Advice on new Tanker power pools

Well I've gone ahead and gotten my Willpower/Axe tanker to 50, and even started him on the incarnate route of my choosing. But the more I play, the more I begin to wonder, what other sets would be better suited to me.

As it stands, I run in a very small in-SG group (Three, four people at maximum.) and while it's all well and good for typical groups (My regen usually keeps me up unless the enemy specializes in anti-regen powers.) I find my survivability dwindles whenever it's just me tanking anything AV level, sometimes even a well designed EB.

If at all possible, I'd like to hear some input on possible builds for someone in a lower-sized group (Without defender.) like myself towards the end-game. Any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

What pools are you referring to? Standard power pools? Epic pools?

IO set builds can make most characters perform MUCH better than those who only use SO's.

If you are having trouble tanking most AVs, you probably need more defense, which is usually obtained through a combination of IO sets and pool powers. There are plenty of Willpower builds on these forums. Changing the melee set to Axe is usually easy - just move the IO sets to the appropriate powers.

Without knowing your goals and budget, it may be hard to suggest a build for you. Also, you may be able to afford a better build than you think if you are not already taking advantage of the easiest ways to make INF.

Standard Tanker Pools of Choice I find... (these will very with other players)


Fighting -
Boxing (Mule slot normaly)
Tough (slot it... love it... use it)
Weave (The biggest source of DEF outside a DEF based Tanker set)

Leaping -
Combat Jumping (cheap place for some extra DEF, better manuverability thanks to jumping, and of course a mule slot for Luck of the Gambler Global Recharge).

Leadership -
Manuver (again.. more DEF... did I mention you need DEF? Again yet another mule slot for Luck of Gambler Global Recharge and more added DEF, plus this one helps your teammates)

Flight -
Hover ( I take this generaly for a couple of reason... 1 its yet another mule slot for Luck of Gambler. Notice with the above powers you now can slot 4 Luck of the Gambler Rechargers. Its also VERY handy to have a permeant flight power to use here and thier. The extra DEF it has can be handy here and thier for soft capping. I generaly dont use it for DEF but thier have been a time or 2 were I have clicked it on just for that purpose).


Of course Speed is another loved Pool for hasten, and Stone tankers love thier Teleport.

I believe I chose the wrong word, I meant power -sets-. Just to try something new. I'm certainly not about to shelf my tanker, just seeing if there's another power set better suited to smaller groups (As I've found Willpower in my respects to be a mostly large-trash mob setup.) I'll see if I can't edit the title or something to stop the confusion.

Tells us exzactly what your looking for...

If your just looking for a team friendly tank, thats a bit tougher thiers literaly 1001 combos out thier that will give you that. We need a few moore details to help with this one

Trying to be as basic as I can get (And that's tricky for me!) I'd have to say if there's something I'm looking for, it's a defensive power set that doesn't let my hit points spike as tremendously as Willpower does against heavy hitting enemies. It doesn't have to be the end all/be all, just a new tanking setup I can try out. That I don't go from green to flashing red from 2 hits of an AV/Stronger EB is a pleasant bonus.

A Def set thats got some sturdyness to it.


SD/DM sounds like it might fit your bill

In and of itself, WP is roughly the third or fourth most durable primary most of the time we forumgoers rank the primaries. I haven't played one to high level yet, so there may be something I'm unaware of, but I'm surprised you're feeling squishy.

How important is damage output, single-target and/or AoE?

Off the top of my head, I'd rank only Invulnerability and Stone (in Granite) as tougher than Willpower, and Inv only by a nose. Are you using Invention sets? Do you want to use them?

If it's spikes of damage you don't like, you might want to consider avoiding the mostly defense-based sets like Shield (although I personally like it) and go for one of the heavy resistance-based sets: Electric or Dark, or even Invuln, which is sort of a hybrid.

Shield is a good set, no question there. I've enjoyed my SD/Fire tanker quite a lot. All that said like all defense sets it suffers in the early going; until you get your defenses above 25% you feel really squishy. You don't start feeling like a tank until you get your defenses into the upper 30's and by the time you get to the 45% soft cap it gets really good. Still, you're going to be weak defensively until level 25 or so. Of course Shield will output a lot more damage than your WP and it'll be MUCH easier to hold aggro.

If you want something a bit sturdier yet you could make an Invuln tanker; in my opinion the best all-around tanker primary offering durability second to Stone without any of the negatives. Invuln is also much tougher early than Shield; there's much less growing pains. One downer early though is the fact that the taunt aura, Invincibility, doesn't come until level 18. Of course with either Shield or Invuln you'll immediately notice the difference in their aggro abilities over WP. Invuln will outsurvive Shield at almost all levels, however it doesn't have the nifty +damage aura or the massive Shield Charge attack.

Now for secondaries that's an open question. Really anything but Energy Melee would work well with either primary. Fire is the classic choice for damage and AOE; Super Strength is the classic pairing for Invuln and it does have a nice synergy. I'm a fan of Stone Melee for all the extra mitigation it provides with it's knockdown and stuns although I have more Fire Melee tankers than any other set.

Pick your primary and secondary, absolutely any primary in the game is better at aggro than willpower and the only "bad" secondary is EM.

INV/DM/Soul


They will never kill you LOL.

Thanks for all the input, guys. Actually, my Willpower/Axe tank is 50 (Early 50, I haven't tricked him out with the various IO sets and such that I'm looking into yet.) and does quite well in a lot of situations. The only times I've ever really had problems were any enemies that did -regen (Which I understand is pretty much the kryptonite of a willpower tank, so no sweat there.) and in situations where I'm tanking an EB or AV (And ONLY the EB/AV.) and my regeneration isn't really cutting it vs the damage I'm taking.

That being said, I'd been pondering an electric armor tank for a while. Maybe its heavy damage resistance is just what I've been looking for! (FYI I did have an invuln tank from a while back. Quite sturdy, if boring.) I'll see about giving one a try. Thanks again for all the input

If you think a Willpower Tanker is too weak of a set for you, then you either need a better build or need a set with high resistance. Defensive sets will take spike damage as mentioned before. Also, it is not very difficult to stack defense on any Tanker set.

A lot of people love their Invulnerability Tankers. It seems like they have a hard time looking at the sets objectively when ranking Tanker sets. Some people will even put Invulnerability above Stone Armor for survivability, based on the mobility of Invulnerability.

When ranking Tanker sets it is important to look at two things: resistance and self-healing. Defense is less important because we can reach the soft cap with sets, pool powers, inspirations, and team buffs extremely easily. When facing defense debuffs, inspirations can help overcome them for power sets that lack defense debuff resistance. Self-healing and resistance are more difficult to obtain outside of your chosen power sets. The most important resistances are smashing, lethal, and energy because those are the most commonly dealt damage types at level 50.


Here is how I would rank the sets, based on level 50 IO set slotting:

1. Stone Armor - Granite Armor is the best tanking power hands-down. It pays for that survivability with damage, recharge, and movement penalties, but the latter two can be overcome with good slotting.

2. Electric Armor - Can reach the S/L resistance cap and is capped to energy resistance. Has a good amount of resistance to all other damage types except toxic. Also comes with a decent self-heal.

3. Dark Armor - Has a decent amount of resistance to all damage types, and a heal that can bring it to full health every ~20 seconds, depending on recharge bonuses.

4. Invulnerability - Capped to S/L resistance and easy to get soft-capped defenses. Low resistance to non-S/L damage. Does not have a very good HP/s self-heal, but can reach the max HP cap easier than most sets.

5. Willpower - High regeneration, some resistances, and comes with good defenses.

6. Fiery Aura - Decent resistances and a decent self-heal. This set is considered more for damage than tanking.

7. Shield Defense - Positional defenses protect it against almsot all attacks, but has very low resistances and no self-heal. It can reach 95% defense debuff resistance.

8. Ice Armor - This set only has S/L and E/N defenses and no self-heal. It can only reach about 50% defense debuff resistance, which means your primary form of mitigation may fail under heavy debuffs.



It is important to mention that ANY Tanker can get the job done in current content. Your skill, strategy, and team matters more than your build. Inspirations can also make up the difference in power sets for a limited time. You should still try to have the best build you can for your power set so nobody on your team (like the healer) has to pick up the slack.