Armor for Praetoria and Rikti

[Apparition]

What would be a good armor to handle all of Praetoria (from Nova Praetoria through Night Ward), and the Rikti... other than Bio Armor?

[Snarky]

I just solo’d gold on Invulnerability.  I have run Invulnerability off and on for years.  I find it to be an incredibly sturdy set with none of the downsides of Stone (movement/damage) nor the lapses of lopsided pure defense sets. It does not have a damage aura.  It does have some of the finest layered protection in game

[Lazarillo]

Not sure about Night Ward (I'll do it some day), but I'd lean towards Rad or Electric, with some support from the Leadership pool.  Energy resistance is going to be the biggest boon.  However, First Ward and late game Praetoria-related content (assuming you do those to) throw a nontrivial amount of Confuse at you, so grabbing Maneuvers and then Tactics for some protection against that is not a bad idea.  That breaks down if Terrorize comes up, but I don't think it does...

[Uun]

Electric Armor. You can cap S/L/E resistance and get very respectable numbers against F/C/Psi. Only big hole is toxic. Completely immune to end drain and good resistance to speed/recharge debuffs.

[InvaderStych]

Rad Armor solo'd The Wards just fine with a Scrapper.  (Kat/Rad)  ***/Rad Brute should roflstomp Rikti and do just fine in Praetoria 1-20.

[Sovera]

Everything works if you're a Brute. You need to be more specific. It would be difficult for any AT not to solo stuff at 0x1 with no bosses, so you must want more. x4? x8? +1x8 with bosses?

[Apparition]

Well, the end goal at level 50 would be +2x8 with bosses at minimum, preferably +1x8 with bosses around level 35.

[The_Warpact]

/Rad gets my vote.

[Sovera]

4 hours ago, Apparition said:

Well, the end goal at level 50 would be +2x8 with bosses at minimum, preferably +1x8 with bosses around level 35.

 

Ice/Fire Armor is still my favorite. Blooms early and mocks pretty much most challenges via a simple line of sight break and Ice Patch, then it burns things down because dead things don't hurt back.

 

See all those tricks they were pulling? Kiting, carefully choosing which mobs to kill first and leaving others until the end? Ice/Fire just laffed and burned stuff.

[Icono04]

On 12/26/2021 at 5:31 AM, Apparition said:

other than Bio Armor

Why is Bio armor not an option?

[Apparition]

17 minutes ago, Icono04 said:

Why is Bio armor not an option?

 

Because I don't care for how it looks, and it's overpowered and due for a substantial nerf at some point.

[Sovera]

8 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

Because I don't care for how it looks, and it's overpowered and due for a substantial nerf at some point.

 

I remember people not playing TW or using procs for the same reason. It only took two years for TW.

[Apparition]

4 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

I remember people not playing TW or using procs for the same reason. It only took two years for TW.

 

I still don't heavily use procs.  No more than two per power at the most, and usually just one.  IMO, procs should have been nerfed to the ground two years ago.

[Sovera]

3 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

I still don't heavily use procs.  No more than two per power at the most, and usually just one.  IMO, procs should have been nerfed to the ground two years ago.

 

Or just removed from the game altogether if it's going to be 'nerfed to the ground'. Once an option because so useless it is not used anymore just remove from the game altogether as there is no point in touting it as an option when it is not.

[InvaderStych]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

IMO, procs should have been nerfed to the ground two years ago.

 

As a frequent user of Effect procs rather than Dmg ones, I'm against this sort "Scorched Earth" correction to procs.  There's a big difference between peppering an Elec/ Sentinel with "Chance to Stun" in AoEs (for example) and using 6 pieces of "%chance for DMG" to turn a low/no damage hold into a high DPA attack.

 

But I am optimistic that the Devs will eventually find a way to balance the latter without making the former completely useless.

 

On 12/27/2021 at 9:58 AM, Apparition said:

Well, the end goal at level 50 would be +2x8 with bosses at minimum, preferably +1x8 with bosses around level 35.

 

Back to the original question though.  That metric describes basically any well built brute.  Hell, my first 50 back when I found HC was Savage/WP (Brute) and was running +1x8 w/bosses easily by that point.  +2x8 @ 50 should be a breeze for any finished brute.

 

Repeating my /Rad suggestion. Pick any primary.  The only annoyances will be Confuse, Taunt, and Blindness, when it comes down to it. Oh, and Incarnate Pantheon if the Ancients of Sorrow are allowed to live too long - but those will annoy anything when allowed to live too long.