Tank vs Tank - Comparing the Tank Powers

Situationally high health pool that is. One second it might be close to 200k the next it can be at 40k. Having the adds die is the worst experience, especially in Blackest Day elite version now.

From the feedback thread, Spord wrote:

Will be updating the guide with the latest changes as soon as I finish cleaning up the spreadsheet. My initial take is that these changes make Atomic competitive with other Tank powers without putting it over the top. Not as good as a blocking Fire Tank, but if an Atomic Tank keeps their Aura going, they should be competitive with a decent non-blocking Rage Tank.

i saw the post about the new atomic buff do you think its ennought cuz 10% isnt good right now so adding 10%idk lol
and is this only happen to me when im doing my combo smethime the comb stop and im doing melee weapon atack instead its make getting my aura back after when i loose it between 2 fight in raid

I haven't posted the update, but I've gone through the numbers, and yes, I think it will make Atomic competitive with the other Tank powers.

For an Atomic Tank you absolutely, positively, MUST get your aura and keep it up. Yeah, I've played and found myself doing weapon attacks instead of combo attacks from time to time. I don't know if it's server-lag or a bug or me being spastic. My suggestion is to have at least 3 of the 4 aura short-cut powers (Atom-powered Assault, Neutrino Blast, Proton Remedy, Energize) in your load out.

Without QG Aura, your best option is to hit proton remedy and block-- and it's generally not a good option. With aura you're a bit better than a blocking Earth Tank (as long as you don't block). You're also better than a non-blocking Ice Tank using Reflection (again, as long as you don't block). Which brings me to my other suggestion: block as little as possible. If you're playing Atomic like an Earth or a Fire tank, you're doing it wrong.

EDIT: I don't plan on changing things around on the first page until the Atomic updates actually hit Live.

thx man, btw great job with all 5 tank numbers

Changing the damage absorption from 10% to 20% actually benefits Atomic immensely. Atomic is the only tank that can achieve 80% damage mitigation without using the Home Turf Fortified Blocking mod.

If you find yourself doing weapon attacks when you meant to combo, then that's just a timing thing on your part. It takes a little practice. Once your aura is up you only need to do a combo once every like 10-12 seconds to refresh it.

So I wanted to summon the Tanking number crunchers. I went back and was doing some research (possibly for a future project ) and I was studying Gemstone and how it works and how Brick tanking differed from Aftershock tanking numbers wise. I went back to this post. Is this considered a bug yes or no and is it a huge advantage? The discussion continues to the end of the page.

And there is apparently an Effective Health formula? What is this formula exactly and what are the variables addressed in the formula? And the new defense mitigation formula is? The cap is still 75% correct and can only be pushed to 80% with the Fortified Blocking mod? And are we in agreement on how damage is coming in?

Defense then Absorption then Shield then Transference

I read that the advantage here is that Transference is being used after the Shield and hence that's what is making Brick have an advantage with Gemstone/HLS.

My understanding of things, based on experiments on the test server, is that Absorption is a shield. It doesn't stack with shields. So gemstone shield replaces absorption for an Earth Tank, and Density replaces Absorption (if the aura is active) for an Atomic Tank.

As it turns out, there's really no huge advantage to either method of Earth Tanking. I feel there are subtle advantages to Brick-- while you're holding block, Brick is taunting things-- but in terms of survivability the numbers wind up almost identical when you carry out the decimal places far enough.

Gemstone, if not aftershocked, will sometimes break after only one hit. That's clearly a bug, and it's clearly an elusive one or it would have been fixed by now.

Haven't updated the summary yet, but the Atomic section has been updated to reflect the latest updates. It's looking quite a bit stronger as a tank power.

I'm also editing the other Tank descriptions one by one to bring them a little more into line with the way Atomic looks. Let me know if you like it.

I wanted to chime in here and say my atomic tanking experience has been silky.

I'm a big fan of the changes it seems.

Also, big thanks to Spord for making Atom Splitter still pull behind you :O

This may be slightly off topic, but I was interested to know if anyone knew how healing registers on the scorecard? if you were to take 100 damage and were healed for 1000 does the scorecard register that as 100 healing or the whole 1000?

Knowing this would help poke holes in the argument that Atomic tanks are carried by healers.

I've updated the summary post, both with a new chart and updated text. For those of you who feel I've slighted Rage in the past, I've included Crash-Cancelled numbers in the summary chart to show just how good it can be in skilled hands.

First, Effective Health is sort of a squishy concept-- it's not formally defined anywhere, and is just a way to compare the tanks evenly by considering how much total damage they can take after defenses. Shields basically add to your health. Healing obviously isn't a shield since it won't stop a one-shot and you might not get the full benefit, but in order to show how effective they can be I include healing in the summary.

I calculate Effective Health as

(Total Health) / (% Damage Taken after Defense)

Shady Mackerel and I figured out that at CR105 it's roughly 400 Defense per 1% mitigation. Shady dug way deeper into things, and came up with:

1% mitigation = (CR x 3.5) +46

Damage in is 100%-Mitigation. Tanks seem to get enough Defense from their gear to keep mitigation before any buff at around 45%. All tanks hit the mitigation cap while blocking. The Mitigation cap is 75%, but the Fortified Blocking Home Turf Mod allows it to go up to 80% while blocking. I don't really stress this in the guides, but it's really essential for all tanks except Atomic. Atomic is probably better off with Escalating Might. Until you lose your aura and need to block.

Me too. It really makes Atomic competitive with other Tanks.

No idea how the score card registers, but I don't think you actually get healed for more than your max health ever. I think the last heal number gets clipped to the amount needed to top you off.

Despite the Chardonnay-swigging comic relief in my examples, when it comes to end-game content I'd say that all tanks are pretty reliant on their healer.

Only for actual HP given by the healer. Overheals are not counted.

You know what. I have no idea. I know that what I striked through up there is how it works for DPS. But who's to say that's for sure how it works with healing. You'd assume so, but a lot of things have been assumed over the years.

I have been thinking 'bout this for a while now on how Rage is pretty underrated to people in extremely hard content. It's the only tank power set that pull off something like that with extremely high risk (power use, huge health pool to heal, and possible crash) but high reward. Would you see it be able to perform well in SM against single bosses in hard rounds or is it true that it's just not viable?

The common trick people tend to say is too stack a lot of health during moments of counter immunity in order to survive the big blows from bosses and I'm wondering if this is still the case....

I rarely see high level Rage tanks anymore in hard content like Elite and SM.

I think it's viable, but it really has to be played well. If you mitigate instead of canceling the crash too often your health will quickly get whittled down, no matter how much your health is buffed.

The caveat with Rage's health buff is that it makes you harder to heal (except sodas, which work on a % of your total health pool). If you buff up your health before you take damage that's not a problem. If you buff it up after you've taken a lot of damage you can drive your healer nuts because they want to see your health bar go up and its barely moving.

I see the advice to stack it really high thrown around on the forums a lot. I don't know that it's bad advice, but if you're going to use that strategy you should let your healer and your troller know ahead of time. And make sure your troll has their supercharge ready, because there is no combination of 6 powers you can use that doesn't empty 80% of your power bar.

Must admit, your guide is one of the most comprehensive that I've seen. Everyone must always remember that while the numbers give Ice the edge generally it ultimately is the player that decides which tank style is best. Since I've been playing 2 of the best tanks I've seen are fire and earth, the worst was a ice tank. So while the numbers say one thing always take them with a grain of salt. In the end its the player. But as I said before great guide.

UPDATE: Added a link to Snix's new Atomic Guide. It's a work in progress, but it's really coming along well.

Thanks so much for the kind words.

You make an excellent point. The numbers definitely don't say all there is to say about a power. Here's what I think they DO say.

• All the Tank Powers are viable and can survive these common end-game situations.
• Some Tank Powers do better against steady damage than against burst damage, or vice versa.
• Some Tank Powers absolutely have to block to survive.
• Most of the Tank Powers have more than one option to deal with incoming damage, but not all options work well in every situation.

As Crazy Art points out in this post, even these numbers are flawed, because they don't really take power use into account. I started to take power into account, but the guides started getting unwieldy (the individual posts are already pretty long). Still I hope that what I have here helps players get the most out of whichever Tank power they choose to play.

fire tank is bad?

Literally the first bullet point above your post is the OP stating "all the tank powers are viable".

I always think to myself the same thing when I read posts like yours:

"And these people vote?"

I think I would choose an Abrams or the German Leopard..knowing full well that the Tank as a main ground force is a hopelessly antiquated concept...the time when the US would have to make huge numbers of tanks to challenge a modern Rommel is over. No other people army nation has trillions to waste on such nonsense...frankly WE cannot afford it either...Generals have gone to Congress more than once demanding Less Tanks...and money better spent... that is the reason 9/11 was done with our own aviation infrastructure...and not Tanks...