Taking It on the Chin. An Intro to Tanking

Intro & Background

First off a little about me. At the time of this writing (Issue 16) I am a four year vet, with a total of 28 non pled 50s.These characters cover all the archetypes except for dominators and epics which are in progress. I am badly addicted to the inventions system. I have not pvped in quite a while, but I have played through pretty much all the other content this game has both blue and red side. I also have an abiding addiction for tanks (duh!).
Around the end of 2008 I decided to try and get every tanker powerset to 50, both primary and secondary. In part because I wanted to see how the "feel" differed between sets, partly because I wanted to put certain forum legends to the test for myself. About a year later, I have achieved my goal and I want to pass on a few things I have learned. Hopefully this guide will help you see what tanker will best suit your playstyle, what tank will do best at the content you want to play, and how to get past some of the more common hurdles that might discourage a prospective tanker.

The first section will be a quick rundown of the powersets themselves. My impressions. The pros and cons. The possibilities. This will be entirely subjective based on my impressions, hard data and math are well covered in other sources and are readily available.
The second section will cover some basic build approaches. Here I will cover main hybrids, setting up synergies, and some of the IO build approaches you might find helpful.
The third section will cover playstyle variations. How these might affect your build choices, and skills you may need as a result of your playstyle choice.
The fourth section will address the game content itself. How to choose a tank that will flourish in the environment you want to play him/her in.
Finally I will cover some of the more persistent issues that crop up for tank players both ingame and in these forums.

Section 1: The powersets.

1A:the primaries.

• Dark Armor. This set is basically a combo of mez and resists with one of the strongest heals in the game to patch up the damage that gets through.On the plus side it really does not have a damage type it is weak to, it enjoys the aforementioned massive heal, a wide variety of usable IO sets, and it can hold aggro quite easily. On the minus side it can potentially carry a heavy end cost, and unlike other tank primaries it cannot ignore any of the damage types via capped resists or defenses. It also has knockback issues which many find annoying. Overall I found this set to be a little squishy for straight tanking, particularly when big game hunting. I enjoy its utility as a tanktroller and how well it functions in the earlier levels.
  
• Electric Armor. The set uses a combo of resists and healing to keep you alive. Pros of the set include decent resists to most damage and exceptional survival versus psy and energy damage. It is also spectacular for allowing you to ignore your blue bar to focus on other things. The cons are weakness to fire and negative dmg which you face frequently and incomplete knockback protection. I really loved this tank in the late game and I enjoyed his endurance management throughout his career.
  
• Fire Armor. This is another resist/healing set. Most folks, myself included, choose it more for its damage output than its survivability. The good points of the set are its damage boosting, a fast recharging heal, and the ability to ignore fire damage completely. It is also a fairly efficient set endurance wise though its difficult to notice for aggresive players. Cons include no knockback protection whatsoever, and fairly low resists. I actually ran this powerset to 50 twice on tanks and enjoyed both runs. Large spawns and EB/AVs may require some advance planning but the sets pays you back with very respectable damage.
  
• Ice Armor. This is a defense/healing set. On the plus side this set is an absolute monster at holding aggro, and its endurance management is so good you can skip stamina with a little forethought. The only real downside is a psi hole, you won't really notice this until late game and then only versus certain enemies but then you will really notice it. I played this set to 50 once and the second run is about 35. Its a great set overall, probably in the top three in term of pure survival. Personally I missed having any damage boosting in the primary but the end management made it worth the sacrifice.
  
• Invulnerability. This set is kind of a hybrid, a little resist, a little defense, a little healing. Versus some foes you can go make lunch without worrying, other foes will beat you up for your lunch money in mere seconds. For my money this tank really needed some IOs to do what I wanted of it. Once I was done it was very very durable but this tank frustrated me a bit in the early and mid game.
  
• Stone Armor. This set has no real weakness. like invulnerability it is a hybrid but seemed to me to be a lot more durable. For most people the tier 9 defines the set while rendering the other power obsolete. On the plus side it is easily one of the toughest sets. On the minus it suffers from some fairly severe movement penalties and other debuffs. Out of the box survivability with only SO slotting was a real winner for me. The damage debuffing and movement penalties drove me nuts until I spent the money to overcome them. If you die after level 33 or so you probably did something very stupid.
  
• Willpower. This set is a regen/resist/defense hybrid set. It performs quite well versus almost everything. Pros of the set include extra recovery, and a thick layer of regen that allows you to really last out the longer fights. On the down side it does nothing to help your damage and large damage spikes can be your undoing. It should be noted that the taunt aura in this set is somewhat less effective than other primaries. For me this tank was perfectly functional but a little boring. Kind of vanilla when I was in the mood for Rocky Road.
  There is no disputing the fact that it gets the job done, and it is a good pick if you don't want your toggles to outshine your costume design.
  
• Shield Defense. This is the newest set and really benefits from the lessons learned over the last five years. It is basically a straight defense set with a whopping dollop of damage boosting. Pros include the damage buffing and a ranged aoe nuke! Cons include a weakness to enemies with to-hit buffing and a lack of the mitigation layering many other sets enjoy. While this is mainly a defense set be aware that it has some resists and the combination of passive and tier 9 allows you to get very close the the HP cap. I enjoyed this set so much I took it to 50 three times. Twice on tanks and once on a scrapper. You need to keep an eye on your green bar incase the random number generator decides not to like you, but the ability to one shot obliterate entire spawns on your own makes it a great package overall.

• Battle Axe. This set is mostly lethal damage with a fair amount of knockup. This set has a lot of really solid attacks, some really cool custom weapons and a fair amount of aoe. The juggle side effect also helps you shore up a slightly squishy primary. The only real drawback is the damage type, the foes that resist it, REALLY resist it. Overall I enjoyed the feel of this set, it really felt like I was was opening a can on my foes.
  
• Dark Melee. This set is smashing, negative damage. High points are tons of utility, damage buffing, and a nice little heal. Low points include a lack of attacks overall and a particular lack of aoe. I've run this set to 50 three times as a tank, scrapper, and brute. When you have a primary with a hole to fill this will often be the first set that comes to mind. I also enjoyed this set when I was fighting low numbers of tough foes like Bosses,EBs, and AVs. When fighting large spawns of minions and lts I felt the lack of aoe.
  
• Dual Blades. This is a lethal dmg set. It is also the only set in the game so far to make use of a combo system. The weapons and animations look awesome, there is some interesting potential in the combos. The only real drawback I noticed was adjusting your timing to make the combos work. I found it difficult to keep an eye on combo while managing the team's aggro. My experience was less than pleasant with this set, not because its is a bad set, but because I paired it poorly. Dark armor's heal does not play nicely with some of dual blade's animation times. I will probably play it again though. The combos can be very effective, and Blinding Feint can be stacked to produce some serious damage on a tank.
  
• Electric Melee. This set is smashing/energy with some juggling and some draining.This set is one of the better choices for aoes and has (IMHO)the best tanker attack in the game, Lightning Rod. This set is great for fighting spawns and maintaining aggro. It does suffer a bit when you're hunting big game. There are only two ST attacks in the set and neither is really a heavy hitter.
  My run with this set was my fastest tank to 50, it is simply brutal at obliterating entire spawns. It also allows for some interesting IO tricks which will be covered later.
  
• Energy Melee. This is a energy/smashing set with lots of stuns. It's been through a few changes over the years. In its current incarnation it is a somewhat slow heavy hitting set. It's not much for aoe but it's probably one of the better single target sets out there. I've run this set to 50 twice and have a third in the mid 30s. It gets the job done versus individual foes and the stuns are a nice layer of mitigation. The only thing you need to be aware of as a tank is the self dmg portion of Energy Transfer. Normally you will have more than enough hp to easily afford it, but in a long fight where your down into the orange or even the red you may need to remind yourself to drop it from your chain until your health recovers.
  
• Fire Melee. This set is fire/lethal and like most fire based sets in the game a lot of the attacks have a DOT. This set is great for dealing pain. Unlike most other sets the aoes come early and the better st attacks come later when you need them more.
  The set does not have a weakness per se. The only thing to keep in mind, is that it has no mitigation barring actually defeating the foes. As long as your primary does not need shoring up, this is likely one of your best all around choices. I ran this with stone armor to offset the -dmg and it worked great. On a tank without the debuff it should really shine.
  
• Ice Melee. This set is cold/smashing with a huge dose of controls. On the plus side it deals a fairly exotic dmg type that few foes seem to resist, and it does a lot of mitigation. On the flip side more controls means fewer attacks. For most purposes it does enough damage, if you want to push the envelope it may be a little light for your tastes. I ran this comboed with fire armor to abuse the dual patches. Since I had other options to boost my damage I was able to relax and enjoy all the mitigation it gave me to shore up my primary. It is not a low damage set, there are simply better options if damage is your primary concern.
  
• Stone Melee. This is a straight smashing dmg set with stuns and juggling. The upside is it hits like a brick, and does a lot of mitigation. The downside is that it's a little lacking in aoe, and it has an endurance cost to match its damage. I ran this with willpower and for the extra recovery, a choice I was glad I made down the road. For my money this is one of the best ST sets, assuming you figure out how to keep your blue bar intact.
  
• Super Strength. This is another smashing set with some stuns some juggling and a fairly unique self buff. The aforementioned dmg buff is really nice, as is the mitigation this set provides. Less nice is the fact it has basically two decent ST attacks and one AOE, all of which are a highly resisted dmg type. The buff also comes with a crash that takes away all your dmg for 10 seconds per cycle. I like the feel of the set, but now that I've played them all I like the other options better. KO Blow and Footstomp are probably about the third and fourth best tank attacks (after the TP nukes) in my opinion, but unless you can afford the recharge it takes to use only those two attacks you could probably do better with a different set.
  
• War Mace. Another smashing set with juggling and stuns to back it up. In many ways it is similar to Battle Axe. Similar benefits, similar drawbacks. That aside the set was reworked a few issues back and the tweaks make a huge difference.
  The set is currently a nice mix of ST and AOE, and decent mitigation without the usual sacrifice to attacks that come with it.
  I ran this set with Ice Armor for concept reasons and it performed quite well. It has a nice solid crunch to it, and it just plain looks good.

• The Meatshield. Some folks play tanks so that they can sit there and soak up damage all day. If this is you, your probably going to want to take a long hard look at Stone, Ice, and Willpower. Stone has Granite, nuff said. Ice can self cap defense with just a few pool picks or IOs, Willpower has a nice thick layer of regen. The other sets can be just as tough but usually require a much larger investment. For secondaries look at Dark for it's heal, Ice for it's patch, and Stone for it's juggling and stuns. Pretty much any combination from those sets will be hard to kill. Now for the IOs. If either set has a self heal recharge can be a good way to go. But then again what build is not made better with more recharge. More HP means more hits before you drop, so more +hp is better. Just keep an eye on the cap so you don't go over the top. If you are resist based or already have a chunk of regen buffing, more regen goes a long way to keep you in the game longer. As a general rule you want to build a significant chunk of one type of bonus. It just works better than a little of this, and a little of that. Don't ignore pool powers either. Fighting with tough and weave adds a lot to many tanks, as does medicine with aidself.
  
• The Skranker. If you like arresting foes on your own, and not having to rely on teammates for damage, this hybrid is the one you want. This type of tank is all about bringing the pain. You probably want either Shield Armor (for AAO and Charge) or Fire Armor (for FE, Blazing, and Burn). The choice of secondary will be a little harder. Do you want to fight huge piles of minions and lts, or small piles of bosses, EBs, and AVs? If you're fighting large groups you will want Fire Melee, or Electric. If you're fighting small groups go for Dark or Stone. Again when you're picking IOs take a look at recharge, but that is not your only option. It is fairly easy to get 30-40% worth of global dmg buff from sets, when combined with a dmg buff from primary and secondary your foes start dropping really quickly. For pools take a peek at speed (for hasten), or leadership (for assault). A lot of folks gripe about leadership for tanks but when you add that 10.5% to all your other sources of +dmg it is worth it IMHO.
  If you decide to go for recharge just remember to keep an eye on your end usage as attacking faster means draining faster.
  I should also note that many folks will insist on Super Strength for a skranker. It's not a bad choice, I even tried this myself on my very first tank. It's just not the route I would take now unless I had a really substantial budget.
  
• The Tank-troller. Some folks want something a little different. A tank-troller can be just as tough as a meatshield, if you have the skill. With this setup your survival is not based on your defense or resists so much as it is on your knowledge of your foes and your ability to apply the right mez at the right time. For this type of tank your only really looking at one primary, Dark.
  It gives you two choices. 1.Combine the fear aura with dark melee, and the tier 3&4 picks from the presence pool. or 2.Combine the stun aura with one of several secondaries that pack substantial stun. Earth is your best pick with Fault. Finally grab Stalagmites from the Earth Epic and all your foes will be permanently doing the drunk walk. Many secondaries have attacks with a hold portion that stacks quite nicely with one of the epic holds for some of the pesky single targets.
  
• The Oddballs. Some other effective combos I've seen that are hard to classify.
  The Energizer Bunny (TM) Fire armor/Dark Melee. Forget stamina this build never runs out of green or blue thanks to dual heals and dual saps.
  The Sapper Ice Armor or Electric/Elec Melee.
  The Jumper Shield Armor/Electric Melee double your pleasure with two ranged TP nukes( a personal favorite of mine).
  Patches, Fire Armor/Ice Melee. Leave little piles of flopping roasting foes wherever you go.
  The Neener Neener. Ice Armor or Shield Armor/Dark Melee lots of defense and -tohit buffs have your foes swatting at flies instead of you.
  Slow boat to China. Ice or Stone Armor/ Ice Melee and Quicksand from the Earth Epic have your enemies going nowhere fast.

• Avoid this issue via powerset choices. Its probably too late if your making this complaint, but choosing a set with a recovery power or a sap goes a long way to dealing with this.
• Avoid a high recharge build. Spamming powers burns end faster, simple as that.
• Slot sets or global IOs that grant a recovery bonus.
• Slot your attacks with a couple endurance cost reducers, this is made easier if you frankenslot those powers.

Excellent guide! Thanks for writing!

Great guide, I haven't really played a tanker (I have one at 12) because I prefer ranged toons but I may have to give one a serious try here soon. Thanks for the tips.

I'd like to beat my personal dead horse, "Build are not cheap."

Frankenslotting is not actually cheaper than SO's, but it is certainly in the same neighborhood. And while you can make a Tank a lot more "Something" for a lot of money (faster, stronger, tougher, whatever you want) you can make a tank pretty "something" with cheap sets.

For instance, slotting Knockout Blow... you might want a build with 170% permanent recharge [permahasten] and KO blow up every 10 seconds. You might even be able to do that before level 50 and for under ten billion inf, I don't know the state of the high-end game.

But for a couple million, you can slot this with five level 34's:
Focused Smite Acc/Dam/Rech, Dam/Rech
Smashing Haymaker Dam/End/Rech, Acc/Dam, Dam/Rech

That's 95% damage, 41% acc, 82% rech and 23% end reduction in five slots - just about 7 SO's worth of bonus and you can keep that from level 31 on. Up every 15 seconds. If you can afford a Crushing Impact Dam/End/Rech instead of a Dam/Rech, haven't priced those lately, you're at 77%-ish recharge and 40% end reduction.

Thanks for the kind words.

Manny, that is exactly what I was trying to encourage with this guide. I hope you enjoy your tankers as much as I do mine.

Fulmens, your quite correct, but for a intro to AT guide I had to keep it very general. covering the high points of building a wad of cash and/or spending it most efficiently is easily a guide unto itself. Even if limited to the one AT. The more tanks I level the less the build cost worries me. I think it is because you have a better feel for how much bonus is "enough" and don't waste billions on IO boni that do almost nothing in actual game play.

Good overview of all the sets, abnormal. Should be helpful to anyone looking at tanks and wondering what feels right for them.

Amazing guide for tanks everywhere. 'Nuff said.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler you *******!!!!

Nice tanker overview...well written.

A brilliant guide.

After 4 years I am trying out Tanks, never really having gotten on with playing them before (as for HEATs - forget it!).

A very, very helpful guide to us tank newbies that want to give it a try, but don't have the time to "test" different combo's... Thanks much!!

Nice intro to anyone wanting to try tanking!

Glad the guide is proving helpful. I was hoping as many folks as possible would be prompted to try my favorite AT.
Looking forward to adding energy melee to the list once released and updating some of the info, particularly for Dark Armor.

Since I will be gearing up for an update over the next issue or so are there any requests?
Overlooked topics, expanded coverage of a point, other ideas?

I wouldn't change too much, update this if new powersets come into play but should you wish to get into more detail then perhaps do it with another guide as this is actually looking like a good clear concise help for anyone taking an interest. As far as introductions go it's solid.

Excellent, excellent guide.
+rep

Just a couple of comments to toss out:

Quote:

Originally Posted by abnormal_joe Dark Melee. This set is smashing, negative damage. High points are tons of utility, damage buffing, and a nice little heal. Low points include a lack of attacks overall and a particular lack of aoe. I've run this set to 50 three times as a tank, scrapper, and brute. When you have a primary with a hole to fill this will often be the first set that comes to mind. I also enjoyed this set when I was fighting low numbers of tough foes like Bosses,EBs, and AVs. When fighting large spawns of minions and lts I felt the lack of aoe.

I paired ElA/DM/Pyre, and it remains my favorite of my tanks. The AoE situation gets balanced with the Primary and APP, and with my slotting I have peeled aggro off an Ice/. Endurance and health I hardly have to watch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by abnormal_joe Dual Blades. This is a lethal dmg set. It is also the only set in the game so far to make use of a combo system. The weapons and animations look awesome, there is some interesting potential in the combos. The only real drawback I noticed was adjusting your timing to make the combos work. I found it difficult to keep an eye on combo while managing the team's aggro. My experience was less than pleasant with this set, not because its is a bad set, but because I paired it poorly. Dark armor's heal does not play nicely with some of dual blade's animation times. I will probably play it again though. The combos can be very effective, and Blinding Feint can be stacked to produce some serious damage on a tank.

true enough on the DB/DA being a bit of an oddball. Was fun to level in the end though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by abnormal_joe 3c.Steamrolling. Teams with very high dps and/or lots of buffs can wipe out spawns in just a few seconds. The spawns this kind of team fights can do the same thing to a teamate who gets aggro before you can. Your priority on a team like this is getting into the spawn one or two seconds ahead of your team and eating the alpha. If you play on these kind of teams a lot you need to make sure you have good mobility. Generally I target a foe in the front of the spawn and taunt as I jump over his head trying to land in the back 2/3 of the spawn. I follow this up with a aoe. This means that the spawn is not only bunched tighter for my team, they are turned AWAY from my teammates. This keeps the aoes and cones aimed away from the squishies. You will also need to leave the fight early. As soon as everything is dead or dying you need to be on your way to the next spawn not watching them melt away(freaks being a large potential exception).

This playstyle is by far my favorite. I love getting the rhythm of the team and timing when to leave the current fight to go initiate the next - the rush of taking the full alpha, seeing the team arrive to lay down the beating, watching the aggro as the aoe threatens to steal some, judging that things are past the hump, and leaping out to the next spawn without a word... confidence, fun, speed. Great fun.

Really freaks and wows players that haven't gotten behind a tank that plays that way the first time, too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by abnormal_joe 5c.To taunt or not. .... If its a question by all means try it both ways and decide for yourself.

Hear! Hear!

I think you have undervalued Invulnerability as a Primary. Take a look at Call Me Awesome's two guides, one for the first 20 levels of an invuln tank, and the other for softcapping an Invuln Tank somewhat inexpensively.

Invulnerability has a mix of high resist (it is easy to cap Smashing/Lethal Resist at 90%) and Defense (you can easily get softcapped Defense with 1 or 2 foes in range of Invincibility). When built properly, an Invuln tank can rival a Granite Tank for survivability -- with none of the downsides. And that build is not nearly as expensive as softcapping other primaries, and the sets are lower level for easy exemping.

Mike. Elec/SS is a good middle of the road tank with a slight leaning toward a more damage focused build. What with Rage and the damage aura. The trick is not so much wht it start out as, as it is what you turn him into.

Local_Man. I actually go tpretty deep into CMAs build when I was respecing that particular tank. I took it a bit further than he did. I ended up softcapped to all with 0 foes in range (barring psi/tox of course) It's just my experience was he was fairly squishy for about 2/3 of the game content UNTIL I got those IOs slotted. I agree its a top tier set once slotted up, just take a bit to get there. S/L foes are an entirely different matter.

Come to think of it I may need to see if he would mind me linking his two guides the next time I do an update to this guide.