MrMotivator

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Youre right S/L is most common, but what helps you that if some sweet Energy and Elemental Attack who comes over your Defense kill you nearly Instant because of no Resistance

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iirc, the only pure energy attacks in the game are anti-matter's silver robot things (and they do -def attacks.. yipee!!) All other energy attacks have both an s/l and an energy component. the number of similar lvl enemies which could do 3k's worth of energy/elemental damage is very small, i.e. none afaik (maybe some random av/gm.. but none that i recall meeting)

Yeah, with invuln some baddies are a bit more 'fun', such as nemesis with vengeance up.. but tbh you're better building towards s/l in the long run.

Having said all that however, i will be getting resist energies for my invuln in the 40s.. purely on the off chance that i happen to accidentally encounter a couple of freakshow... ...ya know, just incase...

yeah.. i'm toying with either the 20% recharge slow, or the damage proc in CE.

procs only tick once every ten seconds though dont they? so will the extra 20% chance of minor damage actually make any noticeable difference? say you have 20 baddies around ya, that means 4 of them will take minor damage(anyone know how minor this is btw?), every 10 seconds... yeah, its worth a slot if you've got spare ones floating around.. but tbh i'm not entirely convinced it's worth it if you've got a tight build, which ice/fire can be. personally i'd sooner put a taunt in CE, or more recRed in build up if you have spare slots.

it used to have -acc i think, got removed ages ago though. some of the hero builders still say it has though, cause they're using old stats.

with rage and FocAcc you definately won't need 2xAcc in your attacks, you may even be fine with no acc in your powers.. but dont quote me on that, cos i've never tried it.

my ice/fire/pyre build is neeeeearly finished now. and it's cost me a freakin bomb (probly about 60mil so far). i'm not gonna go into the whole build, cos i did that in the tanks and inventions thread, but using the multi-attrib enhances and factoring in set bonuses my slottings are equivelant to slotting 11 SOs in each power at the moment. She was great fun to play with just SOs, so i'm made up with her performance now. she is now more proficient in areas where she was lacking previously. Her end use and accuracy are improved in most powers, and recharge rates are improved across the board.

this seems to be another progression in builds really. first we had the original, old school 6 slotting. Then ED came and we moved on to 3 slotting.. and now? your guess is as good as mine to what, if anything, will become 'standard'.

personally, i think we're going to move from being able to generalise by AT. Previously you could say
"tanks need 3*def/res in each shield, and 1 end red if you've got the slots"
Now i think each powerset will have it's own optimal slotting, or must-have IOs. fire tanks' "must-have" IO may be KB protection, but GA tanks may go after LotG for example. Each tank will have to work out how to adapt his/her build to fit in what they want... and that's the hard part. ED slotting logic has totally been blown out of the window in many cases

the two best, imo, powers in /fire are FSC and GFS.

you'll still be able to tank without them.. cause tanking is more about taking damage than dealing it, but fire/fire uses killing the baddies as a big form of damage mitigation... so you'll certainly be making life a bit harder for yourself by dropping your highest damage ST and AoE.

personally, i'd keep FSC and just ignore the fact that its a fire sword... it all depends if you'd take fire ball from the epics, if you do that you could maybe use that to replace FSC.. (although fsc is far superior to combustion and fire ball)

ahhhhhhh noooooooooooo dont get me started on the ridiculous aggro limit... if i put as many expletives in one post as i would about that i dont think they'd let me back on the forums for a long while...

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It therefore follows, from a purely "efficiency" point of veiw, that Granite should only be used when you face a significant risk of dying.

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yes.. very much yes.

it's a panic power, simple as.

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Rooted has 90% -runspeed compared to -70% for Granite. I don't believe it's possible to hit the defence cap on any character, is it?

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i didnt mean hit the defence cap, i meant has the same/better res and def than an SO slotted GA.. although it is possible to cap defence with ice and stone (according to mids' hero builder).. but tbh theres probably no real need for it cause you'd need to gimp other aspects of the build to work in all the powers.

and my point relating to GA being faster than non-GA is that you should, imo, be running rooted when in GA. Rooted gives you 200% regen, defdebuff resistance and end drain res (and iirc a slight recovery bonus), you'd be daft not to have it running if you're using tp as a travel power anyway.

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mmmmkay.... i check tank's builds when they join a team. if it's a stoney or invuln tank without taunt... i worry. to be honest, if it's a perma-GA tank full stop i worry... i've had too many bad experiances in the past with GA tanks who wouldnt know what aggro control was if it clubbed them to death with a 2x4

if it's a fire or ice tank without taunt i'm not really that arsed. tauntelss fire/ice require a different style of tanking, i.e. herd tanking.. but if the team takes that into account and lets them operate properly, they will be a more effective team tank than any perma-GA with two taunts could ever be.

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I'm confused... Inv tanks need to herd more than any other tank, without a nice group of minions to protect them they are toast against non S/L damage. Ice tanks gain a little too.

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fair point. invs do need to herd for def, i was just charging down the aggro management route and ignoring everything else really lol. the point i was trying to make is that invuln tanks taunt aura is the weakest in the game, so they are quite taunt-reliant for keeping aggro...

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The endless debate is whithout end...

OK. Handsup. Who checks out a tanks build when the join a team and looks if they have the taunt power or not.

And, own up, do you get the heeby jeebies when they dont!

(I confess to both)

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mmmmkay.... i check tank's builds when they join a team. if it's a stoney or invuln tank without taunt... i worry. to be honest, if it's a perma-GA tank full stop i worry... i've had too many bad experiances in the past with GA tanks who wouldnt know what aggro control was if it clubbed them to death with a 2x4

if it's a fire or ice tank without taunt i'm not really that arsed. tauntelss fire/ice require a different style of tanking, i.e. herd tanking.. but if the team takes that into account and lets them operate properly, they will be a more effective team tank than any perma-GA with two taunts could ever be.

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Thing is a lot of the downsides of granite also apply to non-GA tanking (no jumping and even greater -runspeed for instance).

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GA has worse runspeed than none-GA?

the only reason GA would be faster is if you don't use rooted... and i can't see a reason (apart from lack of speed) why anyone would NOT use rooted in both GA and out of GA. When GA tanks tp all over the place anyway, whats a little bit of extra -speed gonna hurt?

quick build i just knocked up on mids' hero designer can run at normal speeds with either GA or rooted, and runs at about 1/4 normal speed with both. has a recharge speed of +40%, regen of 456% and maxed out res/defence.

yeah, you can't boost your damage very much. But, and i hate to say it, if you wanna deal damage... dont use GA, that's not what its for!

yeah, i've bankrupted myself and still have about 60mil's worth of IOs left to get i'm just hoping the prices start to drop soon.

...having said that, last time i checked LotG had gone up in price by 5 mil

i must say.. although some of the bonuses look handy for khelds.. i'm really not lookin forward to actually trying it. IOs, set bonuses and the like are enough hassle on a normal toon... nevermind a tri-form

there was a build on the US forums for a high regen fire/fire.. so i guess similar choices are open to other tanks too. Stone especially would work well with it's existing +regen i'd imagine.

i just had a quick fiddle with a stone/stone build on mids' hero builder and got it to 480% regen quite easily... the only problem is, that was using some VERY expensive sets (LotG, numina, scirroco) so it ain't gonna be easy on your wallet...

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There are two types of these bonuses. The first type actually grant special 'Set Bonuses' from slotting only a single enhancement. The second type have inherent effects.


The special IO enhancements that provide bonuses that work just like Set Bonuses are:

Commanding Presence: Taunt/Placate Resist
Edict of the Master: Defense Bonus
Sovereign Right: Resistance Bonus
Karma: Knockback Protection
Gift of the Ancients: Defense/Increased Run Speed*
Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Recharge Speed**
Steadfast Protection: Knockback Protection
Impervious Skin: Status Resistance
Impervium Armor: Psionic Resistance
Aegis: Psionic/Status Resistance


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afaik LotG +rech stacks on top of whatever enhancements you already have, because the +rech is global and not restricted to the power in which it's slotted... that's why it's so popular (and as a result, so darned expensive)

so far my ice/fire/pyre has:

[color= blue]ICE[/color]
Frozen Armour - Red Fortune (Def/End, Def/Rech, Def/End/Rech, End/Rech, Def)
Hoarfrost - Doctored Wounds (Rech, Heal/End, Heal, Heal/Rech, Heal/End/Rech)
Chilling Embrace - End, 2*taunt
Wet Ice - End
Permafrost - Steadfast Protection (res/+def unique)
Icicles - MultiStrike(Acc/Dam, Acc/End, Acc/Dam/End, Dam/End)
Glacial Armour - Red Fortune (Def/End, Def/Rech, Def/End/Rech, End/Rech, Def)
Energy Absorbtion Rech, 2*EndMod, Red Fortune (Def/Rech), Serendipity(Def/Rech), Gift Of The Ancients(Def/Rech)
Hibernate - Doctored Wounds (Rech, End/Rech, Heal, Heal/Rech, Heal/End/Rech)

FIRE
Scorch - Damage(SO)
Combustion - 3 * Nucleous Exposure (acc/dam), 2* Rech, End
Build Up - 3* Rech
Fire Sword Circle - MultiStrike(Acc/Dam, Dam/End, Dam/Rech, Dam/End/Rech), Rech, Acc
Incinerate - 3* Dam(SO), Acc(SO), Rech(SO), End(SO)
Greater Fire Sword - Crushing Impact(Acc/Dam/Rech, Acc/Dam/End), and a few SOs...

GFS is the power i'm trying to build up atm.. but Crushing Impact IOs are selling for a bomb currently, and i've used up all my inf on the rest of my powers so far. Once that's sorted, Incinerate needs a melee set too... but GFS is my main priority.

PYRE
Char - 2*hold(SO), 2*Rech(SO), 2*Acc(SO)
Fire Blast - sod all
Fire Ball - AirBurst(Acc/Dam, Dam/End, Dam/Rech), Detonation(Acc/Dam/End), Rech, End


mmkay.. so what do they all do?


Set Bonuses/Globals so far give me:
+20% recharge
+8% Heal
+8% Res(fire/cold)
+4% Dam
+3% Def(all)

(if ya hadn't guessed, i'm trying to build recharge up)
In addition to those, when i can afford them, i'm going to have a LotG(+rech) in Frozen and Glacial Armours, CJ and possibly Energy Absorbtion. Also i'm going to try and get a Decimation set in Char.. this would take me to +56% recharge in total not incl hasten's bonus. Whilst the other bonuses may look small.. they are all useful. Ice tanks have rubbish res to fire damage, so the 8% extra res is a really useful bonus to have. Added to that, Steadfast Protection(res/+def) gives me the +3% def(all) which stacks very nicely with my shields to make me even tougher =D

for me though, the set bonuses are just a happy side effect... take "Fire Ball - AirBurst(Acc/Dam, Dam/End, Dam/Rech), Detonation(Acc/Dam/End), Rech, End" as an example

previously with SOs it got (roughly):
+95% Damage
+33% Acc
+66% End

now it gets(not incl set bonuses):
+95% Damage
+47% Acc
+86% End
+66% Rech

which is the equivelant of having it 9-slotted with SOs and that's just on one power...

because of IOs, my tank has better defence, and can deal more DPS for less end cost... I love em! only problem is that i'm now severely skint

awesome! i'll have to have a look at those =D

aww... was kinda hoping there'd be something with a damage proc in it

basically, this does exactly what it says on the tin...

i've been playing with the multi-attrib enhances etc.. but i can't work out what can be slotted into chilling embrace.

does anyone know?

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and if all else fails make the ice/fire tank ive got planned


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do that anyway... trust me, you'll cry with glee from lvl 20-50

erm... isn't defence capped at 45% these days?

well, i tried my ws all human for a while... but it didnt last long, and is now tri-form again.

i think PBs work better in human that WSs do personally, but thats not to say you cant make a kick [censored] human WS.. i just prefer tri-form. I would certainly advise trying at some point, even if you respec it back, because it gives you very good experiance of human powers which you may otherwise neglect.

i'd normally be be up for that, but my internet conenction atm has been somewhat sporadic.. and thats being very kind to it.

so i can't guarantee i'd be able to actually get on the internet at all, nvm CoH. If i can get on though, then you can definately count my warshade in. =D

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Don't worry about not being very tanky at low levels, pre-SOs you're a slow and dumpy scrapper who isn't even very tough and gets tired all the time.


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ahhh the joy of tanking

Filth's right though, you won't notice a rget difference till SOs, no matter what you slot. Personally i tend to go OTT on end redux at low lvls, in an attempt to keep me going as long as possible, but i'll put them all on attacks. The only toggles i use end red on are usually auras, cause they use a lot more end than the other toggles.