Is tanking still viable?

PuceMoose

I did a search for tanking threads, and all of the ones I found were rather old. Is there any point to tanking any more? I am curious, as I have hit 520 points in the current Sticks and Stones tournament, and still have a seed team node available to plunder - I don't care about the rewards in this event, and I was thinking about throwing in a tanking team (level 40 Beast might enjoy some time on the battlefield) to see what happened. I've been noticing more and more 100+ X-Forces creepin' round my back stairs just after killing off seed teams, instead of the usual 60-80 level 2-stars, so I'm wondering if tanking will help.

Does losing 200 to 400 points in PvP via defensive losses still affect MMR, or is it no longer possible to effectively "reset the timer" and give yourself some breathing room? I'm curious to hear about other's experiences.

Unknown

That's a really good question to which I have no answer.
I guess, let us know how it goes?

Unknown

Yes. It still works. However, if you tank, you'll have trouble finding higher point targets. Therefore, I do not think most veterans do it anymore for that reason.

PuceMoose

Just for kicks I decided to give it a go. 570 points guarded by level 40 Beast, 40 Squirrel Girl, loaner Cage. That combination should provoke some attacks just from the sheer audacity of it existing. ^.^ I'll update on how it goes. I hope to get kicked back into the dark ages!

Unknown

I'd hit that.

Unknown

It still works, and is still viable, but it's not as necessary as it may have been at one point. Some of the changes to MMR have made it slightly smoother sailing to the middle range of points, and past that you're hitting tough matches regardless.

Where it really shines though is in LRs. After the seeds go away do you want to grind out 20 matches against level 40s, or level 270s?

Dauthi

You don't see much about it because tanking is completely unusable to 3* and 4* rosters. If you tank with these rosters you get easier 20 point teams vs moderate 30 point to 40 point teams. Either way, most of these rosters find both trivial, so it comes down to the points given. Throw in the time it takes to actually tank and time/effort easily goes to not tanking.

Unknown

Still works perfectly well, exactly the same methods as before work exactly as well.

It will of course only reduce enemy levels until you hit the high scorer "wall" which doesn't take your personal MMR into account any more.

IMO it's only really needed for ppl who have an inflated MMR and see unreasonably high levels before the wall hits.

JamieMadrox

I haven't tanked since season 2 and I do just fine.

MarvelMan

I havent "tanked" in a while, but I have pushed to the 900 level in the last couple events and not shielded. So I get worked over. Lost 250 points over night last night, and that was with 3 of the hits that showed being defensive wins.....

And it can be kind of nice to have low matches. i need to grind for iso right now so I dont really mind that up to about 600 I am getting 18-23 point matches against almost leveled 2* that I can burn through with Patch/Daken for the easy iso bonus and match reward.

PuceMoose

Alright, I let my shower-drain clogging combo of Beast and Squirrel Girl tank along with loaner cage hold down the fort, and lost 351 points overnight due to well-deserved attacks. After skipping through them I seem to be back to the usual faces of 94 Storm/94 ** Magneto, and not a grumpy X-face in sight. We'll see how long it lasts on the climb back to 600!

Unknown

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I haven't tanked since season 2 and I do just fine.

Of course you do fine. You're Jamie Madrox.

Unknown

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I haven't tanked since season 2 and I do just fine.

To be fair though, that's because when you load someone up in a queue, it automagically swaps out their maxed Feature+ SexGoddess for Loaner+iMagStorm.

SuperSkrull

Season XI was the first full season I ran with max 166 on my roster and I didn't tank at all during it and noticed a slight creep of the 166 wall coming earlier as the season progressed. At the start of Season XII, during the Iron Fist PvP I saw the 166 wall at around 125-150 points! This could have been because of progress in the previous season and/or because I got ~500 in the shield sim before starting the PvP (I've been levelling up laken/blade and wanted to have some fun running those two with LThor).

Okay, so 500 isn't high enough in shield sim to break the free-for-all bucket, and I stupidly didn't save a seed team node to auto-tank, so I just deliberately lost matches using an under levelled 1* team, 30 secs to lose match, 4mins to regen, perfect for commute home/down time. It took around 12-15 losses (and only losing around 50points) before the nodes started to give mid levelled 2* teams.

After doing this the iron fist PvP was more reasonable and similar progression of teams as last season. The interesting thing happened with the Luke Cage PvP, 94 2* teams all the way to 640pts before I hit maxed XF/GT teams, with a smattering of 3* teams from 550 onwards. As mentioned previously most of these 2* teams were only worth 18-25 points, equivalent to the under levelled 3* teams I was hitting last season (of course time slice and top players score will make a difference to this).

Learning points:
- Tanking once or twice a season may not be a bad idea, especially if you notice the wall creep down
- Tanking in shield sim is enough to affect your MMR and is kinder to your alliance than tanking in the PvP
- Auto-tanking would be easier so don't forget to save a couple of seed nodes in the Sim!
- Maxed 2* teams all the way to 600pts is not as easier ride as you might think, maxed 94s will do more match damage and cheap ability damage than any under levelled, under covered 3*/XF teams (where often you just need to target denying 1-2 ability as opposed to denying onslaught, sunder, recon & anti-grav)
- After playing with my boosted 1/3/3 Luke Cage I've changed my mind about 5/5/3 as the best build and I've decided 5/3/5 is the real deal to aim for. I can't wait to play him with a 5/5/3 IF.