Requesting Opinions on new Power Armour Build

Comments

• aironfaar Posts: 8 Arc User

  May 2013 edited May 2013

  I'm currently trying to piece together my own Power Armor tank build and wasn't all too successful yet, but I can already tell you that you may want to consider using Ego Surge Rank 2 with the advantage Nimble Mind instead of Lock N Load. You get +8% critical hit chance and anoter +0.1% per point of Constitution. With Con as a secondary super stat, that will be A LOT.
  
  On the other hand, Lock N Load Rank 3 lasts three seconds longer than that and reduces the energy cost of powers, which can be quite awesome for power armor. Your best bet would be to do some testing what works better for you.
  
  EDIT: I forgot to mention that since you lack Ego in that build, Ego Surge enhances your damage even further by giving you a temporary ego bonus slightly above the soft cap.
  
  Also, I just saw you've got a huge lot of redundant powers in the build. Here's a few pointers:
  
  Take at most two powers for one single Power Armor slot. You won't be able to use all of them at once anyway, and most of them are split between dps and tanking abilities. To be more precise, consider the following:
  
  Hand Slot
  - Decide between Power Gauntlet and Tactical Missiles. They do the same thing, just with different damage types. Power Gauntlet has an interrupt but does a little less damage. The interrupt is nice to have by the way since it also works on some bosses from what I've heard.
  - Decide whether you really, really want Concussor Beam or not. If you take it, it makes Power Gauntlet and Tactical Missiles somewhat redundant as you can't use both abilities at once (while just taking Power Gauntlet and/or Tactical Missile gives you an additional way to use energy whenever you have it available). Also, it repels, which is rather...unpleasant if you're tanking for a group. Melees will hate you for pushing the main target around.
  - You have some abilities with a large cooldown, for instance your Active Offense. That makes switching your Energy Builder to Wrist Bolter and taking the advantage Automated Assault an option if you take Revitalize from the Int spec tree. If you do so, be sure to definitely drop Concussor Beam, but keep either Power Gauntlet or Tactical Missiles. In the past, that advantage was a huge drawback due to the way the advantage works (doesn't deny you to use non-Power Armor slot powers if it is the only active PA toggle, but increases energy cost of other Power Armor slot powers while it's active, doesn't build energy while other Power Armor slot powers are active), but if you take the advantage, you can reduce the cooldown of all your other powers without dropping too much DPS. Also, you can still use Power Gauntlet or Tactical Missiles on demand.
  
  Chest Slot:
  - Drop Reconstruction Circuits altogether. It may seem cool, and the concept certainly is cool, but you have to drop too much damage potential to activate it. Also, while it's active, it increases the cost of your other Power Armor slot powers, denies you access to any non-PA slot powers and has to be manually deactivated as opposed to other PA toggles (which you can just interrupt by tapping block for a moment). Pulsewave's thread on Power Armors includes a decent explanation why Reconstruction Circuits just isn't worth it.
  - Decide whether you really, really want Chest Beam. Same thing as with Concussor Beam, only that this time, it would cause even more redundancy: You either activate Micro Munitions or Concussor Beam. I'd go with Micro Munitions as that's better for tanks as you can get Challenging Strikes on it.
  
  
  After you've gone through that list, you'll have some powers to choose. You'll need a self-heal or two that you can throw in between activating your toggles or when you have to interrupt your toggles for a moment in a critical situation. Since my build uses Personal Force Field, I'm good with smaller and HoT heals as my shield is what requires more healing, so I can't really help you with that. Some threads offer neat advice on that subject. Options include Bionic Shielding and Conviction.
  
  One or two Active Defenses might be a good idea, too - Masterful Dodge would be a no-brainer, which would make Bountiful Chi Resurgence with Resurgent Reiki a nice choice. If you get Revitalize, that would make it even better since you could fire both together more often. If you should switch some points into Defensive Expertise in the Protector tree, you could yet again use it more often.
  
  All I can say is...experiment! Keeping one Active Offense is a good idea, if you don't use Revitalize but want some cooldown reduction you can take Nanobot Swarm from Gadgeteering too. Look for powers like that and you'll be fine.
  
  
  EDIT2: Just realized I forgot to mention something... You should shuffle around some advantage points.
  
  If you want to tank, you'd better get a spammable Challenging Strikes and some decent source of Crippling Challenge. Do it, you won't regret it. I put Crippling Challenge on Power Gauntlet (didn't take any other Hand Slot powers except for Wrist Bolter) and Challenging Strikes on both Micro Munitions and Fire All Weapons. Due to the high cooldown, the latter is more of a damage burst ability than for real tanking purposes anyway...on the other hand, it might be awesome for getting back aggro due to affecting a whopping ten targets at once in a rather huge arc.
  
  Regarding the ranks, you should definitely keep Invulnerability at R3. Concentration however should remain without any ranks at all! You'll be attacking more than enough to maintain it at 8 stacks and it's really no big deal if you lose them. They'll be back before you know it. Since you won't have many PA slot powers left, you can get those to at least Rank 2, maybe even with additional advantages. U-238 Rounds and Infrared Guidance System, for instance, are decent choices indeed. Try to keep those. What you should definitely do either way is getting Fire All Weapons to Rank 3. Due to the immense (yet appropriate) energy cost and cooldown, you won't be able to use it often, so better make it count!
  
  Some people think that Phalanx Defense System isn't worth three points since it only gives about 10% damage reduction on the buff. Personally, I took it anyway as that's 10% more damage reduction whenever I attack. Pulsewave praises this advantage too, so I'd say it comes down to personal preference.
  
  I hope I could help you a little.
  Cheers.

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• benj2293 Posts: 5 Arc User

  May 2013 edited May 2013

  Thanks for the Reply, I think I'm beginning to see your point about the redundant powers. However the Chest Beam is just there to provide a little one-shotting from time to time and simply to look cool to be honest.
  
  I went with the Reconstructive Circuits as in the fights in which i need it, usually single target fights such as duels or bosses, it can be a pain to keep all three slots running without running dry. Since i changed from Endurance to Recovery it's been a ton easier to hold the energy up but i kept the heal. If i get the chance to do a RetCon i'll change it up for that Bountiful Chi Resurgance heal and/or the Bionic Shielding one.
  
  As for weapons, i enjoy the concussor beam as it keeps enemies as a further distance, certainly a pain for Melee-based enemies. I didn't rank up Fire All Weapons as i rarely use it and without the extra ranks it still does some nice damage.
  
  I might add Ego Surge and add in an Active Defence if i remove the Power gauntlet and Lock N Load, depends on my available powers. I used to use the wrist bolter with the automated assault option but always felt it reduced my damage. This was based on it doing around 150-200 per shot, whereas concussor beam does 500-550 in the same amount of time.
  
  Personally I never bothered with Crippling challenge or Challenging Strikes as I use the Hybrid Role, so Aggro doesn't normally come into my tactics. And until i learnt that one of them stops a player from blocking i never thought it was worth getting, however since i've been killed in duels because they've had that advantage and i haven't, I'll almost definately get that if/when i RetCon.
  
  Thanks for the reply, you've given me a lot to think about, and many ways of improving my build.

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