Invulnerability/Fire Melee Tanker Guide for I6

Tiffany_Seville · 10-25-2005 02:52 PM

Tiffany (Tiffanator) Sevilles Inv/Fire Guide for Testing I6
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Attributions:
Thanks to Finuilas, Vilance, Axterix and Smersh for their suggestions. Thanks to Buffy for her excellent Tanker Information for I5.

Issue 5 brought a lot of change to the Invulnerability Tank. Now, were faced with Enhancement Diversification (i.e. ED) in I6. ED has a more subtle effect on the Inv/Fire tanker. Invulnerability is affected heavily by ED because so many of its powers are either single-enhaceable or are effectively single-enhancable. This guide is an attempt to both highlight these changes for the experienced tank, as well as provide some guidance to a player playing a tank for the first time.

Table of Contents
I've divided this guide into the following sections:

<ul type="square">[*]Summary of Enhancement Diversification changes[*]Inv/Fire Powers Overview - an overview of the Invulnerability Primary and Fire Melee Secondary powers[*]Build Strategies - a more detailed approach to Inv/Fire build strategies[*]Tanker Basics - an explanation of some basic game mechanics to help those new to tanking[*]Appendix One: Summary of Issue 5 changes[/list]For experienced Tankers
[color=orange]Enhancement Diversification Summary[/color]
Enhancement Diversification limits the bonus provided to a power by a single enhancement type. The basics are explained in CuppaJos post in Dev Digest. Basically it boils down to you receive very little additional benefit for putting more than three of the same type of enhancement in a single power.
The following list summarizes how ED may affect an Inv/Fire build (note: all calculations were done using Circeuss Enhancement Spreadsheet and assume even-lvl SOs):

<ul type="square">[*]Smashing/Lethal damage resistance: ~70% with 6-slotted TI, UY, and RPD; ~66% with 3-slotted TI, UY, and RPD; ~95% with 6-slotted TI, UY, RPD, and Tough; ~90% with 3-slotted TI, UY, RPD, and Tough. Yes, you need Tough if you want to cap S/L.[*]Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative Energy/Toxic damage resistance: ~29% with 6-slotted UY and Rel/REn, ~27% with 3-slotted UY and REl/REn[*]Invincibility 3-slotted DefBuf with requires eight foes in melee range instead of six to floor minion accuracy (using tested numbers for Invincibility)[*]3-slotted Tough Hide provides ~8% DEF instead of 11% DEF[*]Dull Pain can no longer be made permanent[*]attack slotting must be diversified in order to achieve DPS results similar to what was seen before ED[*]Stamina is limited to appx 2/3rds of its previous 6-slotted full potential. Note that in light of this, ED also introduces a 13% across the board endurance cost reduction for all powers[*]Hasten can no longer be made permanent[/list]How to adapt
With ED, there is little benefit in slotting single-enhancable powers beyond the first three slots. Invulnerability is one of the hardest hit sets because it has four such powers. If your I5 build burned a lot of stamina or relied on perma-Hasten for a complete attack chain, youre in for some tweaking.
<ul type="square">[*]Decide how much S/L RES you want. If you want to hit the 90% cap, you will need to take and three-slot TI, UY, RPD, and Tough. Yes, time to dive into the Fighting Pool again. If good S/L RES is enough, you can get to 78% with three-slotted TI, UY, and Tough or 66% with three-slotted TI, UY, and RPD.[*]Decide how much non-S/L RES you want. Fewer options here. You can reach 27% with three-slotted UY and REl/REn. If you leave these powers at their base slot, you still get 21%. You decide how many of the other six slots you want to allocate. You may be surprised to find ED leaves you with enough spare slots to three-slot them all, anway.[*]If you burned endurance even with 6-slotted Stamina and Conserve Power, start thinking about slotting EndRdx into your attacks and maybe into your toggles. This may take some play testing and it may depend on other toggles you run in battle (e.g. CJ, Hover, etc). My end use is pretty comfortable with three-slotted Stamina and one EndRdx in all my attacks, but you mileage may vary. If you start slotting toggles, hit them in the following order: Tough, UY, TI, Invinc
.[*]If you had perma-Hasten, perma-DP, or 6-slotted Health, start thinking about freeing up those extra slots.[*]Decide how you want to re-slot your attacks. 3-Damage/1-Accuracy/2-Recharge is the popular wisdom for the best way to retain your DPS. This depends a bit on how tight your attack chain was and whether or not you had perma-Hasten. Other viable options might include 2-Acc or even 1-TntDur.[/list]Invulnerability Primary Powers
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Resist Physical Damage
RPD provides you with base 7.5% RES to smashing and lethal damage (S/L). It is a passive power, which means you dont have to click or toggle it for it to be active. Instead, it is always active and costs no endurance to maintain.
RPD is only enhancable with DamRes enhancements. As a result, it is not recommended you devote more than three slots to this power.
Three-slotted with even-level enhancements, RPD will offer 8.625% S/L RES (TOs), 9.75% S/L RES (DOs), or 11.7% S/L RES (SOs).

Recommendation: Taking and slotting RPD depends on two things: 1.) What is your target for S/L RES and 2.) How much S/L do you want to have in the early levels.
If hitting the cap is important to you (and i'm talking absolutes here, not 89% but 90% or greater), you should be aware that you will need TI, RPD, UY and Tough (from the Fighting power pool) to get there with ED. You also can't hit the cap until you get access to SO's, so that should be considered for timing these powers in your build.
Of course, you don't have to hit the S/L RES cap. S/L damage is by far the most common in CoH and if you don't hit the cap, you may need to rely on your DEF a bit more heavily than tanks who do. However, you can survive reasonably well below the S/L RES cap.
I have always advocated somewhere near 70% S/L RES as a good rule of thumb for where a tank should be. With ED, there are two ways to do this. First, if you want to stick to your primary, you can get 66% S/L RES by taking TI, UY, and RPD and 3-slot them. Another alternative would be 78% S/L RES by taking and three-slotting TI, UY, and Tough. At a minimum, I expect most Inv tankers to at least take and three-slot TI and UY. That provides a base minimum ~55% S/L RES.
This puts RPD in an awkward position. At 15% base, Tough is by far the better choice for damage resistance. Of course, Tough is a toggle, so it costs endurance to use, while RPD does not. Tough is also harder to fit into a build, because it requires one pre-requisite from the Fighting pool and isnt available until lvl 14.
Taking all of this into account, I think were left with three things to consider when deciding whether or not you want to take RPD:
<ul type="square">[*]If you want to get to the S/L RES cap, you will have to take and three-slot RPD, along with TI, UY, and Tough[*]If you want decent (~70%) S/L RES you can either do TI+UY+RPD or TI+UY+Tough. If you can wait until the later levels and dont mind the endurance cost of Tough, the TI+UY+Tough path is probably a better choice. If you expect to have endurance problems and cant afford to give up two power choices in your build, consider the TI+UY+RPD route.[*]If you want to have the most S/L RES you can in the early levels (pre-20), you should fit RPD into your build in the first 10 levels or so[/list]Temporary Invulnerability
TI provides a base 30% RES to S/L when active. It is a toggle power, which means it costs endurance to keep running. Plus, it can be turned off by things that de-toggle, like status effects, PvP Brawl, or endurance drain.
TI is enhancable with damage resistance, endurance reduction, and rechage enhancements. TI really recharges too quickly for recharge to be useful. However, it has a moderate endurance cost, so endurance reduction may be worth considering, especially with the reduced effectiveness of Stamina post-ED.
Three-slotted with even-level damage resist enhancements, TI will provide: 34.5 S/L RES (TOs), 39% S/L RES (DOs), or 47% S/L RES (SOs). Note that six-slotted with SOs, TI does reach almost 50% S/L RES.

Recommendation: 3-slotted TI is likely to be considered a necessity for an Inv tanker in I5. As mentioned earlier, S/L is the most common damage type in Paragon City, and without TI, you wont get beyond 21% S/L RES. In my builds, this is the first power I take and I usually target having it 3-slotted by lvl 10. Since it has such a high base, even TOs and DOs actually provide some benefit for this power. For example, at lv 12, if you can afford three DO's, this power will get you to 39% S/L RES.
Some folk will likely slot one endurance reduction in TI. I have even seen builds with two. At the moment, folk dont really have a good feel for endurance costs in an ED world. For now, plan to slot endurance reduction as needed. It is certainly more effective to slot EndRdx in attacks first. However, if you still find you need to reduce your endurance use, the next target should be your toggles. The currently published endurance costs for the toggles are 0.38/s for TI, 0.4 for UY, 0.28 for Invinc, and 0.5 for Tough, so the order for slotting EndRdx in toggles is Tough, UY, TI, and Invinc.

Dull Pain
When activated, DP increases your health by 40% and provides some healing. Its worth reading Stupid_Fanboys Dull Pain: How it works, How to use it guide.

Recommendation: Most tanks will recommend taking DP in I5. There are three major considerations that lead to this. First, in the early levels, when your defenses are fairly undeveloped, 40% more hit points goes a long way towards improving your survivability.
Second, post-I4, an Inv tank simply cannot develop strong non-S/L RES. At the later levels, when non-S/L damage becomes more prevelant, DP provides an extra buffer of damage you can take and still survive.
Finally, perhaps the most compelling reason is DP affects your regeneration rate. The amount of health you regenerate is actually a percentage of your overall health. So, the greater your total health, the more health you recover per second. If you combine DP with 3-slotted Health, you can significantly boost your regen rate when DP is active. If you're taking a build approach that does not cap S/L RES or only includes very minimal non-S/L RES, you should consider the DP and Health combination.

Resist Elements
REl provides a base 7.5% RES to Fire/Cold/Toxic damage. Like RPD, REl is a passive power, so it is always active.
REl is only enhancable with DamRes enhancements. As a result, it is not recommended you devote more than three slots to this power.
Three-slotted with even-level enhancements, REl will offer 8.625% F/C/T RES (TOs), 9.75% F/C/T RES (DOs), or 11.7% F/C/T RES (SOs).

Recommendation: REl got hit pretty hard in I5 and then got hit a bit more with ED. With the drop in REl and UY, 3-slotted UY and REl will only get you 27.57% F/C/T RES. In I4, the same combination used to reach 88%. You will notice this difference.
This change has resulted in three main strategies for approaching REl. A lot of folk feel the drop is significant enough to warrant leaving REl out of their builds entirely. If you do take REl, many tanks are finding ED leaves them with so many unused slots, they may as well 3-slot it, even though the relative benefit is fairly small. A third strategy might be to take it and leave it with the base slot. The path you take is purely personal preference.
It should be noted that most of the significant non-S/L damage-dealing foes dont pop up until later in the game, so many folk put off getting REl until the mid-to-late 20s. The prevalence of Vahzilok missions in the early game may change this, now that REL and UY have Toxic RES. However, you can certainly survive without REl through the early levels.

Unyielding
UY provides status protection, RES to S/L (5% base) and Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative/Toxic (10%), and a 5% DEF debuff yes, you will be hit 5% MORE with UY active.
UY is enhancable with damage resistance, endurance reduction, and rechage enhancements. UY really recharges too quickly for recharge to be useful. However, it has the highest endurance cost of all the Inv primary powers, so endurance reduction may be worth considering, especially with the reduced effectiveness of Stamina post-ED.
Three-slotted with even-level enhancements, UY provides: 5.75% S/L and 11.5% non-S/L RES (TOs), 6.5% S/L and 13% non-SL RES (DOs), or 7.8% S/L and 15.6% non-S/L RES (SOs).

Recommendation: For the status protection alone, this power is worth taking. There are a broader collection of opinions on whether or not its worth slotting. On the plus side, slotting this power provides additional RES for seven different damage types, even though its not a lot of additional RES per slot. You can certainly survive with this power single-slotted.
In my builds, I take UY as soon as its available and 3-slot it eventually. I tend to keep UY on all the time, so my philosphy is why not get the most out of it. Furthermore, my builds tend to slot defensive powers before offensive powers.
UY also takes EndRdx enhancements. As mentioned in the section on TI, you should slot these as needed. Certainly, since UY has the largest cost of all toggles in the Inv Primary, it will be one of your first candidates.

Resist Energies
REn provides a base 7.5% RES to Energy/Negative Energy damage. Like RPD and REl, REn is a passive power, so it is always active.
REn is only enhancable with DamRes enhancements. As a result, it is not recommended you devote more than three slots to this power.
Three-slotted with even-level enhancements, REn will offer 8.625% En/Neg RES (TOs), 9.75% En/Neg RES (DOs), or 11.7% En/Neg RES (SOs).

Recommendation: Go back to the recommendation section for Resist Elements and substitute F/C/T for En/Ng as appropriate.

Invincibility
Invinc provides a DEF and ACC bonus for every foe, up to 14, in melee range. According to the Devs, it provides 1.5% S/L/F/C/En/Eg/T typed DEF for each foe. Testing seems to indicate if provides 3.5% melee DEF. Im going to stick with the Tested numbers in this guide, but Im a bit biased. Testing also indicates it provides around 3% ACC per foe in melee range.
In addition to its buffing effects, Invinc is also a Taunt aura, i.e. it Taunts foes within melee range.
Three-slotted with even-lvl DefBuf enhancements, Invinc provides: 4% DEF per foe (TOs), 4.55% DEF per foe (DOs), or 5.5% DEF per foe (SOs).
Invincibility is slottable with defence buff, accuracy buff, endurance reduction, recharge, and taunt duration enhancements. Invincibilitys recharge is short enough to make recharge enhancements effectively useless. However, all other enhancements are viable.
Three-slotted with even-lvl AccBuff enhancements, Invinc provides: 3.45% ACC per foe (TOs), 3.9% ACC per foe (DOs), or 4.7% ACC per foe (SOs).

Recommendation: In I5, Invinc arguably becomes the most important power in the Inv Primary. Think about it this way if you three-slot Invinc with DefBuf SOs, each foe in melee range will give you 5.5% DEF. In order to floor a minions to-hit, you will need to get eight foes in melee range. Thats pretty amazing just eight foes in melee range and suddenly every minion pounding on you has no better than a 5% chance to hit.
My recommendation is to take this power and three-slot it with DefBufs as quickly as possible. Three-slotted with SOs, youll need just 8 foes in melee range to floor even-con minions. Unslotted, it will take nearly 13. I wouldnt get fanatical about it, tho. Many folk do perfectly well without slotting Invinc for DefBuf at all. I just personally think is a small investment for a pretty big gain if you plan to be on teams amidst large numbers of foes fairly often.
Invincibility is fourth on the list of toggles to slot for endurance reduction. Slot Tough, UY, and TI first before putting one here.
Accuracy buff and taunt duration are worth considering for slots beyond the first three. Accuracy has the same advantage as DefBuf. If you plan to be teaming a lot and expect to be surrounded by many foes, youll get an even bigger boost from these slots. Dont forget about TntDur.

Tough Hide
Tough Hide is a passive power that provides base 5% S/L/F/C/En/Neg typed DEF. As a passive power, it takes no endurance and is always active.
Tough Hide only accepts Defense Buff enhancements, so it is recommended you stop at three slots.
Three-slotted with even-level DefBuf enhancements, TH provides 8% DEF (SOs).

Recommendation: Taking TH and leaving it single-slotted is enough to counter the DEF debuff in UY. If you take it and 3-slot it, youll get an 8% DEF bonus. In combination with UY and Invinc, this means one fewer foe in melee range needed for Invinc to floor minion accuracy.
In my builds I typically take TH late and leave it single slotted. With ED, I think there will be enough slots in most builds to 3-slot it. If you consider the numbers, its certainly a better power to slot than UY. In fact, I would suggest if you decide to not slot UY or eliminate REl and REn from your build, you should consider three-slotting TH.

Unstoppable
Unstoppable is a click power that provides a base 70% RES to S/L/F/C/En/Ng/T. In addition, it provides status protection and improves your endurance recovery rate. It comes with a price when it subsides, you are left with 10% health and no endurance.

Recommendation: I expect some debate about the importance of US in I5. It is certainly worth taking for emergency situations. Not only does it provide great RES, but it provides toggle-less RES it is a click power. So, as long as it is active, its benefits cannot be de-toggled. This can be a great advantage by itself in PvP and against endurance draining foes, like Malta Sappers.
In I5, its also a power that temporarily time-warps your tank back to I4. For the three-minute duration of US, you will easily be able to cap RES in S/L/F/C/En/Ng/T. In fact, two DmgRes in US allow you to reach the cap for all seven of its damage types without any other powers. Of course, US's end boosting effect means most tanks won't bother to turn off their other powers when they click US, so this may be overkill. If you have single-slotted UY and one DmgRes in US, you'll still be over the cap for everything. In fact, six-slotted UY with and no DmgRes in US still gets you over in most damage types and close in S/L.
Because of its inherent high RES, US can be a great boon against non-S/L AV's, who appear in droves in the 40+ levels. These foes can do significant non-S/L damage, and since they're single foes, Invinc won't help much. US will let you tank them for three minutes. Just be warned, a lot of AV battles will last longer than three minutes, so be prepared to have enough fire-power along to keep the battle short, or have a plan that allows your teammates to pick up the slack when you disengage from battle just before US drops.
Another option is to slot US with Recharge enhancements. I have heard a number of tanks plan builds around keeping US active as much as possible certainly a viable strategy; one which can free up a lot of slots and power choices! Note that, as of I5, US cannot be made permanent.

Fire Melee
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Fire melee has the advantage of being the secondary with the most area-of-effect (AoE) attacks. For this, its pays two noticeable prices. First, unlike most other Tanker secondaries, it doesnt have any status effect attacks, i.e. you wont get any attacks that disorient or knockdown foes. Second, in the later game, you find a reasonable number of foes with pretty good Fire resistance.

This might be a good time to talk about general offensive slotting strategy. ED has had a major effect on how tanks slot their offenses. Prior to ED, many tanks five or six-slotted their main attacks with Damage enhancements catering to the philosophy that a defeated foe is one you don't need to resist or defend against.
With ED, this is no longer a viable strategy. Instead, most folk will now have to decide what to slot their attacks with beyond the first three damage enhancement slots.
You will likely still want to six-slot your main attacks, but you may find some of those slots filled with ACC, TntDur, and EndRdx enhancements. For example, my personal approach is to slot most of my attacks with one EndRed, one Acc, one Recharge, and three Dmg. The EndRdx helps keep my endurance drain rate managable without needing Conserve Power. However, don't discount the possibility of TntDur in attacks. In I4 this wasn't terribly common practice because there wasn't a limit to the number of foes affected by Taunt. My current I5+ED build has TntDur in FSC and Combustion, to help with aggro management.

For some specifics, Cactus and Dracomicon posted a nice ED slotting guide for Fire Melee in the tanker forum in their Surviving ED - Slotting for Inv/Fire post.

Scorch
Scorch is a single target attack that does minor Fire damage with a chance of doing a small amount of follow-on Fire damage-over-time (DoT).

Recommendation: Well, you have to take it, so theres really no point, right? I will say something about slotting, tho. A lot of folk recommend leaving this one unslotted. By level 40, there are typically enough other more powerful attacks available that this one comes out of your attack chain so, outside of a respec, some folk feel slots are just wasted in Scorch.
Still, this is an attack you're likely to use heavily in the first 20 - 30 levels, which is a pretty significant amount of time. Axterix pointed out to me that, if you plan on only six-slotting only one attack in the first 20 levels, Scorch really has a slight advantage over Fire Sword. You can use it a little more frequently, which gives it an advantage for Gauntlet (Punchvoke), it does a bit better DPS (damage-per-second), and it uses slightly less endurance. It is also true that, of all Tanker Secondaries, Scorch is probably one of the better mandatory attacks.

Fire Sword
Fire Sword is a single-target attack which does moderate Fire/Lethal damage and also does Fire damage over time.

Recommendation: Many Inv/Fire Tankers recommend skipping FS in favor of relying more heavily on the later AoE attacks. This is a perfectly viable strategy that frees up one power in the early levels.
If you find yourself to be the impatient type, like me, you may find relying on just Brawl and Scorch frustrating. So, in my builds i take FS to round out my early attack chain.

Taunt
Taunt is an auto-hit ranged power that allows you to take the aggro from the targeted foe and the next four closest foes (i.e. five total). Even with the new limited number of affected foes, Taunt is still a powerful tool for managing aggro.

Recommendation: A lot of controversy surrounded Taunt in I4, and its likely to just get worse in I5. Many folk feel the foe limit makes Taunt unnecessary in light of other aggro management tools like Punchvoke (Gauntlet) and Invincibility. Others feel with the reduced defensive stance in I5, they may not be able to survive the aggro, anyway. For those who still take it, theres much debate over when to take it. Is it worth taking before youve built enough defense to survive its use or do you wait until you've built up reasonable defense? At what point do you cross that line?
Personally, I like to take Taunt when its available. In the early levels, your choices are limited, and I find level 4 to be a convenient time to grab it, even if I dont use it right away. In I4, I had enough defense to use Taunt by around lvl 12-14. In I5, my early testing seems to indicate this hasnt changed too much. Maybe 14-16 to be safe. However, taking Taunt early becomes a bit more problematic in I5 as there are actually some competing choices with RPD, DP, and FS.
If you decide not to take Taunt, learn to use your other aggro management skills effectively. Switch between foes to take advantage of Gauntlet (Punchvoke). Take advantage of Invincibility's taunt aura. Please try to be a good judge of how effective you are at doing this. If you find you simply can't manage aggro without Taunt, either take it or make sure to let your teammates know. Other AT's have always expected Tanks to manage team aggro, and some tanks even report being kicked from teams simply because they do not have Taunt. Im not suggesting you let other players dictate your build and play style for you, but its something to be prepared for. And remember, you can avoid a lot of angst by simply telling your teammates what to expect.

On slotting, I would suggest slotting Taunt with recharges, especially if you aren't picking up Hasten. Taunt may only affect five foes, but each time you use it you can affect a different set of five. So having it available more often can help you manage a greater number of foes.

Combustion
Combustion is a moderate Fire damage DoT PBAoE (point-blank area of effect) attack, i.e. its an AoE attack with you at its center.

Recommendation: There are two things that surprised me about this power when I picked it up. First, at 15', Combustion has a great radius and can affect a large number of foes around you. Second, it starts out a bit slow for its endurance cost. Although Axterix has pointed out to me that its cost is only a little worse than FS and its more efficient if you can reliably hit three foes around you.
I will suggest Combustion should be part of your build at some point. Fire Melee is a strong AoE secondary, and Combustion is one of the two must-have AoE's in the set. If you have held off on single-target attacks in your early build, take Combustion when it becomes available and get it slotted.

Breath of Fire
BoF is a cone of fire you breathe from your mouth. It does Fire damage in a reasonably narrow cone, but has the benefit of increased base accuracy.

Recommendation: Ive only had BoF in one of my builds and only for a short time before I respec-ed it out. Its not that horrible an attack, it just isnt as good as the other AoEs in the set. Plus, it comes at a very awkward time, when youre busy trying to make sure to fit in a travel power and get set up to have Stamina. I still miss taking out Clockwork "Gears" with this power, tho.

Build Up
Build Up boosts your accuracy and damage for 10 seconds.

Recommendation: Not essential, but it is a good power. You should be aware it cant be made perma. I had a long discussion with somebody about this once that I need to dig up and add here. The conclusion, however, was I dont recommend adding more slots to it.

Fire Sword Circle
FSC is a moderate Fire/Lethal damage PBAoE attack. It has a shorter radius than Combustion, but it does more damage. When you use it, you will notice a strange pause between when the animation completes and when you can do something.

Recommendation: FSC in combination with Combustion makes for great Inv/Fire tanking. I would recommend both powers 6-slotted. You may seriously want to consider EndRed in these, even if you dont use them in other attacks.

Incinerate
Incinerate is a single-target high Fire damage DoT attack.

Recommendation: When you get into the later game, you start to get opportunities to fight powerful single foes, like AVs. In these battles, it helps a great deal to have the strong single-target Fire attacks. I definitely recommend taking Incinerate as part of your single-target attack chain.
Also, Axterix has pointed out to me that Incinerate is incredibly end efficient. It has the second-highest DPE of any Tanker Secondary attack, without the HP penalty.
Incinerate does take some getting used to, because the damage is spread out over a longer time frame than most other DoTs. It takes some experience to get comfortable knowing Incinerate will do enough to take a particular foe out and you can switch to another foe. Thats probably the biggest downside to Incinerate youll find you waste its DoT damage because youll swing again or a teammate will take out a foe that would otherwise be defeated by the follow-on DoT.

Greater Fire Sword
GFS is the strongest single-target attack in the set. Like FS it does a combination of Lethal and Fire damage and has a Fire DoT. Like FSC, it has a noticeable pause after the animation completes which can be unnerving.

Recommendation: Id suggest taking GFS for the same reasons as Incinerate. In the late game, Incinerate and GFS will take a significant role in your battles with powerful single foes. Early on, I quickly make Scorch/FS/Incin my single-target attack chain. When GFS comes along, its easy to change to FS/Incin/GFS. Regardless of which single-targets you take, GFS and Incin are going to be the best damage-dealers.

Power Pools
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Im not going to spend a lot of time on Power Pools. In my mind, theyre largely personal preference. I will comment on a couple specific powers.

Tough As mentioned earlier, if you want to cap S/L RES, with ED you now need to include Tough in your build. Tough has a base of 15% S/L RES, so 3-slotted with even-level DamRes SOs, it provides 23.63% S/L RES. Tough has a high endurance cost, tho (0.5/s as of I5), so you may want to consider adding a slot for EndRdx if you find slotting EndRdx in your attacks isnt sufficient.

Stamina Ill always recommend Stamina somewhere between lvl 20 and 24. You can certainly do without it, but youre life will be a lot easier with it.

Health I would recommend slotting Health. In combination with Dull Pain, this will take your regen rate to a point where you can ignore a decent amount of incoming damage, at least during the times Dull Pain is active.

Hasten With ED, you can no longer have perma-Hasten. I expect this will result in many folk eliminating it from their build. Hasten still has some value, but it becomes situational, for example against foes that can slow your recharge rate.

Weave Weave provides positional DEF. As a result, it does not stack with Invincibility and Tough Hide. Because of this, theres really very little reason to take it as it will only help in situations where Invinc and Tough dont already apply, for example against Psionic attacks.

Air Superiority Fire Melee notably lacks a status effect power, i.e. a power that disorients, stuns, knockdowns, or otherwise prevents a foe from fighting for a short time. If you're interested in flying as a travel power, consider AS as a prerequisite. It has a very high probability of knocking down a foe. Personally, i just don't like AS for some odd reason, so i'd recommend you try it on Test for a bit before you commit to it.

Tips for the new Tanker
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<ul type="square">[*]It doesnt help to have good resistance unless you know what kind of damage youre being dealt. Theres a small menu at the top of your Chat window. Click on 1, 2, 3, or 4. A new window will pop up. Click on the Add Tab button in the middle of it. You will get a pop-up window that asks you to configure your new chat window. Select Damage Received on the right-hand side and click on the Add button then click the OK button. This will create a chat window that will always tell you how much youre being hurt and (usually) by what type of damage. Use this to gauge your survivability in combat. If you have low Energy RES and youre seeing a lot of Energy damage, ask your teammates for help or start being more conservative in battle.[*]Learn to use Invincibility. The more foes in melee range, the better your defensve. Depending on how you've slotted Invinc, this will mean somewhere between 8 and 13 foes. If you're on a team, most of the groups you find should be sufficient size you merely need to jump in the middle and do your thing.
You may, however, find situations where in order to improve your survivability, you need to gather enough foes. For example, if you're facing a somewhat spread-out group of foes that includes a strong non-S/L boss. You may need to gather the minions along with the boss in order to improve your chances. Axterix points out, that the actual process of gathering leaves you pretty vulnerable. While you're gathering, you are likely to be subject to more ranged attacks, which Invinc provides less defense against.[*]Be flexible. There are a lot of powers that show up in the lvl 18 to 28 range that you're going to want to slot and you can't slot them all at the same time. Slot them as you need them. For example, its probably not worth slotting endurance reduction in toggles until you actually find you have an endurance problem.[/list]

Tiffany_Seville · 10-25-2005 02:57 PM

Build Strategies:
For goodness sake, take this build advice with a grain of salt! I will try to provide some broad strategies applicable to different playstyles, but my advice is necessarily influenced by my personal views of the I5 Inv/Fire Tanker. You may certainly find my advice doesn't meet your individual needs, but hopefully some of this will be useful anyway.

Overall Strategy
With the advent of I5, the importance of various powers in the Invulnerability primary shifted a bit and with ED, it shifted some more. It is easy to divide the available powers into three broad tiers, with the top tier including the most useful powers in the set and the bottom tier covering the most optional. These tiers are the basis for all of my build strategies, regardless of their individual goals.

Top tier Powers
Primary: Invincibility and Temporary Invulnerability should be first on your list for taking and slotting. TI is still the strongest S/L RES power and Invinc is now the best tool in your Primary for protection. The more you slot Invinc, the fewer foes you need in melee range to floor villain accuracy.
Secondary: Fire Sword Circle and Combustion should be first on your list for 6-slotted attacks. AoE attacks are the specialty of Fire Melee and these two are the best in the set.

Middle tier Powers
Primary: Now it gets trickier ... powers you probably want to take, but slotting is more controversial: Unyielding, Dull Pain, Tough, Tough Hide, and Health. Most of these powers have been weakened by ED. The newcomer is Tough, since you cannot cap S/L RES without taking and three-slotting it. Tough is certainly not required, but I believe ED does move it into the middle tier.
[/i]Secondary:[/i] Greater Fire Sword and Incinerate are attacks you will probably want to have and to slot heavily. In the later levels, having high-damage single target attacks becomes important, both for taking out individual threats among groups of foes (like that non-S/L damage-dealing boss crowded among the eight minions you have in melee range) and for tanking massive threats like AV's and monsters.

Bottom tier
Primary: Resist Energies, RPD, and Resist Elements. You can probably survive without these depending on your play style. If you're a defensive player, you probably want to take them, but you may choose not to slot them.
As mentioned before, you will need three-slotted RPD to get to the S/L cap. However, since you can get pretty good S/L RES with TI, UY, and Tough, some folk may find they dont have room in their build for it.
With ED, taking and three-slotting REn and REl may become more popular, since it only costs four additional slots.
Secondary: You have to take Scorch, and its a decent attack among all the mandatory tanker secondary attacks, but i would certainly classify it with Fire Sword and Breath of Fire as the most optional attacks in the set.

You may note that Unstoppable, Taunt, and Build Up are not included in the tiers. None of these three powers is necessary, but they do tend to be a source of constant debate among tanks. I have seen builds and playstyles that rely heavily on them and have likewise seen those that do not.

Build Goals
When you start developing a build, you should have an overall strategy and a collection of goals to support that strategy.

Consider things like, how much RES do you want to have and when? Is it important for you to get the most defense out of your build early or to start out with enough offense to have a full attack chain by lvl 12? How heavily do you want to rely on Invincibility for overall defense? Do you plan to play mostly with teams and use a team-focused build or do you need a build for solo-only play or somewhere in between.

Your answers to all these questions affect how you build your hero. Lets look at some specifics.

]Early RES Aggressive Build
If you start building with the strategy of taking and slotting all your RES powers as early as possible, you might end up with a build like this:
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.5.8.0 of the CoH Hero Builder
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Temp Invulnerability==> DmgRes(1)DmgRes(3)DmgRes(5)
01) --> Scorch==> Acc(1)Rechg(7)Dmg(7)Rechg(11)Dmg(11)Dmg(13)
02) --> Resist Physical Damage==> DmgRes(2)DmgRes(3)DmgRes(5)
04) --> Taunt==> Taunt(4)
06) --> Boxing==> Empty(6)
08) --> Unyielding==> DmgRes(8)DmgRes(9)DmgRes(9)
10) --> Swift==> Run(10)
12) --> Hover==> Fly(12)Fly(13)
14) --> Fly==> EndRdx(14)Fly(15)Fly(15)Fly(21)
16) --> Tough==> DmgRes(16)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(17)
18) --> Invincibility==> DefBuf(18)DefBuf(19)DefBuf(19)
20) --> Health==> Heal(20)Heal(21)
22) --> Stamina==> EndRec(22)EndRec(23)EndRec(23)
24) --> Resist Elements==> DmgRes(24)DmgRes(25)DmgRes(25)
26) --> Resist Energies==> DmgRes(26)DmgRes(27)DmgRes(27)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Empty(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Empty(1)
01) --> Gauntlet==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Empty(2)
---------------------------------------------

This build ends up with 55.25% S/L RES by lvl 12 (if you can afford the DOs) and jumps to 74.75% S/L RES at lvl 17 with the addition of Tough. It also gains 13% non-SL RES at lvl 12 (with DOs). When SOs become available at lvl 22, this build reaches 97% S/L and picks up 27% F/C/T RES at lvl 25 and 27% En/Neg RES at lvl 27 with REl and REn, respectively.
As a consequence, however, Stamina gets pushed out to lvl 22 and the build is reduced to a single attack from its secondary for quite some time. The build also skips Dull Pain, which can be a useful survival tool in the early levels. Resist Elements and Energies are available sooner, but taking them would mean delaying a travel power or Stamina even longer. Even skipping Taunt at lvl 4 wouldn't bring them in sooner, since neither is available that early.
This may be an ideal build for a very team-centric tank who wants to grab aggro for her team as early as possible, but it does come at the cost of slower-paced solo-ability.

Early Moderate Build
Here's a nice moderate build:
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.6.2.0 of the CoH Hero Builder
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Temp Invulnerability==> DmgRes(1)DmgRes(3)DmgRes(5)
01) --> Scorch==> Acc(1)EndRdx(3)Dmg(7)Rechg(13)
02) --> Fire Sword==> Acc(2)EndRdx(5)Dmg(7)Rechg(13)
04) --> Taunt==> Rechg(4)
06) --> Swift==> Run(6)
08) --> Unyielding==> DmgRes(8)DmgRes(9)DmgRes(9)
10) --> Resist Physical Damage==> DmgRes(10)DmgRes(11)DmgRes(11)
12) --> Hover==> Fly(12)
14) --> Fly==> Fly(14)Fly(15)Fly(15)
16) --> Health==> Heal(16)Heal(17)Heal(17)
18) --> Invincibility==> DefBuf(18)DefBuf(19)DefBuf(19)
20) --> Stamina==> EndRec(20)EndRec(21)EndRec(21)
22) --> Dull Pain==> Rechg(22)Rechg(23)Rechg(23)
24) --> Combustion==> EndRdx(24)Acc(25)Dmg(25)Rechg(27)Dmg(27)
26) --> Build Up==> Rechg(26)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Empty(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Empty(1)
01) --> Gauntlet==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Empty(2)
---------------------------------------------

This build also ends up with 55.25% S/L RES by lvl 12 (if you can afford the DOs) and 13% non-SL RES at lvl 12 (with DOs), but it stays there until SO's are available. When SOs become available at lvl 22, this build reaches 66.7% S/L and 15.7% F/C/T RES. These are slightly weaker, but certainly the S/L RES is still strong enough for most situations.
As a consequence, however, Stamina gets pushed out to lvl 22 and the build is reduced to a single attack from its secondary for quite some time. The build also skips Dull Pain, which can be a useful survival tool in the early levels. This may be an ideal build for a very team-centric tank who wants to grab aggro for her team as early as possible, but it does come at the cost of slower-paced solo-ability.

Offense-oriented Build
If you want to go the route of offense as the best defense, you might put together a build like:
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.6.2.0 of the CoH Hero Builder
[/b]---------------------------------------------
01) --> Temp Invulnerability==> DmgRes(1)DmgRes(3)DmgRes(5)
01) --> Scorch==> Acc(1)Dmg(3)Rechg(7)Dmg(9)EndRdx(13)Dmg(17)
02) --> Fire Sword==> Acc(2)Dmg(5)Rechg(7)Dmg(9)EndRdx(15)Dmg(19)
04) --> Dull Pain==> Rechg(4)Rechg(23)Rechg(25)
06) --> Swift==> Run(6)
08) --> Unyielding==> DmgRes(8)
10) --> Combustion==> EndRdx(10)Acc(11)Dmg(11)Dmg(13)Dmg(15)Rechg(17)
12) --> Hover==> Fly(12)
14) --> Fly==> EndRdx(14)
16) --> Health==> Heal(16)Heal(23)Heal(25)
18) --> Invincibility==> DefBuf(18)DefBuf(19)DefBuf(21)TH_Buf(27)
20) --> Stamina==> EndRec(20)EndRec(21)EndRec(27)
22) --> Build Up==> Rechg(22)
24) --> Taunt==> Rechg(24)
26) --> Resist Energies==> DmgRes(26)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Empty(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Empty(1)
01) --> Gauntlet==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Empty(2)
---------------------------------------------

With DO's at level 12, this build reaches 44.5% S/L RES and 11% non-S/L RES. With SO's at level 22, this build reach 53.1% S/L, 12% non-SO, and then jumps to 21% En/Neg when it picks up Ren at 26. In exchange for slightly worse defense, it gets three six-slotted attacks and BuildUp, and gets them a few levels earlier than the moderate build.

Current 50 Build
Finally, here's an example build i'm testing with as a prespective build for my lvl 50 Inv/Fire:
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.6.2.0 of the CoH Hero Builder
[/b]---------------------------------------------
01) --> Temp Invulnerability==> DmgRes(1)DmgRes(3)DmgRes(5)
01) --> Scorch==> EndRdx(1)Acc(3)Dmg(5)Rechg(7)Dmg(9)Dmg(13)
02) --> Dull Pain==> Rechg(2)Rechg(7)Rechg(9)Rechg(13)Heal(37)Heal(45)
04) --> Taunt==> Rechg(4)Rechg(46)
06) --> Swift==> Run(6)
08) --> Unyielding==> DmgRes(8)DmgRes(11)DmgRes(11)
10) --> Boxing==> Empty(10)
12) --> Hover==> Fly(12)Fly(45)Fly(46)Fly(46)
14) --> Fly==> EndRdx(14)Fly(15)Fly(15)Fly(37)
16) --> Tough==> DmgRes(16)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(17)EndRdx(21)
18) --> Invincibility==> DefBuf(18)DefBuf(19)DefBuf(19)TH_Buf(37)Taunt(43)TH_Buf(45)
20) --> Health==> Heal(20)Heal(21)Heal(23)
22) --> Stamina==> EndRec(22)EndRec(23)EndRec(25)
24) --> Resist Physical Damage==> DmgRes(24)DmgRes(25)DmgRes(27)
26) --> Combustion==> EndRdx(26)Acc(27)Dmg(29)Dmg(29)Rechg(34)Taunt(34)
28) --> Tough Hide==> DefBuf(28)DefBuf(36)DefBuf(40)
30) --> Fire Sword Circle==> EndRdx(30)Acc(31)Dmg(31)Dmg(31)Rechg(33)Taunt(34)
32) --> Resist Energies==> DmgRes(32)DmgRes(33)DmgRes(33)
35) --> Resist Elements==> DmgRes(35)DmgRes(36)DmgRes(36)
38) --> Incinerate==> EndRdx(38)Acc(39)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)Rechg(40)Dmg(40)
41) --> Greater Fire Sword==> EndRdx(41)Acc(42)Dmg(42)Dmg(42)Rechg(43)Dmg(43)
44) --> Build Up==> Rechg(44)
47) --> Unstoppable==> DmgRes(47)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Empty(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Empty(1)
01) --> Gauntlet==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Empty(2)
---------------------------------------------

Basic Info for Beginners
If youre new to being a Tank or have previously shied away from CoH game mechanics, now may be the time to learn a few new things. Issue 5 brings a series of changes to Inv/Fire and its difficult to fully appreciate them without a basic understanding of how things work in the game.

RES and DEF
==================================================
There are two basic types of defense in CoH: Resistance (RES) and Defense (DEF).

Resistance affects the damage you take from an attack. If you have resistance and an attack against you is successful, it will do less damage. For example, say you have 25% RES to Fire attacks and a Demon shoots you with fire for 100 points of damage. That 100 point attack will only do 75 points of damage to you.

An important thing to note about Resistance is its specificity to damage type. There are eight types of basic damage: Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative Energy, Toxic and Psi. The Invulnerability powers typically provide RES to only one or two damage types, which makes it important to have a general feel for how resistant you are to each type and to gain some experience in what type of damage certain foes specialize in.

Tankers cannot have more than 90% RES to any type of damage. Even if your powers give you an accumulated RES over 90%, you will always take 10% of the damage an attack does. For example, say you have 110% RES to Fire and a Demon shoots you for 100 points of damage. That attack will still do 10 points of damage to you even though you have 110% RES. This is known as the resistance cap. For Kheldians, the RES cap is 80% and for all other ATs its 75%.

In addition to the eight types of basic damage, there are two unusual types you may be interested in. Untyped damage is damage that cannot be resisted. There arent many things that can do Untyped Damage in the game. Hamidon is one prime example. Nictus damage is a special kind of damage only Kheldians experience. You wont need to be concerned with Nictus damage as an Inv Tank.

On the other side of the coin is Defense. Defense affects how successful a foe will be in hitting you. If you arent hit, it doesnt matter how much RES you have, you wont take any damage. Of course, on the other hand, if you are hit, but dont have any RES, youll take full damage. Different types of foes have a different base chance of hitting you. Your DEF is subtracted from that chance resulting in a final chance of being hit. For example, if you have a 15% DEF bonus and a villain has a base 50% accuracy, the villain will have a 35% chance to hit you.

No matter how much DEF you have, a foe will always have a 5% chance of hitting you. This is known as the to-hit floor. For example, if you have 65% DEF and youre being attacked by a villain with a 50% chance of hitting you, the villain will still have a 5% chance to hit you.

DEF is either typed or positional. Typed DEF only applies to a specific type of damage, for example 25% DEF to Fire damage. Positional DEF depends on whether the attack is a melee attack or a ranged attack. Anglican has an excellent Guide to Defense that you can check for all the details.

Tankers tend to have typed DEF. For example, Invincibility is DEF to S/L/F/C/En/Neg/T (note Psi is missing). For attacks that have multiple types, only the highest typed DEF counts. So, if you have 10% DEF to Fire and 20% DEF to Lethal and a villain attacks you with Fire Sword (mixed-type Lethal and Fire), you get 20% DEF to the whole attack, i.e. both the Fire and Lethal components.

As an Inv Tanker, your primary powers are focused on providing you with RES and DEF. Its important to understand the basic concepts behind these defenses so you can make choices on how you select and slot your powers.

==================================================
Appendix OneIssue 5 Summary
I left this here as a reference for folk who have been gone since Issue 4, to help them understand what has changed in the recent past. For the full details, please check Buffy's Guide reference above. The following list summarizes the major changes affecting Inv/Fire tanks in Issue 5:
<ul type="square">[*]Resist Physical Damage was 12.5% RES to Smashing/Lethal, now 7.5% RES to Smashing/Lethal[*]Temporary Invulnerability was 32.5% RES to Smashing/Lethal, now 30% RES to Smashing/Lethal[*]Resist Elements was 20% RES to Fire/Cold, now 7.5% RES to Fire/Cold/Toxic[*]Unyielding was 20% RES to Smashing/Lethal/Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative, now 5% RES to Smashing/Lethal and 10% RES to Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative/Toxic. The status protection and 5% DEF debuff remain unchanged[*]Resist Energies was 20% RES to Energy/Negative, now 7.5% RES To Energy/Negative[*]Invincibility now 3.5% melee / 1.5% ranged DEF for every foe in melee range up to 14 (Note: current official statement from the Devs is this is supposed to be 1.5% melee and probably 0.75% ranged DEF for each foe in melee range but testing appears to prove otherwise)[*]Tough Hide now 5% DEF to all but Psionic[/list]How to adapt:
So youve tried I5 and youre dying a lot or feeling less like a Tank what to do:
<ul type="square">[*]Stop the pain! Fix your S/L RES. You probably need to respec to get back to the S/L cap if you didnt put more than one slot in TI in I4. Get TI 6-slotted and use Buffys Guide (referenced above) to choose your preferred method for getting the rest.[*]Change your tactics! Get Invinc slotted with DefBuf. In I5 you have become an Invincibility Tanker. Take advantage of the DEF it provides. If its 6-slotted, you probably only need 5-6 foes in range to be able to read the newspaper.[*]Think about getting and slotting Tough Hide. Its only 5% base DEF, but add that to Invincibility and now you need fewer foes in melee range to floor minion accuracy.[*]Think about getting perma-DP and 6-slotted Health. Youll be amazed how much this combination helps against non-S/L groups. With the drop in non-S/L RES, youre going to take more damage. With DP and Health, it will heal pretty quickly if its not too significant.[*]Decide how much non-S/L RES you want. Slotting UY, REl, and REn is less effective in I5. Do you want to spend these slots even with their smaller return or are you going to take a different approach, like greater offense.[/list]

Ridolfo · 10-27-2005 08:43 AM

Yay Tiffinator! tyvm for the info, saves me a LOT of time on the test server.

CoH exists because there's a little hero in all of us.
Ridolfo 50 DM DA.
& far too many alts

Dracomicon · 11-02-2005 08:35 AM

Great Guide! It was your guide that initially led me to use the Scorch + Fire Sword attack chain at early levels. It is the best attack chain available and you can get it at lvl 2. It made the early levels very enjoyable.

Viga_Axe · 11-02-2005 08:10 PM

Excellent guide, I really needed those numbers for tough and Weave to tweak my SL resist back up, many thanks for that.

Does need abit of editing though, references to I5 need to be updated to I6 and/or I6 data provided. Does that make sense? I'm trying to say that alot of the wording needs to be changed to a "I5 lowered this, and ED under I6 makes it even lower" format.

Again, thanks for the numbers, I feel alot better about the whole thing now.

gWrath · 11-05-2005 04:14 AM

Thanks for the excellent guide from a newbie tank. Five stars!

Question: Should a /fire tanker get an attack with status effect? I'm thinking of Air Superiority. I have AS now but am thinking of dropping it as I'm going the Boxing/Tough route. AS works well with my other attacks that do only DoT. With lowered defenses, I've found AS helping in keeping at least one mob on the floor.

Tiffany_Seville · 11-05-2005 04:54 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Does need abit of editing though, references to I5 need to be updated to I6 and/or I6 data provided. Does that make sense? I'm trying to say that alot of the wording needs to be changed to a "I5 lowered this, and ED under I6 makes it even lower" format.

[/ QUOTE ]
hee hee! yeah, that makes sense ... i didn't even notice until you pointed it out!

well, i can always get those fixed in the next version! :-)

Tiffany_Seville · 11-05-2005 05:07 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Question: Should a /fire tanker get an attack with status effect? I'm thinking of Air Superiority. I have AS now but am thinking of dropping it as I'm going the Boxing/Tough route. AS works well with my other attacks that do only DoT. With lowered defenses, I've found AS helping in keeping at least one mob on the floor.

[/ QUOTE ]
attacks with status effects provide amazing utility, and AS is actually one of the best. it has a very high probability of knockdown, much higher than boxing's chance for disorient. i have boxing on my Brute and, while it does disorient occassionally, its not as reliable as AS. as you point out, one of Fire Melee's weaknesses is a lack of status effects so if you're specifically looking for a status effect, AS is probably the way to go.

of course, the fun part is fitting it in! if you're thinking about getting Tough, you have to take Boxing or Kick anyway. if you're thinking about getting Fly, AS is an easy pre-req choice. its a bit trickier if you aren't heading for Fly - it might some juggling to squeeze in a non-Fly travel power, Tough, and AS in a build, at least in the early (<25) levels.

gWrath · 11-06-2005 11:14 AM

Thanks. I've decided to take both Boxing and Air Superiority, as flight is my travel power (giving up good 'ol Super Leap tho ) I use Boxing instead of Brawl but I dont think I'll slot Boxing. I've three slotted AS so far.

Two more questions, if interested:
1) Epic Pools: I understand it's subject to personal preference, but what do you think of the Pyre Mastery pool vs Energy Mastery (or the one with Conserve Energy)?

Char interests me bc its a hold (status effect). Not keen on Fire Blast, but its necessary I think to get Fire Ball, a nice ranged AoE. Of course, Pyre Mastery fits into my toon concept as well.

Also, do you think getting all three powers are worth it? I'm salivating over an AoE, but it'll cost me two other powers to get it.

Conserve Energy I've read does some amazing things (tho now not perma), and since I'm going with Unstoppable when I reach lvl 32, I've read they work well together to get me back into the game. I've read that Laser Beam Eyes is a nice ranged attack, something I would think is equivalent to Fire Blast.

Any advice would be welcome.

2) Taunt: I use Taunt a lot, at least once every battle, bc it is the only ranged "attack" I have. With Invinc, punch-voke and Combustion, I dont have much of a problem in gaining aggro in melee. I usually have a nice cluster around me when spillage may occur when one or two mobs run over to a teammate. I could jump over there and tag em, but I prefer using Taunt. In some cases, I am situated in an ideal location (i.e. door way, chokepoint, etc.), where I would NOT want to move for fear of compromising our position.

My question to you is your take on Taunt (yes, I realize the topic is controversial). I am beginning to think that Taunt may be useful to me during most of my career, but once I am able to get a ranged attack like fire blast or LBE, I could substitute it. I also see Fire Ball as potentially acting as an AoE Taunt which can affect more mobs (15 I think is the limit) and with damage to boot!

In its place (when I respec it out), I would get either Build Up, Resist Elements, Tough Hide or even Resist Physical Defense (I'm going with the TI/UY/Tough combo). I have already built "Resist Energies" in my build.

I'm seeing that my Tanker's build is very tight (esp when adding two Fighting powers to keep S/L RES at a decent lvl) so I'd like to excise anything superfluous.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Tiffany_Seville · 11-07-2005 03:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
1) Epic Pools: I understand it's subject to personal preference, but what do you think of the Pyre Mastery pool vs Energy Mastery (or the one with Conserve Energy)?

[/ QUOTE ]
i've actually tried both in different builds. if you're having endurance problems, Conserve Power is something a lot of folk use. personally, i've never had that many end problems, and used CP so rarely i eventually repsec-ed out of Energy and picked up Pyre. a lot of folk swear by CP, tho ... so you may have to guage its usefulness depending on your own endurance profile.

I did like Pyre both for Char and for the ranged attacks. if you can fit all three in, by all means go for it! it felt a lot more fun, even if it concentrated my build a bit heavily in Fire damage - a consideration in the late game where you do find a number of Fire resistant foes.

oddly enough, in I6 i ended up dropping my Epic pool in favor of grabbing Aid Self.

[ QUOTE ]

My question to you is your take on Taunt (yes, I realize the topic is controversial). I am beginning to think that Taunt may be useful to me during most of my career, but once I am able to get a ranged attack like fire blast or LBE, I could substitute it. I also see Fire Ball as potentially acting as an AoE Taunt which can affect more mobs (15 I think is the limit) and with damage to boot!

[/ QUOTE ]
i don't know if i can give good advice on this one ... i've always kept Taunt in my builds and just haven't found myself terribly effective without it. i know many tankers feel they perform just as well without Taunt and some also take the strategy you're considering - i.e. taking an offensive Epic to supplant or replace Taunt. it might be worth posting the question in the Tankers forum to see what replies you get from the folk more practiced without Taunt.

Max_X5452 · 11-08-2005 11:14 AM

Thanks for the excellent guide, it'll be a great help when respecing my lvl 45 inv tanker

Shad0 · 11-12-2005 01:23 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the excellent guide from a newbie tank. Five stars!

Question: Should a /fire tanker get an attack with status effect? I'm thinking of Air Superiority. I have AS now but am thinking of dropping it as I'm going the Boxing/Tough route. AS works well with my other attacks that do only DoT. With lowered defenses, I've found AS helping in keeping at least one mob on the floor.

[/ QUOTE ]

AS comes in very handy, i took it at lvl 6 to put in an attack chain of scorch-FS-AS

AS is great for taking on LT's/bosses with toggles because it knocks them off, this is very handy in dealing with outcasts and trolls which have toggle heavy lt's and bosses plus at ow levels the damage is reletively decent...much better than brawl and recharges almost as fast.

Tiffany_Seville · 12-12-2005 08:05 PM

i wanted to add this here, since the original thread has long since fled the Tanker forum.

based on my testing with the Invincibility for Tankers, i believe the recent Invincibility patch has changed Invincibility to provide an unenhanced 6% DEF for the first foe plus 1.5% DEF per additional foe in melee range up to 10 foes.

or, with three even-level DefBuf SO's, 9.36% DEF against one foe and 30.42% DEF against ten foes

if you are interested in the raw data, you can retrieve a data file with all my test runs here:

Invincibility Testing Results.pdf.

note the raw data is on pages two and three. for the numerically inclined, feel free ot offer alternative interpretations.

Maldini_NA · 01-19-2006 08:55 AM

So what are the new numbers for Ranged Defense?