The_Spad_EU

Tanking in the I1-3/4 sense is dead. Well and truely.

You can't herd any more.
You can't hold all the aggro any more.
You can't take all the damage any more.
You can't even dish out the damage any more thanks to the AoE caps.

All in all, tanking, in the original sense of the job, is dead. Although given that Statesman's idea of tanking is attacking a couple of S/L minions in an 8 man spawn while the rest of the team deal with the hard stuff, I'm not suprised that the nerfs have been allowed to go this far.

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This one brings out some nice 3D effect.
I have to keep this in mind for some designs i'm planning for my (and friends) toons.

Very nice...
Cut and Blur? Multi-layered?

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Two identical layers, blurred the bottom one and then cut through the top one to expose the blur.

Ah, Issue 3. The halcyon days when I could herd up huge numbers of mobs, fire EA to give capped (Hard cap, not the 95% soft cap) Defence vs anything ('cept Psi/Tox, of course) - and as a result effectively make me immune to Def debuffs - and then pop build-up, combustion, fire sword circle while the rest of the team dealt with the survivors. Of course I couldn't tank most AVs without massive risk of insta-death (Back when Shadowhunter hit for 3200+ base damage and I could only manage 2900 HP with double-stacked Hoarfrost), but hey.

That was before the Defence Nerf, the EA Nerf, the Aggro Cap, the AoE Cap, ED and all the other little nerfs here and there.

Ice/Fire was an excellent combination, it's still a good one.

The method I used for the background gave me a very high contrast image to work with which made it very easy to cut out Sonara's outline.

A quick and dirty photo with bad focusing:

http://img327.imageshack.us/my.php?i...arablur6wo.jpg

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Very cool. How did you get the backdrop like that?

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Created a duplicate layer in photoshop, inverted it & set it to linear dodge, then I cut out Sonara to let the original layer show through. Then I burnt the top layer to allow some of the original background to show through and finally I applied a gaussian blur to the top layer to smooth out and clarify the building details.

While I'm at it - an artists impression of Perez Park (Note, not actually painted ):

http://img437.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ression2rr.jpg

Sonara in full SG getup against an Atlas backdrop

http://img340.imageshack.us/my.php?i...through7oa.jpg

What do you think?

Pure human-form Warshade.

So glad I've just started a Kin/Elec defender

I've got some low-grade Photoshoppery here: http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/sh...;Number=387195

Sadly my non-technical drawing skills are pathetic

In a similar vein: http://img129.imageshack.us/my.php?i...skyline5um.jpg

Nothing right now - at least nothing noticable.

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...and TP Self but no TP Foe.

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There IS a TP Foe power, Starless Step at level 8 for WSs
There is also a group energy flight for PB. In fact, the only power missing is Air Sup., and that ain't something comparing to the other, better powers.

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And group TP

I'm not really bothered about it to be honest.

Boredom + Photoshop = http://img333.imageshack.us/my.php?i...dpencil3lw.jpg

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Grats mate, inspiring since you talked about throwing in the towel with your WS a fair few times.

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I'm a stubborn *******

Cheers, it's only taken me since May

I've got a blaster (Archery/Energy), defender (Kin/Elec), brute (Dark/Energy) and dominator (Mind/Psi) on the go - I'll probably focus on the dominator first though.

Negative Energy - Warshade

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I think you'd have to agree that a powerset that works less well on tougher enemies is rather suboptimal.

[Incidentally, I think your signature is precisely about-face. The problem with Defence is the concept; "clone D&D mechanics". It was never, under any circumstances, going to work with that concept.]

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Suboptimal, maybe, but that doesn't mean it's dismal.

It's hardly Dismal for Ice Tankers, I'm quite happily out-tanking everything but Granite Armour right now - whether that's down to the powerset or the player is entirely up to you to decide.

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I still say you can start Taunting and tanking any time, _provided_ you have a defender who can give special attention to you; an empath, a kineticist who can drop Transfusion by you, etc. The team's got to take those attacks anyway; if they are filtered past your defense and/or resistance, that's less total damage taken, albeit concentrated in one place, and it's taken on a longer health bar that heals quicker.

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So can any AT though, the only advantage tankers really have until their defences ramp up in their 20's (now) is their higher than normal hitpoints.

It's not just ED. ED plus the AoE nerfs plus the Taunt Cap plus the def/res nerfs have all made tanking as it was, extremely difficult.

I think that is in part what's causing the decline in tanking. Previously you could start "tanking" in your teens and it was expected that a tank knew how to do their job. These days, however, you can't really tank properly until your early/mid-20's and that's more than enough time for you to get into a scranking mentality - and once you get into the routine it's hard to change it.

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Just out of interest, can u run hibernate with icicles? text seems to indicate you can (as both powers v unpopular not sure anyone has experience with this).

If you can, might be fun: as icicles presumable would have punchvoke quality?

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Hibernate makes you intangible, so no, you can't.

The Wilftank himself just hit 50 with Incorruptible against Battle Maiden - and then promptly faceplanted.

Go Wilf!

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The second being watching the team fragment into little groups and have individual battles. At one point I was left with 2 bosses and an LT all to myself whilst the tanks messed about with some minions.

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Ah, the Statesman school of tanking.

The problem with Hibernate is that it still takes too long to activate to be useful in an emergency, especially as the healing component doesn't kick in immediately (At least it didn't when I last respecced it out just after I6).

The only times I've ever used it successfully were once vs the Envoy of Shadows to keep myself alive against his auto-hit aura and then vs the Psychic Clockwork King, where the power bugged and the AV & support mobs became perma-aggroed to my hibernated form and allowed the rest of the team to pick him off at will.

The rest of the time I just used it to drop from the sky onto new players in Atlas or the Hollows and scare the [censored] out of them.

To be honest, the stealth increase to the activation time coupled with the 30-second timelimit was what finally turned me off the power for good.