Might be time for a new tank

[Xandyr]

Hi all !

  So, my first tank I made on Homecoming (by the way, can't say THANK YOU enough for bringing back our City) was a Bio/Rad. I've gotten him fully Incarnated out, and he's a BEAST. Since level 50, he's only died twice (both times were on a TF fighting Mother Mayhem(?) and I died in the patches of doom not knowing what they were. Anyway...I've done that TF again, and now knowing about those patches, i haven't died. He's pretty awesome .

 

 Then I rolled a Dark Armor/MA tank. Got him to 50, slotted out,etc. He has never died. I refer to him as a "tanktroller". I can literally/em newspaper and keep mobs stunned and/or feared. There's something to be said about having your Melee/Ranged/AoE defense softcapped at all times. If I get hit, I've got a nice heal to keep me going. It's a fun set, and very "controllerish" due to stuns and fear.

 

 Now, I'm thinking that it might be time for me to make yet another tank. Of course, it'll have to be strong,pretty,and durable. One that refuses to die. I played Stone Armor on live, and hated that I almost always had to have a Kinetics with me...so scratch that set.

 What other sets have y'all played that are nigh I destructible? One that holds aggro and refuses to faceplant? 

 I'm thinking WP (especially since I've never played that set past 18). Dont have much knowledge of Rad Armor. 

 

Convince me what my next tank should be!

[oldskool]

I'm biased to Willpower since I have one.  Tanker Willpower can get you softcap defense to the typed (Psi is a little tougher) and hard cap your Smashing/Lethal resistance.  Psi resist can get pretty high, even hard capping if you want, but the other resistances are trickier to hit 90% on. 

You do get some hit point booster with High Pain Tolerance and then some sweet regeneration with enemy saturation.  Against Smashing/Lethal enemies I don't notice my health move because I regenerate whatever pathetic damage does hit me pretty quick. 

Now, Willpower's taunt is attached to Rise to the Challenge and it is weaker other sets.  So you may want to seriously consider taking Taunt from the primary if you lean towards skipping it on some combos. 

I too have a DA tank and also an Invulnerability tank.  Invul is just classic and therefore, I recommend it.  I haven't played much of Super Reflexes (made one, but didn't go far with it) on a Tanker, but that too has some interesting possibilities.

[Call Me Awesome]

A mature Invuln is a pretty unkillable beast as well, CMA has so far never tasted the floor on the trip to 50.  That may change with more challenging content, or possibly less competent teammates, but I'm sitting at 50 with soft capped def to all but Psi, capped S/L resist (obviously), 84% F/C resist, 70% E/N resist and 53% Psi along with just under 200% regen (28HP/Second).  On the other hand it was NOT a cheap build, not counting IO's bought with merits (about 16 of them) I probably have close to 300 million in the build.  If I'd had to buy all the IO's that price would likely shoot into the 500-600 million range.

 

I have to admit to a bias against WP due to it's terrible taunt aura.  It's certainly strong defensively and I had a blast with it on a Scrapper on Live but my main focus on a Tanker is to make the mobs focus on me while my team rains hell down on them and it's much harder without a strong aura on your side.

[Hyperstrike]

A Tank without Taunt is like trying to play Badminton with a bowling ball...

[Sir Myshkin]

I have to vote Ice Tank. Particularly Ice/Stone as its the only Tank I've ever played, and/or will play. Knockdowns, Slows, Damage Aura, a T9 that you can Taunt before hand and become an impregnable iceberg, the ability to soft cap most of your defenses on SO's with Energy Absorption (and never have a dry end bar). I still remember back when Recluse's Victory was in Beta for the first time way back with Villains just coming out, a lot of people were rolling Tanks to see what they could hold up against. I watched an Ice Tank live beyond even a Granite to swarms of players bashing endlessly on them. All the Ice Tank had to do was make it from one Hibernate to the next, and there was just nothing significant enough that anyone could do that they didn't just heal back up to full in the next activation.

 

Ever since then I was sold, it'd be the only Tank I ever roll.

[Kruunch]

Electric

Radiation

Invulnerability

 

All highly survivable sets and get tough early on. 

[Hyperstrike]

Basically if you want the absolute toughest Armor set?
Stone.  Period.

If you don't want to deal with Stone's downsides?  Invuln.  You can basically build yourself to a point, the mathematical differences in surviability across the entire game run so far to the right of the decimal place that your most dangerous enemy becomes THE RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR.

Beyond that, they all start to bunch up.

[Crowcus Pocus]

My vote goes to either Dark/ or Ice/.

 

Ice will always have a special place in my heart as it was the most fun tank I've ever played. Nothing else compares to it when it comes to raw aggro management.

 

Dark, on the other hand, is an underplayed set but I really love playing it. The Energy resistance can be brought to a very respectable number while still capping Melee Defense. These are the numbers I can get on my DA/Rad (ATO proc active):

 

 

I might roll a classic Fire/Fire, just because it feels nostalgic and can still be very solid.

[Xandyr]

14 minutes ago, Falsey said:

My vote goes to either Dark/ or Ice/.

 

Ice will always have a special place in my heart as it was the most fun tank I've ever played. Nothing else compares to it when it comes to raw aggro management.

 

Dark, on the other hand, is an underplayed set but I really love playing it. The Energy resistance can be brought to a very respectable number while still capping Melee Defense. These are the numbers I can get on my DA/Rad (ATO proc active):

 

 

I might roll a classic Fire/Fire, just because it feels nostalgic and can still be very solid.

I've already got a Dark/MA. His Melee/AoE/Ranged defense is soft capped. It's a pretty fun(and a little rare) set

[Crowcus Pocus]

2 hours ago, Xandyr said:

I've already got a Dark/MA. His Melee/AoE/Ranged defense is soft capped. It's a pretty fun(and a little rare) set

Pardon, I missed that part of your post. Well then, Ice/ it is!

 

You can go with just about any secondary and still have a blast.

[ironjoe]

Many good suggestions. Just to mention one not mentioned... Shield Defense is a ton of fun. Easy enough to soft cap Melee/AOE/Ranged defense and get some respectable resistances. Then shield charge is a really fun attack on top of it all.

[Heraclea]

My suggestions would be Invuln/Dark Melee (very hard to kill) or Bio/Spines II want all the aggro.)  Those are my two tanker mains.  I tried Reflexes/Katana, but kind of lost interest: tough enough but aggro holding is a real chore.  Since you have a Bio/, Rad/Spines or Willpower/Spines might work well; good luck thinking up a concept for those.  

 

In the old games, I reconciled myself to the notion that Spines will never be ported to tankers; it would simplify their job too much. 

 

Edited November 2, 2019 by Heraclea

[oldskool]

38 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

or Bio/Spines II want all the aggro.) 

I definitely want all the aggro.  How is Bio/Spines on Tankers?

[Heraclea]

1 hour ago, oldskool said:

I definitely want all the aggro.  How is Bio/Spines on Tankers?

Works quite well.  For levelling, you have efficiency mode; once you're 50 and fully built you may get more mileage out of offensive and defensive mode.  You will be running two damage auras simultaneously, and have the endurance to keep them up. 

 

All yu have to do is stand next to mobs and they eventually die.  Catrina says "it's the refried beans."

[Jon]

I definitely suggest Invulnerability. That set is stupidly good on Tankers. You can softcap your defense to all types except Psionic, have capped S/L resists, and capped HP. It's immensely survivable.

[Xandyr]

3 hours ago, Jon said:

I definitely suggest Invulnerability. That set is stupidly good on Tankers. You can softcap your defense to all types except Psionic, have capped S/L resists, and capped HP. It's immensely survivable.

What is the HP cap? 2800?

[Bopper]

22 minutes ago, Xandyr said:

What is the HP cap? 2800?

On tanks, 3534. So roughly 88% above base, iirc

[Myrmidon]

If you go with Willpower, put at least 1 Taunt IO in Rise to the Challenge and make sure that you have Taunt.

[Infinitum]

Shield.

[Call Me Awesome]

If you really want aggro then go with Ice.  If you want aggro in a set of vice grips go with Ice/Spines... I can't think of anything that will top that for aggro holding.  It's not the toughest, but for sheer aggro holding it can't be beat.  Following Ice look for the sets where the taunt aura is autohit and has a decent duration (sorry WP, but even autohit Mag 3 with a 2 second duration doesn't cut it.  Everyone else gets a Mag 4 with at least a 14 second duration).  Sets where the aura deals damage like Fire and Stone require a tohit roll for it to taunt so they're a bit less capable in aggro.  Ice hits a homerun with an autohit aura that pulses every half second AND a damage aura backing it up.  As far as I remember all other sets have an aura that pulses once a second.

 

If you want damage output, well, you really should roll a Scrapper, but in a tanker the old standby of Fire/Fire is still going to be hard to beat.

 

Raw durability?  Stone in Granite armor.  You'll have to deal with all the penalties to mobility, recharge and damage that brings however.   Taking a slight step down in durability you have Invuln, and with a decent IO build you can nearly match Stone with no downsides.  A really high end IO build can match Granite, although you're getting a bit theoretical since stuff that can threaten either is hard to find, and mostly it'll either completely ignore durability via mechanics (Hamidon's untyped damage for example) or have such overkill to make durability meaningless.

 

Most tanker primaries can, with sufficient IO investment, become durable enough to make the question mostly irrelevant.  The most durable are those that combine high defenses, high resistances and strong healing/regen mechanics.

[Infinitum]

12 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

Most tanker primaries can, with sufficient IO investment, become durable enough to make the question mostly irrelevant.  The most durable are those that combine high defenses, high resistances and strong healing/regen mechanics.

/\  Shield.  lol

[Call Me Awesome]

1 minute ago, Infinitum said:

/\  Shield.  lol

Shield's good, I've played it to 50 on a Scrapper, Stalker and Tanker.  It's more durable than Ice, less than Invuln and it's good damage wise.  I've tanked a +4 ITF with a BS/Shield Scrapper without any issues and a full team of squishies.  I've tanked the tower buffed Lord Recluse on a Shield/Fire tanker in the STF (MLTF now) unassisted... with a little help from my insp. tray.

[Infinitum]

8 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

Shield's good, I've played it to 50 on a Scrapper, Stalker and Tanker.  It's more durable than Ice, less than Invuln and it's good damage wise.  I've tanked a +4 ITF with a BS/Shield Scrapper without any issues and a full team of squishies.  I've tanked the tower buffed Lord Recluse on a Shield/Fire tanker in the STF (MLTF now) unassisted... with a little help from my insp. tray.

My experience has it more durable than invul by a good margin.  Even without a self heal.

 

Mainly because the positional defenses are more static than what invulnerability delivers with invincibility.

 

Invul is good though, but to give you a for instance, my Shield tanked all 4 patrons at the same time, and LR without much if any support or inspirations.

 

Invul with incarnates even running dull pain and Tier 3 melee core incarnate got ate up by Lord Recluse without inspirations.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Infinitum

[Call Me Awesome]

Just now, Infinitum said:

My experience has it more durable than invul.  Even without a self heal.

Having played both, and both with high end IO builds, there's a definite difference between the two.  Invuln will easily handle things that make Shield reach for the inspiration tray... and Shield will deal higher damage than Invuln as a general rule.  As with all defense sets Shield's great until the RNG decides it hates you, then it doesn't have the layers of defense that Invuln does.  Both have if I recall correctly about 50% defense debuff resistance so both are equally resistant to having their defense stripped.  Invuln has higher resistances as a second line of protection and Dull Pain as a last line/massive HP buff.

 

There's a few edge cases where Shield wins out over Invuln like vs Psi damage but for the most part it's less durable.  Note that's LESS durable, it's a far cry from "Fragile", of the sets I've played I'd probably rate it #3 in durability behind Stone and Invuln.  The closest thing to fragile in a Tanker that I know of is probably Fire.

 

Personally I've played Invuln, Stone, Shield, Fire and Ice tankers to 50 and I've played Dark and Electric into the upper 30's on Live.  All of them have pluses and minuses to them.  Fire was the least durable of the ones I've played and Stone was the most durable.

[Infinitum]

29 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

Having played both, and both with high end IO builds, there's a definite difference between the two.  Invuln will easily handle things that make Shield reach for the inspiration tray... and Shield will deal higher damage than Invuln as a general rule.  As with all defense sets Shield's great until the RNG decides it hates you, then it doesn't have the layers of defense that Invuln does.  Both have if I recall correctly about 50% defense debuff resistance so both are equally resistant to having their defense stripped.  Invuln has higher resistances as a second line of protection and Dull Pain as a last line/massive HP buff.

 

There's a few edge cases where Shield wins out over Invuln like vs Psi damage but for the most part it's less durable.  Note that's LESS durable, it's a far cry from "Fragile", of the sets I've played I'd probably rate it #3 in durability behind Stone and Invuln.  The closest thing to fragile in a Tanker that I know of is probably Fire.

 

Personally I've played Invuln, Stone, Shield, Fire and Ice tankers to 50 and I've played Dark and Electric into the upper 30's on Live.  All of them have pluses and minuses to them.  Fire was the least durable of the ones I've played and Stone was the most durable.

That's running melee core, which you can alternate with one with the shield which has similar numbers and a very easily manageable drop.  Alternating the 2 combined with ageless radial nothing ever gets through this.  No exaggeration.

 

I rarely run either one honestly unless I am herding monster island for 30+ minutes doing stupid tanker tricks.

 

My baseline is enough for 90% of everything in the game.

 

My invul just isn't close, and believe me I've tried.

 

 

Edited November 2, 2019 by Infinitum