Call Me Awesome

Holy cow that's one expensive build; you can easily get perma-PA MUCH cheaper than that. There are a few things I'd question on the build.

First, Blind is very poorly slotted... scrap the purple sleep set there and toss in another 5 Decimation. I'd toss in a 6th slot for a common hold IO. Alternately slot 4 Basilisk Gaze and a couple of Acc/Dam.

Second, AM REALLY needs to be rethought... at the least slot 3 rchg/3 endmod. The Efficacy Adapter set works very well here as well. With a high recharge build you're going to need all the recovery you can get.

Superior Invisibility is better slotted with 5 Red Fortune and the LotG 7.5% recharge.

Enervating Field needs 2 endurance reducers... forget about anything else.

PA isn't perma yet, slot 4 Expedient Reinforcement and 2 Call to Arms... focusing on Acc/Dam/Recharge.

Spectral Terror doesn't really benefit strongly from slotting; move those slots elsewhere for more benefit. You're also going to want to slot several sets of Decimation so you may well go over the rule of 5 on 6.25% recharge bonuses.

Flash works quite well with 4 Basilisk Gaze and an Acc/Hold/Recharge or two.

No EMP???? This is much more useful than Choking Cloud and it can be slotted the same as Flash.

I'm not a fan of the Stone epic myself but it's not a huge deal. I like the Fire APP on my Ill/Rad for Fire Blast & Fire Ball slotted with Decimation & Positron's Blast respectively.

Those are the real problems I see with your build; a perma-Phantom Army Ill/Rad is a great thing and it does cost a bit... but it doesn't have to cost anything like what your build would... did you realize that as you've slotted your character it would cost (conservatively) 3-4 BILLION influence? I've put together a perma-PA Ill/Rad with 206% recharge for under 500 million.

If I were rolling up a Dark Armor tanker I'd probably look to Stone Melee as my first choice for a secondary; /SM has a ton of mitigation in the knockdown of both hammers, Fault & Tremor... and the MAG 4 hold of Seismic to top it all off. Fault's stun is just gravy.

Dark Armor is a set that really benefits from a secondary with strong mitigation; Stone Melee also couples that mitigation with solid damage.

Without any question it's Black Scorpion... a while back we were running the STF and ended up with all 4 patrons, something that occasionally happens if you get a bad pull. Well, we took down GW followed by Scirocco and then Mako. By the time Mako fell we discovered that somewhere along the line without realizing it we'd taken Scorpion out with the AOE splash damage.

Anytime you can take out a level 54 AV without even REALIZING it that AV's obviously fairly weak.

In order from most dangerous to least the Patron's rank like this:

1. Ghost Widow... she's the most dangerous AV in the mission, Lord Recluse included. MAG 100 cone hold that can one shot a tank, immense Dark Regeneration heal and another sizeable Siphon Life heal along with fear, dimension shift and tohit debuffs make her nothing to take lightly.
2. Scirocco... his Dust Devils are nasty energy damage capable of hurting most tankers and one shotting squishies. That combined with his nuke make him a definite threat to anyone in the team. He's fairly easy to kill but he packs a lot of AOE damage.
3. Mako... more annoying generally than anything else with his hide/placate and elude... his cone attacks can be dangerous to less durable teammates. As long as everyone carries a couple of yellow inspirations for his elude you shouldn't have any problem.
4. Black Scorpion... no real threat to any decent team; his main challenge is simply chewing your way through his hit points. A few AOE's but with a competent tanker to keep him pointed away from the team he's an easy kill.

Anytime I'm running the STF I like to take the patrons in order of danger... first GW, then Scirocco followed by Mako & Scorpion. I much prefer getting GW out of the way at the start... she's less dangerous if you're prepared for her. If she arrives unexpectedly a team wipe isn't at all unusual.

The "detailed info" tab on individual powers is mostly worthless, however you can bring up the combat stats and look at your recharge, defense, accuracy and so forth; that keeps accurate track of your global bonuses. Mid's appears to be pretty accurate on all the power stats as well; of course if your live build differs any from the Mids build obviously the numbers will be different.

The easiest way that even identical builds can differ is by using different level IO's... it's not the easiest thing in the world to have Mids show a power slotted with a level 30, 43, 25, 44 and 50 enhancement but it's pretty common when you're slotting an IO set... you slot what you can get hold of.

Stone Armor is capable of light tanking outside of Granite but you'll certainly want Granite for tough challenges and large teams. Probably about 40% of the time I'm tanking with one of my Stone tanks I'm running Rock Armor/Rooted/Stone Skin instead of Granite. Of course that sometimes leads to my downfall when I TP into a group that was just a little nastier than I'd expected and faceplant before I can swap to Granite

Secondaries for a Stoner... Stone Melee is the classic pairing but I'm not sure it's the ideal choice; it hits hard and has tons of soft control with all the Knockdown but it also has lengthy recharge on the attacks... something that's problematic with the -recharge debuff of Granite.

I've leveled two Stone tanks to 50, one a Stone/Energy Melee and the other Stone/Fire Melee. Based on those experiences let me recommend that you do NOT choose /Energy Melee... it was low damage with limited AOE prior to level 35 before the nerfs but Energy Transfer as a fast activating high damage attack redeemed it somewhat. Now, with the extremely slow animation on BOTH of the heavy hitter attacks it really doesn't have anything to recommend it anymore.

Stone/Fire on the other hand is a great combo; you have massive AOE damage AND very good single target damage at the expense of any control or damage mitigation. Since a mature Stone tank has no need of damage mitigation in the secondary this makes it an ideal pairing. As an added bonus Fire is also fairly light on endurance... much more so than Stone Melee or Energy Melee.

If you were referring to ELECTRIC Melee with EM, and I'm assuming you were since you mentioned AOE specifically, then that should also be a valid choice, similar in performance to Fire Melee. I haven't actually played one but from seeing what it can do as a Scrapper set it ought to be a good choice.

Tankers and Brutes are actually quite different, besides the fact that one is a hero and the other a villain.

A Tank has the highest hit points of any AT in the game, and they're the only AT with a defense primary. In practical terms while Tanks & Brutes share many of the same powersets a Tanker's armors are inherently 25% more effective by virtue of being PRIMARY sets instead of secondary. A Tank has damage as his secondary set, while a Brute had damage as his primary. As you'd expect a Brute deals more damage.

Brutes are actually much more comparable to a Scrapper, both AT's have a damage primary and a defense secondary. Scrappers have higher damage than Brutes, but a Brute has Fury... this is a mechanic where the longer a Brute is in combat the more damage he does. Think "Hulk Smash!" with the Brute, the madder he gets (more Fury generated) the more damage he does. Brutes & Scrappers have very similar defense numbers as well; both are roughly 75% as effective as Tankers. Both Brutes & Scrappers will easily outdamage a Tanker... by a considerable margin.

Team role frequently differs with Tanks & Brutes also... a Tanker primarily protects the "squishy" members of the team by attracting and holding the attention of all the enemies so that they all shoot at the Tanker instead of the rest of the team. That's the reason a Tank has the most hit points and the best defenses... he can survive things that turn most other AT's into a grease spot on the floor.

The Brute on the other hand is your basic melee fighter... he's capable of taking hits and protecting the team like a tanker but his primary purpose is simply to smash the enemy.

I hope this sheds a little light on the subject for you; and remember that for now if you choose to play a Hero you can't be a Brute, and if you choose to play a villain you can't be a Tank.

Welcome to the game, and enjoy your stay. You've 12 character slots per server available to you so by all means try out several different AT's and powersets.