marcussmythe

Hmm. Yannow, I dont know of such a guide - but your right, I can definitely see the use. My recollection on Vanguard, specifically, is that they are among -the- most fearsome mob types. Those green energy scythes do (IIRC) truckloads of -DEF (which messes up shield, because it has some but not all the DDR) and also -RES (which messes you up AGAIN, because you wont have resists high enough to bounce the resist debuffs). And unlike Nemesis or DE or Rularru, there isnt a specific mob that causes the trouble to pick out. When Im fighting Vanguard, I tend to just back off the difficulty, lean into insps/temps/incarnates/accolades/T9s. Ill toss out some soft control of whatever type I have access to, and kite to break up the incoming. I monitor RES and DEF - cut and run when they drop - and do as much burst as I can before they do - burning down minions to cut the total debuff volume helps some. I know this is all very general and very obvious stuff - I wish I could offer more concrete help, but its been a long time since I had a shielder at those levels.

I.. find it quite useful in rage? Im hitting rage every minute, and it procs first time, every time, when I do. Mind you, its not as handy as in BUILDUP, but yannow. That said, I dont have an Invuln/SS, so I cant give feedback on how often in procs in a crowd. If you test this, let me know how much uptime your getting when in a crowd with it in invincibility? I might consider moving it from buildup if it is a lot. (though I like the 'line up and lay down' effect of having it in buildup)

I mean... I think in a world with infinite dev resources, invuln could use a pass for clean up - do we really NEED REle and RNrg as two seperate powers? Merge and slap in a sustain. F/C/E/N reists could probably use a bump back to their old old days values. Make the T9 not a suicide button (give it the light form 50/50 crash). But none of that really deserves developer time when so many sets need the attention so much more. But if they want to lobby the PTB until my main gets a buff, Im not going to, yannow, tackle them.

Im not going to bother to try to dissuade you, but as someone who mains both sets at 50, my experience does not match what you describe. That said, if you want to go ask the dev team to buff Invuln, be my guest.

When Bio is spoken of as #1, its for overall capability - damage, debuff, defense, resist, massive regen, absorb... it pays for this by being more fragile than some sets, and by being cataclysmically vulnerable to energy based -DEF and -RES. For pure survival, other sets are definitely better. That said, in deep vet levels with all the accolades and an incarnate and build for every situation, Bio can certainly be tough -enough-.

Worse than Cimerrora? Wow. Though I think the real worry for SR is Quartz and Nemesis, at least for mine, more than debuffs.

This also suggests that a set like SR, which can combine overcapping with substantial DDR could be in many situations effectively immune to defense debuff - because they wont be debuffed below softcap by any series of attacks, or any series of attacks that is likely enough to matter, or by any series of attacks that wouldnt have already killed it on the basic 'SR dies when the bad guys roll 20s' sense.

Well, that's impressive. And it makes intellectual sense, while pointing out something that I should have considered but did not - the fact that even though its defense drops more quickly, the presence of DDR not only delays the failure, but puts a limit on the rate of that failure - because the bad guys attack at a fixed rate, with debuffs of a fixed value, the most they could EVER decrease your defense by is limited by their attack speed, numbers, and the debuff value of those attacks. Essentially, the DDR set fails more gracefully, in the general condition.

Having come full circle from 'Invuln is the King' to 'Invuln is broken/outmoded' back around to 'I really like Invuln', I will vote for it. Not because it does best single target damage buffing (That would be Bioarmor), or has the most utility (Dark, Rad, maybe Bio), nor because it is the easiest to build (SR) or the smoothest in play (WP), nor because it is the toughest (Stone), nor because it reists the things that annoy me most (Elec!), nor even because its got the most AOE damage out (Fire, but you knew that). What I love about Invuln is there are so many different ways to use it. Its solid base of resist, defense, HP, and debuff resistances, along with an internal accuracy buff, means you can use your IOs and pool power picks and build focus for everything from 'bah, its tough enough out of the gate, lets lean into damage and procs' to 'The only thing tougher is Granite, and its defeated by curbs' to 'Hey, weve got solid RES and DEF, what if we go nuts on +REGEN and pretend we are a Regenvuln?'. And as a side note, it becomes very very survivable very, very early... Invincibility at 18 means you are able to exemp down to basically anything and do the Tank Job fantastically well. My last main on live was an Invuln/War Mace Tank (my only Redside 50). The only drawback is that Mace is a bit of an END hog, and Invuln gives no bonuses to recovery (speak not to me of the T9, for it exsisteth not). However, this can be adressed in all the usual ways, and if Dark/Titan Weapons can be made end stable below 50 (and it can), Invuln/Mace will not be a problem, though you will have to pay attention.

I feel a need to follow the 'investment' conversation with a few more random thoughts - because AT Choice is ALSO an investment level choice, and one that sets your 'floor' and 'ceiling' investment levels. SR is much like Radiation, for me - Its soooo much fun to build/plan, because (like Radiation) you can accomplish all your build goals very very quickly, so you have a lot of room to chase other goals. Now, unlike Radiation, SR can ALSO chase extra survival VERY well - layering more RES on an SR is actually amazingly valuable, due to SRs scaling resist as HP drops - and ESPECIALLY on an SR Tank, which has the large HP pool to leverage those scaling resists. On the other hand, SR does not bring as many side bennies to the party as Radiation does. The amusing thing is that, as we move back up the 'resilience' scale, build space and priorities change. For Brutes, I like pure sets - I can get to that 90% Resist cap (albeit at higher investment), and I lose some breathing room on damage building - but Ive got Fury, I dont need it as much. The Pure DEF sets are similar - though a Scrapper could also get to the same DEF as the Brute, and do it with more damage, I like the breathing room fury gives me, and I like having a Brutes HP to work with. Hybrid sets I dont much care for on Brutes - the lower values that something like Invuln gets on Brutes make it harder for me to do anything with, without going 'all in' the way I would on a pure survival build for a tank. Once we get to Scrapper/Stalker/Sentinel, I start to like the hybrid sets, again - because here, Im making a significant investment on both sides of the hybrid, but I can afford to go even more into survival, because the scrapper hits so hard to begin with. I still like the pure DEF sets, as well.. especially if I want to combine survival and damage investments. Im not so much a fan of the pure RES sets here, because 75% just feels breakable to me. Its all about what performs, where, at what investment level, and with what goals. While I'll still post a flag on the 'Some sets are just a bit better than others', as I play more and more with the design space and get more time PLAYED on those 'supersets', the more I'm starting to feel that the outliers dont lie as far out as it seems. My Bioarmor Murdermachines look at Vanguard and PPD-Awakened and cry in a corner. My Rad Armor doesnt dodge ANYTHING - she resists most debuffs, but against any debuff she DOESNT resist, getting hit with EVERY ONE OF THEM gets really, really old really, really quickly - and Ive also taken heavy damage very quickly when the CC piles up (because nothing misses) and all her toggles suppress - Ann Atomic has spent quality time walking around dazed in front of Malta from all the grenades (I think it was grenades), and is closer to her 'held' badges at Vet 10 than Great Justice is at Vet 100. My little SRs makes me so happy and feel so easy to build compared to the others - but then some DE Jerks lay down a crystal and I'm down.

The thing with the Invuln/Rad comparison, and why people can simultaneously say 'Invuln is too strong' and 'Invuln is not that strong'.. and BOTH BE RIGHT.. is that the two sets respond very differently to different levels of investment. Lets discuss three investment levels: 1.) SOs/Setless IOs - Basic, straightforward building from the days before sets. Will be cheap, and leaves every set performing at its 'natural' level. 2.) Maximum Survival - Powers, sets, set bonuses chosen for survival. Damage isnt ignored, but your not proccing for damage, your not maximizing DPS choices and power picks - your a tank, and damage is a nice side effect, not a goal. 3.) Medium Survival - Investment where possible in survival, but budget restrictions or other build goals like recharge, damage, utility, etc. also consume build space. At SOs, Invuln is amazing - no need for set bonuses, your can get solid DEF and cap the most important Resist. Radiation at SOs is quite tough, and gives lots of other bennies - but is not AS tough, so Invuln stands out at least for survival. Maximum Survival: Invuln is incredibly tough here. Softcap DEF, Incarnate Softcap when saturated, and oh also capped smash/lethal/energy. If your willing to take a hit on offense and recharge and utility, Invuln is one of the toughest things out there, bar none. A similar investment in my Radiation Tank wont make a character as tough - I cant get the DEF, and I certainly cant get the DDR - even a massive investment in DEF will be crushed in short order by many villain groups, and then Ive just got RES - while the Invuln tank is equally capped on most resists (though not all), and is getting hit only a fraction as often. Basically, once you cap your resists, Radiation doesnt see a lot of value in additional survival investment. In the middle is where Radiation feels like a better set. Given set bonuses, a Radiation Tank can fairly quickly and cheaply (in terms of build room, powers, slots) get to its important resist caps. This capped resist, coupled with its heals and absorbs, makes it tough enough to handle basically anything. And it is doing so while having all sorts of utility that the Invuln is not. At this investment level, the Invuln is tougher in some ways, worse in others, but its not an obvious advantage (mostly, the invuln is tougher against S/L, and the Radiation is better against most everything else). This is why some people say Radiation is 'better' - both can be made tough enough to handle most everything, but the Radiation will be better AT OTHER THINGS at that investment level. The Invuln can be tougher as a pure survival tank... but most of that headroom is wasted, because both sets are tough enough to handle everything they face (and the Radiation will be better against quite a few things, due to being a broader, and later/better designed, set). For my own part, Ive leaned into both sides of this equation - my 'mains' are an Invuln/Energy Melee and a Rad/SS, and Ive tried to make this work for me: My Invuln runs multiple builds, from a general purpose AOE/Exemplar/General Purpse build, through a 'No Holds Barred' pure single-target AV killer (its no Bio/TW, but it does the job), and a 'never say dead' build that focuses on DEF and RES and team-tanking endgame content. This gives me something for every occasion (and the 'Generic' Build is arguably the most fun, and can do everything but kill level-shifted AVs pretty effectively). The Invuln can be built SOOO many different ways that Im having fun collecting every incarnate of interest, lots of build options, etc. The Rad/SS just runs one build, and wont need any more. Her damage heavy, moderate survival investment is still tough enough to 4/8 everything, while having great overall performance. Some of this is because SS is just so broken good, but a lot is because Rad gives so much on a small investment which lets me leverage the Superstrength. She isnt as good in any area as the three focused Invuln builds (and I cant build her to Exemp as well as the Exemp build, or to tank as well as the pure tank build - she can out-DPS the AV killer, but she cant survive some of the AVs that my AV killer will), but aside from exemping, shes 'generically' stronger, taking an average of performance metrics.

Given the history of very strong ATO impacts on certain ATs, having the PB set bonuses treat you as having one or more teammates when solo might be interesting.

Correct - massive buffs (Nemesis Lt., Quartz) will still ignore your DEF. However, most DEF sets have some res or other tools. Contra, resist or hybrid sets usually have their own kryptonite. Having all 3 types of tank, Im coming to believe that its more about ‘different’ than ‘better’, or perhaps the question to ‘what is better’ turns on ‘what do you want to do?’

This points to a strength of the ‘pure’ sets. Pure Defense sets tend to have high DDR, with hybrids having less, and resist sets having none. Resist sets on the other hand tend to easily hit their 90% resist target, giving them large debuff resistance. Thus the defense set tends to keep its defense, (barring some villain groups that have ways to just ignore DEF), and my Rad tank rarely has her resistance meaningfully debuffed - I aim for a bit over 90, so I can preserve 90 (and the 90% debuff resistance) Hybrid sets, like Bio or Invuln, have less, or no, debuff reistance. Invuln has to be careful - youll want to overcap a bit, IMHO, because its DDR helps, but is not bullet proof. Bioarmor has no debuff resistance - Vanguard or BP will send your defense deeply negative, your reists will follow, and then your at ‘why am I dead?’. The flip is those same hybrid sets often dont cap important resists (or do so at great cost), meaning that Res debuffs will layer and strip that as well. On the other hand, hybrid sets have a higher performance ceiling - my invuln in her full survival build is tougher than my Rad can ever be, against most things - and has ways to deal with things that my rad, being more one-dimensional, cannit. (well, two Dimensions, counting healing - but heals and absorbs wont save you vs an angry Winter Queens debuffs and damage). The flip is that the Rad and SR can get to their initial survival goals much more cheaply in terms of build space - so are to me more fun to build if you have goals other than being indestructable.

4/8, especially 4/8 against the Carnival or their ilk, is a privilege, not a right.

Bioarmor is the top Tanker Primary for damage output.Rad Armor is the closest second - and is a solid choice for overall damage, due to having two built in nukes. Titan Weapons is the accept-no-substitutes king of damage. Its also in line for a review. Close behind that is Superstrength, which deserves a review, but wont get one. Both have drawbacks - TW is clunky, sucky to level, and an END hog. Superstrength is basically ‘Rage, Foot Stomp, KO Blow’ - your best damage builds will lean on those, plus Cross Punch, Boxing, and Gloom. SS also has a crash (overrated, but its a thing) and late AOE. My advice? TW or SS if your okay with the drawbacks. Mace is behind them, but still awesome and without the drawbacks. Pair with Rad Armor. Get Adrenal Boost and cycle it with your Tier 9. Win.

Im still running the Ageless. Next ‘to do’ is a Barrier and finishing my Rebirth. Broke Vet 100, so filling out Incarnates is slowing down. But hey; it passes the time!

Bill Z Bubba should be along at some point. He is afaik -the- Claws/SR guy.

If you really want to be challenged, I suggest searching AE for 801.2 (or .3 or .4), setting it to 8/+4, and queuing up the old Leroy Jenkins video. If you've already kicked around in there, then I’ll hush.

Ageless Radial was my default choice for the longest time. Debuffs stink, and an every 2 minute end refill was enough for most of my builds. But over time as I tweak more and get better with my character and the mobs Im fighting, Im finding that my END stays stable, and that debuffs are killing me less and less. I tried slotting for regen and incarnating for something else - but I find that regen is haaaard to slot bonus for (at least at anything like +200 - you can, but it consumes your build. Not worth it). PS - Ive always wished we could get versions of Hybrid that were half value and always on, and versions of Destiny that were set to their mean values (and were toggles) same average bonuses over time, but less buttons in my ‘chain cooldown timing line’ on my hotbar. (Ive wished for something similar for a lot of click buffs - give me value equal to their average value over their expected uptime at my level of recharge)

Yeah, thats kinda what I was thinking. A once every 2 minutes full heal, AND constant HP influx, seems like a good thing.

A lot of soling AVs/GMs comes down to 'Plus What' and 'With What Resists'. +0 AVs are a verrrry different animal than +4, and a GM that resists your damage type will easily put you below the 'beats their regen' level. In a better world, AVs and GMs would have more HP, less regen, and hit substantially harder (for most of them. A few already hit more than hard enough).

Bio/Fire is fairly common. Mace/Elec Brutes are rather less so, and conceptually awesome. Let me know how it goes!

Defense builds have issues - though Id consider giving the SR Tank a look-see. SR Tanks are hilariously tough, and largely agnostic in terms of what foes they face. War Mace is one of your best choices for raw firepower, assuming you dont want to deal with TW. Fire is also quite good - and better than it looks, as Fire resist is a rare thing, espc. against endgame mobs. (S/L and once you hit Praetorians, E all get resisted. A lot). Rad Armor may see difficulties on a Scrapper... 75% resist cap! But Ive not tested it - its wonderful on a Tank. Over in the Pylon Testing Arena, Bioarmor is a given as the top choice - and by placing it on a Tank, your covering some of the Bio Squishy with Tank HP and Tank Defense Powerset Scales. War Mace is also a known solid performer. I don't think you'll find much better for doing what you want than the two you name, unless you want to take up Titan Weapons. SS can probably beat WM if you go for the crazy stacked-rage-pool-powers builds, but that might not be your cuppa, and if you dont want to deal with TW, you may not want to deal with really degenerate builds.

I remember the Hami Raid mechanics before we got large numbers of players doing them (the large public raids). Early-early days, it was stacking RES Debuffs on one Mito at a time (Melee characters provided suicide cover to let Rads survive getting in and landing anchor debuffs) and slooooowly peeling the thing that way, before we moved to a stacked debuff hard-kill on the Hamidon itself (there was no cap to -RES, and of course the lower your RES, the larger the impact of the next RES debuff - the poor thing was one-shottable once enough E. Fields landed), and later, yes, massive hold stacking. My understanding of the 'desired behavior' was that after a long slow mito peel, the Hamidon would be taken to its golden dawn thresholds by clusters of attackers at range - once the golden dawn wiped them, another group, or that group, resurrected, would attack from a different clock position, away from the last golden dawn. I find the current version much better designed for enjoyable play. Its arguably trivial in difficulty (compared to the old way), but given that HOs are a pale shadow of what they were at the time (they were way too good), thats probably appropriate.