Thermal_Velocity

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Better starting tanks are granite and willpower, both of which do not require massive cash outlays to be strong at high level. If I could make a recommendation, it would be to shelve your invuln tank and build a willpower tank. Once you have accumulated those hundreds of millions, revive and complete your invuln tanker.

It's not you, it's the chopped up way the invuln powerset is designed. It's been thru more design permutations than most sets have, and right now it's more a collection of band-aid fixes than a real powerset, as you will discover if you go with the very nicely put together willpower set.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do have a willpower tank around level 30 and I think it can take more of a beating than my invul. For some reason I just have trouble holding aggro on it, something which I do fine on invulnerability and why I've focused more on Invulnerable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Blatant troll post is blatant.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or simply doesn't know how to read City of Data.

[/ QUOTE ]

Never seen that site before. I just went by the descriptions of powers, figuring that if invulnerability said it was the most resistant, it was that. So imagine my surprise when I find myself stuck as very vulnerable and not at all invulnerable. I had to take tough to reach something near invulnerable and that was only to lethal and smashing.

[ QUOTE ]
Blatant troll post is blatant.

[/ QUOTE ]

What is a troll post?

[ QUOTE ]
Better starting tanks are granite and willpower, both of which do not require massive cash outlays to be strong at high level. If I could make a recommendation, it would be to shelve your invuln tank and build a willpower tank. Once you have accumulated those hundreds of millions, revive and complete your invuln tanker.

It's not you, it's the chopped up way the invuln powerset is designed. It's been thru more design permutations than most sets have, and right now it's more a collection of band-aid fixes than a real powerset, as you will discover if you go with the very nicely put together willpower set.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do have a willpower tank around level 30 and I think it can take more of a beating than my invul. For some reason I just have trouble holding aggro on it, something which I do fine on invulnerability and why I've focused more on Invulnerable.

[ QUOTE ]
So you're all butt-hurt because your low 30s Tanker can't go toe to toe with multipul lvl 54 bosses?

I was wrong. It's not your build that's a clown.

This thread is either a bad troll attempt or you're just a tool.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I've seen stone tankers on my own level do the same easily, which was why I was hoping that there was a way to make the invulnerability just as durable. I mean Invulnerability kinda means that you're supposed to be invulnerable, except to psionics, as detailed in the power descriptions. Yet it's only really durable to smashing/lethal, and the only way I can achieve that is by taking the Tough power from the Fighting pool.

I mean I feel like I was misled when I signed up for the powerset. In the description it says it gives you incredible abilities to resist damage and that it is superior to resist physical damage, but offers no resistance to psionics. Which is fine, I can live without psionics resistance. However comparing it to the stone tanker, which is descripted as having superior defense, also grants far better resistances than the invulnerability can get. They should just change Invulnerability's name to "Durability" and the description to something like: You get decent resistances and can withstand more damage than the normal person. However you have no protection against psionics.

[ QUOTE ]
Dude, your build is a clown built. You're running a one-trick pony, theme spec and you're posting on the forums wondering why you're struggling as a main tank?
OK, you tried your "interesting" Tanker build, and you're having problems. Take the advice of the long-time Tankers here and go for a more ballanced build.

As it stands, any pull that includes a Sapper = a team wipe.

The knock-up & knock-down in the SS set = mitigation. And Knockout blow hits harder that most Scrapper alpha attacks. Dead enemies don't hit back. That's more mitigation.

Is someone in your team pressuring you into this build? If so, you might want to rethink your relationship with this person. I don't think he is really your friend.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nobody have pressured me into this build. I got tired of being destroyed repeatedly and respecced into that build, where before I didn't have the resist energies, weave and tough. It did increase my survivability a lot, as in I could now take on a dozen lethal/smashing 4 level higher bosses in the AE without flinching, where before I got destroyed when I tried to do that. So in most cases it was very much an improvement from my previous build which was very much like suggested by people. My previous build didn't have the fighting pool and didn't have the resist energies and elements, but instead had many attacks from the secondary. I died more than once in the lvl 54 boss farms from the alpha strike, before I decided to respec out of it and became far more defensive. My current build I like much better than my previous, but I still have the stupid vulnerabilities to anything but smashing/lethal and it doesn't sound like I'm really able to get rid of that vulnerability in any way. :/ Not unless I reroll to stone, which I'd prefer not to, because I dislike the way their armor looks.

As for not having more attacks, then yes, I know that SS has some good migration in the knockdown attacks. However the only one that is really useful is Footstomb, which I don't get until 38, since that's the only one that affects all mobs surrounding me. My problems doesn't start until I fight maybe 10+ mobs and when fighting those it's not really any help to knock down one of them. As for sappers, then pulling one isn't a problem. Neither is pulling two. Pulling 16 ice zombies in the AE and I get frozen solid and my carcass sold on the black market, for organ harvesting.

I guess this is more an issue of being so squishy compared to the granite tanker. Against the most common damages I stand up just as well, but I take twice as much damage against the more exotic damages (fire/cold, energy/negative energy). And with the advice of getting rid of the resist elements and energies, I'll be even more vulnerable against them, so I'm not sure it was really the advice I was looking for.

I guess the only solution will be to reroll to granite tanker. :/

[ QUOTE ]
I'm just gonna take a wild-[censored] guess here - Is one of your major problems lack of Endurance?

That's a poop-load of toggles you're running. Do you really feel the need for that much mitigation over and above what Invul already has built in?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have any endurance problems, in fact it's one of my toons with the best endurance management, despite running so many toggles. I guess when I get rage and more endurance expensive attacks it will change considerably.

Thank you all for your advice. I'll see if I can't find a Terra Volta trial tonight, so that I can get that respec.

I do understand the importance of both defense and resists and I have worked on getting both of them up.

I don't have a problem with most of the PVE content. Mostly its when I'm doing MA mishes or on an sk and fighting Malta. The Council also has some pretty mean fire spiders or whatever they're called and they're also ripping through me like I was a wet noodle.

Is there a reason for resist elements and resist energies so late or not at all? They both provide significant resists (10%, 15% enhanced) and protects against endurance drain and slows? I personally feel those two powers should be as important in the build as any other powers.

The original plan for the future was Rage at 35, Footstomb at 38. The remaining powers would be from secondaries or the epic pool.

[ QUOTE ]
You shouldn't need more power slots, really. If you have survivability problems with that much mitigation, something else is wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

My migration is fine against most foes. But when meeting fireclowns or ice zombies or necromancer elves and whatever else there is in the AE, I go down. When I play offtank to the Granite tanker I see them walk through it all, as if it was nothing, as if their resistances and defenses were capped or at least very close. I'd really love to be able to boost my own resistances and defenses to that level.

I have done the first one. I used that respec to become more defensive, because before I had decent damage, but my defenses were abysmal. At least Weave gave a small boost to those defenses.

I don't have the 40m+ for a respec.

And I felt that my build was quite good. I wanted all the primary powers first, since it is the defensive which is the most important.

From secondary pools I need stamina, for endurance. I want a travel power. And fighting gives tough and weave, which adds more to my defensive force. I simply have no idea where to get more power slots from (except levelling), that will allow me to get more from my secondary. However the plan is to focus on the secondaries, since my defense is now built to maximum (I think).

As I said previously, I don't have any problem with doing so little damage. The team I'm with usually wipes enemies fast. And I don't have a problem keeping aggro, except when there's maybe 15-20 mobs, but that seems to be a problem for all tankers, so not due to my build. I am there simply to take a punching, which I also do excellently against most foes. It's when I meet a dozen mobs doing fire damage. Or negative energy. Or ice. Or energy. That's when my health goes down fast.

I am build solely for team play. And while my team may at times provide support, I'm far too often teaming up with a random group where there's only empathy for damage migration.

It's not in damage output I got a problem. Sure I don't do much, but I have soloed once in the last 34 levels and that was to get my second costume slot.

And it is in my plans to get more of the attack powers, now that I'm mostly established defensively. I can hold aggro and I'm almost impossible to kill when fighting the majority of the enemies. What I'm looking for is a way to increase the survivability against the remaining 30%. I know that I'll always be weak against psionics, but I would like to find a way so I'd be able to take an alpha from non-smash/lethal enemies.

Or do I really have to roll a stone tanker to get a high resistance to everything?

I'm on the Virtue server. And I don't have Mid's, but here's my build. Level 34 now, after levelling once after posting the original post:

Jab - 4 slots, 1 acc, 1 end red, 2 rech
Resist Physical Damage - 3 slots, all resist
Temporary Invulnerability - 5 slots, 3 resist, 1 end red, Impervium Unique +resist psionic
Dull Pain - 5 slots - 2 heal, 3 rech
Resist Elements - 3 slots, all resist
Unyielding - 4 slots, 3 resist, 1 end red
Taunt - 3 slots, Triumphant Insult IO set
Resist Energies - 3 slots, all resist
Hurdle - 1 slot, jump
Health - 1 slot, heal
Combat Jumping - 3 slots, all defense
Stamina - 3 slots, all end modification
Invincibility - 4 slots, 3 defense, 1 end red
Super-Jump - 1 slot, jump
Tough hide - 3 slots, all defense
Boxing - 2 slots, 1 acc, 1 rech
Tough - 2 slots, 1 resist, 1 Aegis Unique +resist/+mez
Weave - 4 slots, 3 defense, 1 end red

In addition to that my brawl is also 2 slotted, since it's a common attack in my very small attack chain. This makes my defense in around 20 against all attacks (except psionic, where it's only 11). My resist is almost capped for lethal and smashing (88-89%), my resists against other things is around 31%.

And while 70% of the damage in the game is S/L and I have no problems tanking that, it's against the groups that use dark or energy or fire or cold that I get destroyed utterly and completely.

Anyway, thank you for the guide, CMA, I'll take a look at that. Those many sets just look like they could be very expensive. :/ For instance the reactive armor set costs 4 mill for the end/res and 5 mill for the res, meaning each of the 5 sets will cost like 10 mill each.

Hi all,

I'm going to ask some advice. I currently have a level 33 inv. tanker. I have all invulnerability primaries, combat jumping, tough and weave for my defense and its slotted with either 3 defense or 3 resist SOs, so each power is at the cap for what it can take.

In most cases I don't have any problems, since many enemies use use smash/lethal, but there are times where I go down faster than I have time to hit my healing button. It wouldn't be an issue if it was against psionic, I know that's my weakness, but my energy, negative energy, fire and cold resists seem to be stuck around 30% and I honestly have no clue how to increase it to get to the cap.

So please, if anyone knows any way of increasing these numbers, to get them closer to the soft cap, tell me, I'd be very happy.

As for slotting IOs, then I'm not a rich player. I currently have around 15m influence, which I'll be willing to invest into making the toon better at surviving.

I'm a housebroken domestic scrapper.