Favorite Tanker Primary for HM/Aeon content?

[StriderIV]

Was reading through the recent Shield Tanker thread as the “Ultimate Team Tanker.” I LOVE me some Shield, and I do agree with the OP that it is probably the ultimate team tanker.

 

That being said, what do you feel the best Tanker primary is with a team behind it for the HM/Aeon content?

 

Shield get a shout out from me, from being able to lead engages and just providing some defense to your teammates.

 

Invuln seems like a classic with little to no holes IMO.

 

Dark Armor doesn’t receive enough love I feel. Yeah, end intensive and no DDR…. But the thing has such a short cooldown on it’s heal. I love my Dark/Staff Tanker.

 

Finally, Bio Armor has recently caught my attention. I always viewed it as a “Scrapper” armor set, but the thing looks like it can be REALLY tough as well. From a min/max perspective, I could see it being “the one” with a strong team of buffs and debuffs behind it. Just stay in offensive and go ham.

 

Edit: Although, with my above thought process on a Bio Tanker, I guess you could say the best “tank” could be a Bio or Fire Armor Scrapper with a full team of buffers making them God Mode? Lol

Edited April 12, 2023 by StriderIV

[Mezmera]

Offensive oriented sets are best with a good team built around the tank.  Bio, Rad and Fire would excel.

 

Shield is great too because it offers some flexibility to team makeup since you should be bringing a nice 15%+ team defense buff plus some not too shabby offense.  Great all arounder for these things which can be built into likely the beefiest of the quasi offensive oriented tanks.  Plus Shield is capable of 90%+ DDR which shines on ITF.  

 

With a well built coordinated and focused team a good damaging alpha is the best which would be a well built high hp scrapper. 

[StriderIV]

19 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

Offensive oriented sets are best with a good team built around the tank.  Bio, Rad and Fire would excel.

 

Shield is great too because it offers some flexibility to team makeup since you should be bringing a nice 15%+ team defense buff plus some not too shabby offense.  Great all arounder for these things which can be built into likely the beefiest of the quasi offensive oriented tanks.  Plus Shield is capable of 90%+ DDR which shines on ITF.  

 

With a well built coordinated and focused team a good damaging alpha is the best which would be a well built high hp scrapper. 

What secondaries would you think for the Scrapper? Bio and Rad most likely?

[Mezmera]

Yeah Bio would be good.  Absorb shields are big powers on these HM's.  The team will have likely a few Colds on the team giving the scrapper access to high defenses and maybe even give them the hp buff they'd want too plus lots of holes are covered with dedicated barrier teams.  Bio scrapper with the moxie and confront.  

Edited April 12, 2023 by Mezmera

[StriderIV]

23 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

Yeah Bio would be good.  Absorb shields are big powers on these HM's.  The team will have likely a few Colds on the team giving the scrapper access to high defenses and maybe even give them the hp buff they'd want too plus lots of holes are covered with dedicated barrier teams.  Bio scrapper with the moxie and confront.  

Yeah I was gonna say, you’d prob have to take taunt on a Scrapper for this build.

[Mezmera]

8 minutes ago, StriderIV said:

Yeah I was gonna say, you’d prob have to take taunt on a Scrapper for this build.

 

The best thing about using a tank though is just how easy it is to maintain control of the first 16 targets since with their aggro field and punchvoke the ooze aggro control.  Tanks are easier on teams. 

 

The real experienced teams are better suited to have the scrapper.  If you have a good group of players you're familiar with it's fine to use the scrapper but using a tank is just less risky and easier to make use with on less experienced more puggy teams.  Bio tank would do well for decent teams and the puggiest of teams I'd rather have the Shield tank most.  

[C U R S E]

Shield/Dark Melee is king

[BuiltDifferent5]

1 hour ago, C U R S E said:

Shield/Dark Melee is king

Yeah it’s supposed to tough on a Scrapper, I imagine it’s stupid strong on a Tanker.

[Snarky]

I build Dark for resist and only Defense that randomly shows up in sets i choose for other reasons….very little.  This work’s remarkably well in all content.  Except I do not run Aeon much.  Will need some experience there to make an good assessment.  Yes, I have high energy resist as well.  But no defense…except stealth, stun aura, fear aura and to hit debuffs….

[Zect]

First of all, you need to understand the current 4-star pug hard mode meta. Note: this is for pugs that recruit publicly, and allow any average joe to join. If you're running your own superteam or doing special challenges, you should be knowledgeable enough to adjust your build accordingly.

 

The meta is for each team to have:

• 7x barrier destiny
• 1x incandescent destiny, carried by the leader/most skilled player, which may well be you - though I don't recommend that the leader also be the tank. This person will speed/stealth what is to be stealthed and teleport the team around.
• As many tactics and tohit buffs as possible - HM creatures and AV's have very high def. Respect it.
• One def buffer: cold or FF preferred. Time manip, forts, etc. easily miss teammates with their long-recharge mind links.
• One healer: kin preferred, for its very powerful spammable transfuse, and because FS/SB are an easy panacea for clueless dps players with no clue how to optimize dps. However, elecaff, nature etc. are all strong candidates in this role.
• One tank (the MMO role, not necessarily the AT) with taunt: that's you!

The 7 barriers will be run continuously whenever the team is in combat. No effort will be made to stagger them - average players are not capable of that level of coordination. Because barrier core T4 is permanent, 7 barrier core epiphanies is, at minimum, perma 35% def to all and 35% res to all. A single cold corr on top of that adds about 29% def to all. Then on top of that you stack maneuvers and miscellanous def/res buffs, etc.

 

In this buff-heavy environment, all tanker primaries, even SR, will be res hardcapped and def softcapped. This means that excessive build investment in mitigation and especially defense are wasted. I often see people fuss about hitting the incarnate softcap, thinking this will help them survive. Extra defense may provide comp flexibility or some buffer against mistakes (eg. someone slow on refreshing barrier), but does not actually translate into more survivability because you will already be operating at your mitigation caps after buffs.

 

Secondly, the fights are quite long. It takes a good pug team about 5 mins to kill the 8 vanguard heroes; a bad one may take closer to 15 mins. It takes a good pug team to triple-kill nictus romulus in 1 cycle of barrier nictuses. A bad one may take many cycles, even assuming you don't wipe. The AV's must be tanked for long periods of time, often with no healing except what you can get from the kin spamming transfusion. You will take hits, and the AV's do enough damage to kill a tanker through 90% resist in just 3-4 hits. This means that sets with high mitigation but low sustain, such as stone and invuln, are not necessarily the best for hardmodes.

 

Hence, in 4-star hardmode, armor sets are differentiated less by their base def and res, and more by:

• Sustain - you need to be able to take care of yourself for long periods, as not every team can afford an emp to babysit you. Even if they can, given the average skill level of emps, do you want to take the risk?
• DPS - you need to kill things quickly. The longer you take to kill the AV's, the greater the chance for something to go horribly wrong. The longer you take to kill trash, the more debuffs you eat.
• Debuff resists - Hero 1 and the vanguard octet drain end (and it's a really nasty drain too). Nictus Romulus slows, King Midas slows. Sustain, mitigation and dps are dependent on rech and end to function, so you want debuff resist to keep them.

My #1 tanker primary for tanking anything outside of Hami is Rad. Rad armor is overpowered by any measure with its combination of strong debuff resist, advantageous resist profile, vast amount of end, 2 very strong click sustains, and a rech buff. The only thing it lacks is +maxHP, which it kind of gets around by having particle shield give absorb instead of the more conventional heal, and cold resist which is not (yet) significant in the game... At least, until we get HM Manticore with super Crey cryo lasers.

 

#2 would be a toss-up among fire, bio and shield (shield favored more for ITF, fire and bio favored more for aeon).

 

#3 would be all other tanker primaries that have strong sustain, either a low-rech click such as dark or from toggles such as WP.

 

#4 would be all remaining armor sets.

[StriderIV]

28 minutes ago, Zect said:

First of all, you need to understand the current 4-star pug hard mode meta. Note: this is for pugs that recruit publicly, and allow any average joe to join. If you're running your own superteam or doing special challenges, you should be knowledgeable enough to adjust your build accordingly.

 

The meta is for each team to have:

• 7x barrier destiny
• 1x incandescent destiny, carried by the leader/most skilled player, which may well be you - though I don't recommend that the leader also be the tank. This person will speed/stealth what is to be stealthed and teleport the team around.
• As many tactics and tohit buffs as possible - HM creatures and AV's have very high def. Respect it.
• One def buffer: cold or FF preferred. Time manip, forts, etc. easily miss teammates with their long-recharge mind links.
• One healer: kin preferred, for its very powerful spammable transfuse, and because FS/SB are an easy panacea for clueless dps players with no clue how to optimize dps. However, elecaff, nature etc. are all strong candidates in this role.
• One tank (the MMO role, not necessarily the AT) with taunt: that's you!

The 7 barriers will be run continuously whenever the team is in combat. No effort will be made to stagger them - average players are not capable of that level of coordination. Because barrier core T4 is permanent, 7 barrier core epiphanies is, at minimum, perma 35% def to all and 35% res to all. A single cold corr on top of that adds about 29% def to all. Then on top of that you stack maneuvers and miscellanous def/res buffs, etc.

 

In this buff-heavy environment, all tanker primaries, even SR, will be res hardcapped and def softcapped. This means that excessive build investment in mitigation and especially defense are wasted. I often see people fuss about hitting the incarnate softcap, thinking this will help them survive. Extra defense may provide comp flexibility or some buffer against mistakes (eg. someone slow on refreshing barrier), but does not actually translate into more survivability because you will already be operating at your mitigation caps after buffs.

 

Secondly, the fights are quite long. It takes a good pug team about 5 mins to kill the 8 vanguard heroes; a bad one may take closer to 15 mins. It takes a good pug team to triple-kill nictus romulus in 1 cycle of barrier nictuses. A bad one may take many cycles, even assuming you don't wipe. The AV's must be tanked for long periods of time, often with no healing except what you can get from the kin spamming transfusion. You will take hits, and the AV's do enough damage to kill a tanker through 90% resist in just 3-4 hits. This means that sets with high mitigation but low sustain, such as stone and invuln, are not necessarily the best for hardmodes.

 

Hence, in 4-star hardmode, armor sets are differentiated less by their base def and res, and more by:

• Sustain - you need to be able to take care of yourself for long periods, as not every team can afford an emp to babysit you. Even if they can, given the average skill level of emps, do you want to take the risk?
• DPS - you need to kill things quickly. The longer you take to kill the AV's, the greater the chance for something to go horribly wrong. The longer you take to kill trash, the more debuffs you eat.
• Debuff resists - Hero 1 and the vanguard octet drain end (and it's a really nasty drain too). Nictus Romulus slows, King Midas slows. Sustain, mitigation and dps are dependent on rech and end to function, so you want debuff resist to keep them.

My #1 tanker primary for tanking anything outside of Hami is Rad. Rad armor is overpowered by any measure with its combination of strong debuff resist, advantageous resist profile, vast amount of end, 2 very strong click sustains, and a rech buff. The only thing it lacks is +maxHP, which it kind of gets around by having particle shield give absorb instead of the more conventional heal, and cold resist which is not (yet) significant in the game... At least, until we get HM Manticore with super Crey cryo lasers.

 

#2 would be a toss-up among fire, bio and shield (shield favored more for ITF, fire and bio favored more for aeon).

 

#3 would be all other tanker primaries that have strong sustain, either a low-rech click such as dark or from toggles such as WP.

 

#4 would be all remaining armor sets.

This was EXTREMELY insightful, thanks for this. For Rad Armor and for Shield: what secondaries do you feel pair best with both?

 

I was thinking maybe Katana or SS with Rad (perhaps DB since Rad can pump up the recharge?) . Maybe Dark Melee, Rad Melee or Kinetic Melee for Shield.

Edited April 21, 2023 by StriderIV

[ZemX]

18 hours ago, Zect said:

At least, until we get HM Manticore with super Crey cryo lasers.

 

It's not even that hard to get Cold resist up to a level where someone with a res buff could take you the rest of the way to the cap.  I'd worry more on an HM Manti about the un-resistable Enervating Field.   I'd be running away from those fights at high speed trying to make that toggle drop.  Good luck, team!  Your tanker is OUTTA here!

[Brawlin]

Invuln is and always will be the best hard content tanker set. Unstop is unreplaceable in all content. Source: tanked the first 4-man, 4-star ITF link

[Zect]

On 5/5/2023 at 12:27 PM, Brawlin said:

Invuln is and always will be the best hard content tanker set. Unstop is unreplaceable in all content. Source: tanked the first 4-man, 4-star ITF link

 

That's because you are running alpha only (i.e. no barrier spam), and also undermanned, so you are operating in a less buff-heavy environment. For the average pug doing an average pug 4*, I wouldn't advise it.

[Skelt]

Would an Inv/EM Tanker be suitable for 4* ? 

[Brawlin]

On 5/6/2023 at 12:55 AM, Zect said:

 

That's because you are running alpha only (i.e. no barrier spam), and also undermanned, so you are operating in a less buff-heavy environment. For the average pug doing an average pug 4*, I wouldn't advise it.

If you are a tanker do your job and survive Invuln (and elec) have the ability to turn off any cascade event or massive -def/-res debuff. If you are doing content where you have barriers shoved down your throat or a pile of cold corrupters a scrapper can tank and a tanker isnt needed in the first place.

Invuln (and a close 2nd to elec) are the best Tankers for the point of tanking damage and surviving. If you want to do damage play something else or go make a fire farmer.

 

11 hours ago, Skelt said:

Would an Inv/EM Tanker be suitable for 4* ? 

Yea that would be a great setup for anything you need a tank for. Just remember to take Unstoppable (burnout too if you wanna be spicy and re-up on unstop before the crash.)

[Chronicler J]

On 5/6/2023 at 12:55 AM, Zect said:

 

That's because you are running alpha only (i.e. no barrier spam)

 

Hold on, let me get my crutches out of the closet. Might break a hip fighting Council without them. 

[BuiltDifferent5]

3 hours ago, Brawlin said:

If you are a tanker do your job and survive Invuln (and elec) have the ability to turn off any cascade event or massive -def/-res debuff. If you are doing content where you have barriers shoved down your throat or a pile of cold corrupters a scrapper can tank and a tanker isnt needed in the first place.

Invuln (and a close 2nd to elec) are the best Tankers for the point of tanking damage and surviving. If you want to do damage play something else or go make a fire farmer.

 

Yea that would be a great setup for anything you need a tank for. Just remember to take Unstoppable (burnout too if you wanna be spicy and re-up on unstop before the crash.)

I’ve always been an Invuln fan, but I love your Elec Armor call out. I feel like that set is super sturdy, and the end drain resistance can’t be overstated.

 

When you say “turn off any major cascade event”, what do you mean though? Forgive my ignorance, since I’ve just come back to the game.

 

Also, any particular secondaries you feel match well with Elec Armor?

[Brawlin]

7 hours ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

When you say “turn off any major cascade event”, what do you mean though? Forgive my ignorance, since I’ve just come back to the game.

With that I mean if/when you are over agro'd maybe a few EB's are lose or a AV is lose or there is a massive nuke and a few people die or a key defender dies. You as a Invuln or Elec can pop your T9 which makes you basically immortal for a very long time. Meaning your support doesn't have to worry about you dying and making the situation controllable as they can focus on getting the team back up and stabilized. While you live through hell and keep agro on the mob. As for the crash afterwords you have 3 options;

1 is time dull pain so that it activates after the crash happens
2 pop burnout and then unstop again
3 communicate it with your support so they are aware you are about to drop to 10%

 

7 hours ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

Also, any particular secondaries you feel match well with Elec Armor?

As long as you don't take titan weapons you are fine. My buddy ran Elec/Elec afaik for our 4 man clear of the Vanguard fight in Dr. Aeon.

 

[BuiltDifferent5]

57 minutes ago, Brawlin said:

With that I mean if/when you are over agro'd maybe a few EB's are lose or a AV is lose or there is a massive nuke and a few people die or a key defender dies. You as a Invuln or Elec can pop your T9 which makes you basically immortal for a very long time. Meaning your support doesn't have to worry about you dying and making the situation controllable as they can focus on getting the team back up and stabilized. While you live through hell and keep agro on the mob. As for the crash afterwords you have 3 options;

1 is time dull pain so that it activates after the crash happens
2 pop burnout and then unstop again
3 communicate it with your support so they are aware you are about to drop to 10%

 

As long as you don't take titan weapons you are fine. My buddy ran Elec/Elec afaik for our 4 man clear of the Vanguard fight in Dr. Aeon.

 

Haha sounds good. Kicking around the idea of matching Elec Armor with KM, Kat or Staff.

 

Curious, why not Titan Weapons? I would have thought those two pair well with each other since Elec Armor provides TW with a lot of what it wants (recharge, end control, etc) and Titan does some +Def.

[Brawlin]

41 minutes ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

Curious, why not Titan Weapons? I would have thought those two pair well with each other since Elec Armor provides TW with a lot of what it wants (recharge, end control, etc) and Titan does some +Def.

Its animations are long. You can get caught in bad situations as a tank because you are suck animating an attack that takes 10 years to finish animating. Wanna move out of a puddle? or  pop dull pain or unstop? Gotta wait for arc of destruction to finish animating.

You can't afford being locked in place for to long.

[ZemX]

5 minutes ago, Brawlin said:

Its animations are long. You can get caught in bad situations as a tank because you are suck animating an attack that takes 10 years to finish animating. Wanna move out of a puddle? or  pop dull pain or unstop? Gotta wait for arc of destruction to finish animating.

 

It's not that bad.   There are plenty of heavy hitters in other sets either as slow or less than a second faster than this.   Most of the time, if you're doing it right, you're in Momentum and the attacks flow a lot faster than the worst case you mentioned.

 

The grain of salt I'd caution people with on TW is that very Momentum mechanic.  Rather than being an added benefit, it feels more like a penalty for not using the right attacks at the right time.  Lag or just getting distracted by a chaotic fight can put you off your rhythm and result in a slow attack instead of a fast one.   But even so... it's not all the time.    It can feel pretty spry more often than not.

 

But aesthetically, it also seems to lack the "crunch" that sets like Axe, Mace, Super Strength, and many others have.  This is strictly a feeling thing.  Some of the attacks feel like they have no impact.   Like they are just sweeping this big damn weapon through empty air or something.  May be a bother to some.