NOTE! This page has not yet been adjusted for IOs and their affect on slotting and builds.
Incandescence
No cost auto-power that increases your energy and negative energy resistance. Energy attacks include radiation, darkness powers, lasers, electricity, etc. Common enemy types that use these include council, shivans, and clocks
Shining Shield
Increases resistance to lethal and smashing. This includes bullets, bats, rocks, punches, or anything else that's a form of physical damage. Since this is by far the most common form of damage in the game, this shield is the most useful.
 | Unslotted Damage Resistance |  | 21% Reduction of Smashing/Lethal |  |
If you plan to go all human, taking the shields is a good idea. Otherwise, it's something I just don't use that much.
Essence Boost
Increases your life total temporarily and heals you slightly. Useful before a tough battle for not getting killed right away, but also often used as a heal when needed that also makes you tougher at the same time.
| Life Increase | | 29% of Previous Life Total | |
| Effective Heal | | 40% of Previous Life Total | |
So you can use it to increase your life total by 30ish percent or you can use it as a heal that heals for about 40 percent of your life total (AND increases your life total
Thermal Shield
Increases resistance to fire, cold, and toxic damage. This includes zombie puke, demon fire, and, uh… that's kind of it. Not much uses cold. It's there now and then, but very, very rare. For the most part, just a few council and crey use it. The toxic protection is good in low levels where you fight vhaz, but the fire will serve you well throughout the game.
| Unslotted Damage Resistance | | 22% Reduction of Fire/Cold/Toxic | |
I don't think I'll have room in my build for this, but it's worth noting.
Quantum Shield
Increases resistance to energy and negative energy. Same as Absorption, but stronger. Turn it on when you need it, but note that many more enemies use energy attacks than fire, cold, or toxic (especially since you will always find yourself facing other Kheldians and a large amount of council in your missions as a Kheldian). If you had to choose, chances are this shield will serve you better than Thermal Shield.
| Unslotted Damage Resistance | | 26% Reduction of Energy/Negative Energy | |
Group Energy Flight
If you can think of a use for Group Fly, you're a better hero than I. If you think it's good, get it. It works exactly the same as the power pool version.
White Dwarf
Right on! It's your tank form. Not only do you get a bunch of new powers automatically, you have extremely high resistance to all damage (except psionics) and any type of hold, slow, or knockback. You would have to run all three of the other shields to equal this and for this reason, I go mostly shieldless and just switch to dwarf for defense.
Note that while the Dwarf form also has a bonus to endurance regeneration, there's little point in slotting it unless you plan to fight in Dwarf form a lot.
White Dwarf Strike
Medium damage, but slow to recharge. Might knock down an opponent (as opposed to knockback).
| Unslotted Strength | | 300% of Brawl | |
White Dwarf Smite
Stronger and adds possible disorient or dropping flyers on top of what Strike does. Still better than most human form attacks, but still fairly slow.
| Unslotted Strength | | 491% of Brawl | |
White Dwarf Flare
Same as the human version. You have to be on the ground, but wham! So the WS has double mire, you have double flare!
| Unslotted Strength | | 345% of Brawl | |
You might want to slot this to the top if you use it in a combo as I do.
White Dwarf Sublimation
Same as Reform Essence. It's a self heal that comes in very handy. When you start to get into trouble, you can just change to dwarf form for high defense and hit this power to heal too.
| Unslotted Heal Strength | | 25% of Your Life Total | |
White Dwarf Step
It teleport again. Useful for your tank form because it moves so slowly. Teleport is a great way to start a battle by just popping right into the middle of an enemy group. It's also great to escape immobilization
/bind ctrl+lbutton “powexec_name White Dwarf Step"
This bind lets you teleport in any direction with a simple point and click (while holding CTRL). Since it uses “lbutton" in the bind, it activates without using the target which can be useful in battle (as opposed to the shift bind I suggested before for your travel teleport which DOES give you a target).
White Dwarf Antagonize
A taunt power that works on a target and surrounding enemies. If you are tanking for your team, this will help you control aggro.
Reform Essence
This is a great way to gain a little extra life. If you plan to play mostly human, a Shield power would be smarter due to the fact that prevention of damage is better than healing it after the fact (assuming you put your energy into the right shield for the time. Otherwise if you're allergic to toggles the way I am, you might benefit from the extra heal Reform Essence provides.
| Unslotted Heal Strength | | 25% of Your Life Total | |
Conserve Energy
Makes all your powers cost less endurance for a few seconds. If anything will help you skip the Fitness pool, this is it. The problem is that it doesn't come back nearly as often as you need so you'll end up holding it for particularly tough battles.
I'm not a fan of powers that need to be held until they're useful since you tend to never use them, but there's no way you should skip this power. Every 5 minutes (or less with enhancements), you can unload PB fury like crazy!
Quantum Flight
Gives you stealth, intangibility, and faster flight than your normal power. Apparently the end drain is insane, but considering there's no activation time like Phase Shift so it makes a fantastic escape power.
I bet this power pisses off Villains in pvp 
.
Restore Essence
A self rez that brings you to half life and endurance.
Light Form
High resistance to all damage (except Psi of course), resistance to Disorient, Immob, Hold, sleep. Endurance recovery increase. It blocks shifting to Nova or Dwarf, but you are so tough, who needs it? This power is a lot like Unstoppable from the invulnerability set so beware of the health and endurance crash at the end.
