Call Me Awesome

Really anything will work fine on SO's; after all for the first several years of the game that's all there was and an SO build is just as capable today as it was then.

Also, you can't really single out "this secondary shines with IO's while that secondary doesn't need them" as it really doesn't matter. In a nutshell all secondaries are focused around hitting things and they all need the same things: accuracy, damage, recharge and endurance reduction. Taking the secondary in isolation I really don't see one set having an advantage over another when comparing SO to IO.

Yes any build will become better with intelligent IO selections but you're looking at overall character, not simply the secondary. The primary has far more effect on how the character performs with SO's vs a top IO build; in large part the secondary is irrelevant in the SO/IO debate.

Holy necropost Batman!

In answer to your question we'll undoubtedly have a Halloween event this year and it may or may not be the same as in past years.

Most enemy status procs seem to last 8 seconds; Grav Anchor chance for hold, Devastation chance for hold, Lockdown +2 mag, Contagious Confusion and so forth so I'd assume the same for duration. That would be modified by the relative enemy level thanks to the Purple Patch.

Well, if you want to tank and hold aggro then there's no question that Inv is the better choice; it's tougher on SO's and marginally tougher with an IO build while it has a great taunt aura vs WP's huge weakness... an almost nonexistent taunt aura.

I have to say that so far I'm really enjoying my StJ/Invuln scrapper and I see no reason why it wouldn't work quite well as a tanker set if you've a mind to pair it up. Still, Inv/SS is a classic pairing for a reason and it does work very well.

I do enjoy the Nutcracker, er, Rib Cracker, attack in StJ. Something about kicking the guy in the jewels and knocking him 5' up in the air just makes you grin.

Specifically under control panel, then to the right you'll see "Your Control Panel" and options under that. It will look like this:
Your Control Panel
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The option you want is Group Memberships.

Unfortunately no... it would make the vet pets actually useful. On the other hand it WOULD be just a mite overpowered.

I've been very happy with the performance of my Fire/EM blaster; the added range from Boost Range (easily perma with only SO's) makes Fire Breath much more effective and lets you use Blaze from nearly twice as far away. I didn't go for a full ranged soft cap, stopping at ~35% Ranged def leaving one small purple to cap when needed.

This combo is great for hanging back behind the melee characters in relative safety without sacrificing your effectiveness. I've a buddy who has a Fire/Mental; he's very effective but he's also forced into melee range quite frequently and tends to get into trouble more often than my Fire/EM does.

One thing to consider though is a Fire/Dark corruptor, the combination of the Dark Miasma debuffs with the damage output of Fire Blast is a real eye opener. Fearsome Stare, Tar Patch, Rain of Fire followed by Fire Breath & Fire Ball is a wonderful thing. I think in a team setting the Fire/Dark corruptor brings more to the team than a blaster thanks to the debuffs. My Fire/Dark has been a lot of fun on the trip to 50.

On pure SO's (or even with an unlimited budget IO build for that matter) nothing is more survivable than Stone Armor in Granite. Of course you pay for that with loads of penalties so it's hardly ideal if you want to run small team or solo.

Frankly if you're strictly looking at solo then I'd suggest either a scrapper or brute instead of a tank; they have more than enough durability for solo and quite a bit more damage. The tanker's strength in durability and aggro control shine in a team setting but it's lower damage output is a disadvantage in a solo setting.

Getting to your question the Invuln will be more durable on SO's, and with a soft capped IO build it's going to be stronger there as well but the margin is narrower. Invuln is also considerably better at aggro management since it's taunt aura is literally an order of magnitude stronger than WP's. That isn't to say that WP can't tank, it just has to work a lot harder to be almost as good.

WP's advantage comes with it's better endurance tools giving you a second, somewhat stronger, version of Stamina in Quick Recovery. Still, barring considerable IO set investment it's going to lag behind Invuln in durability.

As far as secondaries go Super Strength is quite popular, I haven't played it myself though. Stone Melee is another solid choice with good mitigation and the tanker version of Martial Arts offers a sizeable chunk of defense in it's tier 2.

I've started a Super Reflexes/Martial Arts tanker and I have to say that it's unquestionably the most durable tank I've ever played in the low levels and it looks to be quite competent in the later game as well... for a pure SO build it may be hard to beat. As an example by level 4 I had soft capped my defenses to melee & ranged damage thanks to the +10% boost from Storm Kick. By level 14 I had soft capped all damage positions, something that's nearly unheard of. If you're looking for straight durability on an SO based toon that's a hard combination to beat. It's light on AOE but it has solid single target damage.

All this being said I still suggest a scrapper or brute if you want to solo... the durability advantage a tanker has is overkill solo and you sacrifice damage output to get it. If you want to team then by all means roll a tanker and learn how to manage aggro, teams will love you for it. Solo however you'll move faster as a scrapper or brute.

If you want to be as tough as possible then you may want to check out the guides in my signature. Incarnate is very much optional although I'm partial to the Rebirth Radial tree for Destiny.

One thing you'll need to keep in mind depending on when you left the game is that things have changed by a massive amount.

Last night I rolled a StJ/Inv scrap and took him to 12 on the sewer trial. It's a bit too early to have a real feel for the set but it does feel quite competent so far. In a little playing around in Mids I can see some good potential for the combo as a ST powerhouse.

That is, when and if I get him leveled... since issue 21 hit I've started 5 new characters to go along with over 70 pre-existing characters. Altitis? Naw, surely not...

Take it for what it's worth, but after playing a SR/MA tanker to 26 and just today playing a StJ/Inv scrapper to 12 I'll say that StJ "feels" faster and has quite solid damage.

The flip side is that tanker MA has that sweet +10% defense buff to all in the tier 2 attack and StJ requires a bit of thought with it's combos... but less than Dual Blades since it isn't a case of "attack x followed by y followed by z gives result q" but one of "any builder attack increases the effectiveness of a finisher attack".

StJ has better AOE than MA but neither is going to win any awards for best in class in that area. I realize I was comparing a tanker to a scrapper but even allowing for that StJ "felt" like it had better damage than MA. I haven't made a study of the numbers as of yet to clarify that but my initial impression is that MA has better utility while StJ has better damage.

If you're on the fence why not roll one of each and play them up a bit. That's what I did trying to decide between Dark/Elec and Ice/Elec; I found that the Ice/Elec was more fun and he's currently 45 while the Dark/Elec is stuck at 25.

I've run a couple of Shield characters up to 50, one a SD/Fire/Pyre tanker and one BS/Shield/Pyre scrapper so I'm somewhat familiar with the set. Both of them I settled for ~47% defense and called it good as both were leveled pre-incarnate.

For a SD tanker getting the normal soft cap is a cakewalk... you can nearly do it on SO's alone. Add in a Steadfast 3% and you're there; so I focused on other bonuses for my tanker. I'm partial to the Gift of the Ancients set in my shields; 4 of them make for a nice endurance boost and recovery boost. On my scrapper slotting all the defenses that way made a character with 9 toggles who could fight for 10 minutes straight against AV/GM's without dropping the blue below 70%.

With your goals of perma hasten though you may be looking at the Luck of the Gambler for 10% regen & 7.5% recharge... expect it to be pricey unless you can buy those 7.5% global recharge IO's with A-Merits though, they usually run $150-200 million each. You can grab another 5% recharge from each set of 5 Crushing Impact slotted in your ST attacks. One thought that occurs to me though is what are you looking to accomplish with perma-hasten? You should have a nice attack chain already and One with the Shield is unaffected by recharge. Are you looking to maximize Shield Charge?

Thanks to the way the SD set works with Active Defense providing a chunk of Debuff Resistance you can increase that by double stacking your mez protection. You can also increase the DDR in the power by slotting Membrane (def buff/recharge) Hami-O's into it thanks to the loophole in defense slotting boosting defense debuff resistance. My BS/SD scrapper runs with AD double stacked about 50% of the time giving capped (95%) DDR and ~70% DDR when I've only a single stack. The tanker would, with the same slotting, have considerably more while AD is only single stacked.

You'll be hard put to get much additional in the way of resistance beyond Tough from the Fighting Pool; there's just not much resistance available in IO bonuses.

I find it hard to recommend any Destiny other than the Rebirth Radial tree (Regeneration side); at tier 3 you can have a perma 200% regen buff and half the time considerably more.

On your epic choice you'll need to determine which you want more, damage or utility and concept. Energy Torrent is really something of a disappointment, it's a cone so you'll have problems using it effectively when you're tanking and surrounded by mobs. It isn't bad, but the cone is an issue for a tank. Fire Ball is really the best AOE epic attack out there and Fire Blast isn't bad as a ranged single target attack, considerably better than Laser Beam Eyes.

Since you've already invested in Leaping you may want to consider Spring Attack; it's kind of a "Shield Charge Lite" power and will be a decent filler to alternate with SC. It's a bit shorter radius AOE and lower damage but it isn't bad from my brief testing.

You could put together a very solid build for around 300 million; the sky's the limit on the upper end if you feel like spending the money. The HO's are expensive options for minor improvement in DDR yet I tossed them in both of my SD characters since I have a sizeable stash of them from the old time Hami raids.

I suggest you use the Titan Sentinel program to export your current build into Mids and play around with your slotting and power choices then post your build here and we'll help you fine tune it.