Kristyana's Incredibly Detailed Fire Tank Guide

Pretty much any tank neck. I like the Doom Knight necklace (163 health) if I'm using Fortified Blocking. I don't really run a supercharge in my tank loadout anymore so I no longer use the braniac neck

Not trying to steal your thread here! I just wanna answer the question I saw about earth :3 when Earth first came out a year ago a lot of people tried it out and there were a lot of earth tanks. But because of the learning curve there was a lot of bad earth tanks and earth got a really bad name as a tank and so most people prefer to use ice or fire because they are the easier of the two tanking powers.


Back on topic, just wanted to say like how awesome it is you are still working on this guide! When I started playing the game and getting into it back in November(?) 2011 this was the guide I used to start tanking T1 alerts and I felt like a super BAB because of it lol. I thought I had so much knowledge because of you I was going to be the best tank ever lol.

As we speak I'm leveling my Hero Earth Tank :3 And I'm using your Guide as reference

This is a great guide to read for any tank to clear up any misconceptions about the role in genera. I have an Earth tank myself. I think people are catching the Earth fever, at least in the villains community.

One detriment that I didn't consider to UD23 is that the synergy between a fire tank and a fire DPS just got gutted. Before the update, it was a great idea to have both in a raid because the tank could set everything on fire for the DPSer who would use Fireburst. While the tank would overwrite any of the burning DoTs that the DPSer would have, this was an acceptable tradeoff to get the extra damage.

Now however, DoTs seem to be the primary mechanic for Fire DPS now that Fireburst was changed, and a fire user's DPS will be decreased dramatically if he's paired with a Fire Tank since they both share the same dots.

I'll have to try a few loadout ideas over the next few days to minimize this.

You shouldn't have to do that. It's ridiculous that the tiny dots from different fire users don't stack. You can make things hotter in real life you know.

I kinda wish that people would have to choose between having a fire tank, or fire dps, but not both at the same time. That would force the devs to do something right.

I have to say I totally agree with the statement regarding fire DPS vs. Tank, but I think the reason for all of these updates, at least from my perspective, is that they are trying to empower the idea of what the power contains into the roles. Example, Over Heat gets the same heal from Enflame that it does from Immolation, throw in stoke/burning determination and reignition and you can have 4 dots up as a tank, the powers all work very well for a tank, imo they are far more effective being launched out of tank role rather than dps role even, because the heals are far more substantial and with enough sp's and proper modifications you can do decent damage.

I have no problem being a little more spam happy with this build, Enflame/OverHeat/Backdraft/StokeFlames/Reignition/Burnout. Mainly, my go to power combo is Enflame, wait for half CD, then OverHeat, I can easily get first tier regen twice using basic attacks between the castings, of course nothing beats enflame for boss fights where substantial blocking is required, and I like having a ranged taunt like Over Heat on my bar, I feel it makes me far more effective than having to rely on Wildfire to spread burning.

I truly believe that fire was always meant to rely on might a little more, even as a tank, and I think, with the level of modification and skill points now available within the game that it is far easier to create a tank, focusing on that particular power's specific defensive traits, and then pack in as much damage as possible (Disclaimer: AS LONG AS PLAYER SKILL PERMITS SUCH MODIFICATION, IF YOU CAN NOT FIGURE OUT WHEN TO BLOCK/ROLL/GET OUT OF THE WAY THEN YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOT BE ADDING DAMAGE STATS INTO YOUR TANK BUILD AT ALL, MAYBE NOT EVEN PLAY THE TANK ROLE AT ALL, DEPENDING ON YOUR LEARNING CURVE)

My outlook is, the faster things dies the easier it becomes to not die yourself... after you ensured that you won't be insta-dropped of course, lol.

We have a Fire DPS that is part of our usual raiding group, but he's been hit-n-miss lately with going back to college for another degree. If he's on tonight I want to see how different his numbers are with the change. We do it bass-ackwards though (he lights them on fire, I Backdraft to pull them and heal myself).

Kristyana, you and SmileB4Death are the awesomest (yes I said it) fire users ever. Thanks alot for your guide, it has helped me so much in the past to understand how the mechanics work and become a good fire tank.

When I get home tonight I need to add a disclaimer to the first post. Since I made the guide and even more so now that its on these combined forum, many people are pointing to this guide or directing others to it using parts of it to "prove" that one tank is better than or worse than others. Doesn't matter what tank it is; there's parts that flatter and criticize all three powersets. That is not the point and never has been the point of this guide.

It is a great guide in general. For anyone to read. I would really advise any player to read it, regardless of role. It has essential information for all tanking powers, and for Healers/Dps/Controllers to consider when they get into a group with a tank.

Like many others probably.. This is the guide that made me want to even make a Fire tank when I started over a year and half ago.

An outstanding guide, which shines with the light, of a thousand suns ...

There are, however, two tiny things.

1. In the section explaining how fire tanks pull, you mentioned the grapple line power, under the acrobatics power set.
I believe you meant the grapple line attack power ( pull ) , opposed to the grapple line passive power ( scaling walls ).

2. The flashpoint power, only has an interaction, with the immolation power. There's no flashpoint/enflame benefits.

How much can heal in base BD and Stoke flames with t4 gear, all dom, resto innates

You're right about the acrobatic power, I'll change it accordingly.

As for flashpoint/enflame not having any benefits, this is incorrect. Flashpoint has ALWAYS interacted with both Enflame and Immolation; it was simply never in the tooltip. Prior to Update 23, when you cast Immolation and then use Flashpoint, everything around you was set on fire but Immolation was extinguished. You would have to recast Immolation in order to combo with Flashpoint again.

The advantage to running Enflame over Immolation was that Enflame always counted as Immolation for power interactions but wasn't extinguished by those interactions. You can spam Flashpoint as many times as you wanted while Enflame was active and you would set everything around you on fire. It is the same way with this new update, and was in fact one of the first things myself, soulburn, Dump Truck, Drift Hazard and others tested. Enflame still behaves the same way with Flashpoint, and counts as Immolation for Overheat.

The only significant change they made in update 23 to Immolation is that Immolation is no longer consumed by Flashpoint, making it behave like Enflame for combos and making it a lot more viable for tanking loadouts.

My current gear (modded, full T4 and 2 pieces of Norseman gear) and all the innates gives me 838 dominance and 1004 restoration, so my combined score is 1792.

At that level in tank mode Stoke Flames tics for anywhere between 136 and 167 per tic for 8 tics, with crit tics doing double.

BD heals for anywhere from 207 to 275 per tic for 4 tics, crit tics healing double.

There's about a half percent margin of error with those numbers, but as you can see it's a pretty significant amount.

So one can do usually 1,2k and the second 1k, but gives immunity agains debuffs and effects, hard chose.

If you strictly want the highest heal possible, go with Stoke. Burning Determination only activates its last three tics when you take damage, often more damage than what you heal for.

And is still same problem with usable while controlled ?

Thank you for your reply, and your explanation .

I just might take a second look, at immolation .

It warms my heart (pun fully intended) to see this guide still being kept up to date.

I have a question about the base heal numbers - the numbers I'm seeing in-game aren't matching up. For example, I have 798 Restoration and 792 Dominance, and my Backdraft generally heals in the 4-500 range in tank role. In 20 uses on a dummy, it ranged from 361-528.
But with a base heal of 73-82, it should be doing (73 to 82)*(1+(798+792-50)/400)*1.8 = 505 to 568?

So I'm not only seeing lower numbers, but a much wider range than the listed base values would yield. Am I misunderstanding something, or are the numbers just out of date?

I'm also wondering if anyone has thoughts on the Empowered Channeling mod with Absorb Heat. I haven't got t4 mods yet, but at least on paper, it sounds pretty awesome - a ranged taunt that also puts you at the defense cap and makes you CC-immune? Is this less useful in practice than it appears?