Call Me Awesome

Personally I take it as a challenge whenever I can't get a name I want and frequently I come up with a much better name than the one I started out wanting. There's times when my original choice goes through like my Archery blaster inspired by the ancient Roman legion Sagitarii archers. My Peacebringer ScaleBalancer was another of those as was my now retired Stone/EM tanker BlarneyStone. I was having a lot of trouble with my Spine/Regen scrapper's name and finally just went with a part of the character's bio where he'd managed to break the registration terminal and it was now Offline. Then there was the time I was totally lost for a name for my Ill/Rad controller and Nameless Phantom was born.

Let's see, a few others are Fyrepower, my Fire/WP brute; Bill Collector, my Widow so named because it was the most evil thing I could think of; Cold Shoulder, my Cold defender (still a baby at 20... maybe I'll finish her someday); Gortak, my BS/Regen scrapper who's a Conan homage; Sword of Damocleave my BS/Shield scrapper... a pun on cleave and the legend of the Sword of Damoclese. Good, original and fun to play names are certainly available if you have a bit of imagination. I'll admit I was a bit surprised to get Fyrepower and Granite Flame (my Stone/Fire tank).

The problem with damage procs in any toggle power is the way they work, they have a chance to fire when you first activate the power and every 10 seconds thereafter. Because of this conventional wisdom is to put damage procs into either fast recharging attacks so you get more chances for it to fire or to put them into an AOE since they roll against every valid target.

I have the Perfect Zinger Psi damage proc in Fault on my Inv/Stone tanker and it nearly always fires on at least one enemy in the AOE and usually hits 2-3. I HAVE seen it hit 10 targets once or twice, that's kind of like winning the lottery though.

It's not bad necessarily having the proc in Snowstorm, it's just maybe not the best use of a slot. It's something for you to think about anyway and it isn't a make or break choice in any case.

This is one of the "120 second" procs, it works for 2 minutes after you activate the power it's in. If you put it in a passive, and Health is the best place, it will always be active. It does not stack, all you do if it's in a click power is to refresh the timer.

Bottom line, it's a waste in any click power since you'd have to fire the power every 2 minutes to keep the proc working. Put it in Health and it'll always work.

I have the Ice epic on my Plant/Storm and it's worked well; although the character's been stalled in the mid-40's for a few months now... I have too many alts. Right now I think the toon's sitting half way through a major respec with about 1/3 of his slots empty; before I start working on him again I've got to get him put back together

Neither Local or I have Fire Shield on our Ill/Rad builds and really don't miss it. I don't think he has Consume either; I know I don't on mine. Both of us built for Perma-PA and a ranged build so we don't get into melee to use Consume very often. A 206% recharge Ill/Rad build does get a bit end heavy and requires considerable endred and recovery slotting... I went with the Cardiac alpha on mine and now I have basically no end problems unless I pop off EMP.

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Oh, and I really like your plant/storm's name; well done on that.

That would work, but remember you'll be switching targets constantly... taunt LR, heal from a pylon, taunt LR etc.

Your danger time is while both the Red and Blue towers are up... if LR lands two heavy attacks in a row he can faceplant a Granite tanker, and absent a fair amount of defense his odds of getting those two attacks in right after another go way up. I've had him drop my Stone/Fire tanker through Granite & Rooted (capped S/L and ~80% E/N resist) in less than 5 seconds with a couple of lucky hits. He has two attacks that with the red tower buffing him will deal >40% of your HP total even with 90% resistance. Let him land those in a 1-2 punch and it doesn't take much of a "3" to drop you before you have time to react.

Even on my Granite tank I still pop purples to get over 75% defense when going in; once the Red & Blue are down I cease worrying about inspirations. Granted he's only dropped my Granite tank three times out of more than 50 runs, but if he gets lucky you're toast and it can happen WAY too fast to react.

Indeed; all of us on Level 50 are Guardian players at least to some extent; while I do monitor the channel on my Pinnacle characters I would assume anything on Level 50 to refer to Guardian unless otherwise stated.

In nearly any instance where you'd use it you're likely only facing one or two hard targets anyway so the target cap shouldn't be an issue. Back prior to issue 13 I used Unstoppable occasionally for a particularly nasty AV; in that situation the target cap was moot. By the time Unstoppable would be ready to drop there wouldn't be anything left but the AV and with taunt duration slotted you shouldn't loose aggro in the 30 second time out of Ethereal Shift.

I admit that the Apex Hydra heads are an anomaly; the one time I used Unstop for them we cleared all pylons before it dropped so I just waited a few seconds out of combat for the crash before we moved on to the next part of the mission. I think that was also the only time I've taken CMA through the Apex... I've done it 4 times but with different characters; twice with my Ill/Rad, once with my Fire/EM blaster and once with CMA.

This is something you could argue either way; on one hand BoF is a (short) ranged attack that is also a narrow cone that can hit multiple baddies while on the other Fire Sword is another single target attack that deals decent damage. Frankly I find BoF more useful, however both are less important than many other powers so sometimes there's no room for them.

In my opinion Combustion is a take at level 4 power for most primaries and it's definitely a keeper. The damage may not look great but it has a huge radius so it will hit everything anywhere near you. Don't look at it as a relatively low damage attack, look at it as an attack that deals damage to everything around you... on that scale it outperforms almost everything else in raw damage.

In the early going I only slot accuracy and possibly endred; Training enhancements are so low powered it really isn't worthwhile going with anything else. Once you can get DO's at 12 I start thinking about a more standard slotting on attacks and defenses.

Right now I would concentrate slotting in your attacks and healing flames (slot recharge there, it doesn't help much but every little bit helps.) Don't neglect Blazing Aura completely; I'd toss a slot or two there for accuracy & endred; it likewise is a major damage source for you. In fact, if you run Herostats you'll find that your #1 damage power is probably BA followed by Combustion. Those tiny tics of damage really add up. Start thinking about your armors as you progress through the teens and by 22 when you can slot SO's plan on having your armors with 4 slots; you'll put in 3 resist damage and 1 endred. Also make sure to toss a couple of slots into Stamina.

I've taken two /Fire melee tanks to 50, one a Stone/Fire and one a Shield/Fire so I'm very familiar with the set. It's one of my favorite tanker secondaries and it certainly provides very good damage output... unfortunately this is at the expense of any form of damage mitigation other than killing the mobs. In the Fire Melee set you want Combustion, Taunt (I'm a big believer in this on any tanker), Fire Sword Circle (get it at 28!), Incinerate and Greater Fire Sword. Breath of Fire is nice to have as is Fire Sword if you have room. One of my Fire Melee tanks has them, the other doesn't.

I recommend the Fighting pool for Boxing/Tough/Weave when you can fit it in; you'll want your travel power prerequisite by 12 so you can get your travel power by 14. If you're not planning on getting a couple of knockback protection IO's then you want to go with Combat Jumping/Super Jump/Acrobatics. Acro will protect you from the vast majority of knockback... although if you can get them two or three KB protection IO's will serve the same purpose. A tank who's constantly knocked onto his butt is a tank who isn't accomplishing much.

I'm not an expert on Fire Armor but get Fire Shield, Blazing Aura, Healing Flames and Plasma Shield. Temperature Protection is the dog of the set and is highly skippable except as an IO mule (a power taken solely because you can use it to get a desired IO set bonus). Burn since it's changes a while ago is now a good power to have. Fiery Embrace is basically Build Up, but on your fire attacks it lasts 20 seconds instead of 10 making it considerably more useful. Rise of the Phoenix is a self rez that deals damage to anything around you. I tend to look at tanker rezzes as a sign that you've failed but it does get you back into the fight if you fall. I'd have to think about it before I grabbed the power myself; I much prefer powers that keep you from faceplanting, not powers that get you back up off the ground.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy your tanker. You've chosen a strongly offensively minded combination so remember that while you have good damage (for a tanker) you won't be as durable as a combination that's more defensively minded. Think of your tank as a higher hit point, more durable scrapper with less damage.

Yep, for the most part team and TF formation happens in Guardian and Level 50; they're the two most popular.

I know some players who've built highly capable Fire tankers but most of them have also invested significant amounts in high end IO builds. On a standard SO or limited IO build you'll probably find Fire to be somewhat squishy. Of course, if you're enjoying the tank then that's the main thing, just realize that you're not going to be as durable as other primaries absent considerable IO bonuses.

If you're still thinking of Invuln in my, admittedly somewhat biased, opinion it's the best all around primary for a tank. There's Stone with more raw durability but it comes with a bunch of penalties in mobility, damage & recharge as a tradeoff. There's Shield with more damage potential and very good endgame potential but it's a bit rough in the early going.

If you roll an Invuln really any secondary will work well. Do you want lots of damage without extra mitigation? /Fire or /Elec would work well, with /Fire giving better single target damage. Want more mitigation with a solid single target punch? /Stone melee is a great choice there with all the knockdown and the awesomeness of Fault. Want the classic, generic universal tanker combo? Inv/Super Strength is by far the most common pairing and it's quite effective.

This can't be overstated, this is what the team hired you for, to keep the squishier members of the team alive and functioning. Your personal durability is important but what's far more important is your ability to protect the team. You're the fortress keeping the enemy at bay while the rest of the team are manning the guns on the walls.

I take it as a failure on my part if anyone on the team falls. Well, unless it's some idiot who went off on his own in another room; but I firmly believe that my job is to keep the team alive and free them to concentrate on laying out the hurt on the enemy instead of on self defense. Blasters for example can lay out incredible amounts of damage if they don't have to worry about aggro; a blaster who can trust the tanker to keep aggro away from him is much more effective than one who has to watch that he doesn't gather too much attention. The same holds true for all the other AT's as well.

As a general rule Scrappers don't need much babysitting; they're usually tough enough to handle a little aggro. Still, I do keep an eye on them as well and if they bite off too much I'm ready to intervene.

He IS in the correct forum, he's asking about his tanker and what slotting of an IO is best. The fact that the IO in question is a PVP one is irrelevant.