Earth tanking help

Hi all...
I currently have every tank power and a tank build except for earth. I have the character leveled and I decided to try to learn how to tank with earth. He is currently a 297 cr with 216 sp out of my total of 320. I've tried with brick as well as using aftershocks. Nothing I do seems like it's working. I know it depends on many things..arts, augments, so allocation..etc.

How do earth tanks usually spec their sp?
Is there something I missed when it comes to Aftershock tanking? I can't seem to get it to be consistent. I tend to use upheaval rather than jackhammer. When using jackhammer, I don't last..at all.

Hello AquiloFury,

Here is a link to a response I gave another player inquiring about earth tanking awhile go. (Thread Link = Aftershock or brick) Take a look at the thread and let me know if you have any other questions. Good Luck and Have Fun.

(Side Note: You can spec either health or dom. It's really your choice as a tank. Though for earth aftershock tanking dom is used to increase its' defense a bit more. Having some of both will be beneficial as well. Spec your stats as you see fit and are comfortable with).

Sincerely: Brav

Thank you Brav I'll have to work on my Aftershock tanking I like tanking to be fun. Right now, I just can't seem to get the hang of it lol

There are a number of factors for why you may be struggling with aftershock tanking. Two things I'd recommend are stacking dom since that has the best synergy with the Stone Skin buff and to remember Jackhammer is your best cc move. Very cheap and it can keep adds juggled for a while.

Thank you

I'm going back to basics. All Dom augments including Adaptive. Earthen Grip should be your pull of choice because of the stun.. For Brick tanking, Fortify Golem is a must. Totem is not as you get more benefit when he is powered. That's 3 slots. I recommend Gemstone and Hard Light Shield until you get fully comfortable with playing the power. If you play a fairly active style with lots of weapon attacks, i recommend a SC. If you aren't building SC quick, you may opt for Amazonian Deflection, Soothing Sands or Totem. Consider only Aftershocking Gemstone 2 times. Spec 100 in Dom and the rest in Health after you take your weapon, movement mode, iconics, etc.

For Aftershock, use EG, Jackhammer, Gemstone, Hard Light, SC and last can be Soothing Sands switched out with Mesmerizing Lasso if you need. I recommend 50 in Might/Power, 100 in Dom and the rest in Health. Make sure you are properly executing Aftershocks. I saw a player once just spam powers from the tray, did not Aftershock anything. He wasn't very successful.

I know you asked about SP but the need for Iconics and Movement mode ability is also SP.

Thank you so much for the detailed response I can't seem to get the hang of Amazonian deflection, I have the lasso artifact as well as mystic symbol and the every man prototype right now. I think one of my biggest issues is that I went in without Stone skin active already. I started activating it before going in and saw better results lol. Still not the desired result though.

I am not a fan of Amazonian Deflection either but it's an option. Are adds or boss fights giving you more problems?

Honestly I'm just trying to get the hang of it right now I don't want to go into content and fail the team. Right now I'm trying my hand at tanking the metal Titan to see how long I can survive.

Edit:
I guess it's bosses giving me issues since I seem fine on adds lol

The Metal Titans can be kinda tough to survive without a healer. Earth is very healer dependent.

What would be a good test for me then? Lol I'm so used to ice tanking and atomic tanking where I don't really depend on a healer lol. What is the strong point when it comes to earth tanking? Ice has shields, atomic has self heals, rage is..well..rage lol.

Fair question. I'm not really sure what earth excels at. It is my favorite tank power though. I always thought the Earth 3 bounties were raid level, not too hard except JQ/ You might need to take off some gear for a more fair assessment.

I will go try that. I also tried against the initial shogg daemon to see how I did...didn't have much trouble. Thank you for all of your help and input, I truly appreciate it.

The big Shogg is fairly rough at level. That's the one thing i don't like about the world bounties when tanks can get knocked out easily. They've made too many mechanics that ignore shields. Most tanks tend to rely on at least one shield in their rotations/loadouts. I think the Thanagarian and BOP bountie weren't as brutal.

I did fairly well against the earth 3 bounties. That was full gear though, I need to go back and remove some.

Having Earth-tanked, but more importantly having been healing since basically Launch, I find that Earth falls into a weird nitch that other Tanks do not.

Brick Tanking in particular. Brick is a pet. Pets can only be healed by "Ally Heals", not traditional "Group Heals" and "Priority Heals". Ally Heals are heals that will land on all friendly targets, not just group members. They can heal NPCs. They can heal friendly PCs that are not in your group, such as during open world bounties. They can heal pets.

Ice, Fire, Atomic, and Rage Tanks do not have any special mechanic that requires an Ally Heal, so theoretically, 80% of the time your Healer doesn't even have to glance at it. Earth Tanks have Brick, that has his own Health bar, which does not appear on the group menu. The Healer suddenly needs to be very aware of Brick's life, watching it by actually having eyes on Brick instead of the party bar on the screen, and landing these specialized heals to keep him up. It is a major adjustment to playstyle. Some Healers don't even know that there is a difference, and you are left healing/re-summoning Brick yourself while the Healer seems boggled why you take huge damage spikes periodically (when Brick dies). Some Healers understand the difference, but don't have much experience with it, so a veteran healer performs more like a novice when working alongside an Earth tank. Some Healers get it, and have no problems.

It can be difficult to get a good gauge of how good your Earth Tanking is unless you have a good read on how good your Healer does with an Earth Tank. If you're constantly spamming your own heals or re-summoning Brick, then you're not using Aftershocks, and you're sinking your power into something that otherwise could have been shields or aftershocks. That doesn't mean that you don't know what you're doing; it just means that you're in a constant state of emergency, instead of being allowed to follow your regular rotation.

If you have friends in the game, a League or other acquaintances you can work with, I recommend that you try to find a "pocket healer" who can work with you repeatedly. Someone who understands (or can learn) the difference of healing an Earth Tank, while the two of you develop a team-dynamic to what you're going for. If you learn to work together in this, then you can get to the point you are comfortable, and then when working with a different healer, you'll be better able to see if the issues are yours or theirs.

I have mystic symbol of the seven but it's not leveled up that far yet. I tried the every man prototype, but I don't see the benefit for earth tanking. On paper it sounds good, increase your defense by a certain percentage of your total health...in practice I found it to not effective..in my opinion.

The problem is that I run pretty much solo until I'm in an instance lol. I don't have any friends that I run with consistently. Ice is the first tank I started with and I'm comfortable with it. I just wanted to learn a new one lol

Nothing wrong with wanting to try something new, nor with being a bit on the antisocial side. I random queue everything myself as well.

I just emphasize that with Earth Tanking, specifically with Brick Earth Tanking, it requires the Healer to realize what you are doing and adjust their own gameplay. If you've never worked with that Healer before, like a random queue, you've got no guaruntee that they'll know what you are or what you need, and even if they realize that you are an Earth Brick Tank, they still might not have any significant experience Healing in this very different situation.

You can be doing everything right, but still die alot if your Healer isn't used to it. Doesn't mean you're bad. It's not like a Rage Tank who can't seem to handle their Rage Crash. It's just a very unique style of Tanking that doesn't work like any of the other ones.