Concept I can't quite put together - Melee Tank/Support

someonegotmyforu

So, I'm new to the game but I like breaking down systems and examining numbers. While doing some of that in some character builders I had an idea that I can't quite figure out how to manage. In short, it's a melee tank that, instead of using something like defiance or invulnerability, focuses around stuff like Aura of Radiant Protection and Inertial Dampening Field.

I got the idea of a knight who, by his very presence, inspires those around him. So I tried to make something like that a reality and ended up with a lot of Brick attacks in an attempt to run and build enrage stacks without actually having defiance or enrage, since the toggle and passive are already taken. Superstatting Con for enrage duration, Clobber for maintaining stacks, cleave for building them, unbreakable with the advantage to help build them, etc.

What do you guys think? Can you help me out with this form of tank? He doesn't have to be super heavy into the support end, just using the group-buffs as his secondary tanking mechanism. Thought about taking Con prime with the talent for giving dodge to Dex, then Str? I dunno. Any thoughts?

flowcyto

It can be done. Main issue w/ taking AoRP and IDF is that ur dps is going to be very low, which means keeping aggro via threat may be a bit tricky. You'll also be forced to use Hybrid role, which means lower health threat gen vs. Tank role. Bulwark in Protector can help w/ threat, though.

I'd def use Defensive Combo w/ CripC as ur main attack- you'll want the added threat from it. Keep in mind if ya use IDF that ya can't have >1 stack of any normal toggle like Enrage (ya can have >1 stack of Defiant w/ the combo, though that's not technically a toggle). If ya want AoRP's ally benefit to be decent then you'll want Pres as an SS, and if ya want a bit more dps and healing then ya could consider Compassion as the toggle instead of IDF (Sentinel Aura or Quick Healing to easily stack it in combat).

Since you'll have decent bonus heal, ya can use healing powers like Ascension, Protection Field, or Palliate to help w/ support. Here's a sample build:
http://powerhouse.nullware.com/powerhouse.html?v=11&n=&d=1346GMOSPTY0000I000I20HI80LO403IC007G00J505N600JE01IE05K705DM00000000002x7x0tak3SXU

(couldn't export the build here since the new forums have a character limit and the build code all counts towards it )

Last powers can be w/e ya want (another AoE attack, another heal, a dps cd, Rebirth, an ally res, Ebon sigils, etc). I didn't go the IDF route just cause I think Compassion would be better overall (more dps, stronger healing, and less energy issues). Any of the three spec masteries are good choices here.

someonegotmyforu

So what I'm hearing is that a good tank really NEEDS to have their form be something that functions well in the offense department? Otherwise their dps suffers enough that they can't maintain aggro?

I was going to try this with large weapons, but I'll settle for having an aura or two that fits the inspiring commander schtick - maybe sentinel aura or something along with AoRP. I like the idea of compassion, but I can't remember if it buffs melee or not - I know that focus won't.

How does Aggressor work these days?

flowcyto

Threat doesn't scale as well in this game as dmg does after the On Alert changes. For threat, its better to use attacks w/ high base dps, maintains that tick rapidly w/ CripC/CS's flat threat per hit, and/or Defense Combo (cause it adds threat per hit innately). W/o enough dps (or added threat), ya won't hold aggro vs. vet players w/ more optimized FFs.

Compassion buffs bonus healing primarily, and all damage (melee and ranged) secondarily. IDF is okay for 5-man content, but the other issue w/ it (aside from not boosting offense at all) is that it can lead to more energy issues, as it doesn't return energy like most other toggles do.

Aggressor is alright for builds using the Enrage toggle, but passable for others. If ya want more burst dps, then paring Ego Surge's Nimble Mind w/ large amounts of Con gearing fares much better than using any of the other AOs.

morigosa

A bit late to the party here, but I do want to share some of my experiences with a similar support build.

I used AoRP, IDF, Sentinel Aura, and Sentry Aura. Sentry's skippable, but I strongly recommend keeping the healing from Sentinel Aura.

You'll need Presence super-statted; secondary is fine if you want some other primary spec tree.

There are several things to keep in mind with this build.
1: You are not a tank. Everyone else in your group is a tank, but you are not. Try to avoid aggro, and block if you have to.
2: You will almost certainly have energy issues. I dealt with this by using Dark Transfusion on cooldown - it will not reduce the healing from Sentinel Aura, and that should counteract the self-damage. (I also used Mindful Reinforcement, which similarly ignores the healing reduction from DT.)
3: Your damage output will be... poor. It may be wise to take a second form to help speed things up when you're playing solo. (I suggest form instead of passive as the form won't need to be ranked up.) I use Compassion for this, as it will stack off Sentinel Aura - it's less DPS than I could get off a dedicated offensive form, but it's got some situational use for healing too.

Overall, though? It's fun to walk into an alert and have your mere presence make everyone around you all but invulnerable, or "heal" a Therakiel's Temple run without ever using more than an occasional cast of Mindful Reinforcement. There's only one place in game where this build falls short: you won't be keeping a Frosticus tank alive in Fire and Ice without some serious healing power alongside all your auras, and it's hard to get that without sacrificing something else important. But you can function just fine as a secondary healer in that rampage.

squirrelloid

Like Morigosa, i'm also late. It feels like Morigosa's suggestions are more suited to a *bard* than a *paladin* (to use D+D class models).

On the one hand, you can't be a real tank without a defensive passive. At best you'll be an off-tank. Admittedly, most of the game only needs an off-tank.

Even then, you won't be doing any tanking unless you can hold aggro. I don't think Defensive Combo cuts it - the bonus threat is too small for how little damage it does.

So, we need two things: a spammable power with high base damage, and a CC carrier. These can potentially be the same power. (You'll also want a CS power, but that's a 1-point advantage and easily gained).

Depending on what kind of theme you're trying to work with will affect the choices you can make. The absolute best spammable CC carrier for this purpose is ice blast with hard frost - once you chill your opponent you will kick out a lot of damage. (Optimal pairing with the cold breath power for CS + auto-chill).

It is probably better to use your lunge as your CC carrier and take a higher tier power as your spammable damage-carrier. Powers like Haymaker in Might and Skewer in Heavy Weapons kick out a *lot* of damage. Other powers may suggest themselves (Chest Beam comes to mind). Depending on your choice, you may need to invest a SS into energy management to reduce downtime. If you have to use your EB, you're falling behind on the aggro race.

All that said, you're going to have a hard time getting aggro if both your slotted passive and your form are auras. I recommended a solid aggressive form: concentration, enrage, or one of the martial forms being most likely. The loss of IDF isn't a terrible tragedy here - flat damage reduction is not particularly good by itself in any of the fights that matter. And these forms will help your energy management too.

And at last we come to the major problem with support/tanks. You want Con for survival. You want presence for aura boosting and heals. And now you need a stat to scale your form off of and a stat that helps with energy management, including fueling an energy unlock..

Concentration - Int can do both (scale form and manage energy), but it doesn't give you a lot of energy to start with, which makes it hard to lock down aggro early, unless you're using MSA and a short cd power that you can trigger outside combat like Conviction.

Martial forms - Dex probably isn't enough to govern energy management on its own with just the form. May need to sacrifice Pre.

Enrage - Str can make a viable primary stat for a tank (whereas you're forced into Con otherwise pretty much, for knockback resistance), but like dex, it probably won't be enough to govern energy management.

And of course all these demands will trade off with each other in how you distribute stat points too.

Finally, the small amounts of dodge you get from speccing for it in Con won't be enough defense. You'll probably want to go Warden Vindicator (or is it Guardian that also has +100% defense to offense? That can also work) to get enough damage reduction to feel even mildly tanky.

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Alternately, you can just play a support who is hard to kill. I have a character running in Support role with AoPM, Concentration, Skarn's as her only attack, ego/int/pre SS, and warden vindicator. With conviction she's remarkably hard to kill, and ends up tanking alerts quite a bit, although i wouldn't try to tank a rampage. And she manages to pack in a rez, a self rez, and an AoE heal.

I'm also trying to work on a support tank who heals himself (which, if he's doing his tank job, is what the support would have been doing) using Conviction and Lifedrain, and am thinking about the advantages that give those AoE. Con/pre SS for sure, trying some things for the third one.

flowcyto

Even then, you won't be doing any tanking unless you can hold aggro. I don't think Defensive Combo cuts it - the bonus threat is too small for how little damage it does.

I've used AoRP hybrid builds before w/ DC + CripC. It can hold aggro pretty well, but I was using Compassion + Sent Aura, instead of IDF, for a bit more dps that way. The dmg was still pretty low, though. Ya dun always need to pull max threat or be the one w/ aggro; unlike w/ being a pure tank, ya can still bring some decent auras and support abilities when not tanking.

Shifting between the Support and Hybrid role greatly changes the focus of the build, imo. What Morigasa was referring to was more of a Support type, and I assume he meant using Support role. If so, then yea forget about holding aggro, and you'll be more of a backup healer and group mitigator then, w/ some sturdiness to survive and pick people up.

Ya can certainly make AoRP tanks, though. Bulwark helps a good deal if ur needing more threat. Main drawback there is being somewhat lower health than a proper tank, and less dps from skipping Warden or Vindicator.

Here's an AoRP Might tank I was using for a bit. When he's not tanking (or when holding aggro isn't a big deal), he uses Haymaker more often, and uses TClap for procing Wither, MSA, and Sent Mastery:

http://powerhouse.nullware.com/powerhouse.html?v=11&n=&d=1136HAODPEY0000O000O403O500I20HJ5057G00IF0JII03DM00IC00JE00I80LJB059Q0310kt0dTy3BIL

Gear focus is mostly on Con and Pres, w/ some Int on the side for MSA. Str was mostly just for its PSS tree, and its small passive melee dmg bonus.

someonegotmyforu

Well the idea was to be far more paladin than anything else... But pairing him up in theme with my wife's succubus toon has made him a lot darker. I -like- the heavy weapons for him, and if I'm going into sorcery for a passive anyway, I thought about picking up the sorcery energy builder and Circle of TankingStuff while I was at it. I'm okay with the form rolling through Enrage for str. He's going to be tanking in Hybrid so I had considered going Protector for Bulwark, but what I'm hearing is that DPS is more important for holding aggro than a threat generation passive like that - and besides, I should have my circle, yeah?

I had thought to use con as the primary superstat with Dex and Pre and then using str through gear and talents, using the on-crit heal ability and deflection. I understand that the wardicator loop isn't something you want to pass up as a melee, but I liked the heal-when-you-get-knocked talent from protector, too.

The other issue is that some powers are blatantly better than others within a particular framework, and I have no idea how to figure out which ones are GOOD and which ones are just look neat on paper. Squirelloid mentioned Skewer, which I had dismissed as boring compared to Brimstone and Vicious Descent, which is a symptom of my newness.

While looking into possible weird combinations for energy management as well, I saw Overdrive (which triggers off toggles) and Reconstruction circuits (a HoT toggle that should trigger Overdrive)... would using two powers there be worthwhile for strictly energy management?

This is my working draft - any critiques or advice (more than I've gotten already) would be welcomed.

http://powerhouse.nullware.com/powerhouse.html?v=11&n=&d=1326aA9DJOG6070M000G10LG708O400AB04Q300MB00GC0CG90JGB039I009U00QG009Q000Pu93k1i3VNg

I can also superstat strength and gear for dex or pre instead.

pantagruel01

flowcyto said:

Even then, you won't be doing any tanking unless you can hold aggro. I don't think Defensive Combo cuts it - the bonus threat is too small for how little damage it does.

I've used AoRP hybrid builds before w/ DC + CripC. It can hold aggro pretty well, but I was using Compassion + Sent Aura, instead of IDF, for a bit more dps that way.
I've seen Frosticus tanked by someone using AoPM, but pretty sure he was just holding aggro via raw dps (don't think he was even trying to be the tank).

The easiest sort of hybrid is via spec trees, though -- take sentinel aura, sentinel mastery, and a means of triggering it, and you've actually got a pretty big chunk of support.

someonegotmyforu

Well all I want is a bit of support, just sentinel aura and mastery would be fine I suppose, but that brings up another question from within the sentinel tree - what triggers Rejuvenated? BCR? Reconstructive Circuits? What kind of Hold would fit the concept for the mastery?

pantagruel01

Sadly, Rejuvenated is pretty much unusable. Not entirely sure what your concept is; mental storm is the best general purpose way of triggering sentinel mastery (which performs best if combined with a DoT), but may not fit your theme; otherwise I'd go with brute strike or thunderclap.

squirrelloid

someonegotmyforu said:

I had thought to use con as the primary superstat with Dex and Pre and then using str through gear and talents, using the on-crit heal ability and deflection. I understand that the wardicator loop isn't something you want to pass up as a melee, but I liked the heal-when-you-get-knocked talent from protector, too.

If you're going to be using enrage, superstatting Str is important. It'll govern bonus damage from enrage stacks and (iirc) energy returns from gaining enrage stacks (along with recovery, which you won't have much of).

The other issue is that some powers are blatantly better than others within a particular framework, and I have no idea how to figure out which ones are GOOD and which ones are just look neat on paper. Squirelloid mentioned Skewer, which I had dismissed as boring compared to Brimstone and Vicious Descent, which is a symptom of my newness.

Bearing in mind that my heavy weapon experience is entirely with a Devastator AT (who i enjoy too much to take freeform):

Skewer is your workhorse boss-fighting tool. Top notch damage on a short charge with a great 1-pt advantage (take the one that increases charge damage). Only disadvantage is it roots you while charging.

Brimstone is your mob-killing tool. It doesn't have the damage potential skewer does, but it's quite good for clearing the trash quickly, and even working on multiple enforcer/master villains if you can't line them up for skewer. Also good for building enrage. And PBAoE means not having to worry about finding a target, just stand in the right place and smash.

Eruption is your boss enrage-stacker and primary energy management tool (via gaining enrage stacks). May not be quite as crazy without Rec (my devastator goes from 0 to full in one eruption), but should be workable. Eruption is also a CC carrier.

The only other HW power you might seriously consider (outside a lunge, which you could choose from any powerset - the darkness lunge might be fun for your concept) is Arc of Ruin with No Quarter advantage for a quick enemy resistance debuff on tap.

While looking into possible weird combinations for energy management as well, I saw Overdrive (which triggers off toggles) and Reconstruction circuits (a HoT toggle that should trigger Overdrive)... would using two powers there be worthwhile for strictly energy management?

The problem with toggles is they don't work while you're doing other things, like attacking. Toggles only play well with other toggles, meaning you should give Overdrive and Reconstruction Circuits a pass.

Your best options for healing are BCR (Martial Arts) and/or Conviction (magic somewhere) and the advantage on Enrage (which gives you a heal every time you gain a stack). This suggests MSA (gadget) as an energy unlock - if you need one. (Eruption and lunges also play well with MSA because they're on a really short cd). The other advantage to conviction for your theme is the advantage, which heals everyone near you for a little bit every time you use it.

I can also superstat strength and gear for dex or pre instead.

So, one of the great things about AoPM is your non-SS are going to be ~high-80s without justice gear at level 40 (heroics, R5 mods), and possibly pushing 100 with Justice + R7s. That means you might be able to rely on AoPM to provide enough Rec and Int to handle your energy management for you.

So here's the thing. If you're running in hybrid, the bonus stats you're giving out with AoPM to your buddies is greatly reduced. If you're running in support, you take a hp hit. I'm not sure what the right answer is here.

Primary Str with Con/Pre might be your best option. (There's less need for dex since you can't spec dodge with it this way). Str simply has better specs than Con, and since you're going to want Str anyway you don't need the con spec for knock resist because Str gives you that anyway. And you weren't going to get *that much* dodge out of the Con spec. Strength will give you more hp (Swole) and more defense (Juggernaut) to help give you the staying power you're missing out on by not having a defensive passive. Juggernaut will almost certainly do more for your life expectancy than the small dodge boost with Con (and reduce the need for investment in a 4th stat).

Edit: oh, i hadn't realized you were looking at AoRP instead of AoPM... that would complicate things quite a bit. AoPM is far more forgiving here. I'm running with AoPM in the build i threw together below - i think it'll solve your energy management problems in a way you won't be able to otherwise with your SS layout.

Also, as thematic as the off-powerset EB would be, there really aren't two low-tier magic powers you want to take. Since ideally you'll never be touching your EB, i've gone with the HW EB to simplify things for the leveling build. Note the following is not in leveling order.

http://powerhouse.nullware.com/powerhouse.html?v=11&n=&d=1136WA9DJOG6070G000G208G700GB07G904IG0CM503MB00Q3037G00J505CB04CI0000003BIL3T3B3bDM

I'd strongly consider taking Endbringer's Grasp (not available on the builder yet) as your ult to go with the magical end of your theme.

(For a level 40 rebuild, you *can* then switch to the magic EB, because you can take the ult as your first power since it has no pre-reqs other than being level 35, and AoPM as your second, opening all the tier one powers for you with no need to waste a power. That would also let you use the darkness lunge if you wanted.)

Masterful dodge is probably the AD that'll add the most survivability to you, and it doesn't need to be ranked. If you really need a second one, i'd consider dropping Devour Essence of Conviction (whichever doesn't fit into your playstyle). Alternately, I'd consider Ascension (an AO) because it has a very large AoE heal when activated.

The only good AoE power here is that ult, which is going to have a lengthy cooldown. Skewer and arc or ruin can serve in a pinch, but they're harder to effectively hit groups with. Might drop Arc for something with a good PBAoE or something that can carry CS effectively. (Brimstone if you want to stick with Heavy Weapons, lots of possible options otherwise).

I've monkeyed with specs a little too. And there are advantage points left over to play with.

someonegotmyforu

Extremely informative and helpful, Squirrelloid. Is Devour Essence or Conviction going to be better for healing? Scratch that, Conviction's going to be better, let me ask, given the other powers, is Devour Essence going to be adequate?

squirrelloid

someonegotmyforu said:

Extremely informative and helpful, Squirrelloid. Is Devour Essence or Conviction going to be better for healing? Scratch that, Conviction's going to be better, let me ask, given the other powers, is Devour Essence going to be adequate?

Well, depending on what level you are, the first thing i might do is go into the testing room in the PH and see if you need an energy unlock or not. That could free a power space up. It would also let you see what kind of power rotations you can support with and without MSA. That said, MSA does play really well with your likely power useage, so if you do need it then it'll work great.

You would have to test Devour Essence in a 'live fire' scenario to make sure. I haven't played with it enough to confidently say one way or another, especially given your build. (Sadly the game launcher won't load right now, so I can't actually pop into the PH and look at it on a level 40 to see what the game says about it at the moment).

May also depend on what kind of gear you're planning on. Sentinel's brooches and healing gloves will make any and all healing more effective, in addition to your presence. You may find you need *neither* most of the time. OTOH, bonus healing means you're not grabbing critical chance / severity / offense in those slots (probably crit chance/severity for maximum damage returns). There's tradeoffs here between getting great heals and generating aggro.

Conviction is of course boring, but it does have the 'heal around you' advantage which at least makes it thematic for you, so it's not quite so much 'and i took it because min-max' in this case. If lifedrain wasn't ranged, i'd almost recommend it over devour essence for similar reasons (AoE heal around you advantage), but you'd be dealing significantly less damage with it because it wouldn't get the full boost from enrage.