Looking for a new tank to main

[Reningrendir]

I have played a stone/stone tank and I love how hearty they are. That being said the slowness is starting to get to me and I am looking for something new. I am stuck between a perma light form peace bringer and a shield tank. I know both are good and peace bringers are cooler visually and have heals but in the heat of battle I don't know which one performs better due to a lack of experience. 

 

Fellow tankers, from your experience would you rather have a peace bringer or a shield tank?

[JasperStone]

Either, with a caveat.

 

Pecebringers can tank well in Triform or Dual form,  but I think you feel the missing taunt aura. 

 

And one of my mains is a Triform.

[PLVRIZR]

"Performs better" is dependent on what tasks you are expecting to accomplish.  If you truly want the durability of a tank, then tank it is.  Other ATs can "tank", but tanks were designed, from the jump, to...well...tank.  Shield (defensive based set) is top-tier in survivability, with ridiculous positional defensive numbers and extremely high inherent DDR.  You duly note there is no heal, so pairing with a secondary that has a heal (like Dark Melee), makes it even more survivable.  If you can wait until the incarnates, you can also cover that gap, there.

 

 

[Story Archer]

On 10/25/2023 at 1:09 PM, Reningrendir said:

I have played a stone/stone tank and I love how hearty they are. That being said the slowness is starting to get to me and I am looking for something new. I am stuck between a perma light form peace bringer and a shield tank. I know both are good and peace bringers are cooler visually and have heals but in the heat of battle I don't know which one performs better due to a lack of experience. 

 

Fellow tankers, from your experience would you rather have a peace bringer or a shield tank?

 

I think that you should consider Shield/Martial Arts for several reasons.

 

1) You can reach soft-cap defenses, mez resistance AND Resist to all of 26-28% practically by level 12 only slotting IO's and a couple of uniques (see my recent post on this forum). That means that you can get right back into the tanking you're used to without any sort of painful grind.

 

2) The Martial Arts powers are visually very dynamic and will definitely 'feel' different than the slow stony you're used to. Moreover, with defense so quickly and easily taken care of you can spend more time focusing on your offense for a change.

 

3) All of the knockback/knockdown will feel familiar and will let you slot those +Recharge procs you're probably used to.

 

At the end of the day, while Peacebringers can tank (if by 'tank' you mean stand there and absorb damage), they are a wildly different play experience from Tankers. Depends how far you want to venture from what you've enjoyed in the past.

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Story Archer

[Sovera]

Fire armorrrrrrr

[Without_Pause]

On 10/26/2023 at 9:43 AM, Story Archer said:

1) You can reach soft-cap defenses, mez resistance AND Resist to all of 26-28% practically by level 12 only slotting IO's and a couple of uniques (see my recent post on this forum).

This also doesn't factor in things like going Sorcery pool to get Rune of Protection which gives roughly 20% Res as a base and the Might of the Tanker proc which does similar when stacked. Sure, RoP is a click, and its recharge can't be lowered, but we are talking about adding even more mitigation in cased you need it. Unleash Potential also would be an option as it offers +Regen and +Recovery. Those are two things a Shield user would welcome. 

[SeraphimKensai]

There's no reason why you shouldn't have a tank of each primary. They all have interesting aspects about their playstyle.

 

There's also no reason you shouldn't have a PB (but I wouldn't use it primarily for tanking as it doesn't have a taunt aura, has slightly less res than a tank, has significantly less HP than one, which is reduced by half every time light form crashes).

 

Since you're posting in the tanker forum I assume you want to tank. SD tanks are pretty strong, they can be end heavy and don't have a self heal in the primary but they are definitely bad ass. One of the cool things about them is rolling with a group of SD users whether tanks or other ATs as stacking Grant Cover is pretty cool (try a themed All Shield ITF, and when you stay in range of each other it's like the Spartans vs the Persians in 300).

[Rand0lk]

Tried several, but keep going back to the glorious Inv/SS. It feels just so...tanky.

[Thraxen]

Shield/ss is always my vote for new tanker. Hurl is so cool one handed with a shield. Rage crash is fine as defenses will be way over soft cap anyway. 
 

SR is insane on a tank. It’s close to as durable as my stoner.  Lets you go crazy with chasing other set bonuses cause defense is just done already with primary alone.