Call Me Awesome

If I can make just a couple of observations, you're really not gaining all that much from the 5th slot of Reactive Armor... you may well be better off using that slot elsewhere. I'd drop the endurance IO and leave all 4 of the resist IO's in the set. As a suggestion you could use another slot or two in Weave, and it wouldn't hurt to toss a couple more into Power Sink

I'd also change Swift for Hurdle, particularly since you're a jumper. Hurdle stacks nicely for jump speed and distance. In the same vein I'd skip the 2nd slot in Super Jump unless you want to toss a couple Blessing of the Zephyr in there; slots are more valuable elsewhere.

I don't know the Electric set well enough to offer a lot of thoughts, but I'd consider trying to move Lightning Reflexes earlier. Looking things over I think I'd probably move a few powers around to be more exemplar friendly... you're going to have a lot of trouble holding aggro below level 22... the new Positron will be tough to do with that build.

I'm not sure just how much bang for the buck you're getting with those two Hecatomb in GFS... that's a lot of inf for a 4% recovery bonus. If I were spending that kind of inf I'd either go to 5 slots of Hecatomb or not slot it at all.

I do have to disagree with MaxLongstreet about the APP... a ranged attack is a very helpful power for a tanker to have and very few secondaries provide you with one. The secondaries that do provide you with a moderately poor one at that so I always try to find at least two slots for an APP on all my tanker builds.

Anyway, I hope you've some pretty deep pockets as your build won't be cheap... unfortunately to get meaningful amounts of defense the Kinetic Combat set is your best choice as expensive as it is.

The common terminology I've seen for it is O-portal; and it's been so long since I've done anything other than have a friend drop one that I didn't even remember what the arcs were that granted it.

There was, and maybe still is, an interesting bug with the O-portal... very rarely someone else using your portal can cause it to despawn. I've seen it happen twice to my portal and I've "stolen" someone else's a couple of times as well. The interesting thing was one TF where 2 out of 3 times when I used a buddy's portal it despawned when I went through leaving him to hoof it the hard way to the mission. I've no idea if that bug still exists... the last time I encountered it was shortly before issue 17 went live.

If you're running a mainly SO or common IO build then unquestionably Aid Self is a better choice. If you're working on set bonuses then things can get a bit trickier, say if you need them for mules for example. Overall unless you need the mules I'd say you'll get more mileage out of Aid Self.

I'd like to apologize to the OP for the tone of some of the responses you received. Come on guys, I realize that the OP was frustrated and maybe was a bit harsh but cut him some slack... he's just bought the game and found it wasn't working correctly, naturally he was frustrated.

Now to the OP, looking over your machine's stats I'm not surprised it choked on Ultra Mode... all the features of UM bring my machine to it's knees and I'm running a QuadCore 9550 2.8GHz CPU and an Nvidia 275GTX... I have to turn several of the options down a bit myself. Your machine should be plenty to run the game nicely with the Ultra options disabled and the rest of the settings about midway up but unfortunately it isn't going to handle the full quality options.

As a first step turn off all the ultra options and turn the rest down a couple of notches. The biggest performance hit is from Ambient Occlusion, Blur and Shadows... turn those off to start. Glow is another big performance hit, and IMO it looks ugly so I deactivate it as well.

Once you get your first character made and into the tutorial zone (and by the way I highly recommend you do the tutorial and read all the text there, it'll help orient you) check your framerate (type /showfps 1 in the chat window and you'll see your current FPS in the upper right corner) and open up your options (menu/options/video) and play around with the settings until you find the combination that gives you acceptable framerates with acceptable video quality. Many of the options you can adjust on the fly and they have an immediate effect while a few require you to "apply options". The only options that require you to restart the game are changing your resolution.

I can't tell you what settings you'll eventually want, it all depends on what you consider acceptable framerate and quality. Personally I dislike any framerate below 30 and really prefer to always stay above 45 so I tend to compromise quality somewhat. Other players aren't bothered by a 15fps framerate but really want quality... you'll have to find your own best compromise. The game actually supports a pretty wide range of hardware and I've played on similar hardware to yours... as long as you aren't trying to drive a 1920x1080 display you should be able to find a decent compromise that keeps your FPS in the 30-50 range.

Ultra Mode is the new shiny in the game, and right now it's a bit under-optimized. Likely you'll be able to use a few of the new options but as it stands right now you won't be able to turn things to "11". I've found that some of the options have negligible effect on my FPS while others can nuke it from orbit.

I hope these suggestions help you out, and please, once you start playing don't hesitate to ask if anything confuses you... all of us have been through the same thing and all of us were confused about something when we first started playing.

It's just like hitting Dull Pain right as you die... it takes a second for it to take effect. You either got hit a final time before it took effect or a DOT got you before the regen kicked in.

Disgusting, isn't it?

Yep, on average about one time in 4 you'll get that tic of recovery as the crash occurs and your toggles don't crash... but it isn't anything you can count on by any stretch.

One thing I found useful with Unstoppable was to have the Ethereal Shift temp power... it's a 5 use CLICK phase shift with a 30 second duration. Hit Ethereal Shift before the crash, pop a blue and retoggle safely phase shifted and then continue on. If you're a tanker then make sure to toss a taunt out before you hit the temp and you shouldn't loose aggro over the 30 second time out.

I'm not sure, but probably CMA depending on what the rest of my buddies wanted to play. I'll also be bringing my 50 Brute blueside so that'll eat some playtime as well.

I'm afraid I can't get behind the design that if you don't have several controllers/dominators on the team you can't complete the TF. It seems that this change, even if the hold protection on the greens is reduced, means that either you bring plenty of holds or you don't bother starting the TF.

Any TF that REQUIRES a specific power in order to complete is poorly designed. Hard is ok, but impossible without a specific team composition is inexcusable. I'd guess that MAYBE 8 blasters MIGHT be able to overpower the Green's heals and regen but little else could.

I've no doubt that 8 Fire/Rad controllers could take it's lunch money but the majority of teams aren't on that level.

How much inf you put into it depends entirely on the level of performance you want out of it. SO's will be playable... it won't be a monster but it'll be functional.

If you're wanting to soft cap then it'll get more expensive... I haven't really figured it but probably on the order of 200 million. End isn't really an issue; there's lots of bonuses you could snag to boost recovery and total endurance... I tend to like the Gift of the Ancients for this; it's relatively inexpensive, 4 of them ED caps your defense with good endred and it gives you 2% recovery and 1.8 points of endurance.

I certainly wouldn't worry about endurance though; my BS/SD, a much heavier end primary than Fire, has zero endurance issues and runs 7 toggles at all times. No Miracle or Numina uniques, simply 4 sets of Gift of the Ancients and the +end accolades. I'm good for about 10 minutes of constant farming of the Cimerora wall without ever popping a blue unless I forget to turn off Super Jump.