Call Me Awesome

[ QUOTE ]
Hello Everyone, My name is Inquistion on Infinity. I Am a lvl 48 INV/SS Tank, and I'm coming back to the Game from a very long retirement. What i'm looking for is up to date info on INV/SS tanking or just INV tank. Slot numbers, effenices, and enhancements. Aggro Capps, any thing like that. thanks for you help. Inq~

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, my soft cap guide is a good start for the Invuln portion and it shows you how to build a tanker that's nearly up to Granite levels of survivability. It describes the changes that buffed Invulnerability in issue 13 and how you can take advantage of those changes.

Nice well written guide Local. In my admittedly somewhat hasty read thru one minor detail that jumped out at me was in your two sections on Deceive... in the power description area you refer to Deceived Foes (DF) and later you refer to them as Confused Foes (CF). A minor detail but about the only one I noticed on my quick read thru in my copious free time here during my so called lunch break

I didn't catch anything else in my glance.

[ QUOTE ]
Anyway, I'm looking to plug the "psi hole" with regen, rather than specifically psi defense or resistance, so I can be even more well rounded against everything!

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't worry at all about the mostly fictional "psi hole", and here's why. With only 3 exceptions I can think of offhand, all of them AV's, the psi damage you find in the PvE game is extremely rare and where it exists the psi attacks strongly tend to be low damage. For those extremely rare situations where you face significant Psi damage you're better off falling back on your inspiration tray.

You'll do far better to focus on your defenses, first you'll want to soft cap your Smash/Lethal defense at 45% since that will defend against the majority of damage you'll face... even non-S/L attacks frequently have a S/L component that the defense will work against. After you've gotten your S/L def to, or nearly to, the cap you'll want to focus on your Energy/Negative damage. Getting those two defenses to the soft cap will account for nearly 90% of all the damage you'll take in the game.

As a side effect of soft capping your S/L & E/N defenses you'll end up with considerable Melee & Ranged defenses as well, on the order of 25%. Those will protect against the rare "exotic" damage you'll face.

The IO sets I've listed in my guide will get you to those levels of protection without an extreme amount of cost... at the time I wrote my guide that build cost around $10 million at level 50. I understand prices have undergone a lot of fluctuation since then but it shouldn't break the bank.

Anyway, to summarize you'll want to build your defenses first, then you'll want to start thinking about other bonuses. On my Inv/Stone I prioritize IO bonuses I want like this:
1. S/L defense
2. E/N defense
3. Endurance Recovery
4. Recharge Bonuses
5. Regen Bonuses

You will find that your Inv/Stone is a really tight build; mine required a lot of trial and error to arrive at a build that had maximum survivability without sacrificing aggro handling and damage. There's several powers I really wanted but couldn't squeeze in... damnit.

Get the 4 "cornerstone" powers of Invuln ASAP, TI, Unyielding, Dull Pain & Invincibility. Tough Hide should likewise come quickly... the resistance passives can wait. RPD I generally squeeze in sometime in the 20's; Res Energies is typically my 49 power and Res Elements is skipped altogether.

For Stone, I grab Heavy Mallet at 4, Taunt at 10, Fault at 22 and Tremor & Seismic at 35 & 38. I'd like to fit in Stone Mallet, but again there's no room in the inn Boxing, Tough & Weave round out the defenses, usually putting Weave in at 32. Unstoppable I've found completely skippable on a soft capped Invuln, but you may find it useful before you reach that point.

[ QUOTE ]
Even if it did work on imps, the dead one is always the dumbest of the three, who wandered off and tried to solo something, and is therefore out of range or LoS.

[/ QUOTE ]

And is it just me, or is Imp #2 always the one to decide to run over and solo that boss over there while the rest of us are fighting a group over *here*?

I'll certainly second the notion of a Fire/Rad being way too tight a build for extremely situational powers... at 50 there's about 4 more powers I *really* want to squeeze in. The overall effect is a monster though... and it just gets better with each additional Fire/Rad you add to the team. I'll give you this warning though; be prepared to slot heavily for end reduction and recovery IO bonuses... this is one seriously end heavy build.

As an aside, Local and I have several SG superteams; one of them has 6 level 50 Fire/Rads... there's really not much that's challenging for that team as long as we can keep Special from running off on his own

In my experience the best place to pull LR to is into the corner behind the green tower... you're out of aggro range of the Flier if it respawns at an inconvienent time and your team will probably end up there; my teams typically run Red, Blue, Yellow, Green on the towers.

On tanking LR I've found my Insp tray to be invaluable; for LR I like to have a loadout of 4+ medium oranges, 8+ medium/large purples (until the blue tower drops you need 75% def to floor him!) and a couple or three big greens for when LR gets lucky. If I run low I arrange ahead of time for a few teammates to feed me insps at need. Usually my basic loadout is plenty though. Now this is from an Inv tanker perspective, you may need a few more oranges with a Shield. I only have to keep oranges active until the red tower dies.

I'd certainly recommend popping OWTS prior to engaging LR... with luck it'll last thru the Red tower.

I can't really speak for the /SS side never having played one but my guide (in my sig) covers the Invuln side and explains how you can maximize your defenses.

Enjoy your invuln, issue 13 gave us a huge boost, not only in direct buffs but also in IO set changes.

As a first tank I would be a little cautious about WP due to the weak taunt aura... it's capable with a good AOE secondary in experienced hands but you'll have to work at holding aggro.

Invuln is my overall favorite tanker primary with Stone Armor as a runner up. Built right an Invuln can rival the durability of the Stone tank in Granite and it does it without Granite's penalties.

Secondaries are mostly a matter of preference, all of them will work. I've found /EM to be frustrating due to lack of damage until the late 30's; I took the character to 50 but it's still my least favorite. Personally I really like Fire Melee and Stone Melee; there's always the "default" pairing of /Super Strength with an Inv tank.

In my experience GM's are mostly a waste of time except for Jack & Echoli (Croatoa) who you need for the accolade. The XP/Debt ratio for most GM's is pretty poor, especially if you're part of a large group killing it.

In the last 3 years the only GM's I've bothered with are the Croatoa ones and the Winter Lords since you get massive teams killing and spawning those fast. The rest of them just aren't worth it.

[ QUOTE ]
The best Regen and Recovery you can get with three-slotted Health is Numina's: Heal, Numina's: +Reg/+Rec, and Miracle: +Rec.

If you have another slot to spare, add in the Regenerative Tissue Unique.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would be my choice for slotting; a soft cap build tends to get a bit slot tight to devote 6 slots to Health.

There are several frankenslotting methods that will ED cap Dull Pain in 4 slots; personally I still go with 5 Doctored Wounds on all dull pain clones; it's cheap and gives you the recharge bonus. If you want to stay at 4 slots for Dull Pain and you're going for a max regen build you can toss a couple Numina's in there; Heal & Heal/Recharge from preference, then a couple more heal/recharge and be done.

I hate to say it since Tankers are my favorite AT but I have to agree with the last couple of posts, way too many tankers are either simply bad players or they're afraid of tanking. I know that I have rather high standards for a tanker player's performance... there's so few tanks I've teamed with who measure up that I've had to adopt a policy of assuming incompetence until proven different anytime I'm not tanking.

When I'm tanking I always push the pace to the limit the team can handle... but not beyond that... and that's something that requires experience to accomplish. I do believe firmly that ONE good tank brings more to a team than any other single AT, but after you have that one good tanker you're better off filling the team with other AT's... multiple tanks don't add as much as other AT's.

And unfortunately they're a fairly rare spawn in PI

I've had GC on my BS/Shield since level 28... because I've been part of a SG superteam of 3 other /Shield scrappers. It put us over the soft cap at 28.

As a solo or more typical PuG scrapper? I'd probably try to fit it in sometime... but I doubt it would be before the mid-40's at the earliest for reasons others have given here.

I do at 45 have a soft capped build solo and have since the mid-30's thanks to a rather sizeable investment in IO sets. (I think I'm around 43.5% to AOE but soft capped to Melee & Range) I don't have Maneuvers or Weave... I got it done with only set bonuses and assuming one parry application to handle the Melee def.

So to make a long story short {too late} it seems to me that GC, while it's well designed for a team of shield characters, really is a bit lacking for your typical team.

Minerals is useful in a very few situations in the 40+ game; the Psi Clocks you mentioned, the Mother Mayhem/Malaise missions and really not a lot else.

As I think about it, when I leveled my Stone/Fire I did grab Minerals at 41... I guess the build I posted must have been a post-50 respec. Still, I found only a half dozen times in the 40's that I even used Minerals at all. Is the power worth having for those few missions? I was uncertain myself but I found that my insp tray was perfectly adequate for filling those gaps.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
With the exception of the Steadfast unique, the rest shouldn’t cost more than 10 million and probably quite a bit less.

[/ QUOTE ]

If only...

[/ QUOTE ]

Prices at Wentworths are subject to market supply & demand, at the time I wrote this that was correct.

The last time I bought similar IO's was shortly after issue 14 and as I recall the Reactive Armor were in the 100-300k range per recipe... up from 10-50k they used to be; the Smashing Haymaker were 10-50k per recipe, about where they've been for awhile and most of the rest was similarly bargain basement. Remember that you don't need to get max level IO's... 25-35 will do the job just fine; you'll never notice the 1-2% difference from using max level and you'll save a BUNCH of inf.

[ QUOTE ]
I'll recommend Stone Melee. Fault is, in my opinion, the best control available to tankers. It keeps my Fire/Stone alive when tanking for teams. Not to mention all the SMASH the set provides.

An Inv/Stone would be a beast of a tank.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, it certainly is; since the ability to softcap def came into the game the combo got even better.

Truth in advertising though requires me to admit that Inv/Stone was my very first level 50 about 4 years ago and remains one of my favorites of all my toons. Softcapped Invuln gives you some awesome mitigation, and pairing that with all the mitigation in Stone Melee makes it even better.

I found that my offense was certainly adequate leveling up on my Stone/Fire, even in Granite. I had little difficulty killing off swarms of minions/LT's with just SO's and my AOE attacks... by focusing my ST attacks on bosses and firing the AOE's as they came up everything was dead before the boss dropped.

Really the main thing that slotting IO sets bought me was recharge to partially offset Granite's penalty; I never worried about going for +dmg bonuses.

For the record, here's the SO build I leveled my Stone/Fire with. I never had any real problems with damage; he would generally drop mobs faster than my Inv/Stone tanker.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Granite Flame: Level 50 Natural Tanker
Primary Power Set: Stone Armor
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Pyre Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Rock Armor -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(3), DefBuff(3), EndRdx(15)
Level 1: Scorch -- Acc(A), Dmg(13), Dmg(13), Dmg(17), RechRdx(17)
Level 2: Earth's Embrace -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(5), RechRdx(5), Heal(15), Heal(50)
Level 4: Combustion -- Acc(A), Dmg(11), Dmg(11), Dmg(37), EndRdx(40), RechRdx(42)
Level 6: Swift -- Run(A), Run(7), Run(7)
Level 8: Rooted -- Heal(A), Heal(9), Heal(9)
Level 10: Taunt -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(42), Taunt(42)
Level 12: Recall Friend -- Range(A)
Level 14: Teleport -- EndRdx(A)
Level 16: Health -- Heal(A)
Level 18: Fire Sword -- Acc(A), Dmg(19), Dmg(19), Dmg(43), RechRdx(43)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(21), EndMod(21)
Level 22: Mud Pots -- Acc(A), Dmg(23), Dmg(23), EndRdx(25), EndRdx(25), Dmg(46)
Level 24: Stone Skin -- ResDam(A)
Level 26: Hasten -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(27), RechRdx(27)
Level 28: Fire Sword Circle -- Acc(A), Dmg(29), Dmg(29), Dmg(31), EndRdx(31), RechRdx(31)
Level 30: Breath of Fire -- Acc(A), Dmg(34), Dmg(43), Range(46)
Level 32: Granite Armor -- ResDam(A), ResDam(33), ResDam(33), DefBuff(33), DefBuff(34), DefBuff(34)
Level 35: Incinerate -- Acc(A), Dmg(36), Dmg(36), Dmg(36), EndRdx(37), RechRdx(37)
Level 38: Greater Fire Sword -- Acc(A), Dmg(39), Dmg(39), Dmg(39), EndRdx(40), RechRdx(40)
Level 41: Char -- Acc(A)
Level 44: Fire Blast -- Acc(A), Dmg(45), Dmg(45), Dmg(45), RechRdx(46)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- Acc(A), Dmg(48), Dmg(48), Dmg(48), EndRdx(50), RechRdx(50)
Level 49: Minerals -- DefBuff(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet
------------
[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]

[ QUOTE ]
Agreed completely about needing sets. A granite tanker without sets is virtually useless. You won't be able to move, attack with any frequency, and when you do actually attack you won't do much damage. You can mitigate that with even cheap IO's, but you do need at least the cheap ones.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to completely disagree with this; I leveled my Stone/Fire to 50 in issue 7... long before IO's and he was perfectly viable as an SO build... I tanked several STF's with him once issue 9 hit on that SO build. While IO sets obviously are helpful they aren't at all critical, movement is handled by TP and the attack issue by slotting recharge and taking several attacks. I never had any problems pre-IO's, and I wasn't chained to a Kinetic either.

[ QUOTE ]
As for secondary I'm very partial to /fire. Having multiple aoe's makes it a lot easier to handle not having great rech while you build your sets up. You can teleport in, cast build up, combustion, FSC, and then should have everything on you for at least a little while. It also has a decent single target attack chain. The downside is until you get granite you don't have any extra mitigation in your secondary to help you out. Those 32 levels are a big struggle.

I've tried stone/energy and it was painful, and difficult to deal with the end usage and slow attacks.

Ice seems to be more of the set that deals with mitigation which might be nice pre-32 if you're having trouble, but post-32 it won't be as useful.

SS might work, and having rage would be nice to offset the damage penalty of granite, but you would only have 1 aoe attack.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do agree with most of this, I also have a Stone/EM at 50 and it truly was painful to level... even at 50 it's... well, not the most efficient damage/tanking machine I've played. For the most part I didn't have a lot of trouble in the pre-32 levels with either Stone tank; true they were relatively squishy but it was manageable as long as we didn't get in over our heads.

[ QUOTE ]
So, I've been at this game for a while. I even got a Stone tank up to level 24 before I got tired of not being able to actually hurt anything with out running out of endurance. I think I may be ready to try it again.

I'm looking for a build that uses minimal sets, with none preferred. And that can actually hurt things in a way that's more effective than standing in the same spot while Mudpots eats away at -2 hellions while I read a book.

Two things have changed for me since I last tried this. Dual Builds and 60 month vet badge. I guess I'm looking for two builds. A defensive giant chunk of aggro management and the closes thing to a stone scrapper as I can get.

What are my realistic options?

[/ QUOTE ]

My favorite secondary to pair with Stone is /Fire... it's quite effective even with just SO's. Of course it kind of goes without saying that IO sets do make it better; my main focus was on +recharge.

I've found that /Fire is the most end-friendly secondary... at least the most that I've played. Once I'd tossed an endred into the AOE's and heavy hitter attacks my end issues were mostly a thing of the past. Oh, my Stone/Fire was leveled to 50 prior to IO's so they weren't a factor. I have, as you'd expect, incorporated quite a few since then but they were more in the line of fine tuning rather than a radical performance improvement.

Offense wise I've found that Combustion, Fire Sword Circle and Mud Pots will kill a group faster than any of my other tankers; even in Granite that combo will generally drop most minions in one attack chain, maybe requiring a second FSC for +1-2 mobs. The LT's and bosses drop fairly quickly to the single target chain of Fire Sword, Greater Fire Sword and Incinerate with Scorch there as a filler.

Solo and on small teams I usually use Rock Armor/Rooted/Stone Skin; that's plenty for most situations. Granite comes out when I hit something more dangerous or I'm tanking for a larger team. Your damage is going to be quite good in Rock armor and it'll still be ok even in Granite. For sets I'd go for +recharge... the Taunt sets are a really cheap way to get that; and I'd toss Crushing Impact in the single target attacks.

[ QUOTE ]
Just to be clear, only the +recharge portion of the speed boost power will not work on the pets. The movement bonus and end recovery still function.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correct, I guess I was a bit ambiguous about that. Of course, since it's the recharge portion that's most useful...

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I just had a nasty thought... is that exemp problem deactivating ALL purples?

[/ QUOTE ]

No.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well that's a relief anyway. I'd imagine the value of the pet purple set to tank pretty severely once this problem becomes common knowledge though.

[ QUOTE ]
Hey all,

Ok, before I go on, I should point out that I haven't gotten my Fire/Therm to 32 yet so I don't know how the power works.

My question is, when I bring up FireImps, I know I get three of them, do they expire? or are they there until they die (or I zone)?

[/ QUOTE ]

They will last until they get killed or you zone. They WILL get their hyperactive ADD selves killed on a regular basis however so you'll probably find a recharge to be handy to slot into them. My default slotting for most pets is the Acc/Dam and Dam IO's from Brilliant Leadership and Blood Mandate; that ED caps damage and gives decent accuracy in 4 slots... for the Imps I toss a common recharge into a 5th slot. If I could find the space (my Fire/Rad is too slot hungry) I'd add a 6th slot and put 2 recharges in.

[ QUOTE ]
But my other question is, can I target them somehow (like MM's can their minions) or will I have to click on each one and buff?

[/ QUOTE ]

You can buff them just like you'd buff another player, the only exception is that NO pets are affected by any recharge buffs or debuffs (like speed boost). However your thermal shields will work just fine, and they'll certainly increase the monkey's longevity.

From what I've read on the other discussion threads the Soulbound completely stops working even in level 50 pets if you exemp down. Apparently if you've slotted them in, say, Jack Frost they work when you're at 50, but if you exemp down to 49 or lower then they do absolutely nothing... it's the same as leaving the slots empty. Maybe the set bonuses remain, but the enhancements themselves don't have any effect at all.

All this discussion has made me very glad I haven't bought that set of Soulbound for my Fire/Rad yet; and with the exemp behavior I can't see slotting it into any pet. Chalk it up for a worthless set.

I think I'll just stick with the Blood Mandate Acc/Dam, Dam and the Brilliant Leadership Acc/Dam, Dam for my pets... recharge as needed in the other two slots. At least I know THAT will work.

I just had a nasty thought... is that exemp problem deactivating ALL purples? Or is it limited to only the pet set? I'll have to experiment with that this evening; I do have a couple of purple sets on another 'troller.

I've written a mini-guide to the first 20 levels with a new Invulnerable Tanker focusing on power choices and slotting, Invulnerability Tankers, the first 20 levels

I've written a mini-guide to the first 20 levels with a new Invulnerable Tanker, focusing on power choices and slotting Invulnerability Tankers, the first 20 levels

[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps you are falling into the error of assuming that brutes are supposed to be tankers. That is what is sounds like to me. Not everyone plays their brute like a red tank. Some do, but some don't. One reason why brutes may end up over their heads is that people expect the brute to tank. I have been in situations on a brute where people stood around, expected me to herd or something, and watched me die under the hammer of a mob. I think some brute players may expect a team to descend on a mob at once instead of waiting for them to establish aggro. Brutes are not tankers. Stop expecting them to tank. Once you accept brutes for what they do and what they are- neither scrapper nor tank, things roll more smoothly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually when I'm teamed with a Brute on an ITF I expect them to fill the role of a Scrapper, not the tank... maybe pick up a bit of "off-tank" duties. Still, I see them faceplant more frequently than most Scrappers... that may just be bad builds or bad players though since my experience with them is limited to ITF's and the occasional LGTF.

Now I know how things can go south quickly... the last ITF I did we had an Ice/EM tanker and while he was competent he also ended up face down rather frequently... all the -def flying was apparently destroying his defenses.

[ QUOTE ]
I will make this statement in direct response to your clause on if a tanker is absent and taking a scrapper, in the same scenario, I would take a brute over a scrapper any day. Given a competent playstyle, outside buff for survivability, he will be at the tanker mitigation cap, providing group aggro instead of the single target aggro control a scrapper can provide, and in the heat of the moment, he will be dishing out comparable damage to your scrapper. So if team wants a tank, team can't find a tank, I would prefer team find a smart and appropriate brute (who is aware of your expectation of him to be a pseudo-tank) to fill the role over finding a scrapper to be a substitute tank. Before I looked to a scrapper to fill the role of aggro control, there are much more capable entities like controllers and dominators who can do this better.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose my preference of a Scrapper over a Brute is mainly one of familiarity... I know Scrappers quite well having taken three of them to 45+, two of them to 50. While the Brute may be potentially more powerful they need time to get to that level; a Scrapper is going to be more constant in his abilities. Both obviously benefit from outside buffs... the Brute does have a bit more headroom for +resistance buffs; both have the same effective ceiling of 45% for +defense buffs which are considerably more common.

I generally wouldn't expect a Scrapper to tank; absent a tanker I'd plan on using debuffs and controls in place of the tanker's aggro abilities. Not to say the Scrapper can't do the job... I've had to a few times on my Scrappers when the tanker can't be bothered.

[ QUOTE ]
Bottom line- a brute is from the other side of the tracks and used to the playstyle of the redside. Teams arguably are more fast paced and they tend to steamroll content differently than blueside. So while you may be used to a playstyle from hero side, the brute may be used to another style of play.

[/ QUOTE ]

You probably do have a point about my admitted lack of familiarity with the Brute AT; although when I'm tanking I've always pushed the pace as much as the team can handle... a large part of the skill in being a good tank is knowing just where that maximum pace that they can handle lies. I've been on slow, cautious teams and I've been on warp speed steamroller teams... I imagine most redside team probably sit somewhere between those two extremes.