Need help with earth tanking.

Do u not use soothing sands instead of totem? Any advice why totem is better? Thx

That's also a very good option, but I prefer giving extra healing to Brick. A lot of healers don't run with NPC heals, and most that do don't even bother looking at Brick and trying to heal him, so at least I have my own option I can use to keep him healed. It might not be too much, but I found it almost essential for certain boss fights like the first one in UMe with the constant AoEs and heavy DoT damage. In my piece of advice I also talked about how I like to use Totem to help deal with controlling aggro and gave a useful example of how to do so in SM. It also allows me to have another power that has some slight crowd control capabilities and doing something such as Totem into Epicentre helps keep the enemies controlled and juggled. I do run with a Breakout trinket if needed, and if the boss fight requires group immunities to help increase the group's survivability I will usually take out Epicentre or Totem depending on the scenario. Good examples of this are Professor Zoom in HH and Starfire in the current SM.

Don't be afraid to run away! Kite things around. I was able to solo Tank GOMr at cr171 by doing just this. Having brick is like having a 2nd tank so there is no need to stand there and take hits. Give yourself some space if you're worried about being squishy.

What about splitting full dom and full health between back, hands, waist, feet and both rings? Wouldn't you end up with more of dom and health that way?

I have been using this as my loadout and havent had any problems thus far:

epicenter
earthen grip
soothing sands
reinforce
jackhammer
gemstone shield

mods once I actually mod will be:

dom in blues
dom/prec in reds
dom/power in yellows

for tactical mods I use:

Weapon - Restorative adapter
Neck - Fortified blocking
Back - Breakout regeneration
Feet - Deadly block
Chest - Quick healing
Hands - Regenerative shielding


in my utility belt I have zeus orbital, max supply, qwardian henchman, and a item lvl 164 stat trinket.

My over all dom atm is only 4910 this is without any mods (synthetic or crafted) but Im full elite and have almost 280sp and havent died 'yet' as a earth tank

Thank you sir. I just got my Earth user past 30 and I was looking for a good loadout.

My brick tank loadout.
FG, epicenter, earthen grip, soothing sands, gemstone shield, brick. Like most everyone said lots of blocking and countering.
In boards with high level dots I switch epicenter and totem. Totem will still grab the aggro but the adds walk slowly as opposed to the quicker pull of epicenter, but you will help keep brick alive. I feel a tank should have an immunity so I never remove soothing sands. And I keep gemstone shield for the little bit of heals plus the damage mitigation in case brick does die.

I can't really add much to the previous comments except to say part off this is getting used to the unique way earth handles damage and needs to be played versus ice, etc.

Even the best earth tank will take big damage sometimes and we definitely require healer support for boss fights or harder hitting mobs. But a good earth tank will mitigate damage in a way that reduces or prevents consistent spike damage that has the healer always panicking to keep us alive.