Seeking incarnate advice! (Rad armor tank)

[Gone]

Hi! My Rad/SS tank is crazy tough. Resists are all capped except two, SL Defense is 45% and of course Rad has the other layers in absorb, regen, healing and debuffs. This makes it difficult for me to pin down what incarnate options to choose (outside of alpha, which I've gone Musculature, and Judgement, which will be Void). Ideally, I would like to be sturdy in more difficult content (incarnate stuff) and/or be able to solo difficult enemies (AV/GM) or a combination of the two.

 

Destiny:

 

Ageless is nice for recharge, but I have no endurance issues currently so the rest of the power is fairly useless. Maybe long solo GM/AV fights might test the endurance enough to take this? What do you think?

Barrier would help with Cold and Psi res, and would give me higher def during incarnate content where the cap is higher.  Right now this is the one I'm considering strongly, although with my current tankiness it might be just unnecessary.

Clarion isn't good for this build obviously.

Rebirth seems interesting but I'm not sure how much the +Max Health or +Regen would help compared to Barrier.

Incandescence would be fun to choose, and if Barrier / Ageless / Rebirth are completely unnecessary I guess it might be a good pick?

 

Interface:

 

What's the best for defeating AV's/GM's currently?  My guess is Reactive or Degen but I'm not sure which one to go for.

 

Lore:

 

Most of the things I've read just say take whatever lore fits your character or that looks fun.  I'm curious if there is one that is better suited to AV/GM fights or incarnate content, or even more specific uses if I'm not thinking broadly enough?

 

Hybrid:

 

I'm really lost here on Hybrid.  Assault would help bridge that damage gap that tanks have, Melee and Support give stronger defense.  I'd appreciate any advice on this one as I'm running into serious analysis paralysis.

 

I'm a little overwhelmed on this tank's incarnates, usually it's very clear on my other characters what to take because they have specific needs, but this character does everything pretty well already.

 

 

[Call Me Awesome]

Hi! My Rad/SS tank is crazy tough. Resists are all capped except two, SL Defense is 45% and of course Rad has the other layers in absorb, regen, healing and debuffs. This makes it difficult for me to pin down what incarnate options to choose (outside of alpha, which I've gone Musculature, and Judgement, which will be Void). Ideally, I would like to be sturdy in more difficult content (incarnate stuff) and/or be able to solo difficult enemies (AV/GM) or a combination of the two.

 

Destiny:

 

Ageless is nice for recharge, but I have no endurance issues currently so the rest of the power is fairly useless. Maybe long solo GM/AV fights might test the endurance enough to take this? What do you think?

Barrier would help with Cold and Psi res, and would give me higher def during incarnate content where the cap is higher.  Right now this is the one I'm considering strongly, although with my current tankiness it might be just unnecessary.

Clarion isn't good for this build obviously.

Rebirth seems interesting but I'm not sure how much the +Max Health or +Regen would help compared to Barrier.

Incandescence would be fun to choose, and if Barrier / Ageless / Rebirth are completely unnecessary I guess it might be a good pick?

 

I usually grab Rebirth on a tanker, it's a huge heal and regen boost and useful if things suddenly go south on you.  On my Invuln I had it as an "emergency, Dull Pain is recharging, damn that hurts" power.

 

 

Interface:

 

What's the best for defeating AV's/GM's currently?  My guess is Reactive or Degen but I'm not sure which one to go for.

 

Reactive is my go-to on most all characters.

 

 

Lore:

 

Most of the things I've read just say take whatever lore fits your character or that looks fun.  I'm curious if there is one that is better suited to AV/GM fights or incarnate content, or even more specific uses if I'm not thinking broadly enough?

 

 

WAY too many options here.  Seers will toss Fortitude on you which is welcome, others are pure added damage or other benefits.  I see lots of Cimerorans, Polar Lights and the like.

 

Hybrid:

 

I'm really lost here on Hybrid.  Assault would help bridge that damage gap that tanks have, Melee and Support give stronger defense.  I'd appreciate any advice on this one as I'm running into serious analysis paralysis.

 

I'm a little overwhelmed on this tank's incarnates, usually it's very clear on my other characters what to take because they have specific needs, but this character does everything pretty well already.

 

I looked over the Hybrid options on Live and I'm kind of underwhelmed by most of them.  By default I tend to get Assault on everything but a Controller.

[Gigajoule]

Destiny:

Destiny in general is not particularly applicable to soloing AVs since a solo AV fight will last several minutes, much longer than the Destiny buffs' period of peak effectiveness, no matter what it is. That is to say, if you need the Destiny buff to keep you standing vs a particular AV, it isn't going to save you in the long run since it won't come close to lasting the whole fight.

 

What the Destiny slot is useful for is helping other people during certain iTrials. Clarion is handy in certain particular encounters, e.g. the Underground trial. And rezzing people with Barrier Radial is always a nice thing to do (especially if they die again right away haha).

Interface:

Degenerative is really helpful versus AVs, especially when solo. I solo'd the Faathim the Kind TF yesterday (including AVs Malaise, Mother Mayhem, "Nemesis?", Baphomet, and Lanaru the Mad-- of these, only Baphomet required the use of Lore pets due to his beefy self-heal). Degenerative was a key ingredient to my success.

 

I recently switched to using Degen full-time from the more "tanky" Diamagnetic. It seems to me that it pulls a lot of aggro, an unexpected bonus, though this is hard to measure objectively. I do seem to get warned/sequestered doing BAF a lot more than I did before making that switch (and I haven't made any other big changes recently that I can think of).

 

Lore:

Which Lore pet you go with is not as important a decision as the choice between Core or Radial pets (Core being pure damage, Radial including a buffing pet). Core is the correct Lore choice for most purposes, including soloing AVs. Core Lore pets are also super-helpful in the BAF prisoner escape phase.

 

That said, there are a few considerations when it comes to these pets. Pets without a melee attack are more likely to not get destroyed by AoEs if you position them wisely; that can potentially be a big thing. (Although in some cases it doesn't matter-- Lanaru the Mad for example has a wide enough radius AoE that I don't think it's possible for your Lore pets to not get quickly destroyed by him.) Also, pets that can fly will have an easier time following you through certain areas, which is always nice. And pets that are not screen-filling ZOMGHUEG monstrosities will be a lot less obnoxious to yourself and others. Robotic drones check all these boxes. I believe Polar Lights do as well.

 

Hybrid:

Hybrid is kind of underwhelming in general. But assuming you don't need to patch your build up with one of the more tanky-oriented choices, Assault Core is probably your best bet-- just don't expect it to work miracles. (The double-hit proc from Assault Radial doesn't seem to proc off of damage-aura ticks, which are a substantial chunk of my DPS as an Elec/Rad tank, so switching from that to Assault Core was an easy choice for me.)

[Gone]

Thanks very much for all of the detailed thoughts on incarnates, really helping me get my mind around them.  I'll do a little more research into all of the suggestions and look at all the incarnate powers again before posting what I ended up going with.

[Herotu]

Thank you very much for information on incarnates, squeezing this info from the internet is like getting a bleeding stone... oh.

[Hyardgune]

For a tanker, I am a big fan of Barrier for the rezzes. I'm usually not the first to die in a major fight, so being able to rez someone else is handy.

[Kruunch]

Interface:  my preference so far is Diamagnetic. Adds to your tankyness, helps your group and gives you the key -regen which is a must for soloing AVs.

 

Hybrid: Assault all the way (chance for double hits and energy damage).

 

Lore: Polar Lights I like best overall so far. Cimmarorans are great (both for dps and support). Knives are very good (testing them with my scrapper atm). Nemesis are junk. Most bots are ok but not amazing.

 

Destiny: Barrier all the way. Not just for your tankyness (psi hole) but the entire group and also the res if you're a white knight ;) Also T4 Barrier is a perma buff if you go that direction.

 

Hope this helped.