[Rad Armor /Battle Axe]

My main point was that Bio needs ablative, dna siphon, and PA for survival more than Rad needs rad therapy, PS, and meltdown. Especially in -defense environments as bios resistances wont be nearly as comprehensively hard capped, especially if like me you are running in offensive as much as possible.   Meltdown isn't really a survival power on a built Rad tanker as you can already be hard capped with a stack or two of res procs to all damage but cold.

 

On my rad/fire i also click rad armor powers more often than i click bio powers on my bio-axe, but thats largely down to rad therapy (and ground zero) being proc bombs. As I said before, Meltdown is mainly an offensive power from the mid 40s or so
 

also a fully saturated PA means you generally don’t need ablative/dna for 45 seconds at least, that really cuts down on clicks.  Unless the content is trivial, I'm using ablative or PA every spawn proactively to avoid Sudden Bio Faceplant Syndrome.  With Rad generally PS/RT is reactive outside of proc bombing RT with much slower HP loss due to higher across the board resistances

[Rad Armor /Battle Axe]

Battle Axe is S-tier now.  Especially when paired with tanker primaries that add damage of their own and have powerful click powers.  
 

My personal favorite is Bio/Axe but Rad armor is similar, with less reliance for survival on clicks.  Both more than compensate for BAs endurance usage, and both benefit from the KD soft control and +recharge from FF procs.  
 

My suggestion is to build for res, dmg, and recharge first, and only add defense after satisfied with that.  Defense on rad/ is an ablation layer due to no DDR, and being hard capped to all dmg besides cold is enough survivability against content that doesnt do -defense and more defense wont help much against enemies that do strip defense.  Plus in group content chances are your teammates will be layering you with defense buffs.

 

solo, your 4 pbaoes (pendulum is effectively a pbaoe) will make short work of pretty much any groups and rad therapy will patch up dmg from the alpha you soak up.  By the time they stand up the second time the spawn should be down to bosses lol

[The Bane of my existence]

Love my Huntsman build.  Its like an Arsenel sentinel from before sentinels existed.  Also with some decent pets.

 

venom grenade + arctic breath + bile spray + heavy burst + grenade is a pretty dope aoe rotation, all while having softcapped positional defense.  
 

i only wish i could get fortitude and serum without the crab backpack lol

[Stone Armor question - Tremor or Fault?]

You mean stone melee i'm sure.  Fault takes ranged aoe and stun sets  and is available earlier while tremor does more base damage and takes melee aoe sets.  I'm not aware of a huge performance delta between the two though especially when procced out.  por que no los dos?  If I had to choose one probably Tremor for me for the damage and I slightly prefer the melee aoe winter set to the ranged aoe winters for a tank

[Dark Melee, Brute or Tank?]

Brutes just dont seem to be in a great place right now in general.  For Dark in particular, I have a T4 incarnate D/D Tank and SM/TOF provide pretty decent AOE along with having better defense/resist stats than a similarly built brute would have.  I think the only melee sets Brutes have a relative synergy with are DOT heavy sets like savage given the Fury mechanic boosting dots (crits dont really iirc)

[how many powers is too many?]

I dunno, i’d never skip either DNA nor PA on a Bio tank.  The former is a source of -regen (and a decent proc bomb if you into those kinda things), the latter is every-other-mob-immortality when soloing, enemy independent. I might skip PA on a scrapper though because the regeneration doesn’t have the same impact

[First Time Farming Tanker help]

At this point I make inf by converting crap recipes into good IOs and selling them, but fire/* is the classic gold standard fire farmer (i do have a rad/fire brute farmer for powerleveling alts to ~20ish if i dont want to do it legit).

 

other good tank primaries for S/L farming would be rad/ for the 2 proc bombs and bio/ for offensive stance

 

for secondaries probably SS(rage + foot stomp), Fire(two pbaoes), maybe the new battle axe(so much recharge because of the FF proc)

[Settling in to a Tank]

35 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Pretty sure those powers will only activate the procs if the powers are used.  You're likely better off putting those in health/stamina.

 

Also on a dark armor tank, how often do you die that you need Soul Transfer? I have several dark armor tanks and I'm having difficulty counting on more than one hand how many times they've died combined. As such I don't bother taking Soul Transfer. It would be a lot more useful if you could use it while alive.

 

I just loaded my Dark/Dark with the prev med absorb proc in soul transfer and it procced as expected when i was at like half health.  So that one is a 'universal' proc and just needs to be slotted somewhere.  I thought I read that power transfer proc is similar and just needs to be slotted somewhere, but on this character its in physical perfection so cant test that.  Hmm wait i have an unslotter or 2...

 

Ok you are right about power transfer, that needs to be in an auto power or will only trigger on activation.  Preventative medicine absorb proc however will trigger based on your health bar, and it just has to be slotted somewhere.

[Settling in to a Tank]

13 minutes ago, tidge said:

What's the thinking on slotting Soul Transfer? I will only have a single slot in it. Right now it has a %Lethal piece in it for the lulz, but I am wondering if I should have it slotted with Recharge just because when I need it I typically need it again ASAP.

 

Might be dumb but I just toss either the power transfer or preventative medicine procs in soul transfer.  It's a nice one slot wonder power

[how many powers is too many?]

I took all Bio powers, and in BA only skip Beheader and Taunt. I'd never recommend skipping parasitic, it's one of the better tier 9s, up every other mob, and in x8 spawns makes you borderline unkillable with massive regen.  If you only want to solo AV/GMs then I guess its not as great, but why Tanker in that case?

 

Some folks skip Gash but I don't know how you'd have a decent ST attack chain without it (and exemping would be pretty rough).  You'd really be relying on FF recharge procs, plus Gash is a good attack in its own right.  BIO/Axe is an awesome combo with great synergy imo but it's a tight build due to so many good powers.  Tanker (Bio Armor - Battle Axe).mbd

[Looking for end-all be-all tank for completion]

On 4/16/2024 at 6:17 PM, Sovera said:

Welp, the Bio/Fire was going fine until Manticore. Then I started dying. Then I wised up to be careful about being confused. Then kept dying anyway. So I went more carefully, got ready to flee when needed. Then got hard countered by a spawn with four +2 bosses, two of which were debuffers and they hard walled me with four deaths in a row, return from hospital, get killed, etc. I could have gobbled inspirations to pass them, but, heh.

 

I went to look at why the Stone/Fire Melee had breezed through Manticore and the only thing I saw was the softcapped defense to psi... Well, softcapped defense to everything I guess. I had 38% defense to energy and once debuffed Ablative was of no help.

 

Bio lives up to the idea of being pretty strong offensive and against generic enemies but folding against debuffs. A bit like Willpower I guess. It did make me feel like a Scrapper. Or at least a Brute. Very strong trip up to 45 and Manticore at least.

 

I just came back to homecoming after a couple of years, and I just got my first Bio Armor character to 50.  I didn't have quite the same experience in the 40-50 range but my secondary is BA.  I love fire melee but I think BA has a stronger synergy with Bio.  So much KD means both soft control (more regen ticks without incoming damage) and FF +recharge can be up a ridiculous amount.  

 

40-50 running +2/x8 the only times I ran into big issues like you experienced is those Mother Mayhem praetorian missions with tons of psionic damage + debuffs.  I think /BA really helps Bio shine. 

 

[Is there really a massive proc nerf just around the corner?]

Could you be bothered to just, like, link to some sort of details/patch notes/etc?  It might help manufacturing with your outrage

[Smoothest most balanced power combo?]

I haven't played Rad Armor, but it has a reputation as a smooth leveling tanker primary as well as being probably the toughest resistance set (along with DA, but DA is not imo a smooth leveling primary).  

 

Fire/ is squishier than all other armors but once you get Burn you pretty much can start cranking the team size when solo, which means more XP per mission.  

 

SR/ is another very smooth leveler, being soft capped at an early level makes leveling a breeze.  A bit of an eggshell at times though

 

Shield/Invuln are both fantastic hybrid armor sets, both level well and are just about equally top-tier toughness at the end game.  Shield is a bit more active and has more tools to boost damage, invuln is marginally tougher (dont @ me i know thats a controversial opinion). 

 

/Ice is a very good set overall.  Frost on a tanker is easily the best melee cone (it can even take range enhancements weirdly), ice patch is great soft mitigation especially when leveling, frozen aura is a decent pbaoe.  It's only a little light on ST damage because greater ice sword kinda sucks.

 

/DM is a solid all around set with good utility with siphon life and dark consumption and -toHit on every attack.  Kind of the flip side of /Ice in that the AOE is only adequate but the ST is very good.  the new ToF loves dmg procs

 

/Energy after revamp is probably the best ST set for tankers overall, with decent AE.  

 

 

 

 

[Mid's Reborn: Hero Designer]

Is there an ETA or typical timeline from when power changes from a patch like Page 3 go live and then get rolled out to Mids?

[Suprising Solution to Dark Armor Endurance Management]

In addition for people pairing Dark Armor with Dark Melee, if you have room for it siphon life procs theft of essence pretty regularly too.  Very useful given siphon life is a very end-heavy ST attack (same end cost as midnight grasp and more than shadow maul or touch of fear).  If you have no recharge in the power at all, the +end proc makes it darn near end neutral.

[MORE TANKS]

On 11/20/2021 at 1:24 PM, Aeroprism said:

I rolled a Bio/Psi and did not go for the cheesy name opportunity.

 

I will also roll a Dark/Dark,  I wanted to combo dark armor with something else to capitalise on the effects but I don't know what,  And Dark/Dark seems to play so well together.

 

I will roll a Shield/Something for sure, just don't know what yet.  

 

And Titan Weapon wasn't really popular in the choices so I think I might keep it for Scrapper or Brute.

 

Dark/Dark is dope, and it does synergize well (also Dark melee is just a pretty solid melee set on it's own).  D/D though doesnt really utilize OG very well, CoF is the CC aura that synergizes best with dark melee (ToF will stack fear on the target to keep bosses shivering plus more -toHit).  CoF is an end hog though in a end heavy armor set.

 

So, you may want to try out a melee set that compliments Oppressive Gloom's disorient.  I'm thinking Dark Armor/Energy Melee would keep not just all minions punch drunk, but should stack and take LTs out of the fight with power crash and then the ST damage is obviously stellar and every ST attack has disorient so bosses will be staggering around too.

 

 

[Fire/MA: the Brunker, and compilation of Fire Armor builds.]

23 hours ago, Rakshir said:

Thanks for the super fast reply, and another build to look over.  I'm still very new to the end game, but I do love the Fire Armor / Ice Melee.  It just seemed with how much you praised FF in MA.  I thought may be advantageous to slide one in the build.  I really appreciate you throwing a build with jump in for me to look over.

 

In my experience, the FF proc isn't terribly reliable in cross punch.  YMMV but so far I've found on my Fire/Ice that burn + frost + frozen aura pretty much has most groups on the ground besides the bosses.  

 

Cross punch is probably a better power than Greater Ice Sword though all things considered.

[MORE TANKS]

Fire/Ice is dope.  Frost is probably the best melee cone in the game right now, and it comes in at lvl 4.

[The Strongest Tank]

12 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Hast "strong" been defined here? You talking damage, survivability, or both?

 OP seemed pretty clear he's looking for the most survivability.

[The Strongest Tank]

Gotta be Granite, is crazy no one has a build up for it now.  I paired it with the frankly overtuned energy melee and it's a beast (this is an older build though, so there could be some tuning done).  Granite is so good that it allows a lot of slotting leeway to proc out attack powers.  When you wake up from your nap and decide to start punching stuff, you'll like what you see.  Also has a heal, but you'll never need it even versus heavy Psi 

 

Spoiler

This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.0.6.0
https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Daddy Doogs: Level 50 Magic Tanker
Primary Power Set: Stone Armor
Secondary Power Set: Energy Melee
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Rock Armor -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(3), Rct-ResDam%(3)
Level 1: Barrage -- SprMghoft-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(A), SprMghoft-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), SprMghoft-Acc/Dmg(5), SprMghoft-Dmg/Rchg(7), SprMghoft-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(7)
Level 2: Earth's Embrace -- UnbGrd-ResDam(A), ImpArm-ResPsi(9), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(9), UnbGrd-EndRdx/Rchg(11), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam(11), UnbGrd-Max HP%(13)
Level 4: Stone Skin -- UnbGrd-ResDam(A), ImpArm-ResPsi(17), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(19), UnbGrd-EndRdx/Rchg(19), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam(21), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(21)
Level 6: Combat Teleport -- BlsoftheZ-Travel(A), BlsoftheZ-Travel/EndRdx(23)
Level 8: Mud Pots -- PcnoftheT-Acc/EndRdx(A), SprGntFis-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23), PcnoftheT-Dmg/Slow(25), SprGntFis-Rchg/+Absorb(25), SprMghoft-Rchg/Res%(27)
Level 10: Rooted -- Prv-Absorb%(A), Prv-Heal(27)
Level 12: Taunt -- PrfZng-Dam%(A), PrfZng-Taunt/Rng(29)
Level 14: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(29)
Level 16: Whirling Hands -- SprAvl-Rchg/KDProc(A), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg(31), Obl-%Dam(31), FuroftheG-ResDeb%(31), ScrDrv-Dam%(33), Erd-%Dam(33)
Level 18: Bone Smasher -- Hct-Dmg(A), Hct-Dmg/Rchg(33), Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), Hct-Acc/Rchg(34), Hct-Dmg/EndRdx(34), Hct-Dam%(36)
Level 20: Brimstone Armor -- Ags-Psi/Status(A), ImpArm-ResPsi(36), GldArm-3defTpProc(36), GldArm-ResDam(37), GldArm-End/Res(37), GldArm-RechRes(37)
Level 22: Total Focus -- SprGntFis-Acc/Dmg(A), Mk'Bit-Dam%(39), SprGntFis-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), SprGntFis-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), TchofDth-Dam%(40), GldStr-%Dam(40)
Level 24: Boxing -- Mk'Bit-Dam%(A), Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg(40)
Level 26: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), ImpArm-ResPsi(42)
Level 28: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(42), GifoftheA-Run+(42)
Level 30: Teleport -- WntGif-ResSlow(A)
Level 32: Granite Armor -- ShlWal-Def(A), ShlWal-Def/EndRdx(43), ShlWal-Def/Rchg(43), ShlWal-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(43), ImpArm-ResPsi(45), GldArm-ResDam(45)
Level 35: Power Crash -- Arm-Dmg(A), Arm-Dmg/Rchg(45), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46), Arm-Acc/Rchg(46), Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(46), Arm-Dam%(47)
Level 38: Energy Transfer -- SprBlsCol-Rchg/HoldProc(A), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg(47), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx(48), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(49)
Level 41: Fold Space -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 44: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A)
Level 47: Crystal Armor -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A)
Level 49: Focused Accuracy -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet 
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A), Pnc-Heal/+End(13)
Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PrfShf-EndMod(15), SynSck-EndMod/+RunSpeed(15), SynSck-EndMod(17)
Level 1: Energy Focus 
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Jump-I(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run 
Level 50: Musculature Core Paragon 
Level 50: Mighty Radial Final Judgement 
Level 50: Reactive Radial Flawless Interface 
Level 50: Banished Pantheon Core Superior Ally 
Level 50: Ageless Total Radial Invocation 
Level 50: Assault Radial Embodiment 
Level 50: The Atlas Medallion 
Level 50: Freedom Phalanx Reserve 
Level 50: Portal Jockey 
------------

 

[First Ward and Night Ward]

The last two tankers I tried to take through the main FW/NW arcs were Fire/ and Dark/.  They were both a slog, lots of Energy damage (both sets have a hole there) and debuffs that really hurt partially built heroes (-toHit, -recharge, end drain, etc). 

[MASSIVELY: Has Homecoming torched the plans of City of Heroes successors?]

9 hours ago, Optimum_Man said:

It has one of the largest “budgets” of any game ever released. I mean for the money spent they have not done 1/8th of what an actually studio could have done with that money. They definitely promised big and won’t deliver. But they didn’t do it intentionally, they took on a project they were simply not prepared for. This is why I think games shouldn’t be allowed on Kickstarter. The completion rate for these projects feels damn near zero.

 

The crowd funding thing is sketchy in general, but especially for things like video games and movies.  There are no real consequences for taking crowd funded money and producing nothing, and if you actually pull off the unlikely and create a viable, marketable product the public 'angel investors' get nothing.  Basically, it's socialized risk for privatized reward, and that's shady territory full of grifters with good sales pitches.

 

[MASSIVELY: Has Homecoming torched the plans of City of Heroes successors?]

18 hours ago, Optimum_Man said:

 

This. I have spoken with people who are following the project closely and there does appear to be a decent alpha together. They still have a long way to go, but they have an actual product assembled. Mostly anyway.

interesting.  They have raised like $350M or more to date now, so it feels like if its not vaporware its at least a scam to not have a fully production game by now.

[MASSIVELY: Has Homecoming torched the plans of City of Heroes successors?]

On 10/23/2021 at 11:17 PM, drbuzzard said:

 

CoT is the poster child for vaporware. 

more so than Star Citizen?

[Anyone have a solid Dark/Dark build they wouldn't mind sharing?]

I think if/when I do Dark/ again, I'm going to lean into disorient stacking and run Dark/Energy.  OG plus almost every EM attack does disorient, should keep err'body stumbling around drunk.  OG on D/D just wasn't useful enough, minions die within seconds and the mag is too low to effect even Lts.