PapaSlade

I think that was the first time I have done Summer Blockbuster since the game came back, nice change of pace. Good run on Indom with most of us still getting levels under our belts.

Yeah, I was a bit reckless and ended up as designated floor licker more than a few times but I play pretty much everything that way.🤷‍♂️

Didn't have a chance to get on the forums after last weeks run. Had a good group for a Virgil run with all the joys you find with barrels of fire chickens. Got a bonus Deathsurge fight afterwards as well. Thanks for coming out!

We had two smaller teams to start and merged for a full team part way thru. Psy had team two. Much chaos was created especially with the TV missions at the end. Managed to get us all killed a couple of times. Thanks for coming out!

Believe me, I marvel at the accomplishments of many a base builder in this current state of the game, and back on live I was pretty happy with my skills in stacking all the parts and pieces to create a nice multi level base layout, and there is a lot I would really like to do, there is no "lack of imagination" but I also got good at base building during the 07-08 recession when I was laid off for 7 months. Things are considerably more complicated now and I have other ways I want to spend my time - even in game. Not everyone has the skill, time or interest in building from the ground up but also would like something other than set of shoe boxes to call home. Having some basic map options would go along way to meeting the need of players that do not wish to be master builders.

Two Teams on Excel this week was a nice turn out. Big thanks to Ronin for running a team on the Black Scorpion Patron Arc and I took a group of sacrifices to Grandville for missions and bank mayhem. I was doing a great job of avoiding Malta all night till we merged back up with Ronin's team to finish up the BS patron arc...then non-stop Malta. Thanks to everyone that came out to smash. See ya all next week!!

I am going to preface this response by being upfront that I am by no means a min/maxer when it comes to builds. I build for running everything, not end game content. More than a few folks I run with on regular Tanker/Brute exclusive teams wonder how I make anything work with my "build by feel" approach to my toons but I will take a stab at a quick discussion on this topic because I am a huge fan of max resistance builds (prefer resist to defense in most all cases). I am also a fan of bio armor and have a Stone/bio brute currently at lvl 36 that I really enjoy playing as much as the Bio/Broadsword Tank I have about the same level. All that said, maxing resists is tough on a bio build. Mostly because you are starting at Zero on everything but Smash/Lethal/Toxic. Trying to build resist on a foundation of set bonuses is gonna be a tough hill to climb. Bio is a hybrid armor. It has lots of tools available to build survivability in different ways. My approach has been to pretty much run Defensive Adaptation all the time, max smash/lethal resist, build for end recovery, recharge and regen (where it fits). I look for damage bonus where I can and run assault to cover the -25% damage nerf defensive adaptation saddles you with, fury also helps mitigate that but I like to have it covered without fury. I then consider Ablative Carapace and Parasitic Aura as my "extra resistance bucket" and try to always have one of them available to use whenever the absorb cushion wears off (extra recharge comes in handy), with DNA siphon as additional back-up. things can be going south with damage beating your defense focused areas and DNA siphon followed by one of the absorb options will get you right back to full strength with that nice additional HP I consider my bonus resistance. I have a Bio/Fire tank fully built out with resist maxed for Smash/Lethal. Toxic is at about 60%. Fire/Cold/Psi 28%. energy/Neg 18%. Running base armors with Defensive Adaptation/weave/maneuvers gives me melee defense at 31%, Ranged 20%, AOE/Toxic 17%, Smashing/Lethal/Psi 32%, Fire/Cold 43%, Eng/Neg, 46% I took Melee Hybrid for additional Damage resist and Regen. Musculature to further boost damage. Ageless if I need a quick shot of end. Assault and three damage bonuses from sets get me exactly back to even on the nerf from defensive adaptation. I am sure there are more than a few folks that can produce way better numbers than I do especially on defense but, As I mentioned, I kinda build by feel as I level up and I always hated defense based armors because I often felt helpless when there was a cascading defense failure. I was just dead. Resistance armors, with a decent heal, always felt more manageable and many resist focused armors can cap on multiple damage types while still getting respectable defense numbers. Even though alot of the mitigation on bio is in the damage type defenses, I felt like there was enough tools there to mitigate when those defenses evaporate -so i leaned into making those tools as useful as possible and covering the damage hole. I am sure there are half a dozen other ways to make bio work, which is one of the great things about this game, but that's more or less how I make it work for me.

I am definitely down for adding Aeon to the regular rotation after that run...and I only died once!!! Need a few more runs like that to burn the memory of the one and only time I ran that when it first went live. 4 or 5 of us from an old regular SG group I used to run with ran it (probably at +2x8) and got smoked. I think it took us 4 hours and 150+ deaths. Thanks for getting us out of the Blue side sand box Ronin!!

I would throw a big vote in for snakes. They are a blast to fight and would make a great MM set. Don't have to do much to them beyond the base low level versions and the upgraded high level versions. I would add a python/anaconda hold power.

A major wish list item for myself is to have some of the basic mission maps available as a base option. The cargo ships, some basic caves, council, longbow and vanguard bases, the busted up faultline bases, etc. Just the single level versions. Back on live I got good at stacking and building in the old fashion way but I have not been able to wrap my head around everything that can be done now. I have some groups that would be fine with a basic option from the map library I could just decorate a bit.

Fun run on the Moonfire this week. Looking forward to tackling Ronin's Aeon next week. Just need to decide which tank to bring for those suped up Goldbrickers.

Had a good low level team terrorizing Cap this week. Thanks to everyone that came out. We are Excel next Thursday!

Two Mission teams on Everlasting tonight. Some glorious chaos at times. Hopefully everyone worked of their debt by the time we finished up in Grandville. Once everyone gets some levels under their feet we will start looking at the weekly TFs. Thanks for getting us rolling Psy.

Greetings lovers of all things smashy. Waaaaaay back in the day we started a Brutal Thursday event as a bit of a spin-off from Tanker Tuesdays, with the focus obviously on Brutes, but also with a focus on running Redside content (since Tanker Tuesday is pretty much exclusively blueside) I have always personally been more of a fan of Redside content and favored Brutes over Tanks because, well, ya know, anything a Tank can to a Brute can do faster and a team of 8 of them is just damn fun. If we find there is enough interest, we are looking at running the same servers as Tanker Tuesday each week with a Brutal Thursday event on Redside.

13th warrior.jfif

Finally made a euro run. Good time as always. Rod needs some love though. He was a bit squishy for being in his 30's, gonna have to send him some cash to bulk up a bit.

Fun night as always. After all these years, beating up Council never gets. Kilo, luv the Reed Richards profile pic but it doesn't seem to match your methodology for building better tanks. Need someone a bit more...I don't know...sadistic??

Need to post some sad news to our tanker family. Philotic Knight has posted that we have lost Hera. I am away from a computer for the next week and a half and just have my phone. I have no idea how to link in another post. If anyone can pull in a link to PK's post it would be greatly appreciated. I only knew Hera from COH and almost exclusively from years of Tanker Tuesdays. Philotic Knight had a much closer relationship and their post is an honor to Hera's memory far beyond what i could share. What I can say is, in all those years and all those missions, I never had a bad memory when Hera was with us. In this day and age, that speaks volumes. I encourage all of our tanker family to join Philotic Knight in honoring the passing of a great Tanker, and an even better person.

Deepest condolences PK. I only knew Hera thru countless Tanker Tuesday runs and always new it would be a good run with them in the lead or on the team. The battle cries were always on point and I often found myself with a profound need to go read a book after a few hours teaming with Hera. I know many of us will look to honor our memories of Hera for as long as we strive to make both our worlds a better place.

So I was on this team with Warpact last weekend and we had our usual core group of 4 all playing characters we feel pretty comfortable and competent on. I openly admit we went in a bit blind and cranked it up a notch or two and said lets see what happens. That 5 hours and 89 deaths was the result. I was definitely cranky by the end. I can deal with the slpody baddies and death patches. I still have the reflexes at almost 52 years old to react and get away. The spike damage from the mobs is what really started to annoy me. I have always been more comfortable with resistance based armor sets and this thing seemed designed to make me useless. Constantly getting killed while watching the animation on my initial strike. I do not mind getting defeated. I just like to go down fighting. This did not feel like I had a chance to do that. That entire first run made me feel like a minion level NPC. I have no doubt our next runs will be much better but I am not sure I am going to enjoy this much in the long run on the majority of my characters.

I am not some Rando...Warpact knows exactly what he is getting when I show up...besides, it was shiny and clicking makes me feel important

I read that as going to "faceplant over this"....I've been teaming with Warpact way too long.

Haven't had a chance to look thru the entire thread so apologies if this has been mentioned previously. Would it be possible to find a way to use an existing stock mission map as a static base map? My guess would be single level maps like: 1.) Cargo ships 2.) various warehouse or cave maps 3.) Casino/bars 4.) A single floor of an Arachnos base 5.) An abandoned Faultline base There could be a lot of possibilities. just from the map list in AE. I used to be able to stack rooms and had some neat layouts in the old days but I just cannot seem to get the hang of it again. Existing stock maps would provide us some short cuts for a simple themed base for some of our groups.

I'm in. Have had a tank stashed there for a while figuring we would land there eventually.

Nice run on the Penny Yin TF last night. Thanks to Kilo for leading. Question on the MSR. Is there a recommended minimum level we should shoot for? Excelsior is sort of a secondary spot for me and my highest level tank there is currently a level 27 Willpower. Just seeing how much time I might need to shift over there before this rolls around.