Call Me Awesome

Archery is defiantly a good choice for pure range, I've played it twice, once as Archery/Energy and once as Archery/TA. Here's the thing, /Energy has available to it the wonderful Boost Range power... this has a major effect on cones as well as greatly increasing the range of your heavy hitters. I also have a Fire/Energy blaster and Boost Range allows me to stay away and pound the mobs. Another bonus of Archery is the extremely low endurance use... my Archery/Energy blaster never bothered to slot Stamina and even flying and running several Leadership toggles I only run low on end during a long AV fight. The Archery/TA is even better on endurance. On the other hand a downside to this is lower damage output and a heavily resisted damage type (Lethal). Of the two I've played I'd probably give the nod to Arch/TA as it offers more utility, but requires you to be a bit closer. With Boost Range you can hit mobs that are out of your render distance, so it's really mainly useful for Fistful of Arrows.

The classic pairing is, as mentioned above, Ill/Rad. There's a reason for that, the two sets work remarkably well together and offer nice AOE debuffs from an early level. I hear Cold may offer better single target debuffs but it takes longer to get there and isn't as good at AOE. Also, one common goal for Illusion is to have Phantom Army perma and Accelerate Metabolism gives you a 30% recharge boost, greatly reducing the IO bonuses you'll need. 205% global recharge bonus is tough to reach without help from the secondary. (That assumes 95% recharge in PA itself)

I've played Ill/Rad (Perma PA), Fire/Rad, Plant/Storm, Mind/Kin and Ill/Emp (not recommended) to 50 on Live. The Mind/Kin was my first level 50 controller and my impression was it peaked very early... it was at it's best compared to the others in the mid-20's and lost ground in the later game. It was stronger than my other 'trollers in the early going but once they reached the 30's the others pulled ahead. In the late game it was more useful for the secondary than the primary IMO. It had decent controls but the other sets surpassed it and it has no pet for additional control or damage. Decent, but there's no boost at 32 like the others get. The Plant/Storm just didn't click with me and only reached 50 because I was on a fixed SG team with him. Storm just didn't work well for me and because I disliked the Storm part I believe the Plant primary caught dislike by association. I probably ought to try Plant with another secondary sometime. The Ill/Emp... well, I rolled him up in issue 3 and he hit 50 just prior to shutdown. He was the character I pulled out when he was the sole alt in the level range the team wanted to play. In that time I found that I really dislike Empathy and there's very little synergy with the sets. The Ill/Rad was a lot of fun and quite effective the whole way. I frequently teamed with another Ill/Rad in my SG and together they were great at controlling all the battlefield aggro. Once I reached Perma-PA with him it was a fantastic character. Fire/Rad... the real murder bunnies of the game when grouped with others of their kind. One is good, two are great, three of them and you start the steamroller. Put 8 of them together and you'll never even slow down in your march through the mission... AV's are barely speed bumps, including the Patrons and Lord Recluse in the STF/MLTF. They can be a bit squishy solo but they have fantastic damage output and good crowd control. The downside is you live in melee range to take advantage of some of your best powers, Hotfeet and Choking Cloud.

That's usually not a huge problem with a well built tank, the real skill is in keeping a team of idiots alive. Not that I'm saying anything you aren't already fully aware of Hyper. 😁

I just looked at the patch notes on Beta and they claim the problem is fixed there so we'll get it with the next patch here barring issues in testing. The game's code is apparently extremely convoluted and fixes frequently have unintended consequences. Past experience says there's a good chance the fix will work and go live shortly.

I'm partial to Rad/Sonic, you'll be able to do a number on -def, -res, -tohit and -regen. It has good damage, a great team buff in AM and an emergency heal to go along with the debuffs. The defender capable of tossing out the highest level of debuffage is probably the Dark/Dark defender... it's mostly -tohit but it's capable of insane amounts of -tohit along with a dash of -res (Tar Patch) and -regen (Twilight Grasp/Howling Twilight). My Dark/Dark Defender on Live was, pre-IO, capable of maintaining over 100% of -tohit debuff on a single target and something close to 60% on an entire spawn. It gave the entire team over soft capped defenses.

The quickest way is to have a team and jump into a group of even level mobs, wait a couple seconds for your aura to grab them then step back and see how fast you loose aggro. Willpower used to shed aggro after 2 seconds, the other sets would keep it for about 14 and Invuln would keep it 17 seconds.

As I recall Invuln had the longest duration aura of MAG 4, 17 seconds. Willpower was MAG 3 and only lasted 2 seconds. Although Mid's disagrees experience seems to show that SR's aura was similar in strength and duration to Willpower. Because of that there was literally no comparison to the aggro management abilities of WP and SR to every other set in the game. The aura taunt would wear off immediately after the mobs or the tanker moved out of melee range. Although WP was a fairly durable set I felt it was worthless for the primary purpose of a tanker, to take and hold aggro. If the changes actually work... and last I saw there were issues with it not working... then WP will become a viable option. Whenever I teamed with a WP tanker I knew that we had a low damage, high durability scrapper on the team and not by any means a tanker. From the beginning when Tanks got WP up to now I've only seen ONE WP tanker who was able to actually fill the tanking role, and he had an AOE heavy secondary (Fire I think) to help... and he worked his butt off to maintain aggro with Taunt and his secondary.

It's not new, it's not shiny and it's very dated but I still enjoy Master of Orion 1 & 2. I'll start a game and suddenly it's 3 AM and I'm thinking "one more turn and then bed"... then I fall asleep at the keyboard.😜

Keep playing and running high level TF's, Incarnate Trials, exemp down for lower level content, basically the same as you did on the way up.

The most frustrating character I ever played to 50 was a Stone/Energy tanker back in issue 6 before Energy Melee was nerfed. It was a mediocre set that was somewhat redeemed by an extremely good tier 8 power, Energy Transfer, that had the highest single target damage around and had a very fast animation. Well, sometime in the issue 7-8 era the Dev's decided it was too good and changed it's under 1 second animation for one that took roughly 3 seconds. I believe there may have been some other nerfs as well but after all this time that's the one I remember; and the character went from marginal to the only level 50 I ever deleted. There's lots of good melee sets out there but Energy is not one of them. I've been partial to Street Justice, there's just something that makes you smile when you kick the guy in the nuts. One of the popular pairings with Shield is Electric; it's a beast in AOE damage, particularly once the build matures, but it pays for it with mediocre single target damage. I've played it as a Stalker and its great at killing large numbers very quickly. A Brute would be a bit slower killing but would be more durable.

Synapse needs to loose about 1/3 of it's missions, and Numina desperately needs to loose all the pointless hunt missions. Heck, Numina would be trivial to fix, just delete all the hunt missions except possibly the Eden one for flavor, and the mobs are actually level appropriate.

I'm assuming this is based off of the reboot instead of the original Lorne Greene version?

My list of the worst TF's in the game: 1. Any of the Shard TF's with shame of place going to Dr. Q. Badly written, terrible design of zones and constant "go to point x and kill 50 y" without indication of where the hell "point x" might be unless you have the reveal power. These should die in a fire. 2. Numina thanks to the terrible street sweeping missions. Desperately in need of a revamp. Unfortunately it's needed for the TFC accolade. 3. Synapse thanks to the sheer length and endurance sapping clocks at a level you're not equipped to handle such. Also in desperate need of a revamp. Also unfortunately needed for the TFC accolade. On the other side of the coin, my favorite TF's would include: 1. Statesman's TF/Miss Liberty's TF. Fun short TF with decent challenge when it was introduced, still fun even if incarnate powers have reduced the difficulty level. 2. Penny Yin, short, fast and a lot of fun. 3. ITF. A lot of fun and all the debuffs can make things challenging, particularly on higher difficulty levels. There's several others that I enjoy and a few more I avoid but that's my worst and best list.

Well, everyone knows Scrappers come in a few varieties. <Excerpt from "Scrappers, the facts and the myths", copyright 2005 Paragon University Publishing> The known varieties of the beast known as "Scrapper" are as follows: Scrappus Solois, commonly known as the Solo Scrapper shuns contact with civilization like the plague. This creature is seldom seen as he keeps to himself and is only occasionally seen when on his way to or from a mission door. His habits are largely unknown to all as few ever encounter him... he is so fanatically anti social its a mystery among the zoological world how he manage to reproduce as Solois aggressively avoids all contact with others. To date nobody has recored any intelligible communication with a Scrappus Solois. The numbers of this beast are unknown; perhaps these creatures are partially responsible for the Bigfoot sightings. Scrappus Feralis, commonly known as the Feral Scrapper generally doesn't play well with others and is quickly bored frequently leading to the Feral Scrapper wandering off on his own, perchance to find an AV to play with. This creature is frequently confused with his cousin, Scrappus Solois, but the two are at best distantly related, perhaps a common ancestor hundreds of years ago. Unlike Solois this variant is at least slightly social even if his communication is largely composed of grunts and snorts. If you encounter one it's best to treat him like a slightly domesticated wolf; he probably won't attack the party but he's unlikely to stay with you for long. Scrappus Domesticus, usually known as the Domesticated Scrapper is the rarest variety. You'll almost always encounter Domesticus in the company of others and he's surprisingly supportive of those around him. This Scrapper has actually mastered language and some are even capable of complex thought and planning. When with a group Domesticus will usually stay with his companions and will even attempt to protect them from harm, although he can get distracted easily by shiny new mobs. Even with the gregarious nature of Domesticus their numbers are low, something that mystifies anyone who studies them. Strangely enough Domesticus also tends to have the longest lifespan, perhaps because he lacks the savage, mindless aggression of Solois and Feralis. Even with that advantage it's rare to encounter one. Rumors exist of other varieties but if they exist they have yet to be verified. Many scholars deride the notion, equating them to the status of "Loch Ness Monsters" and the like, however the author considers their existence to be likely.

A question just came to mind, has anyone played a Shield/Elec tanker at high levels since the changes? How does the damage now compare to the set on the other AT's? I had a sudden desire to roll one up... like I needed another alt while I'm still working on two other tankers, 3 defenders, 2 corruptors, 1 blaster, 2 scrappers, 2 'trollers and a PB.

Broadsword works quite well with Shield, even on a Tanker Parry will free up your build so you can focus IO bonuses other directions and let it finish the last bit to the soft cap of Melee defense. I've played that combination twice, albeit on a Scrapper, and its thematic and very effective. Fire works quite well with Shield, I took a Shield/Fire tanker to 50 on Live and the combination works very well. Good AOE and ST damage output but no secondary effects to aid durability. On the other hand Shield's tough enough to not need any help. Shield/Electric is very popular and an AOE killing machine. For Tankers the single target damage is somewhat lackluster but the AOE is top notch. My experience with this combo is on a Stalker, so I didn't have the single target shortfall due to Assassin's Strike. This combination works well on any AT you care to play it on. The only secondary that comes to mind as rivaling the AOE is Spines and you can't put Spines with Shield. Most secondaries should work pretty well with Shield, those are the ones I've played to 50... although only one as a Tanker.

Argh, don't remind me, I'm only a year behind you. Now I need to wear those reading glasses I always laughed at. Karma's a bitch.

Fire/EM blaster - Burn it from out of range. Boost Range is a fantastic power on a Blaster.

I'd agree with Fire/EM as one of the bottom dwellers, in it's current form EM is by far the worst tanker secondary so that's a given to have it. On the primary side it's arguable which set is weakest. SR is admittedly a one trick pony but in all fairness it's a fairly good trick and it will tend to survive pretty well. Fire has historically been among the squishiest tanker primaries.

Likewise, didn't know, could care less.

I had a perma-PA Ill/Rad back on Live, the Radiation secondary is a huge help with the recharge bonus in Accelerated Metabolism. As Adeon mentioned you'll need to find about 205% in recharge bonuses after slotting PA to the ED cap recharge. Hasten is worth 70%, AM is worth 30% leaving 105% from IO bonuses. Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge is another chunk leaving you to find 67.5% in other IO bonuses. Doable, but it will get expensive. Back on Live a Perma-PA Ill/Rad cost around a billion inf; an Illusionist with a secondary that didn't provide +recharge could jack that price up almost double. The good news is IO prices are MUCH better here and merits are much easier to come by so it'll cost you far less than it used to. Or you can get a buddy to toss Speed Boost on you, or team with another Radiation character so you'll have two AM's (60% recharge there). If you're running a static team with a few friends it's MUCH easier. Edit Hmm, just realized this was a necro post. Well, I assume the OP has gotten everything squared away by now.

Issue 0 - The Great Age of the Blaster Issue 2-4 - The Great Age of the Tanker Issue 5 - The Fall of the Tanker <lotta stuff in between> NOW - The Rise of the Tanker If you wait long enough things come back into fashion.

Agreed that it's hard to fault pairing Shield with much of anything. I've never even studied Savage much less played it so I can't talk about that particular combination but Shield will certainly get the job done.

There's not really a bad pairing for Shield... well, except for the few that aren't available like Claws. The top popular pics seem to be Electric, Fire and Broadsword. I've played all of these, but admittedly only SD/Fire as a tanker, and all of them are quite effective. Of the sets you've listed I've only played Dark Melee and that only into the upper 20's before abandoning it due to a lack of AOE. I admit to a bias against SS, originally due to the fact that back in the old days it seemed like every other tank you saw was Inv/SS and later because I disliked the way Rage works. While I haven't played Mace I had a friend with an Inv/Mace tank back in the issue 5-9 era and the set seemed quite effective albeit very endurance heavy.