Some Realizations After playing a Tank

[Meddik]

While playing my main (Empath Defender), I have figured out that a good healer can usually keep a stupid group alive.

While playing my Tank, I have discovered several times that a Stupid group can't keep a good tank alive.

I've got my own reserved room at the hospital now.

Any suggestions on a good solo build? I think I'd rather avoid random pickup groups for a while when playing an alt.

[Morvran]

Well so far I've grouped a grand total of 2 times. Once for 1/2 hour in Perez Park with a pickup group, and once last night with Marbh when he helped me with a mission. Otherwise i've made it to lvl 12 completely solo. Considering I got the game last Saturday night I think that's not bad.

My main, Leroy Green, is a natural Scrapper with martial arts and super reflexes. He also has started the fitness power pool. I take on groups of three with 2 whites and a yellow easily. Two yellows and a white are fine too usually. Oranges are easy with a white. And reds solo are a sure bet most of the time. There are frustrating aspects though, like the fact that until 12 when I selected taunt, I couldn't pull bad guys to me.

Anyway, most scrappers seem to be pretty good solo from what I've seen.

[Alturick]

Well Meddik... I built my tank to be completely group dependant.

He fits my impression of the way a tank should operate, tough to the point of not really needing heals... but not able to give a lot of damage either.


However, if I modified a few powers and dropped Taunt for an attack I think he would be decently effective against anything but bloody Hellions.

(Doing this from memory, so forgive any mistakes)
Invulnerability/Fiery Melee
----
1. Resist Physical Damage
1. Scorch
2. Temporary Invulnerability (This is a must have imho)
4. Taunt - (Could be switched out for Fire Sword)
6. Combat Jumping (Another essential, the defense buff is just great)
8. Resist Elements
10. Provoke - (Could be switched out with something else)
12. Resist Energy
14. Super Leap
15. --- I am here.

It should be noted that I designed this guy to be pretty much sidekicked with a friend of mines blaster character, while sidekicked to level 23 I don't really need heals while taking on street gangs of 10. The only time I notice real damage is when I get stunned and TI drops, under Psionics, or Fire/Cold/Energy (till I get those resists enhanced).

If you drop Provoke in favor of Combust, and Taunt in favor of Fire Sword... you should be able to solo... but your aggro potential wont be able to keep up with Blasters/Defenders. So you need one or the other (I would suggest Provoke) if you plan to group.

As for people who get their undies in a twist about being an invuln tank... he fits my concept... so bite me :D


Hope my limited bit of experience helps :)

[Aiden]

from what i understand the best DPS output of the tanker class is the fiery aura,at later levels.

Having messed around with one to level 8, i can say that its a nice soloer,but takes more damage then other tanks from what i can see.

if your looking for something with more solo potential,i think this might suit you. At 20 with the Aoe endurance drain,and aoe damage shield, i think it will preform well.

[PsiKoTicK]

or play a Scrapper/Blaster... :)

Both my scrapper and my blaster solo fine, my tank (at level 5) who is fire/ice and not taking ANY Defense skills (no toggles at all) has trouble killing the bad guys before he runs out of endurance... the fiery aura is a HUGE drain (though I need a couple more enhancements in it to reduce the drain)

but, none of my characters "have" to group... I wanted to make an empath healer, but... I can't solo, have trouble killing 1 or 2 bad guys... so... /shrug... :)

[Sabatini Scratch]

Now you're playing in my world Meddik. Like Is said on your other thread, I'm really appreciative how much work being a healer is, but most of my time is spent on the other side, playing a melee type. I don't think there's any worse feeling than putting your ass on the line playing meatshield for a pickup group that you don't know if you can trust to do their job to keep you on your feet.

And usually the answer is they do nothing to keep you alive while the battle is going on, but if you're lucky they may remember to heal you after, and rarely understand that why you need to rest so much between fights. Scrappers and Tankers are always the ones paying the heaviest price for bad teams.

So while people love to preach how tankers and scrappers should be built for group usage first over any other consideration, I say screw that. I build all my characters to be viable both in and out of groups. (That includes my empathy defender) The best groupings are with small groups of friends anyway, who know each other's strengths/weaknesses and know how to cover each other.

Pretty much any scrapper build has decent soloability. Tanks are a smidge trickier. Any build should work, provided you do a good mix between your primary/secondary sets. Too many attack powers and your survivability goes down, too much defense and you can't take down enemies meaningfully.

I can't reccomend a specific build. My tanker is currently Invulnerabilty/Fire Melee and is working out nice so far. Invuln/SS also does nice from what I've seen teaming with Coggins character 'The Raging Italian.' Invuln gets 'Dull Pain' which has a healing effect built in, which may help cut downtime a bit.

People on the official boards seem to like Fire Aura for soloability. You get a healing flame power, and people rave about 'Burn' which they claim makes fire such a soloable beast that they expect the power to get nerfed.

But personally, just make a character with a fun concept and you'll enjoy it best over any other consideration.

[Everan]

I am on my 3rd scrapper .... Love this class. Came from a monk in EQ .) I have a Katana/Regen, A Dark Arts/Regen, and a Spine/Invulnerable Scrapper. Out of all 3 the Spine/Invulnerable mix to be the best over all soloing class for a Scrapper. I can usually take out 2-3 orange mobs solo, with Temp Invulverablity going. Still a bit low on levels, but because I duel with a Controller Mind Conrtol/Empathy, I needed more of a tanking scrapper. I found that my Level 15 Katana/Regen Scrapper just wasn't cutting it for tanking. I am hoping my SPine/Invulneralbe scrapper at later levels be a better tank =).

Shogo security level 15 scrapper

[Feist]

I spend a lot of time on the tanker boards and I've grouped with quite a few as well. I even have a lvl 12 Invuln/Super Strength tanker that is quite a bit of fun. But here are some conclusions I've found to be true:

1 - Tankers will never deal scrapper damage, but some builds are good damage dealers

2 - A Fire/anything tanker deals the most damage currently. They aren't too effective until lvl 18 but then they get Burn, which is so useful that many Fire tankers don't group, they Burn down all their targets solo.

3 - Invulnerability is the way to go if you want to be a meatshield, with a close second to Stone. Lots of Resists, Rooted/Unyielding Stance, and of course auto powers.

4 - For any meatshield, Stuns/Holds/Sleeps/Disorients are death. It causes all your toggles to drop and then your SOL.

5 - Vahz damage cuts through most tankers like a hot knife through butter. Only Fire tankers seem to do OK.

So if you want to solo right now I'd suggest a Fire/anything tanker. Just an FYI from what I've seen, Super Strength isn't the best. I picked it because it fit my character concept but I have to say, I do jack for damage. At 12 my Brawl usually hits for 5-6, Jab hits for 8-10 (with a slight chance to disorient), and Punch hits for 17ish and often knocksback/knocksdown the mob.

Oh and for any group tanker, Provoke is a must. Its so useful.

Lux
Gang
Berk

[Aldarion Shard]

I highly recommend Fire/Energy. Thats my new main (once I get back to a decent computer) - he soloes well* and tanks fine in groups, plus he can heal himself.

Theres no decent healers in this game =(

*note - I mean soloes well on an absolute level. Relative to blasters hes a pathetic little gimp, but blasters are retardedly overpowered and unbalanced anyway, so I ignore them.

[Gnmish Gearbinder]

I highly recommend Fire/Energy.

That's what I am, I love it. It's not for the meek though. I take a beating but I dish it out too. Invuln/SS just sounds terribly boring and it is the 'standard fare'.

Theres no decent healers in this game.

Hey, I resent that. I heal myself pretty damn well. :lol
Four DO Healing Enhancements helps alot.

[Marbh]

I think you were being to good to the group with your taunt. Yeah you need to try and keep the squishies safe, but they were being crazy with rushing in, and none of them pulled mobs off you when you where in trouble. I doubt anyone else thought of assisting either. I nuked all I could on ones you engaged, but with red and purples accuracy can be dodgy. What I did getting my tank to 13 was aim for groups of 2-4 and door missions. The mobs are scaled for your lvl, and if you can get people you know the idgit factor drops.

[Mythas]

Also meddik groups tend to get more meat shield conscious in the higher teens, when bosses can one shot melee the squishies! in the late teens is when tankers really start to shine group wise and the group really begins to listen to ya.

[Meddik]

Oh, and it wouldn't be so bad, except that the healer was completely incompetent.

Yes, he was Empathy, But I never saw anything but healing aura being cast.

[Xantium]

for a good solo tank I would go either Battleax or stone melee and Invul or stone primary.

Battle and Stone melee both do nice damage, at the cost of lots of endurance drain. Plus with 2 knockbacks, and a minor disorient as your main attacks, you can spend an entire battle against a single foe and not get hit once as stone melee. I haven't experimented with it, but I've heard Battle Ax is a heavy hitter, and your damage output is what's going to be key.

Probably the "best" primary would be Invul for one of these lines, because with lots of innates you can avoid the problem of running out of endurance. And you don't have the unfourtunately crapman look. I dunno if Invul has a endurance regen power, but Stone does which is absolutely wonderful. By slotting Embracing Earth, and Rooted correctly you have a nice little self heal, and endurance regen system.[/code]

[Greldek]

My Ice/Stone tank seems to do decently well, at least at these lower levels. I really like the aura thing he has thats an ae slow/snare I think it is.. I don't get hit as much, and they don't generally have much luck running from me.. but it does take awhile to kill anything :\

[Telurinon]

My recommendations:

Use Fiery Aura or Invulnerability. Yes, I know they are the most over-used Tanker primaries, and every 'uber-build' guide recommends them. That's not why I say to pick them though. Frankly, Ice and Stone look TERRIBLE! In my case, Headsman uses Invulnerability and Bridget uses Fiery Aura.

Secondary, I really like Power Punch or Fiery melee. Battle Axe is good, but because it's damage is very front loaded, it has lower overall DPS than PP/SS. Headsman uses Battle Axe, Bridget uses Power Punch (admittedly, thematically, she SHOULD use Fiery Melee being the goddess of fire and poetry and all, but the fire effects get mixed in with her fiery auras and get lost. So, she's PP instead.)

Taunt is moderately useful. Provoke is less useful as a solo tool, but considerably more useful in grouping.

If you take a secondary Set with Knockback powers and Invulnerability as your primary, it might be wise to skip taking Unyielding Stance. Knocking your opponents around all over the place and then not being able to get back to them is frustrating at best.

[Lemac Dushae]

I find Taunt and Teleport Foe work just fine for getting around the self-root effect of US. Too many of my SG-mates use knockbacks for me to not figure out a workaround. Either that or I toggle US off for those last few enemies that refuse to take one more step toward me. :beatup

[Meddik]

I jsut made a toggle bind that switches between Temp Invuln and Unyielding Stance.

Y will turn Temp Invuln if neither is on And Toggle between the two if one is on, shift + Y Tuns them off, and rebinds Y so that it will trigger Temp invuln next time it is hit.

The knockback doesn't seem to bother me that much. I plan to get provoke, so I'll be able to knock them back a bit, and then they lose a few attacks while running back to me. If they get knocked too far away, Theres always taunt.

[Gullwin]

As a 21 Invul/SS tanker, soloing is not hard it just takes a while. The only problem that you will face is running out of endurance. In a battle with multiple whites, I might finish the battle with over half my life because of temp invul (slotted 6 times with DO resist dmg).

Grouping is where I shine though. If I am fighting mezzing enemies (yellow ink men, abhorent's, madness mages, etc) I will always run in, turn on unyeilding (which i've grown to love) and start provoking. I let the healer or my inspirations do all the healing work. Usually out of those battles, I come out with about half life while no one else in the group took any damage or very little due to aoe's casted on me by the baddies. Most people will think this is boring and I submit that it's not as fun as playing my blaster but it still gives me that tingly feeling when we take out a huge group of purples and had no deaths. You'd be suprised how fast a few scrappers can rip through enemies when they don't have to worry about a mob turning on them.

Gullwin

[ShadowCross]

A RL friend of mine has a 22 ss/invul tank.. he regulary solos violet minions, red lieutnants and red bosses.

He can engage a group of 10 whites in Dark Astoria and walk out unscratched. :)

[Morvran]

My alt is an illusion/storm summoning controller, and I also solo no problem...it just takes a while like Gullwin said. I usually go unscathed, but I run out of endurance and have to retreat for that reason.

[braincandy99]

I went fire/mace with my tanker for aesthetics. I made her the smallest framed character possible and it's just hillarious when she pulls this enormous mace (3/4 her size) from out of her underwear...

I don't see too many mace secondaries. I took fire because it sounded good to me and had a heal in its line. I'm only 10 so I don't know yet how the higher mace skills do. I do know that I can solo 2 groups of the yellow/white/white lieutenant/minion/minion if I have endurance inspirations.

The absolute biggest problem is endurance. Mace is not cheap on it, and if I have the fiery aura up, I burn through all my endurance on a single group of 3 very quickly.