Unthing

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If you can spare the slots why not? More endurance is never a bad thing.

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I agree more endurance is never a bad thing, slotting Speed Boost for Run speed would be a bad thing.

My point is that you probably don't need to slot it, so if you have other places to put the slots, put them in the other place.

Increase Density: I found you can't keep this on a team, it runs out too fast. So I would slot it with 1xDam Resist.

IMO Speed Boost needs no slotting with SOs, just put an End Mod in it. It has a base of 0.97ish, more than a fully slotted stamina. If they need 1.8 end per second over basic end recovery they would only be able to function with a kin on the team anyway. If you regulary team with someone like this and they are very effective I'd like to know what powersets they have ( Spine/DA scrapper perhaps with 2 damage auras and no stamina?).

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Footstomp and KOBlow are the cornerstone of the set, both must-have(one high dmg+hold, the other AoE, high dmg+knockup)if you remember the Mayhem mish you made with GG while I was with JB you may remember how much damage I prevented keeping her minions on their b.utt
Personally I would respec later on after you'll get Footstomp(or maybe at lvl 37 ) leaving Icicles(many ice tanks are sayin they're not worth the end they use)out of the build and maybe picking KOBlow instead

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If you are comparing Icicles to Foot stomp then you have to slot 2 recharge ( or run Hasten ) to get the same DPS as with Icicles. However endurance per second and damage per endurance of Icicles is significantly better ( by 25% ). If you slotted Foot Stomp for 3 recharge + Hasten you can get 45% more dps but at 4 times the cost. Icicles is currently my highest damaging power, slotted 1xend,1xacc,1xdam whereas Haymaker ( slotted 1xacc,3xdam) does about 75% the damage of Icicles over a play session. It also requires no action on my part. I think the decision to delay Knockout Blow in favour of Icicles was a wise one on this tank, but that was a playstyle choice and I wouldn't have been able to put more than 2 extra slots into it for many levels.

If you are comparing it to other damage auras it does more damage than Mudpots and about 10% less than Blazing Aura ( which is the same endurance cost ). Obviously lethal damage is more heavily resisted than fire but even so, it's not a bad power.

What it doesn't do is any form of control, something that Foot Stomp does and something that can be used ( as you mention ) as damage mitigation. One thing I'm not sure about is whether having Icicles improves my ability to be an aggro magnet. I don't know whether it just gets eclipsed by the aggro from Chilling Embrace or whether they stack in any usable sense.

One real quandry I do have is do I miss out on the medicine pool in exchange for Foot Stomp, or do I get it in the late 40s?

I wasn't really concerned about the endurance, only the defence penalty, my endurance rarely gets below 50% anyway and I haven't slotted energy absorption up yet.

I know someone quoted it relativley recently, it could have been you. If it's closer to 20, I'd guess it is 20 exactly.

Assuming the def debuff works I'm hoping that it will get resisted to about 10 defence, which isn't too bad....

I have an Ice/SS tanker and was wondering about the Rage crash as I am yet to get Rage.

IIRC correctly it gives a defence debuff in the -10 to -20 range ( Can someone confirm the numbers? ). Will this debuff be resisted by the defence debuff resistances from Frozen Armor, Wet Ice and Glacial Armor?

If so how does the resistance work, does it reduce magnitude or duration?

Ice tankers are the FOTM at the moment it seems.

Remmeber that the planners do not take into account the recent move of taunt to a tier 4 power and move a good attack to tier 3.

I took

1: Frozen Armor
1: Jab ( Tier 1 attack, gash equivalent )
2: Chilling Embrace
4: Haymaker ( Tier 3 attack, beheader equivalent )
6: Wet Ice
8: HoarFrost
10: Combat Jumping
12: Taunt
14: Super Jump
16-20 fitness
etc...

I would swap Hoarfrost and Wet Ice for a starting build if I did it again. Jiaozy says that a tank needs to get the status protection power ASAP but Ice tanks can get it 2 levels earlier than other tanks and a rarely available self heal is going to help your early survivability more than a status protection which you are only going to use for travelling and against occasional tricky enemies as it costs too much endurance unless you are teaming. The levels 6-8 go pretty fast anyway.
I would recomend Chilling Embrace at level 2, it is better on damage mitigation + aggro control than Hoarfrost.

Oh no Jiaozy, you've thrown my entire build into doubt!!

Having got my Ice/SS tanker to level 26, I'm really enjoying the primary and only have 3 powers in the secondary, Jab, Haymaker and Taunt, Haymaker is a very good attack.

However I was planning on getting the Medicine pool rather than more primary powers at levels 35 and 38 but now you are tempting me into Footstomp at 38, which I decided not to get when I picked up Icicles at 22.

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So should I keep them, or swap for the Fighting pool?

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My view is .....

Resist Physical Damage can be replaced by Tough for better resistances at more endurance cost.

Resist Elements and Resist Energies can be replaced and out-performed by Combat Jumping and Weave for a solid defence at a cost of endurance.

Tough Hide should be picked at 26 and slotted up to 3 def buffs. It cannot be replaced and should not be left out.


Against non S/L damage you are only able to have 28% resistance. 16% comes from unyielding, the other 12% from the passives. If you get Weave and Combat Jumping instead you get about 10.6% defence. This stacks with Tough Hide and Invincibility to allow you to get about 45% defence.

Completely surrounded:
-5% ( unyielding ) + 1.56 * ( 2.5% (CJ) + 4.33% (Weave) + 5% ( TH) + 13*1.5% ( inv capped ) ) = 44% defence.

One enemy
-5% ( unyielding ) + 1.56 * ( 2.5% (CJ) + 4.33% (Weave) + 5% ( TH) + 4*1.5% ( inv 1 enemy ) ) = 23% defence.

So the choice is something like do you want 23% defence and 16% resistance or 15% defence and 28% resistance ( assuming you get combat jumping anyway and slot it for defence ). Given that a point of resistance is worse than a point of defence ( the devs use 2 resistance = 1 defence but it is more like 1.5 ) and your defence scales with invincibility I think that the defence is a better choice.
However this comes at a cost and you have to heavily slot your toggles for end reducer, especially the fighting pool ones ( I have 2 end reds on Tough, Weave, Temp invulnerability and unyielding ).

Personally I'd do something like this assuming I was planngin on missing the passives.

Primary: Invulnerability
Secondary: Super Strength
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Temp Invulnerability==> DmgRes(1) DmgRes(3) DmgRes(3) EndRdx(15)
01) --> Jab==> Acc(1) Dam(7) Dmg(15)
02) --> Dull Pain==> Rechg(2) Rechg(9) Rechg(9) Heal(11) Heal(13) Heal(13)
04) --> Haymaker==> Acc(4) Dmg(5) Dmg(5) Dmg(7)
06) --> Combat Jumping==> DefBuf(6)
08) --> Unyielding==> DmgRes(8) DmgRes(11) *
10) --> Taunt==> Rechg(10)
12) --> Hurdle==> Jump(12)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Health==> Heal(16) Heal(17) Heal(17)
18) --> Invincibility==> DefBuf(18) DefBuf(19) DefBuf(19)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20) EndMod(21) EndMod(21)
22) --> Knockout Blow==> Acc(22) Dmg(23) Dmg(23)
24) --> Punch or Boxing or RPD
26) --> Tough Hide==> Empty(26)
28) --> Rage==> Empty(28)

* This should probably be filled up soon or take a slot from Jab.

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run thru the first mob group so you are at the back of the group, using the taunt aura this will pull this first group onto you.

taunt 2nd more distant group

the running to the far side of the group turns all the mobs round so any aoe or cone attacks coming out the mobs will be in your direction only, thus the rest of the party dont get all that hard to avoid damage.

I so rarely see any tank do this.

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It is a more risky strategy than the 1 spawn at a time tactic but works well in some circumstances. However if as a result you can get all of them in melee with you it worthwhile as then AoEs can be used to quickly take 2 spawns out in about the same time as one.
Generally I would only do this is the team is clearly doing well, is AoE heavy and doesn't have too much in the way of knockback. Also I would have to be feeling confident that I could take 2 spawns, that 2 spawns is less than the aggro cap ( 17 enemies ) and that enough of the enemies will close with me ( mostly melee enemies ). On large teams you will hit the aggro cap. On small teams, duoing and trioing this becomes a good way to clear missions faster.

Congratulations to the Rock Eagle!

Gratz Hyperfox!

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Ive never met a Granite Tank, even with presence pool, I felt ENTIRELY comofortable with, although I reckon it could be done on a skilled team.

Wait until you play ice tanks, you will see there really is no comparison for aggro magnetism. However, you will die fare more easily .

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I've seen great tanking that I remember from both Ice and Inv tanks. I haven't teamed with that many Fire tanks as a squishy, most of the Fire tanks I've met when I was also a tank which IMO is not a good time to judge a tank's tanking ability, only how tough they are. A great deal of the Granite stone tanks I've met just don't seem to care. AFAIK I've never been on a team with a presence pool stone tank. However Granite is the toughest by far against anything but Slash/Lethal where Inv can tanks win with certain fighting pool builds.

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Being new to the game I've started 2 toons, getting both into the low 20's. With one being an Inv/SS tanker I'm starting to realise I may not have gone for the best build ever.Now I'm looking to do the Respec thing, I was wondering if any of you guys could recommend a good build or some guidelines as I'm quite happy with the power sets themselves. I do like soloing with him as well despite it being sloooooow at times!

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Not sure about the exact build, however these are the minimum power I would consider for a level 24 Inv tank, I'm not too familiar with Super strength but definately get taunt:-

Primary:-
Dull Pain, 3xrecharge, 3xheal
Temp Invul, 3 slots of resistance + possibly a end red..
Invincibility 3 slots ( def Buf ).
Unyielding 1-3 slots resistance + possibly an End red ).
Resist Physical Damage 1-3 slots of resistance

Fitness Pool:-
Swift or Hurdle ( generally I prefer Swift )
Health 1-3 slots Heal
Stamina 3 slots end mod.

Travel Power:-
Prequisite: ( Recall Friend or TP Foe ), Combat Jumping ( 1xDef buf ), Air Superiority (slot ACC + dam to taste ) or Hasten ( 3 slots recharge )
Travel powers : Super Speed (1 slot), Super Jump(1 slot), Fly(1-3 slots) or Teleport(1-3slots).

@aaaARMSaaa
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I think my methods very similar to Unthing with my ice/ice tank.

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From your description it sounds more like the static style I use for Golden Golem than the more hectic/dynamic/jumpy one I [sometimes] use for the Hibernal Flea.

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5. CE normally keeps the agro on me, if there is anyone outside of CE's influence I try to taunt them to keep their attention on me.

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I've found ( on Hibernal Flea ) that CE's duration is such that jumping to the offending enemy, hitting an attack and jumping back usually means I don't lose aggro on main group but I can get the outlier into melee mode. A well placed local taunt pre-jump guarantees aggro is kept too. It seems a bit contrary to use taunt like this but seems to work. However you do end up feeling a bit like a sheepdog.

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6. Keep an eye on the team window to watch people's health, if anyones health drops I click on them and hit taunt.

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I tend to look at the people as well as the health bars on both tanks. I don't click on the teammate and taunt, I probably should, as targetting their enemy with the mouse can be slow and sometimes seconds count.

@Carnifax
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Ice seems to be the flavour of the month in CoX though. The amount of Ice Tanks & Controllers running around...

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I went for it because I wanted another tank. I didn't want another Inv ( I have 2 ) , I have a rotting Fire tank on defiant and a /Fire Brute. I don't like the idea of Stone, it looks ugly and I hate the idea of the equivalent of self imposed caltrops all the time so Ice was the obvious choice.

I think the choice of primary is also important. It is easier to have one with a decent secondary effect and a good single target chain. Remember on the hardest difficulty you will only be facing 2-3 enemies per spawn.
So I wouldn't go for spines, not enough decent single target attacks at low level really. DA is quite good because of Touch of Fear, allowing you to take out an Lt or minion from the fight until you have defeated his mates, also Shadow Maul is really neat damage. MA has knockback, which is good as damage mitigation, especially against many nasty opponents. The swords have defence in Parry/DA. I'm not sure about claws.

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b) My radation defender worships tanks (particularly ice tanks)... cluster, debuff, kill. I rarely need to heal, empaths feel useless. Now this is a tight team, but it wouldny work without a solid tank who knows how to cluster.

...what i am trying to say is tanks have a very important role in clustering mobs when u play with debuffers or AoE blasters. You CAN do it without a tank, but its that much harder. So I have completely revised my opinion from playing my tank (tanks are useless) to tanks are extremely helpful... not for only managing aggro (although that is very helpful) but for manuevering enemies.

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Clustering enemies is certainly what Ice tanks do best due to the long aggro time of Chilling Embrace.

I spent the last few days teaming my Ice tank with a Nova specialised Peacebringer. Tanks and AoEs mix wonderfully. This is where the bonus of having a tank comes from, Nova Khelds and Fire Blasters ( better due to no knockback ) benefit hugely from being able to let rip without worry. It is one of those mutually beneficial relationships.

Add a rad defender in there too and you have one of the scariest trios ever.

I've never seen/heard that either.

What it is suppose to mean? Is it an order ( as in Please start tanking ), an observation ( I see a tank ) or a cry for help ( This big thing is attacking me, please taunt it ) ?

After various thread recently about the importance of various powers ( Taunt and Auras ) I thought I would start a thread about tanking tactics.

So what are your tanking tactics and what powers are most useful in achieving them.
a) How do you engage the enemy?
b) How do you retain aggro and control the enemy?
c) What targets do you go for with your attacks?

Let's start with Golden Golem, Lvl 50 Inv/Fire
Engagement -
Method A: For patient teams or hard enemies, he hides, pokes round a corner and taunts ( slotted for range ). When they reach the corner he leads with Combustion.
Method B: For Gungho teams and easier enemies, he runs jumps and then hits Combustion in the middle of the spawn.

Aggro Control -
Generally he goes for the AoE heavy approach, usually using Fire Sword Circle and Combustion. If enemies insist on staying at range he closes with them, only stubbornly ranged enemies won't engage him then. Sometimes moving in circles or jumping over the heads of enemies helps gather them. Taunt is left in reserve so it can be used for enemies outside the immediate vacinity. The advantage of AoE heavy attacks is that you can look at the squishies when targeting enemies and keep out of range danagerous enemies targetted. Invincibility and Hastened Combustion are the main tools of the trade. The grouping means he can usually get enough defence from Invincibility to not worry about non-slash/lethal damage.

Preferred targets
Usually Bosses then lts, he will leave minion to last as they die from AoE splash damage.


Next my new tanker, Hibernal Flea a level 17 Ice/SS.
Engagement - as per Golden Golem but without Combustion and more blatant use of his aura.

Aggro Control -
The major difference here is far more use of jumping from one side of the spawn to the other and more blatant use of punchvoke with his quick Jabs and Haymakers. Chilling Embrace causes the enemies to slow to a crawl so sub-par defences can be avoided by pretending to be the ball in a primary school football match. This also has the advantage that it entices all the enemies into melee range and makes them run to get you very slowly. Taunt is used occasionally on the stragglers is they start to break from the group. Combat Jumping is essential for this strategy, he also has Hurdle, which gives him better initial jump speed at the expense of landing accuracy. This is a far more mobile tanking style than Golden Golem as involves more tanking from the edge of the spawn than from the middle.

Preferred Targets -
Bosses are nasty for Ice at this level, so they are prime targets for taunting and leaving them in Baywatch mode. Generally he will spread attacks over the group rather than concentrate on anyone. However if there is an energy or fire user around they will get a Haymaker in the painful parts.

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could go for burn.

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Not while hovering IIRC.

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How strong is the status protection from Plasma Shield? Someone said that I'd need Acrobatics as well, but I'm hesitant.

(I have Hover for knockback, so that's not an issue.)

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If you have Hover for Knockback and are happy with it, Acrobatics is a waste. It provides much less protection than Plasma Shield aginst holds.

However how do you deal with immobs? You have no protection against them.

For stealthing missions I prefer Superspeed to anything else. The combination of speed + stealth it provides is awesome.

I successfully managed to stealth that 5 minute timed Praetorian mission with my scrapper against +5s or so, so I doubt you need the concealment pool if you have taken Hasten already.

Also assuming you aren't being heavily sidekicked a tank should be tough enough to take an alpha strike from a spawn if he gets spotted with a tier 1 stealth power ( stealth or superspeed ).

As for Grant invisibility, I suspect that by taking it you are neglecting something that could be used to make yourself more useful to a team, like being tougher and more self sufficient ( primary power or fighting/medicine pool ) or doing more damage ( secondary power ) or some control ( either primary, secondary or perhaps the presences pool ).

Really a good stealther of missions should have recall friend too, in order to move the entire team in defeat boss missions.

Generally Tank builds are tight.. there isn't enough slack IMO for buffing friends unfortunately. I'd say leave that to the defenders and controllers.

You don't need the Knockback protection of Wet Ice at level 6. Frozen Armour ( the first one ) is needed if you have the end to spare. However Chilling Embrace, a power whose description does not do it justice, is an absolute must , it is the reason Ice tanks work well as you can make enemies spend more than half the fight running to catch you up. Also it is the best power I've seen for gathering enemies together in one place ( Mud Pots might be as good but as it is usually paired with Rooted I doubt you can do the same trick ).

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but its still not the tankpowers that are bad, after ED yes the defenses got lower, so did the enemy stats, sure we cant keep as muc haggro as before ED, thats wy the spwnrate is lowered. its all balanced out so IF (and this goes for all AT's) you play according to the balancing system you are just as good as before, just in a smaller scale in ALL aspects of the game.

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The problem is you become good compared to enemies much later, so tanking early on is hard, which makes people scrank rather than tank and not try to gain aggro. So you get less good tanks. There have been various threads in the US boards about people who made new tanks and found that by using their primary they failed to be anything good, but by ignoring their primary and just concentrating on their secondary they got good results.

It seems the mainstay of most tanking builds are now one of four powers, Dull Pain, Hoarfrost, Earth's Embrace and Healing Flames. Heavy slotting on these makes a vast difference to survivability, ignoring them can mean a non-survivable toon.

I feel that at high levels tankers are certainly balanced about right to make them challenging, but I am concerned that the powersets are balanced for the whole primary set, something which most builds cannot fit in.