Justaris

I'll try to address each of the builds the OP proposed, and then a general overview of my thoughts on the various Alpha options, as reading over Pine's post above I already see several things I strongly disagree with.

• Plant/Storm Controller. I would recommend going with Spiritual for this, given the build you described. Especially for a build that's soft-capped, adding more Recharge is likely the best route to take. The alternative might be Cardiac, given that you mentioned you occasionally have endurance issues, but you could also offset this with an Ageless destiny power. Cardiac also offers you range, which is often under appreciated but can be quite helpful for a Controller. So I think either a Spiritual Core or a Cardiac Core here.
  
• Earth/Fire Dom. Generally speaking, if you're not at perma-dom, that's the goal you're going to want to attend to first, which immediately narrows your choices to Agility and Spiritual. If you aren't at or very near to perma-dom then I'd advise Spiritual here. If you can get to perma-dom with a few IO tweaks elsewhere in the build, however, then Intuition is a strong choice since it enhances your holds, gives +damage and +range. For this build of dom with a perma-dom build pre-Alpha I would go for Intuition.
  
• Fortunata/Night Widow. Really need more information here. Fortunatas and Night Widows play radically differently and you really haven't given a sense of which you even have here, let alone what sort of build you are working with. That said, a common build goal is perma-Mind Link, so if you don't have enough Recharge for that you may look for an alpha that contains Recharge.
  
• Archery/Rad Corruptor. A little more build info might help here too, but certainly rechage isn't going to be a bad thing - there's a reason why it's such a popular IO build goal, after all. I like Intuition on my Rads because the radial branch affects nearly everything I do in Rad Emission and gives me damage on top of that, but I also run Choking Cloud so I may have more holds at work then you do.
  
• Fire/Traps Corruptor. Again, would be helpful to know a little more about the build, but just off the cuff I would consider either Spiritual or Musculature. I would go for Spiritual if you're already mostly geared for damage output and conversely I would go for Musculature if you're mostly geared for support. Basically whichever side of the character you feel needs the push more.

Agility -
Core: EndMod, Recharge/Defense
Radial: EndMod/Recharge/Defense/Run/Jump/Fly
Comments - the combination of Recharge and Defense is a tempting one, though neither is the core element that gets the 45% buff in the core line. If you've got a build that's trying to work on high-recharge and high-defense at once, this could be for you. I have this on my Night Widow and it works nicely.

Cardiac -
Core: Endurance, Resistance/Range
Radial: Endurance/Resistance/Range/Fear/Sleep/Intangibility
Comments - This is another very popular one, since it's excellent for solving endurance woes you may have in a build, or allow you to drop endurance reduction out of your build once it's in place (assuming you don't intend to exemplar). The secondary effects of resistance and range in the core line also useful, especially for many melee types.

Intuition -
Core: Hold, DefDebuff/Range
Radial: Hold/DefDebuff/Range/Damage/ToHitDebuff/Slow
Comments - I've found this very strong for my debuffer characters, especially my Rad, since it covers holds and my debuffs very nicely and gives my additional damage on top of that. I have this on a few controllers and Rad defenders, pretty much all on the radial path (Damage!).

Musculature -
Core: Damage, Immob/DefDebuff
Radial: Damage/Immiob/DefDebuff/EndMod/Run/ToHitDebuff
Comments - this is a solid alpha if your primary concern is MOAR DAMAGE!! and it'll fit that bill nicely for you. As you move up in the alpha tiers more and more of the effect bypasses the ED caps, so already being at ED for damage isn't necessarily a reason to pass on this. Depending on base values, the numbers you get above ED may or may not be worthwhile (for Brutes it generally isn't, for instance, because the base values are rather low to compensate for the power of the Fury buff).

Nerve -
Core: Accuracy, Defense/Hold
Radial: Accuracy/Defense/Hold/Taunt/Confuse/Flight
Comments - This is actually my least favorite alpha, but the combination of accuracy, hold and defense could work for control characters who need a bit of an edge to reach softcap. I used to have this on my Night Widow and it worked well, but I traded it up for an Agility when the new Alpha choices came out.

Resilient -
Core: Resistance, Immob/Taunt
Radial: Resistance/Immob/Taunt/Intangibility/Stun/ToHit
Comments - This is very good for a very small niche, that being characters that need more Resistance. Resistance isn't easy to get in significant quantity from IO Set bonuses, and this can be a good choice if you already have your other bases covered. My Dark tank uses this, as he's already soft-capped in defense and the dark regeneration power gives him all the heal he needs, so more resistance is the logical choice.

Spiritual -
Core: Recharge, Stun/Heal
Radial: Recharge/Stun/Heal/Slow/Jump/ToHit
Comments - Since the primary focus here is recharge, this is one of the most popular alpha choices and works for a lot of builds. You might take Agility over this if you need both Defense and Recharge, but otherwise if the goal is Recharge this is the answer.

Vigor -
Core: Heal*, Accuracy/Endurance
Radial: Heal/Accuracy/Endurance/Fear/Confuse/Sleep
Comments - I find this alpha very good for characters who have a very large investment in heal powers. My Willpower Brute uses this and loves it. The accuracy and endurance elements really help for maintaining a tough attack chain.

I'm actually building one of these myself. Here's a few brief tips for you:

• As stated above, get the Theft of Essence proc and -KB IOs ASAP. They make a huge difference. I go with three -KB IOs in my build, but get at least one as soon as you can.
• You have a significant head start on building for Defense with Defensive Sweep, so don't ignore this. Since in provides Melee and Smashing defense, I would suggest going for a positional Defense build to take best advantage of the Melee component.
• Your resistances should enhance nicely without help from IOs and in any case there aren't many good resistance bonuses from IO sets, so you'll want to focus mainly on Defense once you get the key elements mentioned above (ToE proc and -KB IOs).
• I recommend you take the Fighting pool for Tough and Weave.
• Despite its reputation, Dark Armor is not really that endurance-intensive. Most of the endurance demand comes from two powers - Cloak of Fear and Dark Regeneation. The ToE proc will largely take care of Dark Regen, but you'll want to expend a lot of slots on Cloak of Fear or else not use it at all (you'll need substantial accuracy and endurance reduction in the power to make it effective).
• Make sure to slot endurance reduction into your TW attacks as they can be extremely endurance-intensive.
• You might consider a Cardiac alpha for this build once you hit 50.
• Going for endurance recovery via IOs isn't a bad idea, but I would make it a secondary goal once you've got yourself to either true positional Defense softcap (45% to melee, ranged and AOE) or positional softcap with a small luck (32.5%).

I didn't mean to suggest that you needed the Ageless to be self-sufficient (quite the opposite in fact), only that of the choices for Destiny I found it to be far and away the superior choice. Barrier would be second choice for me, and I actually do have several t4 Destiny powers on my Dark tank - but unless we're running a UGT (clarion) or a MoM (Barrier, for the ally rez) I will generally run the Ageless and I always run the Ageless for regular or solo play.

I would suggest you absolutely look at Ageless for DDR/recharge rather than endurance, I think that's the most effective way to go. Just look at the +endurance when it fires off as a nice perk rather than your focus.

It refills your endurance bar (+endurance) but does not boost endurance recovery. Looking back over my post above, I used the wrong term for what I meant to say. I've edited it now.

The endurance recovery is only in the Core branch. I find that the occasional +End when it fires is more than enough to top me off and I have enough endurance reduction and endurance recovery from IOs in the build that I don't feel I really need the endurance recovery from Ageless - I find the DDR much more valuable.

I'd strongly consider Ageless Radial for your destiny over any of the others. As mentioned above, I really don't see the utility of having Clarion outside of running UGTs with it. Rebirth you really shouldn't need since Dark Regen should provide all the healing you could ever want, and that leaves Barrier, Ageless and Incandescence.

Barrier isn't a bad option, since you can rez fallen teammates with it and top off your resistances - and given the prevalence of Energy damage in incarnate content, that's an attractive prospect. Incandescence is interesting and can allow you, the tank, to pull in the rest of the league here and there after rushing things the squishy guys can't, but it's still situational and the -heal resistance effect is unlikely to be all that important for you again because of how powerful Dark Regen is.

And that leaves us with Ageless. Too many people seem to focus on the +endurance and recharge aspects of this Destiny. Those are good, yes, and the extra endurance is welcome since it really lets me unload without concern that I'll run dry on endurance, but that's not the real draw. The real reason to take Ageless on a tanker who is getting Defense mostly or entirely from IOs is the Debuff Resistance. You can't get Debuff Resistance anywhere else, and without DDR it can be hard to maintain that Defense. The difference in survivability for my Tanker with Ageless Radial Epiphany is quite noticeable. I highly recommend it.

I would recommend against Musculature on a Brute, as you really don't get much out of it compared to other ATs given the low base damage Brute attacks have to compensate for the effects of Fury. As others have said, it would helpful to know more about your build and what you feel your shortfalls are, but based on what you've said so far I would recommend either Vigor or Spiritual. I have Vigor on my KM/WP brute and it works extremely well. Both of these alphas enhance Heal with is very helpful for Rise to the Challenge, a key part of survivability for Willpower characters.

I found the accuracy and endurance reduction from Vigor translated into a better, more accurate attack chain for me, which meant more Fury and therefore more damage. If you're doing fine on accuracy and your endurance is well-managed, you could make a case for Spiritual instead. I found the higher values on the core line of Vigor for heal enhancement, combined with very useful secondary effects on accuracy and endurance reduction, to be too good to pass up. In Spiritual you get recharge and heal, but the stun isn't really doing you that much good (while I know EM has a few powers that stun, more than likely you're going to be trying to kill things before the stun wears off so increasing the stun duration may not be all that attractive).

That's my 0.02 anyway, YMMV.

There's a great many things that could fit this bill. Given your criteria - something that's very good in teams and doesn't need much if any solo capability, I'd say you're looking at a Controller.

For primary powersets, I'd consider Electric Control, Illusion Control or Earth Control as these are all very powerful battlefield control. I don't have much experience with the new Dark Control set but if you have access to that then it might also be a consideration.

For secondary powersets, I would go with Time, Darkness or Cold as these all offer a variety of options to help support your team. Depending on your VIP status you may or may not have access to Time and Darkness.

Just to be clear, this isn't to say you can't be excellent support as a Defender or a Corruptor, but for players looking to be more or less 'pure support' (i.e. a teaming character with solo play not really a consideration) I generally recommend Controllers.

Yes. Every proc checks independently with each activation of the power (assuming of course that you hit). For low-damage powers, the combined damage from multiple procs can often be higher than what would otherwise be possible by enhancing the actual power for damage, especially if purple procs are used. In addition, you can usually get multiple damage types from various procs. A low-damage, fast-recharging power that accepts many different kinds of Sets is thus a good 'proc cannon' and Neutrino Bolt, as mentioned, is among the best for this purpose.

While I'd love an option to remove the hover aspect and I think Combat Teleport is a great idea, I'd have to say that I don't want to see our teleport radically redone, especially to something like what CO has.

The op brings up a good point about people playing with unusual input devices, however - I can't imagine using teleport without the bind, so any QoL change that allowed easier mapping of that functionality (which right now is tied to the way the game executes the reticle on the left mouse button) would be fantastic.

That might well involve an overhaul of the binds/macro system rather than the teleport power - which might be the better way to go for a number of reasons above and beyond issues some people have with this travel power.

Is this group still taking new members? I don't normally play on Freedom, but I have a Peacebringer without a home I could transfer and I could make a clone of my favorite Warshade for this. If so, just let me know when's a good time to meet online to grab an invite.

I really like it better when we start with numbers and then draw conclusions. Somehow doing it the other way around never seems to work out.
I'm also interested to see these spreadsheets and an explanation of the testing methods used to obtain the numbers therein.

Honestly, if you really believe that there's a numerical problem with the powerset on Tankers (on the order of a misplaced decimal or some such, as you've suggested) then the onus is on you to back up that claim with something more than subjective impressions.

If you're unwilling or unable to do that, then pass it off to someone who is or let the matter drop. As for this not being about damage, you did delete the character because you felt the damage was too low, so it would seem that this is indeed about damage. If you really feel this is an issue you want to bring to the attention of the community and/or the Devs, well... prove it.

It's all well and good to say that you think something is off, but that's nothing more than your impression unless you can perform some real testing. It's not easy to do the testing, of course, but that's why those who are known for performing reliable testing are given more credence as a general rule. If Arcanaville posts something, I can be reasonably sure she's tested it exhaustively.

I'm reasonably sure you haven't.

Well, ever since the serverlist merge I see a lot of EU folks on the NA servers, but as I understand it the highest-pop EU server would be Union.

If you really want those first three criteria met and don't mind an NA server, I would think Freedom would be the best choice (especially if pvp is very important to you).

For reference: Servers

You might also consider Kin/Rad. It's flashy and the powers look good in a variety of colors, and the -Def helps your Kin powers to land.

Except that a better analogy might be showing up to a nightclub to find a bunch of people milling around wanting to dance, but no one having the nerve to actually go up to someone and ask, resulting in tons of people who could be dancing, want to be dancing, but instead go home and complain about how it's impossible to find a dance partner.

The system could be better, no argument there, and if someone doesn't want to be bothered to lead teams and would rather do something else that's their prerogative. However, they don't then get to complain that there was no one to team with. Even in a better LFG system someone is going to have to lead the team, select the missions, and do the team management duties that are the reason so many players avoid team leadership. If no one's ever willing to do those things, they don't have the firmest foundation to complain when there aren't as many teams as a result.

My redside play is mostly on Liberty and Protector, which are likewise not at the top of the list, and as I've said I do just fine.

That's true on the surface of it, but Dechs has continued to post about DA in that and other threads, and in fact has formalized his guide only recently (see his post upthread). I would still consider his information to be more up to date, and that's why I made the recommendation I did. I stand by it.

As for the decision to go positional versus typed for Defense, I find it's influenced in large part by the secondary being paired with DA. Some secondaries like MA or TW offer powers that might push you in one direction over another. In this post-converters market I'd definitely say it is much, much easier to get a Gladiator's Armor +3% Defense IO and I feel more more comfortable recommending them now.

'Soda', of the two, though around here it'd be more likely to be called a 'coke' (regardless of the actual brand of beverage).

Chunked

Texas

The flaw in your argument, dugfromthearth, is you're putting forth the idea of the teaming problem as a factual reality, i.e. it's a problem and the system must be changed in some way so that it's not a problem any longer. This is a false dilemma because it's not a binary situation. It's not a case of either A) a problem existing and needing corrections to the system to fix or B) no problem at all existing and no one ever having any trouble of any kind.

Instead, my experience (and to judge by the replies above, the experience of several other longtime players) is that we have an flawed team-up system that can nevertheless be overcome provided a player is willing to perform the thankless role of leader and team manager.

This player needs to do most or all of the following: prepare missions for the team to accomplish, adjust team difficulty for the best rewards for the time (which does not always mean +4/x8!), communicate with at least minimal effectiveness with other players in terms of global channels, tells, broadcast chat and/or friends lists, and manage a rotating stable of teammates to keep the team going as players drop out over time.

It's understandable that many players might prefer to 'just play' and not want to be bothered with this, but the reality is that if everyone wants to follow and no one wants to lead, then nobody gets anywhere.

Could the /search tool and the team-up system in general do with some improvement, especially a feature allowing a team leader to flag his/her team 'looking for more' and have teammates matched in automatically (or something in a related vein)? Absolutely. There's clear room for improvement. This does not, however, mean that you can't get teams redside, blueside, goldside, whatver. Well, maybe goldside, given that you have a much smaller pool to work with there and far less flexibility in who you can get on the team.

Short version: as it stands now, anyone who's willing to use the tools available and is willing to suffer some minor inconvenience can have a team easily.
If those tools are improved, so much the better.

Radiant Aura is among the weaker heals in the game and I would really hesitate to make build decisions around that power for a Rad/Rad. Ultimately it's your character and you should build it as you want to, but that's my opinion. I have a fully incarnated Rad/Rad that's one of my favorite characters to play and I approach his build almost entirely from a debuff perspective, with buffs second, damage output third and heals as an afterthought. I'll throw out a Radiant Aura to top off the team or help recover after a bomb or a nuke has gone off, but I don't think of my character as a 'healer' by any stretch and I think he's stronger for it.

The choice of Medicine has already been mentioned above. It's not something I would ever choose for my Rad/Rad and I'll leave it at that.

EM Pulse is extremely powerful and I would highly recommend taking it. If you pick up the Vanguard Medal accolade (it's a badge thing) it's even more powerful. Using Power Build Up with EM Pulse gives some truly impressive results as well, and has allowed me to single-handedly save my team more than once.

I'd second the recommendation for Achilles' Heel resistance debuff proc, at lest in Irradiate.

Enzymes are wasted in Enervating Field as they are only enhancing the endurance reduction and you can do this better with high-level Endurance Reduction IOs. It's possible that prior to the Hami-O fix they did have some effect on the debuff component, but they certainly don't now. I know Mids is showing an enhancement on Defense Debuff and ToHitDebuff, but that is just a quirk of how it reports those values for Hami-Os. Since Enervating Field has neither of those effects (it does -damage and -resistance, nothing else), you get no benefit from these Enzymes other than the endurance cost reduction. Enzymes are, however, an excellent fit for Radiation Infection, addressing all three important aspects of the power with zero waste.

Lingering Radiation is significantly underslotted for Recharge. You might consider a sixth slot here for a Recharge IO if you are committed to keeping Tempered Readiness here. I realize with your global recharge you're close to perma here already under optimum circumstances, but this is a key Rad power and personally I would try to get it running as fast as possible. This is the power that can change the course of many an AV or GM battle.

I would strongly encourage you to consider Force of Nature, as it is an excellent reserve power for very tough fights. It will keep you alive and keep your endurance coming. I don't use it often, but its effect is dramatic when I do.

I'd also recommend EndMod slotting in Accelerated Metabolism, but personally prioritize Recharge more highly, so I can understand your slotting. I would try to find room for either a fourth slot for an EndMod IO or maybe change one of the Recharge IOs to an EndMod/Recharge IO from one of the sets.

Well, the most correct answer is always going to be the question: "Groups for what?"

Victory Badges is likely one of your best bets, however, for almost anything.