Sailboat

I've recently been running my Inv/SS Tanker exemplared (task forces for the accolade). In particular, I've spent several nights below the level I took Stamina (grabbed Knockout Blow at 20 and Stamina at 22). No Stamina, enhancement values lowered, but at least I had plenty of slots.

Sure, endurance was painful, duoing and then soloing Synapse after my teammates dropped. Without Stamina. Against end-draining clockwork. But I was pretty surprised that my defenses did so well! No set bonuses, fewer powers stacked up....my defense numbers were 3% to 5.84% def before Invincibility.

But I kept not dying.

I frequently ran low on, and out of, endurance because I was trying to do all the damage. But I was surprised at the character's ruggedness.

Tankers aren't designed to shoulder the load for damage on a six-or-seven player Task Force at low levels. Under the circumstances, I think the powersets performed pretty well. And that was an extreme example; it's not usually going to be that hard. I'm not denying what's been said about Tanker attacks being costly, I just don't see it as that severe a problem in an AT that can perform well without madly clicking its attacks.

The general weakness of low-level characters is sometimes mistaken for "problems with an AT," even by experienced players, who are used to being much more powerful. Could that be what you're experiencing, and not something AT-specific?

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Getting over 30% defense should be your bare minumum objective, anything less and I'd try again.

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For the record, several people have reported that 30% defense seems to be the point at which defense starts to feel pretty solid and useful. Below that, it's (literally) hit-or-miss. At around 30% (roughly speaking) I start to feel confident and to be able to keep attacking with less worry about my health bar. It' not soft-capped by any means, but that's the range in which it starts to make me happy a given character is defense-based.

Another reason to shoot for that threshhold.

Because durability is what we don't have in real life.

In real life, offense is king of the battlefield -- we can destroy stuff from the edge of space with satellite-guided precision munitions. We have nukes, for crying out loud.

What we don't have in real life conflict is high durability. Sure, there are isolated examples like composite armor and battleships and the NORAD bunker. But in general, weaponry is to be avoided because our power to destroy far outstrips our power to endure. We don't even need high-tech...even improvised explosive devices kill and wound quite readily.

So in-game, offense is fun...but it's not a paradigm shift. Sure, the team's Blasters leveled the bank robbers. But we already expect bank robbers to get leveled by SWAT teams in the real world.

But the ability to go into hideously dangerous situations with (at least some) confidence -- the durability to go right into the teeth of all that deadly weaponry and stay standing -- that's the fantasy we do not get to live out in the real world.

Durability, defense, mitigation, whatever you want to call it -- THAT'S superhuman.

To follow up on this thread, I had 85 merits on one of my characters most active in the market. I would prefer to use Architect tickets for random rolls, since merits can be saved up to force a buy at a precise level. But these were burning a hole in my pocket.

So I tried my hand at the 20-merit rare rolls in the 10-14 range.

Got the Basilisk's Gaze quad on the 4th and last roll.

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You do realize that 5% chance is the base chance Scrapper attacks have to crit right? I was amazed the other day when I was fighting a Roman Boss in the ITF and I had 5 crits in a row on my DM/SR. That was rolling that little 5% chance 5 times in a row.

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I'm in agreement with your general point about the proc, but you should realize your chance to crit is higher than 5% on bosses and potentially higher still if you use one of the enhanced-crit attacks (like Eagle's Claw).

Thanks!

Is there a resource on this? I went to Paragonwiki and couldn't seem to find a list of what IOs would drop for Silver and Gold rolls, only Bronze...unless I was on the wrong page or something. Also, BG was created after the original pools were, so I was in some doubt as to what pools the pieces fit into. That might be clear on the wiki, but I'm a hidebound creature of my past. :P

Important tip: A bio written before I-14 that has correct paragraph breaks will be reformatted to lose them if you open the ID form page (the one you use to write your bio). Leave it closed until this bug is fixed! Use stores and merchants if you want to check your influence total (there may also be an influence line in the real combat numbers display, I have never wanted to display that so I am not sure if it exists).

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I would just like to get some impartial opinions on wether battle axe or fire would flow better with Stone Amour.

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Define "flow better" and we'll be able to help more specifically. Are you talking about an attack chain? You're pre-Granite, so it's not the Granite recharge debuff you're talking about, although that will certainly slow down an attack chain, hoo boy.

Is this a looks thing? Trying to make a gapless attack chain? General feel? What is it that makes you unhappy with him?

I have a Stone/Fire in the 40s. He's an old build, pre-IOs, and I haven't messed with him much in a long time. I didn't take a lot of attacks on him, or Hasten, or Build Up, so I got less damage out of him than most players would have with Stone/Fire. I am planning to respec him into IOs eventually.

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Confront I COULD drop, but that's one of the tools that Scrappers have that I find indispensable at solving all those niggly little annoying things that typically frustrate me out of my skin. Things like stopping runners, pulling when needed, saving the [censored] of team-mates who get ganged up, keeping the attention of bosses and so forth. It's not concept-crucial, and in fact isn't really part of the concept at all, but ever since I forced myself to take Scrapper Taunt back in I3, I've been in love with the power. Now it also has a 75% range debuff. What more can I ask of from a power that always hits and costs no endurance?

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How about some fabulous set bonuses? I know you don't have it slotted in your build, but the Taunt sets have some very attractive bonuses when slotted. Well, you did say "what more could I ask?"

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I like to have control over the things i am responsible for.

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Give up this false emotion! Control is an illusion!

Well, maybe Illusion is a control set.

Yeah, that's it.

Can I get all the Basilisk's Gaze set pieces in the Bronze Tier ticket rolls? I got one recently, but it wasn't one of the two I specifically want, the Acc/End/Rech/Hold and the Acc/Rech.

If not Bronze, are they available in Gold or Silver?

And what level range should I pick to maximize my chances of getting BG? I got the piece I rolled (Acc/Hold, iirc) on lvl 25-29 Bronze.

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I remember a Fire Controller first taught me the beauty of doing things that way. I believe he used a combination of Fire Cages plus Bonfire to have a de facto hold, which I found very impressive at the time.

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Nitpick -- I think it was probably Flashfires, the stun power, coupled with Fire Cages.

Looks like you can count me out, folks. Computer won't be fixed in time. (Posting from low-end laptop). Good Luck!

It's been outright stated that it has to be treated as a power, not as a weapon. So under current weapon customization rules it cannot be done. If at some point true power customization is implemented, it should be doable then, but that's currently not contemplated as far as I know.

edit: scooped.

I'm not very fond of your suggestions as such, but I think you've stated your case in a non-confrontational way and I appreciate that. I do understand your point about the proliferation of separate reward systems -- if I were a newcomer to the game, one of my biggest questions would be: why drops, merits, tickets, "colors" of reward rolls, "Pools" of "drops," and so on.

Another suggestion: move Foot Stomp to 38 (the earliest it's available). You will really want to use it as much as possible. Once you've used Foot Stomp, you'll be able to put the passive off a little longer and feel okay about it.

You don't need the taunts in Invincibility at all, IMHO. Some of the slots you save from the toggles and Invincibility could go into Taunt (the power); there are some very nice set bonuses available in Taunt sets.

One Luck of the Gambler and no other set bonuses is kind of odd. The nice thing about LOTG +recharge is that you can stack it up in several powers. A single one might not make much difference in how the character plays, considering its cost.

If you're going to meddle in set bonuses, I'd suggest going for typed defense bonuses as the most dramatic improvement you can make in your tanking.

Unless you really need the attack early for your attack chain, Kick could be moved until after Stamina and Knockout Blow, getting you to those key powers earlier, and it still wouldn't delay getting Tough and Weave.

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... and on immidiate further consideration decided 6 slotting jab was idiotic.

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I wouldn't say so. Jab is you most-often-repeated attack, might as well be getting value for your animation time. I'd frankenslot for acc/dmg/end mostly (recharge is fine too, but it comes back so fast that fine-tuning it starts to have diminishing returns) and stick a damage or knockdown proc in the sixth slot (remember it can take a Taunt IO because it has Gauntlet, there's a nice Psi dmg proc in the Taunt sets).

Unless you decide to go for the soft-cap, in which case it should hold set bonus IOs.

You're overslotted on the toggles though, especially for end. 3 Def or Res and 1 end red into the toggle defenses is plenty -- again, diminishing returns make investing in more end red a low payoff in the toggles. Slot the attacks for end red -- lots of it if you frankenslot.

3 recharges in Rage, the rest is optional.

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many lower mobs are weak to lethal if i remember correctly, this reverses late game and it becomes the most widely resisted damage type.

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So it take a bit longer to kill things, the fact you are never getting hit and when you do you have 51% resist and 400%+ constant regen might get slightly boring. Oh well guess I will actually level one to 50 and find out

I just checked, pretty much all Scrapper attacks are Lethal or Smashing, even some of fire's. I dont think Katana is overly gimped because of that.

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Right. I see plenty of Scrappers at level 50 who seem quite happy despite being sword, spines, or claws.

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I disagree.

Stoners are easily the most survivable of the Tankers and the second most identifiable thematically only to Invulnerability (i.e. The Thing).

Yet they don't rank as the highest played Tanker AT. Why not?

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They don't? I see (pardon the expression) TONS of Stoners. Maybe it's second to Invulnerability, sure, but Inv is the classic Tanker thing. Are there stats somewhere on Tanker primary preferences?

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Plus, he's still very squishy. He's been essentially one-shotted frequently already (granted, by custom bosses).

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Everybody gets creamed by custom bosses. I've seen them carve though a trio of tanks working together -- Granite, Invulnerability, and Willpower. Getting creamed by custom bosses is no standard at all for measuring a character, and the Devs should (and probably will) decisively refuse to regard it as such.

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Spine burst takes knockback sets?

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Heh. It's dropped off nowadays, but there was a time period when the forums were full of recommendations to put Force Feedback procs into all sorts of attacks: fire blasts, boxing, laser beam eyes, and so on. I concluded there must be something I didn't understand about the proc, which was *supposed* to be slottable only into powers that accept knockback sets. But now I think people were just jumping on the bandwagon talking about this popular IO.

Forcefield Defender. Easier to softcap his defense with Defender mods on pool power defenses and with Dispersion bubble. Force Bolt for repulsors, go Energy Blast if you like. Some good status protection from Dispersion Bubble.

Forcefield Defender doesn't do enough damage, you say? I thought this wasn't about doing lots of damage/tankmagery.

I'd like to join you with Ironclad, 45 INV/SS Tanker. There's a problem, though: my computer bit the big one this week.* If I can get it fixed in time, I would be available; but I don't want to hog a spot someone else could use. Put me down as an alternate, if you would be so kind, or list me as "bump-able if you fill up."

*The thing crashed during the Long Tom mission in a Synapse Task Force, the 4th one from the end in a very long TF. Now it doesn't seem to find the hard drive, heh.

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If you were going to make a 100% team oriented SS/Inv build what would be your optimal build?

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This will come off much more snarky than it's intended, but my team oriented build would be exactly like the build I'd be soloing with.

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Whats with everbody and the word 'snarky' aaround here!?

Anyway... and that build would be...?

Ed: And would you keep taunt in a build you'd solo with?

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In an IO build, yeah. Take a look at the really groovy Taunt set bonuses. Also, now that Taunt reduces enemy range it's an even better pulling tool. I wouldn't pull for safety when soloing but I might pull for speed -- start punching one group and taunt a far group before stepping around a corner to clump 'em up.

Some builds don't have Taunt because they have other powers they want more -- I have a few of these, but am reconsidering Taunt as I put IO sets into these builds.

Well, it wasn't my intention to be a jerk. But there is a serious point to the topic. Market forum advice has consistently been "let bids sit a long time and you'll get your recipe more affordably" and that's absolutely true in my experience. Conventional complaints from many players have been "Everything is priced too high by marketeers."

What little topical value my thread offers is to show that there are affordable, even ridiculously cheap, short-term items available every once in a while if you hunt around for things without many bids on them and place a bunch of trial bids. You don't have to get into a bidding war and make "do or die" bids for everything; I have had some success just plugging in a few bids and going "huh" and moving on if the item doesn't fall into my lap.

You can snap up cheap stuff this way without long waits. Never the super-desirable or high-traffic stuff, maybe; but the market isn't completely wrung dry by experts snapping up every possible recipe. Keep your eyes open and look through things you might need.