Hello all, I am a returning player and would like to try my hand at tanking. I am torn between rage, earth and atomic. I was wondering if anyone can give me an idea of which of these 3 powers would be the best overall tank. I read that atomic and rage have great self healing, of the 2, which one has an easier time surviving the world bosses in Chaos Gotham? Thanks in advance for any insight!
that's an odd claim to make. How do you find Ragebringer better than any of the other pulls? Earth, with golem, will be the easiest in my experience. Rage can be better, but you have to get used to avoiding rage crash while managing a fight. Atomic is now probably as hard as Fire to play-- it's very unforgiving if you get stunned or countered, and you have to work weapons in to get counters of your own.
Rage - Health Buff has your Combo meter goes up (maxes out at 50 hit combo), Self Healing based on 80% of the damage dealt to you. Must Cancel it or lessen it with other abilities. Strong Shield. Atomic - Self healing based on Combos. Stop comboing and youre dead. Must keep Aura active. Weak personal Shield, but great SC Shield. A little Spongey Earth - Damage mitigation. Either use Pet to soak damage or use Combos to active Stone Skin to lessen damage. Shield is a combo so 3 taps maxes it out making it a really strong shield. Personally I see Rage>Earth>Atomic but then again i am bias cause I am Rage lol but Earth is still stronger than Atomic in my eyes but Im not completely knociking the power. Ive seen some good Atomic players but there are few around and due to Density having a weak personal shield, they get squished easy if the rotation is off by one input. In essence to your last question, any of these will be fine tanking the outdoor bosses in Chaos Gotham, just dont expect to solo them you know?
Speaking of earth tanking: Which is better, brick golem or stone skin? Also how does stone skin work it's confussing the poop out of me.
I solo as atomic tank all day long in Chaos Gotham. The key is just to fight all the daemons at once since it takes a little longer to kill but that’s mitigated when they all die at once. I personally think atomic and rage are the only two tanks that do their jobs, and by that I mean aggro. The other tanks may be hard to kill but I’ve never really seen them pull enemies off of the dps guys by their aggro alone.
huh i always thought atomic has the best pull since it teleports the adds to the tank, other tanks pulls have collision risks while pulling and earth can also contribute to speeding up adds immunity with its stun.
i'm with you atomic has the best pulls simply because just comboing blinks them to you. only have to reach out and touch someone with a long rang pull for the stragglers
Not being rude, but that's not how aggro works. Each tank power is virtually identical in terms of aggro Its a love hate. The pulls are amazeballs Unfortunately the survivability puts it on the low end of tank powers
{/quote agreed was my fav power from the day it was released right up until the revamp and they ruined the playability of it in my mind at least by slowing it down too much. I had to switch to a diffrent power in sadness.
I have to admit I’m not sure how the aggro exactly works but I know there is a significant difference in my atomic character versus my rock character’s ability to attract the enemy. I can pretty much stand in the corner doing my combos as atomic and eventually be surrounded by all the adds and bosses versus earth doing constant pulls and taunts and struggling to get there attention. This seems to be the case also as an observer seeing ppl play as atomic versus any other powers. It’s possible the learning curve for the others is just harder to get down versus atomic but I have yet to be ever out tanked by another person using a different power.
The typical 2 typical combos that Atomic tanks use, one is a 360 pull. I'm guessing that's what your seeing Aggro is is attained by using a power, any power within range of a NPC that puts the tank at the top of the hate table (ie aggro) and the NPC will come to you (unless scripted or too far away. Like I said I love atomics pulls as a tank since you don't have to jump pull and really can keep adds tightly packed for the DPS. Unfortunately Atomics shield is one of the worst in game and it does suffer in survivability a bit.
I agree there are tougher tanks but I think the constant power usage of atomic is what spikes it’s aggro (assuming your not kiting) and puts you knee deep in enemies. You can die easily if you’re not on your game or have a healer in the harder instances. However, when it’s all working great everyone gets to to really see the advantage of a tank as he draws all the enemies in and you get to sit back and blast.
You could spam powers every .5 sec and it won't affect aggro at all (spikes as you described). It's a set time, once a tank casts a power that aggro is drawn (someone like LT could give more precise time but i believe it's around 10-12 seconds) This only changes if there are scripted aggro breaks, or if new adds come in tat need to be aggro'd. Kiting itself doesn't lose aggro- it's used to keep from being overwhelmed, but the way aggro works, they will follow you provided you cast a power within the time before aggro is lost. That's what makes it work, otherwisethe adds would just leave the tank and go to next highest person on hate table (usually a healer or DPS)
Any ability, including shields, self-heals, movement abilities, or iconic abilities, makes everything within about 12m attack the tank. If it's a ranged ability, it makes the target and everything around it attack the tank also. I haven't experimented with mid-range abilities like Atomic's very much. It's likely that, if the adds are ~12m out and they get hit with a mid-range ability like atom smasher or TCE, then adds that are close by that target but further than 12m get taunted also. Another reason why Atomic tanks generate lots of agro is that it takes about 3 complete (ability-tap-tap) combos to heal you as much damage as a typical Ice shield mitigates, so as an Atomic tank your options are combo constantly or run away constantly. Since a lot of Atomic tanks prefer the combos, you're constantly generating fresh agro.
Yes, thank you for explaining that. Combos is how I play and having all the enemies attack me at once makes me very useful as a tank to the other players, assuming I can stay alive. For the most part besides sm or top tier elites I have no problem staying alive with that play style. To do those I see kiting as an atomic tanks as your only option. But for all the rest of the content I can’t express how fun it is to be nose to nose with the boss and surrounded by all the adds just combining away feeling like a stud. It’s like the whole battle is centered on you. You just can’t achieve that with other tanks. That’s why I love the atomic tank.
Ha ha no but I’ve watched obsidianchills videos on it and I see his technique as the only viable option for those top tier battles. I’m honestly not sure how any tank can stay alive in sm unless it’s by kiting but I honestly haven’t played as every tank style so I can’t really say. So yeah I stay out of those battles with my atomic tank until I can figure it out but that still leaves the majority of the content for me.
