Muscle build feels like glass

[Senpaija]

I've recently been making two new tank builds...

An anarchist build with microgun, around 400 armor and frenzy. Swang song aced.

The other is a muscle build with lmg gun thingy, 60 armor and medic tree with aspire. Max threat.

I tried both on mayhem difficulty (anarchist build on death wish too).

People have said that health focused tanks are better on higher difficulty, however to me it seemed quite the opposite. I don't think I could survive on death wish with my muscle build, because it has no immediate defence against damage besides taking cover. The primary weapon also has an annoyingly long reload time that has gotten me downed multiple times.
If a tank needs to stay in cover all the time, can that really be considered a tank or just a dodge build with non of the dodge elements besides being quick?

Anarchist only needs to hide when armor breaks, which almost never happened, otherwise I would be downed a lot more than I have. Snipers are a massive kick to the balls, but the build seems to deal well with everything else, if it doesn't involve sprinting that is (it's hella slow moving). Even though the microgun also has long reload time, but that is semingly the only time I need to take cover.

So what's the deal, why is health considered better if you are gonna be downed because the health regeneration can be of any use? Cop minions are also stupidly annoying to get because people shoot them before I can convert...

[The destoyer of worlsd!!!]

If you're worried about your build's performance, then why are you using the Microgun in the first place? It sucks

Also, the only time I've heard health builds being better for high difficulties is in the specific case of Stoic. Otherwise the meta seems to be dominated by perk decks with temporary invincibility (the armor-focused Anarchist and Armorer as well as the health-focused Kingpin)

[Senpaija]

Originally posted by DESTOYRER OF ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ WORLSD:

If you're worried about your build's performance, then why are you using the Microgun in the first place? It sucks

Also, the only time I've heard health builds being better for high difficulties is in the specific case of Stoic. Otherwise the meta seems to be dominated by perk decks with temporary invincibility (the armor-focused Anarchist and Armorer as well as the health-focused Kingpin)

Keep that opinion to yourself please, I never said I had an issue with the anarchist build or the gun used for it. It performs very well.

Stoic is pretty superior to any other tank builds, the damage negation is pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ massive on higher difficulty, but that's only one build and anarchist seems to be just as good, if not better since it works well on all difficulties besides maybe ds, I havent tried ds myself really.

Armorer got some ability I didn't know of?

[Gandalf360one]

Armorer is the father from anarchist.
The perkdeck buff the armor and you have the 2secs immunity after armor break too (16 sec cooldown).
Can also be played with berserker and isnt that hard.

[Mustard Seeds]

Is not an issue with the deck, is an issue with the way you are playing and your build most likely, try using this site https://pd2builder.netlify.app and paste how you're running it.

But muscle is great for tanking damage since it can regen more than half of a heavy zeal shot (225) with hostage taker and when combined with partners in crime you can get 600 HP which is enough to tank a green dozer point blank those deal 560 on DS, you shouldn't be having trouble at all on MYH as they pretty much deal OVK damage unless you're not using cover at all I would understand more on DW as people can get overwhelmed but you can tank so much with it.

What you can do to help with your survival always get partners in crime and hostage taker, I personally don't like ICTV but with it and underdog or quickfix should let you tank 2 heavy zeal shots on your armour and on lower difficulties you should be relatively safe as MYH(40-50) and DW(67) damage is rather low on top of the 600 HP.

Also HP it's only considered good depending on the build/perk, but for the most part armour is king as you don't need skills to regen it or a specific deck (except for stoic).

Originally posted by DESTOYRER OF ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ WORLSD:

why are you using the Microgun in the first place? It sucks

It doesn't, with berserker and BE is just an LMG with way more ammo and that's without crits.

[Lanxcapo]

ok, the first problem is that one people tend to talk about health decks they tend to refer to kingpin and stoic, muscle is quite good but not really op, second of all they are talking about higher difficulties, mayhem isn't really a high difficulty, it's more like a medium difficulty, there is barely any difference in damage, the only difference is that enemies are no longer made out of wet paper like in overkill but rather just dry paper, so for the porpouse of you testing tankyness mayhem barely makes a differce here, and in lower difficulties, yes, armor is better, enemies deal little enough damage that you rarely have to worry about your armor breaking, and a heavy armor anarchist like the one you were running can straight up outheal the damage

with that covered the reason why the abovementioned decks are regarded as soo good is due to them scaling based off of the damage enemies deal, so whereas a stoic is ok in overkill and mayhem, they are stupidly tanky on ds, difference in damage enemies deal between mayhem and ds is massive, i think enemies deal like 40 damage on mayhem and 225 on ds, so this decks that scale with damage get very strong there, tho muscle doesn't scale with damage, the mere numbers it has let it tank 2 shots to health and heal after it as opposed to the normal 1, and for the sake of clarity, a single shot of difference on ds is a complete game changer, also you didn't say that you where running joker skills, if you are running a health deck, parters in crime aced is pretty much a necessity as it gives you 30% more health, add hostage taker on top and you get an additional 4.5% regen so you can get a lot of health per second back

as side notes, if you find lmgs reloads to be too long for your liking, bring some reload skills, like lock n' load aced or bloodthist aced to speed them up, and you may hear sometimes that anarchist is one of the best decks in the game even on ds, which is true but i have to clarify that that is refering to using a different playstyle than the heavy armor one you are using, that one would die horribly

[Senpaija]

Originally posted by Gandalf360one:

Armorer is the father from anarchist.
The perkdeck buff the armor and you have the 2secs immunity after armor break too (16 sec cooldown).
Can also be played with berserker and isnt that hard.

One of my friends used the armorer perk deck for a very long time and he went down far more than me, idk if it's just bad combination of skills and weapons, but I dont have much faith in the armorer perk deck. 2 seconds might be vital on ds or even dw, but if your armor breaks twice in a row, it's not gonna be of much help?

[Mustard Seeds]

Originally posted by Senpaija:

Originally posted by Gandalf360one:

Armorer is the father from anarchist.
The perkdeck buff the armor and you have the 2secs immunity after armor break too (16 sec cooldown).
Can also be played with berserker and isnt that hard.

One of my friends used the armorer perk deck for a very long time and he went down far more than me, idk if it's just bad combination of skills and weapons, but I dont have much faith in the armorer perk deck. 2 seconds might be vital on ds or even dw, but if your armor breaks twice in a row, it's not gonna be of much help?

That seems to be your major problem and I bet is why your muscle build feels bad, depending on the deck you shouldn't be exposing yourself too much to get your armour popped often, you kinda have to rely a lot on timers and learning when is safe to do certain plays, both muscle and armourer need to be played passively unlike anarchist, stoic and king.

When a player can't manage to do that they will either get HP shredded or die a lot, I've played with armourer players that never went down once on DS is that good of a deck when playing properly, same goes for muscle.

Edit: Also If you really want some help, use the app I linked earlier otherwise is just a guessing game as to what's wrong and a bunch of fruitless conversation which boils down to you being the problem, as every single deck is perfectly playable on DS, including yakuza which is the worst deck in the game but other than that most should over-perform on DW since they're balanced for that difficulty.

[Lanxcapo]

Originally posted by Senpaija:

One of my friends used the armorer perk deck for a very long time and he went down far more than me, idk if it's just bad combination of skills and weapons, but I dont have much faith in the armorer perk deck. 2 seconds might be vital on ds or even dw, but if your armor breaks twice in a row, it's not gonna be of much help?

armorer is probably the most consistent deck in the game, you can't really go wrong with a heavy armor armorer build in almost any heist regardless of difficulty, as long as you are playing passive enough to let your armor regen you are rather hard to kill, if it comes down to you having your armor broken too often at that point it's the player being too careless rather than the deck's fault, a patient enough player can go an entire heist without getting downed without any issues

[Senpaija]

Originally posted by Mustard Seeds:

Is not an issue with the deck, is an issue with the way you are playing and your build most likely, try using this site https://pd2builder.netlify.app and paste how you're running it.

But muscle is great for tanking damage since it can regen more than half of a heavy zeal shot (225) with hostage taker and when combined with partners in crime you can get 600 HP which is enough to tank a green dozer point blank those deal 560 on DS, you shouldn't be having trouble at all on MYH as they pretty much deal OVK damage unless you're not using cover at all I would understand more on DW as people can get overwhelmed but you can tank so much with it.

What you can do to help with your survival always get partners in crime and hostage taker, I personally don't like ICTV but with it and underdog or quickfix should let you tank 2 heavy zeal shots on your armour and on lower difficulties you should be relatively safe as MYH(40-50) and DW(67) damage is rather low on top of the 600 HP.

Also HP it's only considered good depending on the build/perk, but for the most part armour is king as you don't need skills to regen it or a specific deck (except for stoic).

Originally posted by DESTOYRER OF ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ WORLSD:

why are you using the Microgun in the first place? It sucks

It doesn't, with berserker and BE is just an LMG with way more ammo and that's without crits.

I think this is mostly correct
https://pd2builder.netlify.app/?s=583I10-4h0-4102V001k10-4300&p=1&a=2&t=7&d=3
It's either the first or second type of armor, not suit though

I changed it a bit since yesterday and traded aspire for more needed perks like being able to knock down shields or reload while sprinting, but still mostly the same.

I also tried using bulletstorm with commander 101 with the build, but didn't work...
Still not sure which secondary weapon to use at this point, lol.

I find it strange that health regen is so slow even with hostages, stoic can heal it all instantly, armor naturally generates quickly if you don't take damage, even faster if you get it from kills/headshots, but regeneration is just kinda... slow. I do try to have a way to regenerate health for all my builds besides anarchist, but it's not meant as a counter for damage.

[Mustard Seeds]

Originally posted by Senpaija:

snip

I wouldn't benchmark builds with stoic as that thing is stupidly unbalanced on any difficulty aside from below OVK in which is harder to maintain due lowering all damage almost to nothing being harder to heal back.

Enemies on DW deal above 60 damage so your armour is just being useless and slowing you down might as well use flak, heavy ballistic or combined tactical vest, they're better for DW damage values than the BV.

Here's what I would change while keeping your build more or less the same https://pd2builder.netlify.app/?s=xa3I1001dg1000100V005012000100&p=1&a=5&t=4&d=3
(drop the armour and just use suit if you want to run it on DS, is gonna be harder to use but not impossible)

https://pd2builder.netlify.app/?s=5g3I1001dg100010wp0041xa000100&p=1&a=0&t=4&d=5 how I would run it for DS.

https://pd2builder.netlify.app/?s=xk3I0001fM10-690050xa0-6&p=1&a=6&t=4&d=5 Alternatively and way different for playing more passive.

I personally prefer muscle with a sniper and just playing by peaking to counter the 15% increase in target priority but if you prefer LMGs they should work for the most part, just try to avoid shooting in the open for too long or taking main routes where cops walk by, instead try to flank and always have a safe route to run/retreat the moment your armour breaks, you should have enough HP to tank around 3 zeal shots so have that in mind, for DW you should be fine for the most part as long as you don't do anything risky.

Lastly I would suggest to never getting up you go or dire need, they're pretty useless skills same for fire control specially if you're using an LMG due the bipods being a thing and suppressor skills that help way more I personally don't like wasting points in nine lives, if you find yourself dying less or none at all drop it and get a more beneficial skill to you such as reload skills which aren't needed if you simply play safely by going into cover, just never let your guns reach 0.

[Senpaija]

Originally posted by Mustard Seeds:

Originally posted by Senpaija:

snip

I wouldn't benchmark builds with stoic as that thing is stupidly unbalanced on any difficulty aside from below OVK in which is harder to maintain due lowering all damage almost to nothing being harder to heal back.

Enemies on DW deal above 60 damage so your armour is just being useless and slowing you down might as well use flak, heavy ballistic or combined tactical vest, they're better for DW damage values than the BV.

Here's what I would change while keeping your build more or less the same https://pd2builder.netlify.app/?s=xa3I1001dg1000100V005012000100&p=1&a=5&t=4&d=3
(drop the armour and just use suit if you want to run it on DS, is gonna be harder to use but not impossible)

https://pd2builder.netlify.app/?s=5g3I1001dg100010wp0041xa000100&p=1&a=0&t=4&d=5 how I would run it for DS.

https://pd2builder.netlify.app/?s=xk3I0001fM10-690050xa0-6&p=1&a=6&t=4&d=5 Alternatively and way different for playing more passive.

I personally prefer muscle with a sniper and just playing by peaking to counter the 15% increase in target priority but if you prefer LMGs they should work for the most part, just try to avoid shooting in the open for too long or taking main routes where cops walk by, instead try to flank and always have a safe route to run/retreat the moment your armour breaks, you should have enough HP to tank around 3 zeal shots so have that in mind, for DW you should be fine for the most part as long as you don't do anything risky.

Lastly I would suggest to never getting up you go or dire need, they're pretty useless skills same for fire control specially if you're using an LMG due the bipods being a thing and suppressor skills that help way more I personally don't like wasting points in nine lives, if you find yourself dying less or none at all drop it and get a more beneficial skill to you such as reload skills which aren't needed if you simply play safely by going into cover, just never let your guns reach 0.

I won't be playing ds any time soon, I just want a build that works on dw, just a heads up.

The lmg has high treat level, supporting muscle panic ability, silencer is counter productive and I would have to switch primary weapon out entirely. I could throw away what little stability there might have been, but would be bound to a dozer killing secondary weapon.

Honestly sprint reload is just the result of inconvinient muscle memory. I reload before knowing if its necessary haha...

I would try out sniper if there is a sniper with easy ammo refill, relatively large clip size (8
bullets or more) and high enough damage to one-shot non specials. The more shots it takes to kill a single soldier, the less enjoyable for me as a tank.

I haven't tested the build yet on dw, but I would rather go with more armor than none at all, because taking damage is distracting and speed isn't worth much if I can't dodge anyways.

I'll see if the skills in first link help, minus the suppressor skill, lol.

[Senpaija]

There's also another build I kinda want to get upgraded, because I love it, but meanwhile it's strong and performs well in mayhem, it's far more difficult to stay on my feet in dw with it. Idk if i should make a new thread about it tho?

[Mustard Seeds]

Muscle panic is independent of the suppression mechanic, yo ucan still make enemies panic regardless of suppressors or not.

You could try the R700 is one of the best snipers right now.

[Senpaija]

Originally posted by Mustard Seeds:

Muscle panic is independent of the suppression mechanic, yo ucan still make enemies panic regardless of suppressors or not.

You could try the R700 is one of the best snipers right now.

Won't suppressor make the threat go down on the weapon though?
I'll check out the sniper

[Mustard Seeds]

It would but most people here would agree that handling your weapon more easily is better to kill enemies quick rather than having them suppressed, as that mechanic is RNG and only lasts a few seconds and can make you miss important shots.

If you want, go for it but you're gimping your build by doing so just for the chance of suppressing/panicking a couple enemies.