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Shock Trooper 0083

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A Question for Tankers

I have a question for all of you tankers out there. I would preferebly like an answer from someone with experience with /EM and /SS. I know that SS will do more damage over longer time, and EM will do the same damage in shorter time. now will i want to be a full herding tank. Will SS get me more aggro through gauntlet or will EM? or would it just be better to go /fire for all of the AoEs? i dont have much expertise with tankers so any help is wanted

05/07/07 16:21

Houston

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RE: A Question for Tankers

Well I do have a level 50 Invul/Super Strength tanker But I can't help you on Debating which is better cause I don't have any Experiences with Energy.But I can link you to a Guide that explains the Primarys and Secondarys Powers for tanks if you haven't already checked it out.

Tankers Guide

05/07/07 17:24

Shock Trooper 0083

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RE: A Question for Tankers

i know all of that, just trying to figure out which would be better for aggro management

Hand of Blood Lvl X Spines/Regen Stalker...Triumph
Mystic Entity lvl 24 Katana/Regen Scrapper...Champion
Panzer Faust Lvl 23 SS/Energy Brute (retired)...Protector
Arbiter Darkwind Lvl 33 Thugs/Dark MM (retired)...Protector

Thanks to Mimori for the great sig

05/07/07 19:54

LordStarwolf

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RE: A Question for Tankers

Personally, I would recommend my tanks build, fire/em. Use fire aura for agro (blazing aura with a couple taunts does it) and em for damage. I have mine toked up as a scranker and he kills faster than a scrapper a level higher. I've also found, when I had him as an agro tank only, that taunts in em attacks work great also. Seems to really tick em off. I would highly reccomend EM for taunting ability AND killing ability, with fire or ice as the primary. Ice if you want more agro, fire if you want more damage.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

Guardian
Avant Guard = Emp/Rad/Psychic Defender Lvl 50 (Dedicated Healer)
Astral Plane = Peacebringer Lvl 50
Spica = Fire/Em/Energy Tank Lvl 50 (Scranker)
Avant Spines = Spines/Regen Scrapper Lvl 50 (AOE King)
Beliskner = Eng/Eng Blaster Lvl 42 (Blapper)
Avant Kin = Ill/Kin Controller Lvl 39
BMG = AR/Dev Blaster Lvl 29
Avant Psy = Psychic Blast/Empathy Defender Lvl 20 (Offender)
Avant Def = Kinetics/Energy Blast Defender Lvl 16
Avant Stone = Stone/Storm Controller lvl 15 (Super Controller)
Triumph
Lord Yu = MA/Regen Scrapper Lvl 25
Protector
Electrostun = Electric/EM Blaster Lvl 21 (Sapper)
T-99 = Ice/Ice Tanker Lvl 20
Starwolf = Katana/Inv Scrapper Lvl 18 (my very first toon, 3 1/2 years ago)
Pinnacle
Avant Claws = Claws/Regen Scrapper Lvl 24
Champion
Avant Dragon = Fire/Fire Blaster Lvl 20
Freedom
Avant Arch = Archery/NRG Blaster Lvl 50
Avant Char = Fire/Kinetics Controller Lvl 50
Avant Shade = Warshade Lvl 41
Avant Fire = Fire/Mental Lvl 34

And many, many, many, many, many more....

05/07/07 21:07

Deadman54

GameAmp Staff
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RE: A Question for Tankers

I run a SS/INV tank on Freedon currently lvl 42, and a EM/INV tank on Triumph currently lvl 17, so my perspective is gonna be a lil skewed. I've found the my SS does a very nice job in grabbing and holding aggro, versus my EM tank so far, but I think that has much to do with the INV primary power invincibility. That said I do know the SS set has 2 PBAoE's to help pull in and hold more aggro, while EM has only 1.

Now I feel obligated to tell you that my Wife Nasali has a Fire/Fire tank that while SK'd to me will pull aggro away from me. She will also kill larger groups much quicker than I can. In most cases that we run together I move to a scrapper role and pick off single targets while she mauls the group as a whole. If you go with Fire/Fire though I'd spec into the leaping pool to pick up acrobatics, it's the only knockback/hold protection you'll get.

I've only got one more bit for you, if you're runnin in a good group it won't matter which kills quicker, they'll all fall quickly to the might of your team. Both SS and EM will do the same job in aggro management So it's a personal choice as to which powerset appeals to you more.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

05/08/07 06:54

bergmann

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RE: A Question for Tankers

Why would you want to herd anyhow? I have a tank and to me the concept of herding is a BAD idea. Why aggro many groups at once?

05/08/07 08:19

Warron Peace

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RE: A Question for Tankers

Gauntlet acts the same, regardless of the powers you use. It sets a 5 target max taunt effect on the foe you attack. The duration may vary based on the recharge of the power used, I'm not sure about that, but Punchvoking is just as easily done regardless of what secondary powerset you choose.

05/08/07 10:56

Thundarpants

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RE: A Question for Tankers

QUOTE

Why would you want to herd anyhow? I have a tank and to me the concept of herding is a BAD idea. Why aggro many groups at once?

The new version is not a bad idea, and a functional strategy. Granted, herding no longer includes half of a zone or instance level, but still has a working function.

The Tank will go and round up 2 mobs, maybe 3 dependent on team size and Tank type. In the process of rounding them up, he is Taunting(5 enemy limit) and using his aura and punch-voke taunts building up "Hate". While he spams the Taunt into the crowd, he potentially gets other targets with a full blown Taunt that were missed the first time with the collection of enemies.

By the time he gets these mobs to the waiting team, they are under much better control and in a nice tight group for the A0E's to do their thing. AoE attacks have a 16 enemy cap, so the Tank actually has more of them fully taunted and they will not peel off to the other players.

Most of the Tanks already know this, it just seemed like this needed to be clarified. If you haven't slotted SO's yet..... don't do this. If you haven't got to a decent level and have enough slots to properly build up your defenses...... don't do this. I'd say some can, bu some can't till they get their pinnacle defense power at level 32, and get a level under their belt to slot it up properly.

There will also be Tank type to consider. An Invul Tank can herd and survive 3-4 mobs or more, where a Fire Tank has to be more conservative at 2-3 maximum because they simply do not have the same Damage resistance capabilities.

If you are a level 33+ Tank and can't handle 2-3 mobs/groups in your instance, you might want to consider a different line of work or really look at the difficulty setting you are using. In most cases, if the tank can see a red mob name on the minions, they can Tank the instance/mission. You see that much purple in the mobs, you might want to consider single pulls for team survivability, but you can probably still handle 2 at once. But you would just be the only one left standing. That would also be dependent on mob type. Don't get me started cursing the Malta group! Sometimes you get 2 mobs whether you want em or not. So if your Tank cannot handle that much aggro and incoming DPS, you are going to have a very hard time in those missions.

Herding is not dead, it's definition and execution has simply changed for this game.

05/08/07 12:45

Rhingo

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RE: A Question for Tankers

I currently run an Ice/EM tank who is almost at Hibernate, and I find that between Chilling embrace, Icicles, and Whirling Hands I usually have no trouble at all holding aggro, good to keep mobs off of you team and for herding. I never really did the SS thing seemed like the whole knockback thing would kind of defeat the purpose but i could be wrong.

Virtue

Fire Bug XI 50 Fire/Fire/Force Blaster
Granite Gargoyle 46 Dark/SR/Body Scrapper aka: Rhingo
Crazy Crustacean 40 Ice/EM Tank
Deja View 34 Mind C/Emp. Controller
Mythology 30 Peacebringer
Bling-Bling 29 MA/Regen Scrapper
Fire Bug XII 26 Fire/Fire Tank
and various alts

Victory

Ape Sexy 33 NRG/NRG Brute
various alts still trying to find my niche in the villian world

Champion

Juan Carlos 39 Thugs/FF Mastermind
Senor Pedro Vasquez 28 EM/Ninjitsu Stalker
By-Polar 25 NRG/Electric Brute

05/08/07 13:06

Thundarpants

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RE: A Question for Tankers

Although KB makes the Tank have to retarget sometimes, most don't put KB enhancements in those powers and the punck-voke that just got applied with the damage usually means they get up and head straight back to the Tank.

Actually, KB is a good incoming damage reducer. I use it on my Stone Tank all the time. And in most cases, the AoE KB on Tanks is usually "Knock Up", not "Knock Back" when the mobs are at or above their level.

AoE KB from Blasters and such, well, that's another specific issue for teams/Tanks to work out, but the Tank's KB from the SS line doesn't hinder them at all really.

05/08/07 13:30

bergmann

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RE: A Question for Tankers

I understand the concept and it sound good in theory but I very seldom have had good experience with this. When I see the tank saying he is going to herd I cringe because this is high risk and can go bad very fast.
A majority of the time I am playing controller characters and I believe than many of the tanks take the controllers and healers for granted. For the herding tactic to work you need us to stop the mob and keep you healthy.
If you want to herd just have the blasters snipe into a couple of groups and have the tanks up front to catch them.

05/08/07 15:01

Thundarpants

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RE: A Question for Tankers

QUOTE

Sorry bro, but if you have to do this for a herding tank, THEY shouldn't be doing it. But keep in mind that everybody has to learn how to play certain aspects over time.

The Snipe herding/pulling just kills the Blaster all of the time in large teams. With a high powered Snipe, he just pulled the entire mob's aggro, as the Tank gets up to them to try and peel them off, he gets 5 for sure, hopefully an aura taunt picks them up, but the damage aggro generally outwieghs the auras. The mobs will also get an "Alpha Strike" on the puller. If you have a Blaster that can take that damage from any mob types on large teams, give that Blaster a cigar. The Tank really needs to take that first volley.

Herding takes experienced Tanks to execute since ED. So you do see it done poorly a lot more now.

Bad Tanks will take the healers and Controllers for granted. And I'm sorry as well, but

QUOTE

For the herding tactic to work you need us to stop the mob and keep you healthy.

That's your job. It's the timing of that backup process that makes this work.

A good Tank will assess his group and see if THEY are capable of handling a herd or not. Then make the call. Good Tanks will also be very good at communicating their intentions for crowd control as they are primary crowd control for the team when they are on it. Timing of the attack on their herd is crucial. I have several emotes hard wired on my number pad:
"Pulling to here" Emote Whistle
"Wait for the second Foot Stop before attacking."
"Wait for the second Foot Stomp before attacking...... or die." Emote Lecture(For those groups that won't listen)

Even when I go "Group to Group" through the instance, I still herd the mobs. Although sometimes I herd one mob at a time. Basically to pull them away from the group with a Tank, not a squishy. Now that my Stony is level 33+, I can herd like an Invul Tank and hold their aggro. Mob types dictate a lot of that.

So that's the real difference.

You have a Tank on the team that wants to herd, but is poor at communicating....... it's going to go badly.

If your team cannot coordinate and follow the Tank's instructions, they will have difficulty in upper level missions. I wrote a whole post string up about "Give a Tank a Hand" a while back. No one should tolerate a bully, but when the difficulty goes up, people need to follow orders and coordinate, or drown in debt. It's that simple.

If you have a seasoned Tank that knows how much aggro they can hold, damage they can soak up and is effective at communicating his herding plan to the group, it goes very, very well.

The bottom line is that the team needs to have the same strategy. There is only so long you can go with a group full of players doing it "Their way". At some point everybody needs to be on the same page. Definately communicate to your Tank if herding is not your prefered Tanker crowd control feature. They can usually find other methods to single pull the mobs.

I also stress that this is NOT old style herding where someone grabs 10-12 mobs and a Blaster Alpha Strikes it. This is just the new method of pulling 2-3 mobs at a time, give or take, so that the missions go at a better clip, and good Tanks get more personal time with the mobs to gain better aggro control.

*EDIT* Sorry Shock.... your post has been hijacked! bergman started up a post about herding specificaly here: Herding 101

We'll move that discussion there.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

05/08/07 15:37

Rhingo

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RE: A Question for Tankers

QUOTE

Why would you want to herd anyhow? I have a tank and to me the concept of herding is a BAD idea. Why aggro many groups at once?

I actually sort of agreed with you on this due to when i was getting my blaster to 50 i played with a lot of tanks that wanted to herd, and it usually always ended up in a team wipe. lol least i got most of the debt badges lol

However with (i wouldn't so much say seasoned as i would) a player with common sense can look at who is on their team and should be able to estimate how much agggro he/she can hold and whether or not the team can handle it, if they can't then they shouldn't be playing a tank. or maybe they need more practice at it, it is a tough call cause people learn through doing.

That being said herding does have its strong points which i recently found out. You know that blaster with the itchy button finger, or that scrapper with SB that over runs the group and aggros the next one. I found that if i can run into a room with lets say 8-10 (just puling numbers for examples) groups, and grab 2-3 or whatever i feel i can keep pissed off at me without killing the team, then pulling them out of that room into another room and keep their aggro it sometimes prevents alot of mistakes and "whoops sorry guys didn't mean to send the fireball into that other group" type of situations. but as stated before it is all a matter of clear communication.

It does have its negative points when playing with someone who just doesn't understand the whole concept behind it, and decides he is going to bring all 8-10 groups out at once.

I view it as sort of a saftey thing rather then what alot of others I have talked to view it as. which tends to be "KILL EM ALL IN ONE SHOT YEAH!!! BIG XP!! I WILL GET EM ALL!!" if you are playing with someone and this is their battle cry, unless you need the debt badges, i suggest finding a new team or a new tank.

If something goes wrong and I die and no one else on my team dies then I have done my job as a tank.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

05/09/07 00:58

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