tellania

close to what Coyote said, Fire is more AOE, with SS only having footstomp (hand clap, which is rarely taken, is knock back and does zero damage. Prime candidate for procs, otherwise skipable). Silly question, are you running rage? Base rage is 20% to-hit, and 80% damage bonus. Super strength is pooper strength without it. In fact, there are LOTS of rage discussions, due to this dependency. Also, add in the rage crash, and you can waste a lot of attacks (or even die) from the crash itself. I have an invul/ss, and its a beast in that she doesnt die, AOE can take a bit, as its a good AOE (plus rage damage), but as stated, all smashing damage. So, fire will kill faster (its fire, that what fire does). SS will hit MORE often (due to rage +to hit), and single attacks should do more damage (esp bots, which dont like the smash). AOE wise, footstomp is acceptable, but its not fire (but better aoe than dark melee, which is awesome in its own, but different, right). Fire melee has no secondary effects. SS has a hold (KO blow), footstomp (knock down), jab (stun), and even hand clap, which opens up a LOT of possible proc monster options. Hold has 2 psi procs (plus the superior smashing proc), there is a psi taunt proc, etc. Footstomp can have the tanker IO procs (I put my +res in there, get 2-3 stacks easily), force feedback +rech proc, etc. In short: fire melee better at aoe, SS better at hitting and single target damage. SS has more proc options. Also, check out the tanker discussion on beta. There is a possibility tanker damage may be increased, and AOE's will be increased (# targets, cone width, etc). This may tilt it to fire melee option. Worth checking out.

Or ... 6 slot with 4 heal/rech IO's and 2 Resist IO's ... Much better heal, faster recharge, AND more toxic resist when you do! And if your a stickler, you can ++ each resist IO to max out a bit more resitance.

@M3z Soulbound Allegiance, does it ONLY affect the specific pet its slotted (e.g. bruiser only), or does it have an aoe type effect, where all pets get the benefit? also, how often does it proc? I believe a prior posting showed accuracy did nothing, but slotting damage worked (recharge and endurance seem to affect the caster summons, not the pets themselves). I'd like clarification if that is a wrong assumption.

cutter, Your build is close to being spot on (imho). The tanker +res proc in spine burst (I have a SR/spine) will typically trigger 2-3 times, and contribute to your resistance more than anything else (except the lone AV/GM, where you can get a single stack). Good choice of a KD proc in icicles. Also good in quills, but be careful - some times the KD will stack and become KB if they both proc on same target. I would put a LOTG in EA, then end/rechx2, +end, then recharge. Endurance should not be an issue, unless you are exemplar very low (put the +end proc in stamina and the other +hp/end proc in health; free up 2 slots). More slots into taunt (specifically duration ; any set bonus is a plus). The reason being, worse case, you can hibernate. Taunt the AV/GM, hibernate ; the AV/GM will be focused upon you for 'x' period of time. You dont, necessarily, have to wait until your fully healed, you can always exit early and grab aggro. The AT IO's you choose are regular, as superior versions, the bonuses are MUCH higher. Was this done on purpose? Off hand, I believe a superior version exemp to a lower version still has same bonuses. Permafrost and stealth can go (you can move the LOTG into EA for 5x bonus). Grab an epic pools, I recommend soul mastery (gloom, darkest night). Darkest night has -to hit AND -damage! Add that to your chilling embrace -dam. Since permafrost is out, 6 slot tough for the extra procs. I see a lot of +cold/fire resistance. your resistance will help, as-is for most content. Fire will be a small hole, as its more common than cold damage. Now, for exemp'ing, I'd suggest go alternate build. Not IO'd, maybe just an SO build. 6 slot stamina, etc. When you exemp, the powers are limited by level and when taken, but the SLOTS in those powers are NOT! Thus, if you, at level 50 in your build, but 3 slots into stamina, those slots are available from level 2 onwards (when you get stamina for free). Feel free to go with a more fun build (as its for lowbie content,), e.g. laser eyes at 50, etc. This way, you are more powerful at exemp levels, than actual hero's at that level (due to your slot glut).

Thank you. This affected me too, and rescan did fix all the files.

Yes, slot deficits .... I know the problem well ... I'm hoping one of the future incarnate powers will simply give you more slots ...

CMA, I bet its the proc +res in Might of the Tanker (lvl 32, hurl boulder). If you have it 'enabled', you'll get an extra 6-6.5% resistance to all. Edit: MotT (at least the proc) is best in an AOE. I'll get 2-3 stacks putting it in footstomp. hint: if you break up superior guantlet fist into 2 sets of 3, you'll get an extra 6% energy/dark resistance (at a cost of -6 SL resist ... but you are over anyways).

Read the beta forums, they plan to fix rage with no crash, as long as you dont double stack it. If you stack it, you'll get the same -def, -res crash (oh, the -end will come at the START of rage, not the end, easier to manage)

I had a ss/dark brute with presence pool (my dark/staff tanker will take it). It is VERY effective, much more than a stun (looking at oppressive gloom), where they wander out of your area (sometimes running speed). It will not hold enemies full time, and if you hit them, they tend to hit back, but its great to reduce incoming damage, when you need a breather. The presence pool allows bosses to be feared, and makes recovering from an alpha helpful. Most people forget the more controller-type damage mitigations (fear and knockdown are available to tanks as AOE's; holds are only single target, and not worth it). air superiority allows keeping a boss perpetually on their backs.

I know widow mind link doesnt take recharge IO's, but will take (and use) def/rech for a lower recharge time. Mid's/pine's is showing strength of will not benefiting for res/rech IO's or from hasten. Its been a while since I played a willpower tank, but do either of those affect the recharge time to strength of will? Or is this power recharge time actually set in stone?

Bopper has a great point. Just to add to it, if you 'could add' either resistance or defense, which one helps more? Example, assume you have 80% resistance and 0% defense. Would 5% or 10% resistance help more, or 10% defense? 80% res, 0% def = 10% damage taken (1/2 miss, 80% damage reduction) 85% res, 0% def = 7.5% damage taken 80% res, 10% def = (1-.8)*(.5-.1)= 8% damage taken 90% res, 0% def = 5% damage taken In general, your survival goes up by boosting your stronger (not capped) attribute (resistance or defense).

Granite tanks are the tanks everyone wants on master runs or certain incarnate trials, not for herding 100 mobs ... Have you tested mudpots yet, and was it (for some reason) insufficent?

Went to dark astoria, fought multple mobs of level 51-53. Groups of 3-4, I could finish off 3 groups, before running out of all endurance (with +20 endurance, and all attacks have 1 end red SO). For an SO build, the extra endurance is a godsend, not overpowered (via IO's and incarnates, I'm sure its a very different story). Largest group I found was ... 6, so the extra range of footstomp (my only aoe), nor the extra mob capacity made a difference. Devs: Are aura's affected by the increase range, e.g. invincibility? Changes are much more mild on street sweeping in DA. Later, I'll go RWZ, much larger groups there, easier to test foot stomp new range and higher cap.

tried out rage on an invul/ss tank in dark astoria. Fully SO'd (man, the prices of IO's there on test ...). all attacks 3 damage/2 rech, 1 end red. I can go through 3-4 mobs, before running out of endurance (3 per mob, figure lt, and 2-3 minions). No unexpect rage crashes (single application) or penalties. I seem to wiff a lot, but I purposely didnt use accuracy. rested, repeat, rested, repeat. overall looks good. The extra endurnace was helpful, but I still need to manage endurance usage.

or say 'screw it' and merge them. Tanks with fury. In fact, brute fury came from the original tanker forum. brutes get tank base protections, tanks get brute fury. Like peanut butter and chocolate. Then remove. We already can have brutes start blue side, and tanks start red side.

The -res from the tier 1 attacks do NOT stack. Though some people have made suggestions for having multiple tanks, including myself:

True story: on a RWZ raid, I used hurl at a rikti boss ... he was dead before I finished my animation. Hurl is hurt by its DPA, but I like the theme. At least I looked awesome, assuming anyone was watching ...

Actually, the problem with SS, there are only 2 decent attacks (haymaker, and ko blow). a VERY late blooming footstomp is good, but compared to axe, or stone, or most others: they have MORE high performing attacks.

offtopic: brutes are fine, but I always felt they should have a lower rate of fury decay. I tended to run out of endurance after 2-3 mobs, and rest killed fury, and you dont always have lots of blue skittles to keep going and going like the legendary brute, leroy jenkins, who is the archetype of the brute archetype.

At this moment, I see this topic is 'HOT' with 269 replies. When we have more replies than actual tanks, will the Dev's give us a good freebie? 😄 😄 😄 😄

I like to look at it this way: THANK YOU DEV's for looking into this matter, which we all believe is not fair/holding up. The fact we have this forum, for this issue, AND they are still evaluating it speaks volumes.

Agree. Not a nerf, it is a buff.

We can be happy they added damage to KO blow, before it was only a very low damage (or was there damage?) hold? Its nickname used to be Pooper-Strength. All I know, air superiority > punch (pool power does same damage, but has knockdown and -fly!). I agree, poor design choices.

If we are comparing damage, I much prefer comparing scrapper vs tanker. No fury to mess up comparison. Once established, then any issues with brutes should be done comparing to scrappers. I'm actually agreeing with you on your comparison, the problem being, what would be fair? E.g. what if the tanker aoe radius is increased by 0%? or 50%, but still 16 max? vs 100% aoe radius, with no max increase (leave it at the original value). Brute vs scrapper should be separate issue (though brute has higher caps in resistance and HP maximums), and more relevant comparison.

I must confess, I like the new rage. The worst time was 5x deaths on the MOT arc (in cimeroa), where my character got hit by diseased (-20% endurance), and the -endurance hit when rage crashed (hard to tell on the bar how close you can be), followed by -def resulted in death. Still not sure who was making me diseased ... I prefer new rage. I really ilke the -endurance front loaded, instead of a coin flipping surprise if my toggles stay up, and hit with a -defense penalty. Some options (for consideration): distribute the 0% damage to rage over time. E.g. if we have 80 seconds of +80 damage and 20 seconds of 0 damage, average them to 100 seconds of 640/100=+64% damage. I'd leave the +to-hit alone, it gives flavor to the set. Same can be done with the -res and -def (I know it will hurt 'some' sets, but it is more fair, and less hurtful to other sets, like ice/ss), make it a lower, constant penalty over time (e.g. -3% resistance or -2% defense during rage). Allow double stacking.