Is Bio-Armor the perfect Tanker primary?

[GastlyGibus]

Alternate thread title: Convince me to play a different primary set.

I recently rolled a Bio/Claws Tanker, came up with a costume and backstory I was happy with, and went to town. Normally I have crippling altitis and struggle to get any character past 20 without moving on to something else, but lately I've been obsessively playing my Bio Tanker non-stop. He's at 38 now, and so far I've been feeling so over-powered it's ridiculous. And this is with just SO's.

Whether solo or on a team, I seem to be completely invulnerable. Parasitic Aura is a beast of a Tier 9, with a tiny cooldown and near-invulnerability for 45 seconds. I have three forms I can switch to for any occasion. Doing a Penelope Yin TF with lots of Super Stunners? Efficiency Adaptation. Team has another tank and I don't need the extra armor? Offensive Adaptation. I'm the sole Tanker on the team and I need to live? Defensive Adaptation.

Basically, the point of this thread is thus: with my Bio-Armor Tanker feeling so massively overpowered, are there any drawbacks to this set at all? I put out some pretty hefty damage, I'm nigh-invulnerable, and for once I have a character with virtually no endurance issues whatsoever. I'll probably go and try other primaries, but I don't think I've ever seen a set that made me feel as powerful as Bio-Armor has.

[Mistforged]

Try it with Titan weapons or super strength if you think claws is good 😛

[Gobbledigook]

Defence debuffs, slows and endurance drains to a lesser extent to name a few.

 

But the set is sturdy and you can build some slow resist in.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[Psyonico]

yeah, Defense Debuffs and -Recharge are the bane of Bio because it relies on 3 click powers to survive.  It's a great set, don't get me wrong, but it is not head and shoulders above the other sets IMO.

[Bopper]

Stone Armor. Give me those granite debuffs, I'll still survive

[Carnifax]

Its a great layered defensive set but reasonably vulnerable to those defenses being stripped out. 

 

IDF can flatten regen and do nasty things to your defenses. Carnie ring mistresses can also give you a hell of a fright, especially if a few minions tear up your blue bar by dying too.

 

Still its not a case of "these are your kryptonite", more that you have to be prepared heading into a spawn ready to switch forms and when to trigger the heal to compensate if needed. 

 

As a set it feels adaptive, which I guess is success in how it was designed. 

[Psyonico]

27 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Stone Armor. Give me those granite debuffs, I'll still survive

It's also easier to cap out Res/Def to all but Psi in Granite

 

And yes, you can do this while removing the penalties.

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

It's also easier to cap out Res/Def to all but Psi in Granite

 

And yes, you can do this while removing the penalties.

Can cap out Psi Resists too. Then switch to Minerals for capped psi defense if that is all you're facing

[VV]

10 hours ago, GastlyGibus said:

Basically, the point of this thread is thus: with my Bio-Armor Tanker feeling so massively overpowered, are there any drawbacks to this set at all?

I have a /Bio Brute and the main drawback I see is just that it is so clicky. Other than that, it seems like a really solid set.

[Heraclea]

It is a very good set to be sure.  Best t9 power in the game.  It lacks a real minimal FX mode; at best it will turn your character into Pig Pen.  This is somewhat limiting for your concepts.

 

I still think Invulnerability is the best tanker primary, especially when paired with a secondary with a self heal like Dark or Radiation Melee.  But Bio is quite adequate and probably more fun to play with.  I have a Bio/Spines at 50; all she has to do is show up and mobs start dropping. 

[Hjarki]

When evaluating Tanker primaries, I tend to consider Defense Debuffs, Hit Debuffs, Psi Defense, Toxic Resist and resist holes.

 

Bio is terrible against Defense Debuffs, it's good against Hit Debuffs, weak on Psi Defense, weak on Toxic Resist. It has a 'resist hole' to everything that's not S/L.

 

Overall, it depends an enormous amount on proactively debuffing, which can be problematic with spawns that exceed the target cap, are out-of-range or that heavily resist debuffs.

 

When you put it all together, I'd argue that Bio is actually one of the weaker Tanker primaries. A large part of the reason you play Tanker (rather than Stalker, Scrapper or Brute) is because you want to be tough against the things that kill other people. But Bio just isn't that. It's not the sort of primary you want if you're going to go after a random AV or fight unusual enemies. When I look at Bio, I'm really thinking 'Scrapper' more than anything else.

[Gobbledigook]

I have built characters with high resists and others with high regeneration. but the sturdiest i have built so far in doing most content is a shield defence tanker. The defences can't be stripped as he is at 90%+ DDR and has ITF levels of defence with some decent resists with a few procs. He lacks healing but never really needs it, even when rage crashes, they just can't hit him and those that do are subject to some decent resists.  Some mobs will be his weakness but they are not many. Invuln would be very good also if not better.

 

Having no DDR  and having Defences stripped is a big mitigation loss. 90% resists is nice but you will still take a fair amount of damage if swarmed and are open to more debuffs due to no defence.

 

High regeneration is great if the mitigation is good too. Strip that mitigation and the healing will usually fail slowly. Plus they are also more open to debuffs.

 

Saying that though Bio is very good, i just find SD with its DDR superior in survival.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[marcussmythe]

My experience is that endgame survival comes from shaking off massive spikes that get through DEF, and avoiding Debuffs.

 

Bio is phenomenal at most things, but it gets a lot of its survival from healing (which does not help against spikes) and has no Def Debuff Resist (which means that no matter what your DEF, it will get  ripped off constantly - leasing to cascade failure across the whole character).

 

Bio is a great set, and great fun.  But in terms of PURE SURVIVAL (which is why your playing a tank, I assume), it is not the best choice.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Actually, bio's strength comes from absorption, not healing. Adding a ton of HP before enemy alpha strikes so that you ignore them completely is pretty substantial. Having two powers that grant absorption on top of an aoe heal is crazy good mitigation.

 

And as I just learned recently, the defense debuff resistance from ageless radial is substantial enough to make me take a new look at ALL of my Non-SR defense based characters.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Xandyr]

Yes. Yes it is.

[Hyperstrike]

Bio's okay.  A bit too "actively managed" for my taste.

Invuln would be my pick for best all-around.
Shield and WP are VERY close seconds.

Stone is still the gold standard for flat-out toughness.  It's just no longer worth the crippling downsides.

The Resist-centric sets are great in their own way.

 

[Hjarki]

4 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

Invuln would be my pick for best all-around.

The problem with 'all-around' is that focusing on one layer of mitigation tends to pay off a lot more than addressing all of them.

 

Going from 0% Resist to 50% Resist halves the damage you take. Going from 50% Resist to 90% Resist is a five-fold increase in mitigation. So if your build is structured around getting to 50% Resist... and then switching to Defense/Regen, you're leaving most of the value on the table.

 

The same is true for Defense. 0% to 30% Defense reduces damage by ~66%. Going from 30% to 45% defense reduces damage six-fold.

[Hyperstrike]

11 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

The problem with 'all-around' is that focusing on one layer of mitigation tends to pay off a lot more than addressing all of them.

 

Going from 0% Resist to 50% Resist halves the damage you take. Going from 50% Resist to 90% Resist is a five-fold increase in mitigation. So if your build is structured around getting to 50% Resist... and then switching to Defense/Regen, you're leaving most of the value on the table.

 

The same is true for Defense. 0% to 30% Defense reduces damage by ~66%. Going from 30% to 45% defense reduces damage six-fold.

Yeah, but that's not what's happening with Invuln.  You're going from a significant amount, unslotted, to very high amounts.
With Invuln, it's fairly simple to achieve soft-cap and beyond for Defense.
At which point, you start looking for heightened Resist.

Going from baseline 17.5% Defense and 60/36/35/35/45 Resist
to
54/48/51 Defense and 90/77/70/55/72 Resist (and being able to turn off Tough and save Endurance along the way) is fairly substantial.

And not that's with zero enemies in range.

 

[LorannaPyrel]

Have you looked at Radiation Armor? Solid resists, with two "holes" that are easily patchable with set bonuses, combined with a decent absorb shield, a self-heal that grows stronger with more enemies around you, helpful debuffs, and some innate end drain and slow/recharge resist. Also, the set's fairly "hands-off"; set your absorb shield on auto, use self heal when it's needed as either a self heal or as a regen debuff, and you're good 🙂

 

True, no innate defense, nor any defense debuff resist, but you have resists and healing/absorb as your main sources of mitigation, and some offensive debuffs to make killing targets easier - plus a mini melee nuke that, with the right slotting, can also knock an entire spawn on its collective duff, to help mitigate an alpha, over and above what your secondary offers.

 

- Loranna

[KelvinKole]

Though not often talked about, you can get silly levels of regen in effecient adaptation. It's Regeneration for Tanks, in disguise. 

[Hyperstrike]

12 hours ago, LorannaPyrel said:

Have you looked at Radiation Armor? Solid resists, with two "holes" that are easily patchable with set bonuses, combined with a decent absorb shield, a self-heal that grows stronger with more enemies around you, helpful debuffs, and some innate end drain and slow/recharge resist. Also, the set's fairly "hands-off"; set your absorb shield on auto, use self heal when it's needed as either a self heal or as a regen debuff, and you're good 🙂

 

True, no innate defense, nor any defense debuff resist, but you have resists and healing/absorb as your main sources of mitigation, and some offensive debuffs to make killing targets easier - plus a mini melee nuke that, with the right slotting, can also knock an entire spawn on its collective duff, to help mitigate an alpha, over and above what your secondary offers.

 

- Loranna

With my Rad/Rad tank, I did what I normally do with Resist Tanks.  I slather on Defense early.
That got me into the late 30's and then I hit a wall.
Basically I'd compromised the Resists so badly that anything that could get through my meager defense would just WRECK me.

So I respec'ed into a Resist-centric setup and...

OH
DEAR
LORD
!!!!!!!!!

 

The thing became damn near unkillable!

That became all the impetus I needed to rework my Fire and Elec Tanks.
They went from "decent" Tanks to "HOW THE HELL DID I SURVIVE THAT?"

And now if I have a monitor up for Defense just for laughs.

"I'm Defense Debuffed into negative numbers!  What EVER shall I do?  MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

[LorannaPyrel]

1 hour ago, Hyperstrike said:

With my Rad/Rad tank, I did what I normally do with Resist Tanks.  I slather on Defense early.
That got me into the late 30's and then I hit a wall.
Basically I'd compromised the Resists so badly that anything that could get through my meager defense would just WRECK me.

So I respec'ed into a Resist-centric setup and...

OH
DEAR
LORD
!!!!!!!!!

 

The thing became damn near unkillable!

That became all the impetus I needed to rework my Fire and Elec Tanks.
They went from "decent" Tanks to "HOW THE HELL DID I SURVIVE THAT?"

And now if I have a monitor up for Defense just for laughs.

"I'm Defense Debuffed into negative numbers!  What EVER shall I do?  MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

 

Hehehehehe . . .yup; that's been my experience with both Electric Armor and Rad Armor on Tanks ^_^

 

As for Defense, well, the nice thing about resist based armors for Tanks is, you can still get a good 20% to all positions and types, base, without sacrificing resists or recharge. That's enough that a medium purple will softcap you for about a minute, a T4 Barrier will softcap you for the first thirty seconds, and most any support toon's defense buffs will rocket you into the stratosphere without any problem. Sure, there's no defense debuff resist, but you honestly don't need the DDR; your Defense is there as a tertiary form of mitigation.

 

. . . Though, if you want to get silly about it (and of course, I always do 🙂 ) - grab Soul Mastery. Hardcapped resists to 5 or 6 damage types, rocking absorb shield, -to hit debuffs in your epic attacks, and oh yeah - DARKEST NIGHT, just to mess with AVs that much more. And, of course, you have a decent ranged attack for those times Battle Maiden refuses to step out of the blue patches, or to act as a more . . . forceful Taunt on that lone enemy that slipped past to go after the Squishies.

 

- Loranna

[Xandyr]

18 hours ago, KelvinKole said:

Though not often talked about, you can get silly levels of regen in effecient adaptation. It's Regeneration for Tanks, in disguise. 

QFT. My Bio tank regens better than Regen scrappers with Instant Healing running. I've hit 250 hp/sec, with 125 hp/sec being my "average ". Hard to go down when you have solid defenses, resists, and regenerating that much.