At a dilemma...

Hi Folks,

I have a level 50 Stone/Stone Tanker that has been shelved for about 5 years now on the Triumph server with just stock SO's (yikes). I've migrated over to the Freedom server years ago since there were more people to team with. And had thought about transferring him over as well. But...now I'm wondering if it would be better to just make a new Tank.

I was considering Stone armor again with Super Strength. Or Invulnerability armor with Super Strength.

Thoughts?

It depends on what you want to do with the character.

I wanted my character to be the ultimate tank for any situation. The only secondary that has any real impact in an AV fight is Dark Melee because of the heal.

Ice/SS~

As Syntax said, it really depends on what your goals are here. For instance, the answer would be different for best aggro control versus best soloability versus best AOE damage output versus most survivable. You would get a short list of a few good combos for each of these.

Stone is the best tank for survival. Stone melee is a great control and damage set.

You can now get teleport and not have to take a prerequisite. IO's are a stone tanks best friend.

Ice Ember

Both Super Strength and Stone Melee have AoE knockdowns. That will be your biggest advantage when in defensive armors instead of Granite Armor. They both lack AoE damage, though. Super Strength is the obvious winner at single-target damage.

If you want shards, it is best to team up. You get a chance for a shard for each enemy killed, and that chance does not change when you add people to your team, unlike other drops. A team of players can kill MUCH faster than a solo player.

I'm guessing (you didn't come right out and say it, but from what you posted I'm inferring) that you are looking primarily at survivability as the most important thing for your tank. Stone Armor, specifically the tier 9 power Granite Armor, is pretty much agreed upon as the strongest 'out-of-the-box' defense since when combined with Rooted it gives you significant amounts of all three elements of effective mitigation: Regeneration, Defense and Resistance.

However, Stone Armor prior to Granite and outside of Granite is probably slightly inferior to most of the other armor sets to balance this, and being in Granite carries some significant negatives including slow movement, inability to jump/fly, and severely slowed recharge rate on powers. You can get around the first two with good use of Teleport if you know what you're doing and slot well to afford the endurance usage. The third one is the big disadvantage and unless you're playing with a Kineticist who can buff your recharge to offset this, it will likely make an impact in your effectiveness. This is the reason some Stone players actually refuse to play if they don't have a Kin along. (No, I'm not kidding).

So what's the point of all this? Mostly to point out the significnat downsides of playing Stone. I have two Stone tanks myself (as well as a variety of other types) and while it is powerful it comes at a significant cost. With good slotting and use of IO sets, several other Tanker powersets can accomplish much the same things as a Stone tank in Granite without the oftimes crippling downsides - however, this requires in most cases a significant investment in IOs (that's the tradeoff). Invulnerability and Dark Armor particularly tend to be extremely strong once outfitted with good Sets and can perform as well or better than Stone tanks once so equipped.


Short version: Stone isn't your only option for a very survivable Tank. It is, however, the easiest to reach and requires relatively little from you once you learn how to play around the limitations Granite puts on you.

Probably the best summation I've seen of the various Tanker powersets. Oversimplification, of course, but any summation is going to be.

As I said upthread, Granite's bonuses give you the most survivable out-of-the-box tank (with some steep penalties as well). Of course, you can also enhance that with IOs just as you can with the other sets, and there's little than can match a well-built Stone tanker in Granite aside from psy damage (which savvy Stone tankers can use Minerals and IO Sets to do well against also, though for some reason I'm seeing many players who just play in Granite all the time lately and are confused when they die against psychic opponents).

As AnElfCalledMack summed up beautifully above, all the Tanker sets have their own fortes and drawbacks. There's no wrong choice, just which best suits the way you want to play.