Unthing

I was going to look over your build and try and give Ice advice... then I realised who posted .....

I can't recommend Hasten enough for a Kin. You have so many Recharge reducers slotted that Hasten will really improve your powers. Also Siphon Speed allows you to keep Hasten downtime pretty low.

Also I prefer Transference slotted for 3 recharge first, I think mine is 1 ACC, 3 recharge and 2 end mods but I run tactics. If I didn't run tactics I would use 2 acc, 3 recharge and 1 end mod. The end gained is enough from a single end mod to fill you up.

I went the Hover route at one point and hated it. It seems great on paper except you can never get Siphon Speed perma in a real team situation due to sometimes missing and teammates defeating your target, I found that you need 2 Siphon Speeds to get decent speed too. I would then switch to fly to find the next enemy and run out of end. However I was not sensible enough to slot 3 flight speeds in Hover, something that is essential for this strategy IMO.

As for Inertial Reduction, it makes a pretty reasonable travel power.

Also I have said in the past ( and many have disagreed with me ) that Speed Boost only needs the default slot. It provides a better endurance boost than 3 slotted Stamina unslotted and with the default slot is something like 1.5 times as good as 3 slotted stamina. I would try without extra slots and see how it goes. Given that you have planned to slot them in the mid 20s I suspect you will use the slots for something else.

I'd really like to do this. Unfortunately I haven't decided who to bring, not that I have much choice unless I can get one of my early thirties characters up to 35 sharpish.

Damn about not stacking, I guess there is no point putting recharge in there then. Thinking about it, it would be too good if it did.

I expect smoke grenade would stack if you had 2 blasters though.

I checked on the US boards, they said 20% 3 slotted, so I reckon it is 10% base as I thought. So SG is the best defence a blaster can get.

This does mean that a blaster with the Ice Epic can floor even minion to hit with Combat Jumping ( 3%def 1 slotted ), Cloaking Device ( 4.2% 1 slotted ), Frozen Armour ( 18.7% 3 slotted ) and Smoke grenade ( 19.5% 3 slotted ) = 45.5%. Which is a possibility for my future plans, although the single target hold in the electrical epic sounds more tempting.

I've been playing my blaster again recently. I was wondering if anyone knows whether Smoke Grenade stacks?

Also does anyone know what it's to hit debuff is? I think it was 10% or so, but I don't know where I got that figure from.

Does anyone have slotting advice, currently I have 3 to hit debuffs and 1 acc.

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My character Cosmic Monk has been struggling to get invites from lvl 17. Am currently Lvl 19 and have no future because my other power is arrows, waste of time on your own if you ask me. Reading other comments looks like this character will be no good to anyonw from lvl 30.

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Not getting invites is depressing, I've been there. Normally being in an active supergroup helps, but not always. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and solo, or spend 5-10 minutes sending tells to people to get in teams.

As for your future in higher levels I think you are missing the point. I'm not a huge fan of empaths specifically as some are on this thread. However a good defender of any team is very worthwhile. The main argument on this thread seems to be whether or not a good empath is better on a good team than a good rad/dark/kin/storm etc. Any defender is better than none and makes a large difference to what a team can take on. Empaths really are in demand due to most players love of healing.

I have a Rad/archery defender, whilst archery is not necessarily the best secondary it has one of the best single target attacks in Blazing Arrow. As a result of this the single target attack chain is actually better than many of the others including electrical and energy, it also doesn't need many attacks ( 3 IIRC ). Defenders do not do decent damage unless buffed. Also Archery is probably going to get some sort of positive change in I7 according to some posts by Castle.

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I run both Tough and Weave and I have very few endurance problems(invuln/ss): I have an end redux enhance in Temp Invuln, Unyielding and Invincibility and 3 end redux on both Tough and Weave with the slots left from the other toggles(I dropped both REn and REl due to the minimal benefit), plus an end redux in all my attacks(all slotted for 1 acc, 3 dmg, 1 end redux, 1 rec redux).

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Similarly I have Tough, Weave, Temp Inv and Unyielding all 2 slotted with end reducers.

All attacks are slotted the same way as Jiaozy.

The problem with Elec is that is has few good single target attacks. It only has 2 standard ones, Charged bolts and Lightning Bolt.

The third power, ball lightning is probably the reason you are running out of end quicker than the other blasters ( what powersets do they have? ) as it is AoE and so costs lots of endurance.

The endurance recovery element of elec is rare and doesn't recover much endurance. It only works on the single target attacks.

As for Devices, you probably know already, I personally use Targetting Drone, Cloaking Device, Caltrops and Smoke Grenade.

Aren't these better suited to the Creative forum?

I thought the Tanker forum was about issues related to tanker archetype, for example build advice and powerset questions.

Also other archetypes would gain benefit from them then.

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TI+UY =55,1% S/L RES
TI+UY+RPD =66,9% S/L RES
TI+UY+Tough =78,7% S/L RES
TI+UY+Tough+RPD = 90,5% S/L RES



(All powers slotted with 3 +3 RES SO's)

IMO, if you REALLY want to be the king against S/L, take both tough and RPD.

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Ok I have to ask because I guess i have not played my tanker for quite a while.....

I have RPD + Uny + TI, Uny and TI are 6 slotted with lvl 50++ Resdam enh and RPD I believe has 3 50++ enhancements. Is that not enough to hit the lvl 90 cap?

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Due to ED you are probably sitting between 67 and 70%, closer to 67 than 70, I'd imagine. If you had 3 dam res SOs in TI, Unyielding and RPD you would have 66.9 resistance as quoted above.

Is Hand Clap worth taking as a soft control power to improve survivability?

Does it do Knockback, Knockdown or Knockup? How often does it disorient?

I have Hasten and I have found that with one Recharge in Rage it's downtime is never more than 20 seconds, so an attack chain after the crash or so I can reactivate it. Sometimes when I'm lucky I actually have an overlap, being able to hit Rage and get an attack off before the crash. I will put another recharge in it to guarantee permaness, but it doesn't seem a high priority.

As an aside I got the Iron Blade temp power from Croatoa yesterday. Without rage it is a solid attack, about the same as Haymaker. However when Rage is up it does almost enough to one shot a minion.

I have all the Ice powers except Permafrost and Hibernate and am very happy with them all. It is certainly a fun tanker set but very hairy at times.

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The Mothman!

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Whose arch nemesis would be Dr Lightbulb!

If you are not getting Granite then your only options are Tough, Weave, Aid Self, Maneuvers, Hasten ( to speed up recharge of earth's Embrace ) or control type powers from your secondary ( Hand Clap / Foot Stomp ). I haven't tried hand clap or Foot Stomp so I can't advise there.

Aid Self is the best choice from a pure numbers point of view, it is interruptible but is available very often. It does seem a bit lame though.

Tough and Weave together are both worthwhile IMO, although Weave has only a small defence bonus ( 6.75% 3 slotted ), it does affect all damage types and so will stack with your primary. There are quite expensive toggles, costing more each than the toggles from your primary by about 50%.

Maneuvers provides a small defence bonus ( 3.5 3 slotted ) this stacks with armours the same as weave. This is a costly toggle.

Hasten speeds up Earth Embrace, whilst this does make a difference it is far less than Tough or Weave. It has about the same effect on survivability through EE being up quicker as Maneuvers but also increases attack rate.

If you had all of these powers you would be as tough as if you had a single slotted Granite ( slotted for resistance ).

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I've been the only one online in the SG for almost 2 months, with some rare apparition of Golden Golem...

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If you had said that 2-3 weeks ago I'd agree, but the Hibernal Flea has been on every day for the last 2 weeks and at level 32 is 50k ahead of ANYBODY in the SG in Prestige*.

* The second is Golden Golem....

Does anyone else earn Prestige for this SG? Surely you don't want to be beaten by a midgety gimped Ice tank?

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Well it was a blast.

The best part was when the Tankers 1st went in and got decimated.

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I blame ED!!! Anyway sorry I couldn't make it, which AT brought their tenacle down first?

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I blame the fact that we went for the middle tentacle and so got attacked by all of them......

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01 : Barrage acc(01)
01 : Temp Invulnerability endred(01) damres(3) damres(13) damres(31)
02 : Dull Pain hel(02) hel(3) hel(5) recred(5) recred(43) recred(46)
04 : Taunt tntdur(04)
06 : Air Superiority acc(06) dam(7) dam(7) dam(29)
08 : Unyielding endred(08) damres(9) damres(9) damres(13)
10 : Bone Smasher acc(10) dam(11) dam(11) dam(15) recred(43) recred(43)

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You can't get Taunt at level 4, it is a level 10 power. Get Bone Smasher at level 4. They changed it recently, swapping the order of taunt and the 3rd attack in all of the tanker secondaries.

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I like rage, I have no problem with the 'down time' as it is so short. Occasionally I run into a group just as it wears off but hey, it hasn't killed me yet...

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Oh I am in no danger, the def debuff is resisted by my armour. It's the rest of the team I worry about....

I've come to the conclusion after using Rage quite a bit that I prefer using it as a situation power.

Originally I had planned to slot it with 2 recharge to make it perma with Hasten ( 3 slots ) and then add 2 to hit buffs. I was then going to remove the accs from attacks.

However the crash was too severe, not in terms of endurance or defence ( which i didn't even notice due to the Def debuff resistance I assume ) . The not attack is pretty nasty for a tanker as it means that your auras stop working and so unless careful you lose aggro.

So I'm going to keep accs in my attacks and use Rage when appropriate, only slotting it with 1 recharge...

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Hmm it seems what I really need is a build that can fit this all in - I really want to include CJ/SJ/Acrobatics then Kick/Tough/Weave. If anyone could post a build... btw - plus fitness.

[/ QUOTE ]Acrobatics? Why on earth would you want that for a non-fire tank?

Oh, and weave is pretty [censored] nowdays

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Weave is pretty [censored] nowaways, in isolation.

However Weave + Tough Hide + Combat Jumping + Invincibility on an Inv tank ( all with 3 def SOs ) gives you 20.5% base defence with 1 enemy in melee. When surrounded by 10 enemies, this goes up to 43%, capping minions and giving Ice tank level defences to all damage types other than Psi or Toxic ( Ice tanks don't get it against Ice, Fire, Toxic or Psi ). Weave provides 7% of this defence.

As Gideon said. Resist Physical Damage is only worthwhile because it stacks with Temp Invulnerability. Tough does provide better protection but it means another pool and does cost significant endurance.

However IMO if you plan to take tough you don't need RPD as ~80% resist and using the tactics to take advantage of invincibility ( which you have to use against other damage types ) you will be tougher than a tough thing against S/L damage and don't need any more damage mitigation.

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If you have the power slot to spare Weave is a good choice aswell stacking nicely with Invincibility and Tough Hide gives you defence at Ice Tanks levels.

The Fighting pool can be an absolutely great choice and with the upcoming change to defence Weave will be far better than it actually is, the build will become more end heavy tho.

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I would say that with Tough and Temp Inv you would be better off with the extra defence from Weave than with the capped resists from Resist Physical Damage. It is the choice of 12% resists versus S/L or 7% defence against everything... Golden Golem in his I6 form never had Resist Physical Damage and I never had any problems against Slash/Lethal damage in the whole 40s.

The fighting pool is really good with the Inv set, it is the tanking primary that benefits most from it. It does suck endurnace, so be warned.

I had it used upon me when messing about in Siren's Call ( there was a fun fight between my Ice Tank and a Dominator and a stalker ) . Whilst it didn't detoggle me it made me almost useless. It seemed to be good and effective without being overpowered, I did have some control on where I could move but only enough to change directions.

I'd get it if I were you.

Defence against even opponents is approximately twice as good as resistance.

In reality because you fight higher levels some of the time it less good than twice. About 1.5% is a realistic number.

Also Energy Absorption, from the Ice primary provides scalable defence, it gives you around 0.5% defence base per opponent in melee plus 2.5%. This means you can get 7% extra base defence to all damage types, in practice you rarely get more than 5%. Energy Absorption also has the capability to be double stacked, providing that bonus twice some of the time.

Also the high base number for Inv is unsustainable, as most comes from Unstoppable which is not available more than about 33% of the time. The non Unstoppable resist is more like 42.5%.

As a Inv/SS tanker, it might be worth putting taunt enhances in one of your attacks if you don't solo and can take the aggro. This is only because you get your taunt aura late at 18. However I never have