Maelwys

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Agree: Even the "Room of Death" isn't that tough if there's communication.


[/ QUOTE ]That depends, "Let's go melee the mobs in the center" counts as communication as well

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As does the "rez plz" you get spammed in team chat afterwards...

I've survived one of those "LEEROY!" charges before, but not on a squishy AT.

It's great fun to phase shift and run in there first though. I tried that once on my Peacebringer using Quantum flight (actually intending to be useful and draw some fire away from the team) and some daft blaster decided to dive in right behind me, thinking I had solid aggro...

Agree: Even the "Room of Death" isn't that tough if there's communication.

In that scenario the best method I've found is to Taunt the mobs on the walkway directly above us and pull them to the entrance, then taunt the mobs in the center of the platform and pull them to the entrance. Those are the two main threats... after dealing with them we can move our team up onto the platform, work our way around the top of the room and finally take the mobs on the ground floor.

I've seen it tried without any communication several times, but never without at least one faceplant. PUGs seem to just love rushing to the center where they can grab aggro from five mobs of critters all at once...

That said, after a few mobs you usually don't need to keep announcing your intentions to the team. It gets old and monotonous, like a tanker who insists on corner pulling for every single mob. Extra communication is only really needed when you encounter a difficult spawn that you'll have to treat differently... and in those cases "Pulling from the left/right/top to here" or "left/right side first" is usually sufficient.

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you can go to lengths to try and keep "some" people from being hit and yet they still willingly or unknowingly make an effort to faceplant.

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"Stop healing me dammit, I've got Rise of the Pheonix six-slotted!"

(Yeah it might be funny, but I've a Fire/Ice/Fire Blaster that will eventually have that on a bind...)

Warshades don't need Stamina, assuming you're going triform.
Just make sure you slot up Stygian Circle!!

I think Whirling Hands (the Energy Melee PBAoE) is meant to have a stun component.
That **should** give you breathing room to fire off Aid Self if you slot it with 2 interrupt SOs...

The alternative is to try to ramp your defense up as high as possible and rely on outside healing and Dull Pain. You can get over 30% defense from just Invincibility (3 Slotted with Defense SOs, with 10 foes foes within range) and Weave and Tough Hide can raise that by just under 8% defense each so that's your toon at the 45% cap. Combat Jumping can help cancel out the leftover -defence from Unyielding.

Looks OK, apart from your 38 power pick.

I think it's generally accepted that ever since the "you can't Recall friend NPC placeable units" nerf /devices' Auto Turret is one of the worst powers ever.

I'd definately pick Stunning Shot instead, and try to fit it in for level 30.

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One res and unyielding caps it

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Only smash and lethal is capped.

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Unslotted Unyielding and a +2 Damres SO in Unstoppable puts you just over the 90% cap for all but psi.

Unyielding actually gives less S/L resistance (5% base) than other resistance (10% base).

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The 2 end reds in air sup may look odd, but I found it to be my highest EPS usage power, and end reds are very handy in there!

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Its normally worth getting the damage per endurance up then judging the end use, but when in constant use its not as economical as your secondaries.

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Isn't that only applicable for attack powers? If he's using Air Superiority for damage output, then yes, damage slotting would be most effective... but surely 99% of the time it'd be more useful for its 100% knockdown affect? In which case Accuracy, Endreds and Recharge take priority.

I did an experiment a few months ago on a Scrapper to try to work out the "best" slotting for Air Superiority (as a defensive "perma knockdown" ability) outside of HOs, and came up with 2-3acc/1-2recharge/2endred.

My INV tanker went for Tough and Weave over the medicine pool, but that was mainly playstyle choice.
You can certainly get by with either (or neither, though really that'd be unnecessarily gimping yourself!)

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I just peeked at nofuture, and noticed that it's a 41second taunt against critters, which means to me that it's not totally needed to slot recharge. In teams atm, I spam taunt between attacking, so I rarely leave foes untaunted anyway. So I'll have it 2 rech one taunt instead of the other way round I think.

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The thing about those numbers is that they scale away down for higher level critters.

For even levels, you might do 41 seconds (if unresisted and that number looks suspiciously large even for +0s)... but for the +4s/+5s you'll be tanking regularly at higher levels, that number will scale down to as far as 30% effectiveness, or slightly under 14 seconds. Taunt's recharge is 10 seconds base, so that doesn't leave you much margin for error.

In practice, my INV tanker never encountered a situation where his taunt was insufficient to keep aggro... it's slotted with two recharge SOs. However at higher levels nearby mobs were occasionally turning away between my taunt aura's ticks, so I put 2 Taunt duration SOs into Invincibility and haven't had any problems since.

The full listing is:
1.00 for +0s
0.90 for +1s
0.80 for +2s
0.65 for +3s
0.48 for +4s
0.30 for +5s
0.15 for +6s
0.08 for +7s
0.05 for +8s
0.04 for +9s
0.03 for +10s
0.02 for +11s
0.01 for +12s and above

Scrappers in general are feral, antisocial creatures. When hunting in packs they can swiftly become irritated by the very fact that other animals are nearby. If the only comment the scrapper came up with in that scenario was "Shut up I don't need told what to do" then your team must have been going very smoothly indeed.

Scrappers have been known to become annoyed at:
+ Anyone drawing their weapon before the Scrapper does
+ Tanking successfully for long periods (an insinuation that they couldn't take the mobs alone)
+ Any other toon generating bigger orange numbers than them - including another scrapper.
+ Being healed, buffed or helped out in any way. This includes others attacking the scrapper's target.
+ The fact that the team is moving too slowly. (Dammit there's more over here!)
+ The fact that the team is moving too quickly. (We missed some, I'm not done here yet!)
+ Them being the only scrapper on the team
+ Them NOT being the only scrapper on the team
+ Being bored, hungry, or simply wanting to attack something else.
+ The rest of the team not pulling their weight (That controller/blaster/defender is doing nothing!)
+ The rest of the team outperforming them (See "helping in any way" for buffers)
+ The "poofy colours" of the defender's costume.
+ Not dying every few minutes (these guys are no challenge!)
+ The enemy/blaster/tree "looking at them funny" (usually an invitation to be attacked)
+ Being told off for attacking a random mob/AV/tree for "looking at them funny" after the puller says "inc".
+ Being surrounded by people who are obviously completely incompetent (otherwise they'd be scrappers!)

I just double-checked the figures:

Nofuture quotes 15% base for the bubbles and 10% for dispersion bubble.
This is 1% higher than my builder gives for the two ally bubbles (and would yield 23.6% instead of 22.03%)

This amends the final figure from 45.11% to 46.68% with +3 SOs.

To be honest most FF'ers I've teamed with haven't slotted manuvers, which closes the final gap to 45% nicely.
You won't get any leeway for mob -defense or +tohit abilities though.
And remember that this only applies to Defenders, FF Controllers get considerably lower base numbers.

Comparing it with Sonic, yeah... sonic's buffs seem a tad underpowered (at least in PvE!).
But you get 60% -res and Clarity... and Sonic works on Toxic damage.

+55% resistance is still enough to cap the resistances of Fire Tanks, DA scrappers and nearly cap INV tanks.
It also turns those darn overpowered kat/regen scrappers into even MORE unstoppable killing machines...

Defender numbers are considerably higher for buffs than Mastermind and Controller numbers though.

Looking at my tweaked planner it's:

22.03% for 3-slotted Normal Bubbles
15.74% for 3-slotted Disperation Bubble
7.34% for 3-slotted Manuvers

That's 45.11% to all but Psi for all teammates when they're near the FF'er.
And Dispersion Bubble and Manuvers work against Psi, so that's 23.08% Psi defense.
(Assumes +3 SOs, and won't work for toxic damage because toxic defense doesn't exist!)

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I wish someone could explain to me how KB/Repel magnitude stacks.

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Can't help you with Repel, but I've noticed Knockdown/Knockups "stacking" to affect some "protected" mobs.

It seems that there's a percentage chance that gets higher as you hit it more often with Knockdown/Knockback powers... so if I used Air Superiority on a Boss it might not knock it down (Air Superiority is meant to have a 100% chance of causing knockback) but if I used it and then followed up with another knockdown/knockback attack, it's more likely the second attack will actually knock it over.

My Katana scrapper against an Elite Boss would usually not be able to knock it down at the very start of the fight, but as the fight progressed the Knockdowns seemed to come more and more regularly... I imagine you'd get a similar effect if you cast Ice Patch on the ground under a tank or scrapper in the arena.

Acrobatics is meant to have very high Knockback protection, much higher than normal melee toon toggles.

Im fairly sure that one FF defender with Manuvers can get everyone to the 45% soft "Cap" by themselves.

Mez protection for Dispersion Bubble is slightly worse MaG than Integration. It'll cover most disorient/hold/immob mezzes in normal PvE play, but can be knocked off by "Sleep" attacks and does nothing for knockdown.

You might also want to glance at Sonic Defenders: each one grants about +55% resistance to all but psi, a similar AoE Mez shield to the FF set and "Clarity" which is essentially a 'Clear Mind' clone with a faster activation. They don't get the repel field but they do get two 30% -resistance powers, one an ally-anchored PBAoE.

A Sonic + a FF'er, or either type + an Empath can give silly amounts of damage mitigation!

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since invul is dmg resist based, not def.

[/ QUOTE ]It's both, due to invinc.

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Was dying to post that earlier but the forums were borked!

Tough hide also stacks with it, you can hit the 45% soft cap in big herds with proper slotting and "weave".
My SS/Inv relies on defense over resistance when he's fighting anything that doesn't do S/L damage.

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The other thing that I remember from using DA though is that it is one of the few sets the has Psi protection so can come in useful later in the game (although I can't attest to how effective it is myself).

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Psi res and Endurance Drain protection, makes it one of the few sets to do well against sappers and carnies.
The Point Blank AoE disorient from Oppressive Gloom is underrated, and works against nearly all minions.

My Spines/DA is currently 34.5, and will be taking Oppressive Gloom at 35.
I'm actually giving him Scrapper Taunt at 38 so he can "tank" Psi AVs and Carnies!

I've a Katana/Regen Scrapper and a INV/SS Tanker, and my current main is a Spines/DA.

Katana is a decent balance between fast recharge and spike damage. The single target chain is one of the most damaging of the primaries, and it's fairly low endurance particularly if you skip "The Lotus Drops".

DA is slightly harder on the endurance consumption than INV and is mainly resistance based damage mitigation, with a VERY powerful regular self-heal in "Dark Recovery" and extra mitigation in Cloak of Fear/Oppressive Gloom. Death Shroud can give some decent negative-energy AoE damage when slotted up.

INV has knockback and repel protection (but not fear) and is mainly S/L resistance based with some defense in Invincibility. It gets Dull Pain (+HP and a decent sized self-heal but it's not up very regularly) and it gets a high resistance "God Mode" button in "Unstoppable".

Best synergy? With Katana's Divine Avalanche properly slotted, you'll be able to hit the defence "soft cap" for Melee and Lethal damage... this would combine best with /Dark because /Dark does not already have much defence based mitigation so nothing is wasted. Katana is also solely Lethal Damage, so Dark's "Death Shroud" can help your damage output on lethal-resistant enemies.

Bottom line is that INV would be marginally better for PvP, but Dark would be best for PvE.

Oppressive Gloom + Dark Recovery + Armor toggles + Katana's Divine Avalanche = Very powerful PvE toon.

There's really no need to take Cloak of Fear in PvE since Gloom works better and doesn't gobble endurance.
Dark can still get VERY endurance intensive though: I'd suggest an endred in each of your attacks, an endred in each of your armors and two endreds in Dark Recovery/Death Shroud/Acrobatics.
Oppressive Gloom doesn't need Endreds, and neither does Combat Jumping.

You'll need to take Fitness and the Leaping Pool, but the other two pools are completely optional... Hasten might be useful to get the Heal up sooner, but is by no means needed. "Tough" would also stack with your armors, but you'll probably have more than enough mitigation already.

I'd definately suggest the Body Mastery Epic Pool for Conserve Energy and Focussed Accuracy though, and if you're going that route then Hasten would be useful to get Conserve Energy up sooner.

Oh, don't get me wrong... I'm not in the slightest asking for a general /regen buff (the HERESY!!! ).
I'm just saying that MoG is by far the worst of all the "God Mode" buttons in the game.

A Regen should never need to actually use MoG, particularly a Katana or Broadsword Regen with Parry/DA.
All in all... I'm probably glad of MoG and Resilience because they free up two power slots for me.

What I WOULD like them to do, would be to think about changing MoG to something that fits in with the set's concept of "Health Regeneration". Maybe something like a clicky debuff that causes -regen to a mob and +regen to the player and his teammates. Or gives a self-MaxEndurance Boost a bit like "Dull Pain" gives a self-MaxHP boost. Or a power that simply turns your toon's hair bright green...

Think of Resistance and Defense as mitigation that always shaves a set percentage off all incoming damage.

Regen doesn't work by percentages, it doesn't care if you're taking 500 damage or 5000 damage, it'll still only provide you with a set amount of healing... Go over that set amount and /regen begins to struggle badly.

If a very powerful enemy attacks a scrapper two or three times in quick succession, a regen will be be eating pavement while an INV or SR will still usually be standing and can grab a friendly heal.

Dark Armor works a little differently... it has a mixture of healing, resistance, +defence/-tohit and mezzles. The nature of its auras makes it stronger against several lower-rank enemies and weaker against a single higher-rank one. However because it can achieve decent resistances (about 54% S/L resistance with Tough iirc) it'll still be slightly more survivable than a /regen against stray AV attacks.

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I am starting to like you again Maelwys.

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Now I am getting worried....

I suppose at the end of the day this is just one of those "playstyle" arguments where noone will ever win the other person over to their way of thinking.

Some of my best team experiences have been in completely random-built PUGs where I've had to cover more of my fair share of work... I enjoy hectic battles and like to push my character's limits so that I know that I have the best chance of dealing with any potential situation.

When planning a character I'll sit down with data statistics and a tweaked character builder and work out how best to achieve that toon's primary function. On a tanker I'll look at damage mitigation and aggro control (my INV tanker took the fighting pool, took footstomp and slotted Taunt and Invincibility for taunt duration).... on a defender I'll try to maximise their damage mitigation or buffing skills (my Sonic defender had a heavily-slotted medicine pool)... on a scrapper I'll try to work out the best way of handling bosses and dealing high amounts of damage (indeed on my Katana/Regen I originally had a backup smashing/energy chain for use when I faced something with high lethal damage resistance)... etc.

This is a form of min-maxxing and often I end up possessing powers that I don't "need" in certain teams, but it reassures me that I'm contributing as much to a team as physically possible by being the "best tanker I can be" or "best damage dealer I can be" when I'm built like that. Example: if we have to fight Psi mobs, my INV tanker will certainly want a Fortitude or something similar... but I'll still be running CJ/Weave and using Hasten, Dull Pain and Footstomp as often as possible to add as much as I can to my damage mitigation (and when we get to the boss or AV I might even use my precious 'Wedding band' temp power!!)

I watch other people's endurance/health bars and buff icons like a hawk so that I can tell when our situation changes: if someone has pulled aggro or is edging a little close to another mob, if a blaster has nuked or a defender is getting low on endurance, when a tanker's unstoppable is going to drop or our defensive bubbles are wearing off, etc. I want to know about it almost before they do so I can act accordingly.

That's pretty much my stance on any form of team gameplay.

Also worth noting that I've found my Kheldian Human/Dwarf the most fun to play so far, probably due to them having so many situational powers available that I can fulfil several team roles with one toon. On many teams I found myself Scouting, Scrapping, Blasting, Mezzing and Tanking over the course of a mission in order to maximise our performance and survivability...

I find regular steady "exp grind" fairly boring. I love being in the thick of a battle when things are going just a little bit haywire for a team, it gives me a chance to try to turn the tide in our favour...

Bah... this has turned into an essay, apologies if I've bored anyone by going off on yet another tangent!

He means a status protection toggle like Unyielding or Integration... in this case it's "Entropy Shield".

Which seems to be waaaay overpowered for a status protection toggle... all that AND +def??!?

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So, in my opinion, if a tanker is rarely interrupted because he has significant defense and/or some means to buy him the needed time window (AoE knockdown or disorient would spring to mind) he is better off with EndRdx as it helps regardless of being interrupted or not.

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Agreed/Signed/Applaud

Play about with it, see what you can deal with and what you can't.

There's been posts in the blaster forums by PvPers who use Aid self regularly during matches... the consensus there appears to be that slotting two interrupts don't allow you to escape any more than one does, and only slot one if you have problems timing Aid Self so it will activate between the average one-second DoT "ticks".

When my Inv/SS tanker tried Aid Self, without interrupts did not ever have a problem activating it even when herding to the mob aggro cap. It only became impossible to activate when he was under the effect of toggle or "patch" debuffs such as Darkest Night or Earthquake: these always automatically interrupted it.

The "heals 100" bit could be concieved to be a combination of clickyheals and natural health regeneration.

The overall point was that regen can only ever mitigate a certain level of damage (the total amount of regen, and clickyheals + dull pain +MaxHP) because unlike SR it does not actually reduce the amount of incoming damage, it "absorbs" it instead.

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Thats like saying to me "screw your concept build and accept a build of my making".

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I'm not trying to force a build down your throat, frankly that would be rude and unneccesary.

You seem to value "concept" over "extreme performance". Fair enough.

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With the innuendos of this post and other posts i feel harrassed i think you better drop it and start on someone else. Well no leave everyone alone!

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You're trying to make me into an antagonist here and that is not my intention. If you glance down the thread you'll see that I only started addressing you directly after you "corrected" my post on tough and weave. I also did not quote multiple parts of your replies which is often percieved as a slightly offensive attempt to "rip the parent post to shreds".

Now if you genuinely feel harrassed by any of my posts then I'm sorry that you feel that way because it wasn't my intention. However I stand by every one of the facts I have given on defence and resistance stats.

It is firmly my view on tanking that you should not need to rely on outside buffs for the majority of your play. It is very risky and inherently makes your survivability unreliable, therefore I will not ever play a "team tanker" if I possess weak damage mitigation.

You've stated repeatedly about good aggro management, well that's one point I certainly agree with you on and have never challenged. It's pointless to have good mitigation if you can't hold the enemies attention. I'm simply of the view that it works both ways- you need good mitigation and good aggro control.

If you find you can always get the mitigation you need from your teammates then that's entirely your choice.

As a tanker I will personally not rely on my teammates unless I'm fighting mobs that my defenses could never handle (AVs/GMs, sometimes Psi mobs... etc.) because I believe that it is better to be consistently survivable than it is to have my survivability vary wildly when different buffs are available. I prefer to have my teammates look on me as "a solid Aggro magnet that they can depend upon not to die easily" rather than " a solid aggro magnet that is a potentially great damage-sponge depending on applied buffs".

That is my firm stance on tanking, and the basis for all my comments in this thread.
(Even the sarcastic one about "dying being part of a fire tank's damage mitigation"... )

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Things and stuff.

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Maelwys' posts makes me remember those I3/I4 tankers who said everything but Invul with capped resists and defense or Fire with overpowered Burn and capped resists was gimped.


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These days every tank's gimped if they don't have a snazzy santa cossie with a beard as thick as a hedge!

(oh dear... Winter event Flashbacks...)

I was seriously considering tough for my Spines/Dark since that would push his S/L resists from 35% to 53%.

However with two damage auras and "spine burst" he's currently more a mobile AoE than a boss killer... and I'm hoping that incoming damage will nosedive when I hit 35 and can take "oppressive gloom" (30 currently) .

Will wait and see. Might pick it up later on at 44 or 47 depending on damage mitigation and endurance usage. Currently I'm building him for good AoEs, a decent single-target chain and psionic tanking capability.

He doesn't half feel squishier than my Katana/Regen though...

I've found that Solar flare can be used best on teams in the following situations:

+ To "tighten" a mob. If you go behind a mob you can often knock it towards the tank or a debuff patch.
+ When a controller AoE immobilise has been dropped- they usually negate knockback.
+ When there's a wall nearby or a handy corner that they can be knocked into.
+ If the tanker has trouble coping with a herd's damage, knockback can give them some breathing space.
+ When you're about to use Dawn Strike. Nothing says "BOOM!" like an PBAoE combo.

YMMV of course. And if you're tanking in dwarf form or there is no designated tanker... go wild!