Durable low level tanks?

[Unclemarty]

I am thinking of rolling 2 tanks that could take on some difficult low level content. The first I’d like to level lock at 12 and the second I would level lock at 22. I wouldn’t be soloing with these tanks but Ideally I would like to be able to stand up to +3 difficulty without falling flat.

 

Any advice on which primary and secondary would be good for this situation? Im particularly looking for early blooming sets that would not need later powers to be durable. 
 

Any recommendations would be appreciated!

 

 

[Gulbasaur]

Dark is a solid early blooming set. By 12, you've got a good complement of resists, a damage AoE, some defence and a heal -its a very front-ended set. If you take it to 22, you'll have a Fear aura, which eats endurance but also makes you massively tanky against minions. 

 

Super Reflexes gives you a lot of defence and some resists very early. It focuses on positional defence. Nothing fancy, but also reliable at that level.

 

Radiation is another solid resist set with very good endurance management. If you get it to 22, you'll have a *massive* boost in survival as there is a strong Absorb shield.

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Gulbasaur

[Snarky]

I would suggest invulnerable armor.  Coupled with fighting set it is incredible at low level content.  A lot of the pre 25 damage is smash lethal.  You will have resistance to end deain.  I do recommend a Panacea and a Miracle i. Health and a Perf shift proc and a perf shift end mod.  All tanks are hungry hungry after all

[PeregrineFalcon]

35 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I would suggest invulnerable armor.  Coupled with fighting set it is incredible at low level content.  A lot of the pre 25 damage is smash lethal.  You will have resistance to end deain.  I do recommend a Panacea and a Miracle i. Health and a Perf shift proc and a perf shift end mod.  All tanks are hungry hungry after all

I don't usually agree with Snarky, but when I do it's because he's right.

 

Invuln blooms early. Other Tanker primaries can be made tougher, but not really at lower levels. My main is an Invuln/EM Tanker. Her build is such that when exempted down to level 20 she has all of her toggles including Combat Jumping, Tough and Weave. Definitely take Snarky's advice and get a Performance Shifter proc and a Miracle and/or Panacea HP/End proc.

• Dark Melee is great for making you more tough because the -ToHit stacks well with the defense from Invincibility.
• Broadsword, Katana, Martial Arts, Staff and Titan Weapons are great because they all have a "parry" attack that gives you a defense buff.
• Radiation Melee attacks all have a defense debuff. This means that the entire team will do more damage to your target. This can increase your durability because faster kill time means less attacks against you.
• Battle Axe, Mace and Super Strength help by knocking your target up or down a lot. They can't attack you while they're picking themselves up off of the deck.
• Ice Melee attacks all slow the target. -Recharge means less attacks against you, which means less incoming damage.

While my main is Energy Melee, I don't recommend it for low level play. Energy Melee is a late bloomer.

[Obsinious]

Dead mobs don't hurt you.  Roll a burn tanker, probably Fire/Ice.  Check out Sovera's Brunker build thread.

[Sovera]

Fire/Ice Melee. By level 20 (ergo exemped to 15) you got a heal, an endurance clicky, Burn and Ice Patch.

 

Locked at 12... If you'd say 13 I'd say Fire/Claws Spin + Burn would hurt enemies before they hurt you much.

 

Not sure about the other examples here but if we had a friendly 'lets solo Posi 1 at +0x8' competition I'd stick with Fire/Ice 100%.

[Biff Pow]

With Invulnerability, all five Resist powers are available by level 12, and now that we can use SOs early they give you some good resist numbers. Put the +Def IOs in the passives for an extra defensive boost.

 

Honestly though, since this game began one of the best early defense powers for me has been Air Superiority. It reliably keeps Bosses off their feet so a lot less damage is incoming.

[Unclemarty]

2 hours ago, Sovera said:

Fire/Ice Melee. By level 20 (ergo exemped to 15) you got a heal, an endurance clicky, Burn and Ice Patch.

 

Locked at 12... If you'd say 13 I'd say Fire/Claws Spin + Burn would hurt enemies before they hurt you much.

 

Not sure about the other examples here but if we had a friendly 'lets solo Posi 1 at +0x8' competition I'd stick with Fire/Ice 100%.

I’m not too familiar with fire but I’ve heard it’s mostly an offensive/ fire farming set that is not as durable as other options. How does it hold up in normal content? Do you think fire could hold up to an alpha strike of +3 x 8 when on a full team at those low levels?

[Unclemarty]

6 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

Dark is a solid early blooming set. By 12, you've got a good complement of resists, a damage AoE, some defence and a heal -its a very front-ended set. If you take it to 22, you'll have a Fear aura, which eats endurance but also makes you massively tanky against minions. 

 

Super Reflexes gives you a lot of defence and some resists very early. It focuses on positional defence. Nothing fancy, but also reliable at that level.

 

Radiation is another solid resist set with very good endurance management. If you get it to 22, you'll have a *massive* boost in survival as there is a strong Absorb shield.

 

I totally love my radiation tank at 50, but would resist-based tanks work well at low levels? I am worried that the lack of defense might mean I’m eating a bunch of debuffs. I just remember back on live running around atlas park and getting beat by vahzilok with their debuffs lol.
 

I like your suggestion of dark though. It’s a hybrid set with def and resistance? Maybe I could softcap defense early with a bit of resists by using the parry attacks falcon mentioned too...

[Without_Pause]

I wouldn't do +3/x8 at low levels unless the lead was using a 2x XP booster. Handling content on a full team depends on the team. Do you mean PuGs?

 

Rad should be fine against Vahz as their exotic damage type is Toxic and Rad covers that.

 

Dark is more resist based so I'm curious what you mean by soft capping and what you define as early.

[Sovera]

5 hours ago, Unclemarty said:

I’m not too familiar with fire but I’ve heard it’s mostly an offensive/ fire farming set that is not as durable as other options. How does it hold up in normal content? Do you think fire could hold up to an alpha strike of +3 x 8 when on a full team at those low levels?

 

Nothing is going to hold its ground at +3 at those levels. Unless you have buffs and debuffs from the team helping. But at 12-15 it's still a death sentence considering the forced scaling down of stats. You may need to temper your expectations.

[Gobbledigook]

Bio armour (in defensive or efficient for endurance form) with a theft of essence proc, electric armour, Rad armour with a ToE proc or willpower may do well at low levels. They all have some good endurance management which is horrible for most at lower levels. They have heals/resists and some defences.

 

Couple it with Martial arts or ice or possibly Katana will help also.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Gobbledegook

[Bill Z Bubba]

Super Reflexes, level capped at 12 (powers up to lvl 17,) using nothing but SOs.

 

1% short of defense softcap to all melee and ranged attacks. 13% short of it for AoE.

 

 

For the lvl 22 build, it just gets sillier.

 

 

And of course you'll be able to use IOs instead of SOs if ya like. Plenty available for the lvl 22 build to play with.

[PLVRIZR]

On 11/25/2021 at 2:52 PM, Unclemarty said:

...the second I would level lock at 22. I wouldn’t be soloing with these tanks but Ideally I would like to be able to stand up to +3 difficulty without falling flat.

 

 

You didn't mention whether this was a pre-funded project (but I assume it is, so my example is uses mostly SOs, but four level-appropriate specials and five non-uniques.  Total spend would be 10-15M, if you bought recipes and elements, rather than full /AH prices.

 

On 11/25/2021 at 5:46 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

I don't usually agree with Snarky, but when I do it's because he's right.

 

Invuln blooms early. Other Tanker primaries can be made tougher, but not really at lower levels.

• ...Super Strength help (sic) helps by knocking your target up or down a lot. They can't attack you while they're picking themselves up off of the deck.

 

Same about Snarks 😆...so here's what an Inv fanboy came up with:

 

 

These stats do have Invincibility active with 10 mobs (defense drops from 29% to 16.4%, with only one enemy), but as a resistance build, you're almost capped with S/L and will scale to cap with the Reactive Defenses scaling resistance kicking in, when your HP starts to drop.  Speaking of HP, hit Dull Pain and it jumps to 2,889.  When the Preventative Medicine +absorb procs, you add another 577 HPs in absorb shield.  Level 25 S/L mobs, against a tank with 3,466 HP, 30% Def and 88.2% Res, will take a while.  You could hold aggro against Council and let your team farm them, all day long...  Inv also comes with 50% DDR, right out of the box.

 

Since you plan on teaming, I kept Taunt (spend another couple inf. and get the Perfect Zinger chance for +psi damage for shats and gaggles) and Hand Clap is your predominate "attack" (with a KB to KD, to keep them close to you).  Again, the requested goal is to remain standing, not to be the damage dealer.  Kick will be in your attack rotation, though, with +recharge, doubling your claps.  Jab gets disorient enh, also to mitigate rather than cause damage.  You won't have enough end to constantly use Sands of Mu or Blackwand/Nemesis Staff, I don't imagine, but having them at your disposal, would be a must.

 

I also spent a few inf on BotZ KB protection in SJ, because at 14 points, you'll never, ever, get knocked down at this level.  Inv's 10 (via Unyielding) is probably adequate, but you're planning to be THE tank, for your team(s).  This would absolutely be a must for a Dark or Fire tank, unless you want to spend your time getting up, instead of knocking the bad guys down.

 

Not nearly as unhittable as Bill's SR build, unless there are defense debuffers around, and I'm looking at you, Death Mages.  The Posi TFs would be tough with a defense-only build at +3, IMHO, but it's been a LONG time since I ran SR in those, and it was a scrapper, on Live.

 

Finally, if you want an SO only version (or a no-holds-barred/money-is-no-object version), I'll run those for you, as well.

 

Here's the link/chunk:

https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=866&c=439&a=878&f=HEX&dc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

 

Here are the 100% SO build Stats (Invinc still at 10 enemies):

 

Edited November 27, 2021 by PLVRIZR
added SO only stats

[PLVRIZR]

Update:

 

Ported the SO-only build to Beta and loaded my favorite S/L farm:  "Just Teh Council Empire" (Dreck map), at +3/x4.  The mobs are close together, so it winds up as a x8 anyway...  Wasn't faring well, until I realized the minimum level for that AE is 40.  Whoops.  Still did better at +14, than I would have expected...

 

Stepped out and reloaded a 1-54 Council farm.  This one was on the cargo/container ship interior map.  At the far end of the opening catwalk, I tried to taunt a foursome from the two bunched groups, but got all eight anyway.  2 Lieuts (purple 29s) and 6 Minions.  With knocking them down with Hand Clap and stunning Lieuts with Jab, I could have stood there, for hours, as the regen outpaced the damage (mostly a stream of 1s, from the chain guns, a few <10s from grenades and an occasional 14-17 damage from the Lieuts kicks).  Used Dull Pain once, at about 80% health, just to make sure it worked.

 

Here's the chunk, if you're interested:

 

https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=890&c=416&a=832&f=HEX&dc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

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, PLVRIZR said:

Still did better at +14, than I would have expected...

 

🤣

[Unclemarty]

On 11/26/2021 at 8:32 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

Super Reflexes, level capped at 12 (powers up to lvl 17,) using nothing but SOs.

 

1% short of defense softcap to all melee and ranged attacks. 13% short of it for AoE.

 

 

Thanks for the build Bill Z! 

I might not be interpreting the build on Mids right but it looks like that one goes to 16? 

 

I used your build as inspiration and sprinkled some unique IOs in. 

 

Only 1 attack feels bad, but it seems like in full teams, Taunt may be required. If Taunt were skipped, I would replace it with Titan Sweep and slot both Tanker uniques into it.

Would it be ok to skimp on AoE def here with the idea that early enemies usually don't have AoE attacks?

 

[Unclemarty]

At lvl 13 (not 12, cheating here a bit) Shield/DM might be more survivable than the SR/Titan build I posted earlier. 

13 gives us a bit more slots so we can slot the Steadfast Protection and Gladiator Armor uniques. 

for the secondary, the theory is that /Dark's -tohit can mitigate incoming damage debuffs.

If I miss too often, I may pivot to /Rad for the -def effect. 

 

[PLVRIZR]

5 hours ago, Unclemarty said:

I might not be interpreting the build on Mids right but it looks like that one goes to 16? 

 

We both built to +4 your base, since when exempted, you still get to use five levels above the leader.  If *you* are going to lead, then yes, you'd need to skip the 14th and 16th power.

 

5 hours ago, Unclemarty said:

Would it be ok to skimp on AoE def here with the idea that early enemies usually don't have AoE attacks?

 

Attacks use an algorithm which matches your best defense/resist against all possible damage types.  So if it's an AOE grenade, which does Lethal damage, the logic checks AOE Def and Lethal Defense and applies the attack to whichever is better for you.  Then, if it hits, it uses the Lethal Resist, to calculate final damage.

Edited November 29, 2021 by PLVRIZR
reworded

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Unclemarty said:

I might not be interpreting the build on Mids right but it looks like that one goes to 16? 

 

Right. I was going off of if you were exemplared to 12 instead of being actually capped at 12. Apologies for the confusion.

 

2 hours ago, Unclemarty said:

Would it be ok to skimp on AoE def here with the idea that early enemies usually don't have AoE attacks?

 

Running lvl 12 content? I dunno.

[PLVRIZR]

Here's the Inv/SS Lvl 12 (powers to 16), all IO'd out.  Four attacks:  Brawl, Jab, Kick and Sands of Mu (well, plus Blackwand, but not part of the rotation).  I had to switch from Hand Clap to Tough, for survivability, but it would come at 18, for sure.  Sands has a long enough recharge that it doesn't make end an issue, either.

 

Downsides:  Sprint, Athletic Run and Steam Jump are the travel powers.  Any jetpack can be added, considering this thing isn't cheap, even at lvl 17.

 

Also hadn't considered the freebie drone shield, and it puts S/L resist to almost the cap, when up.

 

Went back in and tackled the Council in AE.  Not *quite* as effortless as the 22 (powers to 26) build, but stood up solo, in +3/x4 (usually 8 bad guys, total).  90% vs. 68% resists means life vs. death.

 

 

https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=768&c=409&a=818&f=HEX&dc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