Best Tank for i20

What is the best Tanker Primary to take to handle these Task Forces, in order of importance: Lambda, BAF, Tin Mage, Apex, Statesman, Recluse.

Pertinent questions, does it need a certain secondary, or will a certain secondary help it a lot.

Rules, almost none. I/O builds are encouraged, and if not posted directly, at least say something like "softcapped 45 to most" or "hardcapped res" or "max HP Build" Also, of course, Incarnate powers are allowed, encouraged, and should be mentioned if necessary to bring the Tank up to the TF requirements.

I am currently running a 50+3 Willpower/Super Strength, old Softcapped Def to 45% on all but Psi @35%. He runs Energy Mastery, Tier 4 Cardiac Core, Tier 2 Diagmagnetic, Tier 2 Void, Tier 3 Lore Seers, Tier 4 Barrier. He performs solidly in the trials. 2 weak points to be noted for him are pulling AVs in the BAF, have to eat oranges, hit SoW, have greens ready and run fast. The other point is fighting those little end drainers in the Sabotage missions of Lambda (and in the courtyard if sabotage goes poorly). Other than that he is rock solid, and a pleasure to tank with. I am pretty sure there are builds out there that can race past him Tanking.

So, who thinks what is best in the new world order, and why?

I don't think there is one best tank for I20. I regularly see 3-5 tanks on each trial and I never see just 1 tanking the AVs.

I haven't gathered numbers with HeroStats, but my guess is energy damage is about equal to S/L damage in the the I20 trials. The only tanks with significant permanent energy resistance are Stone and Electric. Both can hard cap S/L and energy resistance with careful slotting and the Cardiac Alpha boost. Obtaining soft-capped defense on the Electric Armor tanker would be more difficult than the Stone Tanker.

To me, Willpower is one of the Tankers that can do everything moderately well, as long as there aren't any regen debuffs.

Dark Melee's heal with Siphon Life is the most useful secondary power. The rest don't have significant secondary effects that can be used to full effect on AVs.

I see no big advantage for any tank.

At first glance Elec Armor should be powerful due to its energy resistance. However, that only really matters when you're pulling the AV's in the BAF, which is only about two minutes worth of content(more than enough for oranges to handle).

My Elec energy resists help with tanking 9CUs also, which on a GOOD team should not be an issue because they will die quickly, but... they're not all good teams.

When they are +3 or +4 probably Stone and Elec have a slightly easier go at things. Whenever you have the two level shifts and a destiny buff pretty much any tank can manage just fine.

In my experience on the Incarnate trials (BAF & Lambda) you're going to face noticeable amounts of Psi in Lambda and quite a lot of energy damage in both trials. The biggest problem I've had with CMA (Inv/Stone) on Lambda is the various Psi mobs draining my end and halting regen with Drain Psyche. Against those I'd think Electric would be an ideal pairing with it's immunity to drain coupled with capped energy resistance. Adding significant S/L/E/N defense would have an excellent tanker for the purpose.

On the BAF I've found CMA to be quite durable with the sole exception of the turrets which seem to be auto hit... I've yet to see one miss even with over 70% defense. The swarms of reinforcements during the AV fights can occasionally get problematic if they get some lucky hits through my defense but overall they aren't all that dangerous.

While I have a couple of Stone tankers I've yet to run them through a trial... I just finished getting CMA to T3 on all slots and started working on my Fire/EM blaster. Stone would have something of a dilema though; deal with the Psi by running Minerals or deal with the S/L/E/N by using Granite. I'd foresee quite a lot of swapping from Granite to Rock/Rooted/Minerals and back again on Lambda and pretty much perma Granite on the BAF.

For the other TF's any durable tanker can do the job nicely; for the STF you want high resistance and defense for Lord Recluse but if the team's any good any tanker should be able to use his insp. tray to manage until the team takes down the towers. The ITF is a cakewalk for nearly any well built tanker and the Tin Mage and Apex are fairly easily handled. Situational awareness is paramount in Apex to avoid the Blue Death and the real danger in Tin Mage is Bobcat's vengeance; you'll want to get maximum S/L resistance for that.

If you build it well and play it well you should be able to overcome any of these with virtually any tanker powerset combination.

I have been working only on my stoner and no major problems at all. But then again my teams (go EG!) have been great thus far. On a PUG I imagine there will be more toggle flipping involved.

So in short play with the team in mind. If you try to be Rambo you will faceplant regardless of the type of Tanker you are.

Re: stone/ and psi dmg + energy drain in the lamda:

I tanked an 8 man mostly dps (tank, kin corr, blaster, 5 scraps) Lamda last night on my stone/ss, who is only +1 from alpha. I had no end issues and stayed in granite the whole time (tp from turret to turret is amusing). I did have some minor issues with eating the psi alphas, but EE and an isp or two generally covered that. Note that he is not built for psi def, so it was pretty low (outside of that, the build is beastly though ).

I can see how spawns on 16 league would make that psi alpha pretty bad - but hopefully on a 16 you'd have more than just speed boost for buffs (or more dmg, etc.).