Best duo-ing partner for TF/SF

[Achilles6]

Looking for thoughts on best partner for a Tank to duo Task Forces and Strike Forces. I have a little bit of experience doing this. I have a fully kitted out lvl 50 fire farmer Brute and a fully kitted out lvl 50 Tank that I worked thru the blue-side TF's for the TF Commander accolade. With the Brute, I went thru with another lvl 50 kitted out Storm/Elec Defender...it was smooth as silk from start to finish. With the Tank, I went thru the blue-side TF's with different squishy AT's for every TF. Some of them were painfully long. I'm looking at you Manticore TF AV's! I haven't gone thru (paired) the SF's, although I have gone thru the first 4 with my SG.

 

My ask: I have altitis (as many of you do). About a third of my characters are Tanks. They range in lvl's but the most are currently low enough to start the first TF's/SF's. What would be the best AT pairing for a Tank on these? Specifically taking down the AV's. Would it be a Buffer/DeBuffer? Would it be high damage? Which AT and power sets would be best for this?

[Bopper]

I always thought a Rad Armor tank or Brute would pair perfectly with a Cold Domination defender or corruptor. Rad Armor's only weaknesses are cold resistance, lack of max HP, and having zero defense. So your cold shields and Frostwork would patch those holes and then some.

 

On top of that, the debuffs from Cold Domination is top notch, especially against single targets like AVs.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Bopper

[Psyonico]

23 minutes ago, Bopper said:

I always thought a Rad Armor tank or Brute would pair perfectly with a Cold Domination defender or corruptor. Rad Armor's only weaknesses are cold resistance, lack of max HP, and having zero defense. So your cold shields and Frostwork would patch those holes and then some.

 

On top of that, the debuffs from Cold Domination is top notch, especially against single targets like AVs.

 

I've never thought of that combo, but darn if you aren't right... Rad armor tied with a cold defender would be wicked!

 

As for secondaries, I'd probably say cold/sonic for the defender and something with a good mix of AOE and st damage for the tank

 

Fire/Rad/staff/mace or maybe DB for the tank.

[Makobola]

12 hours ago, Psyonico said:

 

I've never thought of that combo, but darn if you aren't right... Rad armor tied with a cold defender would be wicked!

 

As for secondaries, I'd probably say cold/sonic for the defender and something with a good mix of AOE and st damage for the tank

 

Fire/Rad/staff/mace or maybe DB for the tank.

Second the Cold/Sonic as a force multiplier for the harder enemies.

 

However, could also do Ice/Cold Corrupter, or Fire/Cold Corrupter for more clearing damage.

 

I'm also akin to using a /Kinetics; since you can essentially slot Siphon Power to have it 4 stacked for 80% or 100% more damage; as well as having leadership on top of it.

This is a lot of +damage to have at the lower levels for TFs, since I'd say a tanker would have enough survivability.

[Without_Pause]

I would also look at Beam since it has -regen.

[PLVRIZR]

Ancient, old-schooler chiming in.  One of the first toons I made on Live, the Rad/Rad Defender is an AV debuffer, extraordinaire.  Comes along with AM and, while not SB by any means, is a welcomed buff for any tank.  Also comes with an AOE heal and again, while not game changing, is a nice addition (you probably don't need much healing anyway as a tank, right? 😆).  Oh, and hover blasts and debuffs with every attack.

Edited February 2, 2022 by PLVRIZR
reworded

[ironjoe]

I'd say Corruptor for the added damage with Scourge and buffs/debuffs. My top 3 choices for a duo would be:

 

Cold Domination - Strong -RES debuff, max hp, and added defense for resist based tanks.

Poison - Strong debuffs, okay support.

Kinetics - Weakest on my list for debuffs but no one can argue that the damage/recharge buffs aren't strong.

 

For primary I'm partial to the pure damage of fire but there are other good choices.

[Mezmera]

I'd take my TA defender all day to a duo.  All that -res, -regen, -dmg and -tohitt along with a mez/resist shield for you and your teammate.  Why be a Cold when you get all of that debuff and then some in aoe form in TA?  

[Achilles6]

My first thought was a Rad/Sonic Defender. You get the "big 3" pretty early...early enough for all the TF/SF. Plus it will be a huge middle finger to Clamor when I go against her.

 

I had really thought about Cold Dom. You get one of the big powers usable at the lowest TF. I'll have to think about that.

 

I'm still mulling over the "high damage" option. Tho one option could be a Sentinel (stop laughing!) for the status protection. The second SF comes to mind, with the big boat with all the guns. Some of them have some kind of hold ammo. Countess Crey kept "sleeping/holding" my Controller. Yeah, I could carry a tray full of BF's if I had to.

[Linea]

RadA/RadM + Cold/Water (with Rune/Hybrid/Clarion/Amps for status protection)

I'll second Rad Armor/Rad Melee + Cold/Water.   The only real questions being on which frames.   For 95% of the game, I'd say Brute and Defender or Corruptor.  For the 5% that is ultra hard, I'd say Tank and Defender.  Resist capped RadA/Radm can rate 6 or 7 in 801, add the cold buffs and it could go as high as 10.   If you want to go above 10, then you have to switch to ddr capped armor backed by rdr capped resist.  But nothing in this game rates much over 7, not even the ASF on max.

 

Way back on live when someone asked in global for help with AVs, I'll pull out an otherwise mothballed SO Only Cold/ and devastate the AV, done,  back to the garage for storage till next time.

 

 

RAdA/RadM + Traps/Water

Similar to above, Traps was one of the classic AV killers, and is entirely self contained.  In a duo the slightly slower movement pace of Traps/ shouldn't be an issue.

 

 

RadA/RadM + FF/Water

Similar to the above, but you lose -regen capability.  On the plus side the Clarion*PBU*FF can Incarnate Defense Cap your RadM.   Perma-Double-T9 Armors, no crashes.  Or swap to a Pair of Ageless Radials for near-incarnate capped and 55+ perma DDR on a resist based resist capped rdr capped frame.  Double Ageless +ddr would be my pick, alternated so you stay in the 80s ddr range.  This gets into the OMG silly range of durability.

 

 

SD/RadM + Eafn/*

SD with healing and resist boosts, *face palm*.  And another completely self contained Defender.  However, you do lose the advantage of -regen.  SD also brings a bit more offense to the fight.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Linea

[Doomguide2005]

2 hours ago, Mezmera said:

I'd take my TA defender all day to a duo.  All that -res, -regen, -dmg and -tohitt along with a mez/resist shield for you and your teammate.  Why be a Cold when you get all of that debuff and then some in aoe form in TA?  

And then there's that very unique function of Acid Arrow.  It debuffs resistance to debuffs.  Dropping the AVs resistances to regen debuffs etc. from 85%+ would seem very valuable.  My only question is, "is this debuff itself resisted?"  It's not marked as unresistable by CoD but is the debuff resisted by the AV's resistances and if so by what?

[StriderIV]

1 hour ago, Linea said:

RadA/RadM + Cold/Water (with Rune/Hybrid/Clarion/Amps for status protection)

I'll second Rad Armor/Rad Melee + Cold/Water.   The only real questions being on which frames.   For 95% of the game, I'd say Brute and Defender or Corruptor.  For the 5% that is ultra hard, I'd say Tank and Defender.  Resist capped RadA/Radm can rate 6 or 7 in 801, add the cold buffs and it could go as high as 10.   If you want to go above 10, then you have to switch to ddr capped armor backed by rdr capped resist.  But nothing in this game rates much over 7, not even the ASF on max.

 

Way back on live when someone asked in global for help with AVs, I'll pull out an otherwise mothballed SO Only Cold/ and devastate the AV, done,  back to the garage for storage till next time.

 

 

RAdA/RadM + Traps/Water

Similar to above, Traps was one of the classic AV killers, and is entirely self contained.  In a duo the slightly slower movement pace of Traps/ shouldn't be an issue.

 

 

RadA/RadM + FF/Water

Similar to the above, but you lose -regen capability.  On the plus side the Clarion*PBU*FF can Incarnate Defense Cap your RadM.   Perma-Double-T9 Armors, no crashes.  Or swap to a Pair of Ageless Radials for near-incarnate capped and 55+ perma DDR on a resist based resist capped rdr capped frame.  Double Ageless +ddr would be my pick, alternated so you stay in the 80s ddr range.  This gets into the OMG silly range of durability.

 

 

SD/RadM + Eafn/*

SD with healing and resist boosts, *face palm*.  And another completely self contained Defender.  However, you do lose the advantage of -regen.  SD also brings a bit more offense to the fight.

+1 to Cold/Water. In my case, I run a Cold/Water Corruptor (with WB colored black so it looks like I'm controlling shadows :p). When I'm not tanking and joining TF's, this is the hero I pull out to help drop AV's. I also love the Sleet + Whirlpool synergy with Scourge ticking. Ends up dropping easier targets fairly quickly as well. Water also makes the toon relatively safe with it's KD's and heal.

[Psyonico]

2 hours ago, Achilles6 said:

My first thought was a Rad/Sonic Defender. You get the "big 3" pretty early...early enough for all the TF/SF. Plus it will be a huge middle finger to Clamor when I go against her.

 

I had really thought about Cold Dom. You get one of the big powers usable at the lowest TF. I'll have to think about that.

 

I'm still mulling over the "high damage" option. Tho one option could be a Sentinel (stop laughing!) for the status protection. The second SF comes to mind, with the big boat with all the guns. Some of them have some kind of hold ammo. Countess Crey kept "sleeping/holding" my Controller. Yeah, I could carry a tray full of BF's if I had to.

 

You really can't go wrong with Rad/Sonic, that was one of my favorite combos on live.  I don't play it as much on HC, but I still enjoy it.  very solid.

[Bopper]

5 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

And then there's that very unique function of Acid Arrow.  It debuffs resistance to debuffs.  Dropping the AVs resistances to regen debuffs etc. from 85%+ would seem very valuable.  My only question is, "is this debuff itself resisted?"  It's not marked as unresistable by CoD but is the debuff resisted by the AV's resistances and if so by what?

The same way damage resistance resists damage resistance debuffs. 85%+ of Acid Arrow's effects will be resisted. For a defender, its Acid Arrow is a 40% resistance debuff which will still amount to debuffs being 40% stronger even after the 85%+ resistance is applied.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Bopper

[Tahliah]

I duo with a tank on my main, and we rock everything we try (with one sad exception, which we had to redo to beat).  My toon is an ice/ice/ice blaster, so he does his tanky job, and I do mine.  Mission (or TF/SF) accomplished. 

 

That said, we've been running together forever (including years back on live), so part of that is just that we know how we think and play.  Given that, I think the suggestions of anything with rad or poison is good.  Any debuff is good, but you still have to be able to kill them once they are debuffed (assuming you don't want to spend ages doing a single tf/sf).  For this reason, I wouldn't pick a defender (even though I run quite a few of them) to duo with a tank simply because their damage output is sad, as is a tank's, so that's taking the really long way, in my opinion (YMMV, of course). 

 

So it kind of depends on what you want to do and how quickly you want to do it.