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while Dark... has a self heal (up to 20% of your HPs when slotted) which is almost always up (and works amazingly well when coupled with Dull Pain which boosts your HPs)
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Note that click heals are based on class base HP, not actual HP. So when you say "20% heal," it's actually more like 10-11% on a character with a slotted Dull Pain up.
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while Dark... has a self heal (up to 20% of your HPs when slotted) which is almost always up (and works amazingly well when coupled with Dull Pain which boosts your HPs)
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Note that click heals are based on class base HP, not actual HP. So when you say "20% heal," it's actually more like 10-11% on a character with a slotted Dull Pain up.
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I stand corrected. But in terms of playability, you're getting a damage power that also doubles as a ghetto Healing Flames (heals for less but recharges sooner). Very powerful for a Tanker I think you'd agree.
I like WP/Dark for the same reason. It's also a fairly free build, at least as Willpower goes - a Willpower tanker does not need to take Dark Consumption, for instance.
Ice/Dark might be quite powerful as well, with all of that to hit debuff synching well with a defense based set; I am not a big fan of Ice, for aesthetic more than performance reasons, so I have not tried it.
Dark is also somewhat underrated as an AoE set, mostly because of the recharge issue. But a tanker needs an AoE mostly as a first strike to get aggro control, and since Dark potentially has three of them, something ought to be available to you just about every spawn. For Willpower, again, I'd recommend skipping Dark Consumption and going with something from an ancillary pool - mine has Salt Crystals, which I like a lot even if the sleep gets broken immediately. You're still debuffing defense and getting aggro over a huge radius.
I also like Dark/Energy. Dark Armor is about the only primary I'd recommend to pair with Energy Melee in its current state. You get more mileage out of all that chance to stun. Dark/Mace may have almost as much potential. Dark/Ice is nice for pure control as well - that's what my Dark Armor tank is.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
You should give WM another try Kruunch. Invul no longer suffers from knockback that WM used to do. Fire Armor synergize well with all the KD from the WM set. Clobber is now the best power in WM, in case you missed it.
-Largo
Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian
Will Power I usually team up with endurance heavy secondaries such as Axe or SS or Energy, although the -toHit would potentially make WP more survivable on large alphas.
However I'm not a huge fan of one set mitigating the need for a power in the other (sort of anti-synergy there). Will Power would also mitigate a lot of the need of Siphon Life making it (for the most part) an underwhelming attack (but also making WP less alpha prone so you get the good with the bad here again).
I like the idea of Shields/Dark a lot since Dark helps offsets one of Shield's primary holes (Endurance). Dark's secondary effects (toHitDebuff) also compliment Shield's primary defense (being .. defense).
Ice/Dark to me is less attractive because Ice's Energy Absorbtion is up so often (I can use it 2 or even 3 times in a large fight) and can be slotted to return almost a full bar of end with just one mob that it totally mitigates the need for Dark Consumption (again me not liking one set mitigating powers of the other). However, like Shields, you still have the synergy between Ice's primary defense (defense) and the toHitDebuff of Dark which is nice.
Ice works amazingly well with SS/Axe/Energy because those secondaries tend to be more end heavy. I like Ice/SS a lot especially.
Edit: It's really too bad Tankers never got a Broad Sword secondary or a set that debuffs defense across the board (not sure if Dual Blades fits this or not).
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You should give WM another try Kruunch. Invul no longer suffers from knockback that WM used to do. Fire Armor synergize well with all the KD from the WM set. Clobber is now the best power in WM, in case you missed it.
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I have a L24 Shields/WM Tanker (talk about your Endurance woes ... eeesh). They did a nice job (thus far that I've seen) with War Mace in terms of the set being closer to on par with other Tanker secondaries. My three issues still with War Mace is that it still feels subpar to Axe in terms of damage, weapon draw times are really REALLY annoying (to me), and the last issue is more of a personal opinion ... I just think War Mace is visually the least appealing Tanker secondary (I don't get the Thor's Hammer feeling at all using it ... they really should have made a ranged attack or two where you actually throw the mace and it comes back type of thing imo).
While Shields/WM isn't a great combo in terms of endurance and WM in my mind doesn't give you the same secondary mitigation that SS or Axe does (or even the reliability of Energy's disorients), it does have explosive damage when combined together.
I ran around with my buddy who was playing an Earth/Storm Controller and the -defense that Earth gives made me feel like I was in melee heaven (never missing being a create cure all for endurance issues).
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However I'm not a huge fan of one set mitigating the need for a power in the other (sort of anti-synergy there). Will Power would also mitigate a lot of the need of Siphon Life making it (for the most part) an underwhelming attack (but also making WP less alpha prone so you get the good with the bad here again).
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This is not true any more. Since the DM buffs in I13, Siphon Life is a great power - it deals roughly twice as much as it used to. (On a different note, since taking Tough/Weave I've never really been scared of alphas on my WP - it's an exaggerated weakness.)
As for set synergy, there are a lot of different ways to look at it. You think Ice/DM has no synergy because it renders EA redundant - that's true, but it also has SL which is a great heal to keep Ice healthy when HF and Hibernate aren't available. On a different vein, I'd say that WP/Dark and WP/Energy are counter productive at holding aggro due to their more limited AoEs
Just food for thought.
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However I'm not a huge fan of one set mitigating the need for a power in the other (sort of anti-synergy there). Will Power would also mitigate a lot of the need of Siphon Life making it (for the most part) an underwhelming attack (but also making WP less alpha prone so you get the good with the bad here again).
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This is not true any more. Since the DM buffs in I13, Siphon Life is a great power - it deals roughly twice as much as it used to. (On a different note, since taking Tough/Weave I've never really been scared of alphas on my WP - it's an exaggerated weakness.)
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Siphon Life *is* a great power (one of the best bang for your buck powers of any Tanker secondary imo). However as a stand alone damage power, its underwhelming. Will Power basically makes it a stand alone damage power (because the Heal portion in most cases becomes irrelevant), which is a big part of the reason I don't like WP/Dark. And Siphon Life may or may not help survive a large alpha ... changes are if your WP Tanker is taking that kind of damage, the extra 20% or so in boost in HPs won't help (talking large game content obviously).
I have Tough and Weave on my L41 WP/Stone Tanker and in large groups he can still get alpha'd out of existence. It's not consistent enough for me to say that he's squishy but I definitely eye large packs of bosses a little more warily then my Inv Tanker does. This might change a bit with IOs (defense bonuses specifically) which he lacks.
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As for set synergy, there are a lot of different ways to look at it. You think Ice/DM has no synergy because it renders EA redundant - that's true, but it also has SL which is a great heal to keep Ice healthy when HF and Hibernate aren't available. On a different vein, I'd say that WP/Dark and WP/Energy are counter productive at holding aggro due to their more limited AoEs
Just food for thought.
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Dark has a pretty decent flavor of AOEs so I will disagree there.
And Energy has the same amount of AOEs as Super Strength and no one is complaining about SS having problems holding agro so I'd disagree there as well (and Whirling Hands comes up faster (albeing has less of a radius) then Footstomp).
Holding agro is one of the few things that is really more player oriented then set oriented (although I will admit that WP primary offers the weakest of these tools past Taunt) in my opinion. The more active the Tanker, the better the agro retention. Which you apparently agree with in the "aggro" thread 
Edit: For the record, I'm not saying WP/Dark is a bad combo. Conceptually I don't like it. In practice I've never played (or seen played) that combo before so it may turn out to be *very* fun to play. I'm definitely a huge fan of the non-stop go Tanker builds which this would definitely be.
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Siphon Life *is* a great power (one of the best bang for your buck powers of any Tanker secondary imo). However as a stand alone damage power, its underwhelming. Will Power basically makes it a stand alone damage power (because the Heal portion in most cases becomes irrelevant), which is a big part of the reason I don't like WP/Dark. And Siphon Life may or may not help survive a large alpha ... changes are if your WP Tanker is taking that kind of damage, the extra 20% or so in boost in HPs won't help (talking large game content obviously).
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Your information is outdated, Siphon Life is an excellent attack now. It deals more raw damage than Smite, and has a higher DPA than Shadow Punch. (High offense builds with plenty of recharge ignore Shadow Punch in their chains. It's best to prioritize SL over SP even with lower amounts of recharge.)
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I have Tough and Weave on my L41 WP/Stone Tanker and in large groups he can still get alpha'd out of existence. It's not consistent enough for me to say that he's squishy but I definitely eye large packs of bosses a little more warily then my Inv Tanker does. This might change a bit with IOs (defense bonuses specifically) which he lacks.
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I don't think you're lying, but my experience is contrary to yours, with Fire as a secondary no less. Not sure how to explain the difference.
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Dark has a pretty decent flavor of AOEs so I will disagree there.
And Energy has the same amount of AOEs as Super Strength and no one is complaining about SS having problems holding agro so I'd disagree there as well (and Whirling Hands comes up faster (albeing has less of a radius) then Footstomp).
Holding agro is one of the few things that is really more player oriented then set oriented (although I will admit that WP primary offers the weakest of these tools past Taunt) in my opinion. The more active the Tanker, the better the agro retention. Which you apparently agree with in the "aggro" thread
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Dark's two AoEs have a >60s rech with SOs, and >30s with very aggressive recharge slotting (generally not done on WP builds). Aside from that it has is SM. While I love SM, it in no way can compete with aggro retention with high target limit AoEs.
Yes, I'd classify as SS as a little aggro handicapped until lvl38, and even past that getting some recharge to allow you to use FS more often.
Now, I will admit that my experience is a little tainted since I took full advantage of Fire's AoE prowess, so I didn't slot RttC with taunts. Management would be easier slotted in that way, but I couldn't spare the slots.
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Edit: For the record, I'm not saying WP/Dark is a bad combo. Conceptually I don't like it. In practice I've never played (or seen played) that combo before so it may turn out to be *very* fun to play. I'm definitely a huge fan of the non-stop go Tanker builds which this would definitely be.
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That's a fair statement.
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while Dark... has a self heal (up to 20% of your HPs when slotted) which is almost always up (and works amazingly well when coupled with Dull Pain which boosts your HPs)
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Note that click heals are based on class base HP, not actual HP. So when you say "20% heal," it's actually more like 10-11% on a character with a slotted Dull Pain up.
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Nitpick: to be exact, a 20% heal would be 12.5% on a character with slotted Dull Pain up and no accolades.
Formula to calculate this being:
FinalHeal = OriginalHeal * (1/(1+HPBuff%))
Basically, HP buffs equate damage resistance to all damage types AND also healing resistance.
Ah well ok if you're going to hold up Fire (either primary of secondary for that matter) then yeah anything else by comparison will seem off by comparison.
I can't argue that Fire (and possibly Ice) has the best agro tools of the Tanker sets (the Primary sometimes to its detriment).
And for the record I wasn't including SM in Dark's list of AOEs and since I run Hasten on all my Tankers those 60-120s recharge times aren't as daunting to me as they might be to some others. I'll take another look at Siphon Life however as you could very well be correct (been awhile since I ran Dark Melee). Actually a Shields/Dark Tanker was my next pet project 
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while Dark... has a self heal (up to 20% of your HPs when slotted) which is almost always up (and works amazingly well when coupled with Dull Pain which boosts your HPs)
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Note that click heals are based on class base HP, not actual HP. So when you say "20% heal," it's actually more like 10-11% on a character with a slotted Dull Pain up.
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Nitpick: to be exact, a 20% heal would be 12.5% on a character with slotted Dull Pain up and no accolades.
Formula to calculate this being:
FinalHeal = OriginalHeal * (1/(1+HPBuff%))
Basically, HP buffs equate damage resistance to all damage types AND also healing resistance.
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You just made my day in ways you couldn't possibly understand 
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You should give WM another try Kruunch. Invul no longer suffers from knockback that WM used to do. Fire Armor synergize well with all the KD from the WM set. Clobber is now the best power in WM, in case you missed it.
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I have a L24 Shields/WM Tanker (talk about your Endurance woes ... eeesh). They did a nice job (thus far that I've seen) with War Mace in terms of the set being closer to on par with other Tanker secondaries. My three issues still with War Mace is that it still feels subpar to Axe in terms of damage
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War Mace at that level should consume as much endurance as any other primary, they all use the same endurance per damage done for few exceptions (dark shadow maul gets a bonus discount, and Fire gets extra DoTs.) In the long run, War Mace has much higher AoE potential than Battle Axe, and Battle Axe slightly better single target damage.
Both sets benefit from increased accuracy.
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WM in my mind doesn't give you the same secondary mitigation that SS or Axe does (or even the reliability of Energy's disorients), it does have explosive damage when combined together.
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At higher levels, once you get crowd Control, that cycles every 12 seconds instead of every 20 and can knock down 10 foes (although with arguably more effort than Foot Stomp with it's huge range) you do a lot of knock down. As with damage, WM ends doing drastically higher AoE mitigation via Crowd Control than Battle Axe, but better single target mitigation due to all attacks in Axe doing Knock Down. Note that randomness may actually allow BA to match this by also spamming whirling axe, that also knock downs but randomly.
Actually my Endurance comment was specific to the Shield/WM combo but yeah it could have been equally applied to just about any secondary with Shields at that level.
Past that I will defer to your love of minutia
I've seen a few posts from people saying something like that about Shield's endurance use, but Shields doesn't use more endurance than other sets... I believe it's on par with other non-damaging aura sets and AAO boosts your damage to boot.
For the OP question, I really would say a properly built Fire/Fire tank could fit the bill. Adding Tough and Weave to Fiery Aura makes for a sturdy Tank that can also dish out the damage. Other combos can work, too, of course.
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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I've seen a few posts from people saying something like that about Shield's endurance use, but Shields doesn't use more endurance than other sets... I believe it's on par with other non-damaging aura sets and AAO boosts your damage to boot.
For the OP question, I really would say a properly built Fire/Fire tank could fit the bill. Adding Tough and Weave to Fiery Aura makes for a sturdy Tank that can also dish out the damage. Other combos can work, too, of course.
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Shield's toggles and its status protection use (within .01/s) the same endruance as Invulnerability. The addition of Shield Charge which is often used makes it the set use much more Endurance.
Additionally Shield tends to get all of its toggles very early (and all those toggles (excluding Grant Cover) are needed fairly early) making it very clunky when levelling up through the teens and twenties. By comparison, Invuln doesn't generally see that last toggle (Invince) till 28 or later.
While Ice gets its toggles early as well, you can skip at least two of them (CE and Icicles) until much later (if at all). Ice also gets Energy Absorbtion which totally negates endurance concerns.
Fire is in a similar boat as Shields until it gets Consume and the really expensive toggle (BA) can be skipped until later to further mitigate the endurance issues while levelling.
Will Power obviously suffers the least from these issues.
I can't say for Dark Armor.
So (aside from Dark Armor possibly) Shields is the most expensive (Endurance wise) Tanker primary to use ... at least numbers wise. You can make the arguement that SC mitigates its endurance because of damage dealt (hence mobs die sooner) but then again I would still argue that the Shield Tanker is going to progress through his/her attack chain, thus expending the normal amount of its secondary.
Obviously this can be offset with IO sets but that gets away from the original idea of what combos seemingly work well without IOs and given the common criteria of "takes a punch and dishes out damage". Shield does accomplish this and well ... but it is also end heavy, so pairing it up with other end heavy secondaries may prove to be a little cludgy to the average player who may or may not foresee themselves kitting out their Tanker in the future with IO sets (and of course having to deal with the bulk of levelling without said IOs otherwise).
If you're getting yourself from the get go via a rich main toon, then any combination works (and Shield does admirably well under those circumstances).
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The addition of Shield Charge which is often used makes it the set use much more Endurance.
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When I hit buildup, then 1-shot a group full of minions for 13.52 endurance, I'm not left with a sense of how endurance intensive shield defense is.
That isn't meant as a disagreement to any comparison between the primaries... It's just that not all endurance costs are endurance problems.
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While Ice gets its toggles early as well, you can skip at least two of them (CE and Icicles) until much later (if at all). Ice also gets Energy Absorbtion which totally negates endurance concerns.
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Wuh? Skip the best taunt auras? Who does that?
Agreed with you on the EA comment. But it's still a long road to 26. I slotted heavily for endurance pre-EA, and still maintain a few in my build, even with Stamina and EA.
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The addition of Shield Charge which is often used makes it the set use much more Endurance.
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When I hit buildup, then 1-shot a group full of minions for 13.52 endurance, I'm not left with a sense of how endurance intensive shield defense is.
That isn't meant as a disagreement to any comparison between the primaries... It's just that not all endurance costs are endurance problems.
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This. Properly played, Shield Charge will save you endurance.
It's not Shields itself that makes people complain about its endurance, it's that many players find it a requisite to add both Tough and Weave on top of it--both of which are endurance heavy toggles. The same often goes with Invulnerability: Tough and Weave take their toll on endurance, and aren't always necessary for the added survivability.
For Shields, like with any other Tanker set, I just adjusted as I needed to... I didn't pick up AAO until after Stamina and that worked okay for me. It's really not any heavier early on than any other set.
I'm also wondering if you wrote a typo with the Invince at 28 thing... as I can't imagine waiting until 28 to pick that up... that's a very important power for an Invuln Tanker to pick up. You can set up your build to get that at 18 and still get Stamina at 20, and I would recommend doing that to any Invuln.
I would say Ice and Fire have the easiest time of it for Tanks because of their end recovery powers (though they do have some heavy toggles)... Fire the easiest because you can get Consume while you're in the single digits, which is quite nice.
I'm not sure what the perception is that makes people think Shields is heavier... part of me wants to say maybe it's because they haven't leveled up a Tank in awhile, but who knows. All I know is that the numbers aren't any heavier than other tank sets and that I had no more trouble with end on my Shield/SS than I do with any other tank.
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
i have 3 lvl 50 tanks and 3 lvl 5 brutes atm, with more on the way. as from what i've seen/experienced my fav tank sets are:
wp/ss i have a 2.2 billion influence build on this thing, capped hp, and a hella lotta +damage, this thing never dies unless i'm on an itf jump in the middle of 2 groups of traitors and then go make a sandwich.
stone/fire - the thing is also another tank that cannot die, i remember once i got this thing to finally get granite i was tanking +9's just fine, only issue was with lack of xp. takes time to get used to being rooted, so learn a quick tp bind. IO'ing focus on recharge/hp.
ice/dark - omg talk about never, and i mean never getting hit, well a 5% chance to get hit pretty much from lvl 22 on. you'll never run out of endurance, you get 2 heals, chilling embrace is sick. so it will be whiff, brrr, whiff, brrr as u lay into them kick serious [censored].
invuln/axe - this was lvl 50 #2, it was really fun way back i nthe day having capped resistance to everything besides psi/toxic and u'd have pretty close to it on toxic. it used to be fun to herd 400 warwolves andswing an axe in a circle. however all the toggles are fairly end heavy, and axe has mediocre damage later in the game as most mobs have some lethal resistance. mine still has a proc in invincibility that works, if you don't have one in you can't put it in anymore, however i've pretty much retired this guy. on invuln i' suggest slotting for def/rech/end. getting capped defense to melee, having enough recharge for perma dull pain and enough end to run ur toggles would be beast.
realistically and tank can do well if u think of a purpose behind it before rolling it.
I personally find WP/SS to be a great combination. The two sets go well together, especially conceptually.
Plus, Rage's animation matches the WP toggles =]
I say sheilds/war mace definitely is better than noted here, I have alot of tankers and this one is by far my most damaging one. From the heavy aoe damage of war mace and the buff from sheilds.. the end early is partly toggles but also war mace is a bit of a drainer if your going all out.. as to the tuogh weave... I have cheap and moderate IO in mine and sit around 44% def with combat jumpign added to it.. no weave or tough... and I hardly ever get in trouble.. in fact was just in a mass of mobs around 50 i would guess on an AE mish, team wiped around the room I lived on till i took them all out.
Recently I've gotten a few PMs and ingame tells with new players and/or new Tankers asking me what I think the best Tanker combos are. Their primary requirement (almost identical verbatum) is that they want a Tanker who can take a beating but also dish out some damage. Here is what I told them.
Every Tanker combo can take a punch and deal out damage. The question really boils down to "what's going to be fun for you to play"? I can tell you what's fun for me and you can decide if that matches your criteria.
First off I like AT sets that go well together. That means that both the primary and secondary sets work well together rather than in opposition of eachother. For instance Inv/Dark works well together. Invulnerability is one of the best all around defensive sets, based on resistances and backed up by solid defense and finally has a great panic button in Unstoppable (takes a little getting use to) while Dark dishes out decent damage, debuffs toHit (making Inv shine that much more), has a self heal (up to 20% of your HPs when slotted) which is almost always up (and works amazingly well when coupled with Dull Pain which boosts your HPs) and an Endurance booster which off sets Invulnerability's fairly heavy endurance use (toggles) and if you happen to use Hasten (Hasten crash) which I do on all of my Tankers. So with this combo you have +toHit (for each mob near you), +toHitDebuff (x4), +health, healing (x2), and endurance recovery. You take care of most of those things in the game which can be really annoying (you missing, you getting hit, your health dropping, and running out of endurance) without much added work (notice I didn't mention IO sets or optimal builds).
So that's the kind of (pardon the 80s term) synergy I like in my Tanker combinations. With that in mind, here are a list of combos that I've found work well together out of the box:
Inv/Dark
Ice/SS
Fire/Eng*
Fire/Fire
Shields/Dark
WP/Axe**
Ice/Axe**
WP/Eng*
Fire/SS
* Energy Melee's damage matures late (best damage powers being L35 and L38) and two of the animations are obnoxiously long. I happen to like the aesthetics of the set though (glowing pom-poms ftw!) and it happens to double well for PvP (I think it's the best PvP Tanker secondary personally).
** I'm not thrilled with weapon secondaries in general because of the obnoxious weapon draw mechanic (stone, fire and ice secondaries don't really suffer from this as much even though they have a "weapon" that is used). I also don't know enough about Dual Blades from personal experience to comment, but I've not been thrilled with it yet from having heard/seen the experiences of others.
Fire Primary Note: Fire primary is nice because it has AOE offensive capability, one of the best Tanker heals in the game (because it comes back so fast) and a great endurance booster. The downside to Fire is that you have to really work at making it stand up in full group situations as the lead/lone tank (Tough, Weave and IO sets being very important here if you want to be the lead tank in large groups). One of the biggest traps for the Fire primary is lack of knockback protection which many go the route of Acrobatics to get. I say trap because the majority of Knockback woes can be handled with a single -knockback IO instead of blowing a power on it.
Note: With IO sets, you can shore up the holes (to a greater or lesser extent) in *any* Tanker combo. However, the Hero side being as expensive as it is for IO sets, the casual player might find it daunting coming up with the 100+ million influence it takes to *moderately* outfit a toon with IO sets (although you can ghetto your way through this for about 50mil or so depending on what you're trying to do).
Please feel free to weigh in with your thoughts and opinions.