Help on follow-up Tanker

[kikyoku]

So I have been playing this game for many years and never played a tanker. The joke is on me though, as I finally made a Rad/SS and it's sooooo much fun. I love how it's just completely indestructible. Damage is ok, but it doesn't really matter since I can just sit in mobs like I'm having lunch. It even has a team heal.

 

My issue is, the next tank I made sucked. It was Dark/Axe, and I don't know if I was doing something wrong but it died constantly, it was hard to even level it.

 

So how do I follow up my original? Are there other sets that are that comically durable, or did I accidentally make a peak tanker on my first try? I've heard stone is popular?

[Infinitum]

5 minutes ago, kikyoku said:

So I have been playing this game for many years and never played a tanker. The joke is on me though, as I finally made a Rad/SS and it's sooooo much fun. I love how it's just completely indestructible. Damage is ok, but it doesn't really matter since I can just sit in mobs like I'm having lunch. It even has a team heal.

 

My issue is, the next tank I made sucked. It was Dark/Axe, and I don't know if I was doing something wrong but it died constantly, it was hard to even level it.

 

So how do I follow up my original? Are there other sets that are that comically durable, or did I accidentally make a peak tanker on my first try? I've heard stone is popular?

 

Dark can be made to be comically durable. But I think your problem is anything you make to follow up your Rad/SS is going to seem lacking - when in reality it's not - rad/ss has just such a good synergy. 

 

Not to mention Dark is going to be harder to level because it's an end hog but also because most of its survival tools aside from dark regen are more set it and forget it passive mitigation via toggles.

 

Dark really comes into it's own once you get all those toggles loaded with set bonuses and dark regen - which IMO is the best heal in the game - slotted up for max heal and recharge. 

 

You will just need to give it time - unless you really hate it. lol

 

If you want two more comically durable tankers - nothing is more absurd than SR and then also Shield. 

[GamingDru2]

see @Hyperstrike Invulnerability builds. Search Mo Durable.

 

several others are very strong including Bio, Electric, and Stone. (apart from the aforementioned Shield/SR)

[Hyperstrike]

Be aware that a "Mo Durable: build will generally be slower and less Endurance efficient.  It's merely that it sacrifices overall damage output in favor of flat out raw durability numbers.

[Sovera]

Rad paired with SS is just dumb thick strong which explains not feeling follow-ups. Try the (near) immortal build in my signature for another feeling of being a super hero wading through throngs of enemies.

 

It was such a nice leveling experience I'm considering making another and this time level it over the red side.

 

Edited April 10 by Sovera

[ZemX]

10 hours ago, kikyoku said:

My issue is, the next tank I made sucked. It was Dark/Axe, and I don't know if I was doing something wrong but it died constantly, it was hard to even level it.

 

 

I've never really gotten into Dark, though some people love it.  Rad Armor is certainly easier to make tough because it has three easy survival layers: Resistance, Absorb, and Heal.   What is not resisted, hits the absorb shield.  When that is gone, it hits your health bar and the heal can take care of it.  If they can't eat the Absorb shield before it's recharged again, you're immortal.  If they can whittle it all the way down then it pretty much acts as a second heal because once it is available, it goes up and your real hit points can just regen back to 100% without fighting against incoming damage.

 

Dark relies on, in my opinion, less straight-forward survival layers.  The Resistance is solid and the heal is obvious and very good, but beyond that it has several minion-mezzing auras that do weak mag 2 mez effects.  This can nullify minions but unless stacked with something else, doesn't affect anything higher than that.  You can certainly work with this but it's not as falling-off-a-log easy as Rad Armor.  And Dark with all that stuff running is a serious endurance hog.  Rad Armor on the other hand not only protects you from endurance drain, but gives you bountiful extra recovery and the means for more in the AoE self-heal.  So it just keeps running even under heavy end drain fire and you don't have to go to great lengths to shore up endurance recovery.  I run most of my RadA tanks with just one slot in Health and Stamina.  Perf Shifter in Gamma Boost and Theft of Essence in Rad Therapy.  That's all you need.

[kikyoku]

Ok my next attempt is working somewhat better, probably because I've adjusted my expectations. I made an Electric/Katana by smashing together some of Infinitum's builds. It's definitely not perfect, but it's durable enough (especially against Freaks/Clockwork) and katana is a super fun melee set.

 

Here is the build in case anyone is curious. Infinitum had Tough/weave which I removed because I couldn't stand having tough on a set with capped resistances just for the defense (swapped in maneuvers instead, and snuck in Fold Space for fun with the extra powers). I also dumped hasten because I don't like having the extra clicky in the mix. So it's a little lacking in defense, which Divine Avalanche helps make up for. It's end heavy but Power Sink is up often enough to keep toggles from dropping. Resistance is all capped except Toxic and Negative.

 

If anyone wants to improve it, almost any of the 5 slot sets could be finished for more toxic resist or defense, and hasten/weave would both be better stats-wise, I just went for fun over optimizing. It may also make sense to put a defense set on Divine Avalanche instead of Mako's Bite, but I haven't played with it too much.

 

I'll probably play with SR or Shield next, since I already have an invuln Sentinel.

 

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'm glad it wasn't just me, and that I did accidentally pick an S rank set combo.

Tanker (Electric Armor - Katana).mbd

[Zect]

The reason you find dark difficult to survive on while leveling is that 1) dark leans heavily on dark regen and 2) has a few less-obvious weaknesses, such as lack of slow res and -KB. While leveling, you have neither incarnate end management tools, nor was anyone kind enough to explain the touch of essence chance for +end trick to you (unlike most such procs, it rolls and procs separately for each critter hit, so slotting it in dark regen can give a lot of end per power use).

 

Rad is a lot more all-rounded and stronger out of the box, with built-in slow res, powerful end management, formidable debuff resists, and its healing split into 2 powers (rad therapy is 3.0x acc and particle shield requires no tohit check, so neither of them is likely to miss). Despite having less HPS on paper, rad feels a lot stronger on common's only and is simply overpowered in general terms.

 

Most tanker primaries can be built to approximately the same, very high level of survivability. They differ in the investment needed to get them to that level, which is what is usually missing from these discussions. You can build a shield to have as much mitigation as a granite tanker, but it's generally going to require cycling owts and rune and whatnot. So that's a heavy cost in power choices and incarnate abilities. The stone just needs to turn on granite... but it does need to know how to deal with the movement restrictions (very easy now that HC added combat teleport).