Call Me Awesome
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Posts posted by Call Me Awesome
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I remember the discussion on that from Live and I do seem to recall hearing that Fly was capped out of the box. I also seem to remember that the fly speed varied with level getting faster as you got higher level.
What I don't remember was any "official" commentary on the subject and I never tested it to determine if it was accurate. Most of my characters with Fly simply tossed a Freebird Stealth IO into fly and called it good.
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After a lot of thought I ended up with Ice/Spine. Right now at level 16 it's too early to tell much, particularly since that came from 4 DFB runs... so basically meaningless. I'll have to run some more serious content to tell but it looks good on paper and it's fun at least in the ultra low levels. I've always liked the vice grip aggro lock of Ice so we'll see how it matures.
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This is true, and if the community is similar to how it was when CoH was not canceled, many scrappers and brutes may be deliberately trying to steal that aggro. :D
At least Brutes benefit by way of Fury. Scrappers, on the other hand... :o (Of course, Taunt duration outstrips Confront, so they'd be fighting a losing battle, there!)
Are most tankers taking taunt now?
Probably but there was a running argument in the old forums about how "I don't need no stinking taunt", more often than not by players unfamiliar with the game. Bottom line is that a tank is more effective with taunt than without it, although some sets with strong auras can get by without. Of course if it comes to grabbing that add across the room you're out of luck without it.
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I'm looking to level a Tanker, but have a few to consider, and am looking for assistance.
I'm torn between Willpower, shield, Ice, and Invul. Each of the four have their proc and cons, but what I was seeking was actual numbers for defenses/resistances to each.
I was linked a decently geared Io Shield Tanker (Pretty tough looking: 15% defenses to everything on top of 44% positional defenses, along with 90% Lethal/Smashing - 55% the rest)
https://gyazo.com/20b552d35c5c02461dadfddc12b9f958 - Link
The others I do not have the numbers for (With IOs of course), and if anyone can help me there, I would be grateful.
Well, what do you want to do with your tanker? If you want to tank for a team then I suggest skipping Willpower, it has by far the worst aggro aura of any tanker set. Shield, Ice and Invuln are all very capable in aggro with Ice being the best by a fair margin although you won't have issues with Shield or Invuln. In terms of late game IO survivability a well built Invuln is going to be tougher than Shield or Ice but any of them can handle anything the game throws at them if you play it right. I've played Shield, Invuln, Ice, Fire and Stone to 50 and all have their pluses and minuses.
In raw durability terms they'd rank Stone (after level 32)......... Invuln.... Ice/Shield.. Fire on SO enhancements. With IO's the gaps close up a bit and you can argue the placings a bit but you'll still have Stone way in front with Invuln second. Of course Stone pays for that durability with poor mobility and recharge. Pick which set looks interesting to you. Shield and Fire are more damage oriented with Shield being a bit more durable (arguably, with enough investment a blaster can tank... I've proven it before). Ice with it's two aggro auras always has an unbreakable grip on aggro while Invuln is a more generic tough build without a lot of tricks. Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with the other tanker primaries to offer an informed opinion since most are new since shutdown.
Willpower does have it's place; with a good build it will be highly durable, it just has problems with aggro. Since when I'm playing a tanker my primary focus is on aggro management Willpower isn't a set that I would play... and when I'm playing a squishy character I never trust a Willpower tank to hold aggro.
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Admittedly Bio isn't something I'd thought of, mainly since I've never played or even really looked at the set. Hmm, a little study seems in order there.
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With Spines becoming a tanker secondary I've been toying with the best synergy of primary to pair it with. One side of me says Dark/Spines but I'm not sure I'm that much of an end masochist :P I never got my Spine/Dark scrapper past 30 due to the endless ;) problems with endurance. Another part is thinking Fire for damage, or Ice for aggro (like Ice needs any more help there)
What have been your experiences with Spines?
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I've been thinking on what to pair with Inv this time around myself and Street Justice did come to mind. I had a Street Justice/Invuln scrapper back on live that was a blast so the sets work well together and as a bonus I know both sets. It should be a good, solid combination.
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I'd go for set bonuses to get your defenses to melee, ranged & AOE to 45%, then I'd look for recharge, accuracy and endurance recovery with a fair amount of regeneration.
Remember, you can only get a given set bonus a maximum of 5 times. So if you've gotten 5 bonuses of "increase recharge by 5%" and you slot another set with that bonus you'll only get 25% recharge, not 30%. Mid's /Pine will do the heavy math for you however. A set IO build can be extremely complex so it's HIGHLY recommended to work it all out there before you start buying your IO's. Mistakes once you've started shopping can get expensive.
You may also want to factor cost into your build as well, it's often possible to end up with nearly the same numbers on the final build with some careful use of less expensive IO's and save hundreds of millions of inf. Back on Live my Inv/Stone tanker, Call Me Awesome, had a build that would have cost around 3 billion inf at the prices then, however the guide I wrote on building an Invuln got about 90% of the value while only costing 15 million or so in 2011 inf. It's the last 10% of the build that gets expensive.
While I don't have Mid's in front of me I had a Shield/Fire tanker back then with around 50%+ defense to all, enough recovery to go full bore almost indefinitely and enough regeneration to patch up the damage that got past my defenses. Heck, I had a Broadsword/Shield scrapper with the same numbers who was capable of tanking the ITF unassisted. IO set bonuses can fill in a lot of holes, it's a question of desires vs budget.
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Avoiding the numbers that I don't recall from when I saw them 7 years or so ago here's a good rule of thumb:
Taunt mobs you want to control, AND also attack them. Taunt works as a multiplier for the aggro of your attack. Also, run your taunt aura and keep the mobs close to you.
Some sets are better at aggro than others. Some sets have an auto hit taunt aura while some require accuracy. Off the top of my head Invuln, Ice and Shield have auto hit auras while Fire and Stone require a to hit check. Willpower is the red headed stepchild since while it's aura is auto hit it's also by far the weakest (Mag 3 vs Mag 4 for all others) and the shortest duration (1-2 seconds vs 14-17 seconds for the others).
So to keep aggro use taunt and your attacks while you let your aura do some of the heavy lifting. If you really want aggro then nothing beats Ice armor on that... you get two taunt auras, one of which is auto hit with a debuff and the other puts out some damage to keep them interested.
Eventually you run into the aggro cap and additional mobs won't pay attention to you without some fancy tricks but that won't be a factor until late game when your defenses are mature enough to handle that many mobs beating on you at once. It's been 6 years but I seem to recall the aggro cap is what, 15 or 16 mobs?
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Here's my thoughts on the tanks I played to 50 on Live.
Invuln - an absolutely unkillable god in issue 3 it remained good until IO's came about. After IO's and the ability to soft cap your defenses it again became more than up to the task of tanking anything in the game. I've rerolled my main and currently have him in the early 20's and it's quite capable in the early game on DO's and SO's.
Stone - the toughest tanker around without question once you hit 32 and get Granite Armor; a bit squishy in the early game. The downside is poor mobility and being strongly pushed into Teleportation for travel. Extremely durable in the end game even on SO's and becomes unkillable by nearly anything once you get a good IO build.
Fire - a bit squishy but with the highest damage output and a quick recharging heal it's quite competent throughout the game albeit not as tough as Inv or Stone. IO's can take care of the durability issue in the late game.
Shield - as with all defense based sets it can take awhile to come into it's own but by the mid game and beyond it's pretty durable and becomes quite nice in the late game. Shield Charge is a fantastic opener and not only grabs a lot of attention, it also knocks mobs on their butts and does good damage.
Ice - you want to be the center of attention? Well, NOTHING will steal aggro from you even if you aren't trying. Two taunt auras, one with a debut, make sure you always have all the mobs. The comments on defense sets I made with Shield also apply here so it's easy to get in over your head in the early to mid game aggro wise.
Secondaries I've played are
Stone Melee - very satisfying hard hitting attacks with a nice AOE stun/attention getter. The downside is a serious lack of AOE damage, with one minor damage exception the set is single target based. Lots of knockdown, stun and a High damage Mag 4 HOLD in the tier 9 attack. Downsides? Carry blues since this sucker's gonna go through your blue bar.
Fire Melee - damage, AOE, more damage with a secondary effect of damage. Best paired with a durable primary.
Ice Melee - minor control with minor damage. Not my favorite set.
Energy Melee - all single target without any real advantages. It used to be that the Tier 8, Energy Transfer, was a fast activating high damage attack that was the sole redeeming feature of the set. Unfortunately it was deemed "too good" so the attack animation went from under 1 second to nearly 3 seconds making it worthless. Activate the attack, stare at your fists for 3 seconds, watch your team kill the mob before your attack fires off. The changes made me abandon a level 50 Stone/EM tanker.
That's all I come up with offhand that I played to any significant level. Of them all my favorite was Fire Melee, I think I had 3 level 50 tanks with that. My main, Call Me Awesome was Inv/Stone and the only Stone Melee. I'm currently leveling an Inv/Broadsword and I'm debating on it. I had several level 50 Broadsword scrappers so I'm familiar with the set, I'm just not sure it synergies with Inv as well as I'd thought it might.
Street Justice is a nice set that I had fun with on a scrapper and it should be a good solid option with most any tanker primary. I've been contemplating Spines since it's so AOE focused.
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It's possible that Willpower's taunt aura has changed but it used to have an extremely short duration; around 1-2 seconds if I recall and it was only Magnitude 3. As a comparison the taunt aura of Invuln had a duration of around 17 seconds (don't have Mid's in front of me) and was Magnitude 4. Because of this Invuln had a VASTLY easier time holding aggro, since it didn't wear off the instant the mob moved a few feet away from you. When Willpower was ported to tankers we thought the terrible taunt aura was a bug as every other tanker primary had a Magnitude 4 taunt aura lasting at least 14 seconds.
Personally I never played a Willpower tanker as it was the absolute worst at aggro management by a huge margin. I did have a Willpower brute but I didn't try to play it as a tanker. If I was on a team with a willpower tank I had to be careful as I could strip aggro from him with ease. I almost never teamed with one who could hold aggro well... and I rarely teamed with another primary that couldn't hold aggro. Ice tankers had such a lock on aggro that it was almost impossible to steal it from them no matter what they or I did.
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I've tanked that many times in the past using several different methods. If I'm on a sturdy enough tank I can carry an insp loadout good enough to last the time for the team to kill the red tower. The red is the one that buffs his damage, and I think the yellow one buffs his to hit if I recall. Anyway, on an Invuln once the red tower's down tanking him is no big problem as his damage goes way down. On a more defense reliant tank I want that yellow to hit tower down ASAP as well.
Flying is a valid method to tank him as well, just hover over him about 30' or so and taunt while attacking with a ranged power to keep him interested. Yes, he'll jump up and hit you occasionally but you'll be avoiding a large percentage of his damage that way, and definitely avoiding his "oh crap" massive attack. Again, I carry an insp load out to handle the situation because unless I'm running with a team I trust I figure I'm on my own to survive.
By the way, here's my basic STF load out for an Invuln tank:
6 large purple
6 large orange
2-3 large green
1-2 large blue (he occasionally uses an end drain attack)
That lets me tank him for 4-5 minutes with the towers up, once the red is down I can generally stop worrying about him, and once the to hit tower dies I can tank him all day without any real issues.
When I've tanked with a Stone tank I use large purples until the red tower dies then I don't need anything else. Heck, unless the RNG decides to really hate me I can handle it with Granite + Rooted without any candy so it's insurance more than anything else. For a defense based tanker like Shield I carry more oranges and that's when I try to use the hover tanking method.
I've no idea what your team was thinking about the flag, I do take him to the back of the platform to avoid the Flyer; it respawns at the 20 minute mark from the first player entering the mission. And the 40 minute mark, and the 60 minute mark if you're having problems. Again, you can use different techniques depending on how sturdy your tank is. If you're hard capped at 90% resistance S/L/E and have good defense then use the easy method of getting into his face and telling him his mother dresses him funny. If you're not that tough then use either movement or altitude to avoid the majority of his attacks while asking him if his mother and father ever met.
I'd suggest a little practice on other mobs to refine the hover tanking method but it's not that hard, you just need to pay attention. Also, if you consistently stay out of his range you can loose aggro so be aware of that. I've only seen it happen twice but it can get ugly.
Personally I've tanked that TF with Invuln, Stone, Shield & Fire tanks. Also with a Broadsword/Shield scrapper and a permanent-PA Ill/Rad troller and Phantom Army for that matter. Heck, once I "tanked" him with a blaster (Fire/Energy with Boost Range hovering about 100' over his head) and it worked as long as I kept him on the opposite side of the platform from the team. Since I almost never hit him until his defense/SB tower went down I didn't have solid aggro so I had to keep him from noticing the rest of the team. There's ways to handle him no matter what your team configuration may be.
The key to that TF is to have a decent team. I had the "Master of the Statesman's Task Force" badge on 10 characters at shutdown so it's certainly doable. (In case you were wondering, that was completing the TF with the settings for no temp powers and no deaths. I recommend competent teammates who are familiar with the TF for that. The last several years we usually went for that badge on our runs if someone on the team didn't have the badge and more often than not got it.)
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I seem to recall that this was changed early in the IO era due to a poorly explained interaction with the Perfect Zinger proc. I don't know that I ever got the whole story.
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I kind of think it's working correctly. A taunt aura and stealth are mutually incompatible. Either you want to be hidden or you want the mob's attention.
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There are non-special uncommon IOs that take rare salvage. This was the case on live and is still the case here.
As an example take the set Cleaving Blow. Two of the enhancements require rare salvage and two don't but all four are uncommon. Why did the devs decide that the Dam/Rech and Acc/Rech needed rare salvage but Acc/Dam and Dam/End didn't? Who knows.
In the OPs case, I suspect he's talking about the sets Air Burst and either Far Strike or Entropic Chaos all of which have at least one Uncommon recipe that requires rare salvage.
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Cleaving_Blow:_Damage/Recharge
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Cleaving_Blow:_Accuracy/Recharge
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Entropic_Chaos:_Accuracy/Damage
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Far_Strike:_Accuracy/Endurance
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Air_Burst:_Damage/Range
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Air_Burst:_Damage/Recharge
So to answer OPs question, this isn't a change it goes back to the start of the invention system for reasons that are unclear.
That's what I was talking about... I hadn't noticed it back then and didn't realize it was ongoing. Of course back then Inf wasn't in short supply and rare salvage was available cheap on the market so it was a non-issue. Now with all rare salvage I've seen going for between 800,000 to a million it's more of an issue.
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I'll likely be around off and on, this is getting into the busy season with work... owning a video production company that does live events across the country cuts into game time... but I'll be here as I can.
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Yes, I can see the point there. It's been awhile since I made an in-depth study of the set and the current state of IO's. I had it in my mind that the Impervium Armor Psi IO was unique... I see that Pine's Hero Designer at least doesn't show it that way.
It's a number of slots to find homes for in the build but I can see the value to it.
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I've noticed several IO sets and individual recipes in the set that are marked "Uncommon" seem to take Rare salvage. This is a change from Live and it takes a lot of the value of the lesser IO sets away since they take the same salvage as the rare sets.
The ones I've noticed so far are in the Ranged damage category and the Targeted AOE category.
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@Call Me Awesome on Guardian, same global handle here on Excelsior. Slowly working to recreate and level some of my characters; at shutdown I had 24 Incarnates and I've no idea how many lower levels.
As of right now I've the following in the 20's:
Call Me Awesome - Invuln/Broadsword tanker (Mutated from Inv/Stone at shutdown)
Delta Farce - Fire/EM blaster
Gortak - Broadsword/Shield scrapper
Bogus Wave - Water/Rad corruptor
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Frankly the "Healer Only" mentality was quite prevalent from launch to shutdown as well. I found on most PuG's that if a Defender took Empathy more often than not they were worthless. Far too many players couldn't get their heads around the fact that in this game buffs and debuffs were MUCH more useful than heals in the vast majority of situations.
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Well, I was in my upper 30's at launch and had owned and run a video production company since 1985. Currently I'm no longer in my upper 30's :P but I still own and run the same company so not a lot has changed.
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I'd look for anything modern with a discrete graphics card and it should run COH just fine on near max settings. Yes, Ultra Mode was pretty poorly optimized and way too hard on graphics cards but that was close to 10 years ago now. Any gaming computer should work just fine so plan your budget accordingly. If it runs modern games nicely it'll run COH at max settings. Frankly if you play any modern games then base your decision on what you need for them, if it plays a modern game it'll kill this one.
My setup was last updated a couple years ago and with an Nvidia GTX 960, admittedly at the time a fairly high end card, my framerates have never dipped below 58fps at 1920x1080. (I run Vsync so it's capped at 60fps)
My old system from shutdown wasn't half as powerful and I still had framerates in the 40-60 range most of the time.
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Invulnerability and the defense soft cap.
(I haven't yet had a chance for an in-depth study on what's changed but here's my Soft Cap defense guide from the old forums)
Invulnerability is, in my opinion, probably the best all around tanker primary. You get great durability, a very strong taunt aura and excellent protection against the most common types of damage. Yes, that Stone tanker wearing Granite armor will survive more types of damage but he’s a slow moving brick wall. The Willpower tanker will take almost as much of a beating but he has a lousy taunt aura so he really has to work at holding agro. Ice has unmatched agro handling ability but a couple of lucky hits past his defense and he’s in trouble. Fire outputs a lot of damage but pays for it with relatively weak (for a tanker) protection. Super Reflexes shares the potential weakness of Ice and the horrible taunt aura of Willpower. Only Invulnerability puts top flight durability, very good agro abilities and full mobility together in one package.
I'm not going to sit here and proclaim "Thou shalt build thy Tanker according to these Commandments"; I'm just going to give you a loose framework that you can use to make your Invuln as durable as possible. There's many other valid choices you could make, this is simply one method that works well.
For those of you who may not already know, there are several types of damage in CoH and each requires its own defense/resistance to counter. The damage types are:
- Smashing – typically punches, kicks and the like
- Lethal - typically bullets, swords and similar
- Fire – Flame attacks
- Cold – Ice or Cold attacks
- Energy – Lasers and other energy attacks
- Negative Energy – typically Dark attacks
- Psionic – Mental attacks
- Toxic – The rarest type, usually limited to either low level monsters or a few high level ones.
The protection from these damage types are usually paired up, Smashing/Lethal (S/L) makes up the vast majority of damage from 1-50 with Energy/Negative (E/N) being second most prevalent and Fire/Cold (F/C) being somewhat less common. Psi is extremely rare in the lower levels and outside of a few specific enemies (Carnies, Rikti) remains uncommon even in the end game. Here’s the basic numbers from our powers:
- Resist Physical Damage gives us 10% S/L resistance AND 25% resistance to defense debuffs
- Resist Energies gives us 10% E/N resistance AND 25% resistance to endurance drains
- Resist Elements gives us 10% F/C resistance AND 20% slow resistance
- Unyielding gives 5% S/L and 10% E/N/F/C resistance
- Invincibility gives 5% S/L/E/N/F/C defense plus 1% per mob in melee range (note, if no mobs are in range it provides no defense)
- Tough Hide provides 5% defense to S/L/E/N/F/C and 25% resistance to defense debuffs
Debuffs are attacks that reduce your stats with Defense debuffs being the most common. Many Lethal attacks will debuff your defenses; this makes it easier for enemies to hit you. The debuff resistance in RPD and TH amounts to 50% and makes it much harder for mobs to knock down your defenses. Now let’s look at IO set defensive bonuses; these will add to your base stats and can transform you from a decently sturdy tanker into a nearly unkillable godling.
A small digression here about just how defense works in this game…
Defense works by making an attack miss you; if it doesn’t hit then you don’t take any damage. The mobs have a base 50% chance to hit you with their attacks; your defense directly reduces that chance. If you have 25% defense then the mobs have a 25% chance to hit you… 35% defense means they have a 15% chance to hit and so on to the “soft cap” of 45% reducing the mob’s chance to hit you to 5%. We call it the soft cap because while you can have a higher amount of defense you can’t reduce the mob’s chance to hit you to below 5%.
Now when a mob attacks you the game takes the highest defense amount you have to any part of that attack and uses that for your total defense… for example let’s take a fictional ranged power that does 100 points of energy damage and 100 points of smashing damage. You have 45% smash/lethal defense, 40% energy/negative defense and 20% ranged defense… which is roughly what this guide will aim for. Since the attack is ranged you have 20% defense to it… but it’s also energy so you have 40% defense to it… but it’s ALSO smashing and you have 45% defense to that. The game takes your highest defense, smashing, and therefore the attack has a 5% chance to hit you. While not all attacks will have a Smash/Lethal portion, the vast majority do, so this is your most important defensive number; it’s the one we want to get to 45% the most.
OK, enough of the lecture! I just wanna know how to build my tanker!
Here’s your shopping list for Wentworth’s for your soft capped Invuln tanker:
- 5 sets of Reactive Armor – you need 4 pieces in the set for the bonuses we want, which are 1.5% defense to E/N and 1.5% defense to S/L. I suggest the Resist, Resist/Endurance, Resist/Recharge and Resist/Endurance/Recharge
- 2 sets of Kinetic Combat – 4 pieces of the set (1.5% hit points and 3.75% defense to S/L)
- Full set of Perfect Zinger (10% regen, 5% recharge, 2.5% damage and 3.13% defense S/L) OR full set of Mocking Beratement (1.8% endurance, 2.5% defense S/L, 3.13% F/C and 7.5% recharge)
- Steadfast Protection 3% defense/resist unique IO
Why not use Aegis instead of some of the Reactive Armor?
The reasoning here is simple. S/L defense will protect from most elemental attacks and pure elemental damage without a S/L component is quite rare in the game. That being the case, I’d rather concentrate on the more common damage types. If you’re taking Resist Elements in your build, then by all means slot Aegis there, as that makes 6 resist powers… you can only get the bonus from Reactive Armor 5 times.
Now that we have the IO’s we need, we need to put them somewhere.
(If Inf is tight as an alternative you can substitute the Smashing Haymaker set for the Kinetic Combat set, you'll just need 3 sets of them. Back before Shutdown they were MUCH cheaper than Kinetic Combat)
So, here are the powers you’ll need for this build:
- Temporary Invulnerability– 4 Reactive Armor and the Steadfast Unique
- Dull Pain – 3 recharge/3 heal or 5 of the Doctored Wounds set
- Unyielding – 4 Reactive Armor
- Taunt – full Perfect Zinger
- Combat Jumping – 1 common defense or 2 Zephyr IO’s
- Invincibility – 3 common defense, 1 endred or, at level 47+ 3 Cytoskeleton Hamidon Origin enhancements. One common taunt if you have the slots.
- Tough Hide – 3 common defense and it’s done
- Resist Physical Damage – 4 Reactive Armor
- Resist Energies – 4 Reactive Armor
- Boxing OR Kick
- Tough – 4 Reactive Armor
- Weave – 2-3 common defense, 1-2 endred
- 2 single target attacks to slot the Kinetic Combat set. You can finish out these attacks with the Acc/Dam and Dam/Recharge from Pounding Slugfest for an 8% regeneration bonus.
At this point you should have roughly:
- 45% Smash/Lethal defense
- 40% Energy/Negative defense
- 30% Fire/Cold defense
- 20% Melee/Range defense (this covers most Psi damage)
- 13% Psi defense
Your resistances will be something like this:
- Smash/Lethal – 90% capped
- Energy/Negative – 30%
- Fire/Cold – 17%
Very little damage will actually get past your defenses, and of what does very little will be Fire/Cold. This is a build I played with occasional tweaks for several years and it’s nearly as durable as my Granite tankers without the drawbacks of mobility & recharge you get with Stone Armor.
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Invulnerability - The first 20 levels
(Note that I haven't yet had a chance to do an in-depth study on what's changed but thought I'd repost some of my older guides)
I've seen people asking about just how to build their Invuln tanker, and I thought I'd post a mini-guide to help new tankers through the first 20 levels. Many Invuln tankers end up with very substandard builds in the early levels, mainly because they had no idea what the critical powers to get were. This guide applies to any secondary you might want to pair with your Invulnerable tanker.
Those of you who already know the game can skip this part.
For those just joining us I should probably digress a bit and discuss the way damage and your powers work in the game. First, you need to know that damage comes in different types, with Smashing and Lethal being most common (abbreviated S/L) while other types such as Energy, Negative, Fire, Cold, Toxic and Psi being less common (E/N, F/C, T, P). Defenses and resistances typically protect against a pair of damage types hence they're referred to as S/L for a power that protects from Smashing & Lethal, E/N for a power that protects from Energy & Negative and so forth.
Expanding on that a bit any attack that uses punches, kicks, hammers or anything like that is what we would call "smashing" damage. "Lethal" damage includes things like guns, knives, swords, claws and similar. "Energy" damage is things like electricity, lasers and other "light" attacks while "negative" would be dark attacks. An example of negative damage is the blasts that the Skul's gang in the low levels use. "Fire" and "cold" are pretty self explanatory, fireballs and flamethrowers are fire while ice bolts are cold. "Psi" is the catagory that mental attacks fall under and it's quite rare in the game. "Toxic" is poison attacks and it's the rarest damage in the game.
Smashing and Lethal are the most common damage types and those you'll encounter most often throughout the entire game; from the figures I've seen roughly 70% of all damage falls into that category. Energy and Negative would be the second most common damage and it accounts for about another 20% of what you'll face while Fire, Cold and Psi are quite rare. Toxic is almost nonexistent outside of a very few situations, although you'll face a fair amount early dealing with Vahzilok (sp?). After level 20 Toxic nearly vanishes from the game until a few high level encounters in the 40's.
Here's an outline for your Invuln tanker's early career:
A good thumb rule for building an Invulnerable Tanker would be something like this:
Level 1 - Temp. Invulnerability & tier one attack - TI is one of the four most vital powers in your build so get it right away. It provides three times the protection that your other choice, Resist Physical Damage, does (30% S/L resistance vs 10%). The Tier one attack is an example of Hobson's Choice although thanks to the new Tanker inherent power of Bruising it's usefulness has climbed dramatically.
Level 2 - Dull Pain - This is another of your four cornerstone powers; I wouldn't delay it much and given the lack of choices this is, in my opinion, the ideal time for it. It provides a huge heal for you and it drastically increases your total hit points for 2 minutes after you hit it.
Level 3 - 2 slots available, place in TI or Dull Pain.
Level 4 - Tier 2 or 3 attack depending on your secondary, some you're better off with one over the other. For most secondaries the Tier 3 is the better choice.
Level 5 - two slots into your level 4 attack
Level 6 - Open selection, you could start the Fighting pool, grab your travel power or another attack. Personally I typically pick up Combat Jumping here.
Level 7 - 2 slots to distribute, candidates are Temp. Invuln, Dull Pain or your level 4 attack.
Level 8 - Unyielding - this is your Mez protection and the third and arguably most vital of your cornerstone powers and you want to take it ASAP. With this power active you're almost totally immune to all hold, sleep, knockback, immobilize and stun effects and it provides minor S/L resistance and a bit more E/N/F/C resistance.
Level 9 - 2 slots in Unyielding
Level 10 - Taunt, you have to wait until 18 for your taunt aura. Alternately whichever of your attacks you didn't get at level 4.
Level 11 - 2 slots to distribute, candidates for them are TI, DP and your attacks.
Level 12 - This is an "open" selection, good candidates are Resist Physical Damage or Boxing (from the Fighting Pool, you'll need that pool if you want to build for maximum durability) If you didn't select a travel power at level 6 this is another place to get it.
Level 13 - 2 slots available, by this point you're probably starting to notice endurance being an issue so I'd put them into Stamina.
Level 14 - Another open selection, candidates are the Fighting pool, RPD or a power of your choice.
Level 15 - 2 slots available
Level 16 - This is an "open" selection, good choices are RPD, Boxing or Tough (Fighting Pool) or another power.
Level 17 - 2 slots available
Level 18 - Invincibility - this is the fourth of the cornerstone powers in your build and should be taken immediately. It provides a large amount of defense that increases with the number of baddies around you, provides a tohit bonus that also increases with the number of baddies around you so it's easier to hit them and it's your taunt aura so it attracts attention and makes the baddies STAY clumped around you.
Level 19 - 2 slots in Invincibility
Level 20 - Another "open" selection, candidates are your tier 5 or 6 attack, another power from the Fighting Pool or a power of your choice.
Level 21 - 2 slots available
At this point you should have roughly the following:
TI - 4 slots
Tier 1 attack - 3-4 slots
Dull Pain - 5 slots
Tier 3 or 2 attack - 5 slots
Unyielding - 3-4 slots
Invincibility - 3 slots
Stamina - 3 slots
Your other powers are fine with the default slot for now, you may look to add some to them later on in the build. Now on your slotting... I would suggest slotting TI & Unyielding with 3 resist/1 endred, Dull Pain should get 3 recharge/2 heal and your attacks should get 1-2 accuracy/2-3 damage and 1 endred. Invincibility should get 2-3 defense/1 endred. You'll save more end with one endred in an attack than you will by slotting 2 endred in ALL of your toggles, so keep that in mind if you have end problems.
That pretty well covers your bases to level 20, from there on it will depend on your secondary. Boxing/Tough/Weave from the Fighting Pool are needed if you want to maximize your durability. Also be sure and pick up Tough Hide at level 26, it's a nice chunk of endurance-free defense. I recommend fitting in Resist Energies sometime, probably in the 20's... it can wait until very late if you're really tight on your build though. Resist Elements is entirely skippable. If you're building for the defense soft cap (see my other Invuln guide) you may find Unstoppable to be skippable as well.
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Best way to fill KB hole in DA?
in Tanker
Posted
Also as I recall from Live you either want to have mag 4 KB protection or go all the way to 12... there was a long discussion on the old forums about it and pretty much anything that could beat Mag 4 KB would also beat Mag 8 making it of very limited utility. The thumb rule for sets without KB protection was one KB IO or go to 3 of them, don't waste money and slots on just two.
Or, of course, you can go the Combat Jumping/Super Jump/Acrobatics route at the cost of another power pick and the endurance to run another toggle... not really something Dark needs.