Titan Weapons: help me into the playstyle mindset

[Techwright]

A year ago, I built a Titan Weapon/Rad brute.  I liked the concept, I liked the look.  I...didn't connect with the playstyle.   😞  After 27 levels of frustration, I reluctantly tabled him and went to build...pretty much everything else since I understood them, even masterminds, which I'd previously thought were the big change in playstyle thinking.

 

I'd really like to dust off my character and make it work this time, but I need some help in understanding how this beast of swing and smash smoothly operates.  I've done a few hours of reading and searching, but either my search-fu is weak (likely) or what I seek is just not out there yet.

 

First off, I understand momentum is necessary, and that I'm wielding something so huge that it takes a moment to start.  But getting things going is painfully long.  Is there something I can use, like say interrupt, that reduces that start-up by, say, 25% to 50%?

 

Second, momentum is supposed to keep things going, yes?  Then why, even when I've queued up my next move, before he finishes another, does the brute suddenly start going through a warm-up to an action again?  It doesn't happen consistently, which makes it more confusing to me.  

 

Third,  I was losing opportunity because other strikes were not ready to go, everything was still resetting.  I've resorted to doubling up on recharge time enhancements to try to keep something active showing.  However, I've never had to do that with any build before, so I suspect I might not be doing it right.  How to keep something active at hand?

 

Fourth, even when double-slotting the recharge time, when I get to the end of the abilities, the character again goes through a warmup to swing, despite having an ability available.  I believe I was not out of momentum.  Is there anything I can build into the character that would keep him swinging as long as momentum is maintained?

 

Fifth, though I generally do not work with a rotation, I can see where rotation would be important with Titan Weapons.  May I have a good brute TW rotation, please?

 

Lastly,  an opinion please:  does TW/Rad lend itself better to a tank or a brute?  I'd rather stop at 27 and rebuild as a tank if I had to, than to continue on and find I'm forever frustrated with the performance.

 

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

[Nemu]

Momentum only last a few seconds, after which you have to build it again by connecting with an attack using the normal slow animation, or hit build momentum.

 

I'd recommend slotting the force feedback proc into titan sweep, whirling smash and arc of destruction if you are able. Having build momentum up more help smooth out the game play experience.

 

Also, build a Titan/Energy aura scrapper, no one builds those and you can be one of the cool people, like me. Titan/Energy Aura is stronk AF, and even prettier than War Mace/Energy Aura.

[BZRKR]

35 minutes ago, Techwright said:

First off, I understand momentum is necessary, and that I'm wielding something so huge that it takes a moment to start.  But getting things going is painfully long.  Is there something I can use, like say interrupt, that reduces that start-up by, say, 25% to 50%?

The power "Build Momentum" gives you momentum when you click it. Otherwise, you will have to do a slow attack to start each attack chain.

 

36 minutes ago, Techwright said:

Second, momentum is supposed to keep things going, yes?  Then why, even when I've queued up my next move, before he finishes another, does the brute suddenly start going through a warm-up to an action again?  It doesn't happen consistently, which makes it more confusing to me. 

Try to think of momentum as a "fast attack" state that comes and goes. When you have Momentum, you should see the word "MOMENTUM" in red in your buff indicator area. When you have it, you have it. When you don't, you don't.

38 minutes ago, Techwright said:

Third,  I was losing opportunity because other strikes were not ready to go, everything was still resetting.  I've resorted to doubling up on recharge time enhancements to try to keep something active showing.  However, I've never had to do that with any build before, so I suspect I might not be doing it right.  How to keep something active at hand?

+Recharge is needed to ensure that you have an attack ready to fire off while you have Momentum. Really smoothing out the attack chain will take IO sets at a minimum. Luckily, Beta Decay also helps.

 

40 minutes ago, Techwright said:

Fourth, even when double-slotting the recharge time, when I get to the end of the abilities, the character again goes through a warmup to swing, despite having an ability available.  I believe I was not out of momentum.  Is there anything I can build into the character that would keep him swinging as long as momentum is maintained?

If the red "MOMENTUM" text is not present, you aren't in momentum, and will have to do a slow attack. Again, +recharge (global or from enhancements) are needed for smooth-ish attacking. Two enhancements is probably not enough. Also, if you are experiencing slow network connectivity or "lag", the ability to fire off attacks in your momentum window will be affected by that too.

 

43 minutes ago, Techwright said:

Fifth, though I generally do not work with a rotation, I can see where rotation would be important with Titan Weapons.  May I have a good brute TW rotation, please?

 

Lastly,  an opinion please:  does TW/Rad lend itself better to a tank or a brute?  I'd rather stop at 27 and rebuild as a tank if I had to, than to continue on and find I'm forever frustrated with the performance.

My main character right now is a Radiation/ Titan Weapon Tanker. At lvl 50, my attack chains are:

Arc of Destruction>Whirling Smash>Follow Through>Whirling Smash

Rend Armor>Follow Through>Whirling Smash> Rend Armor

 

If Build Momentum is up, the chains are:

Build Momentum>Whirling Smash>Arc of Destruction>Whirling Smash

Build Momentum>Rend Armor>Follow Through>Whirling Smash>Arc of Destruction

 

I sprinkle in Defensive Sweeps at the beginning or end of the chains to get the defense bonuses or try for Proc activations as needed. I don't have Crushing Blow or Titan Sweep.

 

In between Titan Weapon attacks, I will do sets of my other powers: Radiation Therapy>Particle Shielding>Ground Zero>Barrier or similar. I like to "kick off" fights with my Vorpal Judgement.

 

As for the "Tanker or Brute" question, all I can say is that I went with a Tanker because I wanted to feel better about having to stand there taking attacks while I was doing the slow attacks, and because Radiation Armor on a Tanker is very nice.

[Hjarki]

11 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

My main character right now is a Radiation/ Titan Weapon Tanker. At lvl 50, my attack chains are:

Arc of Destruction>Whirling Smash>Follow Through>Whirling Smash

Rend Armor>Follow Through>Whirling Smash> Rend Armor

How are those attack chains possible? Rend Armor has a 16 sec recharge and Whirling Smash has a 14 sec recharge. To make those attack chains work, you'd need +573% recharge on Rend Armor and +1078% recharge on Whirling Smash.

 

IIRC, Momentum subtracts a second from the animation time and lasts for 5 seconds.

 

So:
Crushing Blow: 2.244/1.188 activation, 2.133 recharge (all @ perma-Hasten)

Follow Through: X/1.188 activation, 2.666 recharge

Rend Armor: 2.508/1.452 activation, 4.266 recharge

 

This would give you a single target sequence of:

0: Crushing Blow

2.244: Follow Through

3.342: Rend Armor

4.884: Crushing Blow

6.072: Follow Through

 

At this point Momentum would be down and you'd be about 0.945 sec away from Crushing Blow coming off recharge to restart the sequence. You could probably toss a Gloom in there.

 

For multi-target:

Whirling Smash: X/1.188 activation, 3.733 recharge

Arc of Destruction: 2.7/1.848 activation, 5.333 recharge

 

At this level of recharge, you can't repeat either Whirling Smash or Arc of Destruction in the same Momentum 'window'. So you're left with Arc of Destruction > Whirling Smash > do other things. However, you've got very limited options for 'other things' - the only other major AE you have available is from epic/patron pools and potentially Burn. I'm not a big fan of either Titan Sweep or Defensive Sweep (for the purposes of damage).

[BZRKR]

1 hour ago, Hjarki said:

How are those attack chains possible? Rend Armor has a 16 sec recharge and Whirling Smash has a 14 sec recharge. To make those attack chains work, you'd need +573% recharge on Rend Armor and +1078% recharge on Whirling Smash.

 

IIRC, Momentum subtracts a second from the animation time and lasts for 5 seconds.

 

So:
Crushing Blow: 2.244/1.188 activation, 2.133 recharge (all @ perma-Hasten)

Follow Through: X/1.188 activation, 2.666 recharge

Rend Armor: 2.508/1.452 activation, 4.266 recharge

 

This would give you a single target sequence of:

0: Crushing Blow

2.244: Follow Through

3.342: Rend Armor

4.884: Crushing Blow

6.072: Follow Through

 

At this point Momentum would be down and you'd be about 0.945 sec away from Crushing Blow coming off recharge to restart the sequence. You could probably toss a Gloom in there.

 

For multi-target:

Whirling Smash: X/1.188 activation, 3.733 recharge

Arc of Destruction: 2.7/1.848 activation, 5.333 recharge

 

At this level of recharge, you can't repeat either Whirling Smash or Arc of Destruction in the same Momentum 'window'. So you're left with Arc of Destruction > Whirling Smash > do other things. However, you've got very limited options for 'other things' - the only other major AE you have available is from epic/patron pools and potentially Burn. I'm not a big fan of either Titan Sweep or Defensive Sweep (for the purposes of damage).

Come to Indomitable at 7:00pm Central US time for the Mothership Raid and hit me up at my global. 

It may very well be that I'm misremembering something, but I'm pretty sure two Whirling Smashes in one momentum window isn't one of those things.

[Hjarki]

1 hour ago, BZRKR said:

Come to Indomitable at 7:00pm Central US time for the Mothership Raid and hit me up at my global. 

It may very well be that I'm misremembering something, but I'm pretty sure two Whirling Smashes in one momentum window isn't one of those things.

If I'm remembering the 5 sec correctly, then you'd need +267% recharge to (barely) get two Whirling Smashes in the same momentum window. This is certain achievable. But you'd need to pack more than just a Follow Through between the first and second Whirling Smash.

[BZRKR]

10 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

If I'm remembering the 5 sec correctly, then you'd need +267% recharge to (barely) get two Whirling Smashes in the same momentum window. This is certain achievable. But you'd need to pack more than just a Follow Through between the first and second Whirling Smash.

I'm home now, and you are correct ... but so am I 🙂

 

Build Momentum gives a 10 second Momentum window, which is plenty of time to do Whirling Smash twice with a filler attack, if I have enough targets triggering Beta Decay to get my global recharge up around 200%. However, the Momentum window from a slow attack is indeed the much shorter 5 seconds, which probably contributes to the extremely uneven feel of the set.

 

Given that I usually run on teams/ leagues, I am positive that what I am thinking was "normal" performance was actually with plenty of buffs that I hadn't bothered to take into account.

 

@Techwright So that's something to consider. Get Build Momentum and slot it up so you can have that bigger window as many times as possible.

[JnEricsonx]

It's a bit clunky, but it can have some BIG payoffs.  I have a TW/WP that works wonderfully. 

[Haijinx]

Stay up super super late, so you are almost falling asleep at the keyboard.

 

THEN .. shotgun a Monster Energy Drink.

 

Those recurrent jitters, that's momentum.   

[Frostweaver]

One of the things you have to remember is that you want to keep your extraneous clicks to a minimum. That means slotting tons of recharge is better than having hasten on auto. Making sure your armor set can protect you WITHOUT extra clicks is good too.
That being said, Ageless is god.

[Techwright]

On 5/15/2020 at 1:48 PM, BZRKR said:

Again, +recharge (global or from enhancements) are needed for smooth-ish attacking. Two enhancements is probably not enough. 

 

On 5/17/2020 at 3:18 PM, Frostweaver said:

One of the things you have to remember is that you want to keep your extraneous clicks to a minimum. That means slotting tons of recharge is better than having hasten on auto. Making sure your armor set can protect you WITHOUT extra clicks is good too.
That being said, Ageless is god.

Thanks to all for the feedback (so far)!  Just to be clear, I'm reading two +recharge enhancements per skill is not enough, but if three is still the cutoff to diminished returns, should I stop there, or overslot?  I'm guessing I'm going to want to create enhancement sets that give recharge bonuses.  It is indeed a very different mindset, as I usually run damage up to three.  

[Frostweaver]

Running recharge enhancement sets is kinda the way to go. putting as many LOTG -recharge procs as you can (up to 5) is also the way to go. That's why a lot of us builders pick stupid stuff as mules, like stealth (two mules, conceal and invis) or leadership (maneuvers and vengeance) so that we can use them as 1 slot LOTG mules for an extra 7.5% global recharge.

5 is the cutoff for set bonuses, but three is not technically the diminishing returns cutoff. things like defenses and resistance have a cutoff of 57% bonus, most things like recharge, accuracy, and damage have a cutoff of 97%, and a very few things have a higher cutoff... it's called a 'schedule' and I friggin hate it.

And just to make things even more fun, incarnates come along and intentionally break diminishing returns... so when you have something like musculature, where 2/3rds of the bonus violates diminishing returns, you might have +133 damage bonus reported. It's overly complex. but it's what we are stuck with.

Rad armor has several clickies but those clickies are not generally mandatory for survival, even though, as a TW, you will be clicking the crap out of radiation therapy just for the end... try to do it just before you pop build momentum, although I am pretty sure you already figured that out 🙂

At 27, There's just not a whole lot you can do other than run a levelling build. Most levelling builds are built pretty much the same, lots of SO's, some generic IO's, and the occasional 'lucky find' like a lower-level set or damage proc. It's cool for right now, just remember that at 50 you will respec to a vastly better build... sure, you will probably slot in a lot of the same junk you had before while you are acquiring the 'stuff' for the new build, but in the end it will be an entirely different experience.

[posaunecat]

If you slot some global recharge bonus sets into your powers and slot the Force Feedback prox into Whirling/Arc/Titan Sweep you will find your recharge problems less problematic. I was managing at least two Whirling Smashes with the procs and whatever the +Rech aura from rad is called.

 

If I didn't have a leveling buddy and wasn't running double XP I'm not sure I would've made it to 32 to be honest. There were times before I was even middlingly slotted that I had no momentum and no building attacks recharged. It's rough but until 26 you don't have that many attacks to begin with either. 

[Techwright]

On 5/19/2020 at 3:39 PM, posaunecat said:

If you slot some global recharge bonus sets into your powers and slot the Force Feedback prox into Whirling/Arc/Titan Sweep you will find your recharge problems less problematic.

This has likely been my problem as in Homecoming, I've never gone for the sets until I hit 50, sticking only with the standard crafted enhancements.  Until now, I've never needed to go for anything else.

 

 

[Frostweaver]

19 minutes ago, Techwright said:

This has likely been my problem as in Homecoming, I've never gone for the sets until I hit 50, sticking only with the standard crafted enhancements.  Until now, I've never needed to go for anything else.

 

 

Yeah, for TW that doesn't...quite work. Stuff like +chance for end and +heal in stamina (in ADDITION to endmod capped stamina! Not instead of it) as well as a few other lower-level procs like +recharge and if you can, a few sets, make a MONSTROUS difference when you are running from 35-50. You don't click your 'click to not die' buttons often, so you have to make sure that you can run without them.

That's why I prefer rad armor to willpower on TW... because it's just a whole lot tougher, and when you DO need to click your emergency buttons you have the leeway to do it when you aren't going to screw up your attack chain or die while waiting for an animation to finish.

[ninja surprise]

On 5/15/2020 at 10:55 AM, Techwright said:

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

One more mindset tip: You're the alpha-guy, not the finisher.  First in, first out. Jump in, swing like crazy! And then when there's one or two half-defeated critters left and your momentum expires, YOU LEAVE THEM and go find new enemies to whomp.

Yes, I know it can be difficult to leave something so close to defeat, but trust me: the other 7 people on your team can defeat them much faster than you can build momentum. 

And if you're solo, those critters will follow you to the next spawn and you'll finish them with some AoE. 

 

If I'm teaming with a Titan Weapons swinger and we both go for the same target I'll switch and go defeat something else so they don't feel sad that I defeat the thing before they've built momentum. 

[Techwright]

2 hours ago, ninja surprise said:

One more mindset tip: You're the alpha-guy, not the finisher.  First in, first out. Jump in, swing like crazy! And then when there's one or two half-defeated critters left and your momentum expires, YOU LEAVE THEM and go find new enemies to whomp.

 

Good to know!  

[Robotech_Master]

I keep running into people who express surprise that I was able to make Titan Weapons play nicely with Super Reflexes on both a Tanker and a Brute. But it's a very fun combo to play. Over-capped positional defense, and near 50% damage resist to smashing, lethal, fire, and cold. Never really had too many problems keeping momentum up either, since I was able to scoop recharge rate bonuses from five LotGs, ATOs and purple sets, Reactive Defense, and so on. End was a problem early on, but a little judicious Stamina proc slotting and use of that recovery serum temp power from the P2W helped out a lot.

[Frostweaver]

19 hours ago, Robotech_Master said:

use of that recovery serum temp power from the P2W helped out a lot.

that sounds like an extremely expensive way to level.

[Robotech_Master]

3 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

that sounds like an extremely expensive way to level.

If you think that's expensive, I probably shouldn't mention how I tend to buy a few charges each of those 10 million Inf pet summons on every character... 🙂

[Frostweaver]

I am not surprised. You can level up anything with ease if you have the influence... or better yet, the farmer for dual-boxing.

2 minutes ago, Robotech_Master said:

If you think that's expensive, I probably shouldn't mention how I tend to buy a few charges each of those 10 million Inf pet summons on every character... 🙂

I am more interested in how much fun you are having with it NOW. I assume you use agility and ageless? were you able to get enough resistance in there to avoid instant oops?

[Robotech_Master]

Left is my TW/SR Brute's resist/defense stats at level 50. Right are my SR/TW Tanker's level 50 stats.

And they're using Musculature and Incandescence, actually. Don't really need Ageless now, thanks to decent set slotting and Performance Shifter procs...also, Musculature does have an end mod effect, too.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Robotech_Master

[IronJuke]

I find the playstyle definetly comes together once you slot out your build.  I leveled to 50's with just IO's and didn't slot any powers.

Once I hit 50 and got my build all slotted out ... it was seriously Worth The WAIT! 

 

It is a bit clunky leveling, but once you get a halfway decent build Momentum is rocking most of the time.  

 

Prior to that during leveling be prepared for long animations.  Still decent damage.  But it didn't take very long to level. 

 

 

 

 

[TygerDarkstorm]

To sort of add on to the OP's question: With TW suffering from such long animations and needing to build up momentum, is this a primary better left to people who have maxed out 50's that can farm tons of inf for their TW character to have IO's? I tried to roll a TW/bio scrapper because I was curious about it supposedly being overtuned right now, but I got bored before level 5 because it felt so slow. I am a newly returning player (from live like 10 years ago, lol) and am kind of enjoying the game at my own pace. I never did a whole lot of hardcore end game in live, so I'm not in a rush to hit 50 right now.

 

Because of that, would TW be a bad choice to go? Will the leveling be absolutely agonizing without being able to get IO's? I imagine it will get nerfed by the time I would even be able to get a TW/bio brute going, but the idea of swinging a giant weapon around is appealing in theory, if it can also be enjoyed while doing solo missions and occasional teaming to level.

[IronJuke]

It does feel super clunky during the level up process, but once you slot out a build, it freakin' "rocks the Casbah." 

 

But I think perhaps the "slow" mechanics might be a balancing factor in that people get turned off while leveling.