Call Me Awesome

Public raids, the Twilight Avengers were the only SG regularly raiding at the time. We rarely had major issues with them... public raids happened Mon/Wed/Fri and TA raided at other times. Yeah, there was occasional friction but actual conflict was pretty rare. We, the public raiders, had set raid times and TA didn't interfere and we returned the favor.

Both the public raiders and TA were pretty good at Hami and yellow dawns were rare.

Of course all this is neither here nor there now, and if people enjoy the current incarnation of the raid then more power to them. I don't enjoy the current raid myself so I do other things instead.

The immobilize problem is very easy to solve, simply pick up Combat Jumping. As a fire tank unless she's invested in a couple of -knockback IO's she'll want Acrobatics for KB protection anyway.

Consume is another way for a fire tanker to recover endurance; I'd slot it for accuracy and recharge... the damage is minimal and if you hit 3 targets with it you'll get a full bar of endurance out of it unenhanced. It's on a rather lengthy timer but it's another tool available to help with endurance.

If you post the build here I'm sure the veteran fire tankers can help you with improvements.

It seems to proc on an AOE around the target, not as you're describing at least in my experience.

For example, my Mind/Kin 'troller has that proc in the single target Confuse power. I activate confuse on a LT in the middle of a group of enemies. The proc rolls a 33% chance to hit each mob in the area including your original target giving you almost a second Mass Confusion power. I usually see a few "bystanders" also get confused along with my intended target when I use the power.

The benefit of the proc isn't the chance for more MAG against your target, it's the chance to confuse additional nearby mobs. I think of it as a second, unreliable Mass Confusion power that recharges very quickly.

Now, all of this is how the proc worked in issue 12 and before... my Mind/Kin has been shelved getting day job badges since so it's possible that something changed or is now bugged.

Edit
I missed your edit here, so it seems that we agree

The sample build I tossed together in my earlier post should come in under 50 million if you're careful; that would leave you room for a few extras. I assume you're starting a new character who's still low level? If that's the case I personally slot nothing but drops from level 1-12, then DO's until 22 and SO's until around 27-30 when I start thinking about IO sets. Usually I'll have most of the sets I want in place by around 35-40 with a few "filler" SO's, usually for slots I recently got and haven't had time to buy & craft IO sets for yet.

If you're starting a new character check out this for thoughts on power selection and slot placement for the first 20 levels:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=133483

You can easily afford everything I tossed into my sample build with lots of money left over; that may well give you enough of a nest egg to also afford the three Cytoskeleton HO enhancements you'll want for Invincibility when you hit level 47. I haven't priced those recently, but they are the best slotting. A Cyto is a Def Buff/To Hit Buff/Endurance Reduction... all three primary features of the power.

For Set IO slotting in Invincibility I'd suggest 4 slotting the Gift of the Ancients set, it does give you something very useful, more endurance and more recovery.

/Electric causes a few problems with a soft capped defensive build since it's lacking in single target attacks... one of the cheapest methods to acquire defense buffs.

On your earlier question about travel powers I'd suggest picking either SS or SJ; a good survivable build gets pretty tight for both of them. My sample included Combat Jumping and Super Jump and skipped Hasten/Super Speed. I understand the temptation for Hasten; it's very useful... I just haven't found room for it on my Invuln tanker since all the changes of issue 6. While you could squeeze it in it would have to displace another power that may be more useful to you.

In any case, good luck with your tanker and don't forget that you're playing a game... the whole purpose is to have fun!

The defense/resist part isn't that hard, Tough/Weave and moderate IO bonuses get you to the soft cap defensively and the hard cap for S/L resist. I know that CMA hasn't used Unstoppable since issue 13 and has tanked, unassisted, the STF, ITF & Reichsman.

Damage on the other hand... no way are you going to put out Scrapper level damage on a Tanker; it just won't happen. That's fair, Scrappers won't get Tanker level protections either. Well, if you're teamed with a Kinetic with Fulcrum Shift you'll probably be somewhat above an unbuffed Scrapper's damage.

Back to the OP, it sounds like you've had an interesting project; I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on how the various primaries compare with one another. So far I've only had first hand experience with Invuln & Stone to 50 and Fire to around 35. If we're considering Scrapper/Brute experience as worth anything the list expands to Shield at 50 and WP at 43.

I don't know if you were replying to me specifically, but there's quite a bit that could stand improvement here.

I highly recommend Temporary Invulnerability as your level 1 pick, it offers three times the protection of RPD. That's not to say RPD shouldn't be in your build, I'd suggest moving it somewhere into the 20's.

You're probably going to be using this attack fairly often, so it should get slots... working for a defense build you'll want 4 Smashing Haymaker IO's here, they're cheap and offer some S/L defense.

This is adequate slotting for an SO/common IO build. For Set IO's I suggest 4 Reactive Armor, all but the Endurance and the End/Recharge. They aren't cheap anymore, but there are still some bargains to be had in the 25-35 level range.

The Titanium Coating set isn't getting you anything useful, I would not recommend using it here. Again, Reactive Armor is your best choice. Of course, the Titanium Coating should be considerably cheaper.

Taunt is AUTOHIT in PvE so you won't need the Acc/Recharge unless you're going for the full 6 slot set bonus. If you're only slotting 4 consider the Mocking Beratement set, it's considerably cheaper since it uses no expensive salvage and the bonus you want, S/L defense, is the 4 slot bonus.

I recommend dropping Resist Elements completely, it's minor protection from a very rare damage type. At the very least move it back into the 40's, it's by far the least important power in your primary.

3 slotting super speed is a waste, one slot is all you'll ever need. Also, Micro HO's are very expensive, for what those three HO's would cost you could buy every IO set in my soft cap guide.

Dull Pain should really be your level 2 power pick, and you're overslotted as-is. The Numina's are useful sure, but they'll be pretty expensive. You'll get more bang for the buck by buying the Reactive Armor sets for your armors than buying the Numina sets for +HP and +regen.

Huge waste of HO slotting, you're gaining NOTHING over simply slotting SO enhancements. I recommend leaving Hurdle at a single slot and tossing a Jump enhancement in.

Not bad slotting, but I'd suggest pulling the extra slots or at least using common SO/IO enhancements. Based on cost/benefit there's lots of other things that would help you more.

Level 24 is a long time to wait for Invincibility, I recommend getting it at 18 when it comes available. The Luck of the Gambler set is nice, but it's very expensive... especially the Recharge Speed! Last I looked that one IO was going for 70 million or more.

Late game, from level 47+, the ideal slotting is 3 Cytoskeleton HO enhancements. Expensive, but still probably cheaper than what you have here.

Nothing wrong with this slotting other than the extreme expense, I wouldn't even consider spending that amount unless I'd already taken care of the basics of durability. My soft capped build costs less than half the price tag of a single Luck of the Gambler recharge speed.

While there's good reason to take this power, in my opinion it can wait until later. Slotting wise I recommend either leaving it at the base slot or slotting the Reactive Armor set. I see no benefit to slotting the Titanium set.

I personally do not take Build Up on a tanker, there's other powers that are considerably more useful. Some players swear by it however... IMO it isn't as useful as something else.

Unstoppable will already cap your resists completely unslotted, slotting it for resist is wasted. If you want the power I suggest 1-3 recharge IO's and call it a day.

Heck of a long time waiting for this, I suggest moving it up in your build.

This is a Minion only (won't stun a LT or Boss) Stun that does NO damage and has a huge knockback... I strongly recommend skipping this power completely. It will scatter the mobs to the corners of the map and make your job of aggro management much more difficult.

Whoa! Combat Jumping offers you a small defense buff and a decent jump buff for only 0.07 end/second. Slotting it at all is questionable, and slotting it with HO's is a complete waste. Stick to either 1 jump or 1 def in the base slot.

Invulnerability really doesn't have room for two travel powers anymore, at least not if you want to be effective. Additionally Stealth is counterproductive to a tanker.

Way too late for this power, and it's way underslotted.

I hate to say it, but this build is really suboptimal. I would suggest reading my first 20 levels Invuln guide and my Soft Cap guide for more suggestions. As it stands you have poor defenses, poor offense and an extremely expensive build.

As a quick idea maybe something like this:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 42 Natural Tanker
Primary Power Set: Invulnerability
Secondary Power Set: Electrical Melee
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Temp Invulnerability -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:40(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg:40(3), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(3), RctvArm-ResDam:40(5), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(42)
Level 1: Charged Brawl -- S'ngH'mkr-Acc/Dmg:35(A), S'ngH'mkr-Dmg/EndRdx:35(27), S'ngH'mkr-Dmg/Rchg:35(29), S'ngH'mkr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(29)
Level 2: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-Heal:50(A), Dct'dW-Rchg:50(5), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx:50(7), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg:50(7), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg:50(9)
Level 4: Jacobs Ladder -- C'ngBlow-Acc/Dmg:50(A), C'ngBlow-Dmg/Rchg:50(9), C'ngBlow-Dmg/EndRdx:50(11), Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(11), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(34), Erad-Acc/Rchg:30(34)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff-I:50(A)
Level 8: Unyielding -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:40(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg:40(13), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(13), RctvArm-ResDam:40(15)
Level 10: Taunt -- Mocking-Taunt/Rchg/Rng:50(A), Mocking-Rchg:50(15), Mocking-Taunt/Rng:50(17), Mocking-Taunt:50(17)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Jump-I:50(A)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump-I:50(A)
Level 16: Health -- Heal-I:50(A)
Level 18: Invincibility -- DefBuff-I:50(A), DefBuff-I:50(19), DefBuff-I:50(19)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I:50(A), EndMod-I:50(21), EndMod-I:50(21)
Level 22: Thunder Strike -- C'ngBlow-Acc/Dmg:50(A), C'ngBlow-Dmg/EndRdx:50(23), C'ngBlow-Dmg/Rchg:50(23), Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(25), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(25), Erad-Acc/Rchg:30(27)
Level 24: Resist Physical Damage -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:40(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg:40(40), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(42), RctvArm-ResDam:40(42)
Level 26: Tough Hide -- DefBuff-I:50(A), DefBuff-I:50(34), DefBuff-I:50(37)
Level 28: Boxing -- Acc-I:50(A)
Level 30: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:40(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg:40(31), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(31), RctvArm-ResDam:40(31)
Level 32: Weave -- GftotA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:40(A), GftotA-Def/Rchg:40(33), GftotA-Def/EndRdx:40(33), GftotA-Def:40(33)
Level 35: Chain Induction -- S'ngH'mkr-Acc/Dmg:35(A), S'ngH'mkr-Dmg/EndRdx:35(36), S'ngH'mkr-Dmg/Rchg:35(36), S'ngH'mkr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(36), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/Rchg:30(37), P'ngS'Fest-Acc/Dmg:30(37)
Level 38: Lightning Rod -- Sciroc-Acc/Rchg:50(A), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg:50(39), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx:50(39), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg:50(39), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(40), RechRdx-I:50(40)
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet

I'd toss Resist Energies in at 49 and use another set of 4 Reactive Armor. For 41, 44 & 47 it's up to you, I'd consider snagging an APP, possibly Energy or Pyre, in my opinion they're the two best. For Energy I'd snag Conserve Power, Laser Beam Eyes & Physical Perfection. For Pyre I'd get Char, Fire Blast & Fire Ball.

<edit>
Just noticed the data link isn't working, here's the data chunk for import:

You made the correct choice here, to gain the benefit of interleaved memory you do need matched pairs of RAM. Now, you could have used (if you have a 64 bit OS) a pair of 1GB and a pair of 2GB sticks for 6GB total, but one 1GB and one 2GB would function, but wouldn't gain the benefit of interleaved memory.

I'm currently running a pair of 2GB sticks for 4GB total on an XP box with the 8800 GTS card and an Intel QuadCore 2.8GHz CPU... it's plenty to run 1680x1050 with details on high and 2x AA... I generally run at 60 fps except when there's massive combat spam going off, then it may drop into the low 30's. (VSync is on capping fps at 60) I do turn off all the water & bloom effects, those are the major performance killers.

Barring something ELSE breaking (I was forced to upgrade CPU & Motherboard a few months ago when the old one packed in... I'd planned on waiting for the new Mobo/CPU for a year or two) I'll be waiting until I find out just what Ultra Mode gives us and how much more horsepower it wants before I upgrade.

More RAM is always good, up to the limit that your OS will use, which with a 32 bit OS is just under 4GB. However, with memory sticks installed in pairs the motherboard interleaves the data between them resulting in a performance increase.

Basically adding a third stick of RAM would actually lower your performance, but adding a pair of sticks (4 total) would increase things. I'm not a guru so I don't have all the technical reasons why this is so, but that's the way it works.

Clear as mud?

I'll have to leave the /ice part to others but having played two stone tanks to 50 here's my take on the set:

Rock Armor should be your level 1 pick, it's S/L defense which applies to the vast majority of damage you'll take. It offers more than twice the base protection of Stone Skin... which you will also want, but it can delay a bit. Basic slotting should be 3 defense, 1 endurance. For IO's I like the Gift of the Ancients set, 4 of them does nicely here.

Earth's Embrace is your classic dull pain power that boosts your HP and heals you. It's going to be highly valuable to you in the early game and still useful occasionally after you get Granite. Slotting is 3 recharge/3 heal or 5 of the Doctored Wounds set.

Rooted is your status protection and a regeneration buff coupled with a massive runspeed debuff and -jump. You WILL NOT be able to jump over anything while this power is on and you'll move veeerrrrryyyy slooooooly. Base slotting would be 3 heal, possibly an endurance reduction. For IO sets anything you may want to use or you can simply frankenslot heal/endurance IO's from a few of the lower demand heal sets for cheap basic enhancement in only 3 slots.

Mud Pots is the PBAOE taunt aura, damage aura and a slow. While it's a vital power to have it's also rather endurance heavy so you may want to delay it until after Stamina. Slotting can be tricky, you want to enhance accuracy, damage, endurance and, ideally, slow. I generally frankenslot it with Multi-Strike and various slow sets for ED capped damage and ~40% accuracy/slow/endurance.

Stone Skin is S/L resistance in a passive power... it's well worth having but it's less useful than the above powers. I generally slide it in around 22-24. Slotting is one damage resist in the base slot. For IO's I'd toss the Steadfast Resistance 3% defense unique into that base slot.

Granite Armor is your "Nothing can hurt me" power, you absolutely want this at 32. With Stone Skin it will cap your S/L resistance at 90% and your E/N/F/C resistance will hit 78%. Additionally it provides ~30% defense to all but Psi. Drawbacks of course are reduced runspeed, recharge & damage. It also prevents jumping like Rooted. Slotting is 3 damage resist/3 defense. For IO's there's so many possibilities but don't shortchange yourself in resistance or defense... both of those should be enhanced to 95%. I recommend slotting resistance first, then defense.

Personally I never found any need at all for Crystal or Brimstone armor... they're highly skippable. For one, Rock gives S/L defense which does apply to most E/N/F/C attacks. Since those damage types are rare, and your level 1 armor already covers most attacks of that type these armors get dropped into file 13. This is a good thing as it opens up your build for more valuable powers.

Minerals is useful, but only in a very few situations. It's a sizeable amount of defense to Psionic, but Psi is extremely rare. In PvE I come up with about a dozen or so missions where Psi predominates, all of them in the 40-50 range. Is it worth taking for those few missions? Your call, but personally I tend to think no. If you DO want it level 41 is about the right time to get it.

I HIGHLY recommend Teleport for your travel power, I know it's a pain in the butt but it's also the only way to have combat mobility with Rooted or Granite running. Yes, a Kinetic will solve the problem... until you have to get over a curb.

Swift from the Fitness pool is very useful as well in compensating for the -run in Rooted or Granite, I recommend 3 slotting it with runspeed.

Hasten will counteract the -recharge in Granite while it's active so it's also very useful. Typical slotting is 3 recharge.

Beyond that my experience is that Taunt is near-mandatory... you're, um, mobility challenged so a ranged attention-getter is very useful. I also suggest picking up several attacks, this helps you to still have a full chain while in Granite. One of my Stone tankers found room to add Hover to the build, it made zone travel with TP much easier as you no longer had to worry about falling out of the sky.

Good luck with your tanker, Stone isn't for everyone but if you can deal with the drawbacks it makes the most durable character in the game. Even on an SO build it's nearly unkillable.

To expand on that a bit Enhancement Diversity (ED) imposes a severe degradation on your enhancements once you get to a certain percentage... as a thumb rule that limit is 3 Single Origin (SO) enhancements.

Taking Stamina as an example, an even level SO is worth 33% enhancement. Adding a second SO brings that to 66%, just as you'd assume. The third, which should bring you to 99% because of ED only brings you to roughly 95% so it's slightly degraded. If you were to add a fourth SO you'd only gain 5%... in other words the enhancement is reduced to being nearly worthless, being degraded to less than 1/6th of it's nominal strength. There are ALWAYS better places for a slot than where it's degraded that severely. The only exception would be if you were using the power as an IO set "mule" for bonuses.

Back on the topic of Inv/Elec in general I see no reason why it wouldn't be a very capable pairing... Inv is at it's best surrounded by enemies and Elec is an AOE set so it should synergize nicely. Properly built Invuln can be second only to Stone in raw durability without any of the drawbacks so survivability shouldn't be an issue.

Judging from your first build you seem slightly unsure about power selection; you may want to take a glance at my guide to the first 20 levels of an Invuln tanker. Later on if you decide to try getting the most out of your tank my guide to soft capping may be able to give you some ideas.

Well Moi, for years I was the same, I'd rolled a bunch of villains when CoV came in, hated Mercy and the missions and abandoned redside completely.

Recently however my SG decided to start playing villains and I came along with them. Funny, I was actually enjoying myself and enjoying the toons once I got past level 15 or so. My highest is a Fire/WP brute who's now nearing 40 and I've a bunch of new lowbies in the teens and 20's who are coming into their own.

Some of them are on Infinity as that's where the SG went for redside... most of us had filled Guardian... I have rolled a few here as well. They're still in the teens and relatively broke; unfortunately all my inf is blueside so they're starting from scratch.

Looking at your build there's room for improvement even as a SO/common IO build. If you're willing to invest a bit of inf for some relatively inexpensive sets you can drastically improve things. From the top, here's what caught my eye:


Level 2: Dull Pain -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(9), Heal-I(11)

Dull Pain, as has been mentioned, should be slotted 3 recharge/3 heal on SO's... good IO slotting is the Doctored Wounds set; I'd slot 5 in that case skipping the Heal/End IO.

Level 6: Air Superiority -- EndRdx-I(A), Acc-I(15), Dmg-I(17), Dmg-I(17), Dmg-I(19)

Personally I'd be tempted to steal the extra slots from here; you've a better attack chain with your secondary; this is just a filler. You may find better places for the slots.

Level 12: Resist Physical Damage -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(23), ResDam-I(23)

Unless you're slotting set IO's I'd leave this at the base slot.

Level 18: Invincibility -- EndRdx-I(A), ToHit-I(29), ToHit-I(29), DefBuff-I(31), DefBuff-I(31), DefBuff-I(31)

You're still a few levels away from the optimal slotting here, but once you hit 47 consider slotting 3 Cytoskeleton HO's in here and tossing the extra slots somewhere else.

Level 24: Resist Elements -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(36), ResDam-I(36)

I recommend dropping Res Elements altogether, it's minor protection against a very rare damage type. In it's place think about starting the Fighting Pool.

Level 26: Resist Energies -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(37), ResDam-I(37)

This power does have it's uses, but it's low priority. I'd slide it way back into the 40's... CMA takes it at 49. You can drop in Tough from the Fighting Pool here for a good bit more effectiveness.

Level 30: Hand Clap -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(39), Dsrnt-I(39), Dsrnt-I(46), Dsrnt-I(50)

I'm not too sure just how useful Hand Clap is since it scatters mobs to the four corners of the map. If you're simply looking for a taunt, why not take Taunt instead? No scatter, long lasting and zero end... and it makes a dynamite place to slot some really nice set bonuses very cheaply.

Level 32: Unstoppable -- RechRdx-I(A)

Unstoppable is a power you either love or hate... I'd consider getting Weave in this slot instead and shove Unstop back a bit if you want to keep it. Weave's a full time mitigation power instead of an "Oh S#@#" power.

Level 35: Hurl -- EndRdx-I(A), Acc-I(39), Dmg-I(40), Dmg-I(40), Dmg-I(40)

With Laser Beam Eyes do you really need a slow animating ranged attack? Consider dropping this to make room for something else.

Level 44: Laser Beam Eyes -- Acc-I(A), DefDeb-I(45), Dmg-I(45), Dmg-I(45), Dmg-I(46)

The debuff isn't really very helpful here; either replace it with a recharge or use the slot somewhere else.

Level 49: Tough Hide -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(50), DefBuff-I(50)

Oops, this should go MUCH earlier, it's available at 26 and I'd get it then, by 30 at the very latest. Your best choice would probably be to swap this with Res Energies.

Those are the basic, structural changes that occurred to me at first glance that would make your life easier... now lets look at set IO's.

First, let's look at the inexpensive choices that will yield the most return.

1. 6 Mocking Beratement in Taunt will give you 1.8 additional endurance, 2.5% S/L defense, 3.13 F/C defense and 7.5% recharge. The recipes are dirt cheap and don't take any rare salvage. I've bought them recently for as little as 200 inf per recipe.
2. 4 Smashing Haymaker in your ST attacks gives you a small HP bonus and 1.88% S/L defense. They should be pretty inexpensive in the 25-30 level range; if you need more enhancement simply finish out with a pair of Pounding Slugfest or frankenslot any melee damage IO's as needed.

Moving up the ladder a little in price a bit I'd suggest:

1. 4 slot your armors with Reactive Armor for 1.25% def to S/L/E/N. They've gone up a bit in the last few months but you should be able to find bargains in the 25-35 level range. The difference between slotting a 25 and slotting a 35 is less than 2% resistance when you take ED into account.
2. 6 slot Thunderstrike into LBE for 2% recovery, 2.5% E/N def, 7% accuracy and another 1.25% E/N def. These should be fairly inexpensive; under a million per IO.
3. Get the Steadfast Protection 3% defense unique IO, it's a global 3% defense to ALL. It goes nicely into any of your resist armors. It'll be expensive to buy, on the order of 12 million. You may want to run a couple of TF's to get merits, I believe it only costs 75 merits. Posi & Synapse would give you that.

As we all know the market's fairly volatile and inflated right now, but the "cheap list" IO's shouldn't cost you much... the Mocking Beratement shouldn't be much more than the crafting cost as the recipes and salvage are all cheap. The Smashing Haymaker will be a bit more, possibly averaging around 200k per IO. I'd be amazed if you couldn't outfit the MB set and 4 Smashing Haymaker sets for under 10 million... probably under 5 million. Remember, don't be afraid to use level 25 IO's... once you finish out 6 slotting with other IO's you really won't notice the difference.

I'd tend to agree with the notable exception of Lusca in IP; you have to kill all the tentacles, each of which is essentially a separate GM and the head, also a GM. Individually they aren't too tough, but having all of them together makes for quite a challenge.

But apparently it IS possible to solo Lusca with the right build and all bloody day to do it in; someone posted a while back an account of the fight using an Ill/Rad.

Trying the incognito posting method on your second account Local?

Glad to be done with the last 30 days... a full month of 18 hour days was a bit much.

I did notice that Shield got a bit of a buff... my BS/Shield scrapper suddenly jumped up to 812 points of damage with Shield Charge. (Saturated AAO + Build Up vs Council in a solo radio mission, no inspirations) Holy #@!! that's one hell of a change. My Shield/Fire tanker is unfortunately still too low for it.

Mez protection??? Um, aren't you running Unyielding at all times? There's VERY little in the game that will break the mez protection of Unyielding.

For some ideas on how to maximize the survivability of an Invuln tanker check out my guides, linked in my sig.

I haven't yet found much that can seriously threaten a soft capped Invuln... even Lord Recluse is fairly easily manageable with a decent inspiration loadout and no support while your team kills the towers.

I do think that below the mid-30's soft capped defenses on an Invuln tanker are overkill... my exemplar build for CMA is designed for a target level of 25 and kicks out roughly 35% def to S/L and mid-20% in E/N... it's essentially unkillable on all the lower level TF's. That build tops out at level 32... above that I simply use my main level 50 build.

In the months since issue 13 I've faceplanted CMA exactly 3 times... all against Lord Recluse when the team was unable to overcome the bugged repairmen and kill the towers in 5 minutes. As a side note, has the STF been fixed or are the repairmen still getting their heals off before they become targetable? I've been away from the game for the last month or so and I'm not up on the latest changes.