Nucleocrat

The basic goal of a tank is probably to secure as much enemy aggro as you can handle. Ideally, that should be all of it, but that's not always possible or wise.

How you go about this depends on your powers. Do you have a "taunt aura", something like Chilling Embrace, Invincibility, Icicles, etc.?

If you do, then foes in close proximity will almost always have no choice but to attack you. So jumping right into the middle of a group of bad guys is a strong plan. If you don't, then it's more important to use area effect moves early, as well as simple attacks, to get enemy attention.

Taunt is something wonderful. It's a tool that lets you get the attention that your physical presence alone won't allow. I find it works best pre-emptively - ie, don't look at taunt as something you can use to pull an opponent off a flagging team-mate, but rather something you can use to prevent your team-mates ever getting attacked in the first place. Jump in the middle of a group, hold them with your taunt aura, and taunt the middle enemy of any foes outside that immediate area. That should lock down many encounters all by itself. It's easier to control the aggro once you have the aggro.

On the other hand, there are times and places where you will need to pull an enemy off a friend. Then you've got to use your judgement - snap judgement - to determine how to do it. If you know what's attacking him and it's close by, sometimes a little movement is all it takes. Put your friend and his foe under the umbrella of your taunt aura. Othertimes an attack will get the job done - particularly if you don't have a taunt aura, make use of gauntlet from punching. Many attacks execute faster than taunt does.

If there's a big distance between you and your friend's attacker, but you've identified the enemy in question, then taunting directly is usually best. It takes a moment or two but it lasts a while and it's effective.

If you see a friend's health drop but you can't ID the problem immediately, then assist taunting is usually worth a try. Moreso if your friend is a blaster or the like than if he's a defender or something. It won't always work but it's a strong fallback.

Tanks do well when they keep a good overview of the fight, and when they lead the way. If you can handle the foes you face without undue difficulty, you should ask the team to let you lead the way, pick the mobs to engage, and back your plays. There's nothing worse than playing as a tank and not knowing where the aggro's going to be coming from. If your group opens up fights on two fronts too far apart, there's not much you can do to bring the fight under control.

Multiples tankers work best together by staying apart. If two tanks are standing close by each other, they're competing for the same mobs' attention. They should try to spread out so their presences are working on different sections of an encounter. If you do this you can lock down mobs much more easily. Get it right and you may not need to Taunt, which leads to more attacking.

If you're in over your head, don't overdo it. If you can't handle the aggro of an entire mob, don't take it on - try to isolate part of a group, stick to the edge of an encounter, and beat a more manageable chunk of the overall force.

Most of all, have fun. Tanking is a big job, don't let it weigh you down.

Woah, great drawing!

That's a really stylish picture, I like the tone of it.

My own character is an Ice / SS tank. I did some things fairly similar to what you're proposing, other things a bit differently. What's the main purpose of this character?

One thing I would strongly recommend is getting Hoarfrost earlier. I felt the need for it ever since I started until the moment I got it at about level 6. Because Ice is defense based you'll face massive hits sometimes...Hoarfrost can pull you back a bit when bad luck strikes. It also acts like pseudo-resistance while it's up and really consolidates your defenses. I used it tons at the lower levels and it never let me down.

As far as slotting goes, I think you could improve your endurance management a great deal. You've got Wet Ice slotted twice for endurance reduction, for example, but all your attacks are only slotted 5 times. Wet Ice's cost works out in the region of .2 Endurance every second I believe; but your super-strength attacks are more like 1+ Endurance every second if you're using them each time they recycle. Much better to place the extra slot there instead and reduce their endurance cost.

Accuracy in Icicles is probably a stylistic decision more than anything else, but Superstrength is pretty good at dealing big hits on demand to the toughest foes. Rage + Knockout Blow will take a hefty chunk out of the baddest bad guy's health. I see Icicles more as a thinning the pack sort of tool, something to work on the group while you eliminate specific threats, so I slot it three times for endurance reduction and three times for damage. Your mileage might vary.

Energy Absorbtion is your friend. It's more your friend the faster it recharges, because as long as there are foes around, it pays for itself and then some, and it can stack to boost your defenses even higher. I'd try to find room to three slot it for reduction, even at the cost of slotting it less for defense. Sure you've got Hasten, but every extra second you can overlap it is another 100% defense benefit as well as superior energy management.

Other than that, it looks pretty good. I'd rather take Taunt than slot Chilling Embrace for taunt duration, but it's horses for courses depending upon what kind of character you really want this to be.

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Its a PvP zone so anything goes. Get over it and stop whining.

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Great solution!

Let's all stop caring when PvP becomes pointless for one side. Then we can just empty the zone and pretend it doesn't exist! Brilliant.

Being outnumbered is pretty bad, but being outnumbered by stalkers is absolute murder. If you don't have something like an interrupt aura, you're in big trouble. Most tactics that work against stalkers aren't very effective against multiple stalkers.

Fortunately, some of them are. What you need is a guy who can lay down some ice patches or the like - big area, slip up or knock back effects tend to help a great deal. I've seen how one hero with access to this sort of stuff can really galvanise the rest in the face of superior numbers. It's a sight to see, it works very nicely to let you fight enemies in a co-ordinated way.

The problem with stalker ganking, particularly multi-stalker ganking, isn't that you lose. It's that you don't get to play.

One time I found myself as a scrapper in a very similar situation. You would walk out of the base, get ASed by two stalkers and go straight to hospital. Every time you stepped out of the base.

What I did was challenge a brute to a one on one match. Try and make a bit of play happen. It was a bumpy road but we got our fight, he kicked my behind, lots of other people joined in the same idea on top of a building. Lots of play, lots of fun, even though there were about 3 villains for every hero.

I've only read the first page, but I think it's pretty good. Strong use of detail, a nice tight turn of phrase. I'll read more when I have more time.

My Ice Tanker is in his 30s now, and I can recommend MaX's build, at least on the ice side. You'll want to get Frozen Armour, Hoarfrost, Wet Ice, Chilling Embrace and Energy Absorption pretty much as soon as they become available. They build up into a very solid core of defenses with a bit of nice utility. Glacial Armour's important but I think it can wait 'til your early twenties if need be, but I'd recommend getting it certainly no later than that. I was starting to feel its absence about the time I picked it up at 22. Circle of Thorns can be an early pain before that, but it's avoidable.

Hibernate and Icicles I both happen to like, but I can see how someone would go the other way on those. Icicles takes some slotting to get good but has a pretty noticeable effect once that's done. I think it can wait 'til pretty much whenever you feel you want it, if you want it. Hibernate is the ultimate escape power, it's a slow recharge to full strength in an impenetrable shell - you can escape, recharge your batteries, and resume the fight pretty quickly without ever taking a step, and the animation is pretty slick. I took it at 32, I'd recommend it highly.

Permafrost is the only ice power I don't have. Fire is a threat to me, but not a massive one - I have some protection from fire and huge protection from cold anyway, and I can slot Frozen Armour for resistance if I wanted more before spending another power. I think Permafrost helps with something odd like slow as well, but so does Wet Ice.

Early on I found Ice to be pretty power intensive. You really need the healing and pseudo-resistance from Hoarfrost, you can't skimp on the armours, and chilling embrace really is the soul of the set. The good news is that it's not very intensive on the slotting. Chilling Embrace can benefit from a bit of added slow (I did the same as MaX's build on that issue) but it doesn't exactly need it, and Wet Ice is fine with the single slot it comes with. I spent most of my early power choices on defense and many of my early slot choices on offense. It seemed to work out OK.

As far as slotting Hoarfrost goes, I found that getting three recharges in as soon as possible was important, but I think the heals can wait - simply because nothing that early is likely to be able to take you down when Hoarfrost is running, even without heal enhancers in it. This'll start to change as you get higher, so you will want to add 'em in by your mid 30s or so, in my opinion.

I know nothing about Axe, sorry!

I'd recommend jumping as your travel power because it's an easy way to add defense by taking combat jumping. Combat jumping is incredibly cheap to run, a small but helpful buff and unlike Hover it won't slam your speed or endurance pre-22.

None of the psi power sets seem to have particularly intimidating numbers for damage - it's like you do less than other sets, but may end up doing a bit more because it's so hard to defend against. Some of the associated effects look great though, I bet all that recharge reduction could add up pretty quickly.

I definitely think the dominator sounds like the more frightening choice. Status effects couple with attacks that are hard to resist...it's got a certain appealing inevitability to it.

Going the defender route I think you'd be in more of a position to support someone else's assault. You've got the whole heal / buff / debuff thing going on for your primary, and then you could force damage through in the face of many protective measures people could take to try and turtle up when assaulted with conventional force.

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Oh broaden your perspective.

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I did. Read my first post - I did come up for tactics for fighting with and against stalkers.

I didn't have to, though. If I wasn't interesting in broadening my perspectives, I could just pretend they didn't exist. It's not like they're gonna say "interrupt aura using ice tanker with taunt! Let's gank him!"

But I'd rather play with 'em than ignore 'em, hence tactics.

There are some very good Stalkers out there. There's this one guy called London Stalking or something like that....he's great! He picks smart fights but he gets involved. He's doesn't bail at the first sign of trouble, but he doesn't let people take him down easily either. Model player, in my opinion.

Some of you are defending the guy I cited as running away when taunted even though his friends were right behind him. Let me clarify. He didn't hop round a corner, break the taunt, then help his friends slaughter us. He jumped directly away, didn't break line of sight except by getting out of my perception range, and didn't come back until after the fight was over.

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Why is this cowardly? What's the point of a Stalker who is forced to reveal from hide by attacking a tanker? Running from that situation isn't cowardly... not breaking the taunt aggro and trying to take on a tanker would've been moronic.

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It's definitely cowardly. Like I said in the first place it's understandable cowardice, almost cowardice by design, but it's stinking fear none the less. Let's try applying the same logic to the other ATs. "If I cannot win in three moves or less without my opponent being able to act, then I will not fight."

Cue tumbleweed rolling through all the PvP zones as no one ever engages in any combat.

Stalkers are deadly on the offense. This is a good thing - it means you can get punished for dropping your guard, it adds a sense of danger.

But there's no reward for facing that danger. Ocassionally you'll drop dead without having a chance to attack anything. But you can't really take the fight to the stalker, because if there's even a chance of him loosing a fight, he'll never enter it in the first place. If you manage to hit him through stealth with an AoE, he'll disappear and try again. If you manage to survive that first strike and pull off a lucky heal before he finishes you off, he's gone. If you can see him coming, he just doesn't come.

You don't "win" PvP by surviving. You have the most fun and get the most credit by scoring kills. Other ATs go along with this - maybe I'll take that brute down or maybe he'll take me, but we'll engage each other, enjoy a good confrontation, and one of us will get rewarded for it.

With Stalkers, there is no reward. It's either BOOM, you're dead, or BOOM, he's gone.

That's where tactics come in to play, of course. But the sad thing is, these tactics aren't needed to defeat a stalker. They're needed to even get a stalker to play. Even if said stalker is with a group of allies twice your number who are virtually guaranteed a win.

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Union or Defiant Upsurge? I know a stalker or two who would love to re-educate you on that little comment

(i should point out neither are me - never had the patience for one, yet )

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Great! Tell 'em to play more in Siren's Call, we could use more courageous adversaries.

One of my favorite "stalkers are cowards" moments came a few days ago. The heroes were outnumbered by the villains, but we were fighting anyway. There's a large group of villains down the road, moving in towards us. They outnumber us 2 to 1, we know it's a losing battle, but hey - it's fun. Maybe we'll take one of 'em down with us.

A stalker is moving ahead of the group. He's hidden, but I can see him. He's getting close to another team-mate, so I target him, and fire off taunt.

Man, is he OUTTA THERE! Super-leaping merrily on his away, he disspears screaming into the night and isn't seen again until after his six friends give us the pasting we knew they would.

That's entirely typical of the way stalkers seem to behave. They don't enter any combat situation at all unless they're sure it'll be a three move kill with no actual combat whatsoever. Even if they have the advantage of numbers. Even if they know their side will win the fight anyway.

In my experience, Stalkers are basically cowards. There's a certain extent to which this is justified - they're lousy in direct confrontation, they only seem to be able to win when they basically cut the fight part out altogether.

So a good anti-stalker strategy is going to require you to trick him into comitting himself. Otherwise (if you can so much as think about putting up any sort of resistance whatsoever) he's going to hide, scream for his mother, teleport a random direction, and run up a tree.

So if you can see him, don't let him know that. Act oblivious until he commits himself. Stalkers appear to be at their most vulnerable when they try to land a kill - not from the intended victim, but certainly from anyone else. So watch your friends, and unleash the fires of judgement on any cowa - ahem stalker, who tries to pull something.

Keeping moving is a good defense against stalkers, but doesn't help taking them down. Another good defense against stalkers is an interrupt aura. Stand next to your friendly neighbourhood ice tanker or the like, and any stalker who tries his luck is going to be in for a very rude awakening when he not only loses his attack in the middle, but can't run away quite so quickly.

You can smell the stink of panic on a stalker who can't flee instantly from a failed ganking. The thought of actual conflict seems to terrify all the ones I've encountered.

Can't find a friend who's been marked by the stalkers so you can launch your assault while they launch theirs? Step up to the plate and get ready to take one for the team. Stalkers are opportunists; give them an opportunity. What they don't need to know is that while you're standing around waiting to be stabbed, your mates will be waiting for the same thing. When your health bar suddenly goes AWOL, your friends can make sure that the stalker's is next.

I'm a relative beginner, but that's my read of the landscape. It's served me pretty well so far, but then I'm no blaster.

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Isnt the job 'keep squishy alive' alive the job of a healer (in any form)?

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I tend to feel that it's the tank's job to keep the vulnerable members from getting attacked, and the healer's job to relieve the damage that's being done. So ideally that means that the tanker is keeping the squishier members alive and the healer is reinforcing the tanker for the main part, and taking care of other little bits of incidental damage.

My scrapper has a 3-slotted Hover. He uses it with Teleport so he can cover big distances very quickly and very safely but still have decent mobility in combat situations.

It's a little slow for typical running about between groups of enemies. Only a little slow, but you will fall behind the group a bit over moderate distances. In combat, it seems to be fine. I think if you're a tanker who draws enemies to you you'd be better off than a tanker who prefers to shift his physical presence to the place it'll do the most good.

If you play in teams who like you to lead the way and pick which group to attack next, then the slight slowness could be a problem.

Personally I'd stick with the leaping.

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How come? How many attacks did you get? What type of tank are you?

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Just to put this into a bit of perspective, I play a tanker who did take Taunt. I had a grand total of 2 (count 'em) attacks, excluding Brawl, until level 24. I took the minimum number of powers required for travel by 14, and I took Stamina as soon as possible. Those were my only pool powers.

I didn't take any cool status inflicting moves like Hand Clap.

I had no defense versus energy or negative energy until 22.

It is really hard to fit Taunt in, or at least it seemed that way with Ice. I had to basically give up any sembelence of an attack chain. I can easily see how someone would have trouble.

If you think of travel powers as taking up you picks for 12 and 14, and fitness as taking your picks for 16, 18 and 20, then that leaves one free moment of selection and one only, at 10th level, to pick up Taunt.

So imagine your an 8th level character with no pool selections yet...

Woah, really good pictures! Thanks very much for sharing them.

They're still a Tanker. Says so right on their hero liscence and everything!

Then again I don't tend to use phrases like "Scranktroller" so I might be the wrong guy to ask.

I think Taunt is integral to what a Tanker does. I think it's a core ability for him, like Build Up for a Scrapper or Assassin's Strike for a Stalker; but just like a Scrapper has other ways to lay the smackdown and Stalkers have regular critical hits from stealth, Tankers have other ways to grab aggro. Almost every move they know can do that.

Good going home boy, I like it.

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Am I right in saying that Chilling Embrace only holds the attention of mobs for a limited time before they scatter?

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That hasn't been my experience. It seems to do a very brief but pretty effective taunt, so things that are in melee range or thereabouts tend to focus on you, but they might lose interest fairly quickly if you move away.

I've never encountered any sort of "mass desertion" effect, where it was holding aggro and then suddenly stops.

But...just because a mob wants to fight YOU, doesn't seem to mean he wants to fight. I've had instances where a mob was wanting to run rather than attack, and no amount of Taunting seemed to be able to change his mind. At least Chilling Embrace does a solid slow!

That's just what I've observed; could be entirely wrong.

My Ice / Strength tank had a very painful time soloing on the rare ocassions when I couldn't get a team, before level 24 or so. I was really able to ease the pain, however, by slotting my ATTACKS FOR ENDURANCE REDUCTION.

Just do the math. If Haymaker recharges in 8 seconds, you use it every time it recharges, and it costs you 8.5 Endurance every time you throw it...then you're burning in excess of 1 Endurance every second just to keep up a fraction of your assault. Makes those 0.3 End toggles seem awful cheap, don't it?

Thanks for the information, that's brilliant.

I'm working on making an Ice / Super Strength tank because I'd like a character that was more friendly for teams and also better in PvP then my very PvE, solo-oriented scrapper.

I've worked out my build up to level 30 (I'm thinking mostly about Siren's Call) and I'm very satisfied with what I have planned.

I have one power slot only left to be filled and that's the one for level thirty itself. I'm thinking of going with the Leadership pool, I think it would be a nice boost for myself and other heroes, and I also hear it offers other bonuses than the straightforward ones that are listed...but I can't seem to find out exactly what these are. Can anyone help?

I know Tactics gives plus perception - that sounds great, but I can't reach it in one power so I'll have to make do with Glacial Armour.

I've heard that's there's also things such as fear protection and resistance to placate. I'd love to be able to get fear protection as my scrapper's status defense didn't seem to help against it so I'm guessing my tanker's won't work either?

I'm primarily interested in Assault.

I have Regen and the Fitness pool, both seem to work together and it's a very decent effect. Initially I got to Stamina through Swift and Hurdle, but when I respecced I went with Swift and Health instead, and the increase was noticeable.

I went with Martial Arts over ******* Sword myself because I didn't like the idea of a superhero who fought with a sharp weapon, but it's never let me down as a set.

The basic attacks, Storm Kick and Thunder Kick, are fantastic straightforward abilities...the damage is a bit lower than BS's first moves, but if my sources are right, then activation times are lower too which helps make up for that - you'll still be dealing out great damage once you've got a decent sequence of blows to use. They're also very accurate, and ocassionally disorient, so they're good right off the bat whereas the -def thing BS attacks can do takes a few blows to start helping you.

The later stuff is really a lot of very cool toolkit sort of moves that fit seamlessly into your combat pattern...need to stop a target from moving or knock him out of the air? No problem, Crippling Axe Kick will bring him down to earth, and it's still great damage for its activation speed. Too many minions interfering with your boss fight? Don't sweat it, Dragon Tail will send them all flying without you even needing to switch target.

I'm sure BS is capable of doing lots of cool things too, but I couldn't be happier with MA. It looks good, it flows well, and all the moves you can pick offer you something interesting and different.