Tankiest Tanks?

[mdarweesh]

For PvE, high level content with a large bankroll, what are the tankiest tanks right now?

 

Let's say, Top 2 or 3?

 

Is Granite (stone) still there?

What about Willpower?

 

-M

[Shadewe]

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,3831.0.html

 

Hopefully this answers (scroll down a few replies)

[Call Me Awesome]

Stone tanks post Granite are by far the toughest around, with the drawback of limited mobility and a recharge penalty.

 

After that probably a decently built Invuln tanker followed by many of the other sets although each tends to have areas it shines in and others it struggles with.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Invulnerability is a good all-round choice. It's got strong resistance and a good base level of defense that you can build on. It's main weakness is that Psionics chew it up but you can compensate for that with IOs if you want.

[Dixa]

Stone tanks post Granite are by far the toughest around, with the drawback of limited mobility and a recharge penalty.

 

After that probably a decently built Invuln tanker followed by many of the other sets although each tends to have areas it shines in and others it struggles with.

 

stone gets destroyed by praetorian resistance fighters and carnies.

 

there is no do it all tank, there are only does-most-of-it tanks.

[jack_nomind]

stone gets destroyed by praetorian resistance fighters and carnies.

 

there is no do it all tank, there are only does-most-of-it tanks.

 

Without IOs, maybe.  But Stone (taken as a set) doesn't have any holes.  Dark Armor, Shield, Bio Armor, and Willpower are also all excellent all-around; they all easily build for all content.

[Shadewe]

 

Without IOs, maybe.  But Stone (taken as a set) doesn't have any holes. 

 

You can't use Psi and everything else at the same time. Not as 'pure' of a hole as invul but still a hole.

 

 

[marcussmythe]

 

Without IOs, maybe.  But Stone (taken as a set) doesn't have any holes. 

 

You can't use Psi and everything else at the same time. Not as 'pure' of a hole as invul but still a hole.

 

Someone demonstrated an Invuln Stalker to me last night that put out 75% resist to Psi.  Now, of course, it utterly eschewed recharge, didnt bother to push its DEF up, but its a fair point that if your only vision for a tank is ‘wall’, or are willing to even just devote a single build slot to ‘wall’, psi damage does not have to be a hole.

[jack_nomind]

You can't use Psi and everything else at the same time. Not as 'pure' of a hole as invul but still a hole.

 

Minerals is only exclusive vs Granite, and the rest of the set cumulatively manages to be more durable than Shield even w/o Granite.

 

 

[Rhinoxx]

Stone tanks post Granite are by far the toughest around, with the drawback of limited mobility and a recharge penalty.

 

After that probably a decently built Invuln tanker followed by many of the other sets although each tends to have areas it shines in and others it struggles with.

 

stone gets destroyed by praetorian resistance fighters and carnies.

 

there is no do it all tank, there are only does-most-of-it tanks.

 

Stone can be tricked out (including other powers) so pretty much only whatever weirdness the Vanguard Super-Duper-Spec-Ops Troops hand out gets through. But it's suuuuuper-costly :D

[marcussmythe]

Almost everyone gets ruined by certain debuffs.  (Im looking at you *Targeted*)

 

Tanks are gonna probably need support against -something-.  Thats okay, its a team game.

[Camoron]

Shield may not be the tankiest tank, but it is well-built for PvE, compliments any team, has high damage output, and with a proper build, has soft-capped positional defenses, fairly high resistances, high HP, and pretty decent regen. Personally I think it's the most well-balanced and fun Defense set CoH has ever made. I've never met any content I couldn't be the lone Tank on at 50 in team content, and I also have the benefit of being able to solo AVs and run high-level content meant for 8-person teams. Almost soloed an ITF once but got kicked in mission 5 or 6 after my fillers dropped. Not sure if I would have been able to defeat Romulus in the final battle, but I had a strategy that I'd still love to try.

[GritIron]

Tanks backed by support sets are the tankiest tanks, regardless of powersets.

 

But im assuming you meant solo, to which the above posts address that issue.

[marcussmythe]

Shield may not be the tankiest tank, but it is well-built for PvE, compliments any team, has high damage output, and with a proper build, has soft-capped positional defenses, fairly high resistances, high HP, and pretty decent regen. Personally I think it's the most well-balanced and fun Defense set CoH has ever made. I've never met any content I couldn't be the lone Tank on at 50 in team content, and I also have the benefit of being able to solo AVs and run high-level content meant for 8-person teams. Almost soloed an ITF once but got kicked in mission 5 or 6 after my fillers dropped. Not sure if I would have been able to defeat Romulus in the final battle, but I had a strategy that I'd still love to try.

 

Shield would still be a decent set if you replaced AoO, Shield Charge, Grant Cover, and Phalanx Fighting with blank powers that did nothing and could be skipped.  The combination of resistance and positional DEF is a very, very strong one.  The fact that it also gives a large AOE attack and a perma-buildup is simply additional sauce.

[mdarweesh]

These are some great replies. Thanks for them.

 

TL/DR what I'm seeing: Don't worry about tank primary. Make sure you have a team. Build accordingly.

 

I tanked an ITF +5 with generic IOs last night on my granite tank and it wasn't hard. I just didn't do any damage and my taunts didn't stick very long. And I love tanking.

 

[mdarweesh]

PS. I'm coming back for build advice on my Stone/Fire Tank once I get some inf for set IOs

:-)

 

[Heraclea]

I would also add that choice of secondary can make all the difference.  Dark Melee, Katana, Broadsword, and Staff all have advantages that specifically benefit Defense based primaries like Shield or Ice.  Kinetic Melee is especially beneficial to resistance sets like Bio or Fire.  All will benefit generalist armors like Invuln or Willpower.  Other attack sets bring advantages like crowd control and to-hit buffs  that can increase survivability in other ways. 

 

Used to think that a tanker had to have specific concept reasons not to pick Dark Melee, it just did so much.  To some extent that's still true.  But really the only one I would steer anyone away from is Energy Melee, where bad animation lag puts click powers and even insps out of reach for way too long. 

[Call Me Awesome]

PS. I'm coming back for build advice on my Stone/Fire Tank once I get some inf for set IOs

:-)

 

I had a 50 Stone/Fire tank on Live and it's a beast.  Decent damage in Granite with good AOE and most of /Fire's attacks recharge relatively quickly so it's not as affected by the -recharge penalty Granite imposes.  Even on SO's it's very capable and few things will bother you.  Frankly I focused on +recharge set bonuses to offset the penalties, if you slot Granite with a mix of Resist and Defense IO's you'll be fairly close to the soft cap defense on all but Psi and the Res hard cap for all but Psi.  A few minor +def bonuses will make an extremely capable tanker unkillable.

[FUBARczar]

1 - Stone is a terrible set. - Powers that exclude other powers in the same set, that's horrible, and if you build to use everything, I am sorry but it gimps the whole build overall. Plus it's slow, too much lack of mobility, -dmg, -recharge, etc. etc.

 

2 - Super Strength is a crap choice right now unless Rage gets fixed or reworked

 

3 - Try DA/Ice

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4 - Try Elec/DM

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5 - Try WP/Rad

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[Auroxis]

Just because you don't know how to build Granite doesn't make it horrible. That said I wouldn't roll it on a Tanker, since Brute's fury works well to mitigate the -damage from Granite.

 

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[FUBARczar]

Just because you don't know how to build Granite doesn't make it horrible. That said I wouldn't roll it on a Tanker, since Brute's fury works well to mitigate the -damage from Granite.

 

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Like I said gimped, so many slots wasted on +Run Speed, low defense and low resist w/o Granite, and w/o incarnate even Granite has low performance in addition to all the negatives I previously stated < Inv, WP, DA, etc, etc.

 

I know full well I ran a Stone Brute tanking dozens upon dozens upon dozens of LRSFs, QoL is very low using Stone Armor

 

[XaoGarrent]

1 - Stone is a terrible set. - Powers that exclude other powers in the same set, that's horrible, and if you build to use everything, I am sorry but it gimps the whole build overall. Plus it's slow, too much lack of mobility, -dmg, -recharge, etc. etc.

This kind of brutal honesty is so rare to see in this community, and it's frankly a breath of fresh air with all the usual, stale butt patting going on to see someone just tell it how it is.

[hardicon]

well back in live i had a invuln/ss/energy tank that was pretty much immune to everything.  I used IO sets to get psionic resist.  That character nearly became a GOD.  I am currently rebuilding him, but back on live he could stand up to AV and GM without too much trouble.  psionics did hurt some but i could work around it.  no clue about the other tank sets because i really only played this one tank but have plans to try out different stuff eventually on Homecoming.

[Auroxis]

 

Like I said gimped, so many slots wasted on +Run Speed, low defense and low resist w/o Granite, and w/o incarnate even Granite has low performance in addition to all the negatives I previously stated < Inv, WP, DA, etc, etc.

 

I know full well I ran a Stone Brute tanking dozens upon dozens upon dozens of LRSFs, QoL is very low using Stone Armor

 

It's easy to point out the mitigated flaws while ignoring all the benefits. It has DDR and Max HP DA and WP can't get, and exotic resistances+damage aura Inv and WP can't get.

 

You don't really use any other stone armor besides granite unless you're exemplaring or having an easy time, their slots are used to power up granite basically with the run speed and recharge IO's.

 

QoL is low, but it's possible to mitigate. You obviously never bothered to because you see it as a "waste", maybe that's why you hate it so much.

[LorannaPyrel]

Sees someone say - again - that Super Strength is a "crap" choice because of the Rage crash not being avoidable anymore

 

Experiences profound NERDRAGE; gets two minute buff to ability to blow hot air

 

Ahem; as a longtime Super Strength fan, having paired the set to good effect on both Electric Armor and Radiation Armor, I can say, with confidence, that the set is not crap. Even with a base defense of only 20% to all positions, I run +4/x8 fire farms with my current Rad/SS, and the Rage crash has yet to kill me - and this is without popping inspirations, nor leaning on my Destiny slot.

 

The set does have a disadvantage that hurts you if you rely heavily on Defense alone. But even then, Super Strength offers a way to mitigate its own Rage crash - the Hand Clap power. Really, that power isn't useless either; it's ideal for buying yourself time to let the Rage crash wear off, if you're taking too much damage during it. It can also be used to good effect by off-tanks to knock stray mobs back into the giant blob of frak-you that the party is cooking up.

 

Yes, people usually skip Hand Clap - it's not a power conducive to every playstyle, especially playstyles that focus on speed, steamrollering the mobs. But the power, and the set it's in, are not crap.

 

Takes a deep breath, experiencing ten seconds of lack of hot air

 

Uses Sands of Mu to imitate Kenshiro, that power not being affected by the crash; follows with Ionic Judgement, that also not being affected

 

Thought I was done ranting, did you? And oop, my NERDRAGE is back up! RAWWWRRR!!!! ^_^

 

Thank you for listening,

 

Loranna