Tanker Discussion

Again, there are exceptional cases going both ways. An SS Tanker will be competitive with an MA Scrapper; not so much with a Fire/Shield. Does that mean the MA Scrapper has bad damage, or that the Tanker has good damage?

There are also a number of practical considerations that can improve the Tanker by comparison. One of those is travel time, as noted earlier. Another is the increased room in a Tanker's build for offensive supplements. My Tanker has two PPP AoE attacks that a similar Brute wouldn't be able to afford while maintaining what I consider to be an acceptable amount of defense.

So the Tanker's third AoE ends up making up almost the entire damage advantage the Brute enjoys on the other two. That's just my personal thought process when evaluating builds I'd like to play.

But sure, all else being equal, you're right. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), there doesn't appear to be any good reason to pump up the relative level of solo missions. (The number of mobs yes, the level -- no.)

And in group missions, the Tanker's damage disadvantage is usually moot. Running an LGTF the other day, I was struck again just how silly a lot of these Scrapper-versus-Brute-versus-Tanker discussions are in most high-end teams: Mobs were melting so fast that it wouldn't have mattered if I had 300% of max Scrapper damage.

As an aside, and by the same token, there's a very small middle ground in terms of team composition where a Brute will have a noticeable advantage over either Tanker or Scrapper. The group has to have enough buff support that the Brute can take advantage of its higher caps. The group also can't have so much buff support that the content is trivialized. In my experience, those teams basically don't exist once you're past about level 30. The team is either scraping by or rolling.

And the Tanker is generally better for groups that are scraping by.

All of the above isn't meant to criticize anyone for rolling a Scrapper or Brute, or to deny that those ATs are generally better at damage by some significant amount than Tankers. It's just to point out that Tanker damage isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination.

Hey, more power to you. There is merit in trying to find a balance too though.

Personally, I have a Tanker which is now about as tough as I can reasonably make him and his offense is very nearly at its potential. I also have a Fire Blaster with soft-capped S/L DEF for when I want to play huge offense.

Given those two extremes, it's hard not to look at everything in the middle and pine for either more offense or more defense.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Yeah, I think I would argue against this, too. What I like to say is that your balance between offense and defense is based on the balance of offensive POWERS against defensive POWERS. If you have a power and don't slot it to its more efficient level, then you are not making full use of that power. You might as well just one slot it and use it situationally, or if that's not possible, pick some other power that you can.

If you have a balance between attacks and defenses, you're balanced, if you have more attacks than defenses then you're more offensive, if you have more defenses than attacks you're defensive. If you just take a bunch of attacks and defenses and slot only the defenses that's not really specialization to me, it's, well, skipping your Secondary. I don't recommend that with either Tankers or Defenders.

I kinda doubt anyone here does that though.

I have a Scrapper that I built as a tank. That's her JOB, that's what her concept is designed around, and it's what she does. She's not as efficient as a true Tanker, of course, but that's not the point. The point is I wanted to make the concept work.

It usually takes a team behind her, and it's a very specialized build, it depends on Invicibility, and a huge crowd around her. It falls apart when attacks start getting through the holes in Invulnerability's armor. But it works when I need it to work, which is in emergencies when something's happened to the other tank, or we can't find one. I find that fun, even though I've taken a Ferrarri, and tried to make it go offroad like a Humvee.

And vice versa.

I think I really like that.

I completely understand you, but I'd like to point out I'm not saying tanker damage is bad. I'm just saying it's less than scrappers. I know tanker damage is more than adequate, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do the things in my video.

I haven't build defense to the exclusion of offense. I made sure my tank is offensive capable. I hit things, and hit them hard enough. But I'm not packed for recharge and damage bonuses. "I know I'll kill you. I don't know how long it'll take, but I know that you won't kill me first."

Again, the following is just opinion, but if your goal is offense, start with the best offensive foundation you can find.

This is the true gray area, when you're talking about finding balance. Do you start with a tank, who already has enough defense, and increase his offense? Or do you start with a scrapper, who already has the offense, and work to increase his defense?

There's no right answer.

This is one of those times you really want herostats running.

While you might have more AoEs, how much more damage do the brute's AoEs do? What if the Brute was able to leverage enough defense to squeeze in 2 AoEs as well?




I don't agree.

I play a variety of builds and ATs, and the things you can accomplish with a well designed brute or scrapper can often be a truly huge contribution.

I often weight my various builds against each other post TF using herostats, to see just how much damage the character dealt (obviously, support characters do other, extremely important, things but I do like to weight their overall contribution vs. other support builds in the damage department).


Well, you've kind of hit the nail on the head in a round about way.

The advantage is you can take 7 ranged, particularly support characters + 1 Brute to both deal damage in droves and hold down entire spawns at the same time.

And just to be clear, while Shield Scrappers are a very special case in terms of the amount of raw DPS they do above a similar Shield Brute (do to AAO above all things) - the difference for other secondaries is much, much closer - and nearly indistinguishable in many cases.

If you can maintain Fury, you will be dealing an enormous amount of damage.


This assumes the Brute is always in need of it's higher caps.

They do amazing things for Brutes, but in the age of IO sets they are not a requirement to both deal top end damage and simultaneously be the main aggro unit on a team.