How to improve tank damage

[PeregrineFalcon]

So I'm trying to figure out how to improve the damage output of my Invulnerability / Energy Melee tank without just rerolling her as Shield, or making a Scrapper version.

 

I already have an Alpha Musculature Core Paragon. I've looked at IO set bonuses and Gaussian's chance for build up. The set bonuses don't really seem to offer enough to be worth the extensive slotting necessary. Am I wrong on that?

 

Is the Gaussian's proc really worth it? And is there anything else that I'm overlooking? Any info and insight is appreciated.

[Cutter]

Musculature + multiple damage procs appear to be the way to go for pushing this particular envelope.

[Makobola]

Gaussian's in Invincibility seem decent;

If you use Gloom then you can slot a +buildup from Decimation into it

Proc slotting AoEs will help as well.

[arcane]

procs

[SeraphimKensai]

It's standard practice to slot at least the guassian proc in invincibility as it has a chance then to proc off of each mob affected by invincibility, so it tends to fire pretty decently.

 

Slotting set bonuses for damage doesn't add too much in my opinion but finding places to add damage procs and -res procs help. Also defen -maxhp, and assault hybrid help too.

[Bopper]

Damage Procs and resistance debuff procs/effects will be your quickest bang for your buck. Set bonuses are pretty mediocre for damage so chasing that is unlikely to be worthwhile. Build Up procs can help as it's 5s of about 80% damage buff (Gaussian and Decimation can provide this). Taking Assault also helps

[Gobbledigook]

All the above +

Having enough accuracy/to hit also to prevent misses which will lower the dps considerably. Luckily invuln has that built in.

 

Global Recharge also is very good.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Gobbledegook

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 minutes ago, Gobbledegook said:

Global Recharge also is very good.

 

This.

 

And grab another AoE from epic pools. Power Crush is heavy on the meh side as AoE goes.

[PeregrineFalcon]

Ok, so my admittedly limited understanding of procs is that I should slot in accuracy and endurance reduction and then 3 or 4 procs. I shouldn't slot any recharge in the powers themselves as that will lower the proc rate, I should instead work on global recharge.

 

And since the procs fire in reverse order, I should slot a Fury of the Gladiator -resist proc in the last slot. Does that sound right?

 

Also, are any of the Incarnate Interface abilities better than any other as far as extra damage?

[kiramon]

3 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Ok, so my admittedly limited understanding of procs is that I should slot in accuracy and endurance reduction and then 3 or 4 procs. I shouldn't slot any recharge in the powers themselves as that will lower the proc rate, I should instead work on global recharge.

 

And since the procs fire in reverse order, I should slot a Fury of the Gladiator -resist proc in the last slot. Does that sound right?

 

Also, are any of the Incarnate Interface abilities better than any other as far as extra damage?

Diamagnetic and degenerative and reactive 

[PeregrineFalcon]

4 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

All the above +

Having enough accuracy/to hit also to prevent misses which will lower the dps considerably. Luckily invuln has that built in.

Focused Accuracy is why I have Energy Mastery. Of course this means that I only get Laser Beam Eyes, which I love for thematic reasons, but is hardly great DPS-wise.

 

I'm starting to think that I might have to create an entire second build for this character. A tough tank build and a damage build.

[aethereal]

4 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Ok, so my admittedly limited understanding of procs is that I should slot in accuracy and endurance reduction and then 3 or 4 procs. I shouldn't slot any recharge in the powers themselves as that will lower the proc rate, I should instead work on global recharge.

 

Global recharge is definitely better than local recharge for procs.

 

If slotting some local recharge and lowering the proc rate is what it takes to use an attack twice in an attack chain instead of once, it's usually the right decision to slot the local recharge.

 

Very long recharge powers (>20 seconds for ST, >30 seconds for AoE) can generally absorb some recharge without meaningfully lowering proc rate.

 

4 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

 

And since the procs fire in reverse order, I should slot a Fury of the Gladiator -resist proc in the last slot. Does that sound right?

 

Doesn't appear to be a real thing, you can ignore, except maybe specifically in Burn.

 

4 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

 

Also, are any of the Incarnate Interface abilities better than any other as far as extra damage?

 

Reactive's DoT is I believe the best in terms of flat damage.  The -max hp (Degenerative) is better for working on Archvillains or GMs (or Pylons), but not normal opponents.

[Supertanker]

Assault Hybrid gives a passive +10% damage. Split the Might of the Tanker IOs into three pairs and that's another +12%. Four purples in Laser Eyes Beams gives another +4%. Not saying this is ideal but it all starts to add up and make a noticeable difference.

[Bionic_Flea]

Laser beam eyes can take an Achilles -resist and Energy Torrent can take an  Annihilation -resist

[DreadShinobi]

Outside of the above build suggestions which are all great, you can also comfortably carry a full tray of 20 red insps as an invulnerability tanker as your survivability shouldn't be a concern even with a more offensive IO build. You may also consider using an insp combine macro for more reds on the fly. Consider using offense amplifier and the recharge sg base buff, this will give you +35% more recharge for more TFs and ETs. I also will second the mention of Gloom and Dark Obliteration for your ancillary choice. If your accuracy from set bonuses is high enough and your endurance sustain is solid, dark Obliteration can take 5 dmg procs + annihilation or ragnarok-dmg or ragnarok-proc.

[MrAxe]

I have Gaussian's in buildup so it procs 9/10 times. Very handy to know when the buff is coming, too.

[arcane]

12 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I'm starting to think that I might have to create an entire second build for this character. A tough tank build and a damage build.

You should definitely be able to manage both if you intend to use IO’s. I’ll screenshot my Invuln/Claws and also an example of a proc monster tanker build this weekend if you like. The Invuln/Claws isn’t currently a real proc monster (I don’t consider 5 slotted purple set plus one extra proc to be a real proc monster. 4+ procs on most attacks or gtfo 🙂 ).

 

If you do want to try proc style, I for one am a giant fan of Vigor Core for the Acc/End support even though I think most will still direct you towards Musculature. Though Cardiac is still awesome for Invuln. My most proccy builds don’t have enough room for many Accuracy bonuses when they’ve got 6 attacks procced to the teeth.

Edited February 11, 2022 by arcane

[Uun]

21 hours ago, Makobola said:

If you use Gloom then you can slot a +buildup from Decimation into it

I wouldn't bother with the Decimation proc. It's 1 PPM and almost never goes off in a ST blast on a short recharge.

[PLVRIZR]

12 hours ago, MrAxe said:

I have Gaussian's in buildup so it procs 9/10 times. Very handy to know when the buff is coming, too.

 

And I'll champion the alternative (when using Inv armor) of putting it in Invincibility, where it has ten chances to proc, with every saturated mob.  It's my experience that it's almost always up, when in mobs.

[Bay]

A basic example of slotting for proc damage. Acc/Dmg HO and the rest are damage procs of some kind. You lose End Cost and Recharge in the power itself, but enough Global Rech will somewhat negate that. I believe Total Focus and Energy Transfer are the 'ideal' proc-monsters of EM, but I'm no expert on what's best for procs.

 

I can also confirm that, for increased damage output, the Reactive right-side Interface does more for your damage output than Reactive left; it blew my mind, too, that more -Res was not better than just outright raw DoT. Took my Rad/Mace damage from 'typical Tank' to 'oh wow I killed something before the Scrapper for once'.

 

My additional commenting is based on the assumption of the fact I know nothing about your playstyle, so take that grain of salt first. Attack rotation, with just about any attack set, can make a very big difference in your damage output, regardless of AT. For Energy Melee, on all of them that I've played, I've noticed that an attack rotation of Total Focus/Energy Transfer/Whirling Hands gives good trash mob clearing output; for 'reasons' it feels like Whirling Hands activates faster when queued up after Transfer, but this could just be perception. The other attacks I use as filler while waiting for the next Focs+Transfer combo to be ready. Given the speed of Transfer, I always internally groan when I screw up my rotation and use the slow version.

 

[Redletter]

On 2/10/2022 at 6:17 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

Focused Accuracy is why I have Energy Mastery. Of course this means that I only get Laser Beam Eyes, which I love for thematic reasons, but is hardly great DPS-wise.

Im not sure if it's been said, but Laser Beam Eyes is a -def right? Can it take an Achilles? If it can take an achilles, you should slap an achilles into it. And Torrent i know for a fact can take annilation.

Honestly, I think the first few posts covered everyhting? I know my elec/elec tanker doesnt really need oranges, purples, yellows, or blues? So I just stockpile reds and greens? You should be fine without greens, so you could just hoard reds.

Also. Nobody seems to have suggested "bring a stalker" yet, so, maybe have a little pocket DPS character you can deploy on command?

[Clave Dark 5]

On 2/19/2022 at 10:43 PM, Redletter said:

Im not sure if it's been said, but Laser Beam Eyes is a -def right? Can it take an Achilles? If it can take an achilles, you should slap an achilles into it.

It does indeed, and that's my plan on the tanker I'm currently building.

[tidge]

On 2/10/2022 at 3:23 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

It's standard practice to slot at least the guassian proc in invincibility as it has a chance then to proc off of each mob affected by invincibility, so it tends to fire pretty decently.

 

I can get behind this slotting, but my Inv/EM Tanker (played primarily for teaming in Non-Incarnate content, and just strolling through Ouroboros missions) has the %BuildUp proc in Build Up. I usually find myself eventually) standing alone with a single hard target and I enjoy the extra OOMPH. I also like the set bonuses. The most satisfying time to have Build Up is when a Paragon Protector is in Moment of Glory, the rest of the team is whiffing... the Pom-Pom Tank comes is with a KER-PLOW! YMMV.

[Golden Azrael]

Roll a Fire Fire tanker.

Musc it.  Assault it.

Proc it.

 

Plus.  Instant popularity with mobs.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

I'm currently Rad/Rad Tanker L28.

 

In anticipation of a juicy build out that allow 'farming and general purpose.'

 

Azrael.