Tanker question

[Mesozoic]

This is a question best asked on the CoH boards; sadly I seem to have forgotten my password and so far I have had no luck getting them to send me a new one. 

I just started an Ice Tanker, and frankly at level 11 I'm getting my ass kicked a lot.  I have three Ice toggle powers, Frozen Armor (Def to smash/lethal, sixed with 4 Def, 2 End Redux), Wet Ice (Resistance to CC, Def to all but Psionic, 2-slotted with 2x End Redux), and Chilling Embrace (AoE Taunt, AoE Slow, AoE recharge debuff, 2-slotted with 1x Taunt and 1x End Redux).

Every single End Redux in there is pretty much mandatory.  With all three toggles up my end regen just barely exceeds my usage, and my ability to actually hit stuff is pretty limited.  When the going gets tough I drop CE to save end and reduce aggro, even tho Tankers are really supposed to be able to hold and survive aggro. 

And still I get spanked by baddies.  Even white-con minions seem to be able to hit me commonly, +Def be damned. 

Any ideas?

(And no, I haven't mistaken +Res Enh's for +Def.  Ice is a Def powerset).

[Big Gulp]

For one thing I'd get rid of the taunt enhance in chilling embrace.  Slot it with a recharge debuff enhance instead; right now your main concern shouldn't be inherent taunt effectiveness, but enhancing survivability for yourself.  For your attack powers I'd make sure I have one ACC enhancement in each power, even if that means dropping a DAM enhancement.  Doing a lot of damage doesn't mean shit if you don't hit, and then waste that (at this level) precious endurance.

The main thing is to stick with it, and open up the fitness pool as soon as you possibly can, even if it means neglecting your main power pools for a little bit.  Ice is a tough tanker build to get going, but it's worth it.  I went the (unbeknownst to me at the time) easy route of Invincibility, but I've seen ice tankers more than hold their own later on.  The tricky part is getting to the point where your endurance becomes managible, because like all the tanker builds you've got so many toggles to worry about.  Yeah, this makes us look like gimps compared to scrappers early in the game, but later on you'll be able to survive ass poundings that any other class would consider insane to even contemplate going into.

[Mesozoic]

Thanks, will do.  I suspected it was a slow-starting build, but I wanted to ask before I made serious errors.  My attacks (Stone Fist, Stone Mallet, Air Superiority) are each 2-slotted with 1xDam 1xAcc.  I didn't mean that I couldn't hit, only that my end use was severe enough to limit my swings. 

My plan gets me Stam by 20th, and I am determined (determined, I say!) to stick it out till then.

[Big Gulp]

My plan gets me Stam by 20th, and I am determined (determined, I say!) to stick it out till then.

You in a supergroup?  The easiest way to get past all the growing pains stuff is to just tag along with a high level SG mate and have them hopefully get a middleman for you so you just rack up the levels.  My SG is pretty good about this; all the regulars have multiple alts so we all mutually power level each other to one degree or another.  We're not insane about it, but it's nice having people around who can help you get over some of the bumps.

[Mesozoic]

I do.  Sadly they are anti-PL, which I guess is fine generally speaking.  What exactly would constitute PLing is up in the air, I suppose I could ask. 

Fortunately I have a (non-SG) buddy on the server with a 16 scrapper that will duo with me. 

The Plan:

Icicles at 12th (boo, more end drain but access to DOs should help)

Fly at 14th

Swift/Hurdle/Stamina at 16/18/20.

Heavy Mallet at 22 (because who doesn't want a heavy mallet?)

Glacial armor at 24.

After that?  Who knows.

[Big Gulp]

I do.  Sadly they are anti-PL, which I guess is fine generally speaking.  What exactly would constitute PLing is up in the air, I suppose I could ask.

What server?  You're probably on Victory, like everyone else around here, so I probably can't help ya out.

ETA:  I've never understood the anti-power levelling, anti-twinking crowd.  Look, I've already played through the game one time with a character, so if I feel like using that knowledge of how to advance quickly with my alts, what's the big fucking deal?  Especially with some of the support characters like controllers (before pets) and defenders, soloing can be a royal bitch early on.  What, they're going to thank you later for the tough love stance on power levelling?  I don't fucking think so.

My advice?  Find a new supergroup, and leave the self-righteous dickheads to their own wankery.

[HaemishM]

Yes, Stamina will be absolutely essential for that build. I learned that a bit late with my scrapper (didn't manage to get stamina to 24) but it changed encounters drastically for me when I got it. I also found my highest end-draining powers and slotted one endurance reduction enhancer in each of them, as high a level and origin type as I could.

[Signe]

I have to start thinking before I choose powers... maybe I should find a good template for my grav/emp controller and start over.  Picking powers and enhancements based on cuteness has not seemed to work out well for me.

[Strazos]

Heck, my DM/SR scrapper didn't get Stamina until his late 20's, and he's managed fine....

Leeching stamina every few minutes helps I guess. That, and I find DM to be efficient.

[Mesozoic]

I'm on Liberty.  I like my SG, PL issues notwithstanding.  I really just need to get to 20th to beat this End thing. 

I still hate that this one aspect of character development so dominates everyone's build.  Almost every character in the game loses one power pool, three powers, and five enhancement slots - just because "heroes" get winded after punching villains for a few minutes.  Funny how riunning across town at 75 mph doesn't have that effect.

[ClydeJr]

Once you start slotting DOs (and eventually SOs) in your defenses, you'll become a lot more tankish. We have a high level ice tanker in my SG and he's pulled off some incredible things. Everyone will get wiped except him. We all go to the hospital and race back. He's still there, slowly pounding away.

You'll need to slot some end reducers in your attack powers as well. When I was building up my invul/mace tanker, he was constantly out of endurance at lower levels. Even with end reducers, I'd have to wait after every fight. It gets much better once you get stamina. Unfortunately every single build for every type of archetype has the Fitness trio in there somewhere it seems.

[HaemishM]

If you don't have fitness/stamina, that's at least one or two less even cons you can take in a fight solo, as well as about 50% more downtime. It really is that important, which tells me stamina regen is about the only really broken thing in the game.

[tazelbain]

If you don't have fitness/stamina, that's at least one or two less even cons you can take in a fight solo, as well as about 50% more downtime. It really is that important, which tells me stamina regen is about the only really broken thing in the game.

Come on. Stamina regen is not broken.  He has spec'd for high defence hence has low offence.  He needs to decide is being a tank meshes with his playstyle.  Tanks(execpt fire) solo poorly and shouldn't be played be people who don't want to be dependent on groups.

[Strazos]

I wouldn't neccessarily think stamina is broken, but it does need to be looked at.

The fact that most decent builds hold Stamina in there somewhere says something, Tanker or otherwise.

[Mesozoic]

I understand the tanker concept just fine.  But look at my toggle situation:

Needed for defense:  Frozen Armor (lethal/smashing), Wet Ice (disorient, etc.), Glacial Armor (energy and negative)

Needed for aggro:  Chilling Embrace, Icicles

Thats a tall order, especially if I intend to actually attack anything at any point.  And that's without any power pool toggles like CJ, stealth, etc.  The fact is that running all - or even some - of these and still trying to actually attack something requires Stamina.  Therein lies the problem.

Besides which, the tanker concept does not alter the fact that its always better to have the end that Stam provides.  And not just a little better, but a lot.  For every archetype.  IMO remove Stamina from the game and adjust all end recovery upwards to compensate.  Same effect, and characters get that pool slot back.

[Sky]

Stamina is making the majority of characters in CoH more watered down than they would otherwise be. My blaster eventually took it, too. It's a huge difference, because downtime, you know, sucks balls and whatnot.

I'd like to see them set everyone as if they had those three pool powers and remove that pool entirely. Allow players to take something to help customize their characters. I'd love to see the data on how many characters have stamina powers...

[Murgos]

If fitness/stamina is so commonly taken that most players feel it is required then stamina regen should be upped natively and the pool modified to have a different effect.

[tazelbain]

I think tankers where meant to make choices about which defensive powers to use just as other classes make decisions about what offensive  powers to use.  But naturally we don't want to do that.  Before I got stamina, I was looking at my opponents in choosing my toggles based on if that power would be more useful than the  end it used. I'd start turning off my toggles near the end of battle is we were picking off stragglers to conserve end.  I felt more active in my power use. Now I just leave them on, turn them off for down time if ever.

One thing about your build is you could use choose embrace or icicles and use one of the taunt skills for additional aggro.

[HaemishM]

If fitness/stamina is so commonly taken that most players feel it is required then stamina regen should be upped natively and the pool modified to have a different effect.

That's the kicker right there. I think fitness/stamina is pretty much required for all builds. I would imagine that there are more people with fitness/stamina than without it, of all archtypes. It's either too powerful, or too necessary, or both. That's what I mean by it's broken. If something is so useful or so powerful that almost everyone uses it, it's probably not right.

[Sky]

That was my piont, too, I'm just not as good at expressing it as Hammy.

Hey...tazelbain....from DAoC, right? I 'member joo. Nice to see an oldtimer.

If not...FRAUD! IMPOSTORI!

[Mesozoic]

I think tankers where meant to make choices about which defensive powers to use just as other classes make decisions about what offensive  powers to use.  But naturally we don't want to do that. 

If that was Cryptic's intent, then putting stamina into the game as a power pool power - available to anyone - was a mistake.  What you're asking players to do is to intentionally gimp their characters for the sake of depth.  That's never going to happen, and asking someone to do so while everyone else swims in their abundant, stamina-provided end is a waste of time. 

[Murgos]

Hey...tazelbain....from DAoC, right? I 'member joo. Nice to see an oldtimer.

If not...FRAUD! IMPOSTORI!

I think you're supposed to open your mouth and emit a high-pitched shrieking noise while pointing out the intruder.

[Llava]

Unfortunately, +defense doesn't work very well until you get Single Origins.  My SR scrapper hit level 22 after a great deal of suffering and it was like flipping on the uber switch.

[tazelbain]

I'm the same one. You had a scout and I had Cabalist with the not so clever name of Tyrix Isforkids. I am finally back to playing MMOGs after Shadowbane crushed my spirit.

Meso: I'm not asking you too, my tank surely isn't.  I was just saying it seemed like there was more depth before stamina and you don't need all the toggle powers to be effective.

[MaceVanHoffen]

If fitness/stamina is so commonly taken that most players feel it is required then stamina regen should be upped natively and the pool modified to have a different effect.

That's the kicker right there. I think fitness/stamina is pretty much required for all builds. I would imagine that there are more people with fitness/stamina than without it, of all archtypes. It's either too powerful, or too necessary, or both. That's what I mean by it's broken. If something is so useful or so powerful that almost everyone uses it, it's probably not right.

Yep, I agree.  Fitness (Stamina specifically) is pretty much a requirement for most characters.  The one exception I found was my empath defender, where with 6-slotted hasten and 6-slotted recovery aura I was fine without Stamina.  That is a very rare intersection of abilities to find in any powerset, however.

I hope they make Stamina an inherent ability for all heroes at some point.  Or just increase the recovery rate and be done with it.

[Murgos]

Murgos: I'm not asking you too, my tank surely isn't.  I was just saying it seemed like there was more depth before stamina and you don't need all the toggle powers to be effective.

You missunderstood.  I didn't say you had to have stamina to be effective.  I know for a fact you don't, my 34 blaster didn't need stamina to kill a 10 white minion/yellow lt. pack.  I said that if the perception is that you need stamina to be effective and the majority of players take stamina then a stamina like effect should be granted across the board (ie increase mana regen) and then change the pool to do something different so as to return variation to player builds.  As it is now 99% of the builds posted on the boards require a heavily slotted stamina.

The key word in your tank description is that it 'seemed' like more depth, I think you realize that there wasn't actually you oculd still do all those stamina conserving things now, you just don't need to.  Wouldn't it be better though that you had the option to just go ahead and take another stamina using ability instead of stamina regen AND get your 'depth of player skill' by having to balance an extra ability into your (increased) stamina use?

[tazelbain]

Sorry I meant Mesozoic

[Mesozoic]

I said this:

What you're asking players to do is to intentionally gimp their characters for the sake of depth.

In response to this:

I think tankers where meant to make choices about which defensive powers to use just as other classes make decisions about what offensive  powers to use.  But naturally we don't want to do that.

...suggesting that the use of stamina was the result of some player failure, and this:

He needs to decide is being a tank meshes with his playstyle.

...suggesting that Tanks shouldn't use Stam, or that my consideration of it meant that I'm not the tanker type.

I like my tanker, but right now he's walking a very fine line between viable and frustrating.

[Big Gulp]

...suggesting that Tanks shouldn't use Stam, or that my consideration of it meant that I'm not the tanker type.

I don't think that's quite what he meant, but then I'm of the school of thought that says hasten and stamina are almost always must have powers for any AT.  It definitely isn't a tanker-only thing, we just notice the absence of stamina a lot more than some of the others.

[tazelbain]

I am not argue against the brokeness of stamina. I supporting it by saying that stamina was like hitting the easy button for my tank. Anyway, stamina is allowing me to replace many of my enderance reducers.

[MaceVanHoffen]

I like my tanker, but right now he's walking a very fine line between viable and frustrating.

The largest part of the problem is the attitude of most players when in groups.  Players tend to expect a much faster pace of combat, moving through missions and taskforces as fast as possible.  By much faster, I mean frenetic to the point of epilepsy.  If you're responsible for controlling aggro (yay tankers), this means you're constantly spamming powers with almost no downtime.  Controllers, defenders, and blasters have pacing mechanisms in groups that permit them to conserve endurance while doing something constructive, even in frantic mission-hopping.  That just isn't true of tankers and, to a lesser extent, scrappers.

Solo, you have much less of a problem with endurance.  Just ... stop when you want to.  If you're a tanker and do that in most groups, that will get you ejected, or at the least a stern talking to involving liberal use of the word "gimp" and/or the phrase "Dude I have a 50."

It's that attitude when grouping that leads most of us to take our lumps and get the Fitness pool.

[tazelbain]

I still hate that this one aspect of character development so dominates everyone's build.  Almost every character in the game loses one power pool, three powers, and five enhancement slots - just because "heroes" get winded after punching villains for a few minutes.  Funny how riunning across town at 75 mph doesn't have that effect.

Mesozoic, this gave me the impression that you wanted to play your tank like a scrapper, hence the play-style comment.  I see now you were making a generic barb at the ubiquitous nature of the stamina power, and not a complaint about being unable to effectively melee as a tank.

Please for the love of god, take stamina. I don't, nor anyone, think its the wrong thing to do.  As you pointed out it would silly to take the non-optimal path unless that was your goal.

[Big Gulp]

Please for the love of god, take stamina. I don't, nor anyone, think its the wrong thing to do.  As you pointed out it would silly to take the non-optimal path unless that was your goal.

I've been toying with the idea of respeccing this way, but I think you could realistically get by with just Conserve Energy (one of the "epic" powers) and skip stamina all together.  Of course, this only become viable once you have access to the epic pools, so I'd only do it on a respec.  I don't think you'd really free up too many slots doing it this way, because you'd still have to six slot it with hasten to make it perma, but I do think it'd be overall more efficient, because it's basically just the equivalent of having radiant aura constantly in effect.

[MaceVanHoffen]

... because you'd still have to six slot it with hasten to make it perma, but I do think it'd be overall more efficient, because it's basically just the equivalent of having radiant aura constantly in effect.

You can't make Conserve Power permanent.  6-slotted Hasten with 6-slotted Conserve Power gives you around 20-30 60 seconds with no Conserve Power, which is more than enough time to drain your endurance to zero in combat situations post-40.  I'm too lazy to search, but you can find the math on the official forums from pretty reliable players.

EDIT: On a lark, I logged into my Test copy of Mace (yay holiday work crew).  Looking at my stopwatch, the gap is 60 seconds, not 20-30 seconds as I thought.

[Big Gulp]

EDIT: On a lark, I logged into my Test copy of Mace (yay holiday work crew).  Looking at my stopwatch, the gap is 60 seconds, not 20-30 seconds as I thought.

Bastards.  It completely changed my style when they got rid of perma-unstoppable, too.  I was an indestructible death machine, and they had to go and fuck it all up.  Okay, yeah, it was overpowered.  Problem is that Unstoppable is basically useless now.