Titan Weapon vs. Axe

[Adeon Hawkwood]

So I mostly play ranged characters but back on live I did have a Inv/Axe Tanker that I quite liked (she was originally a joke that you were required to have at least one catgirl character if you played on Virtue so I made a catgirl in power armor).

 

In any case I'm contemplating remaking her as a Inv/Titan Tanker. So how does Titan Weapons compare to Axe for Tankers? It looks decent but it's hard to tell.

[marcussmythe]

I have TW both with Bio (Scrapper) and with Dark (Tank).  What follows is a repost, but should answer the question asked.

 

Titan Weapons 101:

 

You want damage?  It does that.  Single Target?  Yup.  AOE?  Bobs your uncle.  So much damage.  My Tank (in momentum time) feels like a scrapper.  My scrapper feels like something is broken in the game.

 

You want soft control?  Meet my knockdown.  SO much knockdown.  See those guys that were attack you?  See them fall on their butts?  Yup.  Gnite, Gracie.

 

You want to defense?  Did I mention the first attack isnt really an attack, its a buff to Smashing and Melee Defense, and not a small one? (That said, it ISNT an attack, its damage is non-existent, dont spam without reason)

 

Now, that's the pros.  Lets talk about the Cons:

 

It matures late. Most of the powers you take early?  Yeah, youll be respecing some of those out for the better ones later on.  So late.  The character competely changes every time a new attack comes online.

 

It matures -really- late.  Until youve got a solid attack chain (I mean in your 20s) with good uptime on hasten and build momentum (even later on), its gonna feel reaaaaly plug and chunk.  Brief windows of murdergod followed by loooooooong animations while you make a sandwich and wait for the blow to land.  And then make another sandwich.

 

It eats your END. All your END.  The END costs are appropriate to the damage, and I think a bit more, and during Momentum bursts, you'll swallow your END like its not even a thing.  Only character where I buy BLUES on the way out of the Hospital, rather than purples.  And your best single-target chain has an AOE in it, so there goes more.  Slurp Slurp Slurp.  You know Conserve Power?  The thing that Incarnates and IO sets kinda killed off?  Youll be considering it deeply.  Or finding a defender to hug.  Hug your defender - they deserve your hugs.

 

It eats your animation time. Not in momentum, want to attack something?  EVERY attack, outside momentum, is a wind-up animation that makes Total Focus look quick.  Your not going anywhere for a WHILE, have a snickers.  And hope nothing bad happens while your swinging that big ole thing around, because if your desperately needing to CLICK TO NOT DIE, well, you wont be clicking.  Debt gives badges!  Yay badges!

 

It eats your attention. Attack chains?  You know where you look at your powers and figure out to do your real buisness youll need to press 1, then 2, then 3, then 2, then 1 again, and repeat, something like that?  Yeah, theres none of that.  Your 'Attack Chain' is 'what is the best I can fit in thats just finished recharging in the brief few seconds of momentum I have left so I can trigger the last attack while still in momentum time and maybe Build Momentum will be off CD by the time it finishes animating ohgod I had to stop to CLICK TO NOT DIE and now its all fallen apart time to start over'

 

WITH MY DARK, END was a problem thats slowly being overcome by slotting in every trick for end reduction the IO world offers, by being very judicious in which attacks I use (will a smaller, cheaper attack finish off that minion? USE IT, dont spend END on the big gun just to see the numbers.  Hit AOE nao or wait a second to catch more targets and also get a recovery tick?  Yeah, wait, more targets is more end efficient.)

 

WITH MY BIO - Everythings still a problem.  She needs a respec and some TLC.  I think 'Cruise Control for Cool' wont set in till early 40s, and there wont be any time where the looooong windup wont be painful when coupled with her CLICK TO NOT DIE secondary set.  At least its not regen.  That said, Bio Armor - in Offensive Adaptation - is the most +DAM to be found in Scrapperdom, outside of a Shield and an Audience... and power has a price, are you willing to pay it?

 

If I really wanted to do Titan Weapons, for its own sake (and not as one of marcussmythes crazy 'lets push the edges of sanity, game design, and stability' exercises), Id probably pair it with Willpower, most likely on a Brute, and enjoy my +Rec and otherwise low-management defense set while I devoted my life to the care and feeding of an attack 'rotation' that is only slightly less intensive than a Feral Druid in Wrath.  (If anyone else ever rolled that rotation in a raid, and reads this, you know what I mean)

 

I think on an Invuln it will mature later than on WP (no end buff), but once youve settled i to a late-game ‘puny attacks not harm me!’ invuln, youll be able to focus on your Titan Secondary - to its benefit.  TW will always remain a ‘thinky’ set, and if I wrote a guide (I may after some time at 50) it will be called ‘Measured Violence’

[jack_nomind]

To modify a point made above, the second-best single-target attack chain for TW is:

 

Rend Armor (gain Momentum) -> Follow Through -> Crushing Blow -> Titan Sweep -> (slight pause) Follow Through (lose momentum) -> (slight pause) Repeat

 

The first best swaps Arc of Destruction for Titan Sweep, at a significant increase in END cost.

 

The best practical AoE attack chain is:

 

Rend Armor (gain Momentum) -> Titan Sweep -> Whirling Smash -> Arc -> Titan Sweep.  Technically it's possible to do Whirl -> Titan -> Arc -> (slight pause) Whirl, but you need a pocket kin.

[marcussmythe]

To modify a point made above, the second-best single-target attack chain for TW is:

 

Rend Armor (gain Momentum) -> Follow Through -> Crushing Blow -> Titan Sweep -> (slight pause) Follow Through (lose momentum) -> (slight pause) Repeat

 

The first best swaps Arc of Destruction for Titan Sweep, at a significant increase in END cost.

 

The best practical AoE attack chain is:

 

Rend Armor (gain Momentum) -> Titan Sweep -> Whirling Smash -> Arc -> Titan Sweep.  Technically it's possible to do Whirl -> Titan -> Arc -> (slight pause) Whirl, but you need a pocket kin.

 

You’ve obviously got a higher level TW than I do - anything else you can expand on of my above, espc as it relates to endgame?

[jack_nomind]

For endgame?  Not really.  It might be better specifically as a Tanker to swap in Defensive Sweep for Crushing Blow in the ST attack chain and Rend Armor in the AoE attack chain to keep Bruising up.

 

In response to the OP, even though Invuln doesn't have any obvious synergies with TW, they do both synergize nicely with Agility Alpha.  Would be a good combo to take Victory Rush on.  Also, I hate doing direct comparisons between sets, but TW is the highest melee damage set and Axe is one of the lowest, and only offers KD -- which TW doesn't struggle with.  If you can mange the END, TW is flatly better.

 

 

[David Dun]

What if you paired TW with Elec or Rad, Dont both offer END regen?

[Coyote]

What if you paired TW with Elec or Rad, Dont both offer END regen?

 

Electric was my choice, it offers both an End Discount power (perma-able) and Power Sink.

[Gigajoule]

Electric Armor would definitely be something to consider pairing with TW. In addition to Power Sink and Energize, which go a long way toward fixing End problems, Elec Armor is also highly resistant to End-draining and Recovery-debuffing effects, which I imagine would otherwise be pretty annoying to a build that is heavy on the End-usage already.

[Scientist]

For endgame?  Not really.  It might be better specifically as a Tanker to swap in Defensive Sweep for Crushing Blow in the ST attack chain and Rend Armor in the AoE attack chain to keep Bruising up.

 

In particular, as a Tanker you get the -resist debuff from Defensive Sweep since it is their Tier 1 attack.  That might be another reason to swap it into an attack chain on a tank, possibly even an AoE one. 

 

I did have a question about Arc of Destruction, Pine's hero designer says it has "knockback", is it actually knockback or knockdown?

[jack_nomind]

I did have a question about Arc of Destruction, Pine's hero designer says it has "knockback", is it actually knockback or knockdown?

 

Knockdown is "knockback, but with a magnitude of less than 1."  The magnitude of Arc's KB is 0.67.

[IronJuke]

I played an Inv/Axe tanker in live for a really long time.  Axe has that crazy Knockback on all it's powers.  It's pretty annoying and I would not take it again.

 

Still, my character was in high demand for TF's and other group content.

 

Back then it was an OK powerset because the number of tanker sets was pretty limited. 

 

The main thing was could you hold aggro and stay alive.  That was never an issue, especially with Invulnerability.

 

Now you have a lot of sets to play around with.  Titan weapons sounds one of the better and more fun pairings.

 

Broadsword, dual wield, dark melee, staff also sound decent. 

 

 

[Without_Pause]

Since Rad has a click power for recharge, it makes me wonder if using it and Hasten wouldn't be a decent path to go.

[jack_nomind]

I played an Inv/Axe tanker in live for a really long time.  Axe has that crazy Knockback on all it's powers.  It's pretty annoying and I would not take it again.

 

All Axe powers -- afaik all melee powers (although there are ranged powers in melee sets) -- were changed to do KD rather than KB.