Power Pools Pro/Con listing

[Gormac]

Has there been a Pro Con list posted somewhere if not could we bring one together? i dont have as much experience with the game so I think someone with better experience then me should do it.

[Zumberge]

Boredom happened and an attempt was made.  I'm holding the rest of the forums hostage and forcing you all to read my dubious power advice until someone starts commenting on my fanfics.  If I need to add porn to them to get that to happen then I'll do it.  Don't think I won't.

 

_{("Add porn to what?  The fanfics or the power advice?"  Yes.)}

 

 

Bio Armor

Pros: Good against everything, a lot of regen, +recovery passive, Adaptation adds a ton of versatility, PBAoE health and endurance leech clicky, absorbtion shield

Cons: No -recharge, -regen, or -recovery resistance, I guess?  Bio is just really good.

Notes: It's a bunch of resist, defense, and regen layered on top of each other combined with the ability to boost damage, tank harder, and save on endurance, depending on which Adaptation you use.  The word people use to describe it is "overtuned" and yeah, let's go with that.

 

 

Dark Armor

Pros: Good dark resist, fantastic psionic resist, mez protection includes fear, +perception.

Cons: Eats endurance like crazy, no knockback protection, the toggle that gives defense also gives stealth and stealth is not a desirable trait for a Tanker, low energy resist and energy damage is EVERYWHERE in the late game.

Notes: Known to give your endurance THE BIG SUCC but aside from that it's not terrible.  Used to require Acrobatics to function (which gave your endurance an even bigger SUCC) but IOs fixed that.

 

 

Electric Armor

Pros: Energy resist is capped with basic slotting, +recharge passive, endurance drain and -recovery resist, PBAoE endurance leech clicky.

Cons: Knockdown and immobilization passive only works if you're near the ground, poor negative energy resist.  Elec is also pretty good.

Notes: Originally didn't have immobilization or knockback resistance or a self-heal (Energize just used to give a temporary endurance discount) and so was just kind of a sidegrade to Dark Armor, but once Grounded added the former two and Energize had a heal added to it it's just plain amazing.

 

 

Fiery Aura

Pros: Good fire resist, PBaoE end leech clicky, damage boost power for when you want ALL THE DAMAGE.

Cons: No knockback or immobilization resistance unless you include Burn for the latter and that's a click, bad cold resist, mez resists are spread across several toggles.

Notes: It's a set that sacrifices defense for damage; I think we all know what goes on in AE farms these days.  Fire/Ice Tankers used to be *the* powerleveling build before AE and even CoV, but then they added added aggro caps and ordered all dumpsters to be sealed shut.  Guy I used to roll with was very up-front about his Fire/Ice and why it existed, and when the changes dropped it resulted in a character arc across four chracters and three ATs that ended with him being turned into an 18th century psychic Victorian cyborg from the future that was still capable of powerleveling you.  It's a long story.

 

 

Ice Armor

Pros: Defense to everything but fire and cold, cold resist is capped without even trying, +perception, two taunt auras for extra aggro staying power, slow resist, the tier 9 is an emergency heal and recovery over time that makes you invulnerable, the PBAoE endurance leech also gives you additional defense.

Cons: Defense is by damage type rather than position so it's harder to cap with IO set bonuses and outside of the aforementioned bonus from the PBAoE it's just kind of okay, little fire and no psionic resist, fire damage is quite a bit more common than cold.

Notes: Surprisingly uncommon these days, or maybe I'm not looking hard enough.  Not without reason though, considering that positional defense is regarded as superior to typed.  If you're good about it you can taunt enemies, hit the tier 9 and when you're healed up you'll still have their aggro.

 

 

Invulnerability

Pros: Good smashing and lethal resists, a decent chunk of defense to most damage types, a scaling defense and to-hit bonus depending on how surrounded you are.

Cons: Non-S/L resists aren't great.

Notes: Used to be great, then aggro caps and ED hit it and it was less great, but now it's better.  Subject of the once-terrifying PSYCHIC HOLE but less so now since IOs exist.  Despite being around since the game's inception I don't actually know too much about how it works in practice.  Weird.

 

 

Radiation Armor

Pros: Good energy and very high toxic resist, taunt aura gives -to-hit and -defense while boosting your recharge, PBAoE health and endurance leech clicky, weird but not unwanted PBAoE that heals allies (but not you) and damages foes, tier 9 boosts damage.

Cons: Low cold resist, no -regen or -recovery resist.

Notes: A Tanker that can handle toxic damage is one of those things you never realized you needed until it happens.  It can handle other things as well, provided it's not ice.  Another late addition to the game and a bit "overtuned."

 

 

Regeneration

Pros: Click heals, a click regen boost.

Cons: Everything is click-based so recharge debuffs completely bone you, is very weak to burst damage which is something that you're going to be dealing with as a Tanker ALL THE TIME, no actual defense or resistance to speak of, no -regen resistance either despite that being the core feature of the set.

Notes: This is a bad idea.  I suppose you could use Moment of Glory to take the alpha but then you're still tanking with perhaps 15% resistance if you're lucky once it wears off and MoG's not gonna be up for every mob.  It's absolutely not a good Tanker primary.

 

 

Shield Defense

Pros: Good defense, a toggle gives you more defense when allies are nearby, another toggle gives your allies defense when you're nearby, the taunt aura gives you +damage for nearby enemies, Shield Charge is a fun way to insert yourself into the middle of mobs.

Cons: Mez resist is on a click so -recharge can cause problems, very mild resistance values for when attacks do get through, no self-heal.

Notes: Shield Defense kind of encourages the team to be in a cuddle puddle around the Tanker, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  It's all positional defense so it's easier to cap with IO set bonuses.  I kind of want to see what an all-Shield Defense team would be like but my organizational skills aren't great.

 

 

Stone Armor

Pros: Granite Armor makes you the tankiest tank that ever tanked tanks, +perception, surprisingly good psionic defense, endurance drain resistance in the mez toggle.

Cons: Everything outside of Granite Armor is kind of mediocre and it's mutually exclusive with it, Granite comes with a huge speed, recharge, and damage penalty, the mez toggle gives you an EVEN HUGER speed penalty.

Notes: The first eight powers could just be renamed to "Stuff You Take To Tide You Over Until Granite Armor" because that's what you're here for.  Either you're very good friends with somebody who rolled Kinetics or you have Teleport as a travel power. "But I have Superju-" Wrong, you have Teleport.

 

 

Super Reflexes

Pros: A defense-based set that's very easy to cap, scaling damage resistance, +recharge, defense debuff resist, plenty of passives to stick unique defense IOs into.

Cons: Mez resist on a click, no self-heal, peaks early.

Notes: The phrase I heard used about SR is "high floor, low ceiling."  It's better than other sets early on, but once you start adding IO sets to the mix it starts getting outclassed.  It still works, though, plus it's all positional.

 

 

Willpower

Pros: +Recovery, good against everything, a better recovery-based set than Regeneration despite the theme not being of a recovery-based set, +perception.

Cons: No self-heal?  I'm kind of at a loss to say what's bad about it, to be honest.

Notes: If I didn't see the numbers for Dark Armor I'd think Willpower was the psionic tank set.  For the longest time Willpower was basically a straight upgrade to both Regeneration and Invulnerability, and it probably still is.  It's like Bio Armor in that it's just a little bit of everything mashed together.

[Rockfall]

Some further commentary:

 

Electric Armor: Your defense is to power sink the mobs out of blue. Plan to take mu mastery for spammable AoE extra -end effects. Plan to have a secondary that buys you time to apply power sink twice to tougher targets. Stone Melee (heavy knockdown), Dark Melee (self heal), and similar effects.

 

Bio/Willpower benefit from IOs more than "pure" sets, because you get more value from taking a "moderate" hp/regen or def or res stat up by x% via the unique IOs than doing that on a starting-from-0 set (eg, most everything else). Possible honorable mention of diversity to Rad (because of the -tohit aura)?

[star_fury_lives]

Zumberge wrote a great list. Some cons for Willpower I'm noticing is lack of -recovery resist. Had my end floored several times by sappers, whilst running about 6 toggles.

 

Was regen ever a tanker primary on live? If it was, I stopped playing before it ported over. Strikes me as much better for a non-primary tanking class due to the way it works.

[Infinitum]

Addendum to Electric Armor - Toxic is the main weakness, followed be neg nrg.

 

Toxic will straight up kill you until you mitigate it with sets.

[Zumberge]

Zumberge wrote a great list. Some cons for Willpower I'm noticing is lack of -recovery resist. Had my end floored several times by sappers, whilst running about 6 toggles.

 

Was regen ever a tanker primary on live? If it was, I stopped playing before it ported over. Strikes me as much better for a non-primary tanking class due to the way it works.

 

Regen was given to Brutes in i21, but Homecoming added it to Tankers.  I appreciate their zeal in proliferating power sets, and I'm not gonna finish that sentence because I'm trying to be polite.

 

Addendum to Electric Armor - Toxic is the main weakness, followed be neg nrg.

 

Toxic will straight up kill you until you mitigate it with sets.

 

A couple sets seem to have trouble with toxic, enough so that it's probably more timely to mention what power sets can handle it rather than which ones can't (-recovery resist is kind of the same).  It's kind of funny because you see toxic/psi resist set bonuses and go, "hey more psi resist is good oh and toxic too I guess" and then you do lategame stuff in Praetorian Earth, fight Avatars of Hamidon, see your health drop like a rock and wonder why, then check the combat log and go, "...oh."

[Heraclea]

AFAIK regen is not a tanker armor. 

 

Regen is godly in the levelling game, and not very good in the 40+ game.  I have a fire/regen scrapper who farms Synapse and Citadel for my higher ups.  You need some defense in the late game, and Regen is basically starting from zero there.  You can nullify your actual advantages in Regen by taking Maneuvers, Tough and Weave, but by themselves and out of the box, those aren't great by themselves.  Regen is basically for melee blasters; the need is to kill everything before it kills you. 

 

Also, Fire is one of the better sets against toxic; the self heal gives you long lasting toxic resistance that stacks with itself, so you can get up to 60% resistance there.  Fire is king of Posi 2.

[IronJuke]

Invulnerability still seems pretty decent.  Unstoppable is Gawdly, like it does everything you want then the kitchen sink, but when it drops you crash pretty hard. 

 

Fortunately, the set is so good ... you may only need Unstoppable for really tough situations as a last ditch save.

 

Invincibility really defines the set and gives you a lot of defense, if you are surrounded by say 10 plus mobs, you take zero damage. 

[Heraclea]

Never taken Unstoppable on an Invuln tanker.  Never felt the need, even w/o set bonuses.  Dull Pain is the only trouble bubble I need.  This was true when Heraclea was Inv/SS and truer now that she's /Dark; even Dull Pain tends to sit neglected  when Siphon Life is fully slotted for healing and available every six seconds or so. 

[Infinitum]

 

A couple sets seem to have trouble with toxic, enough so that it's probably more timely to mention what power sets can handle it rather than which ones can't (-recovery resist is kind of the same).  It's kind of funny because you see toxic/psi resist set bonuses and go, "hey more psi resist is good oh and toxic too I guess" and then you do lategame stuff in Praetorian Earth, fight Avatars of Hamidon, see your health drop like a rock and wonder why, then check the combat log and go, "...oh."

 

Yeah toxic set bonuses alone won't get you there, I am about 30% res to toxic, a whole lot of regen and a good portion of defense combined with recharge for energize and power sink nuking their endurance you can mitigate it pretty well.

 

I am just now getting incarnate stuff for it but it's pretty durable now.

[IronJuke]

Never taken Unstoppable on an Invuln tanker.  Never felt the need, even w/o set bonuses.  Dull Pain is the only trouble bubble I need.  This was true when Heraclea was Inv/SS and truer now that she's /Dark; even Dull Pain tends to sit neglected when Siphon Life is fully slotted for healing and available every six seconds or so.

 

That's a pretty great recommendation for that combo.  My only concern would be a lack of AoE powers, pretty unkillable though.

[Gigajoule]

Willpower's biggest con is probably its subpar taunt aura.