The Tank Gods. . .

[Tsuko]

36 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Ok, time to respec tank BZB. Tried out Werner rules with my brute BZB, 1st mish, no issues, 2nd mish, touch and go but got it done with some kiting, 3rd mish, the monster squad turned me into a fine red paste. To the mids-mobile! Side note: buffed enemies aren't quite as buffed as I was expecting, which was nice.

 

Go Go Go 🙂

 

 

 

[Werner]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Ok, time to respec tank BZB. Tried out Werner rules with my brute BZB, 1st mish, no issues, 2nd mish, touch and go but got it done with some kiting, 3rd mish, the monster squad turned me into a fine red paste. To the mids-mobile! Side note: buffed enemies aren't quite as buffed as I was expecting, which was nice.

Yeah, buffed is harder, but it’s mostly a big bump to incoming damage rather than some categorical shift in enemy capability. And as long as you can get enough DPS for the AVs, Tanker will of course be easier than Brute. I think you’re seeing that it’s probably possible with the right build. 👍

[Bill Z Bubba]

Oh the pain. was under the 2 hr mark after removing breaks, on Final Rom with just autohit fluffy left, and faceplant happens.

SR/Claws Tank. Purples are not +5ed. T4s on pyronic, assault, degen, musc core and radial for carnies and rebirth.

ST attack chain is, as always, followup/focus/slash/repeat. When assault is up I regularly get 183% +dam on followup.

Thinking I'll swap to barrier and Talons of Vengeance for Lore and try again.

Could also respec again to crank up neg nrg damres.

Edited September 19, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Tsuko]

8 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Oh the pain. was under the 2 hr mark after removing breaks, on Final Rom with just autohit fluffy left, and faceplant happens.

SR/Claws Tank. Purples are not +5ed. T4s on pyronic, assault, degen, musc core and radial for carnies and rebirth.

ST attack chain is, as always, followup/focus/slash/repeat. When assault is up I regularly get 183% +dam on followup.

Thinking I'll swap to barrier and Talons of Vengeance for Lore and try again.

Could also respec again to crank up neg nrg damres.

I was right at the moment looking at Brute builds on mid's with my itf run in mind and my mindset was : "how the f..k can i survive Romulus Nictus if i failed my single pull"

 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Tsuko said:

I was right at the moment looking at Brute builds on mid's with my itf run in mind and my mindset was : "how the f..k can i survive Romulus Nictus if i failed my single pull"

Full disclosure: I died because I was taking a gulp of beer instead of watching the screen and jumping out of the AoE range when I had the chance.

[Tsuko]

On 9/19/2020 at 10:06 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

Full disclosure: I died because I was taking a gulp of beer instead of watching the screen and jumping out of the AoE range when I had the chance.

 

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Tsuko

[Bill Z Bubba]

17 hours ago, Tsuko said:

I was right at the moment looking at Brute builds on mid's with my itf run in mind and my mindset was : "how the f..k can i survive Romulus Nictus if i failed my single pull"

I use hover. I've noticed that the healing fluffy always spawns on the left so I pull that one with focus and most of the time the spawner fluffy comes up as well. So I just sit up there, flappin my wings as I slowly chew through the two of them. Next time, I'll go ahead and pull the autohit fluffy once I'm done with the other two instead of trying to take out Rom so that he eats it the autohit.

 

Slow going but doable.

[Sir Myshkin]

21 hours ago, Tsuko said:

"how the f..k can i survive Romulus Nictus if i failed my single pull"

 

3 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

So I just sit up there, flappin my wings as I slowly chew through the two of them.

I totally just jumped in and took them all on equally. I figured, at least give them a chance, right?

 

 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

Decided to pull a @Sir Myshkin on my 2nd attempt. Cleared courtyard and towers at 103 minutes in, faceplanted in 5 seconds with barrier and buffs from T4 Talons.

Apparently SR only sucks when the devs have to resort to cheating with autohit bullshit.

Edit: Yea, I got a mad at the moment. Next attempt some day.

Edit 2: What's really bumming me out is that I bet I could pull this off with my fire/bio sent without issue. Sure... might take 4 hours... but he doesn't die.

Edited September 20, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[JulioThom33]

My 1st character in the OG game was an INV/EM Tanker named CyFighter. He was my 1st 50, and I played him regularly from Day 1 to the day NCSoft turned the lights out. I re-rolled him as an Electric/Shield Brute. I plan on recreating him again once EM gets the Love people say it's going to get.

 

I have a Heraclea-inspired Amazon WP/SS Tanker that is Nigh-Unkillable. She's my favorite to date.

 

 

[Sir Myshkin]

9 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Cleared courtyard and towers at 103 minutes in, faceplanted in 5 seconds with barrier and buffs from T4 Talons.

Apparently SR only sucks when the devs have to resort to cheating with autohit ********.

Feeling a little responsible, sorry about that.

[Tsuko]

i wonder why we dont see any Bio tankers trying ITF hardcore mode

[Bill Z Bubba]

OK, @Werner Add me to the list. 49mins was afk but that's still a horrible time. Guess it's time to use the same respec on the brute and scrapper although I'm damn near sure BZB scrap can't pull this off no matter what I do.

 

[Werner]

7 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

OK, @Werner Add me to the list. 49mins was afk but that's still a horrible time. Guess it's time to use the same respec on the brute and scrapper although I'm damn near sure BZB scrap can't pull this off no matter what I do.

Congratulations! Faster than my Brute, which I think was around four hours.

I’ll be extra impressed if anyone does this on a Scrapper. Hmmm, how would I even approach it? I guess “all” you need is a Scrapper with soft capped defenses, high DDR, capped lethal and negative resists, and a whole lot of healing, right? So... DM/SR with Rebirth rocking enough hit points and resistance to cap lethal and negative resists using scaling resists before their hit points get low enough to get one shotted? But with enemies buffed, I’m not sure it’s possible to avoid being one-shotted. If we have low enough hit points, they’ll one shot us through 75% resistance. If we don’t have low enough hit points to cap our resists, they’ll one shot us from lack of resists and Scrapper hit points. Maybe an Invuln, then? Katana/Invuln? Katana, 50% DDR, and high lethal defense handles the defense debuffs, Invuln easily caps lethal resists, focus set bonuses on negative resists, use Dull Pain and set bonuses to get as many hit points as possible, take rebirth to try to stay topped up to handle the big hits. It might work. Might be tough to build, and require some luck, but I bet it’s possible. Difficult, but possible.

[TestG1]

Fire/Fire/Fire tank for the god mode.

With Smathing/lethal/fire all capped at 90% Res and Defense flexing around 20-30% and if they somehow get through all my resistance and defense, I have a heal that is ready every 12 seconds for +925. He is a god of fire and I brag about it daily.

I can typically just roll into any mission and destroy it.

I've also tanked every AV with him and will even go to GM island just to see how many GMs I can withstand.

He is also my main farmer (even though he is built to farm/tank everything under the sun) he's not as fast as a brute, but I also don't have to heal quite as much as one either.

Got to love the good ol' classic fire tanks.

He was my main on Live, and is still my main to this day.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Items I'm considering:

Go ageless to make up for the end loss of choosing soul mastery instead of body/nrg mastery. Take gloom/moonbeam and darkest night. DN's -dam and more DPS from gloom/moonbeam sound very appealing.

On BZB tank, the autohit fluffy could never get me below 800 HP. I dropped to 700 at one point due to something else getting a lucky hit in. Adding a damage debuff on top of all of that would be very cool, but losing physical perfection sounds freaking awful to me right now.

For a scrapper? Man, I dunno. Buffed enemies freakin hurt.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Tsuko]

1 hour ago, Werner said:

I’ll be extra impressed if anyone does this on a Scrapper. 

🙂

[Werner]

37 minutes ago, Tsuko said:

🙂

If that’s a “challenge accepted” smile, I thought you didn’t want to see another ITF for a decade! 😉

 

I admit that I’m thinking of trying it myself on beta, but I’ve got a lot on my plate right now so I’m unlikely to get to it. And it sounds painful. I mean, yeah, I’m a CoH masochist, but there are limits!

[Bill Z Bubba]

24 minutes ago, Werner said:

I mean, yeah, I’m a CoH masochist, but there are limits!

Now that I've done it, methinks for future stuff, I'll just stick with plain ol' no deaths/max diff for my personal standard. Maybe no insps if I'm feelin salty.

[Tsuko]

44 minutes ago, Werner said:

If that’s a “challenge accepted” smile, I thought you didn’t want to see another ITF for a decade! 😉

 

I admit that I’m thinking of trying it myself on beta, but I’ve got a lot on my plate right now so I’m unlikely to get to it. And it sounds painful. I mean, yeah, I’m a CoH masochist, but there are limits!

It's the Way of the Diva !

 

[Tsuko]

7 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

OK, @Werner Add me to the list. 49mins was afk but that's still a horrible time. Guess it's time to use the same respec on the brute and scrapper although I'm damn near sure BZB scrap can't pull this off no matter what I do.

 

 

Congrats !

 

 

 

 

 

[Sir Myshkin]

On 9/24/2020 at 12:55 PM, Werner said:

I’ll be extra impressed if anyone does [Solo Buffed MoITF] on a Scrapper.

Toying around with this the last couple of nights. I only have two Scrappers in my stable TW/Regen and Rad/DA, been looking at possibilities to tackle this on either one. Ran some Buffed ITF's with both to see how they'd fair running into mobs randomly, get a feel for things ahead of time. Decided to give the Rad/DA an earnest shot solo this evening because I felt like he'd have a better shot, and I just can't crack getting swarmed. I know I can "accomplish" the MoITF, but to do it feels like I'm cheating and it'd take a very long time to get through it, and that method is just small-group pulling things apart and killing them in chunks. If I get more than five or six of the Cimmies on me at once, the debuff and the bigger hits take me down in a heart beat. Even at 75% Resists I'm still going down like an ice cube in a volcano once they clear my defenses (45% S/L/Melee plus Shadow Meld on tap).

 

I cleared the first mission pulling apart until I snagged a bit too much right at the end and got overwhelmed and floored. I want to believe the second mission would be smoother sailing, but that one ends up being primarily ranged blasts from the Squids and Fluffies, so my Defense doesn't mean much of anything there.

 

I'm boiling things down to being only feasible from either a Shield, Invuln, or maybe an Energy that can pack some extra resists in. I don't really want to roll a character specifically just to meet this challenge, but it does bug me a bit (and I don't really know why). Thinking Mace/SD to get some extra damage in there, Tough Grit earns some extra HP and the Accolades get it close to HP cap. Maybe I'll just roll it on Beta and try it there, but that feels a bit hollow in my mind.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Rough part for me is that even BZB scrapper is just fine right up until the autohit fluffy. Then he folds like used tissue. On occasion, Rom or Req in the 3rd mission have also had a series of lucky hits and dropped him. I *think* the new build I used on the tank could be used on the brute and he *might* survive, won't know until I try, but I don't think it would be nearly enough for the scrapper.

[Werner]

12 minutes ago, Sir Myshkin said:

Maybe I'll just roll it on Beta and try it there, but that feels a bit hollow in my mind.

Call it a proof of concept. 🙂 That’s how I feel about the run I did on beta with Shield/MA. Decided I like the character, now making him on live for some “official” runs. Hit 50 this morning and finished task force commander. Still quite a bit required to get into fighting shape, but I’ll get there.

[nihilii]

3 hours ago, Sir Myshkin said:

If I get more than five or six of the Cimmies on me at once, the debuff and the bigger hits take me down in a heart beat. Even at 75% Resists I'm still going down like an ice cube in a volcano once they clear my defenses (45% S/L/Melee plus Shadow Meld on tap).

This describes my own experience to a tee! Tankers with 90% res and 3k hp pool shrug their shoulders, but scrappers at 75% res and 2k hp truly feel the pain from buffed +4 cims, if they lack DDR.

It doesn't help that I hardly ever build for softcap these days, as I struggle with an unrelenting addiction to purple insps.

 

I'm curious as to how those normal fights play out with your Claws/SR, @Bill Z Bubba. I'm guessing Shockwave puts them on their butt right away, and then you shred them before their antimez shouts become a problem, and SR prevents cascading failure against the odd hit or two. @josh1622 has an impressive Claws/Bio/Soul build that could be a strong contender for the task, as it deals absurd amounts of DPS and much of it at range.