Werner

I just completed it +4x8 no temps no insps no deaths enemies buffed player debuffed... by stealthing to Anna. 😄 OK, OK, I'll try to do a regular +4x8 no temps no insps kill all. This is going to get ugly.

I grabbed my Shield/Martial Arts Tanker and dove in at +1x8 no temps no insps, though with boosters like usual since I had four hours left on them and it's just how I play. Didn't notice much happening. Restarted and bumped it to +2x8. Better, they got me down to 50% at one point, but nah. Restarted and bumped it to +3x8. There we go! The second group almost killed me when they surrounded me and I was unable to move out of the tar patch. Fortunately they didn't also get cascading defense failure on me while I was stuck. I eventually got out. It went pretty well, but not well enough that I think I could do it at +4x8 no deaths. But I guess +3x8 is like a level 50 incarnate +4x8. Basic tactics were to target Prophets and Doomsayers, use AoE to take out the minions as I did, move if they tar patched me, run if they cascading defense failured me, and kill the Soothsayers last, and if lucky kill them all at the same time with an AoE. I was slowed down by a lack of attacks and lack of Hasten at that level, but my survivability was solid and with the slowed attacking I didn't run out of endurance, which was a concern for exemplaring. I don't think I've exemplared him before, but my build progression was based on the assumption that if I ever did exemplar, it would be to main tank for friends. I didn't quite kill all. I bypassed one group. I meant to take them down after taking down Anna, not realizing that everything went blue and friendly after doing so. For my build, I'd say about similar difficulty to 801.2.

I suspect the T3 Alpha +0x8 experience is identical or nearly identical to what it was before. It's running +4x8 where we're sometimes seeing significantly reduced chances to hit. But either way, I agree - it's really fun! I'm glad you're enjoying it!

More seriously, for Super Reflexes, I'm guessing that most still see it as a one trick pony, and not as the hybrid set that it behaves more like, especially on endgame Tankers. Also, I'd bet that one trick is pretty good for leveling. Claws, no idea, but strangely, I don't think I've ever played it. No good reason, I just don't have much altitis. I find a character I love and mostly play that character, maybe for a year or two on average before something else gets my attention, so there's a whole lot I haven't played.

You are SR/Claws. It would feel weird to pretend to be you. 😉

Trapdoor results for Tankers from the thread: 4:36 Rad/SS 4:51 Bio/SS 5:53 Rad/WM 6:06 Fire/MA 6:38 Shield/MA 7:16 Rad/EM 8:04 Rad/MA Not enough to support conclusions, but it's at least a hint that Super Strength could be contender.

Right, instead of focusing on defense, I think @ZemX was focusing on debuff resistance. I feel like that's the biggest danger once endgame builds are tough enough with the basics. Though on my Dark/MA, despite handling -tohit and -recharge, and Barrier for -defense, I still have 55% melee 44% ranged/AoE defense (without Barrier), so it isn't necessarily either/or, but both Dark and MA have some defense to stack on, so I'm not building from a pure resistance base. Still, my defense is ablative. In some tough fights, that's going away. So maybe I would benefit from lowering my defense if there are other debuffs I can focus on, like taking my resists even higher to handle -resist. Though I feel like I've pushed energy and toxic about as far as they can go, and everything else is 90% with a single Might of the Tanker, so already a bit of a debuff cushion with multiple stacks and the scaling resist IO. Idono. I'm not sure what to do if not defense. I'm at least intrigued by the idea, though. (Edit: No, I could push energy and toxic resists harder, I think...)

For a Dark Armor endgame build at least, Focused Accuracy is 86.5% tohit debuff resistance, and breaking up cold sets like Superior Blistering Cold can give you very high recharge debuff resistance. I have 80% on my Dark/MA. It's -defense that chews me up. Well... makes me need to hit Barrier and on rare occasions run.

Well, huh! Thank you and my apologies! I really thought it was based on current resistance, but it seems I was wrong and it's based on the original, undebuffed resistance. I'll correct my post.

You forgot to hit Dull Pain to cap your hit points at 3534. Are we cheating yet? 😉 Invuln is so good.

The point was that both defense and resistance suffer from cascading failure. It was not my intent to imply that the two situations were 100% equivalent or that defense and resistance are equivalent. Edit: And it seems my point was wrong. Resistance debuffs are resisted at the original, undebuffed resistance, and thus there's really no such thing as cascading resistance failure. My apologies.

I'd argue that there is such a thing, even if I haven't heard it called that, or even the mechanics mentioned often, probably because resistance debuffs are so rare compared to defense debuffs. Edit: It seems I'm wrong and the below is not how it works for resistance. Instead, resistance debuffs are resisted at the original, undebuffed resistance, and thus there's really no such thing as cascading resistance failure, as you said. My apologies. Let's say you have 45% defense and no resistance and 20 even level minions beating on you with an attack that does 100 points of damage and a 5% defense debuff. In the first round, one minion hits for 100 points of damage and you're at 40% defense. In the second round, two hit for 200 points of damage and you're at 30% defense. In the third round, four hit for 400 points of damage and you're at 10% defense. With every round of attacks, you're taking twice as much damage due to cascading defense failure. Now let's say you instead have 90% resistance and no defense and 10 enemies beating on you with an attack that does 100 points of damage and a 10% resistance debuff. Resistance resists resistible resistance debuffs, so in the first round, all 10 hit for a raw 1000 points of damage and 100% resistance debuff, but both are resisted 90%, so you actually take 100 points of damage and a 10% debuff, and now you're at 80% resistance. Next round they all hit again, but now you take 200 points of damage and a 20% debuff, and you end up at 60% resistance. Next round they all hit again, but now you take 400 points of damage and a 40% debuff, and you're at 20% resistance. With every round of attacks, you're taking twice as much damage due to cascading resistance failure. A little oversimplified, but that's the idea. Quite! I love mine, but I'll admit that on a good endgame build, the extra defense from Storm Kick is mostly a waste most of the time, and you'd be better off with some other secondary, either one with heals and/or endurance for survivability, or more damage since you'll probably have enough survivability regardless. I have to wonder if I'd have more fun most of the time with Shield/Energy. Might have to try it sometime. But I do love kicking things in the face, and loving what you do for a living is great! 😉

I remember dying intentionally as Vengeance bait and following up with Rise of the Phoenix every time they were off cooldown. Good times.

I feel like the extra defense from Storm Kick is mostly wasted on SR since it’s very easy to soft cap, even incarnate soft cap. It would open up the build even further to chase other build goals, though, so isn’t a total waste, even if I’d prefer one of the others. I think Shield and Invuln are equally good, and it’s a choice between more damage output (Shield) or a little more survivability (Invuln). I found Shield to be survivable enough in comparison, and I love me some Shield Charge, so I went with Shield. Shield/MA is my main, almost my only.

I almost exclusively solo or team with friends. When teaming with friends (usually 1-3 other friends), the default is to follow the Tanker. We have other defaults, like going left when there's an option, so we often know exactly where the Tanker is headed before they even head there. We generally set the difficulty as high as we think we can handle with only a few deaths if everyone stays together. But it is also expected that people are going to peel off, intentionally or sometimes not, and end up soloing groups on their own, quite possibly faceplanting. We don't see this as a problem. It's just adding some spice, or testing to failure, with the safety net of the group to get you back on your feet quicker than you could get back from the hospital. For us at least, none of this is a problem, it's a feature, and nobody cares. If I'm tanking for my friends, I'll try to hold aggro, but I mostly do that by pounding enemies like everyone else, with things only getting complicated when enemies either don't come to or peel off of me, because we're not going to slow down just so that I can have a nice tight group that's 100% focused on me. No corner pulls. No waiting. I'm in, and then everyone else is in a moment later. So I look a lot like a Scrapper. And of course if I'm soloing a Tanker, then I'll be fighting exactly like a Scrapper.

I think I have mine set to 1 foot, and no teleport to target. Enough to prevent spin, but so little I don’t noticeably change position. I’m susceptible to motion sickness too.

Although he's been mostly shelved since I finished my Shield/MA, I didn't remember having a problem with +4x8 Arachnos on my Dark/MA, so I dove in to refresh my memory. Once I got enough Mus around me from multiple pulls, they did start slowly dragging my endurance down. It looks like I took Physical Perfection and Conserve Power, and using Conserve Power made my endurance go back up. Or I could have gone with Ageless, though probably Ageless Radial since I need some way of dealing with extreme defense debuffs like Cimerorans, but I think that's still a full endurance bar, giving you more time to take them down. Hmmm, I also had Focused Accuracy toggled on, but thinking back I think I only toggled it on situationally. If I didn't have any of these tools, I could have detoggled Assault, and even Maneuvers since I was being significantly defense debuffed anyway. I also could have corner pulled the Mus and then stuck them in my stun aura, though they'd probably then slowly wander back out. In any case, it seems like there are lots of ways to handle them. I hear Radiation is great, and maybe it handles them more easily, but Dark/MA should be able to handle +4x8 Arachnos just fine. Here's my build.

I suspect people on at least the Tanker forums most of the time are rating combinations based on completed endgame builds, so I suspect that’s some of it. I know I never judge a set based on how it performs in the 20s other than relatively minor comments like, say, that you need to go all in on endurance management when leveling Dark Armor. And for endgame builds I would expect the 90% vs. 75% resistance caps to open a wide gulf in survivability between Radiation Armor Scrappers and similarly-built Tankers. I do not have personal experience with either, though.

I kinda like it, so I can at least explain my own thinking. First, he's split up Superior Gauntleted fist to double up on the energy/negative resistance bonuses, a trick used all over the place. It seems excessive on Radiation Armor, perhaps, but I often struggle to get sufficient energy/negative resistance on my builds. Second, while I worry about Scorch recharging too fast to make the procs reliable, by having both in the same attack, there's only a single attack to spam when you want maximum survivability. It keeps things simple. I'm old and slow and forgetful. I like simple. So I guess I'm saying I'm not sure I'd have done it on this specific build, but those ideas I like.

That tactic works for me, but my build is more old school, less greedy 2021. I have significantly over 95% to hit undefended +4s, and only one to two procs in each attack. When not built up, I like to focus on minotaurs, cyclopes, and Kheldians if there are any. I'm a little slower, but I feel like the more I get used to it, the less time I'm losing. I guess doing some speed runs would give me an idea how much it's slowing me down.

I'm a big fan of high recharge debuff resistance, 95% on my Shield/MA, 80% on my Dark/MA.

Yeah. I have One with the Shield and Darkest Night for when things go south, and then I almost always forget about them when things go south because it happens so rarely.

On a few occasions, my hit points went lower than usual during the shadow cyst ambushes. I assume it's my misses preventing Might of the Tanker from keeping my resistances as high as normal. So there is at least a little bit of a new survivability challenge for me. So now I find myself staying on the minotaurs and cyclopes even when they're unstoppable, because I can reliably hit them, and they don't go down, so I don't need to think about finding the next space lobster or squid to hit. Then I just clear with AoEs until it looks like I can hit the Cimerorans reliably. Clearing out the seafood before taking down the cysts would also work, but it's more fun being completely surrounded and being beaten on. Tanky tank tank! I think the more I get used to the defense boost, the more I like it. While it's no fun to miss, I find it more fun overall needing tactics with more depth than kill surgeons, get surrounded, and spam attacks until everything is dead. But it's still straightforward enough that I can turn off my brain and relax. My Shield/MA isn't complicated to play.

For me at least, it feels like an additional challenge. I need to be careful how many I group together based on what powers I have recharged. If I have build up and all my AoEs, I prefer two groups at once, as I can wreck enough of the group to be worth lower to hit until build up is back. I’ll stick with a single group if judgment isn’t up. I’ll beat on the minotaur or cyclops, which I’m able to hit, and use build up and AoE to thin the herd as I do. There are times when it is just a whiff fest regardless, and that mostly feels annoying rather than challenging, but most of the time I’m hitting. I’m undecided yet if the additional challenge is adding to or subtracting from my fun, but at least for me, it isn’t Paragon Protector levels of annoying. And I feel like there was already a similar challenge on the ITF with the minotaurs and cyclopes, which is trying to arrange timing and enemies in the fight such that I’m never wasting time attacking them while they’re unstoppable (?), but also never wasting time not attacking something. Anyway, I still love the ITF.

I need to finish this Werner Rules ITF first. 😉