Project 11: Radiation Armor Debuff Tanker

[Erratic1]

It was supposed to be a more straightforward build. But....

 

My first character on Homecoming (and first to 50 on Homecoming) was a Rad/Psi Tanker. Primarily I was interested in using powersets I had never used before. Not a bad ride and she was perfectly functional on SOs. But that was before I got into using IO sets. So I decided to give Radiation another whirl and started a Rad/Claw Tanker.

 

Radiation is not a pure Resistance set. I would look at it more as a Resistance heavy Resistance/Regen/Absorption/To-Hit Debuff set since those are mechanics it delivers. Defense? Hahahaha! It doesn't do it and while you can (and people have) put some impressive Defense values on their Radiation Armor builds, it bugged me enough that Radiation Armor lacks DDR that I decided to skip Defense all together and try to work with the things Radiation Armor tosses at you.

 

Obviously I knew I wanted to maximize my Resistances. 

 

Then I looked at Regen. Six-slotting Health give roughly +100% Regen  if you use Numina's full set.  Particle Shielding gets you another 200%. Gamma Boost...well, there we have the thing which killed my desire to go that way. Gamma Boost gives you +Recovery based on your health total while giving Regen inversely based on your health total--the lower your life the more Regen it gives. Broadly speaking, I want to keep my health up, so to my mind it paid to look at the power as a Recovery booster where I would face potential endurance issues if my health stayed low for any great length of time--something I would generally be trying to avoid.

 

Next up was Absorption which was pretty straightforward: Slot Preventive Medicine and call it a day. 

 

Finally there was To-Hit Debuff. Beta Decay's starting value is a paltry 5.25% debuff--enough to say it is there but nothing to write home about, especially since that value us subject to being resisted and higher level targets have increased chance to hit. But going with Soul Mastery as your Patron pool opens up Darkest Night, which at base value is a 15% debuff. Stacked that is better than 20% debuff base. Reasonably, it seemed, you should be able to hit the mid-30% with enhancement slotting.  So rather than stack Defense in order to not get hit it looked like stacking To-Hit debuff would take you down the same road. 

 

 Yeah, affected opponents would need to be close for Beta Decay to apply but that is the general case for most Tanker encounters, Tankers being a melee class. Darkest Night could be hung on anything within range but to get other foes to stay in range you would want other foes to stand close to your Darkest Night anchor, which means you standing near the anchor. And then there is the matter of the Anchor. You would prefer it be amongst the last thing killed and to stay close to you. It also only recharges so quickly (10s at base from when it is toggled off).

 

But it is not all negatives and conditions with To-Hit debuffing. Darkest Night also debuffs enemy damage by 30%. And unlike Defense, To-Hit Debuff is neither positional nor based on damage type--you spend far fewer slots reaching meaningful value.

 

Ultimately I decided I could build more traditionally if the To-Hit Debuff thing did not work out. 

 

More quickly than I intended, I got to the point where I could give the concept a go with just basic-IOs. And I am happy to report that signs are hopeful. With miserable Resistance values (46.65%  S/L, 51.65 F, 11.66C, 62.2 E, 51.65 N, 15.00 P, 69.43 T) he is leaping into groups of +2/3s (+2x6) and surviving with fairly minimal inspiration usage. That is solo play where I can completely manage the crowd and what is getting hit. I figure in groups you have two situations: the group is rolling through what is being fought or the group is not. If the group is rolling through foes,  you do not bother with Darkest Night. Pull it out where you can expect foes will last sufficiently.

 

I really need to fix Mid's file name for the character since it seems I may be keeping him.

 

 Current target build:

 

Spoiler

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[dzyp2]

On 6/28/2022 at 12:24 PM, Erratic1 said:

It was supposed to be a more straightforward build. But....

 

My first character on Homecoming (and first to 50 on Homecoming) was a Rad/Psi Tanker. Primarily I was interested in using powersets I had never used before. Not a bad ride and she was perfectly functional on SOs. But that was before I got into using IO sets. So I decided to give Radiation another whirl and started a Rad/Claw Tanker.

 

Radiation is not a pure Resistance set. I would look at it more as a Resistance heavy Resistance/Regen/Absorption/To-Hit Debuff set since those are mechanics it delivers. Defense? Hahahaha! It doesn't do it and while you can (and people have) put some impressive Defense values on their Radiation Armor builds, it bugged me enough that Radiation Armor lacks DDR that I decided to skip Defense all together and try to work with the things Radiation Armor tosses at you.

 

Obviously I knew I wanted to maximize my Resistances. 

 

Then I looked at Regen. Six-slotting Health give roughly +100% Regen  if you use Numina's full set.  Particle Shielding gets you another 200%. Gamma Boost...well, there we have the thing which killed my desire to go that way. Gamma Boost gives you +Recovery based on your health total while giving Regen inversely based on your health total--the lower your life the more Regen it gives. Broadly speaking, I want to keep my health up, so to my mind it paid to look at the power as a Recovery booster where I would face potential endurance issues if my health stayed low for any great length of time--something I would generally be trying to avoid.

 

Next up was Absorption which was pretty straightforward: Slot Preventive Medicine and call it a day. 

 

Finally there was To-Hit Debuff. Beta Decay's starting value is a paltry 5.25% debuff--enough to say it is there but nothing to write home about, especially since that value us subject to being resisted and higher level targets have increased chance to hit. But going with Soul Mastery as your Patron pool opens up Darkest Night, which at base value is a 15% debuff. Stacked that is better than 20% debuff base. Reasonably, it seemed, you should be able to hit the mid-30% with enhancement slotting.  So rather than stack Defense in order to not get hit it looked like stacking To-Hit debuff would take you down the same road. 

 

 Yeah, affected opponents would need to be close for Beta Decay to apply but that is the general case for most Tanker encounters, Tankers being a melee class. Darkest Night could be hung on anything within range but to get other foes to stay in range you would want other foes to stand close to your Darkest Night anchor, which means you standing near the anchor. And then there is the matter of the Anchor. You would prefer it be amongst the last thing killed and to stay close to you. It also only recharges so quickly (10s at base from when it is toggled off).

 

But it is not all negatives and conditions with To-Hit debuffing. Darkest Night also debuffs enemy damage by 30%. And unlike Defense, To-Hit Debuff is neither positional nor based on damage type--you spend far fewer slots reaching meaningful value.

 

Ultimately I decided I could build more traditionally if the To-Hit Debuff thing did not work out. 

 

More quickly than I intended, I got to the point where I could give the concept a go with just basic-IOs. And I am happy to report that signs are hopeful. With miserable Resistance values (46.65%  S/L, 51.65 F, 11.66C, 62.2 E, 51.65 N, 15.00 P, 69.43 T) he is leaping into groups of +2/3s (+2x6) and surviving with fairly minimal inspiration usage. That is solo play where I can completely manage the crowd and what is getting hit. I figure in groups you have two situations: the group is rolling through what is being fought or the group is not. If the group is rolling through foes,  you do not bother with Darkest Night. Pull it out where you can expect foes will last sufficiently.

 

I really need to fix Mid's file name for the character since it seems I may be keeping him.

 

 Current target build:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

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I have a rad/rad brute where I also just "gave up" on defense. That really just means that I don't go out of my way to find it. That plus resilient alpha puts my at the s/l res softcap (and close on energy). I also took darkest night. 

 

I tried a solo itf with it at +4x8. As expected, when I jump into a group my defense is in the negative territory within seconds. But with the -dmg from darkest night and my res capped and rad therapy up consistently I can survive it. Not as easily as my sr tank, mind you, but it manages. Can't survive the ambush at the end of mission one though.