Golden Tank - The ideal tank for soloing Praetoria and all golden content.

[MrWallace]

Having just finished my six-month mission to solo all Red Side content (WM/BIO scrapper), I thought it was time to look for my next project. As I have never run a purely Praetorian toon, I thought I should try following @Apparition Complete Guide to Praetoria. I also fancy a new tank, so I thought, why not mix these two needs :). 

 

I am, however, at a loss on what to roll. I will be playing at +1x4 for a giggle and badges, so I need something survivable that can also hit hard. My first thoughts were a Fire/Psi(or Claws) or an Electric/Psi(or Claws), but I am not sure. I know the damage can be exotic at lower levs, but I have no clue what the baddies are resistant to.

 

Has anyone tried this challenge or general tips for tank builds that work well with Golden content?

 

Any tips, tricks or advice are as always very welcome.   

 

Cheers

 

Mr W

[Sovera]

Not to derail, but if aiming for Praetoria consider a Brute for that sweet sweet low level Fury. I speak as someone who was enthused about doing all Praetoria content on a Tanker and OMFG IT NEVER ENDS! I was way past level 25-ish and still had not gotten past the level 14 arcs. When I say I hadn't gotten past what I mean was that I had to scroll down to see them all 😛

 

Basically what I mean is that we get stuck in the low low levels for a long long time, ergo a combo that has an early start is quasi essential to keep one's sanity level in check.

 

 

Fire Armor on a Tanker will help a lot because even exotic damage is no damage if hugging the floor. I did my tour of Praetoria on a Fire/Ice Melee Tanker but it was a slog which is why I mentioned the Brute with the benefit of that past experience.

 

The problem with Praetoria is that the long slog keeps us on the cusp of level 20 (long list of level 14 arcs) which keeps us away from often important picks. Like Ice Melee not getting Ice Patch on a Tanker or Fire Armor not getting Consume on a Brute. Some are more important than others though (thanks to Recovery Serums we can live without Consume, but 50% of the reason of going Ice Melee is Ice Patch).

 

So for a Brute I would recommend either:

 

Claws: Claws is the usual with a boost to damage and accuracy from FU plus a quite strong Spin.

Savage Melee: Savage has faster recharges allowing for T3, T1, T2, T1 in the low levels plus DoTs coupled with Fury at said low levels will destroy mobs.

Ice: Ice will be safer since mobs debuff like mad and at such extreme low levels we cannot depend on our armor toggles. Frost comes super early too and is great.

Rad Melee: Rad does come with a heal but it's not very useful. It's all mostly about Irradiated Ground passively irradiating anything close, but not all damage procs will be slottable right away  plus it is a killer on low level endurance.

 

Then pair whatever with Rad. Radiation Therapy trebles as small heal, endurance recovery, and damage if going the proc bomb route though we can't slot all the damage procs until level 27 but slotting three damage procs, two slots for heal and one slot for endurance recovery can be done by level 17 and RT is level 16 anyway.

 

Something like .

 

 

For a Tanker definitely Fire Armor. Once having reached Burn things become simple. Without Fury to prop things up something with an early AoE will be good. Claws only has FU at 20 though just for Spin it might still be worth it. I would suggest Dark Melee. Unconditional small early heal, decent cone even if not as good as Frost, and Siphon Life Shadpw Punch, Smite, shadow Punch will not be complicated to keep up.

 

Problem with heals is that they rarely are useful. When we are debuffed our HP plummets and no heals will save us. It's mitigation and or kitting.

 

 

Now, with all of this said it is important to stress that I was playing at 0x8 with the Tanker, so my 'omg it takes so long' has context. Playing at 0x1 there is no need to min max as hard, worry about debuffs, or worry about AoE so much.

Edited June 12, 2022 by Sovera

[Haijinx]

Stalker is good too due to the missions that can be easily stealthed. 

 

Or maybe a NInja Scrapper 

[Haijinx]

Hmm.  They should port Ninjitsu to tankers .. 

[SeraphimKensai]

I'm actually contemplating a gold side run too, and did a Excel Random Integer pick to get my AT, and power sets. Elec/Ice Tanker will be created later today once I finish a mids build as I admit I'm not overly well versed on ice melee having only ever had 2 characters with it.

[MrWallace]

I am currently toying with the idea of just rolling a brute version of The Devine my Invun/nrg tank ( another superman inspired tank using @Infinitum blueprints) especially as I see the build list has a brute version pre made! A helmeted Pretorian version called The Righteous is very tempting!  

 

Nevertheless, I really take the point from @Sovera that the low level mish grind might were thin and a fire  is always fun once burn drops... hrm I might have to think more on this.

 

It would be great to hear others view point especially if they are planning their own trip down the yellow brick lane. Also  @SeraphimKensai you are so much braver than me but maybe I need to embrace the chaos and use a random build selector...:)

 

Cheers all 

 

Mr W

[Apparition]

Electric Armor is your best bet.  There’s a lot of energy and psi damage gold side, both of which Electric Armor is great at handling.

[SeraphimKensai]

2 hours ago, MrWallace said:

It would be great to hear others view point especially if they are planning their own trip down the yellow brick lane. Also  @SeraphimKensai you are so much braver than me but maybe I need to embrace the chaos and use a random build selector...:)

Honestly I don't think I'm brave necessarily but rather bored, as I have 130 or so lvl 50's fully built, so I thought a little chaos on Gold Side would be entertaining. The character is lvl 19 or so now, and honestly working better than expected. It's really hard to mess up a tanker's primary choices, and ice melee is loaded with additional mitigation and Frost is my bread an butter with the expanded tanker AoE/cones it's hitting hard, so I'm barely slotted running around on a map herding groups of 12+ mobs and freezing them to death with Frost.

 

I'm playing it as a loyalist and the storyline is great. Coffee two creams no sugar.

[Nemu]

Praetoria content is paced very well that you don't need to bump your rep to compensate for content gaps between the level milestones that grant you new contacts. In fact I have done that 1-20 run several times across multiple ATs on -1/1 setting stealthing objectives where I can, and I can still comfortably do all the arcs and acquire all the contacts organically.

 

Any AT that wants to solo lowbie content should focus more on offense than defense. At those levels your investment gets better returns on being able to kill stuff rather than being able to survive. I don't even bother picking up shield toggles that don't grant mez protection when I run though those lowbie levels. What I will prioritize is anything that is a) passive and provides a free boost to my survival, b) benefits damage or c) benefits my endurance consumption/recovery.

 

If you have money then go rad and start proccing rad therapy at level 8, Take Gamma boost as your starting pick and skip both alpha barrier and proton armor until your mid-late teens, you can also defer fallout shelter until your early-mid teems. Mezzes just aren't a big problem in the 1-10 level range. This will allow you to cram more attacks in. Having some sort of stealth is also beneficial. Some maps Goldside are huge and stealth helps you get to the end objective instead of fighting/dragging aggro.

[Major_Decoy]

Radiation gets a nice endurance recovery power at low levels and resistance to all the damage types that tend to show up in Praetoria.

[Major_Decoy]

On 6/12/2022 at 6:48 AM, Sovera said:

For a Tanker definitely Fire Armor. Once having reached Burn things become simple.

I would argue against Fire Armour in Praetoria for this exact reason. Burn unlocks at level 18. Goldside kind of ends (outside of the first ward and the night ward) at level 20.

[Errants]

Remember, NW content caps out at 39, so you'll only have access to Lvl 44 powers if you stay gold.

Just finished this project myself, but as an Ice/Regen/Weapons Stalker - Had to pause exp at several key points to NOT outlevel contacts. Used @Redlynne's guide for Betrayal shenanigans. And then @Apparition's for First Ward to avoid out-leveling issues. Couldn't get the exp fast enough for Night Ward, wound up flashing through it once full, and then once again all the way through Ward's content for 50.

I echo to focus on Offense over Defense, due to slotting issues and lowbie mob HP. Mez pro is really all you need.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Errants

[Syant]

Electric Armor and dark melee try it and you will love it great to solo and handles like a dream.

[Sovera]

4 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

I would argue against Fire Armour in Praetoria for this exact reason. Burn unlocks at level 18. Goldside kind of ends (outside of the first ward and the night ward) at level 20.

 

We will out level stuff if doing -all- the arcs so Burn will be available while doing the myriad level 14 arcs.

[Zepp]

3 hours ago, Syant said:

Electric Armor and dark melee try it and you will love it great to solo and handles like a dream.

I leveled a Dark/Electric Sentinel to 50 Goldside, and it was a really good fit for the content. So, I second your recommendation.

[Zepp]

4 hours ago, Errants said:

Remember, NW content caps out at 39, so you'll only have access to Lvl 44 powers if you stay gold.

Just finished this project myself, but as an Ice/Regen/Weapons Stalker - Had to pause exp at several key points to NOT outlevel contacts. Used @Redlynne's guide for Betrayal shenanigans. And then @Apparition's for First Ward to avoid out-leveling issues. Couldn't get the exp fast enough for Night Ward, wound up flashing through it once full, and then once again all the way through Ward's content for 50.

I echo to focus on Offense over Defense, due to slotting issues and lowbie mob HP. Mez pro is really all you need.

You have Trilogy and Fireball that go to 50. It is possible to get to 50 Goldside sans AE...

[Errants]

16 hours ago, Zepp said:

You have Trilogy and Fireball that go to 50. It is possible to get to 50 Goldside sans AE...

 

Trilogy isn't infinite, and I'd rather run Flashbacks (losing 2 powers - 47 and 49 - on a nearly complete build) for better merits vs endless infinite missions with Fireball.

AE wasn't required, just a little bit of Ouro via my base portal.

[Zepp]

2 hours ago, Errants said:

 

Trilogy isn't infinite, and I'd rather run Flashbacks (losing 2 powers - 47 and 49 - on a nearly complete build) for better merits vs endless infinite missions with Fireball.

AE wasn't required, just a little bit of Ouro via my base portal.

I just didn't finish missions... I'd start it, run it at x8, and then leave without completing. Do that for each level and it's easy. Maybe not the most efficient, but it works.

[SeraphimKensai]

That Elec/Ice Tanker I mentioned made it to 50 Gold side and then made the decision to portal over to the Rogue Isles to get a patron unlock so I could finish slotting my build. Now's it's a Vigilante Sleeper Agent just waiting on the cue to strike at the Primals.

 

Elec/Ice works really well for Gold Side, and honestly anywhere, tons of mitigation and capped resistances to all except toxic and just shy of negative energy.

Edited June 17, 2022 by SeraphimKensai

[Icono04]

One thing to keep in mind when picking a powerset is that PBAoE's are (IMHO) not quite as useful in Praetoria missions as on blueside, because some of the enemy groups' ranged attackers on goldside are smarter about spacing out. I don't know if this was an intentional design decision, but I have noticed on several goldside runs that e.g. the clockwork and Seers spread out around you when using their ranged attacks, so that you often can't get hit more than one or two at a time within a PBAoE.

 

EditedToAdd: Forgot to mention that I did take a Rad/Dark tanker through all the 1-20 gold content without problems, so the PBAoE thing is not a major issue. Just one more thing to consider when deciding on a primary/secondary.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Icono04

[SeraphimKensai]

2 hours ago, Icono04 said:

One thing to keep in mind when picking a powerset is that PBAoE's are (IMHO) not quite as useful in Praetoria missions as on blueside, because some of the enemy groups' ranged attackers on goldside are smarter about spacing out. I don't know if this was an intentional design decision, but I have noticed on several goldside runs that e.g. the clockwork and Seers spread out around you when using their ranged attacks, so that you often can't get hit more than one or two at a time within a PBAoE.

 

EditedToAdd: Forgot to mention that I did take a Rad/Dark tanker through all the 1-20 gold content without problems, so the PBAoE thing is not a major issue. Just one more thing to consider when deciding on a primary/secondary.

For the spacing issue you mentioned and I think it has to deal more with ranged NPCs, you can use taunt to reduce their range by 75%, or agro them and then corner pull them to where they naturally have to bunch up as opposed to fighting 30 mobs in the middle of a room.

[MrWallace]

So in the end (and don't hate me) ... I have rolled a brute version of my main tank going  for Nrg/Invun. The concept of have a Golden Version of one of mains was too tempting from an personal lore perspective. And thus we have the  Righteous

 

. The concept also lead me to deciding to dual box my golden experience and create a tiny Daemon/ Bubble MM side kick, know as the The Wicked.

 

Thus The Righteous and the Wicked was born, which seemed like too good a concept for 10 year old in me to pass up.

 

Having  Wicked and pets on follow solved the damage issue and the bubbles plugged the damage holes. Most of the time I am clearing mission maps for badges and drops and turning XP off to avoid out leveling contacts.  I just got done with all contacts in Nova Praetoria and finished up at lv 10. The lore is fantastic and it is a very enjoyable run. As work is crazy right now this is nice side project to focus on when I have an hour or so spare in the evening. 

 

Mission wise I am loving Gold side, the story the arcs, while hard are greatly rewarding, I cannot believe I never did this back during live!

 

Thanks to everyone for the tips, tricks, support and debate, it reminded me again why I love this game and why I am so happy COH and this Community is back in action!

 

I will report back on how my journey goes and if any of you are golden side and need a team keep an eye out for The Righteous and the Wicked 🙂 we always have 6 spots open!

 

Cheers 

 

Mr W.

[MrWallace]

2 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

For the spacing issue you mentioned and I think it has to deal more with ranged NPCs, you can use taunt to reduce their range by 75%, or agro them and then corner pull them to where they naturally have to bunch up as opposed to fighting 30 mobs in the middle of a room.

100 percent agree herding the mobs up makes a huge difference. Master Blasters are a royal pain with their fire patch's so taking them out quickly while on Destroyer arcs has become a priory They are my low level golden Sappers... evil little bugger!

[ScarySai]

I want to say ice, claws or dark as your attack set, with either fire or rad as your armor.

 

Make sure to always put all of the prestige enhancements in your damage aura. It's big.

Edited June 18, 2022 by ScarySai

[vicuna]

I recently finished my Praetoria tour with a Dark/MA, didn't notice any difficulty with it.