Mia Skye's Guide to Earth Tanking aka Miatanking

Mia Skye’s Earth Tanking Guide

aka Miatanking

Introduction

Over the past couple of weeks I have been debating whether or not to write an earth tank guide. Now that I have some free time to write, I finally decided that I wanted to create a guide to earth tanking and see where it goes. Before I get into the guide though there are somethings I want to discuss.

This is a guide that covers earth tanking in PvE (player versus environment). Maybe at a later time I will incorporate DPS or PvP (player versus player). At this time this guide will only cover the basics in tanking and how to do it with the earth powerset.

This guide will be different from other guides (like Kristyana’s) where the author has had a lot of experience in tanking in a lot of other MMO games. This is my first MMO that I have played for more than a couple of weeks, so my experiences with tanking in other MMO games will not match the other guides. What I do have, however, is a lot of experience in tanking in DCUO and that is going to be basis of how this guide is written. I do not find out the numbers of every power’s damage. I only talk about the most important numbers to earth tanking. I do not know the exact range of damage a power does, or how far the range of a pull is according to feet or meters. What I do know is that I have tanked a lot of instances and I have experience in what is good practice and what is not.

Definition of Tank

The first things to talk about are what is a tank, what does it do, and how does it do it. My definition for a tank is the player that makes everybody else's job easier. The longer version is that a tank pulls all the aggro of the enemies to make it so that the squishies, or other players in an instance that do not have as much health or defense as you, take less damage. This makes the healer’s job easier because then they focus on healing the tank rather than all eight players. While pulling the aggro of the enemies, you should try to keep them bunched up in a cluster rather than spread out. This makes the DPS’ job easier because they can focus their attacks on one spot rather than running around trying to find the enemies and if the boss can fly, the tank should try to bring the boss down to the ground because not all DPS can fly. As a tank this should all be done without using a lot of power to make it so that there is less power going into you from the controllers so the DPS’ and healers can get more. A tank should also constantly be trying to survive on their own. How you will survive is dependent on what type of tank you are. Earth tanks absorb damage, ice tanks shield and prevent damage, and fire tanks increase their health and heal themselves.

Implementation of Definition

On paper we now what we are supposed to do as tanks. From here we will discuss how to use the definition to be the best tank we can be. The first step is to get aggro from all the enemies all onto you. One of the wrong ideas about aggro is that dominance affects how well you aggro. This is not true, as aggro is gained from using your powers on an enemy. Tanks are able to do this through taunting, which basically means the tanks powers generates more threat than the other four roles. The only way to lose aggro is through not using a power for twelve seconds, a second tank stealing your aggro, or scripted aggro dumps by the enemies. There are some attacks that will hit others no matter if you have the aggro or not. (For more on aggro read ‘Threat and Taunting’ section in Kristyana’s Fire Guide)

The first power most tanks prefer to use, in order to grab aggro, is a pull move. A pull move is a power that also drags enemies to you. These are the first moves because they also help with the second job of a tank which is to gather the enemies in a group around you so the DPS’ can focus their attacks on one area. If during a boss fight the boss starts to fly, a tank should then try to use pulls or crowd control powers to bring the boss down to the ground, not all DPS use flight as their movement mode and if the boss is off the ground they may not be able to damage it. While you have the attention of the mobs (groups of enemies) and/or the boss you should be trying to survive as well.

The best way for a tank to survive is through a basic strategy known as “turtling”. This is a strategy where you essentially act like a turtle pulling your head into your shell for protection. Whenever you are not using your powers or using your weapon you should be blocking instead of wasting power you don’t need to or risking your health by attacking with a weapon.

The basic turtling strategy is this:

1. Pull
2. Shield and Aftershock
3. Block for a few seconds
4. Attack with weapon
5. Power
6. Block for a few seconds
7. Repeat

This is the most generic form of turtling, varying depending on the situation. While turtling, the tank should always be grabbing mobs whenever necessary.

To make the other players’ jobs easier, you may also have to move a boss. This is a tactic known as ‘turning’ or ‘kiting’. A couple of examples where the tank needs to do this is in FoS 2 (Fortress of Solitude: Power Core) with the Avatar of Meta, which needs to face the opposite way of the group, the Vanquisher in Gates, which needs to be turned the same way, and the bosses in the new T4 Ops should be kited away from their spawn spot. Doing this is simple. All you have to do is grab the aggro of the boss and tactfully position yourself so the boss faces you, or start walking where you want the boss to go and he will follow you.

All of this should be done with as little power as possible. A tank should rarely have an empty power bar in case they need to quickly aggro something. If you are using more power, it means the controllers are giving you power instead of the healers or DPS. If you find you are using a lot of power you are most likely doing something wrong. The exception being if you go down and have to be revived. You may have to spam some powers in order to get in control of the area again.

Earth Tanking

If you switch to earth tank from another power, you may first realize that the only self-heal that earth has is a supercharge known as Envelop. You may notice the lack of different shields to prevent damage.This is because the specialty of earth tanking is damage absorption. Earth tanks gain an initial 25% damage absorption through the use of any powers, as well as using Aftershocks or pets to get up to a total of 50% damage absorption. This is both a good and bad thing. While you take in less damage than other tanks, a player may feel invincible and aggro too many enemies and get in over their head and die. It is still about knowing your limits and aggroing just enough. It is also easy to overburden controllers at first by spamming all the powers you can to try to achieve the most damage absorption possible. Always keep it in your mind to use powers strategically to achieve maximum aggro with little power.

Earth tanks have two pets known as golems. Their names are ‘Brick’ and ‘Crystal’. Crystal is the first golem earth tanks unlock and she helps you resist crowd control effects. Brick is best for tanking because he has increased health and can pull aggro away from you after your health gets too low. Crystal looks like the old ice armor that female ice tanks gained while Brick looks like the old ice armor that male ice tanks gained. Golems are often used with helping powers called Totem and Damage Shift. Totem heals your golem as well as drawing aggro off of you. If Damage Shift is used on either of the golems, 25% of incoming damage is essentially absorbed by transferring it to the golem as long as it is alive and in line of sight. The way you know if the golem is working is through the color of the numbers that appear in the area. Orange numbers are the damage your golem is dealing, purple numbers are the damage that the golem is taking, and green numbers are how much your golem is healing.

The other way to gain damage absorption is through Aftershocks. Some earth powers (like Upheaval and Jackhammer) give you the option to tap the melee button a number of times following a superpower, during the animation, with the Aftershock ability. Doing this allows you to recast the power with additional bonuses. After each Aftershock, the additional amount of damage absorption you receive increases. Damage absorption bonuses last twelve seconds before a tank has to re-Aftershock.

1 Aftershock gives an extra 8.3% damage absorption for a total of 33.3% damage absorption,
2 Aftershocks gives an extra 16.6% damage absorption for a total of 41.6% damage absorption,
and 3 Aftershocks gives an extra 25% damage absorption for a total of 50% damage absorption.

Note: If Damage Shift is already in use, the additional Aftershocks will not provide the extra damage absorption since you already have an additional 25% damage being mitigated from you.

Stats and Skill Points

Another step to surviving is having your Skill Points put into the right stats. While in tank role the damage you cause is penalized by 20% and your dominance is increased 100%. There are four main stats for earth tanks. These stats are health, dominance, defense, and restoration.

The health stat, according to SOE, “measures ability to withstand knockout”. This is done by directly adding points into the green bar at the top left of your screen.

Dominance is a stat that determines whether a tank can push, pull, or crowd control an enemy. In order to do this the tank’s dominance must be higher than the enemy’s willpower, or for the sake of discussion the enemy’s “dominance”. Bosses having the most willpower will be harder to crowd control. Willpower can be lowered through the use of the ‘Orbital Strike’ Home Turf trinket. Also, for every one point of dominance, an earth tank’s defense is boosted by one as long as powers are continually used. If a tank has 900 dominance in tank mode and 3500 defense and a power is used the defense then goes up to 4400.

Starting at level 30 for every 71 points of defense you receive 1% damage mitigation. In each tier of PvE content, enemies are able to pierce armor, ignoring a percentage of your defense. This armor piercing ranges from "around 10% to 25%". There is a defense cap at 75% damage mitigation regardless of what tier the content is. Blocking adds 5000 defense.

If an earth tank has a buffed defense of 4700, if attacked by an enemy that ignores 25% of your defense that means enemies ignore 1175 of that defense leaving the tank with 3525 defense, resulting in 47% mitigation. If an enemy hits you for 300 damage, after defense calculation they would hit for 159 damage. If you have 3 Aftershocks up, or a golem and Damage Shift that results in a final damage of 79 damage taken.

In my opinion the next important stat to spec into is restoration. Restoration is used for your shields as well as a new mod from Home Turf. A tank’s shield damage prevention is calculated by 100% of dominance plus 13.5% restoration. By spec-ing into restoration you are making your shields stronger. Also, the Home Turf mod “Regenerative Shielding” gives a burst heal when you use Gemstone Shield which is also based on your restoration.

Early on when you don’t have many Skill Points you will want to take the stats in the order of defense, health, dominance, and restoration. After you have all of these stats filled you will then want to work into the DPS stats. DPS stats are last because the tanks job is not to deal damage.

Movement Mode

The three movement modes in DCUO are flight, acrobatics, and superspeed. For a tank there is not a ‘best’ movement mode, but somethings can be done with one that can’t be done with the others.

Flight has the best maneuverability. You can essentially get anywhere you want with flight allowing you to aggro anything in the air. Being able to go anywhere makes the bridge part of FoS 2 a lot easier, for an example. Flight also has powers in it’s tree that are more useful for tanks including Low and High Pressure. However, flight is slow in combat and it may take you awhile to get to a spot where you have to grab aggro. Flight also doesn’t provide a fast escape like the other two movement modes do.

Superspeed is the quickest power allowing a tank to run around the area and grab aggro off teammates quickly. Also, superspeed provides a quick escape out of combat situations. Superspeed doesn’t have additional useful powers in the skill tree though like Low or High Pressure.

Acrobatics, acro for short, is a balance of the two movement modes. While in combat you can move around fairly well to aggro enemies and in close-quarters areas it is arguably the fastest power with ziplines. Acro also provides arguably the fastest escape out of combat using a trick where you jump, dodge-roll, then use rocket-glide mid-roll to get out quickly. The disadvantage with acro is that it is harder to control. Acro provides a cling where touching a surface will make you cling to it and throw off your movement. While running a player may get turned around and end up walking backwards as well.

No matter what movement mode you are there is a series of innates that increase your resistance to knockback and impulse. While Skill Points are low I would get the two resistance increase innates and eventually max out all of the skills when you get more Skill Points to use.

Loadouts and Powers

I switch between two main loadouts depending on what kind of mood I am in. They both have their advantages and disadvantages and one is not necessarily better than the other. These are not the only two loadouts, these are just the best ones that I have used. I tried to explain the powers that are in the loadout. The powers I have not listed are either very situational, require a ridiculously high dominance or power interaction that may cause something to happen, or a purely DPS move.

Earth has two trees for powers, each gives different innates depending on which trees has more Power Points put into it. Geokinesis tree gives an additional 1% critical attack chance and an additional 35 health. Seismic tree gives an additional 5% critical attack damage and an additional 25 health.

~~ Pet Rock ~~

Epicenter | Earthen Grip / Unstoppable / Shard | Gemstone Shield | Totem | Damage Shift | Summon Brick Golem

Iconic Powers: If using Earthen Grip, the iconic powers you should get are Powerful Resistance, Nanoweave Armor, Intimidating Gaze, and either Wisdom of Solomon or Super-Strength for fun. If you spec into Unstoppable you should get Powerful Resistance and Nanoweave Armor.

Advantages: Brick can be summoned again quickly after dying because of low power cost and cooldown. More power efficient. Less pressure on you because Brick taunts enemies and takes damage from you. Brick looks really cool! Using this loadout gives you specialization in the Seismic tree giving you an additional 5% critical attack and 25 health.

Disadvantages: FoS 2 is a hard raid because you are reliant on Brick. Brick may die fast or get one shot leaving you more vulnerable. Crown control lacks, unable to knock enemies down unless using Unstoppable which is not always usable due to cooldown. More Power Points are used in this loadout.

Note: If your form is changed to where your loadout is changed to not include Summon Crystal/Brick Golem then your pet is de-summoned and you have to resummons as soon as you get the ability back.

Epicenter ~ Power Cost: 300
Effect: A mid-range AoE Pull, pulls all enemies around you towards you. Learn the range of this power quickly. It won’t be useful in a raid to not aggro something because you were too far away.

Earthen Grip ~ Power Cost: 200
Effect: A long range single target pull. Grabs the enemy with an rock hand, stuns them, and drags them toward you. Drag and animation is based on dominance. May pull other enemies if there are enemies between the one you grab and you.

Unstoppable ~ Power Cost: 300
Effect: Breakout ability, causes a knockback on enemies in melee AoE, which is not affected by dominance, and also bestows immunity from control effects onto you and three other members of your group. This move has a longer cooldown so it should be used sparingly in an emergency situation. Unstoppable can be a move that turns the battle in your favor by knockdown a huge mob and allowing your team a second to get back in control.

Shard ~ Power Cost: 200
Effect: Mid-range cone that knocks down enemies and deals a very small amount of damage to enemies on a horizontal plane. Has an instantaneous cooldown making it a useful move to get agro quickly. Especially useful against FoS 2 assassins, the hallway in Gates, and Avatar of Magic’s pets. Spamming this move can cause enemies to become separated, and has an annoying animation, so be careful not to use it too many times. This can be a great move to grab agro from enemies at a long range.

Gemstone Shield ~ Power Cost : 225 (+50 per Aftershock, up to three times)
Effect: Shielding power that absorbs a percent of damage based on the number of Aftershocks. Zero Aftershocks results in 50% damage absorption, one Aftershock is 67% damage absorption, two Aftershocks results in 83% damage absorption, and 3 Aftershocks ends with 100% damage absorption and a small AoE damage based on your weapon.

Totem ~ Power Cost : 250
Effect: Summons a totem that knocks down enemies, deals a small DoT, and heals any nearby golem. The totem will continue to knock down enemies as they enter into the totems range, but become immune after being knocked down one time. DoT ticks up to fourteen times for very small amounts. Totem also draws it’s own aggro making less of a burden on the tank. Totem can be clipped with other powers to make the animation time shorter.

Damage Shift ~ Power Cost: 125
Effect: Transfers a small portion (25%) of your incoming damage to a summoned golem and provides an additional 10% control resistance for twelve seconds. The incoming damage will only be transferred if your Golem is in line of sight. This power can be used to clip Totem to make the animation shorter.

Summon Brick Golem ~ Power Cost: 333
Effect: Summons a Brick golem that attacks enemies and taunts them if your health drops below 40% by continuously Jackhammering anything that attacks you in order to gain aggro.

Rotation: Brick should be up before you get into any fight, for mobs use Damage Shift, Epicenter, then Gemstone Shield. Keep up Epicenter every ten seconds and use Gemstone Shield once it’s off cooldown, determining how many Aftershocks are needed for the situation. Use Unstoppable if you have it when in an emergency to knock down all the enemies around you. Watch your toon for the grey swirl animation of Damage Shift, if that goes away recast. Blocking between everything.

For bosses you will want to start with using Epicenter (start counting to 10) or Shard if you chose to use it followed by Totem clipped into a Damage Shift, then Gemstone Shield. Use Totem and Gemstone on cooldown and recast Epicenter if you lose aggro. Use Unstoppable to break out of control effects on you.

Note: For Fortress of Solitude 3: Sunstone Matrix I prefer Shard over Unstoppable and Earthen Grip to knockdown the medics out of their shield. For the Avatar of Meta in FoS 2 I switch Summon Brick Golem and Damage Shift for Earthen Grip and Unstoppable as well as Shard because it is frowned upon by most raid groups to use pets for this fight.

~~ Der Bezwinger ~~

Jackhammer | Shard | Gemstone Shield | Epicenter | Upheaval | Earthen Grip / Unstoppable

Iconic Powers: I personally buy Super-Strength, Nanoweave Armor, Powerful Resistance, Wisdom of Solomon, and Intimidating Gaze with the extra points.

Advantages: Crowd control is a lot easier with this loadout through Epicenter-Shard combo. Gives five extra power points for customization. Jackhammer is a really fun power to use! Don’t have to worry about a golem dying or keeping it’s health up. Using this loadout gives you specialization in the Seismic tree giving you an additional 5% critical attack damage and 25 health.

Disadvantages: Riskier loadout not allowing for as much turtling. Have to risk taking a lot of damage to put up aftershocks. You are getting all the aggro yourself, you do not have a golem and totem to draw in their own aggro.

Jackhammer ~ Power Cost: 225 ( +75 per Aftershock, for an unlimited amount of times providing you have power)
Effect: Punch the ground creating damaging vibrations, each Aftershock providing damage absorption. Be careful when using this power, it is precision based and based on your weapons damage per second. Use three times for the damage absorption then clip out of it using shard.

Upheaval ~ Power Cost: 250 (+125 per Aftershock, for up to three times)
Effect: Launches small dust storms toward the enemies in a long ranged cone. Gives damage absorption for Aftershocks. The damage is not split and is based on your precision. Knockbacks enemies depending on your dominance.

Rotation: The rotation for bosses and mobs works pretty much the same way. Start off with an epicenter to grab aggro, followed by either jackhammer clipped into either Shards or Gemstone Shield, or Upheaval followed by Gemstone Shield. Keep cycling these with blocking when necessary to keep damage absorption / prevention up at all times using Unstoppable in emergency situations.

~~ Other Powers ~~

These other powers can be used in a tank loadout, but not recommended in high tiered instances.

Reinforce ~ Power Cost: 125
Effect: Gives you rock fists increasing your critical attack chance and precision. In tank role it protects the player with the lowest health by transferring some (30%) of their damage to you. In high end stuff this is not viable because it only protects one person. It is however useful in alerts or duos since the extra precision can help out the group.

Debris Field ~ Power Cost: 450
Effect: Creates a dust storm that circles around you damaging enemies. Knocks down enemies if they are dazed or crushed based on your dominance. This power can be good at knocking down enemies and keeping aggro, but because of its high power cost makes it less viable than other options.

Striking Stones ~ Power Cost: 250
Effect: Smashes enemies between giant rocks causing them to be knocked back. Knockback is based on dominance and is an AoE that deals small amounts of damage. This has a lengthy animation that can be clipped with other powers. This can be an alternative to shards

Grapple Line ~ Skill Point investment in Acrobatics tree
Effect: Works like Earthen Grip, fires a line at your target and pulls them in close based on dominance.

Low Pressure ~ Skill Point investment in Flight tree
Effect: Works like inescapable storm; a long ranged dominance-based pull. This power has a second of lag where your facing which takes some getting use to for the timing.

High Pressure ~ Skill Point investment in Flight tree
Effect: A crowd control ability that lifts and knocks back enemies.

Supercharges
No earth supercharge is viable for earth tanking. They are expensive, cost unnecessary Power Points and in some cases there is just no room to put one on a loadout. There is only one supercharge that could be useful in some situations when there isn’t a healer.

Envelop ~ Power Cost: 35% Supercharge
Effect: Much like ice’s Hibernation, Envelop locks the user in an earthen ball providing three ticks of small burst heals (about 50-80 each), while absorbing 100% damage for five seconds. Enemies point blank may get knocked back. If there is a sorcery user specced with Transmute they can use Transmute to break you out of the ball quickly and provide some additional AoE damage. The downside to this supercharge is that it is a ball and can be moved while inside it.

Weapon

For a tank there is no perfect weapon. Any weapon can be useful tanking as long as the tank knows what they are doing. Most tanks, however, prefer to use melee weapons. It makes sense since a tank will be in the middle of all the action they would want something to stay close to the enemy. My top three weapon choices for tanks is: Staff, One-Handed, and Brawling. Staff provides a lot of great aoe stuns and damage that allows some more CC away from powers. One-Handed is strong has an easy single-target stun combo (flurry), and good ranged. Brawling is like one-handed but has more useable combos.

Crafting

What mods you put into your equipment will depend on what play style you want to have.

If you want to be able to take more burst damage you should make more health mods placing them like this:

Blue Socket: Health IV - Takes twelve Fortified Exobytes, gives 69 health.
Red Socket: Precision and Health IV - Takes twelve Vengeful Exobytes, gives 20 precision and 49 health.
Yellow Socket: Health and Power IV - Takes twelve Durable Exobytes, gives 49 health and 56 power.

If you want to be able to mitigate more incoming damage then you should make more dominance mods placing them like this:

Blue Socket: Dominance IV - Takes twelve Fortified Exobytes, gives 15 dominance.
Red Socket: Dominance and Precision IV - Takes twelve Vengeful Exobytes, gives 11 dominance and 20 precision.
Yellow socket: Dominance and Power IV - Takes twelve Durable Exobytes, gives 11 dominance and 56 power.

If you want a balanced tank then you should create an even amount of health and dominance mods placing them like this:

Blue Socket: Dominance and Health IV - Takes twelve Fortified Exobytes, gives 11 dominance and 49 health
Red Socket: Dominance and Precision IV in Head socket, Health and Precision IV in Shoulder socket.
Yellow Socket: Dominance and Power IV in Chest Socket, Health and Power IV in Leg socket.

Home Turf

With the arrival of the Home Turf DLC, there is now even more customization available for your character through new mods and trinkets. Some are better to use than others depending on your playstyle.

The new mods can be unlocked through spending MoT (Marks of Triumph) in the mainframe of your lair. The first two levels are permanently unlocked for 25 MoT for level one, and 125 MoT for level two, which unlock the sockets for Weapon and Necklace respectively. The boosts unlock for 30 days and cost 625 MoT for level 3 and 3125 for level 4 which unlock the sockets for Back and Feet, and Chest and Hands respectively. Every 3 days the mods expire, so you have to dispense them again from the dispenser in your lair.

The useful Weapon mods for an earth tank are:

Absorption Adapter IV ~ Each time you use a weapon attack there is a chance to activate a gadget-like shield that absorbs 75% of incoming damage for twelve seconds.This can occur once every 60 seconds.
Blast Adapter IV ~ Weapon attacks have a chance to deal 20-36 AoE damage and knockdown six enemies in the area. This can occur once every 60 seconds.

These two are the best ones to choose from because they are the ones that do the job of the tank, absorb damage and crowd control. The other ones heal or give power to your allies which makes them useless to you. For my play style I prefer Absorption Adapter because as an earth tank I want to absorb as much damage as I possibly can.

The useful Necklace mod for an earth tank is:

Fortified Blocking IV ~ Blocking adds 7400 defense instead of 5000 and has a chance to prevent up to 80% of incoming damage.

This is the only tank Necklace. The other ones increase stats for the other roles. This is not a bad thing though, since the 80% damage prevention is pretty great and works in synergy with earth tanking and the turtling strategy.

The useful Back mods for an earth tank are:

Breakout Protection ~ Gain 700 defense for four seconds after using the breakout ability.

Breakout Regeneration ~ Gain health for four seconds after using the breakout ability.
Violent Breakout ~ Using the breakout ability causes enemies to be knocked back. Enemies that are knocked back gain immunity from knockback for 30 seconds.

The other back mods deal with damage and control resistance. I would have the control resistance one up here, but it only lasts for 8 seconds, which isn’t really enough time to do anything. The gain health mod is not very useful in high tiered content because you will lose the health you gain very quickly. I prefer the Violent Breakout mod because it allows some crowd control and the knockback gives you a second to regain control of the area.

The useful Feet mods for an earth tank are:

There is no specific Feet mods for an earth tank, and all feet mods depend on which movement mode you use. In my opinion the only mod that is worth getting is for acro which is

Tumbling Master ~ Your dodge roll becomes uninterruptible and you can tap in multiple directions mid-roll to do an acrobatic combo.

Home Turf Continued

The useful Chest mods for an earth tank are:

Core Strength ~ Takes away the 20% damage penalization given to tanks. Essential able to deal 20% more damage.

Quick Healing ~ Gain an additional 10% healing that is received.

These are the two tank mods for Chest. The Quick Healing mod in my opinion is not as good as Core Strength. Quick Healing gives 10% additional healing but in higher tiered content that 10% extra health gets taken away by enemies almost as quickly as it is gained.

The useful Hand mod for an earth tank is:

Regenerative Shielding ~ You are able to heal yourself after using Gemstone Shield. Based on your restoration how much you heal.

Hand mods all deal with certain powers, and the only mods that affect earth powers affect Gemstone Shield or Sandblast. Sandblast is a DPS ability and so our last option is Regenerative Shielding. This gives you a small burst heal upon activating the power. This is pretty awesome when solo and need to heal as well as prevent damage, allowing you to turn the battle around in your favor. This is another reason to get restoration innates.

Aside from mods, Home Turf offered four new trinkets which you can buy in levels for the same MoT costs as the mods. These trinkets are Orbital Strike, Supply Drop, Sidekick, and Back-up. Like the mods, they need to be dispensed again from the dispenser in your lair every 3 days. Which level you buy of each of these depends on how much MoT you want to spend, and what your play style is.

Orbital Strike ~ Level 1 and 2 calls down an Orbital Strike that deals damage and damage over time to the enemy you are targeting and any nearby enemies. At level 3 Orbital Strike will ground and root the enemies that it hits and level 4 reduces control resistance and removes shielding effects as well.

At level 4 this is a simply amazing trinket. In tank mode I can deal about 4000 damage as well as lowering the control resistance of the enemy. A couple of level 4 Orbital Strikes used in Prime Battleground can allow Brainiac to be crowd controlled (like put to sleep for example). A tank’s job is not to deal damage, but this is great when you are solo, or want to have some fun torturing Brainiac. If you do not have enough MoT for level 4 there should not be a worry as most likely a DPS will be carry one.

Supply Drop ~ Calls down a Supply Drop with a number of balloons depending on it’s level. Level 1 and 2 heals you and your allies standing in the middle of the balloons instantly and over time. Level 3 restores power instantly and over time as long as you stand in the middle of the balloons. Level 4 increases the damage output of the players who stand in the middle of the balloons.

This is great for the tanks that want to play purely support. Having this at level 2 is always useful to give your healers a small break. Getting level 4 is great if you want to be the ultimate support tank. Call down the Supply Drop and tell your DPS to run through and it will allow them to deal more damage and get some power and health. This is not based upon your restoration though, and unless you get it up to level 4 to be a full support tank the Central City trinket is better for burst heal (tap melee when lightning hits) and for giving you health and dominance on use.

Sidekick ~ Level 1 and 2 summons a pet known as a Sidekick that will attack your enemies and heal you. Level 3 will taunt your enemies, and level 4 will replenish your power as well.

For a tank, getting level 3 of this will be the most you want to purchase. At level 3 the Sidekick will taunt your enemies which means it is like having a second Brick for an amount of time. At level 4 it gives you power, but that is not really needed since a tank should not be using enough power that it needs a constant power in besides the PoT(power over time) of your controllers.

Back-Up ~ Level 1 and 2 summon two Back-Up men that will attack your foes for a short amount of time. Level 3 summons three Back-up men, and level 4 allows them to fly.

As a tank in PvE these are close to useless. The main point of the Back-Up is to do the pvp block-break, interrupt, and block your enemies. In PvE enemies do not do this enough to really be effective. If you are into pvp as well then getting this to level 3 would probably be worth it, but if you are strictly PvE, getting up to level 2 just for the permanent buy should be enough.

So, Why Earth?

Earth is the third power added into the game for tanking, and is probably the minority in tanking because it has a learning curve and is not as forgiving as ice can be. There is no perfect tank power, however, earth has advantages as well as disadvantages. What earth has that others don’t is that its stats that will not change in future content unless developers change the way damage absorption works. No matter what content comes out you will always be absorbing the same percentage of damage, you won’t have to worry if you can heal through an attack or about the defense cap that won’t let you mitigate anymore damage. Once an earth tank reaches the defense cap they continue absorbing damage.

Earth has two different play styles, unlike the other two tanking powers. This allows for more customization of loadouts past the two that I give. You can choose to tank through golems that look awesome and you can call your own, or through punching the ground with Aftershocks. Two different ways to tank in one power makes it more likely that your play style will be suited by the power.

This power also combines the two powers in terms of pulling powers. While fire has one AoE pull and ice has one long ranged pull, Earth has one of each making it a more versatile tank for the situation that is needed.

The downsides to being an earth tank are that they are very healer dependent. No matter how much we absorb damage we will always be taking damage, and if it is a constant DoT (damage over time) then you will still be taking a lot of damage. Lacking the juggling capability fire has, earth is not great at crowd control, especially if pet tanking. Earth tanking is also very unforgiving. It is the hardest power to learn and if you mess up it is harder to get control of the area and easier to mess up and potentially wipe a raid. This is what has given earth tanking a bad name since its release. There are a lot of bad earth tanks, and a lot of tanks that switched to earth didn’t learn it correctly and switched to a different power.

I have played all three powers, and in my experience have had the most fun with earth tanking because if I get bored of Brick I can switch to jackhammer and vice-versa. This guide, however, is not an argument on why earth tanking is the superior tank. A good tank will be able to tank with any power. If you are a new player and you are debating what power you should use, the best advice would be to read up on all three powers or use all three powers and see which one you are most comfortable with.

With Game Update 23 release and the fire and ice updates release, SOE has only made earth tanking the stronger tank. The changes to fire has included that tank powers overwrite the DoT casted by the DPS which hurts the fire DPS damage out. I have a feeling that soon raids will be requesting no fire tanks or no fire DPS because of this.

Special Thanks

A special thanks goes out to Ethosense, Evie Syrena, Steak Sauce for helping me out with the creation of this guide. Also, thanks to the The DCUO Book for the power costs and some parts of the powers descriptions. Thank you SOE for your time on creating the game that made this guide possible. Finally, I thank you, the readers, for taking time and reading through this guide.

Reserved.

Reserved.

Thanks for this! Great guide. Decided to switch to earth because it was the one power I've never really played and it's very different to fire/ice. I love fire but am enjoying earth at the moment. Tanking is hard to learn with a new power because you can't use the testing dummies so this is really useful.

I love it too. Good job Mia :3

Looking good! Check your inbox!

Well done yo!

Good Job Mia

very nice, i can't wait to get my earth toon to level 30 so i can pet tank, i think im really going to love it

Thanks everyone! Pet tanking is a lot of fun, I love both of the ways to tank with earth, that is why I switch between the loadouts so much.

Mia you there?

Nice guide, thanks!

Re:your text on Epicenter. My instinct tells me that if something is "too far" to taunt, it's also too far to reach with epicenter. Am I wrong?

Also I want to note that when you do something that makes your loadout bar change, your pet is no longer on your tray and is therefore de-summoned. So if you're counting on the damage shift mitigation, you may get a surprise when carrying mutants in Smallville, facing clever Sorcery dps in pvp, or at other times.

Epicenter I think got like ninja fixed, lately I have even been misusing Epicenter and not grabbing anything. The range is mid-range. If you use like earthen grip you can pretty much get to any enemy that you can put your target-lock on. Another good agro-grab that isn't a pull is Shard. You can use that and that hits long range and grabs the agro of enemies pretty efficiently.

Those very good points about pets being de-summoned I didn't even think about that. I will include that in my guide when I can get around to doing an update of it, if it is alright with you to use that information?

No, it's proprietary and I insist on a royalty any time it's mentioned from here out.

Of course you can. I'm just glad I could be of some use.