tellania

I'm a fan of higher cap on taunt (5 is too small), or increase the aoe of taunt for tanks (above 400). I do like the idea of bruising (either make it stack, or give a chance of the other attacks to do bruising). BUT ... the one power I would have like to see, for a tank is an AOE absorbing mechanic. If a foe use an AOE, the tanker absorbs the full brunt of it (aka 100% damage), but reduces damage to the rest of the team (I'll say 20%, but it can be more or less). Like the tank blocking the damage for the rest of the team. Multiple tankers can further reduce team damage by a similar amount. (e.g. 2 tanks will reduce damage to the team from the AOE by 40% or the remainder amount). Simple example: 100 pt aoe hits the team (and 2 tanks). tanker 1 reduces it by 20% (80 pts). 2nd tanker reduce it by 20% (either 20 pts of original, or 20% of remainder). So, the team will get hit by either 60 points, or (100-20)*(1-.2)=64 points. Zero benefit to the tank, lots of benefit to the team. Multiple tanks provide more benefit (all tank team, provides no benefit to each other ...). Team of 8 (7 tanks, 1 squishy) would give the squishy AOE damage of 4.7 (0.8^7), while tanks still take full damage.

not sure if this was answered earlier, but I had the same problem. Drag 'Island Rum' into the Applications/ directory and run from there. Seems it needs to be in that directory (mine was in Download before) to update properly.

Ice/Ice/Ice baby ... From my perspective, Ice is a different creature. You can easily max out your defenses (sans psi/toxic). The best way to play ice/ice/ice is, as a tankcontroller. You understand Hoarfrost (dull pain), but to add: 1. Chilling embrace - Causes your enemies to have -damage, -recharge, and -slow (or is it +slow ...). Pop a slow IO (or the slow damage proc, if desired). Why? See #2 2. Hibernate - Hibernate is your get out of jail free card. First, you do NOT have to wait until you have 100% recharged your health and stamina. This is a nice duality. Your foes are suffering slow effects from chilling embrace. You are hit with massive damage, and need a heal. Hit Hibernate. The taunt of your aura's will hold them a long time (I think 13ish seconds). If some blaster out aggro's you, they will still have the -run speed (slow). I believe it lasts 13 seconds (the taunt aura), which should be enough for hibernate, heal, pop out, taunt, etc. Hibernate is very useful esp for alpha's . For the CW king, I got hit by the psi blast. Dropped very low on HP, and healed up with hibernate. Before I went in, I told the team, to wait until I got aggro. If the team listens (big IF, but mine did), they will wait an extra 5-10 seconds. Very useful with hard hitting AV's (bobcat, in incarnate TF ...). For ice melee: I believe damage was added to frozen aura as it was the most worthless power ever. From memory, it should do footstomp level damage but its all COLD (less resisted). The sleep is a nice side effect, and allows slotting sleep IO's (e.g. Placate (not sure why a tank would ever slot placate (PvP maybe??), chance for -recharge, or chance of self heal). This was a spectacular win for ice melee, which, as you can tell, is sub par damage-wise. Ice patch - Ice patch enables the 'other' form of damage mitigation: knock down. Unlike regen/healing/resists/defense, this relies on the time an enemy is incapacitated (knocked down then getting up). With chilling embrace -recharge, you can greatly reduce the incoming MELEE damage (does nothing for range damage). Freezing touch - A good hold, and does damage. Best paired with a hold APP, you can even hold bosses and elite bosses (again if memory serves). Add a few attacks with a proc %chance to hold, and you are holding the baddest of the bad (you wont hold entire groups like controllers, but you are far more survivable than them). Taunt - many forget, it also has a -range component. VERY useful to bringing in those outside your aura's, inside your aura. frost - gives -recharge and -slow, doing haymaker (pure cold!) damage in a cone! Works well with chilling embrace. To get the MOST out of it, pop in 2-3 hami dam/range. From experience, the default range is too small to be effective beyond a single target. I popped 2 in there, and was surprised at how many more are affected by the cone. Best use of hami damage/range is melee cones, imho. Go around a corner when herding, and give them a frost blast for fun and giggles. app: hold (discussed), range, shiver (-recharge, -speed!). Strengths: 1. Defense can be capped, easily (sans psi/toxic) 2. Hoarfrost can be perma, allowing massive regen/HP. 3. Lots and lots of -recharge, slow effects 4. Some -damage. 5. Can perma-hold bosses (singular). Weakness: 1. Not good at mass herding. the -slow will make it painful to herd them doggies! Hint: make it a habit to turn off chilling embrace then on. This will help, but other powers will cause slows. 2. Not good at burst damage. I HIGHLY recommend tough and the 2 +resistance IO's (should put you around 32%). Lots of IO's have +SL resistance (I have an SR tank near 75% SL resistance, but I build for that). 3. Damage is not great I recommend going dual build for ice/ice/ice (doesnt have to be expensive). build 1: group tank (add recharge, keep hoarfrost perma, and add +SL resists, and feel free to add some hold procs). Get tough. Feel free to get weave, since it will only cost 1 power anyways (tough requires kick/boxing). build 2: more damage! But, you can do both, with some compromises. Depending on how you play, ice tanks can be surprisingly fun. As a group tank, you wont have massive damage, but you will reduce most attack rates to zero, keep them close to you, and hold any big bosses from hitting you (in case of freaks, ice patch is the great equalizer). I prefer going with the tanktroller role. Its unique, novel and more active in tanking. Plus, your damage is pure cold, not smashing. You will do better damage than a rage-less super-strength tank (rage makes SS great), have LOTS of control, and options to survive, while keeping your team alive.

One word of warning on resist only builds. Status effects will hit more often (than a defensive build), and on a large team, you can have your status protection overwhelmed. About the only real negative on resist only builds, easier to apply status effects to you. Easily solved with a few break free's ...

as sushiloving123 said, hurl boulder is skippable. dam/anim is a bit low. But it still looks awesome! As an idea, you have 3 builds (at level 50). Some people make a pvp and pve build. Its a great way to test pool powers and powers you may not like. Some make it into a playstyle, some do not.

I'm familiar with fire/ tanks, but not the radiation melee aspect. I can give a few suggestions, but it comes down to, how much do you wish to invest into your farmer? Are you limiting yourself to a few farm maps (e.g. demons, freaks, etc). I assume an easily playable, not uber toon ... Step 1: Cap SL damage resistance. 1. Power pool: fighting. Take tough. 1b. Take a single defense power (weave, combat jumping, hover, stealth). You dont have to use it, but you want it to hold the 2 defense IO's in #2. 2. Splurge for these 2 IO's: shield wall +5% all and Reactive Defenses: Scaling Damage Resistance (3-13%, but at least 3% always!). I think, without any bonus, this should give you around 80% SL resistance? There are various IO sets (cheap) that give +1.5% here, and 2.25% there. The rest of the build can be SO's, until you decide to make something tougher. Step 2: Optimize your heal (healing flames) 1. 3 heal/3 recharge SO's (or a 5 set of Doctored Wounds) (or a 4 frankenslot heal/rech from various IO sets). Now, simple playstyle. You are very tough, esp to SL and fire damage. Child A says 'daddy, daddy, <child B> made a mess. Auto set healing flames to 'on' (right click, you can have 1 power set to auto fire). Between reduced damage taken, and healing every 20 seconds, I would be very surprised if anything happened to your fire tank. If the mobs are +4 freaks (dont forget they have electric damage), your mileage may vary. Other steps: Step 3. Fully slot burning aura: If you are gone, you still can do damage! Feel free to pop in a few procs. I like the psi damage proc in the taunt set (cheap and easy). Or, slot burning aura with the knockdown procs (avalance and/or overwhelming force). I put these in my fire/spines farmer, and having your foes knockdown, considerably, helps your survivability. Step 4: Become incarnate: Get a tier 3 alpha, makes you +1 in the game. Thus, you can farm level 50s as if they are level 49's. Step 5: Add defense Feel free to add IO set bonus defense (melee or SL), as desired. I put it last as this can increase a build cost considerably. I dont have mid's or the game available to give better numbers. Without knowing how much you plan on spending, I assume your farmer maybe cheap (primarily SO's) build. Spend a bit on the necessary IO's. EDIT: Fire/ tanks are not known to be the most survivable. They are known for damage (damage aura and burn). For survivability, almost all the other tanker primaries are more survivable, but they dont have the damage potential of a fire primary.