[ QUOTE ]
Wha? You mean I would have to supliment a set that comes with 3-4 nice AoE attacks with another pool AoE? So to prevent having to do this I should pick a set like SS with only ONE AoE?
[/ QUOTE ]
Technically, SS has two. Just because one of them is never taken - it actually hurts Willpower tankers, and doesn't really help anyone else - is no reason to ignore it.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
[ QUOTE ]
Technically, SS has two. Just because one of them is never taken - it actually hurts Willpower tankers, and doesn't really help anyone else - is no reason to ignore it.
[/ QUOTE ]
I guess it doesn't really matter to fire/ss tankers that don't want to worry about burn.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
G_tanker you said you saw a lot of WP tankers face plant on the 54 boss farm. Why do you think they face planted and how can you build a tanker to avoid that? Does WP suck at Tanking?
[/ QUOTE ]
Let me answer for G_tanker.
I'm going to guess the WP Tanks he saw faceplant either did not have Tough and Weave or just were not good at Tanking.
[/ QUOTE ]
I can speak for myself, thanks, I have lots to say about terrible tanks.
First off, willpower is a middle of the road set. It does not really excel at anything - jack of all trades syndrome. It can be built for pretty much anything, however. Innately, as a set, it does not have a great starting point against 54 smash/lethal bosses.
Many of the terrible tanks I've seen this week did have tough and weave. Some were too stupid to run them, I kid you not (too much endurance? lol). Incidentally, one non-WP highlight of this week was the stone tanker that didn't enhance granite and was going down where my invuln scrapper had no problems. That cracked me up.
Typically they weren't played/built. 54 smash/lethal bosses are not WP's forte innately the way it is for invuln or stone - they do more damage per hit than lower bosses, meaning more needs to be regenerated, and the -tohit effect is much weaker vs them. Higher resistance is important if you want to stand up to that much damage consistently, and you definitely want to softcap S/L or melee for that environment if you can manage it. (Of course, one FF defender or Fort and you're pretty good!)
By comparison, my invuln scrapper was tanked 53's from 28-39 and 54's since then in the last few days. I simply IO'd out for defense to S/L and built teams or brought purple insps to finish the softcap when needed, always with at least 60% S/L resistance.
Another thing is keep in mind your taunt aura is weak. Annoyingly weak. I have played with a number of bad willpower tanks in the last few days (my ABSOLUTE favorite one was the 48 WP/Fire/Pyre yesterday that thought she was 'helping' whenever I brought a new pack of 54's into the group by fireball/taunting them off me and losing the ones she had next to her - we had like a dozen squishy deaths in a run due to her not knowing when NOT to taunt) so I'm a bit jaded.
Willpower's big strength is not innately S/L, but it can be designed for it with a little effort and can do quite well. As always, there's an insp vendor right outside the AE - it always pays to have an emergency skittle to cover your holes. Bad players will think they can tank simply because their AT says "Tanker" (*laugh*), and most of them get too caught up in the glory of standing in a pile of mobs to realize the nuances of capping and agro, then wonder why their teammates are dying. Please, please don't be one of these players. I can't do double and triple spawn herds of 54's with partners that try to steal my agro and lose theirs in the process - it kills teammates.
[/ QUOTE ]
Nearly finished with my WP/fire tank. I'm missing a few sets to give me +HP and the Task Force Commander Accolade. I have ~2900 HP, but will have ~3100 when done.
Through sets and power choices, I've softcapped S/L defense (over 40% on the other types as well) and have 70% resistance to S/L. In a huge group, I'll get >150 HP/s regen. WP with the right slotting can be an unstoppable machine. Not only because of survivability but because of longevity. My recovery is 4.21 end/sec. There's basically zero downtime. If I hit SoW, I cap my S/L resist easily and up my recovery even further.
My only regret is selecting fire. The AoEs are nice, but being a tank they are simply for holding aggro. They also provide no mitigation. I've just started a WP/SS and am building him in a very similar manner, and plan to perma-Rage. The end crash is not an issue so I plan to get a great deal more mitigation and damage on top of the incredible survivability I have now.
I was also fortunte to buy many of my IOs when the AE was in full swing. I got the KC recipes pretty cheaply and even rolled a LoTG:Recharge and NC: Regen/Recovery. It was (is) relatively cheap to make an extremely effective WP tank even though the price of KCs has increased substantially.
B-B-B-BATTLE AXE
I can tell your personally, EM is just fine, hell , I can even show you. but thats a whole other story, go with Stone Melee, I love it on my WP tank, and this is with no fault or tremor (havent had any problems without). Its just a great secondary when it comes to pure dmg. Get the AoE's if thats your thing. Fire would seem what your aiming at though,especially if you want to solo, Combustion and spinning sword of fiery death should prove to be the best thing since sliced Recluse.
"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 ]
B-B-B-BATTLE AXE
[/ QUOTE ]
Bah. Real men whip out the wrench. 
[ QUOTE ]
was this on guardian? Cause about a week ago on the STF, we had the eternally dying granite tank (56% resistance!). I lasted longer in lobster (warshade) form than he did.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think I've met that guy. :P
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
I'd recommend anything but EM.
[ QUOTE ]
I'd recommend anything but EM.
[/ QUOTE ]
I agree with you.
/em is a fine melee set, esp for solo attacks.
I wouldnt recommend it for 2 reasons:
1. aoe is weak. I think its the weakest of all the melee sets.
2. The 2 big hitters, the ones that make /em worth it are at lvl 35 and 38. That is a loooooong wait for effective melee attacks.
The stuns can stack. dark/em would be a better match for /em. I'd still prefer mace.
but wp/stone (which I have) - wow. Loving it, loved every level, every mission. Very few tanks (invul/ss [my first] and shield/mace) are the only ones I felt this love.
50 Tanks: Invul/ss, Fire/ice/fire, Ice/em, Stone/fire
WP/Stone, dark/dark, shld/mace
50 Other: WS, SS/dark/sc brute, BS/Regen/WM scrpr, fire/fire/force blaster, rad/kin corr, mind/rad ctrl, ill/storm cntrl
Thanks for the Advice. I decided on the Will/SS tanker. I was very close to picking stone but SS won out with perm Rage. I wanted to try out flight so I picked up Air Superiority. With AS, Haymaker and punch it is like I am making popcorn. lol
I am currently only lvl 18 but I seems like a fun build so far.
WP/SS is an excellent choice .... I thnk you'll be very happy.
[ QUOTE ]
That's by no means meant to be a speed record or set a competitive bar given that it was a *pug*, but my experience has been 54 boss spawn exp is quite good when spawns are melting.
Face Planting WP Tankers: 9/10 times these are poorly built and/or poorly schemed builds. Either without Tough/Weave (which a WP Tanker must have to group tank imo) and/or without some form of AOE mitigation (i.e. KD, Stuns, etc ...). I've seen WP/Fire Tankers with Tough/Weave face plant a bunch (this is from lack of mitigation in my estimation). I haven't actually seen a WP/DM Tanker in-game yet, but I'd imagine that it wouldn't be quite as squishy as WP/Fire (for the reasons Sarrate points out).
[/ QUOTE ]
I want to point out - aoe mitigation in your secondary is important. It's why I recommended stone, mace and SS. SS has to wait the longest, unfortunately.
[ QUOTE ]
Also L54 boss farms plant most non-Stone, non-Invuln Tankers. By and large L54 boss farms are bad farms in my experience (takes too long to kill, even with a great kill team). L52 boss farms seem to be the pinnacle of boss farms for efficiency.
[/ QUOTE ]
My experiences differ greatly, but I suspect we build teams differently as well. Also, I tend not to take farming seriously, just use it as a leveling tool when I want to. IE: I just did 49->50 on said invuln scrapper leading a 54 pug farm (since writing my last post in this thread) in ~30m (mostly 35-40 team, with only middling coordination - quite a few needless deaths) just in time to run to a happy hour
Edit: I think I did 48 earlier today in another half hour group if memory serves, so edited to reflect that. Haven't really been keeping track, and bar is calling.