Linea

Context. ... I assumed this question was asked in isolation, to a lone tank, and as applied to random teams. The recommendations for a lone tank is different than the recommendation for a tank that runs with a reliable coordinated team. The recommendation for an experienced tank is also different than the recommendation for a new tank. The overall if I can only ever recommend one tank would probably be Inv/ as a compromise. SR - You'll likely be able to build to survive one spawn indefinitely, and should be able to handle one spawn and one EB while teamed indefinitely. After that you're gonna need buffs. SR is typically not built with much additional resistances, and you'll need those. As soon as you get 1 EB too many 9% chance to be hit will skyrocket to 60% chance to be hit, and you're going to need those resistances really fast or you'll end up 1-shot before your scaling resists can kick in sufficiently. This also translates to, if you ease into or pull, without support, you'll end up hovering indefinitely around 40% health as your resists/health goes up and down ... right up till something nasty hits you good and hard and finishes you off. Rommy in particular will cut you in half if he hits, and his base chance to hit is really high, if you don't kill the EBs escorting him, you'll be toast. SD - You'll maybe, assuming you actually build that way, be able to handle one spawn indefinitely, and probably manage it more easily than the SR. But only one regular spawn, no EBs, definitely not 2 Ebs. Worse yet, very few SDs are built this way. SD can also give you the best overall most balanced base to build upon. If you have no idea what kind of support you are going to get, if any, then any small support will go a long way on SD. But you ARE going to need those supports. AT least some maneuvers and Tactics. Still I consdier this one of the best overall choices. It's my personal pick, at least today. Inv - This one is probably the easiest to drive of all the choices. It's perfect for most first tanks. However, you're going to need a good build, so you may need to get help in that area. You'll also want to push resists hard on all fronts, including Negative, Cold, and Fire, not just SL. You WILL need either some defense buffs, or at least one extra copy of ageless +DDR, and you'll likely need some HP/S support when tanking Rommy, and maybe the Twins. You may also need some +Resist or -Damage support when facing the Twins as that is where you'll be facing Cold and Fire and potentially substantial -resist debuffs aimed at Cold and Fire. Granite - Overall it will be a bit more durable than Inv, but also still faces all the same issues as Inv, has to deal with -slow and -recharge and -damage. But if you want a relatively easy taunt bot and don't care about damage and can deal with a Combat Teleport build, then it may also be the perfect tank for completely random 4-star teams. But that's also a mouthful of negatives to swallow. RadA - You absolutely must have Defense Buffs. ***IF*** you get defense support, then that massive self-capped resists and healing capabilities make this one of the best choices. ... With our private teams, I've run this one the most. But even with the private team, buffs have slipped a little here and there. I compensated with my own incarnates, but had the slippage been any worse the whole team would have collapsed more than once, per run. And that's with relatively high quality private teams. RadA, FA, Bio, Other Resist Builds, and Proc Builds - Now you absolutely need massive defense buffs, and probably some minimal resist buffs too. ***IF*** you get this fairly substantial amount of support, and get it 24/7, then, and ONLY THEN, .... you now have the perfect tank. WITHOUT this support you'll squish like an overripe grape. It's bloody unlikely this will happen on random teams. Someone will slip, you'll die, then the whole team will die. And it'll only take one person slipping for the whole team to cascade into death. Our private teams are running with a substantial number off Offensive Tank builds, and it still gets dicey at times, and other times we end up with some of the best speed times. But it's still iffy on any given day and any given team if the (Offensive Tank and buffs) will hold.

A pair of empaths can perma each other. It is downright ludicrous what they can do, paired.

I'll repeat that. "NO TANK is going to be able to handle 4-star without at least minimal support" SR, SD, Inv, Stone, would be my top armor recommendations. SS, DM, and RadM, would be my top attack set recommendations. You should probably look at the information in my solo hardmode itf post. It is as much a hardmode itf guide as not. There are tank specific things in there, particularly at the bottom of the first post.

That really looks pretty good. It'll be great till you run up against an EB or AV, or pull an extra group. I would expect it to hold pretty close to indefinitely vs 1 standard spawn, NO Ebs. But Tactics Stacking and Adds are the problem for all tanks. You pull a 4-star Leroy and you can be facing a defense soft-cap of 200 defense, at which point your 75 defense without team support is useless and everything then falls on your resistance and ability to heal. 75 defense vs 200 defense cap, multiplied by 4-star, translates to something like 250% chance to hit, capped at 95%. Add Darkest Night, it can be pretty helpful. Add Vengeance, then you only have to live longer than the first squishy ... Ageless Radial +DDR ... if you can get a second Ageless +DDR copy from the team you should be golden. Then stack team Barriers, or team defense buffs on top of that. find a way to push resists more... *shrug* good luck with that. You can, but it will cost you defense. Double-edged sword. I personally went heavier on resists, lower defense, add Darkest Night and Vengeance. But there is no 'right' answer here. Every team is different, and at this level you have no choice but to have to rely on the team for at least some kind of minimal support.

That's very good for a random team. Random teams run average 3 hours 150 deaths, not counting the ones that just completely fail. Private teams run about an hour or less average. The failures are not because it could not be done, but because people rage-quit when it's not done in 45minutes, or because their unkillable character died, and once too many quit, then it does become too difficult. Standard Self-fulfilling prophecy.

4-star has +KD protection, and +Confuse protection, and ....

Hardmode mobs are extremely dangerous. The EBs that are very numerous will 1-shot you from range. The Bosses will 2-shot you if you are lucky. Many have additional status protection. It might, maybe, 'help' save you from a stray attacker, but that's about it. If you close to melee range without support, you're dead. ***IF*** .... Now, say you join a team of all natures and one tank, and you rotate barriers and everyone stays hardcapped to everything and all of you have Entangling Aura .... ***IF*** ... Then yes, that kind of super-team would work for the most part. You'd still have to deal with 'shout of command' and would likely want a dom or two to punch through that. But outside of a context like that were you are effectively supported, it'll probably just get you killed.

That's pretty common, but not nearly as effective as it's assumed to be. It's the sledgehammer square peg into round hole approach.

Typically I pair RadA and other resist armors with defensive weapons. However, a 4-star itf will strip that defense in a blink, unless it's either protected by stacking multiple ageless, or by stacking additional team buffs. The same will happen even in lower stars. This makes you personally bringing the defense a bit less useful than someone that can specialize in it. SS is primarily recommended for the +tohit. KB gets stripped in 4-star, but is still useful in lower difficulties, for hardmode in general this will be useful, just not 4-star. DM is mostly useful for the +to-hit and the heal, but RadA alreadys has healing covered, not so much the -defense. Any -defense will be cut in half, and at defense softcap magnitudes of 100 to 200 defense, a small debuff in isolation will be effectively meaningless. I rather doubt minimal fear will make any difference in durability at the damage saturation levels you'll be seeing in hardmode. The only changes in any rankings would be that I'm happy that more teams are bringing heavier defense support, making resist armors more viable than straight out of the gate teams were. This particular meta does shift things in favor of resists armors. When defense is effectively perma-hardcapped, then the resist armor with it's resist cap and higher HP/S via absorbs, heals, regen, really pushes itself into the foreground. There was a similar trend with the ASF. ***IF*** you have the defense support, resist armors can really shine.

The difference is resist caps, hap caps, regeneration rates, the recent changes in Fire Farms Difficulty and XP, and likely many other variables If you want to farm with a squishy, you are really going to want to cap both fire defense (45) and fire resist (75). Even then, depending on your ability to replace Lost HP, you may still need to set lower difficulty levels or rely on inspirations or temps.

Decent Yes. But if you're building a dedicated farmer, make it a brute and it'll pay for itself in a relatively short period of time.

RadA already has huge amounts of HP/S from regen, absorb, and healing. Teams are slowly improving, but there are still a lot of people that want to run non-incarnate builds in 4-star, and that frequently does not work out well. On the upside, there are more teams that are learning, and working together more, and the end result is exponentially better.

You'll have to translate the builds to fit, or upgrade the older ones. I don't have an up to date exact match. Inv RadM Tank - Prototype 801 - Build i5 - [i26].mxd Infinitum Ultimate 03 - Tanker - Invulnerability - Martial Arts.mxd Stone Dark Tank - HyperLinea HM ITF 801 L - [i27].mxd Inv DM Tank - Prototype 801 - Build i3 - [i25].mxd

It could be WIndows updating the graphics driver. Windows is particularly bad for that with some of the older AMD chipsets, but I wouldn't have thought a 7500G would be on that list yet.

I'd say DB on scrapper. At least moderate recharge 130-ish for the second best chain, or high-recharge perma-hasten for the best chain. I had good results with DB/Bio on moderate recharge and heavy armor.

It varies. Usually Carnies. Ageless +ddr, but sometimes barrier radial Resurrect x 2, if the team has +recovery to cover my crashes. Probably Agility, but I have a few more crafted that I use as needed. Degen usually, but I probably have reactive too. Almost always Void -damage, but sometimes I'll have pyronic or ionic. Almost always Hybrid Melee Core, but I so sometimes use Incandescent or others.

The average 4-star random team run is about 3 hours and 150 deaths. That will improve with time, but for now you should always assume at least 3 hours.

I don't have an updated /Dark. You'll have to translate one of the other builds to /Dark. FF DP Scorpion Def - STF SLE 1c - [i25].mxdFF Water Dark - Soul Drain - Overwatch 1 - [i25].mxdFF Water Soul - Heavy Support 57-74 - Overwatch 1 - [i25].mxd

I would say +50 minimum over the standard soft-cap. Most of the random runs I've joined have said "Use Barrier if your defense drops below 100". That's probably good general advice for random teams. It'll still get you killed if you over-pull, but if you want to keep instructions as simple as possible, that's probably the answer. Assuming 4-star Most groups have an EB backing them, or at least something like a 1/3. It's not at all uncommon: Base 45 + ceiling(25,(10 * floor(0,4 - 1)))) + ( Tactics Stacking 25 * 1) = 95 Defense. Several times per mission it will not be unusual to face 2 EBs or the equivalent: Base 45 + ceiling(25,(10 * floor(0,4 - 1)))) + ( Tactics Stacking 25 * 2) = 120 defense Most of the AVs have a least a single version of tactics themselves, something in the range of: Base 64 + ceiling(25,(10 * floor(0,4 - 1)))) + ( Tactics Stacking 25 * 1) = 139 Defense. And it will not be unusual to see AVs with a double powered tactics and one EB nearby: Base 64 + ceiling(25,(10 * floor(0,4 - 1)))) + ( Tactics Stacking 25 * (2+1)) = 189 Defense.

That would be an exception to the rule, where the last 5% cumulative is much more valuable than the first 5% in isolation, when applied to standard Incarnate Arcs, and would not be very helpful vs 4-Star Rommy and his 138.75 defense soft-cap.

The other side of this coin is, 'Don't Pull a Leroy Jenkins'. No one said you have to Speed Run a 4-Star. If you slow down and use a little strategy, you can keep the stacking tactics to 1 copy most of the time, with only the rare 2 stacks. Then you can subtract 50 from all the above numbers, just by playing smart, then even the squishies can be defense capped vs even Rommy.

Most people are under the impression that Barrier is godmode for 2 minutes ... it's not. It's about 20 seconds, maybe 30, then negligible. But rotate it with some barrier teammates and .... then it IS godmode.

Dampeners are 15-ish SL (probably 12 or 13 for scrapper), you use alternate sets for the other things, you end up with SL around 45 defense, as well as whatever other stuff. Divine Avalanche can stack, up to 3 times, but probably only twice at that level. Before the defense changes of Page 4, that SL was skewed into other defense types. And you have good M defense as well to help with the other types, and at that level M/SL is really the only 'dangerous' type. You would also likely want to use a different build for low level. That's the 801 build, end-game, revised many times for specific end-game stuff. Leveling up it would be considerably beneficial to shake it up a bit, aimed more toward your level. I do all that kind of adjustment on the fly as I go, usually don't even write it down as I level, just do it.

The only thing overcapping does is compensate for debuffs some of the incoming debuffs. 175 is the HARD cap. Barriers are only at full strength for a few seconds, then drop in half exponentially over time. Combat Monitor only updates every 10 seconds, your barrier could have expired 9 seconds ago and you just don't realize it. 2-Star is very soloable, should be 10-ish hours or less. I've not re-soloed it since it was made easier by converting 5 GMs to mere AVs. If you want a real challenge, solo a 3-star. First two missions aren't bad, about an hour each. The next ones will likely take you more than a day's worth of play each, which is why I say 3-star is not 'practically' solo-able. (3-Star I did in test-mode so If I ran out of time, lost connection, or needed to otherwise logout, I could quickly pick up where I left off with out burning hours of investment. I also used a constant supply of small yellows, and an additional 50 small inspirations in email per AV and up to 13 tries per AV. 13 tries at 15m each ~= 3 hours per AV kill. I reported on Rommy #4 in the test discord one afternoon, I think that was 5 or 6 hours total)

Non-AV: Base 45 + ceiling(25,(10 * floor(0,$Star - 1)))) + ( Tactics Stacking 25 * $Star) *Base might be 59, here, but I'm pretty sure it's only 45. (at least some of) the AVs are definitely 64 and that's intentional. AV: Base 64 + ceiling(25,(10 * floor(0,$Star - 1)))) + ( Tactics Stacking 25 * ($Star+1)) *There's some funny math with the scaling or tables. 65 intended in the tables translates in-game to 63.75. the +30 intended translates in-game to only 25. I don't know the exact translations so I just say !@#$ It and used Ceiling (25, ...), and rounded 63.75 to 64. I could go pull in-game numbers from each variation, but it's not worth the hassle, it's close enough as 4-Star tldr - 200 defense is the 4-star ITF defense soft-cap NOTE: If you Leroy, Squishies will have a minimum chance to be hit of 50% even if they are HARD CAPPED at the AT CAPS. ... 4-star has a 2x acc modifer. That means if you have hard capped squishy defense of 175 and are facing a fully Leroy Room for 200 defense softcap, you will be hit (200 - 175) * 2 = 50% of the time. n/a defense - The minimum defense soft cap, assuming you pull, assuming you NEVER get an EB, ... is unreasonable, as EBs back almost every spawn, so just skip this one, It'll get you killed. 100 defense - The Average Softcap Assuming you pull and never get 2 spawns and never get any Adds. 139 defense - Rommy's Softcap. 200 defense - The soft cap if you decide to use Leroy Jenkins Tactics.