you get a spiffy cane and a nice comfy rocking chair as perks. You also get to holler at the whippersnappers "Get off my lawn!"

Plus you can get away with being a dirty old man... Win!

The reason for getting Temp. Invuln at level 1 is that it provides three times more S/L resistance than RPD... 30% base vs 10% base. RPD is a useful power true, and you'll want it fairly soon but TI is unquestionably the priority choice.

The good part of doing away with the Fitness pool is that you now have 3 additional power choices before level 20, this makes room for RPD to come in somewhere in the 12-20 range.

In today's game I'd suggest a power order something like this:
TI & Tier 1 attack
Dull Pain
Tier 3 or Tier 2 attack
Travel power prerequisite
Unyielding
Taunt
RPD
Travel Power
Boxing if you're including the Fighting Pool
Invincibility
Open choice, tier 6 attack, tough, Res Energies or power of your choice

The rest depends on your secondary, build goals and so forth. Tough/Weave are required if you're building for durability. Aid Self is occasionally useful but it's optional.

The slotting suggestions in my soft cap guide are still valid if you want to maximize your durability. The nice thing about Invuln is that building to the soft cap doesn't have to require any major sacrifices in other aspects like damage & recharge... you can have it all with a little thought.

Sometime I need to find time to update this guide for the new inherent fitness.

Brimstone is entirely skippable. Actually I personally skip Crystal since Rock's S/L defense works for a large amount of energy/negative damage... much of it has a S/L component. If I'm facing large amounts of pure E/N damage I usually need Granite anyway. Crystal is something that can be argued either way and it does serve a purpose. I just don't have it on my build.

I certainly recommend Hasten as it will counteract the -recharge penalty of Granite while it's running. Yes, it isn't perma but it's up enough to be worth having.

On the Alpha my opinion is that the two choices are Cardiac or Spiritual; Musculature is less attractive since you're probably already at ED cap for damage slotting. After you've played your tank a bit if you still have endurance problems then Cardiac is probably your best choice. If your end is under control then Spiritual for more recharge is probably most useful.

I wouldn't worry about two builds for general use; when I use a second build it's to set up for a special purpose. For example CMA, my Inv/Stone tanker, has a main build for high level content and a dedicated low level build for exemplar that maintains it's set bonuses down to level 22 and is designed for level 30 and below content.

Unfortunately since you're on Mac you're pretty handicapped trying to come up with a high end build without Mid's. If you have a buddy nearby with a PC you may want to work out a build there and print it out so you have a guide to work from during your respec.

Well, my opinion is that a scrapper is a good choice for a beginner character that's durable enough to be forgiving of mistakes and deals enough damage to move quickly through missions. They're also very straightforward... just run up and punch the enemy in the face. A good scrapper is an asset on a team at any level. I pull out one of my scrappers when I'm in the mood to just hit stuff without having to worry about other concerns.

Brutes are similar but the Fury mechanic can take some getting used to; you start off dealing low damage but as you continue to fight you start hitting harder and harder. The problem is that if you stop fighting you quickly loose Fury and have to start building it up all over again. Some players like that playstyle and some don't. Personally after running a Fire/Willpower brute to 50 I'm in the "don't" category.

Broadsword and Fire are both quite good primaries; BS will hit harder but slower while Fire offers more AOE damage and faster recharge. Either of them will make a quite capable scrapper. Secondary wise it's hard to come up with a truly bad choice. Some are tough in the early game but can have problems in high level content like Regen, some are tough in the mid to late game like Shield and Super Reflexes but struggle early and some are good the whole trip like Invuln.

I'm assuming from your forum registration date that you're just joining the game? In that case let me welcome you and hope you enjoy your stay. As a new player my first advice would be to pretty much ignore the Invention system for now; yes it can greatly increase a character's ability but it's a massively complex system to understand and the game is perfectly playable with the basic enhancements you can buy at the store. You've enough to learn right now without jumping into invention enhancements.

I suggest you sell all your salvage and recipe drops at the auction house; by doing that you should easily get enough money to afford the standard store bought enhancements. After you've gotten your feet under you and you understand all the basics you'll have plenty of time to master the complex (and usually expensive) Set IO system.

Hmm, I could have sworn I saw something that it was like a purple. Ah well, I guess I'm wrong there.

My understanding was that any enemy that was eligible for rewards had a chance to drop a shard; so as a 50 you could get a shard from a green con minion. Is that incorrect, or did it change? I could swear I saw a post to that effect when the Alpha slot went live.

I've yet to see a WP tanker who could hold aggro from my Shield scrapper... and I've only known one player who could do a really good job of aggro control with a WP tanker and he was WP/Fire so he had the AOE leverage of his secondary to assist, AND he'd slotted taunt into Combustion & FSC.

In average hands a WP tank is, in my experience, a waste of time as an aggro manager. All other sets at least gather a moderate amount of aggro even in less skilled hands; WP will usually hold the mob it's currently attacking and not much else.

In short, I don't trust a WP tanker to do the job. In my opinion they are, almost without exception, low damage scrappers. I have hopes that the new SR tanker will do well but if they stick the WP aura numbers on it then I'm not optimistic. At least looking at the Brute SR numbers the aura looks comparable to most other tanker primaries although that 2 second tic rate will make initial aggro acquisition a bit slower. That assumes that Mid's has the correct numbers; I've never played a SR brute.