Werner

I’m sure he’s serious. It’s still my go to meditation time. I’m a grinder by nature, and it’s more fun than a fire farm or something. I feel like I should switch to 801.2 for my meditation, but I’m still having trouble being calm playing it. 😉

I can believe it.

Ah, boo. I was hoping I was about to learn a new tactic! 😁 Still great.

Nice! I did it once in about 1:24 on my Shield/Martial Arts Tanker before the fix. Enemies buffed but I think I’d only go marginally faster with normal enemies. Super Strength can put out more damage, but that’s a LOT more damage. Looking at Trap Door testing, I can imagine SS getting down under an hour on damage alone. Not sure where the remaining time comes from to get to 0:36. I’d think tactical differences? Proper use of Lore might cut a lot of time on the AVs. I didn’t use Lore. So yeah, my main curiosity is tactics used. Do you happen to know? I usually do it defeat most, but I occasionally enjoy going for speed, and it’d be nice to be able to go faster.

You could swap out Combat Jumping and Super Jump for Hover and Fly. Hover burns more endurance, but Willpower should be swimming in endurance. If you only want flight for convenience, and not for concept, you could buy jet packs from the pay to win vendor in Atlas Park. They're relatively cheap, so that's what I do for my otherwise earthbound characters. But yeah, should be no problem swapping in flight instead. I don't let the minor endurance difference dissuade me if I decide I want flight on a character. And welcome to the game!

Worthwhile? WORTHWHILE?! It's amazing on Tankers! 😁 And I think of it as a hybrid defense/resist set once you have an endgame build, particularly on Tankers. Here's my Shield/MA in Mids'. Also, that's with a single stack of the Tanker ATO, so add another 6.7% to 13.4% and cap smashing/lethal. Reactive Defenses can kick in with up to another 10%. I use Amplifiers, so add another 7.5%. And you could have much better psionic resistance - I just chose to focus on other things. I'm not saying that Shield has the resistance of a hard core resistance set, but it's actually quite good. You can play any AT you want of course, and I'm sure you'll have fun, but if you want a Shield/Axe Tanker, go for it. It's great. You'll do great.

My friends and I tried a 4 person ITF a while back as "average players" - our leveling builds, high level but I don't think 50 yet across the board, some IOs but not a lot, using inspirations. I think we ran it +2x8, definitely wasn't +4x8, and this was before the extra defense got added back in. We got killed over and over on the final mission and eventually gave up. So yeah, I'm sure the ITF can still be a challenge for teams of average players. Player debuffed is an optional additional challenge. So is no amps. I only did it that way once, and that was before the defense change. Maybe still doable, just slower, but I'm not sure and I don't know if I care to find out. I think more people have done it without amps than with amps, but I'm a filthy full-time amplifier user on my SD/MA Tanker. Also, with the defense increase, I think I'd find no amps just as annoying as @Bill Z Bubba found it. This all came together in the long Tanker thread above, with a lot of us completing it on a lot of different builds, not all of them Tankers, and with different tweaks to the rules.

I try to address all of those points with my Dark Regeneration slotting on my Dark/MA Tanker. Set bonuses for resists and knockback protection, Theft of Essence proc, and enough accuracy, healing, and endurance reduction to work fairly reliably even in an AV fight. I don't know if this would be my recommendation for most people for most purposes, but it suits me.

Yeah, Invulnerability can be quite good in that regard, because even with only 50% DDR, the times you really need your defenses to hold up tend to be when surrounded, and when surrounded Invincibility is kicking in with a great boost to defense . Also, defense debuffing attacks are often lethal, which will be hitting your 90% resistance when they get through. So it can be pretty solid in the face of most defense debuffs. Not Super Reflexes solid, but solid. Big psi hole, of course, though partially pluggable. Other than Invuln, I'd have to dig through Mids' for resistance sets with DDR. Invuln and Dark are the resistance sets I know well.

Rereading the OP, I don't consider Dark Armor's weakness to be knockback protection since that is easily addressed. It's the mediocre defense and lack of defense debuff resistance (DDR) that I find troublesome when building and playing Dark Armor. While I've not built or played Radiation Armor, it looks like it has those same weaknesses?

I just did it without amplifiers, but I had to use Lore, which makes me feel dirtier than amplifiers. I don't think it's possible for my build without one or the other.

In hindsight, almost certainly! I don't remember surviving her spin before on any other character. Back in the old game, and prior to incarnates, I had over 50 solo attempts on her at level 50, no temps no insps with my Dark Melee/Super Reflexes Scrapper before I finally gave up and accepted that I couldn't beat her. I just needed that magic run where somehow she never landed the spin, but I never got that magic run.

I'm playing a Shield/MA with 3326 hit points. With all toggles suppressed/off, my defenses range from 19% to 24%, but for a little bit I'm at 29% to 34% from Storm Kick. I have click mez protection, so I still have my mez protection, and probably 43% DDR since it's usually double stacked. I have 69% resistance to energy and negative with everything detoggled...?! Huh. And I assume they're even higher for a bit from the stacking of the Tanker ATO, and then higher after taking damage due to Reactive Defenses. I don't think she can kill me without her friends. But I'm not sure I can kill her without her friends either, as I'm using Against All Odds to boost my damage. Today she was a lot more annoying than I remember. I guess I was either lucky last time, or unlucky this time, but I still took her down. Level 54, using amps, no temps no insps no Lore. And while I can survive the spin, she did kill me with it on my first attempt today, I guess because I'd left enough of the spawn that she and they managed to do enough damage while I was vulnerable. Annoyingly, she was down to about 10% when she finally killed me. Second attempt I ended up running after a spin left me almost dead. Third attempt I left nothing but minions, and was able to survive her spin without it getting too scary. Then it was just a matter of doing enough damage between spins and whatever she's doing that leaves me only affecting self. It took a while. I am a Tanker, so I'm slow.

Yes. Her and Sirocco together, level 54, using amps, but not temps or insps. It didn't seem particularly rough, just annoying going for the occasional spin. I'm sure she's doable without amps as well... unless I'm remembering wrong. I'm not going through an MLTF to get to her again, but surely she's in AE...

Anyway, yes, some Tankers solo AVs. Some Tankers solo level 54 AVs no temps no insps no amps. Since Tankers are low on the melee damage scale, I wouldn't describe it as "efficiently", and you'll probably need to build specifically for that DPS. I think a high-DPS secondary is probably more important than your primary, but a primary that buffs damage in some way is also helpful. Then build yourself a high-DPS attack chain like Bill says. You also can't completely neglect survivability, but that part's easy on Tankers for most AVs.

Ugh. One of my few deaths, and I think I was only on +2, and using amps. I altered my tactics and was fine, but I’m pretty sure +4 would destroy me, and I’m not sure I’d have the DPS on the off chance I survived.

I generally solo it +4x8 enemies buffed no temps no insps no lore no deaths on my Shield/MA Tanker, using amplifiers. I've only done it once player debuffed without amplifiers, which was enough slower to be annoying. I have Tactics and the Kismet unique. I've only done the first two missions under the new rules. I did notice their higher defense, particularly when pulling more than one group. But I typically go in with build up (Focus Chi) and AoE, so the group has been whittled down a bit before I no longer have the extra to hit. It hasn't really caused problems for me. I'll just be more cautious about what I pull at once. I've yet to see how this affects my AV tactics. I may not be able to drag an aggro cap of Cimerorans over to the AVs to take them on one at a time with the Against All Odds damage buff. We'll see. In any case, it hasn't cut into my fun on at least the first two missions, and I'm expecting it to be fine. Edit: The last two missions went fine. I targeted generals last rather than first, but otherwise mostly used my normal strategies. Some accuracy issues, but not enough to feel much different. I'm sure if I was on a timed run I'd notice a significant difference, but on a kill most for casual fun, it felt about the same. By the middle of mission 3, I found myself returning to previous habits of being willing to drag leftovers from one group to the next as long as I could mini-nuke (Focus Chi with Gaussian's chance for build up, Dragon's Tail, Shield Charge, Dragon's tail), or tackle two groups at once if Judgment was also off cooldown. Monitoring my last hit chance, their defense is noticeable as I start whittling down what's left, but I'm usually back up to 95% to hit fairly fast. I think I like the change. Normally I don't even have to think about my chance to hit, but here it's now something I need to take into account, without it getting overly aggravating, at least on my build. Though I suppose now that I know what I'm doing, I won't have to do any more thinking. I guess that's fine too. I'm usually on autopilot on the ITF.

As a Shielder, I’ll happily take that bullet for the team, so to speak.

I’m not asking for Shield nerfs, but it does make me a little sad that it can almost equal SR’s DDR. That’s something that I think makes SR special, and Shield coming close to it makes it feel less special. I do have downtime between double stacks, but it’s difficult to put me down during the gap. I do monitor defense, though, where I wouldn’t even bother on SR.

You will find it laughably easy in comparison, I predict. It’s fortunately easy to get tons of slow/recharge resist these days. Winters Gift unique, split a slow set across three attacks including Brawl and Boxing, and you’re already at 65% I think? More is good. I hate slows even more than I rationally should, so I usually go even further, even though as always it involves compromise elsewhere.

When people post endgame builds, most of them probably have the incarnate powers selected and taken into account, whether or not they've optimized around their use. Many people prefer to optimize around not having them, since they go away when you exemplar, for instance. Or they may feel that a build should stand on its own without those powers, even if they only play endgame. So it's perfectly valid to try to get the best oldschool build without incarnate powers, and then just tack them on top. Suboptimal if you never exemplar perhaps, but perfectly valid.

Oh! When you said you haven't played in a very long time and weren't familiar with the new mechanics, the incarnate system is part of what you haven't played? Well! 😀 It's some endgame content and progression and powers, making you eventually effectively level 51 or 53 depending on the missions, normally level 51, so when we say +4x8, it's normally actually +3x8 for a completed endgame build. Though even if you're functioning at level 53 and +4x8 is effectively +1x8, it's not necessarily a cakewalk, because incarnate enemies have about +14% to hit, so the soft cap is suddenly about 59% defense instead of 45% defense. And that's why my SD/MA is running around with over 60% defense, so he'll be soft-capped in incarnate content, but it does help on the ITF for managing the massive defense debuffs for the period where I don't have double-stacked DDR. Unslotting the incarnate powers puts you back at a real level 50, and so +4x8 is for real +4x8 again. And since some people, myself for instance, build with the incarnate system in mind, unslotting also messes up the balance of the build. My SD/MA normally has the incarnate power Ageless Core Epiphany, which significantly increases recharge and recovery rate. Using it, my Hasten is just a hair away from perma, and I don't have endurance problems. But take it away completely, and now I've got a big gap in my Hasten, messing up my attack chain, and I'll be burning blue at a clip. There are other incarnate powers I rely on as well. So the build would need some significant adjustments to be fun to play without incarnate powers, let alone what it would take to optimize for play without incarnate powers. This probably isn't the best introduction, but hopefully paragonwiki's information is still mostly correct. There's probably a better introduction to the system in the guides section of the forum, but I've not looked. https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Incarnate_System I also mentioned amplifiers. At the pay to win vendor in Atlas Park, you can buy up to 8 hours at a time of offense amplifiers, defense amplifiers, and survival amplifiers. Here are the stats: P2W Offense Amplifier 10% to hit 15% damage 15% recharge P2W Survival Amplifier hit points. (I seem to have failed to write down how many) .17% regen .33% recovery P2W Defense Amplifier 7.5% resist all 5% defense all 4 points hold, immobilize, stun, sleep, KB, confuse, fear protection So they're pretty significant. Most people probably consider them temporary powers, and would avoid their use in situations where you would avoid using temporary powers, such as on challenges. But the game does not consider them to be temporary powers, so even if you play with temporary powers suppressed, these do not suppress. And with 8 hours at a time, you're not going to run out at an inconvenient time unless you forgot to recharge them. The "pay" part of pay to win is inf, not actual money, but they are very expensive - 2.5 million inf per hour each at level 50. Load up on 8 hours of all three and you just blew 60 million influence. I play with all three full time, so I'm basically burning inf just as fast as I make it, but I'm having fun and have plenty of inf banked, so I don't care. I don't need them for anything I'm doing, but I like them. On the other hand, I refuse to use inspirations on my endgame builds except if necessary on teams, which I think are more powerful overall. So I'm avoiding a cheap powerful boost for a super expensive less powerful boost. I'm a weirdo. Anyway, the important benefits of them for most people, I think, are for leveling and for squishies. They're super cheap when you're low level, so with just a little bit of starting capital, it's easy to start the game with 8 hours of them. And by the time the price starts getting prohibitive, your build is coming together and you don't need the boost so much. And on squishies, that little bit of mez protection can sometimes make a real difference, enough to be worth paying for it. Others may have other ideas how best to utilize them, but those would be my thoughts.

Buffed +4x8 no incarnates? I love it! Your crowd sounds delightful! Temporary powers? Inspirations? Amplifiers? I think a big issue will be endurance if you don't have at least one or two of those tools available. On a team you won't need the solo DPS the way I do, so I'd drop Soul Mastery to pick up Energy Mastery. If the team doesn't stack enough Tactics or other to hit buffs (I hope they do), you might need Focused Accuracy anyway to even hit them and to keep Storm Kick up reliably. I'd slot up Grant Cover more to help protect the team I think. Ugh, would you need to fit taunt in there too? Seems like a lot of pressure on power picks. Well, you know better than I do would what you and the team need so I'm sure you'll sort it out. But yeah, I suspect if that was the crowd I was running with, I'd bring my Shield Defense/Martial Arts Tanker, just make a second build with the rules in mind. One build for solo, one build for hanging out with your unsavory crowd. Good luck! 🙂

Keeping with earlier suggestions, give it a try on the test server! Low investment of time if you don't like it. I love it, but @Tsuko gave my build a whirl on test and it just wasn't for him. Everyone likes different things. Attack chain is storm kick -> crippling axe kick -> storm kick -> gloom -> thunder kick. I suggest Ageless Core unless you know you're going up against serious debuffers. That's the only time I switch to Ageless Radial, assuming I even remember.

Against All Odds should be a 65% damage buff when surrounded. It's no double-stacked Rage, but it's significant. And I do love me some Shield Charge. But that's not me trying to talk anyone out of Super Reflexes. Super Reflexes is a great primary.