If you only could play 1 tank

[Xandyr]

If you could only play ONE tank, what would it be and why?

[Onlyasandwich]

Personally, it would actually be my Stone/Ice tank. This isn't so much due to this being a particularly powerful combo (it's fine), but more because I am really satisfied with the theme of the character and how I have achieved it. This is an ungranite build.

 

If I were just looking at the powers themselves and how satisfying they are to use, I'd have to say Ice/Stone. Stone is so chunky and satisfying, and Ice has a lot of neat tricks. I love all of my other tanks as well, and I'm sure this answer will be different depending on the week and my mood. : )

[Oysterhead]

Please ask me again in another month or two when I've finished my journey of trying every set on tankers.

Also this question is not fair. All of my tankers are my favorite tankers.

[Xandyr]

2 hours ago, Oysterhead said:

Please ask me again in another month or two when I've finished my journey of trying every set on tankers.

Also this question is not fair. All of my tankers are my favorite tankers.

Indeed! Haha

 

 It'd be hard for me to decide also. I love my bio/rad, dark/MA, rad/spines, and the other 5 I have. Never could figure out how to cap my resists on my invuln,  plus I like a damage aura.

[PLVRIZR]

I'm totally old-school (pre-I1 on Live), so Invulnerability/Super Strength (or the permutation of Inv/Street Justice) is my go-to tank.  Having said that, I also love my WP, Stone (non and granite) and Dark tanks...  Only one I never had good luck with was an Ice/Axe (FRZR BURN) on live, got him to 50 and then didn't touch him again...

[Heraclea]

First tanker I made is Invulnerability/Dark Melee, and that would still be my go-to.  Dark Melee benefitted a whole lot from the tanker changes, and that combo continues to be quite strong. 

[Linea]

In order:

1. Kat/Bio Scrapper, Most of the time, I reach for this first.  Just barely enough taunt, maybe, and all the offense.
2. Kat/Ena Brute, a lot more taunt, but a lot less damage.
3. RadA/Kat Tank, the most taunt, but near the bottom of the damage list.  Give me some defense buffs and it's effectively perma-T9, and Taunt and AoE Taunt, and more AoEs to Taunt even more!  My most team-friendly build.
4. Inv/RadM Tank, More durable, easy peasy to drive, less damage.  This is almost auto-pilot with plenty of player resources available to run a team or be otherwise distracted.  This is also the tank I'd probably most recommend because it's just so darn easy to drive.
5. SD/RadM Tank, More durable, More Damage, but Also much harder to drive. The Inv gets picked more often due to ease of use, even though this build has more damage capabilities.  Normally if I want more damage, I skip up the list to the Kat/Ena, instead of down to the SD/RadM.  I normally only drop down here for the durability, and/or Psionic Tank Build.

[kelika2]

fire/dark.  damage and aoe is a pretty big part of the game and with IOs you can be rather tough and have just enough single target damage

[The_Warpact]

Dk/Dk/Soul; a veritable monster of negative energy and survivability. 

 

Rad/Ice; -regen and -rech...baddies just stand there and die.

 

Invul/WM; still a lowbie but a train of destruction.

 

Electric/Psi; just rolled but seems fun.

[Warboss]

Rad/Fire, because it's Rad and Fire.

[lemming]

Fairy Wears Boots: Bio/Fire

Dynomonique: WP/War Mace

Scalez: Inv/SS

Generic Hero No. 001: Bio/Staff

Sharp Dressed Tanker: WP/Psi

Spiney Norman: Bio/Spines

Danger Noodle: Fire/Rad

Horse You Rode in On: Dark/Dark

Metal Health: WP/Titan Weapons

Stabbit: Rad/Claws
 

These are my Tanks, so far.   Fairy is probably my favorite.  Not the most durable, but fun to play in teams or solo.  Dyno & Scalez are good team players.  Those three are the most outfitted with sets, though I want to respec in fold space and a little more tweaking on each build.  They work as current builds fine though.

I want to play around a bit more with Spiney, but he got ignored soon after hitting 50 and I was trying a lot of concepts back then.   Horse needs a respec and outfitting and I keep dithering over the build.  Stabbit & Metal are probably my only meh ones.

At some point, I want to try out the other Primaries, but I do a lot with other ATs too.

[Hyperstrike]

Someone stops me from trying to play more than one Tank, I do my Tankly duty by walking up and shaking hands with THEIR FACE!
Taunting mercilessly the entire time.

[Werner]

Shield/MA. Top tier survivability without having to work hard since I'm lazy. I hate defense debuffs. Shield Charge is a fun AoE. Good DPS - not top tier but sufficient for many level 54 AVs.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Shield/Nrg. Crazy safe, sick ST damage, workable AoE damage.

 

That said, for some reason my brain won't let go of wanting to build a dark/stone tanktroller.

[nihilii]

Shield/Rad. I'm a glutton for power. In truth I enjoy more variety than just playing the absolute best... but if you forced me to play just one thing, it'd have to be what I believe is the absolute best.

[Grimm2]

On 6/14/2021 at 8:32 AM, Linea said:

4. Inv/RadM Tank, More durable, easy peasy to drive, less damage.  This is almost auto-pilot with plenty of player resources available to run a team or be otherwise distracted.  This is also the tank I'd probably most recommend because it's just so darn easy to drive.

I landed on this combo when I was choosing an everyday grab- and- play because it looked like it would have that easy playability with a decent amount of damage. I am curious what a recommended build might look like, I don't get a lot of time to play but would like to polish it up someday.

[Glowman]

Rad/SS. Sick aoe damage, KO blow and plenty tough. Can main tank anything (with some purps in hardest content) and can farm. He kinda ruined me because I don’t ever really want to play anything else. 

[Deuce Spade]

7 hours ago, nihilii said:

Shield/Rad. I'm a glutton for power. In truth I enjoy more variety than just playing the absolute best... but if you forced me to play just one thing, it'd have to be what I believe is the absolute best.

Can you expound on what makes this build so powerful, or show us your build?  I'm assuming it's the AOE plus all the -resist procs.

[nihilii]

Shield is the most well-rounded primary. Easy D/R/A softcap, near capped DDR, slow resistance, high S/L res, decent res to everything else, +maxHP. And some damage to boot.

It has only 2 flaws: no endurance management, and no native healing. Usually, you can plug either of these two holes with your Destiny pick.

Rad gives a reliable heal to Shield. Which means you can go Ageless. This is now a character with no holes.

Add to that procced out Rad Melee is a powerhouse. Especially thanks to Irradiated Ground, which procs twice as much as a damage aura, and can take both resist procs. With a slotting of 4 damage procs (including the purple one) and 2 -res procs, you are essentially getting 10 damage procs (a purple proc is worth 2 damage procs) and 4 -res procs. IG is beastly, it can take down +4 bosses in a minute if you AFK near them (and a Shield Tanker can most definitely AFK around a few +4 bosses).

 

IG + Atom Smasher is basically all the AOE you need. Leaving you room to focus on ST damage. Procced out Radioactive Smash -> Gloom -> Devastating Blow -> Radioactive Smash -> Gloom -> Radiation Siphon pushes some serious numbers for a Tanker. Think 400+ DPS, even 450+. That's "solo just about any +4 AV" territory, especially on a Tanker with entirely passive mitigation where you're free to focus on attacking.

There is a catch. If you really go all out, even Ageless isn't enough to sustain this character. But to be fair, swapping Musculature for Cardiac isn't that big of a hit to damage. Alternatively, Recovery Serum is an option.

 

This is the build I'm running, for reference:
 

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This is one way to build this combo. There's many other ways to build this combo. You could content yourself by proccing out IG, and building everything else defensively, full sets and all, slotting Radiation Siphon for healing... I wager you'd have a Tanker doing reasonable damage, with sustainable endurance, while being mostly impervious.

Edited June 16, 2021 by nihilii

[MrAxe]

Shield/Psionic. I love telekinesis and shield is such a strong set and makes my concept work better.

[Linea]

I would recommend someone else's builds over mine, preferably something more DPS biased.   I build to (very high) durability, this is redundant for tanks, unless you're running 801.7 or higher solo.  I also tend to use Rune/Hybrid/Rune/Demonic/Wedding Band or similar rotations.  This is probably a rabbit hole you don't want to go down.

 

Rad Kat Tank - Radicat II - Mu 3f - [i25].mxd

 

SD RadM Tank - Prototype 801 - Build i4 - [i26].mxd

SD RadM Tank - PsiTank Beta r4 - [i25].mxd

 

[Perfect Weapon]

For me it is my Fire/SS tank.  My first tank ever on live and with set bonus items I've made him as unkillable as I can while still being able to mop up mobs.   Does he have flaws?  Sure.  However, he can usually kill most anything first.

[SwitchFade]

Invuln4life

 

Amirite?!

 

Where's @Infinitum?

[Bill Z Bubba]

PLed the new dark/stone tank to 50 yesterday and slotted her up. Had to go vigor for +acc and end-red. She's serviceable but won't be winning any awards on any front. However, there's so much KD/Fear/Stun going on that she's a freakin hoot to watch. Even went tport instead of my goto fly to try out fold space. Gotta admit, that is one damn handy power for aggro control.

[ninja surprise]

Right now it would probably be my Bio/Dark Melee. It's soft-capped on the Defense and Damage Resists that Bio can do and has max -Slow resist from Winters.

It's still not indestructible because the right enemies can rip it up, but it has enough clickies that I'm always busy and it does good damage and pulls in lots of aggro.

 

 

BUT my SR/Electric is a total hoot when I want to just punch stuff without worrying about all the incoming attacks.