Holes in Defenses

First I made a WP tank. He has all of the wp defenses as well as tough and weave. This tank has full plain IO's
This tanker is level 24 (no secondary skills trained)

Next was Electric Defense -- all defenses (no tough yet), but with DO's so far
This tanker is level 12 (no secondary skills trained)

Last was Shield Defense -- all defenses (no tough/weave yet), with DO's so far
This tanker is level 12 (no secondary skills trained)

When I jump into a group of 3 or more baddies, I take damage. Massive damage with yellows and up. If not getting heals or popping greens pretty quickly, I will die.

A tank is supposed to be able to "tank" the damage. I understand a small health drop, but not all this (full health to zero in 7 seconds inside mob of 6 yellow and 2 oranges). This is not what I was looking for in a tank.

Any help here?

DOs have only half the effectiveness of SOs.

It is very difficult to judge the effectiveness of a set before SOs become available at 22.

Also, many sets have key powers that do not open up until later in a tank's career.

What levels are each of these respective tanks, and what secondaries are you using with each?

First of all the game is probably most balanced around dealing with even levels at any stage.

You go against higher levels solo due to your build.

Teamed you go against higher levels due to you, your build and generally the teams ability to work well with eachother.

No one gets left out here.

A Tanker is not expected to handle a spawn designed for an 8 man team on invincible unless you can build to it. You won't see greatness on DOs alone.

I am afraid that any experience good/bad is part of leveling up and the learning that goes with it is always good. Everyone cuts their teeth. I get absolutely stunned at some other Tankers patience with a very bad team. I could be the blaster and clearly see that no one is bubbled by say a FFer no matter how often "it" can hit the fan or stuff like that.

In my case I have to know how to communicate with people to get the team dynamic desired. Usually its, do one group "Is that okay for everyone?" Then carry on.

As a Tanker don't think that everything has to come from your build, because it doesn't. The more you know about every powerset ingame the more "out of the box" team dynamics you can come up with to get some unthinkable bleep done.

Tanks aren't tanks in this game until late 20s, early 30s at the earliest.

The game really screws the AT over in the early levels by not providing the tools necessary to fill its usual function. You can't judge tanks until about 32, imo. It isn't that it is completely ineffective until then, but the idea behind the AT as an indestructible object just doesn't cut it until about then. Even after then, and well slotted, most tanks have some form of weakness or situation where they are not optimum.

The 20s get better after SOs and stamina, but you still have to be a bit careful. The pre-stamina days are no time to judge a tank, whatsoever.

I pity tankers in the low levels when a team won't start without one thinking they're getting a tank. It's one of the things I'd definitely change in this game, because most ATs do not suffer the kind of penalties early on that tanks do.

You all have said that things will get better with SO's. It states in the post that the WP tank has IO's (level 25).

So are you saying that even having all defenses fully slotted with IO's, I still have to wait 8 levels (24 to 32) before I see a true tank? Does part of the game mechanics "switch on" at 32?

If this is true I will keep playing them to watch the transformation.

Also, of course, the secondary is a source of mitigation that the OP is, apparently, ignoring.

A shield defense tank with combat jumping, tough and weave can hit the defense softcap for all three positions using only seven set IOs. Backed with resistances, it's a tough enough tank for most situations.

An electric armor tank is a resist based tank that has a second mitigation tool in endurance drain. Endurance Drain does not become a viable strategy, however, until Power Sink becomes available at 26.

A Willpower tank is fairly strong out of the box with just SOs. It does benefit immensely from Tough and Weave. It also benefits significantly from making sure enemies are in melee with it, to fuel Rise to the Challenge's regeneration buff. At a minimum, you'll want to take Taunt, OP, to use it.

No tank, however, is designed to take a beating indefinitely. Half the point is to knock down, stun, or defeat the enemy. Doing so drastically cuts incoming damage.

I must admit then when I play a specialized character (which is pretty often) it is a bit extreme. When it is said that you won't see a difference until 32, what they mean is "most tanks" won't see a difference until 32 because they don't get all their defenses until then due to training and slotting secondary powers.

I dual spec my tanks asap. One is full defense with maximum slotting and low attacks. I play this spec when the team is taking too much damage. My attack rotation is horrible, but doable (brawl w/single damage enh, starter secondary with 1 acc slot, vet axe, that free ranged knives power and sometimes air superiorty depending on the build. My shield/elec tank has to wait until level 16 to get thunder strike. The first real secondary.

The other spec is maximum secondary slotted for damage with primaries as a fill. This spec is used to level faster.

This is how you play when you are used to playing by the extreme methods. Extreme characters start very weak and feel gimped until it has gone 30 levels or more. There is a point that it starts to gain a great deal of power and eventually becomes the best character in the game. This is no longer necessary due to the ability to respec your character which was unheard of 5 years ago.

When I used to play Asheron's Call (1999 to 2004 -- (before being able to swap your build), I created an extreme archer. Imagine if you will, starting a character with 5 health. A character that needs strength to carry stuff and an archer has to carry around heavy arrows (not like the fantasy arrows of CoX). His strength was minimal at the start. I was severely gimped right out of the box. When I got to level 50 (5 months later) I was better, but had the power of a level 25. Other players in the guild pleaded with me to re-roll a better archer, but I stuck with it for 8 months. When I finally reached level 70, I trained creature magic. This allowed me to buff all of my attributes and skills by 40 points each. You see, my strength was my magic ability. I started with the attributes of a mage (100 focus and self, with 100 coordination for archery). By level 75 I was stronger than a level 120 archer. I could kill a creature with 1 arrow instead of others using 15 to 25. This character reached level 165 very fast. The cap is 275, but I left to play other mmorpgs.

This is how I created my tanks. So when I am only 25 every defense is trained and slotted with IO's. So the damage I am seeing now will be the same damage I will see at 32.

RTTC is slotted with 3 heals, 2 to-hit debuffs and 1 taunt (all level 25 IO's)

*grabs popcorn*

Specialized toons in the game fall more towards the realm of gimp than the realm of uber. You saw the result of your post in the defender forums when you talked about a attackless ff/dark fender and the responses you will get here is not going to be any different.

Secondaries help a lot to supplement your tanker primary. Knockdowns, stuns, slows, and damage will all help your survivability. On top of that you can supplement your build with IO bonuses and inspirations. Failing that you can always fall back on skill.

For example, my fire/ss tank is much squishier than my stone/em tank but I can tank with either just fine. One is more sturdy by design but I keep my fire/ss on her feet by killing things before they kill me. If I were to build my fire/ss attackless I would be gimp beyond measure. No amount of extra defensive pool powers would salvage her survivability and fun.

Seriously, you have to unlearn most of the dogma that held true for other MMOs and recognize that this game is not like any of them. Those other game experiences are not going to help you much here.

Hmm, never thought the saying, "A good offense is the best defense." applied here. I will have to study that more closely. Thanks for the tip.

Recognizing/understanding what works and how it works better than the alternative is not the same as blindly following the herd. Cookie cutters are what they are because they have been proven to be a cut above others. Some people follow these ideas blindly, you may not like that, but that's no reason to dismiss their potency.

I'm all for breaking new grounds but the "pure" builds have been demonstrated to be less than their balanced counterparts for a long time. The fact is that there is simply no reason other than concept to abandon half your powerset in this game. If you think that the idea of a balanced build is cookie cutter than so be it.

All I'm saying Firewasp, is that you need to dip into your secondary a little. That doesn't mean that you need to shift to the opposite extreme and completely abandon your primary. Post a build, that's the best way to get the advice/help you need.

Okay, as others have said here:

1. DOs aren't going to cut it. SOs will help.
2. L25 IOs are about as effective as DOs. They just don't decay as you level up.
3. It's not that anything magically "switches on as you get into the high-20's and low-to-mid-30's. It's a combination of several things gelling all at once.

1. Several of your key defenses kick in around this time.
2. You finally start having enough slots to slot them out properly without ignoring your damage output.
3. Several of your key offensive powers also kick in around this time. Depending on set, this can lead to dramatic increases in ST and AOE damage. So you kill stuff faster and don't have to rely on your defenses/resists to keep you going as much.
4. Generic IOs start becoming better choices than SOs
5. Several key sets become available at this point.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Try building balanced characters - you get two powersets for a reason.

A tank with no attacks will get whittled down before the mobs die. Attacks often have usefull secondary effects like knockdowns, stuns and to-hit defuffs that will increase your survivability.

A tank with no defences is a low damage scrapper and about as usefull as a chocolate fireguard.

Try corner pulling to maximize auras and rise to the challenge type powers.

IOs only get better than SOs when they reach lvl 35.

Willpower is a very strong Tanker primary; I personally consider it the third strongest (after a Stone in Granite, or an Invulnerability Tanker) but some people put it tied with Inv or even slightly ahead. At any rate, it's strong enough that I find your report surprising. Do you get the same results on a balanced build?

As for Shield, I currently have a level 39 Shield/Axe Tanker without Tough or Weave. I'm planning to pick them up in the Epic levels, although I might respec. No IO set bonuses yet. Currently I run around at about 34% defenses.

Result: I take damage. Last night I was tanking for an 8-player Task Force and did pretty well, losing about 25% - 35% of my life in many fights, and quickly regenerating it back. On nastier content I will lose 50% of my life or even more herding up a decent-sized pack and concentrating them to feed my AAO toggle.

Then I hit Build Up, Shield Charge, Whirling Axe, Pendulum. And suddenly everything is allllllll better!

Clearly, once I get to the soft cap, this will be a much sturdier Tanker than currently, and the damage and control (through knockdown) is quite nice. But my point is, Shields is a damage-boosting set with good defense and some resistances -- it's not designed to be used on its own, but to make a secondary set into a killer, and to mitigate enough damage that the AAO-enhanced secondary attacks can cover the rest of your needed mitigation. Try using it that way and see if it works.

Without damage bonuses from sets, I'm doing tons of damage with built-up Shield Charge -- 250-300-400 to everything in a large radius isn't uncommon (it varies depending on team buffs and debuffs). With a Trick Arrow on the team last night, I saw some 512-damage hits (TA has a lot of resistance debuffing potential). At 46 seconds recharge, the pair is available every 46 seconds, about every other spawn on a smoothly-moving TF team. The spawns it's not available for give the Blasters something to do.

Durability is crucial to tanking, but a balanced tanker is usually more effective.

So you do think that those cookie cutter builds for firetanks were in fact the most optimal build for a firetank. That's what I thought you thought.