Author: LordStarwolf
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Tanking: Vanilla, Chocolate or Swirled
Ah, the tank. We all know and love him. The meat shield, the bull’s-eye man, the walking punching bag. He has so many loving nicknames. But whatever you call him, the tank is the lead man on your team. TGIF=tanks go in first. He goes in and gets the attention of the bad guys and takes what they are giving while the rest of the team beats on them.
But the tank is not just a one trick pony. Oh no, he can be built to serve many very specific roles on the battle field, and I’m going to touch on a few here. The nice thing about this Archetype (AT) is that he’s heavy on hit points, so you can gear him any way you like and he’s still tough.
There are a few points about the tank primaries that people stick to. Stone is best for defense, fire is best for offense, Invulnerability is best for middle of the road (usually paired with Super Strength). And on the surface these outlooks are true. But like everything else in this game, the wonderful thing about it is that you can change it around endlessly so that any power set can be geared one way or another, so your never stuck in one role or another. For instance, everyone says fire is the best damage dealer, and it is. But I have a level 39 fire tank that is all defense and he works.
In this guide I’m going to focus on the specialty extremes of tank design, the heavy offense, often called a Scranker (Scrapper/Tanker), and heavy defense, what I like to call an Agro Tank. The main thing to remember about the specialty types is that the play style has to be very different. And you really need to make sure everyone knows what kind of tank you are. Put it into your team search window what exactly you are. On my fire Agro Tank I have that “I am strictly and agro tank, no attack ability whatsoever”. And as soon as you log into a team you need to announce to the team what kind of tank you are, so everyone knows what to expect from you and that it won’t be what they would get form a regular tank. The tank was designed to wade in and get the agro, do a bit of damage, and take the attacks so the team doesn’t have to. But the extreme ends of the tank spectrum require something else entirely. Let’s get to them.
Scranker
This style of tank has is designed to do high level damage while having higher hit points than a scrapper. After I5 came out and severely nerfed the fire tanks I and one of my fellow amperes, Sunshine-, found that our fire tanks were not so much fun anymore. I didn’t play mine for a long time, but he chose to respec his into a Scranker. He took more of the attack powers than before and put his slots into damage and accuracy. It worked pretty well. He could kill as well as a scrapper, but had a lot higher hit points. But as far as agro was concerned he didn’t do much better than a scrapper, so he wasn’t what teammates would expect as a tank, holding the attention so the others didn’t get hit. He was a heavy scrapper, not a tank. But he sure could kill, errr I mean arrest, quickly and took a beating like no scrapper ever did.
To make a Scranker just focus on the melee powerset in the tank pools. The best Tank AT for a Scranker is fire, since even the aura in fire does damage, and both fire power pools do damage over time (DOT), but any of the pools can be geared for Scranking. You can choose some of the attacks from some of the generic power pools, such as Flurry from the speed pool, or Air Superiority from fly. It gives you a prerequisite for the travel power and gives you another attack. However, I have found it works better to take the attacks from the secondary pool and slot them for recharge to get them back quicker, and add damage and accuracy to them. If you have a level that you can’t get another attack you can add a shield form the primary power pool, or even from the generic power pools. If your tank AT doesn’t have good knockback protection you can take Acrobatics from the Leaping pool, or Combat jumping for defense. But the focus has to be for attacks, and the play style is that of a scrapper. You don’t try to get Agro and hold the bad guys attention on you, you simply jump in the middle and kill like crazy. You also need to keep in mind that with your toon being attack heavy and attacks taking the majority of endurance in a tank, you will be an end hog, so stamina form the fitness power pool will be a must, as well as end reductions on the attacks themselves. You can go to the tank secondary power descriptions here and see how much end each attack takes. That’s the ones that need the most end reduction enhancements on them.
Most people’s problems with the specialty types are they can’t get in the groove of the changed play style. You have to get the proper mind set for playing. You are a scrapper, not a tank.
Agro Tank
The Agro Tank is a toon that requires a severe change in your thinking for play style. Most people think that the tank is the big gun of the team, made to get in the middle and kill them all. The AT isn’t designed for that of course, damage is not the tanks forte, but most player think like that. And even when they see that the damage potential is not high enough to be the damage dealer, the mentality still stays. TGIF. But a pure Agro Tank can’t be played with that mentality. The mentality of an Agro tank is more in line with a controller, not in play style but in mind set. You have to play as a pure support toon. Your job is just to jump in the middle and take the agro and keep it and live through anything they can throw at you, but not to lend any real damage. It can be frustrating to see the bad guy that just won’t go down standing right in front of you and you don’t have enough killing power to finish him off. But as long as you keep the bad guys glued to you and you don’t die, you’re doing your job.
Obviously this type of toon can’t solo. You are strictly a team player. But in a big team, this type of tank is invaluable. I remember playing with my SG on Guardian and having our founder, a very experienced level 50 Inv/SS tank, get killed over and over again, along with the rest of us of course, by Dreck. We brought in another SG member, a level 32 tank who was a pure Agro tank and side kicked him. After that the only thing we worried about was his Alpha strike (the major high damage AOE attack that all the Arch Villains have). He kept full attention on the Agro tank and never even took his health halfway down, even with the alpha strike. He just stood there and laughed at him. But his attack ability was non existent. But I’ll tell you now, when we were in a tough one no one was more welcome than him. He would take care of any of the tough situations for us. The bad guys simply ignored the rest of us and could not kill him.
To build an agro tank you focus on the primary powerset and build it up with damage/defense enhancements, and then get the taunt powers from the secondary and slot the few attacks you get from there with taunt enhancements. Even the secondary power pool can add to your taunt ability. And the taunt is key for your intended roll. You can’t hold the baddies without taunt. My Agro tank even took the presence power pool for extra taunt abilities. And also with nothing but taunts and no attacks, you don’t have to worry about endurance. As a tank the attacks are what takes end, so with and Agro tank end isn’t a problem. You can take more shields from the generic power pool sets, such as Combat Jumping for defense or Tough form the fighting power pool for damage resistance. But I have found that your strongest skills will be the primary power pool. Focus on that. The stone armor set is the best for the pure Agro tank, but any of the sets can do it. Mine is a fire aura tank, normally better for a Scranker, but he works as an Agro tank. Just focus on beefing up the primary powers as much as possible and watch your play style. You can’t play like a regular tank. You are a controller, controlling the baddies with taunt, but not adding much to the damage.
Conclusion
These are the two extremes of tanking. Obviously you can make toons anywhere in between these two extremes and play anywhere in between. But these are the two extremes that will perform the best in their designed rolls. And when you need their particular skills, or someone else needs yours when you are playing these types, you will find you are in high demand. Also if you are a scrapper lover and would like to try a tank then a Scranker is for you. And if you are a controller lover and would like to try a tank then the Agro Tank is a place you can start. Either way the toons are a lot of fun to play.
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