If I wanted to make a fear based tanker, I'd go with Dark/Dark. Like with any kind of control power, stacking is key. With Dark/Dark you get a fear in your primary, one in your secondary, and can get another in Presence pool if that's your concept.
Dark Armor is relatively forgiving if you are going to specialize in one form of its mitigation control, you can skip at least some of the others; you aren't going to need Oppressive Gloom, for instance. If I were doing this, I'd try taking Presence instead of Fighting, just to see how that would work.
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My main problem when I tried something similar (dropping Icicles on my Ice/Ice before the Ice Melee changes that made it decent at AoE damage) was that the Presence Pool was just an endurance drain, and that was with EA to replenish my stocks). Maybe with IOs and the ability to slot a decent amount of Endurance Reduction along with Recharge Reduction, it might work. But without some kind of Endurance recovery tool, you might be in for a bit of pain there.
Consider this: Intimidate costs 13 endurance per use, lasts 10.4 seconds, but recharges in 30 seconds, so you'd need some decent recharge to perma-fear a boss.
The rest of the spawn is similarly affected by Invoke Panic, with a similar duration (10.4 seconds), but with an even longer recharge (60 seconds). As such, you'd need to be almost at the recharge cap to get it perma'd. And I'm not even sure if that would do it, considering the 1.97 second cast time. This is in addition to the whopping 22.8 endurance cost of the power.
Does it work? Yes. Does it work as well as you might hope? Probably not. It's a great secondary layer of mitigation, but you'd going to want a good primary layer, first.
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Yeah, the plan was to skip the Fighting pool. I think fear will get more more than running Tough and Weave will, particularly for the price of running them (they need way more slots and endurance). Moreover, getting Challenge with a range increase for pulling would be more useful than say adding Boxing to my attack chain.
My brute is dark/dark and together with the presence pool I can even cause fear to AV's. It did take a bit of set IO-ing (no purples) to ensure +acc and +rech but it works fine since I have all the fear powers (it did take me up to lvl 38 to get a powermatch that is nice to play and works though so you will need some patience before it starts to show results...).
I did take the fighting pool as well for some additional toughness on the brute as the dark armor tends to be a bit squishy but that may be different on tankers.
AP
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Well, I wouldn't say any of that is particularly accurate (no offense meant by that).|
Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
Yeah, the plan was to skip the Fighting pool. I think fear will get more more than running Tough and Weave will, particularly for the price of running them (they need way more slots and endurance). Moreover, getting Challenge with a range increase for pulling would be more useful than say adding Boxing to my attack chain.
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Tough and Weave only need about 4 slots each (so three above the base) to be effective, and fairly endurance friendly. Meanwhile, the presence powers will need significantly more slots and endurance use to be as effective as you'd want.
Tough and Weave, both running with 1 EndRed, 3 DamRes or Defense enhancements will cost you 0.50 endurance/second for 6 slots.
Meanwhile, firing off Intimidate and Invoke Panic, as often as you can, will probably take the following slotting to be decent:
Intimidate: 1-2 Acc, 1 EndRed, 2 RecRed, 1-2 Fear Enhancements
Invoke Panic: 2 Acc, 2 EndRed, 2 RecRed (Inoke Panic only has 60% base accuracy, as opposed to the 75% of most other powers)
At that rate, you will be, in a 60-second period, firing off Intimidate about 3.33 times, and Invoke Panic about 1.66 times. That's 32.5 + 22.8 = 55.3 endurance per minute, or 0.921 end/second. Almost twice the endurance cost of running Tough and Weave, at the cost of 4 additional slots.
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I wouldnt touch them fear powers with any tanker as I tried them out on test and found them just bleh compared to the rest of the power pools except perhaps concealment. Dark tanks for fear maybe but other than that nah.
Clever use of the afraid in Burn is pretty good come to think of it.
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I tried this for a bit on my Dark/Ice tanker. Tried to combine Cloak of Fear and Intimidate/Invoke Panic into an effective fear machine. Got very little out of it. The payoff hardly seemed worth the cost or running it that way. So, I scrapped it, and went in another direction. I suppose with the right tinkering and IOs, you could make it viable, but it just didn't work for me in a way that I liked.
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You're assuming that I would slot it that way (I'm not sure I would slot the fear powers at all... and probably not with RecReds) and plan on continuously firing it. There's no point in firing it at all if my bar isn't dropping (except as an alpha to let my AAO charge before my AoEs). Heck, it would be dumb to fire it if I don't need it because it's going to keep me from dealing damage for a few seconds.|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
Well, I wouldn't say any of that is particularly accurate (no offense meant by that).
Tough and Weave only need about 4 slots each (so three above the base) to be effective, and fairly endurance friendly. Meanwhile, the presence powers will need significantly more slots and endurance use to be as effective as you'd want. Tough and Weave, both running with 1 EndRed, 3 DamRes or Defense enhancements will cost you 0.50 endurance/second for 6 slots. Meanwhile, firing off Intimidate and Invoke Panic, as often as you can, will probably take the following slotting to be decent: Intimidate: 1-2 Acc, 1 EndRed, 2 RecRed, 1-2 Fear Enhancements Invoke Panic: 2 Acc, 2 EndRed, 2 RecRed (Inoke Panic only has 60% base accuracy, as opposed to the 75% of most other powers) At that rate, you will be, in a 60-second period, firing off Intimidate about 3.33 times, and Invoke Panic about 1.66 times. That's 32.5 + 22.8 = 55.3 endurance per minute, or 0.921 end/second. Almost twice the endurance cost of running Tough and Weave, at the cost of 4 additional slots. |
That's the key difference in endurance with the fighting power pool. Yes, strictly speaking the math doesn't favor it "spamming" but my brain behind the wheel to use it only when needed and then calculate which used more END over an entire mission, I bet fear would win hands down.
Tough isn't going to add much, but if I get enough IO bonuses, there's a good chance that Weave will put me at the softcap, or even a little over it. But the greater the level difference (+1s vs +3s) that softcap magic dissipates in a cloud of smoke and I'm better off with the pseudo-control of the Presence powers.
At least I think I am. Or the pool is just crap like everyone thinks it is.
I'm not trying to be difficult, I was asking for advice. I'm just pushing this as far as I can argue it. Partly because I'm testing my point and partly because I hate the idea that a power pool is "useless".
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Incorrect. Please read the softcap guide in my sig. You won't believe what the softcap does for you, and I think I do a good enough job to explain it.|
Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
But the greater the level difference (+1s vs +3s) that softcap magic dissipates in a cloud of smoke and I'm better off with the pseudo-control of the Presence powers.
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Short version: At the softcap, a +4 AV has a 10.5% chance to hit you. That's less often than a +1 minion will hit someone with 40% defense. The last 5% really does that much for you.
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Ay, but you'll be working hard and spending millions to get a Dark Armor tanker to the soft cap. (Shields, not so hard.)
The larger problem I can see with a fear based Dark/Dark/Presence tanker is that it would not scale well with team size. You would have four fear powers, but two are single target fears, and some are relatively slow to recharge. On a large team, that's an awful lot of mobs to try to control.
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Only took me 300m* to get there for S/L/E/N.|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
Ay, but you'll be working hard and spending millions to get a Dark Armor tanker to the soft cap.
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*This figure does not include merit expenditures.
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See that's what I don't want. I don't want a 300Million+ tank. And I've never needed to spend that sort of cash before. My ice/axe with SOs (even when ice sucked, though you could perma dull pain back then) could handle anything that was thrown at him. Yeah sure, defense streaks, but everything in the game outside of Lord Recluse was fine. He's well below the cap still. Part of the reason he can do this is that he doesn't *just* have defense.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Only took me 300m* to get there for S/L/E/N.
*This figure does not include merit expenditures. |
I'm not sure I buy Dechs Kaison's calculations in that thread. I think the clamp causes problems with the analysis, as does the streak breaker. I'll just have to make myself a spreadsheet to check. The streak breaker is a particular problem in some of the "go 12 out of 13 swings without getting hit" stuff.
And maybe the most important is that you say AccMods for level and rank multiply together and don't add. Adding would be much worse for the player when the for values under 2. (1.1 * 1.1 = 1.21, but 1.1 + 1.1 = 2.2 yikes!)
But strangely that page never says which is true. This is critical. But it's also critical that you do some funny business with "number of times you'll get hit out of 5". Over the long haul a 10% chance to hit means 1/5th the damage taken at 50%. Recovery, Resists, and other things have to meet whatever need this poses. You don't "wait" for those hits, they might be the first ones.
The truth is, with all this other AoE mitigation, I may not need anything unless fighting a very high level AV or a Giant Monster (which the Attack Mechanics page on ParagonWiki seems to say is less troublesome than a +1 AV, but in my experience much worse).
The big problem with defense is that all damage is "burst" damage and therefore takes time to react to. When you do take damage it's a big chunk and has a possibility of crossing over certain thresholds (like the amount of HP you have left). Also a Resist tanker's "Recovery" is constantly helping him. A Defense tanker's only getting effective life expectancy assistance after the first hit.
But this isn't about how defense sucks, because there are other reasons like effective mezz protection that mean it doesn't suck.
Sometimes I get lost in the math and the application in play becomes as important. Who knows, for example, what my two teleport/attack powers will do to change the numbers on the ground. I think they favor getting the softcap because of the effective "reset" time for mobs in melee mode, would get chewed up by the fear (in other words, I would have two similar overlapping effects, but the +Def would still effectively stack).
Right now I'm thinking the main problem with fear is that it overlaps, rather than stacks, with other damage mitigation. There's too many ways to get pauses in mobs attack chains that might be in play (including my electric -End effect which seems to be more effective than in the old days).
Seems to me that the terrorize "soft hold" is still too weak.
Now the side question for bonus points is, Maneuvers or Weave or both? Especially considering a possible stack with Grant Cover. I think Dechs Kaison's point about squishies in team play points to Team +Def being more useful that previously considered.
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Well, you were talking about a shield tanker. It is possible to softcap shields on SOs alone with the proper power picks.|
Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
See that's what I don't want. I don't want a 300Million+ tank. And I've never needed to spend that sort of cash before.
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Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
I'm not sure I buy Dechs Kaison's calculations in that thread. I think the clamp causes problems with the analysis, as does the streak breaker.
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EDIT: Yes it does, but if the final tohit chance is 20% or less, the streak breaker will not kick in until the 100th swing.
I don't see how the clamps cause problems. Defense over 45% is clamped so that the tohit portion is 5%. Then accuracy modifiers are taken into account, and would be clamped again if the result ended up less than 5%.
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Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
And maybe the most important is that you say AccMods for level and rank multiply together and don't add. Adding would be much worse for the player when the for values under 2. (1.1 * 1.1 = 1.21, but 1.1 + 1.1 = 2.2 yikes!)
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Originally Posted by Paragonwiki.com
So for critters, we have a slightly longer formula for figuring AccMods:
AccMods = the power's inherent Accuracy × the Accuracy of the enemy's Rank × Accuracy factor due to level difference |
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Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
But it's also critical that you do some funny business with "number of times you'll get hit out of 5". Over the long haul a 10% chance to hit means 1/5th the damage taken at 50%. Recovery, Resists, and other things have to meet whatever need this poses. You don't "wait" for those hits, they might be the first ones.
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Your HP is the same way. Every swing has the same chance to hit. No one hit will kill you, so the long run is all that you're worried about. When you start taking more than X DPS, your health falls faster than it regens. When your health runs out, you go bankrupt like the casino.
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Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
Now the side question for bonus points is, Maneuvers or Weave or both? Especially considering a possible stack with Grant Cover. I think Dechs Kaison's point about squishies in team play points to Team +Def being more useful that previously considered.
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I'd like to finish with "If you doubt the survivability added by defense, please watch my video, Dark Armor Sucks." I'm fighting a variety of +4/x8 spawns without bosses in that video, and it was made possible thanks to defense. Yes, I spent a good deal on my tank, but in comparison to most builds out there, it's pocket change. It was far more than worth it to me. I can herd Devouring Earth monsters six at a time. I've held the aggro of 4 Rikti Magi on the Mothership. I have held the aggro of four AVs and Reichsman all at once.
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don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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I don't see how. What else is there besides Combat Jumping, Weave, and Maneuvers?|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Well, you were talking about a shield tanker. It is possible to softcap shields on SOs alone with the proper power picks.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
The streak breaker does not apply to NPCs.
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Straight from the page you reference on Paragon Wiki in your post.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I don't see how the clamps cause problems. Defense over 45% is clamped so that the tohit portion is 5%. Then accuracy modifiers are taken into account, and would be clamped again if the result ended up less than 5%.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
For what it's worth, I'm very sure they are multiplicative. It is stated on the attack mechanics page.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Both if you can handle the endurance cost and can't think of a better power to take.
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Just opened up Mids. With CJ, Maneuvers, Weave, and other pertinent powers from Shields with 3 defense SOs in each you hit 44% defense.|
Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
I don't see how. What else is there besides Combat Jumping, Weave, and Maneuvers?
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You could add hover or stealth.
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Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
"Critters get the benefits of the system as well."
Straight from the page you reference on Paragon Wiki in your post. |
I've edited my previous post for this correction.
Look at the numbers. If the final chance to hit is less than 20%, the streak breaker will not kick in for one hundred swings.
I have a nasty habit of adding a lot to posts after posting. Please go back and see my additional comments.
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Strange, I just did the same thing with Mids and got only 38.65% something isn't right. Why does everyone talk about needing expensive IO sets to get to the soft cap if you can do it out of the box?
I'm not understanding how the streak-breaker works. What's the point of a streak breaker that doesn't break streaks? There aren't many streaks at 50% and there are a massive number of them at 5%.
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That's what I came up with first. Then I remembered to toggle the pool powers on.|
Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
Strange, I just did the same thing with Mids and got only 38.65% something isn't right.
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Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
Why does everyone talk about needing expensive IO sets to get to the soft cap if you can do it out of the box?
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Originally Posted by JusticeBowler
I'm not understanding how the streak-breaker works. What's the point of a streak breaker that doesn't break streaks? There aren't many streaks at 50% and there are a massive number of them at 5%.
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Something doesn't add up. Sheilds would be way over powered.
True Grit is like 20% resist when slotted, +7% effectively from AAO and Tough with Defection Slotted with Resist you are up to almost 50% S/L resist on top of softcap Def... all without IOs or set bonuses. +200% recovery between Health and the True Grit "effective" bonus on regen for having a bigger pool.
That sounds God-like outside of strange circumstances. Of course, because you are no-get-hitsu, things like Heal Self are a possibility.
Mids lists Physical Perfection from the Energy Power pool as available, but I don't remember that. That's another 40% regen.
They added Physical Perfection when they added an additional power to the epics a while back. It's particularly useful as a mule for the various flat / chance of END Mod and Health IO's.
Also, soft cap is very beneficial. You can simulate the difference yourself if you don't have softcap yet by eating one or more purple shield inspirs to get yourself to the softcap temporarily (monitoring your DEF stats via the Combat Attributes window). Stand around and see how much less often you get hit.
JB ... you may want to consider going with something other than a Shield or Dark Tanker for this. What about a Willpower Tanker with Presence? Sure, you won't have a Fear Aura to work with (from Dark), but Willpower especially would be greatly advantaged by the ability to "pin" hostiles in PBAoE via Fear so as to fuel Rise to the Challenge very effectively.
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
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I've got a WP/Energy tanker that I tried this with a year ago. It was a concept build linking WP to the Fear powers, and I was tempted by Glimpse of the Abyss since it's so cheap and has good recharge and decent HP bonuses.|
Originally Posted by Redlynne
JB ... you may want to consider going with something other than a Shield or Dark Tanker for this. What about a Willpower Tanker with Presence? Sure, you won't have a Fear Aura to work with (from Dark), but Willpower especially would be greatly advantaged by the ability to "pin" hostiles in PBAoE via Fear so as to fuel Rise to the Challenge very effectively.
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However, the pool Fear powers are underpowered compared to the primary/secondary Fear powers such as Spectral Terror, Fearsome Stare, and Cloak of Fear. In particular, there's no -to hit component in Invoke Panic and Intimidate, and the base duration for Invoke Panic is only 10 seconds with a minute recharge plus a relatively high End cost.
It doesn't perform very well. I did it as an experiment and it feels like a failure (part of it may be the /Energy secondary). I have a WP/Mace tanker with Tough and Weave, and it's more mundane but a lot more fun.
I've been messing around with fear based builds for a while - dating back to my dark/dark fear based scrapper with the presence pool.
While I have had a lot of the issues others have mentioned - endurance being an especially high concern. I've come to realize that the presence pool underperforms in many ways: high recharge, short duration, no debuff, provoke needs a roll to hit, etc. so its best being a concept novelty than trying to build a lead tanker type - even with influence being a non-issue. That's not to say you can not build a great viable fear based tank because you can. It's just that other powers that you take to survive will prove more useful and you'll find that often a quicker kill is better than wasting the endurance on the presence pool power
I've been playing a Dark/SS and Ice/Dark tanks built around the presence pool for a while. Each is very enjoyable to play but are very scrapperish rather than tankish. In many situations I find it better to lean on other powers rather than the fear based ones (especially the presence pool) to be more effective (or cost effective). I find fear is less disposable on my tri-dark defender than any of the above.
My dark/dark tank is only 22 so take this with a grain of salt, but I think that's a lot of work for something you don't really need.
My tank grabs aggro like a sponge for better or worse. Luckily I can heal myself to full with the touch of a button.
Haven't needed fear or a stun to help at all. They're icing on an already very sugary cake.
I personally wouldn't waste my time trying to use only one form of mitigation on a tank with so many tools available.
Terrorize as damage mitigation.
In the old days this used to come up often, but there were many reasons to avoid making a terror-tank. The main one is that damage auras basically forbid the usefulness (though my understanding is that the mobs can still only make one attack per 5 seconds anyway). The second one is that the pool takes too much to develop.
Perhaps it's just that I've been gone awhile, but I'd like to know your thoughts on whether a shield tank (given no damage aura) who's willing to take the Presence Pool for his taunt, doesn't still have a good go of this. Consider that you can stack Invoke Panic and Intimidate on a Boss and keep the whole mob tied up nicely, so you aren't really "wasting" any of the slots.
My experience since I've been back is that the fear IOs are relatively cheap, the bonuses aren't great except for GotA and Unspeakable's Disorient Bonus is surprisingly weak. But maybe I drop an accuracy in it and forget it. Or just a couple of recharges in Invoke Panic.
It seems I might get my bang for my buck here. Particularly since I really should give AAO a chance to charge up before using my chain of AoEs.
Of course you might just say that all those AoEs will be all the mitigation I need.
Anyway, I just thought I'd ask.