Power Armor Stats?

happygreenpotato

So I'm thinking about making a PW tank. What are good stats to pick? I'm thinking....

Prime: Con
Second: Ego/Dex

Or is End and Int better picks?

theravenforce

Primary INT
with

Ego and Con/End should do the trick, if you want something to go by I can suggest looking at Invincible AT, it's a pretty capable tank, I'd say and does decent damage.

Int is essential for the multiple slot powers you will most likely have as a PA tank.

happygreenpotato

Why would Int be good?

williamkony

You're most certainly going to want SOME sort of energy-related stat. Intelligence, Endurance, or Recovery. At least, if you plan to use more than one Power Armor ability at once.

I assume your intention is to use Ego to fuel Concentration and give ranged damage. Perhaps you could also take Force Shield with the Force Sheath advantage? I think that would help big time with energy concerns, and may even negate the need for changing your stats provided you can get enemies on you before they get on your allies. The energy gain from it scales off of Ego and, as far as I'm aware, has no cooldown. So, if you have a bunch of enemies attacking you at once, you'll basically be swimming in energy.

That said, you may still want to at least tack on some Endurance just in case, so that you don't run out of energy in-between enemy attacks. Power Armor abilities really chew through it all. I've got an Intelligence/Recovery/Endurance Power Armor character that uses Concentration, Overdrive, and Circle of Arcane Power all at once, and still uses energy faster than he can gain it. Granted, that character is still only at level 20 or so, but it's still a good indication of just how much energy you'll need for the power set.

If you want to stay away from Force Shield, you probably will have to switch out a stat or two. Which is hard, I'm sure. Constitution for health, possibly for Defiance effectiveness if that's the route you're going... Ego for Concentration and damage... And Dexterity for critical hits and perhaps dodge. I sure wouldn't want to change any of those out. XD Probably the least impactful change would be Ego for Intelligence, as you'll still get scaling on Concentration. It'd also make the Overdrive Energy Unlock a lot better.

s3rju

con int and rec would work.

m34nb34r2

You absolutely need int. If you're using overdrive, you also probably want rec, as you can get up to 15ish energy/tick/stack of overdrive with both int and rec superstats. If you want to tank, you need con too, and just gear for ego.

Int is practically a prerequisite for PA-ranged because ss int and energy discount equipment really help manage the energy penalty for using simultaneous powers. With int and rec and overdrive, you can always maintain 2 PA ranged powers simultaneously, without ever using the energy builder. Occasionally firing off a charged power if you get lock and load up.

William Kony's suggestion for using the advantage on the force block may work okay against groups, but doesn't give much energy against single big hitters. Still, you may have enough energy if you go int/con/ego with the adv. block and defiance to give you extra energy.

But at least one stat needs to be int for sure. I've tried going with primary rec and just discount gear; while 20 energy/tick/stack of overdrive sounds awesome, the penalty when using simultaneous powers wipes out that extra energy gain. I haven't tried all the powersets, but of those I've tried (munitions, ice, might, wind, electricity, infernal, gadgeteering, heavy weapon, 2blades and unarmed martial arts), PA-ranged is the most energy hungry set by far if you want to use more than one power at a time.

PA has what is for me a pretty significant weakness as a tank. It's awesome for DPS, but when tanking, you want to be able to quickly hit your emergency actives when you need them... and there's a lag between the time you shut off PA attacks and non-PA powers stop being locked out. Energy defense with phalanx shield and having the threat adv. on minigun and cc on the charged palm blast are quite nice though.

pugdaddy

Here's a cool trick I recently learned about: Take End as Primary Super Stat and max out the Kickback specialization. Take Wrist Bolter with Automated Assault advantage for your Hand slot. You should be able to run Wrist Bolter, Mini Guns, and Micro Munitions forever, or at least you'll never run out of energy even with 3 toggle slots going at once as long as you're using Wrist Bolters.
Since you're using lots of small fast attacks with this idea, I'd take Dex and possibly gear and/or Talent for some Ego.
So End with Dex/Con.
And occasionally throw in a Chest Beam for that Damage Resist debuff it gives opponent.
Concentration, maybe Orbital Canon with/ Anvil of Dawn, and you have a high damage toon. You probably will steal Threat so Field Surge, Reconstruction Circuits, and maybe Bionic Shielding are good ideas too. You know, Tank stuff.

m34nb34r2

I'm not a fan of the end/wrist bolter/auto assault combination. It does provide energy, but the damage on wrist bolter is so low, you're really just relying on micro munitions and minigun anyway, which can both already run forever with int/rec/overdrive. You'd have the advantage of dex for more criticals, but lose out on the lower cooldown and damage penetration spec of primary int.

As I don't run a PA tank, I guess this is more useful for a tank that needs con and invuln or defiance... I'm too slack to test the real numbers. My DPS PA builds use quarry so the int does double-duty with giving +80 ego from audacity, plus, not relying on wrist bolter means all my attacks are 100 foot range (tac. missiles/micro munitions/minigun). I have one PA build that's int/dex/rec with quarry and specced for avenger and guardian, and I love those occasional 5 stacks of avenger mastery for free, high speed tac. missiles. I have another that's int/con/rec for more survivability, but it's still quarry, with the fair game advantage (1200-1300 healing per killed mob).

Edit: there's one more reason why one might want to go int/con/rec for a PA tank. Revitalize specialization with the wrist bolter auto assault. This will let you bring down cooldowns drastically, allowing for almost permanent masterful dodge and your active offense of choice, as well as 3x bountiful chi resurgence. It's very clicky but you'd be nearly unkillable.

konru2

I suspect that a Con/Ego/Dex super stat with Defiance combination can work just as well on power armor as it would with a munitions, gadgeteering, elemental, dark, or infernal tank. The individual powers in the power armor framework aren't any weaker than what you will find in the other ranged frameworks. However, it is going to be a frustrating experience.

Dex/Ego is absolutely great for maximizing a single power's damage if energy is under control through some other means. But the strength of the power armor set is that you can use up to three attacks at the same time with the hand-shoulder-chest slot system. The big limit here is that you are still paying the energy and a premium for all three attacks. So there really is no such thing as too much energy for a power armor hero. It also makes it really hard to create a power armor that doesn't need to use the energy builder like many other players try to do with other frameworks.

Concentration is fueled by the better of ego and intelligence. At the same time, the energy unlock Overdrive is fueled by either endurance or intelligence. With with intelligence doing triple duty (and more), that stat is just too useful not to include it as at least a secondary. Beyond that, Endurance is still useful by itself for increasing your energy capacity, which improves how long you can keep a full assault going and how much energy your energy builder brings in. Recovery is also a really good idea as its natural bonus can double what all your energy sources can bring in, even from overdrive, concentration, and arcane circles. An Int/Rec/End DPS power armor may not have critical hits, but more than makes up for it with raw damage output, especially with Circle of Arcane Power. That stat combination would fail with anybody else, since they simply couldn't use the energy fast enough.

What I eventually did with my own power armor tank is a primary recovery then secondary intelligence and constitution. I chose Recovery to boost my energy income as much as I can and put a little extra into energy capacity with Staying Power and Well Rounded. Constitution is for hit points. Intelligence is for the reasons I just discussed.

Speaking of specializations, I highly recommend hybrid role with the bulwark specialization instead of messing with tank role. Reconstruction Circuits can do a spectacular job at keeping you alive with some bonus healing behind it, and it won't prevent you from continuing to draw attention with tactical missiles and the minigun.

I'm sure you'll have fun with it.

williamkony

I just remembered a Power Armor tank build I saw earlier! Not sure it's what you're going for, but it might give some ideas.

http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=2298711&postcount=17

I'm sure if you loaded Micro Munitions, Mini Gun, and Plasma Beam all at once with Challenging Strikes, there'd be nothing that could contend with your Threat generation.

hubrix

I wouldn't bother with Reconstruction Circuits, the heal isn't anything special and increases the cost of your other slots. Using CON as a primary SS with Adrenalin Rush, Plasma Beam and the usual 30% or so crit you'll have at 40 from gear would work better. Getting 2% of your health each time you crit along with an attack that ticks 10 times per second should be enough to top up most incidental damage.

As for using END as a primary and using Bolter's advantage, you essentially lose your hand slot which may very well be PA's most powerful slot. For tanks, that means losing Plasma Beam's 10 ticks per second of Challenging Strikes and DPS essentially losses access to Avenger Mastery.

monsterdaddy

hubrix wrote: »

I wouldn't bother with Reconstruction Circuits, the heal isn't anything special and increases the cost of your other slots. Using CON as a primary SS with Adrenalin Rush, Plasma Beam and the usual 30% or so crit you'll have at 40 from gear would work better. Getting 2% of your health each time you crit along with an attack that ticks 10 times per second should be enough to top up most incidental damage.

As for using END as a primary and using Bolter's advantage, you essentially lose your hand slot which may very well be PA's most powerful slot. For tanks, that means losing Plasma Beam's 10 ticks per second of Challenging Strikes and DPS essentially losses access to Avenger Mastery.

Adrenaline Rush only procs once every 3 seconds for exactly 2% of Max Health. That's a much smaller heal than RC.

hubrix

monsterdaddy wrote: »

Adrenaline Rush only procs once every 3 seconds for exactly 2% of Max Health. That's a much smaller heal than RC.

Adrenaline Rush's internal CD seems to be 1 sec, not 3. And considering most tanks walk around with more than 12k health, it shouldn't be a problem to easily match Reconstruction Circuit's heal. You save a power option, advantage points, energy wasted from having it on and the damage/threat lost from using up your chest slot. If you need to supplement Adrenaline Rush, you can just take the less restrictive BCR+RR.

chalupaoffury

rc's not bad, but I prefer having faster clickies I can just pop off. It really helps the msa, too. But, I feel like overdrive might actually be the most useless energy unlock in the game right now. I prefer unlocks like msa that let me start the fight with full energy, and regain it at the drop of a hat. Not a half a maintain later.

Also, 100% agreed on Con/Int/something else. I prefer pre for threat/self heals, then secondary slotting rec up for alphas or dex up for a bit more dodge chance/crit chance. Kony, a cool suggestion for that? chest beam/mini/micromuni/plasma. fire up the mini, tap chest beam, fire up the muni, turn off the mini, then start up with the plasma. Debuffs seem to draw threat, too, definitely at the least because you're now doing more damage to add to your numbers. Chest beam/minigun together is a hell of a nice debuff with the advantage. Untoggling mini actually gives it a small cooldown, which procs msa and feeds you energy for the plasma/muni bombardment. Might as well put out more dps while you're drawing threat, too, right? I know the rest of the party appreciates it, and I find debuffs to be one of the more solid ways to ensure you're putting out decent damage in tank mode. I actually started this character (granted, pre alert) with that exact setup. It worked then, it'd probably rock even harder now.

Main reason I suggest going con instead of int for primary, tho, is for spec trees. The con spec tree is way more handy for a tank, especially a pa tank, than int is. If you're building invul dodge, considering that you're gonna be pumping a lot into int anyway, deflection gives a decent little boost that has a small chance of negating those big hits that invuln's always been shaky on. The extra hp sure helps with that, too. Not to mention the possibility of extra knock/hold resist, if you go that route. Every tank can use that.

hubrix

As far as I know, MSA no longer works with PA toggles. Overdrive is quite powerful as long as you have REC so if you take it as an energy unlock, you're effectively stuck with CON/INT/REC as your SS.

chalupaoffury

That's new. PA does have a .5 or so cooldown when you untoggle, it makes sense that it'd proc then.

Although, I still think I prefer MSA. As a tank, especially, you're blowing enough clickies that it's not like you'll be hurting for chances to proc it.

monsterdaddy

hubrix wrote: »

Adrenaline Rush's internal CD seems to be 1 sec, not 3. And considering most tanks walk around with more than 12k health, it shouldn't be a problem to easily match Reconstruction Circuit's heal. You save a power option, advantage points, energy wasted from having it on and the damage/threat lost from using up your chest slot. If you need to supplement Adrenaline Rush, you can just take the less restrictive BCR+RR.

Just tested this in PH. Used Plasma Fury and Ego Surge w/Adv to make sure I had close to 100% crit. I also took CON's regen spec to use as my 3 sec timer.

Adrenaline Rush is definitely proc'ing more than once every 3 secs and it seems pretty close to 1 per second. Hmm, something to consider. (But RC is still useful since you can heal while blocking.)

konru2

Oh my! Did I accidentally derail a thread with one of my comments? Yay! Well...

I do have a level 40 that uses Lightning Reflexes as a passive. Going into the power catalog and reading off some of the rank 1 powers:

Reconstruction Circuits: 412 hp/s.
Conviction: 1100 hp click with 3.7s cooldown.
Bountiful Chi Resurgence: 244 hp every 2s
Arcane Vitality: 282 hp / 0.5 seconds maintained. (564/s)

My numbers are high, but that's partly because I have an Int/Dex/Rec build on this hero and Heroic Gloves of Healing with a rank 6 Sentinel's brooch inside for an extra 54% healing. That's an overall total of 110% healing bonus between that, stats, and a 5-star bonus.

Rank 2 is 20% better than rank 1, and rank 3 is 20% better than rank 2. So, if I were to estimate how much hit points is necessary for Adrenaline Rush to be equal to rank 3 of one of these active powers if it has an internal 1s cooldown, I get numbers between 24,000 for Conviction to 30,000 for Reconstruction Circuits. I'm not all that convinced that slotting all your gear for nothing but constitution is that good of an idea, even if you get to keep the chest slot for micro munitions.

Conviction just doesn't look like it's going to happen. Hitting it every 4 seconds is a lot harder when you have the mini-gun and micro-munitions locking out all your non-slot powers. Sure you can use block to stop everything in order to stop the lockout. But that's going to be annoying doing it every 4 seconds.

Resurgent Reiki on Bountiful Chi actually does work well. That 244 extra with every dodge with a mere 0.5s cooldown is a lot like having an invisible, untargetable mage using Arcane Vitality on you constantly. That is as long as you continue to dodge attacks. Evasive Maneuvers rank 3 is a must have, so you are spending two powers and no less than 6 advantage points to get that healing. Don't forget the dodge gear for your defensive slots. Fortunately, the 12 second duration of Evasive Maneuvers does give you some time to get off a full maintain or two between refreshes of that and Bountiful Chi. Unfortunately, it's going to cost you 10% of your damage output on top of all those power and advantage points spent.

Reconstruction Circuits fits right into the slot system as a chest slot. So at least the mini-gun won't lock it out, and you still have your choice of power gauntlet and tactical missiles for crippling challenge and damage while the reconstruction is running. It's energy cost is also half of what micro-munitions draws. So while DPS does suffer a little without the micro-munitions and critical-hit gear, it's still plenty of threat for drawing aggro with. At least for me, the ability to be my own healer if the alert queue matches me with 4 archetype DPS is just priceless.

I might have to try the Plasma Beam trick out sometime on the test server. If there isn't a cooldown on that 2% healing, it sounds deliciously exploitable.

hubrix

konru2 wrote: »

I might have to try the Plasma Beam trick out sometime on the test server. If there isn't a cooldown on that 2% healing, it sounds deliciously exploitable.

There is. I guess my first post does imply that there isn't but what I meant was that since Plasma Beam ticks alot, it's pretty much guaranteed to proc on cooldown (which is about 1/sec) when combined with the crit you get from gear at 40.

sturmwolf65

Can anybody explain me why wiki recommends Strength as a Superstat for Power Armor?
It's clear for concept reason, but is their any gamemechanic worth going for STR?

beldin

sturmwolf65 wrote: »

Can anybody explain me why wiki recommends Strength as a Superstat for Power Armor?
It's clear for concept reason, but is their any gamemechanic worth going for STR?

Maybe Knock Resistance .. if it works .. else STR only makes sense when you use enrage.

sturmwolf65

Sure...no one likes to be knocked around...but is that reason alone worth the SS-choice?

beldin

sturmwolf65 wrote: »

Sure...no one likes to be knocked around...but is that reason alone worth the SS-choice?

At least not for me. And when i see how problematic energy management with PA is, and
i normally also want CON and maybe EGO for ranged Damage .. i don't see how STR would
fit in a PA build. Maybe its a relic of the old Rage of Majesty builds.

konru2

sturmwolf65 wrote: »

Can anybody explain me why wiki recommends Strength as a Superstat for Power Armor?
It's clear for concept reason, but is their any gamemechanic worth going for STR?

Since the changes in preparation for archetypes and free to play, almost everything now scales up with your superstats, with the only real exceptions being Defiance and the various form powers. However that didn't used to be the case.

Closer to when Champions was first released as a subscription game, a lot more specific powers was tied to specific stats. The flat damage reduction of Invulnerability used to be tied to strength, while the extra resistance was tied to constitution. So at the time, Str/Int made perfect sense in that you wanted Str for Invulnerability's defense and Int to reduce the energy costs of your toggle powers. But that is no longer the case. Invulnerability and other slotted passives (with the one exception in Defiance) now scale up on whatever you choose for your super-stats.

The Str/Int recommendation on the Wiki is simply outdated. It may still be there as recorded history. But the fact is a lot of the Wiki's pages have not been updated in some time. Don't worry too much about it.

beldin

Ah yeah .. the old Invul scaling on STR thing .. at that time i also simply took Defiance
since i liked CON much more than STR.

sturmwolf65

konru2 wrote: »

Closer to when Champions was first released as a subscription game, a lot more specific powers was tied to specific stats. The flat damage reduction of Invulnerability used to be tied to strength, while the extra resistance was tied to constitution. So at the time, Str/Int made perfect sense in that you wanted Str for Invulnerability's defense and Int to reduce the energy costs of your toggle powers. But that is no longer the case.

Ok...that is the answer I searched.
It made sense back in the days...but not anymore...very sad...I liked the idea of a POWER armor to be superstrong.
:rolleyes:

m34nb34r2

If they ever expand the PA melee powers some more so it's not just a few laser sword attacks, there might some day be a return to strength for PA =P

What I'd really like though is for the PA melee powers to also be slot-based; you could have a chest power that launches little buzzsaw drones that hover within 10 feet (and only do damage within 10 feet), and a shoulder power that fires glue (cone, 10 feet) which slows enemies and adds chance to miss, while using laser sword attacks for the hand slot. One of the laser sword attacks should be a maintain too--a combo that goes on automatically while it's toggled, since presumably it's your computer that's controlling the attack.

beldin

m34nb34r2 wrote: »

If they ever expand the PA melee powers some more so it's not just a few laser sword attacks, there might some day be a return to strength for PA =P

STR still only make sense with Enrage, and enrage need annoying knockback. So even
with PA Melee you could better go DEX with Form of the Tempest.

monsterdaddy

Just wanted to add another option for non-Defiance PA tanks. I tried out various combos and found PSS EGO with CON and REC to be surprisingly useful (I also topped up END to 30). Ego's ranged cost reduction was a fairly decent substitute for INT cost reduction but I got a lot more Defense, Crit and Severity too. Over 10K HP from CON rank 5 x 5.

Probably will tweak it further but really decent DPS and heals from RC in Hybrid mode. With Plasma Beam, I almost have Locus Eruption running 90% of the time.