AnElfCalledMack

Well, any support is great. But speaking as a tanker just a little short of perma-hasten and a Scorch -> GFS -> Incin attack chain (and not that far off Burn -> FSC -> Fireball AoE chain), I'm always glad to see Kins and Rads. +Recharge/+recovery is delicious. Emps are nice too, but I understand why they keep exchanging ABs or putting them on the blaster to override nuke crashes. But either way, I'm glad to see any Defender, Controller, Corruptor or MM who's actually using both of their powersets. Hell, I'm not even picky about that - we had a "pure" empath on a Kahn last night, and he did a very solid job of keeping everyone healthy and well-buffed.

Everyone has their pet sets in this game. It's just that some people accuse you of playing "wrong" if you're not using them, or not using them the way they want to.

For example, I'm a big fan of Fiery Aura on Tankers. Yes, it means having to balance your use of offensive and defensive abilities, but I like being able to notice the difference in an AV's health bar when I can stand there and keep attacking, as opposed to when I need to go taunt something else.

Basically, every set has a mindset that helps it work well. If this fits you, you'll be better off playing that AT than any of the so-called "optimal" powersets. I know I make a terrible Trapper - having everything be on long cooldowns makes me hesitant to use anything, so I wind up in harder fights for longer because I'm "saving" my cooldowns. Fiery Aura, on the other hand, lets me have Fiery Embrace up for every other spawn, and I save Consume for using with RotP unless someone's draining my endurance. And that's no slight on Traps - it's an amazing set. I just can't play it right. Fire/ tanks, on the other hand, I get. You can't go toe-to-toe with the toughest foes in the game for very long without help, but in 99% of cases you don't need to fight for very long. Just longer than the other guy.

So go out there and play characters you enjoy. Why else would you be playing?

I'm not saying that you must slot RttC for Taunt or you are some sort of terrible player. All I said was that slotting RttC for Taunt was useful for two reasons - RttC isn't actually a continuous taunt unslotted, and stacking up taunt duration actually does build aggro. If you feel that you don't need more aggro management, that's your lookout and those of the people teamed with you, but general consensus is that Willpower is a little lacking in holding aggro and can use the boost. And a 0.5 second drop isn't much, but 0.5 seconds every 2 seconds is a 25% failure to taunt - a big attack at the wrong moment could aggro something onto the squishies, and once it runs out of the mob, you've lost it.

I'm not suggesting you eliminate all sense of danger for your team - a Willpower tanker's never going to hold aggro off that SD Scrapper who rushed in with Shield Charge. The problem is that it might also struggle if the Blaster drops a Rain of Fire and no-one can immob the spawn. You might say that's the blaster's problem, but most other tankers can at least mitigate the situation through a combination of Taunt, Gauntlet and aggro auras to get as much of the spawn as they can back around the tanker ASAP. With no Taunt and no Taunt slotting in RttC, you've got no way to re-group a scattered mob. And scatter happens. I for one prefer to try and deal with it, rather than forcing my team to play around me.

Finally, with competent support any tank is good enough. Hell, with a good support lineup it's better to have a sturdy Scrapper take the alphas and leverage that high damage modifier. But sometimes, you can't rely on good support, or even competent support. We build tanks to be good enough anyway. So I might not have any mez. I might only have debuffs available, or no support at all. And you know what? I can still handle a 7-man spawn by myself and hold aggro throughout, and that's a Fiery Aura tanker that skipped the Fighting pool. So whatever team I might find myself in, I'm confident that we can handle it. Looking at that build, I'm not entirely sure your teammates can.

I like Fire as a secondary, but Elec and SS are both going to come out pretty well. Fire has Incinerate and GFS for ST and Combustion/FSC for AoE, SS has Rage, Foot Stomp and KO Blow, and Elec has amazing AoE, but is a touch lacking against one target.

As far as epics go, Fireball is nice because it animates so quickly, and Fire Blast can outclass low-grade melee attacks, which both SS (designed to have Rage up) and Elec (the AoE set) can find themselves using. Earth has some nice debuffs, but it's really a step down for damage to lose Fireball.

My latest of many alts is a Stone/Elec/(planning Pyre) tanker. While she hasn't gotten to the mob-melting yet, I'm sure she will in time.

Hey forums. I'm AnElfCalledMack, and I'm an altoholic. In eight months of this wonderful game, I've managed to get a grand total of three characters above 30, but have made and enjoyed a bevy of characters, probably slightly weighted towards melee. The three characters I've broken 30 with are a Fire/Fire Tanker (50+1), a Katana/SR Scrapper (40, softcapped w/o DA, but having endurance problems), and a Fire/Earth Dominator (30, finally got the hang of Flashfire + Cages + Hot Feet).

Lately, I've been thinking about making a Stone/Elec Tanker, but I have no experience with Stone Armor, and had an abortive attempt at an Elec/SD Scrapper - I couldn't fight small spawns efficiently, and I couldn't survive larger ones.

So, I have a couple of questions. Firstly, just how much will this suck pre-Granite? I'm willing to put up with a few bumps on the way up, but to me 32 is quite an achievement, so I'd like to feel somewhat useful before then.

Secondly, do these two sets work together? It seems to me that LR and CI in particular work nicely with Stone - LR for letting you jump into a spawn and grab aggro at the same time, and CI for being a pseudo-ranged attack. All the same, though, there are only two ST attacks, so with the recharge penalty in Granite, I'm worried I'll be hurting against one target.

Oh, one more thing: Did they fix that bug where slotting procs in CI would affect its chance to jump? If they did, LR + TS + CI with the Kinetic Combat proc would be a lot of area knockdown...

My first STF. A PUG. We get an FF Fender, 3 Trollers (Rad, Kin, Emp), Blaster, 2 Scrappers, and me (Fire/Fire Tank). We steamrolled the sucker. Everything just clicked. We had the entire team clumped up, under the Dispersion Bubble with triple Maneuvers, three AoE heals, AM, SB, FS and Fortitude being spread around liberally. When I tried to pull one of the patrons, it didn't work, so all eight of us dogpiled the four AVs and focused fire. First was Ghost Widow and she just buckled. Black Scorpion was a bag of HP, and the rest rolled over in short order.

We take out the flyer, though I've forgotten to get a jetpack, so I'm reduced to taunting, clearing the troops it drops, and occasionally SJing up for a Scorch or GFS. And then it's the big one - Recluse himself. I'm feeling confident, so I get fresh AM/SB/Fort/bubbles, turn on the Wedding Band temp, and go toe-to-toe with him. And it works perfectly. Neither bar budges, even though I drop Burn just for the guaranteed Gauntlet from the patch. Everyone's cheering and making jokes as the other seven teammmates take down the towers.

I did find out that Acrobatics and one KB IO isn't quite enough to stop LR's KB cone, and I'm fairly sure the Emp at least had her eye on me to make sure nothing went too wrong, though I was pretty quick on Healing Flames when I actually did get hit. I also got timely re-bubbling and SBs, which make a huge difference for Fire. LR's ranged attacks have a nasty -End component, but enough -End resist and +Recovery makes it pretty much meaningless.

I'm quite tempted, but mostly because I had a Spiritual Radial, but would prefer a Partial Core Revamp - so I'm going to build two rares anyway, and when I've got 32 spare shards, I'll turn it into a Core Paragon. Yeah, it's a lot, but I'll get there someday.

I think I worked out a plan, and it needs me to do one more STF, two ITFs, a ship raid, two Khans and gather 24 more shards and 3 Notices. I think that should be very doable. Running tips for a couple of days would probably let me skip one of the TFs, too.

EDIT: removed brainfart.