Sword
04-12-2005, 02:11 PM
EDIT: This is an old guide I wrote. The numbers and some of the strategies discussed in this thread are probably no longer accurate.
Hiya, wrote this guide a little while after the I3 changes went in. Thought I might as well post it here as well, to help fellow tankers. Or to just be flamed for my complete misunderstadning of the set :P
Remember, this is not a be-all and end-all guide to Invulnerability. This is my personal observations about the set and what I'd advise you to do if you're building one.
Anyway, here it is:
Ok, I'll start with a small definition of the CoH mechanics concerning "damage mitigation". There are two stats that protect you from being killed. These two are not to be mixed up, since they perform very differently.
Resistance : Your Resistance lowers the amount of damage you take. If you have 20% resistance, you take 80% of the damage you should have taken from an attack. Your resistance is split up into different damage forms. These are: Smashing/Lethal, Fire, Ice, Toxic, Energy, Negative Energy and Psionic. You have to have resistance to the damage type you ar being attack with for it to help you. If a guy is pointing a flamethrower at you, haveing 90% Resistance to Smashing/Lethal won't help you one bit.
There is a hard "cap" to the resistance stat. You can not get above this number, no matter how much resistance your powers are supposed to give you. The cap for tankers is 90%, the cap for everyone else is 75%
Defense : Defense is the chance of being hit at all. If you have 20% Defense, it means the guy attacking you have a 20% smaller chance to hit you. If he actually hits you, this power will make no difference.
There is no hard cap to defense, but all enemies ALLWAYS have a 5% chance to hit you, no matter how much defense you have. So even if you are level50 and have 300% defense, a lvl1 Hellion still has a 5% chance to hit you.
Ok, on to the powers:
Notice that no power in the set protects against PSIONIC damage. That includes powers that give Defense. As a Invuln character you are completely vulnerable to this damage type. There are Power Pool powers that gives defense boosts. Some take these to have soem added defense against Psionics. I say: don't bother. Most give too small a boost. Weave gives decent defense, but doesn't protect agaisnt Cones and AoE attacks. Most Psionic attacks are Cone and AoE.
Resist Physical Damage : (RPD) This is a good power. What's so good about it, is that it is allways on, and doesn't cost you anything. To make up for this, it doesn't give you all that much.
Resist to Smashing/Lethal: 12.5%
With 6SOs: 27.5
Temporary Invulnerability : (TI) This is a great power for the early game. I advise people to take this as their first power. It costs a bit of endurance to have running, but to make up for that it gives a really high amount of Resist to Smashing/Lethal.
Notice that it's ONLY smashing/lethal though. Running this power while fighting an enemy that uses another form of attack will only cost you endurance without helping you. This power can be run at the same time as the power Unyielding.
Slotting it gives lot of resistance, which very quickly leads to complete overkill. 1-2 DamRes Enhanchers is enough.
Resist to Smashing/Lethal: 32.5%
With 6SOs: 71.5% (Da-ym! That's a LOT of resist!)
Dull Pain : (DP) This can be a very good power to have. This is a click power, which means that when you click it, it does its thing right away and then start recharging. What it does, is two-fold. First, it increases your max HP, so you'll see your greeen HP bar go down first. You're not actually loosing life, it only becomes smaller becuase you make room for more HP. Then it heals you up a nice bit. It's a good "Oh ****!" power to use when you suddenly realize you're taking too much damage. If you set enough rechargers in it, you can make it "perma". Which means that it becomes ready to activate again before its effect has worn out. So you can have it constantly going, thereby having your max HP constantly increased above what you should have at that level.
It takes 6 Rechrgers to make it "perma". If you have Perma-Hasten, it only takes 4.
Resist Elements : (REL) This power is pretty much just like RPD. It's allways on and costs nothing. It gives more resistance then RPD, because Ice and Fire is used less by the enemies than Smashing/Lethal. Good power to have, since it allways protects you, no matter what.
Resist to Fire/Ice: 20%
With 6Sos: 44%
Unyielding : (UY) Take this power. Seriously, no matter what other powers you decide to take or not, this is the one you DO take. This power gives you everything. First of all, it gives you very good protection against status effects (disorient, sleep, hold, immobilize and so on) which is crucial to have in the later game. In addition to this, this is the only power that boosts ALL your resistances. So, one enhanchment in this power is worth more than putting one enhachment in each of RPD, REL and REN. It is also the only power you have that protects you from Toxic damage.
The only downside to the powers, is that it costs endurance to have it running (but it is so worth it) and that it gives you -5% to Defense. So you will be hit easier, but will be able to take much more damage.
Resistance to Smashing/Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative Energy, Toxic: 20
With 6S0s: 44%
Resist Energies : (REN) Exacly same as Resist Elements. Allways on, costs nothing. Gives resistance to Energy and Negative Energy damage.
Resist Energy / Negative Energy: 20%
With 6SOs: 44%
Invincibility : (Invinc) This is the other cornerstone of this powerset. It is a bit complicated to understand, but can give you a huge benefit.
The power has a taunt radius. All enemies in melee range will be aggroed by this power and start attacking you. This is great for keeping enemies concentrated on you and not on your weaker team-members.
It gives you a boost to Defense (note: not Resist). The boost in itself is very small, but it gives an additional boost for each enemy in melee range of you. So, if you have a lot of guys pounding on you, they have a lot smaller chance of hitting. The defense boost is slightly lower versus ranged attacks.
It also gives a boost to your accuracy in the same way. So if you have a lot of enemies near you, you will not even need +ACC enhachments in your attack powers.
Notice that since this power gives you Defense instead of Resist, it makes you much more powerfull. The other powers make you hard to hurt. With this power as well, you are also hard to hit.
Have yet to see confirmed number on how much Defense you get.
Tough Hide : (TH) This power is a Defense-version of your auto-resist powers. It gives you a small boost to Defense. Might be nice to take to off-set the -5%Def from UY, it can also come in handy to protect against ranged attacks.
Defense Bonus: 7.5%.
Unstoppable : (US) This is your big "OH SH!T!!" button. When the brown stuff impacts with the swirly thing, this is what you push. It gives you arund 60-70% to all your resists, except Psionics, for three minutes and gives you higher Endurance recovery. It allso gives you extremely hig protection against Status Effects. So with this on, you have to be facing something truly terrible to be killed. The downside is, of cource, that after the three minutes are up you drop to 10% health and 0 Endurance. Notice that since you drop to 0 End, all your toggles will drop as well. So you'll be completely naked. You use this power to postpone your death by three minutes and see if you can either get lucky or get away.
Ok, so for some build tips at the end.
This is my rules of thumb for building a great Invuln tank. This gives you great damage, little endurance problems and capped resists.
RPD: 1Res
TI: 1Res
REL: 6Res
UY: 6Res
REN: 6Res
This gives you GREAT resistance to all damage forms. There are a few more solutions you can use for smashing/lethal damage resistance that have different pros and cons. All of these assume you have 6-slotted Unyielding.
RPD1 TI1: Just Unyilding+Invince will be enough for most fights. When things get hairy, you turn on TI. Saves endurance and costs no slots.
RPD6 TI1: Same as above, but you'll allmost never need to use TI. This costs 5 additional slots.
TI2: Forces you to use TI a lot more. So you use more endurance. but you get an additional power pick.
Invinciblity: 2-3 ToHitBuff
With Invince running, you will allmost never miss. Even in 1-on-1 fights.
Attacks: Slot all with 1 EndRedux 5Dmg
This eliminates the tanker endurance problem. And gives you a lot of damage. Invince insures that the attacks will hit.
Stamina: 6EndRec
This is obligatory. Sorry, but it is. Get Stamina by lvl22 at the latest.
Hasten: 6Recharge
Will make your big attacks recharge faster and thereby increase your damage ouput. Allso makes you not have to take as many attacks to allways have one ready.
Well, hope that helps any members with Invulnerability build. If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask here.
Hiya, wrote this guide a little while after the I3 changes went in. Thought I might as well post it here as well, to help fellow tankers. Or to just be flamed for my complete misunderstadning of the set :P
Remember, this is not a be-all and end-all guide to Invulnerability. This is my personal observations about the set and what I'd advise you to do if you're building one.
Anyway, here it is:
Ok, I'll start with a small definition of the CoH mechanics concerning "damage mitigation". There are two stats that protect you from being killed. These two are not to be mixed up, since they perform very differently.
Resistance : Your Resistance lowers the amount of damage you take. If you have 20% resistance, you take 80% of the damage you should have taken from an attack. Your resistance is split up into different damage forms. These are: Smashing/Lethal, Fire, Ice, Toxic, Energy, Negative Energy and Psionic. You have to have resistance to the damage type you ar being attack with for it to help you. If a guy is pointing a flamethrower at you, haveing 90% Resistance to Smashing/Lethal won't help you one bit.
There is a hard "cap" to the resistance stat. You can not get above this number, no matter how much resistance your powers are supposed to give you. The cap for tankers is 90%, the cap for everyone else is 75%
Defense : Defense is the chance of being hit at all. If you have 20% Defense, it means the guy attacking you have a 20% smaller chance to hit you. If he actually hits you, this power will make no difference.
There is no hard cap to defense, but all enemies ALLWAYS have a 5% chance to hit you, no matter how much defense you have. So even if you are level50 and have 300% defense, a lvl1 Hellion still has a 5% chance to hit you.
Ok, on to the powers:
Notice that no power in the set protects against PSIONIC damage. That includes powers that give Defense. As a Invuln character you are completely vulnerable to this damage type. There are Power Pool powers that gives defense boosts. Some take these to have soem added defense against Psionics. I say: don't bother. Most give too small a boost. Weave gives decent defense, but doesn't protect agaisnt Cones and AoE attacks. Most Psionic attacks are Cone and AoE.
Resist Physical Damage : (RPD) This is a good power. What's so good about it, is that it is allways on, and doesn't cost you anything. To make up for this, it doesn't give you all that much.
Resist to Smashing/Lethal: 12.5%
With 6SOs: 27.5
Temporary Invulnerability : (TI) This is a great power for the early game. I advise people to take this as their first power. It costs a bit of endurance to have running, but to make up for that it gives a really high amount of Resist to Smashing/Lethal.
Notice that it's ONLY smashing/lethal though. Running this power while fighting an enemy that uses another form of attack will only cost you endurance without helping you. This power can be run at the same time as the power Unyielding.
Slotting it gives lot of resistance, which very quickly leads to complete overkill. 1-2 DamRes Enhanchers is enough.
Resist to Smashing/Lethal: 32.5%
With 6SOs: 71.5% (Da-ym! That's a LOT of resist!)
Dull Pain : (DP) This can be a very good power to have. This is a click power, which means that when you click it, it does its thing right away and then start recharging. What it does, is two-fold. First, it increases your max HP, so you'll see your greeen HP bar go down first. You're not actually loosing life, it only becomes smaller becuase you make room for more HP. Then it heals you up a nice bit. It's a good "Oh ****!" power to use when you suddenly realize you're taking too much damage. If you set enough rechargers in it, you can make it "perma". Which means that it becomes ready to activate again before its effect has worn out. So you can have it constantly going, thereby having your max HP constantly increased above what you should have at that level.
It takes 6 Rechrgers to make it "perma". If you have Perma-Hasten, it only takes 4.
Resist Elements : (REL) This power is pretty much just like RPD. It's allways on and costs nothing. It gives more resistance then RPD, because Ice and Fire is used less by the enemies than Smashing/Lethal. Good power to have, since it allways protects you, no matter what.
Resist to Fire/Ice: 20%
With 6Sos: 44%
Unyielding : (UY) Take this power. Seriously, no matter what other powers you decide to take or not, this is the one you DO take. This power gives you everything. First of all, it gives you very good protection against status effects (disorient, sleep, hold, immobilize and so on) which is crucial to have in the later game. In addition to this, this is the only power that boosts ALL your resistances. So, one enhanchment in this power is worth more than putting one enhachment in each of RPD, REL and REN. It is also the only power you have that protects you from Toxic damage.
The only downside to the powers, is that it costs endurance to have it running (but it is so worth it) and that it gives you -5% to Defense. So you will be hit easier, but will be able to take much more damage.
Resistance to Smashing/Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative Energy, Toxic: 20
With 6S0s: 44%
Resist Energies : (REN) Exacly same as Resist Elements. Allways on, costs nothing. Gives resistance to Energy and Negative Energy damage.
Resist Energy / Negative Energy: 20%
With 6SOs: 44%
Invincibility : (Invinc) This is the other cornerstone of this powerset. It is a bit complicated to understand, but can give you a huge benefit.
The power has a taunt radius. All enemies in melee range will be aggroed by this power and start attacking you. This is great for keeping enemies concentrated on you and not on your weaker team-members.
It gives you a boost to Defense (note: not Resist). The boost in itself is very small, but it gives an additional boost for each enemy in melee range of you. So, if you have a lot of guys pounding on you, they have a lot smaller chance of hitting. The defense boost is slightly lower versus ranged attacks.
It also gives a boost to your accuracy in the same way. So if you have a lot of enemies near you, you will not even need +ACC enhachments in your attack powers.
Notice that since this power gives you Defense instead of Resist, it makes you much more powerfull. The other powers make you hard to hurt. With this power as well, you are also hard to hit.
Have yet to see confirmed number on how much Defense you get.
Tough Hide : (TH) This power is a Defense-version of your auto-resist powers. It gives you a small boost to Defense. Might be nice to take to off-set the -5%Def from UY, it can also come in handy to protect against ranged attacks.
Defense Bonus: 7.5%.
Unstoppable : (US) This is your big "OH SH!T!!" button. When the brown stuff impacts with the swirly thing, this is what you push. It gives you arund 60-70% to all your resists, except Psionics, for three minutes and gives you higher Endurance recovery. It allso gives you extremely hig protection against Status Effects. So with this on, you have to be facing something truly terrible to be killed. The downside is, of cource, that after the three minutes are up you drop to 10% health and 0 Endurance. Notice that since you drop to 0 End, all your toggles will drop as well. So you'll be completely naked. You use this power to postpone your death by three minutes and see if you can either get lucky or get away.
Ok, so for some build tips at the end.
This is my rules of thumb for building a great Invuln tank. This gives you great damage, little endurance problems and capped resists.
RPD: 1Res
TI: 1Res
REL: 6Res
UY: 6Res
REN: 6Res
This gives you GREAT resistance to all damage forms. There are a few more solutions you can use for smashing/lethal damage resistance that have different pros and cons. All of these assume you have 6-slotted Unyielding.
RPD1 TI1: Just Unyilding+Invince will be enough for most fights. When things get hairy, you turn on TI. Saves endurance and costs no slots.
RPD6 TI1: Same as above, but you'll allmost never need to use TI. This costs 5 additional slots.
TI2: Forces you to use TI a lot more. So you use more endurance. but you get an additional power pick.
Invinciblity: 2-3 ToHitBuff
With Invince running, you will allmost never miss. Even in 1-on-1 fights.
Attacks: Slot all with 1 EndRedux 5Dmg
This eliminates the tanker endurance problem. And gives you a lot of damage. Invince insures that the attacks will hit.
Stamina: 6EndRec
This is obligatory. Sorry, but it is. Get Stamina by lvl22 at the latest.
Hasten: 6Recharge
Will make your big attacks recharge faster and thereby increase your damage ouput. Allso makes you not have to take as many attacks to allways have one ready.
Well, hope that helps any members with Invulnerability build. If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask here.