Do Shields Count as Healing, Damage Taken, or Neither?

One of the things a good tank needs is tons of sp. I don’t know earth well other than it’s basics. Yes, they can battle tank just as well as rage from what I’ve seen. But that doesn’t need to happen in a raid unless everyone is truly terrible. But you have to give them an actual chance to see what they can do. If the adds aren’t grouped or your team is being attacked, they can’t do anything well. The 2 that were standing in the back were probably trying to survive. Again, there sounds like there was a really great chance that any other player had a higher dominance level than you which means if they tried to attack, they got instant aggro.

If you really want to battle tank then just que as dps. Type in that you’re in tank role but not tanking. Since you don’t have any pulls or stats, any normal tank will still be able to do their job while you do what you’re doing. We have had up to 3 “tanks” in elite raids but only 1 was an actual tank, the others were like you. Full dps builds in tank role to take advantage of EoG spamming. I wouldn’t bother with the EoG artifact in your case since it’s pretty useless under 200 rank.

As for the video comment, you ever seen king pow? Great stupid movie. But there was this one guy that they purposely trained wrong. He thought getting his butt kicked was winning. And everyone watched without saying anything. You have knowledgeable players telling you things. I hope in your videos that you tell people that what you are doing isn’t proper. Otherwise, you may want to read thru some of the posts about how new players have no idea what’s going on. Helping others is good, showing them what not to do can be good too if they know it’s something they shouldn’t be doing.

Edit: I don’t like or want to be putting you down/ telling you how to play. But I would suggest trying to aim a little lower on the scoreboard and trying to be a bit more tanky. Spec some sp into dom or health, whatever an earth tank is supposed to. Get at least 100sp into your main stat then play with putting some into might and power. Replace one tank power with a damage dealer like jack hammer. Use at least one tank artifact, manacles is probably 1st choice but mystic would be alright too. Helping with damage is fine but not necessary but try a full tank load out with one damage power to just add some damage. If you’re running brick, you have to feed him or just take him out. Gemstone is a great shield. HL is a great 2nd shield so run both. Have a pull. A slam is good but jackhammer could be that powers replacement. Not getting kicked isn’t a good indication that you’re doing good. You may just be doing meh and others don’t care. I’ve played with tanks that stood behind the group laying down cover fire with dual pistols. We didn’t kick, we just laughed and did their job for them. But if I was on a weaker toon in a weak group, we would have had to kick them.

Dominance has nothing to do with aggro. It's only used for crowd control effects and shields. Keeping their attention can be done with 0 dominance.

How you spec your SP has nothing to do with gearing up to 333. You can spec right while getting leveling gear. Nothing in your loadout suggest you are trying to be a tank. If you wouldve told anyone your loadout without saying for what role it was people would think it was a bad DPS loadout and not a dps loadout.

For example, you have jackhammer and reinforce to do full auto. That is a bad combination even for dps. Jackhammer is a spamming combo power meaning you keep hitting melee to continue the aftershocks. Which you can no do if you are full auto which is a channeling weapon attack. So there is no synergy. And saying things like you get high numbers in pug runs while you are leveling up does not make you an above average player. I can triple, quadruple or even more some pug runs. As harsh as this is going to sound, you are a below average player.

No one here is telling you not to battle tank if that is what you want to do. What people are saying is that you are doing a bad job as a tank in general, regardless if it is a regular tank or battle tank. You have admitted that you dont run a pull. Even going as far as saying you dont even use a pull on ice either. To be a tank you HAVE to pull enemies. That is the tanks top priority. A DPS or healer should not have to "survive for a few seconds" until you grab their aggro. If an add spawns and instantly goes for a dps or healer thats fine. It happens. But if the group continues to get hit because you have no pull than that is completely on you. That is what you are refusing to understand. No one is "spiteful" of you, people just want to get through content. I have battle tanked and have come out as top dps without anyone getting killed. I have done in in end game raids to.

And you being a twitch streamer does nothing for your skill level. A tank without a pull is a bad tank. There is no ifs ands or buts. The amount of damage and healing done does pull aggro unless you are in tank stance. In that case just using any ability will taunt enemies. However some enemies have things that will prevent them from going to you even if you have aggro. They could be in the middle of a weapon combo which means they will finish the attack chain even if you taunt them. They could have a proximity targeter which means you have to physically pull them or they will continue to attack the closest to them. Or they could have a scripted attack that targets other allies. It is your job to minimize others getting hit. Until you realize this.. you will continue to be a below average player.

True story. But if a tank has no pulls or cc and a troll does, plus more dominance, where the adds gonna go?

Dom will still not affect aggro. Aggro is based on a foruma that takes into account healing, damage, and power out. Since power out is the smallest portion than they rarely go to the troll unless the troll is doing damage. As a DPS I tend to have more aggro than healers with 0 specced into dom. Dom only afffects a few elements. Healing, Shields, Tanking mechanics, and CC threshold. Looking at CC and tanks, You need to meet the minimum required Dom in order to be able to CC/pull enemies. Anything after the threshold does nothing for your ability to CC for longer periods of time or how impactful those CCs are. On the other side of that coin is tanking mechanics. Various tanks use dominance differently. Atomics combo heals are based on a percentage of Dom. Earth gains added defense based on a percentage of their Dom. And so forth. Dominance has absolutely no affect on the tanks ability to taunt. An ability will automatically skill the hate table and put attention on the caster if the player is in tank roll. Meaning, that if a dps were to switch to tank with dps gear and no Dom specs the ability used while in tank role will still draw aggro to the person in tank role. Even if another none tank player specced into Dom, they can not rip aggro away from a tank.

There are some attacks that do go past a tank. Scripted attacks that target furthest player for example is one. Proximity aggro is another. A good example is Lex Luthor. He will tend to attack the closest ally. So if a tank is far away and a dps is next to Lex, he will gravitate towards the DPS. The tank would either have to move in close or the DPS would have to back away. Once the DPS is away from Lex the Tanks aggro will kick in and he will float towards the tank.

But outside of a few types of attacks/mechanics, a tank will always hold aggro if the tank uses an ability on the target. Any enemy hit by the ability and enemies by the target will also be taunted. And Enemeies by the tank when they use the ability. So tank Earth for example. If there are 3 enemies. 2 ranged and 1 near by, the tank can cast earth grip on one of the ranged enemies. If the second is next to the primary target, both are pulled. If the adds are separated but the add is close enough to the primary target, 1 will be pulled and 1 will be aggroed. And if the 3rd add is near you, it will also be aggroed even if they are not near your target. So this creates 2 zones of taunt. Near you and near the primary target.

Have you run a straight tank loadout before? Gemstone shield, Earthen Grip, Fortify Golem, Brick, HL Shield, Epicenter

It’s keeps things nice n’tidy.

I could see using Reinforce if you were Brick tanking and using a precision battletank, but I’d want a one handed weapon or brawling for the melee quick attacks( tap tap hold or tap hold, respectively). You’d get some stuns and keep the adds grouped up.

Take the opinions with a grain of salt, ultimately no one wants to see you get kicked so we tend to err on the side of caution…give you advice that will be better received by others. Experimenting with builds is fun, but it does have its drawbacks when you’re randomly q-ing up content.

Got ya. But the question still stands, in the case of the op who is speccing 0 into dom. If my troll in OP gear with dom augs ran with them and they even had a pull equipped, who would win the tug of war? My comment is in this conversation, op specs 0 dom. Possibly doesn’t even run tank gear. Troll or healer (some healers use pulls idk why but they do) happen to be dom heavy. Even if op slots a pull, will they hold aggro? Or will the pull from another cause them to lose the adds because the pull from elsewhere “wins” thru stats? Who wins the cc battle??

I shouldn’t have used the word aggro when talking about dom. But a tank speccing no dom and then running shields is a no bueno moment. Doubting resto was added into the sp mix. So for op, my comment still stands excluding the use of the word aggro. He could get aggro with any superpower but will they hold it against a dom strong troll or even dps pull move?

If a tank is in tank roll with no dominance from gear or SP they will not be able to pull, even with a pull. So a troll specced correctly will be able to pull the add. However the add will go back to the tank after the CC ends. So using pulls for example. If a troll pulls an add away from a tank with 0 dom, the add will be physically pulled from the tank but the add will start walking towards the tank since the tank still holds aggro. If you both used an ability on the same target with no cc effects and were both the same distance from the target than the enemy will go towards the tank. There is nothing you can do to pull aggro from the tank. You would be able to CC the target yes, but thats because you meet the minimum requirement. Having anything extra will not affect your ability to cc them more or even taunt them. A none tank can never strip the aggro from an enemy. You can physically pull them because that is a type of CC and you meet the minimum requirement but thats as far as you can do.

Same goes for fights without a tank. If a Dps if fighting a boss for example with 0 dom, and you as a troll have your dom maxed out, if the dps is doing enough damage than you will not be able to pull aggro from the dps. As a troll you would have to do enough damage and power out to elevate you past the DPSs threat meter. When I battle troll on my HL will will strip aggro from the healers and other dps. Same thing with my battle roles and regular dps. That is because I am doing enough damage to elevate me to the top of the threat chart.

All the OP should take from this is... the Tank automatically gets aggro from using a power in vicinity of enemies. If there is no yank or he's being dumb... it will be the dps UNLESS the healer is panicking and spamming powers which isn't the norm. The troll should never have it unless he's just leaps and bounds above the rest of the group in OPness.

yes, I've swallowed my pride. For harder content, tier 4+, I'll be using jack, HLS, gemstone, epicenter, brick, and bloom. I'm probably gonna keep the might set-up, the stats from augments are really a drop in the bucket compared to what equipment gives, it seems. Since creating this thread i've had the opportunity to play with other tanks, on other builds, and note that sometimes they'll take even less damage than me.

I think in easier content, there's a serious argument for taking crystal and reinforce over brick and gemstone. In the case I get knocked out of jackhammer, I can go into full auto. I also believe ST dmg is higher with pistols amped with reinforce than jackhammer, even with the PI from Debris Field. Crystal seems to die less, probably 'cause she's ranged, and does more dps.

The sound designers did a really great job of making it obvious when you're taking HP damage. It's easy to know when to cast shield or block, and I think tanks have some of the best shields. I also think some dps use heal skills instead of shields and just eat the damage. I think it really all depends on playstyle.

Honestly, I was trying my best to tank in the raid I got kicked. I did have a pull, I simply was standing at range from the boss in the backflip magnum blast animation, when the adds spawned on the other side. I didn't have time to get in position before teammates started dying. Anyways, I don't try to chase dps with the build. Unless you've run it, u probly don't realize how strong an earth/pet build is. I've got 15 US server characters and 5 or 6 EU, and it's #1 or #2, in terms of strength, survivability, and ability to carry a team. I'll likely try something similar on a Sorcerer, but I think tank class is inherently stronger than going classless, or 'dps'.

Going DPS gives you an extra 10% damage just by being in the role. You could flip the suggestion around and say, “hey, you’re doing good damage, why not just dps?” Sometimes a good offense is the best defense.

TBH, when you’re running any early endgame content (EEG), just about anything you run will be ok. But you’ll start having issues when you start doing endgame when you get less buffs (I think you get an extra 30% defense when in EEG).

Dual pistols move you around a lot, that’s the issue. As you move the ads follow, so positioning is constantly changing. That frustrates healers using AoE heals and DPS using damage fields.

Buying an extra armory and having 1 for tanking and 1 for dps is really the best investment of $5 (?). You can quick switch your set up depending on what you need at the time.

Feel free to say hi in-game if you have questions or want to run stuff, are you mainly a hero or villain?

I was refraining from commenting on this thread once I read more of the OP comments. Let me start by saying that dual pistols, no hate but I have never seen a tank just spam full auto in any content unless they are super new. If you’re going to use weapon attacks you’re better off using Brawling>Shuriken Mastery tap triangle. I was trying my best to give the benefit of doubt, but we live and learn. Brick if you haven’t noticed pulls enemies using epicenter animation. You’re still going to need a pull and that’s where Grasping Hand comes into play.

I don’t use or need a second pull but I do know everyone plays different. Gemstone Shield is really strong if you do the full aftershock combo. I’m an experienced player and tank and when using a pet build I still don’t care enough to add Fortify Golem. I tried messing around with aftershock tanking and although the defense increase from aftershock tanking last a good amount, visually it’s horrendous not only that but in my experience Brick does more than what aftershock mechanic brings to the table. I have Quislet and Grim for my pet build. The last art I tend to replace a lot, I can use EOG or Source Shard or anything for that matter. Make sure you have supply drop and henchman. Orbitals help a ton and make sure you use your ally as well. It’s free big damage.

The thing about pet builds is that despite there being mechanics involved or you have to do something where you can’t attack for some reason, your pets are still free to attack your enemies whereas other players have to kite around scripted attacks or avoid mechanics like the fire pit against the two cyclops in GOM. Make sure you all your gear is tank gear. You have more leverage with augments, base generator mods, and gear mods. My weakness for Earth was sustaining power. I can’t believe the difference when running with a league and there’s an amazing troller. I was literally spamming jackhammer for a long time and not once did my power got to half. It also helped that I have Cyborg as my passive ally thus giving me a better sustainability.

Unless going for the aftershock mechanic tanking you don’t need to spec into dom using your skill points. As you get better you’re going to encounter instances where enemies or bosses ignore shields and for some reason defense isn’t allowing you to survive long enough. Health will play a bigger role in the long run so it’s always important to get your health as high as possible. The more health you have the better your Brick can mitigate damage. Please take off Crystal lol there’s more pros than cons when using Brick compared to Crystal. The best way in my experience to test my tank is open world bosses specifically Doomsday, or the latest bounties from Doom Washington.

Here’s the thing. You can play however you want. That’s no issue. But in group content if you are causing wipes or if you are becoming a burden than you can’t be surprised if you get kicked. You say you swallow your pride and do x loadout but the loadout you swallow your pride for is still not ideal as a pure tank. Running jackhammer serves mo purpose on a brick build because the stone skin and damage transfer do not stack. So you are only using it for damage. Which again is not you being a pure tank. And your pull is a 360 pull but you have nothing for range pull. That is causing issues which is what leads to getting kicked. And if you think t4+ is hard than you haven’t done endgame yet. Or elite for that matter. Having those types of loadouts will hurt the group in raids and cause you to get kicked over and over.

And you say that you aren’t trying to chase but keep bringing up damage numbers saying things like “I think ST is stronger with DP” and “unless you run it you don’t realize how strong pet build is”. Or better yet, “there’s a serious argument for taking crystal and reinforce over brick and gemstone”. Im sorry but no. If you want to tank than tank. If you want ti battle tank than you still have to meet the minimum requirements of a tank.

I ran into another tank using dual pistols today. It may be becoming a thing. We didn’t kick but did ask if we were doing a good enough job of being human shields. Couldn’t tell you what power they were since we only ever saw pistol pew pew. Good times.

As for on topic, I tanked tsdr on my ice toon today. Obviously shield heavy build. No issues of any sort, was 2nd lowest on damage in. Cuz shields. So yeah, they just count as nothing and if you’re stats are high and your shield rotation is on point, you can be the lowest damage in player and still be doing your job. Remember that dominance and resto stats are what makes a shield strong. I maxed dom and did 100sp into resto and 100 into health.

What instance was that that you encountered a tank using dual pistol? When I was testing ice tanking solo all I needed was just Ice Reflection. The defense buff from it last longer than the cooldown. Ice Reflection cooldown can be reduced with Manacles, I forgot if there’s a gear mod for Ice Reflection like there is with Density and Redirected Rage, possibly. I think I can make ice tanking fun.

To the tank. Being in tank stance automatically puts you at the top of the hate table when using ANY power within a certain proximity for a certain amount of time (12s I think). Trolls cannot taunt* but can still pull and/or CC regardless of their dominance as long has it's over the minimum. But as long as the tank used any power while close enough to an add, even while the troll is pulling, the add will only have pummeling the tank on it's mind (with exception to mechanics specifically scripted for enemies to leave the tank).

* Exception to trolls not being able to taunt would be pets or allies that can taunt as well as Gadgets' Holographic Decoy. But a tank using a power within minimum proximity to add will supersede said taunts.

@OP

First and foremost, a tanks primary responsibilities are staying alive, keeping agro and positioning enemies in a way that's most advantageous to the group. However, if you are able to do that relatively flawlessly and your build has more damage mitigation than is needed for the content, you could theoretically contribute more damage. For example, I don't tank reg raids very often but when I do, I'm typically at 100% Health about 95% of the time and rarely dip below 85% health. In reality, that's way more damage mitigation than is needed so if it was feasible I could sacrifice damage mitigation for extra damage without letting my primary responsibilities suffer. Sometimes I'll swap in a might adaptive augment or two for my Dom augments or swap Mystic 7 out for Tetra and "buff-tank" for that very reason in those scenarios.

I do have a battletank LO but it's really just for some bosses in elite alerts and duos and open world content. Even though it could easily survive in raids, it's less than ideal for a few reasons. But if armories were free and we could map more than four armories to the PS controller, I'd have a loadout that is somewhere in-between my "tanky tank" LO and my battletank LO as far as the damage mitigation to damage output ratio goes.

I play villian, mainly. Joker's hilarious. IMO Ranged Tank is the way to go. I have an Ice archer, that's a great combo and cool animations. Situationally, Full Auto is awesome. It's a ranged channel AoE with knockback, it's basically Jackhammer at range (that can also instantly be re-aimed in any direction). Without 'chasing' dps I'm consistently at top #'s because there's no range at which my character isn't in position to do dmg. The CC from Jackhammer makes it count as a tank skill, imo. Debris Field was enough to act as a pull, without having to use a dedicated pull, at least until content became more difficult. Earth's pulls are pretty underwhelming; it seems like epicenter has smaller radius than Atomic's pulls, and Grasp throws enemies everywhere, but alas. lol.

I have a more traditional tank in a two-handed Atomic that has to be point-blank with everything. Having ranged gives you the option to facetank or kite effectively, and I haven't used dual-wield enough to know it's combos. The melee attacks for bow and pistols aren't too shabby, either. I have a Fire Tanks that uses staff and it's one of my least favorite characters because all the animations are so long.

I mean, I know there's people above my skill level, who can do weapon swap combos in the middle of superpower chains. I'm not there yet, I can do stuff like clipping, cancelling, weapon attacks at the same time as superpowers. In contrast, I am better than the players who kicked me from that instance, who don't understand basic things like juggling aggro. I've had the shoe on the other foot plenty of times, where adds spawn on me and I'm healer or controller and the tank's preoccupied, so I pop shield and physically go jump over the tank's head. They literally melted in seconds, like snowflakes in Tahiti. I probably would have cleared the boss solo, but it had a 1-shot death timer.

Anyways, I'll be changing the build a bit more to max health and a bit of dominance. Thanks for the help.

I made that discovery as well with pulls. Fires Engulf, Ice Inescapable Storm, Grasping Hand etc… they are yanked to you and some are flung in the air with their arms up. I simply ignored it because I was just too comfortable with atomic teleportation pull. In my experience I rather have grasping hand than epicenter. When I’m on my rage tank I use Ragebringer but depending on my playstyle and content I’m running I’ll add in without mercy which is like epicenter except without mercy gives you health the more there are enemies. Have you tried rage tanking before? It’s pretty fun.

Why exactly are you hear? You came here for a question and everyone is telling you that you are wrong. Yet you continue to insist that what you are doing is correct and saying your are above the average player. But everyone is telling that you are wrong and you’re the one who got kicked. Are you here to learn or were you just hoping to get validation and hoped you were right?

I’m sorry but you’re wrong and the way you play does suggest that you aren’t above average at all. And yes I have to be blunt right now because if you are looking for info than you need to hear that you are tanking incorrectly. There is no such thing as a range tank. You tank to pull things towards you and away from your team. Yes you can go ahead and kite to get some distance but the point of kiting is to mitigate damage when things get hectic and not cause you’re a “ranged tank”.

There are people here who have been tanking end game elite raids and some battle tanks telling you that what you’re doing is incorrectly. And trying to explain why you got kicked. But you insist on telling everyone how you feel you are right and making excuses to why you got kicked. You know why other dps keep losing damage? It’s because the ta k won’t get adds away from them so they either die or have to block until the adds go away. So while you’re trying to scoreboard chase, and yes that’s what you are trying to do regardless of what you say are your intentions, the dps are stuck blocking.

To be honest. I probably would’ve voted to kick you too if you were tanking a raid for me.