Bio/Spines Tank. New Roll of the Dice. L22 and Counting. 'Wow.'

[Golden Azrael]

What an orgasmic tank.  An intoxicating pairing.

 

Anybody played this pairing and got a build or experiences they'd like to share.

 

I'm impressed.

 

And I thought Rad' was good!

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

L29 and climbing.

 

Force Feedback into Ripper.  🙂

 

Azrael.

[No Clucks Given]

How's it going? Bio/Spines is definitely a toxic combo I've been eyeing. Sounds like an aggro magnet which is good!

[Golden Azrael]

It's going great!  L35!  Lots of death and carnage, No Clucks Given.

 

Quills added to the other DoT in the Armour?

 

And we're putting the melt boot into mobs.

 

It's a very engaging set.  Not passive like some.  A bit like Ice armour or Rad in the active management of its gifts.

 

It's almost like they were made to be together.

 

'Throw Sticks' is up at L38.  MoAR AoE naughtiness.  Aggro' magnate.  Nemesis really get annoyed by them.  The 'Tick' of the toggles circumvents their 'Vengeance' mode.

 

If you haven't tried Bio/Spines?  Give it a whirl, Folks!

 

Azrael.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Golden Azrael

[aethereal]

I played a Spines/Bio brute to 50.  It's fun, though obviously your ST damage is less-than-amazing and Bio has a fairly large number of holes in it.

[Mentalist]

On 4/22/2022 at 3:30 PM, aethereal said:

I played a Spines/Bio brute to 50.  It's fun, though obviously your ST damage is less-than-amazing and Bio has a fairly large number of holes in it.

I would say it has no holes, but has a thin covering over everything.  It resists endurance drain and slows somewhat, has toxic/smashing/lethal resist but not def, and defense to energy/elemental but not resist.  It even has some psi def to work from so it isn’t totally open to psi damage or terrorize/confuse.  It also has healing/absorb and endurance recovery. Everything but bio has a hole with at one of those things. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Mentalist

[aethereal]

It has no DDR and I think no regen debuff resistance.  A large variety of high-level enemies are a real PITA due to that.

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 4/25/2022 at 8:21 PM, aethereal said:

It has no DDR and I think no regen debuff resistance.  A large variety of high-level enemies are a real PITA due to that.

 

True statement. But it comes with two absorption shields and a heal and those don't care about either regen or gettin hit.

 

Edit: Slows, however, much like with Regen, can fark up a Bio user.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[aethereal]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

True statement. But it comes with two absorption shields and a heal and those don't care about either regen or gettin hit.

Obviously it depends on a lot of things.  But my experience is that at high difficulty settings, the heals and absorbs aren't enough to deal with incoming damage.  Defense, resistance, and regeneration are the primary mitigation of Bio, and the heals and absorbs don't keep you up through their cooldowns without those mitigation layers.

 

This may be somewhat less true on tanks -- I have brought a Bio tank to 50, but more of my experience is on brutes, stalkers, and scrappers.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, aethereal said:

This may be somewhat less true on tanks -- I have brought a Bio tank to 50, but more of my experience is on brutes, stalkers, and scrappers.

 

Yea, tanks are broken as fark these days. My claws/bio scrapper is hell on pylons but he couldn't solo a max diff ITF to save his life.

[GrumpyMonk]

On 4/22/2022 at 1:30 PM, aethereal said:

I played a Spines/Bio brute to 50.  It's fun, though obviously your ST damage is less-than-amazing and Bio has a fairly large number of holes in it.

It's a Regen tank.  Healing has no holes.

[Gobbledigook]

20 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Yea, tanks are broken as fark these days. My claws/bio scrapper is hell on pylons but he couldn't solo a max diff ITF to save his life.

If scrappers could survive like a Tanker they would be seriously broken. A tanker may survive an ITF but it wont be fast.

 

Why try to solo an ITF on a Scrapper anyway lol it's bad enough on a Tanker. Team up get buffed and be stupid tough with stupid dps 😛

 

21 hours ago, aethereal said:

Obviously it depends on a lot of things.  But my experience is that at high difficulty settings, the heals and absorbs aren't enough to deal with incoming damage.  Defense, resistance, and regeneration are the primary mitigation of Bio, and the heals and absorbs don't keep you up through their cooldowns without those mitigation layers.

 

This may be somewhat less true on tanks -- I have brought a Bio tank to 50, but more of my experience is on brutes, stalkers, and scrappers.

 

Bio may not be the tankiest set but it is sturdy enough for most stuff especially on a Tanker. A defeated target is no threat and Bio does that very well whilst having enough survival to achieve that. Some sort of CC is always good though and a good build.

[Bill Z Bubba]

8 minutes ago, Gobbledegook said:

If scrappers could survive like a Tanker they would be seriously broken. A tanker may survive an ITF but it wont be fast.

 

My 1:20 ITF no temps/no insps/no cheats/max diff time with my shield/nrg tank disagrees.

 

Edit2: Ya, I know nothing will beat a team of 8 corruptors... we're not talking about that. We're discussing how stupid it is that a tank with its mitigation values can pull that off.

 

Edit2: And yes, that IS my fastest time with any character I have. Those with lesser mitigation waste time trying to survive.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Psyonico]

5 hours ago, GrumpyMonk said:

It's a Regen tank.  Healing has no holes.

except dying because you don't have enough mitigation

and -recharge

[Gobbledigook]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

My 1:20 ITF no temps/no insps/no cheats/max diff time with my shield/nrg tank disagrees.

 

Edit2: Ya, I know nothing will beat a team of 8 corruptors... we're not talking about that. We're discussing how stupid it is that a tank with its mitigation values can pull that off.

 

Edit2: And yes, that IS my fastest time with any character I have. Those with lesser mitigation waste time trying to survive.

ITF with buffed mobs is more a survival game which Tankers excel at. What is the pylon time on your 1.20 ITF Shield/EM Tanker?

 

Scrappers have far better pylon times than tankers, usually in less than half the time or more with Brutes some where in between. I doubt a Shield Tanker has twice the survival of a Shield scrapper.

 

If your scrapper is hell on a pylon then it is likely it is built for dps and not survival and you shouldn't complain that it can't do what a Tanker built specifically to do ITF can do. 

 

Scrappers can do solo ITF they just need to build for it which means losing some dps to gain survival which most don't as it is a damage class. 

 

This is a multi player game not a solo game. Team up and get buffs etc. Those squishy blasters then just laugh at ITF and a scrapper will easily out dps a Tanker and be more than survivable enough to never die. Going off solo achievements in a multi player game is not a good reason to cry OP. 

 

/Shield is pretty OP anyway and that is not Tanker specific.

 

I do think the MotTanker proc could do with a small tweak though.

 

 

[GrumpyMonk]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

except dying because you don't have enough mitigation

and -recharge

If your base HP + Absorb is big enough to survive the alpha, and your Regen is high enough, you can get away with less mitigation.

 

I take your point about Rech though.  That can undercut your Regen on a Bio.

 

 

 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

ITF with buffed mobs is more a survival game which Tankers excel at. What is the pylon time on your 1.20 ITF Shield/EM Tanker?

 

Around 3 mins. Barely slower than my claws/sr scrapper (2:45) who took twice as long to get through the same ITF. My em/bio scrapper sits around 1.5 mins on a pylon but can't survive the same ITF.

 

3 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

This is a multi player game not a solo game. Team up and get buffs etc. Those squishy blasters then just laugh at ITF and a scrapper will easily out dps a Tanker and be more than survivable enough to never die. Going off solo achievements in a multi player game is not a good reason to cry OP. 

 

Then tanks shouldn't have been buffed.

 

3 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

/Shield is pretty OP anyway and that is not Tanker specific.

 

Agreed but by less of a margin than tanks are to every other AT.

 

3 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

I do think the MotTanker proc could do with a small tweak though.

 

Agreed. It should be changed from 6.7% resist per stack to 1.675% defense and 3.35% resist per stack.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Gobbledigook]

52 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Around 3 mins. Barely slower than my claws/sr scrapper (2:45) who took twice as long to get through the same ITF. My em/bio scrapper sits around 1.5 mins on a pylon but can't survive the same ITF.

 

 

Then tanks shouldn't have been buffed.

 

 

Agreed but by less of a margin than tanks are to every other AT.

 

 

Agreed. It should be changed from 6.7% resist per stack to 1.675% defense and 3.35% resist per stack.

Your claws/Sr could easily improve that damage and still be very survivable. Your tank wont get much more damage. 1 minute or so EM/Bio is achievable.  I have an EM/inv Stalker that will do it. Very Tanky and yet 2 min or under pylons.

 

I think they were buffed to speed normal content up solo at players request. Personally i do think they went a little OTT on giving them increased AoE but i think they went OTT on EM also. I like them now and wouldn't change them. Players do solo as they level they just don't tend to solo TFs. Why would you? it takes so long. Unless you are a sadist as some are, you included with 1.20 😛 and me lol

 

Shield would be better on Tankers same with every other armor set. Scrappers etc are better damage by a large margin. Tankers are just better at taking damage not dealing it.

 

Maybe or thereabouts.

 

ITF buffed is more a survival contest than anything and the Tanker is going to win that one. But others win elsewhere.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Gobbledegook

[Carnifax]

I've one of these, got to 50 and got some of the Incarnate slots, but he kind of fell by the wayside due to the Fire/Claws and Rad/Martial taking up the "Scranker" and "Pretty unkillable" positions. That said I think I stopped playing him pre-AoE changes. 

 

But yeah I ended up with "I fancy AoE tanker death" = Fire/Claws flaming chicken or "I want to be pretty much immortal and debuffs won't matter"  = Rad/Martial and the Bio/Spines kind of fell by the wayside. 

[Gobbledigook]

I rolled a Bio/Rad tanker and that worked out well. Then i rolled a Bio/SS Tanker and that was even better and that is still my main now with Rad/SS second. The CC from SS helped Bio a lot. Spines with slow debuffs should work well also.

 

I am now onto a SS/Bio brute that is working well. Pretty tough with lots of damage, good for solo but better in teams with buffs..

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by Gobbledegook

[Emerald Orchid]

My take on it (not the first build version, but what I'm working to slot)
 

Tanker - Bio Armor - Spines v3.mxd