A new experience

Since my latest tanker, a Shield/Fire, is approaching 50 I'm looking toward a new tanker to roll up. I'm thinking of rolling something I haven't played before.

I've played Inv/Stone, Stone/EM, Stone/Fire and Shield/Fire to 50 (well, almost on the Shielder) and Fire/Fire to the upper 30's. I have played a tank-spec'd Fire/WP brute to 50 that I was... unimpressed with. Anyway, leaving out those primaries and secondaries I'm debating yet another tank, I'm just trying to decide on what.

For the primary Inv, Stone, Shield and Fire are out since I've already done those and WP is out due to poor aggro and my experience with that 50 Fire/WP brute.

For the secondary Stone, Fire and EM are out as I've done them and Dual Blades doesn't fit my idea of a tanker... too much focus on getting combination attacks off instead of managing aggro.

I'm kind of intrigued by both Dark Armor and Ice, I can also see a lot of IO potential in Electric but it's base level with SO's seemed lacking in limited testing during issue 17 closed beta.

So guys, of those three primaries which would you choose for a true aggro holding tanker and what secondary would you pair up?

Double down with Dark/Dark and go have some clicky fun.

Try something fairly rare and go Dark/Electric.

Play a brute instead! ;P (I kid, I kid!)
Try something *very* rare, like my dark/ice.

Ice appears to be a good set to try with kinetic, if you're interested in the new shiny set. They both do exceptionally well for high recharge purposes (as opposed to say a wp/kin).

"choose for a true aggro holding": ICE ARMOR

As an alternative to kinetic, "Lumberjack Frost" is a good name for an ice/axe.

I've been looking at Electric Melee and it certainly is different than I've played before. What's the verdict on Chain Induction? How about Jacob's Ladder? Those are the two powers I'm unsure about; it seems that Lightning Clap is a Hand Clap clone and equally worthless... everything else is fairly obvious. I'm looking at figuring out what to leave out of a tight build (heck, most all my builds are fairly tight).

I'm fairly unimpressed with Kinetic Melee... at least on a scrapper it was very unimpressive in it's performance.

In playing around with Mid's it seems fairly trivial to get ~47% S/L/E/N defense on an Ice without using EA although the resists are pretty low for when the RNG takes a dislike to you. Still, there is Dull Pain er, Hoarfrost and Hibernate to fall back on.

Do I even need to say which primary I'd suggest?

I'm going to echo Aett and say Dark/Electric. It'll be able to stack stuns, plus it packs plenty of knockdown as extra mitigation, and on top of it all, it can drain endurance. I'm a little fuzzy on it, but doesn't electric melee have a chance to give you endurance?

Electric melee: The tier one and tier two powers have a minor chance to return endurance.

Dark/ELM is interesting. I've got one at lvl 26 and it's nice. OG has helped mitigate a lot of incoming damage, but there are those that don't like how the mobs wander when stunned. Chain Lightning isn't horrible and usually jumps to most of the mob I'm on. Jacobs ladder is a smallish cone, but I usually hit at least 2-3 critters with it.

ELA/DM- This could be a fun combination with several end mitigating powers in both the primary and secondary. Siphon Life would compliment Energize well. More Single target focused.

Dark/Dark- One of my lvl 50 tanks. Not softcapped to S/L yet, but with her S/L defenses in the 30's, S/L resists around 70% she's pretty sturdy. I run most of the Dark toggles (no CoF), Tough, Weave, CJ and SuperSpeed most of the time. On longer fights I turn of SS as it's just enough to cause a slow drain to my endurance bar in a non stop fight.


Ice/Dark or Ice/SS might also be interesting choices.

Hmm, good suggestions all, I think I'm narrowing it down to:
Ice/Elec
Ice/Dark
Dark/Elec
Dark/Dark

I think I've a pretty good idea of what to expect from Dark Melee but I'm uncertain about Electric Melee, specifically Jacob's Ladder and Chain Induction. On paper both look decent; how do they perform in game? In my back of the envelope build it looks like there's room for only 6 powers from the secondary.

I guess my decision on Dark Melee or Elec Melee comes down to Single Target or AOE. At some point I'll undoubtedly try both Ice and Dark armor; it's a question of which to roll now... decisions.

Jacobs Ladder compares to Shadow Maul fairly closely.

• Similar cones: JL-50 deg, SM -45 deg.
• Same end cost, same recharge.
• JL has a touch more then 1/2 the cast time of SM: 1.67s vs the 3.07s for SM, so you're not rooted as long.
• JL does less damage, but it's all Electric vs. SMaul's Smashing/Dark.

Like Rangle said, Jacob's Ladder is a pretty nice cone that is pretty easy to hit 3-4 foes with.

I really like Chain Induction since they buffed it a few issues back - it seems like it jumps a lot more often that it used to when I leveled up my Elec/Elec brute back in I8. My sense is that it plays a lot better than what it looks like on paper and it's fun to see it jump around from target to target.

I would be willing to bet that if you chose Elec Melee you will not be disappointed. I think Dark/Elec would be na interesting combination as I loved Dark Armor overall and consider it to be very sturdy once you get IOs in it.

Cheers

Elec melee felt very aoe focused to me, which is good for a aggro focused tank.
Ice can mature fairly early if you can afford to get some recharge in the build. EA while oft praised for its recovery boosting is overlooked for its impressive defense boosting. The combat numbers look small until you realize that it is per foe, enhanceable, and on a fairly short timer. Every spawn for your alpha is easy, double stacked is far from difficult. The rest of a typed defense build you know well enough.
For a dark armor tank I personally think that your mez toggles are key until you are ready to add the defense later on. Endurance issues can be solved but not quickly or cheaply.

My first advice for Dark Regen is stuff a Theft of Essence: Chance for +end in it.

I play an Elec/Dark scrapper and it's a fun combo, so I'm confident the tanker analog will be a fairly impressive combination of damage, control, and survivability. Aside from a -KB IO, and the Theft of Essence Proc, grab either combat jumping or cloak of darkness asap to cover DA's lack of immobilization protection. There may not be a ton of enemies that can immobilize you, but it is perhaps the most frustrating experience for a melee character to be stuck in one spot while the fight is about twenty feet ahead of you.

I didn't notice anyone mentioning it, so I'll throw in this little bit of advice on Chain Induction. In a group, lead with Chain Induction or put it early in your attack on the group. Yes, it can hit up to four more targets, but it stops after any foe is defeated. So if you target a nearly dead foe in a group of 5, and you defeat him with CI, it won't jump to anyone else and you'll have lost some good endurance use.

It's still a great power, though! I usually lead with that, and then hit Thunder Strike. While TS animates, I watch CI do its work to those who are about to get hit. Then while they're down on the ground from TS, I line up Jacob's Ladder for a good clean up. (this of course, is my lead in when Lightning Rod is recharging)

Thanks guys, I'm rolling up one of each, Dark/Elec and Ice/Elec. I'm planning on leveling each into the 20's and then evaluating from there. Obviously inf isn't a big issue although I'm not looking for anything REALLY silly like the Glad Armor.

I'll certainly be looking over your thoughts on DA; it's a set I haven't played anything similar to. I'm on a bit more familiar territory with Ice as I've played several defense based characters and I do have some idea how to soft cap one