New to Tanker

[Sorrison]

I am new to the Tanker AT. I am looking to make a Tanker that can do all content. (Not Solo) I am okay with grouping.

I am looking for something that will take a lot of damage and not have to worry but can group up mobs for my team. 

I want to avoid Fire and Bio, as I have a Fire Brute and a Bio/TW Scrapper. Any suggestions for decent Power Combos?

[Tsuko]

2 hours ago, Sorrison said:

I am new to the Tanker AT. I am looking to make a Tanker that can do all content. (Not Solo) I am okay with grouping.

I am looking for something that will take a lot of damage and not have to worry but can group up mobs for my team. 

I want to avoid Fire and Bio, as I have a Fire Brute and a Bio/TW Scrapper. Any suggestions for decent Power Combos?

All of them 🙂

[Hyperstrike]

Inv/SS

Going to recommend you avoid Stone Armor.  It's been essentially obsoleted in the modern game, and is an example of the worst aspects in Tanking.
If you want to play Stone Armor, I recommend doing so after you're more familiar with other Armor setups first.  To avoid souring you on Tanks as an entire AT.

[SableShrike]

Martial Arts is actually really good on a Tank.  Storm Kick is a huge Defense buff for Tank and Brute.

 

You said you want to be super tough so I’d take Fighting for Tough and Weave.  That also lets you work in Cross Punch, which is great cone damage.   Make sure to take Boxing and Kick to buff Cross Punch, but you do not need to slot or use either.

 

I try to work in Cross Punch every time I build a Martial Arts or Super Strength tank; it fits thematically and gives them a second needed AoE.
 

Since you can stand alone against x8 spawns AoE will often be your most efficient attacks.

 

Some great primaries that do well with Martial Arts are Shield Defense, Super Reflexes, Willpower, and Invulnerability.  Shield gives a great teleport nuke in Shield Charge; that, Cross Punch, and Dragon’s Tail give you three great AoEs.

Edited September 20, 2020 by SableShrike

[Tsuko]

At the moment (before page 6), Rad armor is the most versatile armor of the game : you can do an immortal tanker or a Dps tanker with the same armor.

 

For the attack set, they all have their pros and cons.

[Saikochoro]

My vote would be rad armor. It can be built tough and built to greatly boost damage at the same time. It is very well rounded. 
 

I would personally go super strength for the secondary. It is very thematic to tankers and a great performer. It has a basically permanently large bonus damage in rage with a short crash. The biggest downside to SS is the rage defense crash. Since rad armors main mitigation is resistance and absorb the defense crash won’t hurt you much. 

[drbuzzard]

For someone new to tanking, I'd suggest keeping it simple. This means a click and forget primary- willpower which is very durable and about as simple as can be. Put on the toggles and go beat things. Then take war mace for the secondary. It's a very good mix of single target and AOE attacks, with no gimmicks.

[GM Miss]

On 9/19/2020 at 11:02 PM, Sorrison said:

I am new to the Tanker AT. I am looking to make a Tanker that can do all content. (Not Solo) I am okay with grouping.

I am looking for something that will take a lot of damage and not have to worry but can group up mobs for my team. 

I want to avoid Fire and Bio, as I have a Fire Brute and a Bio/TW Scrapper. Any suggestions for decent Power Combos?

I have leveled every tank armor (a few of them twice and even thrice!) and tank melee to 50. 

Super tanky:
Rad/Rad - Good survivability with a super heal from your secondary if you time it right. 
Dark Armor is very tanky at end levels but can be endurance consuming, so you can pick a secondary to balance that out like Dark or Staff
Elec/Elec - High survive and high dmg once you hit 38, with some soft control thrown in.

Decent tanky: You can tank anything, some AVs might spike you a little
WP/BS (or any weapon pretty much) - You can survive almost anything and your damage is great.
Ice/Elec/SS/Ice - Soft control to help with any squishy tendencies

Granite is overrated unless you have a friend that wants to run a kin with you, although ive seen some good +speed builds around to combat their butts always being 100yds behind everyone else. 

Enjoy! 

[Linea]

I recommend: /EnA (Defense, Any AT), Rad (Resist-Cap, Brute and Tank), /Bio (Heal-Armor, Any AT) . . Defense Alternate for tanks: SD/ and Inv/

 

Kat ENA - Mu 1i - [i25].mxd Inv RadM - Prototype E 7c - [i25].mxd Kat Bio Scrapper - Alpha 3 ITF - [i25].mxd Rad Kat Tank - Radicat II - Mu 3f - [i25].mxd SD RadM Tank - Alpha 5b - [i25].mxd

Edited October 2, 2020 by Linea

[CloudMouse]

1 hour ago, GM Miss said:

I have leveled every tank armor (a few of them twice and even thrice!) and tank melee to 50. 

Super tanky:
Rad/Rad - Good survivability with a super heal from your secondary if you time it right. 
Dark Armor is very tanky at end levels but can be endurance consuming, so you can pick a secondary to balance that out like Dark or Staff
Elec/Elec - High survive and high dmg once you hit 38, with some soft control thrown in.

Decent tanky: You can tank anything, some AVs might spike you a little
WP/BS (or any weapon pretty much) - You can survive almost anything and your damage is great.
Ice/Elec/SS/Ice - Soft control to help with any squishy tendencies

Granite is overrated unless you have a friend that wants to run a kin with you, although ive seen some good +speed builds around to combat their butts always being 100yds behind everyone else. 

Enjoy! 

Granite should always be paired with teleport, but the kin secondary is definitely best. 

[GM Miss]

Yeah, teleport is its only option, but its just not a great one. In todays fast paced teams, you can still get left behind. 

[Hyperstrike]

1 minute ago, GM Miss said:

Yeah, teleport is its only option, but its just not a great one. In todays fast paced teams, you can still get left behind. 

Especially in caves due to camera aspect interference.
What I like to call "stupid camera tricks".

You're running down a hall with the teleport circle, your perspective bumps slightly as you run, the marker bounces onto a wall or a low ceiling and boom, you've just teleporter NO FEET FORWARD!

Happens on cave/Oranbega stairwells too.

ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING.

Now, changing over to the Teleport to Target macro HELPS.  But it's still slow.

[GM Miss]

Yeah, i had the macro too but considering the tank is the person that creates the flow for the team, i always felt like I wasnt doing my job 😞

[Bionic_Flea]

2 hours ago, GM Miss said:

Yeah, i had the macro too but considering the tank is the person that creates the flow for the team, i always felt like I wasnt doing my job 😞

The updated commands that allow you to TP to a target makes it easier now than live.

 

As for tanky-tanks, I recommend Rad/Dark - with some IOs you can hit capped resists, soft-cap defense, endless endurance, 2 self-heals plus a team heal, -tohit making you and everyone else on the team harder to hit, and some decent AoE capability.

 

[fitzsimmons]

I love my granite/ss.  39.85mph in granite (without rooted).  A granite crosspunch is also just fun as is running down enemies, unless they run up on a curb.

[Andreah]

I'm having a terrific time with my Super Reflexes / Street Justice tanker. Easily hit the Incarnate softcap for positional defenses and s/l resistances up over 70%. Endurance management can be tricky; and you need an emergency button for very rare bad luck, or for enemies that really hit the few defense holes you have.

[Sovera]

You're all 'best tankiest is X' and I'm just back from (near) soloing the ITF with buffed enemies at +4x8 on a squishy Fire Armor 😄

[Saikochoro]

3 hours ago, Linea said:

I recommend: /EnA (Defense, Any AT), Rad (Resist-Cap, Brute and Tank), /Bio (Heal-Armor, Any AT) . . Defense Alternate for tanks: SD/ and Inv/

 

Kat ENA - Mu 1i - [i25].mxd 5.3 kB · 44 downloads Inv RadM - Prototype E 7c - [i25].mxd 5.61 kB · 26 downloads Kat Bio Scrapper - Alpha 3 ITF - [i25].mxd 5.97 kB · 28 downloads Rad Kat Tank - Radicat II - Mu 3f - [i25].mxd 7.16 kB · 20 downloads SD RadM Tank - Alpha 5b - [i25].mxd 5.26 kB · 20 downloads

I love energy aura and wish they would port it over to tankers. Maybe they will at some point. SR is totally bananas on tanks, and they still got it, so I don’t see a problem porting over EA. 

[Sorrison]

8 hours ago, GM Miss said:

I have leveled every tank armor (a few of them twice and even thrice!) and tank melee to 50. 

Super tanky:
Rad/Rad - Good survivability with a super heal from your secondary if you time it right. 
Dark Armor is very tanky at end levels but can be endurance consuming, so you can pick a secondary to balance that out like Dark or Staff
Elec/Elec - High survive and high dmg once you hit 38, with some soft control thrown in.

Decent tanky: You can tank anything, some AVs might spike you a little
WP/BS (or any weapon pretty much) - You can survive almost anything and your damage is great.
Ice/Elec/SS/Ice - Soft control to help with any squishy tendencies

Granite is overrated unless you have a friend that wants to run a kin with you, although ive seen some good +speed builds around to combat their butts always being 100yds behind everyone else. 

Enjoy! 

 I appreciate the insight and the info everyone has given. Thank you. I'll try some of these suggestions. 🙂