Slotting Shield's Grant Cover & Phalanx Fighting for team support?

I have a BS/Shield Scrapper in a "hardcore" supergroup, meaning any time a character is defeated, he or she "dies" and is kicked out of the supergroup or deleted. A fool's quest, I know, but amusing.

Anyway, in light of the uttermost importance of keeping people alive in hardcore play, do you think it might be worthwhile to add more than the default slot to Grant Cover and/or Phalanx Fighting? I feel sorry for them little squishies who can't Parry.

PF only benefits you so there's no point slotting it.

It certainly wouldn't hurt to add 1 or 2 slots to GC. One of my friends did it on his tanker and I definitely notice the extra defense everytime he's around (tanker higher base and all, admittedly, but still).

You probably know that, but whatever you do, make sure you don't run to the squishies when they're low on life... I've seen shielders trying to "help" who actually got people killed by splash damage, as they tend to drag tons of aggro with AaO.

Grant Cover's radius is only 15. I wouldn't try to depend on it for soft capping teammates. Other melees would see the most benefit from it, so squishies are out of luck unless you always hang back by them.

Phalanx Fighting only affects yourself and enhancing it only enhances the defense you gain when more than one teammate is around. Usually, I would advise against enhancing Phalanx Fighting, but if you are always going to be next to a Tanker, it couldn't hurt to enhance it.

Last time I tried to enhance either of these powers for defense it didn't seem to do anything.

I tried doing it with PF in game and saw no benefit, confirmed in Mids.

Tried it in mids with GC and saw no enchancement either. Have not tried it in game. I wish the slow resistance was enhanceable somehow. <_<

This was on a /SD brute, so ymmv.

I could also be wrong, but generally the two powers are used to mule LoTG's or Kismet:+ACC IOs.

Phalanx Fighting has 3.75% unenhanceable defense as its base. Then you get enhanceable defense for every teammate in range. So solo, defense enhancement in it does nothing for you. Grant Cover only provides enhanceable defense to your teammates. Solo or teamed it won't improve your defense. It will only improve the defense of your teammates. Enhancements in it will only improve the defense of your teammates.

The most awesome aspect of Grant Cover is that it also passes DDR to to your allies-- and is the only skill in the entire game that does this.

The slow resist, while not unique, is also pretty damn great, especially in Tin Mage with all those recharge debuffs flying around.

Really, the best thing about it in my mind is that it's a PBAoE buff in a melee powerset ; which means people who usually wouldn't play a buffer might end up doing just that.