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The TANKER Remake Build Thread
ringwashere
Posts: 38 Arc User
Remembering a character from a different game, and trying to recreate that hero in Millenium City? Look No Further! Champions are posting their builds for their conversions right here!!!!
(go ahead, post them builds!)
(go ahead, post them builds!)
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Post edited by ringwashere on
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Did found some basic sets that go with if you choose of the 4 elements (lightning reflex with parry, invun..thing and defiance with Energy shield, although force and telekinetic might work too?), havent found anything yet for regen. Defiance seem to scale with Con, while Invun and reflex scales with the superstat.
Only one i dont understand is personal force field, basicly that thing runs dry once u get way too much hits in a row?
The slotted passives might focus on 1 element but it's still better to work on a good damage mitigation for a tank build.
Have a look into the blocks for that (Parry, Energy Shield).
Usually a tank has 1 or 2 active defenses and a self-heal.
The active defense i just call 'clickies', they more like panic buttons then 'active'. 15sec duration on a 1,5 min cooldown, thats not really active.
Some of the mechanics are quite different, resistance is no where near the same (90% resist means 10% damage, while here its like 52% damage), other hands avoidance is raw damage reduction. Its like running SR with 90% resist, only when you dont dodge, there is no damage mitigation to fall back on.
-Damage Resistance: This reduces incoming damage by a percentage. Defiance is the poster-child here, but Invuln has damage resistance as well. The +Defense stat from gear and specializations also works like Damage Resistance. Block (and the slotted block powers) grant you high damage resistance for as long as you hold the block (and sometimes for a bit afterwards, if you're using Force Shield or Telekinetic Shield). Ebon Void with its advantage gets you pretty high damage resistance as well
-Dodge: This is a chance (dodge %) to apply massive damage resistance (avoid %) to incoming hits. This also can feed into healing, with the Resurgent Reiki advantage on Bountiful Chi Resurgence. You can get dodge and avoid on gear (and most people do at 40, as it's the best defensive option available on the Primary Defense gear)
-Healing: This heals you. Regen is a passive that gets you always-on healing, but there are many self-heal and heal-others-that-can-include-yourself heals. Standouts for self-healing are Conviction, Bionic Shielding, Reconstructive Circuits and Bountiful Chi Resurgence. Empathic Healing is the best of the targeted heals.
-Flat Damage Reduction: This is on Invulnerability and Inertial Dampening Field. It reduces incoming damage by a set amount, on every hit, but can't lower it past 1. So with Damage Reduction of 100, a hit for 100 becomes a hit for 1. A hit for 200 becomes a hit for 100. A hit for 1000 becomes a hit for 900. A hit for 10000 becomes a hit for 9900. As you can see, it scales better with a lot of fast, weak hits. Luckily, that's what most of the enemies in the game (henchmen, villains and about anything that's not an Alert/Lair/Cosmic boss) will throw at you.
-Shielding: Personal Force Field grants you a regenerative shield, but its shield can be outdone by the combined shielding of Protection Field and Mindful Reinforcement, if you build to handle the extreme energy cost. Or, you could make a healer friend and have them spam bubbles on you. It's not practical to build a self-healing tank that also spams MR/PF, as you won't have enough energy or time to keep threat very well.
With the above mentioned, you should know that it's possible to layer these different defenses together, and most people that have the option (Freeforms, generally) do.
One piece of the above, alone, isn't going to do much for your continued survival (resistance can get worn down by small hits if you don't have some way to stem the continued HP loss, reduction can be spiked through, healing can be spiked through or disabled with the Trauma debuff, Dodge can be subject to bad luck, shielding can be quickly worn down, etc).
So layering defenses is the way to go. With that in mind, I'd suggest picking a defensive passive that gets you something you can't easily get from other sources:
-Self-healing is available through powers (Conviction, BCR, Devour Essence, etc). Regeneration is a bit of a waste in the passive slot (as other passives give better mitigation and healing is plentiful), but it can still be made into a tank.
-Dodge is available through gear (Get a Heroic Breastplate of Agility that gives you avoidance, slot in Gambler's Lucky Gems for dodge chance) and powers (Masterful Dodge is the best active defense in the game). A dodge-based tank with Lightning Reflexes can have the highest mitigation in the game, but it requires some upkeep (mainly by spamming powers that give flat dodge/avoid boosts, like Evasive Maneuvers). I'm not going to suggest it here as it takes a bit to get used to, but that in no way means it isn't good.
-Shielding is a bit too situational for general tank usage, though some people do tank with PFF (usually by adding a healthy helping of dodge/avoid)
-Flat Damage Reduction can trivialize the vast majority of enemy encounters you face (everything but lair bosses and cosmics). Given that its main source (Invuln) also has hefty damage resistance, this is a pretty good choice. Inertial Dampening Field can also give Flat Damage Reduction, but it means you aren't using a damage toggle (as it's mutually-exclusive with the damage toggles).
-Damage Resistance is great against really big hits, but there are less really big hits in the game than small hits. Of course, those really big hits can be enough to ruin your day, but I've yet to run into something in the game that a combination of Invuln and a block power can't handle.
That leaves you with two real choices, Defiance or Invulnerability.
I lean towards Invulnerability, personally. Stack it with a block power (Ebon Void works well here with the advantage, though there are other good options), dodge from gear/Masterful Dodge and self-heals, and you can tank anything in the game without too much trouble.
Defiance can also do quite well, and will have an easier time against stuff like Gravitar, at the cost of having to pay attention everywhere else.
When I get home from work, I'll post some example builds. But for anyone looking to ease into CO tanking, I highly suggest the 'Invuln + self-heals + dodge/avoid gear + masterful dodge + slotted block power of your choice' route. I like Ebon Void, Force Shield with Force Sheathe or Retaliation, personally.
Not to say you can't build a working tank with any of the other available options, but that does the best job at grabbing a piece of all the options.
He probably called 'em Active Defenses because that's the in-game term. They're like CoX's defensive clickies, though.
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The user formerly known as Dr. Sage.
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One thing i did notice in CO, beyond CoH, you can basicly make anything work. Grab the tank basics (as mentioned) and toss in any offensive set you would like. Electricity, heavy weapon or ice, it all can work.
But as i saw the templates of the tanks (AT?), isnt your choice of Defiance or Invuln based on your superstat? I believe Defiance only get boosted by Con, so going Defiance while taking End or Int as superstat is a bad idea? I believe the powerarmor AT takes End (or int?) as superstat instead of Con, as they are taking invuln, wich scales on superstat.
So in short, i could basicly do:
take dodge/evasion powers with defense (resistance) gear
take resistance powers with dodge/evasion gear
Both i assume could be equaly viable? Based on those 2 settings, i'll try to rebuild some of the AT's from CoH.
One with Invulnerability and the other one with Regeneration.
My Invulnerability tank is currently having 380 defense which gives 90% damage resistance. The Invulnerability is having 170 flat damage reduction and 70% damage resistance. This figure seems very nice towards most of the regular monsters but it is very ineffective against Gravitar cause her damage is far more superior and can go up even more when she is below 1/3 hp. So, I added Masterful Dodge, Resurgence and Conviction. Masterful dodge is the key to survive Gravitar for this tank.
My Regeneration tank is doing pretty well against all monsters due to the great self healing from the passive defense even though it only gives 30% damage resistance it can go down from time to time after taking continuous hits. As Resurgence heals me for 6k++ and also increase the self heal from Regeneration, my tank survive very well even against Gravitar. I am pretty sure if my tank have higher rank of mods or Legion Gears, I will be able to solo Gravitar when everyone else is down and no resser.
The Active Defense only works for 15 seconds because of the Intelligence mechanism. The higher the Intelligence you have, the lower the recharge time your active defense you have. Some players are having active defense with 30 seconds recharge time and they are only using heroic gears and not rank 9 mods. Moreover, active defense like Masterful Dodge greatly increase your dodge chance and avoidance, if it function for longer, it will be no chance at all for a mob or even group of tough mobs to kill you which will make the game dull as it will become too easy.
Im still too low to understand the whole slotting and higher gear (though i found some stuff about prefixes, that helps alot), i only got 1 item so far that could be slotted.
When you reach level 40 everything will be easier. At level 40 you can do UNITY missions to earn silver champion recognition. By using this currency you can buy heroic gears in which their names appear in purple colour and they have 3 slots for you. 2 slots for superstat mods and one slot for defense/offense/critical chance/dodge, etc mods.
While at level 40, you can get more higher rank mods by killing level 40 monsters.
Now just to stop making alts and focus on 1 character for a while
You can have a good tank build but be unable to keep Threat from the DPSers.
Lightning Arc and Assault Rifle are good ranged Maintains that can take the Crippling Challenge advantage.
Smart DPSers can build for survivability, though, so you don't have to worry as much about your blasters going splat.
And since OP asked for builds, here's two of mine! Neither are at 40, though, so feel free to critique if I'm off somewhere.
Rose Wonder, your typical Golden Age supergirl. Defensive Combo is your bread and butter, your other attacks are there to clear trash, build/maintain Enrage, and the odd Demolish to drop damage resistance. With enough Enrage you should be able to hold aggro as long as the crits fall your way, but I haven't tested at 40 to be sure. With Invuln, a ton of defense, and dodge/avoidance gear, you'll be a hard hero to drop.
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name: Rose Wonder
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Recovery (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: The Savage
Level 6: Martial Focus
Level 9: Acrobat
Level 12: Impresario
Level 15: Physical Conditioning
Level 18: Relentless
Level 21: Quick Recovery
Powers:
Level 1: Clobber
Level 1: Defensive Combo (Rank 2, Crippling Challenge)
Level 6: Roomsweeper (Rank 2)
Level 8: Invulnerability (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Enrage
Level 14: Aggressor (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 17: Uppercut (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 20: Mighty Leap (Nailed to the Ground)
Level 23: Molecular Self-Assembly
Level 26: Resurgence (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 29: Shockwave (Rank 2, Rank 3, Challenging Strikes)
Level 32: Demolish (Rank 2, Below the Belt)
Level 35: Retaliation
Level 38: Imbue
Travel Powers:
Level 6: Flight (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Athletics
Specializations:
Strength: Physical Peak (3/3)
Strength: Aggression (2/2)
Strength: Brutality (2/2)
Strength: Juggernaut (3/3)
Warden: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Warden: Slaughter (2/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Mastery: Strength Mastery (1/1)
T-34, the tank of tanks. Gatling Gun is your alpha and your omega. I haven't tested if it can hold aggro without a crippling challenge, I'm thinking that with enough high-severity crits it shouldn't be a problem but I could be wrong.
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name: T-34
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Ego (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Intelligence (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: The Invincible
Level 6: Acrobat
Level 9: Coordinated
Level 12: Shooter
Level 15: Healthy Mind
Level 18: Ascetic
Level 21: Academics
Powers:
Level 1: Wrist Bolter
Level 1: Tactical Missiles (Rank 2, Blast Radius)
Level 6: Invulnerability (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 8: Concentration
Level 11: Overdrive
Level 14: Gatling Gun (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 17: Lock N Load (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 20: Unbreakable (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 23: Shoulder Launcher (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 26: Energy Shield (Rank 2, Phalanx Defense System)
Level 29: Resurgence (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 32: Entangling Mesh
Level 35: Evasive Maneuvers
Level 38: Orbital Cannon
Travel Powers:
Level 6: Jet Pack (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Athletics (Rank 2)
Specializations:
Ego: Force of Will (2/2)
Ego: Insight (1/3)
Ego: Aggression (2/2)
Ego: Follow Through (3/3)
Ego: Sixth Sense (2/3)
Guardian: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Guardian: Ruthless (2/2)
Guardian: Tenacious (2/2)
Guardian: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Vindicator: Mass Destruction (3/3)
Mastery: Ego Mastery (1/1)
Don't let that discourage you, just warning you that it will require a bit more work than you're used to.
This.
One of my biggest things to overcome when I first started playing CO...was how "tanking" is so different.
VARIANT
"Nearly all men can withstand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
-Abraham Lincoln-
I would argue that the game doesn't care what you use to accomplish a mission, but it's the players that have largely abandoned the classic roles as a mean of staying successful both as soloists, pvpers, and in PuGs necessitated by a community that expects that that level of ability per character. Maybe it stemmed from the beginning when trying to fill a role required more knowledge and instruction than was available.
Just as you build a highly effective swiss army knife of a character, you can build a swiss army knife of a team using discrete and purpose built elements. My wager is that between a team of awesome tank-mages and a team of specialists, the latter would be more fun to be in, even if they weren't necessarily more effective (although I wonder about that too).
The fact is, when everyone can do everything well enough, it gets a little boring not having to rely on anyone or be relied on. I believe that most of the recent CoH transplants will be pursuing that feeling.
Anyway, this thread is about rebuilding your CoH Tanker, whether or not you attempt to fill that role in a team that cares about roles being filled.
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To be somewhat tankish all you really need is Masterful Dodge and decent Dodge/Avoid gear. And to self heal all you really need is either Bountiful Chi Resurgence or Conviction. Maybe both to be really safe. With the remaining 11-12 powers you can be just as specialized as an AT, since that's the same amount of powers they get.
It's not quite as great as it seems. +90% Resistance under Cryptic Math:
1-[1/(1+DR)] = 1-[1/(1+.9)] = 47% actual damage resistance
My Defiance Tank has +79% resistance from gear, and +108% resistance from Defiance, so:
1-[1/(1+1.87)]= 65% actual resistance
CoH was a bit simpler for building insane tanks.
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
There are talents that increase defense from gear, increase SS (thus increase defensive passive), eventualy DR kicks in, but also armor penetration.
CoH was pretty straight forward and combined with combatnumbers it was very easy to wrap up a solid list on your tank.
Kinda funny now that you look back, their mechanics were actualy very solid and transparant, putting down the numbers was pretty easy.
How would CoH have differed if it had 2 sets of players. One set, was free to play (silver), and those toons were all the options that were available to CoH. The other set of players, subscribers (gold), could make toons with powers from ANYTHING as long as they were high enough level to open them up.
What kind of insane toons could you make with that? I'm sure you could make things that would make the normal CoH toons look pathetic by comparison.
Now, how would CoH have to set up their pve content...would they cater to the silvers or the golds?
They have to cater to a full group of silvers because if that group can't accomplish something, then there is no reason to be silver at all. Now all that content becomes trivial to golds because they have so much more customization when making their toons.
This is what CO is facing now.
I can understand freeform being overwhelming to a lot of newer people. I know that blasters are used to having a tanker or scrapper there to soak up hits for them so they can unload on mobs, but now, you can have your blaster, take Invul on him, pick up Crippling Challenge and Challenging Strikes on him and become a tank yourself.
This is what CO is all about. You can play just about any toon you had, but in whatever role you wished you were before. There are only a handful of abilities you "need" to be effective, but you can mix and match others to either spread your toon to fill different roles, or just specialize in one and be supreme at it.
Oh and don't put too much thought in the actual Cryptic numbers, you might have a stroke. The best way to put stock in the numbers on your character screen is to use the toon in the powerhouse and take note of damage/dodge/healing
Remember: Half the people you know are below average...
Do not correct a fool, for he will hate you for it. Correct a wise man, for he will appreciate you for it.
Don't be like the Qularr. They would not last one round in the Interstellar Galactic Arena...
Handle @brayv
Everyone can choose CC and CS and steal aggro from a tank.
Even if you pick every defensive power you can find (within game mechanics offcourse), it wont be equal to a CoH tanker. Even SO slotted tanks have tons of more defense/resistance then any tank i've seen in this game.
It doesnt matter if its prebuild or freeform, the difference in numbers and mechanics keep those 2 way apart from eachother. When CoH came with IO's and setbonus, the big numbercrunching really began, min/maxing every aspect of your toon.
I've tried several builds now on my 32 (though i lack the gear), but none felt really strong versus any alert boss. Now i havent tried chapters on higher difficulty, so i got no idea how they go in those missions (solo). So pure by powers, you are nothing, without gear, you are just Boy Avarage from the door next door. And seen by the fact its only untill 40 once you really get going, its yet another 'grind to max, farm for gear' story.
As far as content goes, there's just not much that a well-built toon, of any role, can't solo here. You could actually go so far as to make a toon that just can't die in pve anymore unless you just grab the whole room and go afk for a few mins. The reason being the difference in silver vs. gold characters. The bar is set for silvers, so golds pretty much get free reign on everything they want to do.
To be honest on your gear: Gear doesn't matter at all until 40. You "can" get better gear with the nemesis hierloom gear, but the pve content is not designed to deal with toons wearing that kind of gear anyways. It wouldn't be that difficult to level all the way to 40 with no gear at all on your toon...as a matter of fact, I have levelled multiple toons to mid-20s with just that starter gear because I was in too much of a hurry to stop for anything while levelling some toons...I didn't even stop to sell, I just stopped looting unless it was a mission that required items to complete it, and even then, I tried to skip over the majority of those.
When I level in alerts, I try to build for max dps. Given the time limits of smashes, I know that by level 14 to 17, I can become the deciding factor for my smash teams. I have levelled a few tanks through smashes, and you can tell they just don't have the dps that your team needs sometimes, but that is going to have to be a player judgment call for each individual.
Remember: Half the people you know are below average...
Do not correct a fool, for he will hate you for it. Correct a wise man, for he will appreciate you for it.
Don't be like the Qularr. They would not last one round in the Interstellar Galactic Arena...
Handle @brayv
I enjoy the idea of freeform and also spend time to make a character that suits my theme but also preform well in combat.
I never exp my toons with smash alert cause I like to collect those perk points for my characters even though they are useless at the moment. Moreover, by doing missions, it makes my character become more heroic for saving people and also stopping villains's evil plans. In addition to that, I don't want to become nuisance for the team in smash alert cause many people are doing smash alerts for quetonite. So, if my dps sux and causing the alert to fail, time will be wasted.
As Ajanus pointed out, gear is not that big of a deal until 40.
If you enjoy missions, end missions of most story arcs reward very nice blue gear (depending on if the stats on the gear match your SS, of course). The auction house has plenty of green gear, and once you hit the 30s lots of blue gear.
Nemesis heirloom gear is fine for ensuing heroes, and the 11k questionite gear is pretty nice, for the 3-piece bonuses if nothing else. I like to buy 3 of the Armadillo secondaries for my melee characters to get the 25% damage resistance bonus -- I think mod slots are too important to buy the Armadillo primaries.
When you hit 40, "farming for gear" really means doing the set of Unity 1 missions for 6 days to get 3 amazing pieces of Silver Champions recognition gear, and buying 3 purple secondaries from the AH for 5-10 gold each, if you haven't gotten useful drops. The questionite store has Vigilante's secondaries for 150k questionite each, but they're not really necessary.