Best SA build for raid tanking?

Hello everyone,

I currently have been working on leveling a SA/FM tank with the intention of eventually doing all of the high-end raid content in the game. I have two questions.

Would you consider SA/FM the best overall powersets to use for high-end raid content? (TF's, AV's, ect)

Do you have a suggested build for me to follow as I level up my SA/FM or whichever powerset build you consider to be best for high-end raid content?

All of the tanker SA build guides I've seen are way outdated and tell me to take abilities that are now inherent leaving me guessing at certain levels.

I really appreciate all of your time

Let me start with: Welcome to the game and the forums!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garrett Sivad Would you consider SA/FM the best overall powersets to use for high-end raid content? (TF's, AV's, ect)

Absolutely not, but mostly because you cannot define "best overall." There are a lot of scenarios this game will present you with. Some require straight survivability, others require mobility. Generally, all the powersets are very well balanced, especially when Invention sets are taken into the mix. Play what you will have fun with, as every set can do very well.

Stone Armor has all the survivability out of the box, but the mobility is lacking and there is also a penalty to recharge, which will penalize the utility of your other powers. These penalties can be worked around with invention sets, but where Stone will build mobility and recharge, the other sets build more survivability to match Stone.

Fire Melee, in particular, is a terrible idea for a tank aimed at high level teamed content. Every melee set has some kind of secondary effect worked into it that generally provides more mitigation for you to help you and your team stay alive. Some sets debuff the enemy, some can control the enemy, others do a good bit of both. Fire Melee does nothing except more damage. That didn't stop me from playing a Dark Armor/Fire Melee tanker and excelling with him on all the content you're aiming for, though.

Don't get me wrong, in its own way, extra damage can be mitigation because enemies die faster. The problem is that, on a team, as a tank, you job is not damage. Your damage output, even with fire's bonus, will be piddly compared to that of the team. When it comes to mitigation for the team, fire's bonus damage is no where near as strong as controls or debuffs.

Don't take this the wrong way and assume you don't need to do any damage as a tank. Damage is part of the threat formula, and to keep the attention of enemies, you need to be doing damage. Further, any damage is still contributing to the team in a meaningful way.

Just play the game a bit. Don't aim for a high end build right away. It took me five years to get my first level 50, and I've had hundreds of characters. This game is about the journey, not the destination, so enjoy the leveling process a bunch of times. There's no better way to learn what you want out of a character than to try them all.

Thank you Dechs What secondary powersets would you consider best for high-end raid content?

Any suggested builds or powerset combinations so I know where to start testing?

Thank you
I have one last question. What do you consider the best origin for SA tankers? Science seems pretty nice but I couldn't tell if that was the best one for tankers. If there is no "best" origin, then what do you highly suggest?

Origin has absolutely no effect on your character except to look pretty and give you a "temporary" power to start the game with.

Temporary is in quotes because the power actually go away, but it's pretty worthless after level 6 or so.

Ok, awesome. Thank you very much for the pointers and advice. It is greatly appreciated

I prefer extreme levels of mitigation for my Tanker primary set. Stone Armor is possible to get capped resistance to all but psionic and have 45% defense. Electric Armor can get very close to the S/L resistance cap and has capped energy resistance. Invention sets and pool powers can boost the defense to useful levels.

Current level 50 content has mostly smashing, lethal, and energy damage. That makes Stone Armor and Electric Armor the best sets for handling current content. It is important to mention that ANY armor set can tank current content. Your strategy, team makeup, and build matter just as much as your power sets.


For a secondary set, I prefer Dark Melee solely for Siphon Life. It is a fairly large heal on a Tanker and has a fairly short cooldown. It works on any target that you can attack, unlike other sets' effects. Arch-villains generally have enough protection and resistance to status effects that you won't be able to knock them down or cause significant debuffs, but there are exceptions. If you just want a set that is good for tanking regular groups of enemies, several sets have AoE knockdowns.

Stone/Fire is a highly capable combination that's extremely durable on straight SO enhancements, I have one at 50 that's been a good performer. I consider Fire Melee the best pairing for Stone Armor; it's high damage, considerable AOE and very good single target yet it completely lacks any form of mitigation beyond simple damage. That's fine as a mature Stone tanker has little need of any mitigation; it's already nigh unkillable.

With all that said Stone armor is one of the most difficult sets to play because of it's mobility penalties. You're pretty much locked into teleport for combat mobility as you're slow moving (absent massive IO bonuses or team buffs) and incapable of jumping over any obstacle without first toggling off your Mez protection (Rooted). Later on you pay for your unequaled durability in Granite by adding a damage and recharge penalty on top of your mobility penalty. On the other hand those penalties are a part of having the most durable tanker in the game.

If you're just starting off I'd suggest another primary without all the drawbacks... it'll be easier to play and you'll probably have more fun. Invulnerability is typically regarded as second in durability to Stone and it has none of the penalties. On basic SO enhancements Invuln is a good bit behind Stone but once you add IO bonuses the gap closes up. In the low level game (pre-32) Invuln is considerably tougher than Stone and in the end game it can be built to withstand anything the game can throw at it.

Shield is another fun primary; it's not as tough as Invuln but it's certainly a capable tank and it does offer really good damage output. It's primarily a defense based tanker so it'll struggle some in the early going. Sets that rely on defense primarily always seem squishy until their defenses mature while those that rely on resistance do better in the early game. Later on defense comes into it's own and becomes massively effective... that's part of what makes Invuln and Stone so powerful, they have a combination of strong resistance, good defense and healing.

Really any primary can be made to work for anything you might want to do, some will require more work and/or a different playstyle. On the question of secondary sets the only stinker in the bunch (IMO having played it to 50) is Energy Melee. I've run Energy, Stone and Fire melee to 50 and Electric Melee to 37. Of those my favorites are Stone Melee and Fire Melee. The Electric is coming along and it's a fun set but I still give Fire the nod since it likewise has loads of AOE yet it doesn't sacrifice single target damage like Elec does.

You might also wish to consider Super Strength and War Mace for good combinations of control and AoE.

Is Stone/fire the best? Maybe. Will it work? Yes. I would rather you play something that is deemed fun for you, hence something you have already rolled, versus telling you what min/max build would be "the best" and in the end you don't like it as much. One of the tanks that I'm using as a main tank on a server is an Ice tank. Ice tanks are the red headed step child of the IO world for min/maxing tanks. Whatever. I'm having fun with it and it seems good to me. Good enough I'm rolling another one so I can do Ice/kin and focus on putting -dmg in a build. Do I have a pick as what one build I would use for end game content? Sure. I even have one. It's also my lowest level tank. I doubt it will see much action due to how much I liking my level 17 SD/ss that's on the same server and I've hardly gotten to the fun powers yet.

The best build for end game content is the one you have the most fun playing. [/thread].

I quite fancy team tp on my stonetank what has tp self anyway to help all those people scoot by groups undetected. Often in teams I see people left trailing behind having to take an alpha from groups just to try and get by them in order to catch up with the tanker who is objectively minded rather than tanker minded. Yeah I'll do that.