Sailboat

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And you're not that awesome outside of Granite. 'course in Granite, you are the God of Tankers, so it's all relative.

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I'd say "in Granite, you're the God of not dying." Not dying is the sine qua non of tanking, but it's not everything. I've found my own Stone Tanker sometimes has trouble doing enough to keep the team safe unless they wait around for him. I wound up taking Provoke for the times Taunt is slowly recharging and it would take too long to maneuver over minor obstacles, for example. The team has to slow down so much to work with a Tanker in Granite that I don't entirely blame the team for not always deferring to the Tanker, and thus occasionally getting into trouble.

It's not uncommon for team wipes to occur with only the Granite Tanker left standing -- in those cases, I'm not sure I'd call the surviving Tanker the God of Tanking.

Disclaimer: yes, I know teams need to work with the Granite guys when the danger level peaks, even if they have to adjust their habits. Yes, I do like Stone Tankers and there are some fights for which I really like to have them. Results may vary. This post not applicable where banned by law.

Knockback's disadvantages are waaay overstated by many players. For example, I was once Crane-Kicking one foe in a group, following him, and killing him in one or two more hits, but you should have seen the complaints that I was hurting the team's AoEs. It was only ONE guy and I was killing him just as fast as the AoEs finished, but you'd have thought I was nerfing regen by killing baby kittens if you'd seen the chat.If I hadn't used crane Kick, my one target would have stayed in the spawn and been AoE'd to death at...pretty much exactly the same speed were were killing them anyway.

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yhea but you get all those beautiful penalties like acc and damage and movement.

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Ooh, a teahcable moment.

Granite has penalties -- but it DOES NOT HAVE AN ACCURACY PENALTY. It has -damage, -recharge, and jumping/flying/sprinting/superspeeding will take you clean out of Granite armor (watch your keystrokes, folks!) But it has no accuracy penalty. There's a persistent rumor it does, but it doesn't.

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Yes, as long as your account is active

Unpaid accounts still lose market stuff after 60 days

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Eh, there's still the Day-Job Shuffle.

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Why should Tankers be given blasts to make your concepts be available, instead of Blasters getting Defenses? Should Defenders get some secondaries where they get some MM pets, because there are concepts out there that call for it? Should some Controller secondaries be completely melee attacks? Should Scrappers have some secondaries that contain ranged controls, instead of just armors?

Why should Tankers be able to break their mold, but not other ATs? If you're going to say that it's because there are characters in comics that do more than what Tankers in our game do, I'm sure that you can find some examples of everything I stated above.

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Blasters get shields...and might I add the very over powered Force Mastery APP, which many have coined the "tanking blaster APP".

Controllers, get the very "OP" Hibernate from the Ice mastery,

Scrappers and Defenders are the only AT's that don't get over the top, overpowered APP's. Balance is usually achieved through strength of powers. But if you need further proof, see WoW, or EQ, or even the Diablo series. Balance in these games are made by adding new powers that seem overpowered but remain weak in certain areas, being CD(cooldown) or high end/mana usage. Overall the game still remains the same, if anything enemies are given more life.

What I ask is for more blasts, NOT several "I win buttons". Don't assume I want a landslide victory over every mob I run into. Although if I did, I would create a fire/ blaster and inferno my way into easy exp. See where I'm going here?, we all know what moves are overpowered, we see them everyday when we play. And yet the game isn't ruined. Enemies aren't adjusted "on the fly" because a blaster or a scrapper joins the team. Its easy to implement blasting for Tanks, the only "adjusting" needed would be the very blasting powers. The game doesn't need to be revamped to add already existing powers.

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If Controllers and Blasters (and Defenders, for that matter) get defenses from their APPs, and Tankers get ranged attacks from THEIR APPs, isn't that rough balance?

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Oh, I see. So it is still the same as before its just that now it can be detoggled.

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Only in PVP.

What would lead you to think they did? Is this something you heard, or are you seeing something in-game?

Generally, the answer to these questions is almost always "no," but it would help narrow things down if you could provide the reason for your question.

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knew i could count on Aett to bring a sarcastic comment in first thing. "just ignore him"

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For Aett's comment to be taken as sarcastic, you would have to think your strategy was the best possible, or that you have nothing to learn.

Maybe you didn't like hearing it, but that's another can of worms. Meanwhile, I bet the Devs, who strive to create missions that require a little teeny bit of thought to accomplish, as opposed to just clicking, are kinda tired of hearing "this is impossible" every time they do so. Maybe that sounds sarcastic to them.

If I had one slot to move around on my Inv/SS Tanker, and wanted to try to improve my endurance situation, would I be better off to add a Performance Shifter Chance for +end proc, or a Miracle unique?

I already have the Numina unique running.

I think it must be the Rage crash that's hurting recovery in long fights.

Well, it only takes 3 slots in Granite to max out the resistance. If your endurance is fine, no need for end reduction in granite -- slot defense IOs in the other three slots and get BOTH as high as you can; then any global defense bonuses you get will add to Granite OR to your pre-granite armors. You don't have to slot weirdly OR give up any defense to get the best resistance out of Granite.

My point about the attacks is...well, let's take Smite, which is widely considered a mainstay of Dark Melee. Using level 50 versions of the IO's you have slotted, you're doing about 71% damage. Add in the 26.5% global damage buff and you're getting 97.5% damage (I'm ignoring the Granite debuff for now).

Normal slotting of Smite would get you to 95% damage or more MUCH more cheaply. Any global damage bonus you were then able to achieve would ADD TO that 95-99% initial slotted value. Let's say for the sake of argument your global damage bonus is cut in half by sacrifices made to slot Smite and other attacks more conventionally -- you'd then be doing 108% or more with Smite, much more cheaply, instead of the 97.5% you now do -- AND you'd get better end reduction, accuracy, and recharge out of standard frankenslotting in the attacks.

Global bonuses are great, but that's when you stack them on top of already ED-capped enhancement. To some degree you can swap out regular enhancement for global bonus (like you've done) and come out ahead, especially when you are getting a bonus you would not otherwise have gotten. The classic example is putting 5 Doctored Wounds IOs at level 50 into a click power like Dull Pain -- your recharge in the power drops from 95% (frankenslotted) to 90%, but you gain a global recharge bonus of 5%, so you're back where you were on Dull Pain AND you have 5% better recharge globally for everything else.

But you don't have to give up +damage slotting to frankenslot attacks -- 4 Makos gives a big damage bonus of +3, and you can throw in two more triples from any of several sets for great frankenslotting. I'd rather have several attacks slotted like that than many attacks 4-slotted with poor enhancement. You'd do ED-capped damage PLUS a big global damage bonus.

As it stands, I don't see how adding +26.5 to Smite's 71% damage slotting for 97.5% total enhancement counteracts the 30% damage debuff Granite imposes. You're at 97.5-30=67.5% instead of the 65-69% you'd have without any global damage bonus at all. Right now your global damage bonus isn't counteracting the granite debuff because it's busy counteracting the self-imposed debuff from your slotting. You have to get damage enhancement in your attacks to around 95% before the global damage bonus you have is fully available to counter the Granite debuff.

I recognize that some of your attacks are better-slotted than Smite, but none of them are really well-slotted for combat use, so the same issue applies, just to a different degree.

Baby Scrappers level up by their attacks, slot accordingly. Defenses are generally weak until SOs, so plan to slot them in time for SO levels.

WP is regarded as a fine set for novice Scrappers, easy to use, strong, and well-rounded, with an endurance power. It's also a good pairing with DB -- no redraw from clicky powers, and requires minimal attention while you're managing combos.

My suggestion would have been to look at the custom models available for the powersets to see what you feel would give the most appropriate range of looks, but you've already done that, if I'm reading your post right.

This idea may have been done before, but I haven't heard of it. Looks like you're off to a solid start!

edit: there were no replies when I started this post

I suggest bringing along a single grapefruit half.

Edit: and your battle cry can be "SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!"

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When all the other cars can only get up to 70-80 MPH, 108 is still very preferable.

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Those in question get debuffs and buffs that turn 70-80 MPH into 150-160 MPH.

The only one that doesn't just got his speed tweaked so now all of the time he can drive as fast as he only used to on nitro.


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I don't understand this quote. The number of circumstances where Defenders and Controllers outdamage Tankers are small enough that it seems nitpicking to base one's understanding of the entire AT on them. In fact, it's probably just one power you're talking about, Fulcrum Shift, and we know it's an outlier.

Tankers have decent offense. They're certainly not the weakest-hitting AT.

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Softcapping SS/WP??

Anyone think thy can do it?

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Not on a Tanker.

I'm all for making exotic builds and I support people playing non-mainstream characters, but I have to say I think this is the strangest Stone tanker build I've seen posted.

<ul type="square">[*]No resists in Granite?[*]Several four-slotted attacks?[*]Many sets stopping one slot short of a defense bonus or other nice bonus?[*]Minimal end reduction in Mud Pots? Why the stray Eradication damage IO there, when you can cap dmg with Obliteration alone?[*]Four run speed IOs in Swift? Doesn't the ED cap make one a waste (especially considering the unfinished attack slotting)?[*]No resists in Granite?[*]The biggest hitters in the attack set are even more underslotted (Midnight Grasp) or not present (Siphon Life)?[*]Rock armor at 30? Not earlier? Why not at the very least switch it with Hasten...you'd still get Hasten just before the Granite debuff.[*]Many of the attacks are not ED-capped for damage or recharge, but you've built for global bonuses to damage and recharge; wouldn't it be better to try to max out the attacks AND add the global bonus on top of that, instead of moving the damage and recharge out of cheap IOs and slots and into very expensive global bonuses?[*]What's up with Granite?[/list]
I hope that doesn't come off as critical. It's a very different build though. Can you share your reasoning behind some of your choices?

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well my tank invul tank is lvl 50 atm

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That sounds like you're expecting to level more.

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I imagine the widespread player dissatisfaction

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Yeah, the widespread player dissatisfaction is imagined.

You're going to be a busy Alien? Is abduction season starting? :P

Even with SOs, more than one end reduction in a toggle defense is generally a waste -- you get very little actual end savings for the slot.

One of the problems is that you're MA, not SR. MA's single-target limitation (until Dragon's Tail) means you have to kick each enemy down to zero, no efficient shredding with AoEs. Note that this takes longer, exposing you to more damage, as well as costing you more attacks and hence more end.

Make sure to get at least one end reduction DO in every attack...I'd go 1 acc, 1 end red, another acc, then consider adding another end red, or up to 3 damage, as long as you're using DOs.

One thing that would also help you avoid being smushed is to get another attack. If you don't have vet powers, that is. Killed stuff has zero chance to hit through your defenses. Two is low for a Scrapper, and hard to chain; Crane Kick is a great attack, but 10 seconds is a long recharge at low enhancement levels. If I were respeccing, I'd consider moving Hurdle later (say, after and picking up Thunder Kick or Air Superiority (or Boxing if you plan on working toward Weave anyway).

If you took Hurdle early so that you could slip Crippling Axe Kick in at 18 without delaying Stamina, well, that'll be nice when you get there. If you can supplement with vet attacks now, maybe it won't be too bad. If it does get to you, or if you aren't planning on taking Crippling Axe Kick at all, a respec (or just start your "second build") might let you shift Agile until after Stamina and thus grab a third early attack.

Speaking just for myself, as a WP you start out with a big block of typed defenses. To stack up positional defenses, you're starting from zero: it'll take a large investment and a significant portion of your available slots just to get back to the same level of defense you got "free" with Willpower (Heightened Senses). And you could be higher with typed defenses for the same slot expenditure. And higher is alllllways better with defense, until you hit the soft cap.

I suppose if you can make the slots work out, and money is no object, there's no reason you couldn't go for soft-capping positional and just ignore the head start in typed. But I'm not sure the ease-of-use of positional defenses warrants that effort.

IMHO the necessity of using combos distracts a team Tanker from choosing his targets for optimal Gauntlet and also from the important function of battlefield awareness. As a protector of a team, I want to be looking for new aggro, watching for Freak Tanks suddenly turning toward the Defenders, spreading my attacks to spread the hate, keeping tabs on the position of the melee furball and stray teammates, timing my big attack(s) perfectly, locking down the boss's attention, and so on. The little orange circles pull at my attention and they keep repeating that pull.

Just a wordier version of what Kruunch said, really.

I make Scrappers when I want to play with Dual Blades -- they get more wow out of the attacks anyway. Might as well enjoy big results from those flashy attacks.

I usually do damage, end, accuracy in order of most to least emphasis. The reason I emphasize damage is because Mud Pots attack pulse is about the only damage you have that's not slowed by Granite (because it's a toggle). Yes, it doesn't do tons but it's steady while you do other things.

Then end because endurance is a problem when you're running a bunch of the pre-Granite toggle armors, and MP costs a lot.

Then enough acc to be relevant.

I don't worry too much about its taunt value. Gauntlet from my other attacks will assist, MP's own slowing tends to keep foes in the area of effect (if I do somehow lose aggro from them, they'll stay close anyway and get re-aggroed soon) and I usually take Taunt on my Stone tankers anyway (helping to offset their poor mobility).

Also, nitpick: Endurance Modification enhancements are for powers that increase your end recharge or drain enemy endurance. Mud Pots takes Endurance Reduction enhancement.

Edit: once I looked to IOs, I'd start thinking about slipping a proc or two into Mud Pots for Even More Damage. Procs in toggles only activate once every 10 seconds, but Granite Tankers kill slowly enough without assistance that that isn't so much of a deterrent (and Granite Tankers *with* assistance don't usually need to worry about killing speed).

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Currently I have rolled out a Stone/SS now i have done some pre-tests in AE fighting missions now from the tests i have done i have passed the soft cap of 90 percent im actually at 118 percent becasue of tough.

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What does this mean?

Well, you're right. Although my IOs were functioning below par, and without the set bonuses, they were still frankenslotted, and I had lots more slots, it's true. That's the weakness in my post. However, the defense numbers weren't outside the reach of a DO build, and it was primarily the not dying that got my attention.

I have a few genuine baby tanks for comparison, maybe I'd better take a look at them.