[Earth Tanking] i have some questions

ok ^^

I feel no pity for the fire tanks that get a HUGE health buff instead of a small temp health (shield) buff. Only thing other tanks can do that they can't is safely pick someone up (no damage to interrupt), unless they get the HL shield or a trinket/Consumable that gives them a 100% damage absorption shield.

I'll use Reinforce for anything that I feel particularly confident about my survivability. Came to resue a Gates group ones at the Vanquisher. They wiped at the Avatar of Magic. I kept fighting for another 60 seconds, using weapon combos to regen power so I could cast damage absoroption. The group was surprised. It was quite funny.

This ^^ is a perfect example of why I would use Reinforce, because I'm just not that squishy there.

I think where AIpha is going with this is that sometimes you don't need GS to absorb 100% of the incoming damage until an amount of damage equal to DOM+RESTO has been mitigated. In a boss fight, that can make the gems shatter almost immediately and make you open to more burst damage. Instead... to use 1-2 aftershocks and mitigate the same total incoming damage, but over a longer period of time, since it won't be shielding you 100%.

Exactly there is a reason gemshield is the only shield on the game that you can adjust what percentage of damage it mitifates. That fact that you can do it means there is a reason you can do it.

WE DON'T NEED YOUR STINKIN' PITY

I envy you. I wish totem healed us as Earth tanks. It would make it a little more useful when pet tanking. I always thought a cool earth power would be making golem armour that makes totem treat you like a golem.

I do not care what others say best earth tank load out will always be this,brick,damageshift,gemstoneshield,epiccenter,earthgrip,upheavel,iconic powers,weapon specialist,nanoarmour,something gaze, and like with ice defense buff. you can tank any way u want.some will use totem for the aggro but its better in, pvp too push ppl back some use jackhammer for its absortion. but it uses tons of power just keep absortion up at all times with the afther shock some say the defensive buff ice n earth has 7k isnt good but with 4k health why isnt it in new raids in new dlc soon it may use too tanks fire heals n earth or ice but can fire pull aggro enough,also earth is way better then ice aggro wise ice neads perception xray vision,and lowpressure as well as cunning for stealth.

Earth's - Jackhammer or Upheaval are only needing one aftershock (pop power and tap melee ONCE) to get full 50% Damage Absorption on Live at the moment (think it is a bug) but basically makes it very efficient.

Aftershock vs Pet tanking was discussed in another thread somewhere with Aftershock providing a true 50% Damage Absorption and pet tanking providing something slightly less at 47 or 49.25& or something like that due to part of the 25% Damage transfer to your pet. Meaning you take less damage and thus require less heals using aftershock tanking. Couple that with the 1-aftershock being needed to get the normally 3X times aftershock 50% buff and aftershock tanking has become extremely power efficient.

As for Ice needing xray, low pressure and cunning - that is hoopla. Ice arguably has the best pull in the Game - Inescapable Storm - only reason it is not the Best is it is only an AoE pull and cannot be used to grab just a single target for those times where you want to only pull say just a medic.(Low pressure is also an AoE pull so there is not a reason to run 2 AoE pulls especially when Inescapable Storm is more consistent at pulling (comparing movement pulls to power moves - they used to be hit or miss but I think they may have fixed that) X-ray aka perception is useful for all tanks to see stealth or hidden enemies like ninjas, but most people would not allocate a power point for that innate. Cunning increases Stealth and Crit power chance - none of the Tank classes benefit from the Stealth innate and the crit power Out chance is going to effect Power Giving Supercharges, Weapon Combos, and breakout power regen, BUT not a necessity.

Earth is lacking when it comes to providing group immunity. - It has a single 4-person immunity. Fire has an 8 person immunity and 4-person immunity. Ice has 2- 4-person Immunities. (Team-mates are getting pulled into an One-Shot move you pop immunity so they do not have to spam block to break control effect to move out of harm's way - they just move freely - Earth got the shorthand here.) (Something the DLC powers all seemed to be lacking at least 1- move the original powers had, Earth was missing the 2nd Immunity, Hard Light was missing a second defense debuff (seem s they repurposed Entrap finally) and also missing an Aggro cleanse move (Distract, Grandeur, Quantum Tunneling (aka Blink)), Electric was missing a group shield like Swarm Shield or Boon Of Souls - what it has instead is a safety-net Bio-Capacitor in case your health gets to low it should save you like Gadgets self-shield Energy Shield - doesn't protect until you are eligible for extra damage from a finisher move. Speaking of finisher moves that would be another thing that Electric missed out on. And all 3 DLC powers (Earth, Hard Light, Electric) missed out on a 60% Damage Buff cast time move)

With Quantum it is more balanced in that it does not seem to be missing a move that can be accentuated by a Home Turf mod other than not having a stealth mode. Has an aggro-drop, self shield, 60%cast time move, 2 debuffs powers for each debuff(even though one debuff is one a 3-sec cast time move...smh for power balance I guess...it should last for 3 times as long if it takes 3 times as long to apply - IMO) Usable damage SC, usuable CC SC, SC group shield that grants power return. An aggro drop move.

Your right but,in mmo's players bring new things too the table every power move in tank roll is suppose too attract enemys as a healer in fos ice tanks dont attract many enemys i switch too my ice tank with same promblem,then use atlease lowpressure but cunning,and perception big diffrence i feal like a fire tank with all the aggro too juggle around i was fire. with fire only healing magnitude helps from self heals plus critical heals from healer but earth in ice has a defense buff so healing magnitude can be last too spec in just my own oppinion doe.

The Crit healing Magnitude and Crit healing chance - effect healing out. So self- heals or group heals that you provide. They do not effect healing in from someone else. In example....healing Barrels - a healing barrel will scale with the Player that picks it up - if a healer with high resto and crit mag/chance breaks a barrel the benfits are greater for all players that walk into the healing aura. In contrast if say a level 4 player grabs and smashes a healing barrel - the 89CR Healer or Healing spec'd Fire-Tank does not receive more crits or larger heals from the barrel grabbed&smashed by the level 4 player. Basically a Healer with high crit's (much like a Controller with high crits) has a better chance of getting crit heals out on the group, but the individuals of that group cannot increased the number of or magnitude of Criticals with their own stats as they are not supplying the heals or in a controller's case the power.

A vast amount of Ice's Powers mainly like their shields rely on Reflection or point-blank AoE application. Basically if you are standing at Range and pop Reflection you will not aggro an enemy out of range from the intial Burst might tick - as you would have needed to be in point-blank melee range to have damaged and taunted the enemy. This is where inescapable storm come in handy - you pull everything to you also grabbing aggro by landing a power cast damage on the target. (I mention this because I have run across some Tanks that believe any power can be used to Taunt - like the Clown Box, Hibernation, Envelope, etcetera - these seem to be more of an aggro cleanse rather than working as a Taunt to gain aggro.