Powerset combo choices - Them tankers gotta tank.

[Aeroprism]

Hi tankers!!

 

After the HUGE success of my epic  "give me your hidden gem" AT/Combo for scrappers topic, I'm looking for the same kind of insight from and for tankers, starting with those three I have here.

 

-Bio/Savage

-SR/Savage

-Bio/Psi Melee

 

They're all low level so I don't really care if a better combo pups up. Are there some keepers in there or were those all dubious choices?  I know Bio rather well, I have little experience with SR but it looks like a very solid, no-nonsense set. I have very little experience with Savage melee and I have not ever played any Psi Melee.

 

As far as tankers go, I already have a Rad/Claw (my main character), an Ice/Ice, a Elec/DM (that tanker is DOPE) and a Fire/Staff (which is... meeeh). All of those are 50 or very close.

 

Let's hear it! Your insight is gold!

[mcdoogss]

Bio/Axe is amazing, but probably doesn’t qualify as a ‘hidden gem’ lol.  Likewise Rad/fire (4 pbaoes!) and stone/ss.

 

fire/ice is rly fun and i think could be a hidden gem, especially for folks who like to level solo.  

 

i personally do not care for psi melee, but it’s better on scrappers than on tankers.  The lack of crits exposes how anemic the dmg is, the aoe is lacking, and insight continues to suck as a mechanic.  Im currently toiling in the 40s on a shield/psi tank.  Im leveling this one right after leveling stone/ss and its a huge downgrade lol

Edited June 6 by mcdoogss

[Gerswin]

A minimal granite Stone/EM  is a very potent combo.  It can be expensive to make it really shine, but with all of the procs, purples, and careful use of ATOs it can rival Bio/ for damage along with top tier survivability.  EM hits very hard single target, but proc'd up whirling hands with 180+ global recharge is respectable AOE as well. Lots of power pool choices depending on the flavor you want, but teleport, leaping, speed, fighting, leadership, and stealth are all good choices.  

 

Since the stone revamp I made a 50 of every secondary except KM, katana, and elec paired with stone.  My favorites are /fire and /em by far.  Everyone knows about stone/fire, but /em is just as good in its own way.

[biostem]

I've had good results with radiation armor/savage melee.  Shield defense/dark melee is also really good.  Back on live, I also had great fun with an ice armor/stone melee tanker.

[Anthraxus]

Rad/Axe kills. Absolutely. Everything.

Rad/Axe survives. Absolutely. Everything.

 

It really is the poster child for THE most overtuned combo in the tanking game.

Unlimited endurance; two "nukes" that damage and debuff the enemy, heal you, heal your teammates; razor-laced vacuum cleaner of doom that clusters enemies around you; a hard-hitting RANGED melee attack; ONE resistance hole that can be easily mitigated with the crashless (basically) tier-9 on a relatively fast recharge; about thirty places for LotG +recharge...

 

You probably get the picture. 😳

[StriderIV]

6 hours ago, mcdoogss said:

Bio/Axe is amazing, but probably doesn’t qualify as a ‘hidden gem’ lol.  Likewise Rad/fire (4 pbaoes!) and stone/ss.

 

fire/ice is rly fun and i think could be a hidden gem, especially for folks who like to level solo.  

 

i personally do not care for psi melee, but it’s better on scrappers than on tankers.  The lack of crits exposes how anemic the dmg is, the aoe is lacking, and insight continues to suck as a mechanic.  Im currently toiling in the 40s on a shield/psi tank.  Im leveling this one right after leveling stone/ss and its a huge downgrade lol

I will say though. Shield + Psi Melee wins ALL the style points. I have a Scrapper with the combo and it is all sorts of cool.

[Sovera]

Anything Stone Armor. Stone/Fire has been my favorite.

[Mezegis]

8 hours ago, Anthraxus said:

Rad/Axe kills. Absolutely. Everything.

Rad/Axe survives. Absolutely. Everything.

 

It really is the poster child for THE most overtuned combo in the tanking game.

Unlimited endurance; two "nukes" that damage and debuff the enemy, heal you, heal your teammates; razor-laced vacuum cleaner of doom that clusters enemies around you; a hard-hitting RANGED melee attack; ONE resistance hole that can be easily mitigated with the crashless (basically) tier-9 on a relatively fast recharge; about thirty places for LotG +recharge...

 

You probably get the picture. 😳

I'd be interested in this build... for reasons... 😇

[Aeroprism]

Such happy responses so far!

 

3 hours ago, Sovera said:

Anything Stone Armor. Stone/Fire has been my favorite.

 

Never tried a Stone tanker. Stone/Fire looks like a crowd favorite, I should try it.  Which brings my next question:

 

12 hours ago, Gerswin said:

Since the stone revamp [...]

 

Stone has been revamped??  I live under a rock!  (I'm SO funny).  Seriously, what changed?  I checked patch notes since 2024/01 and haven't found anything.

 

8 hours ago, Anthraxus said:

Rad/Axe kills. Absolutely. Everything.

Rad/Axe survives. Absolutely. Everything.

 

 

Never had a Axe/ or /Axe anything either.  Looks like something that's about to change!

 

 

I see that Savage Melee has been avoided so far.  Bad tank set?  Better on a scrapper? A brute?  Better left forgotten?

[Thraxen]

I always have to say stone/ma cause eagles claw in granite is awesome. 

[Anthraxus]

I also made an Axe/Stone scrapper that is incredibly powerful.

[Anthraxus]

26 minutes ago, Mezegis said:

I'd be interested in this build... for reasons... 😇

I'll post the build for this later today 👍

[Sovera]

1 minute ago, Aeroprism said:

Such happy responses so far!

 

 

Never tried a Stone tanker. Stone/Fire looks like a crowd favorite, I should try it.  Which brings my next question:

 

 

Stone has been revamped??  I live under a rock!  (I'm SO funny).  Seriously, what changed?  I checked patch notes since 2024/01 and haven't found anything.

 

Been a decent chunk of time now. Most of Granite's goodies were spread over several other toggles making Granite not needed and hardly used. I never even pick it. You got the Stone/Fire in my signature but picture this:

 

45% without Weave as it's just a mule, but 50% with it on, then 55% with Barrier, and 70% to all resistances, 76% with a second ATO proc, 81% with Barrier.

 

With Amplifiers and both defense uniques and a couple of SOs we're at 40% by level 13.

[Aeroprism]

1 minute ago, Sovera said:

 

Been a decent chunk of time now. Most of Granite's goodies were spread over several other toggles making Granite not needed and hardly used. I never even pick it. You got the Stone/Fire in my signature but picture this:

 

45% without Weave as it's just a mule, but 50% with it on, then 55% with Barrier, and 70% to all resistances, 76% with a second ATO proc, 81% with Barrier.

 

With Amplifiers and both defense uniques and a couple of SOs we're at 40% by level 13.

 

I want one of those.

 

How is it on the DPS side?  Fire being fire as usual?

[Sovera]

3 minutes ago, Aeroprism said:

 

I want one of those.

 

How is it on the DPS side?  Fire being fire as usual?

 

I didn't test on a pylon, but it's Fire Melee on a Tanker so two PbAoEs and no slow animations on the heavy hitters.

[Aeroprism]

1 minute ago, Sovera said:

 

I didn't test on a pylon, but it's Fire Melee on a Tanker so two PbAoEs and no slow animations on the heavy hitters.

 

Very nice. 

Looking at Stone armor on Mids at the moment.  Granite is such a cool idea but I assume it must become extremely aggravating in the end. 

 

Gonna look at your builds now.  Always been a fan of your builds.

[Aeroprism]

59 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

I didn't test on a pylon, but it's Fire Melee on a Tanker so two PbAoEs and no slow animations on the heavy hitters.

 

Nice build(s).  You've been very sparse with procs in there. Not a proc person?  It's what I hate doing the most when I make builds.  I never where to put procs.

 

How well would this powerset combo do on a scrapper?  I know you lose 15% resists but you gain in crits.

 

What I love about tanks is the generous AoEs and Cones so I assume that /Fire is really good on Tanks though.

Edited June 6 by Aeroprism

[ZemX]

9 minutes ago, Aeroprism said:

Nice build(s).  You've been very sparse with procs in there. Not a proc person?  It's what I hate doing the most when I make builds.  I never where to put procs.

 

I think the best method is to first build with no (or few) procs and cram as many set bonuses as you can in there.  THEN start proccing, because now you know what those procs are costing you for how much benefit they give.  Will they allow you to do more damage?  Sure.  But they will cost you x% +res or +def, y% recharge, etc. etc.

 

Going heavy on damage procs is great if you're building a soloist.  Not so much, in my opinion, if you want your tanker to actually tank for a team.   To build a tank that won't fold under heavy assault, you need one that's going to feel like is over-built 90% of the time.  It's a choice.

[Sovera]

19 minutes ago, Aeroprism said:

 

Nice build(s).  You've been very sparse with procs in there. Not a proc person?  It's what I hate doing the most when I make builds.  I never where to put procs.

 

How well would this powerset combo do on a scrapper?  I know you lose 15% resists but you gain in crits.

 

What I love about tanks is the generous AoEs and Cones so I assume that /Fire is really good on Tanks though.

 

I'm really not a proc person except in some circumstances (most Sentinel nukes, Energy Transfer, Ground Zero, etc) and I have a arm long list of complaints on how they have contributed to the perception Tankers have 'colossal DPS' by loading four to six per attack. It's a valid approach though, it's just not mine as I like my bonuses.

 

As for how it would do on a Scrapper: you'd lose one PbAoE making you have a single AoE unless going for an epic pool that has one. You'd lose the agro aura from Mudpots and have to deal with runners. And finally you'd need to retool things to get to 45% defense. Forget about the 15% as it would be way more than that (at least about 30% in E/N).

 

Fire Melee on Tankers get Combustion which pairs well with Fire Sword Circle. No other (melee) AT gets a second PbAoE other than Savage Melee. And then things get silly if going Fire/Fire for THREE PbAoEs.

 

 

But, sadly, Fire Armor lost its soul in the last tuning patch. It's objectively a bit better, but... If anything I'm Stone Armor based now, 'nuff said.

[Aeroprism]

24 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

I think the best method is to first build with no (or few) procs and cram as many set bonuses as you can in there.  THEN start proccing, because now you know what those procs are costing you for how much benefit they give.  Will they allow you to do more damage?  Sure.  But they will cost you x% +res or +def, y% recharge, etc. etc.

 

This is how I make my builds.  🙂 

But yeah, whenever I post them, they get taken apart by the proc-people.  They're like the mole people, but only once in a while and generally when you visit them less often.  (Tried to make a proc joke. I still need coffee. Sue me.)

[Maelwys]

5 minutes ago, Aeroprism said:

the proc-people.  They're like the mole people, but only once in a while and generally when you visit them less often.

[Aeroprism]

20 minutes ago, Sovera said:

But, sadly, Fire Armor lost its soul in the last tuning patch. It's objectively a bit better, but... If anything I'm Stone Armor based now, 'nuff said.

 

It does suck when a powerset you love changes in way you don't like.

 

I've been looking through patch notes again to try and find what changed.  All I found was that Firery Embrace now affects more Epic sets, pretty sure those aren't the changes you mentionned.  I guess I'm blind.

 

What changed?  Or better, what patch so I can just read it?

[Sovera]

2 minutes ago, Aeroprism said:

 

It does suck when a powerset you love changes in way you don't like.

 

I've been looking through patch notes again to try and find what changed.  All I found was that Firery Embrace now affects more Epic sets, pretty sure those aren't the changes you mentionned.  I guess I'm blind.

 

What changed?  Or better, what patch so I can just read it?

 

I can't say which patch it was but it was a good while back. Mostly it was about Burn not double procing (yep, we're back on procs even if I only had two in there). But the devs made an effort to push the Burn numbers back up so it would not be a complete nerf and overall I'd say they succeeded as the damage loss from the double proc chance was compensated. But it lost some of its soul IMO. Damage being dealt over 10 seconds is not the same and Burn became a wash for ST which was a pity as it helped sets with low ST damage (a bit like certain otherwise weak sets being better with Stalkers thanks to the ST shoring).

 

 

I do say it 'lost its soul' and not 'it's objectively worse'. It's still a damage boost for ST with Fiery Embrace and it's still an extra AoE with Burn for sets without good AoE, and the tune up did made it a bit sturdier.

[Aeroprism]

2 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

I can't say which patch it was but it was a good while back. Mostly it was about Burn not double procing (yep, we're back on procs even if I only had two in there). But the devs made an effort to push the Burn numbers back up so it would not be a complete nerf and overall I'd say they succeeded as the damage loss from the double proc chance was compensated. But it lost some of its soul IMO. Damage being dealt over 10 seconds is not the same and Burn became a wash for ST which was a pity as it helped sets with low ST damage (a bit like certain otherwise weak sets being better with Stalkers thanks to the ST shoring).

 

 

I do say it 'lost its soul' and not 'it's objectively worse'. It's still a damage boost for ST with Fiery Embrace and it's still an extra AoE with Burn for sets without good AoE, and the tune up did made it a bit sturdier.

 

Did they do this to discourage farming?  It's a really popular armor for farming...

[Sovera]

2 minutes ago, Aeroprism said:

 

Did they do this to discourage farming?  It's a really popular armor for farming...

 

No. Otherwise they would not have compensated for the damage loss (one might argue why fix it then. I have no answers to this). Burn did a double proc chance from firing procs once and then the pseudo pet it spawning having a chance to proc the procs again, ergo double proc chance. In practice I found there was no reason to load up on procs as it ate on the recharge which made less Burns-per-minute which ended lowering the damage per minute.