Good & Bad Traits Of The Tank Power's

Compare correctly? Just because you don’t like my statement doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to diss fire. My main is a fire tank. All I’m saying is (active) healing takes more effort than damage absorption to achieve the same goal. That’s the only reason why I can’t agree that it’s one of the best tanks.

Just because you don't feel like admitting mistakes, a mistake never ceases to be a mistake.

You are comparing mechanics for different purposes. Your comparison does not even cover 10% of the area of application of both mechanics. Your comparison is taken out of context without considering synergies with other abilities and without considering a dozen other factors. Your numbers are taken from the ceiling (100k? With good stats crit from "backdraft" somewhere 80k, but the difference in reloading is 3 s and 18 s (16 with a mod, 15 with an artifact)).

There are so many holes in your statement, that already halfway through I was tired of listing and gave up this case ...

My words do not mean that fire is the best tank, but only that the criteria by which you compared the two mechanics about different purposes are not correct.

Comparing mechanics for different purposes? What in the world are you talking about? If you can’t wrap your head around the simple little fact that taking no damage is better than taking damage and healing it back, then oh well. But stop coming back at me. You are absolutely barking up the wrong tree. I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. What you read as a comparison was an observation. Ain’t nobody comparing nothing. But you can go right ahead and knock yourself out.

Well, of course, when there are no arguments, the insult begins. Further conversation is meaningless.
Have a nice day.

Fixed that for you. The recent changes to fire make it an extremely effective tank-- especially against recent instances with shield-penetrating mechanics.

I feel bad now. I’m sorry. Have a nice day too.

Since coming back to the game in May you're the first person I've heard miss turtle tanking. Imo that was an incredibly dull and boring method, literally hit a power and block. It's much better now as tanks have to play more actively to ensure survivability. Again, Fire was never regarded as the strongest tank. If you search old forum threads you'll find people complaining that they got kicked from raids just for being Fire.

It doesn't take more effort, it simply has more tools to stay alive. Earth doesn't really have damage absorption anymore, it has a defense buff with Aftershocks or damage transfer with Brick. As I've already said after either of those tank mechanics are in effect there aren't many options inherent to the power that aid survivability. Gemstone is a great shield but it's just one shield, Soothing Sands is a negligible heal, Envelop has too long a cooldown. Aside from GS there are no powers that have synergy with Earth's tanking mechanics. Compare that to Fire, where almost every ability is a heal, allowing for different self healing strategies. I enjoy both tank powers but I feel Fire is better designed. You may feel Fire has to work harder but I feel it has more options to ensure survivability.

I get where you’re coming from. But most of those options, the most beneficial ones at least, don’t work as well without constantly setting up pi. That’s extra work that other tanks don’t need to do.

I think we can all agree that in the most simplistic situations, where damage can be absorbed, not taking a hit to your health is better than healing. This is possible with all tanks but fire. That’s what I was trying to point out in my 100k example. I don’t use more advanced examples because not every player is at end game level with 500 sp and maxed out artifacts. If a tank power can only be op with such players, then I can’t vote it as one of the top tank powers.

in my opinion it all depends on your way of enjoying the role and the mechanisms they offer.
They all have pros and cons. I have used all the tank powers, some longer than others, but I give my opinion because I know its mechanisms well.

Ice: because of the way I play, it's my favorite. I prefer to avoid as much damage as possible with his shields, in this way I do not depend so much on the healer and apart I can focus better on what is happening around me and not have to constantly monitor my health. You simply rotate your shields and move to where you want, the blows slip you.

Fire: my first experience, I loved his FX, but in the elites I felt that he suffered too much and almost always died for lack of heals.
At that time artifacts did not exist, so there were not as many survival tools as there are now. It also bothered me having to heal myself while the rest of the team was getting hit by some add.
I felt very dependent on healers, and my times to control enemies or move within a certain damage area were slow because of it.

Earth: my current tank, I recently learned to master it. With the pet it is very simple, even boring, as long as it does not die of course.
The afteshock is more fun for me, since it increases your defense and this decreases the damage that your shields receive, so I can emulate the gameplay that I had with ice using iconic shields. Although unlike ice it is uncomfortable to have to use the same ability every 12-15 seconds to keep your defense high.
The pull doesn't appeal to me too much, sometimes it leaves enemies immune after breaking the stun.

Rage: I used the rage for a short time, I felt very OP when I saw how it healed myself without having to spam powers. The rage crash mechanism is wonderful. I switched power in a short time as I wasn't drawn to power in its entirety (FX and sounds)

Atomic: Another who spent little time with me, At first I felt very entertaining doing damage while you heal with combos and keep your enemies in the air infinitely.
When going to elites I noticed that the mechanism did not work well with my way of playing, I had to depend on pure shields again and in my case in particular, I had very limited mobility due to the combos. Maybe I could have tried it longer until I found a way to make it work, but its mechanism had already frustrated me.

I think your choice should be based on the taste you have with power, and the type of mechanism that best suits your way of playing.
Either be aware of:
* when to rotate your shields (ice)
* or you must spam an ability to increase your defense or heal the brick (earth)
* or having to predict a blow to heal as soon as possible (fire)
* when to activate the anti rage crash (rage)
* doing your combos at the right times to complete them and keep your aura active. (atomic)

Choose what you like the most.
Written with an online translator, sorry for grammatical errors.

Best tank is fire

i dont have video of my own game but check at 14:30 and you will understand,( in the video the guy use no skill)

Setting up a pi shouldn't be a thought. Stoke flames should almost always be on cooldown. Burning determination sets things on fire as well. Immolation does too (fuzzy on this one). Then you have enflame which is a staple for juggles. Thereshould never be a point where no enemies are burning. Using your core tanking abilities sets up burn. The pi requirement is is the devs trying to say don't neglect your tanking powers.

Most of the abilities you mentioned have limits on sustaining pi. Enflame is the only ability you mentioned where you can thoughtlessly sustain pi. It requires no other additional pi sources because it burns from start to finish of its cool down. New enemies that join the fight after its initial cast, will burn as well. If it’s in your load out, it should stay on cool down. However, classifying it as a core tanking ability is subjective.

Classifying Stoke Flames as a core tanking ability is subjective as well. It only inflicts burning on its initial cast. It will not burn new enemies while it is on cool down. So an additional pi source is recommended.

Classifying Burning Determination as a core tanking ability is also subjective. Plus, it does not burn anything at all.

Immolation is arguably a core tanking ability. I’ve never heard of or seen a fire tank load out that didn’t have it. It definitely inflicts burning. The enemies just need to be attacking you in order for it to inflict burning. Also the attack must occur soon after the initial casting. It will not inflict burning on new enemies that attack you during the backend of its cool down. So an additional pi source is recommended.

The staple of juggles is undoubtedly Backdraft, but the enemies must be burning in order to be knocked down by Backdraft. Sure, Enflame knocks down enemies, but you’d need to wait 12 seconds to do it again.

May I ask what your fire tank load out is?

My main is fire, and I would recommend it. It's a very flexible power and you can 'get away' with things that you probably wouldn't be able to with other tanks. You'll have the highest health pool of any power in the game so putting together fun hybrid builds are not only viable, but pretty damn powerful. (I probably wouldn't recommend hybrid builds for elite content though, obviously lol)

For the Anniversary bounties I've been running in tank role, but spec'ed entirely for DPS (SP, arts, gear etc) with a load-out of Swoop Attack, Heat Vision, Mass Detonation, Freeze Breath and (iirc) Stoke Flames and Burning Determination. It's a completely 'Anti-Meta' build, but with that load-out I can easily stand toe-to-toe with all the bosses for the entire fight, all while hitting with the same force of a DPS. It's also great to use as an 'everyday' load-out for solos, duos, alerts and daily bounties etc.

The biggest downside of fire though is that you need a LOT of skill points to be at your most effective. You'll need to spec points in Resto, Dom and Health, so if you're low on SP you might struggle with that.

I'd have to check next time I'm online, but I'm fairly certain my fire tank load-out doesn't have Immolation in it lol. I don't follow metas though, I prefer to do my own thing.

As far as learning curve is concerned - from easiest to most difficult, probably Ice, Earth, Rage, Fire, Atomic, in that order.

Ice's mitigation mechanism is literally "Cold Armor and Shield rotation"; while you're still below the 350 SP line you'll be doing a lot of blocking during your Tanking, which is straightforward - it's literally just pull, shield, block.

The main problem with Ice is that it doesn't have an integrated healing mechanism (AT ALL) so you'll want to run things like Regenerative Shielding tactical mod, Mystic Seven (160+) and Lasso of Truth. After a little tweaking and some SP building, Ice is actually super-reliable, plus (by that point) you won't be beholden to Block tanking for survival any more. Not really sure where Ice ranks for a DPS Powerset these days, but if you run Might you'll probably be doing Cloak/EoG spamming with Ice Elemental.

Earth has the Pet mechanism (which is straightforward) and the Aftershock mechanism (which, were it addition, makes Ice look like Algebra by comparison) - neither mechanism is complicated, but there's a bit of learning curve in "not trying to do both", which is the most common Day One Earth Tank mistake. That's why it's technically more complicated than Ice, even though it's really kinda not.

It also doesn't have much direct healing mechanism, but does potentially have exceedingly high Defense - you can treat the backend requirements (Artifacts and SP) kind of like Ice and get good results. Also has the benefit of being a top-tier DPS Powerset.

Rage has a very solid damage mitigation mechanism, but it does have a learning curve (you will probably die a Lot getting used to Rage Crash). Very effective once mastered though.

That said, it's got great pulls, great durability, and with a few minor additions (Manacles of Force, Hard Light Shield) it can accomplish some wonderful stuff. Plus it's another top-tier Melee DPS Powerset - probably THE top tier Might Melee Powerset, or sharing shelf-space with a good final-form Earth DPS - and one of the best Precision DPS platforms in-game.

Fire is awesome, but weird - the damage mitigation mechanism is Fire Healing, which requires quite a bit of backend work and quite a lot of situational awareness to really make it pop. After you figure out how it works, it's really (IMHO anyway) one of the strongest Tank platforms, simply because it retains high mobility, constantly replenishes itself, and has answers to pretty much any Tank question.

The major thing to address is that the only Shield in the Powerset doesn't prevent interruptions while in Tank role, so you'll pretty much *need* to keep a set of Personal Dampening Fields on for 'oh ****' moments (pickups etc) - most of which you won't be running anyway, since you're a Tank. I've seen decent DPS options out of Fire, but here nor there.

Atomic is combo driven, and it has both a damage mitigation mechanism and some form of built-in Healing, so the performance and the raw execution requirements are both dependent on your attention span. The teleportation pull is ....... awesome, though, so...

I have seen a few good individual examples of Atomic DPS in action, but the Powerset itself is not a guarantee of performance alone, in that respect.

All that said? I like Fire and Ice the best, personally, but that's mostly because I'm more familiar with their mechanics than any of the other Powersets, but also because '100K functional base Defense and multiple Shields that can absorb 80-120K incoming Damage a piece' and '205K base Health with an in-Set 360 Pull that has a 45K on crit Heal built into it' are really solid arguments for performance. That's pretty much what you can expect with your characters around 310, give or take some Artifact work and 360 or so SP.

I don't play Lantern characters (at all - nothing against anyone who does) so I'll probably never have a nuanced opinion of Rage, but I've seen other people use it quite effectively. I'm currently debating Earth v. Atomic for the Anniversary Boost, so I'll have more to say about those soon; but from the cheap seats, that's how they work too.

Immolation is cool, but not essential, and to be blunt - if you wanted a better Shield to do 'actual Shield stuff', HLS makes a good enough argument for itself based on the strength of the Shield alone, plus it actually deflects incoming contact so you can prevent disruptions when you're trying to do 'oh ****' moment pickups and et cetera.

Immolation is the LO item I am most flexible on with my Fire tank ATM, and when I et her up with the Lasso it'll probably be what I replace in my Loadout.

I've just checked I don't have Immolation in my loadout. Never used it as part of my build. I've never really gone for any kind of 'shielding tank build' with fire though. I never saw the point. I went all in on the self healing and high health from the very start of my character and it can lead to some crazy powerful builds, and I've won a lot of 'un-win-able' fights because of the massive beatings I can withstand lol.

HLS is a good shield though. I do make use of it on other characters, but it's really not needed on my fire tank lol

I don't use HLS for character damage reduction, to be frank - I use it for pickups. It's not really there for damage mitigation, so much as 'stopping things from interrupting you while you're doing important stuff'. I also live and die by the Personal Dampening Field though, which does the same thing in a smaller window. That said, should HLS be there for "Fire Tank Damage Mitigation" - no, it's **** on a bull. Is it better than Immolation though? Yes. Does it look as cool? No. But it is better.