The Tank Gods. . .

[Werner]

1 hour ago, nihilii said:

I'm thinking Cardiac, Barrier, Hybrid. This way the build only needs to aim for the ~40% or so E/N res you get without trying. Cardiac likely bumps it 1 or 2 %, amplifiers another 8% (?). Barrier and Hybrid top it off as needed. Even if not strictly perma, perma shouldn't be too necessary as we can manipulate the situations where we need that E/N res. Autohit nictus + ranged Rommie damage should be the longest sustained E/N we face, and with Siphon Life and 2k4 hp it should be passable... I think?

 

And when it comes to DPS, I'm guessing some form of MG -> Moonbeam -> Siphon Life -> Smite attack chain ought to bring us to the 300 or so we need to do this in a reasonable amount of time. Or does it? Perhaps I am assuming a lot based on gut feeling.

I was thinking Cardiac and Rebirth, suspecting that even with everything else, we might not have enough healing and regeneration for the autohit fluffy and three other AVs. Well, two since we can hover. So I’m thinking target 75% EN resistance without Barrier (because Rebirth) and without Melee (because only 50% uptime and no Barrier backing it up). 75% EN is tight but doable. My first rough draft got there with amplifiers, but its 55% SL defense with amplifiers wasn’t what I was hoping for, and I had other issues. Admittedly that’s with 1 in range of Invincibility, which doesn’t reflect what’s actually going on. I’ll have to experiment on beta to see what a good target is in practice to avoid cascading defense failure with Cimerorans, or at least make it rare enough to only occasionally run. If we don’t need Melee, we can go Assault for extra DPS to help reduce time exposed to danger. Your attack chain sounds promising in that regard. Anyway, those are my initial thoughts on how to crack this nut. You may be right, though. It certainly gives you more build flexibility if you don’t need every single EN resistance bonus available, and you’re right about being able to manipulate when you need the resistance except in the final AV fight. I just... that final AV fight. 🙂

[Haijinx]

On 9/28/2020 at 11:29 AM, Tsuko said:

is there really some people believing that SR tankers are... weak ? Oo

Quite a few actually. 

 

I wonder how many other sets could pull that feat off though? 

 

Invul probably.   Shield?  Probably.  

[Haijinx]

I'm not actually sure all the Tanker Primaries could do it though.  

 

Let alone Scrappers.  

 

DDR is going to be important.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 hours ago, Sovera said:

It's superb bragging material. But in the end it's a MotITF, not a master-of-running-in-and-killing-every-enemy-ITF.

And this right here is the whole damn problem. Let's see those 100% clear all times!!!

[Bill Z Bubba]

31 minutes ago, Werner said:

I was thinking Cardiac and Rebirth, suspecting that even with everything else, we might not have enough healing and regeneration for the autohit fluffy and three other AVs. Well, two since we can hover.

I found the +negnrg resistance from barrier FAR more useful than the heal and +regen from rebirth. Just 2 more shillings for the mix.

[Werner]

15 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I'm not actually sure all the Tanker Primaries could do it though.  

 

Let alone Scrappers.  

 

DDR is going to be important.  

DDR makes it easier, but I did it with a Dark/MA Tanker using Storm Kick and Barrier as my “DDR”.

[Werner]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I found the +negnrg resistance from barrier FAR more useful than the heal and +regen from rebirth. Just 2 more shillings for the mix.

Was that on the Scrapper? My thought was to have both, though. 75% SLEN resistance PLUS Rebirth. I think it might take both to survive the final fight on a Scrapper. 

[Werner]

6 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

And this right here is the whole damn problem. Let's see those 100% clear all times!!!

I’m game! 😁

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Werner said:

Was that on the Scrapper? My thought was to have both, though. 75% SLEN resistance PLUS Rebirth. I think it might take both to survive the final fight on a Scrapper. 

Nah, the scrapper just gets his ass kicked. 😞 This was on the tank. But if you're already capped on nrg/neg then yea, rebirth makes sense.

Edited October 1, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Tsuko]

[Haijinx]

49 minutes ago, Werner said:

DDR makes it easier, but I did it with a Dark/MA Tanker using Storm Kick and Barrier as my “DDR”.

Nice.

 

Dark was super popular when  it was ported for the novelty.  These days you don't see it much.

[Werner]

33 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Nice.

 

Dark was super popular when  it was ported for the novelty.  These days you don't see it much.

I think there are better choices, particularly for this challenge, but I have a strong nostalgic fondness for Dark Armor, so I wanted to see how far I could push it. It’s not weak, at least.

[Tsuko]

[Sir Myshkin]

6 hours ago, Haijinx said:

I'm not actually sure all the Tanker Primaries could do it though.  

 

Let alone Scrappers.  

 

DDR is going to be important.  

Well so far we've had a pretty good [Tanker] selection tackle this with Rad, Dark, SR, and Invuln. Willpower might be the only set that I'd be a tad apprehensive on saying "Yes, it'll be fine" since it's fully invested in RttC for healing and that might be a counter-productive struggle for that set.

 

So far the general (and earnest) challenge has really come down to finding a Scrapper capable of dealing with the extra bursty damage with only 75% Cap.

[Werner]

I did it with Shield as well, at least if we count beta. But the build is almost complete on live. I might be able to tackle it for real next weekend and try to get a better time. 

[InvaderStych]

Ok, first of all I love that this thread about Tanker Gods has turned into theory-crafting Scrappers.

 

Second of all, I should stop reading this thread because my Scrappers (and more importantly the player behind them) are not even remotely close to a challenge at this level.

 

🤣

 

 

Edited October 2, 2020 by InvaderStych

[Tsuko]

1 hour ago, Sir Myshkin said:

Well so far we've had a pretty good [Tanker] selection tackle this with Rad, Dark, SR, and Invuln. Willpower might be the only set that I'd be a tad apprehensive on saying "Yes, it'll be fine" since it's fully invested in RttC for healing and that might be a counter-productive struggle for that set.

 

So far the general (and earnest) challenge has really come down to finding a Scrapper capable of dealing with the extra bursty damage with only 75% Cap.

 

WP scrappers are not a good idea. No it is not.

 

(for this hellish nightmare)

 

 

[Gobbledigook]

I took a newly built Bio\Rad Tanker into the buffed ITF for a quick test last night. I pulled a bunch of Cimemorans and stood in the middle not attacking other than my 2 auras ticking. It was surprisingly durable using it's cooldowns heals. S\L resists being strong in Bio helped and strong regen and absorbs even with being defence debuffed to oblivion. The other resists are much lower and could run into trouble though.

 

I think Bio coupled with a set that offered more crowd control with knockdowns etc would work even better.

 

I have a 50 Bio\SS Tanker also that i may swap the enhances to.

Edited October 2, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[Haijinx]

I expect Ice could do it.  

 

Fire seems like a big question, same with Electric. 

 

A granite tank could survive I'm sure, but it would take a longggggg time.  

[Gulbasaur]

10 hours ago, Werner said:

I think there are better choices, particularly for this challenge, but I have a strong nostalgic fondness for Dark Armor, so I wanted to see how far I could push it. It’s not weak, at least.

I love dark. It's very strong, even if a lot of the mitigation comes from the control auras. It's very, very team friendly as a result.

[Sovera]

Blah. First attempt failed at the third mission. Being greedy cost me two missions just for the sake of trying to squeeze one last hit. To add insult to injury it was at the pack of enemies mostly composed of surgeons -_-

 

It was not very bad though so I predict no unexpected results. Barrier carries me and the Fire/Claws killing speed makes short work of everything, even cyst packs and minotaurs.

 

I did skip the ambush with the intention of coming back to it later, but for now I'm just focused in getting the buffed ITF done first. I'll try again tonight.

[nihilii]

Scrapper victory!

 

 

TW/Rad/Soul. This was attempt #9. Amplifiers were used, all 3 of them.

General strategy was to spam Defensive Sweep -> Arc of Destruction -> Defensive Sweep -> Whirling Smash in every single encounter. Maybe throw in Rend Armor and Follow Through if I'm feeling feisty.

 

I would strive to keep 70%+ melee defense at all times, as well as Particle Shielding up for an extra 800 "hit points". This buffer was critical during unlucky moments. 2800hp let me live where 2000hp would have been death. Ageless Radial also helped with the defense debuffs, but I tried not to assume my DDR would hold.

 

For AVs, attack chain started as Rend Armor -> Follow Through -> Arc of Destruction -> Defensive Sweep -> Follow Through. I ultimately changed it to Defensive Sweep -> FT -> AoD -> RA -> FT, as to get both AoD and RA in the Critical Strikes window.

 

M1: died enough on previous attempts to get the rhythm done there. Skipped the ambush with Sovera's trick.

M2: from cyst to cyst, but sometimes I had to run away in the middle of a cyst for my clicks to recover, lest the dwarf/nova damage overwhelm me. As I did that, I managed to lose track of the last cyst. It took me a staggering 10 minutes to find it again, as the ambushes were getting so big I couldn't kite my way through without risking too much. I ended up clearing a bunch of mobs at the central intersection, then finally found that cyst.

M3: I hopped around between generals, for Beasts and Surgeons especially I thinned their numbers then escaped before things got tough. Romulus Phalanx was easy to handle. I pulled Requiem on his own, killed his goons then took him down 1 on 1 without too much trouble - although level 54 buffed AV damage is no joke for a scrapper, and I had to stay on guard with my mitigation clicks.

With Romulus, I made sure to play it safe. I pulled him, then cleared the Legatus Legionis and other misc mobs while jousting, then took out my T3 Lore Longbow. Uneventful fight.

M4: I flew to Romulus directly, planning to use Imperious' help. Mapserved. I restarted with the same strategy. Imperious was great help to clear the platform Cimerorans. Then, not so much as he rushed straight to fight Romulus and the Cyclops/Minotaurs... I let him die, pulled back, killed the mobs. Then attacked Romulus.

I went with the jetpack on, to play it safe. This is the moment I remembered AoD doesn't work in the air. Oops! Good thing TW DPS is absurd in any case. I simply replaced AoD with Crushing Blow, and still dealt enough damage to make good progress. I would also sometimes replace Defensive Sweep with Whirling Smash.

Autohit Nictus + Romulus at range was just below the incoming damage /rad/soul can take with both absorb/heal clicks and Shadow Meld. It went down first (by luck, all 3 Nictus were stacked and I hit one without knowing which one). Then I pulled out Lore for the healing Nictus, but that did more harm than good with buffed enemies accuracy. Once my Lore died I made faster progress. Summoning Nictus was a nonevent.

Something interesting happened for Romulus. I took off my jetpack, and started to fight. But I was worried about the ambushes at 75%, 50%, 25% hp. Those could be too much to handle with Rommie on top.

 

 

So I moved to this location, because this is where I think the ambushes pop. The idea being to clear them out ASAP, and/or run away, rather than be caught with my pants down.

But the ambushes didn't come. Until a random wandering patrol of 4 Generals showed up. I fled preemptively before they aggroed... and saw the first ambush pop up (Rommie was at 70% hp then).

So I guess, if you sit around that door, no ambushes happen. I cleared the first ambush, pulled Romulus back to this spot, and nothing happened when he hit 50% and then 25% hp.

What a challenge. Specialized build and tons of attempts to do what my tanker did on first try; and in roughly the same amount of time. It shows the extent to which scrappers need to worry about survivability here.

Build:

Spoiler

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Likely not optimal for the task, or even in general. It was great fun building "oldschool", with full sets aiming for mitigation, rather than break everything down for maximum proc damage. With TW you get to have your cake and eat it too.

Incarnates were: Cardiac T3, Degen T4, Lore T3, Ageless T4, Assault T2, Vorpal T1

Could I do it without amplifiers? Maybe, unsure. There were MANY close calls. Perhaps with full T4, and a Lore support tree.

Edited October 2, 2020 by nihilii

[Tsuko]

@nihiliionce again, you quicker than me 🙂

 

Huge congrats !

 

Edited October 2, 2020 by Tsuko

[Gobbledigook]

Nice one @nihilii😉

 

Impressive, on a Rad Scrapper also with no DDR.

 

My last attempt i was on mission 3 and killed all the Generals and the last 2 bosses but the mission still said i had one to kill lol. I looked everywhere but could not find one so gave up. No luck lol. I must've been about 45-50 minutes in when completed the last 2 bosses as i spent 10 or so minutes looking for the last general as the 1 hour timer failed whilst looking. <<<< a bit ambitious 😄

Edited October 2, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[VV]

17 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

And this right here is the whole damn problem. Let's see those 100% clear all times!!!

So, first of all, I'm glad Tankers finally got a decent challenge going like the Scrappers' Pylon thread. I never liked the Pylon challenge for tankers because it does not properly test all of their mettle.

5 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Fire seems like a big question,

I have a F^3 that I am hoping to try on this weekend. Any recommendations on Incarnates are welcome. I should probably respec out of the Fire Epic, too, but I want to start with that to keep her "pure." Plenty of free respecs, so I might try different combos depending on how it goes.

10 hours ago, InvaderStych said:

Ok, first of all I love that this thread about Tanker Gods has turned into theory-crafting Scrappers.

Those poor kids need all the help they can get...