Finduilas

Taking Fly as a travel power in no way locks you into using Hover in battle. A travel power just gets you to the fight, what really matters is how you tank when you get there.

Although I personally don't enjoy fighting while using Hover, and I wouldn't recommend it for sets with attacks that require being on the ground, you say yourself that it can work. Assuming that someone who takes Fly is going to be a sub-par tank is just baseless stereotyping.

Hmm, I probably wouldn't delay Icicles to 47; instead, you could push the whole Fighting Pool back to 41-44-47 and take Icicles at 32.

As for the slots, assuming you need 3 more, first I'd take one from Hibernate, since most just stick with the base slot now that its Recharge can't be enhanced. 4-slotting a defense set in Weave will get you another slot, and you can add an Acc/Dam to JB and leave it 5-slotted, freeing a slot there.

I use Eradication quite often, so unless its price & availability has changed substantially in last few days, several of the enhancements are relatively plentiful and not too expensive. The Eradication quad *is* very expensive and hard to find, but since you only need three Erad slots for the bonus, it's easily avoidable. I usually slot Damage, Damage/Recharge, and Acc/Damage/Recharge, none of which are terribly expensive.

Besides, the OP currently has Obliteration slotted, which is, if anything, *more* expensive than Eradication.

Well, since Willpower comes with typed defense rather than positional, that certainly makes sense.

Tealeaf, most of your set bonuses seem geared to positional defense, which is not good since they won't stack with WP's typed defense. Also, you should concentrate on S/L def first, then E/NE def, with F/C last, which is the opposite of what you have. Look for sets (usually as the 3 or 4 slot bonus) that have higher typed than positional defense bonuses. Kinetic Combat, Smashing Haymaker, and Eradication are good examples.

Also I agree with LostHalo that no Shatter is a bad idea. Clobber and JB at 44 and 47 is a very bad idea, IMO, though I guess you've gotten this far without them. Personally, I'd respect and take them (and Shatter) when they first become available. If you've got QR you can certainly put off the Fitness pool for a few levels.

Ahh, that's because RPD is underslotted for resistance. That Impervium +Psi isn't doing much for you, why don't you get rid of both Impervs and move the 3 Aegis slots there. EDIT: I'd also skip the Aegis Psi resist IO. Just 6% Psi resist is close to worthless, you're better off just using one of the regular resist IOs.

Also, you do *not* want to use the BotZ -KB IOs. They are very expensive and unnecessary; Unyielding gives plenty of KB protection.

Glad to help.

Put your cursor over Invinc in Mid's, and right click. This will lock Invinc into the "Info" tab. Go to the Info tab and make sure that the number of foes in the bar is set to one. To unlock Invinc, click on the red "Unlock" box on the Info tab.

After I posted, I realized that it might also be that you may have CJ toggled on in Mid's (the green button on the blue power bar) and not on in game, or vice versa. That happens to me all the time when using Mid's, so check that, too.

The reason Mid's wouldn't let you place the slot in DC is that your remaining slot was too low level to slot there. You'll have to move a higher level slot there and put the last one in its place.

When I opened it in Mid's it showed me 48% S/L def. Are you sure you don't have Invinc set to more than one foe?

As for the rest of the build, IMO fifth the Reactive Armor slot in your resistance powers could be put to *much* better use. .63% F/C def? I mean, c'mon, is that worth slotting for? If you want F/C def, move two slots to ResEn or ResEl and slot with 3 Aegis for 3.13% F/C def.

You could also do much better slotting for E/NE def, a good idea since Energy is the most common damage type after S/L. For instance, you could slot CJ and SJ with two Blessing of the Zephyr for 3.13% E/NE def apiece.

(Sorry, hit "Submit" before I mean to)

You also really have more S/L def than you need. I'd switch the Oblits in Shadow Maul to 3 or 4 Eradication, plus a couple of slots from another set to round out the slotting, and slot another KC set in Midnight Grasp. You'll still be above the soft cap but a lot closer to it for E/NE.

In general, I'd recommend adding a least one more slot to any attack slotted with KC that you are going to use on a regular basis; just four slots leaves you low on Accuracy & Damage. With Eradication, since you only need 3 slots for the bonus, you can fill out the slotting with a cheaper set or one that gives a better set bonus. (Two Scirocco's Dervish is nice.)

Also, the Invinc is waaay overslotted for defense. Pull one of the defense IOs and add another MB slot in Taunt for some more F/C def.

Hope that helps!

If this happened, it's news to me, and I think to all the other Invul tankers on the forum.

IIRC, one thing that did change is that Invinc now will not take Taunt IO sets, which brings it in line with the other Tanker taunt auras. Maybe your informant got the two things confused.

But it doesn't necessarily take twice as many attacks to defeat a foe without damage slotting as it does with damage slotting; you said yourself that overkill is an issue.

I can't tell from Vanden's post (which is what started this discussion) whether he assumes accuracy slotting, but I certainly don't disagree that accuracy should always be slotted first.

No surprise. I think it's important to note that levels where a tank has to choose between significant end red and damage slotting are very brief, but often painful. In the end, whatever gets you through those levels with the least aggravation is probably the way to go.

I think the original recommendation to slot Accuracy and End Red before Damage was regarding pre-SO slotting, so diminishing returns really don't come into it much.

Even though I think Vanden's analysis is too simplistic, since it doesn't take into account damage lost due to misses, and the possibility that the player will have to wait between attacks when endurance is low, it is quite possible that only slotting damage is more efficient in terms of DPE.

But I think playstyle issues are an equally important part of the equation. Damage before End Red probably works well for scrapper, but for tanks, attacking frequently is an efficient way to leverage Gauntlet for aggro control. And for brutes, being able to keep attacking is extremely important for building Fury.

We shouldn't discount personal preferences, either. In the early levels, I'd much rather have enough endurance to keep attacking than stand around waiting for my blue bar to fill enough to use my big hitter attacks. I may be the only tank player that feels that way, but I doubt it.

Not to mention the fact that no endurance slotting means that misses (and you will have some, whether you slot Accuracy or not) cost full endurance and produce 0 damage.

Lucky! It's June, 2010 on my oldest account.

Sorry, didn't see this last question first time through. As I mentioned earlier, ResEl should be the first to go, but after that, it gets harder. I think ResEn, Build-Up and Hasten are the other options, but at that point it becomes purely personal preference. Some tanks don't see the need for Build-Up, but I always take it; some can afford slotting IOs heavily for recharge so they don't need to take Hasten--I've never been able to do that, either! ResEn's sapping resistance is nice to have too.

It's a tough choice, the only advice I can give is to drop the one you think you'll miss the least, but I don't think missing any one of them will have a serious negative effect on your build.

Personally, I'm waiting until I hit 60 mos. so I can drop the travel precurser instead!

The last one is a problem for many players! I will say that most of your picks are fairly inexpensive, except for the PvP IOs in Invinc. Actually, I prefer to 4-slot GotA or LotG in my Defense powers, including Tough Hide, both have nice bonuses. GotA is a little less expensive and has end recovery and +end bonuses. It would be nice to 4-slot TH for that reason.

You are over the "rule of 5" with your Reactive Armor sets; you could replace one set with 3 slots of Aegis for a nice 3.13% F/C def bonus, since you're not getting the S/L and E/NE bonuses anyway.

Full sets of Multi-Strike is a great choice for positional defense, not so great for the typed defense you are looking for--less than a 1% bonus! I'd drop the Multi-Strikes for 3 slots of Eradication plus 2 slots from another set--3 slots of Erad gives a 3.13% E/NE bonus. Dam, Dam Rchg, and Acc/Dam/Rchg is usually what I use, (avoiding the expensive and hard-to-find quad in the set) plus, for example, a Dam/End and Acc/End from Multi-Strike.

I see you've taken Boxing very early, are you planning to use it regularly? If you are, it needs more slots. If you're not, I'd recommend moving it and the whole Fighting Pool back so you have room for SJ earlier. Honestly, taking Weave in the 40s is not too late, IMO, you won't have much of a need for high levels of def until the late game away.

I also think that Havoc Punch and Charged Brawl are underslotted. I'd recommend adding at least an Acc/Dam from another set to both. If you five-slot Thunderstrike and convert, say ResEn to three slots of Aegis, that gives you a slot each for those two attacks. If you need more slots, pulling the third slot from Build-Up or Hasten won't hurt too much, they're pretty close to the ED cap with 2 50 IOs.

I don't always get an epic on my tanks, so it's not essential, but it is nice if your secondary is lacking a hold, or a ranged attack. If you want to drop a power, ResEl is the one that you would miss the least, IMO.

Hope that helps!

If you're just 4-slotting Kinetic Combat (everything but the KC proc) your attacks *will* be a little underslotted, especially for Accuracy and Damage. I recommend at the very least adding a fifth slot for an Acc/Dam from another set. If it's a big hitter like KoB or you can spare the slots, I'd add a sixth slot too, for some additional End Red and Recharge. Throw-away powers like Boxing (if you're not using it, anyway) can just be left at four slots. As a matter of fact, if I'm slotting just for the set bonus, I'll swap out the KC Dam/End/Rchg for the KC KD proc, because it's much less expensive and hard to find than the triple.

If you're 3-slotting Eradication for the E/NE def, I recommend adding at least two slots, with emphasis on End Reduction since there is so little in the Erad set.

BTW, the Adrenalin Boost was just a stand-in for the new Physical Perfection epic. We shouldn't need to do that now there's a I16 version of Mids.