The Patron Situation.

Since it will soon be possible to fall from grace and get our grubby mitts of some patron powers I'm curious how many of my fellow tankers will take that route, and which powers they find tempting.

Cheers.
Joe

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Taking It On the Chin I-16 Tanker Guide
Repeat Offenders

Looking at it briefly, if I was to "fall from grace" on my primary Ice/Ice tanker, I'd probably only take either Soul or Mu mastery, Soul as first choice on the Ice/Ice, Mu if I don't find it performing how I wished (Although I'll probably reroll my elec/elec tanker as a Gr starter toon and take Mu on that redside.) Simply because Soul offers -acc, -dmg -ToHit and another -acc, going Gloom, Darkest Night, Dark Obliteration, I can effectively increase the migration of Ice/Ice (Chilling Embrace offers -rech -DMG to targets) and have far more survivability as I currently have or need, which would probably end up with my Ice/Ice farming Bobcats on +4/*8 No bosses instead of +2/*8 No bosses (Bobcats stack -def at 10%, responding badly to one stack of that and you can find yourself at 0% def as Bobcats attack so fast, but is really a fun/challenge to Ice/Ice as the KD targeted AoE tics and the -rech make up the majority of the toons defence outside of soft-capped and 40hp/s without the +HP power) because of how the -acc -ToHit -dmg is going to effect tankers using Soul (And as Ice, hitting hibernate after dropping the widow seems like a viable tactic vs elites on solo) While, as Mu as another choice, stacking the -end of opponents with the -end effect of EA, seems another viable option by migration in preventing the activation of enemies attacks (reducing their end to the point they can only attack at the specific frequency they recover at).

I will be most liking taking Mu on my elec/elec tanker, for the exact same reasons an elec/elec brute would take Mu: Even more end drain. And taking Leviathan on my Hero - Vig - Villain - Rogue WP/DB(or SR can't recall atm) tanker for the fact of having 3 extra cone , bringing the build to 5 cone attacks.

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Yep thats the way I am going on my Fire/Fire. Removing 5 slots and the Obliterations out of Consume and taking Darkest Night's mittigation -tohit AoE. I would lose 3.75% melee defense in faovor of 17% ( enhanced ) -tohit.

Going to stick with a 6 slotted Mako Scorch over Gloom ( personal preference ), with hasten I have it down to 1.15 seconds and 115 damage. Add now -resist on out tier one power and it is very good single target DPS.

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Darkest Night ok for the -dam, if ya can afford the toggle, rest is just concept - I wouldn't touch any of it with a barge pole.

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He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.

I sort of see it as a ranged taunt aura that happens to do a bit of debuff. (DN that is)

Looking over the new powers it seems like a fallen tank has a lot more aoe damage available in Patrons than Epics. Many of the sets have 2-3 targetted aoes where a Epic mostly has 1 at best.
I'm not sure how useful pets will be except as an IO mule or the eat a kryptonite alpha.
I do like the functionality of ranged aoe immobs, as it will allow me to prevent wander.
It seems a fine way to keep my tightly gathered spawn well in my aura and unable to wander of to do naughty things to that over eager blaster.
I am also intrigued by Mu mastery. It might be fun to try out a ice/elec/mu sapper tank.
It would certainly be different.

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Taking It On the Chin I-16 Tanker Guide
Repeat Offenders

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Darkest Night, as a targeted AoE is a great pull-er.

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Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides

You use Darkest Night against AVs for the -damage, which they do not resist (but is affected by the purple code).

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Darkest Night is pretty powerful. Compared to Tough/Weave we get these numbers for the Tanker AT, assuming that Darkest Night keeps the same values when transferred to the Tanker AT:

Darkest Night: Target; -21% DamBuff, -16.6% To-Hit (Value of 57.52%) End/s: 0.65
Toughness: Self; 23.8% Resistance (Value of 58.48%) End/s: 0.33
Weave: Self; 7.92% Defense (Value of 58.48%) End/s: 0.33

The biggest problem with Darkest Night is that AV's render a lot of it's potential meaningless. In their most powerful form, AV's can resist the To-Hit debuff from Darkest Night by 87%. This lowers the To-Hit from -16.5% to -2.14%. In a team this isn't such a big deal, but if your goal was to solo AV's then it's important to be aware of this limitation in Darkest Night.

The other major flaw is that Darkest Night is an anchor power. In order for it to work, you need to stick it on an enemy, which will have the effect of causing the rest of your team to try to kill this enemy with a sort of zealous rage. Hopefully by level 41+ your team has learned to suppress this fascinating mental ailment, but it isn't always the case.


All of that said, Darkest Night is very potent, has a wide area of effect, and is beneficial for the entire team. I think my favorite aspect of the power is that it suddenly turned my Brute into a Tank, a Damage-Dealer, and a Defender all at once. For ultimate team defense consider Shield Defense as your primary, pick up Grant Cover, Maneuvers, and Darkest Night, slot them up appropriately, and your team should be sporting a net "defense" of 37.91%. This is pretty *********** good.

Darkest Night isn't susceptible to cascading defense failure in the same way as Weave or IO Set Bonuses due to it effecting the enemy, which can be very beneficial against enemies that have large amounts of defense debuffs.

Other than in the case of AV's, most enemies are not going to resist the To-Hit debuff, and most of the time you will be applying the full effect. Even when it IS being resisted, it is such a large debuff that it is still probably worth using, and will still probably be more potent than Weave.

If you have to make a decision between Tough/Weave or Darkest Night, I tend to lean more towards Darkest Night. When resisted by an AV, the difference between Weave and Darkest Night is about 5% in favor of Weave, which is big, but not so significant that I couldn't still solo the AV if built properly. Other than that, it's numerically superior than Tough/Weave, costs less slots, less total endurance, and one of its' perquisites, Gloom, is responsible for some of the highest melee DPS chains in the game.

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He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.

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