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Author: RonJ73
1,847 Views
8 Comments
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Willpower: A Tank's Perspective
For the past 3 years, tankers have been waiting for an additional primary set. Finally, at Issue 11, our prayers were answered. Previously, when making a tank, your first choice was “Do I want resistance or defense?” Answer resistance, you get Invulnerability or Fire. Answer defense, you get Ice or Stone.
Finally, a set came along that allowed us something different. Resistance, Defense, Regeneration, a great Taunt aura…it’s a bag of tricks! Willpower!
I’m big on the Willpower set. I think it’s one of the best things since sliced bread! However, it does have it’s downsides.
Pros: Great Passive Resistance, resist all + increased HP! Psionic Resistance and a lot of it. Early Mez Resist power with Psionic Defense added in for good measure. Awesome taunt aura. Quick Recovery!
Cons: Environmental Damage hurts a lot until level 18, then it’s just a defense based power. Generic Tier 9. No self heal. Self-Rez is "meh".
Breakdown of the powers:
Level 1: High Pain Tolerance
Type: Passive
Resistance: All Damage Types, 7.5%
Increase HP: 20%
In my opinion, this power is well worth getting early. The HP and the resistance are both slottable. I would put 3 slots in it early and 6 if you can spare them. 3 damage resistance and 3 healing.
Level 1: Mind Over Body
Type: Toggle
Resistance: Smash/Lethal/Psionic, 22.5%
End Cost: 0.21/s (minimal)
This is your Smash/Lethal bread and butter power. Get it, slot it, have it on all the time. I would go with 3 total slots. It doesn’t use much endurance and you’ll have quick recovery and probably stamina, so throw 3 resistance SOs or IOs in it and be happy.
Level 2: Fast Healing
Type: Passive
Regeneration: 75%
This is one of those powers that, while very very useful, you can hold off on for a little while. In the early game, that 75% boost to regeneration isn’t going to make a big difference, it’s when you add it on to the other regen boosting effects of Rise to the Challenge that it becomes handy. You can pass on this in the early game to get an attack, however, you will definitely want to get this at some point. 3 slots total, with SO or IO heals would be ideal.
Level 6: Indomitable Will
Type: Toggle
Resistance: Disorient, Hold, Immobilize, Sleep, Fear, Confuse, Repel, Knockback
Defense: Psionic (10%)
This is, in my opinion, the best tanker Mez resistance in the game. Not only are there NO mez holes in it, it gives 10% psionic defense for good measure! Get it! The great thing about this is that you don’t really NEED to slot it with anything. Throw a Defense Buff IO in there just to give that Psi-Defense a little boost, but other than that, you don’t need to spend a slot here.
Level 8: Rise to the Challenge
Type: Toggle
Regeneration: 125% + 25%/foe around you up to 10.
ToHit Debuff: -3.5%
Taunt: Mag 4 – 13.5s
At level 8, you will be getting this power. Any slots you get after that will be spent in this power until it’s 6 slotted. This is THE key power to the Willpower set. This is your “herd” power. The only downside of this power is that if you have Knockback Blasters or Defenders…you need to tell them to stay away from you. Your healing is based on the number of bad guys around you. My suggested slotting is a little different. In the early game, you want to have however many Heal Enhancements you can get into this that will bring you close to 100%. You’ll find probably 5, level 15, IOs will do the trick. That last slot can be used for a Taunt duration. As you go up in levels, you’ll be able to replace the healing enhancements with other things. Late game slotting, I would say 3 Heal SO/IOs, 2 ToHit Debuffs, 1 Taunt Duration.
Level 12: Quick Recovery
Type: Passive
Recovery: 30%
Get it, 2 extra slots, all Endurance Mod. This should end your endurance usage misery. You may still want to get Stamina later on, but this should help a lot.
Level 18: Heightened Senses
Type: Toggle
Defense: Energy, Negative, Fire, Cold – 13%, Smash/Lethal 3.3%
Increased Perception
This is your only defense against environmental damage. It’s not great, but it’s something. I recommend 3 total slots, all defense. The extra perception is nice too for those darned Night Widows and Red Cap Bosses.
Level 26: Resurgence
Type: Click
SelfRez
HP: 53.6%, End: 50%
ToHit: +30%
Damage: +28%
Recharge: +30%
This is the first of my “skip it” powers. I’ve never been fond of the self-rez powers because to use them you have to be…dead. I have no intention of dying, so I have no use for this. Your call on this one. As a self-rez, it’s not bad. Nice little bonus to ToHit, Damage and Regen. But it has a cool-down period where you have a penalty to ToHit and Damage. Personally, I’d just carry an awaken.
Level 32: Strength of Will
Type: Click
Resistance: All. Smash/Lethal – 25%. Energy, Negative, Fire, Cold, Psi, Toxic: 12.5%. Status effects.
Recovery: +30%
I don’t care for the Tier 9 “god mode” powers. They don’t really do it for me. This is no exception. You’re uber for a little while and then BOOM, endurance crash. In my opinion, skip it. Get something that’s going to supplement your existing powers and keep you alive and kicking the whole time!
Travel: There are a couple good options for travel powers.
If you’re playing something a little bit Scranker-ish, you might consider going the Fly route. Air Superiority is an outstanding attack for a pool power. It knocks down almost every time. Has a –fly component. Fly *is* the slowest travel power, but it’s the most versatile. This is nice for the tank that needs an extra attack in the early game. Fly is also handy to get away from Caltrops. We’ve all had the Tsoo or Knights of Artemis Caltrop the heck out of us…Fly will get you out of that.
For the “classic” tanker, Leaping is probably the way to go. The extra little boost to defense that Combat Jumping offers is very handy. It’s not much, but it does help. Super Jump is a nice quick travel power that offers good vertical movement.
Going back into the Scranker category, the Speed pool might not be a bad way to go. I like to keep the speed pool for people who are very experienced and familiar with the game. The reason being is that Super Speed offers no vertical movement, so you really need to know how to get “up” in zones. The plus side of this, however, is that we have those safeguard missions that give us temp fly and temp super jump backpacks. Very handy stuff right there. At any rate, Hasten has some good synergy with the Willpower set because of the presence of Quick Recovery (and stamina if you add it). So you can get a lot of attacks in without your endurance taking too big of a hit. Super Speed is also, arguably, the fastest straight line travel power in the game.
Teleport…na. For a Willpower tank, you really don’t need it. You’re going to be charging into battle most of the time. You don’t have any powers that slow you down, like a Stone tank does. So just stick to one of the other 3.
Other pool powers:
The Fighting pool may come in handy to help cap out your Smash/Lethal resistance and to supplement your defenses with Tough and Weave.
The Fitness pool is recommended to give you those extra regen and recovery boosts. Also Hurdle and Swift are nice. If you’re going for Flight as a travel power, Swift will boost your flight speed. Hurdle will boost your Jump speed with Super Jump.
The Medicine pool is highly recommended if you can fit it in. Aid Other can be handy for your group, but more importantly, Aid Self for you. Willpower doesn’t have a self-heal. Aid Self will help a great deal in that department. I recommend 4 slots at least. 2 Heals and 2 Interrupt reductions.
That’s about it. You shouldn’t need anything from the other pools.
Enjoy your Tank!
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