Rad Armor/Dark Melee Build Critique

[Evercent]

I'm not a frequent tank player, I vastly prefer support, but I wanted to make a tank for end-game starred content. Currently levelling a Rad/Dark Tank and loving the set,  I can see plenty of potential for damage with procs in this set. The resists are a bit overkill and I can't figure out how to transfer that to defense.  Is this build good, or are there some changes I can/should make to get a little more defense?

Rad-Dark Tanker.mbd

[PLVRIZR]

I'm still having issues with Mids, so your slots don't load, but I can give you some of the "usual" Rad Armor feedback:

 

Without DDR, defense can (and will) be stripped quickly, with "end-game mobs".  While you can take Ageless for the DDR (at least for the incarnate/end-game content), it's still not ideal.  Focusing on maximizing your resistances and 100% slow protection (your absorb shield is your primary mitigation, so it being up is paramount) is what is mostly advised. 

 

Check out @ZemX , @Warboss or @Spaghetti Betty's posts for some serious suggestions on Rad Armor.

[Nemu]

 

This is not a substitute for skippping on accuracy enhancements or accuracy set bonuses if you plan to proc bomb every single one of your attacks.

 

Your chances to hit +4 mobs without those procs for soul drain sits at less than 60% which is quite low.

 

 

Your chances to hit for shadow maul which is you most "conventionally slotted" attack

 

 

Siphon life

 

 

I get it. Everyone talks about procs but no one gives any insight to what makes proc builds work and what holes you need to address for proc builds to function. So let me break it down for you:

Proc builds sacrifice ACC/DAM/END/RECH slotting in attacks and replaces them with procs.

So you need to make up for those enhancement values elsewhere, either by set bonuses or powersets that supplements those areas. Rad/Dark has your endurance covered so there's synergy there. But you still need to make up for ACC/Rech from set bonuses.

 

Also, not every power is worth investing in procs, especially the t1-t2 attacks that have low recharge. Those are better served as set bonus mules. Here's some reading material on procs and how they work
 

 

Your resists are not overkill, you have meltdown toggled on. This is what your resists look like without:

 

You can get by with those numbers but it takes experience with the game (not tanking in general) and leveraging build synergy to make up for hard stats. I can't speak to your experience, but I can tell you the build doesn't have enough synergy to mitigate the loss of hard stats. Here are a few ways from a build perspective to shore up survival:

More recharge - clicks come up sooner

Using soft controls such as knockdowns - Avalanche KD proc in one of the PBAOEs and other similar kD procs can go a long way

More damage (that have enough accuracy to hit stuff) - you got on the proc train, now you need to not whiff.

[ZemX]

44 minutes ago, PLVRIZR said:

Check out @ZemX , @Warboss or @Spaghetti Betty's posts for some serious suggestions on Rad Armor.

 

More @Spaghetti Betty I would say.  My advice is geared to general content and I think HM+ upends that almost completely and puts the primary focus on damage dealing, assuming survival will be more of a group buff / coordinated-Incarnates effort than traditional self-reliant tank toughness.

[Spaghetti Betty]

3 hours ago, PLVRIZR said:

@Spaghetti Betty

 

Nemu hit pretty much every point that was necessary. Procbombers are fun, but they give up a lot! There are a few combos that can definitely bend the rules in their favor quite easily, but I don't feel Dark Melee is one of those! At least, not without outside help!

 

Dark Melee is completely reliant on Soul Drain to maintain good form, so global recharge is very important to it! Procbombing means you give up on this. The most popular way to mitigate that is to use Knockback powers in order to abuse FFback procs, but DM has none of those!

 

In that sense, while the attacks do hit like a train when proc'd, you are seeing a very significant decrease in performance due to Soul Drain having low uptime.

 

Of course, as Zem mentioned, if your goal is to maximize effectiveness in Hard Mode scenarios, then you kind of have the right idea! There is expected to be a lot of buffs being brought to advanced content, not least of which is a Kinetic! Hooray for friendship!

[Spaghetti Betty]

Here is a quick and dirty on how I would build a Rad/Dark for Hard Mode, plus a few extra liberties given so it's not a complete disaster in regular content!

 

SB Please - Tanker (Radiation Armor - Dark Melee).mbd

 

In this example, Soul Drain is only 4.42 seconds off from being perma. Hasten is sitting at 6.9 nice seconds from perma. This is something a Kin or Ageless can easily fix! Resistances here are a bit anemic, but in a highly coordinated Hard Mode team, Barrier will easily solve that! What's important for mitigation is Particle Shielding, which is why it has a healthy amount of slots. A tiny bit of max HP is also picked up, as this is incredibly important for absorbing heavy blows from AVs!

[Nemu]

5 minutes ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

6.9 nice

 

5 minutes ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

heavy blows

 

I'll see myself out....

[Evercent]

Thank you for the advice and suggestions, everyone! I still really enjoy this combo, and did find that build on this forum somewhere and only altered it slightly. These are all very valid points, and I really do appreciate the feedback! Can't wait to build out this character 😀