The Tank Gods. . .

[Gobbledigook]

Is there a tactic to last Romulus? I killed his nictus but just after i killed the last one Romulus hit me with a Critical Hack for 4800 points of damage even with 90% resists. He one shotted me.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[Lex Talion]

47 minutes ago, Gobbledegook said:

Is there a tactic to last Romulus? I killed his nictus but just after i killed the last one Romulus hit me with a Critical Hack for 4800 points of damage even with 90% resists. He one shotted me.

Romulus Nictus (M4) has additional attacks incl. Sunless Mire. It's easy to spot, but if it connects you should get out of range until it wears off. One of the Nictus Essences, the one that is autohitting, buffs Rommie too, iirc.

With 'enemies buffed' setting a L54 Romulus (M3) hits for over 2100 pts with Hack and I don't know exactly how much bonus dmg Romulus Nictus' (M4) version of Sunless Mire provides but with the challenge settings every point is one point too many :P. His attacks are also split up between lethal and negative damage, in case that matters for your armor set, and 2 damage types circumvent the one-shot protection, iirc.

4800 pts sounds like full, or almost full crit damage though, and since you mentioned that it happened right after killing a Nictus you probably got stunned by the Nictus' Death Throw. The stun magnitude can overcome most mez protections that aren't stacked. Even if the stun only lasts for a few seconds, due to high stun resistance, it still suprresses the effect of your armor toggles during that time.

Your combat log could probably tell you more.

 

As a rule of thumb, unless you're really sure about the numbers, I'd say: if Sunless Mire connects or if Romulus or a Nictus Essence dies get out of range and stay out of range til the Mire wore off or the Death Throw stun is over and you checked your toggles.

[Tsuko]

14 hours ago, nihilii said:

Edit: instead of leaving after my defeat, I kept going just to see how Mission 3 would look.

 

I managed to defeat Requiem in about 10 minutes, thanks to his own Oppressive Gloom hurting him.

 

As for Romulus... Forget it. Not only my damage barely outpaces his regen in the best case scenario, but I made a glaring mistake in my latest rebuild: I saw ~105-110% chance to hit and thought there was fat to be trimmed. I forgot that was a purposeful overshot. My Mids is set to display tohit against +3s, while we fight true +4s. Accuracy remains 95% against most enemies thanks to Radiation Melee defense debuffs. It wasn't a problem against Requiem either, despite his archvillain resistance.

 

But... Romulus combines standard AV resistance with some passive defense, and that's a dealbreaker. I fell down to ~70% chance to hit against him, which obviously can't cut it with a base DPS of around 230.

 

What would be the ideal character, I wonder. SR is nice for overall defense, but lacking endurance tools or offensive boosts beyond Quickness really stretches your resources thin to hit required DPS walls.

 

Boring as it is to always go for these powersets, Rad or Bio paired with TW might be it. Both Rad and Bio offer numerous endurance tools and take care of healing. TW has defensive sweep, great DPA, better DPE than other secondaries, and tons of knockdown.

 

After 21 runs with 21 diferents builds created on 7 diferents AT on 3 diferents roles (Tankers, Brutes and Dominators), and finishing on my old TW rad tanker, all i can say is that the all mighty Titan Weapon is kinda not enough, i cannot say what exactly but with no incarnates, i feel TW more as "Titan Toothpick" Oo

 

So i dont think max DPS is the answer to max dif no incarnates runs.

 

Not to mention that TW is fun but the sound is tiring after like 4 hours of constant fighting, i now remember why i have not enjoy my TW fire brute farmer :x

 

Edit : the incarnates system was really an easy clutch for the devs bck in the days, so many awesome armors and set have their holes feel by incarnates instead of being just redesigned and balanced 😕

Edited October 15, 2020 by Tsuko

[Tsuko]

1 hour ago, Gobbledegook said:

Is there a tactic to last Romulus? I killed his nictus but just after i killed the last one Romulus hit me with a Critical Hack for 4800 points of damage even with 90% resists. He one shotted me.

 

24 minutes ago, Lex Talion said:

Romulus Nictus (M4) has additional attacks incl. Sunless Mire. It's easy to spot, but if it connects you should get out of range until it wears off. One of the Nictus Essences, the one that is autohitting, buffs Rommie too, iirc.

With 'enemies buffed' setting a L54 Romulus (M3) hits for over 2100 pts with Hack and I don't know exactly how much bonus dmg Romulus Nictus' (M4) version of Sunless Mire provides but with the challenge settings every point is one point too many :P. His attacks are also split up between lethal and negative damage, in case that matters for your armor set, and 2 damage types circumvent the one-shot protection, iirc.

4800 pts sounds like full, or almost full crit damage though, and since you mentioned that it happened right after killing a Nictus you probably got stunned by the Nictus' Death Throw. The stun magnitude can overcome most mez protections that aren't stacked. Even if the stun only lasts for a few seconds, due to high stun resistance, it still suprresses the effect of your armor toggles during that time.

Your combat log could probably tell you more.

 

As a rule of thumb, unless you're really sure about the numbers, I'd say: if Sunless Mire connects or if Romulus or a Nictus Essence dies get out of range and stay out of range til the Mire wore off or the Death Throw stun is over and you checked your toggles.

 

omg this explain a lot more some of "rage quit" fails :x

 

Thank you, i must become better with this M4 romu single pull lol

Edited October 14, 2020 by Tsuko

[Gobbledigook]

59 minutes ago, Lex Talion said:

Romulus Nictus (M4) has additional attacks incl. Sunless Mire. It's easy to spot, but if it connects you should get out of range until it wears off. One of the Nictus Essences, the one that is autohitting, buffs Rommie too, iirc.

With 'enemies buffed' setting a L54 Romulus (M3) hits for over 2100 pts with Hack and I don't know exactly how much bonus dmg Romulus Nictus' (M4) version of Sunless Mire provides but with the challenge settings every point is one point too many :P. His attacks are also split up between lethal and negative damage, in case that matters for your armor set, and 2 damage types circumvent the one-shot protection, iirc.

4800 pts sounds like full, or almost full crit damage though, and since you mentioned that it happened right after killing a Nictus you probably got stunned by the Nictus' Death Throw. The stun magnitude can overcome most mez protections that aren't stacked. Even if the stun only lasts for a few seconds, due to high stun resistance, it still suprresses the effect of your armor toggles during that time.

Your combat log could probably tell you more.

 

As a rule of thumb, unless you're really sure about the numbers, I'd say: if Sunless Mire connects or if Romulus or a Nictus Essence dies get out of range and stay out of range til the Mire wore off or the Death Throw stun is over and you checked your toggles.

I do have 90% resists to both s/l and negative. 

 

I didn't notice getting stunned, but one minute i was full health and the second i was eating dirt lol. I checked my log and it said Hack critical for 4800 total(give ot take a few). I didn't think to check whether i has been CC'd though as it was instant, but i guess i must've been with that amount. Another good reason why a Defence set with DDR may work better for this.

 

I have no problem killing the multitude of mobs quickly though with my AoE :).  Small consolation 😛

 

Ty for explaining how it works to us...much appreciated 🙂

Edited October 15, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[Sovera]

34 minutes ago, Gobbledegook said:

I do have 90% resists to both s/l and negative. 

 

I didn't notice getting stunned, but one minute i was full health and the second i was eating dirt lol. I checked my log and it said Hack critical for 4800 total(give ot take a few). I didn't think to check whether i has been CC'd though as it was instant, but i guess i must've been with that amount. Another good reason why a Defence set with DDR may work better for this.

 

I have no problem killing the multitude of mobs quickly though with my AoE :).  Small consolation 😛

 

Ty for explaining how it works to us...much appreciated 🙂

When stunned toggles drop. It's verbatim what happened to my sole run buffed enemies. Killed fluffy, got stunned, instagibbed.

[nihilii]

12 hours ago, Sovera said:

You say every bit of resistance matters, and then drop your proc in Atom Smasher? Doesn't that seem like bad planning when you want those procs up and going all the time?

We need significant DPS for the final AVs. L54 AV regen is roughly 100hp/s. You deal 0.48 damage against +4s. So the best case scenario is about 210 base DPS. That DPS must be "real" DPS - not just ideal DPS against a Pylon, but DPS using whatever survivability clicks or repositioning is needed.

 

My SR/Rad gets to about ~230 Pylon DPS, going all out with procs. Stuffing Might of the Tanker, and its recharge portion, into an important ST attack would not only remove a proc, it would also kill the proc rate for other procs. Likely dropping me a solid 10 DPS if not more.

There are other considerations:

- the build is extremely tight as is, and I need the +10% recharge from Might of the Tanker, as well as (if to a lesser extent) the +4% dam and +3% HP.

- 210 DPS is really a "best case scenario". In practice, nictus Romulus heals, there's also the healing Nictus, and even regular Romulus has defense.

 

Plus, we don't want to break even, we want to make progress at an appreciable pace. It took me about 10 minutes to take down Requiem! And that's with him hurting himself regularly for 130 damage ticks every 2 seconds while OG is up. Painful.

[nihilii]

edit: doublepost

Edited October 15, 2020 by nihilii

[Maxzero]

 

The biggest issue with both the Tanker procs is that they both have +recharge on the same IO so it almost always lowers the proc chance of IOs (including themselves) once you actually slot them.

 

It does not help that both ATO sets are chock full of +recharge spread amongst all the IOs. Only 1 IO in each set does not have +recharge.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Maxzero

[Lex Talion]

Fast-tracked to M4 with a res based toon today to double-check:

Romulus Nictus' Sunless Mire buff hits multiple hostile targets and stacks the buff accordingly. (+5% To Hit, +12.5% Dmg per target hit)

The Nictus Essence's Sunless Mire uses the same numbers, has a much shorter duration, stacks with itself (for a second or two) but is an area buff to friendly targets.

 

So, if you intend to prepare for that fight by summoning Lore pets, you might want to reconsider, because what you probably do is feeding Rommie's Sunless Mire.

 

 

Some screenshots with numbers:

1. normal buff situation against a single target

2. proof that Nictus Essence's buff stacks (for a second or two)

3. proof that Romulus Nictus' buff hits multiple targets

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tsuko]

On 10/13/2020 at 4:22 PM, nihilii said:

Right. Then we get into recording video footage. Then we question if the video was edited. It's endless.

 

I have boundless appreciation for the friendly, high trust environment we have on these forums, this topic included. People sharing their thoughts and explaining rationale at length, with competition not against each other but rather the limits of what we can do collectively. True, it may mean there isn't that extra incentive of ego to push individual performance to the max. A small price to pay for that frictionless experience, to me.

 

If elusive pro gamers want to share their insights or even flex on us, I'll take whatever hint or piece of advice that may be gleaned. Then it hopefully seeps to the collective. It's all good.

Not to mention that we "lightly" forgot a small details, YT vids are banned till the negociations with Nc soft are in progress. (i have privated mine waiting for the day)

[nihilii]

On 10/14/2020 at 11:16 AM, nihilii said:

Boring as it is to always go for these powersets, Rad or Bio paired with TW might be it. Both Rad and Bio offer numerous endurance tools and take care of healing. TW has defensive sweep, great DPA, better DPE than other secondaries, and tons of knockdown.

I PLed a Bio/TW Tanker, and did a few accolades - Invader for +5% HP, in the process of which you get the +10% HP temp and +5% end temp. Then Marshall for +5% end. Almost like having all accolades until the temps run out.

 

Pylon DPS, with amplifiers but before ++ing IOs and accolades: 320. Awesome (no incarnates).

 

I failed a first attempt just now. Amplifiers ran out as I did accolades (and AFKed), so no amplifiers.

 

M1 was cake - even though it came with the realisation Defensive Sweep is essentially useless, without Shadow Meld and Vorpal as buffers. I get debuffed into oblivion no matter what. But Bio's absorb and healing combined with 90% S/L res and TW's knockdowns make Cimerorans more than palatable.

 

M2 becomes a bit harder because of combined defense debuffs + energy damage. I'm sitting at around 45-50% energy res in offensive mode. Taking down the Cysts seemed alright enough with some kiting. But I got greedy and burst damage killed me. More caution would have done it.

 

I kept going regardless. Defensive Mode seems much better than trying to overpower the Cysts with sheer damage. The extra resistance matters, same with HP and Absorb.

 

M3 tested my patience more than my survivability. This Bio/TW took down Requiem in about 5 minutes where the SR/Rad took 10 minutes; and the Bio/TW was in complete safety. Likewise with Romulus, to the point I defeated him next to the computer. Funnily enough, my damage was so low the AoE damage from aura and Arc of Destruction lowered the computer's health at the same pace as Romulus HP went down. I did have to pull back when the second wave of robots came online, as Romulus defense debuffs + their energy damage proved to be too much.

 

The Generals weren't too much of a struggle, although I had to jump away regularly. The biggest hurdle had more to do with the ambushes. +4 Surgeons aren't so easy to dispatch with no level shift and no Judgement, and I would frequently "waste" an entire cycle of chipping away at a General's health only to have a Surgeon restore him with a passing AoE heal.

I hit a wall in M4. I started by fighting the Nictus in the air, with a jetpack. You can't use AoD in the air, so I went with the same adjusted attack chain as my scrapper: rend armor -> follow through -> crushing blow -> whirling smash -> follow through. Lower DPS, of course. Still enough to damage the Nictus through their healing; and in the air, whatever damage I took from the autohit Nictus + Romulus wasn't enough to threaten me through my clicks.

However, this was very... veeeeery... slow. After 8 minutes, I had maybe 15%, 20% of the Nictus' life done. Multiply this by 5 (100% hp), then by 3 (3 Nictus), and do I really want to spend 2 HOURS tapping the same hotkeys to win a fight that is, in theory, already won?

 

I flew away, and quickly crafted a Musculature T3 Alpha. Then resumed fighting the Nictus with my level shift.

 

Unequipped the Alpha to try Romulus. Well, oof. Romulus Nictus packs a punch as a true +4. As Lex points out, his Sunless Mire is particularly devastating. When up, he would hit me for 1k+ on every other hit. I could manage that by kiting some or using Defensive Sweep, but I can't deal enough DPS doing that. Especially with his 3k heal. I tried everything I could think of, no dice. The Nictus boy stands victorious.

In a way, it makes for a fitting end. Bio Armor feels almost overpowered considering the challenge. 90% S/L res + ample amounts of absorb and healing really can carry you through impressive aggression. The standard Romulus isn't completely helpless, but he is manageable. And then... his transformation turns him into your worst nightmare. Defense debuffs and self buffs and negative energy rolled in one, oh my.

 

I am unsure where to go from there. This Bio/TW cannot give much more, at least in my hands. Perhaps Rad/TW or Elec/TW would fare better. But the DPS is barely enough as is, and Bio is by far the best damage option with Offensive Mode, -res aura and damage aura, Elec at least has a damage aura, Quickness, and great native end tools. Perhaps PPP shenanigans could help fill the gap, i.e. getting the Mu Striker pet? If the guy stays at range and adds ~20 DPS, that could be helpful. Wishful thinking.

 

[Tsuko]

2 hours ago, nihilii said:

I am unsure where to go from there. This Bio/TW cannot give much more, at least in my hands. Perhaps Rad/TW or Elec/TW would fare better. But the DPS is barely enough as is, and Bio is by far the best damage option with Offensive Mode, -res aura and damage aura, Elec at least has a damage aura, Quickness, and great native end tools. Perhaps PPP shenanigans could help fill the gap, i.e. getting the Mu Striker pet? If the guy stays at range and adds ~20 DPS, that could be helpful. Wishful thinking.

 

imho you can remove the tanker Rad Tw, the runs i did was painfull.

[Tsuko]

6 hours ago, nihilii said:

The standard Romulus isn't completely helpless, but he is manageable. And then... his transformation turns him into your worst nightmare

To be fair, He (and his balls of hell) is the only thing i still dont know how to manage solo without tedious single pull or incarnates.

[nihilii]

5 hours ago, Tsuko said:

To be fair, He (and his balls of hell) is the only thing i still dont know how to manage solo without tedious single pull or incarnates.

If you can manage his buffed version without incarnates, you're already ahead of me!

 

Also of note re: the Nictus death stun. I did not get stunned once with basic mag13 protection. Rightclicking on the icon showed the stun as mag12, too. So I think it is likely the stuns others have experienced were Nictus death stun + some regular stun attack from either Romulus or the Nictus.

[Lex Talion]

2 hours ago, nihilii said:

Also of note re: the Nictus death stun. I did not get stunned once with basic mag13 protection. Rightclicking on the icon showed the stun as mag12, too. So I think it is likely the stuns others have experienced were Nictus death stun + some regular stun attack from either Romulus or the Nictus.

 

In general Tankers have mag 12.98 mez protection, while other ATs except EAT Dwarves have mag 10.38* or less. There are a couple of things in range of Romulus Nictus that can stun though, like Cyclopes, Warwolves and 5th Column 'Fists'. To my best knowledge none of the other Nictus Essences nor the spawned Unbound Nictuses are able to stun with regular attacks.

I don't remember which ATs were stunned, and frankly don't feel like sifting through the whole thread to find out.

[Solarverse]

On 8/13/2020 at 11:48 AM, theDarkeOne said:

You two - @Bill Z Bubba and @Werner - are a big reason why I have gotten hooked on tanks lately. . . Every time I make a different character I come to these threads, read something one of you posted, and wham. . . back to my tanks.

BillZ you  are one of the biggest reasons since I met you on my first day in game way, way back in the OG days. . . I had a mace/stone mini-tank and you dropped a million influence on me when I was a teeny baby tank in Atlas Park and then spent 15 minutes helping me out with the difference between a tank and scrapper. . .

Still to this day, one of the coolest moments I have had gaming in my - ahem - 35+ years of MMO's/gaming in general.

On 8/13/2020 at 12:54 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

I'm damn glad I did that!

 

Man, that damn story right there was almost a fricken tear jerker. That right there is absolutely beautiful and that is what this CoH Community is all about. And to think I on occasion se threads that claim our community is "toxic"...this right here is why I call such BS on the claims of our community being Toxic. That is one damn good touching story and a great memory you two share together. This right here is the spirit of City of Heroes. The both of you rock!

[Werner]

MoITF +4x8 no temps no insps no base buffs no Lore no deaths enemies buffed player debuffed completed in 1:53:34. I did use amplifiers and my other incarnate powers.

 

Leveling up and kitting out my Shield/MA Tanker took much longer than I'd hoped. But he's finally finished, so it was time to ITF. First try, mostly smooth run. One mistake in mission 3 when I got so focused on killing a crowd of Surgeons that I forgot to hit Ageless Core and partly detoggled. I fortunately managed to escape, so it only cost me a little bit of time. Another mistake later in the run, when final Rommy's health was moving more slowly than I wanted, so I had the bright idea of pulling in some 5th Column to bump up my damage. Instead, Rommy bumped up his defense, so I had to kill my adds. Between going to get them and killing them, and my debuffed damage, I probably added 5+ minutes to my time. Ah, well. I always mess something up. No big deal.

 

It might be possible to do it without amplifiers. I built around using the defense amplifier, but survivability was a non-issue, so maybe I could survive without the defense and survival amplifiers. Maybe. And it'd be harder to hit and I'd do less damage without the offense amplifier, but Rommy went down fast enough that maybe I'd be able to slowly whittle him down anyway. To be determined.

 

[Gobbledigook]

7 minutes ago, Werner said:

MoITF +4x8 no temps no insps no base buffs no Lore no deaths enemies buffed player debuffed completed in 1:53:34. I did use amplifiers and my other incarnate powers.

 

Leveling up and kitting out my Shield/MA Tanker took much longer than I'd hoped. But he's finally finished, so it was time to ITF. First try, mostly smooth run. One mistake in mission 3 when I got so focused on killing a crowd of Surgeons that I forgot to hit Ageless Core and partly detoggled. I fortunately managed to escape, so it only cost me a little bit of time. Another mistake later in the run, when final Rommy's health was moving more slowly than I wanted, so I had the bright idea of pulling in some 5th Column to bump up my damage. Instead, Rommy bumped up his defense, so I had to kill my adds. Between going to get them and killing them, and my debuffed damage, I probably added 5+ minutes to my time. Ah, well. I always mess something up. No big deal.

 

It might be possible to do it without amplifiers. I built around using the defense amplifier, but survivability was a non-issue, so maybe I could survive without the defense and survival amplifiers. Maybe. And it'd be harder to hit and I'd do less damage without the offense amplifier, but Rommy went down fast enough that maybe I'd be able to slowly whittle him down anyway. To be determined.

 

Awesome!!!

[Tsuko]

4 hours ago, Werner said:

MoITF +4x8 no temps no insps no base buffs no Lore no deaths enemies buffed player debuffed completed in 1:53:34. I did use amplifiers and my other incarnate powers.

 

Leveling up and kitting out my Shield/MA Tanker took much longer than I'd hoped. But he's finally finished, so it was time to ITF. First try, mostly smooth run. One mistake in mission 3 when I got so focused on killing a crowd of Surgeons that I forgot to hit Ageless Core and partly detoggled. I fortunately managed to escape, so it only cost me a little bit of time. Another mistake later in the run, when final Rommy's health was moving more slowly than I wanted, so I had the bright idea of pulling in some 5th Column to bump up my damage. Instead, Rommy bumped up his defense, so I had to kill my adds. Between going to get them and killing them, and my debuffed damage, I probably added 5+ minutes to my time. Ah, well. I always mess something up. No big deal.

 

It might be possible to do it without amplifiers. I built around using the defense amplifier, but survivability was a non-issue, so maybe I could survive without the defense and survival amplifiers. Maybe. And it'd be harder to hit and I'd do less damage without the offense amplifier, but Rommy went down fast enough that maybe I'd be able to slowly whittle him down anyway. To be determined.

 

Glory to the Bearded King !

 

 

Edited October 25, 2020 by Tsuko

[Werner]

2 hours ago, Tsuko said:

Glory to the Bearded King !

Thanks! Though I think the Scrapper runs were much more impressive. Suvivability isn't affected by the player debuff, mostly accuracy and damage, so the only thing extra it shows is that my Tanker has good DPS. I need to take a crack at some speed runs without the player debuff.

[Tsuko]

5 hours ago, Werner said:

Thanks! Though I think the Scrapper runs were much more impressive. Suvivability isn't affected by the player debuff, mostly accuracy and damage, so the only thing extra it shows is that my Tanker has good DPS. I need to take a crack at some speed runs without the player debuff.

Enemy buff / player debuff is crazy, you desserve your rank 🙂

[Hew]

Fold space.

[Maxzero]

2 hours ago, Hew said:

Fold space.

 

At +4 there is a few problems in that the magnitude is not high enough to teleport Lts or Bosses. +3 (ie with Incarnates) still means Bosses won't get teleported.

 

Wormhole has the same issue.

[Sovera]

We need to petition so Werner can have an unique forum title as Tank God.