Build Help - Inv/Em - Would love some advice
By
Call Me Awesome,
Posted on: 2009-05-13 22:47 in Tankers
Best IO slotting invuln guide I've seen...
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post12970142
Courtesy of Call_Me_Awesome
Thanks, I actually just finished reading that. That was alot of great info to absorb. Would still love some help with the overall build though.
I'm not sure this is doable on your budget, but I would probably shoot for something like this:
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/
[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]
Level 31 Natural Tanker
Primary Power Set: Invulnerability
Secondary Power Set: Energy Melee
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Temp Invulnerability -- RctvArm-ResDam(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(3), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(3), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(15)
Level 1: Barrage -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(25), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(29), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(29)
Level 2: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-Heal(A), Dct'dW-Rchg(5), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(5), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(7)
Level 4: Bone Smasher -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(11), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(11), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Acc-I(13)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- Jump-I(A)
Level 8: Unyielding -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(9), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(9), RctvArm-ResDam(15)
Level 10: Taunt -- Mocking-Taunt(A), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg(17), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(17)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 16: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 18: Invincibility -- GftotA-Def(A), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(19), DefBuff-I(19)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(21), EndMod-I(21)
Level 22: Whirling Hands -- Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(A), Erad-Dmg(23), Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(25)
Level 24: Resist Physical Damage -- ResDam-I(A)
Level 26: Tough Hide -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(27), DefBuff-I(27)
Level 28: Boxing -- Acc-I(A)
Level 30: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(31), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(31), RctvArm-ResDam(31)
Level 32: Weave -- DefBuff-I(A)
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet
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[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]<ul type="square">[*]11.3% Defense(Smashing)[*]11.3% Defense(Lethal)[*]6.88% Defense(Energy)[*]6.88% Defense(Negative)[*]5.63% Defense(Melee)[*]3.44% Defense(Ranged)[*]3.6% Max End[*]5% Enhancement(RechargeTime)[*]4% Enhancement(Heal)[*]98.4 HP (5.25%) HitPoints[*]MezResist(Held) 2.75%[*]MezResist(Immobilize) 8.8%[*]MezResist(Terrorized) 2.2%[*]2% (0.03 End/sec) Recovery[*]1.26% Resistance(Fire)[*]1.26% Resistance(Cold)[/list]
With the recent increase in availability of the Kinetic Combat set I'm changing my recommendation to it from the Smashing Haymaker set. A couple of days ago I bought 3 sets of Kin Combat for roughly 300k per recipe... level 25-30 IO's. Some were a bit more, some were far less. Don't feel you MUST have the highest level sets... once you get the slots to 6 slot you'll be at ED cap anyway. I suggest finishing your attacks with Pounding Slugfest (Acc/Dam & Dam/Rchg) for the 8% regen bonus... 4 level 30 Kin Combat (all but the proc) and 2 Pounding Slugfest ED caps your damage with adequate accuracy and recharge. Level 25's put you very close as well, and are usually cheap.
I doubt you'll be able to slot the Eradication set into Whirling Hands on your budget... it's still very expensive. A decent compromise would be Multi-Strike; in the 30-35 range it should be pretty cheap. You'll probably end up respec'ing it out later in your career but it'll serve for the moment.
Eventually you'll be slotting another set of Reactive Armor into RPD and probably Res Energies... I recommend the latter in the 40's. The Steadfast 3% def unique goes nicely into TI... you'll need to add a 5th slot for it, and you'll finish out the full set of Mocking Beratement in Taunt. I'm suggesting the MB set for Taunt because the better availability of the Kinetic Combat for your attacks means you need less boost to your def and the fact that it's considerably cheaper than the Zinger set. Right now you're a bit hamstrung by lack of available slots; the above build should give you good return on slot investment.
15 million probably won't buy everything I've listed here, so to maximize your benefits I would concentrate on the Kin Combat first, then the Reactive Armor then the Mocking Beratement followed by the rest. I typically slot a mix of SO's and set IO's in the 30's and gradually replace SO's as I get drops or the money to buy the IO's I'll want.
One final bit of advise, buy the lower level IO's... they're MUCH cheaper than the higher level ones. An example I ran into yesterday, a level 30 Kin Combat Acc/Dam recipe went for 200k while a level 35 (the cap for that set) was selling for 5 million. I also bought 4 Acc/Dam at level 25 for 50k each; and a level 25 set will do the job as well as the level 35.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
And if you're on a tight budget, patience helps -- let your bids sit a bit, don't just bid up and up until you win.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
Thanks for the build help and the advice. Just a couple questions and comments.
So you suggest taking whirling hands over energy punch? Is this simply to get an aoe attack or to get the set bonuses from a pbaoe attack? Also I had just switched over to my 2nd build before you posted this...so there's some slight differences, although I do have a free respec available. Like I took energy punch and don't have whirling hands yet, also I dont have weave by 32 either. But the biggest issue I'm currently having is the lack of Reactive armor recipes at WW's. For instance, there's only a handful of Reactive Armor: Resistance recipes in the 30s and they're semi pricey, and the only other ones drop all the way down to level 22 and below and there's barely any of these available. Looks like I'm going to be waiting a lot longer than I thought to fix this character up.
Whirling hands is your only AOE attack, therefore it's a valuable thing to have. The reasons to choose it have to do with tanking ability and a source of AOE damage... set bonuses in it are secondary. A soft capped Invuln is amazingly powerful, but it's an extremely tight build that requires some sacrifices. The choice between an AOE and another mediocre single target attack is a fairly easy one... AOE trumps a ST attack doing relatively equivalent damage... even ST attacks doing up to twice the damage since it does that damage to multiple foes at once. Boxing takes the place of Energy Punch in your build.
What I would do with the Reactive is place low bids, in the realm of 200k, on several recipe's from 25-33 or so and then go away. Come back to check on them the next day and you'll probably have bought a few of them. Just because there aren't any for sale NOW doesn't mean you can't get them; someone may well list a few over the next 24 hours. When I'm looking for that type of thing I'll place a bid on every level 23 - 33 and let them sit for 24 hours. The next day I pick up the ones I bought and cancel the other bids.
Oh, and low-20's IO's will work just fine for you; 4 level 20 Reactives may not quite get to the ED cap but they will get you to 42% enhancement... ED cap is ~55%. Just for comparison a tanker slotted up with level 20 Reactive armor is going to be ~86% S/L resistance and 27% E/N... slotted with 35's (reaching the ED cap) he will be ~90% S/L resistance and ~29% E/N. As you can see it isn't going to make a huge difference in your survivability. 4% improvement in S/L and 2% in exotic resist won't even be noticed.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
Ahh, gotcha. Yeah that makes sense, but for some odd reason I think I'm going to miss energy punch heh, even though it was relatively weak. So in a build like this, where your defenses are soft capped and your resistances are really high...there really isn't a need for Unstoppable is there? Given the fact that its really going to add extra resistance to status effects and fire/ice/eng etc and an endurance boost? I'm thinking of skipping it completely on this build. Again, thanks for all the great help!
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Ahh, gotcha. Yeah that makes sense, but for some odd reason I think I'm going to miss energy punch heh, even though it was relatively weak. So in a build like this, where your defenses are soft capped and your resistances are really high...there really isn't a need for Unstoppable is there? Given the fact that its really going to add extra resistance to status effects and fire/ice/eng etc and an endurance boost? I'm thinking of skipping it completely on this build. Again, thanks for all the great help!
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I originally respec'd into a soft capped build shortly after issue 13... I'd always found Unstoppable to be a very useful tool in the issue 5-12 era so I hung onto it; I wasn't sure just how well the soft cap build would work. Well, after a full issue of never once even thinking about using Unstoppable I've dropped the power with my latest respec.
I think that any power that I hadn't needed in 4 STF's, more than a dozen ITF's and virtually everything else in the high end game was a wasted power slot. As I said, I was hesitant to dump it at first, but after an entire issue has come and gone without ever needing it I'm now a believer.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
Well I've finally managed to get most of the sets you outlined in that build on this tank. And wow, he is a beast defensively...that's plainly obvious. I haven't pushed the limits yet but soloing on Unyielding, even with tough and weave turned off I never fell below 90%.
The only drawbacks I've noticed is the increased end usage (even with tough and weave turned off 
), and my accuracy in my attacks is brutal. I was only able to grab one of the kinetic combat sets, I settled for a smashing impact set in my other attack..but if I remember correctly only one enhancement in each of these sets had an accuracy component in it. So I'll have to figure out how to boost my end recovery and my accuracy somehow. Obviously getting some levels and more slots will help, as will getting buildup but I still need to think ahead in terms of what other sets to shoot for bonus-wise.
I'm glad you're enjoying your tank; if you're 6 slotting your attacks like I suggested with the 4 Kin Combat and two Pounding Slugfest (Acc/Dam and Dam/Rchg) your accuracy should be decent even with level 20 IO's; you should also be getting about one SO worth of endred. If you're having end issues you may want to replace the Pounding Slugfest Dam/Rchg with a Dam/End. I do remember on my Stone/EM tanker that EM was particularly end heavy; the best advise I can give you is to pace yourself with your attacks... that's something I had to learn way back when with my Inv/Stone.
Anyway, slotting level 20 Kin Combat (all but the proc) and Pounding Slugfest (acc/dam & dam/rchg) you should have: 32% acc/90% dam/29% endred/45% recharge. Changing the Pounding Slugfest Dam/Rchg to a Dam/End you reverse the endred and recharge effects giving 45% endred and 29% recharge. Obviously slotting level 25-30 will get you a bit more, but those base level 20 values should be adequate.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
Well I had my first "crowning" moment with my newly improved 34 inv/em tank last night. I wanted to test him out, so I opted to join a group that was going to do a 53 boss mission in the AE. When the group was just about full, the leader starts broadcasting for a tank that "can TANK a 53 boss farm!". Then the leader and another group member start talking about how they're sick of grouping with these tanks that just look pretty in these missions, and die.
At this point I was getting really annoyed and ready to drop group, but I thought what the hell I could care less what these guys are saying really. Then the group fills up and a stone/stone tank joins up, about level 41 or so. We enter the mission and start taking on these spawns of dual blade bosses. At one point the stone tank engages a group at the same time that one of the controllers fire imps aggros another spawn beside us. I jump in the middle of this spawn before they tear through the pets to grab aggro. For whatever reason, only a scrapper or two runs to the stone tanks aid, so he dies shortly after I engaged the second group. I rush over to his group and taunt them, and we take them all out. The stone tank basically afk's forever and then leaves the team, and I end up tanking the rest of the mission, and I'm sure I didn't drop below 95% health even when we took on multiple spawns at the same time, lol.
Granted, the bosses were doing lethal damage so maybe it's not that big of a deal, but I was just pumped after what they were saying to begin with and being semi unsure how I was going to perform, but damn I was happy after that.
Oh, I forgot to mention that after getting some more of the sets filled out accuracy is much less of an issue. End however still gets chewed up pretty fast. So I was wondering about some of these enhancements like Miracle - chance for + Recovery and I believe the Numina set had a +regen +recovery IO as well. Even though I can't afford them yet, I'm wondering how these work exactly and where and how you would want to slot these...like dull pain or health? Or do they even make much of a difference in regards to recovering your end faster?
Well at least when I hit 47 I can take conserve power, and that should help out alot.
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Oh, I forgot to mention that after getting some more of the sets filled out accuracy is much less of an issue. End however still gets chewed up pretty fast. So I was wondering about some of these enhancements like Miracle - chance for + Recovery and I believe the Numina set had a +regen +recovery IO as well. Even though I can't afford them yet, I'm wondering how these work exactly and where and how you would want to slot these...like dull pain or health? Or do they even make much of a difference in regards to recovering your end faster?
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You want to slot Numina and Miracle uniques into health so the effects are constant. if you put them in a click the uniques are only active when you click the power. and yes these two make a big difference in your endurance recovery.
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Oh, I forgot to mention that after getting some more of the sets filled out accuracy is much less of an issue. End however still gets chewed up pretty fast. So I was wondering about some of these enhancements like Miracle - chance for + Recovery and I believe the Numina set had a +regen +recovery IO as well. Even though I can't afford them yet, I'm wondering how these work exactly and where and how you would want to slot these...like dull pain or health? Or do they even make much of a difference in regards to recovering your end faster?
Well at least when I hit 47 I can take conserve power, and that should help out alot.
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The Numina & Miracle uniques are certainly very nice to have; I didn't mention them because they're just a bit out of your price range 
I'd say that getting either of the recovery uniques will probably take care of your end problems, make sure you put them in Health so they'll always be active; if you put them in Dull Pain they'll only work for 2 minutes after you click the power.
The last prices I remember seeing were in the 50-70 million range each. Of course you can do MA and spend tickets on gold rolls; you'll have a chance of having one drop. Maybe I'm just lucky but in the first two weeks of issue 14 I had one Miracle and 4 Numina uniques drop from ticket rolls. I also had quite a few crap of the hunter and other vendor trash drop so as the saying goes "your mileage may vary". Several of my SG mates spent a couple of weeks running level 53 boss farms on our Fire/Rad 'trollers so we earned a BUNCH of tickets.
The character I most needed the uniques on was my Fire/Rad; I ran TF's with him on the way from 1-50 and saved merits to buy them... I bought the Miracle and got a lucky roll for the Numina.
Oh, and Conserve Power is a tier one epic power, it's available at 41.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
Hi guys, as the subject states I'm looking for some build help. Way back in the day when CoH was young and Invul was king I had rolled up a Inv/Em tank on Guardian. I recently decided to give this character a go again, so I transferred him over to Freedom and have been putting off figuring out how I should respec this character and build him into a respectable tank.
So here's the deal, I have a veteran reward respec waiting, and about 15 million on him, possibly pull a few more million from some other characters (recently reactivated, been a long time player but off and on). I guess my biggest issue is the fact that he's level 32 and I'm having trouble with the order I should take powers at and which ones I should end up with at 50. He's basically on the verge of becoming more fun as at 35 and 38 I can get the two heavy hitters from the EM set, but again figuring out the order I should take my powers at so he's a nice balance of defense and offense (I often solo, I need to get off my a$$ and find a good SG one of these days so I can actually see some of the cooler content in this game that I've been depriving myself of so long due to other mmo's and alt-itis).
Anyway enough rambling. Summary:
Build help - 32 Inv/EM tank
What powers, when, what IO sets to start with or shoot for.