Cognito

I feel a certain thread is getting resurrected....

Anyway....

My 2 inf...

100% aggro control without taunt is entirely possible under these circumstances...

*ahem*

1. Team knows what its doing (i.e. generally wait for tank to gather aggro first). This is THE most important point.

2. Mainly melee enemies

3. Non teleporting enemies

4. You are not a granite / stone tank

5. You arent facing an AV


If these situations are fufilled, you can still grab a goodly proportion of the aggro... 90%+ I would say...


However, if you dont have taunt, you will be in a shed load of trouble maintaing aggro in these circumstances:

1. You are a fire tank and face the circle of thorns

2. You aggro a second group / patrol (and yes, this does happen more and more often even in good groups).

3. You face primarily / mainly ranged enemies (Cabal in particular spring to mind).


Finally, one observation I have made...

Whilst 100% aggro can be maintained with or without taunt (and noting the above), game speed is faster with taunt. It simply speeds up movement from one mob to another as less time is needed to cluster enemies together into AoE goodness. Why? because taunt is ranged... outliers come to you, not the otherway round. This isnt of course needed if you pull round corners... but that is slower aswell. IMO even if you argue that taunt isnt needed to maintain aggro (something I dont think you can say for all situations), taunt nevertheless speeds things up.

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Weave is more helpful but I would keep it rather low priority myself.

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Please use my simple technique for revising the following.

Read, cover, and repeat.

WEAVE IS A POINTLESS POWER.

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Its not pointless if stacked with other defence powers. Im not saying its great, mind.

Lets say you allready have 25% defence = 50% damage mitigation.

If you only get another 2.5% defence from weave (say... figures may vary)

This does not mean that you will get 5% less damage than you where used to...

It actually means you get 10% less damage than you where used too... (enemies used to hit 25% of the time, now they hit 22.5% of the time)....

Oh, it also means you will get mezzed, debuffed, slowed, immobilised, and end drained 10% less than you are used too.

Whilst Im not saying Weave is great, it has its place as stacking defence is a tasty thing.

Cryotherapy will be there if yerl have me!

Managed to skrank last few bubbles to 35 so sk will be needed!

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Put the tank against the cabal and he will be about as usefull as George W. Bush as president of the USA...


[/ QUOTE ]I'd rather not take a power just for a group that you need to fight in...what, 4 missions?

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I use taunt in every single mission, repeatedly, myself. But then Im not satisfied with receiving anything less than 90% of aggro.

[/ QUOTE ]I keep nearly 100% aggro without taunt. Only time I've had problems without it was the croatoa TF, with the cabal AV and her companions. (Of course, that was when AV's were unaffected by gauntlet and auras).

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So can I, in a team that knows what its doing and takes care.

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-30 damage debuff, but thats ok


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Isnt that what I said, -30% damage debuff?

Oh, btw, I guess you could reasonably compare it to pre-granite stone armour if you played that set. They are both fundamentally defence based sets.

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Pre-Issue 7, I presume?. Things are mighty different for defence these days. Back before scaling defence, Ice tanks truly where gimp tastic.

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You say that, but it's not entirely true. Ice Armour was just as good as the other Tanker sets pre-I5 as long as you weren't fighting anything that was more than +2 to you.

Since the various attempts to fix the defence scaling problem have been introduced, Ice is significantly more survivable, but it can still suffer from bad luck. One day you can tank an entire room, the next you get wiped out by the alpha strike from one group - C'est la vie.

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And thats the joy of it!

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Put the tank against the cabal and he will be about as usefull as George W. Bush as president of the USA...


[/ QUOTE ]I'd rather not take a power just for a group that you need to fight in...what, 4 missions?

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I use taunt in every single mission, repeatedly, myself. But then Im not satisfied with receiving anything less than 90% of aggro.

Firstly, 5 Hits in a row is exceptionally unlucky. Even if you dont run weave or combat jumping or have any -acc or +def support.

Secondly, thats what dull pain is for.

Thirdly, 5 Hits in a row from minions isnt going to do much other than tickle. Its the 5 Hits from boss's and lts that really hurt. And you dont face to many of those to quickly (especially with CE reducing the attack chain). THe "unlucky streak" problem of defence is far less of a problem on high HP toons like tanks.

Fouthly, CE does have something like a -30% defence debuff which takes some of the sting out of the punches.


Seriouslly, whilst once in every 1-2 hours or so I get caught out and get 50-75% of my HP gone in a few seconds, its rarely a problem - hit Dull pain and plow on. The only time I wish I had resistance instead of defence is vs AVs.

Pre-Issue 7, I presume?. Things are mighty different for defence these days. Back before scaling defence, Ice tanks truly where gimp tastic.

Post issue 7 and scaling defence, it does. Too much survability perhaps.

Given it has the best aggro management, highest manueverability, an AoE damage aura AND will protect the scrapper next to him from AoE attacks (due to debuff aura) its current high level of surviability is a bit hard to justify IMO.

I think it boils down to pre scaling defence, Chilling Embrace was given a tasty -damage debuff to compensate (?) - which has been kept...

Seriously, an Ice tank seems to be FoTM for teams these days. And with good reason.

Nearly every power is worth having!

THe above build is a solid, adaptable build good for teams yet able to solo pretty well.

Personally, I tend to make my tanks very team focussed, which means squeezing out as much protection as possible. I would drop Rage and Hasten and put in the resistance powers myself. Yes, this means a drop in damage but it does mean Im a bit tougher and able to "tank" energy/fire/cold using enemies more effectively.

Im always a bit wary of rage used on a regular base (on a team) becuase when it drops, you loose aggro.

But its horses for courses really.

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Seeing that the vines last something like 15 seconds I would say your plans for floral world domination will fall short.

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Muahaha!

I so wanted to be a Vine Masterminid!

Hey ho folks. Quick question.

I noticed that the vines on plant domination (Carrion creeper power) can be teleported...

This got me thinking...

Im not exactly sure how the vine spawn is calculated in terms of when and how long - but, I wondered if you could use team teleport to bring the lovely things with you and eventually build up an army of lag-inducing vines travelling around with you?

Personally, once you play ice its hard to go back to other tanks after you have felt the awesome aggro magnet effect of chilling embrace...

Most skranker builds are very tight.

Taunt is one power, one slot. Its kind of difficult to miss if you really care about the team IMO - I certainly get it at level 10 every time and mourn the days when you could get it a level 6.

A tauntless tank can, if skilled, pull it off (easier if ice primary or fire secondary i would have thought) most of the time. Put the tank against the cabal and he will be about as usefull as George W. Bush as president of the USA...

oh, hang on...

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Well i have a lvl 50 MM and a few high level Brutes. I want to play somthing which is rare and powerfull. Somthing hard to lvl but which brings alot in teams and solo!

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Im afraid you cant have your cake and eat it!

Powerful? Pretty much everything is powerful as long as you build it correctly (There may be a few particular exceptions)

Rare? Dont play a scrapper (particularly a regen scrapper), dont play a Stone Tank, Dont play an empath. Trick Archery, Force Feild, Sonic defender sets al rare, Fire blasters pretty rare (especially fire secondary).

Good in solo and teams? Cant really be "good" at both... you can be ok at both, or you can be better at one than another. Thats pretty much the choice you have to make, and pretty much how the game was designed.

In addition, you may wish to consider "complexity". Scrappers tend to be the least complex to play (Dark powers and spines slightly more complex) as it often boils down to armours on and mash attack buttons. Controllers are probably most complex to play as so much to do (Storm is a particularly complex defender set for Controllers and Defenders IMO).

At the end of the day, I would make my decision on how "complex" you want a toon to be, and what concept feels fun. Then I would (within that parameter), build my toon according to how team / solo orientated I want him/her to be.

Most important thing is to enjoy!

The whole question of tauntless tanks aside, there are definately DDT's. There seem to be too rough camps to tanking. The first is people who chose to tank because they like to help and protect other people, the second are people who took the Tank AT because it has the best defences and they are therefore the least likely to die.

My rough estimation of tanking primaries is:

Stone (non-Granite): Good spread of defences, nothing particularly strong, best psi-tank. Challenge is lack of mobility.

Stone (Granite): Best toughness. Challenge is keeping aggro (very hard)

Invun: Good all rounder. Toughness increases proportional to enemy numbers.

Fire: Best damage. Challenge is staying alive.

Ice: Best aggro getter.

Ice:

/Regen is probably best solo, as it is "Flat" rather than "Proportional" damage mitigation.

Having said that, the parry of ninja blade combined with /SR is a very attractive combination giving you sky high defence.

Both would be very solo-able IMO. /Regen would probably better at low levels (complicated maths regarding damage mitigation...boring) and slightly better even at higher levels.

If you just want to PvE, I wouldnt bother with aid self myself... just keep that defence rocketing up and rest occassionally.

The bonous you get from manuevers would be fractional... its not worth it even in a big team. Weave is more helpful but I would keep it rather low priority myself.

Id go with concept personallly. And fun. I prefer the comedy value of never getting hit - aswell as the sense of danger it gives you - a couple of flukes and you are suddenly sweating

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mmm it works for scrappers but not very well with stalkers and i think thats due to the low stalker defence.
Your talking about surviving long enough for the debuffs to actualy build up which if memorys serves are something like 5% acc debuff which isn't alot for stalkers.

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Im getting the same defence scores from /SR with both stalkers and scrappers, with the exception that one passive power (is it AoE auto) is replaced by hide on stalkers?

In addition, I think touch of fear comes with a higher and longer lasting def buff, but not sure on that.

Ice, Ice Baby, then.

Hes a pretty solid tank.

Heh i have several toons this level all who "need" Manticore...

Cryotherapy Ice/Ice tank (you may recall)
Dusk Dancer Spines / Dark Scrapper (if you need AoE damage gluttony)
Loud Speaker Sonic/Fire Blaster (again if you need damage)
Molecuman Grav/Sonic 'Troller (more control than defence but hey ho)

Id prefer Croytherapy, or maybe Dusk Dancer, but if team mix dictates otherwise I can change...

Providing you have space for me of course!

I would have thought Dark/SR would be rather tasty (and to a lesser extent Dark/Ninj or Dark/Energy) due to the defence armour and -tohit debuff of dark melee?

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And those silly tanks, they're actually getting shields, when they should just team with sonic and FF defenders. Unbelievable, eh?

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Haha.. Nice one MaX..

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I think MaX missed my reply... analogy is amusing but invalid... . In addition, the maths of Res/Def means damage mitigation becomes increasingly potent with stacking (like bubbles and defence) as opposed to flat "mitigation" of healing.

Amusing, nevertheless

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Well, despite all of your great advice, I'm afraid I can't stand scrapping. Actually, that's not entirely true; scrapping solo or in small teams is ok but in big teams I find it tedious and chaotic--maybe it's just me. I think the closest I can come to being a scrapper is as an attack based tank or a melee capable blaster, both of which I've enjoyed in the past. Once again, thanks for all of the opinions and advice.

BF

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I know exactly what you mean, battleflag. Scrappers might be resiliant and good at solo, but they feel terribly underpowered and tedious (to me) in a team that really, really knows whats it doing. The one exception I have had is my spines/dark - which requires a lot of attention in terms of endurance management, positioning for AoE, and clicky Dark powers...

Just a word from someone who really really cant stand scrapping... I managed to eke some enjoyment out of this build. Give it a bash before you give up completely.

Personally, the scrapper is the least enjoyable AT I have ever played. It simply boils down to target acquisition, cycle attacks, repeat, for 99% of the time. Compare that to the complexity and indeed the devastating effectiveness of something like an Ice/Storm Controller.

It is also gloriously mediocre in big teams. Why take a scrapper when you could take a higher damage output blaster? (Providing you have a solid tank consolidating aggro).

I have played two scrappers:

a Spines/Dark to level 33. Who was monstorously good in big teams and is without question the highest damage scrapper you can possibly get (in big teams anyway) due to its sickening amount of AoE damage. Play this for a challenge and to be a real team player.

A MA/Regen who could solo on invincible easily - but I only played this toon to level 25, and it was PURELY to see all the content. It was sickeningly good solo - I got to see a lot of content, but ultimately, it was embaressingly poor in teams due to the fact it has only one AoE in MA and none in Regen.


Personally, I would strongly recommend Dark Melee, Spines, Claws as primary, and Dark Armour as Secondary, as these sets require more finesse to play.