Hey guys, i'm after some pointers for my old school fire tank. I've been out of the game for about 4 years. Recently got back into it and joined a good league. I've managed to get up to 281cr but my sp is dire. I recently ran the 2 metal raids and I didnt fare well lol. I died a good few times and it felt like I struggled to keep aggro as the boss kept going for the healer. Are there any fire experts who can give a few pointers and should I stick with fire and build my sp up or jist respec to a different power? Last time I played earth tanking was taking over and everyone was saying fire is now useless. That was back then, is this still the case? Cheers
What you have to understand about how the game has changed: Your effective health and mitigation no longer go through the roof when you block. They do get better, but not by nearly as much, and incoming healing gets decreased while blocking. That's probably the biggest change and down side to fire tanking now: it's no longer just about blocking and countering. You pretty much have to run with a shield, since you can't just block. You'll have to get used to running away from things-- pretty much all tanks have to do that now. Pull/knock down/run away -- that's become the standard tank rotation. Incipidous' load out above (which I've just read) is pretty good. You can play with variants of it like using Amazon Deflect instead of Hard Light Shield if you want, but most end game fire tanks are using that load out or something very close to it.
Thanks for the reply and taking the time to outlay that loadout. So I logged this morning and switched to that loadout. I will be doing a few raids on Friday so I'll let you know how I get on haha. Thanks again, appreciate your reply.
Haha, I remember back in the day I was told to turtle the raids. Basically hit a pull, block for 12 seconds and hit the pull again. Blocking used to be the main thing, but obviously now its not. I did run a raid with a healer friend a while back and he said holy sh%t mate, fire tanks take a lot of healing hahaha. Or maybe it was just my old loadout.
If you really want to relearn Fire, more power to you. You obviously know its gonna be a challenge but you still wanna give it a shot, which is great. But if you decide you dont wanna be fire, after all is said and done, you can switch to rage since it is much more forgiving with lower SP.
I’d get a respec token. For fire to be somewhat semi viable you need to have 450+ skill points and even then, any other tank power will do as well if not better with 250 skill points. Fire is just underperforming when compared to other powers such as ice, rage, earth or atomic
Unfortunately even if you had all the skill points currently in the game fire tanking suffers. The biggest issue is that for a self healing tank, the heals are severely lacking in potency which sours the whole fun in tanking. I've personally tried with my 440sp fire tank all sorts of different skill point allocations and loadouts... from maxing out the healing and resto to health and Dom.... to a combination of everything in between. Turns out your best ability to survive as a fire tank is your ability to RUN! lol After months of frustration I switched to ice 2 weeks ago.
Sadly, I think the running thing is true of most tanks today. Certainly it's true of Atomic. Even as Earth I have to run around a lot. I do see Fire Tanks in Elite raids regularly though, so people are getting by.
Any issues with power? Lol It’s sad but any other tank power would be sitting on full health most of the time and have to issues whatsoever... They need to at least reduce the cost of abilities so you could actually semi heal yourself
The best advice I could give you since fire tanking is restoration-based is to invest in getting the artifact symbol of the 7 to 160. It will significantly increase your healing as well as strengthen your tanks defense.
Haha, another thing I thought I noticed was that fire didn't have as good range on the group pull. When I play with my friend whos a rage tank his pulls are insane lol.
Fire tank on mobs Use back draft between just as shield breaks will also knock them down when pulling giving time gap to reactivate shield good combined with dilustel detractor pull power artifact. Also absorb heat combined with legendary healer necklace (!item max cr 76 your not dps so no wary eh)from vault tickets will heal you small amount when hit will reduce damage even more to stack with symbol of seven aftifact. I use these on a dps fire too its a eu villian so when they no otheres around apart from hero's on weekly bounty and world bosses like man bat leaping at you can be survived no problem .
Others have given load outs for your powers. I'm going to talk about the Utility Belt. One of the things you should choose is Sidekick over Backup. A full powered sidekick gives you a hard light shield at times and can heal and restore power. My utility belt load out is thus 1- Boo Junior or some other pet trinket 2-Sidekick 3-Orbital Strike/Compartment Trinket 4-Supply Drop Tanks can now use the Compartment Trinket without any negative side effects and is useful for dealing with certain situations(I'm looking at you Terra and your ability to absorb orbital strikes)
