Goodness gracious great wall of text! I honestly can't bring myself to read all of that...
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Text Armor, new power set. 
Tanker Tuesdays: Meet in King's Row by IP Gate 6pm PT9pm ET.
1st Tuesday on Champion, 2nd Tuesday on Justice
3rd Tuesdays (Odd months) Freedom, (Even months) Virtue, 4th Tuesday, Tour, Server TBA
Brutal Thrashing Thursdays: Justice (ask Papa Slade when),meet in RWZ 6pm PT9pm ET.
UM a ok first off when u rage crash yes your your AoE dose get debuffed just like any other of your damage dose. I know this because on my WP/SS tank when I rage crash my foot stomp, and fire ball dose little bit of damage. Second Provoke dose need acc while taunt dose not. As for that play style no I have never done that. Just wanted to know why the long explanation before getting to the point is beyond me.
Why do you keep saying "dose"? Are you a drug user?
Oh no question the damage goes down. The Status Effects (Stun, Knockback, Fear) do not, which is what I'm playing them for. As long as I do more damage than their regen rate, I don't really care if it takes all day with a dull butter knife. Cause they do nothing in return.
Just call me "The Pool Guy" - cause I believe that power pools are the ultimate in powerset proliferation. Fewer powers to develop and available to all.
"ADVERBS - we define action!"
"ADVERSE - we are action!"
5 stars
I used presence pool and stacked it with my dark/dark tank. cloak of fear + presence pool = locked down bosses. I skipped taunt to fit them in, and yes, I miss my autohit.
My electric tank, I slotted for endurance mod, and drain the blue away, mitigation by unable to use any big attacks.
So, your not the only one. But I ALWAYS take my status protection.
50 Tanks: Invul/ss, Fire/ice/fire, Ice/em, Stone/fire
WP/Stone, dark/dark, shld/mace
50 Other: WS, SS/dark/sc brute, BS/Regen/WM scrpr, fire/fire/force blaster, rad/kin corr, mind/rad ctrl, ill/storm cntrl
I didn't read the whole thing... just the first couple of sentences.
I don't think that Luke Cage is a tanker at all personally. He comes off as more of a ss/inv brute, or more accurately a ss/inv scrapper if it were ever ported to them.
Lol @ the wall of text armor.
Words to the wise aren't necessary- it's the stupid ones that need them.
"You're right...I forgot...being constantly at or the near the damage cap is a big turn off. Definitely not worth it."
- Vitality
Luke Cage is a street justice/inv scrapper. He's got superhuman strength, sure, but he's more about using it to his advantage with a street brawling fighting style than slamming the ground with his fists and causing an earthquake.
I read through the Wall and... I'm not really feeling it. Concept's fine and anything can work if you want it to. Still, there comes a point where you have to ask yourself what are you doing? If fear is desired, dark armor comes with a fear aura. And a stun aura. And good resistances so you don't give up ANYTHING to get the mez-bomb tanker effect. Even has a damage aura to gather aggro.
Make Bison Boy II a dark/ tanker and drop the 'bad' from the thread title. 
Weight training: Because you'll never hear someone lament "If only I were weaker, I could have saved them."
Bison Boy is my experiment in how to make a lesser Tank (say Luke Cage rather than Superman). I dont play him often, and I rarely team with him. PUGs hire a Tank to hold agro and be a meat shield, and thats just not how BB rolls. Hes up to level 45, and while highly unconventional, hes great fun to play.
Some history: in mid-2007, a buddy and I agreed to make alts into a small super group wed formed a coalition with: The Beast Kids. I latched onto the hooves and horns and came up with the name quickly enough but what could a Bison Boy be? The name pretty much screams Tank; and in particular, an Invulnerable/Super Strength Tank. Trouble with that was the toon I was already running for my own supergroup is Invulnerable/Energy Melee. I really did not want to be playing two of essentially the same thing. I loved the look and name, but I just could not commit to Bubbler/Trick Arrow with it. So I let the idea percolate.
The following weekend, we did a competition Positron (we lost but we were just happy to finish, it was our fourth attempt) and I was disgusted with the number of Fear recipes Id received. However, it cemented the idea on how Bison Boy could be different. First, get into the Presence Pool for the fear powers. They are comparatively cheap, and offer some interesting set bonuses. Second, commit to the secondary set play down the Invulnerability.
I rationalized that, as bovines have no particular affinity to healing Dull Pain was out. Unyielding was also out. Im not entirely sure what my thinking was since its easy to conjure up images of an angry bull that would seem fit the notion of Unyielding, but its not in my original design notes. Invincibility is, and I think it was because I felt it was a power I was going to need to rely on with the rest of the set missing. Tough Hide was perfectly bovine, as were the other auto powers. As an immediate way to dumb down the Invulnerability, I noticed I could take Tough rather than Temp Invulnerability. Plus, taking Kick fit cleverly with the hooved theme.
Taking Swift seemed reasonable under the charging bull notion. That would open the door to Health and Stamina. The best I was ever able to say for the Fitness Pool was that it saved slots for other powers. But my theme was all about taking lesser powers, and auto powers have always been that. Overall it did make me a bit worried that I wanted to dive deep into 3 Pools.
There is a kicker to the story. Bison Boy never made it into The Beast Kids. Sure I was a boy but the rule to join up was that I had to be Kid insert-animal-name-here. But I had a concept that was just too cool to walk away from it, so I kept him as a solo experiment.
I started with a huge list of mostly low level powers, and my planned order of selection was: Resist PD, Jab, Punch, Haymaker, Provoke, Resist Elements, Swift, Resist Energies, Intimidate, Kick, Invincible, Invoke Panic, Health, Tough, Tough Hide, Rage, Knockout Blow, Unstoppable, Weave, Stamina, Hand Clap, Foot Stomp leaving room for 2 ancillary powers, which I decided to hold off until Id played the character a bit to see what I needed. Turns out I needed a plan, because this list while it was carefully and deliberately considered is the reason respecsification exists.
At the low levels, its hard to go wrong with anything. I loved being able to Provoke at level 6 when Taunt isnt available until 10 or 12 in most sets. I didnt really need it, but it was fun. Getting Intimidate was even more fun. And while the Invoke Panic animation was disappointing, making entire mobs cower was a riot! But after level 20 the fun ended. I think it was battling Avalanche Shamans in Dark Astoria that made me give the whole thing the boot. Invincible was nice but Unyielding was absolutely freaking necessary! So I did a respec-o-shame.
Took the Unyielding when it was available, and backed the rest of my picks up a slot until dropping the Invincible. It helped, but not much. With Haymaker as my most significant damage dealer, I was generally running out of Endurance before I was running out of mob. Getting Rage at least made it possible to win battles, but I was having doubts about the future of the toon. Trying to determine if it was smarter to stay with KO Blow as my next pick or switch to Stamina to try to stop the hemorrhaging of endurance.
I retooled again. The real problem seemed to be not doing enough damage I was not really committing to my secondary. Tough had that nice chest-beating animation, but I was hamstringing myself with it. Lastly, I could just slot Sprint and give up on Fitness by slotting a bit more endurance reduction amongst my other powers. Resist PD, Jab, Punch, Haymaker, Provoke, Unyielding, Resist Elements, Resist Energies, Intimidate, Kick, Swift, Invoke Panic, Knockout Blow, Weave, Tough Hide, Rage, Temporary Invulnerability, Unstoppable, Hand Clap, Foot Stomp, and 4 future considerations. I now had 5 attacks to work with Rage and still managed to sneak Swift in there.
When the Fitness pool was made Inherent, I tapped out again, replacing Swift with Boxing. And I could not resist tinkering some more with the recent alterations to the Ancillary Pools (because Hurl really?) opting for Energy Mastery. Now my power list stands at (and this time Ill include the slotting): Resist PD (2 resist), Jab (5(+1) Rope-a-Dope), Punch (3 Bruising Blow), Haymaker (6 Crushing Impact), Resist Elements (2 resist), Unyielding (2 resist and endurance), Provoke (3 Perfect Zinger), Resist Energies (2 resist), Intimidate (6 Nightmare), Kick (4 Force Feedback), Boxing (3 Stupefy), Knockout Blow (6 Ghost Widows Embrace), Invoke Panic (6 Glimpse of the Abyss), Weave (3(+3) Gift of the Ancients), Tough Hide (3 defense), Rage (2 recharge, 1 Hit Buff), Temporary Invulnerability (4(+2) Impervium Armor), Unstoppable (4 Efficacy Adapter, 1 recharge), Focused Accuracy (1 Endurance, 1 Hit Buff), Foot Stomp (3(+3) Scirrocos Dervish), Physical Perfection (2 heal, 2 modification), Hand Clap (1) , Dull Pain (1), and Conserve Power(1) {these last two are only planned for as are 9 slots} which allows me to 3 slot Sprint (Surefoot).
Tidbits of what Ive learned:
Taking both Resist PD and Temp Invulnerability is one key to this set. Cant have them both at level 1, but dont forget to circle back and grab the other at a later date.
Invincible dictates your tactics. Using it well means collecting up a mob around you to gain defense and to-hit boosts, and then using that buff to battle bosses and work your way down through the ranks in a mob. If you try to work your way up, you just undercut this buff when you get to the bosses. Not taking it lowers your survivability but allows greater tactical flexible.
There are two ways to play Unstoppable. Plan A - If you are heavily slotting the rest of this set, you wont need this power often; maybe once every half dozen missions or so. If this is your preference, then stack up on the Modification and/or Resistance. Youll blow way past the soft cap and never notice when you step in a big pile of debuff. Plan B - Three or four slotting some IO set to get a 5% recharge reduction on all powers is a silly thing for a toggle power with a 20 second recharge time (you paid how much influence to knock 1 second off the clock???). But for powers with this humongo recharge period (960 seconds) that same 5% can actually be measured in playing time (48 seconds). Slot only for Recharge here and get the timer down to 8 minutes or less. You get 3 mad minutes of use then take one minute to recover and click everything in the room and the power is already halfway recharged. Either way, remember to turn your toggle powers off towards the end of this powers use so they will be recharged and ready for the crash. Hold a few blues and greens for it, retoggle those other defenses, and you should be fine against whatever else is still standing.
I wanted Fighting for the power Tough. In the end, I have everything but. Huh!
When I first got Rage, I played it for hit buff, hit buff, and hit buff baby! Then I discovered recharge mania and now the crash time between uses is mere seconds. Just be sure to have enough endurance in reserve when it starts blinking so your toggles dont abandon you. And if you love to Rage, then you really do want Hand Clap and Foot Stomp and any other AoE or status effect power you can find because these are not affected by your damage debuff during the down cycle. While the mob dances the dizzy jig, you can suck down some recovery in peace.
Tankers cannot use Challenge properly. During different respecs, I tried out both Challenge and Provoke and found no real difference. It was not until I tried Challenge on a Controller that it only affected one target in a mob, and it dawned on me that Gauntlet was the culprit.
Why dont Fear powers prevent defensive actions of the target (such as summoning gun drones, force field generators, healing allies, teleporting, etc.) like Sleep and Hold rather than Immobilize? And whats up with Nemesis goons and fear resistance!? Youd think Circle lackeys, with all their hanging out with demons, hordlings, and such would be somewhat inured to Fear. Not at all (I can even frighten the demons). Nemesis punks with those gas masks and Warhulks youd suspect of having resistance to Sleep/Toxic attacks, not Fear. Whatza matter, they cant see out of those things?
You might think that Glimpse of the Abyss (the rare set) should be used with the ranged Intimidate while Nightmare should be used with the PBAoE Invoke Panic. Not true. Because Glimpse contains a chance for negative energy damage, Nightmare actual provides more total buff. The only reason to use Intimidate is to remove a victim from the fight as you charge in, so you might as well crank the duration to max and see if you can make one target miss the whole thing. Putting Glimpse on the PBAoE Fear power really maximizes the special by providing a stack of targets.
I personally feel the game would be far better served by replacing the Taunt/Confront powers from each of the offensive sets with a new power suited to each particular set. It may be the only ranged power in the set, but any player who wants this sort of thing can take Provoke/Challenge from the Pool. Besides, what happens when you use Taunt at 80? Pets get summoned, drones and emanators get deployed, and everybody else pulls out rifles to shoot you (not your teammates). Activating every possible defense a mob can muster while doing zero damage - Way to Tank! But this is all a bit off topic for today.
What makes Bison Boy so unlovable as a Tank is that he replaces Aggro with other status effects: Fear, Stun, Hold, and Knockback. The real fun of playing Bison Boy is in the Knockback. Often I charge into a mob by Following a minion only to kick him out and continue the chase cue the Yakkity Sax. Punt a target from this mob into the next to get them all riled up. If the Panic or Stomp or Clap works, then pick a single target and take it down while the rest recover. Otherwise, cycle through targets making attacks, spreading the stuns and holds amongst the crowd. All these tactics keep the entire mob off balance as I whittle them down. And since Im analyzing each target in turn, Im not button mashing as fast as I can, and no longer bleeding the blue bar dry.
As far as Im concerned, these other Status Effects are superior to Aggro in that the target(s) do nothing for the duration. Being less-that-Invulnerable this is key to my defensive strategy. I am just as capable at stopping nothing as anything else in the game. Im fine if the bad guys just want to stand next to me and bask in my awesomeness. When the Fear dont work then I rely on stunning / holding / knocking-down a few victims in a mob and switching targets to another still in the fight. Ive been careful to slot so as to extend these effects for as long as I can.
These tactics do actually build Aggro. By switching targets as I work the whole mob, Gauntlet is focusing the crowd on me. But its slow, not very potent, and doesnt have a long duration since Im not slotting Taunt. And it seems to annoy teammates who target through me to no end that I do not finish one target before moving to the next. Many casual teammates fail to notice that Im relying on effects other than Aggro. They dont except it and theyve never seen it done. I freeze a mob in place and they begin lobbing AoE attacks with impunity. Which leads to strained conversations with expert players about how to Tank.
So I'm putting the build out here for comments. I cannot be the only player to discover the usefulness of the Presence Pool, but Ive never seen anybody else use them. There have to be other unconventional Tanks, how does team play go for you? Or is this combination of powers just totally insane?
Just call me "The Pool Guy" - cause I believe that power pools are the ultimate in powerset proliferation. Fewer powers to develop and available to all.
"ADVERBS - we define action!"
"ADVERSE - we are action!"