Rage Issue

I've been experiencing a problem on my SS/SD Brute with Rage not behaving as it should. I know there is a defense crash that can be avoided with enough recharge. Mids shows it to be 97 seconds or so. well under the 120 needed. But when I zone, the very next Rage crash will drop my defenses 20% regardless of how many stacks I have showing. It happens every single time and frankly it makes it damn near impossible to team as I am not going to tell people they have to wait so I can time Rage to crash just after I enter the mission, or I need to run when it does.

I've invested a lot of fun, inf and time into this character and it would be shame to have to shelve it, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

As an aside, my ice/SS does not have enough recharge to stack Rage and, despite what many people seem to think, the Rage crash is not an automatic trip to the hospital. Not even close.

Regarding the issue you're observing, since it happens after zoning I'm guessing it has a cause similar to the effect that lets you stack buffs on teammates. When you zone, the game 'forgets' the ownership of your buffs so that the 'Does not stack from same caster' restriction is ignored. I'm not clear why that would affect Rage stacking, but it seems the likely suspect.

Since it's predictable you could always carry a few large purples (the +25% defense ones) for such rare occasions. Especially since preventing def from dropping is technically a bug. Prepare now, less raging later in the unlikely event someone fixes it.