Socks10

I have been enjoying the Stone/Elec Tanker, but also made an Elec/Ice Tanker. Both sticking with the storm theme. Not sure which I like better. I might actually be leaning towards Elec/Ice as there are more powers I like in there....maybe too many actually. It's difficult to find a good build as there are too many power choices. I'll keep playing both though, for a bit, to see which one becomes a clear favourite.

Ha, I'd say that is a pretty great reason to choose it. 🙂 This game has so many little quirks that make it fun. Glad my friends found it again last year and keep coming back to it.

Ha, I'd say that is a pretty great reason to choose it. 🙂 This game has so many little quirks that make it fun. Glad my friends found it again last year and keep coming back to it.

Thanks for taking the time to give me a build to look at. I really appreciate it. Also, that tip on how to use Jacobs Ladder is very interesting. I'm sure it applies to other cones and just not something I have ever thought about. Edit - Is there a reason for choosing Teleport? I have seen it in other tank builds and I typically go for super jump or flying. Is there a reason this is a good pick for a tank?

No rush. I will mostly be playing this character with some friends, so it won't be a fast levelling toon. 🙂 I've also been playing another Tanker recently, based off a post by @Sovera I believe. It is a Fire/Claws Tanker and I absolutely love it. And based off of their post above, I'm wondering if I can get it to work with this Storm theme as well. 🙂

You don't, by chance, have a build lying around for Stone/Electric, do you? I've gotten to 11 so far and grabbed Jacobs Ladder...and I'm not so sure it was worth it.

Thanks for the posts! This is excellent. I didn't think of Stone/Elec. I have created one, but still working through what power choices to make. Thanks for the advice guys!

I'm looking for some ideas. My friends and I have been going on a storm-based powers kick lately. This mostly consists of using ATs that have access to the Storm Summoning set, which has been a ton of fun. However, I feel like having a character that can taunt would be beneficial for us and I enjoy Tankers, so I have been trying to find a fit. There really isn't much though. Ice/Ice? Ice/Elec? These are about as close as it gets. I have already been looking through the forums and had a peak at @Infinitum's Tanker post (which is excellent). However, the best idea I got out of there was an Elec/Storm Controller (which is my other favourite AT, so I will be trying one of those). Any ideas for a storm-based Tanker?

Lots of good posts in this thread, but I'm going to focus here because it asks some questions. Also, shoutout to the all Emp Defender idea. I'm not sure the others would be interested, but this sounds fun. 🙂 Debuffing may or may not have been an issue. We were able to get through a couple other very long fights in the SF without much issue...it just took a long time. I don't think the /Poison Corrupter was staying close to Positron, so that could have been an issue there. But, our main issue was the imps. There is the one imp that we tried to focus on when it spawned, the one that would fully heal Positron. We were failing just getting this guy down fast enough. The other two imps that spawned were also an issue because they would blow up when get close. I, as the Tanker, was fine, but it did hurt the other players quite a bit. You were bang on with the Arachnos character. I don't know enough about this class, but he definitely had pets and definitely was AoE focused. The MM was probably not controlling his pets very well, but they died very quickly anyway. As for IOs, we definitely had no characters with Set IOs. I had regular IOs in all of my powers, not sure about everyone else. Although, the MM was getting enhancements that dropped off others just to get his recharge down on Fortitude, so there is that. 🙂 I like playing the Tanker class because I feel like I can really help out this specific group of players by holding all of the aggro. Perhaps it is time to try something different. Something with a bit more damage or a different playstyle altogether. How would you go about tanking with a Controller, Blaster, or other character?

I typically play with a group of four. We don't always play the same characters, as we all love our alts, but we usually fall into the same roles for the most part. I will typically be a tank, another guy will have some sort of healing (usually as an MM secondary), and the other two could be anything (hopefully with damage). What's bringing this question on is that lately we've been trying to work through some task/strike forces. They can be challenging, but are fun to do. Mortimer Kal broke us though. We had to give up. We made it all the way to the Positron fight and just couldn't do it. We may have eventually, but we couldn't keep at it. For whatever reason, we could not take out the healing imp in time consistently. This made the fight very frustrating. Our group makeup was an Inv/Elec Tanker, Arachnos Soldier, Water/Poison Corrupter, and Demon/Emp MM. Probably not near to ideal, but we worked our way through the entire strike force to make it to the end (and Mortimer Kal has some difficult fights). We just didn't have the damage to take the healing imp down fast enough. So, back to the question, what is needed to make a good four man team that can take most content on? To me, in the above situation, we lacked damage and debuffs. A Tanker seems necessary, but probably not this one. Could have used more damage there. The only support was coming from Emp in the MM. Could probably have used some debuffs there. And I'm not familiar with the other two enough. The Corrupter had damage and debuffs though, so should be good. Are there typically thing you want in a four man group (-recharge, -res) or any group for that matter?

I’d like to try my Ice/Cold Controller in an AV situation. I used him in pub groups last night and had fun. I felt like I was contributing. I also feel like I might enjoy Jack Frost more than Singularity. I know Singularity is the popular better pet, but I feel like he can be a hinderance on teams, throwing mobs out of melee range. Jack just runs around doing damage. I do have a level 19 Ill/Rad Controller. I like using him, but at the time I was really into my Grav/Time Controller. I might take him out for another spin.

We didn’t have my Ice/Cold Controller for the strike force. I was playing a Dark/Energy Dominator instead. This was fine for most of the strike force, but not for the AV at the end. I could have maybe used my Controller instead. I feel like we had enough with our group, but we failed horribly. You’re 100% correct, part of the fun of playing any character is finding out where and when they shine. This is why I love playing so many alts. Too many alts most would say. 🙂

I actually had an Ice blaster already, he’s level 39 currently. I really like him. He does excellent damage and feels like he’s contributing a lot in teams. I still made this Ice/Cold Controller though and actually hit level 41 last night. He feels much more useful on teams now and has a bit of damage. I ran a strike force with a few friends the other night. It had a boss at the end names Infernal I think. We had to give up. We had no issues with this strike force until then. Now, we didn’t have an optimal group I’m sure. There were only 4 of us, me a 34 Dark/Energy Dom, a 37 MA Scrapper, a Water/ Poison Corr(?), and a Fire/Fire Blaster. Now, I feel like this is where my Ice//Cold Controller would really shine. I want to think he could have dropped the bosses Regen so low we would have tore him up easily...or maybe I should just have brought the Ice Blaster in to drop the damage. 🙂

My friend has the same problem as I do, we both pretty much play a different character ever night. Damn you altitis! I actually realized yesterday that while I love my Grav/Time Controller, I really don't have any experience with other powersets in this AT. So, I decided to make an Ice/Ice Controller. I ended up getting help leveling to about 26 before I used him with some friends last night. Thankfully, because I tried to solo right away and in the late teens and it was painful. I still didn't feel overly helpful with my friends last night either. Ice Slick and Arctic Air are awesome. The holds are great too. The shields? Eh. I can't imagine anyone I group with wanting to look like a block of ice. I even tried Minimal FX and they're still pretty obnoxious. I still plan on using him a bit more before making a final decision, but I also imagine I'll spend some time in the character creator to fine another Controller to check out. 🙂

I don't have much to add, other than to say @Sir Myshkinand @Doc Ranger made some excellent points and always do. Since I have been back I make a point to pay special attention to their posts when discussing character builds. I have an Ice/Atomic Blaster that I have at level 39 and enjoy him quite a bit. But, I did notice similar things to the OP regarding /Atomic while leveling up. But, one I got past level 32 and got Blizzard, I basically started playing how @Sir Myshkin discussed above (only because I saw him mention it in another post). I got into a radio mission group the other day and kept alternating Blizzard and Ice Storm/Atom Smasher. It was great. There were times where I'd break off with a single Brute during the mission and we would clear whole areas. I know I'm not on my final build most likely, but I have almost all of the /Atomic powers picked aside from the tier 9 melee attack, which I doubt I take. I also don't use Shackles at all really, but no choice there. I didn't pick up Bitter Freeze Ray, but I have on another character and I absolutely love the animation...it's just way to slow. Freeze Ray is amazing though. Slotted it for damage and it's perfect.

This is kind of funny (to me). My first two main characters since I've been back are an Ice/Ice Tanker (50) and a Grav/Time Controller (45). Now I have a ton of alts, but that's another story.

I do this too. It’s a nice power to have ready when things get out of control. I actually did a mission with this same friend last night. I used my Controller and he had a Mind/Psi Dominator. He definitely enjoyed this pairing. We did a high level mission in PI where we had to fight Infernal. We had zero issues until Infernal, where my friend got one-shotted. I had to use all of my powers and it was a very tough fight, but we prevailed. I just had to kite the boss away a couple of times to get my friend some Rez inspirations. :)

I love Wormhole, but I can definitely see how it could bother some melee. There were times when I'd go to pull a spawn, and while I was casting, the melee characters ran up. I had to say "Umm, not there.". I also can see how Singularity would be annoying as well. It's a very good pet, but absolutely has no problems flinging mobs every which way. This is especially noticeable when I'm using Wormhole to drop the spawn groups on a pin head near it. 🙂 The thing is, I have a lot of powers available to me with my Grav/Time Controller. I just need to remember I don't need to use all of them all of the time. 🙂

I didn't even think about Singy. There were times when I'm sure my pet threw mobs in ever direction and I laughed it off. Maybe I'm more of a "hindrance" than I thought. Haha.

Haha. I reread my original post and I definitely made it sound like I'm a pretty special Controller. 🙂 Truth be told, there is so much to this game I feel like I could constantly be learning. I do feel like I have an idea how to play this class and not be a hindrance. I know not to immobilize or hold mobs before they surround the melee. Mostly, when playing with my small group of friends, I wormhole a large group of (completely stunned) mobs directly on top of my tank. They couldn't be more tightly packed. I think all I could do to make it better is to increase the recharge on my Wormhole. I think the issue my friend might have is that even if I can keep casting Wormhole as soon as we get to the next spawn group, the casting time alone is slower then the melee just jumping right in. And he's kind of right. If Wormhole is not needed, I probably shouldn't be using it on all spawn groups. Now, I haven't been in a ton of large groups with my Controller, but when I have been and the group has been streamrolling, I only use Wormhole to add an extra group of spawns on top of he already engaged Tank. @Golden Azrael - I think you hit the nail on the head. When I'm playing my Tanker, I take the lead. I move the group by continuously pushing spawns and aggroing whatever I can. When I'm playing my Controller, I know I'm a support class. However, I may not play like it always when I'm in my small group of friends. I sometimes push spawns and grab mobs to through back towards my group. When maybe I should just be more of a support and let the Tanker do his thing. Especially if we do not need to have the group of mobs stunned completely before attacking...

Aside from a large number of alts, I currently main a Grav/Time Controller and an Ice/Ice Tanker. Both in their 40s. The friend in question loves when I play my Tanker, but you can almost hear him groan through the Internet when I suggest I'm going to be playing my Controller. I even got him to admit that he's not a fan last night. Now, I'm an awesome Controller. I buff everyone with Farsight when it's up, same with Temporal Selection. I Wormhole huge mobs right to us, completely immobilized, then I debuff them, immobilize them some more, drop a slow on the floor under the entire group, and hold the troublesome mobs until the team is ready. Doing damage as much as I can with my powers as well. He appreciates none of it. The buffs, I'm sure he'd miss, but probably doesn't notice half the time. All of the controlling? He'd rather I run in with my Tanker, aggro everything, and get healed occasionally, if needed. I'm worried he'll grow tired of my Tanker later too, when he realizes there are probably other ATs that can hold the aggro and do more damage. Now, I'm not really that concerned about my friend. I'll play what I want and he'll like it! But, is this something that Controllers notice when grouping up in general at higher levels? Are other ATs preferred much more in groups because they deal more damage? Will my Tanker have trouble as well because of low damage output?

I've been playing this build through the levels. Currently level 46 and it plays so well. I don't plan to mess around with anything until I hit 50, but some powers that I could see being swapped out would be Build Up (mainly because I always forget to use it), Injection, and Aid Self. Injection and Aid Self are handy occasionally, but I have not used them a ton leveling up. I have no idea what swapping these powers out would do for set bonuses, as I have not looked into making my own plans yet. That will be a whole new area of addiction that opens up at 50 for me I'm sure. 🙂 Ice Patch is another power that I could see getting swapped out at 50, but I love it. Also, if I plan on doing any exemplaring (and why wouldn't I) having this power available at the lower levels will be helpful.

Thanks for the explanation. I will definitely consider this build when I hit level 50 (currently 44). I do absolutely love my Ice/Ice Tank.

Thanks for posting. This build has some big differences from the one I'm using. Very interesting. It looks like there is a way to have multiple builds for a single character. Do people do this? Is it practical? It looks like it would be a good way to test out one build against another.

I completely missed this when it was posted. I would love to see your build if you're still willing and able to provide it. 🙂