'Fear' Tank Concept?

[Tath99]

Hi All.

 

I have long had a thought in my head to create a Fear focused tank.  The obvious contender for this is Dark Armour.  In addition there are the Fear powers from the Presence pool, of [Intimidate] and [Invoke Panic] from the Presence Pool.  I would welcome the thoughts of fellow players / theorycrafters on how such a concept might be best / most interestingly served.

 

I have it in my mind, that the Hero might for example be an Invulnerability / Superstrength or Radiation / Superstrength Tank: where the Fear effect takes the place of a damage aura (i.e. no damage aura in primary build) keeping the foes huddled close to power the likes of [Invincibility] allowing enemies to be defeated one by one.  Perhaps making for a tank which is competent solo.

 

I would welcome the thoughts of fellow Tank enthusiasts.  How would you go about fulfilling the concept?

 

 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by Tath99

[Radiaria]

The Fear in the power pool limits your options for other power pools and IMO, isn't worth going that far out of your way for. If I were you, I'd personally take Dark Armor for this, it's an excellent primary for tankers anyways, you may "need" Ageless to help with endurance though.

 

Why would you not want a damaging aura? That seems extremely counter-productive. That Aura TAUNTS enemies to you, this BRINGS them to your fear toggle. That aura also can be slotted with Might of the Tanker for TONS of survivability in the +res ATO. This is perhaps one of the most useful tools you can have as a tanker... And it helps you kill...

[Gorgar]

Dark Armor/Dark Melee.  Touch of Fear is useful at times and stacks with the aura.  Not a great solo set though, in that it takes forever to kill anything.  No reason you couldn't tank on a DM/DA brute though.

 

Presence isn't a real strong pool.  I played with it some on a WP/DM tank to add more fear, but it's weak compared to DA/DM, and if you don't take either dark set, it's probably not going to be terribly effective.

 

If you're thinking of doing this because it would be *good*, well, it probably wouldn't be.  But it'd be playable if it was something you really wanted to do.  DA/DM is pretty much the canonical example of "defeat them one by one" though.

 

Your taunt aura should generally keep the enemies around you on its own, with the taunt power to help out.

[Jeneki]

I've got the presence pool fear powers on a current character.  They're a bit short on duration, even if no one attacks them.  Decent for concept power, but not great for actually keeping things feared.  Also the animation/sound could be better, I was hoping for an awesome warcry scream.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Jeneki

[tellania]

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.

[Shoulung]

I believe the fear aura also has-hit that you can slot for.

[Leogunner]

Using Fear to control mobs is a bit of a hit-or-miss as fear doesn't quite perform well without something else to hold them in kind of like stun but worse.  You said you didn't want a damage aura and I'm assuming that is so fear isn't broken as often and allow the foes to hit or run away...I'd actually say you're better off aiming to add something into the mix to immobilize or slow them down instead.  You might be able to work with Spines as it has a slow and immobilize component to it.  Or using Ice Armor and it's knockdown patch to slip up those that try to get away.

 

Another possibility is to use something other than Tanker.  Defender, Corruptor and Controller have far more options to fear mass amounts of foes and can be built to be defensive as well.

 

Yet another option could be Stalker who will have a high chance to Fear in an AoE when using Assassin's Strike from hide.  It also tends to focus on single target and has no damage aura.

 

Beyond all that, I actually created a concept for a melee set and started from the premise that it incentives using fear and sleep on your foes.  Tell me what you think:

 

 

 

[MrAxe]

Don't forget the fear power you get for becoming a Vigilante.

[Sura]

I always thought fear would be a fun experiment for a Tanker.  Get something that just does AoE knockdown, then once they're knocked down, start stacking fear.  A non-damage taunt aura would make sure you kept aggro, but if you got enough fear going you wouldn't even need to attack.  

[Jeneki]

16 hours ago, tellania said:

 air superiority allows keeping a boss perpetually on their backs.

Nice call, I'm a big fan of that power.  Also the way it knocks them down looks awesome, with a big head-over-heels flip.

 

 

[Ankhammon]

7 hours ago, Sura said:

I always thought fear would be a fun experiment for a Tanker.  Get something that just does AoE knockdown, then once they're knocked down, start stacking fear.  A non-damage taunt aura would make sure you kept aggro, but if you got enough fear going you wouldn't even need to attack.  

sounds like a job for the new pool sj power. it adds a pbaoe kdown.