Best tank/brute for noob/ team play??

Hiya, ok im looking for the best tank/brute to run for my VG. We have a player that is our main but I need to make one as a back up when he is not on. I have never tanked/brute before so im looking for a basic one that works great in a team for aggro control. He will get IO's but not special's ( not spending that much money on him). So wht combo is the easist/best in aggro control/ survivabilty?? I have rogue so i can do tank or brute. Thx for the help

Well, first off, you don't need a tank or brute for anything in this game, so don't play one purely cos your VG "needs" one. Play one because you want to play it.

With that said, I'll throw out some recommendations:

Stone Armour is the ultimate cheap defense build. Once you hit 32 (tanks) or 38 (brutes), you're pretty much unkillable, even without investing in IOs. This does come with the drawback of cripling your offensive abilities and movement.

Invulnerability is a good choice too. It does have it's weaknesses, but it's very strong against the bulk of damage that CoX will throw at you and won't reduce your offense like Stone

Willpower has great defenses, but has a very weak taunt aura, which will reduce your ability to get and hold aggro.

For a Tank, Shield is great. It doesn't take much to get it to extreme levels of surviviability and it provides a nice boost to your offense too. For Brutes, particularly ones interested in tanking, it really takes heavy investment to reach it's potential - though when it gets there, it's awesome - so it's probably not ideal for you.

Ice for tanks is the god of aggro control, and it offers a good level of survivability.


Regarding the attacks, good things to look for are AoE damage (which aids with aggro control), controls and debuffs (which aid with suvivability). Fire in particular gives a lot of the former, while Mace, Stone, Ice, Kinetic (for tanks at least), Dark or SS (though tanks in particular have to wait a long time for it to come good) offer the latter two in decent amounts.


Overall, Stone Armour, with whatever attack set you like, is probably your best best, but if you don't want to deal with the severe drawbacks (and I personally wouldn't), then pretty much any combo of the above will do what you want, though some might take a while to mature. Thus, my recommendation is to roll what looks fun to you. If you want to be a time-displaced medieval knight, go for a Shield/Mace Tanker, if you want to be a living volcano, try a Fire/Stone Brute, and so on

Electric Armor is my "new" favorite. For someone in your position I would usually have said Dark Armor coupled with something else "controlly" like War Mace or Ice Melee.

Willpower may be the easiest to play but its taunt aura is weak. Electric has all the tools you'll need, IMHO. I'd still stick with WM or Ice for secondary for your situation but they all have their place (except for Energy Melee).

Willpower and Stone Melee

As others have said, Willpower provides excellent survivability but it has a weak taunt aura, so you'll need the AoEs from Stone Melee as well as Taunt for better aggro management/control

If you're interested in being an agro magnet, I will assume you are taking taunt. If my assumption is right willpower may be a very good choice for you. You get some nice passive powers, the all-in-one mez/knockback protection is nice, and you can get your regen ridiculously high with the taunt aura. Between using your taunt and attacking, you should be able to hold most if not all agro fairly easily.

Stone armor has been suggested too, and yes, at lvl 32/38 you do become unkillable, but that's about it. I honestly hate (playing) this set. The mobility sacrifice on top of further damage reduction is totally meh.

Ultimatley, I suppose I would recommend either WP or Invuln for a brute and WP, Inv, and maybe Ice for a tank. I can't speak to elec armor as I have never tried it. Take super strength as your attack set...everyone should foot stomp at least once.

If you start feeling adventurous, I would recommend trying out Dark Armor and Fire Armor. These can be a little trickier, but they both have tremendous potential in capable hands.

Best team tank? A Fire/dark or Ice/Dark corruptor - yes seriously. Only a handful of AVs can harm you and your damage is very good.

If you insist on Melee I would go with Super Strength/Dark or Electric/Sheild.

Shield/Mace.

...and not to confuse you further, but Ice/Dark Tanker.

Brutes operate more like Scrappers, so for ultra meat-shield goodness, a Tanker is where it's at. Ice holds aggro like nothing else (get the aura), and your Dark Melee will moderately debuff your enemies, thus adding to your overall defense.

Gonna toss in a vote for Ice Armor here. As the OP mentioned aggro management, Ice is very strong here, plus it has the advantage of a slowing aura that ensures that even if something slips away from you, it's not getting far and not doing as much damage as it could be. A margin of error is good for someone learning to play the Tank role.

Willpower would be my second choice, as it's the easiest set for a new player to manage. The tradeoff is that it's a bit tougher to hold aggro than with the other sets, but this too can be good to learn on as it shifts your attention to the active duties of someone taking on the Tank role, and it's every bit as capable of top-tier performance.

Stone I'd honestly avoid recommending for a new player, as it's almost too focused on survival; some folks become frustrated with the set once they get to high level. If you do take it and end up frustrated, think about whether you're frustrated with the set or frustrated with Granite specifically. The set is still very, very capable without taking Granite and its associated tradeoffs, and if anyone gives you guff just tell them you like seeing your costume while you're playing.

I want to give SS/Shield Brute/Tank a special mention. Foot Stomp and Shield Charge should give you good AOE options while simultaneously keeping enemies on their butt and away from your team mates. Rage will allow you to tear through enemies very quickly, mitigating even more damage from your team.

I really like the "Defender" potential that Shield has. With Grant Cover, Maneuvers, and the Epic Power Darkest Night from the Soul Mastery Pool you can grant your team a total "Defense" of 33.61%, and "Resistance" of 21%.

That's really more of an endgame thing though, considering the earliest you can get Darkest Night is lv44, so maybe it's not what you're looking for. You also have to go evil for a bit if you are Tanker.

For new players, it has to be just a choice between Invulnerability and Willpower. I'd settle on either, both are great and very functional with minimal investment.

I just levelled my Electric Armour tank to 39 and have my resistances all slotted out, with Tough, and she is very very squishy. Depressingly so

Willpower.

If this is for primarily team play you probably want to grab taunt as Willpower's inherent aura is pretty lackluster for keeping mobs attacking you.

But, Willpower has essentially the most difficult to find abilities in the game, healing. It's a regeneration set so any damage is healed through rather than avoided or reduced. Add in any team buff from another player and you instantly become much harder to kill.

Maneuvers, SoA maneuvers, shields, sonic, et cetera. Essentially every single set goes well in providing additional defenses for the willpower regeneration to stack on top of. For the other defense sets, there ends up a lot of overlap with defense or resistance that those sets have plenty of already so adding more doesn't do much (e.g. Shield Defense + Force Field/Cold/Sonic, or Resist set + Fire).

These sets are all designed to make solo play viable but when you start adding independent defenses on top of insane regeneration makes you pretty much unstoppable.

The only bad pairing is with Empathy/Pain. They only do direct heals which are pretty pointless in most cases because with willpower you are gonna live through it or you die instantly. Adding more healing is not going to do anything in those cases, you have to reduce incoming damage which Empathy/Pain really sucks at.

Regen beats anything in normal gameplay. If you need to tank Hamidon or whatever you need a specialized character. AV's, giant monsters, all no problem with appropriate backup.

Except Positron, he is mean.

One other thing worth a mention: Soft cap what ever is just dumb in a team context. These are solo players wanting to spend a lot of influence so they can attempt solo runs at AV/GM or whatever. There is no need in normal play for that at all.

tl;dr
Willpower plus anything becomes amazing. Resist or defense based sets plus anything leads to more chances for significant overlap with no benefits. For Willpower anything you add fills weaknesses, other sets only have a smaller subset of power choices that can mitigate weaknesses.

For someone just learning how to play Tankers, I would recommend Ice Armor. At 26 you get an End refill power up every 30 seconds or so (with slotting), two aggro generating auras, and excellent mitigation via slows. Is it the end-all be-all tank? Nope, but it sure makes the learning curve easier.

I would go for a Shield/Mace tank or a Dark Melee/Invul brute.

You know what? Never mind.
Yeah, my numbers were off by a few percent.
You combine apples with oranges and call it apples.

Thx all for your input. I have gone with ice armor/ fire melee, he is lv 10 and i like him so far. with the ice aura and combust pbaoe i hold aggro very well. he is a bit of an end hog but once i get end and the pwr that lets me drain end i think he will be fine.