Electric Armour and the 1st 20 levels

Untoldhero’s Guide to Electric Armour
I see that a lot of people are looking for advice how to build ELA and when I did a search for a guide I couldn’t really find one that was up to date.
There is a rather good Brute ELM/ELA guide but I thought I would write one from a team tanking perspective.
Frist let me state that this guide is purely opinionated in how I used my ELA and in which I found it the most successful from 1-20. I’ll be using ELA/Super strength in my guide so please keep that in mind.
So the first 20 levels are very basic you’re at your base building at this point. We know that a tank is ment to be the meat shield of the team and it’s his job to hold aggro so the rest of the team can all play roles without fear of death.
Lets make our Character: CREATION
LEVEL 1
Tier 1: Toggled/Charged Armour gives a 35% resist to Smashing and Lethal at a cost of 0.26 end/sec
T1 attack: Default is Jab
LEVEL 2
T3: Toggled/Conductive Shield gives a 35% res to fire/cold/negative/energy at 0.26 end/sec
LEVEL 3
2 slots granted, add one slot to T1 charged armour and one slot to T1 attack
LEVEL 4
T3 attack: Haymaker
LEVEL 5
2 slots granted, add one slot to T3 conductive shield and one slot to T3 attack
LEVEL 6
T4: Toggle/Static shield gives res to Hold/Stun/sleep/endurance drain/recovery debuff/teleport also gives 35% res to psi
(we have now got a base protection against most attacks in the game, not to mention we now have a 95% resistance to endurance drain)
LEVEL 7
2 slots granted, add one slot to T1 and T3 attack’s (this make it 3 slotted) you can now slot these with 1 endurance reduction, one Accuracy buff and one Damage buff
LEVEL 8
T5: Auto power/Grounded, this is your Knockback Protection power. It is always on and won’t use endurance it also gives you Resistance to Negative energy and energy and immobilize protection (a side note: Grounded means you must stay standing on the ground for it to be active, if you jump in the air your knockback protection drops to 0 meaning you can be thrown around like a rag doll)
LEVEL 9
2 slots granted, add one slot to T1 armour and T3 armour this is Charged Armour and Conductive Shield (you will be 3 slotted) slot 2 end reductions and 1 resistance buff
LEVEL 10
I personally recommend Lightning Field, Gauntlet is now active which procs off your attacks making the enemy more likely to attack you rather than your team mates
T2: Toggle/Lightning Field PBAoE which constantly damages your enemies within melee range while it is activated. It also has an Endurance drain applied to your foes so they lose end
LEVEL 11
2 slots granted, add 2 slots to T2 Lightning Field, slot 2 end reductions and 1 Accuracy buff
LEVEL12
Select your power pool: I recommend Speed because of the Grounded effect, you have 2 choices Flurry or Hasten (remember you can always respect out) I chose Flurry for an extra attack since Super Strength doesn’t really get effective until the later levels
Flurry
LEVEL 13
2 slots granted, slot one slot in Charged Armour and one slot in Static shield
Slot your Charged with another resistance buff and your static with 2 end reductions
LEVEL14
Select a Travel Power in my case Super Speed (your power pools are completely optional you do not have to do this)
LEVEL 15
2 Slots granted, slot one slot in T1 and T3 attacks and give them a damage buff
LEVEL 16
T4 attack: Taunt
LEVEL 17
2 Slots granted, add one slot to Conductive and one slot to static. Add a Resistance buff to both
LEVEL 18
Next power pool Fighting (in preparation for Tough)
Boxing
LEVEL 19
2 slots granted, Give a slot to T1 and T3 attacks and slot with another end reduction for each
LEVEL 20
This is governed by your secondary and how many attacks you already have, if I had more attacks at this time I would choose energize but this is how I played my Super Strength
T6 attack: Knockout Blow
That is the first 20 levels of game play that I found worked for me. Since ELA based solely on resistance for its protection, it’s important to utilize those tools to effectively support your team. If you can attract the enemies and hold their attention your team will be grateful. This is not the time to try and with stand 5 groups of enemies but to hold your own long enough for the team to be safe, so they can support you and finish the job.
Much later in the game do you start looking at how you can be that Tank that just takes punishment with a smile.

It's a guide to build the way you built if anything. There is no hard and fast rule to build (I'd of taken haste over flurry) and you could of just stuck a build from Mids down that did you first 20 levels with the slots in order.. First 20 levels flyby, in anycase static shield is a power that should be taken pretty much asap and I see alot of people not doing that so a guide is possibly a good thing for people to have. If I were you I'd pad it to more than how you built, perhaps how you play it too.

As a fellow Elec/SS Tanker, I have to say I dont like this setup at all. But that doesn't mean its not useful to someone starting out.

My Choices for powers to pick for Elec/SS tanker firs 20 levels.


1: Charge Armor (no Brainer)

1: Jab (Default)

2: Punch... Need to grab more attacks. In the first 6 levels offensive is stronger then any def/res your going to pack.

4: Haymaker... Again.. get an attack chain leveling will be easyer and quicker.

6: Static Shield... Status pro.. on a Res set. Nuff said.

8: Grounded.. again status pro and this ones passive.

10: Boxing.. yup you heard me. Another attack, and its needed for Tough

12: Energize.. Unlike what people like to say this is a great heal. Anyone that says this heal is substandard doesn't understand what Energizer is.

14: Tough.. why this over Conductive? Most things are Smash/Lethal in damage type. This plus charged armor puts you at 50% unbuffed to Smash/Lethal, even with DOs you can start pushing 60% resistance mark, its very noticeable.

16: Lightning Field... Why so late? End + the number of Mobs you can handle. Once you have Tough and DOs you can now effectively use Lightning field. Before this if your only fighting 2 or so mobs at a time Lightning fields not going to do much for you.

18: Rage... Welcome to the start of the good life for SS.

20: Conductive Shield.. yes now you can take it.

By 20th level your looking at Base Resistance numbers:

Sm/Le: 50%
En: 82.5%
Neg: 30%
Fire/Cold: 35%
Psi: 35%

* DOs your tacking on 6-10%ish to each of these depending on slotting. Which means you will Cap out your En Resistance. This is pretty huge if you started out in Praetoria, as Pure en attacks are pretty common. 90% resistance turns you into a god vs them.

Because Grounded comes biuld in with En/Neg I dont see a rush to pick up conductive before other powers. Plus Charged Armor is packing 35% res to En. Yes you want it, but in these early levels were powers make a HUGE difference in what you can and can't do I think biulding up your other bases is more important.

Fire/Cold you will have no res vs until 20th, but in the lower levels its not a big deal. Neg could be if your picking on circle of thorns. But honestly I would stay the heck away from CoT in the early levels, not because of the Neg Damage but because of the status attacks, tohit Debuffs and other dirty tricks.

I also dont believe in getting taunt before 20. Generaly speaking most toons are still soloing, and even if they do group, you will most likly be dealing with numbers that your Lighting field + Guantlet alone will take care of nicely.

Travel powers are completely "meh", espeicaly if you come packing Ninja run or beast run from power packs. Thier are a ton of Temp Travel powers you can very easyly pick up (not even by crafting mnd you, which you can also pick up jet pack from Wentworth). A character with nether of these might want a travel power but at these lower levels traveling isn't that bad. I have even found street sweeping faster leveling below 10 then doing missions due to the time ti takes to get said mission and find the mission map vs just bashing some heads.

I don't know if Super Strength is the best powerset for every tanker. Make a guide that leaves room for any secondary power set if you want to make an "Electric Armor" guide. Otherwise, call it an "Electric Armor / Super Strength" guide.

I prefer to take Taunt later in my builds. You generally don't need it until you have to be the primary aggro-holder on AV's. Taunt auras (Electric Field, in this case) and Gauntlet are good enough for holding aggro on standard groups.