SD/MA - So good

[Glacier Peak]

This is the powerset combination that satisfies everything I love about melee action and crowd surfing. It's got layered mitigation, it's got fantastic AoEs, it's quick animating and quick recharging. Everything synergizes together to give me what I want.

 

I am also slightly biased in that Martial Arts was the first powerset I selected, on a Scrapper in Issue 1. It feels so good on Tanker! 

 

Shield Defense covers so many things - you can chase positional defense and DDR rather well, it's got middle to high resists, love the click mez, Shield Charge just hits like a WW2 Destroyer cannon firing, and One with the Shield is a great power to cover anything left. 

 

Is there something it sucks at?

 

Edit: Link to build down in thread

Edited yesterday at 02:52 AM by Glacier Peak

[Psyonico]

Storm Kick + the Shield abilities should put you somewhere north of 32% defense just out of the box.  Take Weave and slot the 2 +def uniques and you're soft capped, giving plenty of extra wiggle room for building Resistance, Regen, Recharge, etc.

 

I've got a MA/Shield brute that is wallowing in the high teens, perhaps I should re-roll her as a tank.

[Warshades]

2 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Is there something it sucks at?

 

Not really. No access to any heals, I personally prefer pairing sets like shield or SR with dark melee for that reason, but it's still an extremely sturdy combo with some good KD mitigation in Dragon's Tail from MA to add to Shield Charge. There are other ways to get some heals into the build such as Power Transfer procs into Stamina and Harmonic Mind or Physical Perfection. Rebirth destiny slot is also an option along with some other pool powers, but Shield is so durable that you won't run into many situations where you'll need healing when fully kitted out. 

[Glacier Peak]

11 minutes ago, Warshades said:

Not really. No access to any heals, I personally prefer pairing sets like shield or SR with dark melee for that reason, but it's still an extremely sturdy combo with some good KD mitigation in Dragon's Tail from MA to add to Shield Charge. There are other ways to get some heals into the build such as Power Transfer procs into Stamina and Harmonic Mind or Physical Perfection. Rebirth destiny slot is also an option along with some other pool powers, but Shield is so durable that you won't run into many situations where you'll need healing when fully kitted out. 

Good point! The lack of self heal would worry me slightly if I didn't have a tray full of greens to chew (if an alpha gets past my layers of mitigation somehow) and outside of 4-star content that locks out green inspiration use. That's when I'd slot Rebirth for sure. 

 

Dragon's Tail is wonderful indeed. 

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

Storm Kick + the Shield abilities should put you somewhere north of 32% defense just out of the box.  Take Weave and slot the 2 +def uniques and you're soft capped, giving plenty of extra wiggle room for building Resistance, Regen, Recharge, etc.

 

I've got a MA/Shield brute that is wallowing in the high teens, perhaps I should re-roll her as a tank.

I'm telling you it's great on a Tank. It's probably the most fun melee build I have made and one of the top five builds I enjoy. 

[Warshades]

6 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

The lack of self heal would worry me slightly if I didn't have a tray full of greens to chew

 

I tend to avoid using insps as they feel like a crutch, but personal preference and also why I prefer the dark melee pairing here. 

 

5 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I'm telling you it's great on a Tank. It's probably the most fun melee build I have made and one of the top five builds I enjoy.

 

I think my top 5 favorites (in no particular order as I really love all of them) are:

• Elec/SS - high recharge build that can 2-3 stack Power Sink, hits 160+ hp/sec regen with 90% resists to everything but negative/tox/psi, super fun spamming a lot of knockdown powers and feeling like a regen tank.
• SR/dark - for whatever reason I just like this combo more than my shield/dark, but both are extremely powerful and borderline unkillable in 99.9% of content.
• Invuln/dark - my most durable tank.
• Psionic/ice - really fun combo, Aura of Insanity + Ice Patch for some fun controls against mobs.
• Stone/fire - lots of AoE goodness and very sturdy, no Granite. 

Rad/SS used to be on the list before the previous patch nerf. 

[Glacier Peak]

17 minutes ago, Warshades said:

I think my top 5 favorites (in no particular order as I really love all of them) are:

• Elec/SS - high recharge build that can 2-3 stack Power Sink, hits 160+ hp/sec regen with 90% resists to everything but negative/tox/psi, super fun spamming a lot of knockdown powers and feeling like a regen tank.
• SR/dark - for whatever reason I just like this combo more than my shield/dark, but both are extremely powerful and borderline unkillable in 99.9% of content.
• Invuln/dark - my most durable tank.
• Psionic/ice - really fun combo, Aura of Insanity + Ice Patch for some fun controls against mobs.
• Stone/fire - lots of AoE goodness and very sturdy, no Granite. 

Rad/SS used to be on the list before the previous patch nerf. 

Electric Armor is fantastic. It was the very first Villain Brute powerset I got to Level 40 (then 50 after the level cap increase) after CoV launched. Power Surge is my favorite power in that set because of the visual fx turns you in to a mini-Deathsurge.

 

I haven't tried SR on a Tanker....yet!

 

Invulnerability definitely a classic. I made one in Issue 2 before all ED kicked in, so I have my biases.

 

Haven't tried Psionic, not sure I want to - not because it looks bad or anything.

 

Stone is another classic - I used to love Granite Armor with tons of movement speed bonuses to roll downhill everywhere.

 

I made a Radiation Armor Tanker and got him to 50, but I haven't played it enough to say whether I like it or not. I enjoyed Radiation Armor on my Stalker though.

[Glacier Peak]

Uploading my build in case someone is curious. A few things I'll point out about my build/playstyle.

 

Why positional def so high? Because even with Ageless cycling, there is still 5% DDR I can't cover, so it's an added layer of mitigation. 

Why not focus on MaxHP to cap? Because One with the Shield gets me right to cap for 3 minutes if needed.

Why build this the way it is? It's fun, feel free to change it how you prefer.

 

Attack chain: I open with Focus Chi to Shield Charge in to mob, Dragon's Tail, then Storm Kick and Crippling Axe Kick for layered mitigation (+def and the Tanker proc respectively) applications, then cycle Cobra Strike and Eagle's Claw (for the 3 seconds of extra dmg!) on single targets and Dragon's Tail until I need to reapply Storm Kick and Crippling Axe kick.

 

I have One with the Shield, Rune of Protection, Melee Core Embodiment, and Eye of Magus accolade if needed for something, but those are rarely used in any regular content. I use Ageless on cycle because I don't want to be debuffed very much in the first 30 seconds of an engagement. After the first 30 seconds the big bump in debuff resistance drops, *so I aim to end most fights in that time). 

 

Tanker (Shield Defense - Martial Arts).mbd

 

Out of the box, no layered mitigation activated.

Spoiler

 

Storm Kick (+def) applied, 1 stack of SMotT applied.

Spoiler

Storm Kick (+def) applied, 1 stack of SMotT applied, and (Melee Core Embodiment first image or Rune of Protection second image)

Spoiler

 

Status Protection without Melee Core Embodiment, then with Melee Core Embodiment and One with the Shield for fun

Spoiler

Debuff Resistance before and after using Ageless Radial Epiphany

Spoiler

 

Edited yesterday at 01:39 PM by Glacier Peak
Added text about Ageless debuff res timing

[Warshades]

Nice build. Only one small point to emphasize, that debuff resistance with Ageless Radial isn't what you'll have up 100% of the time. The amount of debuff resistance you get degrades as time passes. At 60-120 seconds after using it, you're only getting 21.25% debuff resist from Ageless Radial. At 30-60 seconds it's at 42.5%. Only during the first 30 seconds you'll have the 85%. Still useful to reduce effects of debuffs and when timed well to have the 85% amount for the first 30 seconds. 

[Glacier Peak]

10 hours ago, Warshades said:

Nice build. Only one small point to emphasize, that debuff resistance with Ageless Radial isn't what you'll have up 100% of the time. The amount of debuff resistance you get degrades as time passes. At 60-120 seconds after using it, you're only getting 21.25% debuff resist from Ageless Radial. At 30-60 seconds it's at 42.5%. Only during the first 30 seconds you'll have the 85%. Still useful to reduce effects of debuffs and when timed well to have the 85% amount for the first 30 seconds. 

This is especially true for my reason behind building extra defense past Incarnate content def softcap. DDR is probably the most important aspect in allowing me time to apply other layered mitigation as needed. 

[Uun]

13 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Why positional def so high? Because even with Ageless cycling, there is still 5% DDR I can't cover, so it's an added layer of mitigation. 

The DDR from Active Defense stacks. Stick another recharge in it.

[Glacier Peak]

27 minutes ago, Uun said:

The DDR from Active Defense stacks. Stick another recharge in it.

Two stacks of Active Defense is plenty. It would likely ensure constant double stacks of Active Defense though. Right now I have double stacks for about 45 seconds. Then again, the hard cap is 95%, so even after a minute of using Ageless, I will still have hard capped DDR.

 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Glacier Peak
Double stacks up longer when I get a Chance for recharge proc off