Shield/Dark Melee help, first build

[redcnz]

I'm looking for some help with my build, from eyes that are more experienced then mine. I like my power choices, but I feel like I'm lacking on slotting my powers just right. I'm 42 at the moment and will be working on a final edition soon.

mischievous rune - Tanker (Shield Defense - Dark Melee).mbd

[Infinitum]

21 hours ago, redcnz said:

I'm looking for some help with my build, from eyes that are more experienced then mine. I like my power choices, but I feel like I'm lacking on slotting my powers just right. I'm 42 at the moment and will be working on a final edition soon.

mischievous rune - Tanker (Shield Defense - Dark Melee).mbd 42.16 kB · 9 downloads

 

Hi, let me say first - that your build is actually pretty good - and if it suits your playstyle - stick with it and ignore what I am about to say  lol

 

I took your build and moved a few powers around - changed the slotting on some and swapped out one power for another that I will detail the reasons below - but none of it is the gospel truth that you should absolutely do it that way, but it is based loosely on a build I have ran that works well and is largely unkillable.

 

Detailed Changes

1. I moved combat jumping sooner because of the utility and movement it adds for early game - it really is useful in that regard.

2. I moved Super Speed later in your chain because with the combination of athletic run and spring +combat jumping - you really don't need SS early game - however if you prefer that you can move it back and it wont hurt a thing.

3. I swapped Siphon life out for Shadow punch - with shield you really don't need a heal, but more to the point I have found that there is more utility to having two quick animating attacks which will do the same damage siphon life does in the same amount of time because SL animates in 1.93 - both of the other two punch animates in less than 1 second and recharges in 1 second and 2 seconds so you can literally have a fast one two combo ready at any point that by either combo or each one alone will equal or exceed the DPS of Siphon Life because they are faster.

4. Number 3 leads into the set swaps for your tanker ATOs - you will get more instances of Might of the tanker if it is in smite or shadow punch than if it was in Shadow Maul - plus you will get more damage out of Shadow maul by having a set that contains a proc.  Again here - there is nothing wrong with Siphon Life and if you like it you can put it back in easily just switch the slotting from Shadow Punch back to Siphon Life.  I would highly suggest keeping Might of the Tanker in Smite for the Res Proc ability firing more often.

5. I added One with the shield for 2 reasons - it is a decent Tier 9 that you can reliably lean on for both extra recovery if needed but also increased durability.  It also works great as a mule for the defense uniques and imp armor +Psi.

6. I lowered the positional defense slightly to balance resistances higher across the board aside from Fire/Cold which I dropped a few points to put it in line with the rest - around 50-60% is the sweet spot for Shield for resistances including Psi and Toxic - that is with one instance of Might of the Tanker - which by slotting it in Smite you will get two instances easily - and possibly three at times which would increase your res by another 12 points.

7. Smashing lethal res I put to 88 - would have liked to gotten to 90 but again with two instances of Might of the Tanker it will be there.

8. All of this includes Cardio Core for your Alpha Incarnate - this adds resistance and also endurance management - which should take care of any of shields needs.  I would also recommend either side of the ageless tree for recharge and either DDR or Endurance management, but either one should work.

 

I might have missed something - but hope this helps! Build attached below.

mischievous rune - Tanker (Shield Defense - Dark Melee)Edit.mbd

 

[redcnz]

Thanks for looking at my build Infinitum. I didn't know that about Siphon Life and it makes sense so who am I to argue. I am iffy about One with the Shield only because of the crash. I get into scrapperlock tunnel vision sometime and won't be paying attention, but maybe I need to learn too lol. I'm still over Incarnate defense with a single ally in range so that works for me. Endurance has been alright, so I might make a couple different Alphas. I enjoy the numbers though for my resists...

[Parabola]

I really wouldn't drop siphon life. With no recharge it fires 3.5ppm procs at something like 70%, and a chain of smite, siphon, smite, midnight is reasonably easily achieved. Put two winters in it (acc/dam, acc/dam/end) and four procs and it hits like a truck. And it heals you.

[Zect]

Your build has 72/59/65 M/R/aoe def. My question is, what are you fighting that requires this much def? Even my 4* utterly indestructible hardmode shield tank has "only" ~54% def to all. (It's 54% because either barrier or a defense amp will permanently incarnate-cap if necessary.) The infinitum build has 64/57/60 which is also neither here nor there, though at least it tries to trade out excess melee def by slotting deflection for res instead.

 

A related issue is the uneven def you have. If you're fighting against hypothetical stuff that requires 72% def your ranged will be undercapped, and if you're fighting against stuff that requires only 59% your melee is overcapped. So you either are not softcapped or have wasted stats. Pick a more even breakpoint to reduce wasted stats.

 

5 hours ago, Infinitum said:

3. I swapped Siphon life out for Shadow punch - with shield you really don't need a heal, but more to the point I have found that there is more utility to having two quick animating attacks which will do the same damage siphon life does in the same amount of time because SL animates in 1.93 - both of the other two punch animates in less than 1 second and recharges in 1 second and 2 seconds so you can literally have a fast one two combo ready at any point that by either combo or each one alone will equal or exceed the DPS of Siphon Life because they are faster.

4. Number 3 leads into the set swaps for your tanker ATOs - you will get more instances of Might of the tanker if it is in smite or shadow punch than if it was in Shadow Maul - plus you will get more damage out of Shadow maul by having a set that contains a proc.  Again here - there is nothing wrong with Siphon Life and if you like it you can put it back in easily just switch the slotting from Shadow Punch back to Siphon Life.  I would highly suggest keeping Might of the Tanker in Smite for the Res Proc ability firing more often.

 

Don't do this - this is a downgrade in dps and survivability. Shadow punch has less damage per animation second (42) than Siphon life (49, and siphon life is also pure neg damage while shadow punch is a mix of neg and smashing).

 

Where to put your MOTT proc depends on your intended attack chain and what other procs you want in your attacks. My suggestion is MOTT in smite and either hecatomb or gauntleted fist in MG, dropping the blistering colds. This way you can do MG smite SL smite repeat. Alternately, MOTT in MG which enables reliable (90% chance) proccing despite not being able to triple-stack.

 

5 hours ago, Infinitum said:

8. All of this includes Cardio Core for your Alpha Incarnate - this adds resistance and also endurance management - which should take care of any of shields needs.  I would also recommend either side of the ageless tree for recharge and either DDR or Endurance management, but either one should work.

If you are going to take both cardiac and phys perfection and drop 1 power, it should be dark consumption. DC's long base rech, small radius and poor performance against a single target mean it's the weakest of the end management powers and mostly redundant when you are taking incarnate end management tools. Endmod sets also have weak set bonuses.

 

5 hours ago, Infinitum said:

I might have missed something - but hope this helps! Build attached below.

mischievous rune - Tanker (Shield Defense - Dark Melee)Edit.mbd 42.79 kB · 3 downloads

 

 

When I loaded this build up I feared the worst. I was prepared to see AOO set to 10, an FF proc in kick toggled on and so on. To my pleasant surprise none of this nonsense is present. Now, this may be just because it's a modification of a build that already had no bullshit in it from the start, but perhaps you've also taken at least some of my criticisms to heart.

 

While your idea of boosting SL res and evening out resistances has merit, the execution is questionable. The KD proc in shield charge will cause scatter. Soul drain now has only ~50% uptime. (also, while not an error, I need to note that gaussian's proc only lasts 5.25s and soul drain's animation is already 2.508s. You'll get the most value by using shield charge immediately.) You're losing more survivability and dps than you need for the amount of res you're gaining. I think the culprit is your reliance on winter sets and 6x gauntleted fist for melee def that you don't need, which in turn requires lots of 4x shieldwall to get the EN res you want.

 

3 hours ago, redcnz said:

I am iffy about One with the Shield only because of the crash.

 

It's not that bad because owts itself gives +recovery which makes it unlikely that the crash will detoggle you (unless you were relying on it to manage blue in the first case, e.g. vs end draining enemies). It only becomes an issue with shield/SS because you can have a situation where rage crashes, then haste crashes, then owts crashes too which detoggles you, so good situational awareness is needed.

 

However, I'm guessing that this is also one reason why he uses Cardiac + phys perfection + ageless. Under usual circumstances, this is wasted stats - it's a lot more end than the build can effectively convert into either dps or defenses. But if you're worried you won't be able to manage the crash, then just massively overdosing on blue is a possible solution.

 

 

mischievous rune - Tanker (Shield Defense - Dark Melee).mbd

 

My suggested modifications. This build is less than 5% rech off permahasten if you take either ageless T4 and can use it on cooldown.

 

I want to draw your attention to the celerities in the prestige sprint. Yes, I have it tried it ingame. Yes, this actually works. Yes, you can take all 4 prestige sprints and do this with all of them if you wanted to for some reason.

 

Note that this is still far more res than necessary for a general-purpose tank: I have plenty of shields that run around with just the def and 50~60% res and 0% psi res (most psi enemies do low damage) and they slaughter +4x8 just fine.

Edited April 6 by Zect

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Zect said:

 

When I loaded this build up I feared the worst. I was prepared to see AOO set to 10, an FF proc in kick toggled on and so on. To my pleasant surprise none of this nonsense is present. Now, this may be just because it's a modification of a build that already had no bullshit in it from the start, but perhaps you've also taken at least some of my criticisms to heart.

Kinda funny - I knew exactly what you would say and what I would see.

 

Even if AAO was set to 10 it's not that unrealistic for a tanker to be saturated by 10 at any given time. It's more the rule than the exception. 

1 hour ago, Zect said:

If you are going to take both cardiac and phys perfection and drop 1 power, it should be dark consumption. DC's long base rech, small radius and poor performance against a single target mean it's the weakest of the end management powers and mostly redundant when you are taking incarnate end management tools. Endmod sets also have weak set bonuses.

I wouldn't do this - mainly because as I said before the rule is to be saturated and not the exception.   If you aren't saturated you won't need end management anyway because you are unkillable if you made it to that point.  If you are saturated - there are trash mobs that can suddenly drain you where this could come in handy if ageless is on cool down. 

1 hour ago, Zect said:

Don't do this - this is a downgrade in dps and survivability. Shadow punch has less damage per animation second (42) than Siphon life (49, and siphon life is also pure neg damage while shadow punch is a mix of neg and smashing).

If you knew anything about shield you would already know it's fine without a heal - but like I said in my reply take this or not but in a lot of occasions the quicker animating hits surpass siphon life's overall dps and allows you to not overkill some enemies or be rooted longer than you might need to be.   Plus if you are being buffed by teammates the quicker animating attacks will then far surpass siphon life in an attack change and the flow of battle. 

 

1 hour ago, Zect said:

Your build has 72/59/65 M/R/aoe def. My question is, what are you fighting that requires this much def? Even my 4* utterly indestructible hardmode shield tank has "only" ~54% def to all. (It's 54% because either barrier or a defense amp will permanently incarnate-cap if necessary.)

Incarnate levels of to hit is 14 so you are automatically in the hole if you are at 45.the higher you get the better but I usually try to get above or close to 60%defense to the positionals - the ranged won't really hurt too badly where I had it. 

 

You can't always count on barrier being there either - you aren't trading enough off to harm the build to get the positionals  over 60%

Edited April 6 by Infinitum

[redcnz]

You've both given me a lot to think about. Luckily, I have time to play with these builds as I need to get the funds to make it now that he's 50. I might make him on the beta server and try them out. I do want incarnate levels of softcap because I plan on doing incarnate content, and rather now rely on outside buffs just in case. I also want a decent attack chain for exemping down, but that's not an issue whether I take SIphon Life or not, with the other 3 attacks. So far playing, I am using Dark Consumption. I only have Cardiac up to the second tier at the moment. Again, I have some time.

[Infinitum]

27 minutes ago, redcnz said:

I might make him on the beta server and try them out.  

That is always a great plan - I do that often on something new just to make sure I haven't gone off the rails.

 

28 minutes ago, redcnz said:

Again, I have some time.

you do, and remember this is just a game at the end of the day - goal is to have fun - there is no endgame - and nobody is keeping score.