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Admittedly, I'm the kind of scrapper who says "Ready!" and as soon as someone else says it, I'm running in. :-D With luck, the tank'll head towards the same spawn.
[/ QUOTE ]Real scrappers don't stop to say ready 
These days, until you get SOs, your tank is little more resilient than any other AT; relying more on their extra HP and self heal than shields for survival.
Ice Armour probably has it easiest, because at least you can get full mez protection by Level 6, but you still have to deal with incoming damage and it can be difficult to say the least.
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That said, even with all the right powers, it can be tough at lower levels. I've only got one Tank (at level 13, no less) and have been in the Hollows for a while now. Every team has expected fairly standard tanking... which is pretty difficult since by level 13, I haven't exactly got a full complement of slotted shields.
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Having made tanks in I6 and later, they are clearly harder to get right. In, say, I3/I4 they had much higher base values for their shields so they tended to be tougher, although on TOs they were still pants, as an inv tank being able to cap your resistance versus S/L at level 12 was fairly nice...
The best bang for buck for a low level tank these days seems to be Dull Pain/Hoarfrost/Earth's Embrace or Healing Flames. Maybe people learn that they aren't that tough in the Hollows, so don't bother investing in defence/aggro stuff.
When I see tanks in the mid twenties with no taunt aura though, something is clearly wrong, they should be having a ball enjoying the tastes of true toughness, rather than meekly wading into the fight when they think it's safe.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
it all depends on the tankers playing style, when in a team the tankers job is to take the agro from the squishys, if herdings is how they prefer to do it then they should herd. if taunt is then taunt...
the only thing i dont like is when a tanker tries to scrap instead of tank, they dont do much damage and the team generally gets killed because the tank is only attackin one person
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tanks do go through some strange patterns at low levels wether it's having 2 travel powers before picking taunt having flurry and teleport than stamina or picking kick - tough when your primary shields are much better resistance/defence
this behaviour has sometimes translated into the later levels one invul i happened to see didn't take dull pain till after unstoppable my first thought was 'botched respec?' but who knows why they do such things
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I find constant herding tedious as a squishy. Its just so dull sitting there whilest the Tank issues orders. (I use Wormhole to spice things up in those situations. Makes for more excitement)
A good tank knows when to herd, such as running into Room of Death and coming out with a nice big bunch all neatly clustered up behind him, and when they can kick back a bit and just jump in and aggro-manage the group. No need to lead them on a merry trail around a corner, just get in there and [censored] em off Tanky.
Course the clueless Tanks who can't manage aggro make you sob. We had a Stone Tank who was completely clueless before, he played like a terrible damage scrapper and didn't seem to notice when the rest of us were being slaughtered. Happily one of the guys switched to his WS and all was well again. And this wasn't a Hollows toon either, this was the 30-somethings.
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Real scrappers don't stop to say ready
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It takes a lot longer to say "Anyone AFK with me on auto-follow is going to regret it in about two seconds". True story.
:-D
spidermonster.
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one invul i happened to see didn't take dull pain till after unstoppable my first thought was 'botched respec?' but who knows why they do such things
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My first hero (who doesn't really count because I had no idea what I was doing) was an Inv tank. I didn't read the forums and read the power descriptions. Since it was called Invulnerability and had powers to stop me taking damage, I couldn't actually see why I'd need to heal/increase my hitpoints.. since going by the power descriptions, I wouldn't take any damage, would I?
I was pretty wrong.
spidermonster.
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Real scrappers don't stop to say ready
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It takes a lot longer to say "Anyone AFK with me on auto-follow is going to regret it in about two seconds". True story.
:-D
spidermonster.
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I used to tow a tank around with my scrapper in I3/4 while he was Auto Taunting. Dont think either of us died from it either, cant remember.
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
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one invul i happened to see didn't take dull pain till after unstoppable my first thought was 'botched respec?' but who knows why they do such things
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My first hero (who doesn't really count because I had no idea what I was doing) was an Inv tank. I didn't read the forums and read the power descriptions. Since it was called Invulnerability and had powers to stop me taking damage, I couldn't actually see why I'd need to heal/increase my hitpoints.. since going by the power descriptions, I wouldn't take any damage, would I?
I was pretty wrong.
spidermonster.
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i do find a lot of the power descriptions are misleading. I remember my first tank, must have been my second or third toon... and i got up to unyielding
(is it just me or did it used to be called unyeidling stance? i know it used to root you, but iirc it retained the name for a bit after that got changed... could be my memory playing tricks though.)
anywho, got to unyielding and saw it said "but you will get hit more often" or something along those lines. So i decided that was obvously a dumb power to take, as the less you get hit, the less damage you take. Of course, i didnt know that i had 0 def at the time, so a 5% def debuff wasn't going to make any difference at all until i actually had some defence for it to subtract from.
At that time, i didnt even understand how one of your defences could be also called defence... i used to get very confused when people referred to defence. As far as i was (and still am) concerned, dam res is a form of defence. So how you can also have defence as a form of defence befuddled me... also i still get miffed that we dont get an english language version of the game, with the correct spellings of words such as defence, honour, colour etc...
that annoyes me about i10... honoree may be an anagram of hero one.. but hero one is british ffs, even rikti-fied he could still spell! I'm sure Lady Grey uses the odd americanism too, but i gave up counting them after levantera's missions.
anywho, as we grow, we learn...
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Of course, i didnt know that i had 0 def at the time, so a 5% def debuff wasn't going to make any difference at all until i actually had some defence for it to subtract from.
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Well, you can have negative defence - at least as far as the effective soft cap of whatever gives the enemy a 95% chance ToHit you.
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I have a lvl35 Ice/* tanker. I am not very experienced but I know that because of my build I am more effective when every foe is at melee range. All right, I like doing herding and funneling but only if I have an excuse/forced to do it and I can sense that the team will support/need it. Also it depends from what foes we are dealing with, some always come at melee range anyway so no need to try hard with them.
So, why to ban something that work ok depending on the situation? I agree that herding it isn't panacea and that should not be used each and every time, but not to do it when will help team to progress smoothly it feels at least wrong to me. Also I believe that a tanker can not do any of the above if s/he is more than one level below team's max level. It just won't work and generally speaking tankers that come to teams unsidekicked it's better not to taunt at all.
All I wanted to say was that with a good team herding makes the game slow and boring. It is an option, but by all that's holy, there are other options too!
(I never said ban herding, I don't think!)
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EU, Union mostly.
As the good Doctor has just pointed out, sometimes its good to herd, other times there is no need.
When I am the leader of the group I usually elect for Unyielding missions for maximum number of enemies. My Ice/Fire tank on freedom is in Striga now and all those ships full of council make herding a great idea I reckon. When I am not leading i leave it up to the group/leader which tactics they would prefer I use.
What really gets my goat however is when the group agrees to herd, and then one bright spark in the group decides to not let me! Either runs ahead and breaks up the mob or attacks too soon or both, no amount of tell-ing or helpful advice from a friendly tank will make a lick of difference. So annoying!
Herding still has its place, but it's very situational - which situations I'm not going into. In general, a good tank will be moving onto the next mob whilst the rest of the team are finishing off the previous and have gathered up all the agro by the time the rest of the team follows.
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'Herding' is fine for pulling smaller mobs together, but I've played in high level teams where it was just slowing things down. It can also be a rather selfish playstyle for other team members to endure. Tankers (Stone tanks in particular it seems, as they are the current fotm for tanks)seem to be one of the easiest AT's to play badly, either in terms of not looking after fellow team-mates, or getting delusions of their importance and barking out demands.
The only solution I've found is to avoid these players giving tankers a bad name. 
In the past I have made tankers but because I did not read up about them I got the build wrong, and think what a waste of time.I then read up about what a tank is supposed to be all about ,I now have a tank with 2 attacks the rest is sheilds and other powers that help me stay alive.I am still new to it even tho I,m at lvl 29 but I do know that my primary job is to take the aggro so that the rest of the team do the killing,or should I say arresting as it hero,s lol.what gets my goat is that I go in get the aggro from 1 mob then some "bright person" goes out of their way and aggros another mob the other side of the room ,this causing all to face plant except me.This happened 2 or 3 times until I said that if they attack what I have aggroed and only that they will not die they took this piece of advice and there were no more deaths for another five missons.I now love playing my tank he is ice primary.
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My current tank is built entirely around herds.
A Stone/Fire Scranker who's going to take Granite purely as a panic button, (just to prove to myself that stone tanks don't need to spend all their time in Granite towing a pet kineticist along). Currently level 30 and I plod around solo quite a lot.
So, armours on as appropriate to the opposition, Mudpots running, fire up Rooted as I approach the first Tenacious spawn, and then plod onward until I've got as many as I think I can survive. Find a corner, get them packed tightly, and let loose with the AoE's (Breath of Fire can do an astounding amount of damage once you get used to it)
What can I say. It's working for me atm.
Can I 'chaos tank'? Yep. Been there, done that with my Ice/Ice. (BTW, Chaos tanking is my term for charging into the middle of the mob and hoping to grab enough aggro before the rest of the team piles in. Not meant in a derogatory manner, before anyone takes umbrage at the term)
When there's enough damage output available on the team, then I would merrily just dive into a spawn and hold aggro while they get hit from behind. When I'm teamed with a lot of AoE damage output, then I herd. Nothing brings a smile to a Elec/Fire or Elec/Elec blaster's face like 16 or so mobs stood round waiting to be hurt.
Is herding tedious if you're not the one running round almost invulnerable forcing 16 mobs to do your bidding? It can be. Is it safer? Sometimes.
<shrug>
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
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I find constant herding tedious as a squishy. Its just so dull sitting there whilest the Tank issues orders.
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When I'm on my fire/rad controller I find it quite difficult to stand around while the tank does his thing. I'm used to jumping straight in and stunning/suffocating the mobs, a few seconds after I've jumped in, the imps follow and finish them off. Standing around for a tank is something that needs a real effort to do...
I just want to add in that sometimes you get mishes/maps that are downright dangerous trying to herd. A particular outdoor map full of mother mayhems psychic minions springs to mind..
(this is from a invulns point of view)
And can you imagine a tank trying to tell everyone to "back off while he herd" during a rikti ship raid?
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Officer Cuffz lvl 50 Inv/Nrg Tank
Badge lvl 50 dwarf/human Peacebringer
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Ayre lvl 50 Storm/Elec Defender
Total Cat: @Officer Cuffz
"When I say interview, I mean engage in combat and defeat..." -Laura Brunetti, on how to deal with Warriors.
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And can you imagine a tank trying to tell everyone to "back off while he herd" during a rikti ship raid?
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I can imagine a tank trying, yes
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I just want to add in that sometimes you get mishes/maps that are downright dangerous trying to herd. A particular outdoor map full of mother mayhems psychic minions springs to mind..
(this is from a invulns point of view)
[/ QUOTE ]Dull pain, aid self, some nice IO bonuses....easy enough
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I just want to add in that sometimes you get mishes/maps that are downright dangerous trying to herd. A particular outdoor map full of mother mayhems psychic minions springs to mind..
(this is from a invulns point of view)
[/ QUOTE ]Dull pain, aid self, some nice IO bonuses....easy enough
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not 15 months ago it wasnt..
Anyway, my point i was trying to make is that sometimes trying to herd isnt a viable tactic. I have to find a better example to use as a argument.
UNION
Officer Cuffz lvl 50 Inv/Nrg Tank
Badge lvl 50 dwarf/human Peacebringer
Dark Air lvl 50 Ice/Cold Corruptor
Ayre lvl 50 Storm/Elec Defender
Total Cat: @Officer Cuffz
"When I say interview, I mean engage in combat and defeat..." -Laura Brunetti, on how to deal with Warriors.
I dont tank much, but when I do I see my role as protecting the squishies - not running around half the map trying to gather up all the bad guys or hiding in a corner with taunt aura on and a dozen mobs trying to pound my toon into the ground.
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While that build does avoid some of the "classic" tank powers, there are many routes to a good build. If you're wanting to get Stamina and a travel power as early as possible, then you could certainly skip taunt for a while. And let's face it - if he didn't read the forums, he wouldn't actually know what he was expected to take. And every attack he used was a taunt, due to Gauntlet. However, he did appear to have a not-so-hot build AND playstyle..I probably wouldn't have booted him, but certainly wouldn't have been best pleased.
That said, even with all the right powers, it can be tough at lower levels. I've only got one Tank (at level 13, no less) and have been in the Hollows for a while now. Every team has expected fairly standard tanking... which is pretty difficult since by level 13, I haven't exactly got a full complement of slotted shields. So running in to face a whole bunch of red Igneous wasn't a great move, but everyone just said "tank first, then we follow". I did it, to demonstrate -why- it was a bad plan. I didn't expect the stacked knocback (they all hit me at once, and I haven't got the option of knockback protection yet) to send me flying back to the rest of the team. With hindsight, it was really funny.
I've found that on higher level teams where the tank isn't great, having a scrapper or kheldian buddy up with them works well if you want to keep to that kind of tanking playstyle. Tank runs in with scrapper right behind and that tends to keep the enemies focussed and off the squishies.
Admittedly, I'm the kind of scrapper who says "Ready!" and as soon as someone else says it, I'm running in. :-D With luck, the tank'll head towards the same spawn.
spidermonster.