SR/x setting up to be disappointed at lvl 50+?

[Bokken]

Hi

 

Just started a SR/dual blades tanker.

So far, really enjoyable and feels powerful.

 

Haven't seen ANY other SR tankers, and that males me kinda worried that I'm setting myself up to be disappointed later on.

 

So far only IO'ed with lvl 20-25 IO's. Nothing in sets as I don't have that kind of inf.

 

Help me Obi-Wan Tankers, you're my only hope. Convince me to stick with it, please.

[jack_nomind]

Defense in general is not as good for tankers as Resist, because Defense mitigation functionally caps out at ~79% vs +4 AVs.  The best Tanker sets are layered with both, and SR is to an extent -- but none of its native resist kicks in until under 50% hp.  You will have an exceptionally easy time hitting softcap with tanker numbers, though, and that gives you some flexibility to seek out +maxhp and +res from IO sets.

[Heraclea]

I don't really agree with the notion that resistance is better than defense. 

 

One, with mixed attack types, defense always breaks in your favor: i.e. when you're under a melee attack with smashing and dark damage, three types of defense will be checked (melee, smashing, dark) and your biggest defense number decides whether the attack connects at all. 

 

Second, the original devs went so debuff crazy with the new story lines, revamped areas, and incarnate content, that the only way to enjoy this content is to not get hit at all.  Resistance and regeneration work fine for the levelling game; endgame you need defense, and lots of it. 

 

Defense is always binary, you either get hit or you don't, while resistance removes a reliable percentage of incoming damage by type.  This means that defense can have a streak of bad luck.  But all things considered I think that defense works better, especially for the 50+ material and stuff like  the Kahn and Ms. Liberty TFs.  Best is to have some resist and as much defense as you can get, of course. 

 

I would pick an attack set that either gets you to the softcaps faster (Broadsword, Katana) or that offers -tohit (Dark Melee) that effectively builds on the value of your defense.  Or you could try a layered approach with something like Kinetic Melee; its damage debuff is the equivalent of adding resistance to your defense. 

[jack_nomind]

I don't really agree with the notion that resistance is better than defense. 

 

You don't have to agree.  It's 79% mitigation vs 90%, on tankers vs AVs.  The capped Resist tanker lives twice as long as the capped Defense tanker.

[Redlynne]

Defense mitigation functionally caps out at ~79% vs +4 AVs.

 

It's 79% mitigation vs 90%, on tankers vs AVs.

 

I'm seeing repeated assertions, but no Show Your Work explaining the methodology behind your claim.

Explain yourself.

[jack_nomind]

I'm seeing repeated assertions, but no Show Your Work explaining the methodology behind your claim.

Explain yourself.

 

Sorry, I lose track of which specific Tanker threads I've given the explanation in.

[marcussmythe]

The problem with relying on resistance is that all the debuffs land, and you get hosed.

 

The problem with relying on defense is that the defense gets stripped away by debuffs.  Then they all land and you get hosed - though you may just get floored first by damage if you were relying on defense.

 

Endgame content is well designed to quickly strip any defensive scheme to ‘kill them before HP run out’

[nihilii]

Circling back to the SR tanker, that's where their advantage lies: with capped resist to defense debuffs, nothing is ever going to strip you of your defense.

 

And, you can build for 59% def to all with (relative) ease. Meaning you're ready to take on those incarnate mobs with extra ToHit.

 

Throw in Tough and the number of IO sets we've got now. It's not too hard to reach about 50% RES to S/L.

 

Tough = +24% RES

Shield Wall = +5% RES

Reactive Defenses = +3% RES

Each Tanker ATO, 6-slotted and catalyzed = +6% RES

 

Solid 44% RES at full life before you go hunt for set bonuses elsewhere. And the game is just about filled with them now! 5-slot LoTGs give +3.75% RES. 2-slot Red Fortunes or Reactive Defenses give +1.5% RES. 5-slot Mako's Bite or Gladiator's Strike in your attacks for +3.75% S/L.

 

So you can get fantastic mitigation against the most common damage type. And still do decent against the rest, from your defenses + about 8% RES growing as your life go down.

 

Throw in Aid Self to patch your heal hole; which at incarnate level, you could replace with Rebirth +regen. Or even keep Aid Self, and stack Barrier for when you really need a breather against heavy non-S/L attacks.

 

Oh, and with a couple Winter sets plus Winter's Gift, you can cap your resistance to slows. Not exclusive to SR, but a nice little extra.

 

So that's a full build. But even without that, life isn't too shabby for SR tankers. When we're talking SOs to very light IOs, most other powersets don't come close to the mitigation softcap + DDR provides; especially with the decent HP pool tankers get to enjoy.

 

I wouldn't worry about it, Bokken. IMHO, SR tankers are rare because it was "recently" proliferated. It's not as flashy as the newer sets, and it's not a staple build like the older sets. Nothing wrong with walking the road less traveled!

[Redlynne]

Although SR/* Tankers have an aggro magnet aura ... it is easily challenging Willpower for the bottom of the barrel competition, since it's a MAG 4 Taunt that lasts ... 1 second ... on a 0.5 second activation time for the toggle.

 

This basically means that you need to rely on Gauntlet (and Taunt from your secondary) to hold onto aggro without relying mostly/exclusively on auras to do the job for you.  In that respect, it's kind of the opposite of the "inhaling aggro" behavior of Ice Armor with its Taunt+Debuff and Damage auras.

[Heraclea]

Good to know.  Made a SR/Katana tanker today; that will need a workaround.  Now, Spines fixes weak taunt auras, but running SR/Spines will need a lot of 50-merit recovery buttons.

[Redlynne]

The thing to remember about SR/* on a Tanker is that unlike a lot of other primaries you aren't going to "need" to be hip deep in aggro in order to get the "most" out of your aura powers.

 

Invulnerability, Willpower, Shield Defense and other sets have a buff component to their auras that make them weaker against single targets and stronger against many crunchies.  Ice Armor does something similar, but that's on a Click rather than a Toggle (I'm thinking of Energy Absorption here).  And that's not even an exhaustive list of mentions for primary powersets.

 

Super Reflexes doesn't have these ... dependencies.  Instead, you're just ... ON ... regardless of how many $Targets you have around you.  In that respect, your protection scheme is relatively "self-contained" rather than being dependent on the situation you find yourself in, from moment to moment.  So long as you take (and slot?) your Taunt from your secondary powerset ... and use it ... you'll do fine.  Heck, you could just Taunt from a distance to open (debuffing their Range) and then charge in, so as to "get aggro first" for the team and then proceed into Beatdown Mode™ while everything flails away at you quite helplessly.  However, because Taunt is often time limited to a Max Targets of 5, it will often be a good idea to use a PBAoE attack that can hit (up to) 10 $Targets upon diving into a crowd to try and help you manage aggro well enough to keep stuff from getting peeled off you.  It just means that your aggro magnetism is coming out of your secondary (mainly) with Evasion in your primary being a "backup" taunt aura to keep stuff on you.

 

Season to taste with epic pools.

[Heraclea]

Rolled yet another tanker today, SR/Katana.  Speaking of epic power pools, I remember favoring Salt Crystals for a WP tanker as a very large AoE attack applying standard Gauntlet to many mobs.  Might be a good choice for SR as well, but from what I remember of the set Conserve Power will also be tempting. 

[Adeon Hawkwood]

The problem with relying on resistance is that all the debuffs land, and you get hosed.

 

The problem with relying on defense is that the defense gets stripped away by debuffs.  Then they all land and you get hosed - though you may just get floored first by damage if you were relying on defense.

The other problem with defense for team content is that there are a lot more support sets that boost your defense than sets that boost your resistance. So on a random team you're much more likely to have teammates who can defense cap a resistance-based tank than you are to have teammates who can resistance cap a defense-based tank.

[marcussmythe]

Agreed - in the random condition, the +DEF from teammates is everywhere, while + RES remains much less common.  The same is true, though less strongly, for Healing and +Regen effects.  This does advantage RES in the generic condition.