New to Tanks; Ice/SS, Dark/Ice, Ice/Ice?

So, with 2XP weekend coming up, I'm thinking about trying something different. I've not tried Tanks before, and I like the idea of something ice related just to add to the newness.

Anyone got tips/advice for the above options? Or other ideas?

If you haven't done Dark Armor yet, I'd put my vote in for that. Dark/Ice could easily be one of the sturdiest tanks out there. Your enemies would all be flopping, held, stunned, or attacking so slow it wouldn't matter. Add the Arctic APP for even more -recharge.







*This post may be subject to small amounts of personal bias.

Ice/SS is so fun, it should be illegal

I'm currently working on an Ice/Electric tanker; level 31 right now and softcapped to S/L/E/N damage. It's quite sturdy and offers considerable AOE damage at the expense of limited Single Target damage. Being Ice Armor it grabs and holds aggro extremely well; it does an outstanding job of managing team aggro.

Durability wise it's below Shield and certainly Invuln (and Stone post 32 naturally) but it has plenty for the job. While it's soft capped defensively anything that manages to get through the defense is going to hurt since it lacks a layer of resistance to back up the defense and Fire using mobs will chew it up badly. Fortunately Fire is a rare damage type and even more rare when it comes in significant amounts.

I'm also working on a Dark/Elec tanker at 24; with some IO investment I can see it getting really tough but right now it's a bit squishy. I rolled up both tankers because I wanted to try something completely different than I'd played before and couldn't decide between Dark and Ice... so I rolled one of each. Obviously the Ice tanker being in the 30's and fully IO'd out is superior to the SO'd Dark tanker at 24 but given equal investment and level I can see the Dark outperforming the Ice.

Dechs, what are you shooting for on a Dark tanker? 45% S/L def? I assume we want to punch recharge and tohit for the benefit of Dark Regen as well. Frankly I haven't worked up a build for that tank yet; I'm still at the testing and experiment stage before deciding on a final build.

fire ice with earth mastery, not only will you be wicked awesome but we could call you avatar, the last airbender

Ice Armor is pretty awesome before IO's come into the eqaution. Great endurance management and easily softcapped defenses.

After IO's the other primaries pull ahead, but Ice is still pretty solid(no pun intended).

Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison If you haven't done Dark Armor yet, I'd put my vote in for that. Dark/Ice could easily be one of the sturdiest tanks out there. Your enemies would all be flopping, held, stunned, or attacking so slow it wouldn't matter. Add the Arctic APP for even more -recharge.

I was thinking sort of along those lines, but my only experience is from long ago and usually with sets that exacerbate it's end management problems. Why? I'll never know. What's the story with CoF and OG? Good, bad? Situational tools, always on?

My first though was to do something like dark/ice/soul, but maybe trying to add dmg is moot? Tanks get gloom like brutes, right?

It turns out you can *almost* make DA look like snow/fog, bonus. Tore through a few early levels with a sewer team. Still too low level to really say much, but an interesting combo. Definitely going to plug the kb hole as soon as I can though. Shouldn't be too tough to get him the one from Karma or Steadfast, or both (?).

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Originally Posted by Reiraku Ice/SS is so fun, it should be illegal

I had started an Ice/SS the night before this thread, but only got to play for a minute. Seemed like a fun combo. It made me want to start an SS/?? brute, but that's another story. He's a keeper though. I'm not certain, but I think the two will play rather differently.

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Originally Posted by eryq2 If the OP is new to tanks, i wouldnt recommend Dark as a first set. It's very tough to maintain endurance. Id recommend Ice. As a matter of fact, i think ill go make me another one now. Thanks, OP! and GL!

I'm pretty comfortable with micro-managing end from various brutes and scrappers; it looks like dark/ice will be an end challenge, but not terrible. There's always Cardiac now, although that might not be the best alpha for this combo. Definitely no clue there.

The trick for me learning tanking is going to be remembering that I'm not brooting. Found myself standing there whittling away at something while the team moved on to another group. Heh.

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Originally Posted by Desitre fire ice with earth mastery, not only will you be wicked awesome but we could call you avatar, the last airbender

Awesome. The gf and I starting watching the series at the urging of her co-workers. I was surprised at how crazy epic the battles can get. It's been temping to base various characters off that universe. Heh. Almost bummed that we are so close to the end.

Good luck on your tanks Mayor. There's a thread maybe a page or two back where somebody was starting up a Dark/Ice tank. Some good suggestions in there. Theft of Essence +End proc is very nice in Dark Regen. I'd put in a lowball bid when you get a chance.

My DA/Ice is 32 and he's pretty fun. He's very sturdy althoguh the damage output isn't great at this point (caveat: the only tank I've liked the damage output on is my Fire/Fire ).

The combination of slows in the attacks, Ice Patch, Cloak of Fear, respectable resistance, and a full heal, plus end drain resistance makes him pretty darn hard to kill. Relatively low tanker damage means that soloing for me usually means setting the mission at -1 x2 or -1 x3 and then "gathering" up a couple groups of enemies and using Frost/Death Shroud to whittle down the minions while my "big hitter" single target attacks take care of the LTs.

As far as tactics, I typically run into the middle of the group of enemies, taunt the biggest group at range and then hit Ice Patch. Then, while they're flopping, I'll target an enemy on one side of the ice patch and try to jump in the opposite direction. This lets me use frost over most of the enemies flopping on the patch. Then hop back in, target the LT with the most health remaining, and go to town.

Cloak of Fear, it depends on my inspiration situation. If I have plenty of blues, it goes on and stays on. If I'm running low, I'll turn it on for the opening phase of the fight and then off once I'm more comfortable with the incoming damage. If I'm on a fast moving team and not taking a beating, it'll go off.

I'm certainly not a master of tanking and not a master of DA, so do check out the other thread.

Hope that helps you. DA/Ice has been the most fun I've had with a tank in a while. I rarely have to worry about how much I bite off, it's more a matter of can I chew it fast enough.

I can pop a green in less than 17 seconds if i need one. LOL. Just teasing. But as far as the Theft proc, i rarely seen it hit. As far as the alpha now, id definately take the cardiac one if i still had a /dark. Ive deleted 3 so far. I can never manage the endurance and end up detoggling and dieing. On my Ice, i still have like 10 toggles but EA is up very fast (havent timed it) so i dont have to worry about my blue bar at all. I may try a dark/dark scrapper or tank this w/e with 2xp and try again. lol.

I tried a Dark/Ice tank and ran him to level 24 and couldn't take the low damage any longer than that. I deleted him and re-rolled him as Dark/SS and liked that better. This was back when leveling took quite a bit longer, I want to say I7 or I8 - I didn't have any extra slots and Frozen Aura did not yet have the Footstomp buff. Now, part of me wishes I had stuck it out to Frozen Aura and picked up another AoE in the Epic, but such as things go. I was thinking I would try Ice Melee again, (perhaps with Fire Armor) but that will be quite a ways off before I get to that.

Cheers

Thanks again for the tips and such!

Haven't had much time to play him since that first run, but been thinking about where to go with it. Team based build, focused on optimizing the "tank-troller" potential. I'm not too worried about the dmg output, I sort of went into this expecting lower numbers than I am used to on brutes and scraps anyway.

Short list of loot and goals:

-- No swords
-- Theft of Essence proc
-- (Is it worth adding the Touch of the Nictus proc to Dark Regen, or better to use that for slotting acc, heal, or rech?)
-- the 3 -KB globals since I probably won't have a power choice to free up for Acrobatics, that and I hate getting kb'd.
-- CJ/Tough/Weave
-- Perf shifter for stamina
-- LoTGs where they can be fit
-- Softcap S/L def
-- as close to resistance caps as I can get(?)

Cardiac seems like a good choice for an alpha, as it would help mitigate end issues without going into the Energy Mastery pool. Also has the resistance boost at higher rarities. Conversely, Energy Mastery pool would open options for different alpha slotting. Is it worth taking the secondary/tertiary effects of the alpha slot boosts into account? Particularly when it gets to minor buffs to -tohit, sleep, etc?

Epic pools?

/soul would give me gloom and either dark oblit or darkest night. This would be an with an eye toward increasing damage. Of course since I can't color it to match with my armor, well, it might look wierd.

/arctic gives me chillblain (or block of ice) and ice storm. Is the single target hold worth using, say planning to stack with freezing touch? /energy, of course would be conserve power and phys perf.

Would it be worth slotting the Lockdown proc to give freezing touch (and block of ice , unless it is unique) a periodic mag boost? Don't know much about the epic pools, /earth perhaps for more controls?

I realized that I'm actually going snowboarding on Sunday (finally! Missed several day trips because of work), so less play time this weekend than I thought. Still though, should be able to get some decent progress.

Oh, and slotting for Death Shroud, any interesting frankenslotting or often overlooked procs that are good there? Slot it for taunt/end and call it a day?