TBoxer

I use the hero tip mission Miss Thystle's Plea (in the level 40-50 range) set to x8 with bosses turned off. All of the Fake Nems that are spawned will be downgraded to Lieutenants but still count towards the badge. Makes it so much easier/faster to kill 'em before they can hide in their Personal Force Field.

Just die near the farmer and pass red inspirations to him. Combine stuff as needed to make more reds.

I may have to put another team together to try your AE mish again. The last time that we did it, we had a blast.

Ice/Fire makes for an okay farmer with Icicles + Fire Sword Circle + Combustion + Epic Pool AoE, and it pretty much has unlimited endurance thanks to Energy Absorption. But Fire/Fire or Shield/Fire would be faster alternatives.

I'm a global recharge junkie, so I try to cram in as much as I can without gimping my builds. There's never enough! But what DSorrow said is wise though. Getting enough global recharge to run a seamless attack chain (or to perma a particular power) is a sensible goal.

Even before inherent Fitness freed up some power selections, I had squeezed in Aid Self on my Ice/Fire Tanker. I know that some people dislike it, but I've always found it useful on that toon. And it helped to make my Tanker feel even more self-sufficient. (I also took Aid Self on my Shield Tanker too because of the positive experience I've had with it on my Icer.)

Thank you for all of the suggestions so far. It sounds like Dark Melee is the top contender. I'll definitey look into it, although I do find myself also attracted to the stylish attack animations of Katana and Martial Arts. Luckily, I'm not too worried about having the best single-target DPS chain or anything. I just want to be able to take down level 54 bosses quicker than I have been doing. (And I don't think that I'll be solo'ing AVs or Pylons any time soon.)

As for my secondary, I'm still debating that. While I wouldn't mind going with Shield Defense again, I keep thinking about Fiery Aura's Burn. And here's why -- my Tanker teammate typically jumps into the first spawn while I leapfrog ahead and grab a second spawn to drag back to where he is. After we both unload our AoE-alphas, it's usually only the bosses left standing. However, with 2 bosses per spawn, we're now left with 4 grumpy level 54 bosses. (And sometimes, I'll even leave to grab/drag yet another spawn so the # of bosses can really add up!) Since we tend to fight side-by-side to leverage the defensive bonuses from Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover, that means that the bosses are clustered tightly around us. And I'm thinking that Burn would be incredibly useful at that point against 4+ hard targets. (Though I think it has a target cap of 5?)

Anyway, am I overlooking any other Scrapper secondary that might be better for such a scenario?

Lately, I've been duo'ing a lot of +4/x8 missions (hero tips, radios, etc.) with a sgmate of mine. And I've been using my SD/Fire/Pyre Tanker while he's been using his SD/Fire/Nrg Tanker. However, while the AoE carnage has been awesome with all of the minions and lieutenants simply melting away, the bosses can still take us a while. So I've decided to roll up a single-target oriented Scrapper to fill the role of boss-killer. I'm still undecided about what kind of Scrapper to make though, so I was hoping for some recommendations.

If you were in the same situation, which powerset combination would you go with? At this point, my curiosity is piqued by the Fiery Aura secondary because of Burn and its potential versus bosses. But other than that vague notion, I haven't decided on anything concrete yet.

Grats on your all-Defender ITF! What difficulty level did you guys do it on?

Aside from carrying blues and/or IO'ing for defense, you could try slotting a Performance Shifter: Chance for +Endurance in both Stamina and Quick Recovery. So that even if your recovery is redlined, there's still a chance to get some end back from your procs. It's not 100% reliable, but it's better than nothing.

No Torius is a trustworthy and prompt seller. Two thumbs up! Thank you for the quick transactions.

In a nutshell:

Shield/Fire is very effective but not as Endurance-efficient as Willpower. However, it will mow through big spawns faster than a WP/Fire due to the +DMG from Against All Odds and the extra AoE from Shield Charge. Personally, I went Shield/Fire/Pyre for the 4 AoEs: Shield Charge, Fire Sword Circle, Combustion, and Fire Ball. Needless to say, it's insanely fun to play.

I'll second Dark Armor/Stone Melee, because the mitigation from Fault + Oppressive Gloom is really that good. In fact, I'd also recommend taking Mu Mastery for Electrifying Fences (to prevent the stunned mobs from wandering) and Ball Lightning (for additional AoE damage).

Oooh, a +4 ITF would be fun.

Personally, I'd go with the Spiritual tree for additional recharge. You definitely want Energize, Power Sink, Rage, and Footstomp to come back that much faster.

Oooh, if someone leads a +4 ITF on Freedom's TT, then I'd be down for joining that. But if not, I will still be available to lead a +4 3rd Respec Trial.

Definitely my main. He's an Ice/Fire Tanker that, once i19 goes live, will be respec'd to Ice/Fire/Soul. (Oh, and Spiritual Tree ftw!)

Thank you all for the replies so far.

I don't know the exact makeup of the team yet, since I plan to do a signup for it (like this) at some point down the road. More than likely, it'll be after i19 goes live. I'll personally be using my Ice/Fire and I have a friend with an Invul/DB who wants to join. And hopefully Tsuji's WP/Kin will be there too.

So it looks like team DPS and endurance management will be our biggest concerns. I'll definitely make sure to note in my recruitment thread that the Tankers who sign up should bring along some source of -regeneration, -resistance, +damage, and +recovery.

I'm thinking that these should do the trick:

Biological Mutagens (for +damage)
Bruising (for -resistance, hey every little bit helps)
Call to Justice (for +damage)
Chemical Burn (for -resistance)
Envenomed Dagger (for -regeneration)
Pets - Shivan Shard, Vanguard Heavy, etc. (for additional DPS)
Recovery Serum (for +recovery)

I'd like to eventually run an all-Tanker Imperious Task Force at +4/x8 some day. However, out of the handful of times I've done the ITF, it's been on random PuG teams who are always set to +0. So I was hoping to get some advice in advance on possible problems to be aware of for an all-Tanker team set at max difficulty level, since we'll be lacking debuffers, etc.

Missions #1 and #2 are pretty straightforward, so I don't forsee anything going wrong there. But the level 54 AVs in missions #3 and #4 may be problematic. Anyone have any tips or strategy suggestions to beat these guys considering that there will only be Tankers on the team?

(I do keep temps on me like the Envenomed Dagger and Vanguard Heavy in case I run into hard targets, but will that be enough? Or should I grab Warburg Nukes, Shivan Shard, etc?)

For the Freedom TT on the 16th, I'd be willing to lead a level 44+ team on the 3rd Respec Trial (if there's any interest in that). And I plan to run it at +4/x8.

On my Ice Tanker, I cap out at 3534 hp. No idea how Flints reached 3542.