AAD PVM Sold, take 2... The best soloing / self sustain build possible!

A while ago I posted a video of my Soldier soloing Scary Spider, and I was pretty happy getting her to that point since it's common knowledge Soldiers are terrible solo'ers. For reference, her old build was something like this:

https://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=205278

But, I felt like that wasn't the best I could do. It's hard to explain, but there was a gap I guess you could call it. I mean, a need for something else at some points where things were on cooldown and options were more limited on tougher mobs. So, back to the drawing board I went and here's what I've got:

https://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=205157

Perks:

Power in Numbers -10
Special Forces - 10
Colossal Health - 10
Power Up - 10
SMG Mastery - 10
Champion of Nano Combat - 10
Nano Breed Secondary Genome - 10

The immediate difference is, she's now using full beast armor. That was probably an obvious choice, but it really fills the gap of defensive / healing rotation nicely on the tougher mobs. But, I went further than that swapping out a ton of Agility for Heal Delta in the legs and feet. Also, I swapped in a Nano Delta wrist, which is very strange for Soldiers, but it works to address the biggest problem Soldiers have, which is AMS downtime. This adds several seconds to Notum Shield to fill the gaps where AMS is down nicely. I'd say you can get a good 20-30 seconds out of Notum Shield with Nano Pool maxed out depending on if your Nano is topped off, or still recovering from the last round of AMS being down. With that in mind, however, I added the infused cost reducer, which will allow AMS to be cast with bottomed out nano from Notum Shield ;)

Of course, this setup doesn't come without downsides. The cosmetic one being, more than half of my implants aren't smufftastic. It's not really causing an issue otherwise, just probably won't be appealing to some people who are cosmetically completionists, which I get. The most notable downside is Full Auto is miles away from capping. I mean, terrible. 15 seconds terrible. I know for most this is probably a deal breaker, but if you're primary goal is to make a ranged tank Full Auto doesn't really matter. Keeping aggro and not dying are what matter. With this build, there's enough spare IP to keep a "Scorpio's Aim of Anger" usable for the Taunt effect even fully debuffed. This tends to make enough of a difference in almost all situations to not even need castable taunts. The other downside worth mentioning is, I trimmed IP quite a bit, and I'm not really sure if it would be possible now to swap into a damage setup without reperking. For me, that's not a big deal, since I really don't care about doing damage with a Soldier (other than the Doc, everything would out-damage her anyway. My Agent matched a max +damage Soldier with her shotguns at 75% in doctor FP, so really... why bother).

Now, for those that are probably wondering... "Can a sold really get enough AAD for it to even matter?" Absolutely! Self buffed, "Added to all Defencive Rolls Base: 0 points Total: 1103 points" with 1844 Evade CC. That's sufficient defense to evade everything decently well, especially considering how OP something with AMS and good evades can be. In fact, "[Storm] Wondershot: !logoff [Storm] Wondershot logoff: The Beast tried to hit you, but missed!"
So that's the build, and it's pretty fun. This is one of those odd-ball toons I made that actually worked out pretty amazingly in every way I wanted, and became one of my favorites, too. I highly recommend it to someone looking to try something new and make a monster ranged tank.

looks quite nice to me and suits your purpose well, i personally couldn't deal with 15s FA though!, only thing id maybe think about is a PDKP, instead of rhat, its just more damage, other than needing to IP Shotgun theres no real downside, dont need perks to keep it out of OE, even with beast set, i think, you should prolly check, but yeah you'd save a little bit of IP in MR as you'd only need 1500 instead of 1750 (if ur swapping to buff i presume you got 1750 MR) so the IP cost isn't too much at all really! more damage never hurts, looks fun though!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by shadowcorpz

looks quite nice to me and suits your purpose well, i personally couldn't deal with 15s FA though!, only thing id maybe think about is a PDKP, instead of rhat, its just more damage, other than needing to IP Shotgun theres no real downside, dont need perks to keep it out of OE, even with beast set, i think, you should prolly check, but yeah you'd save a little bit of IP in MR as you'd only need 1500 instead of 1750 (if ur swapping to buff i presume you got 1750 MR) so the IP cost isn't too much at all really! more damage never hurts, looks fun though!

---

There is an Atrox version of this build, which sounds like it'd be right up your alley. Unfortunately, an org mate beat me to finishing first!

It's the perfect mix for those looking to max out the Full Auto cap and stick a little more damage in with the PDKP. It loses some self sustain compared to nanomage, but still a real moose overall. It also keeps a nice perk snare available with Leg Shot vs Pen for those pesky Adds on the DB3 crate floor!

Here's what that one looks like:

https://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=205279

thats quite interesting, i imagine it works really nice in pvm, good job ;D

Little update on something i was curious about for a while.

I ended up tanking the second half of Phobettor on my Soldier. With a Crat, his miss rate was roughly 1 in 5 overall. I'd still say evades are worth it even there, even on a Soldier:

The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 8362 points of cold damage. (That split second AMS and Pre-Nullity are down. Yea...They always get lucky on that one.)
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 3798 points of fire damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 3941 points of energy damage.
You try to attack The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor with FlingShot, but you miss! *remember to edit this out*
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor tried to hit you, but missed!
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 4088 points of cold damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 4192 points of fire damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 4120 points of energy damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 5028 points of melee damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor tried to hit you, but missed!
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 3724 points of fire damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 4284 points of energy damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 5165 points of melee damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor tried to hit you, but missed!
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 3534 points of fire damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 4149 points of energy damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 5027 points of melee damage.
The Awoken Nightmare, Phobettor hit you for 6090 points of cold damage.

Overall, it went pretty well. With the Crat and a solid Doc, it really wasn't a big deal. I wasn't reaching for the FoL button or anything crazy at all.

Today, another POH!

We did a full No-Enf-POH. This was remarkable, and I highly recommend it to anyone, not just Soldier fans.

Since my Soldier is obviously an evader, we took Crat, Keeper and Advy along to really crank up the defense. Doc and Soldier obviously. And in the spirit of being weird, an MP. This resulted in a good 2000+ AAD with the 1846 Evade CC to back it up on the Sold.

First of all, mobs couldn't lay a hand on her for the most part. Some have pretty high AR and still hit decently, but with AMS... they didn't beat out my heal delta anyway.

The Cyber Demon thing, with its annoying NSD actually was unable to land it, and had streaks of 10 or so misses. I was able to use castable taunts the whole time, and recast AMS. Overall, he was a complete he was a complete cake walk.

The Joyess dragon thing. That boss really favored the Keeper we had off-tanking. It really ended up being more like Co-tanking, but far from problematic. I think one person dropped to 1/2 health at one point. Maybe... This boss certainly has a sweet tooth for healers, but the keeper and I only lost agg to the doc once.

The Maiden... Well, she's not hard to begin with, so nothing spectacular happened here really.

Phobettor was smooth. At first I had to fight him off the doc a moment aggro wise, but once I started getting taunts going, he settled right in and... it was smooth. The doc agreed, it wasn't as hectic as most would think. I think I dropped to 1/2 health at one point, but throwing down Endurance Booster gave the doc the second she needed to get things sorted out. Between every AMS I had Notum Shield and a few perks or items to use and that was enough to where it was, of course, obvious my Soldier has less HP than an Enf... But, It wasn't like biting your nails between each heal close or anything.

It really was the team that made the whole thing work, though. The crat was dropping debuffs and snaring, the MP was using major Damage debuffs, the Advy and Keeper were bringing passive awesomeness and damage, the doc was on point with heals and watching AMS timers. The professions all benefit from the others, and the players backed it up with solid performance.

I guess the point of this little addition is... You really don't need cookie cutter teams for anything anymore. You can round up a group of well geared odd-balls and make it work with good play. This was really fun and worked very well. Highly recommend getting some dudes together and just making a weird team for fun.

Because, that's what a game is all about.

Cool stuff! Thanks for sharing Vinkera!

full poh run was tanked the first day on a sol with no enf where the knowledge about that pf was like zero.
evade setup sol has a diffrence on maybe 300 ish evades wich means litterly nothing for pvm vs hp/hd/

but agein, it is always fun to play a new profession if you're not so familiar to it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Le-Quack

full poh run was tanked the first day on a sol with no enf where the knowledge about that pf was like zero.
evade setup sol has a diffrence on maybe 300 ish evades wich means litterly nothing for pvm vs hp/hd/

but agein, it is always fun to play a new profession if you're not so familiar to it.

---

*Sigh*... Why do you still bother? I mean, everything you said there is completely wrong.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vinkera

<snip>

---

This kinda sounds like the many years of pre-instanced pande putting Advy, Keeper, Crat, <Reflects>, Doc in the tank team tbh.

Not to take anything away from your achievement or fun, but stacking evades with a prof that has decent ACs/HP has always been a winning recipe.

It's obvious to number-crunching nerds like me and you, but it's pretty surprising how few people understand the concept otherwise.

Honestly, the POH stuff I did is really old news. I did everything but tank Phobettor start to finish over a year ago. The point is, it seems a lot of people have a specific team recipe in mind, especially for POH. But, this run was one of the smoothest I've ever done with 2 professions that would probably never see an invite in a pug team, and are constantly complained about for their irrelevance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vinkera

It's obvious to number-crunching nerds like me and you, but it's pretty surprising how few people understand the concept otherwise.

Honestly, the POH stuff I did is really old news. I did everything but tank Phobettor start to finish over a year ago. The point is, it seems a lot of people have a specific team recipe in mind, especially for POH. But, this run was one of the smoothest I've ever done with 2 professions that would probably never see an invite in a pug team, and are constantly complained about for their irrelevance.

---

with hud3 def+protect ncu+ full awakened AND 12m you should be around 2550 ish aad maybe more on normal setup. Leq isnt that wrong?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dritst

with hud3 def+protect ncu+ full awakened AND 12m you should be around 2550 ish aad maybe more on normal setup. Leq isnt that wrong?

---

I'll take your word for the 2550ish, because I really don't know. Self, my Sold's 1840ish evade + 1100ish AAD is ~400 more then, let's say. 400 is a lot, let's be honest.

Saying that makes no difference is like saying Crat aura makes no difference, or blinds make no difference, or Shades evade the same as Engi's. He's completely wrong.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dritst

with hud3 def+protect ncu+ full awakened AND 12m you should be around 2550 ish aad maybe more on normal setup. Leq isnt that wrong?

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vinkera

I'll take your word for the 2550ish, because I really don't know. Self, my Sold's 1840ish evade + 1100ish AAD is ~400 more then, let's say. 400 is a lot, let's be honest.

Saying that makes no difference is like saying Crat aura makes no difference, or blinds make no difference, or Shades evade the same as Engi's. He's completely wrong.

---

from what i remember in my PVM days, ~3k def is right around the sweet spot for enfs to see reliable misses from bossmobs in stuff like ipande. the difference between 2500 and 3k def is night and day tbh. and 3k def selfed with crat auras usually meant doc could go afk to grab a drink on /follow and come back to the raid still being alive.

oh well i lost this one, i ned more experience with soldiers i gues.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vinkera

I'll take your word for the 2550ish, because I really don't know. Self, my Sold's 1840ish evade + 1100ish AAD is ~400 more then, let's say. 400 is a lot, let's be honest.

Saying that makes no difference is like saying Crat aura makes no difference, or blinds make no difference, or Shades evade the same as Engi's. He's completely wrong.

---

I'm not saying you are wrong really :) i just pointed that leq's point of view isnt that wrong too.
Anyway with crat aura+keeper one's your def it is pretty sweet.
And as Lay stated the 3k def thing is , in my opinion true, at least i noted on enf,agent a slightly difference once you pass 3K def (it might be psycho too :p)

LQ isn't wrong insfoar as 2550 def rating is "enough" for most solds. LQ is also not wrong in implying that a good doc won't care if the sold has 2550 or 3k or even 2k def. where LQ is wrong is not taking into account that we can now get 3k def without much (if any) sacrifice unlike the old "evade" soldiers like marinesold.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lazy

the difference between 2500 and 3k def is night and day tbh. and 3k def selfed with crat auras usually meant doc could go afk to grab a drink on /follow and come back to the raid still being alive.

---

It also works in PVP.

The soldier setup I built back in the old days of 6 boxing and whatnot, I recall I had 3900 evasion on him with MA for RI, Advy in wolf+aura, keeper with immi, and crat auras. (also used eye of predator and awakening)

I mean, nuker foob and his nuke army wasn't fun or anything, but any time I ran into whatever that young blonde lad was, I could stand and tank his box for days.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lazy

from what i remember in my PVM days, ~3k def is right around the sweet spot for enfs to see reliable misses from bossmobs in stuff like ipande. the difference between 2500 and 3k def is night and day tbh. and 3k def selfed with crat auras usually meant doc could go afk to grab a drink on /follow and come back to the raid still being alive.

---

The 3k figure is one I've heard before, and in reality it's spot on.

With 3k and Crat aura most things are going to start to have a tough time hitting. APF bosses are one of the few where 3k + Crat aura + engi blinds seem unphased and hit reliably.

In Ipande specifically, there's only a handful of high level red's and rarely blue's and pinks that can punch through 3k defense even with no crat, but everything else swings and misses for days.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dritst

I'm not saying you are wrong really :) i just pointed that leq's point of view isnt that wrong too.
Anyway with crat aura+keeper one's your def it is pretty sweet.
And as Lay stated the 3k def thing is , in my opinion true, at least i noted on enf,agent a slightly difference once you pass 3K def (it might be psycho too :p)

---

Nah, I get where you're coming from. The POH thing was a bit of an aside, because my Sold's typical duty is tanking. I've Doc'ed for plenty of solds in my time, and I know there's a huge difference being on the other side now.

Soloing wise, I didn't see Peter Lee (iirc, the Mec Boss), and one on one with iPande Zods being impossible. The Zod might take some strategic sitting once in a while, but doable. Peter Lee (again, I that was the one) I stood toe to toe with solo for a good 10 minutes with no problem.

My Sold's evades aren't mind-blowing, but they're enough to where the other damage mitigating benefits of being Nanomage make the whole setup really good overall. Maybe one day I'll push the evades higher and scrap the Beast heal, just to see how high they can go ;p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lazy

LQ isn't wrong insfoar as 2550 def rating is "enough" for most solds. LQ is also not wrong in implying that a good doc won't care if the sold has 2550 or 3k or even 2k def. where LQ is wrong is not taking into account that we can now get 3k def without much (if any) sacrifice unlike the old "evade" soldiers like marinesold.

---

Yea, and for the Atrox setup I've got there, that's spot on.

In my Sold's case, I did take it further sacrificing capped full auto to gain self sustainability. I make up for the loss of damage with the 8k taunt from the Aim of Anger. Since my Sold is typically designated as the tank, this was a bit of a concern at first, but it seems to be working just fine. Some Enfs still get pissed when I use that tool, so I guess it works nicely.

What I gained is Notum Shield with a rather huge nanopool and fast nano delta for the typical Soldier, to take the edge off AMS cooldown. Also, the completely OP Nanomage absorb if things start to get tricky. Mixing those in with the typical Soldier stuff and beast heal works out real nice.

Great example, when I tanked Phobettor, between every AMS I could use Notum Shield to take a bit off of his (her?? I don't see anything down there...) damage. I'd also throw in something else to help make the Doc's like easier too, like Rush or the Absorb at one point when we were dancing around the stupid rift a few times. But, I always had something else to click, my options weren't completely used up at any point there. (even tried to save the keeper with FoL at one point. He decided to get a little too friendly with a fireball... RIP)

So, the evades really help, but having more options as Nanomage and the Beast armor completes the whole thing very nicely. I've just always got another option ready if evades aren't cutting it and things go south.

It's cool how 10+ year old cookiecutter builds are being rediscovered. A lot of knowledge has been lost over the years.