Seeking consensus: best tanker for Tin Mage, Apex

I suppose I need to update my guide to tanking task forces to discuss the Tin Mage and Apex task forces. The basic premise of the guide is that if you have multiple tankers you can bring, you should bring the one with the primary that's best tuned to what you will be facing there.

"Note at the outset that any tanker can tank any game content, and the task force you need or want to run, or the one you just enjoy running, is the one you should play. Rather, this guide is intended for players who have multiple tankers to choose from, like I do. Some tankers will have an easier time with some content than others will. The purpose of this guide is to enable the tanker fan who has several available tankers to select the one that will perform best on the task force." This sentiment may require revision.

I don't have the kind of experience with these task forces that others may have had. I have finally gotten through both of them on my badging main so I am done with them, or at least done with Apex. (Tin Mage is actually rather fun.)

My unscientific impression is that multiple tankers might be valuable on Tin Mage but that any tanker (and any melee character) is a liability on Apex. Apex can probably be "tanked" as much as it needs to be on a scrapper, which of the three melee ATs is probably the least damaged by its "unique" features. Both Battle Maiden and Director 11 are essentially untankable encounters. Battle Maiden simply cannot be properly tanked, and trying to hold aggro on Director 11 is at minimum inconsistent with a master run.

Given the Praetorian clockwork stacking slow and recharge, defense sets might be more useful at least initially. I think that at minimum, out of the box (without expensive defense bonus builds), sets based on resistance and self heal (DA, Fire, Electric, to some extent Invuln) are strongly disadvantaged on Tin Mage, and generally throught Praetorian CW content. If you're relying on a heal to keep you alive, odds are it won't be there. Your only hope is in being hit less, and the Praetorian CW are also stacking -def, so defensive sets that can easily get past the softcap (Ice, Shields; maybe Invuln) will excel, especially if they also have good debuff resistance: Ice is probably best in that regard. All other things being equal, I'd rather be Reflexes.

For Battle Maiden, the only possible advantage I can see in a tanker primary are the ones that buff hit points. The sets with +HP (WP, Ice, Invuln, Shields) are really the only ones that confer a slight edge that I can think of. Obviously being a Stone tanker would be at a large disadvantage on Apex. I have not taken an Ice tanker on Apex; does Hibernate work on the blue patches?

For BM, your secondary is also going to make a big difference, maybe even bigger than your choice of primary. Being Energy Melee is probably a bigger disadvantage than reliance on Rooted or Granite. The set has been rebalanced around animation lag in a way that's inconsistent with the design of the encounter; your basic attack sequence (BU-ET-TF) is itself long enough to get you killed.

Willpower tankers are not disadvantaged by a weak taunt aura here, at least. It isn't like you are trying to gather mobs for your team; you can't.

My initial verdict would be:

Tin Mage: Ice, Shield, Invuln
Apex: None, but Shield might have a slight edge, especially given the Shield TP attack; also WP, Invuln, Ice for the +HP. WP's balancing weakness is less of an issue here. Don't bother with Stone. Your secondary is also important, and attacks with long rooting animations should be avoided.

<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

I think your evaluation is accurate for tanking with SOs or generic IOs, and minimal team buffs.

If you factor in the potential to soft cap anything with team buffs and/or IOs, I think high energy and S/L resistance would be the most important factor.

Tin Mage is easy; as a practical matter you only need a tanker with good durability and the ability to hold aggro. I've done it with both my Shield/Fire and my Invuln/Stone tankers and had very little difficulty with either. Both times we took out Neuron first, then the two AV class Warwalkers and finally Bobcat. The only difficulty I had was that Neuron overloaded my aggro cap with his clones at one point... Bobcat was pretty vanilla on both tankers. Yeah, she could hit hard but basically she was just another AV. Anything with good defense and/or good S/L resistance should be fine.

Apex is a different story, the first mission is pretty ordinary until you get to the Hydra heads; those suckers pump out MASSIVE toxic damage that will drop most tankers in their tracks. The good news is that you can kill the pylons from beyond the Hydra's aggro range; killing the pylon kills the Hydra around it. An Invuln running Unstoppable can easily tank this, but without Unstoppable you'll drop very quickly. Yes, this is the voice of experience there.

In the Battle Maiden mission the first priority for a tanker is MOBILITY, you need to move away from the blue patches right away. She does a fair amount of S/L damage but neither of my tankers had any problems with her damage output. Your team will also appreciate it if you can hold the attention of all the Swords. I've dealt with this by using my aura to clump and taunt the Swords while I'm taunting BM and attacking as the opportunity arises. Ranged attacks are highly useful here, as is pulling BM out of her blue patch. Taunt/break LOS works well for this.

I'd say for Apex your options are pretty open for the first mission but for the second you want two things, a good taunt aura to hold the Swords without you needing to worry with them and good mobility to avoid the blue patches. I'd say that Stone is about the worst choice thanks to it's mobility problems and WP may have problems holding the Swords.

Well, I can only supply one data point, but my ele/ found tin mage to be a bit of a cake walk

Now, I can't claim to have tried a wide array of team compositions, but even when I had no buffs, things seemed ok

Also: I do have a capped SL resist build, but I think that since we are, by difinition, considering alpha slotted characters, you can probably expect electric tanks to either be at, or within a hairs bredth of that SL cap, at least once word spreds that you can get there without IOs with overslotting and a cardiac... radial I think? something like that. edit, yup, tough+ cardiac radial, then either overslot tough and charged armor, or pony up for a gold plated +3 res if you can

Easy Answer First:

Tin Mage: Granite, obviously. Other than that, i would say a good invulnerability tanker, a good regen/defense WP powerset. Defensive sets just don't cut it in my experience, since every other tanker can also reach the cap through IOs (some needing more influence than others but they WILL get to the cap). So, Resistance sets overall would be better.
In Tin Mage, the AVs hit pretty hard for an Ice Tanker I think, especially when you have to tank Both Neuron and the two WarWalkers AVs at the same time.
Oh and Director 11, he's easy to tank. Just tank him on the side rooms. NOBODY should follow him when he runs away. Just stay there on the side room and he WILL come back.
Honestly, after i discovered that trick, Tin Mage became a breeze.


Apex: Willpower and Invulnerability. They have good defense and resist against BM damage. WP is especially good since it can resist quite a bit of time against the Hydras, courtesy of high regen.
Against BM, a Tanker is good to taunt her and make her come out of her blue flame. Her blue flame is very easy to avoid. Again, a WP tanker has an easier time due to the high regen if something goes wrong.


Granite against BM, I haven't done yet, but the slow might hurt. The defensive sets....I wouldn't like them too much.


PS - I haven't done Apex nor Tin Mage with my Fire or Ice tankers. And my Electric isn't at the cap yet.
Haven't bothered doing it on my Stone, it's all too easy...

PS II - I have done Apex more times than i can count (>100 shards and I have two tier 2s on one tanker) and Tin Mage also more than 20 times....

My evaluation of the Apex TF, based on running it repeatedly:

First phase: Praetorian Clockwork hotspots. These guys pump out ranged energy damage and don't like to move. If your survival depends on clustering enemies around you (Willpower, Invulnerability), you're in trouble without team support. Granite does well; Electric Armor may also.

Second phase: The sewers. Just about everything here pumps out massive amounts of toxic damage. Granite can go toe-to-toe with these guys without team support; I've also seen a Willpower tank survive by out-regening the damage. Fire might be able to survive by stacking Healing Flames.

Third phase: War Walkers at the police station. A tank is of limited use here, as the War Walkers are so large you can't group more than three or so around you, and the rest of the battle tends to be very spread out.

Fourth phase: Swords on the rooftop. Pure melee lethal damage, so almost anything will do well.

Fifth phase: the Battle Maiden fight. The keys to this fight are mobility, lethal defense/resistance, and the ability to attack at range. Battle Maiden is resistant to pulling: if you taunt her from range, she tends to pull out her crossbow instead of charging. Tanks that depend on clustering enemies (Invulnerability, Willpower) will have trouble, as a cluster of enemies can keep you from moving out of a blue patch. A Granite tank can work in this fight, but needs to either have speed buffs, or be *very* on top of things. Granite + Rooted without Teleport is a recipe for death; fortunately, there isn't enough damage flying around to need Rooted's regen or defense debuff resistance.

The best "tank" I've seen for the fifth phase was a team of support types with Leadership buffs. Everyone was softcapped, players could move around as needed to stay out of blue patches while still attacking, and the aggro was fairly well spread-out over the entire team.

I found my invul scrapper to be just fine and useful for both Apex and Tin Mage (we usually don't run with tankers and more often than not I end up being the one taking the brunt of the aggro). With judicious insp use (oranges against pylons, the occasional green if a few clockworks get lucky at the same time as a war walker) I usually don't die in either TF.

That being said, I disagree with this :

Ive run both my DA and Elec Armor in these TF's more than once and ive done a better job on my Elec Armor. Only died once against battle maiden with my EA and that was because i was stuck in the middle of 1000 cuts when blue gooey stuff dropped from heavan. other than that my EA take hardly any dmg from clock work

IMO, the TF's don't skew in favor of one tanker, and all of the primaries have their strengths and weaknesses manifested. Maybe Elec Armor edges out Dark Armor in this one(due to energy damage), but the rest of the primaries keep their position in my survivability ladder(Stone>Inv>WP>DA>ElA>SD>FA).

A fire tanker.

I've run this several times, and it seems solid.

Goliath War Walkers: Get you defenses to 30-ish and they're simple. Max recharge on healing flames get's it back plenty often enough. You should be buffed, these are Incarnate TF's, why are trying them with crappy teams? Also, GWW's and WW's have mad resists, get the Bruising rolling early, Power Analyzer shows it's a BIG help.

Director11: Problematic. Not sure yet how much KB resist it'll take to keep him from punting you around. Obviously, more research is required. But even with KB, it's not difficult, just time consuming and a little embarrassing. As a bonus, your flopping about will trigger plenty of the prox's, keeps the squishy's awake.

Bobcat: Hope your defense holds out, esp if she's buffed. She MIGHT be able to one/two-shot you through 80 percent resist, which is annoying. Be quick on the flames. If you can floor her tohit, (you should be buffed, remember?) not too terrible.

Neuron: No issues to date, even when you drop Bobcat first. That might just be luck, need moar runs.

Pylons: Oh, healing flames, I love you so much..... Slot HF for recharge, heal, and a bit of damage resistance. (Or use Alpha). If your recharge is where it should be, put HF on auto one minute before you hit the Pylons. (On last hotspot is where I hit it.) Pop yer hasten on the way in, and voila, you should hit the first tower with 90 percent toxic resist. Makes those things a cakewalk. If you don't have HF slotted that well, at a minimum it'll take only a small orange to get you in a fine place.

Warwalkers: Cake. You ARE a tank, and you even do serious damage.

Clocks: Oh, the plasma patches, hate hate hate. The way to handle is, race in, flaming sword circle, MOVE. Let them drop the patches in the center of the spawn where you were, then circle the edge cookin' them. Victoria's are SO nasty, they hit like they're droppin' anvils and debuff like crazy. Be quick on the healing flames and keep moving. Kill menders, so annoying.

Battle Maiden: You're a fire tank, none of your defenses depend on being close to her, so MOVE. The taunt tactic I mention above works fine, after three taunts stack on her she has to chase you. Fire tanks can be very quick on their feet, so the joust back and forth tactic also works fine. (Don't use super speed, she loses aggro very easily.) Dragging her in circles is a little iffy, because the patches start dropping quicker and you'll run yourself running into one if you're not paying attention. (oops)

All things said, I'm pretty sure a fire tank is a valid and excellent approach, as long as you have not neglected your build.

But if you don't have a good toon, why are running Apex/Tin Mage?

I think that's all the real sticking points off the top of my head....

Also on my fire tanker who's soft capped tin mage was a piece of cake.and anytime I died on apex was to help or worring about a squishey and wasn't till bm when that happened.

Again ill just say its up to a well built tank with experience and there's no issues at all

I ran Tin Mage with my Ice/SS tanker, and I ran it without having the Alpha slot slotted. He had Alpha unlocked.

My tanker impressed me. He dropped once to Bobcat (she rolled what shee needed in order to hit). I appreciated the slow resist of Ice and I appreciated the 85%+ resists to defense debuff. My Ice/SS runs on 54 S/L Def and 56 Energy/Neg Energy Def and 23-36 Def to all others, even positional so popping even a medium purple was sweet for all inc attacks.

I run tough and weave and aid self, with a 87.5 global recharge. HP is perma capped and Aid self recharges in 6 secs. Since I am defense, Aid self is reliable to use since the chances of them interrupting me are not that good.

Throw Hibernate into it all, and smart tactics....

Reading another post gave me the idea to have the temp resist power you get by running the arc in Striga. Using that plus tough or even an orange, will be very good. I will do it and carry it with me in my next runs. I though I would share this.

I think people smart enough to decide which of their tankers is preferable for anything after giving things a shot.

I don't think you can really take the tanker in a vacuum when determining these things. A tanker doesn't stand alone in these encounters and benefits from the abilities of his teammates; their damage production, team protection and power multiplication means at least as much as a tanker's aggro control.

Based on that, I'd pick the tanker that can get the most value out of those things. Probably WP, Electric or Fire.