Hero A Day - Bituminous Man

One of my earlier tanker concepts was prompted by the "stone" costume - what if it was coal, rather than something like granite? Thus was born...

BITUMINOUS MAN

The idea was that coal as stone armor might not be great but coal is known for burning, so I went with Fire Aura for the primary - one of my first fire tanks as a mater of fact. I went with a an almost black base color with a red-orange blend pattern towards the midsection.

For the secondary I liked the way the big hammers of Stone Mallet looked so I went with Stone Melee using the lava option and making the colors match the rest of the costume - black and orange.

This ended up as both an effective character (see my many other postings on my love of fire tanks) and a visually unified one (the colors lined up well for all of these powers and costume parts) and a thematically it's funny (or "light" at least) while still being unified - if a man fell into a burning coal bunker and gained super powers from it this is what he might look like.

I enjoyed running Bituminous around so much that I also created Anthracite Man with the same setup (more red less yellow) on another server and briefly created Lignite Man as well. Though now deleted both of them may make a return appearance, one of them probably as a brute just because I'm trying to avoid duplicating powerset combinations on the same archetype. I may also try out the Omega aura as a supplement to the Fire Armor glow - we'll just have to see.

The Man of Coal currently lives on Freedom server.

Hero A Day - Draco Ignis

Draco Ignis was the fourth and last (for now) of my draconian-themed fire tanks After creating Fire/Super Strength, Fire/Dark, and Fire/Ice tanks there was really only one combination left that I wanted to try and thus was born...

DRACO IGNIS

I've said a lot about Fire Aura before so I won't repeat myself. It's a versatile set of powers that unlike some tanker primaries will not cripple your offense, making a character that plays more like a comic book strong guy and less like a punching bag. The main weaknesses are psionics (like most defense sets) and knockback (fairly easy to fix with an IO or two or Acrobatics if you're going with the Leaping pool.

Fire Melee now, is perhaps the most offensive of the tanker primaries with a secondary effect not of damage mitigation or slow or some other side effect but a secondary effect of more damage. It's important to keep this in mind when playing, as without that secondary mitigation you're going to take more damage. Building up some toughness is very important.

Synergies - let's see, the most offensive primary paired with the most offensive secondary? The synergy is that you do a lot of damage, especially AOE damage. Fire Melee alone has 2 PBAOE's and a Cone attack combines with a damage aura and Burn to make for melted minions in short order. The single-target damage is strong as well. You just don't get a lot of other effects like knockdowns or slows or immobilizes or extra healing - but you get a lot of straight-up damage.

Pools are Flight, Fighting, and maybe Leadership to buff Defense since we get no secondary mitigation. Ancillary will have to wait and see.

For the look I wanted to change things up a bit from Nyx and Polaris so I started with the Monstrous head but went with the glowy bio organic wings from the mutant pack and the organic armor sets for most of the body. I then added one of the Cyborg chest plates to change things up a little - I wanted less of the traditional fantasy magic look and more sci-fi type elements and I got it. He may get a look more like the others as the costume slots open up but for now I like that he's different.

Draco Ignis is leveling up on the Justice server and would be happy to join any team looking for a tank that deals damage juts as well as he takes it.

Hero A Day - Draco Polaris

Polaris was the third of the Draco tanks and was a particularly interesting combination. I had seen some discussion that Fire Aura / Ice Melee was a strong tanking choice, but one of my first characters in COH was a Fire/Ice tank and I was not happy with it and eventually deleted it. Now though, knowing much more about the game, I could see the synergies and decided to give it another try - thus was born...

DRACO POLARIS

Fiery Aura is my favorite tanker primary mainly due to the mix of powers and the early availability of many good ones, and also due to the look.

Ice Melee is not a high-powered offense compared to some but it has some interesting properties. Most attacks in it have a slow effect (keeping the badguys close to you in your damage auras and off of your teammates) and also have a -recharge effect, slowing their attack rate and mitigating damage. It also has a cone, a PBAOE, and Ice Patch which is an area foe knockdown which again keeps foes in your damaging aoe's like Burn.

Synergies are that Ice Melee makes for a very sticky tank and Fire Aura ensures that the enemy is taking damage while they are stuck to you. It's not as offensive as a raging fiery embracing superstrength fire tank, but it is very good at the traditional tanker role of keeping the enemy busy and focused on you and it is fun to play.

Pool powers will be the now-essential for tankers Fighting, the thematically required Flight, and I'm not sure after that. Ancillary might be Arctic but I'm not there yet.

For the costume I started with the reptilian Monstrous look, veteran reward Demonic Wings, Valkyrie breastplate & belt, and the spiked pauldron shoulders. I went wit ha white primary scheme with light blue highlights for a solid icy look. I added the Omega combat aura to add an element of flaming ice to the look and I like it so far.

Draco Polaris is busy leveling up on Freedom server - team up if you get a chance.

Hero A Day - Draco Nyx

Nyx is the second of the Draco tankers I created.  I liked the look of Draco Rex and I really like Fire Aura as a defensive power set so I decided to theme a group of fire tanks on one account with similar names and looks to Draco Rex. One power combination I wanted to try was Fire Aura / Dark Melee and thus was born...

DRACO NYX

Fire Aura is my favorite defensive set - decent resistance to smashing and lethal defense to start, then a damage aura, a self-heal, and an endurance recovery attack are all available before 10th level, making for a well-rounded character before offensive sets are even considered. Burn at level 18 is a nice offensive type power as well. Plus, and not inconsiderable in it's importance, Fire Aura just looks good.

Dark Melee is a strong offensive set that in addition to decent attacks adds another self heal at level 16 in Siphon Life.  Dark attacks also carry a -tohit component that strengthens Fire Aura's resistance by making more attacks miss.

Synergies - If an effort is made to improve defense through IO's and pool powers, then the strong resistance of Fire combined with the defensive boost of Dark and bolstered by 2 self-healing powers and an endurance boost makes for a very resilient tank and one that has good offensive capabilities as well.

For pool, powers I'm going with Flight (theme, prob only Air Superiority and Fly), Fighting, and possibly either leadership (though I'm not sure he needs more toggles) or maybe Medicine to stay with the idea of resilience, I'm not sure yet.

Much of the look was determined by the precedent set with Draco Rex.It's mainly the Monstrous parts with the veteran reward Demonic Wings, the Organic Armor shoulders, and the Valkyrie chest plate and belt. I thought about going with black for a color scheme but it's been done and I wanted something more colorful and so went with a more purple scheme.

Draco Nyx is still fairly low level but looking good so far. He runs on Virtue server whenever possible so if you see a big purple flaming lizard run by, give a shout out.

Hero A Day - Draco Rex

Back when I first started COH I made a dragon-looking character while experimenting with the builder and made him a fire & ice tanker. This short-lived experiment did not go well so I ended up deleting him. I really liked the costume though so once I had a better handle on the game I went back and remade him as a fire/super strength tanker and thus was born...

DRACO REX

Now this is heavily based off of one of my old Champions RPG characters so I had a pretty good concept already of how I wanted him to look and what kinds of powers he needed. The RPG character was basically a flying brick with a breath weapon and that's sort of the route I went here.

Fire Aura is probably my favorite Tanker primary - it's fun to play, it looks good, and it has a nice variety of powers spread across the level range while you're leveling up. It boosts the offensive capabilities of a tank significantly and that's what I wanted here. It's also no slouch as a resistance-based set and is easily boosted with set IO's if you feel a weakness in any particular area.

Super Strength is a great tanker secondary, one I have on many characters, and mixing up the animations should let you make it look exactly how you want it to look. The punches and slams are very comic-bookish, Rage adds to offensive capability (very nice with fire's powers) and hurl gives you a very brickish/tankish ranged attack at the later levels.

Combining these two sets results in a tanker that plays more like a classic superteam brick rather than someone whose main role is just to suck up damage while someone else beats people up. With Fire you have a damage aura/taunt aura, a self-heal, a self-endurance boost, a damage boost, and a self-rez. Super Strength adds a variety of single-target attacks plus a damage boost and a ranged attack. Both sets have a couple of PBAOE powers that are very useful, resulting a very versatile character who while among the toughest in the game has not sacrificed offense to the degree that some other tanker builds do. It's a lot of fun and I highly recommend it.

For pool powers he's a Flyer and a Fighter and I haven't decided on the rest. On tanks I may take Flight but I do not take Hover. Instead I take Air Superiority and in this case I use it instead of Punch (and then go straight to Haymaker from Super Strength). Since I am taking most of the powers from the primary and secondary there are not a lot of dead spots on the power tree until the higher levels.

Costume wise he's the monstrous -> lizard choices for body with armored shoulder plates and one of the chain chest details along with an animated lizard tail. Crafted draconic wings complete the package.

Draco was the first of the Draco Tanks (more on those later) and he runs on Infinity as part of the League of Super Justice Friends.