Shield Tanks for TFs

Hi, all.

I have a level 50 Stone/Stone Tank and a 50 Invul/SS Tank. On the Server that I play the most often on, I don't currently have a high level Tank ... just a little level pacted one that'd take quite a while to get anywhere useful as the person I'm pacted to has taken a break from the game.

I'm thinking that I might like to roll up a Shield Tank this time.

I solo or team with small groups a lot, so it needs to have a decent amount of damage (for a Tank).

On the other hand, I also want it to be able to eventually run the ITF and Statesman TFs.

Any recommendations for the best melee set to take with Shield that'd meet my needs?

How-- if it is--different is it to tank with a defensive based set as opposed to a resistance based set like the ones I've played in the past?

Any Tanker can tank AVs, you just have to know where you are weaker and build accordingly. Shields is a lot of defense, a little resist, and some good +HP. So it's a good idea to get to the defense softcap with it if you want to be really resilient (though it's not strictly necessary, unless you want to play at the screaming edge).

On mine, I was originally going to go with Aid Self, but I switched to grabbing Tough. With it, teammates or green inspirations were enough, whereas I found myself having issues before that if my defense got bypassed (either through defense debuffing, Nemesis with stacked Vengeance having ridiculous +to hit, Devouring Earth, etc.). I'd also say One With the Shield is decent to have: if you use it proactively. Get used to when things are going to hit the fan (like when you're facing a couple of Nemesis mobs at once), and fire it off before you start getting hit a lot.

OWTS saved me when I used it that way. If you use it when you're close to defeat already... the extra resists may not be enough to save you.

For decent damage and mitigation, Super Strength is pretty nice. You can use Rage judiciously when the crash isn't going to hurt you. You also have some decent mitigation in the set, especially via Footstomp. War Mace and Axe are nice in this regard, too. I like Fiery Melee, of course, but if you want to have more mitigation from your secondary, I wouldn't go that way.

I'd throw in a vote for SD/WM. You get a couple good-damage quick-recharging AOEs to clear groups and solid single-target damage. The mitigation is great, too.

If you soft cap it any Shield combination is capable of handling high level TF's... my 42 Shield/Fire tanker had no problems at all tanking the ITF a couple days ago, and I was the lowest level character on the team.

Like all defense based sets it struggles early; it will be very squishy until your defenses climb into the 25% range (around level 22 and SO's) and you won't feel like a tank until they get into the 35% range. As it approaches the 45% soft cap it suddenly becomes godlike.

That Shield/Fire tanker actually kills at a near-scrapper speed... he doesn't kill as fast as my 50 BS/Shield scrapper but he's not far off of the rate of my 50 BS/Regen scrapper. It's certainly far faster than any other tanker I've leveled including a mid-30's Fire/Fire I abandoned back in issue 7.

I will second the statement that choice of secondary doesn't matter as much as what you do with your primary.

First, as long as you take and slot your attacks, any shield/ tank will do decent damage. SC shores up the AoE of any set lacking in such, and AAO will beef up damage of both the ST and AoE variety. So, while the damage will of course vary based on your choice of secondary, you'll still do *enough* damage regardless.

Second, the most important thing, if you want to tank TFs and whatnot, will be to beef up your defenses. You will want to be softcapped, you will want your entire primary, and you will want tough (which also gets you access to weave to help with the softcapping).

Completely aside from its mitigation benefits, you will want to be softcapped because shields doesn't have enough DDR to stave off cascading defense failure otherwise. While shields is somewhat of a hybrid set, defense is most definitely your primary type of mitigation - you don't have nearly as much resistance to back it up as something like invul does. As such, you *have* to make sure it stays strong. You get about 65% DDR, and I find that about 50%ish defense is enough of a cushion against debuffs to prevent cascading failure.

For your primary, obviously you'll want all the defense/res/HP stuff, your aura and mez prot, and SC. Even though the defense doesn't affect you, you'll also want grant cover for the defense debuff resistance (and the slow resistance is a nice bonus, too).

You'll want one with the shield for the same reason you want tough: sometimes, pure defense isn't enough. If you're in the middle of a big crowd of dangerous foes, even the 1 out of 20 attacks that get through can add up quick (even ignoring the possibility of cascading defense failure). Since the odds are very good that such attacks will consist at least partly of S/L damage, doubling your resistance to such damage with tough makes a quite noticeable difference. And for those especially dangerous situations, the extra HP and resistance from even a minimally slotted one with the shield can really help. Those two powers can turn you from a primarily defense based tank into a true layered mitigation powerhouse, which really comes in handy sometimes.

After all that, your secondary really doesn't matter nearly as much. You can still of course get mitigation from it, but exactly what sort and how much can vary without crippling you. Dark will be useful for the self heal and endurance recovery. Mace and axe provide lots of AoE knockdowns. Electric and fire provide lots of AoE 'make them dead before they can make me dead'. Ice melee has all of its usual KD and slows. Stone has KD and stun. SS and DB have some KD. All of them will work.

What I would recommend is try to figure out which powers you can live without from each secondary. Shields/ will be a *very* power hungry build, so sets where you don't need as many powers will be very nice.

i did shield /ss its fun and works well. i also did the itf better then a stone tank that was also playing...but then again i do tend to put more into toons then some people do money wise.