First Ward and Night Ward

[Aiax]

I have always enjoyed going through First Ward and Night Ward and have had some characters do better than others.  I think that the Wards throw everything at you from all damage types (not sure on toxic) to a variety of debuffs (slows, dmg, def) so that got me thinking, what melee primary & secondary combo would be best to deal with all that First Ward and Night Ward throws at you?

 

I prefer to play Tanks, Brutes and Scrappers and was thinking maybe a combo of savage melee and electric armour, but not sure how many of the enemy groups resist lethal.

 

Thanks!

[Omega Force]

To counter the debuffs, defense armors like Shield or Super Reflexes are best, but might bloom too late.  Pair them with Dark or Rad for healing.  Resist-wise, Elec or Rad armor should both do well.  I'd pair Elec with Savage or Staff, because it is starved for endurance on the way up.  You could also try a heal armor like Willpower and Bio.

[Doomguide2005]

     Like @Omega Forcesaid overall, but thinking an SR Tanker would do well.  Being a Tanker means those capped defenses come online sooner and can be effectively slotted for all 3 positions by 20th.  You can't debuff what you can't hit.

[mcdoogss]

The last two tankers I tried to take through the main FW/NW arcs were Fire/ and Dark/.  They were both a slog, lots of Energy damage (both sets have a hole there) and debuffs that really hurt partially built heroes (-toHit, -recharge, end drain, etc). 

[Without_Pause]

Dark melee with Elec armor or a defense based one. I like EA and its defenses are done by 20/28 depending on how much you think of healing as a defense. You'll already have the heal from the primary by then as well. Rad melee will offer much more AoE although the heal is more infrequent. I like not love Savage. ST damage could be better. Its damage type is also highly resisted. I have no good defense for my I would pick one versus the other, but I did go Stalker over a Scrapper when deciding on a Dark/ea. I absolutely get why people would go Scrapper instead.

[Apparition]

I really like Energy Aura, but it has a psionic damage hole and there is a lot of psionic damage in the last half of First Ward, and you get to fight four EBs simultaneously in Night Ward with a ton of psionic damage.

[ZemX]

I think for the most part damage resistances aren't a big deal in FW/NW but Lethal still gets the shaft more often than anything else.  Still, it's 10-15% resistance usually.  A few odd cases like the Resistance Heavy Barrel with 30% S/L will be a pain.   Living Spells tend to resist the damage type they deal, so the animated weapons do resist Lethal but the elemental ones resist Fire, Cold, Energy, or Negative, etc.  Spirits do resist Lethal a bit usually, presumably for being incorporeal and not having blood to spill.  

 

As for debuffs, this really depends on difficulty setting.  I would say a defense-based armor is only really necessary if you intend to solo large groups.  Then the stacking debuffs can be an issue.  Might also be a problem if you want to solo +3/+4 or something because the Purple Patch increases the debuff magnitude, requiring less stacking to floor you.   Resist/Regen based armors that don't have +toHit or toHit debuff resistance can be a problem at higher diff settings.

 

I want to get into an SR Tanker next but.... struggling to do so myself.   They're good... but after playing Rad Armor, also kind of boring looking.  It's a set-it-and-forget-it set, which is a plus for many people.  To me it's just a bit less interesting.  Shield Maybe.  I had a lot of fun with an Ice/Shield Stalker.  Very tanky for a Stalker and decent AoE.