Best (simple) Tank

What is the best simple tank?

I generally play Scrappers (or defenders, controllers & blasters) in melee, but have wanted a good tank for a while. Especially recently when the quality of tanks seems to have dropped through the floor. "No really a tank is supposed to hold agro and not work like an underpowered scrapper."

I'm looking for a tank that doesn't need expensive sets to be good, has good survivability in most situations, I won't be tanking Hami ever, would be a good tank for the high level TFs (especially STF, ITF & 5TF).

Less bothered about secondary as I'll either pick something that synergises well or SS which I quite like.

I already have a DA/DM tank (at ~level 25) but now I read that they aren't actually very good as tanks...

wp is nice an easy imo...you get qr and stamina = no end issues

plus its a great all around tank. pick your favorite 2ndary and your off

i heard great things about /stone melee with wp

if you want aoe goodness then a /fire will be great as well.

I have a WP scrapper and while the Res is great I find that I'm always struggling to survive.

I'll add two items I don't want to the original question, no Stone as I hate the lack of speed. Managed to get one to 26 or so and loathed it mostly. And no WP as I have a WP scrapper @50 who I love but find it difficult to survive.

Would I be better waiting for Electric Armour in i16?

Stone is the best simple tank, though. You can make a stone tank that can survive quite well without set bonuses.

Your Willpower scrapper is that squishy? Did you take Tough and Weave? My Spines/WP scrapper is the toughest one I know, and has tanked the ITF and STF - not my first choice for a master's run to be sure, but better than any of my tankers on Ghost Widow.

Invulnerability is probably the next choice. Here, too, you will want Tough and Weave. Invuln is pretty good out of the box, but I'd check out Call Me Awesome's softcap guide for help getting close to Stone in toughness without the aesthetic and playstyle annoyances.

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How about Ice? I always like having an Ice Tank on my team.

Ice/Stone sounds interesting, you'd have lots of Control available to keep things stunned and on their arses. Or Ice/Dark, could be a bit of a monster in terms of being able to take damage.

I'm playing a Fire/Dark Melee character right now and a few times my group has commented on my 'great build' after I survived some difficult situation. I like fire because you have consume to keep endurance filled up early on. Post-stamina with endurance reductions in my 3 attacks I haven't gone below half endurance bar in a week. You might not be the toughest tank but with healing flames you can keep yourself alive easily enough. I put one invention I found into it and now it heals 302hp every 30(recharge reducer) seconds. Thats a big chunk of HP when I only have 808.

With Stamina I can run Fire Shield(49 resistance to lethal/smashing), Plasma Shield(47 resistance to energy/negative energy) and Blazing Aura(DoT that I use mainly to aggro mobs that no one else is attacking). I do have to use health inspirations sometimes but then who doesn't? With this character I frequently 'ride the edge' of red-bar HP and come out alive.

I'm only level 23 though.

Willpower is very strong and "simple" to play...except...the OP mentions "No really a tank is supposed to hold agro and not work like an underpowered scrapper."

Well, WP does have some trouble holding aggro (more than other Tanker sets anyway) without working pretty hard to take advantage of gauntlet.

IMHO the toughest three Tanker sets are Stone, Invulnerability, and Willpower. Ice and Dark follow not too far behind, with the note that a well-built, well-player Dark can do incredible things with Dark Regeneration.

Since you already have a Dark, have ruled out Stone, and want to hold aggro easily, I'd say that narrows it down to Invulnerability and Ice.

Of the two, Ice will require a little more thought to play, but will hold aggro best of all. Either will be a monster with IOs, but an IOed-out Inv should be the second toughest build in the game (after a Granite Tanker, even one with yellow SOs, heh). It might be worth noting that once you're tough enough, extra toughness is wasted, and outside of extreme duress, you might get more out of Ice's fabulous aggro control.

I would go with Invul... better aura than WP, no movment restrictions like Stone, dont need kb IO's or acrobatics like Fire and Dark, and a bit easier to manage alphas than Ice IMO.

My suggestion would be Ice/|Dark Melee. Tohit Debuffs to combo with shields, Two great heals. Two great end refillers. Some of the best aggro control in the game. A great tier nine and the potential for some serious godmode craziness if you end up liking the character and investing in it later.

Simple? Invulnerability. Like Willpower and Shields, it prefers being in the middle of massive mobs, but unlike WP, it bulks up on S/L res to make getting there easier.

I will further recommend /Stone, or /DM as a secondary. Stone Melee is very smashy and offers great mitigation. Dark Melee, paired with Inv, is nothing short of spectacular.

Granite, by far. 2 toggles for easy tanking, 3 toggles for supreme survival. Add stoneskin, and allll other powers are totaly free to pick.

I'd say anything but dark is simple.

Having end issues to the point where you have to plan out what attack types are going to hit you the most is a bit more complicated.


Everything else is pretty similarly simple.

Stone requires a lot of effort/inf to overcome it's main weakness (movement, damage, recharge) but it is very tolerant for survivability.

Inv is pretty cookie cutter but you have to be in range of enemies for it to be effective and have a psi hole.

WP is also very cookie cutter (even more so than Inv) has no specific survivability weaknesses (jack of all trades, master of none) but you might have issues holding agro.

Ice is agro king and will hold against anything, but defense can be a bit spikey.

Fire is good damage, good regen, but can be harder to use until you get IO's.

Shield is good damage, good defenses and in general is all around fun.


All of the secondaries are equal in their simplicity with the exception of DB.


I realize that probably doesn't help you decide much but each tank primary/secondary is more flavor and personal playstyle than which one is easier, harder, better, worse.