Dechs Kaison

The mez auras, particularly oppressive gloom, are incredible for a stalker ever since the change that makes them suppress when hidden. Let me explain why.

Stalkers excel at taking out single hard targets. In my experience, they are easily overwhelmed by large groups of minions. Oppressive Gloom allows you to get into the middle of an enemy group, assassinate your hard target and immediately stun all those angry minions. The minions are no longer a problem, and allow you to focus your efforts on quickly dropping and placate juggling the bosses/LTs.

I don't have mids available right now to take a good look (I'm at work), but I can tell you what jumps out at me.

The problem I see with both of those builds is that they have Cloak of Fear.

The casino details to be put in my base.

SS/DA/Soul is actually a fairly common combo. I don't have one, personally, but I've seen many good ones in action. I just don't like SS at all.

Yes Dark Regeneration does damage, but you really won't be doing much with it. It's too endurance intensive to use as an attack. Be sure to put the Theft of Essence proc in here, though.

For AoE damage, you probably would be better off with Mu, as it has two strong AoE attacks. My philosophy has always been concept first, though.

I see you haven't mentioned Claws, which is a contender for highest AoE damage primary. Spin is a stupidly good AoE that recharges fast. Eviscerate is brutal to any five enemies in front of you and Shockwave is no slouch either. Follow Up can be stacked many times, easily leading to almost a single stack of Rage worth of damage that doesn't crash.

Hey everyone, I wrote a general guide to tanking. It is intended to cover all aspects of the tanking role, which isn't exactly limited to tanks. It is a pretty heavy read, I'll warn you now.

The guide is here.

The official thread for comments is here.

If you do have any comments, suggestions or questions, please leave them in the official thread and not here.

Thank you for reading.

Like all of my guides, I plan to keep it posted on my blog where I can format as I please and not worry about updating several locations. I will leave the introduction here and a link to the guide. Please feel free to leave comments and questions here or on the blog.

Introduction

Let me start this guide by saying that a tank is not a necessity in City of Heroes, and that is one of the things that makes this game what it is. The support teammates have the potential to turn any content in this game into trivial encounters. Even the least survivable archetype in this game can be built (with very much effort, mind you) to have enough survivability to withstand countless enemies. The need for a tank shows up when you have fragile teammates and less than the optimal kinds of support. Where a good tank will shine the most is on a terribly fragile team. He is what holds the team together and turns the game into a war of attrition that the tank will not lose.

When it comes to tanks in City of Heroes, I have only ever seen two kinds. There are the ones that excel and the ones that are a wasted slot on the team. It really is that simple, because if the tank is not doing what he should be doing, then anyone else could do everything that he is doing, better.

You want to be the kind that excels. I know that because you are sitting here reading this. Well, either that or you are a blaster that wants to understand what the good tanks really are doing for you. Regardless of your motivation, I encourage you to read on. Knowledge can only make you a better player. Of course, before I teach you the Last Rule of Tanking, I have to get through a few others.

Read the rest.