Thundorn

Yea ive actually had a disagreement with a couple of stalkers over something like this. They were arguing that using leadership and focused accuracy and +per set bonuses was cheating because it took away their advantage....

Sigh... ironically these were stalkers who chant "anything goes in a pvp zone" while popping insps when the heat got too much for them hehe. Btw have they fixed that exploit in Sirens yet that seemed to be popular a few weeks back?

Taunt is definately a very useful power as it CAN save lives but it is not an absolute to being a tanker. Because a tanker doesnt have taunt doesnt automatically make them a DDT and a bad player. I take taunt on all my tankers because i find it useful in keeping the enemies attention when herding extra large mobs. However i have teamed with a few tanks who dont have taunt (being a big tank lover i always look at other tankers builds out of interest) and they have done a fine job without it. IMO its the tankers who have neither taunt OR a taunt aura, or those who turn it off when the heat turns up that you should be more worried about. Like any AT they have a role that is EXPECTED and if your toon does not fulfill that expected role you should inform any team who invites you as a matter of common courtesy so they can adjust their tactics accordingly. A lot of teams will complain if you join knowing they were looking for an aggro taker and all you do is scrank.

But to answer the Original question, Like all ATs it depends on the player AND the Build as to whether the tanker is a tanker without taunt.

Percep although nice to have i tend to find is a bit of an academic point. The crafty monkeys have means and ways of getting round it anyway. I tend to find standing in water is quite handy and hit burn as soon as you see any movement. Oops i can seeeeee yoooooouuuu.

You are esxpecting me to moan about DDT's etc....

No i actually have a geniune question to ask reference pvping

Ive made (and deleted) a whole lot of tankers and my favourite is still my Fire/EM tanker (Which i made before they became FoTM BTW hehe)

But in PvP ive noticed that things are pretty evenly balanced as far as the different tank sets go. i have the advantage over a Stoney with respect to speed obviously, and without going into the pro's and cons of each type which would of course take all week.

Im just interested to know what other people think is their all time greatest pvp tanker set really. i got fed up with Ice but thats not really because of PvP so much as lack of experience at the time.

Im still inclined to think Fire/EM is one of the best but then im biased really, Igniter has kept me amused for longer than any of my other Toons.

Ya is the same m8

I made a similar post to this on the scrapper forums offering basic advice to new scrappers, although it did admittedly digress into a debate about power levelling, mostly was well recieved so i thought i'd make one about tankers too (being my favourite AT).

Tankers are a very interesting archetype, becasue their build can make a lot of difference in the success rate of a team. In fact ive seen teams do better after a tank left becasue that tank had a rough build.(either that or a bad player behind the wheel, this is of course at higher levels where you would expect someone who has a tank at that level to be reasonably adept at using it)

When i built my first tanker, i got bored and deleted him, as with several attempts shortly after. Mainly because of the endurance drain, but also becasue of my lack of understanding about the power sets at that time.

I hear a lot of players discussing which is the best armour set to use, and i can honestly say that there isnt one. They are all good, given time and thought. My favourite Has to be fire, but i enjoy playing all of them.

THere are different types of tanking styles which when you have decided upon should be the theme of your build right from level one. You can be the tank who stands in the middle of a mob taking damage and waiting for your team to wipe them out and thus requiring a heavy defence bias in your build but this means that solo'ing becomes a longer more laborious task. You can be the kind of tank that bounce around the map tearing up the mobs fast and letting the rest of the team work round a different section. and then theres PvP tankers, which require a fine balance of offence, defence and status protection.

For a new player choosing a tanking style isnt really a problem becasue if you are new to the game you dont really have these consierations in mind, all you want is a Superhero that can kill fast and look good doing it right?

Lets look into what a tankers classic role is then before we go any further. Essentially a tanker is probably the most 'Heroic' of the Archetypes because of what they are designed to do. They are the guys who taunt the badguys and take the big hits, in the interests of the rest of the team not getting hit, so that they can do the killing. This is NOT the only way to tank and i have seen some really effective builds that are in no way based on this ideal. HOWEVER Tankers are the only AT designed to take a large amount of damage and smile back at those bad guys asking for more. I would say that for a new tanker this is a safe place to start, define your character and playstyle on the idea that you will be getting hit.. a lot.. and that is your job to protect the less resilient characters, then you will not go wrong in a team, who as a generalisation will expect just that from a tank.

Once again i must stress that this is by no means the only method and im certainly not trying to tell any new players what they should ad shouldnt do. This is simply my way of trying to make a new tankers life easier.

MY main tank (Thundorn Igniter) is fire/ Energy Melee. I was at first a bit dissapointed by the last of multiple target attacks available in the EM set, but once i had played on a bit and gotten Hasten, with two extreme attacks and the rest being not too weak either i realised that i didnt need to hit multiple enemies, Igniter can 2 hit a +2 lieutenant and in a matter of seconds those attacks are ready to go again. Not having a power like foot stomp that puts them on their backs DOES somewhat reduce the effectiveness of BURN as they all run away from it (Hence why i rarely use it) so why is it in my build? get a kin in the team to hold my herded mob, fulcrum shift them and then hit burn, they will be dead within seconds. also healing flames, slotted 3 rchrg 3 heal and hasten combined means that i will get half of my health back every fifteen seconds or so with the added bonus of bio protection for when im fighting Hydra.

Taunt is a hotly contested issue with tankers, I've heard a lot of players slating a tanks 'Selfish build' becasue they dont have taunt and being referred to as DDT's (Debt Dodging Tanks) in fact some people will kick a tank from a team for not having it. Personnaly i wouldnt go that far, just bacause they dont have taunt doesnt mean they cant tank, their aoe's (area of effect) might be slotted with 3 taunt duration and a couple of acc enhances meaning that unless the mob takes forever to go down (in which case i think the tanks lack of taunt is the last issue that needs to be addressed) they will hold Aggro pretty well anyway.

Anyway before i digress, the tips i wished i would have had when i first tried to build a tanker.

1. Turn off sprint when fighting, this saves a heck of a lot of endurance at low levels.

2. DOnt dismiss other players advice, consider it when thinking about your build. SOme players can be rude when offering advice but i generally put this down to lack of mastery of the English language rather then assuming they are arrogant.

3. Remember the style of tank you want to achieve and stick to it until you can respec and change it.

4. Taunt is VERY useful and arguably the defining tanker power, but NOT having it does not make you a bad player and anyone who says otherwise without giving you a chance to prove yourself is very closed minded and probably not worth teaming with.

5. An issue which always causes dispute is power levelling, if you are a new player, try to avoid the temptation to power level. Its great watching that xp roll in and knowing that next time you see Ms Liberty youll have ten levels to collect but you are missing out on play time and experience that is vital for the new player to understand their character and the game mechanics. Beleive me when i say that there are a lot of lvl 50's out there who have never played the game properly and would rather hang around barking out diminutive comments then show their inexperience by actually playing the game.

6. At lower levels its important for a tank to be as resilient as possible, due to the huge amount of endurance your attack will use. Building up your armours is the best way to avoid the debt monster and see yourself get that lvl 14 travel power as quickly as possible. Its tempting i know when you look at that secondary power column and see all those lovely attacks to go nuts on offence, but youll soon find out how much difference that armour would have made when your endurance bar is empty and your left a sitting duck fighting a +2 that you thought you could nail but never managed to actually hit.

7. TURN OFF YOUR AOE's WHEN TRAVELLING. theres nothing worse then forgetting to turn off Blazing aura and running through the hollows to meet Flux only to get your backside handed to you on a plate becasue youve aggroes the last two mobs you ran past, its a long way back there from atlas hospital.

8. This tip is non-AT specific, You will unfortunately (particularly in atlas and galaxy) run into people who have lesser social skills and feel it necessary to spoil other players gaming experience. THis is controlled to a certain degree by chat censoring and petitioning. THers always a way round the censor as it only looks for specific words, and a lot of the time these griefers will get away with it becasue people tend to carry a 'someone else will do it' attitude to petitioning. Dont be affraid to report violations of the EULA, the guily party will not know who reported them and its the only way they will learn. Whatever you do, DONT let them drag you down to their level by arguing back.

9. Terms you may hear....

OMW-On My Way
LMAO-Laugh my *Behind* off
PMSL-*wet* myself laughing
BRB- Be Right Back
OMG-Oh my *goodness*
TYVM-Thank you very much

10. learn from your experiences and if you keep dying, instead of blaming other people, look at what happened and think about what YOU could do to prevent it.

11. DONT be affraid of debt, Some people fear it like death itself and will spoil other poeples gaming experience to avoid it. It does slow your levelling down, but it doesnt stop it. And remember xp is NOT the most important part of the game. The Game itself is!

12. ENJOY THE GAME. if grinding on your current character is getting boring or even frustrating, do something else, make a new character or something, you have ten slots to choose from (or 6) take a break. Dont let the fact that its taking ages to get your next level sour your spirit. The reason you play is becasue you want to have fun. Go to atlas and meet other players. MOstly they are friendly and will maybe give you advice or help.

I started out as a scrapper but my first lvl 50 was actually an empathy defender. Beleive me when i say that a lot can be learned from playing as an empath. There were times when i was hardly needed becasue the Tank was doing such a great job that nobody else was getting hit, but there were also times when i was flat out because the tank was pretty poor or just running scared of debt. there is no AT that is the most inportant in a team, everyone has a job to do and when they do it right is when the game is most fun.

I think i've rattled on enough now.

GET OUT THERE AND SAVE THE WORLD!!!

Aha that old chestnut again. Scrappers geting bored of waiting to herd. Unfortunately, its not somethign that will change really. When i tank, i like to herd, purely because it really is the safest option because its easy to identify which ones have been aggroed and which ones havent. When i first started playin i built a scrapper, and hadd no idea about tanking and used to get fed up with waiting around for that slow tanker to sort himself out, however now im a tank junkie and i understand what its all about. Best thing to do is not get drawn into a dispute about it and let the scrapper have his own way for a mob or two, soon enough a scrapper with that attitude will get themselves face planted, then they will moan about you Not doing your job, which then gives your a self made point proven situation.

Scrapper like to kill things and they believe that they are the best at it, and love little competitions with other ATs. It seems taunt doesnt just annoy the bad guys. Ive actually had a couple of scrapper leave my team before because i was out damaging them on my fire/em tanker and was making them feel surplus to requirements.

If youwant to have a quiet life, let the scrappers have their 'Moment of glory' once in a while, and just keep an eye on their health so you can take back the aggro if they get into trouble.

BA isnt the greatest taunt aura ever ill agree. HOWEVER Healing flames recharges that quickly i have no complaints about it. With regard to the taunt side of BA, really its not THAT big an issue, as long as you are the first person that a mob sees and you can herd them nice and tightly to you whilst its only you they have seen, taunt will do the rest anyway, and as long as you have 1 or 2 acc so's in BA youll hit a fair percentage of them anyway. The possibility of BA not taunting makes tanking a challenge and hence more fun in my opinion. Fire tankers are the one type that i think can either make you look awesome or completely rubbish. If you are in a good team who listens to you when you ask them to hang back for a few seconds while you consolidate your aggro, there will never be any problems, and as discussed on numerous other threads, if your team dont wait... then let darwinism run its course.

Keep missing these so im determined this time.

Two choices but i think ill go with Thundorn Igniter, Fire EM tanker. Looking 4ward to it!!

Another great scrapper moment for myself. (although an unusual one) was my first ever encounter with a stalker. wandering about in Bloody bay wondering what that scientist was on about.. meteor or something. quite happily staring at this green badguy whos skeleton i could see through their skin, when WHACK two hits and im all but dead. HOLY MOTHER JEHOSEFAT, i thought. what in hades was that??

Many would think that soured my opinion of stalkers but no. Two things happened. 1) i bought COV. 2) i spent the nex three days trying to figure out how to kill this invisible death bringer, or at least survive long enough to see where he went to.

I will always remember that moment because now all the scrappers i build now, i have one thing in mind, can i see them before its too late, can i survive if i dont. and can i kill them if i do.

Nostalgic story inbound

I bought COH about a year ago now, but due to my old PC being Bare minimum Spec, i didnt give the game any real time. Since then new PC new account etc. When i first started playing i didnt have a clue. I'd never looked at the forums, i'd never talked to anyone who had played it before. So i started out completely blind. All i could remember was the AT definitions during the install screens.

My first toon was claws regen, No thought went into it really it was a case of Claws.. Cooool, Regen Cooool. Having played only one other MMORPG before which shall of course remain nameless, and team play in this MMORPG being very tricky and more hassle then its worth, i assumed the same was likely n this game. so every time i got blind invited or sent tells asking if i wanted to team it got a damn good ignoring too. it took me a month to get him to lvl 14. It was actually my missus who convinced me to give team play a try, and i was amazed at how easy it was to acomplish and how fast i was levelling. So for the next few weeks i wouldnt play that toon unless i was teaming.

However, having the attention span of a hamster in a new cage, i left him rotting in the top of my toon list while i levelled my empath Thundorn Jr.

During my time playing as Jr i learned so much about other AT's and their drawbacks, weaknesses and strengths. Goin back to my scrapper afterwards i realised what i had created. And although most of my power choices werent too bad there were a couple of creases that needed ironing out.

I took recall friend, always nice to have but for a scrapper, i could have put that pool choice to much better use. Looking at the choices i nearly made makes me cringe too, i nearly went for the medicine pool, as the descriptions on the power selection screen of the self heals sounded a bit naff. I chose air superiority AND hover, again a waste of a power.

Point of this rambling is, that although i didnt do too bad a job of building this toon, and although i have now respecced out hover and recall friend, The dilemma as a newbie of what power to choose is hard to avoid. Sooooo, my advice to newbies who actually check the forum before they play unlike me is>>>>>

Dont be affraid to ask someone for advice. Atlas park is full of lvl 50's and you might as well give them something to do.

Dont be afraid of teaming with other people newbies or old hands. Its better to learn this way then doing it the hard way.

Do listen to other players when they give you advice. You dont have to take it but theres always a chance they will tell you something you didnt know or offer a new perspective on a topic you do know about.

Take a Supergroup Early on, there are numerous benefits aside from base TP, they are always a good resource and knowledge base.

Dont get dragged into disputes over silly issues and dont listen if you come across on of the games more anti social player.

More related to scrappers.

Try to remember that a scrapper is a close range damage dealer. And the best defence is often a good offence. If you are invited to a team, they will be expecting exactly that, a damage dealer. if you have heals or teleports then thats groovy but if the team desperately wanted those powers, they wouldnt invite a scrapper, so although handy to have those powers are not essential.

Avoid taking too many power pools early on. Its awesome looking at the power pools for the first time. oo which one to pick. I wanna fly like you know who or i wanna be invisible. but before lvl 14, i would suggest taking one travel pool and if needed one of the fitness pool powers. we all did the hover autorun go for a cup of tea whilst i fly over the hollows to get to that mission thing when we were newbies so dont let anyone tell you otherwise. so what if it takes you ten minutes to get there, its not like a team of lvl 10's is gonna have gotten very far anyways.

Power levelling avoid it!! you wont learn anything and although its cool to have warshade/peacebringer available to you, half of the fun in this game is meeting people and learning. If you power level you are cheating yourself out of what you actually paid for.

Know your limits, you can never predict what another player will do. you might be able to stand in a mob of four badguys and kill them all, but what iff your slightly crazy teammate gets him/her self in trouble with another mob and needs your help, youve run out of endurance and the hp bar dont look to great either. (This is something that i see scrappers do even at lvl 45 so you arent alone)

Debt occurs from level 10 onwards, and does slow your levelling, but not by a huge amount. If you have to die so that the others in the team get a chance of making it out alive, then theres nothing more heroic. I'd prefer to be remembered as the guy who took one for the team then the guy who legged it and left the team in the poo. And you do get a sense of gratification from it, however irritating it is to see that dark purple climing up the xp bar.

Try and remember that people of all ages play this game, and although there is a certain level of control, you generally have the freedom to do what you like, and alothough you might be having fun, you might be spoiling someone elses experience. I remember the first time my missus played. she didnt know where any of the keys were and had real problems keeping up, and having to type sorry every two minutes for making a mistake, or running the wrong way just slowed her down even more. Most people she teamed with were very understanding but she did encounter a few rotten eggs who gave her grief for not doing something right. And you will encounter a few people who prioritise the game over Real life and cannot understand it when you have to go away from keyboard for a few minutes.

A few things you may hear through the game....

n00b: if someone calls you this in a malicious way then my advice is to type /ignore (their name) its a derogatory term which is used by people with no patience, manners, imagination or vocabulary.

OMW: On My Way
TYVM: Thank you very much
ROFL: Rolls on floor laughing
PMSL: (wet) myself laughing

TF: task force, this is a team which has a set schedule of missions which result in a badge / accolade. You are bound to the team, although you can quit its generally considered bad manners to exit a TF until it is completed.

SG: Supergroup

Anyway, i know that there are probably better places i could have made this thread but i did start out as tips for scrappers but evolved into general tips for newbies. I hope these tips help you out and prevent you making time consuming mistakes that slowed my initial progress.

Good luck and Most importantly ENJOY

I think its more based on each players style. There are so many combinations of build for both AT's and so many people use different techniques that to make a fair comparison would take a lot of man hours and patience. Having watched Syn win my Xmas event with his brute against a Scrapper, i would have to say Brutes would most likely win because of their survivability parallel to their damage potential. A brute has that little bit extra defensse, and can take most of what a scrapper can dish outfor long enough to use a self heal. Even regen scrappers will go down if you can hit them hard and fast enough.

Example is my Fire ME tanker. I have hasten and healing flames slotted 3 rech 3 heal. Using both i can become almost unkillable until hasten runs out because of the shear speed that it is ready to go again. With that and two extremes i can be a very tough customer, one on one.

I'm glad all who came enjoyed it. I will look forward to more of that sort of thing in future.

P.s Globeys right it didnt say you cant bore people and i have to say he did provide much amusement. I did manage to get some cool screeners which ill be uploading to my visitors forum soon.

Picture 3

Aha, i was waiting for that question. When i se up the event i didnt want to take any of the powers effects away, due to a large number of squishies that entered. It dawned on me half way in though that perhaps that was a bad idea. as it happened we all decided to not use self rezzes because theres a good chance we would still be going now otherwise. After the initial bundle at the beginning (which saw my fire nrg tanker getting torn apart ) there was a lot of flying and bouncing around, i do suspect a bit of teaming but thats neither here nor there really.

The trollers were stealthed and holding people but instead of attcking the person held everyone chased the troller that popped up beside them etc.

\\i think had i taken travel and stealth powers away it would have been quicker, however i think it would have been unfair on the trollers and blasters that came along.

As for Globo, im not sure what he was doing there tbh, he just kind of stood there and moaned about being bored a lot and then left

Interesting Tactics.

Note the exceptional speed i got taken down with lol. Thats the last time i use my own name. Next time im gonna call it the Globo Battle Royale.

Gratz to Charger Charley AKA Syn for winning the 97 minute long battle royale!!!

Picture 1
Picture 2

If your facing a huge gank squad and your clearly outnumbered then i suppos fair enough. HOVEVER, the question really started as one person being teledroned by another person. which if you ask me is cowardice. The culprit clearly having no intention to do anything himself. Having said that the question remains as to what the victim was doin within range in order to get tp'ed

use any toons you like ppl it shouyld be fun

I wont be putting a lvl cap on the battle. i have been assured by various people and also tested the theory that the arena mechanics make sure everyone is on equal terms. ive tested with a lvl 45 and a lvl 32 and it seems to work ok.

either way thats the plan. its gonna be fun whatever happens.

Hoorah the day is upon us. Stand by for A post about the winner. Fingers crossed people. And Good Luck to all participants

Fair game IF he had actually had any intention of actually killing your friend himself. Teledroning is A foul tactic that people use to cuase arguments. ive never seen it used to thin out the numbers of a team or to gain any kind of tactical advantage. Its usually someone whos too chicken to actually enter the zone themselves. The way i see it is any tactic which results in debt a number of times is griefing. TBH the only people ive ever heard defend these tactics are the ones who use it themselves or have done in the past.

As for people who dont like to see duels in pvp zones and try to break them up. I think thats another excuse. The only time ive ever heard anyone complain about duellin in pvp zones was shortly after they had interfered in a duel using AS and were getting flamed from both participants for spoiling the fun.

There is a time and a place for everything. Ive been duo'd with a dark spines scrapper where i was herding em up and hitting em with Whirling hands and burn whilst he was whipping through them. at one point through the mission he asked if i would let him herd. It was only in the team so if he didnt manage it very well it was no great problem id just get in there with blazing aura and taunt and clean up the mess. As it happened he herded ok and once they had all bunched up nice i want in and took the aggro.

Later that day i was in a tem with two scrappers, two trollers a blaster and a defender. The scrappers were doin two things, they were either running off ahead whilst i was keeping aggro on the last couple of minions or they would wait for the rest of the team to catch them up and then charge in. needless to say at least one squishy was dying every couple of mobs or so. Its only debt right? Its supposed to be fun. however, as a tank its my instict to want to prevent this from happening. as it happens it wasnt all down to the scrappers that this was happening, the trollers were holding them too far apart and the blaster kept using KB's all in all a pretty badly organised bunch. I id manage to actually tank the last few mobs and everything went smoothly, i had to leg it to the next mob and get aggro before the holds kicked in and the scrappers did their suicide run but nobody died for those few mobs and hopefully a lesson was learned.

Problem is that there are too many Solo players taking that attitude into team play. Wanting to show off how great their toon is by taking a mob on their own.

In that team i took jacks advice actually. later on against the hydra i turned off BA and skranked round the outside of mobs whilst the scrappers tried to tank, funnily enough they then realised how much of the aggro i had still been taking even after their suicide runs. REZ PLZ!!! TAUNT PLZ!!!

This is one topic that will always be contested. Stalkers hate CM being stacked and everyone else hates stalkers stacking invis etc.... as has already been said, you might get "pwned" by a stalekr in bb and sc, but you will get your revenge in wb and rv. Yes there are a lot of stalkers who stick to bb and sc to up their reps cos they have it pretty easy in those zones. but your never going to have to deal with those people in wb or rv becasue they are afraid to go there so theres really nothing to worry about.

AS far as combatting the hide/stealth/invis element of stalkers, there is only so much you can do. i learned my lesson very early on about trying to solo pvp zones with a squishy. Despite what soem people might tell you, those stalekrs aint goin for the tank or scrapper first, they are goin for the defenders and trollers. Kill two birds with one stone, bye bye buffs/holds and hello more rep points.

I have just specced out recal friend and on my claws regen in favour of the leadership pool, it was handy being able to teleport people of course but in all honesty if your not planning on teaming much, its a bit of a waste of a power. Ive recently been pvping on my tanker and watched several of my regen friends get taken down in seconds by stalkers using AS, so i would say leadership pool and Tough are good powers to have. i have Health and stamina also to improve my survivability. Obviously though this doesnt make you tougher in the classical sense of the word, if you get hit hard and fast enough your still going down, but if you can hold on those vital seconds your in with a shot.

Yea CE i always found on my old ice ss tanker to be and unusual one. i would suggest icicles asap to improve your aggro ability. Bad guys remember Damage too and as long as your fire blaster friend can wait those few seconds longer you could contain the aggro much easier.