mcdoogss

Here's my build, I found that chasing resists hurt recharge/damage a bit too much, so I use melee hybrid and ageless radial to shore up resists and DDR respectively. Also note this is a build that is melee-focused for ST and achieves soft capped defense before mind link (so mind link gives a large buffer to offset defense debuffs). Also perma hasten/mind link. Pros: soft cap positionals before mind link (melee is above incarnate soft cap) perma mind link perma hasten good melee ST chain solid AOE with psychic wail (32 sec CD), ball lightning, spin Cons: definitely melee focused, ranged ST is just procced dominate and mu lightning. But You could substitute more ranged attacks/controls I'd think to achieve similar numbers for a ranged build base resists are nothing to be excited about, will need to keep an eye on defense against debuffing mobs no rebirth so no healing only aura of confusion for hard CC expensive makes my stalkers seem weak

Doms and soldiers are solidly mid-table in that poll, 14 votes between 4th (warshade) and 5th (dom), while only 7 between 5th and 10th

Every time i try to play a sentinel, i go load up one of my VEATs (crab in particular) instead.

Savage melee has pretty good AOE and imo fits into a natural (animalistic) theme

My savage/ea stalker is 46 now and has been very fun to level. EA is pretty solid, i’ve been soft-capped to all non psi since the early 30s and only time I died was jumping into a pile of mother mayhem + seers lol i could never get into shield, it seems like a good set i just hated the click mez protection

My first 50 on live was Inv/SS and still is my favorite tanker. I haven’t done much with tankers on HC (for reasons discussed to death on the forums) but I really enjoyed leveling and purpling out my Inv/TW, who at least before the recent patch was pretty painless to solo

I loved leveling/building my TW/invuln, but he’s been shelved for a while so not sure how badly the ‘adjustments’ nerfed TW

The price is stable though on LOTG. If there is deliberate 'manipulation' its not affecting much

Doesn’t fire mastery have bonfire though that with the kb-> kd IO is pretty decent

I'd definitely recommend popping spiderlings out for hard targets, they possess no AOE attacks and thus are fairly useless clearing x8 spawns. Also like others said, being in melee will get them to follow you into melee sooner than they otherwise would. I also wouldnt expect them to survive long in a x4/x8 especially in melee, remember they spawn as your level -2. Btw, with all pets out if you can keep the aggro on the player (since a good build can survive most single targets), you are in contention for the highest single target DPS in the game. We won't get fine-tuned MM pet control or bodyguard mode or the kind of pet balance that henchmen get. Nor should we since the crab spider is vastly more powerful on it's own than the MM. The crab is pretty unique as it's the S-tier ranged AOE tankmage, plus pets. I think this whole thread is down to incredibly unrealistic expectations, because the crab spider is already a powerhouse, but that status comes as a hybrid that can do several things at once very well. It sounds like you want to be able to melee like a stalker/scrapper, blast like a blaster, tank like a brute, with pets like a MM. Sorry, you can only do a couple of those things at once with one build but at least Crabs are about the only AT that can. Omega Manuever does suck though, I dropped it. +4 spawns are hurting badly enough after a Venom -> Suppression -> frag -> ball lightning(or dark obliteration) rotation that its down to mopping up with a seamless ST rotation longfang -> mu lightning(or gloom) -> channel gun. Bile spray in particular is nasty but leviathan's ST attack has a ludicrously long animation unfortunately

I for one am not sure how a AT being fairly easy to softcap def, plus 50+ res to all non-psionic dmg types, plus having a legitimate ranged AOE rotation, plus pets, plus a dull pain power, is not in a ‘solid place’. Now Bane Spiders on the other hand...

Can someone briefly describe why the game itself can’t handle doing something like adding lvl 55 enemies (making them +4 to incarnates)? Seems like everyone’s just assuming that that is impossible but it seems like getting back to +4 effective level gaps would be a good start.

My bane does not have venom grenade. He’s a ST machine and for ST -Res I use shatter armor from mace mastery (no redraw between epic mace and bane mace). Poisonous ray is a good ranged attack. He’s wicked fun, and very sturdy with better than soft capped defenses to everything but psionic, plus decent resists (79% s/l for example). He crushes through 54 inc solo content in DA. Crowd control + the mace mastery aoe are enough for aoe and the ST chain 2 shots bosses if getting executioner strike in.

I was thinking about something similar, basically a melee claw fortunata build, with the psi AOEs. Followup -> lunge ->swipe -> strike is probably the highest dps ST chain a fortunata can have anyways. I'm interested to see how it plays

Pyre is good because of bonfire with a KB-KD IO. Between that and poison trap you have more than enough control. fireball and the ST blast are much much better than the primary rifle attacks obv. I also slot KB->KD in the little bots and assault bot so the mu immob isn't as useful to me as for others.

Frag and venom grenade are the same, channel gun is energy instead of lethal (and 1.3s v .9s activation) and longfang is a slower to activate (1s vs 2s) than burst but otherwise identical. The main gain to the crab spider soldier tree is suppression imo, and if you are going to take suppression then you might as well take channelgun, longfang, crab venom/frag instead of the wolf spider versions because the gun redraw will ultimately eat into your dps. Also if you go full crab spider you won't have redraw issues (since no gun) with the cones from leviathan if that's your jam (personally I enjoy an aoe tankmage crab over a full crabbermind build, ymmv). The crab melee attacks are kind of crap imo, if you want a melee SoA a Bane spider or a widow variant should be on your radar instead, unless you love the theater of the crab as a melee character (they do look pretty good admittedly)

Beast run + crab backpack for 50 levels of smiles

This seems to me to be the real problem. Theoretically tankers can be built tougher than brutes, but realistically there is no 50+ content that can actually test that extra toughness with even moderate team buffs/debuffs. So we end up with the score guys deciding to just buff tankers damage to be more 'brute'-ish, probably because it's way easier than stiffening up the lvl 54 content to make the extra survivability actually factor in. Hell, most of us here have probably built traditional 'squishy' classes that are nigh-unkillable at the current endgame difficulty.

Do the changes either remove the full benefit of Fury or buff tankers to realize the same damage benefits of a constant near full Fury bar? I don’t see enough on paper changes to close the damage gap enough that tankers will become better inf/min farmers than top brute builds

I really enjoy the faultine arcs, the croatia arcs, the pi tina/unai/maria arcs, and post-50 I hang around DA sweeping moth cemetery since it’s the only incarnate zone in game. kings row, perez, boomtown, steel, skyway, bricks, creys, eden, founders, independence port i generally visit only for task forces or occasional level appropriate radio teams. They are just either bland or inconvenient (looking at you IP)

I think I only have ~12-13 seconds hasten downtime if the FF proc never hits (i whirling smash whenever its up though since I had to sacrifice crushing blow and titan sweep for defensive powers). I find there are few chain gaps just obviously I end up using WS and AoC against single targets a lot. Momentum kinda forces gaps and the 'slow' rend armors/AoCs to gain momentum give everything else plenty of time to recharge. Also throw in a second or so for taunt when momentum expires. My end bar doesnt move now but was a concern well in the 40s before all the accolades, physical perfection, etc. Plus in 8+ man TF/Trial content, ageless is being cast so regularly that I dont even feel the need to slot it and am currently running barrier as an 'oh shit' button. I was pretty close to rolling this guy as a Dark/TW tank, but the end issue definitely dissuaded me lol

No offense guys, I think the dick measuring context of which unkillable endgame tanker build/set is less killable is fairly silly 😇. I personally chose invulnerability over shield for 3 reasons: 1) I dont like click mez protection on a tanker, hell I dont really like click defensive powers in general 2) Dull pain is great, i feel more comfortable with a self heal even if i never have to use it (i generally use it practively if at all) 3) Shield is incompatible with, in my opinion, the best tanker secondary in the game titan weapons (don't @ me). With Melee and Invincibility set to 1 enemy which seems like a good baseline (Also tough is toggled off, since it only nets an effective .3% S/L resistance). My favorite part of this character isn't the fact that it's basically unkillable unless I go afk while fighting battle maiden or something. It's that if a second tanker joins a TF/Trial, say a granite tanker who by definition will hit like a wet noodle, I can let them take point and still contribute because Titan Weapons is just that good. Sure I can't dps like a stalker/scrapper, but I'm better than a brute without fury 😛 mcdoogss.mxd

Mace Mastery is pretty good for a Bane Spider, Shatter Armor is another big ST hitter that adds -res, and the aoe blast is better than the bane version if you dont like cones. Most importantly, no redraw for any of the Mace Mastery powers. I like Leviathan for an aoe monster crab build. Bile spray hits harder than all other aoes after venom grenade’s toxic debuff. For a crabbermind, the one of the pets is essential

Plant/Storm is a blast, with very respectable damage for a controller.

I think just buffing lvl 54 mobs would go a ways towards providing some more challenge on the original, non-incarnate endgame story arcs/TFs/Trials, without the HC devs having to develop too much 'new' content. Even with 4-5 lvl 50s pre-inc x4/x8 is trivial, and becomes a face roll once they get their alpha level shift. Maybe giving all 54s a buff across the board (or even make all 54s whatever the few incarnate mobs are with their extra to-hit/etc) will introduce a little more fun to the endgame.