Most Unstoppable Tank

[The_Warpact]

In your opinion or experience what is the tank that just keeps going regardless of enemy type, number of enemies, etc. The one that faces hordes of CoT or Vanguard wizards and laughs, the kind of tank that walks over and kicks Scrapyard in his ass.

 

The last person standing kind of tank, the one that puts "super" into superman, the Unstoppable in Juggernaut, etc.

 

I realize survivability is more than the damage in dealing with a tank, and I love my broots, but, I want a runaway train kind of tank.

 

 

 

 

[Haijinx]

All the primaries have weaknesses.  Which in some situations will come into play. 

 

Many for example has no slow resist.  So Artemis caltrops can be really annoying.  Or Gravity slows, etc.  

 

Many have no End drain protection.  Some combat this with Recovery powers, but that's an imperfect solution. 

 

Many have no DDR, and those that do often have only partial DDR.  

 

Terrorize status resistance is not included in most sets powers. 

 

Lots of sets have Holes in Def or Resist.

 

I guess to be the most unstoppable you'd have to pick a solid set and try to minimize these problems with pools, epics, incarnates and IOs.   

 

Edited December 11, 2020 by Haijinx

[Dark Dove]

Invuln wins, unless you're willing to stomach Stone's drawbacks which most people aren't, but if you are then Stone wins.

 

Bio and Rad bring a lot of other stuff to the table, and there's something to be said about a lot of the sets out there after IO's (DARK!), but if you just want something that survives, I think Invuln or Stone is the option to take.

 

Pair with high AoE damage or AoE control/knockdown and you have something pretty great for tanky goodness.

Edited December 11, 2020 by alt2

[The_Warpact]

Just now, Haijinx said:

All the primaries have weaknesses.  Which in some situations will come into play. 

 

Many for example has no slow resist.  So Artemis caltrops can be really annoying.  Or Gravity slows, etc.  

 

Many have no End drain protection.  Some combat this with Recovery powers, but that's an imperfect solution. 

 

Many have no DDR, and those that do often have only partial DDR.  

 

Terrorize status resistance is not included in most sets powers. 

 

Lots of sets have Holes in Def or Resist.

 

I guess to be the moat unstoppable you'd have to pick a solid set and try to minimize these problems with pools, epics, incarnates and IOs.   

 

Yeah I figured it would be like every armor set on every other melee AT, IOs, specific pools, incarnate abilities, etc would be needed to fill the holes.

 

But, in your experience what set impressed you and why.

[The_Warpact]

1 minute ago, alt2 said:

Invuln wins, unless you're willing to stomach Stone's drawbacks which most people aren't, but if you are then Stone wins.

 

Bio and Rad bring a lot of other stuff to the table, and there's something to be said about a lot of the sets out there after IO's, but if you just want something that survives, I think Invuln or Stone is the option to take.

 

Pair with high AoE damage or AoE control/knockdown and you have something pretty great for tanky goodness.

I figured stone/invul would be top tier for obvious reasons. Probably with Ele or WM it would be a mean machine.

I was wondering if I was going to be surprised by any of the answers, like saying rad/ was better which of course suprised me and I would have wanted to know why.

 

Strange though I have heard nothing about any def sets yet, but, its still early in the thread.

[Gobbledigook]

Both shield and Super Reflexes are very good defence sets. Proven in threads below covering a similar topic.

[Seigmoraig]

Once built up properly Dark Armor is SOLID. Mine caps almost all of the resists in addition to capping Smash, Lethal and Melee defences. Combined with the giant heal that comes back super fast it is very hard to put down a Dark/ Tanker

[Haijinx]

SR is nice since you do avoid most attacks including effects like END drains.  

And it has both speed increase and Slow resistance. 

 

Willpower is pretty good for having resist or defense to every single attack type, with S/L having both maxed out.  So it can be reasonably unstoppable.  

 

Invul can be built with both high resist to a lot of things, and great typed defense.  But there's the painful PSI building issue.

 

Stone is too slow to be an Unstoppable Force. 

[tidge]

11 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Invul can be built with both high resist to a lot of things, and great typed defense.  But there's the painful PSI building issue.

I have an Invuln Tank and I don't consider the Psi hole do be all that painful. There are plenty of places to slot 5xImpervium Armor Psi Resistance plus an Aegis; so while you aren't going to get 90% resistance on Psi, with Taunt affecting enemy range, Invincibility boosting positional defenses, and a perma Dull Pain, it doesn't have to be that bad.

Edited December 11, 2020 by tidge

[nihilii]

10 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Stone is too slow to be an Unstoppable Force. 

Up until I27 I wholeheartedly agreed.

With Combat Teleport now, Stone is pretty cool. Still unlikely to cut it for a speedrunner or in some incarnate trials, but in most content I don't feel hampered at all.

Combat Teleport is truly instant, instead of the awkward Teleportation lag. It's a game changer.

But one last hurdle remains with Stone... You don't get to see your costume. Just like Bio Armor, perhaps it's a fair price to pay.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, tidge said:

I have an Invuln Tank and I don't consider the Psi hole do be all that painful. There are plenty of places to slot 5xImpervium Armor Psi Resistance plus an Aegis; so while you aren't going to get 90% resistance on Psi, with Taunt affecting enemy range, Invincibility boosting positional defenses, and a perma Dull Pain, it doesn't have to be that bad.

actually I meant more to be "UNSTOPABBLE" to stuff like PSI.

 

I think for most normal play the Psi hole in Invul can be ignored and you'd be fine.  

 

But yeah you can shore it up fairly well.   Just devoting slots to stuff like that I find painful. 

[Haijinx]

8 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Up until I27 I wholeheartedly agreed.

With Combat Teleport now, Stone is pretty cool. Still unlikely to cut it for a speedrunner or in some incarnate trials, but in most content I don't feel hampered at all.

Combat Teleport is truly instant, instead of the awkward Teleportation lag. It's a game changer.

But one last hurdle remains with Stone... You don't get to see your costume. Just like Bio Armor, perhaps it's a fair price to pay.

There's the big damage and recharge hits though.  I guess Defensively its no biggie.  But IDK does Unstoppable imply some sort of offensive punch?  

 

The new Combat Teleport sounds good.  

[tidge]

19 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Just devoting slots to stuff like that I find painful. 

Just my opinion, but on a Tank resistances and defenses really ought to be prioritized for slot placement. I don't (edit: "feel the need" to) dedicate all that many slots to those anyway. Again, only for myself: once uniques/global pieces are slotted, and the ED/bonus cap is effectively 'pushed' I will only add slots for specific set bonuses. For example, I don't have extra slots invested in Resist Elements... some may consider it blasphemy but I don't sweat that little bit of extra typed damage because the defenses to those types is reasonably high (solo).

Edited December 11, 2020 by tidge

[nihilii]

18 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

There's the big damage and recharge hits though.

You're right. I have a bias towards highend builds. Ageless, Musculature and procs smooth out much of the Granite penalties; at least enough the extra survivability vs damage lost ratio becomes very, very interesting.

[Tsuko]

for "every day all road" gameplay i use my SD EM tanker with a special "itrial" build

 

 

With cardiac T4 / mélée core res T4 / wedding band / demonic aura / one with the shield and defensive amplifier if needed to max out by myself all the def for master itrial run or MO lgtf.

 

got taunt / darkest night / gloom to manage agro (the end use here is with both super speed and darkest night)

 

EM + AOO pack quite a punch.

 

Grant cover + ageless radial gives to all the light people around me to have better def and DDR.

[The_Warpact]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

SR is nice since you do avoid most attacks including effects like END drains.  

And it has both speed increase and Slow resistance. 

 

Willpower is pretty good for having resist or defense to every single attack type, with S/L having both maxed out.  So it can be reasonably unstoppable.  

 

Invul can be built with both high resist to a lot of things, and great typed defense.  But there's the painful PSI building issue.

 

Stone is too slow to be an Unstoppable Force. 

I remember when a stoner tank was a requirement to do a Hami, now its almost forgotten. 

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Tsuko said:

for "every day all road" gameplay i use my SD EM tanker with a special "itrial" build

 

 

With cardiac T4 / mélée core res T4 / wedding band / demonic aura / one with the shield and defensive amplifier if needed to max out by myself all the def for master itrial run or MO lgtf.

 

got taunt / darkest night / gloom to manage agro (the end use here is with both super speed and darkest night)

 

EM + AOO pack quite a punch.

 

Grant cover + ageless radial gives to all the light people around me to have better def and DDR.

Oh right Shield. 

 

I always forget about that one, since I don't like the one handed animations and the stance and so forth.  But Shield is really good for a Unstoppable Contender. 

 

DDR is stackable, High Def, Decent Resists, and lots of Damage fringe benefits. 

[Tsuko]

2 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Oh right Shield. 

 

I always forget about that one, since I don't like the one handed animations and the stance and so forth.  But Shield is really good for a Unstoppable Contender. 

 

DDR is stackable, High Def, Decent Resists, and lots of Damage fringe benefits. 

yeah and SD provides DDR and def, not to mention phalanx fighting for self def

[The_Warpact]

5 minutes ago, Tsuko said:

for "every day all road" gameplay i use my SD EM tanker with a special "itrial" build

 

 

With cardiac T4 / mélée core res T4 / wedding band / demonic aura / one with the shield and defensive amplifier if needed to max out by myself all the def for master itrial run or MO lgtf.

 

got taunt / darkest night / gloom to manage agro (the end use here is with both super speed and darkest night)

 

EM + AOO pack quite a punch.

 

Grant cover + ageless radial gives to all the light people around me to have better def and DDR.

I have an Ele/SD broot who is an AOE master, maybe I roll a SD tank.

[Tsuko]

5 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

I have an Ele/SD broot who is an AOE master, maybe I roll a SD tank.

yeah SD tanker are awesome.

 

Invul and granite should be more "immortal" but the buff aspect with the ageless radial / grant cover combo + the debuff (aoo + darkest night) option + the ability to burst like no other of EM with aoo make it a great and funny AT to play in team.

 

I love my rad tankers but the lack of real (by real i mean with DDR) defences is a thing while fighting heavy debuffing enemies.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Tsuko

[Gobbledigook]

8 minutes ago, Tsuko said:

yeah SD tanker are awesome.

 

Invul and granite should be more "immortal" but the buff aspect with the ageless radial / grant cover combo + the debuff (aoo + darkest night) option + the ability to burst like no other of EM with aoo make it a great and funny AT to play in team.

 

I love my rad tankers but the lack of real (by real i mean with DDR) defences is a thing while fighting heavy debuffing enemies.

I have most other Tankers including SD and invuln but RadA is still my favourite to play . May not be the toughest, tough enough for most content though, but its the most fun for me 😀

[Werner]

Another vote for Shield. I’ve built and played high end tricked out Shield, Invuln, and Dark. Invuln seems toughest by a slight margin, but not enough to tempt me away from the extra damage output of Shield. Dark is sheer delight until the defense debuffs show up, but those are common enough that it just feels weaker than the others, even with Barrier Core or Ageless Radial on tap. And it’s also missing the damage output of Shield. I also like how much Shield buffs the party’s defense. But all of them are very solid and capable of ridiculous things.

[Android Nim]

For an extended fight ice tankers, when built right, are beasty. Frankenslot for regen and get hoarfrost perma (easy).

 

EA stacks with itself so if you slot it for recharge and end mod you'll be way over the softcap.

 

CE reduces incoming damage frequency and raw damage. 

 

You can hibernate if you feel the need but I long since respecced out., 

[Haijinx]

That's a good point about Ice.  It is immune to slows also I believe.   

 

And EA works to supplement the DDR 

 

It does have a Psi hole, but at least you do have the slow effect.  

 

Its numbers are lower than they seem like they should be compared to the current Energy Aura on brutes.  But on a Tanker they are good.  

[Tsuko]

my SD EM itrial build with the lowest buff of Ageless Radial, on top of, with such def, i m not really often affect by anything

 

And shield, as SR, is the king of cc prot with the double stack of Active defence, making it almost immune to the stupid terrorize effect.

 

Edited December 11, 2020 by Tsuko