I'm bad at winning PVP matches, so I want a tanker that absolutely stalls and ties in every fight.

[DRoddo]

I know that melee PvP is like a game of rock paper scissors, but I want to be a rock that's too jagged large for paper to wrap around. I want to stall and draw.

What's a good combo for this that can absolutely stand up to all forms of punishment from the meta PvP classes.

[Octogoat]

It doesn't matter what build you use there's always a bigger goat.

[Sovera]

That will not happen. PvP changes how things work and Tankers don't get their PvE resistances there. If you're just playing at club fight (two melee hitting each other) then I would suggest Radiation Armor/Dark Melee as you can draw out things with your three heals. But if you face any ranged character they will make mince meat out of you either way.

[Spaghetti Betty]

Not a Tank, but Regen is infamous for being nigh unkillable in a Fight Club scenario. Rad Armor and Bio are also up there, with Rad pulling slightly ahead.

[Gobbledigook]

Would lots of +recharge and Phase shift work? lol

 

Ice armor Hibernate then Phase shift 😜

 

 

[Sovera]

Last I recall (but it's been a good while) Hibernate triggers the phase shift debuff who in turn has a CD of two minutes(?) not touched by recharged. It was something I learned even for PvE that Hibernate's recharge didn't matter much since phase shift did not allow it to be used. This means phase shift can't be used too.

 

 

Take this with a grain of salt since it's been a long while.

[kito]

Tank dark/stone proably would stall most PvP I think but I'm not a real pvper

[Psyonico]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

Last I recall (but it's been a good while) Hibernate triggers the phase shift debuff who in turn has a CD of two minutes(?) not touched by recharged. It was something I learned even for PvE that Hibernate's recharge didn't matter much since phase shift did not allow it to be used. This means phase shift can't be used too.

 

 

Take this with a grain of salt since it's been a long while.

Looking at CoD, Hibernate does grant the "NoPhase" temp power for 2 minutes.

 

That being said, when I look at what is tagged with "SuppressiblePhase" I only see Ethereal Shift listed, so I am not sure if Hibernate actually can't be cast while under the effect of "NoPhase"

[tidge]

On 11/4/2024 at 3:13 PM, Spaghetti Betty said:

Not a Tank, but Regen is infamous for being nigh unkillable in a Fight Club scenario. Rad Armor and Bio are also up there, with Rad pulling slightly ahead.

 

I haven't PvPed with a Tanker since Live (pre-Incarnates), although I have PvPed against Tankers on Homecoming. These experiences are minimal; my Tanker held off an entire team (that I don't think was playing smartly), I slew opposing solo Tankers. My solo Tanker was Invulnerability, and it wasn't a ton of fun to play in Live PvP... but it didn't have anything like the enhancements we can have on Homecoming. There was occasional retreating because incoming fire from ranged attacks would eventually wear it down. On Homecoming, my Tanker slayer was a Stalker...Bio Armor was more than enough of an armor set to stand toe-to-toe with a couple of Tankers (one was Rad) and the damage was enough to get them to retreat (and/or defeat them if they had poor recharge on a key power). I don't know that Bio's tricks would be enough for a Tanker... it would almost certainly do better 1-on-1 against a melee opponent.

 

My instinct tells me that if a player wants to have a nigh-unkillable (in one-on-one, or maybe one-or-more-than-one) Tanker in PvP, an absolute must will have to be a reliable, fast-recharging self-heal and maximized health. Boosting Regeneration will certainly help (if HP are near max), but mostly because there will be no way to avoid taking damage. Defense values won't count for nothing, but those "(near) softcap" numbers shouldn't mean much against an opponent who has well-slotted their bread & butter attacks with sets. You will want that Scaling Resistance piece for sure!

 

You'll need "complete" resistance/protection to controls, including knockback. You'll need to have Endurance spending and Recovery under control, because if the wrong toggle drops it will likely be game-over.

 

From my limited PvP experience on Homecoming, its kinda dull to 1-on-1 with most any AT, because it is pretty much always possible to run away (if the players are prepared to have to do so). Ganging up on a solo player in a PvP zone has no appeal (to me) unless the solo player is explicitly trying to fight more-than-one at once.

 

The last thing I'd add, and this is just (hopefully informed) speculation: Any PvP Tanker should probably have a build specifically for PVP. The sorts of choices commonly made for PvE (franken-slotting for %damage, skipping/minimizing Taunt) are not going to well-serve a player in PvP. Extra attacks from Epic/Patron/Pool powers are highly unlikely to be valuable (beyond set bonuses from slotting).  This is not so much advice to "boost everything", but make wiser choices of powers and slots that will benefit the PvP play.

[Sovera]

On live we played Fight Club RP-PvP but very often the meleer fights would end in a draw. Very actually on point when two invulnerable enemies hit each other 😄 In a game there is certainly no comic book rules where the invulnerablest is also the strongest.

 

It was pretty boring and even spectators would sigh once we realized we were in for another 10 minute fight until one of them would finally give up. I remember speccing into some odd picks like the epic frost pool to get some slows and make recharge slower just to be able to kill someone. Of course on the same account everyone turned into a puddle of goo if a debuffer joined the fray and I remember our RP-PvP reigning champion was a Poison MM where bodyguard kept them alive while they applied all poison debuffs until the other person could do nothing. This is all pre PvP changes and IOs being introduced.

 

23 hours ago, tidge said:

From my limited PvP experience on Homecoming, its kinda dull to 1-on-1 with most any AT, because it is pretty much always possible to run away (if the players are prepared to have to do so). Ganging up on a solo player in a PvP zone has no appeal (to me) unless the solo player is explicitly trying to fight more-than-one at once.

 

My own (brief) foray into playing at RP PvP in HC with a villain was not very good. As long as it was a meleer we could brawl and quip and slowly whittle each other. But the moment a Blaster came in it was game over. Tanker or not. But all bets were off when a *PvP* Blaster joined. Instead of useless Fly they'd have Super Jump which allowed to bounce around and travel power cancellation didn't stop inertia so they'd still finish their jump. I tried a variety of things like going into Web Grenade, but in the age of IOs there is enough resistance to these things.

 

I'm sure someone more into it like @America's Angel would know counters like, last I hear Energy Aura was godly because the T9 worked in PvP so instead of being an instant death if a Blaster came in they could at least chase them.

 

But never take Fly into PvP that's for sure. Any hit cancels it and we move slower than Hover while inertia makes jousting with SS or SS the way to move.

 

Edited November 7 by Sovera