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Embrace the Fear! Playing with Invoke Panic and Dark [Dark/KM]

Onlyasandwich

By Onlyasandwich
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Onlyasandwich

Onlyasandwich

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After venturing into the lands of Dominatordom for my past few builds, the time has come yet again for another Tanker!

 

I'm going Dark/KM here not because it has any particular synergy, but because I just want to try these two sets generally, and am therefore squishing them together. 🙂 

 

In this pursuit, I'm also wanting to witness first-hand how effective Invoke Panic is in combination with Cloak of Fear. I see others have found it basically adequate. If you have experience and perspective here, I'd love to hear! This is also my first build with the slightly weird KM, so welcome wisdom from that angle as well.

 

My goals:

  • A broad base of defense with enough melee defense to hit softcap with a purple easily when needed. Not trying to softcap.
  • A proccy, efficient attack chain for both ST and aoe.
  • Good slow resist, as my survival does rely on a couple clickies.
  • Strong resists across the board without sacrificing the above priorities.
  • Max hit chance against +4's.

 

Concerns about my current iteration:

  • I'd love to find a way to swap to musculature radial instead, but feel the end hunger is too much otherwise. Cardiac does good work here, and helps with resist as well of course. At least the current iteration leaves some good room to benefit from the kins of the world.
  • Will this be enough end support? Obviously I have foregone a lot of the end uniques, instead choosing to rely on heavy end reduction and ToE proc in Dark Regen. The Rec/Use numbers are not great, but my active powers are very cheap to activate with all the redux, so I'm thinking it may be workable. Can always go Ageless in high level content as well.
  • Accuracy! Holy cow why does Cloak of Fear have such low accuracy? It doesn't seem justified. As it stands, everything is good except Cloak of Fear when Power Siphon is down, but I do rely of Siphon for max chance against +4's for Cloak. Less of an issue once level shifted.
  • For those of you that have used Invoke Panic before, did you find it fun? Are there any little eccentricities you found in practice that weren't obvious at first?
  • Finally, It would be nice to find room for Unrelenting. If only Invoke didn't require 2 power picks. : ) 

 

Note that the current version of Mids is wonky with KM for tanks and scrappers. It automatically adds the Power Siphon buffs in some cases, so the damage totals shouldn't include the extra ~80% global. Should be fixed in the next release. Also I have two FFback procs, so toggle those off for more perspective on totals.

 

Build:

 

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Totals:

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Visual of build:

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Edited by Onlyasandwich
  • Like 2
Cutter

Cutter

Posted
Posted

I've done this with Dark/ElecMelee, and find it to be decent -- I leaned into the control elements pretty far (Control Radial Hybrid + Spectral Core Interface) so I find it perhaps a bit better than some. It's never going to win clear time awards, but it does a good job of sticking the controllery effects. I went with Vigor alpha to address the accuracy concerns as well as manage endurance. Slotting is far more conventional for the most part, with next to no procs in place.

 

Build (note that I'm on an old version of Mids so it may not import nicely):

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Totals:

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  • Like 1

@Cutter

 

So many alts, so little time...

Onlyasandwich

Onlyasandwich

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  On 4/6/2022 at 9:01 PM, Cutter said:

I've done this with Dark/ElecMelee,

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Thank you for sharing!

 

One thing I've been concerned about conceptually is how the fear may affect clumping up mobs. Do you find that it tends to keep things a bit more in their starting places, or do you still see ample scootch into melee range given the bits of movement they are allowed here and there? Although I don't bother doing formal herding, I do like to use the environment to cut LoS and encourage quick clumping, and don't like the idea of mobs sort of trailing off in a line as they are feared in place while I move into position.

 

 

Cutter

Cutter

Posted
Posted
  On 4/6/2022 at 9:05 PM, Onlyasandwich said:

 

Thank you for sharing!

 

One thing I've been concerned about conceptually is how the fear may affect clumping up mobs. Do you find that it tends to keep things a bit more in their starting places, or do you still see ample scootch into melee range given the bits of movement they are allowed here and there? Although I don't bother doing formal herding, I do like to use the environment to cut LoS and encourage quick clumping, and don't like the idea of mobs sort of trailing off in a line as they are feared in place while I move into position.

 

 

Expand  

The fear effect is the "stand and tremble" version, not the "run away pooping their pants" version, so you may see some stragglers coming to you if you've jumped in to establish aggro and then moved to break LOS. It's a playstyle I've had to break with my guy, in that I'm more likely to find my environmental tool first & then taunt/provoke the mobs to me. Of course if they are standing around already decently clumped it's not really a concern. You will likely have to move a bit more to get at the spawn edges tho.

 

Do note that your damage aura will break fear and let the mobs take a shot at you, but those attacks are with the -tohit. And typically after one attack they'll go right back to trembling for a bit. So you should definitely see a reduced amount of return fire than you might otherwise be used to.

 

For my own part, because I'm also layering stun effects, I get more wanderers, which I somewhat mitigate with the immob procs. All told it's a patchwork of controls: some mobs shaking, some drunken stumbling, some just standing around.

  • Like 1

@Cutter

 

So many alts, so little time...

Yomo Kimyata

Yomo Kimyata

Posted
Posted
  On 4/6/2022 at 9:05 PM, Onlyasandwich said:

 

Thank you for sharing!

 

One thing I've been concerned about conceptually is how the fear may affect clumping up mobs. Do you find that it tends to keep things a bit more in their starting places, or do you still see ample scootch into melee range given the bits of movement they are allowed here and there? Although I don't bother doing formal herding, I do like to use the environment to cut LoS and encourage quick clumping, and don't like the idea of mobs sort of trailing off in a line as they are feared in place while I move into position.

 

 

Expand  

 

It's been a while since I took my fearmonger out for a spin, but you don't see a lot of runners with the terrorized mechanic.  IIRC if they are in cower mode and take damage, they either counter attack or run away for a few seconds before going back into cower mode.

 

@Bionic_Flea had a good post about this titled "Phobophobia" in General a while back and there was some good stuff in there.

  • Like 1

Who run Bartertown?

 

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