Looking for powerset/build recommendations for a multiboxed main tank to play with my empathy defender.

[GigiGoodgame]

hi folks! gigi here. i play Life Alert, a classic utility empathy defender, on everlasting. this afternoon i roped myself into main tanking lusca on my non-taunting farm alt while also keeping everyone alive on ol’ Lifer (who used to be Ally McHeal on Justice, incidentally). it was an absolute trainshow and we lost a few good heroes, but calamari was served at the wake. 🐙 

 

the experience left me cognitively ruined and also hankering for more. thing is i’ve always been more of a lover than a tanker, and with this new patch just hit i don’t know which way is up!

 

what would you recommend for a tank who can always count on being fortituded, adrenalin boosted, clear-minded, invisibility-granted, and ageless core epiphanied? one with as few clicks as possible? as little thought as necessary? i dream of running star content with this duo someday (and then promptly dying of an aneurysm) and i’d be deeply grateful for your advice.

 

thanks for reading! 🩷

Edited Thursday at 06:25 PM by GigiGoodgame

[Midnight Mystique]

Willpower and SR are pretty much the lowest clicky primaries that tanks get, with willpower's only click being its tier 9 and SR's having that plus practiced brawler (status protection click) which can easily be put on auto fire and left alone. Of those two SR is the simplest to build as you can hit the softcap with just the set powers and weave slotted with SO's. The drawback is you pretty much have to take everything but elude.  With empathy backup you even cover the one hole in SR - lack of self heal. 

 

Willpower is a solid set but its very middle of the road and it a lot harder to build for survivability. 

[Psyonico]

I feel like Shield would be a good contender.  Its mez protection is also a clicky, but it has things that SR doesn’t which I think would help.  Namely resistance that is always there.  SR has to take some serious damage before its resistances kick in, but shield has a good amount of resistance to everything but psi (and maybe toxic?).  With a shield build you could also focus on building extra resistance and not worry about building for defense with Fortitude capping you off.

 

Alternately, if you went Ageless Radial instead of Core, you could lean on that for DDR and do something like Electric Armor.  With Electric Armor you can get hard capped resistance to all but toxic and build yourself just enough positional defense that Fortitude will put you at the soft cap.  Ageless Radial then provides the DDR to make sure that defense isn’t all for naught.

[Midnight Mystique]

I agree with Psyonico on shield, it softcaps almost as easily as SR (42% to all positions with 3 SO's in deflection, battle agility and weave; 1 SO in phalanx fighting and a steadfast prot +def/glad armor +def in tough) and offers a lot more offensive punch with the damage boost from against all odds and the extra attack in shield charge. I am not as comfortable with electric armor but if you prefer resistance to def its probably the least clicky option (put energize on autofire, use powersink if you run low on end). 

 

In that vein invulnerability is also a choice. The only real click that matters is dull pain and that can be put on autofire as you likely won't need to hold it back for the extra heal. Its a lot more complicated to build than SR, Shield or Electric. 

[Soulsifter]

Defenses? Resistances? Why chose? 😄

 

Stand firm in your passive/aggressive sanctuary of NO TOUCHY! I can haz hugz?

 

Tankenstein - PVE - Farmer -Tanker (Stone Armor - Radiation Melee - Mace).mbd

 

 

[GigiGoodgame]

thank you all for your input! i’ve decided to see how invulnerability works out; the single clicky and being balanced around a lack of self-heal are the big factors for me here, but i think i’m actually gonna make a few and see if i don’t like shield more. that tankenstein i’m just gonna make as its own hero straight up! thanks again!