Ageless Radial Epiphany

So I'm tempted to craft the Ageless T4 that grants DDR and stick with Cardiac on my SS/Fire Brute.

Or I could craft the T4 Ageless with +Recov and go for Spiritual. I'm not just a farmer, so I do a lot of TFs/Trials so is the +DRR really noticeable? Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm at 45% SL Def so staying there permanently with no risk of being debuffed sounds quite nice, but I don't know how effective 84/42/21% DDR will be (If these numbers are right?).

Thanks in advance.

I cannot speak to your specific Brute yet, but I have both Ageless T 4's on my Stone Tank as he is my main.

As far as I know the Ageless Radial Epiphany is the Only Way to get extra DDR. For Extreme content having my DDR never fall below 81.8% has been really useful. That is Granite + Rooted + the Ageless Radial Epiphany. There is a down time of about 1 seconds which seems meaningless, as the recast leaves me Hard Capped to DDR for a long time (1 min at 95% 1 min at 81.8%). Also a Stone in Granite greatly enjoys the Epiphany 2 min. Recharge boost (70%-30%-20% falling to a lingering 10% for the final min.) I try to time it so the one time Blue Bar fill is of max value. This is my everyday solo choice, and I generally leave it on for teaming too, as other incarnates will probably be bringing the Regen version - it seems more common. Note that at least one chart in the WIKI shows the boosts from Radial Epiphany lasting only 90 sec, and that is wrong.

Against anything that does not debuff defense, the Core T4 may be more useful to your team. I crafted that one first and used it a long time. It really leverages a Tanker or Brutes high Hit Point cap.

I just finished leveling a SS/Fire Brute to 50, so I'll have to make the same decision soon. If you only want to craft one I think it all hinges on what your max un-boosted DDR is. If the Epiphany is going to give you a near constant DDR over 80% like it does my Granite main then I would go there. With the servers down I can't go look at my new SS/FA Brute to decide and I don't have him in Mids yet.

EDIT: Ok while perusing the boards access to the server for the new SS/FA Brute came back up. Since you have NO base DDR in FA, commiting a T4 incarnate power to a band-aid, have to hold it in reserve, situational use panic button is almost certainlly a BAD idea. The lingering DDR of Epiphany is going to give you just that 21.25% DDR which is not going to be enough to matter imo. I think going to a no-rez Barrier T4 Destiny will be my T4 goal for this SS/FA, as then I am leveraging at least a little existing Defense (15.25% before sets) and capping nearly all my resists. Note that there are two ways to beat defense debuff. Resist the debuff or have a Defense so high that 50% or more debuff still leaves you soft-capped. A Barrier T4 could give you a panic button with a brief huge increase in Defense.

Jak

the added res on cardiac is not nothing.

It's in my opinion that every tank in the game that is actively doing their job against content that matters is almost certainly gonna be better off with the DDR from Ageless. It's a godsend on my DM/Inv brute, and does a wonderful job of stacking with my innate resists. I'll generally use it as a timer during one specific trial (Keyes) simply because it's meant to completely and utterly offset AM's debuffs. Beyond that, I use it off cooldown for the recharge and end fill, then let Cardiac take care of my end problems otherwise.

That being said, my MA/FA scrapper rocks the Core version of Ageless because
1) She's not built to tank
2) Musculature is a bigger damage return than cardiac
3) Ageless solves all her end problems
4) RotP

Either way, if you are intended to endanger yourself and expect debuffs, there's no reason not to use it.

Thanks for the info guys.. yeah I don't think the added DDR will be worth it then (Cheers JakHammer/Kenteko). Leaning towards putting in the Spiritual Alpha and going for the +Recov T4.