Tanking guide for enemy types?

[senseichen]

Is there a good general guide out there for what to look out for while tanking each enemy type?  I feel like when I hit 35, went from walking wall of invulnerability to regularly faceplanting against various enemy groups (starting with Vanguard.)  I think Vanguard have some significant +To Hit, which makes it rough for Defense tankers?  I was hoping there was a brief guide somewhere (Vanguard: +To Hit, kill the ??? first to remove the buff, etc.) 

[tellania]

Depends on the tank and the enemy.   My invul can laugh at devouring earth, but my ice tank can face plant as soon as a crystal emitter gets pooped out.

 

From memory, I believe vanguard have -defense and -resistance (more so on -resistance), so when enough of them hit you, you get cascade failure.

 

In Short: Know your enemy, know yourself.

 

From experience, it gets easier on who to target, and with which powerset.

Silly example:  Vahz are nothing against my fire tank, who can have 60% toxic resist.   Against an ice tank, there is no toxic defense, so ... ugh.

 

If desired, you can purchase (from p2w vendor) a power analyzer, to get a better understanding of enemy powers. 

As for yourself, it depends on the power combination.   Dont forget, your survivability is a combination of armor (primary), attacks (secondary), power pools, chitlets (inspirations), temp powers (defense/offense amplifier).

 

You have heals, regeneration, knock down/back, defense, resistance, mezz resistance/protection, raw damage, and  control powers, etc.

 

The question becomes: how well can you use which powers to survive, to defeat the foes.

 

Mace/axe have knockdown/back powers, ice melee has holds and slows, fire melee has damage, kinetic melee has -damage, dark melee has -to hit and a heal, super strength has a hold (KO blow), knockdown (footstomp).   

 

In short, your primary powers are not your only tools to survive.   You have your secondary attack effects, power pools (e.g .hasten, fighting, etc), and various IO's (e.g. knockdown).

 

Best bet, post your build, desires, and mentione which foes are causing problem.  In some cases, you will just have a hole that is hard to patch (pre IO, invul armor set had a huge psi weakness, and a few psi AV's (CWK, MOM, etc) could alpha a tank into submission.

 

 

 

 

[CaptainLupis]

8 hours ago, tellania said:

Depends on the tank and the enemy.   My invul can laugh at devouring earth, but my ice tank can face plant as soon as a crystal emitter gets pooped out.

 

From memory, I believe vanguard have -defense and -resistance (more so on -resistance), so when enough of them hit you, you get cascade failure.

 

In Short: Know your enemy, know yourself.

 

From experience, it gets easier on who to target, and with which powerset.

Silly example:  Vahz are nothing against my fire tank, who can have 60% toxic resist.   Against an ice tank, there is no toxic defense, so ... ugh.

 

If desired, you can purchase (from p2w vendor) a power analyzer, to get a better understanding of enemy powers. 

As for yourself, it depends on the power combination.   Dont forget, your survivability is a combination of armor (primary), attacks (secondary), power pools, chitlets (inspirations), temp powers (defense/offense amplifier).

 

You have heals, regeneration, knock down/back, defense, resistance, mezz resistance/protection, raw damage, and  control powers, etc.

 

The question becomes: how well can you use which powers to survive, to defeat the foes.

 

Mace/axe have knockdown/back powers, ice melee has holds and slows, fire melee has damage, kinetic melee has -damage, dark melee has -to hit and a heal, super strength has a hold (KO blow), knockdown (footstomp).   

 

In short, your primary powers are not your only tools to survive.   You have your secondary attack effects, power pools (e.g .hasten, fighting, etc), and various IO's (e.g. knockdown).

 

Best bet, post your build, desires, and mentione which foes are causing problem.  In some cases, you will just have a hole that is hard to patch (pre IO, invul armor set had a huge psi weakness, and a few psi AV's (CWK, MOM, etc) could alpha a tank into submission.

Those quartz eminators are the worst. They give +100% tohit to all DE in range (despite it saying they give +acc), which basically means even if you have incarnate levels of defence (59%) they are still going to hit you with over 90% of their attacks. If you are a defence based set those, and the guardians that spawn them, are definitely priority targets.

Edited July 27, 2020 by CaptainLupis

[senseichen]

Thanks.  It definitely seems like an issue with Defense tanks.  I would have thought there'd be a pretty solid general guide for Defense tanks with specific info though?

 

For example, I just ran a tip mission against Nemesis.  I monitored my defenses the whole time and didn't see any debuffs.  But I was getting worked.  Checking the combat log, the enemies regular had 50-70% to hit chances.  I'm assuming their Vengeance power is +To Hit instead of the +Accuracy described as well.

 

Does the power analyzer let you monitor enemy combat stats and see the source of their buffs?  Figuring out that their To Hit is through the roof isn't obvious until you're face planted. 😞

[tellania]

power analyzer should show the values after vengeance hits.   A good question is, does it stack for nemesis?

 

Defense have a benefit of reduce mezz, since they are (usually) hit less (I've had my electric tank held by COT, due to their stacking holds)(some mez, like carnie endurance drain appears to be auto-hit).    Power pool aid self works better too, as it is interruptible.

 

Resistance have a benefit of reduced incoming damage, which allows regeneration to help more (more opportunity to regen HP, perhaps counter balance incoming damage), and time to click heals or green inspirations, as necessary.

 

One the other side, defense has defense-debuf-resistance (various levels), where sets like SR get HUGE values.    All resistance gets is resistance-debuff-resistance based upon its resistance (e.g. SL resistance at 90%, 90% debuf resistance, EN resistance at 30%, only 30% resistance ...).   This can play both ways.

 

But yeah, some of the powers (DE quartz emitters, nemesis vengeance is insane) are wonked on how overpowered they are ...

 

For defense sets (you didnt mention yours), both my SR and ice tank have SL resistance over 65% thanks to IO's and tough (fighting pool), really helps survive when those type of attacks get through.

[marcussmythe]

This points to a strength of the ‘pure’ sets.  Pure Defense sets tend to have high DDR, with hybrids having less, and resist sets having none.  Resist sets on the other hand tend to easily hit their 90% resist target, giving them large debuff resistance.  Thus the defense set tends to  keep its defense, (barring some villain groups that have ways to just ignore DEF), and my Rad tank rarely has her resistance meaningfully debuffed - I aim for a bit over 90, so I can preserve 90 (and the 90% debuff resistance)

 

Hybrid sets, like Bio or Invuln, have less, or no, debuff reistance.  Invuln has to be careful - youll want to overcap a bit, IMHO, because its DDR helps, but is not bullet proof.  Bioarmor has no debuff resistance - Vanguard or BP will send your defense deeply negative, your reists will follow, and then your at ‘why am I dead?’.  The flip is those same hybrid sets often dont cap important resists (or do so at great cost), meaning that Res debuffs will layer and strip that as well.  
 

On the other hand, hybrid sets have a higher performance ceiling - my invuln in her full survival build is tougher than my Rad can ever be, against most things - and has ways to deal with things that my rad, being more one-dimensional, cannit. (well, two Dimensions, counting healing - but heals and absorbs wont save you vs an angry Winter Queens debuffs and damage).  The flip is that the Rad and SR can get to their initial survival goals much more cheaply in terms of build space - so are to me more fun to build if you have goals other than being indestructable.

Edited July 28, 2020 by marcussmythe

[CaptainLupis]

13 hours ago, senseichen said:

Thanks.  It definitely seems like an issue with Defense tanks.  I would have thought there'd be a pretty solid general guide for Defense tanks with specific info though?

 

For example, I just ran a tip mission against Nemesis.  I monitored my defenses the whole time and didn't see any debuffs.  But I was getting worked.  Checking the combat log, the enemies regular had 50-70% to hit chances.  I'm assuming their Vengeance power is +To Hit instead of the +Accuracy described as well.

 

Does the power analyzer let you monitor enemy combat stats and see the source of their buffs?  Figuring out that their To Hit is through the roof isn't obvious until you're face planted. 😞

It's definitely a case of know your enemy. Nemesis LTs when they are killed trigger a vengeance effect which boosts other enemies, in quite a large area, with +tohit and +defence. When there are multiple LTs the effect stacks... which can be problematic. Against Nemesis it's best to leave the LTs until everything else in the spawn has been defeated, if you can.

Edited July 28, 2020 by CaptainLupis

[senseichen]

I'm Shield Defense, for what it's worth.

 

Everyone's mentioning DDR as protection for Defense tanks, but it doesn't really do anything against massive To Hit buffs from enemies, right?  Even at 90% DDR, Super Reflexes is going to keel over to a Vengeance-d up pack of Nemesis without knowing what to avoid.

[marcussmythe]

Correct - massive buffs (Nemesis Lt., Quartz) will still ignore your DEF.  However, most DEF sets have some res or other tools.  Contra, resist or hybrid sets usually have their own kryptonite.  Having all 3 types of tank, Im coming to believe that its more about ‘different’ than ‘better’, or perhaps the question to ‘what is better’ turns on ‘what do you want to do?’

[Heraclea]

'Which tanker should I bring to the task force' is a guide I wrote many years ago.  It is quite obsolete, leaving out many later added task forces and trials, and taking no note of later added primaries like Bio.  But it still may be helpful.  I am not a fan of Apex and have not run it on a tanker often enough to form an opinion, though power sets like Bio, Rad, and Fire that are strong against toxic damage may have an advantage.  I have no idea what's best against IDF, because those mobs are the Longbow/Arachnos of the late game; they bore me witless, poorly designed and overused, and their attacks are so over the place that I hcan't begin to make a guess what does best. 

 

At any rate it may be helpful.

 

[senseichen]

Thanks Heraclea, that has some good stuff in it.

 

Marcus, I'm less concerned about "which is better" and more about "how do I get better."  I assume Shield Defense can do the job, but knowing your enemies seems like it can make a huge difference for Defense tanks.  And just getting DDR doesn't replace that.

[marcussmythe]

Hmm.  Yannow, I dont know of such a guide - but your right, I can definitely see the use.  My recollection on Vanguard, specifically, is that they are among -the- most fearsome mob types.  Those green energy scythes do (IIRC) truckloads of -DEF (which messes up shield, because it has some but not all the DDR) and also -RES (which messes you up AGAIN, because you wont have resists high enough to bounce the resist debuffs).  And unlike Nemesis or DE or Rularru, there isnt a specific mob that causes the trouble to pick out.  When Im fighting Vanguard, I tend to just back off the difficulty, lean into insps/temps/incarnates/accolades/T9s.  Ill toss out some soft control of whatever type I have access to, and kite to break up the incoming.  I monitor RES and DEF - cut and run when they drop - and do as much burst as I can before they do - burning down minions to cut the total debuff volume helps some.

 

I know this is all very general and very obvious stuff - I wish I could offer more concrete help, but its been a long time since I had a shielder at those levels.

[CaptainLupis]

14 hours ago, senseichen said:

Thanks Heraclea, that has some good stuff in it.

 

Marcus, I'm less concerned about "which is better" and more about "how do I get better."  I assume Shield Defense can do the job, but knowing your enemies seems like it can make a huge difference for Defense tanks.  And just getting DDR doesn't replace that.

The only way to get better is experience, and it will help you no matter what AT you play. I'd suggest playing at x8 even when soloing, well around the mid 20s or later when you have at least slotted common IOs (on a tank at least, I wouldn't recommend it for all ATs). Yes, chances are you will faceplant at times, but if you pay attention to what is doing it, and work out why, and also how to counter it, will make things easier for you in the long run. The reason I suggest doing it solo is that in teams you can be getting buffs and and support that can hide holes in your defences, the problem with that is, unless you are alwyas teaming with the same people, those buffs may not be available to you when it matters.

 

Guides are all well and good, but there is something to be said for trial and error, after all you may find a better way of doing things than guides advise to do it.