This is mostly a fun post about my experiences using all of the 12 main expected solo setups that will exist after the rebalance on the tank commander. I know that high levels of OD, and even some really bad DA rolls can be more difficult than this guy is, but I find him to be a more interesting case study. He is always the same, and is the only content where you essentially get no reward for defeating him at a lower level, and need a special item to even be able to select your difficulty.
All of the fights were done with 90/10 anima allocation, a cruel delight signet, and the primary weapon’s self heal passive, along with whatever build I slapped together that looked like it would work.
Please note that the opinions below are my own, and are anecdotal based on my own experience, skill level, and weapon/fight familiarity.
Assault Rifle
No surprises here. This was a cake walk. Bringing enough AoE to deal with drones doesn’t force me to sacrifice damage, the damage is top notch, and the self heal is strong and consistent, allowing me to quickly recover from mistakes.
Blade
Perhaps the biggest surprise on this list, blade was quite powerful. After a quick relearning phase, I was able to win with remarkably high dps, and between Supreme Harmony, and the blade self heal and cruel delight, I was able to stay alive even while using a blade of the 7th son. The freed up active slot is a godsend.
Blood
Blood’s damage output was on the lower side, and the delayed nature of blood’s AoE elites, and 3 energy AoE made it a little tough to deal with drones, but some of this is on me for not really optimizing the build. The healing was quite enough to stay alive through the full fight, and it was overall average, feeling slow, but easy.
Chaos DPS
Chaos is still above average, doing middle of the road damage, providing incredibly useful weapon specialty effects, and keeping up with incoming damage fairly well.
Chaos Tank
Like all the tank solo specs, this build does less damage than I would want, but the signature makes quick work of drones, causing them to be a non-issue. Survivability was not an issue, and this setup felt pretty middle of the road.
Elementalism
Elementalism was on the harder side. It has plenty of AoE that doesn’t sacrifice damage, and a consistent self heal. Despite that, I found myself on the lower end of the damage scale, and struggling to keep up with his damage even though I was doing well taking minimal cyber spin damage. Overall below average.
Fist
Fist was the most difficult for me. In addition to having low damage output, and only one usable damage elite, fist sports the only RNG self heal in the game that I could not manipulate in any way to actually get a little extra healing when needed. Taking out drones was rather troublesome, and the experience was the least fun of my attempts. I almost broke down and used an active self heal, which could have made it much easier, but with no other weapon was that even a consideration.
Hammer DPS
Nothing to see here. This was easy and clean. The only issue I had was that there appeared to be a bug where Forged in Fire could be purged. Despite the running around this forced me to do to keep it long enough to get some healing from it, FoF did work, the damage was top notch, and the drones never had a chance.
Hammer Tank
This build suffered greatly from Forged in Fire being purged, and I died a few times from having it stripped before I could get any healing from it. Damage output was low, but the signature did make short work of the drones. This definitely felt below average.
Pistol
Pistol felt good overall, probably around average. The damage was average, I was able to come back from a mistake with healing passives, and the uptime on exposed and debilitated helped a great deal. Drones were somewhat difficult to deal with, but overall it felt good.
Shotgun DPS
This felt well below average. The reload mechanic burning a second every time I used it means that every time I forced an additional reload to heal, I was also wasting a bunch of time. Drones were a nightmare. The only real way shotgun has to deal with drones is full salvo with depleted uranium or dragon’s breath rounds. This means I had to have one of those shells slotted, have at least five shells in my shotgun, and not get interrupted by the tank commander during my channel to have a prayer. It also meant I was occasionally holding onto shells when I could be shooting, in anticipation of drones, lowering both my damage output, and self heals. Also the damage was on the low end.
Shotgun Tank
This also felt below average, but not as bad. Sonic blast reduced the need to have a perfect full salvo go off every time the drones appeared, which took a lot of pressure off, even though I still chose to use it. It did feel difficult to keep up with the damage here. The healing felt like it came in waves, not necessarily always when I really wanted it. The reload mechanic burning time every time I used it is still painful here.