Call Me Awesome

Frankly unless you're playing with a team used to playing together there's not a lot of choice but to adapt to the team. Far too many of them may have heard of the word "strategy" but can't see that it applies to them.

I'd wondered. Like I said it's been years since I tanked Hami and I only tanked the new Hami maybe a dozen times. The raids I've been to here have been with a Blaster, who was the first I got to 50. I'd certainly need to study the current methods before tanking him again, and it sounds like Invuln may not be the ideal choice now with Dull Pain the only heal other than green candy. I built for defense & resistance, not for regeneration. So you're staying melee with Hami throughout now, that's a change from before, I wonder if the AOE radius is a little smaller now since I know a taunt tank in close melee used to have splash on characters right on top of Hamidon on the other side... I ate that splash on a couple occasions when I took a Scrapper to the raid instead of tanking.

I'm of the same opinion, and back in the early days of CoH you wouldn't see many Tankers without Taunt, usually about as soon as they could get it. Some sets DID get it too soon to actually survive the extra attention but everyone had it by 25. Later on there was the whole "I don't need Taunt" arguments on the boards (however in game I seldom saw it) with a very vocal minority loudly proclaiming it was pointless to take and everyone who actually knew how to tank saying it was at the very least highly useful if not actually required. CAN you hold aggro without Taunt? Yes, and I've tanked the ITF with a Shield Scrapper before due to a lack of options, but it's MUCH easier with Taunt and there's times where you can't grab that mob that's eating the face of your blaster without it. For a Brute I'd say it depends on the role you're taking. If you're going to be managing aggro then yes it's needed. If you're going to be playing Scrapper style then it's optional.

So does Perfect Zinger, along with other nice bonuses. Of the two sets I usually prefer Zinger on most builds, and the proc makes a nice bonus when it fires off.

My thoughts were formed in the old days where if Hami got loose during the hold phase the entire raid would wipe and you'd have to wait for a server reset to try again... Hami with several hundred yellow mitos was a no-go situation then. I have seen Hami tanks in the old days try to stay in melee and raid members who were right on top of Hami on the other side DID get hit by the AOE. To be on the safe side I always allowed ~10-20' of distance from Hami. Back in the old days the tactic was that Illusion 'trollers would drop PA on Hami at the start and the raid would clear a section of Mitos at a time... remember there were LOTS more Mitos then than there are now. I'd move in with a couple of Empathy defenders (back then there was no EoE and Hami'd damage was unresistable) and grab Hami's aggro keeping it off of the raid as they moved around killing the Mitos, also grabbing the attention of any Mitos that started shooting my heal team. As Mitos were cleared I'd move around to keep the splash away from the Raid, finally ending up on the opposite side of Hami once the Mitos were clear. At that time the raid would gather and hold Hami, which took if I remember correctly MAG 100 holds stacked up. Once he was held then the Damage phase started to take him down... it was CRITICAL that the raid maintained the MAG 100 hold the entire time, if Hami got loose once he dropped to 50% then he'd summon a yellow Mito for every player and pet in the bowl ending the raid. I admit to a lack of experience tanking the new Hami, I did it several times right after the change while we were working out a strategy but kind of burned out after awhile. I've been to several raids here on Homecoming but I brought a Blaster instead of a Tank; I haven't done one since CMA hit 50 here.

If the Hami tank is in melee with Hami then the rest of the raid needs to be VERY careful to avoid the large AOE splash zone. I always set up about 20' away to make sure the group on Hami's other side wouldn't be affected and I've always seen current Hami tankers set up in much the same position for the same reason. Hami's AOE is no joke for most characters and (at least it used to) has a pretty good knockback and stun built into it.

Stone Armor is almost all defense until you get to Granite Armor (which is exclusive of all other armors but Rooted and the passive Stone Skin). Granite is 20% def to all but Psi and 50% res to all but Psi. With no other powers but Granite and only SO's slotted you wind up with 31% defense and 79% resistance. Add the passive Stone Skin T1 power and your S/L caps out. That's before you figure in any set bonuses or pool powers at all, only Granite and Stone Skin. It's ridiculously easy to soft cap Granite's defenses and not much harder to cap out the other (non Psi) resistances. Unfortunately you pay for that with extremely limited mobility, reduced damage output and reduced recharge. I played the set twice on Live, both times pre-IO, and it's absolutely, no question the most durable tank you can play. However, my Invuln is not far behind in durability and suffers NONE of the penalties. There's secondaries that will add to your survivability. Broadsword/Katana/Titan Weapons for Parry (or it's analogue), Stone Melee (and a few others) for knockdowns, stuns and holds and I'm sure there's a few others that don't come to mind right now. Your secondary's importance in that regard does drop off with the tougher primaries so feel free to pick what you want. My Shield tanker on Live was Shield/Fire, my Stone tanker was likewise /Fire; both for the same reason - extra damage and not needing more durability.

I hear you on that. I actually had Taunt slotted 2 Taunt/2 Recharge at the time and used Fire Blast to keep Hami's attention. Even now the Zinger and Mocking sets are a great place to get nice bonuses on the cheap if you can spare the slots. My current build on CMA only has the base slot with the Zinger proc; I've been debating changing that. Unfortunately it'll cut my durability to non-S/L to steal the slots. Hmm, I can steal 5 slots by forgoing 30% Psi resistance, not sure that's the best option although trying to hold something like Hami aggro would require more taunt. A second build is possible but considering what I have slotted it'd be EXPENSIVE.

Been there, done that although so far my mid-30's Ice/Spine tank's doing fine tanking. Admittedly I've had a full IO build since around level 22 and soft capped by the late 20's.

And that is the reason Stone's small durability advantage over an optimal IO Invuln isn't worth having.

I've made a few billion inf on Homecoming buying cheap recipes and using converters to get something valuable for the AH. There's loads of uncommon recipes with hundreds for sale priced at under 1k. Add in about 2k worth of salvage and the crafting fee, then a few 90k converters and you have something that sells for $2 million or more. It's a decent return and typically only takes about 20 minutes a day. I found super packs to be a bad investment personally; I'd buy 10-20 of them and not do a lot better than break even on resale of the contents. It WAS less work than crafting and converting but not as profitable. Part of that is that many of the things it drops you can't sell in the AH; I've a ton of fairly useless boosters sitting in my mailbox. If you want the boosters then maybe it's good, but if you're after inf then I'm not impressed.

It's a lot of fun to play anyway. The only Shield scrapper I played is Broadsword/Shield. I did lots of stupid Scrapper tricks with that back on Live, it was quite capable once I'd taken care of the endurance issues. I did cheat on IO's and used Parry to make up Melee defense to free up bonuses for other things.

I did the best I could to keep attention away from you guys, although you likely got tired of my position macros: "Hami tank moving right, beware of Hami Splash!" and so forth.

I understood it was a joke, I just missed the point... something I occasionally tend to do. You're right about that, I just didn't see it.🤔

I suppose my experience with Elec/Shield may be biased since it's on a Stalker and I have a very nice ST attack in Assassin Strike to go with the other, admittedly somewhat mediocre, ST attacks. Still, I can clear the ComiCon AE map in under 5 minutes with my Elec/SD so it's not lacking by any means. In my build both LR and SC recharge in under 25 seconds so I don't spend any time waiting on them, I unleash my 3 big AOE's (LR/SC/Fireball) which usually kills the spawn, then on to the next and hit them with my other AOE's and ST attacks, then by the time LR & SC are back I'm ready for the third spawn. Toss in the occasional Ion Judgement and they all quickly decide to lie down and be good mobs.

There's likely some truth to this, EoE inspirations take care of the damage input... without EoE there's no defense or resistance so no tanker primaries have an advantage over others. I recall that on Live Hami's attacks had a -heal and -regen on them that would prevent you from being healed after a few hits, is that still the case? In any case, the only advantage a tank has over a brute is a higher HP base. Way back in the old days it was common for a Regen Scrapper to tank Hami (pre Regen nerf) since they could build enough Regen to handle Hami's 792 damage attack every 4 seconds. By the time I seriously started raiding in issue 4 Regen had gotten clobbered with the Nerf bat and couldn't take it unassisted anymore.

Back on Live I had two level 50 stone tankers, one rolled post GDN/ED and pre-nerf Stone/Energy Melee (shelved post nerf and never played again) and a Stone/Fire. The Stone/Fire was a capable tanker and I played him frequently but once IO's really came in and I worked out how to get the most return for investment I reworked CMA, my Invuln/Stone tanker and almost never ran the Stone/Fire, the small durability advantage wasn't worth the mobility, damage & recharge penalties. If you're planning a pure SO/common IO build then Stone armor is the gold standard for durability. Toss a willingness to invest in set IO's and a good build then you can get nearly the same durability without any of the drawbacks in several sets, notably Invuln and Shield.

Indeed it is. I'm afraid I may be missing your point.

The only thing I can come up with is Granite Armor's DE model.

I have no clue what you're trying to say here. I was the main Hami tank on Guardian from issue 4 until the Hami raid revamp and in order to hold Hami's aggro you need Taunt and preferably a ranged attack since Taunt is a massive aggro multiplier and it's much more effective combined with an attack. You MUST hold his aggro against the entire raid's damage output and you MUST do it from far enough out that the raid isn't in the AOE splash zone. This requires a totally solid hold on aggro and this requires Taunt. Admittedly I haven't tanked the new Hami since Live but I do know what it takes to hold aggro from an entire raid, some of which will be other tankers or scrapper/brutes with auras. You must have solid aggro, you must maintain that aggro and to do that you must have taunt or you'll loose aggro and the raid will wipe. I did it three times a week for years on Guardian and I had to keep aggro in the face of hundreds of players, some of whom were also tankers and a very few who were doing their damndest to make the raid fail by taunting into the group. I repeat, in order to maintain a solid unshakeable aggro on any mob you need Taunt and an attack. Neither alone will do the job. To do it from range you MUST have a ranged attack, preferably one that recharges quickly, and Taunt.

I'm firmly of the opinion that Taunt is needed in order to be a tank; without it you may as well be a higher HP lower damage Scrapper. In isolation yes you'll hold aggro without it but add the team's damage and it can get problematic, to say nothing of what you do when some mobs you don't have around you turn on the Blaster. Some Tanker primaries do have a strong enough aura to hold aggro reasonably well but punchvoke will NOT hold attention as well as Taunt. Taunt and punchvoke together WILL hold the attention. If I'm teaming with a tanker who doesn't have Taunt then I know that I'll have to manage my own aggro because he will loose it. Of course my assumption is always that I have to manage my own aggro because the art of tanking isn't what it once was and good tanks are very few and far between. Sorry, but I've always had the opinion that if you aren't going to manage and hold aggro then you should roll a Scrapper or Brute, not a Tanker. After all if you don't want to tank then play an AT with more damage and good durability.

Another vote for Elec/Shield here. Admittedly I've only played the Stalker version but it's a phenomenal AOE beast. ST damage is admittedly lower than some of the top ST sets but for AOE it's hard to beat once it matures. Elec/Shield/Pyre for Lightning Rod/Shield Charge/Fireball/Thunderstrike/Chain Lightning. Once that finishes you'll find the spawn is gone except maybe a boss who's on his last leg. With decent recharge that combo is available every 30 seconds... in the meantime pound away with Thunderstrike and Chain Lightning until the big hitters come back.

Only part of the damage of Spectral Wounds heals back a few seconds later, all other damage is permanent. Unless it's changed since Live anyway, I haven't played Illusion on Homecoming.

Nothing in the game is as bad as Oranbega. Some of the maps are borderline acceptable but many are outright terrible with hidden passages behind and under cliffs, the black passages and everything else it's intentionally designed to get lost in. I've spent 10 minutes before trying to find the entrance to a room I can see on "reveal" and can't find.

Absolutely Rad/Sonic, the Sonic primary needs some help and is greatly overshadowed by most others now. As a support set Sonic/ is below everything else except possibly Trick Arrow. Rad/ is one of the strongest primaries available; it's good at everything and has no real drawbacks as a set.