I have an atomic toon which I was planning on making dps, but a lot of the content I've been running seems to be lacking tanks. What would be the most efficient way to start building him as a tank? He is currently cr 59. I have picked up a few bits of tank gear along the way.
In my opinion, you should stay as a dps til you get to some of the latest tiers. While you're leveling, you'll be able to complete faster instances in dps role than as a tank. Everything from t1 to t5, even t6 can be done without tanks, you just need a group filled with brains. If you don't want to stay as dps, then you can check out this site: http://dcuobloguide.com/traits/powers/atomic-tank-guide/ or look for videos or more information somewhere else if this doesn't help.
1. Get tank gear. 2. Read up on how to be a proper tank. 3. Mod your tank gear properly, to be a proper tank. A tank is supposed to keep aggro and stay alive. 4. Respec your skill points. And do it now - don't wait until T6. Nothing is as irritating as a T6 tank that doesn't know how to tank (same goes for healer and controller).
Your CR 59 .. Once you hit CR 70 start doing the Daily missions at Ace Chemical and Stryker's island. At the same time, while your in the neighborhood, so to speak, grab the daily bounties for the Morrow Bot (at Arkham) and the Siege Bot (at Steel Works). Now got to shout and find some team mates (ONE if you manage to get say a CR 130+ since they can solo either of those) and go defeat the BOT. that means every two days you get 2 pieces of unattuned armor and 2 marks. Now you get no choice from either bounty so it is entirely possible to do both bounties and wind up with two Back pieces or whatever. Well since you ONLY need 1 back piece per role .. you now have a tank and a DPS CR 73 back that didn't cost you a thing. Now keep doing the daily mission and after you complete 5, either in 5 days or using 48 replays in ONE day) you gain access to the solo challenge at each location. Complete that and you get more unattuned armor and a weapon drop (that may or may not be useful to you). Now here is the thing. ... let's say you do 1 daily mission each day at both locations and do the Bounty from each once a day for 5 days. The Bounties alone have given you ten pieces of armor and with a small amount of luck you may have almost a complete set of one role and a few of the other Or partial sets of both tank and DPS. When you complete those 2 solo challenges the armor that drops there actually allows you to pick exactly what piece you want so you can use that to fill in ANY pieces the bounties have not dropped yet. That means in 5 days you now have 12 CR 73 pieces of armor. BY the way to clarify .. The Siege and Morrow bot only drop the following pieces of gear: helm, back, chest, legs, shoulder, gloves. waist and feet. The gear that drops in the solos does include some of the jewelry as I recall.. been a while since I was doing those... and the weapons I mentioned earlier are totally separate from the reward box so IF you do a solo and the right weapon drops for your ALT you actually walk out with two pieces of free gear. Now.. add in a few of the duos, alerts, and especially the Gates of Tartarus raid (great armor drops) and in about a week its entirely possible to have almost a complete set of both Tank and DPS gear. Oh now I have no issue going slow but if you want things to move along faster and have no problem spending the REPLAYs it costs 12 Replays to reset the daily mission at Ace and Strykers AND 12 replays to reset either of the Bot Bounties so it is entirely possible to just keep doing both over and over and in one day have a complete set of gear for both roles. My way is a little slower but doesn't cost a dime in real money and actually you can get two complete sets of armor without spending a single mark. Which leaves you a TON of them to buy better jewelry or to open up all you lair powers to tier three so you have that done before you get to the higher content. Don't worry about the support roles at the moment. Its rare to find anyone at the lower tiers playing support simply because they gear hasn't dropped yet to make it feasible. I have taken ALTs from level 1 to 30 and managed to get 2 maybe 3 pieces of support gear to drop that I could actually keep and use. Once you hit CR 30+ the lower tiers fly by so fast these days its hard to get a ful set of that gear as well.. PLUS from T1 through T3 there still is no such thing as unattuned gear and you can still get a piece of healer gear to drop while you are playing an ALT that can only be a TANK or DPS. The dailies and bounties I mentioned are THE first time in game a player gets a say in what they take and in what role it will be once they take it. Special not the duos, alerts and raids at that level still don't offer those choices and YEAH your tank could wind up with TROLL gear.
Pretty sure you don't even really need a tank at t6 anymore....he asked what a good way to build his tank was. He never said he didn't know how to tank.
You should work on your tanking skills as soon as you can . Perhaps your league mates can assist in running lower tier but not too much lower -- to hone your tactics and strengthen your weaknesses . I used the walk ins as a training area for my roles.
I always focus on DPS gear first and then Tank gear. You don't need the best gear to tank any content in the game besides SM. Atomic is the easiest and most OP tank power in the game. All you do is spam Thermo Explosion and Atom Splitter. Just focus on a dps set first and then tank. MOD all DOM or DOM/HLTH for tank gear.
