| Tanking | Atomic v. Fire

I'm running with Cyborg for combat and Flash (to run faster) and Calculator (survival). I don't have Nubia at max, but she can be an option as a first passive (heal).

I play both, and I can easily and without hesitation say that Fire is a better power in the vast majority of situations. I will also note that the potential of either power is determined in large part by your movement mode choice.

As Super Speed, Atomic has a very high melee DPS potential, and opens up myriad battle-tank options. Dash Attack is excellent in any non-grounded situation, and Phase Dodge has unique applications as well as unlocking precision options. As Acrobatics, your survivability can skyrocket because of Perfect Poise, but damage and battle-role options suffer.

While Speed aids with Fire's melee potential, Fire has other options, including the Mass Detonation clip option for precision. Speed gives you Dash Attack, Phase Dodge, and Metabolism, which is a legit option for Fire. Acrobatics can render you a virtual immortal with Perfect Poise buying you any needed healing time.

The only situations where Atomic is better are those where you can really wring value out of Mass Density, the enemies all come from a single direction or area, or you are battle-tanking. Mass Density gives Atomic the unique-among-tanks ability to shield your entire group, but it's a 60 sec. cooldown and 5000SC cost, so the situation -- which may depend what type of healer you have with you -- has be able to get a lot out of that. In my opinion, Mass Density is THE reason to choose Atomic. You also have a combo that hits in a ranged cone and juggles all enemies with virtually no immunity ever being granted. So, if enemies all come from a single place (direction, or area), this can dominate or even trivialize an instance.

Fire's only real weakness is it's inherent lack of a total absorption shield. This is why movement choice is so important, you're essentially choosing your difficulty level, Acrobatics being easy, Speed medium (but adding versatility), and Flight hard. Fire does need to have burning enemies to heal and knockdown with Backdraft, but the cone pull, your Immolation shield, and many powers like Stoke Flames all cause Burning, so it's easy and essentially automatic to manage.

Atomic is very dependent on your ability to position yourself directionally, and execute combos under pressure. It's very engaging and fun, but more difficult than Fire by a large margin. After executing a combo (or partial combo to achieve enough stacks) and activating your aura you have 14 seconds to do another combo, or the aura will need to be re-activated. The main drawback here is with attacks or mechanics which can cause a long stun, or lock you in some way. What can happen is that you get juggled out of a combo, then locked-up, and lose your aura. The Quark-Gluon Aura offers an ongoing 25% damage absorption, and activates your ability to regain 2% Health with each attack, so it's very important to maintain. This compares poorly with Fire Immolation, which absorbs 35% and requires no particular maintenance.

Fire has higher base healing, where Atomic's is based almost entirely on Dominance (aside from Proton Remedy, it's all Dom based), giving you back 40% of your dom with each successful combo. Meanwhile, Fire is just casually healing with Backdraft and numerous other abilities. In nearly all ways Fire is easier, and better.

Both should spec max Health, then go for Dom. If you have 500+ SP you can also go into Resto as Fire, but it's barely necessary. As pointed out above, Dom augments give more health than do Resto Augs. But the other big factor is Artifact Stat % bonuses, and base stats from equipment. You'll have a much high base of Dom, and your artifacts will grant you higher % bonuses on Dom. Taking advantage of the extra Health and ability to amplify Dominance is much better than slightly higher heals, with slightly weaker shields.

Alllllllll that said I find Atomic so much more engaging that I play my Atomic way more than my Fire. LOL.

I'll voice in from the other side of the spectrum. As a Healer, either can work, but I generally prefer Atomic.

The difference is chiefly that damage taken needs to be healed, while damage mitigated does not. Anything that is blocked by a Shield or Reduced by Defense just didn't happen. Anything that deals damage, that exactly amount needs to be healed.

The result is, using crude examples for simplicity sake:

Fire Tank has 200 health and takes a hit for 100. Fire tank is now at 50% life. Fire tank needs a heal for 100 in order to be full again.
Atomic Tank has only 100 health and takes a hit for 100, but mitigates it down to 50 because of their higher Defense. Atomic Tank is now also at 50% life. However, Atomic Tank only needs 50 points of healing to be full again.

On a grander scale, it remains true all the way along the curve. Damage mitigated is always better than damage that is taken and needs to be healed. It's true to the degree that the 8 player Supercharge Shields, plus the EoG spam, basically made entire Raids immune to all damage, to the point where Supercharges suffered major nerfs and changes just to address how powerful damage mitigation is.

A good fire tank doesn't have a problem healing themselves quite a bit as well, so it's not really any more taxing than any other powerset. However, much the same way I find running with a second healer reduces effectiveness because we both hit heals at the same time and result in a bunch of overhealing by not knowing the other person was about to do theirs, the same happens with the Fire Tank. If they're healing themselves and I'm healing them at the same time, then we end up with more instances of heals being wasted because one of us took care of the damage a split second before the other one hit the button. Basically, slightly higher power consumption with slightly lower results. Not game-breaking by any means, but just mildly less efficient.

That is almost right. The thing that is wrong is the healing needed to be at max. A fire tank has 50% increased healing. On top of that fire also has a defense buff range between 35% and 60% while 60% being easy to get. Atomic has a defense buff of 90%. So the difference from defense is only 30%. Atomic has a 25% damage mitigation while the aura is up. I am not sure the way defense calculates damage mitigation so I will let someone else handle that. But assuming your 50% is correct than 25% came from defense meaning Fire would mitigate around 18-20%.

So a Fire tank taking 100 damage would end up taking 80-82 damage compared to the 50 from Atomic. If a healer healed for 50 than Atomic would be at max and Fire would heal for 75. Meaning that they would be at -5 to -7. That could be made up from the self healing too. So the difference is not as big as made out in your calcs. 7 damage compared to 50. Scaling it up 1000x and its a 7k vs 50k.

Those are numbers at max. At worst atomic takes far more damage. If an Atomic tank drops their aura for whatever reason than that max heal drops down to a 25 point damage compared to fires 7 point. At worst fire drops the enhanced fire soul dropping their defense from 60% to 35%. losing 25% defense is far less impactful than dropping 25% straight mitigation.

When I heal I really don't feel a difference between healing a Fire Tank and an Atomic tank. That is until they make a mistake and you really feel atomics aura drop. From a tanking standpoint Fire is just better because there are so many things that can prevent you from being able to keep your aura up. Unlike Rage, there is no safety net that's added for mechanics preventing you from doing your tanking mechanic. Don't get me wrong, My 3rd toon and main tank is Atomic. But Fire is a better tanking power atm.

Not gonna get into which is better however I will say that Fire is better for ME.

My reasoning is because of dual role purposes, but also because I find combo tanking to be extremely annoying. Getting knocked out of combos and what not. Also Idk I just find it more fun when my healing is entirely dependent on my stats, and not an aura that I have to continuously keep up by doing a combo.

Just want to add that Fire tanks only get the extra 50% increased healing when NOT blocking so this is another difference that you would think about when tanking as fire vs atomic.

I have a fire tank (still new) and I am still unusure as to when I should block or not block. Blocking sounds like a NO-NO for a fire tank because (1) we lose the extra healing, (2) can't maintain the hit-combo for the 60% defense, and (3) we can't heal ourselves. But when pvp'ing the boss, we can't stand there and take the damage. Short-duration blocks are probably the solutioon but I have not gotten used to it yet.

Most, if not all, tanks lose something when blocking. Most are standard extra defense. So no matter what tank power you are you would be losing something while blocking. As for when to block vs when to not block, for the most part you’ll only block as needed for mechanics/skulls. You don’t want to stand there just blocking mainly because some bosses/adds can do a hold range to block break you which will do a lot of damage. For the most part if you are tanking adds you’ll pull chrono move pull chrono move. If it’s fast dying adds than just pull or pull chrono. On bosses you’ll normally taunt kite taunt kite. Again, all this being around mechanics. If a mechanic asks to block, block. If a mechanic asks you to go to a specific spot, move the specific spot.

Sorry, but while all tanks lose their extra defense when blocking, they instead get the standard 100% defense. Since all tank innate defenses are lower than 100% then all tank powers actually gain more defense when blocking. However, its harder to heal a blocking fire tank than any other blocking tank power. Therefore, fire tanks lose the extra healing while other tanks do not lose anything.

Fire Tanks also gain that added Defense. Losing the 50% healing buff is not the same as getting 50% less heals. When you block you will get the same 100% heal every other tank gets. However while not blocking you are healed for 150%. And these days you wont be blocking much anyways. This goes for all tanks. You pull/taunt then kite and repeat. If you look at TSDe, a tank will pull all the adds and after the snipers are killed a tank will juggle/kite around the adds. No tank will want to sit there and block. Not fire, not ice, not earth, and especially not atomic. As a tank your best form of damage mitigation is not your tanking mechanic but your ability to keep adds juggled. An add who is juggled does no damage. This is why tanks dont want trolls stacking stuns since this gets tanks killed if adds have immunity.

You forget, fire tanks get 150% health. Without the extra healing bonus, fire tanks are harder to heal while blocking. That is my point.

Harder to fill up. Not harder to heal. If a heal is going to heal you for 100 while not blocking it heals for 150. If it heals while blocking than it heals for 100. Your max health doesn’t affect what the heal does.

And atomic is far worse for blocking. They lose the 90% defense buff and they can’t self heal. They also risk getting stunned and dropping their aura. You’ll normally run fortified assault so your defense while blocking will be the same while not blocking as atomic. With fire your defense goes up since your defense while not blocking is lower even with fortified assault.

No matter what power you use, you’ll always lose something while blocking. Ice loses the least if I remember correctly.

Again, tanks lose their defense buffs and get 100% defense instead. So if atomic tanks loses their 90% defense but gain 100% defense, they did not lose any defense but actually gained 10% defense. I am just repeating what I said earlier. I think I am done here.

depending on what white mods you use, the difference will be: 0%,10%,20%... (or if you also use a hand improved chanelling mod (standard builds of atomic tanks do not use it, but there are builds where it is even appropriate for an atomic tank...) : -5%,0%,5%,10%,15%,20%....) if you correcting someone in an aggressive manner, be more precise in your corrections...
and Deity is right blocking is always associated with the loss of something, this is not always directly related to specific numbers, the atomic tank must constantly maintain its aura, blocking, it loses tempo, increases the risk of losing aura, loses active healing from aura and combos...

When I play tank fire I only block to take down the boss. When you successfully counter the boss, you gain immunity from damage and from being countered for a short period of time, as well as knock them to the ground. Block to counter.