ZemX

TBH, I've been working on this one for a long time. I've shot several other Rad Tankers to 50 in the same time no trouble. This one... it hits hard for sure, but I like big AoEs and glorious as Foot Stomp is, it's the only real AoE in the set. Hand Clap helps with area aggro and has a nice knockdown but it needs that proc to do it. Rad Armor having two proc nukes in the set helps tremendously with that lack-of-AoE feeling. I guess with double Rage you kind of have to view Foot Stomp as more than one AoE. 🤪 But it sure doesn't grab me the way Axe, Ice, and Savage Melee have. We'll see if it's just a late-bloomer in the fun dept. for me once I have it all kitted out. For sure, Foot Stomp puts a smile on my face already.

I'm not convinced Ageless is worth more than Barrier. Maybe a full team that is coordinating and has x4 Barrier and x4 Ageless but I usually don't count on that. I almost always go Musculature Alpha but I've also considered Recharge. Rad has the recovery to fuel high recharge and recharge is life when two of your three main survival tools are a click heal and a click absorb shield. On the other hand, I haven't really looked if that's going to affect any of the proc rates significantly. That'd be the only real downside. Here's the plan for my Rad/SS so far: This is the same basic Rad Armor framework I have on most of my Rad Tankers. I've started switching them over to Teleport for travel because as a bonus it gets me through jammed doorways or out of -jump/-fly traps. It's also just cool to TP into the exact middle of a big spawn and let rip a Ground Zero with its Superior Avalanche knockdown proc while still hovering after the TP. I'll could consider dropping the Absolute Amazements from Hand Clap in favor of that Explosive Strike proc. I'd lose some recharge in the power and 6% fire/cold res but fire would still be capped and cold just isn't that necessary. I dunno. I have it mainly for tanking on teams where the knockdown and wide AoE are nice for aggro and interrupting bad guys from damaging teammates. Finally, I am more or less addicted to Focused Accuracy on my Rad Tankers. It's just great for never being toHit floored. Maybe it's not as critical with double Rage. I dunno. Haven't played this guy a whole ton. Still schlepping through the 40s. This is not even counting Performance Shifters, Panacea, or Theft of Essence, which are huge. Also, and maybe I just need to update Mid's. But it's not calculating Gamma Boost properly for me. I set the slider to 100% health and it doesn't change the recovery. I just never have End problems. It's why I didn't bother slotting Stamina or Health any more than the default.

The Live devs had to know what kind of mess they were getting their GMs into when they designed claws and regen powers into a superhero game.

I'm with you on that. Maybe someone really is just trying to "pay respect" to a favorite character from some other media but... tomato... tom-ah-toe. It ends up looking the same from the outside as any lazy copy anyone else did and that means reporting and GMs having to go judge whether you crossed the line or not when their limited volunteer time could be better spent. Parody is both safer and more respected and (usually) not a copyright violation if you must base a character on some other copyright work. If I see someone with a clever pun/parody that is different enough from the original concept, I have a much more positive reaction.

Does that make the rest of you my minstrels? 😈

Oh it's a joke. It's just the joke is on Rad Armor Tankers. Manti's TF is a lot more interesting these days, especially for RadA. No built in Confuse resist. No defense debuff resist for all those bullets and rad debuffs. Then there's your primary means of damage mitigation, resistance, which can have 42% shaved off in a single unresistible Enervating Field from a +4 Rad PP Elite. Fun! At least RadA has the heal and an absorb shield to supplement resistance. Also has good slow resist built in which is nice for running the hell away from those PP Elites until their stupid EF toggle drops. I bravely ran away a few times last night. 🤪

They killed Statesman again?! Okay, a joke... but half serious here. Killing off major characters seems to be just a thing comics do, innit? Might be more noteworthy in this genre that they haven't yet brought him back to life than that they killed him in the first place.

No, I like this idea better than all the light blasting ones. Fits a more natural theme. For less Warhammer, go Willpower/Staff. Maybe skip the breakdancing PBAoE tho...

When everything is superlative... nothing is.

Oh yeah, that's a whole lotta fun. I have a Ice/Shield Stalker with Provoke and Ice Patch who has tanked for a few PuGs before. Still, it's pretty rare I'll ever get asked to do that on a team. If there's literally any other melee AT or a Kheld, you're off the hook. Unless you end up tanking better than the team's first choice. That's always funny too.

Curious. It has the same set bonus name as a ordinary ATO vs. a superior ATO? I didn't know that.

Might be the +10% recharge available in some purple I/O and superior ATO sets.

Right? The thing I love about playing stalkers is... and this goes all the way back to the beginning of CoV... nobody expects ANYTHING of you on a team. Nobody follows the Stalker. Nobody asks the Stalker to heal or buff them. And if you ever do manage to do something noteworthy, everyone is super impressed like, "I didn't know Stalkers could tie their own shoelaces, even!" impressed. But most of the time nobody really knows what my Stalker is DOING on their team and, this is key, are even less able to tell when I am NOT doing it! It's great!

Remember also that if you are fighting an AV, or any enemy, whose level is higher than yours (and this is often the case) there will be some loss of debuff strength just due to the "purple patch" in addition to any loss from the enemy's resistances. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Purple_Patch

Missed this week due to work but I am also fine with a Rad/SS ITF. I think I might need to pack on a few levels though. Thought he was late 30s but is actually early 30s.

The +13% res(all) from Sky Splitter is definitely of more use to either of those primaries than the melee/lethal def I'd say. I've done Rad/Staff and ignored the +def. I've also done SR/Staff where the melee defense was handy while leveling up and kind of unnecessary later on. But the +res is always gravy.

Yeah, I've not run into much trouble with my Rad tanks doing herding either. It's when you're in the bowl and there are ten Magi spamming Stalagmites (mag 3 13sec 50ft radius AoE stun, -20% base def). If you're a defense tank, you might dodge some or all of them and never sweat it. But my Rads get hit with every one of those and that can stack up enough to overcome stun mez protection even on a tank. We had a few occasions where the herding brought in enough stunners to drop 4-6 tanks at once. I got into the red zone at least once before managing to swallow a break-free and hit my heal. Part of the problem is even noticing I am stunned with all the audio/visual noise of a raid. At least that happens on our TT raids. On a public raid in the bowl there's typically enough overlapping force fields and other supports in the bowl you could probably go afk and never die. One of these days I really gotta get back to mine. Captain Subatomic has been languishing in the late 30s for a while now.

I usually consider it bad luck when I join a team full of stormies! KIDDING! (sort of) I agree with focusing on to-hit debuffing. They need to roll dice to hit you. You're making sure those rolls come up snake-eyes every time. Dark, darkity, dark. Rad works the other way, making your own hit rolls succeed more often, which is definitely bad luck for them. But I'd avoid the default vibrant green color and go for something much more pale. Fits the theme better. ETA: oo. forgot! Panther Transformation. Cross some paths as a black cat!

PSA: Since I saw some surprised comments last night in the bowl... yeah, there's THAT much stun mag stacking in there during a MSR. It's not something we usually have to worry about in our day to day so it can catch you unprepared. It's particularly bad if you're resistance-based or don't have DDR because they also pack a lot of -def and hit you all the time, so it stacks up all the faster if you're not the "I dodge bullets!" type of tank. At times, I noticed my Rad Armor's defense was in the negative 70s somewhere. I don't leave home without a decent stack of break-frees and I am constantly converting my tray to break-frees throughout the raid. That said... TT's MSR's are way more fun than the usual public raid on Excel or Everlasting. Those are a snooze fest with all the support going on in the bowl. Playing herd tank for one of those is at least somewhat interesting. But nothing like the small all-tank raids we're doing.

We gonna fill an MSR on Indom on Halloween? 🤪 Or maybe Rik't or Treat?

I always buy 8 hours of defense amplifier (really all three amps) for dirt cheap from P2W at level 1, then run a DFB and pick the hydra defense rewards. That'll take a defenser like Shield through those pesky low levels in style.

A base is handy to store the rare stuff at least. I also don't bother storing commons or uncommons. I zip through my base between teams, sell off common IO recipes and anything over about level 40 that isn't terribly valuable (since they aren't worth crafting at that level). Then I hit the table and craft anything that shows up bold, meaning I happen to be carrying the salvage for it. Then I hit the quartermaster and sell any common/uncommon salvage that has more than 3 in a stack. Keeping 3 means I end up with a good variety for crafting those random recipes. When I start to be annoyed by the random set IOs I am accumulating in my trays, I take a few extra minutes to convert them into something that sells well and I post it on the AH. This is sort of the minimum effort I'm willing to make to sell what is dropped to me in one way or another. I suppose I should be dumping the common salvage on the AH instead of vendoring it so it'd be available for others to purchase. Maybe I'll think about that.

Whoever it was, they weren't very smart because... I was wrong!! 😈 When I said that Siphon Life = +100% regen, I was forgetting that you always have base regen. Someone spamming Siphon Life is gaining both base regen of 5% per 12s AND Siphon Life's 10% per 12s. So apples to apples, someone spamming Siphon Life is restoring health three times as fast as the same person who is NOT spamming Siphon Life. Hence Siphon Life on auto is equivalent to adding +200% regen buff (not +100% as I stated earlier). Again, at least until we start tossing in all kinds of enhancements and set bonuses... at which point I am adding MYSELF to the punch bowl, because I am not a big enough math nerd for that!