Dark/Dark/Mu build critique

[ThePhlebotomist]

Hi!

 

I've been playing my Dark/Dark/Mu tank a lot recently and it's one of the builds I've invested the most in. I recently respec'd into something closer to a build from an SG mate and I'm curious if people have any suggestions!

 

It doesn't have the super expensive Winter sets yet but I might slowly move to them.

 

Goals

• Stay alive and tank for the team even when down at lower levels
• Avoid feeling super endurance starved
• Contribute reasonable damage when at high levels but no expectation of solo farming

 

Current stats

• Resistance
  • Smashing/Lethal/Negative: Capped
  • Psionic: 81%
  • Fire/Cold: 75%
  • Energy: 70%
  • Toxic: 48%
• Defense
  • Melee: 49.7%
  • AoE: 31.6%
  • Ranged: 27.8%
• Status Protection
  • Knockback: 11

 

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View This Build In MRB

20230702 Shadow HC 2 Temp - Tanker (Dark Armor - Dark Melee).mbd

[Unclemarty]

This is a good build already but here are some minor suggestions:

 

IMO the best way to 4 slot unbreakable guard for toggles is one of the following:

• (Res)   (Res/End)  (Res/End/Rech)  (End/Rech)       OR       (+Max HP)   (Res)  (Res/End)   (Res/End/Rech)

Basically swap the Rech/Res enhancement for End/Rech because you are already hitting the cap for +resistance enhancement already. This slotting will give you better endurance discount on the power with almost no change to resistance.

 

I'd take out the slots in cloak of fear or skip the power altogether. Its an end hog and you can better use the slots elsewhere for mitigation via set bonuses. Regardless, procs generally don't trigger often in toggle powers so you might not get much mileage out of the current slotting.

 

Theft of essence proc can be added to dark regeneration. This should give you a nice end boost when you use that power and lots of enemies are around.

 

You don't have to fully invest in the winter sets for them to be valuable to this build in the form of slow resist. Slow resist is really good for tankers because it lets you shrug off debuffs that will slow down the recharge of your mitigation powers and attacks. Here are some low effort ideas for including slow resist:

• Slot winters gift unique in your travel power
• 2 slot boxing or brawl with blistering cold. (of course you could 5 or 6 slot blistering cold in a power you actually use if you wanted to invest more heavily)
• 2 slot avalanche in shadow maul to replace fury of the gladiator. Fury of the gladiator set bonuses aren't that great for PVE anyway. If you wanted to keep the KB resist you're getting there, just slot blessing of the zephyr in your travel power to compensate. 

Good Luck!

[ThePhlebotomist]

3 hours ago, Unclemarty said:

This is a good build already but here are some minor suggestions:

 

IMO the best way to 4 slot unbreakable guard for toggles is one of the following:

• (Res)   (Res/End)  (Res/End/Rech)  (End/Rech)       OR       (+Max HP)   (Res)  (Res/End)   (Res/End/Rech)

Basically swap the Rech/Res enhancement for End/Rech because you are already hitting the cap for +resistance enhancement already. This slotting will give you better endurance discount on the power with almost no change to resistance.

 

Ahh yes!

 

 

3 hours ago, Unclemarty said:

 

I'd take out the slots in cloak of fear or skip the power altogether. Its an end hog and you can better use the slots elsewhere for mitigation via set bonuses. Regardless, procs generally don't trigger often in toggle powers so you might not get much mileage out of the current slotting.

 

Theft of essence proc can be added to dark regeneration. This should give you a nice end boost when you use that power and lots of enemies are around.

 

You don't have to fully invest in the winter sets for them to be valuable to this build in the form of slow resist. Slow resist is really good for tankers because it lets you shrug off debuffs that will slow down the recharge of your mitigation powers and attacks. Here are some low effort ideas for including slow resist:

• Slot winters gift unique in your travel power
• 2 slot boxing or brawl with blistering cold. (of course you could 5 or 6 slot blistering cold in a power you actually use if you wanted to invest more heavily)
• 2 slot avalanche in shadow maul to replace fury of the gladiator. Fury of the gladiator set bonuses aren't that great for PVE anyway. If you wanted to keep the KB resist you're getting there, just slot blessing of the zephyr in your travel power to compensate. 

Good Luck!

 

Thanks for the tips!

 

 

[Zect]

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the most serious issues have been fixed before I got here:

• Procs in cloak of fear (if you want to procbomb something, try touch of fear, drain life, or an epic blast instead)
• No slow resist
• No ToE proc in dark regen (I need to emphasize that it can fire more than once per usage, so use it in a crowd and it refills your entire blue bar; unless you are obsessed with optimizing for single-enemy fights like I am, it is always worth considering)

Here are some more things to think about:

 

1. You took shadow punch but not smite. In case you are unaware, all toons can now pick the 2nd power of the 2ndary at level 1. Smite should be taken as it is the higher-DPA attack.

 

2. The way you slot dark regen is a war crime. You deliberately skip the rech and melee def bonuses from oblits, and you have little endredux slotting in it. Oblit's weakness as a set is the lack of endurance reduction. That coupled with the absence of heal enhancement means this power heals little for a high cost. Either get a useful bonus from it or frankenslot with D-syncs or +5 1boosted panaceas for heal, rech, endredux and a toe proc.

 

3. Arguably, armageddon should be put in the stronger aoe attack (shadow maul) that can actually utilize the high rech bonus. death shroud can slot 2-3x superior avalanche for FC res and slow res. However I do appreciate that some people don't want to shell out for 20 million IO's so it's up to how much your wallet can withstand.

 

4. Gauntleted fist is wasted in touch of fear. It is a powerful set with high enhancement values and a good proc. It should go in a good attack that can utilize the high damage and rech enhancement. The absorb proc is extremely powerful (10% of tanker max HP, or something like 311 HP per proc; bleepin' ED-capped particle shield is only a little over 1.1k) and as part of a good attack chain contributes significantly to staying power.

 

Finally: your build goals are all over the place. You have 49/31/27 M/R/aoe def. The melee def is okay for a tanking tanker because it generally comes from sets that tankers want to slot anyway. However, you are seriously undercapped to ranged and aoe. You would probably be better served patching up your EFCPsi resists with that slot investment.

 

Here is an example of how you can hardcap energy res with 1 stack of your might of the tanker proc. You now have 70.1% E res. Might of the tanker brings that to 76.8%. If you split up your gauntleted fist ATIO in two sets of 3, you can get the 6% energy res bonus twice bringing us to 82.8%. Slotting 4x unbreakable guards in obsidian shield brings us to 85.05% (and also caps psi resist - the reason your psi res is so low is that you have poor enhancement value in obsidian shield). Replacing your slotting in ball lightning with bombardment makes that 87.3%. The remaining 2.7% can be made up by your reactive defenses scaling res proc, since in actual combat you expect to take damage frequently. This caps two resistances and gains 5% rech while losing only 1.7% melee def and 3.75% aoe def.

 

P.S. Regarding the suggestion to 2-slot boxing or brawl with blistering cold: on your build, you can utilize the fact that you have mu lightning and slot 3x winter's bite there instead for 6% FC res and 15% slow res. This is a stronger option than the brawl/boxing one if you are after the res.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Zect

[Uun]

• Armageddon's recharge is wasted on Death Shroud. It should be moved to an AoE attack that can take advantage of it. Also, procs in toggles don't work well. The most efficient slotting for Death Shroud is Scirocco's Dervish or Superior Avalanche acc/dmg, acc/dmg/end, dmg/end.
• Dark Regeneration should get 3-4 pieces of an accurate healing set (Theft of Essence proc is a good option). Damage is minimal and not worth enhancing, although %dmg procs work well.
• Cloak of Fear has a -33% accuracy penalty and costs 0.52 end/sec. If you're going to run it, you need massive amounts of accuracy and end reduction. The fear only affects minions, so if you're going to enhance anything else go for -tohit. Again, procs in toggles don't work well.
• I recommend franken slotting Siphon Life with a mix of melee damage and accurate healing sets. 
• Dark Consumption needs more accuracy and recharge.
• Touch of Fear is a really good candidate for %dmg procs. Only use procs from melee AoE and taunt sets, as those from fear and -tohit sets will only hit the main target.

[ThePhlebotomist]

12 hours ago, Zect said:

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the most serious issues have been fixed before I got here:

• Procs in cloak of fear (if you want to procbomb something, try touch of fear, drain life, or an epic blast instead)
• No slow resist
• No ToE proc in dark regen (I need to emphasize that it can fire more than once per usage, so use it in a crowd and it refills your entire blue bar; unless you are obsessed with optimizing for single-enemy fights like I am, it is always worth considering)

Here are some more things to think about:

 

Thanks for the great tips!

 

Some things I hadn't been thinking about for sure include splitting unique sets (since I was almost always fixated on some 5 or 6 slot bonus) and optimizing sets that have recharge enhancements to be in powers that can use them.

 

Generally I'm hearing it's also usually a mistake to put procs in toggles. This is a bit surprising -- I thought procs had a procs-per-minute max and if in a click power you'd only even trigger the potential if you clicked it whereas a toggle would be on all the time so get that max. Looking at this post about the Issue 24 change, definitely seems more complicated.

 

 

 

 

12 hours ago, Zect said:

 

1. You took shadow punch but not smite. In case you are unaware, all toons can now pick the 2nd power of the 2ndary at level 1. Smite should be taken as it is the higher-DPA attack.

 

2. The way you slot dark regen is a war crime. You deliberately skip the rech and melee def bonuses from oblits, and you have little endredux slotting in it. Oblit's weakness as a set is the lack of endurance reduction. That coupled with the absence of heal enhancement means this power heals little for a high cost. Either get a useful bonus from it or frankenslot with D-syncs or +5 1boosted panaceas for heal, rech, endredux and a toe proc.

 

3. Arguably, armageddon should be put in the stronger aoe attack (shadow maul) that can actually utilize the high rech bonus. death shroud can slot 2-3x superior avalanche for FC res and slow res. However I do appreciate that some people don't want to shell out for 20 million IO's so it's up to how much your wallet can withstand.

 

4. Gauntleted fist is wasted in touch of fear. It is a powerful set with high enhancement values and a good proc. It should go in a good attack that can utilize the high damage and rech enhancement. The absorb proc is extremely powerful (10% of tanker max HP, or something like 311 HP per proc; bleepin' ED-capped particle shield is only a little over 1.1k) and as part of a good attack chain contributes significantly to staying power.

 

Finally: your build goals are all over the place. You have 49/31/27 M/R/aoe def. The melee def is okay for a tanking tanker because it generally comes from sets that tankers want to slot anyway. However, you are seriously undercapped to ranged and aoe. You would probably be better served patching up your EFCPsi resists with that slot investment.

 

Here is an example of how you can hardcap energy res with 1 stack of your might of the tanker proc. You now have 70.1% E res. Might of the tanker brings that to 76.8%. If you split up your gauntleted fist ATIO in two sets of 3, you can get the 6% energy res bonus twice bringing us to 82.8%. Slotting 4x unbreakable guards in obsidian shield brings us to 85.05% (and also caps psi resist - the reason your psi res is so low is that you have poor enhancement value in obsidian shield). Replacing your slotting in ball lightning with bombardment makes that 87.3%. The remaining 2.7% can be made up by your reactive defenses scaling res proc, since in actual combat you expect to take damage frequently. This caps two resistances and gains 5% rech while losing only 1.7% melee def and 3.75% aoe def.

 

P.S. Regarding the suggestion to 2-slot boxing or brawl with blistering cold: on your build, you can utilize the fact that you have mu lightning and slot 3x winter's bite there instead for 6% FC res and 15% slow res. This is a stronger option than the brawl/boxing one if you are after the res.

 

[ThePhlebotomist]

Oh, also -- somehow I got the impression that focusing on defense (especially positional defense) these days was the way to go.

 

Yet comments here suggest focusing on capping Dark's strong resists is best for it as long as melee defense is decent.

 

Is that right?

 

 

 

[Unclemarty]

On 7/5/2023 at 7:47 PM, ThePhlebotomist said:

 

Generally I'm hearing it's also usually a mistake to put procs in toggles. This is a bit surprising -- I thought procs had a procs-per-minute max and if in a click power you'd only even trigger the potential if you clicked it whereas a toggle would be on all the time so get that max. Looking at this post about the Issue 24 change, definitely seems more complicated.

 

 

So the thing about procs in toggles is its complicated...

I'd refer to the various procs articles in the Unofficial Homecoming wiki.

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Procs_Per_Minute

 

Some self buff procs are good in toggles that affect yourself, not auras that hit enemies. For example its common to slot panacea proc in health and performance shifter proc in endurance because, as you mentioned, it has a chance to proc all the time. The thing about these self buffing toggles is that they do not have an area factor (because they only affect yourself).  If you look at the formulas in the procs per minute article, you see that the proc chance is reduced the larger a power's aoe. So because a power is both a toggle and an aoe it is a bad candidate for procs because of how the formula works. And yet some click aoe powers are good to proc because click powers use a different formula than toggles. For example an offence focused build might put damage procs in dark regeneration and that would work well.

 

In general here is a good rule of thumb for knowing when to slot procs:

• procs in long recharge powers will yield a higher proc chance than short recharge powers.
• procs in aoes involve a tradeoff, on one hand the aoe hits multiple enemies. on the other hand the chance to proc is lower in aoes because of the area factor. This is somewhat balanced by point #1 because aoe powers tend to have longer recharge. 
• Slotting recharge in a power with procs will reduce the proc chance
• Using an alpha incarnate power that reduces recharge will reduce the proc chance of the affected powers.

So typically a "proc bomb" power will have 3-6 damage procs and the rest of the enhancements some combination of damage/accuracy/endurance.

 

IMO its all needlessly complicated.... but its the system we have 🤷‍♂️ 

 

[Uun]

Toggle powers only have an opportunity to proc about every 10 seconds. If you really want to get into the weeds, this is the best source. There's also a link in Bopper's signature to a spreadsheet that does the math for you.

 

 

[ThePhlebotomist]

On 7/7/2023 at 2:55 AM, Unclemarty said:

In general here is a good rule of thumb for knowing when to slot procs:

• procs in long recharge powers will yield a higher proc chance than short recharge powers.
• procs in aoes involve a tradeoff, on one hand the aoe hits multiple enemies. on the other hand the chance to proc is lower in aoes because of the area factor. This is somewhat balanced by point #1 because aoe powers tend to have longer recharge. 
• Slotting recharge in a power with procs will reduce the proc chance
• Using an alpha incarnate power that reduces recharge will reduce the proc chance of the affected powers.

So typically a "proc bomb" power will have 3-6 damage procs and the rest of the enhancements some combination of damage/accuracy/endurance.

 

IMO its all needlessly complicated.... but its the system we have 🤷‍♂️ 

 

Thanks for breaking this down! I can see how some of those things would fall out from the equations. I didn't even think about the recharge reduction Alpha Incarnates affecting this!

 

I agree it's complicated but I suppose that's part of the min/max'ing fun. 🙂

 

 

On 7/7/2023 at 2:55 AM, Unclemarty said:

 

 

On 7/7/2023 at 8:02 AM, Uun said:

Toggle powers only have an opportunity to proc about every 10 seconds. If you really want to get into the weeds, this is the best source. There's also a link in Bopper's signature to a spreadsheet that does the math for you.

 

Thanks for this reference!!

 

 

On 7/7/2023 at 8:02 AM, Uun said: