Argument for any melee defense other than Shield?

[Vee]

There's the other downside to stone that you really don't want to try to tank with it before getting granite.

[Inc42]

That is true, leveling before 32 was rough.

[Waffles]

Waffles - thanks for the breakdown.  You named some of the set combos I've been most interested in, but paired them with different AT's.  Electric for instance, not looking to drain mobs and stop them from raising Fury.  What's your thought on making TW/Elec Brute rather than Scrapper or Tanker, my two preferences?  SS/Fire to a lesser extent, Fiery Aura is not ideal for Fury.  That hp of Tankers makes it a lot more survivable, and is about as offensive as Tanks can get.  For kill first, Scrappers seems a better choice.  Katana/WP, otoh, is an ideal Brute combo.  Fury out the wazoo, no redraws, Brute hp makes regen more effective.  Thanks for sharing.

I'm late to replying to this ;-;

The reason I made Kat/will a scrapper-only thing is 1: I have no experience with the brute variant and 2: The critical strikes really help it out, considering how fast the set is when you can use the gambler>Soar>Gambler>Dragonfly rotation.

As for TW/Elec's fury generation, the electric damage aura, and the alpha when you jump into a mob as Drain is animating will pretty much cap your fury relatively easily.

Brute is the optimal class for TW/elec, I never suggested it was a scrapper, I think? If I did, I edited that awhile ago.

Brute is the optimal class for /fire armor aswell, you just have to understand that Fire armor is a -very- offensively orientated shielding set. It's not exactly amazing for defensive purposes, -but- it offers you a way, way, way more aggressive playstyle. Which suits the brute rather well. You're essentially a blapper on roids. Hence the mention of munching on insps when farming, because mobs will drop in a single stomp+Burn combo.

Many talks I have with ol' synapse involved how to make Scrappers more competitive with brutes, because we pretty much agreed on how brutes completely overshadow scrappers in many cases.

The best scrapper combo, IMO, is Dark/shield. Amazing synergy, and scrappers benefit much more from dark consumption than brutes. Against all odds coupled with that, could nearly cap your damage buff %. Your AoE will mostly come from the /fire pool, and shield charge. These two things can damn well clear rooms alone with consumption up.

Critical midnight grasps could nearly one shot bosses

[ryuplaneswalker]

In just SOs - Stone Armor, Granite was so great Pre-IOing.

With IOs - Willpower and Shield both have some really strong points

With Incarnating - Dark Armor, with Issue -24 I would have had a Dark Armor brute as my main, that would have been capped in Melee, Ranged and almost AOE defenses, capped in Negative Energy and S/L resistance, and could COF without endurance issues.

If you could Run OG and COF without issues it was amazing for Mass Minion pulling.

[ricodah]

If you leave out nightwidow as a non-standard melee, there was a Stj/SR stalker and Stj/Ice stalker that did disgusting things in the i24 beta to a pylon. Earlier there was a DB/Elec on the scrapper side as a long time frontrunner and then maybe a KM/something. Maybe someone with an archive of the old forum would know?

Microcosm! You were the one with the record DB/Elec scrapper.  Glad you're still around.  Stalkers were single target powerhouses in the end.   Auroxis had a fantastic Elec/Nin; Granite had the StJ/IA; I had great StJ/SR, DB/Nin and KM/EA dps numbers. 

Back to topic, other than SD, any secondary where you can softcap S/L/E/N type or positional defenses.  FA was awesome for the Burn/Blazing Aura; DA and ElA for their damage auras.  But I have to give props to SR.  Yes, simple and mindless but the ease to softcap 3 positions, great DDR out of the bag, gave it a lot of wiggle room to improve in other areas.  Only secondary I was not a fan of was regen, too clicky.

[Waffles]

I remember my jaw dropping at this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-eW_P_NqMg

[ricodah]

I remember my jaw dropping at this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-eW_P_NqMg

Hmmm... Why does that video look sooo familiar?  This one is for you!  For the love of Waffles!

https://youtu.be/xC2n-YFuWGc

[HEATSTROKE]

Its amazing to me that ANY Set can be made really really good.. When you figure in IO's I don't think there is any set other than Fire that will clearly out do any other set.. Fire might be the weakest...

[rebel 1812]

Its amazing to me that ANY Set can be made really really good.. When you figure in IO's I don't think there is any set other than Fire that will clearly out do any other set.. Fire might be the weakest...

You need to think of it as more a regen set to see it shine.

[HEATSTROKE]

You need to think of it as more a regen set to see it shine.

For the record I have a Fire Tank that is soft capped to S/L and Healing Flames recharges in about 12 seconds.. However compared to all my other tanks I would have to say he is the weakest in terms of just straight survival.. He does however do more damage than any other tank I have ( except maybe one ) which helps him survive..

But I have to admit almost every other tank I own is probably tougher...

[Microcosm]

I remember my jaw dropping at this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-eW_P_NqMg

I remember thinking Stalkers had finally been balanced against the other melees. There were a couple changes I would still have made around AoE's, but they were finally 'good'.

[Inc42]

In just SOs - Stone Armor, Granite was so great Pre-IOing.

What was wrong with them after IOs? I saw a variety of builds that worked really well centering around granite. I saw people who's sets were focused on movement speed so they could keep up with the team better and shore that weakness, and people like me who were able to hard cap almost all resistances and at least soft cap the defenses.

If the game does come back and we have to restart, I may play with the attack set some because I found the mace to be boring, but I don't have any interest in playing a tank with any other defense set. I'll save the other sets for my army of brutes 

[Vee]

What was wrong with them after IOs? I saw a variety of builds that worked really well centering around granite. I saw people who's sets were focused on movement speed so they could keep up with the team better and shore that weakness, and people like me who were able to hard cap almost all resistances and at least soft cap the defenses.

saying something is great pre-IOing doesn't imply that it's bad post-IOing. the point was just that it's pretty tough from 33 on even on just SOs.

[ryuplaneswalker]

What was wrong with them after IOs? I saw a variety of builds that worked really well centering around granite. I saw people who's sets were focused on movement speed so they could keep up with the team better and shore that weakness, and people like me who were able to hard cap almost all resistances and at least soft cap the defenses.

If the game does come back and we have to restart, I may play with the attack set some because I found the mace to be boring, but I don't have any interest in playing a tank with any other defense set. I'll save the other sets for my army of brutes 

Oh nothing in particular, but IOs let anyone cap out defenses and resistances, especially post issue 24 with the reworking of Resistance/Defense IOs, It was Pre-ED levels of broken IMO, my Kat/DA brute was Capped on S/L/N/E/P  resistence and Melee/Lethal/Smashing/Ranged Defense softcapped without the defense bonus from Parry.

The problem with Stone Armor and IOs was that, with IOs you could negate some of the effects of Stone Armor and get your runspeed and recharge speeds back up to normal levels. However you are still more or less stone armor.

As I said before, with IOs come Issue 24 my Dark Armor brute, would have had all the same advantages of stone armor,  none of the negatives..and some very big advantages, an AOE Fear, an AOE Stun, a Massive self heal, and a self rez that had a stun effect.

I am not saying Stone Armor is bad, just that it has a very Low Ceiling.

[Joshex]

Willpower was pretty much my go-to defensive capability. (partly because I often built around the dual-wield powers, which locked out Shield) It provided wide range of coverage while giving back a bit of regen that other powers didn't. Basically you could set up a willpower on most front-line characters and not worry about micro-managing it for the rest of the game.

I know a lot of people who got a lot of use out of Dark... but personally I always found the visuals on Dark to be overwhelming. (particularly knuckleheads who set the colors to black-on-black) Thus it was difficult for me to use it and effectively play, particularly on dark underground maps. That said, it was probably the most offensively-oriented of all the secondary power sets with all of its AOEs and drains, so you could build a scrap-tank or a combat healer easily with it.

Yeas, willpower was teh shiznit!

When I first made a tank it was an invul, people said it was the easiest way to tank, it is nice to stand in a mob of smashing lethal and go afk. but... it's had it's faults, low endurence, and even with all the res poor def can kill.

shield was good, I've even seen scrappers who can tank on shield, most had to take advantage of Aoe though. it's one of those 'have to fight builds' can't AFK like with invul, and you fall down hard sometimes.

Willpower, it was a monster. my WP can tank anything, depends how you build it and what sets you use, you can cap psionic, toxic, smashing, lethal defense and decent res and a choice of either energy and negative (build 1) and fire and ice (build 2), with incarnate powers it was crazy. a good WP build never falls hard and /WILL/ take 20 minutes+ for PVE to ko it, so for those instances you just use resurgence and the enemies are like "Seriously, WTF man...?"

I can see why the freakshow use it, it's addictive, drove my tank insane lol, Me; "Must bash more hoards!" teammates: "dreadnaught we're trying to speed run this mission!" me: "aww come on I wanna clear! only 1 group left anyways!" teammates: "what? that was a full map of +4x8 and we're exemplared to 30 we were only in there 5 minutes how could you be on the last group?" me: "exiting, I'm satisfied, the bodies don't move any more.."

[HEATSTROKE]

Yeas, willpower was teh shiznit!

When I first made a tank it was an invul, people said it was the easiest way to tank, it is nice to stand in a mob of smashing lethal and go afk. but... it's had it's faults, low endurence, and even with all the res poor def can kill.

shield was good, I've even seen scrappers who can tank on shield, most had to take advantage of Aoe though. it's one of those 'have to fight builds' can't AFK like with invul, and you fall down hard sometimes.

Willpower, it was a monster. my WP can tank anything, depends how you build it and what sets you use, you can cap psionic, toxic, smashing, lethal defense and decent res and a choice of either energy and negative (build 1) and fire and ice (build 2), with incarnate powers it was crazy. a good WP build never falls hard and /WILL/ take 20 minutes+ for PVE to ko it, so for those instances you just use resurgence and the enemies are like "Seriously, WTF man...?"

I can see why the freakshow use it, it's addictive, drove my tank insane lol, Me; "Must bash more hoards!" teammates: "dreadnaught we're trying to speed run this mission!" me: "aww come on I wanna clear! only 1 group left anyways!" teammates: "what? that was a full map of +4x8 and we're exemplared to 30 we were only in there 5 minutes how could you be on the last group?" me: "exiting, I'm satisfied, the bodies don't move any more.."

First Disclaimer.. I use IO's and Hami-O's. I also used Incarnate abilities in the end as well. To me its a part of the game so I cannot use the.. Well this is better on SO's argument as part of my platform..

I have played every secondary on a tank except Granite and I built a Granite for my wife. I was going to build a TW/STONE tank.. but the game ended..

This is what I stand by.. You can make ANY set good..

INV

Invulnerable had its faults.. thats a moot point.. every set had a fault. every set had a weakness...

However in the end game my INV tank could withstand pretty much anything.. even non S/L foes.. I tanked Mother Mayhem. Psi Clock King.. Malaise.. all PSI enemies with an INV tank..

My Inv tank had defense softcapped to S/L/E/N.. 88% resistance to S/L and 27% to everything else 17% to Psi. Of course there was always unstoppable but I rarely if ever used it..

End was never an issue. I have some IO's to help with that.. but in reality attacks drain more end that toggles.. If you dont slot attacks for end reduction.. your asking for trouble..

Now the real gem of the build was Perma Dull Pain.. Thats the Trick.. the ability to keep your HP maxed out and heal 80% of damage taken every 104 seconds is huge.. basically.. most enemies couldnt get through the HP fast enough before it healed to max again..

Shield

Shield was actually an easy build Easy to Soft Cap to every position. so Melee, Range and AoE easily softcapped and you could get about 65% DefDebuff resistance.. Pretty Much you could stand around and watch foes swing and miss all day.. I had 4 shield toons..3 tanks.. 1 Brute and I certainly did not HAVE to fight to survive..

Willpower

Yes WP was a monster..  my final WP build was softcapped to S/L/E/N Decent Psi Defense and Resists.. Its real gem was the ability to Regen about 95 HP per second with one foe in range 115 with 4, 141HP per second with 8 Foes.. Very hard to kill.. very hard to take down..

I fought Marauder on a Lambda to an absolute stand still.. We couldnt take each other down..

And yet it still wasnt my most survivable Tank.. That goes to..

ICE

WHAT ICE ? Are you kidding me..

Yes.. Soft capped also to S/L/N/E.. Chilling Embrace reduces Damage and Recharge speed which also reduces incoming damage.. AND Perma Hoarfrost.. Remember Perma Dull Pain earlier?? Same thing.. 50% Defense Debuff Resistance.. 100% slow resistance..

But wait that doesnt seem better.. aaaah but then there is also HIBERNATE.. nice little power.. just in case you get in over your head.. click.. get your health and end back.. Full Bar.. Pop back out.. tank some more.. and you dont have to be dead to use it... and it doesnt kill you when it shuts down either..

Dark Armor and Electric Armor also get honorable mentions.. Energy Aura for Brute and Super Reflexes also very good..

Now depending on your primary.. you could turn good survival into GREAT survival..

Dark/Stone tank had Fault.. and Oppressive Gloom.. Which means a mag 4 Stun at all times. Stunned Bosses.. win win..

[Vee]

We were talking about what works on SOs only because we're all under the impression that if the game comes back we're going to have trouble IOing a toon for a while.

Also people keep using the survivability of their tanks as arguments for particular sets. I consider tanks kind of easy mode as far as survivability goes. The holes show up a lot more with scrap/broot values.

[Joshex]

We were talking about what works on SOs only because we're all under the impression that if the game comes back we're going to have trouble IOing a toon for a while.

Oh! is that what this thread is about? yeah I know a lot of people slotted themselves via paragon points and VIP store points, so you may not have figured out all the really easy ways to get Sets.. (every MMO has them, they require a little patience, it's like fishing)

What do you want to get? LOTG? ITF, run it and run it some more if you keep your recipe slots open you'll get around 0.8 per run with a chance of 2 per run. LOTG is also high on the AE ticket rare drop rolls! so you are more likely to get them there too along with positron's blast and obliteration.

Purples; New DA, mob. Do it. increased purple drops in incarnate zones. using that system I could cap mah monah every week, I'd get 2 to 3 purples a day.

PVP origins? Hero/Villain Merits you can also get Purples and such this way, takes a while so only use it for really hard to get stuff from drops, again focus on LOTG and PVP origin here, LOTG you can sell, PVP you can seel too but they are more costly in merits.

and of course if you need normal rares or yellows The freakshow war is open to you all day, all night long for your villain smashing pleasure, it's merit yield does NOT diminish with each run!!

Point of trade; Get yourself a really good toon, this is your moneymaker, it will be  tank, MM, brute, scrapper and in some cases; controller, dominator. blasters can be OK, my blaster could fly tank, it's not that pretty but it gets the job done.

so now you have a really good toon, get your enhancements on them, craft them on them, email to yourself for other toons.

simple stuff really. want something I didn't list? ask while I still remember how to get it lol.

[HEATSTROKE]

We were talking about what works on SOs only because we're all under the impression that if the game comes back we're going to have trouble IOing a toon for a while.

Also people keep using the survivability of their tanks as arguments for particular sets. I consider tanks kind of easy mode as far as survivability goes. The holes show up a lot more with scrap/broot values.

I doubt that we will have trouble with on IO's toons.. There will be tons of farming.. There will be IO's... And I also assume that the marketplace and Wentworths will be re-established. Also Merits will still exist. I wouldnt be surprised if they open up the marketplace with purchasable IO's to fuel cash..

And I could duplicate every one of these sets on a Brute and survive just as well. I have an Shield, Energy Aura and Shield Brute and they all survive well. I dont play scrappers so I cannot comment on that.

The other issue is that survival isnt just standing there taking hits.. Its the ability to take down the foes attacking you.. Brutes are superior to tanks in that respect in most cases.  So they can and will survive..

[Vee]

Yeah we know the IO tricks, but it's still going to take a while to go from 0-fully IO'd with no supply, even with converters. I took the point of a lot of the thread to be what would be a good toon to do all those tricks on.

As far as broot vs tanks. The point of the best defense being a good offense is true for most content. If we're talking about standard missions no question. My perceptions are a bit skewed as my crew used to run lrsf about every day. The difference between our pre-GR broots on the end fight and the post-GR tanks of the same armor types was quite noticeable. Of course post-incarnates it didn't matter anyway as all of that content became a joke. Almost any well built tank or broot could handle 4/8 at game close.