I can't speak for DB but WM is pretty decent now.
Given CoH's mechanics, I'm tending to shy away from the power set that is based on chaining attacks.
IMHO the necessity of using combos distracts a team Tanker from choosing his targets for optimal Gauntlet and also from the important function of battlefield awareness. As a protector of a team, I want to be looking for new aggro, watching for Freak Tanks suddenly turning toward the Defenders, spreading my attacks to spread the hate, keeping tabs on the position of the melee furball and stray teammates, timing my big attack(s) perfectly, locking down the boss's attention, and so on. The little orange circles pull at my attention and they keep repeating that pull.
Just a wordier version of what Kruunch said, really.
I make Scrappers when I want to play with Dual Blades -- they get more wow out of the attacks anyway. Might as well enjoy big results from those flashy attacks.
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
I'd go with War Mace. You don't have to take every attack to be effective with it, and you want everything but the tier 9 in Invulnerability if only for the debuff protections. War Mace is easily the superior AoE set. You don't have to switch gears all that much in solo versus team play with it either, like you do with DB.
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I tend to prefer Mace for tanks (which is to say I don't particularly like DB for tanks, though I love it as a scrapper) as well, but just to play devil's advocate, DB gets the fairly awesome Sweep combo for mitigation, that's actually pretty poor for damage so it's skipped quite a bit for scrappers. For my scrapper, it's all about BF+AV combo repeated to death (the mobs'), which does incorporate a cone, and Typhoon's Edge for when I'm surrounded. Tanks can get a lot of mileage out of Sweep, I think.
Still... I'd take Mace.
Edit: I looked on my DPA spreadsheet and really, WM shouldn't do all *that* much better on the AoE front. WM is actually worse than Typhoon's Edge, and WM's 2 cones are about comparable to DB's 2 cones. Big difference is that Crowd Control is a 180 deg arc which gives WM the edge, though Sweeping Strike does better damage and if you chain it w/the AV combo, you're doing DoT as well. I know Stars' chart has WM way in front of DB so I'm guessing that wider arc and the fact that 1000 cuts is so slow animating makes a big difference.
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DB makes you take every power , but at a higher reward factor. Mace is fast and strong easy to apply and hammer away. In my opinion DB is for the tactician, I've had a WP/DM for a while now, once you get passed the 20's and start getting your chain attacks, it becomes a tad unfair for the enemy. I.e. the Sweep combo is devastating on huge groups. As well as weaken. Its fast and it provides buffs for the user and debuffs for the enemies.
As far as taunting goes, with taunt, sweep combo, and typhoon's edge, it wont be much of a problem. The only heartache is the actual build itself. As an Invul vet, I found that the passives ; Resist Energies and Resist elements, are far from needed. But its up to you to decide what you don't want or wish to skip.
In conclusion, take DB for the tact or WM for the power.
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything"
"You're like Giraffe's, the way you look down on me, with your vegetarian scorn."
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DB makes you take every power
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Yikes, I hadn't considered the full implication of that. Like I said, as a scrapper, you can get away w/skipping quite a few attacks, esp 1000 cuts, and just do AV over and over. As a tanker, you'd want both the AV & Sweep combos, plus Blinding Feint, which puts you at 6 powers, then you're forced to take Nimble Slash, then if you take Taunt over all that, you're literally stuck w/every power in the set. No wonder I don't see too many DB tanks--I'd definitely go for Mace.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
Inv/DB is unplayable? If so, then that's a shame because I like how the DB powers look as opposed to finding the WM powers to be boring to look at. I'd much rather be useful to groups than to be stylish.
I agree with you about the looks.
I've seen a couple of DB Tankers and haven't been impressed with what I saw but having said that, I don't have any quantifyable data.
I wouldn't say they're unplayable by any stretch however.
Inv/DB is perfectly playable. You don't need the combos. The best attack chains for DB use four attacks, or 3 if you can get ludicrous recharge (either Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals combo, or Blinding Feint/Ablating Strike/Sweeping Strike/Ablating Strike). From this thread, which is admittedly for scrappers.
Mace will be much easier, since you can pretty much pick and slot any/every attack, but DB is a perfectly acceptable Tanker secondary.
If you like Dual Blades, play Dual Blades. If you like War Mace, play War Mace.
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@Starflier
As was said above you don't need to work towards chains, just look at completing them as a bonus. I'm focusing on my DB scrapper atm and I only use the BF > AV chain, however as was noted this requires a good amount of recharge. It's all about play style and what you enjoy.
DB is inherently slightly underpowered because it's balanced around the combos. W/a ridiculous recharge (usually requires outside buffs), you can get by w/a BF>Ablating>SS>Ablating chain w/Typhoon's thrown in for the AoE for a pretty high DPS, but for normal play, if you don't take advantage of combos, you're sorta gimping yourself. Not to say there's a rule to say you have to play your powerset to their full potential, but... well, I sure as hell would rather.
BTW, the BF>AV combo doesn't require all that much recharge, esp if you're running Hasten. As long as you get Vengeful's rech down to 4 sec (4.092 to be exact), and assuming you have *some* recharge in your other attacks too, you're perfectly gapless. And if you're surrounded by mobs, you'll likely be doing BF>TE>AV anyway.
Edit:
To MuMuGuy, I never said that Inv/DB was "unplayable", just that I wouldn't wanna play one. Inv is a bit more forgiving than WP or Shields (couldn't do that combo anyway) for power choices, so who knows, it might work out.
To Liathan, your calculation on the scrapper thread is correct, but your conclusion, while accurate, is a bit misleading. The longest animating attack is the most vulnerable to not having enough recharge, which is why I said you need to bring down VS's recharge down to 4.092. If you do that, the others will almost naturally get down into the 5 sec ranges required for the gapless BV>AV chain.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
It depends Dave, if you pick WP, you can acquire QR and skip getting Stam, ( I have done this and with ease). And get everything else without having to worry. You could skip HS and Resurgence and opt to pick the attacks up. Or skip Resurge and pick up HS later. Is HS needed?, well if you survived all the way up to the power then no.
Now if you take Invul, you will probably be skipping the passives all except Tough Hide. The point is to have ALL the attacks, as you benefit more, with them as a DB. This is not to say mace is bad, just that to make DB glorified, you need to get all the powers.
Lastly, Even as a Macer, I assure you , you will be taking all attacks but one, maybe due to low dmg or what have you, but every tank I see usually has 8 attacks by 50. DB just makes you pick one more.
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything"
"You're like Giraffe's, the way you look down on me, with your vegetarian scorn."
In general, i'd say go inv/wm. Rather i would more-so suggest inv/axe as the last tiers have higher recharges.
Why, because invuln in general lacking so much heal, i always suggest hasten wtih the build to get dull pain up as much as possible.
Having hasten additionally means that you're better off with a secondary that benefits more from it. Dual blades, is one of those attack sets that is perfectly fine without hasten so i wouldn't really suggest that. Dual blades for tankers consideration IMO i like with dark armor or stone armor, willpower as well.
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[ QUOTE ]
It depends Dave, if you pick WP, you can acquire QR and skip getting Stam, ( I have done this and with ease).
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I've tried this and it doesn't work very well. It's sort of like not having ED but forcing yourself to follow those rules.
One of the big perks to WP is its go power. Why would you hamstring yourself by lowering your recovery to Stamina only level and then having to invariably slot for recovery later? Its doable ... but you miss a large part of what being a WP is (and then fun of being free of recovery concerns with regards to set bonuses too).
Also you don't need to skip half the powers in the set to pick up all or most of the powers in DB. You can skip Resurgence and Strength of Will without missing a beat. I would highly suggest not skipping HS however.
You're right dave, I Forgot to mention that the recharge is all based around not running hasten, with hasten up you can pull of the BV > AV chain with little inturuption, when hasten is down is another thing though.
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It depends Dave, if you pick WP, you can acquire QR and skip getting Stam, ( I have done this and with ease). And get everything else without having to worry.
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No real skippable powers in WP either tho, except for Resurgence and maybe SoW. That's a whole lot of powers to take and not a lot of room for pools, even if you do skip Fitness, which I wouldn't anyway just for Hurdle (Hurdle + CJ ftw) & Health. As for Stam, you *can* skip it, but you have to slot well for end redux. I did it w/my DB/WP scrapper, but had to frankenslot a lot for heavy end redux and it hampered my BF>AV chain when Hasten was down. I was a lot happier when I just took Stam and was able to slot for set bonuses & far higher recharge.
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Lastly, Even as a Macer, I assure you , you will be taking all attacks but one, maybe due to low dmg or what have you, but every tank I see usually has 8 attacks by 50. DB just makes you pick one more.
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I'm assuming most ppl who play tanks don't bother to really crunch numbers, which is prolly all to the well since most ppl don't enjoy that sort of stuff. If they did, and even cared slightly about optimizing their builds, they wouldn't take more than 3 or 4 key powers. Again, there is nothing wrong with not crunching the numbers, but if you're going to be handing out advice based on effectiveness of various powers and powersets, you sorta owe it to the asker to analyze the powers a bit more thoroughly, I think.
Fact is, WM only needs Clobber, Whirling Mace, Shatter & Crowd Control to be effective. Bash is required, so that makes 5, and if you don't have enough recharge, you'll likely want Jawbreaker (or if you want the knockup). However, I consider JB to be totally skippable as its DPA is only slightly better than Pulverize, and I'd much rather fill my gap w/an epic blast (granted, Fire Blast has a slightly lower DPA than JB, but its overall animation is faster and thus reduces your overall DPS less, plus is ranged and opens up Fireball). So that's 5, maybe 6 powers vs. 8 for DB, and 2 powerslots is *huge* in my book.
Skipping passives in Invul is a whole different argument, and one I don't wanna get into here... or anywhere really. 
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
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I've tried this and it doesn't work very well. It's sort of like not having ED but forcing yourself to follow those rules.
One of the big perks to WP is its go power. Why would you hamstring yourself by lowering your recovery to Stamina only level and then having to invariably slot for recovery later? Its doable ... but you miss a large part of what being a WP is (and then fun of being free of recovery concerns with regards to set bonuses too).
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I wouldn't say its dramatic as "missing a large part of being a WP", as some might argue SoW is an integral part. But trust me, if you have SoW you dont need HS, but as I posted, you could always get HS later, its not like skipping something integral like say, Mind over body.
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything"
"You're like Giraffe's, the way you look down on me, with your vegetarian scorn."
[ QUOTE ]
Fact is, WM only needs Clobber, Whirling Mace, Shatter & Crowd Control to be effective. Bash is required, so that makes 5, and if you don't have enough recharge, you'll likely want Jawbreaker (or if you want the knockup). However, I consider JB to be totally skippable as its DPA is only slightly better than Pulverize, and I'd much rather fill my gap w/an epic blast (granted, Fire Blast has a slightly lower DPA than JB, but its overall animation is faster and thus reduces your overall DPS less, plus is ranged and opens up Fireball). So that's 5, maybe 6 powers vs. 8 for DB, and 2 powerslots is *huge* in my book.
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Actually those who PVP know that having every attack but the very low dmg lvl 1 one, is useful. If you consider 2 more attacks "huge" then you have to know that with those 2 attacks DB is made whole, as an attack chain combo and overall dmg. Thats the point, you have all the moves so you can be more devastating. As I posted before DB is for the tactician, WM is for the hammer types. But dont take my word for it, make an AE with DB enemies and WM weigh the differences of power and speed.
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything"
"You're like Giraffe's, the way you look down on me, with your vegetarian scorn."
[ QUOTE ]
You're right dave, I Forgot to mention that the recharge is all based around not running hasten, with hasten up you can pull of the BV > AV chain with little inturuption, when hasten is down is another thing though.
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What is this AV chain you keep mentioning? I have no problem doing the power up combo, vengeful slice, repeat repeat repeat. It keeps it so i have 80% damage boost every time vengeful slice goes off, and 40% during the combo.
This is without hasten.
I'm assuming the combo you are talking abuot is BF > VS > BF > VS??
DB isn't really for the ST monster, its much better as an aoe set.
IMO, i'd not worry about trying to make it an av battler, and enjoying it as it is. You can slot rech in attacks and get some +rech bonuses and have it be more than fine when playing this game without hasten.
Plasmic's Guide to Sonic/Mental
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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I've tried this and it doesn't work very well. It's sort of like not having ED but forcing yourself to follow those rules.
One of the big perks to WP is its go power. Why would you hamstring yourself by lowering your recovery to Stamina only level and then having to invariably slot for recovery later? Its doable ... but you miss a large part of what being a WP is (and then fun of being free of recovery concerns with regards to set bonuses too).
[/ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't say its dramatic as "missing a large part of being a WP", as some might argue SoW is an integral part. But trust me, if you have SoW you dont need HS, but as I posted, you could always get HS later, its not like skipping something integral like say, Mind over body.
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Skipping HS isn't integral but SoW is??? Way wrong there. HS is one of the staples of the set for your exotic types. MOB is your smash/lethal resists, HS is your exotic defense. It may be in a different form, but its part of your complete defenses, with a tidbit of s/l too, but not hte main part. Considering most powers have s/l in addition to exotic, it actually means defense against some s/l powers as well in that meaning too.
Not to mention the LOTG that fit in it.
Plasmic's Guide to Sonic/Mental
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[ QUOTE ]
Skipping HS isn't integral but SoW is??? Way wrong there. HS is one of the staples of the set for your exotic types. MOB is your smash/lethal resists, HS is your exotic defense. It may be in a different form, but its part of your complete defenses, with a tidbit of s/l too, but not hte main part. Considering most powers have s/l in addition to exotic, it actually means defense against some s/l powers as well in that meaning too.
Not to mention the LOTG that fit in it.
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Ah the exotic dmg discussion, already had this conversation a long time ago. 90% of the game is lethal and smashing dmg the rest is exotics. But these "exotic" types and their dmg won't be noticed with Rttc and fast healing at work. And since you mentioned IO's, if your full of io sets exotic dmg will mean nothing to you, as your regen would be high. I'm not saying its a useless power, but that you can still survive without it. I have and still do. I understand the stack of HS with weave, but its hardly "pivotal". IN MY OPINION, SoW is more integral than HS due to its provides the same numbers but toward resists oh and the end mod.
Its a nice "exotic" def power, but when everthing else in the set is taken, it can be ignored. I've survived plenty of TF"s without it.
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything"
"You're like Giraffe's, the way you look down on me, with your vegetarian scorn."
[ QUOTE ]
Actually those who PVP
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Stop right there. I'm talking strictly PvE. The OP stated he's not interested in PvE. I don't care about PvP in the slightest and don't build for it--if you do, more power to you, but for the context of this thread, let's stick to PvE, shall we?
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If you consider 2 more attacks "huge"
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Abso-freakin'-lutely, esp if you're building towards something like def cap and max recharge. Every power choice and every single slot matters. A ton.
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then you have to know that with those 2 attacks DB is made whole, as an attack chain combo and overall dmg.
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This is the entire basis of my point that you're more or less "forced" to take all the powers in the set, to set up your AV & Sweep combos. Otherwise, why would you ever bother w/a slow & low damage attack like Vengful Slice (yeah, yeah, knockup)?
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Thats the point, you have all the moves so you can be more devastating.
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No, you become devastating by knowing what few moves are most damaging, and then repeating the process. A running joke for scrappers is that the ideal ST chain is Headsplitter > Headsplitter > Headsplitter.
For DB, the (near) absolute top ST chain is BF > AB > SS > AB, but this is almost impossible to achieve by yourself. You'd need a recharge time of 1.61 for Ablating, 2.87 for Sweeping Strike and 3.17 for BF. I think Shred & Werner showed an even higher DPS chain (involved 3x stacking BF for SS), but that requires even more ridiculous recharge and considerable outside support. What most ppl are "stuck with" is the BF>AV combo, which requires greatly less recharge, and pretty much everyone can achieve a gapless chain with it (and it turns out it's very good at around 155DPS for scrappers, unadjusted for BF stacking, crits (tanks don't get 'em anyway) and AV combo DoT, so adjusted, it should be in the 170-180 range, which is very respectable--lower for tanks, of course). Any other combo lowers your DPS.
Now, for a tank, Sweep is certainly worth it, and of course you want Typhoon's for the AoE, but that should be it. Unfortunately, both combos, BF, and the fact that you're forced to take Nimble makes it every power in the set minus Taunt. Compare that to a Scrapper that can skip the taunt, Nimble & 1000 cuts w/o suffering an ounce (that's actually 3 powers, btw). Huge difference in flexibility and how you can build the toon.
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As I posted before DB is for the tactician, WM is for the hammer types. But dont take my word for it, make an AE with DB enemies and WM weigh the differences of power and speed.
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I have 2 DBs and a WM and more than enough experience w/both sets. What you might want to do is crunch some actual numbers before trying to tell ppl what they should be doing. Please don't take this as being hostile--I simply think you aren't really well aware of the numbers of which you're speaking. I assure you, I am.
Again, you don't need to do any of this to have fun with the game--there just happen to be some of us who enjoy number crunching. However, if you're going to make a solid argument for the benefits of your playstyle, you really need to be able to back it up with some data, not just, "A feels like this, B feels like that."
A bit off topic, but since you mention WP in another post... not needing HS is kinda silly. Maybe it could be delayed til later, but I wouldn't recommend it. Both my WP builds have 45% S/L def and 750-ish% regen w/1 mob in range of RTTC, but I still gnash my teeth that I can't get above 40% exotic defense (okay, that's a bit extreme... 
).
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
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What is this AV chain you keep mentioning?
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AV = Attack Vitals. As I mention in my reply above, the BF > AV combo is your highest damaging attack chain, and by far, for the vast majority of DB scrappers and tanks. Any other combo you try to run *will* lower your DPS.
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DB isn't really for the ST monster, its much better as an aoe set.
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WM is far better for AoE than DB--DB can be quite the ST monster w/enough recharge (again, see my reply above this one). It is better for ST than WM, but there are other sets even better for tanks if you're looking for ST damage. Of course, those sets suck for AoE... Having said that, if you can fully leverage SS's cone, esp as part of the AV combo, then yeah, you can put out some very respectable AoE numbers. And Typhoon's Edge is only behind FSC and Foot Stomp for tanker PBAoEs. Too bad 1000 Cuts is so damn slow...
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
[ QUOTE ]
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Skipping HS isn't integral but SoW is??? Way wrong there. HS is one of the staples of the set for your exotic types. MOB is your smash/lethal resists, HS is your exotic defense. It may be in a different form, but its part of your complete defenses, with a tidbit of s/l too, but not hte main part. Considering most powers have s/l in addition to exotic, it actually means defense against some s/l powers as well in that meaning too.
Not to mention the LOTG that fit in it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ah the exotic dmg discussion, already had this conversation a long time ago. 90% of the game is lethal and smashing dmg the rest is exotics. But these "exotic" types and their dmg won't be noticed with Rttc and fast healing at work. And since you mentioned IO's, if your full of io sets exotic dmg will mean nothing to you, as your regen would be high. I'm not saying its a useless power, but that you can still survive without it. I have and still do. I understand the stack of HS with weave, but its hardly "pivotal". IN MY OPINION, SoW is more integral than HS due to its provides the same numbers but toward resists oh and the end mod.
Its a nice "exotic" def power, but when everthing else in the set is taken, it can be ignored. I've survived plenty of TF"s without it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe you can, didnt say that, but i would NEVER suggest to skip it. 90% of the game is s/l, is terribly untrue. While heck YEAH, lots of the game is, 90% is way over what the real value is, i'd say 60-65% perhaps. And like i mentioned, Well while small it does have some s/l defense as well, but there are many attacks that are split, between s/l, and exotic damage types.
This means, that because of this, with HS on, you are defending against those attacks, which also helps your s/l defenses in that nature.
When i mentioned IOs, i waslnt talking about regen. You dont notice any regen bonuses with a full RTTC i'll guarantee that. THe only time they really come into factor is vs 1-2 enemies for the most part.
And the end mod of SoW. You won't notice that much either if you have both QR, and stamina, and the slightest end redux and bonuses through IOs.
And when i mentioned IOs, i was speaking about the 7.5% global into it, and the 1.13% max hp 10% regen and 9% acc bonuses that come with it.
Also, SoW is up only 25% of the time, and is unenhanceable for recharge. While it has its uses I'd much prefer HS, in addition with its defense debuff resistance and its perception bonuses to boot in addition to all the other things i've mentioned.
But again, i woudnt suggest skipping EITHER power. With even the cheapest frankenslotting, i'd find it much easier to skip stamina until you can fit it in, and have done so on my tank with little problems. SoW at this point is more like conserve power for me until i pick up stamina, the extra resists are just a bonus in this situation.
So you may be fine and dandy without HS. But please, don't suggest it for anyone else. I've experienced, and seen too many WP tanks who die, thinking why, i tell them to get HS and even unslotted its JUST that enough more to give them the edge to let the regen from RTTC keep them from dead, to full health almost always. And this isn't even factoring for those who get tough/weave. It becomes exponentially more useful when weave is tossed in the mix, likewise with defense bonuses.
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I'm rolling an alt Tanker of which the concept would allow me to use either DB or WM. Between the two, which is a better compliment to Inv if I want to be able to tank in groups well? If it matters, I'm not interested in the PvP (that's what Team Fortress 2 is for
) and soloing speed doesn't matter too much to me as long as it isn't be death prone to the point of frustration.
Thanks