Fire/* or */Fire tank with Leadership?

[TheOtherTed]

I have an idea for a "space genie" character, but I've been fumbling with different powersets for too long a time.  My interest was sparked (pun retroactively intended) when I found out that Tanks get Controller-level bonuses for Leadership powers, so I'd like to build around that.

 

In addition, I'd like one (but not both) of the character's main powersets to be Fire.  I'm leaning towards Fiery Aura, because you're on Fire, but can be talked into Fiery Melee instead (Breath of Fire would fit the character well).

 

I've considered Dual Blades as an alternative to Fiery Melee, but am open to other suggestions, so long as Fire is involved somewhere.

 

At the moment, I'm not looking for detailed IO builds - just some general feedback on what seems to work well with Fire and what doesn't.

Edited February 15, 2023 by TheOtherTed

[ZemX]

Think about Shield / Fire.   Shield Defense and Leadership have a couple things in common. 

 

Shield has a team def buff in Grant Cover.  Not as wide as Maneuvers, but a lot more defense.   Maneuvers and Grant Cover, if you enhance both for defense, would be giving teammates around 20%ish defense and a little bit of defense resistance if they are within 22.5ft of you.  YOU don't get all that (just Maneuvers and the DDR) but you're not hurting for defense with Shield.

 

Shield has a self damage buff in Against All Odds.  That plus Assault is a nice damage bonus.

 

On the looks side of things, if by "space genie" you mean to add some tech look instead of just magical, Shield has some nice tech and energy shield customizations.  Or you could stick with elemental for fire.  Looks very nice with the Fire Melee swords out, speaking of which... Fire Melee has Fire Scimitars. 

 

Sorcery Pool would be a given for a mystical genie... not sure about space genies.  Maybe go Combat Teleport.  Pick up Teleport Target for helping teammates travel.  Skimp on the actual travel power and go Rocket Board instead of Magic Carpet.  It has a very Jetsons kind of cartoon spacey look to it, if that goes with the theme.

[SeraphimKensai]

Dark Armor/Fire Melee/Soul would bey combo for a space genie. Space is pretty vast and dark, so dark armor seems like a perfect fit.

 

It has tons of utility, can get amazing resistances, one of the best heals in the game. Pairing with Fire Melee you now have some -def to use which makes fire melee so much better than it was previously. Soul mastery is one of my favorite patrons for a tanker because of gloom/darkest night. That said you could go energy and leverage focused acc on top of tactics with a kismet proc for massive tohit.

[TheOtherTed]

@ZemX Good points on Shield Defense, both in terms of synergy and in terms of customization.  In fact, that was my original plan for the character.  The drawback is that I already have a SD Brute, so I'm concerned that the playstyle would feel too similar.  That said, a space-tech shield might add enough visual difference that I don't notice it as much (had a similar dilemma with another pair of characters, and the costumes made a surprisingly significant difference).

 

Already committed to getting Combat Teleport on this character, and will likely get Teleport Target as well.  I'm strongly considering dipping in to Sorcery, but I don't want to dilute out Leadership too much.

 

Are Rocket Board and/or Magic Carpet customizable now?  If not, I appreciate the suggestion, but I'll have to pass.

 

@SeraphimKensai I already have a Dark/Dark Corruptor (another insane space genie) and a Staff/DA Stalker, and I played the heck out of a DA/Mace tank on live.  TBH, I'm trying to break the habit - but DA/Fire is seriously tempting, and would have menacing-looking auras that would fit the character nicely.  Might have to retire my Stalker, though.

 

From both your posts, though, I'm getting the feeling that Fiery Aura isn't your first pick for a primary.  Is that true?

[SeraphimKensai]

Fiery Aura is not bad and you can get decent resistances out of it but I feel you get better res out of DA.

 You'll get more offense with FA considering it has burn and fiery embrace. Between the two powersets, I'd argue Dark Armor has more utility and overall survivability than FA. DA also has better exotic resistances.

 

That said it's your toon so play what you want. I just figured for your theme and requirement to have at least one fire powerset that DA/FM seemed to stand out to me.

 

Also you don't have to retire anything. I have maybe 5 or 6 Dark Armor toons, and about 5 Fiery Aura toons.

Edited February 15, 2023 by SeraphimKensai

[PLVRIZR]

Fire/* and */Fire = Fire/Fire!

 

Leveling one now and yes, it has the inherent disadvantage of being resistance-only based, but once you get to Incarnate level, you can make anything nigh-unkillable and the damage from Fiery Melee is impressive.  I had a Fire/Fire on Live and I know my new project will make that toon look like a joke, considering everything we have access to, today, and the improvements in both the armor and melee sets.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, TheOtherTed said:

Are Rocket Board and/or Magic Carpet customizable now?  If not, I appreciate the suggestion, but I'll have to pass.

 

They are not.  I only mentioned it because Magic Carpet would be very thematic for a mystical genie, so perhaps Rocket Board would look good for a space genie.  Either (or Void Skiff) is a poor substitute for a real travel power.

 

1 hour ago, TheOtherTed said:

rom both your posts, though, I'm getting the feeling that Fiery Aura isn't your first pick for a primary.  Is that true?

 

Not much experience with it.   It is generally thought of as a more offensive Tanker option.   I didn't mention it because it doesn't have any particular synergy with Leadership.  It has no defense to add to.  No team buffs to go with.  Etc.  That's not a bad thing.  One thing you might do with it is pair with a Katana or Broadsword.  The Parry attack in each of those adds stacking melee defense.  Add that to Leadership and maybe Weave, Combat Jumping or Hover, and set bonuses and you can get some decent defense to reduce incoming damage.  Though without Defense Debuff Resistance that defense will desert you when it's most needed.   Another pairing option, if you're open to the idea, is Staff Fighting.  Staff's Damage stance adds +dmg and has finishers which either buff your resistance or debuff enemy resistance.  Very handy.   Stacked with Tough and the Might of the Tanker proc, you can boost resistance considerably and make your Fiery Aura Tanker reasonably sturdy.    Staff also does the slightly less resisted Smashing damage  whereas the blades are lethal.  And any of the weapon options has tech/energy weapon customizations that would go with the theme, although the blades do seem to fit it better than the staff.  I know you mentioned already having done a Staff Stalker but one thing to note that's specific to Tankers is the Gauntlet inherent hugely benefits Staff on Tankers.   The PBAoE becomes 50% bigger radius. i.e. As large as Foot Stomp in Super Strength, and hits up to 16 targets.   The two cones get 50% wider each and hit up to ten targets.  It's an AoE wood chipper on a Tank.  It doesn't get Build Up like the Stalker does, but it gets the stance selection, which you wouldn't have had on the Stalker.

 

To @PLVRIZR's point though: Fiery Aura and Fire Melee are a great combo because FA's Fiery Embrace is a kind of second build up that, while it adds fire damage to most any damaging attack, also boosts Fire Damage specifically by 100% for 20 seconds.  So it's most effective when your attack powers are doing Fire type damage.  And Fire damage is certainly already much less commonly resisted than Lethal or Smashing.

[TheOtherTed]

Entering "too many choices" territory here... 😄

 

So far, the suggestions include:

SD/FM

DA/FM

FA/FM

FA/BS or Katana

FA/Staff

 

All have good arguments for them, not only in terms of effectiveness, but also for style.  My reason for avoiding a "pure" Fire Tanker apparently no longer applies - I had a pure Fire Scrapper before shutdown, and though I liked the concept, the powers felt very weak for a melee character.  However, it sounds like FM at least has been souped up a bit since.  Maybe FA has as well?

 

As for the rest, I've played SD, DA, and Staff (though only DA as a Tanker), and I've gotten a lot of mileage out of all of them.  I wouldn't mind pairing any of those up with a Fire set to see what happens.  I haven't gotten much playtime with blades (BS, Kat, DB); my short dabblings with those sets left me a bit unimpressed, but I'm open to other arguments in favor.

 

Right now, though the front runners in my brain are DA/FM, FA/FM, and FA/Staff.  SD/FM is a runner-up.  It looks like it has the best overall synergy with Leadership, but as I mentioned before, I'm actively playing a Mace/SD right now and I'm concerned that the two playstyles may be too similar, even with customization.

 

I guess my first job is to compare customizations and animations for Fiery Melee and Staff.  It may come down to style points, unless more suggestions are made...

[biostem]

Why not embrace the otherworldly nature of your "Space Genie" and go with radiation armor and fire melee.  Leverage ground zero's dual healing/damaging effect, and the tons of extra recovery gamma boost and particle shielding grant you to power those extra toggles, not to mention all the PBAoEs you'd have...

[aethereal]

9 hours ago, ZemX said:

To @PLVRIZR's point though: Fiery Aura and Fire Melee are a great combo because FA's Fiery Embrace is a kind of second build up that, while it adds fire damage to most any damaging attack, also boosts Fire Damage specifically by 100% for 20 seconds.  So it's most effective when your attack powers are doing Fire type damage.  And Fire damage is certainly already much less commonly resisted than Lethal or Smashing.

Fiery Embrace only adds to fire damage in PvP.  In PvE, it just "turns on" the Fiery Embrace line for melee powers.

 

However, it looks like Fiery Melee does get special bonus DoT when using Fiery Embrace, so it does remain true that Fiery Melee gets a little more from Fiery Aura than other melee sets do.  Just, the mechanism of that "little extra" is other than you described.

[TheOtherTed]

12 hours ago, biostem said:

Why not embrace the otherworldly nature of your "Space Genie" and go with radiation armor and fire melee.  Leverage ground zero's dual healing/damaging effect, and the tons of extra recovery gamma boost and particle shielding grant you to power those extra toggles, not to mention all the PBAoEs you'd have...

Rad armor was my first choice when I started working on this character, but I can't quite do it.  Those rad circles in the auras make me a bit dizzy for some reason.  If I use darker colors for power customization, I'm fine - but as someone suggested in another thread related to this character, space genies aren't about subtlety 😉

[ZemX]

8 hours ago, aethereal said:

Fiery Embrace only adds to fire damage in PvP.  In PvE, it just "turns on" the Fiery Embrace line for melee powers.

 

grrr... could swear I unchecked PvP data in CoD... fixing that (again) now...

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, TheOtherTed said:

Rad armor was my first choice when I started working on this character, but I can't quite do it.  Those rad circles in the auras make me a bit dizzy for some reason.  If I use darker colors for power customization, I'm fine - but as someone suggested in another thread related to this character, space genies aren't about subtlety 😉

 

Really the only thing I don't love about it.  I do use the dark customization but those spinning ping-pong balls are still visible.   Dark Armor has that going for it at least.  Lots of options for visual customization last I looked.

[TheOtherTed]

Thoughts on Fiery Aura/Dark Melee?

[SeraphimKensai]

1 hour ago, TheOtherTed said:

Thoughts on Fiery Aura/Dark Melee?

Resistance based armor, some thdb on your attacks, two fast recharging heals.

 

I'm sure with proper IO investment it will be fine. You could build up the res and add some defense (although you won't have any DDR to protect your defense). It seems like a pretty active tank as you alternate healing CDs. Damage though would be pretty damn good with Perma Soul Drain, Fiery Embrace and Burn so it has that going for it.

 

I don't have a lot of experience with Fiery Aura on a nonfarm character since about i8 though so I'll defer to others more experienced with Fiery Aura outside of a fire farm.

[BrandX]

You can make Fire Armor tough without Incarnates (but that will make you even tougher).

 

My Fire/Axe is sitting at

 

90% S/L/F

68.76% C

86.74% E/N

54.2% Tox

39.2% Psi

95% Slow Resist

 

That's before the Reactive Defense Proc kicks in for more Resist, and only with 1 Proc of the ATO +Resist (I have it in Blazing Aura, I believe I've seen it double up, but don't recall it being often).

 

I rely on that and Healing Flames and now with one of the newest patches, Phoenix Rising (not used that often) and Consume for the +HP it gives. 🙂   No capped HP, but the more HP the better the high resists are.

Edited February 17, 2023 by BrandX

[Nyghtmaire]

So @TheOtherTed, what did you land on?!?!?

[TheOtherTed]

I'll be honest - I let myself get sidelined by an Archery / Martial Combat blaster and a long-standing character I hadn't played for a while, my Martial Arts / Ninjutsu scrapper.

 

As for the tanker, I'm strongly leaning towards DA/FM, but at some point, I also want to try FA.  I just don't have a concept to go with it yet.

[Sovera]

Try Fire/Fire. I'm sporadically leveling one now that I've milked WoW's newest expansion and it can achieve a rotation of only AoEs. Which feels really satisfying when in an AoE situation since who wants to hit ST attacks when surrounded by mobs?

[Uun]

4 hours ago, Sovera said:

Try Fire/Fire. I'm sporadically leveling one now that I've milked WoW's newest expansion and it can achieve a rotation of only AoEs. Which feels really satisfying when in an AoE situation since who wants to hit ST attacks when surrounded by mobs?

This. I just leveled a Fire/Fire and the AoE damage with Burn + Combustion + FSC is staggering.