EricHough

The question about survivability vs damage on tanks, brutes and scrappers has always been one that bugged me. I avoided tanks for ages, mostly because I have a minimum solo killing speed requirement that I need in a toon before I can stick with them and usually tanks did not meet that. This isn't something I can give numbers for - its more of a feel thing and tanks just fall short (I won't touch defenders, even after their last damage boost, I don't have the patience for controllers any more now that I have my plant troller at 50 and I even get impatient with corruptors).

But a while ago I wanted to see if there really was a noticable difference in survivability when you where playing a tank. It was just after I got my first shield scrapper to 50, a fire/shield. After getting her def soft capped and reasonably IO'ed out (I don't bother with purples, not worth the expense, but I do like to get 50%-75% global recharge if I can) I decided to do try to level up a shield tanker under the theory that once both characters hit the softcap the only thing that would stand out is the higher base resistance values (which didn't seem all THAT much higher) and hit points, so I could get a good feeling for the pure base difference between the to AT's.

So I leveled up Andromache, a Shield/SS tank to 50, got her to just the def softcap and then devoted extra slots to HPT and deflection so I could boost her resistances. I then picked up all the +hp accolades I could and slotted for +hp/+regen bonuses. The difference was amazing - mission settings of +1/x8 or +2/x8 that would have my fire/shield sucking down greens to stay alive (2-3 in every battle, if not more) my tank would wade through without needing any inspirations - she barely took any damage and what she did take barely dented her green bar. In fact, pretty much the only insps she needs are yellows for those pesky master illusionists and all the -to hit they stack up (seriously - even with rage they would drop my base to hit to 50% or less) and blues just in case I get a badly timed rage crash.

When incarnate slots came out she just got better - I picked up a tier4 cardiac alpha which gave her a huge boost in resistance to the point where she can hardcap S/L resists when OWTS is up and gets around 60%-70% S/L resist with a double stack of the tanker ATO proc, which isn't hard to keep up.

Now there is still the trade off - shield/ss is about as damage heavy a tank as you are going to get (with fire/ss probably beating it) and the kill speed is still a little slower than I prefer, but its acceptable. An SS/Shield brute would be closer in damage to a scrapper but since brutes start out at the same resistance numbers as the scrapper and only slightly more HP I suspect my tank is still going to be a lot more survivable unless the brute has a lot of extra, outside buffs.

So you DO get something out of a tank that brutes and scrappers can't offer, at least solo and even in a group unless you have some serious extra resistance/hp buffs for the brute. In the end, as many folks have mentioned, it really does boil down to playstyle preference. If you want to play a character that can be very easily build to survive and don't mind the cut in damage, a tank is going to be your choice. If you want to live on the edge and be primarly a damage dealer, play a scrapper, if you want to balance the two with the caveat that you really need outside buffs to reach tank levels of survivability, play a brute.

Despite the fact that Andromache is the closest I have to a main character, was my primary hamidon raider back in the days when protector was still doing weekly hami raids and is a blast to play when I do pull her out, my choice is still on the brute/scrapper side. I tend towards brute currently - but that is only because between taunt and taunt auras I can keep ahead of the moronic 'run way run away' AI that drives me crazy on scrappers - otherwise I would probably play 50/50 scrappers brutes. Other folks are going to have to make their own call.

Well, from what I remember Synapse posting as he took input and updated his plan for changing the PPM's (and all procs in the end, since everything is changing to PPM's) the best strategy, especially for powers like the AoE immobs is to slot no reharge in the power itself, rely totally on global recharge.

Doing this will meant the procs should use the standard 8 second recharge to calculate their chance to fire and since the base goal of the changes seem to be centered around making procs slotted in powers with approx a 3-4 second recharge have the same chance to fire that they do now it should mean an overall increase in procability, not decrease. (is procability a word? The spellchecker doesn't think so :-).

I do agree that switching all existing procs to a PPM system, rather than the current flat rate, is a big enough change that it merits a freespec - but I thought that about the changes in i22 and we didn't get one until the anniversary date, so who knows what the dev's think. Unfortunately, this is all two issues away so it is going to leave at lot up in the air until we get i24 on beta and can actually test it.

On a pure SO buid I would tend to go with Willpower -its pretty much the best general purpose melee defense set. Invuln is going to shine against smashing/lethal and so is going to outpower WP in things like the ITF but as soon as you get any reasonable amounts of exotic damage the regen that WP gets plus its decent base def values are going to push it in the lead - and psionic damage is going to chew up invuln.

Without IO's invuln is also going to be a lot more end hungry than WP, especially if you want to stack tough and weave on top of the invuln toggles. While I believe both sets cost about the same in the end to power their toggles, WP gives you quick recovery to stack with stamina, so its a clear winner there. Also, one of the primary strategies to boost invuln's survival is to get perma or near perma dull pain - which you won't on pure SO's, where WP gets HPT. HPT may only give you half the HP boost of dull pain - but its up all the time.

If you want to be king of the ITF (or close to it) then invuln is a good choice - if you want better general survivability and a smoother ride from 1-50 go with WP.

Keeping in mind that I primarily solo, only grouping to run TF's and the occasional low level trial, my enhancement strategy used to be the following

1) <L22 - slot DO's and lower level SO's purchased from Mr. Yin in faultline until I hit 22 - the exception is that I have a crafter character who can make L15 accuracy IO's which are far better than DO's at all levels you can slot them. The exact mix of enhancement type would depend on the AT and origin, since the origin dictates what type of SO's you can buy from Mr. Yin. I generally go mutant/natural for damage SO's or magic for Accuracy. I usually slotted up my attacks first, going for 4-5 slots each with the goal of having my primary attacks 5 slotted as soon as possible which prepped them for step 2

2) Starting at 22 I try to frankenslot all my attacks with cheap set IO's, going for enhancment value and ignoring set bonuses. 2 x Acc/Dam, 1x Dam/End, 1 x Dam/Rech and some kind of triple in the last slot (acc/dam/end, acc/dam/rech or dam/end rech) would generally give me 40-56% acc, 90% damage, 20-36% end reduction and recharge in all attacks. I would put SO's in everything else at this point with a few other powers frankenslotted with cheap set IO's as well like controls - there are a ton of easy to get IO's for controls that don't give set bonuses but can optimize your enhancment slotting

3) At level 27 I replace all my SO's with common IO's and at 28+ I start replacing the frankenslotted sets with sets that give me the global bonuses I want. I don't rush this, slotting stuff up as my bids on the market get filled. This gives me time to assemble sets I want for a reasonable price.

4) At L47 (and sometimes before) I will respec into a final build where I can capitalize on the fact that I can reduce overall slots in some powers by putting 1-2 L50 IO's in place of what used to take 3-4 slots. Recently I started using enhancement boosters to push stuff up to 50+5 in some cases becuase I have a bunch of those I picked up when I bought some super packs.

The most recent change to this pattern is that I don't always frankenslot my attacks fully at L22. The L25 set IO's that used to be easy to get your hands on and relatively cheap (25k per IO) are a little more expensive but more importantly, a lot harder to get. So fewer folks are selling them on the market that there is very low supply. So on some toons I have been mixing multi-aspect IO's and SO's or even going all SO's until L27-28. I also have a lot of stuff in base storage - old enhancements pulled from characters I have decided not to play any more, stuff I got as drops while leveling but couldn't use on that character, etc.

For enhancement goals the first goal should be to make sure you have enough accuracy to HIT things reliably - that means you really want to be at 90% to hit or higher against whatever level mobs you prefer to fight. Then I slot up enough end reductiuon so I don't burn through my end to fast and recharge so that the attacks/powers are up often enough - then I shoe in damage, control, whatever.

I stick all 5 pieces other than the proc in one of my AoE controls - usually one that I would normally slot a set that gives 6.25% global recharge, since I almost always have a ton of powers that can take IO sets that offer 6.25% recharge sets and usually hit the 5 bonus limit quickly. Plus, the enhancement bonuses are very nice for a control set - good accuracy (enough to make up for the usual 0.8 base acc in most AoE controls), long control boost, great recharge and decent end reduction. Then I stick the proc in one of my frequently used single target attacks - usually the one with the longest recharge is best right now although with the coming i24 change to PPM procs that will probably even out in the end.

While you can stick a 5 piece set including the proc in your single target hold I think its a waste of slotting because you can put a Gaze of the basilisk set there for nearly as much recharge boost in only 4 slots. Plus I find my dom's don't fire off thier single target holds as often as you would think, especially once you get perma-dom. With perma-dom you use your main AoE control to lock down a group, maybe throw out one single target hold to catch a mob you missed, then you go to town on damaging attacks. You might throw off your single target hold a second time to keep a boss locked down but that's about it in a group.

As an example, my dark/dark dominator has the 5 normal pieces in the AoE stun and the proc in Midnight grasp. In a normal fight she will easily have the damage boost from the proc stacked 2 times and frequently up to 3 times.

I know that there are less SF's redside than there are TF's blueside, so I expect a bit more repition but its starting to get silly - in April Ice Mistral was the WST every other week and they are repeating that with May.

It not like they even pick interesting SF's in the off week - its almost always a respec trial or some high level co-op TF.

Please folks - could we get SOME kind of variation on redside. I know you all hate redside () but this is getting old.

You know, I get that there are fewer SF's on redside to select for the WST, so I expect a little repitition - but last month Ice Mistral was the WST every other week and its the same way this month. Even in the off weeks its not like they pick another intersting SF - its almost always a respec trial or one of the coop ones.

Its getting a little tiring - I like Ice Mistral well enough but a little variety would be really nice.

I have a stalker, brute and scrapper on live. Here are the numbers I have observed so far:

Form of the Body
Scrapper: 5% / 11.25% / 18.75%
Brute/Stalker: 4% / 9% / 15%

Form of the Mind, Scrapper/Brute: 4% / 9% / 15%

Form of the Soul, Scrapper/Brute: 6.15% / 14.25% / 24.8%

The values for form of soul are a little hard to decipher - first off, for some reason the form of soul buff appears twice in the combat monitor window - so the total value shown for overall end discount is funky, I checked the actual value by opening the full combat attributes window and looking at the source, not the total end reduction.

Next, the combat display for global end reduction is wierd - it doesn't display the actual end reduction modifier, it displays some wierdly calculated value that is odd. For example, the secondary mutation power pain tolerance is supposed to give you a 30% end discount, it shows up in the combat attributes window as 23%.

I think what they are doing is caclulating how much end you would SAVE on a power if there were no other end reduction applied and displaying that as a percentage. So on a power that cost 100 end a 30% end reduction would make it cost 76.9 end (100/1.3). Rounded up that is 77 end which means you saved 23 end total - or a 23% end savings, which explains the displayed value for pain tolerance. Based on that, the actual end reduction for form of soul is:

6.5% / 16.5% / 33%

which matches what JayboH remembered from beta for the 3 stack.