dual blades as a tank ?

[kendo339]

have a concept character I want to build -- a natural origin using dual blades.  which, for me, means I would be looking at WP, SR, Regen or Invul.  I have enough scrappers, including a couple of SR, so was leaning towards a DB/WP brute.  then the changes to tanks were announced and got me thinking about going with a tank instead for a less frantic play style.  I know that DB is way down the list of secondaries but damage, especially on teams, seems to be less expected of a tank than a brute and when I am solo, not that concerned about kill speed.  just looking for an enjoyable experience.

 

as tanks don't have regen, that would leave WP or Invul and from what I have read, WP is frequently put down because of its lower taunt abilities. 

 

not looking for a +4/8 powerhouse but would expect reasonable performance, both solo and in teams, when he hits 50 and gets some incarnate levels and better IOs under his belt. 

 

would an Invul or WP/DB be feasible or should I really be looking at brute or even back to scrapper land for that concept?  

 

appreciate any feedback or suggestions

[Call Me Awesome]

Well, I've no experience with DB past level 15 on anything, but I'd certainly roll an Invuln instead of a WP because of the aggro aura if nothing else.

 

One thought however, have you looked at some of the alternate weapons available to Claws?  That may fit your concept without tying you down to DB's somewhat esoteric Combo system.  There's a couple of versions of Claws that have dual daggers and short swords.

[Heraclea]

I would recommend something like Fire with DB.  Fire is a very forgiving armor set; on a tanker everything it has that directly keeps you alive is available by level 12, and the rest can be postponed or skipped.  Getting the most out of DB's combo systems means taking all the attacks; some will say that all you need is Attack Vitals, but they all help.  And of course you're a tanker so you will want Taunt.  This will give you a very active DPS oriented tanker that will be quite fun to play.  Most of the individual DB attacks are fairly quick animations; this plays well with Fire's reliance on a self heal. 

[Luigrein]

I had an ice/DB back on live and quite enjoyed it, but it definitely didn't have too much breathing room for power choices if you want to go into power pools.  From a tank standpoint, the sweep and weaken combos can both help you survive while leveling.  Obviously at max level and IO/Incarnated out that's not super relevant, but an AoE debuff available fairly early on and an AoE knockdown available later in the build can be nice for the ride there.  You can have an attack chain at lv 20 of cycling the empower and weaken combos, although on my DB scrapper I find I need to throw in a quick pause (whatever the CoH equivalent of skipping 1 GCD is) due to the timing of the combo system buffs wearing off which is unfortunate but not a deal breaker.  As a tank this may just be a place to throw in a taunt if you are taking it.*  This does take roughly half of your power choices, but you can probably rely on those for the a bit while you gather the other parts of your build together. 

 

*From what I can tell the issue is caused by the combo system relying on short term buffs that you get for landing the attacks that enable the next part of the combo to give it's buff.  The problem being the starting power's buff last for a duration just longer than it takes to pull off the combo.  When you hit with Nimble slash, if you still have the buff from your previous use up it doesn't give you a new buff or refresh the old one, and your ability to combo off of it will fade before you can really get any further into the second combo.  Normally starting a new combo (or breaking your current one without starting a new one) wipes all the buffs from your old ones, but since nimble slash starts both...issues.  Also disclaimer, this observation is NOT based on knowing the code involved, just put together from trying to figure out the behavior using in game feedback.

[ninja surprise]

WP/DB will be fine. If you're worried you can roll it on Pineapple, bump it to 50, give it a bunch of free sets, and run a few radios or arcs. If you like the animations you'll love playing it. Without looking, I don't think Willpower has any clicky powers that would cause re-draw so it's non-stop cutting action 🙂