Advice sought

[SourceField]

Hello all. I've been playing Homecoming for a few weeks now, I used to play Live a long time ago but had to stop for some reason well before it went down. Since coming back, someone took a couple of hours to guide me through various changes and how-to's and such and I'm very thankful for his time and patience in dealing with my questions and slow learning, although he later thanked me for my time and patience for listening to him ramble.

 

One thing he brought up and explained was the AE system. Like how to make money early by using tickets and that people made dedicated farmers to earn real influence at higher levels. He explained that to make a good farmer it took huge amounts of influence to make into a working x4/+8 build. I liked the idea but lacked both the influence and the knowledge on what it really took, but I gave it a go. I made a bit of cash and as I leveled, bought some enhancements that I thought would be good and I finally made it to 50. I comfortably handle x2/+8 and moved into x3/+8 but that took a long time with just basic AT powers and no patron pools. Along the way, I found some big holes in my build and decided to try using the MIDS Hero Planner like people have been suggesting.

 

Although this is for a Fire Farm character, I can't just have a character for just that, I like to go out into the rest of the city and do TF's and missions and group, although I know this is not an optimal build for general exploration. In the planner, I got rid of powers I never used and added some that I thought would be a lot more helpful. A couple of powers are just one's that I feel I need to get by outside of the AE world. But I found at the end of my build it just didn't have enough slots to do anything with the final two powers, and I don't know if I'm going to need to put more  slots into Stamina and Health. Also, the enhancements I took were just things I found while browsing the AH and looking at what powers took what sets and chose what I thought would be the best for my current available funds. 

 

If anyone could take a gander at the mess of a build I made and offer up some advice as to better slotting or rearrange the order I took powers or what levels I put stuff into those powers or even better suited enhancements overall, I'd really appreciate it. This will be for soloing x3/+8 fire farms and for grouping outside of AE.

 

Thank you

Tanker (Fiery Aura - Radiation Melee).mbd

[Sovera]

I have Fire/Rad in my signature, somewhere. Rad Melee took a bit of a hit when Irradiated Ground was 'fixed' but if you enjoy it then it works. The new hotness is Fire Melee that had a 'recent' tweak which made it into the new AoE god and top tier ST as well. Tankers get the best AoE version of the set but not the best ST version. Remember that if you desire to switch that all gear is account bound so you lost nothing in gearing up a different alt.

 

 

Taking a gander at the build and yeah, it needs some work. You got the basics down though so it's not as much as a mess as you might have thought.

 

In no particular order:

 

Consume is your endurance tool and should be slotted for endurance. I usually use Synapse Shock.

 

You lack your ATOs. If you look in the AH you'll see in the Resist, Healing, Knockback, etc sections one that is 'Tanker Archetype' and in there you'll find two. Well, four, since one is the normal version and the other is the superior version. If you were leveling you'd pick the normal version and if already 50 then the superior version (you can also buy the normal version and then use catalysts to turn them into the superior version. Check prices between normal and superior since catalysts are only 1 mill). The proc from the Superior Might of the Tanker gives a stack of 6.7% to all resistances so it's an enormous at least near 14% to resistances in that. I say 14% because getting and keeping a third stack rolling is unreliable as all it takes is a miss or the proc not proc-ing for one of the stacks to fall off, but two stacks is reliable.

 

For farming in specific your Fire defenses are still a bit too low, but that's easily fixed as you forgot one of the two defense uniques (Gladiator Armor in resistances). Since you're at 39% it will boost you to 42%. Two more slots in any of the places you've slotted three Aegis will finish putting you at 45% which is where you want to be.

 

You can take out Stealth (unless you like Stealth) and instead take Combat Jumping from Leaping. Almost same defense but one costs 0.31 to run and the other 0.06, on top of Combat Jumping being good for doing small bunny hops to move while in combat which I notice you have lack of for combat mobility. I would usually take Hover and have it running all the time for the movement in combat and the defense it gives, but not everyone likes fighting in melee with Hover. You can still take it since you have Fly anyway as it make Fly behave better and it's another place to slot a Luck of the Gambler 7.5% even if the power is toggled off.

 

Radiation Siphon is a heal which you might enjoy. Devastating Blow is super slow, but you can make a simple attack chain of Radiation Siphon, Contaminated Strike, Radioactive Smash, Contaminated Strike, repeat.

 

You could/should dump the slots in Electrifying Fences as the damage is nothing special and it stops mobs from getting close to you and Burn, then instead work the slots for the two ST attacks I mentioned above as once its down to bosses they need to be taken out.

 

You can further boost your resistances by taking the Shield Wall 5% and the Reactive Defenses: Scaling Resists which gives another 3% for a total of 8%. Remember you can't have more than 90% so any more is a waste, which in turn means you can change the slotting and remove some of the excess to put it somewhere else. For example your fire resistance is at 138%, WITHOUT the Superior Might of the Tanker ATO procs OR the two resist uniques 😄 You can swap a good chunk of those Aegis and take Titanium Coatings or Unbreakable Guard for more Energy/Negative resistances.

 

Because of the Tanker ATOs your aim should be 84%. Mids only accounts for 1 stack of the ATO so that's 84% with one stack and then we need to remember to think it has another 6.7%. If you take in account Incarnates and Barrier (you will want Barrier at some point) then it adds another 5% so you can further split your slotting so it reaches around 77-78% with one stack. Then a second one makes the resistances reach 85%, then Barrier accounts for the last 5%. But if not wanting to think about incarnates just yet then aim for 84%. Because Barrier gives both resistances and defenses at least 5% (it gives a giant amount of resistances and defense but they slowly decay over time after the activation. It is perma as it lasts 2 minutes but also recharges in 2 minutes) you can also consider it and keep your Fire defenses at 40% and then use Barrier for the 5%. Again, this allows to put slots towards other goals than things like Fire defense.

 

But you WILL want to mess with Incarnates. The sooner you get your Alpha to tier 3 the sooner you get a massive buff of making all mobs -1 (while at level 45+, not 44 and lower). That makes +4 mobs into +3 which is massive for offense and defense.