Hello! I am wondering if anyone could help me understand what I am doing wrong with my character. I am CR 345, with earth power. I would like to be a battle tank so I have all tank gear with dps augments. My 3 artifacts are all level 189 rn, they are tetra, eye of gemini and solar amplifier. I have 367 SP, placed in spec hybrid and then all the damage slots. However in every duo, alert and raid i dish out barely any damage and run out of power very quickly, while people with a lot less SP than me are way more op than I am, and it’s very frustrating to understand. If anyone is willing to help teach me how to be atleast somewhat decent with earth as a battle tank, I would kindly appreciate it!!
Your damage is low for several reasons: You're wearing tank gear which has lower damage stats. Players in damage role get a DPS buff, players in tank role do not. Your artifacts are under level. You're using Tetrahedron which buffs your group members' Might. You're running out of power because you specced into Hybrid when you should have specced into Superpowered. I'm assuming your Augments are also under level and your load out is not great.
What’s your loadout, just having high arts and more skill points than me ain’t going to cut it. Tank powers have reduced cost. Still the way I play Earth, power is costly even when specced superpower and skill points into might and power. Since you have Solar at that high rank you should slap in Amplified Heat Vision. Use Supply Drops whenever to regain your power, also use colas despite your health being full. If you’re using Eye of Gemini and are going to keep it then add in your loadout Pheromone Bloom. Pet arts do passive damage so if you like you can grab Grim or Quislet. I hope you’re using Brick as your Earth Pet. My loadout Grasping Hand Pheromone Bloom Amplified Heat Vision Gemstone Shield Unstoppable Jackhammer All tank gear, fortified assault neck mod, either max damage hand mod or the one that gives you 5% defense while using a channeling move. Even if you have the best setup, a dps that has a strong powerset and knows what he or she is doing will always beat you. Watch out for the meta arts players and super speed lol For Allie’s get Cyborg as passive and rank him up. This will cause you to get power back. Pets reduce your power by the way, if you want you can grab Grim and rank it up to 200 to get that taken away.
First I'd say determine what type of battle tank you want to be (pet, sc, prec, regular superpowers) then that will determine the rest of your build. Then determine if you want to run Brick or Aftershocks. I always recommend Brick over Aftershocks for Earth battle tank, as you take less damage without shields with Brick vs Aftershocks. Two builds I've used with great numbers as Earth battle tank are the pet and sc builds. Both builds I use full tank gear, tank head augs, might origin augs. I have a lot of sp so I'm able to fill out my weapon, movement mode innates, Hybrid, dps crit chance/mag, full might, 100 health, the remaining 100+ in dom. For pet I use Quislet Source Grim, loadout is Brick Fortify or Unstoppable Source Pull Jackhammer Gemstone or Unstoppable, for sc build I go Quislet Scrap EoG and my loadout is Brick Pull Perfect Poise Unstoppable or Totem Jackhammer Pheromone or Entomb. White mods Max Damage in hands and switch between Escalating Might and Fortified Assault depending on your survivability needs. If using sc then use that for head mod, if not pick an ability you use to help with power conservation. Other white mods less important but I usually use Tumbling Master, Absorption, Epicenter, and the increase defense when breaking out Back mod. For allies Aquaman helps with pets but any damage boosting ally will work. I can't run this in TSDE but it really helps in TOWWE with clear times, I'm usually 2nd dps and we finish in 15-20 minutes as long as everyone does mechanics. Survivability is good too as I was able to get the no death feat in TOWWE with the sc build.
I'll tell you all exactly what I have right now. My DPS loadout is Unstoppable, Epicenter, Tectonic Break, Gemstone Shield, Jackhammer and then Crystal Golem. My Tank Loadout is Earthen Grip, Epicenter, Tectonic Break, Gemstone Shield, Upheaval and Brick Golem. For adaptive augments I have the new legion ones, both might and they are level 4 and 5. My origin augments are all might and they are levels 298, 297, 296, and 295. I don't have an ally or a pet yet, I took a break from DC and came back and those are new to me. My SP is spec Superpowered now, I changed it, and then all of the damage roles, plus I have 1 in my weapon.
Do you have 42.0 or higher generator mods? In your loadout I don’t use epicenter or tectonic break or upheaval. Jackhammer produces the most damage as it’s a melee ability. Since you have Solar at 189 I suggest adding Heat Vision. Also go get Cyborg as your ally and rank him up so you can use him as a passive ability to regain power.
You should remove Crystal. Without Fortify Golem it's not helping very much and it's just killing your power regeneration. I'd suggest Hard Light Shield, Earthen Grip, or your movement supercharge shield if you're Acrobatics or Super Speed (Perfect Poise/Dash Attack)
I don’t know where my train of thought was but I use Brick for tanking and that would mean taking out HV for my loadout. My apologies XD
I'm an earth tank and also battle tank. I think you should not forget that a battle tank is still primarily a tank. Earth has a unique ability for battle tanking because there are two tanking mechanisms. My loadout: fortify gollem, unstoppable, mesmerizing lasso, brick, jackhammer, entomb. You can mix in some dps gear but it's a big trade off in defense and dominance (65% defense) so I use might augments instead. I use the lasso of truth artifact, to me it's better then earthen grip because it's easier to control and gives healing, picking up eight adds at a time also really helps so you can focus on damage. Since I don't have any shields but still need to be tank I use mystic symbol of the seven and depending on content manacles or transformation card. Sp is super powered with some health and Dom, but most in might. Power efficiency mod works best for me, makes jackhammer use very little power. Entomb is one of the best super charges in the game and really helps, I combine it with a might trinket. Usually in a decent group I come in at about 60-80 percent of the top dps. There are some really good dps players, they'll do twice as much than me but that's life. In lower content on duty groups I often top the chart or come in very close. Try to find a balance with things like orbital strike, henchmen, supply drop, ally, super charge to give the troll a breather and you'll never run out of power. Good luck.
