Tank using Con PSS and/or Protector

jaazaniah1

I've got a couple Str PSS and Wardicator tanks and I am wondering, in general, how viable an end game melee tank with Con PSS and/or Protector would be? Pros and cons? What about Str PSS for Juggernaut and Protector and either Vindicator or Warden?

rtma

It can work just fine, it's blocking and Aggro management is the main part, and of course taking a hit so Con is essential.

spinnytop

I tried it, it's okay. It's like... you're squishier than a wardicator tank, but you'll have a bunch more HP... which means you're a lot more work to heal. And you'll want as much health as you can get so that you don't have to be on death's door for Protector Mastery to proc. The big advantage StrWardicator has is how well it scales with AoPM. Con PSS and Protector don't scale as well.

Outside of cosmics, Con PSS "ton-o-knock resist" thing is really great, and coupled with Protector's "heal 15% if knocked or stunned" spec it makes you a big meaty boy. With Protector Mastery you can blow all your Active Defenses at the start of fights since you know you'll have them again if you need them later, so you can be pretty durable in those situations.

So it's a mixed bag with some neat perks. Was pretty neat back when I played the Behemoth and Glacier ATs.

jaazaniah1

Thanks for the insights. Too bad that the main Tanking tree isn't the best for end game tanking, Maybe they will eventually fix that (without feeling the need to nerf wardicator/guardicator!)

spinnytop

jaazaniah1 said:

Thanks for the insights. Too bad that the main Tanking tree isn't the best for end game tanking, Maybe they will eventually fix that (without feeling the need to nerf wardicator/guardicator!)

I'm sure they will fix that ( and ward/guardicator is totally getting nerfed ).

spinnytop

gradii said:

If they buff the other tree to give the same amount of defense sure.​​

Don't worry, I'll make sure they agree to your terms before they go forward with anything.

pantagruel01

spinnytop said:

I'm sure they will fix that ( and ward/guardicator is totally getting nerfed ).

Oddly enough, the defense problem isn't really with ward/guardicator (I mean, it's somewhat broken, but not that dramatic by itself). The combination of fortified gear 3/best defense 3/aggressive stance 2 multiplies your defense from gear by 1.625. Just take fortified gear 3 twice (from two different specs, such as warden + protector) and you get a multiplier of 1.6. What actually makes wardicator OP for defense is that it also multiplies defense bonuses from specs -- specifically, the Juggernaut and Force of Will specs. This also means that, if you weren't using those specs, you can already get almost as much defense as wardicator (and due to other specs, protector will be overall tougher). The obvious fix to wardicator is to change "best defense" from "33/66/100% of Defense" to "33/66/100% of Defense from gear", and change aggressive stance from "10/20% of Offense" to "10/20% of Offense from gear".

Incidentally, the Juggernaut spec could probably use a whack with the nerf bat.

pantagruel01

gradii said:

They should build the defense which is lost from juggernaut into the melee and tank role bonuses. Melee characters have to deal with so much more crap and should be able to have more defense.​​

Eh... all of the Cosmics are being solo tanked now, which was never the intent (or they wouldn't have splittable attacks), and the tradeoff for being melee is more damage, if you really need more durability take something like Laser Knight.

jaazaniah1

I thought most of Kiga's attacks were not splittable (anymore)? Isn't there only one attack where a soak tank is useful? Seems like now the intent is to have that as a solo tank situation. When it first came out it seemed like soak tanks were useful for kiga, but now most of what I hear is that they are actually a hindrance because it keeps healers from tending to the solo tank.

pantagruel01

gradii said:

The people who solo tank cosmics have max gear. We still want merc gear to be enough to do the content in which you get better gear don't we?​​

Threat would be a problem for solo tanking cosmics in merc, but survival wouldn't be that tough.

spinnytop

I've solo tanked both dinos at the same time in heroics. I think we'll be fine when the loop is nerfed. There has been a trend towards top-geared tanks basically making everyone else obsolete - and that's the exact reason the loop is a problem ( among other things ). We're supposed to be using soak tanks, and there are supposed to be more tank positions, no matter what gear is involved - after all, everyone eventually ends up in that gear if they're doing cosmics.

jaazaniah1 said:

I thought most of Kiga's attacks were not splittable (anymore)? Isn't there only one attack where a soak tank is useful? Seems like now the intent is to have that as a solo tank situation. When it first came out it seemed like soak tanks were useful for kiga, but now most of what I hear is that they are actually a hindrance because it keeps healers from tending to the solo tank.

Kiga is also overall the most light hitting of all the cosmics, probably to balance out the fact that the healers will have to heal everybody several times during the fight.

His most deadly attack is splittable, so if damage resistence goes down soak tanks might be vogue at Kiga again. It's not too hard for the soak tanks to stay out of the way for his regular attacks, then hop in for the big nuke, we just don't do that right now because it's not needed.

pantagruel01

spinnytop said:

It's not too hard for the soak tanks to stay out of the way for his regular attacks, then hop in for the big nuke, we just don't do that right now because it's not needed.

You don't even have to move. It has a larger radius than his basic attack.

spinnytop

gradii said:

I disagree given dino's ability to suddenly spike any tank for ridiculous crit damage, and do thousands of HP damage through a rank 3 block.​​

Yes, dino does thousands of damage through block. Tanks have thousands of hit points and healers healing them for thousands of hp per second, hence why they survive. Your point?

roughbearmattach

gradii said:

I disagree given dino's ability to suddenly spike any tank for ridiculous crit damage, and do thousands of HP damage through a rank 3 block.​​

And some folks forget that blocking the radioactive breath is very important during that fight. I've dropped my block a bit early when main tanking, to full charge a Haymaker after breath, but you get a pretty nasty debuff. That is when I take a massive amount of damage (like 10K) right through your block. Same thing if I am a bit late blocking that breath attack.

pantagruel01

To be as tough as justice gear while using mercenary gear, I'd need to replace one of my Strength mods with a Constitution mod. This would obviously reduce my damage output, but it's certainly something I could do.

pwestolemyname

Honestly, I wouldn't mind the 'Dicator loops being nerfed a bit, or the other Specs brought up to speed. It gets a little boring just taking the same specs on every character. Heck, I even took it on my 'Troller because testing showed it worked out better than the CC specs. The only character I have not taken it on is my healer, and even there is was kind of a toss up which would perform better.

The commentary about the HP vs Defense arrangement as to how it affects healing was very on-point. One thing that could be done to alleviate this imbalance favoring defense is to give Healers some HP percentage heal options. If that were to happen, then maxing out your HP would not be a negative.

pantagruel01

pwestolemyname said:

The commentary about the HP vs Defense arrangement as to how it affects healing was very on-point. One thing that could be done to alleviate this imbalance favoring defense is to give Healers some HP percentage heal options. If that were to happen, then maxing out your HP would not be a negative.

There is no imbalance favoring defense. Defense is better with respect to healing, worse with respect to spike resistance. This is what we call 'balance'.

roughbearmattach

pwestolemyname said:

The commentary about the HP vs Defense arrangement as to how it affects healing was very on-point. One thing that could be done to alleviate this imbalance favoring defense is to give Healers some HP percentage heal options. If that were to happen, then maxing out your HP would not be a negative.

Some specs do % self heal, Resurgence is % heal, as are rez powers, and palliate is % heal, too.