New Dawn

Altered for correction as that build is no longer what I gave. Usually cross posting ends up with the same people.

This made me laugh. In the beginning I decided never to purple a build suggestion. Purples cost a lot of inf and do mean a lot of invested time. For a similar reason I wouldn't ++ anything because it can mean buying from the market when really it don't necessarily matter all that much.

If I see peoples problems and dismiss them because I see a solution to those problems at the ready at the level. It is a matter for people to find the solutions to the problem for themselves. I don't consider myself behind people when it comes to tanks. I could of tanker the STF with a Dark Brute for nothing but blappers in 2006 if I wanted to but I was a villain and couldn't do nothing about that. Sometimes what I think you promote as of equivalent hardship perhaps as not the same thing. You have to experience the same things from as many different standpoints as possible to detect what I feel as an inbalance. Your saying that the inbalance with Dark Armour is not unique? It is for the Tanker AT.

Earlier I said that I already mentioned things in this thread but I was wrong I mentioned things in another thread, particularly this:

If you look at CoT how many yellows would it take for a level 22 Dark/Dark tank to get its base tohit back up to 75%? In a single mob? The thing with this is that Dark/Dark can not get a +tohit power until 26 which will need to hit first. For other sets without build up they might have a single attack which offers them +tohit so relying on hitting 1 target. I already accept you have to choose your targets carefully. For many players they could be a Dark tank in a PuG with no ongoing idea of what their tohit levels are. At anypoint they could be using Dark Regen for all its end consumption with 2 Accs in it and completely missing every mob. Fiery Aura has less to worry about. I have run a Fiery Aura tank through this too. What I have seen over the past few years is the amount of changes to Fiery Aura whilst Dark Armour has merely pretty much has minor "fixes". Also since Dark Armour was proliferated Invulnerability and Fiery Aura has been changed. If they hadn't of been changed well the average level of balance for Tankers as I see it would of been different low enough to make me think perhaps that Dark Armour doesn't require a change. Whats effectively happened is in my book is that everyother Tanker set reaches that point where they finally meet a real problem later ingame yet at that time have a way of overcoming it for themselves. I don't see this as something that is on offer to all Dark Armours in this case. Then basically what we have with Dark Armour is a set which has been proliferated to Tankers with bare min nothing altered since yet Invuln and Fire in particular have had major changes. I am not in agreement with the idea that you can proliferate any set into a new role and for it to be immediately fine for that role in every way existing with the same opportunities as other tanks. I was all for Dark Armour being proliferated to Tankers seeing as I tanked with my Dark Armour Brute but the difference is that Brutes don't have to meet a Tankers level of expectation ie I'll aggro cap a tank whereas when I tanked with a Brute I might go no further than aggroing 10 when sensible and the expectation beyond sensible didn't exist especially as with villains characters are a bit more independent, altogether despite doing well in a team.

Back up to the question what do I think Dark Armour Tankers, Scrappers and Brutes been doing all this time well I can tell you, nothing surprising. I say that because I have Dark Scrappers and Brutes, what hasn't been done is comparisons. I don't have an issue with Dark Armour as a Tanking set I have an issue with how it fares compared to other Tanking sets between 20 and 30. I don't know about you but I know that there are factions people avoid because they feel like a chore rather than fun. COT is just one of them factions, I actually think that in Dark Armours case it is the faction that is temptingly easy to avoid given all the factions I have played against. Some people farm, some people being scrappers only end up with a small amount of tohit debuffs against them for a minimum amount of time. Some Dark Tanks and I do know this especially early on were playing "second" tanker which I find unacceptable for any Tank set to be relegated into doing.

When I run into COT get alpha's hold all aggro for the moments the level of tohit debuffs can vary, sometimes its not so bad and sometimes it is quite severe, players could do with watching their tohit and being ready to pop those upto 9 yellows needed just to get a heal off. You can't anticipate a best time for dark regenning and without tools like Build up which may not even exist in your secondary OG, COF, DS and DR can easily miss, wasted endurance. That I am going to repeat puts Dark Armour in its own world more so compared to other Tankers because other Tankers do not have to base so much on whether they can hit targets with its primary powers. What you find particularly odd is particularly obvious especially as I can take about 10+ different tanks through the same tests to see the differing outcomes.

One other thing, feel free to point out some of these builds out by links cos we could be lackadaisical at a times.

Base raids in particular.

I should be free now X Factor is over and LITTLE MIX has won!!!

My first TA was the TA/A. I got it to 50 pretty quick, not too quick, no PL, no farming, just enjoying the game with friends and even stalled for some PvP. It actually took the last given slot to complete my character, part of its probably cos she was staminaless but nevertheless, it wasn't until 50 she finally got to be what I wanted.

I know what you're saying, but lets take each case into account. Top paragraph, late game. I expect that nearer and nearer late game Factions will stand out as more as a struggle to some tankers than others by a certain amount. As people level I expect the game to get harder and harder. In the low levels I do not expect to see an extreme survival disparity between tankers on any faction, in the high levels I do but despite doing so I expect there to be options available to overcome these odds anyway. I look at Psi as an Ice tank and I have to put out as much active defense where necessary, at low levels you are limited to a number of power choices and options so at low levels I expect to tank low level content with any tanker.

I am talking midlevels 20-25 where there is not a lot of options because you haven't been able to choose from a great deal of powers. I don't believe that at 20 a Dark Tanker should effectively have to struggle even more than a Shield Tanker, Shield tankers don't have to really find that one faction till say 30 when it meets Devouring Earth, and even then the powers to solve the problem are available. A lvl20 Dark Tanker doesn't necessarily have that power that they could of picked which would solve the problem available.

The DA tank that struggled with Synapse, I'd say thats player inexperience/fault or perhaps they just weren't getting the dynamics from the team.

The SR thing with Ruluruu is again late game. I farm the fruits with my SR, she don't effectively accept anything less than +2 at 50 but then I don't as any Tanker from lvl 10.

So in summary what I am saying that over the 50 levels, the serious problems for different types of Tankers should appear at roughly the same time when there are powers that Tankers could take to actually overcome the problem for themselves. Someone told me when I first come across Sappers that I had to get an SR for them, I was bugger that and did Sappers for myself. Atleast by the time my Invuln/SS got to Malta I had Knockout Blow available. By the time Darks could be swamped in serious tohit debuffs they may not have a build up on offer let alone a Soul Drain which I think is 26, and with Soul Drain if you completely miss with it, its of no help whatsoever.

Edit: If you look at Foc Acc in Tanker epics, it offers 85% res to tohit debuffs. Tankers can't touch it until the 40s. It's desire-able to a Dark Tank in the 20s more than it is for any type of Tanker because no other Tanker relies on tohit as much. That's what I think Dark Tankers should have, that tohit debuff resistance, and Foc Acc being another toggle is not something Dark Armour really could do with. In taking that to shore up accuracy, itll be even more so like a Black Cloud of death because the toggles won't allow too much for end recovery.

I reserved a mission so that if anyone wishes to try it they can which is quicker for them than finding it, I have knocked up an AE mish to try also which might come close.

It's about a Tanker primary and how it compares to other Tanker primaries and this is about Tankers having most its abilities wiped from one debuff. Not every Tanker gets build up and when so much is need of an accuracy check there is a clear disadvantage. Using 9 yellows to Dark Regen in a single group is a tall order.

You can come up with another faction for me to compare, I could just tank that other faction and say, that was alright. I haven't been mysterious about the factions and results of the tohit debuffs from them as the information is already in this thread.

When it comes to SR anything with KB/KD powers in their secondary has an advantage. I tank every AV going with SR scrappers as it is, what it is I am currently doing is leveling a SR Tanker to see if it feels balanced enough.

I value your intent, sometimes I 3 slot haste and sometimes I 2 slot it, it depends really but I always try to take slots from powers where I can. Sometimes 3 looks worth it compared to the alternatives. Builds should be more about reading all the figures than blindly doing something out of habit or looking at the pretty pictures.

What I do Dechs is test different factions at the same settings with different Tankers as I level up. I usually have 3 tanks leveling together and quite a few too.

I like to find them all at a reasonable similar level of survival whilst they are leveling up.

Some mobs are more dangerous than others but one way or another they're not too extreme.

The I get to a potential Dark/Set without build up by X number of levels
or a Dark/Set with a tohit buff power that requires actually hitting a mob.

These mobs I am testing against on a mission I do still have for anyone who'd dare, are reasonably fine with basically all my tankers but one, one that fulfils the criteria in the above paragraph.

I would have to use upto 9 normal yellows in a single group in order for Dark Regen with 2 Accuracies to hit a single mob. That's a lot of tohit debuffs.

All accuracy powers under this scenario do miss and when they miss they waste end which isn't too bad because death is near enough imminent anyway.

Maybe I am soo much better with every other tanker type despite a DA tank getting to -2.91% tohit wasting all accuracy based powers. A combination of powersets over a certain level range 20-25 versus a certain level of mobs of a type of faction has a gapingly lower level of survivability which sticks out like a sore thumb to me.

They could change the faction that would work or they could add tohit debuff resistance to Dark Armour.

Some sets proliferated into a new role sometimes still have a bugbear a longtime later. I could lower the level difference but it still doesn't change anything when it comes to what I see as not balanced.

This may surprise you but builds good or bad can have little gems. Then there are the questions that need answers and even when finding those answers I find new answers to questions I never had. Everyone is a resource.

I'll take a look but really I like looking at Tankers. I come to other sections as I do a pass over my alts. This whole time I have spent in this section has actually helped me improve my Khelds final build plan.

What I think I have to do is list all the things I have been saying I will do and get on with it. It maybe that as far as the Peacebringer goes I could make the Nova obsolete from my point of view or find more arguments for it.

Woohoo

You think a yellow is going to always solve the situation? Really when I say kill your tohit I mean enough where it takes more than one yellow in a single group and then you could have all those other groups to get through. You might be alright being Dark/Fire with Build Up which I have already said would be okay but go make another type and come do this mission.

It's not a boohoo thing. This like anything always has a solution, that's not a problem. My deal simply with balance. This is not an endgame balance issue once you've got a reasonably IO setted character this is a potential midgame issue when most people are on SOs. Atleast I play each set to spot the differences.

What I am going to do now is go in game and see how many yellows per group I need to pop to be as good as a Fire/Fire tank at the same mish.

Even with 2 Accs in it, under enough debuffs you could miss every target in sight. My problem then is when you have a secondary or primary that doesn't have a +tohit power by a certain level or the +tohit power needs to be able to hit.

4/9 of DA's powers could miss, then upto 8/9 of the attack set could miss, this is a great loss in survivability, add in the wasted endurance should you survive or the -rechg or whatever the other possible debuffs maybe and you can be quite put out compared to other sets that do not rely so much on accuracy.

I still have the mish which takes that 75% base tohit and kills it.