Dark Astoria Incarnate Arc +4/X8 Solo, No Deaths

[VoidSpawn]

Greetings! 

 

After noticing that @Werner had achieved a Dark Astoria Incarnate Arc victory on his Katana/Dark Brute several years ago, I decided to once more follow one of my main mentors into the fray. After all, his tales of ITF Mastery had compelled me to take on the challenge of completing, with no deaths, a baseline 0/X8 ITF with all ATs. That was a nontrivial undertaking, as I've detailed in each of the respective forums for those ATs. (And it gave me vast respect for those who've done it with any AT at +4/X8. That's massive.)

 

In any event, I took the first shot at it with a Shield Defense/Dark Melee Tanker, because that's what I had my focus on at the time. I totally min-maxed it, boosting everything, and gave it a shot. First time, got completely through, no deaths--nary a scratch, actually, save for that one time when I jumped into a mish after one of those character-based mishes with my toggles off--only to get to the Mot finale and being unable to move the AV below 80%. 

 

After the proper calculations, I concluded that I could invest enough in the S.T.A.R.T. to do the trick--and grab a few more things to help from other sources--but my Shield Defense/Energy Melee Tanker was pinging me, asking me to put him in, Coach. 

 

Rather than try one of my 14 Bio characters, or one of my dozen-plus Rads, etc., etc., I thought I'd heed my nagging internal dialog and put that miscreant in for a quick spin. 

 

Sure enough, the SD/EM Tanker, even at a not completely Tier 4 incarnation level, blazed through the mishes, laying waste to the mobs, as well as to the minor AVs along the way without having to dip into the S.T.A.R.T. (et al) goodies. 

 

Then, the Mot Mish finally appeared. I prepped, as you'll see from the screenshot:

 

 

 ...and I burned that level 54+3 bastiche down so fast it was crazy. I used one of the Ultimate level INs, and two of the Super Damage INs. I had my incarnate drones, a Shivan who hated everything with radioactive fervor, and a single Signature Summons in the form of Positron. I'm not saying that it was a letdown, of course, because I won, and that's all that matters. But it was a bit strange. Kinda like having Linda Lovelace as a first date as a teenage virgin. Over fast, and then a bit of confusion. <.<

 

Build (sorta; I didn't go totally T4 on this): 

 

Spoiler

Void1001TankerShieldEnergy007.mbd

 

I hope the build manifests. Not so sure about exports nowadays. (DM me if it's whacked.)

 

Anyway, I use the DA Incarnate Arc (

Story Arc Contacts

Heather Townshend

Mu'Vorkan

Max (phone only)

Praetor Duncan (phone only)

Dream Doctor (phone only)

)

 

as a testing and proving ground for my newly minted Incarnates. Most just do Heather (ahahahaha), and then stop. However, some of the more powerful Incarnates can continue on, at +4/X8, and proceed to Mu'Vorkan and beyond. But it's more uncommon that one might expect. The mobs hit hard, with various deathly force, and test you most exactingly. The DA Incarnate Arc, at +4/X8, therefore becomes a bitter gauntlet of shattered power-dreams, moreso even than the ITF. It is, however, massive fun, massively rewarding, and a true litmus test to pass if one considers oneself an Elitist Jerk or now. (WoW tip of the cap heheheh.) 

 

@Werner made me do it. (Not that he was the only one, of course; he was, however, one of the few, if not the only, to post on it.)

 

Try it. You'll like it. 

-void 

 

 

 

 

 

[R jobbus]

this is awesome and I very much want to try this. I too am a huge fan of @Werner's masterful tanker builds. most recently I was able to +4/x8 ITF no temps/inspirations with a beastly shield defense/MA build he posted. Very fun, very fast build, and very smart the way it's put together.

 

This is super cool, I'd love to give energy melee a try, I never have. Care to share the build or the general direction to go in? Well done!

[VoidSpawn]

Thank you for your kind comment. @Werner set the bar as high as it could go. 

 

The build is in the "Reveal hidden contents" section. It's in the new Mids format. 

 

Your SD/MA Tanker probably could achieve this. You might need some external assistance with damage on the final AV, or you might not. Only one way to know... 🙂

 

 

[R jobbus]

On 8/15/2024 at 6:26 PM, VoidSpawn said:

Greetings! 

 

After noticing that @Werner had achieved a Dark Astoria Incarnate Arc victory on his Katana/Dark Brute several years ago, I decided to once more follow one of my main mentors into the fray. After all, his tales of ITF Mastery had compelled me to take on the challenge of completing, with no deaths, a baseline 0/X8 ITF with all ATs. That was a nontrivial undertaking, as I've detailed in each of the respective forums for those ATs. (And it gave me vast respect for those who've done it with any AT at +4/X8. That's massive.)

 

In any event, I took the first shot at it with a Shield Defense/Dark Melee Tanker, because that's what I had my focus on at the time. I totally min-maxed it, boosting everything, and gave it a shot. First time, got completely through, no deaths--nary a scratch, actually, save for that one time when I jumped into a mish after one of those character-based mishes with my toggles off--only to get to the Mot finale and being unable to move the AV below 80%. 

 

After the proper calculations, I concluded that I could invest enough in the S.T.A.R.T. to do the trick--and grab a few more things to help from other sources--but my Shield Defense/Energy Melee Tanker was pinging me, asking me to put him in, Coach. 

 

Rather than try one of my 14 Bio characters, or one of my dozen-plus Rads, etc., etc., I thought I'd heed my nagging internal dialog and put that miscreant in for a quick spin. 

 

Sure enough, the SD/EM Tanker, even at a not completely Tier 4 incarnation level, blazed through the mishes, laying waste to the mobs, as well as to the minor AVs along the way without having to dip into the S.T.A.R.T. (et al) goodies. 

 

Then, the Mot Mish finally appeared. I prepped, as you'll see from the screenshot:

 

 

 ...and I burned that level 54+3 bastiche down so fast it was crazy. I used one of the Ultimate level INs, and two of the Super Damage INs. I had my incarnate drones, a Shivan who hated everything with radioactive fervor, and a single Signature Summons in the form of Positron. I'm not saying that it was a letdown, of course, because I won, and that's all that matters. But it was a bit strange. Kinda like having Linda Lovelace as a first date as a teenage virgin. Over fast, and then a bit of confusion. <.<

 

Build (sorta; I didn't go totally T4 on this): 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Void1001TankerShieldEnergy007.mbd 46.25 kB · 22 downloads

 

I hope the build manifests. Not so sure about exports nowadays. (DM me if it's whacked.)

 

Anyway, I use the DA Incarnate Arc (

Story Arc Contacts

Heather Townshend

Mu'Vorkan

Max (phone only)

Praetor Duncan (phone only)

Dream Doctor (phone only)

)

 

as a testing and proving ground for my newly minted Incarnates. Most just do Heather (ahahahaha), and then stop. However, some of the more powerful Incarnates can continue on, at +4/X8, and proceed to Mu'Vorkan and beyond. But it's more uncommon that one might expect. The mobs hit hard, with various deathly force, and test you most exactingly. The DA Incarnate Arc, at +4/X8, therefore becomes a bitter gauntlet of shattered power-dreams, moreso even than the ITF. It is, however, massive fun, massively rewarding, and a true litmus test to pass if one considers oneself an Elitist Jerk or now. (WoW tip of the cap heheheh.) 

 

@Werner made me do it. (Not that he was the only one, of course; he was, however, one of the few, if not the only, to post on it.)

 

Try it. You'll like it. 

-void 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, I wanted to get your advice and help on something I'm trying to do, since we both are using variations on the Werner builds that work so well.

 

Right now I'm trying to use a variation on my SD/MA build, which is very similar to your SD/EM build, and my one question is, do you use One with the Shield? regularly? Like is this ability absolutely essential to running the challenges you've ran before. In my no deaths/inps/+4/x8 ITF runs I have not used it once, though maybe I should've. I understand that one with the shield with ageless core is extremely powerful, since the crash basically doesn't exist if you just pop ageless with it after the 2 minute mark.

 

But I'm trying to get SD/Battle Axe to work, normally the standard SD/MA build involves picking gloom and darkest night, with build up, then 4 damage powers using gloom in the rotation. This actually works well with my SD/War mace inparticular (I completed the same challenge with SD/Warmace as well)

 

But with battle axe, the problem for soloing difficult stuff is, you don't *really* need gloom for damage, but having darkest night helps tremendously, because battle axe doesn't have any AOE knockdown (except shield bash every 20-22 seconds), where as MA and WM have constant kd in the rotation.

 

Tldr, is one with the shield essential, how often have you used it, genuinely curious. Cause the easy solution to SD/battle axe is just not get one with the shield in favor of more crazy damage battle axe goodness, then use darkest night for general safety purposes because kd isn't gonna be happening except for single targets. (At least, this is my experience in the beta server vs cimerorans). 

 

But I feel like I need to pursue this idea because SD is so good, and battle axe really is quite a ton of damage. any thoughts? Also i am sorry for posting this without an example build, I'll try and put one together, i know it's annoying when people ask this stuff without examples. 

Edited August 30 by R jobbus

[Thraxen]

What mission or arc?  I find those missions easy but don’t normally solo. 

[Uun]

On 8/30/2024 at 10:28 AM, R jobbus said:

Tldr, is one with the shield essential, how often have you used it, genuinely curious.

I use OWTS when things go sideways but don't consider it essential. It does a couple of things and you need to consider how useful they are in the context of your build vs. other power picks. 

1. 30% S/L and 15% F/C/E/N/T resist: Shield is primarily a defense set, but having solid resists as a backup is desirable. If your S/L resists are capped without OWTS, then this probably isn't helping you, although there are cases where some more exotic damage resistance could be useful. If you're not capped, then you may want to slot OWTS for resistance.
2. +375 max HP: If you've got the +HP accolades and set bonuses on top of True Grit, chances are you're already pretty close to the HP cap (3,534) and there's no point in slotting for healing (which enhances the HP buff). 
3. +30% recovery: This is universally useful. In my case, since #1 and #2 don't need to be enhanced I slot OWTS for end mod (3-slotting w/ Synapse's Shock provides 10% slow resist and some movement speed buffs).
4. Mezz/Repel/KB Protection: You already have this from Active Defense. There may be some edge cases where this can be useful if you need 100 mag KB protection, but not needed 99% of the time. Can't be enhanced in any case.

Edited August 31 by Uun
corrected HP cap

[VoidSpawn]

I have One with the Shield, but it's rarely necessary to use, if at all, in the context of the Dark Astoria Incarnate Arcs +4/X8, with no deaths. 

 

Mostly, it's relegated to a combination of panic duty and whatever-fits mule. @Uun outlines the whys and wherefores. 

 

Curiously, the SD/DM build in the Spoiler below can ramp up to 3,398 HP with OWTS engaged. Perhaps the math is off, or the code is befuddled by erroneous IO Boosting. 

 

Spoiler

Void8675TankerShieldDark004.mbd

  

IMHO, Battle Axe can be leveraged enough to need few powers to help it. @Spaghetti Betty's Rad/BA Tanker build demonstrates how to achieve this: 

 

Tanker - Modified Spaghetti Betty Air Fryer for Battle Axe (Radiation Armor - Battle Axe).mbd

 

They call it an "Air Fryer," which is accurate. "Insane Buzzsaw of Doom" would be equally accurate. 

 

-Void 

 

 

[Uun]

1 hour ago, VoidSpawn said:

Curiously, the SD/DM build in the Spoiler below can ramp up to 3,398 HP with OWTS engaged. Perhaps the math is off, or the code is befuddled by erroneous IO Boosting. 

Apologies, tanker HP cap is 3,534. Somehow CoD got set to lvl 38.

[Spaghetti Betty]

4 hours ago, VoidSpawn said:

@Spaghetti Betty

 

I saw a red number on my screen!

Just a small clarification, the Rad/BA build posted above is a modified version of a Rad/Fire build I passed around a year ago, but it does get my approval!

 

To stay on topic, I do like blazing through the DA arcs on my fully completed Tanks. It's always a good time! I think the only gripe I have about doing so is that a vast majority of the maps used for the content are massive and not very ideal for old school herding. The good news is having all 3 level shifts available means Fold Space works like a charm. Definitely something to consider when wanting to maximize herding efficiency!

[Biff Pow]

The irony of the Incarnate arcs is, if you level your Incarnate powers up to tier 3 before starting them, they end up being easier than normal content because +4 becomes +1. And then the component rewards at the end of each arc help you build up to tier 4.

[VoidSpawn]

The end AV actually rolls out at 54+3. It's an Incarnate itself, which is interesting. I stacked heavily when going against it on the SD/EM Tanker, as my SD/DM Tanker's earlier attempt got Mot down only to 80%. That attempt, however, was without additional input, so I added that additional input (seen on the screen capture above) and went Max Overkill with it. Turns out, it was unnecessary; the SD/EM Tanker probably had enough punch to end Mot solo, with no additional help. 

 

That's /EM though, compared to /DM, on a Tanker. It's noteworthy, however, that the /DM Tanker seemed to take little, if any, damage at any time. That little dude is really tough. It might not be able to defeat some DPS checks without a lot of external help, but it'll almost certainly come out of the encounter without so much as a scratch on its shield. 

 

Also, thanks to @Spaghetti Betty for the reply and endorsement! 

 

-void  

[Volstagg]

EM is a beast on a tank. My Rad and Shield Defence almost feel like tough scrappers. They mow through bosses