Epic pools can take the Achilles Heel debuff proc. I have one in Laser Beam Eyes on my Tanker.
WP/DB used to be the flavor of the month. Other set combinations eventually became better-utilized and surpassed it. Defense debuffs are almost never needed. You need resistance debuffs for AVs more often than anything else. If you really want to contribute to a steamroll team, make a tanker that focuses on AoE damage. Fire/Fire is a good one, and was made more useful when they removed Burn's fear effect. SD/Electric can do great burst AoE damage, even on a Tanker. The taunt aura is also better than almost every other taunt aura in the game. You could also try mixing things that people haven't used often before, like SD/Fire or Fire/Electric.
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Normally I would just make another aoe-tanker, but I really wanted to do something focused on something else, having 2 ice/tankers at 50 and working on 2 more (/ice, /KM, /dark /elec) , I figured WP/ would also be the furthest away form that.|
Originally Posted by Syntax42
Epic pools can take the Achilles Heel debuff proc. I have one in Laser Beam Eyes on my Tanker.
WP/DB used to be the flavor of the month. Other set combinations eventually became better-utilized and surpassed it. If you really want to contribute to a steamroll team, make a tanker that focuses on AoE damage. |
Really looking for something that I wouldn't be feeling like my other tankers or brutes could do the same or a better job at doing, currently a debuff-based tanker seems to be an interesting idea.
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I have a debuff based melee character, but this is a Spines/WP scrapper. She has two or three Chance for Recharge Slow debuffs firing all the time, in RttC, Quills, and Caltrops. Her Quills and Caltrops are slotted for movement slow as well. |
Originally Posted by Flints
Really looking for something that I wouldn't be feeling like my other tankers or brutes could do the same or a better job at doing, currently a debuff-based tanker seems to be an interesting idea.
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An Ice/Fire (AoE) or Ice/Dark (synergy) tanker slotted for debuff might be an interesting character to play.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
My WP/DB Tanker is a lot of fun to play, but I rarely use Nimble Slash and Ablating Strike any more. The biggest problem with WP/DB is that it's a very TIGHT build... you need so many attacks in DB to get your combos, and so many powers in WP are so darn useful, that you can't afford too much else.
This will change with i19, since fitness is now becoming an inherent.
Scrapper Jack (SJ/WP Brute), Sky Commando (WP/SJ Tanker), Curveball (Rad/DP Defender), and a bunch more.
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From personal experience, Fire/Electric is VERY strong. I just got mine to 50, and slotted him. With softcapped e/n defense and 35 s/l defense + the fast recharging heal w/ resistance, he is a beast. Not to mention the aoe |
Originally Posted by Syntax42
You could also try mixing things that people haven't used often before, like SD/Fire or Fire/Electric.
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@Shock n' Tank
My 50s: Perfect Predator - Claws/SR Scrapper, Heavy Static - SS/Elec Brute, BlackLce - Ice/Dark Corruptor, Prickles' - Spine/WP Scrapper, Arbiter Kaverius - SOA Crab, Frost Hood - Ice/Rad Controller.
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I really can't stand this kind of thinking anymore. Not what you propose, that is excellent. But the thinking that a Tank just holds aggro.|
Originally Posted by Flints
Has anyone tried to do anything like this before? Maxing a certain role of a tanker outside of simply holding aggro?
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Anyway, if you are going in a buff heavy group you should just play a Brute. You'll be nearly as tough as the Tank but do better damage by absorbing the alpha. If you are insistent on playing a Tank then your main benefits over the other melee classes are largely irrelevant, but I would suggest that you go for an AOE heavy secondary. Resistance debuffs are nice but on a good team you can defeat a spawn in 3 seconds anyway so you might as well just jump in and footstomp/fire sword circle because debuffing them for the remaining 10% of their life isn't actually doing anything noteworthy. Consider that it takes time to animate the attack and put the -res debuff on them, then consider the rest of your team attacking them at the same time. If you've already done 90% of the damage to the mobs then your 10% debuff will effectively deal 1% damage (by reducing their 10% health to 9%). Building around that 1% is of questionable value. Especially if that 1% is only on a chance to proc.
It would be nice against AVs however... not that you'll be challenged by them anyway in a group with a lot of support. This argument has a flaw in that in a group with lots of support you can do whatever you want because you're never going to be challenged
Touching back on the first group: A well built tanker with good recharge and the right specs can decimate whole spawns in very very short order. I despair when I hear about taunt bots and it is from these kinds of builds that Tankers get a poor name. Tanks are quite capable of respectable damage.
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What I meant by "simply holding aggro" wasn't talking about being a taunt-bot, but like you said using heavy AoEs to keep everything tightly packed. Sorry to confuse you with that.|
Originally Posted by BunnyAnomaly
I really can't stand this kind of thinking anymore. Not what you propose, that is excellent. But the thinking that a Tank just holds aggro.
Anyway, if you are going in a buff heavy group you should just play a Brute. You'll be nearly as tough as the Tank but do better damage by absorbing the alpha. If you are insistent on playing a Tank then your main benefits over the other melee classes are largely irrelevant, but I would suggest that you go for an AOE heavy secondary. |
I do have an Ice/Elec/Mu Tanker being built for aoes end-drain & damage, with this concept I'm mostly looking to maximise usefulness so to speak, on targets like AVs when doing LRSF without a perma-dom, where teambuffs will most likely be soft-capping. There seems to be only a few powersets that actually debuff resistance, and designed a tanker towards that in a way that it wouldn't take more than a few procs and enough frankenslotting in the proc'd powers to make them useful for DPS, is something I'm curious about.
Inspired by this thread on how people play their tankers, i18's addition of bruisng, and the 2 -resistance IOs (one for pbaoe, one for defence debuff.)
I thought on the idea of creating a tanker specialised for buff-heavy, steamroll teams.
But I've hit a few brick walls on the idea-front, first off, Dual Blades is the only tanker secondary with a defence debuff for Achille's Heel, so I'll be requiring Nimble Slash, Ablating Strike, and Typhoon's Edge. Which luckily is the components of the Weaken combo, the other closest combination would be the Empower combo. I could probably squeeze in Sweep in i19.
I'll also be using Willpower, which is also a powerset I've never used on a Tanker, I already know that WP/ Lacks a strong aggro aura, so Typhoon, Sweep, and Taunt will be the main aggro control, but considering its decided for steamrolling, as raised in the thread up above, aggro isn't really needed when the teams destroying everything.
Is there anything else I've missed about WP? I know its the set thats going to benefit most in a team, I intend to go for E/N defences, focusing on Resistance for S/L, as buff-heavy teams would most likely be including plenty of S/L defence, so that's not really an issue.
I'm thinking about taking the leadership pool instead of a travelpower, and using the flightpack for travel, because as I'm reducing the resistance with my procs and bruising, defence with my epic pool (earth), taking Manunvers and Assault seems more useful and a greater team bonus.
With Inherent Fitness, how's WP/DB's End use? I'm probably going to go for high-recharge, frakenslotting my attacks for acc/dmg/rech, so that with buffs like SB and AM, the build will once again benefit the most, and that I'll be proc'ing as much as possible.
Finally, the Earth Mastery pool for -def debuffs, probably going to stick HOs in there, for the defence-debuffs if that still works.
Has anyone tried to do anything like this before? Maxing a certain role of a tanker outside of simply holding aggro?