Most AoE

[Xandyr]

Which secondary powerset has the most AoE potential? Electric Melee?

[StriderIV]

4 minutes ago, Xandyr said:

Which secondary powerset has the most AoE potential? Electric Melee?

Probably Elec, Rad or Spines?

 

[Sovera]

I'll say Savage Melee if you want number of AoEs. I'm leveling one atm and it has a nice bursty AoE with BU, the teleport attack (which is WIDE) and then the PbAoE (which with full stacks is WIDE as well). This alone tends to kill minions (It does rely on having BU). But if able to fit the cone in the build you might find yourself just chaining AoEs when you add Fire Armor to it as well. Paired with Fire Armor it's easy to spend time just dropping PbAoEs. The ST isn't all that great since it relies on T1 and T2 because Hemorrhage is never recommended. I haven't pylon tested it yet but don't expect much. That said it's role is really to teleport to a pack and hit everyone even scattered.

 

Claws isn't as good in terms of chaining things together as Scrappers. Although we get more damage per use because of longer recharges it introduces gaps that Scrappers don't have. A Scrapper can do Follow up, Spin, Shockwave through infinity with no pauses and that simply blends a pack of mobs. A Tanker is forced to Follow-up, Spin, Shockwave, and then gap. Probably Slash since all procced out it's the strongest attack it gets. if anything I'd recommend this one. Strong ST, exemplars well, Spin hits for about twice the damage of all other PbAoEs with no hit on animation times. Pair it with Fire Armor and Shockwave helping with safety by constant knockdowns and you get yourself a blender.

 

Radiation Melee is great for AoE. Not only do you get the inherent mechanic of the set where hitting mobs contaminated will do small damage to others near it but Irradiated Ground with six damage and -res procs will melt things passively while the player just focuses on killing a boss. Atom smasher can even be ignored if tight on slots. Considering the set comes with a built-in heal there is a reason this is one of the most popular farming sets. The single target isn't great and the animations are slow.

 

Elec melee lives on through nostalgia. It has nothing really interesting due to the slowness of its animations and horrible single target. People mistake the number of AoEs for performance which is not the case.

 

Staff is the same as above. Looks cool, has lots of AoE, people mistake it for performance. It does not perform well. Pretty bad single target damage.

 

Spines is another one like Elec Melee. The number of AoEs masks the -very- slow animations and low damage. Spine Burst, for example, takes 3.1 seconds to go off and is unable to kill the little gears that pop out of killing Clockwork bosses.

 

An honorable mention to Martial Arts. Only one AoE but it animates fast and has room for a Force Feedback proc which speeds the build and provides soft CC. Paired with Fire Armor it allows dropping more Burns. I would not pick it without Fire Armor as the low damage of its AoE means killing packs of enemies is like watching paint dry. But the pairing with Fire Armor melts.

 

 

All the other sets are just more of the same. One PbAoE, one cone, invariably the PbAoE does less than half the damage of Spin.

 

 

My recommendation is probably Claws. When Spin does twice the damage of other PbAoEs it's like having two AoEs. If you take Fire Armor you can do Spin + Burn this as low as Posi 1. The ST is good which is more than other AoE sets can say and this is a consideration since once all minions are dead the boss still needs to be killed.

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Sovera

[Haijinx]

Titan Weapons has a pbaoe and 3x 120 degree cones.  2 that come really early.

 

Not sure how its radius/angle is affected by Tanker changes though.

[Xandyr]

I've yet to play Savage Melee...I've heard good and bad things about it. I've done Rad Melee, Electric Melee, Staff, MA on tanks. I've not done Claws on a tank either.

  It's not going to be for farming. I was thinking the more AoE, the more taunt I can get.

[Coyote]

10 hours ago, Xandyr said:

Which secondary powerset has the most AoE potential? Electric Melee?

 

Savage, Claws, Titan Weapons, IMO. Maybe Rad also, though Rad is less "high AoE" than "convenient AoE".

 

As @Sovera already said, Staff, Electric, and Spines all have a good amount of AoE attacks, but they're not of high quality. So they're better for leveling, but once attack chains tighten up and animation time is more important, they can't squeeze in more damage. That said, Electric isn't bad if paired with Fire or Shield or one of the armor secondaries where you can proc out a PBAoE so that you get a large opening burst from Lightning Rod plus another good AoE. It's not sustained AoE for farming, but for missions it's probably fine. Still, I'd take Electric only on Stalkers since their version is far better.

 

Ice Melee is also surprisingly strong, with two pretty good AoEs, and War Mace and Dual Weapons are pretty good (Mace especially benefits from the Tanker improvements to AoE size), but only at high levels since they get attacks pretty late. Both of the last two are far better on Tankers, IMO, as they rely on cones and the AoE size changes really benefit them. They do good damage, though, and can take Force Feedback procs.

[bighongry]

Not mentioned thusfar is Dark Melee.  You have shadow maul, whose cone is much larger for Tanks.  Then you have Touch of Fear, Soul Drain, and Dark Consumption all PBAOEs. I played for years and never really got into DM, but the change to Touch of Fear is a big help with procs in it.  I have a Rad/DM and Bio/DM Im playing a lot right now, and have a Fire/DM sitting on the shelf waiting for playing time.

[Psyonico]

4 hours ago, Xandyr said:

I was thinking the more AoE, the more taunt I can get.

 

Yes and no.  AoEs aren't affected by Gauntlet, but Single Target attacks are, so it kind of balances out.

[RCU7115]

Fire has 2 Pbaoe's. Combustion and Fire Sword Circle. It also has a small cone Fire Breath.

[Sovera]

4 hours ago, RCU7115 said:

Fire has 2 Pbaoe's. Combustion and Fire Sword Circle. It also has a small cone Fire Breath.

Combustion barely merits the name of an AoE. 3.1 seconds to animate and so low damage it cannot kill the little gears that pop out from clockwork bosses.

[kelika2]

Fire/Staff:  Burn, Spin and Storm all level 20 and below.  Stack those DoTs.

Fire/Dark Melee: Burn, Maul and Touch all level 20 and below.  Stack those DoTs.

Those are my two most fun tankers, I tend to run a lot of low level content and having that level of AoE at level 15 minimum is great.  Im sure we all know about arc width and range, and aoe radius and both of what I listed just stacks DoTs.  Either break dancing in my own flames to win or Touch>Maul in my own burn patch.

[Parabola]

On 3/29/2021 at 5:18 PM, bighongry said:

Not mentioned thusfar is Dark Melee.  You have shadow maul, whose cone is much larger for Tanks.  Then you have Touch of Fear, Soul Drain, and Dark Consumption all PBAOEs. I played for years and never really got into DM, but the change to Touch of Fear is a big help with procs in it.  I have a Rad/DM and Bio/DM Im playing a lot right now, and have a Fire/DM sitting on the shelf waiting for playing time.

Yup. Dark melee is fantastic on tanks these days. I have the three you mention, a shield/dm and a da/dm. Eventually I'm going to run out of armour sets to run with it!

[Onlyasandwich]

War mace has outstanding aoe as well!

 

Standard pbaoe in whirling, amazing cone in crowd control, shatter to fill.

 

Otherwise I am quite partial to savage melee as others mentioned. It has a seamless aoe chain that is very easy to use. Single target is a bit lacking though.