Best Power For Roles?

Best tanks are Earth and Rage.
Single target DPS - Hard light
Normal DPS adds - Electric/Munition. 8+ adds electric can get close to 55-60kps, While Munitions is superior with 1-4 adds.
Healer - Electric because of the group shield though they are very balanced across the board
Controller - Mental because of the crowd control and quantum because they are pickup kings/queens.

As a long-time Nature Healer who recently powerchanged to Electric, I think the answer to that is: Damage Shielded > Damage Healed. Shields are really strong in the meta right now. And with Ice being primarily Shield based in it's mechanics, that makes Ice a very team-friendly powerset, easier to keep healed and alive, even in situations of large swarm or spike damage.

It's no offense intended towards Ice Tanks at all. I love them. Personally, I would say that the passive nature of Earth Brick-tanking is actually the most user friendly tanking of all, but the fact so many healers don't seem to understand how Ally Heals work and what they need to do to keep Brick up, I find my best intro-to-tanking powerset to definitely be Ice. Nothing is more frustrating than when you're doing everything right, and still dying, because your teammates are doing something wrong, and Ice has the strongest ability to overcome the shortcomings of others.

true. as a nature user myself with nothing but swarm shield, 1+ more team member with a shield with decent negation and duration is definitely a benefit. it's the dps that give me a headache _-_.

wow so im guessing fire is garbage tank wise?

There are good and bad peeps in every power, and in every role. Sometimes it isn't the power that is the problem.

I personally know a couple of awesome fire tanks. Absolutely love to run content with them. They are great at pulls, can do a little damage by burning enemies/ and gain health back while burning those enemies. It makes my job as a healer that much easier, when the tank is pulling mobs and healing themselves as they go.

On the other hand, though... a few days ago I pugged into a raid with a fire tank that was only awesome at testing my ability to be patient. After the end of the raid, I sent them a letter with a few positive/ helpful friendly suggestions that would improve their tanking; and received a nasty letter in return. So I know it isn't Fire tanking that's bad. It is the player using it.

So, in all reality... it isn't a matter of what power is best for what role; it's a matter of what power is best for your personal playstyle.

Any powerset can do both their roles and do them well. Some powersets simply require a much higher learning curve to be successful, or have a smaller margin for error.

Fire suffers from a couple of key disadvantages that make it one of the more challenging powersets to tank with. Fire's tanking mechanics mitigate damage by increasing the fire tanks total health, and by allowing more self-healing than other tanks. Both those mechanics are good, and they do provide similar overall mitigation to what other powersets provide.

The place where this becomes challenging is in healing. A quick mock-up math can demonstrate it in a simplified manner.

Let's say Tank A has 100 Health, and has defense that mitigates 75% of incoming damage. A hit that comes in for 100 would only deal 25 points to them, dealing a net 25% of his total life.

Fire Tank B has 100 Health. His mechanics double his Health to 200, and then he has defense that mitigates 50% of incoming damage. That same hit comes in for 100 damage and he mitigates it down to 50 points of damage, leaving him at 150. The hit deals a similar 25% of his total life, making both mechanics equal. The same hit would reduce either one of their life bars by the same notch. They both can take the exact same number of hits until they are dead.

Except with the Fire tank, he did literally took twice the damage that Tank A did. And that damage needs to be healed for him to be able to use that health again for future incoming hits. So if the Healer is doing the equal amount of work on either Tank (in this case, healing 25 damage per hit you take), then the Fire Tank either has to self-heal the remainder, or they slowly get whittled down, nickel and dimed to death.

If the Fire Tank is doing well, you don't even notice a difference. If they are doing poorly though, their mechanics make them far more taxing on the healer. Then the healer is more taxing on the controller. Then the controller trying to power the healer has less time/power to devote to CC, which results in greater incoming damage on the Tank. Sort of a spiral effect.

Just because a Tank is Fire doesn't make them bad. A bad anything will be bad. A good anything will be good. But for players with a skill level somewhere in the middle, powersets like Ice and Earth tend to be a little more forgiving of mistakes than what Fire does for tanking.

ahh ok because it was kind of shocking that no one mentions fire tanks in threads like this so it really made me wonder.

and for the record my main character I started to do tanking(yep a fire tank lol) and from what ive seen its the only one that has you spend in crit healings as opposed to other powers where you go crit atks. I would have to imagine that in reality its the fact I finally hit the 300 sp club that allows me to even have any success as a tank.

I have more experience with tanking than any other role, so my answer will be more in depth there.

1. Rage is most effective, but requires lots of practise. Atomic combines ease of use with effectiveness. If people aren't putting atomic in the top 3-4, it's cause they've been doing it wrong, imo. I easily solo'd one of the lvl 46 bounties at cr 42 on an atomic tank. Basically: If you're willing to put in the time, rage. If you want it to be easy, atomic. Oh, and if you wanna do pvp, atomic hands-down.

2. Pure DPS: Rage, but be prepared to die frequently.

3. Best healer: Depends more on the player than the power. That said, water.

4. Best for bosses: DPS? Rage. Tank? Rage or Atomic. Healing? Water. Controlling? Honestly couldn't tell ya.

5. Best for Raids: -

6. Easiest to Gear: Equal. They all take forever.

Best Tank : Ice all day then the rest, Earth.
Best Healer : Electricity then Water, Nature.
Best Troll: Mental then Quantum, HL
Best Dps : Melee Rage,Gadgets. Ranged munitions, Fire,HL.

I like Fire, it's the best for making rolls... Cinnamon rolls, specifically...

You only get 50% if you get your hit counter up for normal content you can typically do this but for elite you are lucky to get 10 sometimes.

Most dps mentioned are the might side. Which would be the best prec dps powers?

For the most part, Precision DPS is very similar regardless of power since it, you know, uses the weapons for damage instead of the powers. There are still a few things that positively influence a Precision DPS player from their Might based powers, but for the most part it comes down to having a pet as a free dot, having a 12 second dot that you can fire-and-forget, and having a few decent powers to use for clipping like shields.

Gadgets and Sorcery tend to get a general thumbs up for checking all the boxes. But there is not a huge difference in Precision DPS between the powersets since the actual powers will not be contributing a majority of the damage.