Is it wrong for Invul Tanks to use Nerve in my alpha?

I know, nothing is wrong, but I keep having people tell me the only way to go for Invul is cardiac. I don't think cardiac would be a bad choice, but I have no end issues and I am softcapped S/L, so I opted for nerve (tier 3 atm). It just seems that the three powers that give me defense could use more defense than I could use resistance.

Thoughts?

Invuln gets plenty of defense and is relatively easy to softcap, so I don't think Nerve is a good choice.

Cardiac is good if you have endurance problems, but the extra resistance doesn't help a lot for Inv.

Spiritual, IMO, is the best option for Inv if you have endurance management tools like Physical Perfection and Conserve Power. It makes the best Destiny for Invuln (Rebirth Radial) more effective, giving you about 20 HP/Sec if your HP is capped(which it probably is with Inv) with the T4 version of Radial Rebirth Destiny.

I like Nerve on tankers, but I like the extra taunt in all attacks and Invincibility. Extra defense is always good, especially since some newer content is going to feature a need for it. Do you have any Holds? Do you Hover?

Cardiac is not, IMO, a no-brainer. It is a good choice, but depending on your goals, secondary, and APP, any of the 4 could be a good choice.

I went for Cardiac, got to T3 and then did some more thorough analysis to determine Nerve would be better for my Inv/SS. The Def buff was just enough to soft-cap me to Psi and reduced # of enemies to soft-cap 2 types (forget which ones and I have no Mids here at work) from 2 to 1.

I'm still satisfied that Nerve is the right choice for my inv/ss tank.

It's a judgment call really. Nerve's primary benefit, more accuracy, generally isn't that valuable on a mature build but it does have some nice secondary benefits. I've never taken it on a character yet but I can understand the logic.

For most characters I tend to think either Cardiac or Spiritual depending on what that character's needs are. My Inv/Stone went T4 Cardiac while my Stone/Fire went T3 Spiritual. The bottom line is that you've played that character up from level 1 and you know where your holes are; plan your Alpha to fill some of those holes.

I created a new Inv / Fire tanker because I couldn't stand anymore how useless my Inv/ Em was feeling. When doing the build I did consider using the Nerve enhancement in my alpha slot. Since I was going to be using Kinetic combats as the base set for my single target attacks Nerve seemed like a good way to save myself some slots and boost kinetic combat's weak accuracy enhancement. Though I ultimately decided to go a different route it seemed to me that players using typed defense based sets could build around using Nerve with minimal redundancy.

The problem I have with Spiritual is that I already go for gobs of recharge on most builds. Although the +Rech/+Heal does add up for Dull Pain, shaving a second or less in most attacks does not seem as such a big boost.

I'm sure mathematically speakingm someone can come up with how much DPS is boosted and make it look impressive, but from a perception standpoint, it doesn't feel like much once you're already packing Hasten and 60-80% ish recharge bonuses.

Spiritual Alpha only helps your DPS if you are either not at perma-Hasten, or can't run the a better attack chain without the Spiritual Alpha. Build planning is important. From what I understand, Invulnerability is not too difficult to soft-cap S/L and E/N, so the Nerve Alpha is only making up for a deficiency in the original build plan.

If you post your build (and budget), maybe we can help you gain more benefit from your Alpha slot.

I have Nerve on my Invul/Fire Tank. I'm still debating if it was wise or not. As for Endurance, I can have issues, but that comes with not paying attention. If I'm actually paying attention, then there's no problem.

The one thing I like about Nerve, is that it will give me the little boost I need to meet the S/L cap without having to shell out for expensive sets. I can get by with Smashing Haymaker instead of Kinetic Combat, which for someone who alts like a **** is nice to not have to worry too much about.

My main is a Invuln / SS, so the Nerve served me no purpose at all. I have plenty of accuracy since I use rage, not to mention all my attacks are pretty good on acc as well. I don't benefit from the defense that much as I'm already well above soft capped defense. And last, the taunt duration isn't all that great since my taunt and invincibility is already slotted for it. Aggro control isn't something I ever had any issues with.

If you're running physical perfection, the cardiac may not bee something you want, unless you have end issues. I personally do not, so I went with the Spiritual. It provides me with a bit more recharge that gets my DP up fast enough to give me perma DP which provides me a fantastic heal when needed and caps my HP at all times. Not to mention is stacks very well with my DP and lets not forget Rebirth.

All in all, I love my build and wouldn't trade it off for anything else. Because the only time I have end issues is when the Seers hit me with Drain Psyche, and even a Cardiac slotted wouldn't help with that.

I think you use your Alpha to tune your build to fix holes AND meet the chalenges of expected content, in concert with the new boosts. I cannot speak to Invul as I don't have one yet. In particular I have not seen any mention of how much Debuff resist Invul has in this thread, and if the nice Def increase for Nerve is useful for Invul in that regard.

If I was limited to only one choice for my Granite tank, knowing what I now know, I would opt for the Nerve Radial and the Ageless Radial, as they do things that cannot be done in any other way. Yes, defense could be boosted to over 50 by sets alone but I think your sets are better and much more efficeintly commited (5 slots for most Recharge vs 6 for most Defense bonuses) to damage and recharge. Also, in particular, with the Ageless Radial the difference between 60% defense debuff resistance and Hard Capped defense debuff resist (never less than 81.8+%) is huge. Effectivly perma hard capped Endurance drain resist is huge too. I'll be addressing Damage, Recharge and to some degree Recovery by sets and improved slotting in my next respec. If you care to see how I came to this conclusion, read on.

My first Tier 4 Alpha on my Granite was a 45% Spiritual. Loved it. The added damage and healing was boss in normal content, but in extended fights I ran dry of endurance due to increased activations.

Then I built a T4 45% Musculature. Got the same increased overall damage output, but with fewer activations so the end problem was just about fixed. I still ran dry if my PS proc hit a void, but a brief pause in attacks usually saw end come right back. I used that for farming, since I knew in advance what I was facing and heal was no concern.

Then I-20 hit. Ouch. 48% D was not even close to good enough, especially at first when barrier etc. was not routine on teams. I made a tier 4 Nerve Radial to put all the typed defense over 52+% (a 4.32% boost) and get the nice Taunt boost. Combined with the T4 Ageless Radial that buffs Defense Debuff values and other debuff protection, this tank is as close to unkillable (barring Psionic kryptonite of course) as I think you can get, for now anyway. That allows me to better focus on the battlefield in extreme content. I also have the Tier 4 Rebirth Regen I built first (it's Great too) and choose between them as needed.

Naturally making all that stuff was a horrid grind, but the end result has been very fun as I can optimize for almost anything. For instance if I was going to be facing huge Psi damage I could go Spiritual + Rebirth. The Rebirth regeneration with Rooted and Earths Embrace hits 368.12/sec (tanker hard cap) and never falls below 81.71 (that is after the Embrace expires.)

My current plan is to make one last T4 Ageless, the one that gives a Recharge boost instead of Debuff protection. That should replace the missing recharge from Spiritual, and combined with the Musculature and a respec to better recovery values, allow greatly improved normal farming.

So I suppose the bottom line is, if you only want to make one of each boost, to look ahead to your available options in the I-20 boosts to max the synergy with your Alpha to meet your primary goal.

Jak

I went for cardiac for my inv tanker because I had end problems and I wanted extra dam res. No other alpha boost was better for this toon.

In my mind the Alpha boosts are good for boosting an advantage you are already good at. So Cardiac makes sense for Inv. Nerve for Super Reflexes or even WP although I went with Spiritual fort he extra heal.

Since 3/4 of the effect bypasses ED at tier 4 I'd rather boost the main defensive component rather than try to shore up a secondary one.

Given what was mentioned in the first post I could of picked up spiritual if it were me. I took Nerve on my Broadsword Regen over Spiritual, not sure yet but bad decisions can be fixed it don't take much to go with two Alphas.