Tanking

Did the Hostess Heroes last night — a small group, consisting of Ho Ho, Princess Peep, Ring Ding, and Brownie Points (Divinity Chu was on briefly as Margie and I arrived).

I continue to be both frustrated and pleased by Ho Ho as a tank.

On the pleasing side, it’s nice to basically pull aggro off your friends, before they even attract it, and hold it while they carve and blast the bad guys to chutney. When all goes well, Ho Ho sort of calls the tune as to what we’re doing; everyone follows the tank, right? If things go pear-shaped or if the scrappers (cough) go running off on their own and get in trouble, I can usually pull matters back out of the fire.

I think we had one death last night (Peep got a bit too much into the middle of things at the beginning of a melee and went down in a flash). Granted, we did a lot of stale missions, but we also did a number of new ones, with plenty of opportunity for folks to die. They didn’t, and I take at least partial credit for that.

On the the other hand, I’m frustrated by Ho Ho’s inability to be something other than a meat shield. Yes, she can knock folks over with her axe. Yes, she can, given geological periods of time to work in, take down opponents. But by and large, her defining ability is being able to … well … draw and hold aggro without dying quickly.

You see my dilemma.

Honestly speaking? If I were doing the HH again, I wouldn’t roll her up as a tank. At least not Invuln (which I’ve way overdone), but probably not at all. And, also honestly speaking, I’m not going to change. The team needs a tank, I’m not going to PL someone up to 27 any time soon, etc.

Which is not to say by any means that I’m not going to be doing the Monday Munchies thang, nor that I won’t be having fun with Ho Ho. It will just be fun leavened with a bit of frustration. Which, I suppose, is not all that different than it would be whatever the AT I chose. 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *