Blue_Centurion

Oof. I hate asking this question, believe me. I have played about 2 1/2 years, almost always brutes, some tanking.

I am trying different archetypes. After a similar bunch of questions in the Blaster forum I ended up with a nice 50 Fire/Mental/Fire that I enjoy.

My main brute is a SS/Will.

I have looked at broadsword, spines, and Martial arts. I am not looked into those at all though. They each seem to have their own problems.

I am a bit spoiled with a SS/Will brute, fights like a wet cat. (edpecially I/O'd out)

I would be willing to spend a lot on the right build, if I was happy with it. BS/Shield looks like a blast to play, but also looks like its got hellacious end problems (at least from afar). MA/SR looks cool, and I am guessing plays less cool (I may be wrong) Spines/Will looks like the most promising numbers wise, but I am really unsure about the spines from the body concept lol. And thats just the 3 i have looked at, I know there are a lot of different mix/match out there.

So, help please. What is a very very serious Scrapper? On a par with the (seriously) max sustained damage fire/mental/fire blaster I was pointed to.

Thanks in advance.

I honestly do think tanks should have taunt. I like tanks, I run tanks. But, fergodsakes, I do not care what you spend on that build, what primary/secondary you got, whatever. In the end, your damage is mediocre. Mediocre. In a super game.

For Brutes, which I really enjoy, I have taken taunt maybe once. My main is a SS/Will. I once posted on the boards asking if I needed taunt, very specifically for Master class runs, no deaths allowed. After very good discussion it was pretty much a "it can help", but not necessary. A team needs to realize that brutes have their own way.

I will match my SS/Will brute versus any tauntless tank for grabbing agro. That is right. Will has a poor agro aura, but that does not matter for me. I have a very very expensive build. Not saying I spent the money wisely, just saying I have the tools to grab a lot, a whole lot, of attention really fast.

While it may (or may not) be a tanks job to grab agro, Brutes WANT agro, NEED agro, LOVE agro. Trust me, most brutes know exactly what they can do to piss off as many mobs as possible, and they do it.

Very good question Rayne. Any lawyers out there know the rule?

Guess this thread just will not die. lol.

I have been tanking this week myself, because of a leprechaun group we been running for years (just around st paddys day), and to level up my currently 39 Invul/Dark. Now, I probably do not have to repeat how I tank. I am a bit of a taunt bot, but I also like to do damage. Dark has 2 AoEs, although the rech is longish. I have vet badges, so basically I get 2 Dark Maul cone attacks. The last Dark power says it affects up to 5, swear I've never seen it affect more than one. Anyways, I am spamming attacks. But I am taunting like a freak, and trying to use aura to hold the mobs. I swear, half the time it is like the team has never seen a tank work before. They fight half a room away from me. I am using most of my concentration to pull one guy they have grabbed back over to me. The nice thing was running with the Leprechauns, my tank was much lower level (20-Will/Mace), but the team was all vets. I popped out, grabbed agro, made sure that the cones were aimed away from the team. We rolled through missions with ease.

Mostly cause I got the bulk of my work done early this month and have time to post :-).


But seriously, let's let it die. I delved into this trying to find out if some tankers were really that anti-team. Between this thread and the guy that wants to solo farm with a tanker I think I got my answers.

Cyas.

Thx Arcana for your reply, it was thoughtful. Wendy, I get your point, I really did not follow where you got your numbers from.

Let's just go for the average of Arcana's numbers. 3-5 times the kill rate, sustained. Anyone agree with that? Anyone disagree with that?

I laugh at this whole post. I started a tunt post on Tank side. Wow, talk about agro! Half the tanks think they are not tanks lol. Or at least it seems that way.

You can build a brute very tanky, and run it that way. My main is a 50 SS/Will brute that I have almost completely purpled out. He can not quite tank fully, and has no taunt. But he fights like a wet cat. The huge global recharges mean I am spamming my heaviest attacks allatime.

Not a problem Aett. Mis-communication seems to be my main problem in this thread. You nailed it when you said I was talking about team synergy. For the record, I tried tanks as my first characters in the game. I was slightly unhappy with the damage, and switched to brutes. My first 50 is the very tanky SS/Invul Brute. My main is a SS/Will brute. I have a 50 Will/SS Tank. I got a 39 Invul/Dark Tank I am currently leveling. A 35 Stone/SS Tank I abandoned after hating on granite. Various other lower level Ice/Shield/etc. Tanks I have experimented with. Point is I like tanks. I got very frustrated that their damage was not scrapper level, so I switched to Brutes. Coming back to them after a year redside I felt that I understood them much better. I now play my will tank as a team buffer/agro magnet. I use all of his end to run the 3 leadership toggles. Not everyones cup of tea, but I enjoy knowing that those who have waded in next to my tank to help with the killing are getting buffs. While my tank controls the strategic placement of team/mobs. My Invul/Dark is about as tough as a non I/O'd tank can be. That build is just tough. Not the best damage dealer of the tanks, but wow, what a survivor. Yes, some tanks can do very good damage. However, when I want to do damage I drop onto my purped out SS/Will brute and grind. Hard to match that for a combo of tough and mean. Fights like a wet cat.

You guys are really getting upset. Aett made some decent points. In my opinion most of the rest of what was said was just shouting noise. What really amazes me is that I started down this line of conversation to illustrate the synergy of blueside teams, that the sum being stronger than the parts. What I have encountered is a shield wall of "Tanks don't need nobody." The scenario I have pointed too is valid, and I might be off on the multiplier. So what? From what I have seen most people responding to this have two problems. 1) Cannot admit that blasters do significantly more damage than tanks. 2) Cannot understand mathematics.

Example:

Rylas, wow. You are really upset. And wrong.

My argument as I have very clearly restated above, and have been saying all along is levels 1-40.

You gave me one scenario of a tank with shield charge and sould drain. I stated that it cannot be that way through all 1-40 content, and even if it was you would not have the powers that you referenced until well after 2nd level.

Take a pill.

My Invul/DM tank is now 39. Never took fear, do not plan too. It takes a lot of slotting to make it useful on bosses, and it is useless on AVs. I can already control up to agro cap without the power. If a minion of Lt stands and shakes or tried to wail on me doesnt matter, as long as their attention is on me. I will use the power slot that I might have used for fear to grab another epic power.

Synopsis: Taunt beats the crap outta fear for minion/lt/boss/AV control

5 Words - Deep Pit Bar Be Que

Nice idea Aracanville.

As far as Fallsights belief that a tank and a blaster will kill 2-3 times as fast as a tank by itself. Wow. So you believe adding a blaster is the equivalent to adding a tank, or maybe 2 tanks? Talk about hyperbole.

When I said over a very large sampling I was considering, say 1-40 levels of regular playing. I believe a taker/blaster duo, set at +0/x1 for all missions 1-40, would kill at 20 times the pace of a tank solo. By this I mean count the number of mobs/divide by time in combat. Does not include loading time/transport/buying/selling. Just pure how long did it take you to kill. What I am counting on is the various types of critters you will encounter over a very long time. A tank solo will inevitably bog. A blaster, say a Fire/Mental blaster might come up on a fire resistant mob. But the tanker partner will almost certainly have a different damage type, plus the Fire will not have to worry about agro, so even though against that mob he is nerfed, he can take the extra time needed to lay into them again. The solo tank will encounter many things soloing to 40 that will make certain mobs unholy to work against. Debuffers, resistant to his damage type, end drainers, etc. The duo will be more flexible, and able to work around problems that confound a solo archetype that is (let's be honest) not the most flexible in the game. All this will add up to sprinting through mobs for the dynamic duo. For the solo tank, a steady plod with occasional bouts of OMG this is gonna be slow.

Would Invul/Dark be good? I seem to remember I have a 37th level one languishing on Freedom. I have a 40 Dark/Invul Brute at 40, and was so impressed I thought it would make a great tank build.

Has okay AoE for grabbing agro. (Especially with decent rech bumps) Dark melee has a health powerup and an endurance powerup. These can hit AVs if you slot them correctly. I especially like the end powerup. My first 50 is a SS/Invul brute. Wow, end issues.

Oh, one other thing. Should I not take Unstoppable? My thoughts are this 1) I hate the crash, really hate it. 2) With the right I/Os it looks like Resistance can be capped easily for smash/lethal, and good resistance elsewhere. Along with decent defenses, especially with the right I/Os.

Rylas its purely a matter of game mechanics. Blasters (really) only have one function. Tanks have 2. call it what you will, play it how you want: Survival + Damage. Yes they do damage.

Unfortunately for tanks there are debuffs/defenses/resistances. Since a Blaster is only concentrating on one job, and all their tools focus on that (plus doing more base damage) they can focus the rest on accuraccy/damage/rech. A tank cannot effectively do this.

And yes, statistically over a large sampling I believe an effective Blaster/Tank team will kill 20 times faster than a lone tank. (large sampling he said)

Rylas, I really do not want to argue with you over whether a blaster can kill faster than a tank. It seems like you are saying you built your tank in a way to emphasize damage. But are you assuming that the blaster has not slotted up with I/Os for rech/dam, etc.

Lol. I hate Granite. I have a couple 50 tanks, and a few 40s. I got my Granite to 35 before I could not run it anymore. That feeling of being in a constant debuff state just kills me.

Is Invulnerability a good choice instead? I have seen a build guide (expensive but doable) that seems to push defense and looks nice.

Also, for a secondary I was thinking mace for more AoE agro. Any thoughts?

What is the best Powersets for tanking AVs? Is it defense based or resistance based? And Why?

Yeah, you can survive almost anything. Yeah, sooner or later you will probably kill the whole spawn. Do you really really really want to take that long to kill something, when a dynamic duo taker/blaster could kill the whole thing in 5% of the time? If you really want to game that way, enjoy.

PS, if you really wanted to game that way you would probably not be reading this post, since most of it refers to tanks on teams.

Heh, I know what you mean about fragility. Longtime brute player. But the ability to do more damage is just too good to pass up. To deal with the best half a toon in the game (best attacks.../nothing else) all you have is a lot of experience and hopefully good guesswork at how the combat flow will happen. My main blaster is a new 50 Fire/Mental/Fire He has a great amount of power, but it has to be used cleverly. He needs close contact for an AoE End/Health boost/attack. A couple of his biggest attacks are short range / PBAoE. So, manuevering to the right level range to lay out the pain is everything. And of course mistakes are always made. Therefore Rise of the Pheonix from the Fire Epic is very appreciated.

I think I have diagnosed what happened now thanks to some good Monday morning quarterbacking in this discussion. The 3 tanks in question admitted to not taunting. From my brief discussions with them I am guessing that they built their attack powers for damage. The mobs were set at way higher level than the team. I forget what level diff, but they were purple. It was one Samurai mob, probably 12-15 big. The three tanks headed in, not taunting, but attacking like scrappers. I saw all the activity, and thought the agro was all soaked up. In fact I believe that the tanks were mostly missing their attacks. They set up for damage, rather than accuracy/rech/taunt. The damage did them no good, since they were not hitting. My Blaster is set up for accuracy. I hit quite a few when I layed down my cones. Ones that had been interested in attacking the tanks, just because they were there, not because they were taunted. When i blasted them I was the first person to actively taunt them. That is my best guess at what happened. Now I know to watch out for the stooge tanks attacking purples in AE trap, and I feel better. I have learned that if I expect a tank to work purple mobs they better know what they are doing. It is my fault as a blaster for not being aware of my danger. I thought 3 tanks, I am golden. Just not so under these conditions. Thanks again

If you are already leaning towards Invulnerability instead of Stone (and it seems you are) take a serious look at Dark Melee.

Invulnerability (one of my favorites) has a hidden drawback it is slightly End intensive. THis is true for many tank primaries. Super Strength only increases the problem, with end hog attacks and rage crash. But Dark Melee has a combat heal, and an AoE that is a nice attack that fills your end bar up! Also, the primary attack Shadow Maul is a cone. Granted it is very short, but with practice you can usually nail 2 with it, sometimes more. I have a 40 Dark/Invuln Brute. I made the build for a concept toon (mummy), and I was so surprised by the synergy of the sets I just kept playing him.

Last note about Invulnerability. Build that thing so that you do not need your tier 9. The crash on that tier 9 is pathetic. It might be a little expensive, but you can take Invul and make it capped without ever needing the "3 minutes of glory before I die" power. GL

What is better to have in general? And specifically for fighting AVS and Heroes?

Okay, I am not the best tanker out there. But I am a "good" tank. First, as a tank I do not see my job as a damage dealer. My job is a controller. I control where the team goes, and if they are safe when they get there.

First choice. Pull with taunt, or run into the midst of the spawn. Depends on how fast your team can kill the spawn usually. If they are struggling, pull.

Second, when you get into the spawn, taunt as fast as it pops up, being careful to alternate targets. The first thing I do on every toon I roll is keymap three button on my keyboard for "nearest target", "next target" , and "previous target". On a tanker it is also useful to have keys mapped for "neasrest teammate". That way you can target through them fast. Use these hot keys to continue alternating through targets fast.

I get area attacks as much as possible, slot them for rech and accuracy. Again, it aint about the damage. If I take SS I will take hand clap as a panic button. It can stun a spawn that is wailing on my team, but it scatters the mob, so use wisely.

On my willpower tank, who has blue to burn, I take all 3 leadership toggles, so my team kills faster.

As a tank it is just real important to control the mob around you. If someone runs after the next mob, you cannot control that. Never rush too much. Its just a very strategic position to play. Calls for a cool head.