Tankender??????

It's a new word (for me at least) that has been cycling around the forums lately and I'm curious as to what exactly goes with it. With that said, I have a few questions about what a Tankender is and how it works differently than either Tanks or Defenders:

1. Which primaries/secondaries are optimum for Tankenders?

2. Which other power pools are deemed necessary for them? (i.e. the fighting pool, etc.)

3. What is the best description of the "Role" of a Tankender on a team? (I'm not one for pigeonholing certain AT's into roles per say but the Tankender seems to have a specific application)

4. Any other schools of thought, feelings, or words of advice?

As always, I thank you all in advance and greatly appreciate the sharing of knowledge in a constructive and positive way in order to make the game more enjoyable for all of us involved.

Tony

You can make a Defender to be pretty tough, I guess thats what a Tankender is.

The guide in my sig covers some slightly out of date advice for Force Fields and Sonic Resonance. My guide's a bit old (before BotZ ever existed, and before split bonuses for defence were introduced, and befroe toggles just suppressed while you got mezzzed...)

These two primaries provide mez protection. Dark, Storm and Rad all give you good surviviability, but leave you vulnerable to mez.

Of the two, FF is the best for personal survivability. Its pretty easy to stack Fighting, Manouvers and Hover/CJ and build up soft-capped defence to many positions during the 30s.

Your role on a team is not the same as a real Tanker. You don't need taunt, but provide everyone (including you) with soft-capped defence. So unless you're facing certain enemies (Devouring Earth, Earth Thorn Casters) you can let the whole team run full tilt without fear for their own safety.

I highly recommend FF/Sonic as a Tankfender project, as it allows you to provide some decent ofensive buffs too via Sonic's -Res.

My Vote for a Tank-Fender would be Forcefield Primary , hands-down

Forcefields offers the ability to get to the Softcap on defense AND some form of personal "Mez" protection. If your team is looking to you for "Tanking" you can soften a spawn with Repulsion Bomb or fly in to range with PFF running and soak up an Alpha strike.
And there are many, many, more tactics that FF Vets here know better than myself.

As far as which secondaries would work best, I will leave that to others since I don't generally play my Defenders as "point men". Running into a spawn is someone else's job

I am out of date. I forgot to mention Traps.

Force Field generator provides more Defence than Diseprsion Bubble, the only downside is that it can expire or be defeated as a sepaarte entity. Or get stuck on a corner...

FFG: 13.3% -> 21% slotted
Steadfast in Tough: 3%
Weave: 8% slotted
Manouvers: 5.5% slotted
Hover or CJ: 2.5%

that's 40% Defence right there! getting the other 5% from set bonuses should be a doddle.
(Psi defence included, as all of these are to all types and positions.)

For me, tankfender means being able to step in and take the alpha from a spawn and maintain an umbrella of basic safety/support where the rest of the team can operate without having to worry about anything ripping their heads off.

My vote would be for dark. You can floor the tohit of most opponents, spam out a big aoe heal, rez, soft control, slow and -res. Then you get a pet that does most of those same things as well.

Add the dark blast secondary and you stack even more -tohit, aoe immob, a little aoe stun and another self heal.

There are two basic types of tankfenders I think. The ultimate result is that you create a character that can effectively be the first person to engage enemies. This is technically possible with most any character, but a few defender types stand out.

Storm summoning, dark miasma, and radiation work by laying their toggle debuff(s) on an enemy group and usually going around a corner in order to herd them. Once the enemies bunch up they use a power that further mitigates incoming damage (freezing rain, fearsome stare, lingering radiation respectively) and the enemies are as good as dead.

Force field and traps defenders can get their own defenses extremely high with the right powers/inventions and they have status protection to keep those defenses up. At this point they're free to do just about whatever they want within reason.

I would say a decently built D3 or Storm/D2. Just because they can take the alpha, debuff and mezz the mobs all at once. Also, they are quite more fun imo.

On the other hand, a FF defender would turn everyone into Tanks.

Mine's a Storm/Energy/Electric with the Fighting pool. 25% defense/all, 65% S/L/E resist, 35% F/C resist, plus hurricane (which floors to-hit on its own), etc. That's without IO's, it gets better with them obviously. [random bragging and Feats of Strength removed for brevity]

Addressing your role question, I tend to play off-tank if we have a decent lead tank. I deal with secondary aggro by tying up the spawn 'till the main group is ready for them. If we have a weak or hesitant tank, I step up and take the alpha to ease the blow and/or keep up the pace. If we have no tank, I can't hold aggro for long but I can usually tie them up long enough for the damage dealers to finish off the minions at least, at which point the remainder's fairly easy to keep neutered with Hurricane. I wish I had room to fit in Provoke, but alas it's a tight build.

Two thoughts:

1. The title needs more ?

2. Dark/* can provide acceptable aggro control with Fearsome Stare, Tar Patch, Dark Servant, Darkest Night and Blackhole (lolblackhole).

I vote traps.

Traps, FF, Dark, and Storm work for tanking. /dark works as well since it has tohit debuffs and you can toss in something like T.T., or Dark Pit to further help mitigate damage.

Alleyne Traps/Dark Tankfender - She's defensive overkill, the SO version was safe, the IO version I typically solo +2x8 with bosses. However, I'd probably recommend you turn bosses off, then you might even solo up to +4x8 no bosses. It's just that personally I feel like it's almost cheating to turn bosses off, even if my weakness is st damage and my specialty is AoE and defense.

Traps, FF, Dark, Rad for direct tanking in a more conventional sense. A good rad with provoke is eye-opening to watch.

Storm for a chaotic tank. -range combined with massive to-hit debuffing is incredibly safe, but requires an active and chaotic playstyle.

Kinetics with high recharge and an Regen Scrapper attitude and playstyle.

Cold I use in a combined alpha-strike, rain dancer, debuff method and I'm very survivable, but not in the traditional tank way.

An Emp pair, designed similar to Green Machine, makes for a nearly invincible pair of tankfenders.

*I* have never made a tank out of TA, or Sonic Bubbles, but It's probably possible. In fact, I think I have a reference build somewhere for a Sonic Bubbles resist based tank.

So, most likely any defender can tank, you just have to build them that way.

Traps, pick up provoke if you feel like it

The F is important.

It is the difference between a Defender acting as a tank, and someone doing a tank in the rear.

The F is important.

What F?

This is just an IMO, but a character without mezz protection and the ability to hold aggro is really not a "tank." The character may be very powerful, but what a lot of people are describing is an "opener," not a "tank" as it is usually defined.

Wouldn't a tankender be normally called a tankmage in other games?

Well, that's because other games don't have defenders but mages >_<

Dark/Ice hands down.

Darkest night + Tarpit + howling Twilight + Snow storm + Blizzard = everything is dead.