Tanker, hard spots in all the right places (Dark Armor - Martial Arts)

[thilenium]

Morning!

My global handle is @Thilenium and my ingame characters start with or contain 'Thile' in their name - no exception. So far I have played and equipped about 20 characters. ten of which I took through the incarnate stuff. Others I 'swiped left'.
I made this build for the outlier party content, where taunts and tankiness were really necessary and my Brute (see 'Brute, the CoH-Workhorse (Super Strength - Bio Armor)') would not be able to handle it. The build represents the current status of my gear and also my zillion hours of experience in improving and reviewing on character builds (tailored to my tastes - sure. and that is where we might not find common ground. but see for yourself).

all the best, Thilenium


Summary Tanker (Dark Armor - Martial Arts)
+ ok starting character
+ created with special endgame content in mind: some final bosses in trials or tanking SMO's
+ over the defenses softcap of 40% (except for Psionics)
+ resistances capped at 90% (except for Energy and Toxic at 60%)
+ high endurance debuff resistance
+ Dark Armor has build in stealth - no escort duties for you
+ utility for situational content

- No damaging area of effect skills to speak off

Contents
a) The role of a Tanker
b) Dark Armor Primary
c) Martial Arts Secondary
d) Utility through Power Pools
e) Attack chains, single target and area of effect
f) Genesis Incarnate Power and helpful keybinds and macros

a) The role of a Tanker
The Tankers role is to soak up and survive all the damage that otherwise squishy targets in your party would face. He does it by having enemy Npc's focus all their attention on him with a special mechanic called 'taunt' - basically coaxing a target into targetting you. Every skill that hits a target, even skills that do not damage the target and just debuff it, taunt. Also taunt has a duration and you can stack it up using 'Warrior's Provocation' to make very sure that you are and stay the target. Using 'Warrior's Provocation' on a ranged enemy also reduces their range, forcing them to enter melee range.

>> Side story: for a badge i had to get 1.000.000 dmg received. Took me 1 hour for about 250.000 of it with four arachnos-bosses of my level whacking away at me. Yea, later it occurred to me that i could have turned off the toggles to receive more damage. <<

b) Dark Armor as Primary
Dark Armor has the highest resistances outside of Stone Armor, alongside Radiation Armor. Without the not-being-able-to-move-about-part.  Dark Armor may be a bit endurance hungry at the start but also provides you with endurance debuff resistance, meaning that it is unlikely that you drop toggles (which keep you alive) due to some mobs sapping you. It also has a great heal at a decent cooldown.

c) Martial Arts Primary
Seems like the obvious choice for a Tanker. A low cooldown single-target attack which buffs you defense. And a low cooldown single-target attack which debuffs resistances in an enemy.

d) Utility through Power Pools
In the beginning I mentioned that there is also a lot of utility in this build.
+ You taunt with every single attack that you use.
+ 'Blink Blitz' is a great area of effect and utility power for starting any fight and while fighting. This skill sometimes lands you in obstacles. with enough cooldown you can use it on a mob to get out of it again. or you can use the command /stuck.
+ 'Super Jump' lacks vertical movement. Say hello to 'Hover'. Where does 'Hover' come in handy? some missions have literally no bottom, some are fought in the air (Hamidon). and they will be extremely annoying to anyone without flight powers. Activating 'Hover' does not cancel any other toggles.

e) Attack chains for single target and area of effect
I use 'Stormkick' as auto-attack, because it keeps your defenses up. You can make a skill your auto-power by pressing 'Strg'+'left mouse button' on the skill. 'Thunder Kick' and 'Air Superiority' provide some utility and also a decent single target attack chain.

Blink Blitz and Storm Kick add 15%  and more to your overall defenses and make it even more unlikely that the initial retaliation by the enemy does anything to you. Alongside 'Quick Sand' these skills can be repeated every 11 seconds (without any additional recharge from outside your character) which is usually shorter than the time your party needs to clear an enemy group. I draw in ranged mobs with 'Warrior's Provocation'. Blitz into the enemy group, when the enemy number is decreased to a couple of stragglers - Blitz into the next group. I like it simple.

Area of effect taunt skills and not just toggles include:
- Blink Blitz: Great area, instant teleport to enemy, buffs you defenses. Use at the start of a fight and whenever.
- Quick Sand: I love that skills so much.
- Dark Regeneration: For sudden ambushes and healing yourself
- Salt Crystals: For sudden ambushes.

f) Genesis Incarnate Power and helpful keybinds and macros
Genesis Incarnate Power:
Socket Core Flawless Genesis

Helpful macros and keybinds:
/bind f "target_enemy_near$$follow"
>> autofollow nearest enemy

/macro INC "windowtoggle Incarnate"
>> Open the Incarnate window

/macro M1 "powexec_name Thunder Kick$$powexec_auto Blink Blitz$$powexec_auto Storm Kick"
>> use 'Thunder Kick', while keeping 'Storm Kick' the auto power

/macro M2 "powexec_name Air Superiority$$powexec_auto Blink Blitz$$powexec_auto Storm Kick"
>> use 'Air Superiority', while keeping 'Storm Kick' the auto power

/macro AoE "powexec_name Blink Blitz$$powexec_auto Thunder Kick$$powexec_auto Storm Kick"
>> use 'Blink Blitz', while keeping 'Storm Kick' the auto power

/macro QS powexec_location me Quick Sand
>> use Quick Sand at your location

/macro PBAoE "powexec_name Dark Regeneration$$powexec_auto Thunder Kick$$powexec_auto Salt Crystals"
>> use for ambushes, while Blink Blitz is down, or healing yourself


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What i imagine resists in a SMO are like:
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[thilenium]

You can switch out 'Air Superiority', 'Sleep' and 'Quick Sand' for Soul Masteries 'Gloom' and 'Dark Obliteration' leaving another Slot for a skill of your choice. This would give you a little more area of effect damage. However Quick Sand is such a cool and useful skill for party content, that I did not like the idea of leaving it open to chance whether to have it or not. On enemy groups I usually open up with Blink Blitz, Storm Kick, Quick Sand.

Blink Blitz and Storm Kick add 15%  and more to your overall defenses and make it even more unlikely that the initial attack by the enemy does anything to you. All three skills can be repeated every 11 seconds (without any additional recharge outside your character) which is usually shorter than the time your party needs to clear an enemy group.

[Atom Bomb]

b) Dark Armor as Primary
Dark Armor has the highest resistances outside of Stone Armor. Without the not-being-able-to-move-about-part. After that it is Radiation Armor. Both are endurance hungry but Dark Armor provides you with endurance debuff resistance, meaning that it is unlikely that you drop toggles (which keep you alive) due to some mobs sapping you. It also has a great heal at a decent cooldown.

Ok, I'm going to call BS on this one.  Rad Armor is not endurance hungry.  It has one of the best endurance recovery powers in game, Gamma Boost, that you get at an extremely low level. 

Right now at 50 my Rad/Rad Tanker "Atom Bomb" sits at a Recovery Rate of 5.67 end/sec with a Debuff Resistance: Recovery Resistance of 86% (which all the resistance is coming from Gamma Boost, I don't have a single endurance resistance enhancer in my build).  Throw in all the endurance he gets back from the various enhancer "Procs" and he has endurance for days.  The only time I have endurance issues is when I get hit by the Hamidon's unresistable endurance drain. 

Additionally as for Dark having the 2nd highest resists, again I'd have to say it is in all how you build it.  Right now Atom Bomb is sitting at 90% vs everything except Negative and Psionic and both those are sitting at 75% each.  This isn't a competition because in the long run a few resists points here or there don't make a huge difference, but to make a statement that Dark resists are the 2nd best in game flat out, is incorrect. 

[thilenium]

works for me. after all my benchmark is through Mids alone.

- i coupled every Secondary with the Super Strength primary and used the sets i usually would use unless they would cap resistances. I also did not include accolades which will generally improve all regen powers.
- and going by that what i say is true. and i did say that after doing a benchmark, not due to some prejudice.
- that my process of comparing is faulty? yea, yea, that can very well be.

you play it and it works for you and that is all that counts.

*ight now Atom Bomb is sitting at 90% vs everything except Negative and Psionic and both those are sitting at 75% each* wow, that is better than my 60-ish resistances on the only two i did not cap.
Unless i use the Melee Core Embodiment then it is 75% everywhere as well. But i cannot sustain that one.

[thilenium]

RA's sustain is good (better than DA's for sure) (I have corrected that part in my build description).

After some testing around with Radiation Armor Secondary and checking some different builds by other people i still do not get the resistances Atom mentioned.  Unless someone has a template that covers the weak spots in the resistances Cold, Negative and Psionic i will still favour DA over RA. I also found that i like working with DA better as slotting is more straight forward.

 

[Kismet]

While I cannot comment on exactly how Atom built his Atom Bomb (BOOM! Sorry... couldn't help it), I can imagine all sorts of slotting with IO sets bonuses that could result in those numbers. Also, his Alpha slot could be a factor since both Cardiac and especially Resilient Core give a nice boost to a resistance based armor's numbers.

What I would like to comment on is that not all resistances are created equal. A study was done on *ahem* another server back in 2019 that concluded that about 70% of the total damage enemies do across the entire game was S/L. The next largest number was Energy damage at just about 10%. The rest of the damage types, combined, made up 20% of the total damage in the game.

Of particular import for purposes of end-game content is the Energy damage. Not only does just about every robot in the game have Energy attacks (though most still include some S/L), but Incarnate Trials are filthy with IDF, who do Energy damage with almost every attack. Lambda, Magi, TPN, Keyes, and BAF are stocked with IDF as the trash mobs. UG contains a fair number of them as well. Even DD, which has no IDF, still features 2 flavors of Shaman who have Lightning or Radiation attacks that are exclusively Energy damage.

For being a resistance based set, Dark Armor has really weak Energy resistance. I think that's an important factor in comparing armor sets, unless the 40+ game or even just Incarnate content isn't something that you'll be playing regularly.

Of the three damage types you mentioned as being weak on Atom's build (which are the three weakest for Radiation Armor), Cold is almost wholly irrelevant. Outside of the Winter Events, it barely appears in the game. You get some high level BP, a few Crey mobs, and what... the Outcasts? I'm sure I've missed a mob or two, but you get the point that it's almost never a concern, unlike S/L and, in high level content, Energy.

Both Psi and Negative Energy are highly situational. If you're fighting a lot of sub-40 CoT, then you're going to be swimming in Negative Energy. There are a few novelty Portal Corp missions loaded with ghosts and shadows, but I can't recall being on a team since 2005 where anyone wanted to do anything but click glowies and get out of those.

Psi is also absent for large parts of the game. If you're fighting a lot of Arachnos, then you'll certainly encounter it quite often. There are those novelty portal corp missions with psychic clockwork as well. Even the IDF and the Lost, which feature psychic mobs, usually only have a token few, with far more of the damage coming from those groups in the form of S/L/E.

I find that most armor sets provide enough of those three damage types (C/NE/P) that I'd rather focus on broader protections that could also protect against those damage types. An Absorb Shield and a stack of HP is a great way to address those rarer damage types. Afterall, everyone can have Force Barrier if they go, go Gadget (sorry, couldn't help myself again).

I'd also suggest that inspirations can be used as stop-gap, whether purple, orange, or just green, to deal with a momentary spike in those damage types.

[Redlynne]

I have to say, Kismet is offering good advice here.
I'm nowhere NEAR as familiar with the Dark Armor powerset, so grab the salt shaker for the following musings on my part.



Since I have no way to parse Mids' code hashes into builds (since Mids' won't work on my computer), I don't know if you're doing this already, but ... it occurs to me that there's an opportunity in Death Shroud. 6-slot Death Shroud with Overwhelming Force (to get the -4 Knock Protection set bonus). Unless I'm misremembering, Dark Armor has no "native" Knockback Protection, so you'll need to slot for it (somewhere). However, the REAL advantage of putting Overwhelming Force into Death Shroud (and many other PBAoE damage auras) is that because the proc is a flat 20% check every time a Foe is successfully hit, (I think) you shouldn't be looking at a 10 second suppression of proc chances after a successful proc when putting the Overwhelming Force proc into Death Shroud. In other words, I suspect that you'll be getting a 20% Knockdown chance every 2 seconds against anything within your 8ft PBAoE damage aura ... which isn't bad.

As for slotting Resistance Toggles (Dark Armor has 3) ... one option would be 2 slot Titanium Coating (+1.5% Resist E/N, +2.5% Resist Mez set bonus) plus 3 slot Unbreakable Guard, including the +7.5% Max Health in one of them (2.5% Endurance Discount, +2.25% Resist E/N, +3.75% Resist Mez set bonus). This would still give you 1 slot to play with in each toggle, for which I would recommend Steadfast Protection: Resist/+3% Defense, Impervious Skin: 7.5% Resist Mez/+25% Regeneration, Gladiator's Armor: Resist TP/+3% Defense. If you 6-slot Death Shroud with Overwhelming Force, you won't need to spend a slot in your Resistance Toggles on Knockback Protection. Additionally, with the 2-Titanium Coating and 3-Unbreakable Guard combo done 3x you'll add +11.25% Resist E/N, you ought to be able to get at least +50% Resist enhancement into Murky Cloud, which will give you at least 30% Resistance E/N as your foundation.

So with 4 powers with +5 slots each, you're already over 40% Resistance Energy, which would not be bad for a Dark Armor build. You could then use additional set bonuses from other powers to increase that amount even higher ... and that's before including (Superior) Might of the Tanker procs for +Resistance into the mix.



So while Kismet is quite correct on the point about Resist Energy being something of a "weak point" for Dark Armor, you still have OPTIONS to be able to shore up that weakness through clever design of your build via set bonuses. You probably won't be able to reach the Resist Energy hardcap of 90% on a Tanker ... but then, do you really NEED to get your Resist Energy to 90%? Is this a case of "go max or go home" (so to speak)?

Sure, it would be NICE to be able to get to 90% Resist S/L, E/N, F/C and T/P (if practical) ... but is it always absolutely necessary (or GTFO)?

I can envision build strategies that work towards getting as much Resist as is practical for you, while also diversifying into +Max Health and +Regeneration ... that way, whatever cannot defeat you only makes you colder and more embittered.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

[Atom Bomb]

RA's sustain is good (better than DA's for sure) (I have corrected that part in my build description).

After some testing around with Radiation Armor Secondary and checking some different builds by other people i still do not get the resistances Atom mentioned.  Unless someone has a template that covers the weak spots in the resistances Cold, Negative and Psionic i will still favour DA over RA. I also found that i like working with DA better as slotting is more straight forward.

 

Mids doesn't show what the true numbers are in game for Atom.  So I took a couple pics (hopefully you can read them, had to shrink them down quite a bit to meet the requirements of this board).  Just Atom standing around in  Ouro.

[Atom Bomb]

And I had to split the images.  *sigh*

Ok, one thing I noticed is I am not 90%vs cold, only 86% (NBD).

The key to these numbers is having "Superior Might of the Tanker" +Res Proc in the power Irradiated Ground.  Since Irradiated Ground is a "pseudo" pet it procs constantly.  I am always at 2 procs (as you can see in the photos) and am at 3 procs quite often (which then gets my Cold resists max and Neg and Psionic resists up to 80%).

I am not running Cardiac or Resilient in my Alpha slot.  If I did, then I would be even closer to max, but as Kismet said I am at max resists as it stands for 90% of the game/trials.  Why waste the Incan slot on a few points in Neg and Psi when they don't have much of an impact.

[Atom Bomb]

quote author=Redlynne link=msg=5582 date=1734741830]


Sure, it would be NICE to be able to get to 90% Resist S/L, E/N, F/C and T/P (if practical) ... but is it always absolutely necessary (or GTFO)?

Nah, getting to 90% isn't required.  My fire tanker "Scoria" who has MT'd a fair number of trials is 90%vs S/L, 82%vs Energy, and 47% vs Toxic/Psi (Psi really only comes into play in MoM trial).  In UG there is a lot of toxic damage so I am constantly pushing my self heal that also adds Toxic Resist (even when I'm at full health I'll keep popping it off).

During the "MoM" Trial I do have to pick up some extra resist enhancers for when I'm pulling Penny and getting her set up.

Now my Electric Armor tanker, she is pretty good in all her resists except for one.  Toxic.  That sits at a lowly 25%, so I had to come up with a more permanent way of correcting that.  As it stands she is the only tank that I have Force Barrier, but with all the Toxic damage in UG that was the best option to "fill the hole".  But again, I've MT'd UG (which IMO is the most "dangerous" of the trials), with her more than a few times without issues.

[Atom Bomb]

So with 4 powers with +5 slots each, you're already over 40% Resistance Energy, which would not be bad for a Dark Armor build. You could then use additional set bonuses from other powers to increase that amount even higher ... and that's before including (Superior) Might of the Tanker procs for +Resistance into the mix.

Currently my Dark Armor/Dark Melee tank is sitting at 75% Energy Resist (when Superior Might of the Tanker procs it jumps to 80%), and again that is good enough to be MT at trials with (I've done it with him before).  I have unfortunately put him on the back burner and do not play him often because I just find Dark Melee to be....clunky.  I'm not a fan of it.  I know it has some very good debuffs, but again, I just don't like it.

I think all tanks can be viable, well except for my Willpower/MA tank, that one dies more than my others when I have MT trials with it.

[Redlynne]

During the "MoM" Trial I do have to pick up some extra resist enhancers for when I'm pulling Penny and getting her set up.

Hmmm ... that's curious.
I've had to (main) tank MoM with my new SR/MA/MP build on Redlynne already, and I'm only running 14% Resistance vs Psi ... and Psionic IS the intended "weak point" for Super Reflexes ... but I've never felt seriously threatened by anything during MoM except (stacked) pink puddles and Suffer In Silence (when people don't move away from the dogpile).

I'm not even afraid of Penny. I think that the (DEEP) stack of Regeneration I've been able to amass is an adequate solution, since anything that can't one shot me stands a very low chance of being able to make me faceplant ... and Penny just doesn't attack that quickly. So even when I take hits from Penny ... or Tilman ... almost +700% Regeneration (before including Destiny: Rebirth for even more Regeneration into the mix) means that damage taken has a hard time "sticking" in a way that can whittle me down. It's one of the reasons why I reached for as many +Regeneration set bonuses as I could get, along with as much +Regeneration enhancement from powers as I could possibly stack.

Same applies to the Toxic damage of UG, although (fortunately) most of those attacks are Positional (melee/ranged/aoe) so Super Reflexes works against those (most of the time).

I think all tanks can be viable, well except for my Willpower/MA tank, that one dies more than my others when I have MT trials with it.

The "handicap" for Willpower is that it "needs to be surrounded" to get the most out of it. Willpower is strongest when its the underdog/outnumbered, rather than when the situation is 1v1. A lot like Hybrid: Melee, really. Since Willpower is trying to do Defense, Resistance AND Regeneration (all at the same time), it often times winds up in a situation of "pick 2 out of 3" for how to build it ... and even then, it often times can't quite bridge the gap to the "needed" power levels that other choices of powerset can build towards.

So Willpower is a real challenge to try and get a really good BALANCE on.
It can be done, but there are often times going to be compromises involved.

[thilenium]

Ok, one thing I noticed is I am not 90%vs cold, only 86% (NBD).

wow, i had a look at other rad builds and they do not achieve this. i had like 2 goes at it myself. time to reverse-engineer a build from those pictures ^^