Can Barrier replace Tough + Weave?

I'd rather bet on steady (if lesser) protection than having to constantly eyeball a power whose protection decays over time.

Plus. Why dink with just ONE when you can have BOTH.

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It isn't as good, but it might be good enough.

Fully slotted Tough and Weave for a Defender provide 23.4% S/L Resistance and 7/8% Defense to all.

Barrier Core Epiphany is "permanently" up but does not have the same effects for the entire duration. Over a period of 120 seconds you will get:
90% resistance and defense for 10s
32.5% resistance and defense for 20s
7.5% resistance and defense for 30s
5% resistance and defense for the last 60s

So for Resistance Barrier will be better than Tough for 30 seconds out of every 120 (or 25% of the time). The rest of the time it will be quite a bit worse than Tough against S/l damage but better against other damage types (which Tough does not resist).

Barrier is pretty much as good or better than Weave for 60 seconds out of every 120 (or 50% of the time). The rest of the time is will be about as effective as Weave if you hadn't slotted it.

So Defense wise Barrier is almost as good as Weave but you'll need to find another 2.5% worth of defense bonuses if you want it to be as good. Resistance wise it's quite a bit weaker against S/L resistance but does provide resistance to everything which Weave doesn't.

Another option you might consider is taking the Ageless Destiny. If you take the Core path then it provides a refill of your blue bar upon casting plus a huge recovery boost (minimum +100%) which will be permanent at tier 4.

That is an idea. It would allow me to keep Musculature in my Alpha.

I already have Rebirth, use it regularly for trials to combat the ACUs anti-regen. Also hilarious to use after Marauder Nova Fisted everyone in the Master of Lambda run--POOF! Everyone healthy again!

It works adequately when I solo, but not much more special than me popping my Personal Force Field and Aid Self.

Thanks for the reminder. I've been following an old superbuild for a while now, and I'm no longer happy with it. Especially with the revelation that, in order to take advantage of the Alpha slot, I have to pretend ED doesn't exist, so I can get that extra damage. So I'm scrapping my old team build and making a new one. All recovery, no slow cast powers (if I'm slow everything dies!), and 6-slotting Neutrino Bolt and X-ray for damage. The delay if the person I'm targetting doesn't have a target means I might not get Pyronic off, despite its speed, so I'm also considering trying out Void. No target means I can get it off between buffs, useful since I believe the trial reward tables pay attention to damage.