Sailboat

Downside: annoying redraw.

Upside: you just hit them with a fireball.

Yeah, Burn aside, Fire doesn't cause fear/runaway -- it causes falling down and coughing up exp.

I don't have it written up, so I can't post it now, but I use a build that's a little reminiscent of Finduilas's build posted above, using sets like Reactive Armor, Kinetic Combat, Eradication, Mocking Beratement, and Aegis to get, with one foe in Invincibility, 50% S/L defense, 49.xx% E/N defense (allllmost 50%), and although F/C is under the soft cap, it hits the soft cap with 4-5 enemies in range.

I don't have Adrenalin Boost, though. (Placeholder for Physical Perfection, I assume?)

I also grabbed Char from the Fire Epic, threw a slot in, and threw in a pair of Basilisk's Gaze IOs for more E/N defense (cheap trick, I know). I did not use Zephyr. Also, I think the Kismet to-hit unique is a bit of overkill if you've got Rage and Invincibility boosting your to-hit, so I didn't use it.

The character also has Tough to cap S/L resistance.

Why my goal of 50% defense when 45% is the soft cap? I wanted to be able to endure some defense debuffs (with the aid of Invulnerability's significant def debuff resistance) and still be at the soft cap. I do a lot of Cimeroran content, and my defense even in the worst crowds only dips momentarily below the soft cap and then rises back above it; it's very, very solid.

The character has been hugely rugged for me. I recently did an ITF with two other Tankers and a Brute (possibly overkill, but I'll team with any weird combo). When the Dark Novas ambushed us at the oracle atop the hill, everyone else went down, and I stayed alive, surrounded by defense-debuffing Romans and negative-energy attacks. There were so many enemies that I was above the aggro cap, with some standing around idle, and when I defeated a combatant, an idle one would wake up and join in. The entire rest of the team backed away, recovered, came back to help, and was felled again.

My health did drop down to 1/3 or 1/4, and I did have to husband some green inspirations, popping them only when my life stayed low and didn't start to rise again, but more inspirations fell as I smashed through the melee, and I stayed alive. Dull Pain wore off, but recharged at a time when I was low again, so I hit it a second time and kept going. :P

The Brute sent me a tell: "HOW are you STILL ALIVE???" The Willpower Tanker was silent, and dead again.

I am not trying to brag just because I bought IOs; my point in posting this is to reassure you that a soft-capped Inv build (assuming it's solidly built without ignoring other things, like taking no attacks or something) is plenty tough for hard content.

I've been thinking about a Fire/Dark "toolbox" concept. Seems different.

Yes, I'm happily knocking around in an Oro arc again!

Did today's patch fix the Oro arcs?

Sure. But the cost of not having Hasten up at a key moment in combat is a few seconds difference in even long-recharge attack powers. The cost of not having Active Defense up at a key moment in combat is being held.

Based on a cursory glancing-over, Airhammer's build looks pretty good.

High recharge will let you bring up Shield Charge and Footstomp and Knockout Blow more often -- these are all hard-hitters that include substantial mitigation. Note that Airhammer's point is you can still soft-cap and have good recharge.

One thing about Perma-Hasten -- as a Shielder, you'll already have Active Defense, your status protection clicky, on auto. So you won't be able to put Hasten on auto anyway. So I wouldn't bust a gut trying to get it exactly perma, since you'll be clicking it manually anyway. But more recharge is still nice, of course.

My instinct is to choose Char and Burn.

Char serves the function of a single-target immobilize anyway, and can be used to hold problem targets like Sappers (as has been mentioned already).

Burn is situational and some don't like it...and Temp protection gives a bit of recharge debuff resist...but Burn is big damage, potentially, and some mitigation, and TR is still pretty weak.

YMMV.

Working great for me right now.

If I correctly understand City of Data's tables (an iffy proposition with a pseudo-pet power) it looks like Burn ticks every 0.2 seconds -- that's 5 times a second -- for 10.25 seconds. That's 51 ticks of damage, which is 3.34 fire damage at 50. That's 6.5 fire damage per tick when enhanced to the ED cap.

Burn can affect 5 targets; a well-enhanced Tenebrous Tentacles will almost certainly immobilize at least 5 if used right after clumping the enemies.

6.5 x 51 tics is 332 damage. Scrapper Burn recharges in 25 seconds base; it's not unreasonable to assume you could get it down to 10 seconds (my English-major's math skills say you'd need 55% global recharge, so hasten would more than do it while it's active).

By contrast, using the same enhancement assumptions, Headsplitter is 317 damage every 6 seconds, but harder to line up to hit all 5 possible targets, and a more resisted damage type.

So Burn -- IF you can hold them in the patch somehow -- is roughly competitive with the very hardest-hitting Scrapper attacks.

Edit: You can use Build Up with both -- but only Fiery Aura gets a "second Build Up," Fiery Embrace, which gives its best bonus (+125% damage) with...Fire powers. Stacked up, that's impressive.

Man, I don't remember a Tsoo ever fearing me, ever.

Other than the Horseman mentioned above (from one mission in one Task Force) there's...um...oh yeah, Jack in Irons. And also...um...Jack in Irons next year.

I'd say the percentage of fearing enemies is substantially less than 1%, Heroside.

Now villains, well...everybody knows that criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot.

Sure is some heat generated in this Fire Tanker thread.

Du Hast, how attached are you to your slotting? In a lot of cases, you seem to have 4-5 slots in the attacks and 6 in the utility powers; I'd do that the other way around, if I were doing it.

Also, I usually try to get good-to-max enhancement values even if it means forgoing some of the set bonuses.

Titanium Coating is only giving you 1.5% Health and (with three) not quite capping your resistances; consider stealing the taunts from Consume and adding a fourth slot to each of your fire shields and slotting either Reactive Armor or Impervium Armor, which would give you arguably better set bonuses?