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 - Captain Vesuvius

I keep hearing good things about shield tankers so I wanted to try a few out. I decided to place them all on one account (different servers).  One combination in particular that I heard quite a bit about was the Shield Defense /Fire Melee tank, so I give you...

Captain Vesuvius

All of my shield tankers are Captain Something because it's just something I do. there's only one notable shield guy in comics and he's one of my favorites so call it an homage to him. His short background is that he was exploring a volcano near Italy when a tremor revealed the entrance to a cave. Entering, he discovered a shrine to an ancient god of earth and fire. Taking up the helmet he found within gave him amazing powers and a mandate to do good in the world.

Shield Defense is a defense-based set meaning "try not to get hit" and it also has a medium to strong offensive component in some of the higher level powers like Shield Charge. Positional defenses are fairly easy to build up through IO sets and that's what I intend to do.

Fire Melee is a strong offensive set for single target but is really known for it's AOE attacks. Combining these with Shield Charge is supposed to be very nasty and I intend to find out.

Travel power is Superspeed for now as I am experimenting with Hasten - he is a more offensive tank after all.  Other pool powers will likely be Fighting and possibly Leadership, and I may throw Combat Jumping from the leaping pool in there as well after experimenting more with him.

Costume-wise I knew there was a flaming rocky shield available and I started with that. The majority of his costume is the new Alpha set along with the chest jewel and the Valkyrie cape. The helmet is the Warrior Fire helmet with the Valkyrie crest for a vaguely Roman-ish look. I went with a Red and Yellow color scheme to emphasize brightness and flame and fine tunes the fire melee coloring to match the shield as closely as possible. To top it off I gave him the Omega body and eyes combat aura, colored to match the fire powers and the shield too. I'm pretty happy with the look and have no major changes planned for now.

Captain Vesuvius lives on Triumph server for easier teaming with the family.  
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Hero A Day - Cinder - Block

We have several accounts here at the Fortress Alumina and I have always liked to theme my characters of the same type on a given account. Most of my blasters on one account are Aluminum Men. My Fire Tanks on one account are all dragons. My brutes on one are all knights. On one account, all of my tanks are stony-looking characters and that particular trend started with...

Cinder - Block

This character started when I kept seeing good things about Stone/Fire tanks on the forum and decided that I needed to try one. The back of a napkin concept is a gas line worker who falls into a crack in the earth during an earthquake while repairing a gas line. He emerges with fire powers and a new stony form - not very detailed I know but this was more mechanically-inspired than concept-inspired.

Additionally Triumph server is where a lot of our kid characters are located and we didn't have a solid tank there. When I run with them a tank would be good to have and I knew this would be a strong both offensively with AOE's and defensively vs. everything so it would be a good choice for this role - only tank, usually teamed up.

Stone armor is widely considered the strongest tanker primary having a mix of some defense and a lot of resistance. It also has some very harsh movement penalties with it's higher level powers so there are some tradeoffs to be made. I have not run a stone tanker up out of the single digits before so this is another new set for me, although I have teamed with one for 30+ levels so I've seen it up close.

Fire melee is widely considered the best AOE attack set among the tanker secondaries and considering that the job of the tank is to pull in and hold the attention of enemies they are usually surrounded by multiple opponents which makes AOE's a very strong way to fight. At low levels Fire has Combustion for its first AOE which combines with Mud Pots, the Stone Armor damage aura, for a nice AOE damage zone in battle. During the leveling up process fire has decent single-target attacks too so it works even then.

The synergy of these two powers is in their lack of synergy - Fire doesn't slow the opponent, or knock them back, or drain endurance, or stun them - it's "extra" is that is does more damage. Stone armor is so strong it doesn't need any mitigation from the offense - it can handle the load on it's own, having no real weaknesses in its defensive capabilities. This makes Fire melee a very good fit with Stone, as opposed to some other primaries which need some mitigation from the attack set.

His travel power is Super Leap - it just seems to fit, and Combat Jumping + Acrobatics just makes his defenses that much stronger.  Other pools will include Fighting and possibly Leadership. I don't care much for Hasten on tanks as it tends to burn through their endurance that much faster. Many Stone tankers like teleport as a movement power to bypass the speed penalties from Stone but I am not going to take it unless I absolutely have to.

For the look I wanted a huge flaming stony guy. Huge body model + Stone costume was the base. I wanted him to look as if his powers manifested from some internal fire so I gave his stone armor the "Lava" look and went with red as the main hot color. I carried this over to his attack powers as well tuning the color until the swords in particular looked just right. He still needed some personality though so sunglasses and a cigar topped off the look. For future costumes I may give him more color in his basic stone outfit and I may add the Omega aura in some fashion with a red tint to the flames. Down the road he might even get a cape as his "dress uniform".

Cinder - Block runs on the Triumph server and is usually on a team - if you see us passing by give us a shout.