Warshade tanking

I'm playing a warshade with the idea of tanking on TF's with friends. Is it going to work out? I know Eclipse will do wonders, but when it comes down to a long fight on a single target when I can't afford to drop out of dwarf to trigger it, am I going to get smeared and let the whole team down?

I would say that on an SO build you are only going to be able to tank AV's if you have some kind of shielder or healer backing you up.

On a heavy recharge build your own self heal will keep you standing against most things however(Romulous smacks me around like a little girl for example, and I can't see me standing up to Reichsman).

But then again on a TF team most of the time you will have backup, and then the ability to hold aggro is the most important thing, and you can do that well enough (Though scrappers and brutes will take aggro off you at times, especially invuln).

So overall yes you should be ok, but whereas a tank can stand in the middle of pretty much anything and live you wont ever reach those levels (Even while Eclipse is up).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

Thanks. The build plan has Dwarf and its powers all well-slotted - everything else basically gets leftover attention.

I went with a warshade for it so as to combine pretty solid protection, some AOE damage, and a self-heal on a reasonable recharge. (All the rest of the warshade fun stuff is gravy.) I haven't seen a tanker set combination that would deliver all that. I'm also playing a SD/DM tanker and a ice/axe one, which are both satisfying but don't have that staple AOE in the first case or the fast self-heal in the second. I can't quite believe I'd get dwarf protection out of fire, electric, or dark armors.

Dark and Fire no. Their base resists are around 30% on tanks

Electric: Yes, it's base resists are 35% and it gets energize. Energize lasts for 30 seconds and has a recharge of 2minutes . With SO's you'll be around a 1 minute charge time, and a little bit of IO work, say LoTG 7.5 in Combat jumping and Weave, and some other recharge sets (like crushing impact 5 pump) and you can get close to, if not at, perma-energize.

You can also couple the tank with tough and weave for extra protection... which does put the smash / lethal resists of Dark, Fire, and Elec over the Smash / Lethal resists of Dwarf.

If you are mainly wanting to tank it up in Dwarf you can always go for +Def instead of the usual +recharge that people build for. With 20-30% defence on top of those resists you will be good against most stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

With a purpose-built Warshade that has good IO bonuses going and optimal slotting of Dwarf itself (including heavy slotting of Drain and Antagonize), you should be able to hold your own against most of the AVs out there.

In my experience you can perform not quite as well as a true Tanker but well enough to get the job done, with the real challenge often being reliably holding aggro moreso than straight survivability. There is after all more to tanking than simply being a meatsheild. Experience playing a Tanker helps, since you're probably familiar with how to manage aggro in a variety of ways if you're a veteran Tanker player. Since you have no Gauntlet and your Antagonize needs a to-hit check, you'll need to make use of all the tricks at your disposal to help you tank well.

All of that said, I've tanked on TFs with my Warshades before and it's gone quite well. Obviously it helps if you have some good support behind you, that's true even if you're playing a well-built Tanker, but you can go in there with nothing but Blasters and Scrappers at your back and still come out in one piece. My favorite thing to have on a TF is a second Kheld, which allows the two of you to 'tag-team' tank as necessary provided both you have reasonably slotted Dwarf forms.

Everything that Justaris said, plus if you're taking an extra Kheldian to help you, I'd take a PB simply because they are so self-reliant in comparison to WS's.