DarkRevelation

I would love to take you up on that one day. Maybe on the test server? I want to see what the defense armors do under heavy DDR pressure and how they mitigate that. That would be a lot of fun and a good chance to learn some things. I tested flooring the defense numbers on a granite build to look at mitigation via res/regen, and picked up a few ideas. If you ever want to hit up the test server let me know. It would be a good place to look at other builds without having to swap servers.

Yes, but either take out the 10 mobs in Invincibility or just state that that is what it is mob capped. Either works and is transparent. If you are going to call something base, then make it be base. I doubt most folk know that the mob amount can manipulated in MIDS for some power choices/incarnates, or what mob capped even means in its relation to Invuln. No one is saying that your Invuln build isn't very durable, that it can't hit those defense numbers with Invul alone, or that Invul isn't a good choice. Just spell it out with full disclosure where the numbers are coming from. People will look at these posts for years to come trying to figure out the game and how best to do roll a tank. Not everyone has the experience to know how you are getting those numbers. That's what this board is for; to provide a place to discuss ideas/builds/issues and to help folk by passing along knowledge gained from your experience. Put yourself back in 2008 HyperStrike mode when you were learning the game and reread your post. You see base invincibility and think it is what it says it is, not understanding cooldown rotations/incarnate usage and when to use your Hybrid/Destiny for maximum gain/mobs related to defense numbers/power pool cooldowns/recharge rates/regen rate compared to HP and how to manipulate that via DP, and when to manipulate that/LoS mitigations and utilizing them to boost your defense numbers by drawing in ranged mobs/etc, etc, etc. There is a lot to learn to understand the numbers you posted. Help new folk out and let them know where you get those numbers from.

I'm pretty sure you advertised those sleight of hand numbers as Base Invincibility. Just to make sure let's run it back and see. As for "better than the usual best possible". Base Invincibility. Your words, not mine. You advertised those inflated numbers as Base Invincibility. They are not the base for invincibility. You can't hit those resists outside of Unstoppable without using cooldowns/incarnates/inflated numbers of mobs around you. For someone who is new and doesn't know any better they will take those numbers and run with it, and wonder why they can't hit those. You can post whatever numbers/mobs/incarnates/cooldowns you want, but you can't call what you posted Base Invincibility. It's not, and no matter how much you want to have 10+ mobs around you to boost your defense numbers all of the time, that is not reality either. Let's call it what it really is; You didn't like what Spaghetti Betty said so you cooked the numbers to try to make a point on a forum board by showing cooldowns/incarnates/max mobs from your old Much Mo build and called it Base Invincibility. It ain't, and no matter how much you pontificate on the grandeur of being a God tank, you can't hit those numbers without using all of those tricks, at least not on Invuln. The 'I may as well advertise "No IOs"' is nothing but hyperbole. It is just more of the over the top exaggerated bravado that no one is buying. I'd be happy to debate why using the old softcap number of 45% that you referred to is not the standard you should be using anymore unless all you fight is lvl 50 minions. Just let me know.

I heavily invested in Quicksand on my spines/fire scrapper for the same reason. I'd have to pull to a V corner and get them stuck in there before I let it fly. The questions about Burn were from literally the beginning. So many nerfs and unnerfs and back again over the course of time. I question if any other single power has been changed as often as Burn over the 20 years?

The love/hate relationship with Burn has been interesting from the beginning.

Fire gets hosed again on the resist sets. TY for the info. I've seen Rad get close, but missing two categories. I haven't played enough Dark/Elec tanks yet to see, but I am working on one of each. I build my Invuln builds for perma DP for that reason.

Darmok and Jalad, at Tanagra ❤️

How is this not a troll?

I'm sorry man, but those first two are not 'base' invulnerability. If you can't perma something it shouldn't be considered 'base'. I don't want someone who is researching builds at some point in the future to see that and wonder what is going on and try to hit those numbers and not understand why they are not hitting the same numbers. "Invuln Math" is a sleight of hand trick to impress people on forum boards. Those are cooldowns being used (RoP/Melee) with Melee/Invinc in different combination of 10+ mobs and/or other incarnates. The third one is closest to a 'base', with no mobs or one mob in the area. Those look like your 'Much Mo' build, and the other variations of it with things turned off. The only set that can hit those numbers that you have for resists maxed across the board, except psi, on the top two images as a 'base' is Granite Stone.

Yes, the screen does lag somewhat, which is frustrating. Unfortunately it is the most viable option. I wanted to parse the logs but when I looked at them anything that would have knocked anyone with zero protection down was listed as something like 'so and so uses whatever and knocks you off of your feet', when there is no KD/KB/KU for the character. The logs are not very useful for this, and we don't have access to the game engine. If anyone has a logging idea I am ready to try it. I was testing an Invuln build on the test server yesterday and ran Council/CoT/Arachnos PI radio missions. I saw a few FREEMs but was never knocked down. I tested that the other day as well on my Rad tank, and yes, it seemed to be such. I ate a bunch of purples and obviously didn't get hit anywhere near as much. That is the real issue here though IMO. Resist tankers are at a bigger disadvantage now because of this. The test server is really very handy to, well, test things. I ran Clarion yesterday as well on my Invuln to see, as I have never used it before. Frankly the KB portion of it sucks compared to the rest of the status protections (repel sucks as well). I am going to run it on a Rad I have on the test server to see if it helps at all. I am also going to test with Acrobatics to see if it is viable. I typically get CJ/SJ anyway, so it is not a huge investment for someone who uses those anyway. I didn't know that. An Invuln can hit 100, but only with Unstoppable, which is not viable for normal usage. I do miss no-crash-perma-unstoppable/rage, but that is a long time ago now and was overpowered I guess. I don't see those very often on the Invuln, and never on the Granite, which lines up with what you posted. I do see them on the Rad quite a lot. The problem is that most resist based builds rely very heavily on timing. Timing of heals, timing of cool downs, timing of absorbs, etc. Getting knocked down constantly screws all of that up. I go out of my way to get 100% resist to slows so the timing isn't messed up. Its not as bad on the Rad/Fire I run as I have a mitigation I can use in a pinch, the Rebirth Radial Epiphany (the PBAOE Heal and +Regen), but I don't run that on my Fire/SS, so I may have to look into it.

I'm sure they stack. I had the combat attribute window open the whole I time I tested so I could watch what mag I was being hit with and by who/what/when. I could see the stacks of things affecting KB, and the oddity of when same thing would hit with a 3.x mag, or a 14 or 15 mag (the tests are all running together now so I don't remember which number), which I assume was a crit? The one time I got knocked down on Invuln was a straight up 14 or 15 mag hit, no stacks. I would have a higher mag than that stacked at times, but never leave my feet. I would love to see some other tanks this out and let everyone know what they see.

I tested again last night with Granite vs Council lvl 54 4x8 PI radio missions. I was not knocked back, nor did I see a FREEM! at any time. Granite has its own mag 10 KB protection, so combined with Rooted's KB mag 10 gives you mag 20 protection from KB. If they start knocking back Granite, well, I would't know what to say. You incur such a penalty with it as is that most no longer see it as a viable option. I guess we will see over time.

I am testing this today with my Invuln against Council. I got hit with 'Black Dwarf Smite' for mag 20 KB from a 'Dark Warwolf', and wasn't knocked off of my feet. I have mag 10 KB protection from Unyielding. I don't know what is going on or why. I don't have a high enough Shield/SR/Ice to test those on Council. edit #2 - I was eventually knocked back by a Council rocket launcher, mag 14 KB. I have also seen mag 50 Immobilize, which is nuts. edit #3 - I was NOT knocked down on the FREEM! hits. The results are inconsistent. edit #1- Warwolf, not Werewolf edit #2 - updated results edit# 3 - updated results

Not long after I posted that above I got knocked down on my Invuln, but I don't know how 'right' that was. I was running up an incline, and KB/KD does some weird things on inclines. I farm on the Shivan map and can send 54 bosses flying on an incline with Energy Torrent, where I can't on flat ground. I went back and did more Council groups on the Invuln, and didn't get knocked down again. I tested with my Rad/Fire, and saw what @Warboss saw. I was knocked around a bit. I saw a few stacks of KB on me at multiple times, including a 12.0 grenade launcher. I know once I got hit with two of those at the same time, as well as a few 3.0 stacks on top of that when I jumped into the middle of a Council warehouse. I flew around on that one, no doubt. The biggest thing is that I was hit way, way, way more often on the Rad/* build because it is a resist set, versus a granite build that is over the lvl 50 soft cap, but under the lvl 54 boss/incarnate soft cap, which I believe is between 57 and 60%, and an Invuln build that scales up with mobs to close to the incarnate cap. That is troubling to me, as now resist sets are inherently behind a defense set for KB, even with 'protection', where fire/dark has been hosed from the beginning. At least Rad gets 10 KB protection with its primary set. Ten is obviously no longer enough, and not close. In any game I have ever played I have never met anyone who enjoyed losing control of their character. If you really want to piss people off take away mitigation to control loss events. Fear in WoW was one of the uglier ones until they put in mitigation. When you put a lot of time and effort to building a "super tank" only to have it mezzed by the mapserver event with a 1000 mag stun, it isn't fun. There is no way to mitigate that in the game, which makes it frustrating. It was a one time event, I get it, but still the total loss of control isn't fun on a character that is supposed to soak up the hits for others. In another event, I tried to do the 20th Anniversary time capsule event in Atlas on a lvl 6 character and got ping ponged by DE mobs with KB. How is a lvl 6 supposed to deal with that? I ended up running away and said fuck this on a lvl 6. It isn't worth it. If you don't have the tools to deal with a problem there isn't much you can do. I know I got hit tonight with two mag 12 KBs from some Council grenade launchers, and four mag 3 KBs from something I couldn't read fast enough, and all at the same time; mag 36 KB in total. Outside of the primary pool choices for tanks, some of which do not offer any protection at all, there are three IOs that each give mag 4 protection, one three piece set bonus for mag 3 protection on the AoE PvP set, and Acrobatics which is three choices deep in the Leaping power pool offers mag 7 protection. The choices are very limited to mitigate some of the KB. How do you mitigate mag 36 KB with those? I don't want to be negative, but bumping up the KB on the Council, without a means of compensation via improved primary power choices to deal with extreme KB (where it should be IMO), enhanced mag protection IO enhancements, or mitigation through multiple power pool choices, not just one that is three deep, is going to make resist sets have to work that much harder to keep up with defense sets. I don't understand the reaction to mobs getting rolled by boosting KB to that degree. I don't know if they thought it through or not, but this affects part of the tanker AT more than the others, and it is further out of balance now than before. I don't know how to deal with 36 mag KB with the tools we now have. Skip the Council missions I guess, until they don't like some other set getting rolled and incorporate extreme KB into them as well. It is frustrating.

I went and tested on my Stone(Granite)/RAd and my Invuln/SS tank (both at 50) with a 4x8 Council Radio mission Never saw FRREM! on my Granite, but saw this on my Invuln, but wasn't knocked down. [20:32] Dark Warwolf knocks you off your feet with their Black Dwarf Smite (FREEM!)! Something is obviously different. I never saw it at all in a full mission on Granite, which was odd. It is too small of a sample size to draw any conclusions from though. I need to test on a Rad/Dark/Fire to get more information, as well as run more on the Granite to see.

lol j/k

I took a look at this the other day, but didn't reply then; let me explain why. Everyone builds differently. I love looking at builds to see what they aim for, and how they get there. First thing I do is open it up and look at the totals. I then go look for the ways that numbers can be, um, padded a bit, and turn them off. I like looking at what he worst case scenario is, and that isn't right or wrong, but just how I like to look at it. You didn't have any of those, and I appreciate that. You have some nice numbers. Your defense to S/L/E/N/P are over the lvl 50 soft cap, and S/L/P are close to the incarnate cap. Where you have a lower defense your resists make up for it, which is a nice strategy IMO. I can see why you can solo most things without support. Your build is at the point where I'm not sure how much help/good I'd be. There are some things I would do differently, but that is just my opinion and how I build things. I'll list some for you, but your build has a sound foundation. Two things jump out to me. Your endurance recovery to usage ratio (3.55/2.84) seems like it could get out of hand at times. You said specifically that it isn't an issue, and I assume that the Theft Of Essence +endurance in Rad Siphon helps out a lot. If not, I see you have conserve power, and when it is up I know it works well. I would move the Endurance Reduction IO from Rooted (base .21/s) to something like Mud Pots or Irradiated Ground (both are .52/s) to get a better ratio when it is used. If you just moved that slot to Mud Pots Rooted would move from .12/s to .15/s (+.03) and Mud Pots would move from .38/s to .29/s (-.09), saving you .06/s. Not a lot, but those add up. You can do the same thing with set bonuses. I swapped something the other day, three piece LotG to a three piece Shield Wall, which bought me more HP for the same amount of space. Always be looking on how to maximize your slots, if you are into something like that. I think your to-hit and accuracy are an issue. 0% to-hit and 9% accuracy is kinds tough as a global. With Stone you don't get the to-hit of Invuln, nor the to-hit of SS with RM, so you will have to add in some of to-hit/accuracy IMO. What I do in MIDS is to set the 'Enemy Relative Level' (top middle on the same bar with File, Options, Build Sharing) to +4. It makes a world of difference. For example, your use of two pieces of the Scirocco's Dervish set that have some Accuracy slotted in IG works well at default/same level giving you 117%, but at +4 drops to 61%. That may be a MIDS thing, as some things are broken right now, but you can see roughly how much that level difference makes. Your procs don't have a chance to fire if you don't hit. IMO it is worth sacrificing a proc, and I usually sacrifice something that gets resisted a lot, like Smashing/Lethal, for an +5 Accuracy IO if nothing else. If you only ever fight default level stuff, ignore what I said. I saw this play out last night in a 4x8 Market Crash, where the TF had a lot of melee, and there were tons of misses at each AV. It took forever as a result to take those AVs down. It was great on minions, bad on AVs. Too many folk didn't have the accuracy required to burn down a +4 AV. Set aside some time, sit down with MIDS and start there. Make a plan of what you want with the build, and be flexible enough to work around it. This is where I have an issue, flexibility, but I am getting better. Bring something back and let us look at it once you have a plan on what you want and how you want to get there. Good luck to you and enjoy the process!

I love a good Star Trek reference. @Tiresias That is some great advice Inf gave there. Now when you see things like 4x8 on the forums or in the game you will know that they mean; +4 level mobs/difficulty (levels always come first in this before team size) and a team size of eight. When I farm on my characters I have tricked out I use 4x8. When I run some mission I have ran 1212617 times and I just want to finish this line and be done with it because I need it for XYZ accolade/badge/etc., I may go as low as 0x0/0x1. The Patron Pool quest line is an example I just want to finish when soloed. You can swap as much as you like without penalty. Let us know where y'all end up. Lower levels are tougher, by far, to go higher up in levels/difficulty. I'd start with adding team size first personally. Good luck!

Everything Sovera and PLVRIZR told you is accurate. You don't have to take granite. I have one Stone/Rad that I use two builds on; one has granite and one doesn't. The non-granite build does fine, plays faster and does get the benefit from using Minerals, Crystal Armor and Brimstone Armor. I can all but AFK that build in most situations. It is very solid and fun to play. It needs some work, but that is on me and my build, not Stone Armor without granite. The granite build though blows it away IMO for durability, especially in extreme situations. You hear/read people saying 'well this build is almost unkillable' and for the most part they are right from what I have seen, albeit somewhat limited in my semi-recent return. If you REALLY want to be unkillable without the tricks that these other builds use, look at granite. When I say tricks I mean 'well if I use this power on cool-down and this click is ready and I have 10 mobs around me and my incarnate is up and I rotate these things and ..... etc.'. Let me show you a build I did and you make your own judgement. It is not a cheap build. It will cost you, but it is effective. I utilized what Zect said here: 110% agree with him. This is a proc build for one reason only; procs do not get punished by granite's damage penalty. It is similar to when you have Super Strength and your damage drops during the rage dump penalty, you use a proc'ed power and it hits for proc damage and it isn't mitigated/punished, hitting for the 'correct' amount. Similar is using 'Sands of Mu' (don't laugh, I do it sometimes on my Invuln/SS tank during the drop) because it isn't penalized/mitigated either. Before I jump into it, I used Rad Melee and I don't know how RM will translate to Electrical. The lack of a second damage aura is tough to overcome I believe, simply for the procs. You may be able to make up for it with using proc'ed out Lightning Rod and Lightning Clap (which will be more difficult to get multiple damage procs in, but should be able to get at least two in there, plus FF) and using Force Feedback for recharge reduction. Here it is: That is a straight up, plain, out of the box, stock base build, with a lot of very expensive enhancements to be fair. No clicks required, no incarnates running, no waiting on a cooldown, no mob count necessary, and no powers rotating. What you see there is what you get. Period. It doesn't have to worry about getting the recharge zapped with 95% Recharge Debuff resistance, so Earth's Embrace is perma'ed with or without Hasten. The build can get very close to perma-hasten, if not obtain it, depending on the number of mobs that Energy Torrent hits. I don't have that checked in the build so there is no false sense of recharge time. To speed things up Energy Torrent procs the Force Feedback. A lot of damage is from the dual damage auras proc'ing. Atom Smasher procs as well. Use Energy Torrent on cooldown and aim for the highest amount of mobs available. You want ET to proc FF, and use Atom Smasher on cooldown as well. The more mobs you hit, the more proc chances you have. It you have one mob or no mobs Hasten is around/under one minute down, which isn't bad for where you start with Granite. Everything is here, including the MIDS file. I drone on and on about the build, address the psi hole, as well as a lot more. Spaghetti Betty also drops a build there, and if you haven't seen their stuff you most definitely should look. They are an incredible builder, and have some awesome ideas IMO. If nothing else hopefully you find something interesting in one of the two builds and can utilize it in the future. Granite isn't for everyone, and totally has issues, i.e. you will learn the granite hop if you use it, as well as teleport, but it can be incredible. Groups in most content currently blow things away so fast that it doesn't really shine until things get hard, like really hard. You will be a teleporting fool on easy stuff. You will TP into a group and they are all down before you get your 2nd Atom Smasher off. It isn't worth it to use on a lot of content because realistically it just isn't difficult enough and the mobs melt so fast. This is the main reason to NOT use Granite IMO, and what the others were telling you as well. I started off with 'Everything Sovera and PLVRIZR told you is accurate.' and they are right. Well built Granite is awesome, but probably too awesome for most content. I am hopeful for a day in the future when some insane extreme content comes out that squashes most tanks, because I am waiting on that day. This build will be ready. Well built Granite is what other builds use tricks to try to get to. I can't match that granite build for durability on any other armors set I use. It doesn't mean the other armors aren't good enough or can't do a great/incredible job. My first love is Invuln/Fire tanks and I have multiples of them right now. If you asked me to grab one tank and one tank only to go do some content, I am grabbing my Rad/Fire tank because it is awesome to play. It just means that granite is still impressive after all of these years, old armor or not, and especially in extreme circumstances. Unfortunately those are few and very far between right now. Good luck to you.

One of the reasons I asked this question is not because of a tank related reason, but it falls into the defense based builds across ATs. I have a widow that I love to play. I didn't follow any build with her, and played it by ear. It ended up being a decent first build, with Mind Link up all of the time she is sitting at roughly 90% defense to melee, one proc'ed out attack, multiple set bonuses and sacrificing recharge/sapped defense debuff resistance to get there. It is a leveling build that I never respec'ed out of, honestly because it is just fun. I mean seriously, running around stealthed with a stealth IO in sprint as well, buffing the hell out of a team's defense/accuracy, dropping crits from stealth, and being able to pop back into stealth and crit again all while at 90% defense to melee? It is pretty fun. It is awesome, until it isn't. What I mean by that is there isn't much that character can't do until the debuffs finally hit, and when they do, look out. No heals in that situation = not fun, but it is now time to run. I assume the answer is 'well, you have a team in those situations' but that isn't always the case. My other tanks have mitigation methods for when the debuffs hit, like resistance AND a heal/absorb+heal. How do Shield tanks mitigate major debuffs when solo?

I know nothing about Shield, so this is a perfect opportunity to learn. What does shield do for debuff resistance? I downloaded your build and looked. How do you deal with getting sapped/recharge debuffed?

They must have been lower level. I'll take a look at that character again, as it was starting to get interesting. You have given me a terrible idea for TT though, lol. 6 slotted KB enhancements for all available powers and listen to the screams of Tankers chasing mobs! We could also play Tanker Tennis if you like. Again, it is interesting to see how different people look at things differently. I primarily use Atom Smasher with Energy Torrent, and will mix in whittling down a boss/EB with single target if they are not dead by that point. It is an important thing IMO to have it, so yes, I feel your pain. Thankfully we have the test server with the ability to import enhancements straight from MIDS, which is invaluable I have found. It makes that process of testing much faster. The "Freebies" mod certainly helps tremendously as well.

That is awesome! Thank you for posting that build. I love checking these out to see how people look at hitting goals/objectives and the different ways to get there. I tried to slot a FF in Radioactive Smash, and spent a good bit of time with it on auto-fire testing. It had some dismal results, and I attributed them to the small recharge time. It is why I had to go outside of the RM set to find better results, like I have seen you do with Cross Punch (which btw that sounds is fun to hear... I don't know why, but it makes me laugh each time I hear it). Energy Torrent is not terrible, hits multiple mobs (the key), and procs FF a lot. If you have to run down that Epic path ever give it a shot. I am trying to work up a Spines/Regen brute for old times sake, and running into the same thing with Spines; no FF procs outside of Ripper. I really like how you used the chance for res/absorbs in your always on powers, like Mud Pots, Rooted and IG. I utilize that as well, as things happen, chains get messed up, and I don't want to rely on using a click for an absorb or resistance. I have also learned from your builds, and getting back into the game, how important the recharge debuff resistance is. You are on of the only ones who builds specifically for that, at least where it is noticeable to me, and I think you are on the mark. I really like perma-hasten/perma-dull pain/perma-Earth's Embrace, which is why I am having issues with my Invuln tanks, as I want 'Mo Durable' defense/resists plus perma-hasten and a high regen. I hate to compromise certain things on a build, so I am spinning my wheels. I'll figure it out eventually. I guess the days of needing to have Dull Pain up 100% as a Spines/Regen scrapper have left an impression still felt 20 years later. I'll take your build to the test server and give it a spin this weekend. Thank you again.

Yes, that character is around vet level 360, so a little late, lol. I glad you brought up Axe, as I have a question. How do you deal with the constant knockback as a melee character? I was leveling a Rad/Axe tank and around the IP level range I started knocking them back, like way back. I looked like a cat chasing a laser pointer running mobs down. Outside of using a "Sudden Acceleration" KB to KD, or the Overwhelming Force enhancement, which both can mess up slotting, I guess you just live with it? It is a shame, as Axe has a lot of potential. I just hate running after mobs over and over and over.

Invuln tanks will always be my favorite, and I looked at your 'Mo Durable' build(s) when I first came back. They are obviously well thought out and I think would do a great job on most things in the game. What I like about this particular stone build is that 'what you see is what you get'. There are no power cool-downs involved, no incarnate powers on a 2 min timer necessary to hit those numbers, and no need to use jab to keep 6% of the resistance going. It doesn't need any of that. It just is that, without other help needed. Hasten is as close to perma as possible without sacrificing other things. Add in perma-Earth's Embrace and regen in the mid 90s without any assistance, and a lot left in reserve if you do need it. No matter what happens, that is your baseline. I have been playing around with @Linea's 801 maps, which are a beast all unto themselves. They are unlike anything seen in game, and I appreciate the difficulty. It would be interesting to see how the builds stack up against something REALLY difficult. Adding the debuff resistance for information.