Best Alpha for Invul/SS tank?

I just now opened my alpha slot for my Invulnerable / Super Strength tank and am curious to hear your thoughts on what would be the best path to follow ... muscular? agility? vigor? Or something completely different?

I like Cardiac. The reduced endurance means you never have to worry about the Rage crash, and the extra resistance is a nice bonus.

If you need a touch more defense to get to softcap...take Agility Core, you gain +20% to Def powers, (assuming you took the fighting pool and others along with invincibility etc.) So you get a nice big boost there...it also adds 45% endurance modification so you can fuel him easy...and it adds 33% recharge so you can get closer to perma hasten.

I'll second Vox's thought. Cardiac Core is quite nice.

Later on,
Gate

Cardiac: This one's good. If you've built properly, you weren't having endurance troubles most of the time, but with Cardiac, your blue bar won't move. The extra resistance doesn't hurt either, but if you're at 90% Smashing/Lethal resistance already, it's not much to talk about. If you take it, go Core, the other enhancements found in the Radial aren't worth it on a tank.

Musculature: I wouldn't advise it. With Rage up, you're already 20% enhancement from the damage cap, so you won't get the full damage bonus from either core or Radial. You might have one immobilize, but you won't have a defense debuff, or the to-hit debuff. If you want the End Mod or the Run Speed, go Agility.

Nerve: A better option than Musculature. You don't need the accuracy, so don't go Core. Radial gets you Defense, Taunt, Hold, and Fly Speed. Not a bad option.

Spiritual: Awesome for Dull Pain, really. It doesn't hurt for Footstomp or Knock-out Blow either. Since I went Rebirth for my Invulnerability/Super Strength Tank, I picked up Spiritual Core.

Agility: Defense and Recharge, it's not a bad option. The end mod doesn't hurt either.

Intuition: It's a better option than Musculature if you want to increase your damage. Still, not one of the better options.

Resilient: If you skipped Resist Physical Damage but you have Tough, Temporary Invulnerability, and Unyielding, then Resilient Core can get you to 90% smashing/lethal resistance. Other than that, if you want resistance, take Cardiac Core. If Resilient Core had Resistance, To-hit buff, and Taunt, I'd recommend it, but not with Immobilize.

Vigor: It'll provide a better boost for Rebirth than Spiritual will, especially since Rebirth isn't effected by Recharge, but aside from that, Spiritual is a better choice. With Rage up, Super Strength doesn't need the accuracy, and the Endurance reduction shouldn't be something you need with a completed build.

Mine started with cardiac, after all, that rage crash does hurt a little, plus it boosts your resists a bit. Quite nice.

However I switched to agility once it was available. On my build I was already just over softcapped with 1 in range, agility pushed that to 52% (like a rock on trials) the extra recharge gives me 3 stacked rage at times, but make sure you can cover the endurance use. I was a touch hard on my blue bar but the small boost you get from agility was enough to cover it.

Remember, Cardiac affects all your powers that cost endurance and thus gives you the best end management. Agility only effects end modification powers, in this case, Stamina and physical perfection, only!

I usually go by something like this 'If I can cover my endurance use already, there's a good chance I can handle the extra recharge with agility'

For my Inv/SS.......

Muscular when I'm soloing.

Cardiac when I'm teaming.

Sounds like Cardio is the way to go. Thanks for the input

For alphas it's impossible to know unless we know a) your build and b) your goal..

If you focus on X during normal build, you don't need an alpha that focuses on X, but one that hits Y. If you focus on Y during normal build, then, the reverse may be true.. And what is your goal? Supreme toughness? Maxed DPS? Well, the choices are going to be rafdically different based on these different goals.


I almost always go musculature.. As my builds tend to be capped to defenses before I incarnate, so I focus on offense. But, I've taken spiritual more than once on an invul.

Edit: For what it's worth, I'd never take cardio, unless I had mad really bad end management choices or I didn't plan to slot me res stuff at all. It's SO easy to cap without cardio that I don't find it worth it.. Just my opinion.

Just throwing my 2 cents in here but I went Resilience on mine. It allows me to single slot both Temporary Invulnerability and Tough with Aegis Resist/Endurance and still be hardcapped to S/L, so I can use the slots elsewhere. With this, the other resists, the Tanker ATO set and softcapped defense, he's ... very hard to take down. I also included the Shield Wall, Gladiator's Armor, and Steadfast uniques. Pricey, but nice.

For endurance concerns I went with Conserve Power and Physical Perfection, 2 performance shifter procs, Miracle, the Panacea Proc, and the Numi proc. I still have to click a blue once in a while, but man it's hard to take this sucker down. I went to Monster Island and got as close to the aggro cap as I could herding GM's. All I have to due is set Foot Stomp to autoclick for those annoying swarms and I'm good to go.

EDIT: Eh, scratch that part about taking a nap herding GM's; that was an earlier build on Beta with the ATO set slotted in Foot Stomp and not working as intended. I can still herd them just fine but I need to click another power here and there. Wuss. ;-) I also went ahead and ran with T4 Cardiac. Very nice indeed. It's no longer hardcapped to S/L but that changes quickly once the ATO proc (now slotted in Haymaker) fires off. Switching out the Aegis Resist/End for a single Resist IO in TI and Tough may well cap me without it though.