Unthing

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Personally, I prefer SS+IR for kin.

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What do you use for knockback protection?

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What would happen if you activate TK then TP?

As i know they stay a certain distance from you etc.


[/ QUOTE ]They don't, they just continuously repel away from you until they hit an obstacle. TP wouldn't be any more effective than SS.

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Except it would allow you to make them instantanously change direction, so you could do some more interesting tricks.

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DE Totems

[/ QUOTE ]BP totems or DE something else?

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BP, Changed.

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A larged sized mob of 5 enemies?

I have it slotted for 3 end reductions and I really like it.

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You telling me that controlling 5 mobs isn't enough to take the heat off people? What kind of aggro are you taking on?

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No I'm just saying 5 people isn't a large sized mob.

I agree controlling 5 people is normally enough to take the heat off even in an 8 man team. Especially as with Dominate and Confuse alone you can easily deal with another 4-5, possibly more if it is a long fight. The best use I can remember was against BP Totems in a cave, we had a second spawn aggroed and I telekinesed 2 totems to the wall ( assisted by a dominate ) and took them out of the fight until the rest of the team was free to deal with them.

It is situational though, you need to find a suitable place to pin them to or you risk aggroing more.

They are only 3 standard cost toggles though and you get the last one at 35 IIRC.

However my Dark/Dark scrapper had 3 standard cost toggles from level 10 ( which was too much ). He then got Cloak of Fear ( very cool, but very expensive ). Dark Regeneration is a very expensive clicky power too. So you'll be better off than my scrapper for endurance. I'm more convinced about getting Siphon Life now, a scrapper without a self heal doesn't last long.

Although without Dark Consumption, Soul Drain might be a pain.

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With Hover Terra Volta is easy.
It is the best catch up power of the 3. Superspeed in missions means I can catch up fast. It needs no extra slots.

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it's easy with just superspeed too... you just need to know the way!

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True, I think that's the only superspeed route ( Talos Tunnel, Various Skyways, Eden ) I don't know as I had CJ on a few of my Superspeedsters so I could cheat.

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TK is one of those powers which just makes Mind Control so useful. Its an auto-hit control power that its primary used defensively (i.e. to split multiple groups up or take the pressure off a heavily aggro'd ally). However, if you are clever and are in a closed environment, you can use it to control a large sized mob by pinning them against a wall.

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A larged sized mob of 5 enemies?

I have it slotted for 3 end reductions and I really like it.

Ouch tough choice!

For Dark/Dark I found Dark Consumption only any good after I had Hasten. However you can get Quickness and Hasten.

I never got Siphon Life as it is completely redundant when you have probably the best self heal in the game ( Dark Regeneration ). However you have none.

So I don't know, but I am inclined to say Siphon Life.

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Taunt used at range helps aggro control. Taunt used on the enemy you are attacking ( which is how I used it in I3/I4 ) only makes a small difference unless that enemy is an AV as you hit the taunt AoE cap very quickly so end up taunting those who are already punckvoked and auraed.

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In general this is true unless fighting foes with accuracy debuffs. I'd have an awful time tanking CoT without taunt. Afterall, punchvoke only works if you can actually hit your target.

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Ice and Inv have auto hit taunt auras, so I haven't had this problem.

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In most PUGs my squishies are in, a tank with taunt normally doesn't seem to use it at range, but throws it the person in melee. If I see taunt used on enemies outside the group I am pleasantly suprised. I rarely see a tanker who is situationally aware. Most don't seem to look at the team's health bars.

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Must admit, I don't look at the team health either. Ultimately, another player staying alive isn't my responsibility. No, that's not true, I'm aware once someone runs into trouble, but 95 times out of 100 that's because they've agroed another spawn. Even in an 8 man team I'm controlling over 80% of the agro and that will include the boss if there is one, even if it's 2 spawns. The stragglers are really down to the scrappers to take care of.
I will use taunt at range and do quite frequently but ultimately I'm of the mindset that staying alive is your own responsibility.

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I find there always stragglers and sometime these are a big threat to the group. The team health bar is the best place to look for a teammate in trouble. I do this on most of my characters, as almost all of them can do something to help a teammate in trouble, whether it is taunt, attack, hold or heal.
Do the scrappers know you think it is their responsiblity to take out the stragglers? I go straight for the centre of the spawn with my Spines, concetrating on AoEs, I tend to go for stragglers with my Dark. Most people end up playing to their powerset's strengths which means the niches occupied by certain ATs often change.
IMO staying alive is a shared responsibility within the team, whether you are if tanker, defender, scrapper, controller or blaster. If someone aggros another spawn you have a choice, sometimes it is best to jump into the new spawn and leave the old one to the team, sometimes it is best to taunt the new spawn, sometimes it is best to ignore it. That is a decision that is made based on experience and situation. However I will try my best not to risk the whole team's safety for one individual.

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How many times have I seen a squishy fire on a straggler. What are they thinking. When I was playing my blaster I almost always targetted through the tank and almost always never pulled any agro because I was hitting mobs standing in the tank's taunt aura.

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I can think of many reasons for a squishy to fire on straggler. Normally it is because they think they can deal with it or because the stragglers look like the biggest threat to them or another teammate at the current time.

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If a mob did lock on to me I didn't run away I positioned myself so the tank was between me and the mob and got hit by the taunt aura. Not very difficult to work out.

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But not always feasible to do. Especially if this involves running into a more dangerous place in the fight.

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So, in my mind, they'll either learn or collect debt badges.

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No comment.

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I havn't got Poison Gas, as feel I have the mobs well enouh controlled with my primary powers that they dont get chance to do any damage anyway. The sleep chance is only about 30%, so it's not as good as a propper controller power for setting up containment.

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True.

For AVs it is one of your two damage mitigation powers ( the other is glue ).

Remember that the resistance debuffs of Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow multiply up the damage debuff so you can probably stack about a 60-80% resistance debuff on it. That gives you about 32-36% damage debuff. Hmmm, that isn't as great as I thought, but it might help keep the tank upright, assuming the large periods of perma-holds haven't helped enough.

I have Flash Arrow on my Mind/TA. It is useful, despite being really annoyed when I found out it was a rubbish to hit debuff power. However as an aggroless power it has a great synergy with confuse so I won't be getting rid of it. I generally use it on closeby spawns to stop them from aggroing to us.

For a grav, I'm not sure of the benefits of it. I would go for Glue Arrow instead and get a solid debuff rather than a slightly odd one.

Ice Arrow was pretty rubbish until I got SOs and slotted it. ( Probably because I started slotting it in the late teens ) It's base duration is such that it won't perma hold anything, so for stacking holds it is only really useful as an opener. With 2 hold duration SOs, the duration is now reasonable and so I use it in my attack chain.

Don't overlook Web Arrow ( the tier 1 power that you have to get at level 1 ), I used it last night to pin the Moonfire taskforce AV in place whilst we attacked her at range. This stopped her from using her Dark Regeneration type power. Most of the time it is rubbish for anything other than containment though.

The other power I have from TA is Poison Gas arrow. This is an autohit 20% damage debuff and a chance of a sleep on any of the targets. It is a good opener as the sleep removes aggro and sets up containment and the damage debuff is good for protecting the team ( or yourself ). It looks cool too.

I think if you use an AoE immob with a knockdown power like Oil Slick the knockdown doesn't happen.

The problem with TA as a secondary is that all the powers seem pretty good and cover a debuff base. This means I tend to want all of them.

Hover vs Acrobatics

I think that acrobatics is great. However I invariably get mezzed and have to reactivate tactics and acrobatics which is a royal pain in the backside.
I also have periods of
a) being too fast with stacked siphon speed.
b) being too slow ( because of speed Boosted teammates ) and having to use superjump to catch up with the team, so I do need a travel power to catch up.
Acrobatics also brings Combat Jumping 'for free'. This means I have middling immob protection and slight hold protection. I think I will miss the immob protection. However CJ adds to the toggle up time.
Hover also adds the advantage of being able to hover above enemies heads to reduce the amount of incoming damage.


Inertial Reduction

I wasn't that bothered by the reactivation on IR when I had it a few builds ago. I don't really care about the suppressionless movement.
What does bother me about this power is that it affects everyone in a radius. I hate it when a kin casts it on me as some of my other charcters as judging jumps with an unfamiliar jump height is difficult. I am pretty sure I got someone killed at the end of the Hess taskforce for just this reason.
Because of these things it is a bad catch up power in missions.
I don't think I'm going to take IR.


Flight

I have hover, fly is now faster. To be honest I have tried fly last night on my controller with 3 slotted fly and 1 slotted hover. The difference wasn't noticeable.
I'm not a great fan of the fly drift. However it does provide good vertical movement and feels heroic and I can supercharge it with Siphon Speed.
I have had a fly build on this character before, however I screwed it up by not slotting hover for speed ( Doh! ). There was some fiddliness with catching up because I was running a perma-airborne, non stamina build so I ended up with endurance problems when trying to catch up with fly.
It needs 3 slots to be useful. Most of these drawbacks have probably been fixed in the last patch or are fixed by getting stamina.

Superspeed.

Fast out of the box. Being able to stealth is always good, especially when travelling through PI. I don't care about the vertical movement part because I have had Superspeeders many times. The only place I have ever had trouble with Superspeed alone are Terra Volta and the Shadow Shards. With Hover Terra Volta is easy.
It is the best catch up power of the 3. Superspeed in missions means I can catch up fast. It needs no extra slots.


Slot availability

From memory I have Voltaic Sentinel and the Snipe 4 slotted, so I have 6 spare slots to add to powers. 2 go on Hover, 2 go on Stamina. This leaves me 2 which could be used to add to fly or maybe to Charged Bolts ( which I think is unslotted at the moment ) for those rare occasions when 1 single target attack is not enough.

I wonder whether 3 slotted Swift will help my flight speed more than 1 slotted Swift...

I am thinking of respeccing my level 38 Kin/Elec defender again.

Mainly because I have 2 mostly useless powers ( the Snipe and Voltaic Sentinel ), I am considering using Hover rather than Acrobatics as my knockback protection and I am sick of relying on transference for endurance.

This puts me into the strange situation of having a choice between 3 travel powers.

Fly, Inertial Reduction or Super speed.

I can't decide, any ideas?

CJ is a nice power. It stacks with Tough Hide / Invincibilty and also provides great combat maneuverability.

However from other travel pools
Hasten is good too, it boosts the recharge of Dull Pain so it is up more often.
Air Superiority is a great power for using as a knockdown on bosses etc.

I have both Hasten and CJ on both my tanks.

For PvE you have seriously excessive amounts of accuracy.

Targetting drone gives a 23.4 % to hit buff. With this and the inhernet accuracy bonus you will cap at +3s. With tactics too you cap at +4s.

With an ACC and targetting drone and tactics you cap at +6s.

For PvP though it is good. You should be able to hit even hit defense enemies most of the time.

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And there is nothing like playing an ice/ice tank, facing a spawn of 15 or so, and doing the newspaper emote whilst they all flail away at you and slip on the ice slick... [img]/uk/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]. you want me to break that emote to attack with frozen fists! you crzay dude you!

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I used to do that with my first inv tank. My Ice tank had the dance emote in his attack chain in his teens.

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Is it being a skranker? well here you probably have to say yes, unless its for concept reasons. If you take something like boxing/tough/weave instead of taunt, I can sort of understand. If you take another attack instead of taunt, well inevitibly its going to push you towards the skranker camp isnt it?

[/ QUOTE ]Maybe. However, IMO a tank who can both keep the aggro, AND contribute offensively is FAR better for the team that one with zero offensive value.

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I think that depends on the team. If you have a team with a empathy defender ( they never seem to ever have attacks ) a few controllers and a single target blaster ( so common these days ) I agree with you. If you have a few scrappers and some AoE heavy toons the tank having the extra attack rather than taunt will not be advantage.

However taking taunt doesn't mean than I can't attack. Not taking taunt only gives me one more attack. Which given that the recharges and damages are balanced so all attacks are roughly equivalent it means that say my Ice Tank ( who probably needs taunt less than the others due to mobility, fast attacks and chilling embrace ) would do about 25% more single target damage. I doubt that would make much difference in most teams.

At lower levels ( say level 25 ) it would probably make more difference as by then it would allow me to get some of my 20-35 powers earlier. However at most it would mean I would have my 3rd single target attack earlier for an extra 33% single target damage.

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Unless the taunting one never uses taunt.

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Fogging the issue?

Assume he does.

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The reason I said that is that many tankers I team with who have taunt do not use it. But the very act of having taunt seems on average to mean they are better tanks from my squishy experiences on pick up teams. I put this down to something like the mindset thing mentioned early in the thread.

Taunt used at range helps aggro control. Taunt used on the enemy you are attacking ( which is how I used it in I3/I4 ) only makes a small difference unless that enemy is an AV as you hit the taunt AoE cap very quickly so end up taunting those who are already punckvoked and auraed.

In most PUGs my squishies are in, a tank with taunt normally doesn't seem to use it at range, but throws it the person in melee. If I see taunt used on enemies outside the group I am pleasantly suprised. I rarely see a tanker who is situationally aware. Most don't seem to look at the team's health bars.

Some tankers are under the impression that taunt is enough. I'm sure I've met a granite tank who acted that way. You need an aura, but taunt is there to easily regain aggro, taunt pull spawns, ensure AVs stay on you and allow you to kite dangerous enemies. I've only seen AVs kited about 5-10 times in the year and a bit I've played this game. Most of those times were against Infernal.

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I love this thread. 17 pages and still no conclusion in sight [img]/uk/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

So, with that in mind. Here's a hypothetical situation;

Player X rolls two tanks. He builds them identically, same powersets, same slots, everything EXCEPT one has taunt (Tank A), and one doesn't (Tank B).

So, we've eliminated player skill from the equation, along with powerset differences. The question is simply this; which out of the two tanks would be better at holding agro?

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The taunting one, no doubt.


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Unless the taunting one never uses taunt.

My advice is :

Get Temp Invulnerability and Dull Pain before Resist Physical Damage.
Get Unyielding and Invincibility ASAP ( 8 and 18 ).
Don't get the Resist elements / energies until the 20s.
Don't spend too many slots on Unyielding early, it makes practically no difference.
Slot up Dull Pain to 6 slots by the early teens, you can then slot 6 recharge on it and have it up 2/3rd of the time. 40% more hitpoints makes you way harder.
Add 2 slots to invincibility ASAP.
Because of a lack of a damage Aura until level 18, you have to rely on Punchvoke and taunt to gain aggro.
AoEs for tankers are good. Whirling Hands is an average AoE but is worth taking and 6 slotting ( perhaps in the early 20s? ).

If you are going to go for the fighting pool, you are probably best respeccing into it in the 20s. With the fighting pool you really don't need Resist Physical Damage.

I've found low levels tanks are quite tedious to solo without getting lots of attacks. This limits your usefulness in teams. Normally I get 2 attacks and taunt before 22, stamina and a travel power. The rest are armours.

Energy has the problem that it's really heavy attacks come at level 35 and 38, which means fighting bosses solo before that is a complete pain. ( I had the same problem but worse with /Fire ).

If you are taking Leadership don't bother slotting Fortitude for to hit buffs for PvE. In fact I wouldn't bother even if I did take leadership.

A 3 slotted tactics gives a 19.5% to hit buff.
A 0 slotted fortitude gives a 25% to hit buff.
Both together are a 44.5% to hit buff.

Assuming that the person you are fortituding has 1 ACC slotted that means both will cap anything with a to hit chance of 27 or more. That means he/she would be hitting anything less than +7s 95% of the time. Are you planning to fight +7s?
Unslotted Fortitude alone will cap anything less than a +5.

Slotting recharge on fortitude is far more important than defence or to hit. As it means you can make more people amazingly good. However if you are duoing mainly I would slot probably defence first.

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See, another tank can just move next to those foes in a second or two, while stone needs taunt to get them.

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Really? And almost immediately lose agro of the group he was standing in the middle of and the rest of his team is firing into? They'd really thank you for that.

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I have found this technique possible on an ice tank. With the slows, it is possible to do short hops (1-2 seconds) out of the mob, punch, and dart back in again. Its pretty limited, but it is an option. Its certainly no substitutr for the 5 target auto hit taunt, but I have occassionally have to use it when taunt is recharging.

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I agree this does work for an Ice tank, it works better if you have Hurdle and Combat Jumping and fast attacks.

Thanks everyone.

After playing from I3 and seeing many nerfs to this character the one that stands out the most isn't the toggle IH to clicky IH or ED.

It is the fist spines of Lunge being reduced from 3 feet long to about 1 foot long.

That's pretty much my point of view too.

I'm sure I could make a tank and tank well without taunt, because I am Mindset A. But why would I want to? Last time I built a tank I planned not to get taunt until 20 but I caved at level 12 and got taunt, because I really missed not having it. That was on an Ice tank too.

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And invunerability is far from underpowered. Against Smash / Lethal damage it will outshine all the other sets at any level.

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Nah, even against pure smashing/lethal, stone has invulnerability beat. Invulnerable tanks make good scrankers or secondary tank. Fire is a little on the fragile side for primary tanking imho; ice or stone ftw... providing they have taunt [img]/uk/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Stone is not better than Invun until it gets Granite, where it outpowers everything. But with a -need to hit- taunt aura, severely impaired mobility, and taunt recharging at 1/3 normal speed, I never feel as safe with a granite tank in the team as I do with an invun or ice- personally.

Until granite, Invun does actually outshine Stone (Invunerability gives extra defence for a start! - then there is unyeilding for extra resistance).

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Before Invincibility a Stone Tank can out perform an Inv tank against S/L. Here I've slotted with 3 DOs.

Inv with RPD, Temp Inv and Unyielding has 55.25% resistance and -5% defence for 50% damage mitigation as the defence penalty makes you take 10% more damage.

The Stone tank with Stone Armour, Rock Armour, Rooted is about 20.8 defence and 16.25% resistance. That's 50% mitigation too, but you also have decent regen, so you are tougher...

However in the levels between 18 and 32, Inv considerably outperforms stone.