What do you think are the worst?

[Xandyr]

I wanna try something different...

 

 

What do you think are the "worst 3" primary and secondary powers? I want to roll a new tank, but with a twist. Everyone always wants to know what the "best" is. Well, I wanna know the worst. I plan on trying take what most people don't play/don't like and turn it into something "good". Maybe as a challenge I guess?

 

 So...lay it on me!

 

-X 

 

[aethereal]

I'm not sure that Tankers really have any "bad" primaries.  I'm not that enthused about Willpower or Dark, but you should be able to build a solidly tough Tank with anything.

 

Kinetic Melee is probably the worst melee set now?  Broadsword isn't terrible, but it's outshone by all the other weapons in my opinion.  Martial arts has one big saving grace, which is its massive defense bonus.  I wouldn't say it's bad, but if you pair it with a defense set as an armor, especially on tanks, you're left with a set that's very short on AoE, has fine but not amazing ST, and its big advantage is superfluous.

Edited November 26, 2022 by aethereal

[Xandyr]

I agree...it's hard to say there's a "bad" primary. I guess "sub par" would be better? Haha

 I actually like WP. One of my favorite tanks is my wp/staff.

 

Oh, and I refuse to play Kinetic Melee or TW. As slow as they are, I hate em.

 

I hardly ever see DB on a tanker, so I thought about that.

[EmperorSteele]

Fire Armor. It'a good against one thing and one thing only, which only 10% of foes deal in. The other 90% of the time, you're gonna be in for some pain. There's a reason the set has a built in resurrect and a fast-recharge heal. Unless you can kill everything before they kill you, which FA helps you out with, so, maybe it's not too bad.

 

Worst attack set... hmm, do Tanks get Martial Arts? I feel like the lack of AoE would be felt there. SS if you don't take Rage. Pretty much any set that lacks AoE.

 

[Oysterhead]

40 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

Fire Armor. It'a good against one thing and one thing only, which only 10% of foes deal in. The other 90% of the time, you're gonna be in for some pain. There's a reason the set has a built in resurrect and a fast-recharge heal. Unless you can kill everything before they kill you, which FA helps you out with, so, maybe it's not too bad.

 

Worst attack set... hmm, do Tanks get Martial Arts? I feel like the lack of AoE would be felt there. SS if you don't take Rage. Pretty much any set that lacks AoE.

 

I'd say both of these are pretty accurate, but what is funny is that when you combine the two of them (Fiery Aura+MA Tanker) you end up with a very potent tanker. MA with its +def helps Fire Armor out a ton, as do its knockdowns, and Burn gives MA the area attacks it is missing. That combo was one of my strongest tanks, not tankiest tank, but was able to kill very fast to make up for it.

Kinetic Melee was the worst feeling of the primaries I've tried so far. Looks cool, but always felt like a lot of hand waving to have everything die before you get attacks off. 

[Darkir]

Can....can I make the build with whatever 'bad' powersets you choose? This seems like a fun challenge.

[Erratic1]

56 minutes ago, Darkir said:

Can....can I make the build with whatever 'bad' powersets you choose? This seems like a fun challenge.

 

Someone asserted at one point SR was bad on Tankers. Wound up making an SR/TW to dispute the claim.

[Astralock]

10 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Someone asserted at one point SR was bad on Tankers. Wound up making an SR/TW to dispute the claim.

Super Reflexes isn’t bad, it’s that Shield Defense is overall better.  Yeah, yeah, DDR.  Ageless Radial Destiny smoothes that out, and you end up doing more damage in the end.  But for those secondaries that you can’t pair with Shield, Super Reflexes is a good choice.

[Erratic1]

25 minutes ago, Astralock said:

Super Reflexes isn’t bad, it’s that Shield Defense is overall better.  Yeah, yeah, DDR.  Ageless Radial Destiny smoothes that out, and you end up doing more damage in the end.  But for those secondaries that you can’t pair with Shield, Super Reflexes is a good choice.

 

They were asserting it was bad because you risked getting hit for a lot of damage when defense didn't work. DDR was not on their radar.

 

[Oysterhead]

Another vote that Super Reflexes is very nice on tankers, and I'd agree with Astralock that in most cases Shield is better, but, SR shines on a tanker. Due to our larger health pool, ATOs giving nice resist bonuses, SRs innate scaling resists get more time to work well. You'll drop to half health faster than most other tank sets, but, you can stay there almost indefinitely. I slotted +chance for heals/aborbs all over the place (Power Transfer, Preventive Medicine, Panacea). Different style but works very well.

[Meknomancer]

My vote will be surprising....invul or wp primary with elec or.....ss. Both primary's are shockingly bad for slotting damage and recharge while maintaining any sort of defence/resists/healing. Elec has no st attack chain to speak of. Invul is a 3 trick pony consisting of footstomp/ko blow/rage and if it didn't have rage it'd be at the bottom of the secondaries list. I've yet to see an invul build that isn't ss and can put out any damage and ss isn't great even on other primaries unless you've skipped the entire set bar the above 3 and taken and slotted fighting and soul.

Scrolling through the forums there's only about 2-3 wp builds and only 1 of those is procced out for damage and looks fun but won't survive harder content. Every single invul build (every single one.....) 0 recharge. 0 procs. Pretty much identical with the unbreakables/imperviums/shield walls/winter sets everything put towards resists and defence and nothing left for fun. They may not be the worst tanker primaries/secondaries is just that every other one is more fun to play and allows far more diversity building them so if you want a challenge level up one of those through content and try not to fall asleep waiting for the mobs to drop.

[MistressOhm]

SR also comes with a passive speed/recharge booster later on in the set.  It's not as good as Speed Boost or AM, but it's ALWAYS on and doesn't cost any END.    

[Psyonico]

Here's an interesting thought... Dark Armor/Rad Melee.

 

Dark is an alright set, and Rad performs really well, but combined you're looking at an endurance nightmare.

[Gobbledigook]

My suggestion would be Electric Armor/Kinetic melee. I think they both need a small buff of some sort.

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

12 hours ago, aethereal said:

defense set as an armor ... its big advantage is superfluous.

 

Not while leveling, and not when doing incarnate or hardmode content. It's a nice bonus.

 

11 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

do Tanks get Martial Arts? I feel like the lack of AoE would be felt there.

 

What gets forgotten about MA's AoE is that it's very fast at 1.5sec animation time. A base recharge of 14 seconds means it's easily up every 3-4 seconds for use. With a 75% chance of knockdown it's a great mitigation tool.

 

I have an SD/MA and WP/MA and it was a really comfortable ride leveling both to 50.

[Xandyr]

Just based on my own experience....

 

 I see the least amount of the following:

PRIMARIES

 SR

 WP

 Elect

 Dark

 Ice

 

 

SECONDARIES

 Stone Melee

 DB

 Kinetic

 Katana

 Broadsword

 

 I actually can't remember the last time I saw:

Super Reflexes

Kinetic Melee

Stone Melee

DB

[twozerofoxtrot]

KM and DB are pretty rare... I don't know why necessarily DB would be but I agree in that I don't often see it in the wild.

 

I'm leveling an SR/Sav tank right now so I see that one a bit more often. 😉

[Spaghetti Betty]

Hmmm. Elec/Stone sounds absolutely awful to level, but could end up pretty fun at 50.

[ninja surprise]

1 hour ago, Xandyr said:

Ice

 

 

SECONDARIES

 Stone Melee

 

I had an Ice/Stone on Live and it was a blast. All the knockdown helped survivability against tough enemies and it was a piece of cake to be soft-capped S/L/E/N by the 20's with cheap IO sets.

 

A Shield/Stone is one of my favorite tanks, the other is SR/DM. 

Had an SR/Electric and it was a lot of fun but eventually I got tired of the lack of single target attacks. I think I was doing the arc redside where you help overthrow Penny Yin's family when I got burnt out on it.

One of my friends mains on an Electric/Dual Blades and just loves it. My Shield/Stone survives better in the Dark Astoria arcs, but hers does just fine almost everywhere.

 

A bad pairing might be Ice/SS so you're killing your defense all the time, or Ice/Spines for lots o' dots but crappy ST chain.

Do anything /Psionic and slot for max knockup.

Edited November 27, 2022 by ninja surprise

[Sir Myshkin]

I went back and looked at what the old 2020 posting was for ranked rolled on Tankers and, yes it might be old, this is what was listed:

• For Melee: Claws, Katana
• For Armor: Ice, SR

I know I've seen my fair share of Kat/SR Scrappers in my time, but can't say I've seen that many Tankers run it. Ice Armor... I'll concede does still feel on the low-end of folks running it despite how absolutely awesome the set is. I'd leave a lot of it down to graphic interference probably for why so many don't take it (at least on Everlasting). I also don't think I've ever seen an Ice/Claws.

 

These were the least rolled pairings and reflect in greater disparity of choice:

 

221	Ice Armor	Dual Blades	3
222	Super Reflexes	Electrical Melee	3
223	Ice Armor	Katana	3
224	Dark Armor	Kinetic Attack	3
225	Super Reflexes	Stone Melee	3
226	Super Reflexes	Spines	3
227	Fiery Aura	Kinetic Attack	2
228	Super Reflexes	Broad Sword	2
229	Super Reflexes	Ice Melee	2
230	Ice Armor	Claws	2
231	Bio Organic Armor	Ice Melee	2
232	Fiery Aura	Katana	2
233	Electric Armor	Broad Sword	2
234	Stone Armor	Katana	1
235	Super Reflexes	War Mace	1

 

If I were going to put a vote I'd tally it on Ice/Claws, not in regards to "worst options" but frankly just least played, least considered pairings.

[StriderIV]

5 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

My suggestion would be Electric Armor/Kinetic melee. I think they both need a small buff of some sort.

 

Conceptually though… what a cool combo haha

[Zect]

Define "worst". There are few truly bad sets in the game, and often, things that people perceive as "bad" are merely specialized or skill-dependent.

 

A lot of the sets people are mentioning here are actually very good. Fire armor is an offensive juggernaut, and a fire tanks outputs dps comparable to that of dps AT's. Elec has strong resistance to the two deadliest debuffs (-end, -rech) and ample build flexibility with unlimited end and a recharge buff. They can both hardcap all resists except psi/toxic. Ice offers powerful soft control to backup softcapped defenses. WP provides strong sustain on top of a meta-friendly def/res hybrid suite. etc.

 

People often call a set "bad" simply because they are pairing it with the wrong secondary, fail to understand the full potential of its powers, and/or lack the skill to design a good build for it. Just because some people only know how to play Invuln does not mean that other sets are "bad".

[Uun]

8 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Hmmm. Elec/Stone sounds absolutely awful to level, but could end up pretty fun at 50.

I've got a Stone/Elec brute. Extremely sturdy and hits like a freight train. With the p5 changes, an Elec tank would pick up Energize at lvl 12 and Power Sink at lvl 22, which should put an end to any endurance issues.

[Darkir]

@Xandyrso SR or ICE for the primary and then DB or Claw or Kinetic Melee seem to be what most people think is weakest and is least popular. Whatcha think?

Edited November 27, 2022 by Darkir

[Seed22]

On 11/26/2022 at 9:12 AM, EmperorSteele said:

Fire Armor. It'a good against one thing and one thing only, which only 10% of foes deal in. The other 90% of the time, you're gonna be in for some pain. There's a reason the set has a built in resurrect and a fast-recharge heal. Unless you can kill everything before they kill you, which FA helps you out with, so, maybe it's not too bad.

 

Worst attack set... hmm, do Tanks get Martial Arts? I feel like the lack of AoE would be felt there. SS if you don't take Rage. Pretty much any set that lacks AoE.

 

Mine never seems to struggle against the majority of content. The trick is to not build for only Fire res 😛

 

 

Gotta second whoever said Kinetic Melee. It's...probably solidly the worst. No extra crit or interesting gimmick besides punitive -damage and no real worthwhile build up. That puts it as a garbage tier set IMO

Edited November 27, 2022 by Seed22