Ice Tank Best Loadout

Howdy.

Recently I've created an Ice Tank alt and since I'm new to this tanking stuff, I was wondering if you guys can give me some tips and the loadout you think its the best.At start I thought ice tank was all about shields so I was running:

Inescapable Storm
Freeze wave (to root)
Bitter Winds
Reflection
Shatter Restraints
Winter Ward

But recently I've talked with a friend of mine and he's a very experient ice tank. And he said that my build was a bit wrong since tank's job is mainly holdding aggro, crowd control and do some decent damage. And he was running:

Inescapable Storm
Low Pressure (as sencond pull)
Bitter Winds
Reflection
Wintry Tempest
Blizzard (for cc too)

I was a bit surprised ..I mean he has no shield/control debuff and I thought that Shatter Restraints and Winter ward were a must in an ice tank loadout.

I'd be very glad to know your thoughts about this and hope you can help me.

Dividark

you can check oracles database for an ice guide, it can help you find a good loadout.

There is no "best loadout" for any power in the game. It's all about experimenting. Try out different powers in your power tree and put the ones you think will work best in your loadout.

Why would you run low pressure as an ice tank. makes no sense.

Well u would have kittens knowing my loadout.

Reflect, IS, Low Pressure, High Pressure, BW, WT

why wouldn't you want to run it O.O
Its still a preference either way but LP can easily be worked into ice tanking, been using it forever. To the OP I certainly wouldn't have blizzard in there, ice still doesn't have any SC that's worth using in tank stance easier to do with another shield/breakout or chill effect to get you into armor faster.

Came here to share my thoughts about tanking end game content with ice.

1. Resonating Gale/Batarang Multi-shot - I prefer Gale just because it has long range (batarangs also have a stun and a knock down but extremely short range), the reason to take one of the 2 is a knock down. As a tank you keep all mobs on you and good tank won't just sit on defence buffs counting on healers to keep you up, nothing migitates damage as well as a knock down. When they are on the ground they can't hit you or your teammates, simple as that.

2. Inescapable Storm -this is self explanatory, but thing to note here, good tank doesn't pull adds to the team. You pull mobs to yourself and away from your team at the same time. You jump in, knock down all the targets and pull mobs that are going for your teammates.

3. Bitter Winds -great 360 AoE knock down, has small damage absorbtion component, good way to start the fight with groups of trash mobs.

4. Reflection -6 seconds god mode, is an accurate description. Good tank knows when to use reflection, use it only when you expect spike damage, don't start with this power, don't keep it off cooldown. Use it only when you see huge damage incoming or when you are the only one that can pick up fallen team mate.

5. Winter Ward -this power gives immunity to 3 group members that are close to you and reflects damage of those players, good way to get aggro if your team and mobs are all over the place. Good tank knows the content and is aware of group stuns, when your team is pulled in, stunned, that is the time to use Winter Ward, when reflection is on cooldown this is the power to buy you some time, when some mobs are attacking your group and you are close to them with no place to pull, use this power to divert attention from them to yourself.

6. This is open spot, for the most part I run Tornado Pull out of convenience to cycle pulls, I recommend using Shatter Restrains if you are under geared or Batarang Multi-shot if you feel you need more crowd control, Hard Light shield or Phase Dodge are also good choices. Pick whatever complements your playstyle, but you will be fine with just those 5 mentioned above.

There's your loadout, feel free to change it, if you think something is not useful for you. This is meant for end game raids, but that's also the only place you need a tank anyways...
Keep the green shield icon under your name at all times, knock down as much as possible, be smart with reflection and pull away from the team.

I'm running:
Reflect
Shatter Restraints
Bitter Winds
Ice Bear
Inescapable Storms
Ice Golem

@MetaMax75
You have the best sig on these boards.

you don't need shatter restraints, if you need that many reflects then you need to learn to block.
you don't need low pressure it's going to be too much CC, all you are going to do is make everything immune.

I think your original loadout is the best one listed here. You shouldn't need to do damage as a tank and even with that loadout you can still contribute to damage out with core strength, specing into precision with mods and skill points, and equipping some dps gear (would start with the 2 that increase crit weapon chance if you cannot afford to equip more) for a hybrid build depending on how well geared you are. Was number 2 in damage out in vengeance this week with this loadout (though the dps were far less geared). That said, damage out is far down the list on things to worry about as tank and should only be considered if you are overgeared, have an abundance of SP, and have mastered your primary role.

Maintaining agro, grouping enemies, juggling, and team breakouts are what you should be focusing on as a tank; doing this while taking as little damage as possible by cycling shields when running ice. Using powers for damage is foolish as a tank. You will never put out the damage of a dps and will be a bigger drain on your trollers and healers that should be powering/healing other team members. Tanks should have the lowest power consumption of all the classes, ideally not needing more than PoT to maintain their cycle.

In regards to the benefits of your original loadout:

Having both breakouts in your loadout is going to be very beneficial to your team, whenever you see someone being CC'd pop one and everyone is better off.

FW is the best juggler an ice tank has and is spamable.

BW has a knock up, DoT, inflicts frostbite, and gives a shield. Enough said.

IS is your range pull and a must.

Reflect is the only Ice power that puts it on par with fire and earth and needs to be in any loadout. 6 seconds of god mode.

To the comment that you need to learn to block, at full T4 ice is at the damage mitigation cap even with armor penetration whenever they use a power. There will be no reduction in damage when blocking. Even without this fact Ice will never be on par in terms of effective hp when compared to fire or earth evening when blocking. The edge ice has is the ability to create shields and "stack" additional hp on top of their hp pool. Enemies have to burn through this additional hp (with 75% damage mitigation applied at the cap) before being able to burn your actual hp. Cycling shields to prevent enemies from being able to damage your actual hp pool is the core of ice tanking survivability, not blocking. Reflect takes this to another level adding Dom+10000 hp for 6 secs, giving an additional 40000+ effective hp at the cap whether or not you are blocking.

Mine:

Inescapable Storm
Shatter Restraints
Winter Ward
Bitter Winds
Reflect
Throwing Knives (Acrobat)

- Obviously 'Storm is used to pull
- 4 Shields to cycle through as they fall; removes need to block, dodge, or act defensively and allows for offensive freedom
- Bitter Winds for groups, followed by Shatter Restraints after Winds falls to add the Ice Field
- Reflect for bosses or single targets
- Knives for an Aggro reset as well as a large ranged AoE cone knockback for negligible power cost and 0 cooldown. Good clip move.

I have half Turf / half T4 with mod 1s, SP spent in Dominance and DPS, nothing else; no health or defense. I can solo most T3 Alert bosses, and some T2 Raid bosses (Doom Spin FTW). Gear puts me almost at the Defense cap, and the amount I cycle through my shields keeps me from taking any real damage to my health, so increasing that is unnecessary.

Bitter Winds, Winter Ward, Shatter Restraints, Reflection, Hard Light Shield, Clown Box.

What damage?

Tanks running with both Shattered Restraints and Winter Ward tend to use them for breakout of teammates rather than needing them for extra protection...the extra protection is an added benefit to keeping teammates upright

@Divi: There is nothing wrong with your first loadout...it is the exact same loadout as the one I use for PvE...no offense to your friend, but he/she doesn't seem like they quite understand the mechanics of aggro, if they are telling you that loadout is wrong, even it if is a bit...I have never had any problems gaining and maintaining aggro with the first loadout

My power are

Wintry tempest
Reflection (shield )
Inescapable Storm
Shatter Restraints
Winter Ward
Bitter Winds


Cat fly
Cr 87

So many good loadouts, BUT I suggest you have an option that doesn't include WT/Blizzard as they are both good DPS powers. BW... well it's a better tank than dps power so tell them to shut it lol, but WT and Blizzard I know every once in a while I see a tank with them and I /facepalm as they overwrite mine.

That being said Tanks can do good dps esp with core strength so no reason to have more defense than ya need. But just do so without stepping on the toes of the people who are actually in the dps stance.

I dunno, what benefit could Ice Golem have in T5?

no point in the ice golem in the T5 stuff, its too slow and isn't going to save you from the scripted 1 shots regardless so its better spent on a power that you could use more frequently like hard light shield etc. T5 raids are not tank and spank, not even remotely close there are numerous mechanics in play that require you to be constantly repositioning yourself in regards to the 2nd tank or needing mobility to dodge an attack. Just the lunge on golem is useless. Also with the 2 tank setups you require a single target pull to split mini bosses, so 1 ice/fire tank would require mesmerizing lasso from the iconics as IS would aggro all the mini bosses where you only want 1 so the other tank can grab the other 2 (specifically for Nexus)

I really can't wait to see the videos of these in play. Going to be really interesting to see it all broken down.

So essentially anything with a large AOE range is considered dangerous and very situational to have. These minibosses are working with RPS attack mechanics right? So as Ice having the 2 breakouts, looks like it would be very advantageous.

Yea there are a few instances where a mini boss before he buffs himself will pull everyone in as the buff occurs, it also seems scripted that you can't prevent that pull with a group breakout, now either that is a bug or they designed that we can't save the group with winter ward or shatter etc as I would use that power and it wouldn't save them. The pull itself doesn't do any damage so the group is safe there but you are now in range of the melee splash dmg then. For Ice I was running Freeze Wave - Mesmo Lasso (or IS depending on what your tank job is) - Reflect - Bitter Winds - Winter Ward - Hard Light Shield. I chose not to run Shatter and Freeze just out of personal preference I like Freeze Wave. This loadout does well as the off tank role which I was in Nexus, Its my job to separate and contain scripted attacks of npcs etc, but you can also switch off on boss depending on situation. If you're boss tanking or multiple mini boss tanking etc (you'll see when you do the raid) you want a aoe aggro power like Tempest. The Off actually has the much tougher job in these raids because the main tank just holds the boss and stays alive. Where the off tank has to be always repositioning himself and the adds so that the main tank does not aggro them because the boss is more than enough for him to handle himself

but you'll find out everything when the raids hit live