Mezmera

Well what's better than building a "steady state" tank? One that is steady and can add some extra cheesecake on the side from time to time when it could really come in handy. I try to avoid using OWS if I don't have to but it's a decent little power to slot for some more bonuses and it's a manageable crash, nothing as absurd as Unstoppable.

I'll give you a general take on what I like to do with the armor. First off I always go with one of the alpha's t4 with defense values either Nerve or Agility since it gives you good values over ED curve and you can short slot some defenses with Gamblers and still pull in good numbers. Another thing I like to do on my tank is also build in decent psi resists from some Impervium Armors. I build in as much resistances that I can aiming specifically for toxic/psi/energy/negative since you can come across a lot of fire/cold bonuses easy. And I +5 everything that I can. Deflection: I do 2 Titanium Coating, Steadfast unique, Impervium Psi res and the 2 lotg like yours. If I wasn't going for psi resist I'd slot this as you have it and put the Steadfast into True Grit. True Grit: 2 Titanium Coating, Impervium Psi res, 3 Numinas with the Unique (or Preventative Medicine). I have the full Preventative set in a heal so I use half the Numi's here. Battle Agility: 4 Shield Walls all +5. You can enhance the DDR in this power so I make sure to slot the defense very well in this one Active Defenses: 1 50+5 recharge Against All Odds: 1 50+5 End Redux. Not sure how well that psi proc will fire for efficiency's sake. Grant Cover: 1 50+5 Lotg +recharge Phalanx Fighting: 1 50+5 lotg +recharge (this has a very tight aoe to get use out of stacking allies so I find this power to be skippable if I had to skip an armor) Shield Charge: 6 Armageddon's. One With the Shield: At least 4 Unbreakable Guards and I put the unique here. This is a nice Oh Shit power which doesn't carry a harsh crash and it gives a nice HP buff for a while. Nice power to have in your pocket.

If the proc nerf ever does happen and is so bad that it will not fire off even when there's just the one proc in the power then I think the biggest issue then would be a lack of player base to play with.

Yes and procs ignite them as well. My DP ignites the Oil easy even when I'm not running Fire ammo. With the Armageddon fire proc in my pbaoe nuke it always ignites the Oil patch without me ever needing to target it. Same with any energy procs.

Yes I HAD to learn how to bind stuff with all of those target location powers. Once I did my TA became lots of fun to play and real good since I didn't have to fidget with pointing and dropping 3 of those powers. Playing this made me better on all of my other characters. I bound the EMP, Oil and Glue arrows with the powexec_location to fire 15ft in front of me and then bound Disruption Arrow to my right mouse button so I had freedom to point it wherever needed and I use it a lot.

Yes my TA/DP defender is my top 3 favorite characters to play. She just melts stuff.

Fire or Cold would be the best ones to pair with the TA yes. Cold for more damage and better single target damage. Fire for strong ST damage and great aoe damage plus you'll want to mainly build Fire attacks with sets since its more beneficial to use sets instead of just all out procing. TA is a great debuffer set, tons of aoe debuffs and you get some very special stuff in Acid Arrow and Ice Arrow that'll make yours and everyone else's stuff much more potent. Take all the arrows that you can, if you must skip any Glue and Net would be the ones. And you'll want to set up some target location binds so you can get those arrows out fast. The debuffs last usually a minute so you don't need to spam your arrows since they won't stack on each other but rather get them all out then get into your attack chain until you need to move again which the arrows will recharge fast to travel well with you.

Yes but its an inconvenient one because you have to remain full villain which locks you out of 60-70% extra stuff you can play. Once my characters are done accolading I'll switch to Rogue to be able to play everything and never switch again.

Are you questioning whether a Vampire is good at his job?

My Dual Pistols defender has Power Build Up with a full set of Gaussian +5 which the proc still is sure fire for massive damage. Just gotta think outside the box a little. Chem ammo's -dmg debuff is very noticeable and invaluable in the hard mode content. Using your aoe's on mobs you're netting the team 40%+ damage resistances which any resistances to that would at worst take it to high 20's%. Still quite a good bit of survivability you're bringing to the team. Then outside of that you can switch to Fire rounds to provide more damage. My DP defender also has a 2nd build strictly for standard ammo which that -resistance attack then becomes useful albeit it is a slow animation which is why I don't like it much to begin with.

Swap Ammo is actually pretty strong on Defenders. Chem Ammo gets quite a bit of -dmg debuffing, near 40% with a few of the aoes, that's pretty much like giving your team resistance shields but they're not beholden to a cap. I find when I'm doing the extra hard content I run Chem Ammo and everything else I can switch to Incendiary Rounds. Beam feels a little clunky with little aoe but it does have some decent -regen and -resist. I enjoy playing my DP toons, not so much for my Beam ones.

My Energy Melee stalker is Invuln but I have experience with Shield. As far as EM goes your chain will go Total Focus, ET, AS hopefully another ET or an epic Snipe. You'll rarely use Barrage so if your setting it for bonuses fine, I would not take Bone Smasher. I'd take all of your armors and slot them well, True Grit for resists and HP, Deflection I use 4 slots for resists and 2 Lotgs. Power Crash is meh but if you take it I'd 5 slot it with the winter set. Your aoe will come greatly from Shield Charge.

All the various debuffs in Ice Arrow with all that -special plus the fact it procs well make this a hard one to skip. It makes things like holds and all types of stuff better on target, I could never fathom not having this in my attack chain. I wouldn't skip any arrows but if I had to Net and Glue arrows are the ones I'd likely drop if I had to.

Soul Mastery all day! If you choose an assault that is light on aoe but has great ST damage consolidated into a few bruising powers like Energy Assault you can just take the best powers and then use Soul to fill in your aoe. Soul might be a little less optimal on more aoe oriented assaults like Psi though. First you get Soul Drain which nets you 100% damage boost and 30% tohitt boost for 30s every other 30s. Not only does it do that but it also does good pbaoe damage on its own and procs decent, hell of an attack to supplement into your chain. Then there's Dark Obliteration which is a nice fast animating and fast recharging target aoe blast that hits 16 targets for decent damage and it feeds some -tohitt. Powered with the damage boost from Soul Drain Obliteration is Fireball-lite. Lastly another overlooked power is Dark Consumption. The recharge is quite high so this thing is set for proc bombing and since you're a dommie building for recharge this attack will recharge well. Any procs you slot in this will fire on 9 out of 10 targets guaranteed which I have the gladiator -resistance proc which at -20% resistance nets me most of the value of going Ice Mastery for sleet at probably 3x the recharge though, but it'll shine bright on AVs. Then you can also load all kinds of other damage procs. Yet another power that supplements more aoe damage for your dom. It also doubles as an endurance refill if you're far off from reclicking domination. Bigtime power. To top it all off the epic armor is one of the best doms can get and heck even the Seer pet at boss level does decent damage and can amp up your dps on AV fights. The 3 aoe attacks are arguably the best ones doms have access to with a few exceptions like Drain Psyche, all packed into one fabulous epic pool.

It's the optimal thing for you to do. Why wouldn't you want to build your tank into the tankiest thing in the game if you have the know-how to do it? Isn't tanking what is expected when teammates see your symbol? I've sacrificed no real damage uptick or anything else that would make me more effective running all content than maximizing my ability to tank aggro at full throttle save for not going with Fold Space. My tank set up as she is can pull even some of the puggiest teams through these in good order as long as I know to build the team for a few essentials. I can tank the first 16 targets and since I'm aware of the increased perception enemies have in these I am much more mindful to watch for incoming aggro from the side so I can head it off before it reaches the team. Once you absorb the alpha the team tends to settle into each group so if we over aggro I'll pick up that incoming alpha since the team should have a handle on the current group. Most other content in the game is so laughably easy that I would just hop onto a blaster or something to 'tank' regular content, so yes I have more damaging characters to breeze through normal+ content if needed. You're not doing your job as the tank if you're not maximizing what you can do and just assuming others can carry the day for you. What this hardmode stuff has done is get me to play characters to their max ability throughout all content. Instead of thinking high benchmarks are a bad thing maybe you should strive to get more creative so if it falls to you that you're able to be relied upon to get your team through one of these superhero.

Well once you go perma you'll not want to come out of it if you can avoid that. I don't even like losing domination when I'm goofing off semi-afk.

It's a decent analysis yes. If I play a dom low level I would save to click domination for when I really need it so it's good to have it in the bag. Usually when I'm around level 30 and plan to play the dom all the way up I will start kitting it to get permadom, it's just a total different animal running content if you're proactively controlling mob to mob. Another thing about Domination is that on the reclick you get 25% tohitt for the first 15s so if you're ever in need of really hitting your targets you can wait to just after clicking it to detonate your best stuff. On teams of 8 it fills back up quick as additional teammates give you larger chunks each power you use in proximity of them. Even still I do my best not to die on this as even if you do rez and can build it back fast if you had just recently clicked Domination it'll be a while before you can get back into it. There's ways to get domination built fast. You can constantly interrupt your slow snipe but you will want to chug some blues or use Gaes. Dominators get most of their better assaults later so until 30 or so you'll be mainly control then when you get your later attacks and some of those great Epic pool powers your dom starts to come into shape. Doms are late bloomers due to best assaults coming late and permadom. Once you wade into those waters it gets all kinds of fun.

Yeah I slot Focus Accuracy with the 3 pieces in Adjusted Targeting for that Energy resist bonus. But I go with all of the pieces that get end redux and +5 em. The best things you get from it is the bonus Accuracy and that -tohitt debuff resistance which you can't enhance and the enhanceable tohitt is equal to a bit better than slotting a kismet, so end reduction is what you want. Plus your Build Up powers are where you're depending on much more offensively.

No I am not a Dark Armor tank. So yes I get that you were adding to the mix of the synergy sprucing up the endurance recovery through heal uniques and what you can do through Physical Perfection and the benefit of U.P. in relation to an armor like Dark that can slot those heal uniques and other things that might need it. I have a Shield tank which has a power that also accepts heal uniques which I do put in the Numina. Speaking from a less endurance heavy armor than Dark Armor I found a need to significantly boost endurance through ways outside the armors means which I find U.P. to be a fantabulous option to all tanks. I do go with Energy Mastery because in the end I had one power to spare and I agree that Focus Accuracy is a fantastic power. Being already in the Energy pool I did my direct comparisons of Physical Perfection and U.P. and found the small amount of additional recovery all time didn't outweigh all of the huge burst of defense, regen and recovery which with a decent recharge allowed you to do so much more.

Mine I have gotten down on my tank to recharge in about 3 to 3 1/2 minutes. So one minute up, two minutes down. It's there when I really need it.

I had Physical Perfection on my tank before these Hard Mode task forces. The endurance recovery is paltry compared to Unleash Potential so when I got hit through my defenses with a smelters minute lasting endurance debuff Physical Perfection was just not seeing me through. Whereas Unleash Potential got me through those endurance debuffs with also the side benefit of 25% more defenses and 150% regen, far more versatile than Physical Perfection.

Unleash Potential is a great power to have when you need it. The biggest thing I use it for is the large endurance recovery in case I get hit with an endurance debuff. That it nets you a large amount of defense and regen at your leisure is extra gravy. I slot mine with 4 Shield Walls all the ones with recharge and the defense one all +5 which I get about 25% defenses to all. If I have an extra slot I'll sometimes throw in a Lotg +recharge. Unleash offers too much to pass up so I'd go with that one first and if you had room Darkest Night.

On one of those I'll put the full 6 set of Gaussian and have that as the main one I know to click more often. Usually the one from primary since it looks more aesthetic in the enhancement screen with the other powers being highly slotted. The other one gets 2 of the Adjusted targeting aiming for the most recharge and I'll +5 them.

Oh and one other thing to consider @Klaymor if you'd like a good chunk of recharge on the cheap is that Energy Assault some of those powers can take the Force Feedback proc. The most optimal one though to slot that is in the snipe. If you get the internal recharge of the snipe to hover around 15s the force feedback is set to proc 2x a minute so twice out of 4 blasts of your snipe but due to having built for such high recharge from global bonuses already I typically would be able to get off 8 snipes in a minute and so usually around 4 times that FF will proc. At 4 procs in a minute you're getting 100% recharge for 20s which equates out to 33% recharge averaged over a minutes time, compare that to the static 7.5% recharge you get from the set of 5 of Manticore. You're depending more on RNG from that recharge because sometimes that proc will under fire but even at it's lowest I figured I was getting 15% or so additional recharge and higher than that 33% since it can over fire. So if you're in a comfortable spot already with recharge you can get creative with that snipe.

Not really just a purple soft cap but a rule for most IOs that you normally can only have 5x of a certain bonus. So those Lotg's are capped at 5 but because they are a different categorization in your listing of bonuses because of naming you can also then get 5x the normal 7.5% recharge like the one you're getting from Manticore set.