G_Tanker

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We need to start spreading the word that AE farms are NOT the best way to level by any means, but are in fact a difficult, boring exercise in frustration that involve much more debt than XP.

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Hmm. I took a new scrapper from 1-50 between Saturday night and Weds afternoon, and I worked Mon-Wed. I led AE pugs for the majority of that (I joined one or two pugs when I had work to do IRL and didn't want the stress of managing people), so it was far from the most efficient (or stress-free, *ugh* pug players, I do not have unlimited energy and focus to the point where I can lead, teach, pull and tank simultaneously!) way to get it done. For efficiency, with teamwork and 2-3 friends, you can produce a new 50 in a day or two thanks to the AE (definitely under 24 hours of play, from what I've seen).

Anyhoo. I personally think it is quite out of whack that this is available, but it lets me try new concepts faster, so I'll use it till they nerf it. I like what it's done to the economy - casual players will find their random salvage sells for much more than it used to at times ("lolwhut destiny sold for 150K?!") due to the greater consumption of salvage combined with little to non produced by AE-players (there ARE salvage buys and rolls, but they're not used to such an extent that it makes up for the gap, in my subjective observation). So, I like what AE has done to the casual player's wallet; Getting SO's as you level up now should be trivial. I have serious concerns about where the economy is heading (with no economic background, mind you, so again they're subjective) - players can now generate INF faster than ever and all that the game subtracts from the INF pool is the cost of combining a recipe and the fee at BM/WW. Mudflation mudflation mudflation!

I agree that it's dumbing down the player population even further than it already was, but this is a "for fun" game, hardly a competitive MMO.

Mmmmm Broadsword/Fire....

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Take Taunt?

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I was seriously looking at that on two of my darks...

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I have had tanks quit the team saying - you don't need me. Happened last night and we replaced him with a blaster. I actually like to have a tank on the team - I let him get the first group and I bring 2 more back to the team. Some get offended, when really if they just went with it everyone benefits.

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Yep. Plenty of tankers quit when they realize they aren't leading or needed.

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Face Planting WP Tankers: 9/10 times these are poorly built and/or poorly schemed builds. Either without Tough/Weave (which a WP Tanker must have to group tank imo) and/or without some form of AOE mitigation (i.e. KD, Stuns, etc ...). I've seen WP/Fire Tankers with Tough/Weave face plant a bunch (this is from lack of mitigation in my estimation). I haven't actually seen a WP/DM Tanker in-game yet, but I'd imagine that it wouldn't be quite as squishy as WP/Fire (for the reasons Sarrate points out).

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I want to point out - aoe mitigation in your secondary is important. It's why I recommended stone, mace and SS. SS has to wait the longest, unfortunately.

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Also L54 boss farms plant most non-Stone, non-Invuln Tankers. By and large L54 boss farms are bad farms in my experience (takes too long to kill, even with a great kill team). L52 boss farms seem to be the pinnacle of boss farms for efficiency.

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My experiences differ greatly, but I suspect we build teams differently as well. Also, I tend not to take farming seriously, just use it as a leveling tool when I want to. IE: I just did 49->50 on said invuln scrapper leading a 54 pug farm (since writing my last post in this thread) in ~30m (mostly 35-40 team, with only middling coordination - quite a few needless deaths) just in time to run to a happy hour That's by no means meant to be a speed record or set a competitive bar given that it was a *pug*, but my experience has been 54 boss spawn exp is quite good when spawns are melting.

Edit: I think I did 48 earlier today in another half hour group if memory serves, so edited to reflect that. Haven't really been keeping track, and bar is calling.

Look up Cerulean Watchman....

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G_tanker you said you saw a lot of WP tankers face plant on the 54 boss farm. Why do you think they face planted and how can you build a tanker to avoid that? Does WP suck at Tanking?

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Let me answer for G_tanker.
I'm going to guess the WP Tanks he saw faceplant either did not have Tough and Weave or just were not good at Tanking.

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I can speak for myself, thanks, I have lots to say about terrible tanks.

First off, willpower is a middle of the road set. It does not really excel at anything - jack of all trades syndrome. It can be built for pretty much anything, however. Innately, as a set, it does not have a great starting point against 54 smash/lethal bosses.

Many of the terrible tanks I've seen this week did have tough and weave. Some were too stupid to run them, I kid you not (too much endurance? lol). Incidentally, one non-WP highlight of this week was the stone tanker that didn't enhance granite and was going down where my invuln scrapper had no problems. That cracked me up.

Typically they weren't played/built. 54 smash/lethal bosses are not WP's forte innately the way it is for invuln or stone - they do more damage per hit than lower bosses, meaning more needs to be regenerated, and the -tohit effect is much weaker vs them. Higher resistance is important if you want to stand up to that much damage consistently, and you definitely want to softcap S/L or melee for that environment if you can manage it. (Of course, one FF defender or Fort and you're pretty good!)

By comparison, my invuln scrapper was tanked 53's from 28-39 and 54's since then in the last few days. I simply IO'd out for defense to S/L and built teams or brought purple insps to finish the softcap when needed, always with at least 60% S/L resistance.


Another thing is keep in mind your taunt aura is weak. Annoyingly weak. I have played with a number of bad willpower tanks in the last few days (my ABSOLUTE favorite one was the 48 WP/Fire/Pyre yesterday that thought she was 'helping' whenever I brought a new pack of 54's into the group by fireball/taunting them off me and losing the ones she had next to her - we had like a dozen squishy deaths in a run due to her not knowing when NOT to taunt) so I'm a bit jaded.

Willpower's big strength is not innately S/L, but it can be designed for it with a little effort and can do quite well. As always, there's an insp vendor right outside the AE - it always pays to have an emergency skittle to cover your holes. Bad players will think they can tank simply because their AT says "Tanker" (*laugh*), and most of them get too caught up in the glory of standing in a pile of mobs to realize the nuances of capping and agro, then wonder why their teammates are dying. Please, please don't be one of these players. I can't do double and triple spawn herds of 54's with partners that try to steal my agro and lose theirs in the process - it kills teammates.

Rad/Sonic is very popular currently because sonic further force multiplies by debuffing resistance. There is a guide in the guide section.

The upside to this on a large team is stuff dies faster, but you might not be as pleased with your numbers.

Rad doesn't really have huge synergy with anything, in my experience. Rad/Sonic is probably best single target and team-boosting damage, Rad/Dark is better utility and control as well as very solid ae damage, Rad/Archery might be best overall AE damage (as far as your individual orange numbers)... Rad/Psy also has a good pair of AE's.

There's a lot of ways to go, it depends if you're big team, small team or solo inclined and whether you prefer to fight +2's or +4-5's. That said, Rad/Sonic is 'hot' right now for good reason.

Rad/* is one of the kings of the game, bringing both -res and +dam/end. There's some thinking involved with toggles but nothing major. I enjoy toggle pulling multiple groups. Good place to start.

Cold/* will give you a solid team role with great defense coupled with force multiplying goodness that is sleet. Heatloss is a nice power, and benumb is excellent for hard targets, snowstorm is fantastic mitigation at various points in the game.

Dark/* is a pve monster, -res for force multiplying and a whole lot of control. Fades a bit as you start fighting +3-+5's as your abilities mostly have to hit, but a monster.

Storm/* was my first controller and first defender and first corruptor. I love storm to death. It is amazing. But it is not a neat package, and not easy to play (nor particularly welcome due to the KB stigma from gale, hurricane, tornado and LS), so I'd recommend going with rad instead to start.

Rad is very welcome, everywhere. Its toggles are expensive for a reason - they are amazing. Don't make the newb mistake of skipping rad's toggles because they're "expensive". That's something I've heard a few times now.

Define "support"

My dark defenders make nearly any team they're on pretty much insta-win with debuffs.

My storm defenders increase the team's damage and safety quite a lot.

My cold defenders do the same as my storm defenders except less damage, more safety, and some other nifty tricks.

etc...

Really, defenders are support toons, but some are force multiplers and some aren't. If you want to be generic, roll "healbot" empathy defender and learn nothing. Or the kin "buffbot" ... pair it with archery as recommendation, as FS + rain of arrows with siphon speed is a nice combo.

If you want to be invited to my teams (rhetorical statement - not that we even play on the same server, but hear out my logic), I look for rads, darks, storms, trick arrows and colds before I look for kins and emps. This is somewhat due to the excess of heal and buffbots, but it's also because I like making things die quickly, whether that's +4 boss farms, LR farms, speed ITF's, you name it. -res debuff play a huge part in "things dying quickly". I had a good team last night with 4 defenders (dark dark emp ta), 1 troller (kin) 1 scrapper 1 tanker 1 blaster (electricity at that), only one of them 50 (emp/arch) and most under 40, destroying 54 boss farms. /shrug

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I 4 slotted boxing for Kinetic Combats and often use it as auto attack for fury building. Then I switch auto attack to punch once fury is built up.

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This. There's little reason to take kick - boxing is a great attack in the low levels and a good IO mule at the high end with both stuns and melee as options.

Emp/Sonic. Skip heals, get your buffs, take manuevers and assault.

Enjoy being fort'd, AB'd with massive recov and regen all the time. Oh, and at the defense softcap (or rather, quite close).

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You think "all the travel" in this game is bad, take a look at other MMOs (to be fair the only other I've really looked at was WoW, which left me feeling me very "unWow'ed" - but I hear stories)

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West Karana without SOW.

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The ability to cap your s/l res is too powerful to pass up on for one power pick, to me. (Using it after getting unlucky with GW's hold has mildly helpful, too.)

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Based on the number of faceplanting wp tanks I've seen in 54 boss farms in the last few days, I must agree.

Stone, Mace or SS

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The build im thinking of puts haymaker back in w full crushing impact set, and resist energies- I used to tank a lot on the ITF

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Just think ahead and stock oranges for the ITF mission 2. My invuln brute rampages through there with much lower natural resistances/defense to energy than you have, but I tend to grab 15 or so OJ's before it starts in anticipation of the second mission.

Pro to Dark/Dark:

Awesome stacked with awesome and some awesomesauce on top. Full of win.
Solid AE damage (2 dots, nightfall and TT)
Amazing control.
Good add to any team.

Cons:

Haven't really found any. PVE, an AMAZING character.

Dark epic pool: I really don't like it since my darks usually stay at range for their cones.

Just to confirm, I'm sitting in 12 54 bosses right now ... yep. NP. (Fort, softcaps me)

They do ~750 damage per swing if my math is right.

Hmm. Kind of tempting.

I still don't like shadow maul as a "true ae" but I might as well run one up to 50 if I get time in a week or two and see how it handles.

Yes and no. I assume you're talking about farms, so the following is in relation purely to farms. (Evils of farming can be discussed elsewhere)

I've been tanking 53 bosses on my new invuln scrapper since level 28 or so. I was running around 60% res s/l and about 8% s/l defense unbuffed. I built teams with a mind to softcap defense, made sure I stocked up on purples for when buffers were lazy, and went ahead and did all the tanking (invincibility's taunt aura being key).

A scrapper can't take the punishment the way a tank can, especially from a lot of bosses. The lower caps in resistance and hp really matter. However, in a half decently built team, you don't need to take a ton of punishment, you just need to gather and hold agro. Edit: I should point out that I think a pure defense character (/SR) without resistance buffs would get pummeled here. You need to be able to live through 3-4 hits in 2-3 seconds. Defensive tanks get pummeled here as well, so it's not shameful, just the reality of being swung at by 16 bosses each of which has a >7.5% chance to hit you and does, before resistance, probably 40% of your health per melee swing. (educated guess - Sarrate can confirm the math).

I did the *exact* same thing on my elec/invuln brute a few weeks back 1-50, so this is nothing new. Can handle brief pounding, no problem. Cannot handle sustained pounding without outside help.

That said... be smart. Build your team around the real power in the game (buffs/debuffs) ... if I can find storm, cold, dark or rad defenders, I'm a very happy camper. Controllers are also fantastic. Then I just need some help capping my defense (hello FF! or empathy or cold... or just tons of leadership) and I'm good to go. Heck, I've seen a fire/storm corrupter 'tank' the 51 slammer LR farms - the right debuffs (fear effects in rains) are amazing.

FWIW at 39 I think I'm sitting at around 25% unbuffed now, so I no longer need to look for serious buffers - I can just pop purples to softcap until I finish getting my IO sets. When I build teams I still look for buffers/debuffers first (kin is really plentiful hero side, for whatever reason, but I tend not to want more than 2) and then fill out damage. And maybe get a tank if I'm feeling gracious, or if I want to do double-spawn herds.

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The more MUDs change, the more they stay the same. :-)

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That's it in a nutshell. Human behavior hasn't changed much in the 18 years I've been gaming online. I just got a scrapper to 39 in 3 days with nothing more than forming and leading pug AE's, and I work some days It's a fun trend but I question the sustainability in the long run.

Which did you develop for? I wrote for a few of the smaller ones (*** & derivatives), played many of the larger ones at some point during that time period.

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Just a quick update. As of I15, the fix to cones hasn't really impacted this build at all. The biggest impact seems to be the range warping that leaping over the mobs created (being able to hit multiple mobs that were obviously outside the range of the cone). However circle strafing and hover strafing still produce the same results as before I15.

Let the good times roll!

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So you're still hitting more than 5 mobs on average with SM?

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Never underestimate the pure entertainment value of throwing fish!

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I cast "Summon Bigger Fish".

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Dark / whatever.

They suck end. They're expensive. They don't really mature until late. But I've always found them to be good fun, they can hold their own just fine if played competently, and the rare Psi factions are afraid of ME.

Well, actually, every minion in Paragon is afraid of me. That's one of the fun things about a Dark tank.

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I loved dark armor from my scrappers enough to finally make another tanker... but I didn't like it as a tanker. Of course, my benchmark tends to be ITF's, which as a resist set it's not really suited to (fwiw I've got 25% unbuffed defense to melee, and tend to bring along purple insps - which helps tremendously).

I dunno. I was hoping I'd love dark, but I didn't. I also paired it with fire/pyre, which was a poooor decision from a "tanking" perspective.

(FWIW it clears wall spawns just fine, and with a oj or purple insp or two can be pretty happy in a crowd of bosses - just not happy enough to suit my liking.)

Dark/Elec melee... that'd be fun.

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*EDIT* You may want to read past the first sentence of a post btw, since I was stating you brought up a point I hadn't considered trying, and would try it myself where I thought it applicable. Must have been the cat pee in my coffee that made me not explain myself ingratiatingly enough for you

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Still not yet ingratiating enough! This is why I do 5-hour energy's instead of coffee. It leaves me jazzed and un-bitter, plus I don't worry about adding the wrong condiment.

... Lordie, the servers had better come up soon, I'm writing documentation on 2 months worth of work and it's boring the crap out of me. "Exception #1042 = Your Mom" is probably not what I should leave in the final version.