Sovera

The new ones now do -res (deadly on defense based sets but not much on resistance sets), -def, psi attacks and confuse. Taunting has always been a thing from the juggernauts. Manticore is level 30-35 so no Degenerative yet. Hopkins is -always- a slog though. So even coming out of it disheartened I accept the guy is my kryptonite lite (because I did get him even without envenomed daggers or insps 😛 ). Otherwise the TF went swimmingly with PPs locked down, juggernauts prevented from bubbling up and even the S/L resistant bosses being slapped down without undully slowing things. Locking the psi/-def/confusing bosses before they could get up my face felt amazing. This is also part of the 'smooth 'buttery' experience. Sure, we can plow through or wait for the bubbles or T9s to elapse. Or we can prevent them from happening.

Could I tempt you into a pylon test with the Ice/Fire, Sai?

Solo +1x8, no deaths. PPs were no problem. In fact I can count on the fingers of one hand any PP who managed to get their T9 off thanks to Seismic Smash keeping them perma CC until death. No, it was basically killing the two AVs at the end. The woman was okay, but dat Hopkins... Tanker damage, no -res, and pure smash was not a good combo against that AV in particular.

*crawls out of Manticore's TF* ....two.. hour... long... Over 30 minutes just to kill Hopkins twice... Fighting something that has like 65% Smash resistance tested my will to live.

I am trying to figure out why I am enjoying the Fire/Stone Melee and what makes it stand out from The Big Three (Ice, Martial Arts, Claws). I'm thinking it may be because it has a bit of everything from The Big Three hybridizing it into a single entity. Ice has a big hitter in Freezing Touch and has an early Build-up, but lacks a good single target rotation that feels good thanks to Greater Ice Sword being terribad (so bad it's about the same to use an AoE in a ST rotation with all the downsides it entails). Ice Patch makes it safe and good out of the box though. Claws has a good attack chain, a very good early AoE, but lacks a heavy hitter and Follow-up has its downsides. For example I wanted to test my Claws/Fire Brute in Moonfire after having done it on the Fire/Stone Melee Tanker and was surprised at having so much of a hard time getting through the first mission since I was not using inspirations to mimic the Fire/Stone run. The vampyres would debuff my accuracy so much I would have to slowly hope for a lucky shot since Follow-up could not even hit to buff my accuracy. On the other hand a set (like Stone Melee) with an early build-up had no problem with that (or with low level Circle of Thorns with the bosses doing the big forcefield, the little ghosts doing -acc and the big ghosts doing a -ToHit aura) because they can punch through with BU + Gaussian. Martial Arts has a late Build-Up preventing punch-through until 28 and lacks a heavy hitter. It makes up for this with the unique gimmick of allowing a resistance based armor to softcap melee/ranged/AoE. The Force Feedback proc in an AoE is a world of difference compared to just having it in a single target skill and it has a large impact on the damage output of a build that has two Build-Up mechanics and healing/endurance clickies. This is why the build is a beast that is as offensive as the others while being a veritable turtle. A Tanker is is the best position to overlook this with two choices in armor sets that can do AoE by themselves and soon: Fire Armor with Burn at 18 allowing to exemplar as low as level 13 and still melt a spawn by themselves while having it for every pack. And Radiation Armor who can use proc bombs in Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero to do all the AoE needed (preferably paired with one of the attack sets that has FF procs. Rad/Stone Melee is not quite to my standards since it would take reaching 26). Fire Armor also helps with ST with Burn being powerful enough to replace an ST attack and also providing cleave (if five or less mobs left there is no need to use AoEs, just keep hitting the boss and Burn will coincidentally handle the rest) and Fiery Embrace for further pushing. The combo of both can be alternated for long enough to make Tanker damage feel good. Build-Up lasts 10 seconds and has a 28 second CD (less with FF procs), so we use it, the 28 seconds start ticking, and when the 10 seconds are over we use Fiery Embrace. Fiery Embrace lasts 20 seconds. So when it is over the 18 seconds have elapsed and we can use Build Up again for another 10 seconds. I'm digressing. Back to the topic. Stone Melee is very nice. The animations are just a touch slow but not too much. War Mace/Axe prime for their 2.5 animations despite hitting hard. Rad Melee's heavy hitter is a glacial 2.9 and even Energy Melee has at least a 2.77 Total Focus in the rotation and that's for those who don't also do 2.9 slow Energy Transfer. Stone Melee on the other hand chills about with 1.8 animations. Heavy hitter? 1.7. To compare it does 613 where Knockout Blow is 631 (782 with one stack of Rage) and 2.4 animation, Devastating Blow is that glacial 2.9 and doing 577 damage, Crushing Uppercut is 740 with three combo points and 2.3 seconds. Freezing Touch is a blazing 1.2 animation but pays for it and being a T7 by doing 514 damage. Not seen in a vacuum they all have their perks though. EM is still the best ST damage and being mainly energy it gets past the annoying resistances, KO Blow comes with Rage that can be twice stack to push the damage even more, Devastating Blow has Irradiated Ground ticking in the background for much more damage than a mere damage aura could dream of (plus being a very good vehicle for two -res procs which push Devastating's damage). Now Fire/Stone Melee, well, it just combines the best traits to produce a good playing experience. It will not do the most ST, or do the most AoE (Tremor pays for the wide native radius by doing a nudge more damage than Stone Fists), or be the safest, but, it has a little bit of everything. The attack chain starts early. Even without having everything in place there are few gaps where waiting for something to cycle so we can press a button. Even super low level. Two FF procs in the ST chain make everything feel better in the low levels. We have Consume up faster, heal, Burn. It does not need to reach 38 to finish the attack chain. Rather level 38 is just a damage boost since the attack chain remains unperturbed. It is a -bit- safer by doing a mass KD with each Tremor, and each Tremor is a near guaranteed FF proc which boosts the offense and defense by making all clickies available sooner. Early AoE in Burn, later boosted by Tremor. Now with this Is Fire/Stone The Strongest Build? No. Fire/Rad cleared Yin in 40 minutes where Fire/Stone did in 48 minutes (and Fire Rad later on gets a second AoE), but so many people hate Devastating Blow for good reason, and until then we twiddle thumbs because we don't have a complete ST rotation. Energy Melee will do more damage, but what a slog to 38 to complete the ST and gaps until then. But playing it I'm thinking, this is smooth, this is buttery, I'm brawling mobs with the No Weapon animations and they keep on being thrown up in the air and interrupted, I'm throwing BU + Burn followed by Tremor and half a spawn is dead. At the risk of making Bill sad again Claws is in danger of being pushed from The Big Three.

Did someone say Fire Melee revamp? Fire Breath with the Frost treatment and overall set damage pumped up.

The mythical 'at damage cap' existing in spreadsheets and in mythical scenarios where two Kins are running and managing to Fulcrum before someone sneezes and kills all minions. Practical actual in game experience tells me the Kins manage to Fulcrum off the lieutenants and boss(es).

I'm three deaths in the first mission and pretty sure I should not have brought the Stone Armor Brute in since 41% defense debuff does a fat lot of nothing. I'll try again with the Claws/Fire Brute since I did it with the Fire/Claws Tanker anyway. Went fine until the ambush and now I'm three deaths in. TBH my tanker also just usually fails the ambush.... and now I remember I managed to pass it when I did the enemies buffed on the Tanker by having my invulnerable Lore pets tank for me. I should have done that with the Brute. Tbh I was doing fine until the ambush. Overwhelming damage killing everything before they hurt back was a valid strategy as always, with Barrier as panic button. But now I need to put my mouth where the money is or we are back to gut feels. E/N still hurts with just 60% resists.

Heck, half my tanks don't survive that. Even with Barrier. It took playing Invuln to find a tanker who could AFK in it. Challenge accepted though. You can't think of a single test? Because 'content only Tankers can survive' requires at least some examples. Buffed ITF? Not sure most tanks will survive that either. Linea missions? What contents have you done where your Brute was creamed but your Tanker managed to squeak by?

It's just math though. We have Mids. We also know mitigation is not tested 100% of the time during the gameplay. We -know- this. We are not doing napkin math, we both routinely experience the content. A single spawn is annihilated in seconds by a full team and a few seconds more when solo. Once ten mobs are reduced to five are we ever in danger? When occasionally in danger we pop Barrier if not wanting to use an inspiration. So it boils down to what? The AV fights? That one minute fight after one hour of a TF? Is this what the big war between Brutes and Tankers has been all about? Tankers are tougher but do less damage. This is not napkin math but tests ran on the actual game. Brutes are squishier but do more damage. Proven by tests done in the game You're pushing the idea Tankers are somehow stronger -and- tougher and I do not know from where this has come other than Tankers got a 50% radius buff as if important. Give me one test you can think of where Tankers will do more damage and be tougher than a Brute and I can run it. I have changed my mind when I was wrong and I will do so again if I find its the same. P.S. Still love ya even if we argue on this old topic.

Blah. Brutes tank as much as Tankers do, at most they might need a 50 inf insp to reach the same numbers. The increase in radius is a useless buff as well. Only in farming do mobs agglomerate so much that they cannot physically get closer and the extra radius comes in. Even then a Brute still does farming faster. Any non farming map spawns come in packs of 10-12 and -can- make a ball around the Brute/Tank and be hit by the AoEs without the need of the increase. The Trapdoor tests have shown this consistently with Tankers having 6-7 minutes times and brutes between 5-6 minutes. By the logic of the thing the Tankers ought to blaze with the extra radius but that's not the case. Same with pylons where Tankers still lag behind with 4 minutes without -res trickery. It takes a very specific broken combo like Rad/Super Strength to see Tankers get OP. The reason to go Tanker is Fire Armor. Getting Burn at 18 fixes sets without early AoE such as Stone Melee or Super Strength.

But they make the early leveling so much better when we are short on powers and slots and unable to slot the juicy stuff. After level one they stop existing for me.

Just for you I redid the first section on how to start a character. It was too poorly done for a new character and the solo option involved teaming.

That's me when playing a terrifyingly low damage Tanker and realizing I was SKIPPING MOBS! Skipping mobs!!? Because it would take too long to kill?? Dusted the character.

Another thing to consider is that endurance woes should not be something that holds a player from using a given tank. Recovery Serums are sold by the P2W vendor and we can stack 50 uses, Even the most obscene of endurance hogs I have played I could use a Recovery Serum and while it was going I would collect blue inspirations. When the Serum was on cooldown I would use the blues until it would be back up. But for most things a Recovery Serum is only needed once in a while, either because our endurance clickie is still recharging (if having one) or because fighting endurance draining enemies like Clockwork or Freakshow.

It's a weird flex, but sure. If that's what you want to do. Even lowbie characters can slot IOs though, some as low as level 10. By level 20 a Tanker can have... Let me check so I'm not guessing... I would actually place slots on Whirling Hands first since it's the sole AoE, but just to say at level 20 it is a 33%, and safe to say that with 40% defense a low level Stone Armor is already mostly impervious to low level content. Leveling with just SOs is some sort of iron man challenge thing.

Every gimmick in the book thrown at it. Another 6.7% for a second ATO stack puts the resistances at 76-77%. 5% from Barrier puts them at 81-82%. A third stack (not reliable to get three stacks) puts them at 86-87%. A more 'normal' build: Same as before with the maths, but always minimum 70% with one stack. Stone as a tanker has almost no flaws and without even going into granite. Brutes always have an E/N hole though, the best I can do is about 40ish%.

Used the Fire/Stone Melee build and soloed Posi 2 at 0x8 in 48 minutes, no deaths. Then did Yin, and, surprisingly, did not use inspirations until having reached Clamor. I say surprisingly because I had an unslotted heal, unslotted shields, unslotted Consume, but even so it was done in 48 minutes (again). Still deathless. ...which is not really bad at all considering it's a Tanker and its ST heavy hitter is over level 38. Previous attempt was 46 minutes. The recordist in these 'Yin challenges' is still the Claws/Fire Brute at 38 minutes followed by a Fire/Rad Melee Tanker with 39 minutes and honorable mentions to the Savage/Stone and Rad/Stone Brute at 42 and 43 respectively. Rad Melee is just brutal even without Burn and Fiery Embrace and this is not even counting on how most of its damage is energy/toxic instead of smash/slash.

Yeah, Stone Armor's weakness is rather E/N, though on a tanker we can still pump those upwards of 60%.

After looking at Stone Melee I finally conceded that the problem with its ST rotation was trying to only use the mallets. It makes leveling a chore, it makes the ST clunky, and even at end game it requires everything in place plus an FF proc to be gapless. Once I accepted this I also saw that, y'know what? Actually Stone Fists isn't bad all. I cranked up another Fire/Stone Melee, used an alt to do two passes in a farm map which placed it at level 23 and then went for Posi 1 cranked to 0x8 after having grabbed eight hours worth of amplifiers. The ST rotation was Heavy Mallet, Stone Fists, Stone Mallet, Stone Fists. Repeat. While Hasten was up and even at such an extreme exemplaring the rotation was already gapless and a pleasure to work with. Burn was a good help as usual and the sole AoE since Fault is... well.. it's crummy. and a bit of a noob trap IMO. Large recharge, heavy endurance costs, abysmal accuracy, low damage, weak CC (when the accuracy even allows it to hit). Burn was enough for my AoE needs and with Build-Up I could punch through CoT BS while the FF procs in the mallets helped things along. Only used the inspirations that dropped and did not replenish at the store or AH. Only one death... at the very end... last spawn after the shadow bosses... I was already banking on bragging rights for a deathless run but after surviving eight shadow clone bosses I was out of inspirations and a mix of -tohit aura + force field + earthquake + spammed immobilizes finally got me. Still not bad for a 'squishy Fire Armor' and done in 46 minutes. Also the non weapon aesthetic looks nice with a very brawler feel to it. The usual with my builds: 76.7% resists with one stack of the Tanker proc in Heavy Mallet, a second stack and it's 83.4%, Barrier's 5% and it's 88.4% and once at 90% HP the Scaling Resists IO in Hover pushes it to 89.4%. If desired I can post a leveling build.

Fire Armor has Consume which protects against sapping (the sucking of the blue bar), though it does not protect from -recovery (the stopping of the blue bar filling up). Makes Carnies fine, but not Super Stunner's ressurection. Consume does need to be used before being sapped, but the sapping prevention buff lasts for two minutes (and is a 98% protection if Consume is slotted) and recharges in one minute (if slotted).

Brutes do more damage and can tank everything. It takes reaching the 5% of end game AND be solo to find a Tanker would do better. A well built Brute needs only one 50 inf inspiration to be at the level of a Tanker. What the Tankers have is an easier (cheaper?) way to be very sturdy without investing a lot of money. In return their damage is more mushy (despite what some claim in these forums). Now doing a bit less damage is not what someone who picks a Tanker is really worried about so this is moot. If you have your heart set on a Tanker then I suggest Fire Armor/Ice Melee since it is good straight out of the box. Tankers are pretty tough and there is no need to aim for -more- sturdy since it is difficult to die. Especially with Ice Melee dropping Ice Patches. I you prefer a Brute try a Radiation Melee/Stone Armor. It's pretty much easy mode with Irradiated Ground killing things around you while you're focusing on a boss. I had very good results with a Claws/Fire Brute too, but unlike Stone Armor that one needed to eat inspirations until mid game (around level 30 ish) where the Stone Armor becomes impervious around level 22+ish (needs a good build using all the tricks though). If you need examples I have builds in my signature and how to make money.

Firrrrrrrre/Clawsssss 😄 You can exemp down to level 15 and still be rocking. Or Fire/Ice Melee if you feel you want to help your team. Do damage -and- be sturdy.

The easy solution is to have Focused Accuracy, then you're the one who makes them cry. That would also let you drop Nerve and go for Musculature which ought to be a net gain. Speaking of Diagmagnetic thingy is pretty worthless as well and needs to be tuned by the devs. Either go for the resist (which actually is useless, but the 75% medium DoT makes a difference) or the 75% chance for DoT Degenerative (best middle ground since it helps for regular gameplay and against AVs where neither the res or the -tohit incarnates has an effect on AVs). The procs in Beta Decay are doing you no favors. Might as well have the slots as two +5 recharge in Build-Up so you can punch through more often. Regardless Decimation proc is valueless due to its abysmal 1 PPM, anything you slot in its place will be better IMO. Consider the math on Swipe + Lunge in the time it takes to use Impale (my own ST rotation with Spines is Ripper, Swipe, Lunge, Swipe. Repeat). Since you have a lot of endurance with the Radiation Therapy spam those slots could be scrounged from Health and Stamina. Mids says that the new and improved Impale does 465 in 2.64 seconds. A slotted Barb Swipe and Lunge take 2.9 second to animate and do 379 + 239 = 618. Check this slotting. More damage than the previous slotting (old Impale did 317, new does 465) but some endurance discount, (near) immune to -tohit, bit more recharge, bit more resistances (lowered S/L resistances on purpose since Barrier will give 5% that can be perma), etc. If you're fighting +3 (or +4 while having at least T3 Alpha) you're are 93% chance to hit making the Kismet not needed (if you do fight actual +4 or +5 then keep the Kismet). I sacrificed some of your S/L defenses since they were so low as to only matter statistically. It's pretty difficult to pursue them while going proc bomb in any case. The Swipe and Lunge build: