Can I make a Tank-Mage now?????

Hello all.

I've been away for almost 18 months, and am now doing the VIP thing. I still have my very first Character from I1, an INV/EM Tanker that conceptually was a guy in Heavy Powered Armor.

Making an INV Tanker tough was simple, but I wanted some type of ranged blasts of consequences. I made do with LBE, and the damage was "meh". It was really more like a directed Taunt than a damage inducing power.

I wanted to ask if, via the Incarnate System, can I actually give my Tanker the ability to have a decent ranged damage chain? If y'all don't think it's viable, any ideas on an AT that can mimic an Iron Man type character better?

Thanks in advance.

Icarnate Judgement blast powers will not allow you to form a chain in any way shape or form.

I cannot think of a way you can turn a tank into a character that has a sold ranged attack chain. The game isnt really set up that way..

You could take a blaster and build a high defense build with powers and IO's

An EAT might get you pretty close. (Kheld (teamed), Crab... possibly even a Bane)

You could roll a Shield / Kinetic Melee Tanker. You get Focused Burst for a single target attack and Repulsing Torrent for a ranged cone.

Add Shield Charge as a short-ranged AoE and if you want damage, for Pyre from the ancillary pool and pick up Fire Blast for another single target attack and Fire Ball for another ranged AoE.

You won't get a constant single target chain. But as a Tanker you won't have to work as hard to get to the soft-cap on defense so you can focus the build toward more recharge. Getting another nuke from the Judgement slot with the right Alpha, you might have enough recharge to use a combination of the two single target ranged attacks, the cone, and aoes to have a decent chain event if it's a mix.

Being able to get into melee, using AAO to boost damage, shield charge, Burst (pbaoe), fire ball should do pretty good.

I know my Fire/Fire/Pyre has decent recharge and can chain combustion, burn, fireball, fire sword circle, pyronic judgement for tones of aoe. It's just all done in melee.

I have a solid range chain that I use on mitos during LGTF using kin melee and soul mastery. Gloom focused burst and repulsing torrent with decent recharge is enough to keep going.

More to the point, since when did Iron Man have CLAWS?

Fair enough, it's a build that shows melee sets can be built with some range utility in mind, but as a build to mimic Iron Man, sadly it fails.

Given the way tankers work in CoH, and the nigh-invulnerability that the Fighting pool and incarnate powers can provide, I'm not sure what the point is for a tanker to have ranged damage. Most of the time you can stand in the middle of a huge spawn of enemies be completely unaffected. No need for ranged attacks at all.

That said, Mu Mastery would be your best bet: it provides four ranged attacks (a single target bolt, a cone AoE, a "ball" AoE and an immobilize). Coupled with your PBAoE and your Judgement power, that winds up being a lot of ranged and AoE damage.

Whether you can get a tight attack chain with those attacks is dependent on how crazy you want to get on recharge. You can take Hasten, Spiritual Interface, Ageless Destiny, and a ton of IO +recharge bonuses.

You can easily get recharge on these powers down to 3 sec for Mu Lightning, 10 sec for Ball Lightning, 8 sec for Static Discharge and 7 sec for Electrifying Fences. More than that depends on how much time and inf you want to spend on getting high-priced IO sets that crank up recharge. That may require making sacrifices in your other attacks and in your defenses. The latter would be self-defeating, however.

I'd go with something like SR/KM.

Except I think I'd go instead for a KM/SR scrapper, because really, I don't think tanker is the class for an iron man tank mage type character.

Super Reflexes works for armor (most things get deflected) and it has no penalties from being out of melee contact with enemies, nor any benefits. It simply keeps you from getting hurt.

You get a hard-hitting ranged attack from KM as well as a ranged cone, which you can slot with the Overwhelming Force IO to keep it from being annoying.

From there you can go for some of the options people have listed. Char, Fire Blast and Fire Ball from pyre master would be my pick, and could represent a flamethrower built into the gauntlets or something.

That's 2 ranged attacks from KM and 3 from Pyre Mastery. With enough recharge you can easily make a smooth chain out of that, I think.

Pick up Air Superiority (for some honest-to-goodness thumping) and flight, and I think you've pretty much got what you want.

The only real issue, and it's a pretty big one, is that KM for scrappers has no build up, but rather a PBAOE damage boost dependant on being surrounded.

You could go Stalker (stealth generator built into the armor, which would let you "snipe" with crits from KM's focused burst) but you lose Repulsing Torrent and go down to 4 ranged attacks.



Really, I'd just make a blaster, go energy blast or radiation blast or something, and just build to be as tough as you can through pool powers, IOs, Mace Mastery (Scorpion Shield) and incarnate powers (Barrier looks like a force field!)