_Jack__EU

A day late but Happy Birthday mate.

I screwed up with my epics and took it too late so all I have is Conserver Power, though my intention was to get Power Boost. There's only one attack, Power Blast, in the epic set though. I could respec and sort the epics out but as I reached 50 on it last night I might not bother.

The toon has been pretty much played with a group of friends most of the time so I never ever bothered to look for attacks as there was always plenty of damage being done in the team. and as my secondary is Empathy I play as a backup healer anyway, so even less thought of attacking. After mainly playing scrappers and tanks this toon was my chance to play something entirely different and I have to say that it was thoroughly enjoyable

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You have nothing slotted for damage at lvl 48 ?


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I suppose technically I do, because I've got about 4 or 5 sets slotted and some of them have damage but it's not the focus of my slotting. I'm mostly slotted for recharge, mez, holds, buffs etc.

And my epic is Primal Forces.

I've got a level 48 earth/emp troller and I find it too slow to solo with. Nothing, except my pet, is slotted for damage though.

My usual opening attacks are stalagmites, stone cages, earthquake and quicksand. I tend to leave volcanic gases for when it's needed as it takes a fair while to recharge. I don't really like sleep powers very much because they are so situational and mobs awaken very easily in the fray of combat.

As for the OP, looks to me like the other troller didn't really understand how sleep works.

In a game that's about superheroes I tend to find that playing a tank gives you the best "superhero" moments.

My best was probably when I joined a team who were already in the middle of a mission fighting Malta and I arrived just as everyone else faceplanted. It was one of those rare moments I was able to say "no one go to hospital", hit Invincibility and cleared the room to shouts of "Go Tank Go!!". That was fun

One of the biggest laughs I ever had was a backup tank in an old-fashioned Hami raid. The main tank went down and up I stepped to taunt the big jelly guy. My moment to shine had arrived. My moment lasted about 5 seconds before I hit the deck with the thought "maybe this build needs a bit of work" going through my head.

Inv is obviously better: you get to play the hero and still keep your looks. None of that granite stuff thank you very much.

More seriously though, I tend to feel that whilst some of the best tanks I've teamed with are stone tanks, I seem to see a more of them who think they're unbeatable and have less consideration for the rest of the team. Whether one is inherently better than the other I'd guess it's horses for courses around the margins but generally it more about the player. I'm not into studying the numbers though so my perceptions are based on playing Inv and teaming with Stone, so you could ask "what the hell do I know"?

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Id agree there. Its best to "proactively" taunt, to make sure nobody is getting hit in the first place. Good tanking takes some situational awareness.

However, the wheel sometimes comes off (thank goodness, be a dull game otherwise). In an emergency, when someones HP bar is plummetting fast, I sometimes taunt through them. The alternative is take an extra second to determine exactly the threat and thats sometimes to long.

If you cant IMMEDIATELY identify the threat and target them, then I would taunt through the toon in the red. You have an 80-90% chance of getting a result, which is better than a delay and a faceplant.

Just my 2 inf.

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This is how I do it. Taunting through a team mate is an emergency response that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I'd say it works a lot more than it doesn't but with a good clear view of the action taunting a mob directly is obviously much more effective.

Well I'm playing an Earth/Empathy as the first troller I've played beyond single digits (currently level 39) and loving it

No one's mentioned Earth. Does that mean I'm playing the least FotM at the moment ?

Who cares anyway, just play what you enjoy.

If I see the health bar drop on someone whose immediate whereabouts I can't detect my standard response is to click on them in the team list and taunt (think like an empath ). A high proportion of the time it'll grab the mob(s) attacking them. I find it useful when things get a bit hectic and people stray a little.

I think when he said "it has absolutely no use or value other than the fact that it is unique" answers your question.

When the team finally announces they've had enough of this silly mission and you tell them to hold on, click elude and dance through the mobs clicking the glowies as you go. It's possible if you weren't playing a scrapper you may actually have thought of this tactic before everyone else hit the debt cap, but hey...you can't have everything.

Gratz

I still remember the effects of sleep deprivation over the weekend I went for my first 50 *shudder*

Just seen the movie myself, after being directed to it by Mystie, and have to say I was very very impressed. Actually, I can't think of a better produced MMO fanvid, and I've spent many an hour watching them on YouTube.

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Well, if your invulnerable those Lts and minions give you defence against the Boss,
With the other tank defences you might of course want to finish of the small guys first for the reason you mentioned, and if you have a good aura and can Taunt the Bosses, by all means, do so.
But if you are unsure about the effectiveness about your aura, maybe skipped taunt or hasn't got it yet, your best way to make sure the bosses are focused on you are by Gauntlet.
My original post was supposed to be a "quickstart" guide for new tanks. So lets leave out the advanced tactics for now, telling a tank he should go after minions and Lts first will just turn them into scrankers.

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That's fair enough. Covered by your 5th point as well I suppose "Be flexible"

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2: target the big guys.
3/5s of the other ATs dont have very good status protection, and thus can get troubles with Bosses. You should focus on these first


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I'd actually say, where possible keep the bosses targeted on you but you target the minions first. Same goes if solo. Where possible take out the minions quickly then focus on the Boss. Bosses can be a grind if you have limited DPS and while you concentrate on them the minions and LTs are getting too many free shots on you.

God knows how many hours I have on my Inv/Fire tank now but it's more than it should be for sure. My philosophy has always been to try a build and if it isn't working for you...change it. That's what respecs are for so I've never once planned, and stuck to, a build to 50.

A lot of it, for me anyway, comes down to how you like the feel of the build. For example, I tried a build with tough and weave on the test server and it just didn't fit the way I felt about the toon. On my tank I take the attitude that if you want to get to my team mates then you have to go through me first and I expect to take a lot of damage, but I also expect the team to help me out and if they can do that I can dish out a fair amount of damage to help everyone along. The earth/empathy troller I'm playing now though I don't even care that I can't deal any real damage because that's not my place in the team. The team and the attitude mean more than the build to me.

When my tank was in the 40s though I began to notice that survivability was getting worse. At that point I took resist elements and resist energies and it got better so I'd say it's better to experience what the powers mean than to worry too much about the numbers. Taking advice isn't a bad thing but if you really fancy a particular build then just go with it and see how it works out. Personally, I reckon it makes the game a lot more fun. In saying that, I always listen to what Shannon posts on tanking, so there are a lot of words of wisdom floating around out there

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Should I move Fire Sword Circle, Incinerate and Greater Fire Sword back to the levels they first become available and move the REn & REl down to the 40s?


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Personally I would, especially if you want to solo now and again. I would take Resist Physical damage earlier as well because it's auto on and the extra defence against smash/lethal is useful at the start.

I probably wouldn't take combustion at level 4 either. It doesn't do great damage and is much more useful as an AoE for grabbing aggro. Opinions may differ, but I don't think a tank necessarily wants all the aggro at that level, especially without Resist Physical damage. I also think using three powers to get Aid Self is too much. Depends how survivable you really want to be but I prefer a bit of offence as well and I got by with just Dull Pain.

Also if, like me, you quake at the thought of a stray Malta sapper I'd think about getting a hold from one of the epics.

I've got a level 24 earth/empathy and I've been experimenting to see if I can avoid the fitness pool. Although stamina was a bit of problem in the early to mid teens it's not been so bad in more recent levels, possibly because I have more powers that can be used against groups.

The question is: am I likely to become badly unstuck at higher levels or is it worth persisting and using one of my respecs if I run into problems then? The power choice desert of the teens to early 20s taking travel powers and fitness pool on other toons (this is my first non-melee based toon at this level) was my main motivation for trying to build one without considering stamina obligatory.

I'm currently playing my first troller (level 24 earth/empathy) and it's proving to be great fun. I definitely echo the pro stalagmites comments though. Stone cages, stalagmites and earthquake is just funny

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My answer to anyone who wants to play as scrapper is to play a scrapper.

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Or build a tank with a good offense and get the best of both worlds

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Check this out. Not very professional way, but it's a start...

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I'm not a fan of building tanks with a poor offense anyway but the difference is if you're a tank there's an expectation that you're going to manage aggro. Not a consideration if you're soloing but it is if you're in a team.

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But what if they want to, or aimed to play as a scrapper, with tank powers, and dont really want to Tank?

And then theres the issue I found on my tank, its great picking mostly armours and having 1 attack, but what happens at the (many) occasions when a team isnt going, or your not wanted on one?

I myself took extra attacks than I intended at lower level, just so I would have something resembling an attack chain for solo.

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I'm glad Spad said what he did and it's not just me. I'm not the greatest Tank, and will never claim to be, but if you die when I'm tanking it's not because I wasn't thinking about the rest of the team (ineptitude probably has a lot to do with it ). But an out-and-out scranker that insist on leading the way is sometimes, quite frankly, a liability and you'd be better off with a troller on crowd control duty.

My answer to anyone who wants to play as scrapper is to play a scrapper. However, the school of thought that says that tanks can't do damage is, in my opinion, seriously flawed. My tank is a decent team tank with all primaries and most of the secondaries and all the AoE's slotted to grab aggro effectively. I've scranked in a number of teams I joined when another tank was doing a decent job and I've taken over primary tank duties when I was less convinced. If you build a tank that can't do damage it's a matter of choice but it's not essential. I soloed loads of levels on my Inv tank so I don't believe in this mythical compromise.

I've not been reading the forums much lately so just discovered this and I must say: really nice post Shannon.

I guess most of the regular posters here put some thought into how they tank but I do sometimes think that a few helpful words would do wonders for some newer players. I don't think I really got the tanking thing until I reached level 18 and got Invincibility. Until then I just felt like a scrapper who could do a bit less damage and take a bit more pain.

God knows how many hours of game time further on (was over 1300 on my Inv tank last I looked) and I'd like to think I'm a bit better than I was in my teens. Nowadays I still see tanks in their 20s basically scranking, thinking their unslotted aura (depending on their primary) is auto hit or standing and taunting mobs to them instead of using an aura to consolidate aggro. Anyway, I digress.

My method of tanking is usually to target an outlier in the spawn, then get into the spawn running in such a way that I can hopefully grab most of them, and taunt the outlier. Depending on the density of the spawn I have been known to jump up and down a few times to get them as tightly packed as possible before letting off fire sword circle (smaller radius but faster activation) and then combustion (larger radius but slower activation). If I've been given enough time there's not a lot of chance of someone stealing aggro. I don't tend to herd multiple spawns that much these days because even when it's practical to do so the odds of someone interrupting the herd just seems too high in a lot of teams these days so it's not worth the probable deaths.

As for watching other players health bars I actually started to mimic an empath friend in my early days. I always have taunt in the first slot of tray one so that I can click a name and hit "1" on the keyboard. Exactly the way I do it on my empath.

I don't have the fight or medicine pools either because I can usually control the odds when I'm solo and I rely on the rest of the team otherwise. Whilst doing Infernal once an empath once said I was a bit squishy for a tank because I needed healing (I'll be kind and assume she was teasing) to which my reply was: "yeah, but every single mob in the room is hitting me and no one else. I keep their attention, you keep me alive and the rest kill them off." I could have added "that's why we're a team" but I didn't

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TOo many people have i met who think they are awesome because they have a 50, and having teamed with them its a wonder they managed to get a toon to 50 and never learn what a tank does.

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Just remind yourself: "they'll still get to 50 even if they're at the debt cap the whole way"

I'm mainly playing a troller in the 20s at the moment and the thing that has surprised me is the number of tanks who don't have their aura when they're a few levels past the point they could get it. Doing a mass immob when the spawn first bunches up on the tank seems to be the only way to keep them there sometimes.

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Brutes are for selfish people, Tankers for the teamplayers

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Suuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrre!

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C'mon they're villains, of course they're selfish.