Tanking Vindicator & Strength Tree Question

insaneyack

I was wondering, when making a might based tank, would it make sense to choose Aggression instead of physical peak from the strength tree and modified gear instead of Mass Destruction from the Vindicator tree? From testing this out, I don't think the cost discount is needed with mid level int and defiance. The area cyclone attack kind of sucks dps wise, so I was thinking instead of shooting for 4% crit maybe boost offense instead.

I created the following build to test this concept but it is difficult to parse numbers out of the combat log. Sooo... If anyone knows which would be better, that would save me a ton of time smashing my head against my keyboard.


PowerHouse (Link to this build)

Name:

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Intelligence (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: The Devastator
Level 6: Physical Conditioning
Level 9: Body and Mind
Level 12: Relentless
Level 15: Healthy Mind
Level 18: Quick Recovery
Level 21: Covert Ops Training

Powers:
Level 1: Clobber
Level 1: Defensive Combo (Rank 2, Crippling Challenge)
Level 6: Defiance
Level 8: Iron Cyclone (Rank 2, Vortex Technique, Challenging Strikes)
Level 11: Enrage (Endorphin Rush, Giant Growth)
Level 14: Haymaker (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 17: Unleashed Rage (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 20: Pounce
Level 23: Molecular Self-Assembly
Level 26: Conviction (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 29: Ebon Void (Rank 2, Voracious Darkness)
Level 32: Resurgence (Rank 2)
Level 35: Masterful Dodge
Level 38: Energy Wave (Rank 2, Reverse Polarity)

Travel Powers:
Level 6: Athletics (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Power Flight

Specializations:
Strength: Swole (3/3)
Strength: Aggression (2/2)
Strength: Brutality (2/2)
Strength: Juggernaut (2/3)
Strength: Overpower (1/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Guardian: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Guardian: Ruthless (2/2)
Guardian: Tenacious (2/2)
Guardian: The Best Defense (3/3)
Mastery: Strength Mastery (1/1)

carrionbaggage

I think you've got the right idea.

A lot of the pros and cons depend on your gear. Aggression and Modified Gear are dependent on Offense boosts from gear, and in my opinion you'll get more benefit gearing for Critical Strike rather than Offense in a build like this. But if you have the set bonus from Justice gear, Aggression and Modified Gear can still offer a decent Offense boost. And if you're geared for INT and Cost Discount, Physical Peak would be hitting significant diminishing returns. I also agree that Mass Destruction is skippable in a build that specializes in single-target attacks.

So basically, what gear/mods do you intend to use?


Your build looks good, by the way. One minor thing I would do is talent for additional END rather than REC. When you're at level 40 with your final gear, you only really need enough equilibrium to fire Conviction, which can trigger MSA and let you idle with a full energy bar. The extra bit of END gives you a larger tank to hold the sporadic spikes of energy from Defiance.

insaneyack

carrionbaggage wrote: »

So basically, what gear/mods do you intend to use?

End game justice gear, I was thinking of the following:
Justice Mask of Efficiency (Con/INT/Cost Discount X2)
Justice Tights of Fitness (Con X2/Defense X2)
Justice Gloves of Precision (Str X2/Off X2)

carrionbaggage wrote: »

Your build looks good, by the way. One minor thing I would do is talent for additional END rather than REC. When you're at level 40 with your final gear, you only really need enough equilibrium to fire Conviction, which can trigger MSA and let you idle with a full energy bar. The extra bit of END gives you a larger tank to hold the sporadic spikes of energy from Defiance.

That makes a ton of sense, thanks carrionbaggage!

carrionbaggage

When spamming charged Haymakers, you'll only get an Enrage energy return every other Haymaker. You can smooth this out by adding a Defensive Combo after each Haymaker, but you'll lose a chunk of damage by doing so. Something that I encounter frequently is: Haymaker (full charge; enemy beats you up while charging)>Conviction. In a STR/CON/INT build with around 110 maximum energy and unreliable Defiance timing, I find that this frequently reduces the energy low enough that you don't regain enough to immediately fire another full-charge Haymaker.

What's your concept for this character? I'm not sure if it will fit, but my favorite energy setup for a Haymaker-Defiance build is STR/CON/END with Thermal Reverberation and Flashfire. The extra max energy goes a long way in stabilizing your blue bar with Defiance, and Flashfire gives a respectable energy return even if you don't gear for additional END (just using talents and the superstat bonus). It's also fairly low-maintenance; you can squeeze in 6-7 Haymakers before refreshing Flashfire. That build might look something like this: STR/CON/END variant

I geared it like this:

Justice Precision (STR, STR, Depleted Uranium Core, Gambler's Gem)
Justice Fitness (CON, CON, Avoidance Core, Impact Prism)
Justice Speed (CON, CON, Gambler's Gem, Impact Prism)
Vigilante secondaries (Critical...though Rejuvinating *typo* has its merits too, Blostering *another typo*, Efficient)

If the DUC is too pricy, I'd probably lean toward a Sentinel's Brooch, as the benefits from other mod choices would be hitting heavy diminishing returns. The Avoidance Core might seem like an odd choice, but in my opinion it's more useful than an Impact Prism with Masterful Dodge in the build. I would aim for a Rank 4 or 5.

And the numbers looked like this (I went with 3 points in Juggernaut):

+19% damage from Offense
+93% resistance from Defense
26.3% crit chance
18% per Defiance stack

I tried to mimic your build on the PTS. I assumed you were aiming for Vigilante secondaries. I got these numbers:

+25% damage from Offense
+100% resistance from Defense.
~23.2% crit chance, with Overpower's bonus
17% (rounded tooltip, bleh) per Defiance stack

Comparing this with your setup, and using the tooltip values for theorycrafting, both builds have similar resistance (a 1% difference), and I found the cooldown reduction was roughly similar as well. The rebuilt version loses a 6% damage bonus from Offense, but makes up for it with a higher crit chance (which also applies to Conviction/Resurgence) and the DUC's resistance penetration.

While maximizing Offense through gear and specs does have its merits, in my opinion it gives a rather minor bonus to overall damage and damage reduction when you're already stacking critical severity and resistance. To me, the modding alternatives (Gambler's +critical strike and DUC's penetration) are more desirable.

Physical Peak is very useful in the STR/CON/END variant. But even if you do decide to stick with STR/CON/INT and are comfortable with your current build's energy balance, Physical Peak's extra cost discount can give you room to gear for more Cooldown Reduction instead of Cost Discount. With two Active Defenses in the build, I would consider that more beneficial than a slight Offense/Defense boost from Aggression.

insaneyack

Thanks to the test server being up during maintenance I was able to try out your build suggestion.

I didn't have any depleted cores, or avoidance cores so I just did this:

Justice Precision (STR, STR, Gambler's Gem, Gambler's Gem)
Justice Fitness (CON, CON, Impact Prism, Impact Prism)
Justice Speed (CON, CON, Gambler's Gem, Impact Prism)


I then tested it out in the battle station, and I never ran out of energy. I tested with the smallest groups and the largest groups. I was able to defeat the smaller groups so quickly that I was only able to get flash fire off in two of the three fights. Even so, I never ran out of energy.

I then tested out the concept of consecutive haymakers against a target dummy. I was able to land many many haymakers without interruption.

I then kept the gear slotted as above and swapped into STR/CON/INT stats and I took the physical peak advantage instead of aggression. The battle station fights went fine, no real energy issues with max or min opponents. When I went to the target dummy, I could get off three consecutive haymakers before running out of energy. Even when cycling in a pounce, my energy was definitely running low.

As far as concepts, the character is a walking time bomb of destructive energy. While I like the explosive appearance of Energy Wave, I think flash fire can fit in just fine.

Thanks for the help!

carrionbaggage

I'm glad the Flashfire variant fits your concept. Sounds like a fun character.

If you want to shoehorn Energy Wave back in (I agree that it looks really good on a walking bomb character), you could probably drop Resurgence. In my experience, the only times a resistance-stacked Defiance tank needs more healing than Conviction and Endorphin Rush are against Gravitar and Frosticus. You'll need a heal-heavy teammate for Frosticus anyway, and Gravitar should be manageable with careful blocking. If you do decide to drop Resurgence and rely on Conviction alone for click-healing, you could consider swapping a Gambler's Gem in your primary offense gear for a Sentinel's Brooch, and/or the Vig Crit Belt for a Vig Rejuvenating Belt. A Necrullitic Elixir device is a handy healing supplement, if it's within your price range.

On the PTS, The Debugger sells an Avoidance Core 5, if you want to see how it compares to the Impact Prism.


*Quick Edit* With a high health total and limited self-healing, moving 2 points from Modified Gear into The Rush of Battle is a nice quality-of-life boost during alerts and missions. You would lose a bit of Offense, but it's worth consideration.

flowcyto

Keep in mind, w/ regards to dropping Resurgence and such, ya still have health pack devices ya can fall back on. Usually for me Resurgence mostly saves me the trouble of using health packs on FFs, but if ya get in the habit of using them (which ya will if ya play ATs :x) they can be handy for the odd patch-up. CDR on gear affects health pack cds ala powers. Would also be a good idea to hotkey them on the device tray, if ya haven't already.

Anyways, not much else to add to the build since it looks pretty good.

I then kept the gear slotted as above and swapped into STR/CON/INT stats and I took the physical peak advantage instead of aggression. The battle station fights went fine, no real energy issues with max or min opponents. When I went to the target dummy, I could get off three consecutive haymakers before running out of energy. Even when cycling in a pounce, my energy was definitely running low.

Ya may be fine for energy in the last case, as Defiance builds can't really get a full gauge on that vs. target dummies alone. It may be an issue if ur not holding threat, but Defense Combo is the tool for snap aggro so I dun think that will be too much of a problem in practice.

carrionbaggage

flowcyto wrote: »

CDR on gear affects health pack cds ala powers.

I'm curious which devices you mean. It was my understanding that vendor-bought healing devices (Healing Patches and such) were all on a linear (top-to-bottom gray bar) cooldown; which are all fixed at a specific recharge time, even though the time on the tooltip incorrectly shows otherwise.

I'd be very interested in finding a restockable healing device influenced by cooldown reduction.

flowcyto

carrionbaggage wrote: »

I'm curious which devices you mean. It was my understanding that vendor-bought healing devices (Healing Patches and such) were all on a linear (top-to-bottom gray bar) cooldown; which are all fixed at a specific recharge time, even though the time on the tooltip incorrectly shows otherwise.

I'd be very interested in finding a restockable healing device influenced by cooldown reduction.

Your prob right there, so my bad. Regardless, I'd still keep em in good stock if ur dropping something like Resurgence.

edit: yeah just quickly tested and timed it; they are indeed a top-down cd style, and thus not affected.

insaneyack

carrionbaggage wrote: »

If you want to shoehorn Energy Wave back in (I agree that it looks really good on a walking bomb character), you could probably drop Resurgence. In my experience, the only times a resistance-stacked Defiance tank needs more healing than Conviction and Endorphin Rush are against Gravitar and Frosticus.

Yeah I was kinda sad to see Energy Wave go, it was more of a 'tack' on super power at the end there but it added a little flair I think. I will drop resurgence, I only ever used it on Gravitar anyway so I don't think its a major loss. I have several of the Heroic Resonance but those are all on the same cool down and can only be used like once every hour and a half. I will look into buying a Necrullitic Elixir device or maybe using some drifter salvage to buy some old devices and hope I get lucky.

carrionbaggage wrote: »

On the PTS, The Debugger sells an Avoidance Core 5, if you want to see how it compares to the Impact Prism.

Cool! I will find the debugger and get one of those!

carrionbaggage wrote: »

With a high health total and limited self-healing, moving 2 points from Modified Gear into The Rush of Battle is a nice quality-of-life boost during alerts and missions. You would lose a bit of Offense, but it's worth consideration.

You know it's funny that I started this thread wondering if throwing points into offense advantages would be a good choice, and I am ending the thread removing the points from modified gear and aggression. I think I got my answer though, as with all things it is situational, but it sounds like those advantages do not overtly impact the effectiveness of a character.

Thanks for all your help carrionbaggage

Thanks Flowcyto I will be sure to keep stacks of those healing patches on me.