That'll never work

[KelvinKole]

If someone wanted to really expose themselves to some pain... Really live at the lower limits of tank performance... What sets would they use? 

 

Is there a unanimous worst choice for primary and secondary? 

 

 

... Asking for a friend. 

[Menelruin]

Pretty sure Energy Melee is near the bottom of the barrel, sadly.  Maybe SR/EM?  No synergies really, and no res or self heal....

Edited February 18, 2020 by Menelruin

[Bopper]

I can't think of anything that would Absolutely not work, as IOs can help any build reach survivable levels. But I bet we could think of some that need more help than others. My interest is piqued, I'll check out City of Data and see what stands out.

[Bopper]

It was hard to pick, but I think Fire/Energy would have the hardest time. I base this simply on the fact energy has slow animations, and Fire has no defense, no +HP, no regen, and no KB protection.

[Infinitum]

32 minutes ago, Bopper said:

It was hard to pick, but I think Fire/Energy would have the hardest time. I base this simply on the fact energy has slow animations, and Fire has no defense, no +HP, no regen, and no KB protection.

I dunno with fire you can cap resistances and healing flames is like a click regen it's up so often.

 

Wouldn't BU + FE also make ET even more bursty?

 

I think I could make that work.

 

SR / Dark maybe?

[Bopper]

3 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I dunno with fire you can cap resistances and healing flames is like a click regen it's up so often.

 

Wouldn't BU + FE also make ET even more bursty?

 

I think I could make that work.

 

SR / Dark maybe?

Again, you can make all of them work. The heal, self rez, and great resists can work. The burstiness can be good,although it's a tank so not really that important. My fear is more to do with being stuck in a 4 second animation unable to click heal.

 

As for SR/Dark, the tohit debuff and defense dont go well with eachother (redundant), but the debuffs still helps the team and you get a nice heal in dark Melee that SR lacks.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Bopper

[Infinitum]

8 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Again, you can make all of them work. The heal, self rez, and great resists can work. The burstiness can be good,although it's a tank so not really that important. My fear is more to do with being stuck in a 4 second animation unable to click heal.

 

As for SR/Dark, the tohit debuff and defense dont go well with eachother (redundant), but the debuffs still helps the team and you get a nice heal in dark Melee that SR lacks.

i was thinking end usage, or is that dark armor?

[Bopper]

2 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

i was thinking end usage, or is that dark armor?

Dark Armor, but it can be mitigated by putting the Theft of Essence proc into Dark Regeneration.

[Infinitum]

5 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Dark Armor, but it can be mitigated by putting the Theft of Essence proc into Dark Regeneration.

Dark armor + TW with arctic mastery.

[KelvinKole]

15 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Dark armor + TW with arctic mastery.

This combo would be exhausting to level organically. A masochist dream. But IOs and incarnates could solve the endurance issues and you'd have two top tier sets. 

 

Is dual blades as trashy as it looks on paper? Some longish animation times, relience on combos, and unimpressive damage given those conditions. 

[Infinitum]

7 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

 Is dual blades as trashy as it looks on paper? Some longish animation times, relience on combos, and unimpressive damage given those conditions. 

Sounds like TW.  lol

[Bopper]

37 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Dark armor + TW with arctic mastery.

Definitely an endurance hog. But the +melee defense would probably do a dark tank well.

[Zeraphia]

SR/EM is definitely the default for this topic. SR is for the vast majority of itself a "one trick pony" if you encounter autohit and you aren't built up high for res, well sorry. EM is also extremely slow so it leaves you prone to not have much mitigation at all for damage.

 

/EM in general is just a terrible secondary on all accounts, sorry, even the devs admit this needs a rework.

SR/ it is alright if you don't IO it out but it will cap out faster than anything else and before it reaches its high defense caps, this set is extremely lackluster.

Runnerup for worst secondary in my eyes is Kinetic Melee, it's just slow, not that damaging, takes too long to get the "good" out of it, and is just utterly annoying to play. 

 

Dark/TW unIO'd non-Incarnate'd... massive end hog, prepare to see all the toggles drop, that said, once you IO this properly it becomes one of the strongest tanker combinations available. 

 

This is going to be a hot topic and highly debated but I'm going to tell you my honest opinion on what is the worst primary set for a tanker: Stone Armor.

Stone Armor is the worst tanking set IMO because of the reliance on Granite, it is just too slow in the state the game is in. Sacrificing movement speeds to such extremes, even "flip flopping" between the armor and the speed is soooooooooo slow and annoying, ESPECIALLY in caves where you can't teleport properly... Yes, it is unkillable, but at the same time, what's the point if you can make another set just as if not more unkillable but doesn't have nearly as bad of a penalty?

[Call Me Awesome]

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.

[tellania]

Naked Tank.

Tank who takes ONLY the required T1/2 armor ...  

I vote fire armor, taking burning aura ....

and take placate (misdirection) from concealment power pools 

 

Take that, Tanker expectations!   

Edited February 19, 2020 by tellania

[Ironscarlet]

Besides surviving, low aggro I would like to throw in Willpower/EM or Willpower/Kin melee.   Without  aggro are you  really a tank>?

[Sir Myshkin]

You guys really undervalued Energy Melee 😛

 

 

Edit: And to add towards the point of the thread, for what it's worth: Stone Melee, from a performance perspective. Does have some interesting tools at its disposal, but it's at the bottom of the damage supply, even Spines and Rad Melee topped out a bit better. If I ask myself "What Tanker combination would I never consider playing?" It'd be either SR/SM or WP/SM, they'd both be generic, banal, and slow. Stone Melee can kind of shore up some weakness in KD/KB, but that'll only carry so far.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Sir Myshkin

[Haijinx]

19 minutes ago, Sir Myshkin said:

You guys really undervalued Energy Melee 😛

 

 

And SR

[Infinitum]

3 hours ago, 33053222 said:

SR/EM is definitely the default for this topic. SR is for the vast majority of itself a "one trick pony" if you encounter autohit and you aren't built up high for res, well sorry. EM is also extremely slow so it leaves you prone to not have much mitigation at all for damage.

 

/EM in general is just a terrible secondary on all accounts, sorry, even the devs admit this needs a rework.

SR/ it is alright if you don't IO it out but it will cap out faster than anything else and before it reaches its high defense caps, this set is extremely lackluster.

Runnerup for worst secondary in my eyes is Kinetic Melee, it's just slow, not that damaging, takes too long to get the "good" out of it, and is just utterly annoying to play. 

 

Dark/TW unIO'd non-Incarnate'd... massive end hog, prepare to see all the toggles drop, that said, once you IO this properly it becomes one of the strongest tanker combinations available. 

 

This is going to be a hot topic and highly debated but I'm going to tell you my honest opinion on what is the worst primary set for a tanker: Stone Armor.

Stone Armor is the worst tanking set IMO because of the reliance on Granite, it is just too slow in the state the game is in. Sacrificing movement speeds to such extremes, even "flip flopping" between the armor and the speed is soooooooooo slow and annoying, ESPECIALLY in caves where you can't teleport properly... Yes, it is unkillable, but at the same time, what's the point if you can make another set just as if not more unkillable but doesn't have nearly as bad of a penalty?

Stone/TW.   

 

Stone: High end usage -damage -speed -recharge. 

 

TW: An attack set predicated on damage, recharge, maneuverability and speed with high end usage.

[Haijinx]

SR can get to hahaha jump into hordes of +4s for less slots than anything else, allowing for more offense than you might otherwise suspect.  

 

I suggest trying it .. on a Tanker .. before just dismissing it entirely. 

 

 

 

 

[Mr. Vee]

Loving my sr tanker at 41, seems very underrated to me. the scaling resists with tanker hp is all sorts of tough. finally died for the first time to hami on lg when our holds dc'd, but can hardly blame the set for that. and it held up a good long time even then. long enough that i could easily have run had i not been more concerned with keeping the team alive. paired it with broadsword for procportunities and the easy softcapping left slots for 4 5-procced attacks.

[HelenCarnate]

I'm going to have to say Kin for the secondary as well.  Fast recharge sure but that also equates to low damage.  The cone attack pays the KB tax and the one heavy hitting attack and only full AoE are slow to cast.  Also no Build Up + Heavy hitter for burst damage.  

 

For primary that one is difficult.  All of them can be great and be made to be near unkillable but Stone is probably the most annoying to play for me.  The -Recharge, -Damage and lack of movement without a kin on the team make the set truly painful to play.

[Myrmidon]

4 hours ago, Ironscarlet said:

Besides surviving, low aggro I would like to throw in Willpower/EM or Willpower/Kin melee.   Without  aggro are you  really a tank>?

This is no longer the case for Willpower, since it’s taunt duration was brought up to par with the rest of the non-damage auras with the Page 4 release. (Correction - It looks like this part isn’t present in the patch notes, so I will have to go with the premise that this change didn’t make it live. Disregard it for the time being and keep those Taunt IOs in Rise to the Challenge for a tad longer).

 

 

 

Also, Kinetic Melee has two range attacks that proc Gauntlet around their primary target(s), so it has far more aggro control capability than most people think. In fact, I just wrote up a potential build for a DA/KM Tanker yesterday afternoon for the moment when I feel like making another character.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Myrmidon
Information correction.

[Haijinx]

Willpower has always been better than the Tanker board was willing to concede anyhow.  

 

Other than this taunt aura thing, it has no real weaknesses.  No glaring holes.  

 

 

[KelvinKole]

There does seem to be a bit of a consensus forming. 

 

Weakest primaries seem to be either Fire or Super Reflexes.

 

Fire does offer some damage mitigation in the form of removing enemies via fiery embrace and burn, and also has a very fast recharging heal. Resistances are not as bad as people might think. 

 

Super reflexes is a one trick pony, but with a very good trick. It will however have almost nothing to gain from external defense buffs or IO set bonuses. Good resistance buffs are not as common, so rounding out a stat sheet will be more difficult. I think I'll try my turn at Super Reflexes. 

 

Secondaries seem less certain. Energy Melee blooms late but with long activation powers (maybe not an issue with a passive set like super reflexes). It also offers almost no active damage mitigation (kb/kd, slows, etc.), but I guess a chance to stun is something. Stone melee and kinetic melee have also been mentioned. 

 

Super Reflxes/Kinetic melee might be interesting.