Narrowing it down! Help with Primary/Secondary Choices

[Owenknowone]

I have been reading the forums and I do realize there is no clear cut winner.  That being said, I have rolled a SR/DM tanker and find it quite enjoyable.  My worry is once I really get to the endgame type stuff, it will not be the "team" tanker I am looking for or am I wrong?  

 

I really love ICE but can this become a great team tank?  Stone?  Too many drawbacks?  

 

IMO what I think can be a great team primary in order are:

 

ICE/ICE

STONE/RAD

RAD/ICE

 

Or can my SR/DM continue on its quest to be a great tanker?

 

What I am looking for is a primary that can withstand the punishment I want out of a tanker and cant assist my team with a secondary that is beneficial.  Perhaps I am overthinking this and in the end all options are viable it just takes time/money to build any concept to its best potential.  

 

Tank you in advance.  

[ihatethewind]

Your SR/DM will hold up just fine, whether you are solo or on a team. Most tanks are effectively immortal with supporting buffs, SR being no exception. DM doesn’t have a ton of utility for your team aside from the -toHit debuff but that can help a little. I slotted a knockdown proc in soul drain to give me a little more CC potential and I like how it plays.

 

Really id say all tanks will be effective on a team, they just play a little differently. All the combos you mentioned should be effective.

[Without_Pause]

If I felt like leveling Rad melee again, I would likely pick Stone/rad. I just think it is a really good solid build. My Rad/ice is Level 27, and I have been playing it near exclusively after I rolled it. I have been soloing it, but even with a mish mash of IOs, it has been great. I've died twice and once was before Ice Patch and the other I ran around a run herding, stopped, and went, "I'm gonna die," and I did. Even before Ice Patch, I could tell the situation was going to cause issues, but I was curious to see if I could get out of it. I did a hunt mission where things were +4/+5. I had no real issue with it. I'm at x4 or x5 for diff setting and will bump it up post IO upgrading at 27. I loved my Ice/ice on live and that was just basic Level 25 common IOs.

 

DM with SR is practically cheat mode. I wouldn't play the build as I dislike click mezzes and Shadow Maul. I did get a /sr Scrapper to 50 on live. Any of my Dark melee builds ultimately get rerolled, but that's my quirk. If you like both sets, then by all means it will pan out in the end. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Without_Pause

[DreadShinobi]

Have you considered shield defense instead of super reflexes for Grant Cover? Or radiation armor for Ground Zero. Nice abilities to provide for a team, otherwise I wouldn't be too sure of what you're broadly looking for to be a "team tanker." Pull aggro, dish out damage, don't die, any tank primary will do.

 

Being a team oriented tanker can also be taken two different ways in terms of effective survivability that you may be looking for. You may find it more ideal to build towards immortality where it doesn't matter what kind of heat you pull or what difficulty you're playing on or you may consider that you're looking to build a tanker specifically for team play and fiery aura can surpass all other sets when you have a support on your team that makes your fiery aura tank just as durable as a tanker in granite armor except with way more offensive output. If you're not going to die regardless because youre a tanker, and basically all tanks have the same potential to hold aggro thoroughly enough, the remaining factor is how much damage you can bring to your team.

 

When the missions you are playing are no longer a threat because you have a great build and you play your character well it isn't so much "can we do this?" It becomes "how fast can we do this?"

 

 

[Marshal_General]

I have a level 30 stone/rad that I have been impressed with so far. Once I have enough slots to spare to fully slot my attacks, then it should be even better.

[Onlyasandwich]

18 hours ago, Owenknowone said:

great team tank

As long as you can survive and hit things, there is not a substantial difference between any combo. What you bring to the team is aggro control, and all tanks are great at it. Optimizing this aspect of the class is more about your approach to combat.

 

I recommend picking the sets you find fun and thematic, making the best build you can. If that means you want more buffy or controllery powers, that's fine! However, any tank you make is going to do a great job keeping the mobs tight and your team safe. 

 

 

 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

21 hours ago, Owenknowone said:

Or can my SR/DM continue on its quest to be a great tanker?

 

There ain't nuthin wrong with this combo. Go soul mastery, end up with MG, SL, Gloom, Smite, repeat for your ST chain, have darkest night for -damage to stack on SR's scaling damres, and with SL's heal going off regularly... you'll be crazy tough.

[Owenknowone]

Yes that's my goal is to be tough.  And as much as I love ice/rad combo my concern is ice has always lagged behind.

[Bill Z Bubba]

6 hours ago, Owenknowone said:

Yes that's my goal is to be tough.  And as much as I love ice/rad combo my concern is ice has always lagged behind.

 

I will throw this tidbit out there, though. If you go shield/dark, you'll have shield charge to shore up DM's low AoE, you'll have more HP and better static resistances, and double-stacking active defense gets you enough DDR to avoid cascading defense failures. On top of all that, you'll have a constant damage buff from AAO to add to soul drain.

[StriderIV]

5 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I will throw this tidbit out there, though. If you go shield/dark, you'll have shield charge to shore up DM's low AoE, you'll have more HP and better static resistances, and double-stacking active defense gets you enough DDR to avoid cascading defense failures. On top of all that, you'll have a constant damage buff from AAO to add to soul drain.

I’ve run this combo on a Scrapper and it’s very good. Could see it working very well on a Tanker.

[Bill Z Bubba]

The only thing SR has over SD is Quickness and its +20% recharge... which you can get from a couple day jobs or base buffs or different slotting.

[Warboss]

18 hours ago, Owenknowone said:

Yes that's my goal is to be tough.  And as much as I love ice/rad combo my concern is ice has always lagged behind.

 

Ice Armor takes a while to get going. Post 40 it should get better. Hang in there.

[Onlyasandwich]

12 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

SR has over SD

Scaling resist and more open slotting opportunities would be another!

 

I agree that SD probably has the most optimized outcome when properly built, but SR achieves softcap or even incarnate softcaps effortlessly. Scaling resists with tanker HP allow you to largely ignore much additional resist stacking, though I do still like to have a healthy s/l baseline.

[Without_Pause]

21 hours ago, Owenknowone said:

Yes that's my goal is to be tough.  And as much as I love ice/rad combo my concern is ice has always lagged behind.

You implied the reserve in your original post. Granted we are talking from my time on live, but I honestly liked my Ice/ice tanker and that was with level 25 common IOs. 

[DreadShinobi]

13 hours ago, Warboss said:

 

Ice Armor takes a while to get going. Post 40 it should get better. Hang in there.

 

Until you start finding post 40 psi damage and then it gets worse.

[ninja surprise]

On 12/30/2021 at 12:44 PM, Owenknowone said:

I have been reading the forums and I do realize there is no clear cut winner.  That being said, I have rolled a SR/DM tanker and find it quite enjoyable.  My worry is once I really get to the endgame type stuff, it will not be the "team" tanker I am looking for or am I wrong?  

 

If you enjoy it you'll do fine, just be liberal with Taunt.

Or if you re-roll it to Invuln/DM you'll have more taunt aura, unless I'm mis-remembering how they standardized taunt auras. Shield also has a great taunt aura, but your costume is gimped with a shield.

If you do an armor set with a damage aura, that helps pull aggro too.  Currently my favorite tanks are Bio/DM, Shield/Fiery, and SR/Electric.

[PLVRIZR]

1 hour ago, ninja surprise said:

 

If you enjoy it you'll do fine, just be liberal with Taunt.

Or if you re-roll it to Invuln/DM you'll have more taunt aura, unless I'm mis-remembering how they standardized taunt auras.

 

You remember correctly.  Invuln's Invincibility is one of the best taunt auras (and a phenomenal defensive boost).

[Without_Pause]

4 hours ago, ninja surprise said:

 

Shield also has a great taunt aura, but your costume is gimped with a shield.

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