Thinking of switching from brute to tanker for farm.

[Solarverse]

On 2/10/2020 at 2:08 PM, Kaballah said:

I made a fire/fire/pyre tanker

This right here. I was wondering how far in I would have to read before finding somebody else who rolled a Fire/Fire/Fire. Mine is insane, and honestly, I enjoy it a hell of a lot better than a Spines/Fire. Tanks get two AoEs in the secondary, which well makes up for the Spines IMO. I don't know which is "better" but I do know which one is more fun and less annoying to listen to.  😉

[Kaballah]

The attack chain is way more satisfying for sure, you can cycle 3 large-radius 16 target AOEs with a tap of Incinerate or whatever here and there, forever.  If you wanted to break theme you could take Mu instead and have a really powerful cone too.

[Sensor]

Regarding taunt/fleeing foes—

 

the current beta patch has resolved that with many testers confirming positive results. Not sure when this patch will go live but looking good!
 

Checkout the beta forum for more insight, or swing a Psy Melee weapon for some too. 😜

[Bronana16969]

For fire/fire/pyre, the chain would look like what.. fireball-burn-fsc-bof rinse repeat? Combustion ended up being my mule for 4 slots of the ATO for +10% rech and 2 of the other ATO for +max end and the other ATO proc incase I were to take this build elsewhere.  Those last two slots are obviously the first to go should I choose to add anything else.

Edited February 12, 2020 by Bronana16969
Sp

[Sovera]

2 hours ago, Bronana16969 said:

For fire/fire/pyre, the chain would look like what.. fireball-burn-fsc-bof rinse repeat? Combustion ended up being my mule for 4 slots of the ATO for +10% rech and 2 of the other ATO for +max end and the other ATO proc incase I were to take this build elsewhere.  Those last two slots are obviously the first to go should I choose to add anything else.

What about single target? Fiery Embrace + BU looks like sudden burst which has been nagging at me. Rad and Spines might be the hot thing, but an early access Burn that serves for ST and AoE purpose seems like a lynchpin like Stalkers fixing ST problems.

[Bronana16969]

8 minutes ago, Sovera said:

What about single target? Fiery Embrace + BU looks like sudden burst which has been nagging at me. Rad and Spines might be the hot thing, but an early access Burn that serves for ST and AoE purpose seems like a lynchpin like Stalkers fixing ST problems.

For single target you have gfs or incin depending on which is better dpa.  Ideally though the point of the tank would be hit cap. So I would just drag the mobs to the next spawn if possible.  There's also fire blast if you decide to slot it for more than just the 10% recharge bonus from apocalypse.

[KelvinKole]

Savage Melee deserves a spot in this conversation too, I think. Having now hit 50 on my dark/savage, I can see the aoe potential is massive. Savage leap and rending flurry are huge dpa attacks, particularly if you use RF at 5 stacks of blood lust. Fire/Savage should get work done. 

[Kaballah]

I stuck with Combustion because even though it has a long activation time it still does very good damage and is painless to apply to max targets, unlike fire breath (which I skipped but sure, take it too if you like).

[Kinvesu]

1 hour ago, KelvinKole said:

Savage Melee deserves a spot in this conversation too, I think. Having now hit 50 on my dark/savage, I can see the aoe potential is massive. Savage leap and rending flurry are huge dpa attacks, particularly if you use RF at 5 stacks of blood lust. Fire/Savage should get work done. 

How is your dark/savage in survivability/damage? I made a brute one cause I thought it would pair well together but, I am only level 10 and I just get this aching feeling I was wrong for no particular reason at all. Maybe a tanker would make me think different.

[KelvinKole]

36 minutes ago, Kinvesu said:

How is your dark/savage in survivability/damage? I made a brute one cause I thought it would pair well together but, I am only level 10 and I just get this aching feeling I was wrong for no particular reason at all. Maybe a tanker would make me think different.

He's been a joy to play and level. Dark armor is an old favorite of mine and a very underrated set. Obviously it's more durable out of the box on a tanker, but a full IO build can get you to the resistance cap on 6-7 out of 8 damage types. I think it's the best resistance based set, which also has a monster heal that only needs two targets to fully refill your hp (Tip: use the theft of essence proc to turn dark regen into a psuedo endurance booster too). 

 

Savage Melee pairs well due to Blood frenzy lowering your endurance cost and offseting the demands of dark armor. I picked Savage mostly for theme and am really glad I did. As I said, aoe damage is great and the primary single target attack chain is very fast. Just don't take hemorrage; it's lower dpa and does the majority of its damage as a slow dot. You're better off saving your blood frenzy stacks or spending them on rending flurry. 

Edited February 13, 2020 by KelvinKole

[Sovera]

9 hours ago, Bronana16969 said:

For single target you have gfs or incin depending on which is better dpa.  Ideally though the point of the tank would be hit cap. So I would just drag the mobs to the next spawn if possible.  There's also fire blast if you decide to slot it for more than just the 10% recharge bonus from apocalypse.

The more I play the less I think AoE is important. Except for farming. It's a bit of a volte-face after being part of the crowd touting the game as being mostly AoE but the more I play the more it is how I feel. Farming, or under level 25, and even it's sketchy. So the buffs feel a lot like spreadsheet buffs. It's nice to hit more targets, but when are we surrounded by 16 enemies except in a farm?

 

I'm sure people will bring up the times they managed to get three packs together and etc, but in practice we jump into a pack of 10-12 mobs, first random AoE casually tossed out kills all minions and it's down to 4-5 mobs, who are then AoEd down, sure, but mostly STed.

 

But FE + BU + Burns makes me think the ST aspect can be accounted for even if not at brute/scrapper levels.

[Sailboat]

18 hours ago, KelvinKole said:

Savage Melee deserves a spot in this conversation too, I think. Having now hit 50 on my dark/savage, I can see the aoe potential is massive. Savage leap and rending flurry are huge dpa attacks, particularly if you use RF at 5 stacks of blood lust. Fire/Savage should get work done. 

Doesn't expending 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy merely increase the radius of Rending Flurry, not damage?  Or am I misunderstanding DPA?

[KelvinKole]

3 minutes ago, Sailboat said:

Doesn't expending 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy merely increase the radius of Rending Flurry, not damage?  Or am I misunderstanding DPA?

Each stack of blood frenzy consumed increases the damage. 5 stacks is max damage. IF you activate it at 5 stacks, it ALSO increases the radius a great deal.

 

DPA values in mids are only calculated assuming 1 target hit, iirc, so the calculation for an Aoe attack may be open for debate.

[Sailboat]

Back in the day (pre-Homecoming, waaay before the Tanker buffs) I had a Fire/Fire/Pyre Tanker with IO sets.  She was able to chain Fire Sword Circle, Combustion, Fireball, Burn continuously, with only a fraction of a second hesitation in the chain.  Fire Breath didn't fit the concept, but no doubt is decent now.

 

I have rebuilt her on Homecoming although she's not fully IOed yet at 43, nor does she have Fireball yet.  But the 16-target caps, greater damage base, and improved radii are huge improvements!

 

Both versions used 5- or 6-slotted Fire Sword, Incinerate and Greater Fire Sword for single-target, and I'm personally happy with that chain, although I'm not an attack chain guru.  Fire Sword makes up for being the lowest damage of the three with blazing animation speed and good recharge, great for tapping when you want to get damage in right now.

 

[Sailboat]

26 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

Each stack of blood frenzy consumed increases the damage. 5 stacks is max damage. IF you activate it at 5 stacks, it ALSO increases the radius a great deal

 

Ah...I've been looking for increased damage % in the monitoring window for HAVING stacks...and not seeing any.  But it's CONSUMING stacks that does the +damage?  That would explain a lot.

[Saikochoro]

So I have a question on this topic. I started some low key farming on my fire / SS tanker and also a rad / fire Brute. Both in the mid 40s. 
 

Both have capped fire resistance and I am doing fire farms. The tanker feels MUCH more survivable than the Brute, but I guess I thought there shouldn’t be much of a difference since both have capped fire resistance. 
 

I can do +3/+8 without purples on my tanker without a problem. But even at just +1/+8 on my Brute I sometimes have to eat a couple purples with big mobs or else my HP starts dropping pretty fast. I do have both the tanker ATO sets on the tanker, but only one ATO set on the Brute. Not sure if that would make much of a difference.  I don’t have any other sets. Just the common IOs to fill out the rest of the slots. 
 

Any ideas why the tanker feels so much more survivable? Maybe the knockdown from foot stomp? Or is there something simple that I’m missing?

Edited February 17, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Kaballah]

Capped fire resistance is only part of it, if you have no fire def then you're going to be busy doing active things to avoid defeat.  You can pile up all the fire def in the world though and fairly easily cap it both on brute or tanker (easier for tanker tho).

 

Tanker has an advantage due to larger base life, which is magnified by resistance and later by bonus life added by percentage of base, from accolades or IO set bonuses and uniques.  Various things that grant absorption (temporary health increases) like the proc from Preventive Medicine or Gauntleted Fist are a percentage of base health.  Regeneration (even the base amount from your intrinsic but also the little bits you get from set IO bonuses) depends crucially on total health.  The flat health from Panacea's proc piece is a percentage of base health.  All this adds up, large base health is very powerful.

Edited February 17, 2020 by Kaballah

[ashenlost]

I never noticed mobs fleeing but then my farmer is a ice/fire brute so I use ice patch to keep them flopping about anyway