Punk's no-stim needed build. Warning: Insanely effective.

[Punktate]

Congratulations, by opening this topic you have just taken a step in the direction of being an incredibly effective tank that is very difficult to kill, WITHOUT USING ANY STIMS.The main purpose of this build is to rush mobs, create a cluster**** among them, gain aggro and then take them all out by yourself, or with your teammates. Don't change a thing, don't take any other skills other than what I have listed (at the current 31 cap) and don't add more points to anything that isn't listed. I'll explain why the abilities I don't have equipped are terrible for the way I play, and I will explain the proper way to use this build.

ABILITIES TO USE:

Vigor (6): You will want to spam this when in a battle, even if you're full on HP. Just incase. The second you rush into a mob or a boss, use this.
Increase Mass (6): Right after using Vigor, use this. Your defense will be +300, and you will be virtually impossible to kill for a short time, just the right amount of time for this build to work it's magic, infact.
Growing Rage (6): You get a whopping +60% critical. This is insane. It has a minute long recovery, but use it no matter what fight you are in, whenever. (Unless you are killing mobs right outside the boss, save it for the boss.)
Singularity (1): Face it, this skill does basically no damage, even when maxed out. Because of this, why waste more points? At level 1, you have the bonus of pushing, knocking down and taunting your foes. This is a must have, and I STRONGLY recommend spamming this in every fight, no matter the quantity or difficulty of the enemy.
Kinetic Reservoir (6): Sure, your damage goes down 10 for 5 seconds, (this adds up to 50), but for the next two seconds your damage increases 35 (adds up to 75), so you actually do more damage. Ontop of this, you gain +10 energy regen which is necessary for not using any stims and keeping your mana up. Use whenever your mana falls under 3/4.
Graviton Slam (6): Use this to slow down mobs and make them easier to kill. Not a necesity, but it helps.

ABILITIES NOT TO USE:

Force hammer: Low damage, only taunts. Singularity is superior and also has AoE.
Neutron Stomp: Low damage and only affects your immediate area. (May be good to use in the next update, with more points. But not right now, not with this build.)
Gravity Well: This skill is the anti-kiting skill. This build is based on kiting.
Nebula: The damage is low and you will be kiting the enemy, not nearby them. This skill is useless for this build.
Backbreaker: It has the same problem as the other offensive skills. To put it simply, the input is not worth the output. Infact, with the time it takes to cast this, (Approx 1 second) you could attack twice with your weapon, thereby inflicting 2x asmuch damage. This skill just simply isnt worth using.

HOW TO FIGHT AND HOW TO SURVIVE WITHOUT POTIONS.

Enter every fight by using Increase Mass, Vigor and if possible, Growing Rage. (Spam Vigor and Increase Mass the second that they are useable, in every fight to ensure maximum pwnage.) Rush straight into the enemies, hopefully you have a cannon equipped, (any commando with any sense uses one), and then after a couple seconds, run back towards your team. Once the mobs start getting close to either you or your team, hit them with singularity and knock them the hell down. Use Graviton Slam if you feel like it to slow down the enemies, but you don't need to, it doesn't matter all that much.Then just finish the fight as you normally would.

Good luck.

[shannong]

I'll point out that at level 19 I was able to solo Outer Limits using this build, minus the 6 points in growing rage, of course. So of course it was sloowww to solo without growing rage, but the survivability is there. And yes, no pots. So far I haven't used pots once since hitting Numa with my Commando and using this build (sans Growing Rage).

[Acezero]

You may be able to solo but your much less useful in a team. You have those taunt skills to gain the aggro since one might not do It sometimes. Besides gravity well is really useful with heavy weapons and is the strongest damage skill.

[xBlacklightx]

I'm going to use this build but why do we use cannon? Were you serious about that or should I keep using my rusted pistol?

[Acezero]

Heavy weapons have aoe damage effectively it can hit 1 to 7 enemies. Even if it hits 4 for 50 damage thats 200 dps

[xBlacklightx]

Ohh thank you very much, I never knew.

[sickside]

im just saying you dont have that many agro gaining skills so do alot of engineers die when your tanking? and the build is made to kite and tank so what do you do when a engineer pulls your agro and your too far away to gain it back?

im not trying to trash your build or anything its just my main is a engineer and it seems like alot of tanks have been leaving out there agro skills thus resulting in me pulling some mad agro and getting a ****ay death ratio

[Punktate]

With this build, you don't need to worry about anyone dying. You are able to successfully run ahead of your team and either obliterate enemy mobs before they reach your team, or they're so weak that your team doesn't have to worry. And as I said, if the enemy does manage to get close to your team, knock them down with singularity. It works every single time, without fail.

[Acezero]

What About fighting the guardian? Sigularity cant hold the aggro alone

[Punktate]

Aslong as you get the initial aggro and nobody else uses an aggro skill, youll hold it. Let your team know not to use aggro, and use singularity when you rush in.

[Acezero]

Aggro drops from hate generation. You can get it from simply healing, or dealing a lot of damage.

[Punktate]

Try the build. If it doesn't work, then go back to whatever you were using. At the present cap, this build stops you from using stims and you will do a crapload of damage.

[shannong]

As one minor tweak to this, I did pull a point from somewhere and invest 1 point in Neutron Stomp to give me an insta-taunt for keeping Guardian interested in me instead of some overzealous engineer laying in with Wither and Leech while spamming Empathy, Transferrence, and Pain. Note that on my Katsumi engineer build, which uses the afore-mentioned things, I can definitely grab the Guardian's aggro and keep it a good long time. Of course, I can also effectively tank him too with that build, lol.... Haven't had to use a health pot yet but I've been tempted once or twice.

So ya, having a 1-point investment in 2 or 3 taunt skills, especially the insta-taunts like Force Hammer and Neutron Stomp, can help if you have an engy who generates a lot of hate. Yes, this is even when fighting at the cliff edge and I'm not getting the hate just because the tank got pushed back. Watched it happen in a run just now. Think we had only one tank though.... Might have been two....

Edit: for Engies watching this thread, have you decided whether or not Wither and/or Leech actually works like a taunt or generates uber-hate? I swear when all I did was spam Empathy, Transferrence, and Pain, I never, ever took aggro from Guardian. As in, he never turned toward me at all. I position myself and watch for even temporary turns towards me, and never started getting them until I threw Wither and Leech into the mix too. Wither is at 6 and Leech is at 3.

[SknyAndy]

I'm starting a commando because of this thread

[Punktate]

As one minor tweak to this, I did pull a point from somewhere and invest 1 point in Neutron Stomp to give me an insta-taunt for keeping Guardian interested in me instead of some overzealous engineer laying in with Wither and Leech while spamming Empathy, Transferrence, and Pain. Note that on my Katsumi engineer build, which uses the afore-mentioned things, I can definitely grab the Guardian's aggro and keep it a good long time. Of course, I can also effectively tank him too with that build, lol.... Haven't had to use a health pot yet but I've been tempted once or twice.

So ya, having a 1-point investment in 2 or 3 taunt skills, especially the insta-taunts like Force Hammer and Neutron Stomp, can help if you have an engy who generates a lot of hate. Yes, this is even when fighting at the cliff edge and I'm not getting the hate just because the tank got pushed back. Watched it happen in a run just now. Think we had only one tank though.... Might have been two....

Edit: for Engies watching this thread, have you decided whether or not Wither and/or Leech actually works like a taunt or generates uber-hate? I swear when all I did was spam Empathy, Transferrence, and Pain, I never, ever took aggro from Guardian. As in, he never turned toward me at all. I position myself and watch for even temporary turns towards me, and never started getting them until I threw Wither and Leech into the mix too. Wither is at 6 and Leech is at 3.

Id like to try this then.. what skill did you take the extra point from?

[shannong]

Kinetic Reservoir, so it would be your build with KR at 5 instead of at 6. But I'm still only 24 with my commo, and currently prioritized KR last, so I'm currently: 6 Vigor, 6 IM, 6 Growing Rage, 3 KR, 1 Singularity, and 1 Neutron Stomp. I found before level 24 (when I could respec into Growing Rage), when I had KR at 6, I was rarely falling below 70% power, if even that. So I figured I could give up some KR. Still trying to suss out if I can spam everything I want and still keep enough power through the end of a Guardian run with only 3 KR. So far, I think so but need a few more runs to double check. Depending on how much KR you really need to keep enough power without needing pots, you might even be able to squeeze in a third taunt: the other insta-taunt (1 in Force Hammer).

[Rob Prose]

Just ran a version of this build in cycorp at lvl 13 soloed the first three zones(coffee break couldn't push further in such short time) NP other than I cut it close on the first boss.

Build is as follows(keep in mind only lvl 13): Vig: 3, Sing: 1, IM: 5, and KR: 3.

I dont know how valuable pushing KR past level 3 is as I didn't run into issues where I had to use it after every fight since I wasn't burning energy on damaging abilities. I'll probably eat that last sentence if I start putting points into multiple damaging skills though as it will increase my energy consumption.

All in all this is an excellent solo build but after getting a feel for the skill base of players in this game I feel that with a less qualified group the lack of taunts could cause some complications with ops and engies pulling agro even if you are doing the running man to stay ahead of them. I'm not concerned with normal mobs as they arent bad for now, except the last pull on cycorp before the last boss that pull sucks sometimes, but rather on the boss fights where there is a decent amount of threat flying in the group and that one taunt might not be up. I might take one point from KR to put into GS because the slow helps with kiting and the second taunt isn't bad. From my days tanking ICC in WoW I know that almost every tank class had more than one taunt for those times where someone wasn't watching their omen and pulled LM off one of the tanks and into the group dealing mad AoE everywhere maybe even killing a healer making things tricky.

[Punktate]

You could take the single point out of Kinetic and move it! Great find! I'll add that in once the update gets released and were able to use more skill points. & Perhaps I should add guides to use per level?

[Cabero]

You could take the single point out of Kinetic and move it! Great find! I'll add that in once the update gets released and were able to use more skill points. & "Perhaps I should add guides to use per level?"

That would be a very good idea! I'm currently 15. My current build is 1 NS (took the extra point from KR for it), 1 Sin, 6 IS & 5 KR. I put 1 in NS because it you chain it with Sin it makes helps stop a lot of damage. But I would definitely like to see your ideas for a lvling guide because I currently have 1 point unused and can't decide where to put it next.

[Romeo Longsword]

ABILITIES TO USE:

Vigor (6): You will want to spam this when in a battle, even if you're full on HP. Just incase. The second you rush into a mob or a boss, use this.
Increase Mass (6): Right after using Vigor, use this. Your defense will be +300, and you will be virtually impossible to kill for a short time, just the right amount of time for this build to work it's magic, infact.
Growing Rage (6): You get a whopping +60% critical. This is insane. It has a minute long recovery, but use it no matter what fight you are in, whenever. (Unless you are killing mobs right outside the boss, save it for the boss.)
Singularity (1): Face it, this skill does basically no damage, even when maxed out. Because of this, why waste more points? At level 1, you have the bonus of pushing, knocking down and taunting your foes. This is a must have, and I STRONGLY recommend spamming this in every fight, no matter the quantity or difficulty of the enemy.
Kinetic Reservoir (6): Sure, your damage goes down 10 for 5 seconds, (this adds up to 50), but for the next two seconds your damage increases 35 (adds up to 75), so you actually do more damage. Ontop of this, you gain +10 energy regen which is necessary for not using any stims and keeping your mana up. Use whenever your mana falls under 3/4.

Yea this is solid, I have recently respected my commando into something like this, however, with only Singularity; although would work just fine, it is not enough battle control for my liking and would like someone suggested earlier before, reduced 1 point from Kinetic Reservoir and get 1 in Stamp.