Cognito

Hehe im not taking one for the scrapper who aggros five groups either... Im talking about a reasonably balanced team.

Roll on issue 7 for ice tanks. Has anyone noticed how there seems to be tons of them about at the moment?

And thats the trick: Taunt AND Provoke . thats the only way I can see a stoney getting reasonable aggro levels.

Grabbing aggro is a skill no doubt about it. But a skilled stoney will never beat a skilled ice for instance. Playing my ice/ice i never ran below 90% of all hits being directed at me, and was usually running at 95-100% (yes... no one getting hit at all, ever, but me). Now, i may well be dropping fast, but I certainly inspired confidence and security from all team mates.

And if i drop, and I ALWAYS dropped before anyone else, the team took this as the RUN signal

I dont see many tanks at low levels hitting the 50% mark, and even top end 80% is pretty good.

Never liked stoneys when im playing skwishies. Just dont trust them to grab the aggro.

Statements like "Im always the last one standing" do not inspire confidence like "Im always the first one to fall!"

Much as I love playing "gimped" sets, rad/energy sounds pretty much the ultimate challenge not sure im up to it *hangs head in defeat*

I guess if REALLY skilled could use the knockback to punt outliers into the rad?... hehe if anyone plays a rad/energy, please enlighten us...

Being bored of my ice/ice (lvl 30), mainly 'cos i hate having primary and secondary same "type" (my new rule ), just rolling an ice/fire.

I anticipate loosing a lot of damage mitigation from ice slick, which might be tough (so i will have to get "tough" hehe).

However, even at low lvl i can see the attraction of chilling embrace and a slotted up combustion (thats a tasty power actually, if you check out the DoT compared to the hypnotic effect of one shot big numbers) - you can really get everything into you AoE.

And its going to be a complete aggro magnet. Might consider whether ice/fire needs taunt (as it seems to me ice best primary and fire best secondary for grabbing aggro).

My one concern is it going to be tough enough? hopefully i7 and scaling defence will kick in by the time i need it...

Hmmmmmm you are baiting me arent you?

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Not botherd reading the theard as there is only one uber build and that is kinetics/Electric mate teams will love and you will never be bored.

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IMO there are no uber builds, only uber players . Mind you a rad/energy defender would be particularly challenging (hmmm have i got a spare slot for that?)

Ice/Ice my best tank...

Sucks aggro like nothing else, and ice patch compensated for ice tanks inherent weakness.

Now come issue 7 and scaling defence, I can this being even more handy

IMO tanks should be judged not entirely on their ability to be indestructable, but on keeping aggro away from skwishies. Would you team with a perma-granite tank without taunt?

Just a point... empaths are no different to my mind than any other defenders when we are considering secondaries surely? Shouldnt this discussion be about defenders using there secondaries as opposed to empaths?

Agreed.

Two caveats when i play my rad/elec

a) Manage your end. As a geneeral rule if my end drops below 1/2 I ease up on attacking. Simply because i cant afford for the toggles to drop or to loose the capacity to heal.

b) Manage the aggro. Picking of minions is my rule, unless with a good tank in which case can be more flexible with the AoE.

Both of these are based on the principle - if you can pick off enemies, good thats the point, and defenders damage is reasonable if people actually slot the attacks, BUT do not do it so much that you will significantly impair your primary role - support

Any defenders always welcome on a team! In fact, anyone always welcome on a team!

Its only my 2 infleunce, but playing a tank up to lvl 30, my feelings of safety where:

Bathing in radiation > Bating in dark > In a bubble > with an empath covering me.

Now this was a style of play when everything was clustered around me. In this, i could get 90-100% in "radiation" or "dark" debuff zone, and things would drop like flies. i.e. a tight team. Hence my view that in a "good" team these sets are more potent. However, in a "loose"/PuG team, no comparison, radation is next to uselss, empaths rule (and this is my perspective from a lvl 37 rad defender).

So agree to disagree by all means, but if you look at the sets, Radiation (for instannce) is all AoE effects, and Empaths has a fair number of "single target" effects. Therefore, mathimatically, on a large team / large enemy numbers, radation will be more effective.

For my 2 influence

Empaths are GREAT... on bad teams

However,

On good teams, I would personally prefer, in order RAD, DARK, STORM/FF/SONIC, and TA.

If you are going to team regularly with a team who are skilled, nothing beats RAD, or the others. You simply wont need heals. Only fair, since RAD is pretty weak in an unskilled anchor-dropping, unclustering team. So it really depends on the regularity and skill of your team.

And before all empaths sound off, i know you buff, its just that you MAINLY heal. Other sets buff and debuff better and you know it

From a defender with short circuit, 3xSO end modifiers, two blasts of this will suck minions dry (if they hit, which they usually do). Boss and Lts will take nasty knock, and as they actually USE more end, it is pretty handy. Paragorn Protectos are beautiful to sap particularly, as it saves you 2 mins trying to hit them before when they activate Moment of Glory (no end, no powers).

Now this is from a defenders viewpoint, so it will be less effective as a blaster granted. Nevertheless, there does not seem to be many enemies (if any) who can resist END drain, so it really is a cast iron method of highly effective AoE control if you can fire off enough blasts.

Now consider this as an elec/elec blaster... Fire off short circuit, fire of ball lightning [live], another short short cicuit... takes time i know, but you have probably sucked at least minionis dry.

On comes lightning field as you blap. Hey ho, game over for everything next to you - dont worry, you should be quite safe now, as end continually leaching from everyone around you as you pulse off end drain. Watch out for the occassional brawl, folks!

Now i know thius requires some danger, but in a team with a good tank, or debuffing defender, it is a highly effective, almost irresistable way of controlling everything around you if you can live through the initial wait.

Now stacked shortcircuits from 2 defenders with it makes life rather pleasant indeed

So before you knock it, bear in mind that an enemy sapped is a bit like an unresistable perma-hold, if you can get to that point. Granted it dosent work on AV's or elite bosses very well, but what does?

Tried it out a bit now, seems to make peeling off minions very effective with doubled smoke and flash arrow.

Just rolled a Fire/TA troller for concept reasons (not a min/maxer) and enjoying him. Looking foward to slick arrow and igniting it (*lvl 35.. sigh*).

I have got Smoke AND Flash Arrow, and they SEEM to stack together, allowing single target pulls from mobs fairly easily.

Can anyone confirm if the perception debuffs do indeed stack?

Precisely.

A tank without taunt is pushing the build very close to the scranker build. I have no problem with scrankers, but they must be recognised for what they are: scrappers who dont want to die!

CE maybe a pseudo-res, but when I tend to fight I have nearly everything in melee range, so its still 14% damage mitigation.

In protracted fights, a 3xEnd Mod SO 1xRech SO energy absorbtion can also mean "game over" for minions quite quickly as they are sapped to zero end. Another method of controllery type defence around. Mind you fire does things similar.

Id have to say that pre lvl 32 its gonna be very hard to beat Ice tanks in issue 7 for damage mitagation and aggro grabbing ability. Ice only really let down by a rather spectacularly poor lvl 32 power, which is only a rather average "oh ****" button...

Id still put money on ice vs stone at 1 on 1 if anyone could face the 3 hour fight. Mainly cos of energy sapping ability of ice. That could lead to some nasty detoggling.

I play FF/Merc without stamina and no attack powers. Without boring you to much, I can run all leadership toggles and dispersion shield and still have a little spare End, which generally goes on medicine pool heals to keep going. I havent got enough end to constantly use deflection and insulation shield on all 6 minions (always do it before a big boss fight tho).

Which is where a suicidal medic comes in handy! i just buff him, as he seems to take an inordinate slice of the aggro cake.

Every grey cloud etc etc...

Ice tanks Chilling Embrace is the signature power of the Ice set.

When comparing tanks, you cant just look at Res and Def. Anything in CE rather large effect is slowed (damage mitigation) and does -14% damage (to ALL damage types) IIRC. These are very important damage mitigation tools.

And "toughness" aside, Ice tanks are, IMO, better at keeping aggro than any other tank: therefore more valuable in teams.

Stone + Invun - some defence, some resistance

Ice - all defence

Therefore:

Stone + Invun some improvement

Ice better improvement


Smiles all round, but you cant say that Stone + Invun are gonna be "more" better than Ice. Ice is biggest winner as is ENTIRELY defence base

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It's a matter of taste and play stile, fire/fire is the most damaging tanker around, fire/ice is the most resilient fire tanker build around.

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C'mon issue 7, c'mon...

Ice tanks will rule the tanking world!

Just out of interest, can u run hibernate with icicles? text seems to indicate you can (as both powers v unpopular not sure anyone has experience with this).

If you can, might be fun: as icicles presumable would have punchvoke quality?

I played a lvl 30 ice/ice tank - (wont play again until scaling defence comes into play).

On up to 6 man teams, i could hold 90-100% of ALL aggro from team (a few exceptions - like the cabal). Blasters would be gleefully firing off snipes, never getting hit once, Bubblers would only bubble me, AoE going round off around all the densely packed mobs all falling over on my ice slide.

I had taunt + chilling embrace. Ice tanks truly are marvellous at holding aggro. Even if mobs do decide to run from the largest AoE auuto taunt, they are slowed and falling on ice slide when doing it.

Now granted, my build was for maximum protection - no offense at all, but ive never ever seen teams like that, when all other toons just never ever got ATTACKED let alone hit. That kinda tanking is a dying art, mainly cos of ED, but also cos tanks these days dont seem to get it... the more aggro they get the better the team. Ive met a few good tanks, but IMO nothing holds aggro like ice tanks.