Syntax42

What do you consider "cheap"? A build with control purples can be a reasonable way to improve recharge. If you don't care about having perma-AM, a bit of defense can help you survive so debuffs stay on the target.

Why Rad secondary? The defense debuffs from your attacks are pointless in most situations. Sonic can make you a better debuffer by lowering resistance more so your target (AV) dies faster.

Builds cycling Moment of Glory and Shadow Meld are the best I've seen for defensive Regeneration. Obviously, those hurt your DPS a lot.

I posted a Willpower/SS build a while ago in another thread. I remember someone posted an even better one after I did, but it was more expensive. Try searching the forums... maybe you will find the build you are looking for.

There was a thread recently about a Fire/SS Tanker soloing ITF. Try looking in there for some ideas on how to improve your build.

You should aim for either S/L and E/N defense (F/C if farming fire-based critters), or get melee, ranged, and AoE defenses. Don't try to raise both positional and typed defenses because they usually overlap each other and the game only takes your highest defense into account.

The three important levels of defense are 45%, 32.5%, or 20%. At each of the two levels below 45%, it takes one more small purple inspiration to soft cap. I would suggest aiming for 32.5% defense if you want to do damage and have an easy time being hard to kill. The person in the solo ITF thread went for 20% defense, but had more inspiration room for doing damage because they had Rage and didn't need reds to boost damage as much as you might.

Force Field is great for low levels and exemplaring, but not so great at level 50 content. Most players who want good builds aim to soft cap themselves (with IO sets), thus making it almost pointless to bring a FF along. The biggest demand for Defenders is resistance debuffs, which FF lacks. You may team with people who don't have the best builds or may not be fully soft-capped, so it depends on who you plan on teaming with.

Might I suggest making a Cold Domination Defender instead? It has "bubbles" similar to FF, but not quite as good. It also has some great debuffs, which last long enough to get plenty of attacks in between the cooldowns. It is fairly easy to soft cap to S/L and E with Cold Domination and Mace Mastery's defense toggle.

Are you offering anything in return for a build? It seems rather selfish to expect people to just hand you a build that they spent time putting together and figuring out the best way to do it. I will make a build for 500 million INF.

Willpower is primarily a regeneration-based mitigation set, but it provides all three forms (defense, resistance, regeneration) of passive mitigation. It is supposed to be one of the easier sets to level. With a good IO set build, you will feel well-protected in all but the most challenging situations. Some AVs and some situations may cause enough damage to get through your mitigation and kill you. Lord Recluse, enraged praetorian Bobcat, and situations with heavy defense and regen debuffs are the ones I can think of that can cause you to struggle to survive. In most other situations, it should be as capable of a tank as other power sets. The lack of capped resistance to the most common damage types and heavy reliance on regeneration are the primary weaknesses of the set, but don't let that stop you from making one as I'm sure many people can tell you how much fun they are.

This thread might get better feedback in the Scrapper forums with a build posted so people can help you attain higher levels of survivability. Regeneration is not the highest priority for survivability. Defense, defense debuff resistance, and slotting True Grit properly should be done before slotting for regen.

The level shift does not apply to the pylon.

Read Paragon Wiki to get a better understanding on proc mechanics. There are a few different kinds and it is good to know how they all work.

Both...

My Spines/Fire Scrapper rarely dies. I can't remember ever dying without Rise of the Phoenix up. I think it is a good combination of AoE damage and survivability.

I think you are overestimating Invulnerability. Other than the psionic hole, it is basically a defense set when not fighting S/L damage. It looks like Clockwork energy damage is going to be a major part of Incarnate content.

Any Scrapper can be made to be nearly unkillable. It also depends on what you are fighting.

Why /Electric? I think you are giving up a lot by not taking /Fire for Burn and Fiery Embrace. If you just want to be different, I can understand, but I would rather have the best and impress people with my build and skills.

Elec/SD is good for the burst AoE damage, but slow on DPS while you wait for those powers to recharge. It isn't so great in an AV fight, but nobody will really care.

KM/SD was talked about as being a good DPS combo. I never played KM, though.

MA/SD looks funny, but can also do decent DPS.

Wow, a lack of uniformity in the pseudopet coding means a lot of procs could be exploitable. I'm going to have to look into a build that takes advantage of the aforementioned powers that have a chance to proc more often than they should.

Are you comparing them on a level 50 scenario, or while leveling up? My opinions posted below are based on a level 50 scenario with good IO set builds.

Unless Lightning Storm works differently from other pseudo pet summon powers, the answer is no. It will get a chance to proc when you first summon it, then every 10 seconds. If it didn't work like that, then my Sleet would be checking for an Achilles' Heel proc 5 times per second. I could be wrong and I will test it to see if it procs in the middle of the 10 seconds. I'm pretty sure I already did test it.

Critters with higher than 50% to-hit are rare. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few: eyeballs, Battle Maiden, Devouring Earth with their crystal buff, and Nemesis when buffed with Vengeance. For all of those except Battle Maiden, the difference between 45% defense and 50% defense will be insignificant. When fighting her, your team will make up the difference through tanking or buffs.

Defense debuffs are not an issue for SR as stated previously. Most of them debuff 7.5% defense, but get reduced to 0.375% after DDR.

At -.3 end/s, you will run out of endurance in 5 minutes, 33 seconds, theoretically. I highly doubt you will be fighting that long, except when soloing a pylon or AV. Besides, Dark Consumption more than makes up for that.

After looking at your build, I noticed your toggles lack endurance reduction and your defense isn't soft capped across the board. Phalanx Fighting should not be slotted with defense. A Kismet or LOTG goes best in it.

If you need to look at other builds, I posted the one I am currently using. It doesn't have purples, but it can be easily upgraded for them. Just do a search for my posts in this forum. I posted it in another DM/SD thread.

I think you have defense and resistances confused. The resistance hard cap is 90%. You can't go past it, but you got more S/L resistance than you needed to hit it. The defense soft cap is 45%, meaning going past it usually doesn't help. There are some situations where it does help, but those are few in number and building for those situations isn't necessary.

For a Granite Tanker build, I would use the following list for my priorities: 90% S/L resist, 45% defense to all but psionic, recharge bonuses to counter Granite's penalty, HPs, movement speed, and regeneration. Some of those goals are simple, like slotting powers right, and some are more involving with IO sets. Recharge and HP bonuses generally require thought-out IO slotting.

Read up on procs and global bonuses on Paragon Wiki. LOTG global recharge works as long as you are fighting as low as 3 levels under the level of the IO. Nothing else (power placement, slot level, deactivated power, etc) will cause it to stop working.

It would be nice to know what your goals are, but I'll give you some feedback on that build. This is based on PvE, not PvP. If you made the build for PvP, ignore this.

You are WAY over the cap on S/L resistance in Granite form. Drop Stone Skin, pick up Rock Armor, and put a LOTG global recharge in it.

Kinetic Combat is an expensive set and is mainly used for S/L defense. It is pointless to take 3 slots with it, and you don't need the defense, so use another set.

PvP sets are usually expensive. That Pancea proc should not be in a power that you only use every few minutes. If you do have the 2 billion INF for it (just a guess at the price) and you want to use it, put it in Health or Rooted so it has a chance to go off every 10 seconds.

Gladiator's Strike set is not doing you much good in your attack powers. I have no idea why you 6-slotted it. The S/L resistance from the set stands out because it sends you even more over the cap.

Mud Pots is fine if you don't mind the endurance drain. Obliteration is not the greatest set for managing endurance.

Regenerative Tissue does not provide enough healing enhancement for Rooted. Find another set for it. Alternatively, a Heal IO should put you at the ED cap for that power.

Taunt only needs accuracy against PvP targets and Hamidon. Recharge or a Taunt IO would be better. There are also some good bonuses in the taunt sets.

Steadfast Protection is a bad set. I suggest slotting Tough with the 3% defense IO and endurance reduction. You don't need the set bonses from Steadfast Protection.

Psionic defense from sets is good when you can reach 20% or 32.5%. Otherwise, sets like Scirocco's Dervish are not as good as recharge bonus sets.

It is a waste of slots to 6-slot Stamina with Performance Shifters. You don't need the set bonuses and Stamina only benefits from EndMod enhancement.