Call Me Awesome
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Quote:Having been on both ends of this particular situation I have to agree. A pair of Illusionists can indeed alternate PA, but you still will occasionally get smacked when PA despawns even if your partner has dropped his first. Frequently LR doesn't swap to the other PA and instead goes after the illusionist before swapping to the new PA. It doesn't take LR very long to turn a controller into a wet spot if he aggros on one. It's also rather difficult to move LR to a location of your choosing with PA; something that's trivially easy for a competent tanker. And, with some team support almost any competent tanker can handle LR.Originally Posted by Local_Man
While, yes, an Illusion Controller with perma-PA can tank LR, it can get a bit tricky . . . that moment when you re-cast PA, Recluse will sometimes refocus on the controller and hit him with a quick smackdown. Two Illusion Controllers can alternate their PA to avoid this, but I have done it several times where Recluse still hunted me down when my PA expired even though the others were out. The best way is to be able to hover overhead and cast PA down on Recluse. (I have done it a few times on all-controller STFs.)
And I wouldn't say that one or two Illusion Controllers is better than a tank. Well, not better than a decent tank. The tank can pull LR around with taunt, and an Illusion controller can't do that.
Of course, given my choice of a good Illusionist and a lousy Tanker to handle LR I'll take the Illusionist. A good Illusionist and a competent tanker? I'll take the tanker. Unfortunately there seem to be a lot more good Illusionists than there are competent tankers.
As a case in point, I was on an ITF last week with 2 tanks, one Invuln and one Fire. I had my Fire/EM blaster on the run. The Fire tanker died, and I kept count, 42 times in the TF... he seemed to use Rise of the Phoenix as part of his attack chain. The Invuln died 8 times... to enemies that should barely have been able to move his HP bar. When I take CMA through the ITF I almost never need to use Dull Pain and I have yet to drop below 50% HP even facing Romy and his Nictus.
Oh, my Fire blaster? I didn't die once on that TF even attacking full out and using my nuke as it came up. When things got hairy I just popped Surge of Power and went on... a blaster with 30% ranged defense and 75% resistance to S/L/E is hard to kill. -
Quote:The flier is actually on a fixed timer; it spawns when the first person enters the mission and then respawns every 20 minutes. What I do is to start a stopwatch when we enter the mission; that way I know the flier will respawn at 20 minutes, 40 minutes etc.Originally Posted by Maniac_Raid
Also, something I didn't see mentioned here(Though I skimmed) is you gotta keep your eyes open for the Arachnos Flyer. Even if you take it down before you go after Recluse, it still can respawn, and cause you to wipe if you're not prepared for it.
On average we finish the corridor and the patron AV's at around the 15-20 minute mark; we know then that the flier's coming back right away. If we're real close to the 20 minute mark we wait for it to respawn, otherwise we frequently kill it, then clear the courtyard and kill it again when it respawns to get an extra 2 merits. We then have ~20 minutes to take out the towers and LR until the flier comes back.
You see there's no guesswork involved; you know exactly when the flier will be back. That reminds me of a... less than stellar PuG I was on a few months ago. After we killed LR they wanted to stay in the mission and, get this, farm the flier for merits.
I and about half of the team (those with a clue) wished them good luck and exited.
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Electric armor should be competent out of the box, and if you have the wherewithal to soft cap at least S/L defense you'll have something highly capable. I've only briefly played Electric armor on a tank, that was during the issue 15? closed beta (whichever issue Electric was ported to tanks anyway) on a level bumped 50 Elec/SS tanker. Since this was a bumped tanker on test I only ran him at 50 and on SO enhancements. It's hard to get a real feel for how a powerset will perform in those circumstances but while I thought it was a bit squishier than a SO enhanced Invuln tanker I could see potential there with IO bonuses.
I've played a Spine/Elec scrapper to 35 and it seems to follow the experience with that tanker on test... somewhat squishy but the combo of Spine & Elec puts out some fairly substantial AOE making it pretty survivable since things died so quickly.
Don't dismiss Shield as defense getting the short end though; with minor IO bonuses a mature Shield tanker is very capable. My Shield/Fire tank has 46-50% defense to all positions and 45% resistance to S/L and 25% to F/C/E/N full time. Hitting One with the Shield before taking a nasty group pushes my resists up to 90% S/L and 59% to F/C/E/N. OwtS lasts 2 minutes and recharges in 6 minutes so it's up 1/3 of the time. Yes, it's less durable than my Inv/Stone tanker but it's hardly on the short end of the stick. I've tanked a MoSTF with it and my only support was my insp tray and a stormy with O2 boost.
On the Electric Melee front I'm working on two electric tankers, one a Dark/Electric at level 24 and the other an Ice/Electric who hit 30 last night. I'm still very much learning the set myself right now but I'm impressed with it's AOE potential although I'd like to see a bit more ST damage. I think once it matures it'll be a solid performer. Jacob's Ladder seems roughly the same AOE as Shadow Maul (or it's vet award clone Sands of Mu); I'd treat it as a ST attack and when it hits multiple targets take that as a bonus. According to Mid's it deals more damage than Havoc Punch and has a 50 degree cone. That's not all that narrow. -
Quote:Much easier and cheaper to soft cap, much more durable at that soft cap than a scrapper due to higher hit points and better resistance are what a Shield tanker has over a Shield scrapper. I have a BS/Shield scrapper softcapped and I have a Shield/Fire tanker softcapped. The scrapper is certainly very tough, but the tank blows him away in durability as it should be when comparing scrapper vs tanker.Originally Posted by _Elektro_
As I start my latest tank project I wonder why someone would choose a Shield tank. I mean stressing the fact that 45 percent defense is the target, you can get there pretty easily with a scrapper.
Oddly enough I hit 50 with my DM/Shield scrapper and thought I'd like to try a tank now, but maybe I'm wrong. I thought the Shield offensive help would be great for a tank, but I'd really like to be able to stand in there and take a beating.... not sure that Shield can do that after reading this thread. So again, I ask, why not just make a Shield scrapper? What can a shield tank do that a scrapper can not? -
Quote:This is certainly a valid tactic on some teams; but I doubt you'd dispute that your team composition and skill is quite a bit above a typical PuG... particularly with teammates making their first run. It would require a tough tanker and probably some outside +def since most tanks would be burning a bunch of purples to stay at 75% the entire time.Originally Posted by NordBlast
You don't have to destroy all towers, but it definitely makes live easier.
On all our runs (even on speed MO) we leave blue tower (like here: http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/a...erIntact-2.jpg).
We were able to defeat LR with blue and red towers up (http://i992.photobucket.com/albums/a...erstanding.jpg).
CMA will go through 1 medium purple per minute to stay at 75%; I typically go in with 8 medium purples, 5-6 large orange, a couple of large greens and a couple of large blues. That's plenty for a typical team to take out the red & blue towers; you'd need a pretty poor team to not get those two towers down in 8 minutes. Once they've finished Red & Blue I usually don't need anything else the rest of the fight.
Oh, one thing that should go without saying, but I'll say anyway. Lord Recluse is a +4 AV... as such the tanker WILL need to taunt him and will need to include Taunt in his attack chain or LR will turn and latch onto a blaster or scrapper who's putting out the most pain. Even with Taunt slotted out the tank can loose aggro in about 30 seconds even if he never stops attacking. I've seen this happen several times and even had it happen to me once when I forgot to taunt and just continued attacking. My solution for this is to include Taunt at least every other attack chain. -
Quote:The only problem with Fire Melee on a scrapper is it's a bit late blooming; while Fire Sword Circle is a fantastic AOE attack it's also the only one in the set. Yes, it could work quite nicely if you give it time to mature though. Heck, I have a Fire/Shield scrapper at 48 and it's a great character. You're right, it DOES excel at single target damage and FSC is a nice, if somewhat slow recharging, AOE.Originally Posted by dave_p
Fire too. I got both a Fire/Fire & Spines/Dark and I really don't know who to give the nod for overall AoE potential. I'm guessing actually a Spines/Fire would be tops, but then Fiery Melee has awesome ST damage too (something Spines frankly sucks at).
Totally agreed w/re your larger point, in that a scrapper is vastly preferable for solo play than tanks. Tanks can do fine damage, esp w/offensive primaries like Fire & SD, but those can also be had for scrappers who are *tough enough* and will run away w/damage. I like soloing my tanks well enough, but they really thrive on big teams.
I certainly agree with the limited ST damage of Spines; I have two of them and they're fantastic at killing large numbers of minions & LT's but they slow way down on bosses. They do a great job of mowing down those large groups of relatively weak mobs though. Of my two Spine scrappers one's a 50 Spine/Regen I leveled in issue 6; I've gotten him out recently and he's still quite capable. The other is a Spine/Electric and at 35 he's really showing a lot of potential; he certainly outperforms the Spine/Regen in damage output. -
Quote:Well, my opinion is that you're looking for a Scrapper rather than a Tanker; the extra durability is overkill solo and a Scrapper will do considerably more damage. Now what kind... it sounds like you're looking for AOE primarily which typically would mean Spines or Electric Melee. Your secondary choice is pretty wide open, all of them would be functional for your purpose. Spine/Dark and Spine/Electric are popular AOE combinations as is Electric/Shield. If you ask this in the Scrapper forum they'll be able to give you a much more detailed answer; some of them live and breath numbers and maximizing potential.Originally Posted by MachineSlave
So i just came back from a year break, and i still dont have Going Rogue, so for a fresh comeback, i was thinking of making a new char, and leveling it by myself, no teams, no nothing for the first bit. Im just thinking, Scrap or Tank for what i want to do to, heres my plan.. Level my char a few levels, like around 5-6, then start farming the sewers by myself. Once i reach atleast 8-10, ill hit street hunt in Perez Park, after head to the hollows for the arcs and sooner or later, going Underground Tunnels to farm.. After that, im not sure, probly teams lol, So my question is, Which Powerset be the best job for this?
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Quote:Are you already at the ED cap in your damage slotting? If so Musculature won't help much, for all practical purposes the Alpha slot adds another SO to each power that can take that type of SO and is mostly subject to ED. Look at your powers and think about what aspects are below ED cap that could be improved... then slot the Alpha accordingly.Originally Posted by Disappearing Man
What would you slot in your Alpha Slot? I am considering slotting a Musculature, as it will improve both my damage and my debuffs, but I often have some endurance problems that a Cardiac could probably fix.
My perma-PA Ill/Rad has Cardiac since I could make full use of another SO worth of endred in all powers, and even with lots of recovery bonuses I still had end issues in long fights. High recharge gives high end usage and most of my powers had 1-2 SO's worth of endred so I got considerable benefit from Cardiac. -
Quote:It's the same story on Guardian as well; forming a TF we very seldom turn anyone down if they meet the minimum level for the TF. Yes, the Incarnate TF's DO require a slotted Alpha but that's very nearly the same as meeting the minimum level to start the TF.Originally Posted by Stone Daemon
This.
I'm also a protector player, and I just can't imagine people turning people away for something as silly as not being level shifted. We invite people all the time that have just dinged 35 to the ITF, and that's essentially the same thing, if not worse (what with having less powers/slotting and all).
I mean, if we can run content now (such as Apex and Tin Mage, let alone normal pre I-19 tf's) on unoptimized teams with no issues, why would the sudden addition of a level shift as a mechanic change anything?
When I'm forming a TF I usually just shout out into the global channels and end up with enough players. Most everyone now has multiple characters available and if we end up with a really bad mix people are generally willing to swap to an alt. Still I tend to go with whatever shows up; if things are really out of sorts I'll swap characters since I have pretty much everything at level 50.
I don't really see this elitism in forming TF teams; if you're above the minimum level and you're early enough to get a slot I'll invite you to the TF. Yes, when forming I do first ask my global friends if they want in but that's a given in any team. Once I know how many slots I have open I start looking for teammates on a first come, first served basis. In my experience that's the way almost every other player recruiting for a team works as well. -
Quote:Hmm, I could see that but you're talking about one hell of a build for a tiny fraction of the game's content. I imagine you'd have one seriously substandard build overall with all the sacrifices made chasing that amount of (almost always) pointless defense.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Or, for at least three minutes at a time, Elude. Slotted SR + Elude + CJ + Weave gets you to about 109% defense. 130% defense is probably within the realm of possibility, and if you figure out how to get to the recharge cap you can have it 90% of the time. With a top tier alpha slotting and a really strong build, I think you could find yourself running around with 145% defense for three minutes at a time under Elude. It would be mighty expensive to get, though, and every time it crashed you would need to run for the hills.
It would be an interesting paper study but I imagine the slotting and set bonuses would be... unconventional. Somehow I get the feeling you probably know that better than I do though.
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The tower buffed Lord Recluse is no joke. The classic solution is to have a tanker taunt him while another teammate keeps the tank alive and the other 6 players kill the towers. This depends on a tough tank though... while the red tower's up it doubles his damage, he can hit for over 50% of a capped resistance tanker's hit points. While the blue tower's up he also has a tohit buff... you need 75% defense to soft cap against him until the blue tower dies. Since he's a +4 AV he'll innately have massive resistance to debuffs and the towers offer enough of a buff to counteract most of what does affect him.
It's very easy to prevent him from summoning his Banes, except for the "pet nuke" he uses at about 15-20% health. You see, his normal summon is interruptable and an autohit tanker aura or a toggle debuff of any sort will prevent him from summoning.
LR has a few "gotchas", for one his Channelgun attack in addition to dealing significant damage also has a substantial endurance drain; it's on par with a Malta Sapper, and while the blue tower's up it's also power boosted. For this reason it's strongly suggested that the tanker carry a few large blues.
Assuming you're using a classic strategy with a tank+support to handle LR and the rest of the team on tower duty you want to take the towers in this order:
- Kill the Red tower to cut his damage output in half. This will make it much easier for the tank to stay alive.
- Kill the Blue tower next to cut out the tohit buff so his chances to hit you fall back to normal for a +4 AV and to eliminate his massive speed boost dropping his power cycle time to normal.
- Kill the Yellow/Orange tower next, it provides a MASSIVE defense bonus to him. You will NOT be able to hit him until this goes down; you will be at the tohit floor.
- Finally kill the Green tower, it gives him immense regeneration and a ~4,000 HP heal every 4 seconds or so. You won't make any headway against that.
Other than that it's your standard AV fight, when he pops that pet nuke at 20% health just ignore the pets and take down LR. If you have a Kin on the team you get a really tasty Fulcrum Shift. Another good tactic is to toss Bonfire or another knockback power under LR, this will send the pets flying and they'll spend most of their time running up and then flying back instead of actually attacking anyone.
There are some tankers who can handle even the tower buffed LR without support; a well built Stone tanker can do it as can a well built Invuln with the appropriate inspiration loadout. When I'm tanking LR I usually handle him solo and send everyone else after the towers, but I'm also considerably tougher than most tankers and have the right inspiration loadout in my tray. I've done it many times with both Invuln and Stone tankers; I do have at least some support though when I'm doing it with my Shield tank.
The keys to tanking him unassisted are:
- 75% defense and as much resistance as possible for the original alpha strike, with my Invuln I use one medium purple and two large orange inspirations. Maintain 75% defense and at least 50% resistance until the red tower dies. If you get hit use your heal or eat a large green if it isn't up.
- Maintain 75% defense until the Blue tower dies; depending on your primary you may or may not be able to allow the orange inspirations to expire.
- Once the Red and Blue towers are down from a defensive point of view LR is a normal +4 AV now, you need 45% defense to soft cap against him and he hits like a normal +4 AV. If your tanker can handle the patron AV's (except for Ghost Widow, that MAG 100 hold is nasty) without assistance he can handle LR once Red and Blue are gone.
I've also run the LRSF once and found it considerably more difficult... undoubtedly mostly because it WAS the first time I'd run it. A group of us took our characters Vigilante and joined a PuG... I think only 1 or 2 on the team had ever run it before.
I'd suggest running the STF a time or two with an experienced team to help you over the rough spots; once you learn how it works you'll find it gets much easier. What server are you on? If you're on Guardian or Pinnacle I'll try and give you a hand through the TF. -
Quote:I can get there with only one set of Kin Combat and a full set of Perfect Zinger or at least 4 Mocking Beratement in Taunt. If I pick up both Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch I could get it done with two sets of Smashing Haymaker and either Zinger or MB in Taunt. Right now I'm at the "it would really be nice to have Havoc Punch" stage but I'm not sure I have room. It's looking like my build will end up with either Aid Self OR Havoc Punch. I really want both but there's only so much room in the inn. One of the attacks probably has to go and it's a choice of Jacob's Ladder or Havoc Punch.Originally Posted by Smersh
Smashing Haymakers will do just fine for an Ice tank... It's what I did with mine, and he's at softcap to S/L with one in EA... and he's currently level 32.
Oh, wait, electric melee... fewer spots for melee sets... yeah, you might need those KCs.
Still, it's quite a ways down until I finalize that. My plan calls for all of Ice armor but Permafrost and dropping Havoc Punch, Build Up and Lightning Clap from Electric. Once I add in CJ/SJ and Boxing/Tough/Weave I'm to the APP. I guess I'll see what works out as I get closer to the end; most of the build is a case of "looks good on paper" since I've never played either set before. -
Quote:I'm not sure if you're serious or if you're tongue in cheek there. You cannot get enough def to matter against those; both are I believe a +100% tohit buff. You'd need 100% defense just to bring them down to normal base tohit and 145% to soft cap. The only way you're going to see numbers approaching that is with multiple purple inspirations or multiple defense buffs from teammates.Originally Posted by Big_Chill
It can't be overkill. I still can't do a damn thing about DE Quartz or Rularuu Eyeballs. I need moar def.
That being the case there's no point in trying to build that level of def; you can't get there anyway and it's way overkill for the mobs you can do something about. -
Quote:I frankly thought that CO's naming method wasn't it's best feature by any means. There were a couple of times I saw multiple characters with the same name... how exactly would you send a tell to that person? How would you invite them to a team?Originally Posted by AquaJAWS
I kinda wish they would switch to a naming convention like one of the other superhero MMOs used, where the name just has to be unique to the account. Real names would be superguy@accountname behind the scenes and for emails and such, but would just be superguy in-game. Getting it like that now might not be possible depending on how its setup in game though. Would still be nice to not have to worry about not getting a name you really wanted for a concept without extra spaces or extra punctuation in the name.
Say I'm building a team and one of the teammates says he has a buddy looking for a slot and his buddy's character is Fantastic Man. In CoH all I do is /i Fantastic Man and everyone's happy. But... if we went to "hidden" global designations attached to the name I have to know that the character I need to invite is actually Fantastic Man@Amazing Super Hero. If there's more than one Fantastic Man online and I send the invite which one gets it? The first one on the list? The one in the same zone? Am I going to need to actually click on the character and invite that way?
I just see a lot of potential problems in this approach and not much of an upside. Oh, I just thought of another... you're teaming with Fantastic Man and he's an utter idiot. Then, you get on a different team with a different Fantastic Man. Well, you know that you just teamed with this idiot and he was a waste of time... so even though the second Fantastic Man is a great player he's still dealing with people thinking they're dealing with the other guy. I'd certainly hate for an incompetent player to end up with the same name as my character... you're dealing with a bad reputation that you didn't earn. -
Quote:I'd guess that it would affect summoned pets the exact same way being SK'd to a higher level does... it's increasing your combat level so your monkeys would spawn at -1 to your combat level... in this case where your combat level is 51 the monkeys would be 50.Originally Posted by Stone Daemon
Well, now that we've had fun mulling over the ramifications of the level shift as it applies to the rewards table, I have a new one for ya'll to think over.
What do you think the level shift will mean for pets? If this is a player buff (or whatever you want to call it) that isn't technically raising our level...does that mean our pets (whose level is dependent on ours) will be left high and dry?
This is just my guess based on a level shift working like a SK. The only people who'd know for sure can't tell us.
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Ah, just read Arcana's description of the mechanics a few posts above. Still, I'd think that it should work the same for pets as it does for you; they should also function as if they were higher level for tohit and damage. -
The Fire/Shield scrapper mentioned above is a really good combo; I have one at level 48 and it's an engine of destruction.
Nothing in the game offers the force multiplier effect that a team of Fire/Rad controllers do, by itself it's competent but if you put 8 of them together you'll go through huge groups of +4 mobs like they're gray.
Ill/Rad controllers are capable of soloing virtually anything up to and including Giant Monsters. They're strong on ST damage but outside of the APP pools they're lacking in AOE.
SoA (Villain epic ATs) can offer tons of damage coupled with great team buffs. There's so many ways to build them that you can pretty much make them into anything. Claw/Super Reflexes scrapper with defender level team buffs? Sure. Blaster with team buffs and SR scrapper level defenses? Sure.
I think you'll enjoy that Fire/Shield once you get some levels on him. Like all defense sets Shield has some growing pains but once it matures and you add IO bonuses it gets very good. -
Quote:Looking it over it's not too far from what I'd been planning as a back of the envelope build; it's the same basic thought process anyway. All those Kin Combat IO's are going to be a challenge... with all the i19 respecs I've kind of depleted my store of those. A month ago I had 8 full sets in storage... now I have 3 lonely IO's sitting in the storage rack.Originally Posted by Rangle M. Down
CMA. I'd echo what Dechs' said concerning your Dark/Elec. Also, given the choice between Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom, CoF doesn't make the cut. I will take Cloak of Darkness. As mentioned, OG will stack stuns with Elec Melee as well.
Here's the first build I'd done for my dark/elec tank, pre-i19. It's not perfect, and I still need to revise it to an i19 build, but hopefully it will give you some ideas.
I think I have 3 characters right now working on those sets... my 28 Ice/Electric tanker, the 24 Dark/Electric tanker and my 50 Stone/Fire tank. It gets expensive working on IO builds for a dozen characters all at once and influence doesn't go as far anymore. On the other hand my Shield/Fire tank had an Armageddon drop night before last that sold for 700 million... fortunate since I'd just dropped over 100 million on that level 28 Ice/Elec. -
... you actually start to understand what Pepsiman is saying.
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Quote:Hey, I did say:Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I am shocked that you not once mentioned Dark Armor, which can easily surpass the survivability of even your invuln tankers in many situations, S/L damage included.
In every case I know of though we're talking about pretty massive bonuses to get there.Quote:There's a cluster of tanks in the next rank, some of which approach the durability of Invuln or even exceed it in certain situations.
Oh, speaking of Dark, I'm working on a Dark/Elec tanker, currently level 24 based on your subtle comments on Dark's effectiveness. On SO enhancements (with a couple of KB IO's) it's competent, but not fantastic right now. So far the only power I'm on the fence about is Cloak of Darkness... it's a minor source of defense but I've found on other tanks that stealth powers slow down initial aggro acquisition. Yeah, once the aura hits you're golden but you don't get that initial "sight" aggro.
Any thoughts? Here's how he sits right now:
I've planned Tough & Weave for 26 & 28, and getting some endred into Dark Embrace. Later on I'm planning to soft cap for S/L and punch E/N as high as I practically can.Code:| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1176;510;1020;HEX;| |78DA9592DF4ED44014C6A7DBB2A5DBEE6E97BAB01249B8F0462F9A183541BD30E86| |262C2CA060857E066684668B676C9B42670E703F80A3E87FCD14700E541502FBD2B| |E73067CBB24D4C98647EDFF49B7366CE74A6B3DF7618FBFC9269CEEB8827496F9DC| |77D21CD773CFD2479E4BE8A78D09F5FD94BE6D75219F685C918BBAB627A6DF141C4| |89F0DB5CF67B8BF2E340CED14C474442F84B91082029E091321A6FE35D21459CFAC| |381DD1D0C22FF4D14EEECA65535C66118EFFCEFCB5BDA0B037F51066918F43A3C49| |853C68415D4FA11F5A000D3ACB74D682C10C2B4DC197A1E76A909ED619B54C09784| |790AE51BA36165F1EAAA9F40CF275956FE8943FA9DFD4CA5029E718D69F50EBB309| |F24EC033AF6ACE7493D67168CEA928AD91FE823D2DAAD96A28CF86589B3C9BF2BE4| |35095BCEA3F86BFE11C52D58933BD4EDBB854DED498FE8480868A2D3528F68E7E53| |BFC1169E3A4AC9A36DA729769A627E404C938EDBA439CDC46A9437435E76EB76CF1| |8B93C34D872C1E91AF41472E78191BF0EA65D391795FCC299E6A96A7E8F7A35E5FD| |19F5EE83B46E57F49133ACCE5AC5BB5C4774111B884DC416E23D8223B61101223BC| |9B3EB0B78846788E7881788A60BF88291263E041BE120AA881AA28E70111E6216F1| |1591596EFE8CC7DBDFEB4397B432BD4452B73C72750F0BFFFE51C17952701E179CE| |BAD2F0158101E57| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
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Quote:Granite doesn't "remove" any enhancement, it applies a debuff to your powers after all enhancement (and ED) are taken into account. Look over your build and think on what would help you the most. Think of how many powers would benefit from another SO of _____ to get closer to the ED cap in your build. Since your attacks are already ED capped for damage the Musculature won't do much... basically it would be like adding a 4th SO subject to ED. Expect to get roughly 10% more damage including the small portion that ignores ED (I'm no math wiz but my recollection of the numbers is that it's approximately that).Originally Posted by cohRock
Except for Stone Fist, his attacks are 3-slotted with damage. The only power which has 3 recharges in it is Hasten itself. And endurance had been a problem, outside of Granite, until he picked up Physical Perfection, granting a significant boost to both recovery and regen. (End. was not a problem within Granite armor, because with the -0.70 recharge penalty, he didn't use end very fast.)
If I understand what you are saying, the Musculature damage boost will not overcome the Granite armor damage penalty. I.e., even though Granite effectively removes one SO of damage, the Alpha slot damage boost would not replace the "missing" SO. Right?
In that event, the Spiritual recharge boost definately sounds the way to go.
If your powers generally only have one or maybe two SO's worth of recharge then Spiritual will give you good returns... of course with better recharge comes greater endurance use. Most of my Incarnates went with Cardiac simply because it was something that I'd get full benefit from. My Stone/Fire tank went with the Spiritual and the extra recharge was certainly noticeable. However, I also went from no end problems at all to fairly significant ones... I'll need to add the Miracle proc to the build to compensate. It did come as something of a surprise as I'd gotten used to having no end worries... adding the Spiritual brought them back in spades.
You may want to look at the additional boost from the uncommon alpha... the Cardiac Radial for example adds damage resistance while the Spiritual Radial adds healing, which would apply to Earth's Embrace and your regeneration. The Rare and Ultra Rare also add other bonuses, although since they aren't in the game as of yet I'd take them with a grain of salt; it's certainly possible they may change when they go live. -
Quote:Stone armor is, unquestionably, the most durable tanker in the game with Granite armor. It pays for that durability with massive mobility penalties along with damage and recharge penalties. Even on pure SO enhancements a Granite tank can stand up to anything in the game. Nothing else can equal it's durability although a soft capped Invuln tank can come reasonably close.Originally Posted by Icesphere
Hey guys!
Never made a tank before and was wondering what should my first tank be? I want ice because I don't see many people with it and it looks really amazing. On the other hand stone armor, i heard, is one of the hardest to bring down. People are always asking for a stone tank and generally want nothing to do with most others from what i've seen.
I guess what i'm trying to say is: if i go with ice, can i make him so he is a badass tank and can take damage like other tanks? I know a lot of people will say "go with what i want", but if i can make my ice indestructable i would love to go that route. Any advice?
Ice will be considerably less durable, however it doesn't have any penalties and it does have the best aggro management tools in the game. On SO enhancements, or with limited IO bonuses it has a reputation of being fairly squishy. I've seen Ice tankers who were more than up to the task and I've seen Ice tankers who were about as durable as a wet kleenex. Right now I'm leveling an Ice/Electric tanker and at 28 he's soft capped to E/N damage and at 40% to S/L... he'll hit the soft cap for S/L at 31 on my current build plan. I'm finding him to be quite durable so far although my build is a bit out of reach for the average new player at a bit over 100 million right now... I expect to have a bit over 500 million invested by the time he hits 50.
Regarding the pairings you mention, I wouldn't use those myself... Stone Melee hits hard but it also recharges slowly... not really ideal for a tanker with a recharge penalty. My favorite pairing for Stone armor is Fire melee... one thing Stone does NOT need is mitigation from the secondary so the high damage set of fire melee is ideal, and it recharges relatively quickly.
An Ice/Stone tank would work quite well though; Ice can use the mitigation Stone Melee provides and it won't have problems with the high endurance usage with Energy Absorption.
Ice Melee is a high mitigation set that unfortunately has fairly low damage. Depending on your desires with the tank it may not be the way you want to go. -
Quote:A tanker has a HARD cap of 90% resistance... at that cap an attack that does 1,000 damage will do 100. The resistance cap is referred to as a hard cap simply because the game will not allow you to get more than that no matter what buffs you may have.Originally Posted by DeathHarvester
I posted asking "How much Def. is to much?" It's gotten some nice response and helped me understand some things that wasn't aware of. Thanks for all the feedback, got a new build in the works. But now I'm wondering about Resistance Tanks. Does it follow close to the same guide lines as a Defens Tank? Is there going to be such a thing as overkill resistance %, or is it completly different and needs to be build for the most possible? I've got several different tanks, never got into the numbers on them much but now I'm wanting to up my game and see what I've been missing. Thanks again in advnace for any and all info. and suggestions!
This is theoretical on most tankers as very few can reach that 90% cap absent outside buffs in more than one category. Invuln tankers can easily reach 90% resistance to S/L with Tough; and Unstoppable will cap out everything but Psi for 3 minutes. Stone tanks in Granite will cap S/L and reach 80% in E/N/F/C resistance. Fire tanks will cap out Fire resistance while Ice tanks will cap Cold resistance.
The problem with a pure resistance tanker is that he'll get hit by most of the attacks thrown at him, they'll just do less damage. Even level Minions will hit 50% of the time while LT's and Bosses will hit more often... this is why resistance tankers tend to perform poorer than those that combine moderate resistance with good defense.
It's hard to give you much more advise without knowing what sets you're thinking about. Remember that if you're looking for toughness the hybrid sets that combine resistance with defense and healing will outperform the pure resist and pure defense sets.
If you're looking for the toughest tanker in the game then you want a Stone tanker. Unfortunately they pay for that durability with damage, recharge and mobility penalties.
Next on the totem pole, assuming a good IO build, is Invulnerability. It's just below Granite Armor for durability without all the drawbacks. In my opinion it's the best all around set.
There's a cluster of tanks in the next rank, some of which approach the durability of Invuln or even exceed it in certain situations. Shield is in the middle of the pack of this group; tough enough if built right with great damage output, it's the best combination of durability and damage output thanks to AAO and Shield Charge.
Generally speaking the pure resistance tankers fall into the next category; Fire and Electric. Given lots of IO defense bonuses they can move up into the next category... with enough bonuses they can move up quite a lot. -
Quote:Maybe not as intended, but it's certainly as designed and it makes a very noticeable difference. Tohit debuffs are something you can almost completely ignore; I've never had my Shield/Fire tanker debuffed by more than about 4-5% even on an ITF.Originally Posted by MajorPrankster
I do not use the membranes as that is considered to not be WAI.
I am running grant cover.
I do not have Percy's build handy.
On the flipside most Hami-O's are getting pretty expensive so if your budget is limited then that may be a factor. -
Quote:Here's the thing with the Alpha boost. It basically adds one SO of enhancement to every power that can slot that type of enhancement. If your attacks are all slotted to ED cap damage then adding the Musculature will pretty much add another SO of damage... subjected to ED. Yes, a small part of the enhancement ignores ED but don't expect much bonus out of it.Originally Posted by cohRock
My very first character is a stone/stone tank. He has earned his incarnate alpha slot, but it is not yet slotted. I'm not sure which direction to go. I would like to reduce the penalties of Granite armor, which reduces both attack rate and damage.
Attack rate is reduced to an extent such that the Hasten power needs to be up to pretty-much counter the Granite armor recharge penalty. Hasten is a 70% recharge boost, so I would expect the Alpha Spiritual buff, at 33% recharge, would reduce the penalty by about half. Is this correct?
Damage is reduced to an extent such that it is like losing a damage SO in each attack, normally about 33%. I would expect the Alpha Musculature buff, at 33% damage, would completely eliminate this particular penalty. It might even be better than that, due to a reduced ED penalty.
He has Hasten, and he typically only starts up Granite when he needs to. He has the full set of Stone armors at his disposal. When he starts up Granite, he also starts Hasten, which is not set to auto-run. He also has the Physical Perfection Ancillary power, as well as Assault and Tactics. So his regen, recovery, damage, and accuracy are already receiving some buffage.
Given this backdrop, which do you-all feel would be the better Alpha choice, Spiritual or Musculature?
The same applies to Hasten, assuming it's at ED cap recharge you'll shave a few seconds with Spiritual but nothing major. It WILL however work to full effect on any of your powers that aren't already heavily slotted for recharge.
Given the choice between the Musculature and Spiritual you're almost certainly getting more out of the Spiritual. However, what's your endurance usage like? I'll bet very few if any of your powers are anywhere near ED cap for endurance reduction in which case Cardiac may be your best choice. -
Quote:The PTOD aren't up full time; in a 2 minute fight I never once got him controlled. I know that I was able to handle him with ease with my Ill/Rad, it must be something with Mind's controls being resisted heavily.Originally Posted by Katie V
You're facing a downscaled AV here. You need to stack mag 54 confuse/hold on him or (IIRC) mag 6 sleep to mez through the purple triangles of doom.
On the plus side, you're /kin. Don't bother mezzing him, just debuff his damage. Between Siphon Power (you did take it, didn't you?) and Fulcrum Shift, you can get him down to doing only 10% normal damage. It's really quite amusing to see powers such as Total Focus hit for trivial amounts of damage. If you still can't handle his melee damage, use Siphon Speed to slow him to a crawl and attack from range.
That Mind/Kin was the only character I've run solo that had any trouble; Holtz was a piece of cake but Honoree was pretty well undoable with that character. I was spamming both siphons and Fulcrum. I'm sure I could have done it by loading up on inspirations but I'd gotten frustrated by that point and just said heck with it and waited until the SG logged in. I don't know why I never had a single control land on him... hold, confuse or sleep; none of them had any effect from that Mind 'troller. Interestingly enough I WAS getting him held without much problem on the Ill/Rad.
I don't know if I ran into a bug or if something about Mind Control doesn't mix with the Honoree; I'm at a loss to explain it. Usually I'd be agreeing with you about being able to handle him; for some reason it wasn't working that time. I like to think I have some clue what I'm doing which makes my results even more perplexing.