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that's just nihili for ya kruunch. for someone whos been here a relatively short time he's alittle too arrogant.
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To be entirely blunt, I think people who have missed out on a year or twos worth of content are guilty of the exact same thing. I personally don't care if someone is making their first post or ten thousandth, what matters to me is the content of that post.
On a different I've never seen anyone solo tank Romulus, but I think it's entirely possible. You'd need:
*) Soft capped defense to deal with most of the damage
*) Preferably strong def resistance to handle Romulus's debuffs
*) A periodic self heal (or strong enough regen) to handle the auto-hit Nictus (namely Siphon Life / Aid Self)
If you allow for inspiration use, then it'd be even easier if you're prepared. The whole discussion is fairly meaningless imo; the likelyhood of being on a TF with absolutely no support (no Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, VEATs, or team buffing power like Leadership/Grant Cover) is practically nil.
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true, but i can admit when i was wrong.
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The whole discussion is fairly meaningless imo; the likelyhood of being on a TF with absolutely no support (no Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, VEATs, or team buffing power like Leadership/Grant Cover) is practically nil.
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What about incompetent support? 
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
----------------------------------------------------------
The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
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MY TANK CAN SOLO ROMI!
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I've always found that experience pretty much trumps everything.
And for those that don't BS ... they usually back it up with how/where/why and so forth.
That wouldn't be you btw. 
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LOL!! That was a joke. Sorry, I forget that sarcasm just doesn't have the same effect in type! My 50 IO'd out DM/SR Brute has a better chance than my Tank (due to him being DM/SR) 
*) Soft capped defense to deal with most of the damage - Check
*) Preferably strong def resistance to handle Romulus's debuffs -Check
*) A periodic self heal (or strong enough regen) to handle the auto-hit Nictus (namely Siphon Life / Aid Self) -Check
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Mind telling me how you did it if you'd be so kind?
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Resurgences. And the occasional jumping away to SL an innocent bystander before getting back into melee. He also dropped rather quickly. But inspirations can take you a looooong way in this game.
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I ran in an ITF yesterday with a Shields Tanker (I'm an Inv Tanker). The Shields Tanker died 5 or 6 times. I never died.
I'd say Invuln.
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I've done the ITF several times, with a shield tanker from 44 to 48. (was SKed for the level 44 one). Even with a random pickup group, I was never in danger of dying. Except the first time where we all ran pell mell through the tunnels to kill the crystals and I got separated from my mentor.
Point is. I've never been in a PUG where random buffs, even an odd leadership toggle or such, wasn't more than enough for a Shields to survive. Against All Odds and Shield Charge were devastating as well, and really helped clearing spawns fast. Especially the rejects that Romulus keeps summoning, or the chaos around crystals.
Sometimes you do need to jump back out for a moment, when they land a lucky defense debuffing hit, and then go back in. Grant Cover alleviates this need somewhat.
But yes. Invuln might be better in a vacuum. And I know alot of the analysis around here is done in a vacuum. But in a realistic 95% of the situations, Shield will be more than sufficient. And you're doing massive damage at the same time. I /love/ being able to tank, while at the same time putting out more damage than most of the team. Especially when I've got Shield Charge recharging almost every spawn.
In fact. On my last ITF run at 48, I spent a half hour after everyone else zoned out when we defeated Romulus, to jump around farming all the huge spawns by myself, to get to 49.
One of the liberating things about playing a tanker, is the acceptance that you will never have an optimal solo build as other archetypes understand it. You don't need to solo an AV. We simply can't, though a dark/shield could.
So yeah. If you're going to look at all content as being by yourself, then the invuln might be better. But if you're looking at in a realistic fashion, you'll see that the positional defenses of Shield Defense, and the ability to clear away most of the minions and lts in a spawn by yourself, is plenty efficient.
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I'll suggest, however, that if you want to participate in serious discussions about performance, you should play the game more often and take a look at real numbers, using the ingame attribute monitor, paragonwiki or coh.redtomax - for example, you might see that these "huge" recovery bonuses from purple sets are about 4%, or that Shield and Willpower have no power benefiting from recharge bonuses.
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Um...Shield Charge? As far as powers go that benefit from Recharge...That might just be the ultimate example.
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LostHalo: Take your Stone Tanker (lets assume normal mix of yellow and orange IO sets) and do Romi with a group composed of Blasters/Scrappers.
Then you'll see what I mean by unsupported.
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Considering he's been defeated by a solo invulnerability scrapper, I find your lack of faith disturbing.
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*) Soft capped defense to deal with most of the damage - Check
*) Preferably strong def resistance to handle Romulus's debuffs -Check
*) A periodic self heal (or strong enough regen) to handle the auto-hit Nictus (namely Siphon Life / Aid Self) -Check
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Mind telling me how you did it if you'd be so kind?
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Resurgences. And the occasional jumping away to SL an innocent bystander before getting back into melee. He also dropped rather quickly. But inspirations can take you a looooong way in this game.
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So you deathed your way through Romi? Kinda enforces my point about tanking without support no? Which would also be even more reinforced by the Shield Tankers here who have already said that they've had a hard time with the ITF.
Sarrate: While the probability is that most ITFs have some form of support for their Tanker (or alternative method of tanking such as a Scrapper "tanking" while two Controllers keep Romi locked down (or locked down enough not to obliterate the Scrapper)) I've been on ITFs that had poor or virtually no support.
When I did an ITF on my Corruptor, even with keeping Romi pinned down most of the time, our WP/Axe Tanker got creamed a couple of times.
Hence my statement that virtually any Tanker needs (and probably gets) support for the ITF. I'm sure there has been an exception here and there but so far, the only person who has claimed to have done it unsupported admitted to the equivelant of graveyard zerging Romi.
That's not only not tanking (successfully) but the fact that you could use that method to finish a major encounter at the "end game" only reinforces my point about the lack of skill required for the actual encounters in this game.
Failsafe: I will concede that a well built Shields Tanker can outshine an Inv Tanker who isn't as well built. Thank you for at least admitting there is a difference.
Dersk: I've seen Elvis. After he died. He's living in South America with Tupac. What?
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So you deathed your way through Romi? Kinda enforces my point about tanking without support no? Which would also be even more reinforced by the Shield Tankers here who have already said that they've had a hard time with the ITF.
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...
Resurgences are Tier 3 Heal Inspirations.
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Hence my statement that virtually any Tanker needs (and probably gets) support for the ITF. I'm sure there has been an exception here and there but so far, the only person who has claimed to have done it unsupported admitted to the equivelant of graveyard zerging Romi.
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People are taking you to task because you implied it was impossible for a Tank to solo Tank him without support, not that most can't. There is a very large difference between the two.
(Also, see above for that "graveyard zerging" comment.)
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Dersk: I've seen Elvis. After he died. He's living in South America with Tupac. What?
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I've seen the videos of the feat myself (defeating Romulus + his Nicti by a solo Invuln Scrapper), it is no lie. If their author wants them linked as proof, I'll let them do so.
Invulnerability
They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
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I've seen Elvis
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Ooh! Ooh! And the moon landing was faked in a hollywood studio! I saw that webpage too!
My original statement was tanking with support, not solo tanking (although I think it might equally apply).
As far as Bresseimer (sp?), ah I see ... fast kill team and gobbled greens. Ok I'll concede the point.
Nothing is impossible for sure ... just not as probable as stated. I think you'd agree?
Edit: I should have made myself clearer but reading my original post I did say "in general". I think the "impossible" comment was inferred by you rather than implied by me but if not, I will amend that I meant the majority and not every single Tanker (or AT) in creation, past/present or future.
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My original statement was tanking with support, not solo tanking (although I think it might equally apply).
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Well, when I said 'solo tanking,' I meant without support. My bad.
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Nothing is impossible for sure ... just not as probable as stated. I think you'd agree?
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"Improbable, unlikely, but never impossible!"
(If you recognize that quote, without imdb/wikipedia, then you get 1 geek card!)
Yes, I have no problem with that statement at all. (Hmm, I bet I can think of one nigh impossible feat: defeating Recluse without destroying any of his towers.)
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Edit: I should have made myself clearer but reading my original post I did say "in general". I think the "impossible" comment was inferred by you rather than implied by me but if not, I will amend that I meant the majority and not every single Tanker (or AT) in creation, past/present or future.
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Well, when a couple people claimed they did (one of which being Stone, iirc) you called BS. I pretty much took that as "it's impossible," yes. :P
The only thing that bothers me about your posts in this thread is that you seem far more down on Shields than is necessary. For Tankers, it's a very solid set that also happens to mitigate the Tanker's traditional weakness (damage) a fair bit.
On a typical ITF, though, with some buffing, more often than not, it really won't matter between, say, an Inv/SS and a Shields/SS: both are probably buffed enough to be impossible to take down, and both are probably damage capped. Except that Shields has the added benefit of Shield Charge at that lovely damage cap. Let's just say my SD/SS was out-damaging Scrappers at that point, while still gathering quite a bit of the aggro throughout the TF (we had another Tanker--a Dark--that was a bit overmatched, mainly because (s)he was sk'd up, though only from 45). That's why I'm saying I had an easier time with the Shields Tanker: I was taking out enemies far, far faster in comparison to my Inv/SS, and with a moderate level of buffing, neither were ever in any danger of defeat (even when I forgot to turn Invincibility on with my Inv 
).
I still think that comparing the durabilities of an Invulnerability tanker to a Shield tanker based on an ITF is silly. Apples and oranges. Or, should I say, oranges and purples.
True enough. But for the most part, any Tanker with a modicum of buffs really shouldn't have difficulties in any team that isn't totally leaving out to dry. Solo, no Tanker should really have issues, either, unless you start pitting them against AVs or higher, but are probably not too far behind Scrappers in being able to do so (there really are a relatively select number of any AT builds that can successfully solo AVs compared to the myriad of possible builds).
Kruunch, I think your problem here is that you don' t really realize how powerful IO sets bonuses are. I get a 20% defense bonus to all positions from those, that's like having a personal bubbler. I've got over 2k hit points, that's more than a base Tanker. Lastly, if you count Siphon Life as regeneration (it pretty much is) I regenerate 78 HP per second, comparable to a willpower Tanker with 7 mobs in RttC.
An IO'd out Tanker puts my scrapper to shame. But one with SO's is a wimp compared him.
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The only thing that bothers me about your posts in this thread is that you seem far more down on Shields than is necessary. For Tankers, it's a very solid set that also happens to mitigate the Tanker's traditional weakness (damage) a fair bit.
On a typical ITF, though, with some buffing, more often than not, it really won't matter between, say, an Inv/SS and a Shields/SS: both are probably buffed enough to be impossible to take down, and both are probably damage capped. Except that Shields has the added benefit of Shield Charge at that lovely damage cap. Let's just say my SD/SS was out-damaging Scrappers at that point, while still gathering quite a bit of the aggro throughout the TF (we had another Tanker--a Dark--that was a bit overmatched, mainly because (s)he was sk'd up, though only from 45). That's why I'm saying I had an easier time with the Shields Tanker: I was taking out enemies far, far faster in comparison to my Inv/SS, and with a moderate level of buffing, neither were ever in any danger of defeat (even when I forgot to turn Invincibility on with my Inv ).
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Some asked a basic question and based on personal experience I gave a basic answer. I didn't slight Shield's in the least.
An odd phenomenon happens when in a group you say you prefer one thing over the other (even really off handedly) ... you get parts of the other group who express a different opinion acting as if you personally insulted them. I'd say this was specific to CoH but it happens commonly in any closed group.
Shields is a fine set. My opinion is that Invulnerability is a bit tougher generally speaking (which was the OPs question with no qualifiers). Yes with IO sets, Shields (or heck, even Fire) can be made to be just as tough and yes Shields (and Fire) both are superior to Invuln in terms of damage output.
Sheesh it's not like I said Shields was as lame as Spines Scrappers.
/popcorn
My mistake. Apologies.
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Sheesh it's not like I said Shields was as lame as Spines Scrappers.
/popcorn
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What?!?! You son of a...
I really enjoy my SD/DM Tanker...but i think that particular combo definitely makes SD seem a little tougher than it might otherwise be. As some folks have said on the brute forums "DM is like a defense set that pretends to be an offense set". I'd definitely say that Invulnerability is more resilient out-of-the-box (or with normal enhancments) than Shields. That in no way indicates that I prefer Invulnerability (which I don't) but that's not relevant to the discussion.
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Kruunch, I think your problem here is that you don' t really realize how powerful IO sets bonuses are. I get a 20% defense bonus to all positions from those, that's like having a personal bubbler. I've got over 2k hit points, that's more than a base Tanker. Lastly, if you count Siphon Life as regeneration (it pretty much is) I regenerate 78 HP per second, comparable to a willpower Tanker with 7 mobs in RttC.
An IO'd out Tanker puts my scrapper to shame. But one with SO's is a wimp compared him.
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Believe me I understand *perfectly* how well IO's can make your Tanker studly.
What you fail to understand is that the majority of players in this game don't fully IO (or even at all) their characters with sets. Players that farm and have multiple 50s and/or generally like the number crunching involved in min/maxxing sure. But CoH has always been more casual player oriented and more casual players tend not to go out of their way to do overly repetitive things (like farming).
They just roll up new toons and ask questions like "Shields or Invuln?". Without a qualifier I assume the average and don't put IO's into my discussion other than to note that it will change the shortcomings of a given AT combo if they get to that area.
Fair enough?
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What you fail to understand is that the majority of players in this game don't fully IO (or even at all) their characters with sets.
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Please provide evidence to back this up. The majority of people that I know in the game do slot at least some sets. Sure, not everyone is going for purple sets, but I know of very few people who don't try to get at least a few sets in their builds.
You don't need to farm to get decent sets on your character. Heck, my completely soloed-to-level 48 Stalker is most IOed out. And my Level 39 Tanker only has a few non-set IOs in his build. I've never farmed with either of those characters, but used drops, the market (not gaming the market, just posting for recipes), merits, and a few tickets to do it.
I'd say that even the average casual player at least assumes some IO slotting in their builds. And while positing that they will only use SOs is fine, I'd say it's far from the truth of what will happen. Even using generic IOs will change a build up.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
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What you fail to understand is that the majority of players in this game don't fully IO (or even at all) their characters with sets.
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Please provide evidence to back this up. The majority of people that I know in the game do slot at least some sets. Sure, not everyone is going for purple sets, but I know of very few people who don't try to get at least a few sets in their builds.
You don't need to farm to get decent sets on your character. Heck, my completely soloed-to-level 48 Stalker is most IOed out. And my Level 39 Tanker only has a few non-set IOs in his build. I've never farmed with either of those characters, but used drops, the market (not gaming the market, just posting for recipes), merits, and a few tickets to do it.
I'd say that even the average casual player at least assumes some IO slotting in their builds. And while positing that they will only use SOs is fine, I'd say it's far from the truth of what will happen. Even using generic IOs will change a build up.
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it takes a billion or more infamy/influence to gear a shield scrapper/brute to be at the soft cap (depending on server). i realize taht there are so many posts from people who clearly have had the initiative to grind out that much - or abused the living hell out of the meow missions for that much. but that's not as large a percentage of the population as you might think.
if only 1% on average of this games population actively participates in forum discussions, and only a percentage of that 1% has a bilion or more to spend on io sets...
you see where this is going.
i'll never spend more than 200m on any one character, and then i usually cannibalize it if i decide to work on something else. there arent many legit players with billions+. running the tv mission set for 8 people and with me the only person in the actual mission over and over is just barely 1 million for a full clear. obviously i'm never alone nowadays and it's about half that when all 8 are in.
so no, not everyone can afford to io out for a fully soft-capped shields scrapper or brute. not with people wanting 1-3 million for each orange salvage piece.
A... billion? My Shield Tanker is at the cap and he hasn't spent even that 200 million figure you mentioned, sorry. Maybe it's the sets you're going for, as there are some cheap ones out there that can boost your defense still. Also, there isn't much rare salvage out there that is in the millions on the market... I think Empowered Sigils were at 400k last I looked (blueside).
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
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that's just nihili for ya kruunch. for someone whos been here a relatively short time he's alittle too arrogant.
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To be entirely blunt, I think people who have missed out on a year or twos worth of content are guilty of the exact same thing. I personally don't care if someone is making their first post or ten thousandth, what matters to me is the content of that post.
On a different I've never seen anyone solo tank Romulus, but I think it's entirely possible. You'd need:
*) Soft capped defense to deal with most of the damage
*) Preferably strong def resistance to handle Romulus's debuffs
*) A periodic self heal (or strong enough regen) to handle the auto-hit Nictus (namely Siphon Life / Aid Self)
If you allow for inspiration use, then it'd be even easier if you're prepared. The whole discussion is fairly meaningless imo; the likelyhood of being on a TF with absolutely no support (no Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, VEATs, or team buffing power like Leadership/Grant Cover) is practically nil.