Ze5's guide too gearing (and decking) for the endgame.

Well one of the great strengths of TSW is its flexibility, in the endgame this is FAR less true. There is SOME degree of wiggle room on your chosen setup(s) and I will address that, but the idea here is too give people a general idea of what works, and WHY.

On flexibility.

It is altogether possible you have decided that you only ever want to play one role, one way. If that role is fist healer, feel free to skip this section.

If you are still here, step one is going to be getting your hit rating up to 650.
There are nearly infinite ways of doing this, but some are far better options than others.
The first question you should ask yourself is, "Do I plan on raiding?"
If the answer is "yes" you should assume 10.5 glyphs and plan your gear accordingly. You WILL have to reglyph if this is the case, but there are ways to minimize the impact.You should also check out the 'raid drops' section before glyphing, as you don’t want to stick hit on something you plan to replace later.
The next question is, "Do I plan to tank AND dps/leech heal?" If the answer to this one is yes, DO NOT put a hit glyph in your head. The reason for this is that, although you totally can run an attack rating head as a dps, leech, and tank, you will want different signets for them.

I personally run 2 10.5 AR majors with violence in them, glyphed full hit. This sits me pretty at 656, and is enough hit rating to run any deck in almost any content (Fac takes more, but just take call your shots to make up the extra 150 hit.)

Early in the endgame, you WILL NOT have the gear to pull this off. Priority number 1 is going to be getting the custom pieces you want hit on (keep in mind, you want hit rating spread around the smallest amount of pieces possible if you plan to run multiple roles) and upgrading those GLYPHS with glyph toolkits. Once you have hit at just over 650, you will prevent almost all glanced hits and the majority of evades. Glances reduce damage by about 40% and evades reduce it by 100%. As a tank, this is also key as damage = threat, and a glanced or evaded impair often means the whole party dies. The reason 650 is the magic number is that, other than preventing a large decrease in outgoing damage, hit rating doesn’t actually help you in any way. 650 hit is less then 1% glance, with the exception of Fac, HE and enemies that have glance buffs (HR mostly). Glance buffs can't actually be fought with more hit rating, so you will just have to deal with it. Taking MORE hit rating will basically be waisted stat points, as you have already effectively pushed the chance of glances and evades off the table.


HIT rating competes against the targets EVADE and DEFENCE stat. That is really all it does, however.

While you work on jacking up hit rating (I recommend starting out 2 majors and a split minor. Eventually that minor will loose all hit and you will just run 2 majors, but it takes some time to gear up that much.) you can take passives to offset the lack of hit. If your hit is under 450, take "Fever Pitch" from chaos. It will help. If it's over, you have some options. As of 1.9, short controlled bursts will give 200 extra hit rating to burst attacks. This will basically force you to use burst abilities, but there is a way to add some flexibility. Elemental Force is AMAZING as a dps passive, and with the right rotation you can build with burst abilities then force crit (and thus prevent glancing, although not evades) your largest hitting skill. As of 1.9, accuracy is worth 50 hit rating and 5% damage, so that’s another nice one (and far more flexible) as well as call your shots providing 5 stacks of 35 hit rating (so that’s 175 after the first rotation).
Basically, with the right passives you can add up to 325 hit rating, so in a burst build you could actually get away with as little as 325 hit. This is not the IDEAL way to do it, as there are FAR better passives out there for any given role, but it will help early on.

Keep in mind, regardless of what role you are working on Glyphs are ALWAYS upgrade priorities. 10.0 tali's with 10.4 glyphs will make it possible to finish all content in the game. 10.4 talis with 10.0 glyphs will lead to people carrying you at best, and putting you on ignore at worst. As much as it pains me to say this, the endgame in this game IS elitist enough that people will refuse to play with you if you gear wrong. And yes, you can gear wrong. Easily.

The stats, and WTF they do.

Combat/Heal Power: This is your base damage or Healing, depending.
(375-600/(exp(Attack or Heal Rating/1400)+1))*(1+Weapon Power/375) = Combat or Heal Power.
All skills have a base damage or healing, and are then multiplied by the effective power. More is better. Simple enough.

Attack Rating and Heal Rating are then pretty straight forward. Health is also a pretty clear one, in that health is exactly what it sounds like. These are the PRIMARY attributes on tali's, while Weapon Power is the primary attribute of weapons. Note that weapons actually make a larger impact on damage or healing done than tali's, The catch is that only effects you while you are using that weapon, where as tali's can be shared by a number of decks.

Hit Rating: Competes with targets Defense and Evade stats. It's a bit random, but basically if you have a higher hit rating than the opponent's defense and evade, you won't glance or be evaded. All points beyond the target's defense and evade stats are totally wasted, but glances and evades are things you don’t want.

Penetration: Competes with the target's BLOCK rating, and causes penetrating hits. This one is the second highest priority dps stat, and a GREAT stat to dump points in. Nightmare bosses have an average of 700 block, so until you hit that number, your hits will be blocked (40% damage reduction). Once you have gone higher than the target's block rating, you start to get a chance at penetrating hits. A penetrated hit is worth somewhere around +40% damage, and totally bypasses physical/magical protection on the target. On top of that, if someone in the party is running a purple breaching signet, you get an extra 24% damage. Pen is OP.

Critical RATING: Competes to some extent with the target's DEFENCE (seems too be a separate roll from hit) and causes critical hits/heals. This is the MAIN stat for Fist/Blood healers, and has limited use as a dps, mostly due to the crappy diminishing returns on it and the fact that a critical hit isn’t necessarily better than a penetrating hit. At endgame gear, I do advocate running SOME crit rating as dps, but sort out the rest of your stats first. Tanks don’t need this, at all.

Critical POWER: This is straight forward enough. Determines the bonus damage/healing done by a critical hit. This the 2nd stat priority for Fist/Blood Healers, and 3rd for DPS if you are using Elemental force (Which you probably should be. I can only think of ONE competent dps deck that doesn’t).

Block: Fights the opponent's PENETRATION rating. This is the 2nd most important tank stat, as nearly all NM bosses run a fair bit of pen, and as mentioned penetrated hits are a huge damage increase. This will also provide 40% ish mitigation when it causes a 'blocked' hit. 750 Block rating seems to be the sweet spot. Block is ALSO the least SPIKEY mitigation. It's actually better to take more total damage at regular intervals than less overall damage with large chunks coming all at once. A good healer can heal you for 1k health per second, but that doesn’t really help when you take 8k all at once from a penetrated hit.

Defense: Fights the opponent's Critical Rating and HIT rating. This stat is really just for pvp. Bosses don’t run nearly enough crit rating for critical hits to be a major concern, and far too much hit rating for defense to be worth the stat investment. There are some nice Glance based passives, it's tempting to use them, and you are welcome to run Defense as a 3rd stat priority as a tank, but I don’t really recommend it. Better options.

Evade: Fights the opponent's HIT rating. The cool thing about evade rating, is that it actually DOES provide the best damage reduction per second. An Evaded hit is 100% mitigated damage. They just hit you for nothing! Awesome. The really lame thing about evade rating is it does NOTHING to prevent really big incoming hits, meaning you will get hit for almost all or all your health. Constantly. The best way to make a healer cry is evade tanking. Don’t do it. (Again, it's nice in pvp tho.)

Physical Protection: Reduces damage from non penetrating physical hits. Doesn’t fight any off stat directly, but it DOES provide nice damage reduction (800 is around 30%, not too shabby). Considering that MOST bosses are dealing physical damage, the Raid boss ONLY deals physical damage, and cannot crit or pen, Phys prot is a pretty solid choice for your 3rd stat as a tank. Healing a tank running 650 hit, 750 block, and a bunch of phys prot who knows what they are doing is easy as cake 90% of the time.

Magical Protection: Basically the same as physical protection, but magical. There are SOME bosses who deal magical damage, and IF you are running phys as your 3rd stat, its not a bad idea to make some swaps for magical to deal with those bosses. That being said, the majority of damage you will take is Physical or Filth damage, so its not really worth the investment till you have the rest of your gear taken care of.

The Stats; TLDR

From most important too least important, stats are
DPS:
650 hit
800 + pen (up too around 1k)
300 + crit POWER (Pen is better till around 1k)
300 ish crit RATING on non force crit weapon is kinda nice, but not needed.
Wear Attack Rating Gear. Its not a bad idea too have one health minor, or some Vigor signets in dps gear, but it also isn’t really needed as you SHOULDNT be taking any damage if you play right and the tank does a good job. There are a few times when you will, but they are kinda special cases.

Tank (most cases):
650 hit
750 block
dump the rest in Pen for damage, hate generation, debilitation, and applying a signet of breaching, or Physical Protection for mitigation. You can take some Defense instead if you want.
Wear a mix of Health and AR gear. Damage is still threat, so AR helps, but you need a minimum of about 7k health too tank, and even that is pretty friggin low. 8-10k is about the target range till you really know what you are doing.

Direct Healer (Fist and or Blood):
1k ish crit rating
rest in crit power.
Done. Pretty straight forward.
Wear a mix of Heal and Health gear. With enough crit rating and power, you can bring more then enough heals per second at 10k health as a fist healer, so you may as well go less squishy. Keep in mind add's WILL run straight too you as they spawn, as you are the only person on their hate table. Its totally the tanks 'job' too protect you, but no matter how good the tank is, you WILL get hit sometimes. Nothing pisses me off more then a fist healer in 1970 health, other then one who wears 1970 health and still cant heal.


Hybrids
Damage Tank:
Not too hard. Stats are basically as a pentank, but with passives and actives set up more for raw damage then mitigation and utility. Also tends too run more AR and less Health.

Leech Healer: see dps, but with a split of attack rating and heal rating gear. Crit power and Rating are also a little bit better, as they buff both damage and direct healing, but still loose too pen most of the time.

Healtank:
This is a weird one. You basically drop most or all your hit rating (I do recommend having a tank weapon with hit on it, for impairs) and run basic tank mitigation stats along with crit rating.
Split of Health and Heal Rating gear. This setup is harder too gear, harder too run, and not really recommended till you know wtf you are doing.

LEECHTANK: AKA ♥♥♥♥ the trinity.
Uhh.... If you need this guide, don’t
Once you know what you are doing, this is a pretty crazy option tho, and allows you too bring way more too a group then makes any kinda sense.

RAID Tank:
There are kind of less rules about gear in the raid. Weird I know. Basically, the vast majority of incoming damage is physical damage in the form of a dot that CANT crit, pen, or be avoided. As of such, Physical protection is key. That being said, If you get your swaps right, you aren’t really taking that much damage anyhow, and any remotely competent healer can keep you up.
Adds and the birds can be blocked/glanced/evaded so you can totally take those for mitigation.
You can also just glyph for damage, do some mix of the two, or Heal/Leechtank it. What is the 'Best' setup depends on the group. I personally tend too either damage tank it with 550 phys + phys augment + the NY buckle (meaning I’m still mitigating almost the full 30% incoming) and the rest of my stats as dps, or healtank it depending on the group. The downside too this setup, is incompetent healers tend too lead too me dying on birds as a damage tank, but honestly incompetent healers will find a way too wipe the group regardless of the tanks.

RAID Gear

The most basic bit of raid gear in the this game, are the Astral Fuses and Criterion Upgrades.
These will take existing custom gear/glyphs too ql10.5.
This is a pretty good upgrade, particularly the Fuses, as this lets you run higher overall stats.
After that, you have Weapons. Raid weapons are NON upgradable, unglyphed ql10.4 Weapons.
The upside, is if you don’t have a 10.4 weapon of that type, you can get one and save some BB. The downside, is you can NEVER take them too 10.5.

Fuses should basically be used too sort out your final hit rating, Then stuck on Head > Majors > Minors in that order.

Criterion’s make the largest difference on weapons, then Head > Majors > Minors, but there is a good argument for working on gear that is shared between decks FIRST (Like upgrading two HIT majors too 10.5.5 before working on your tank head, for instance.)

After that, There are bunch, that range in usefulness Some are pure crap (Tank head, for instance) and some have limited at best usefulness, well others are great.

DPS (sorta) get....
Subway Tokens:AR minor. 10.4 luck minor that gives you stacks of a 1% damage increase. It averages out too being worth about +5% damage all by itself and is thus better then any other minor for damage. I recommend glyphing it pen, so you can ALSO use it as a pentank.

Ashes Of Elder Things:10.4 AR HEAD, on pen gives you more pen rating. Its pretty good. Can also be used as a pentank too offset the limited pen budget a bit. Over all, an Epic Laceration in a 10.4 or 10.5 AR is better for dps, and an Epic ORDER signet is better in a tank head, but those are both pretty pricey. If you happen too get the Ashes before getting those, Its better then pretty much any other option. (including a blue laceration, arguably a blue order, and an epic... anything else.)

Egon Pendant: 10.4 Ar neck Major... Gives a crit rating boost. Its pretty nice for bloodshot decks, works well in survival decks, and is actually pretty nice as a fist healer as it can be heal procced, but overall not great. a 10.5 Major with a decent glyph is better. I recommend making your neck a hit neck, and just saying 'screw the egon pendant' personally.

Tanks (totally) get....
The NY Buckle:10.4 health belt Minor. Gives stacks of 3% physical and magical protection. This is nice regardless of what sorta tank you run, as you start with 249 phys and mag prot anyhow. Its worth about 15% overall phys and mag (from 0% too 30%, then falls off too 0 again.) Not NEEDED or anything, but its better then any tank minor signet other then an ablation.

The Brooklyn Brace: 10.4 Health Wrist: Gives stacks an evade chance.... up too 100%. Falls off when you evade. I know I said Evade is kinda a crappy stat, but this is actually pretty sweet, seeing as it doesn’t take any stats at all, and you WILL evade. Much better then any other Tank major, but not needed or game breaking

Whatever the awful tank head is called: Provides a % of pure damage reduction.... whenever you get penned.
For this head too have any sort of up time, you basically need to have failed hard. Don’t bother. If you get it, use it as a fist healer or something.

Healers (should) get....
The Coney island Band: 10.4 heal Ring. Provides 24% crit power whenever you crit heal. This thing is amazing. Sadly, DPS tend too need on it, and its not a common drop. As a dps, you don’t want this, even tho it SEEMS nice. The loss of attack rating and being forced too take a heal and enough crit rating too proc it means its worse then just running an AR ring. It is totally op for survival decks, and basically the best thing ever for leech healers, however.

Broadway Charm: 10.4 heal occult minor. Gives 400 physical and magical protection too anyone you heal under 66% health. This is kinda nice, as it gives your tank more mitigation, and thus makes your life easier. Not mandatory, but nice all the same.

Blood of the old ones: 10.4 heal head. 10% chance too heal target for 3% of health. Pretty nice honestly, but mostly just because heal signets aren’t very good. Totally not needed by anyone.

Quick and Dirty Deck Guide; Passives.

Ok! So! Hopefully you have some idea of how the stats work, and wtf you are doing with them! YEY! Now for the fun stuff.

DAMAGE! (DPS, Leech, Tank)
In the before time (pre1.9) there was some sorta funny stuff going on, where some passives where multiplicative (and therefore better) then other passives, despite having lower numbers on them. This is no longer true. Soooo..... here’s whats up.
%increases are pretty much the best thing out there for single target damage.
% stat boosts can pull ahead, but keep in mind there are drawbacks too (most) of them. Iron maiden is pretty much awesome (10% pen chance whenever you pen an afflicted target) and brawler gets honorable mention as 'just plain good' but the rest are pretty deck dependent. You CAN make a good strike/burst/focus deck or whatever, but you really are better off with stuff like Lethality and Twist the Knife.
Elemental Force is also an amazing passive, as you can use it too make your biggest hit ALWAYS crit, but it does require you use specific rotations too land it on that hit (generally its 6 builders weaker consumer BIG consumer, but 1 builder 1 consumer 4 builders weak consumer big consumer totally works, as does 5 builders aux weapon weak consumer big consumer etc etc...)
Just remember, with ele force, big hit is always hit number 8. This is great, seeing as its almost impossible too get a decent crit chance as dps without severely gimping pen and crit power.

Proc damage passives are... usually not good. At low gear levels, sometimes they can be nice, but later on not so much. In AOE decks, arterial pulse and criticality are both decent however, so I guess honorable mention there.

Some other things too keep in mind as dps... Setting Hindered/Impaired is almost always a BAD IDEA! I know there are GREAT passives that exploit these states, but there is also a counter on the boss that makes them go totally immune too hinders and impairs, and most bosses have key abilities that actually NEED too be impaired, so making them immune for a damage boost will kill everyone, basically.

Threat! (Tank. Just tank)
So... Agitator. You need it. No choice in the matter.
After that, Afflicts are a LOT of threat. They also allow you too generate hate on enemies you aren’t currently hitting, and help the dps do damage.
Your Next is pretty good as well, as you should have a decent block chance. Fuel Too the Fire is used mostly by under geared and stupid tanks. Don’t even bother with it.

Weaken! (Tank, I guess dps can bring debil but its really your job as the tank)
Exposed is a 30% damage boost for the party. You have too be melee too run it, therefore its really the tanks job. Breakdown will apply it whenever you hit with chaos/blade/hammer and the passive for escalation works as a starter chaos tank.
Debilitate is stacking damage reduction. You really want too take this. 12 Gauge is the standard passive for pen tanks, and blade tanks can use clearing the path at 1 resource too stack it quickly even with low or no pen. In addition, 'Improved Blasts' will set it well using a blast attack, meaning you can stack it quickly with shotgun turret or a hammer, and 'punisher' will set it well using a strike attack (again, shotgun and hammer)
Note that running 800 pen and 12 Gauge is basically the same amount of mitigation as having 800 of the correct protection stat, and has the advantage of also boosting damage, and thus threat generation.
Well it SEEMS like you could just set it with Strikes/blasts and run phys for the best of both worlds, it is HARD (altho not impossible) too do this without pen, as you will run into aggro issues.
Doing things like running hammer/shotgun with razor shards, shotgun turret, grand slam, and your next can help.

Corrupted is useful in pvp, for killing healers, and can be nice in HE, but is otherwise not really worth mentioning. Most enemies don’t heal.

Wards! (Tanks.)
Wards are sweet. They are the BEST damage mitigation you can get. Cool calm and Collected is a major ward on block, so tanks should run that. If you don’t have an active ability that gives you a minor ward, you can take a passive too do this, but with Agitator, and Afflict, Breakdown, Debil, and Cool calm collected you only have 2 free passives.

Stacks of... stuff (whoever)
Also not bad. You often have a free passive somewhere, and taking a stack of some rating, or a an extra % chance of something can be nice.

Now then... lastly DIRECT HEALING!
Fist healing.
Basically, you are doing most healing through crit healing hots. Take passives that’s help with that. After that, take stuff for the direct healing.
Elite passive wise, if you have LESS then 20% crit chance, take out of the woods, otherwise take empowerment. With Empowerment, you want AS MANY DIFFERENT heal over times up on the tank at once as possible. This means 1 resource consumers are fine, and using multiple builders and consumers is good. Empowerment will do most of the healing for you, and the more HoTs you have up, the higher the chance of it proccing is. Basically, if you can proc empowerment every second (4-5 hots at a time, 20-30% crit chance) you will heal for more damage then anyone should ever take. You will have some free slots. Take some utility or something (Short fused + Final Fuse is pretty Nice....)

Blood Healing.
You aren’t really healing. You are giving the tank more mitigation. Blood Shields are great, in that they can TOTALLY prevent incoming damage, but they aren’t really that hot for 'heals'. Buff your barriers, buff the direct heals. Really you should be focused more on fists, but a GOOD blood healer CAN keep a REALLY REALLY BAD tank alive, where as any other healer couldn’t (Blood shields mean the tank can actually survive hits that should instantly kill them, so it has its uses...)

Leech Healing.
If done right, you basically just want too grab experienced (or veteran if you need heavy aoes as in HR) and run DPS passives. You can buff up direct healing a bit, but damage is generally better. You LIKELY want too boost your anima shot a little bit, even tho most of your healing and damage comes from consumers, as it will smooth out the heal spikes.

Quick and Dirty Deck Guide; Melee Weapons and Actives. (starting point for tanks. Healers should check out fists)

Blade
Uses:Tanking (damage), DPS.
Pros: AWESOME Damage potential. Great synergy with Penetration and Afflictions. Probably the best aoe dps.
Cons:Its Melee, so not really recommended for new dps, and doesn’t work as dps in all fights due too downtime. Limited utility as a tank.

Stand out Skills
Blade Torrent: Bread and butter aoe builder.
Clearing The Path: Aoe Consumer, 40% pen chance. Amazing for stacking Debilitate and ensuring up time on breaching signet (can use at 1 resource too stack faster.)
Dancing Blade: Fairly hard hitting focus consumer. This is one of the better choices for elemental force, as every hit will crit.
Grass Cutter:This is the blade single target builder of choice for damage. Its a hard hitting builder, its instant. Other then that, nothing special.
Masters House:Only damage elite active that is BETTER then do or die, hands down. 20% damage boost, short CD Its pretty sweet.
Art of War: Its an impair, its also a defensive CD. Its also a force taunt. It slices. It dices. This is pretty much it for blade utility, but its a pretty good skill regardless.

Honorable Mentions
Stunning Swirl: Short CD aoe impair. Nothing special, but not a bad choice.
Trial By Swords: medium CD single target non elite impair. Its kinda the worst of these skills, but you often need that other impair so here it is.
Crimson Theater:Big old hulking hate field. Its awesome for grabbing aggro off of enemies you cant hit at the moment, or picking up adds, but Clearing the Path is generally too good too replace. Also has a 10 second CD..
Martial Discipline:Defensive CD. Not the best Defensive CD, but sometimes you just need some extra mitigation.
Surging Blades:Its a dash. Sometimes you want a Dash.
Spiral of Death:Its a teleport. One of TWO teleports. You rarely need a teleport, but you don’t really have many other options.


Hammer
Uses:Tanking (mitigation, damage), DPS.
Pros:Pretty sweet single target damage, Great CD's, Stupidly high hate generation. Good synergy with BLOCK.
Cons:Its melee, and has really finicky dps rotations due too momentum and elemental force not synching. It also lacks a GOOD aoe builder, and has less utility then the other tank options.

Stand out Skills
Molten Steel:FAST, hard hitting consumer. Oh, and it has a 30% crit power boost on it. This is the hardest hitting ele forced consumer in the game. Sweet.
Razor Shards:Aoe tanking consumer. Stupidly high hate generation.
Grand Slam:High hate builder that sorta acts as an aoe (altho its still single target, and you need too stay near the target for the high hate and extra damage too tick) Its also the hardest hitting hammer builder, so a good choice.
Stones Throw:Ranged hate and Debil. Lots of hate. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sweet.
Stonewalled: Sweet defensive CD.

Honorable Mentions
Beatdown:Pretty good single target impair. Nothing wrong with that.
First Blood:Normal hate strike builder, for whatever that’s worth. This and Grip Whip are basically your non threat generating builder choices.
Trucker:Its a charge and a defensive CD. Pretty good opener.
Ground Pound:Sometimes you need an aoe builder that doesn’t take a target. This is it. Its the worst of them tho.
Grip Whip: Its a single target builder, it gives you block rating. Great if you don’t have enough block and aren’t tripping on hate, but really you should just have enough block.
Unstoppable Force:OP survival. Defensive CD + impair/hinder immunity + healing. Low CD as well. There are better elite actives out there, but if you don’t need the impair and could use the survival/utility this is a good choice.
Full Momentum:5 hammer resources. That's cool. You probably don’t have room for it as a tank tho, and you need too be on your game too use it as dps.


Fist
Uses:Healing, good offhand choice for tanking or dps.
Pros: Great healing weapon, lots of utility.
Cons: Cant really heal AND damage at the same, Its melee if you use it as dps (altho ranged impairs and heals so <3)

healers get
Stand out Skills
Cauterize:stacking hot builder, good hps.
Warmth:hot consumer, good hps
Surgical Steel:BURST hot consumer, can proc healing sparks for another hot.
Radiance: All your hots will crit and heal for more? Short CD? Yes plz.
Shelter:Point blank aoe hot. Nice for keeping up more then one target, but its close range.

Honorable Mentions
Fired Up:Sometimes you want a long range aoe heal. This is it. Radiance is better, but this way you don’t have too target people so that’s cool I guess.
Empathy:Big Heal on anyone with a hot. Nice as a panic button, but not needed.
Vigor: Aoe ground target heal. Its not amazing but it has its uses and you probably have room for it.

Tanks get
Stand out Skills
Muzzle: Medium CD single target RANGED Impair. Hell yes? Did I mention HELL YES!
Also note the stand out in dps....

Honorable Mentions
Bushwhack: Medium CD ranged charge impair... Need too be 3 meters away, so its a bit finicky, but you could do worse.
Bushwhack: Stupidly Short CD close range impair. Its an elite, but you could do worse.

DPS get
Stand out Skills
Tear em up:10% damage buff and a hard hit. Its sweet. This is probably the best choice for non ele forced consumer in the game.
Reckless:Its a damage buff, but it makes you take more damage... Don’t run it as a tank, but as dps its a nice one for sure.

Chaos Magic (I know its magic, but it goes here)
Uses:Tanking (Utility. Holy crap Utility.) Dps? I guess?
Pros:Generates threat, has good builders, is the best weapon at doing the things tanks are supposed too do that ARENT holding aggro.
Cons:Crappy cds, lower damage potential then blade or hammer, no outstanding consumers or threat generation.

Stand out Skills
Chaotic Pull: Its an interrupt, its ranged, it has a short CD Doesn’t actually set impaired, but used the same way.
Discord Rising: Sets Exposed. This is the FASTEST way too set exposed in the game. If you aim it right, you can instantly set 10 stacks of exposed on most bosses. If you plan too tank the endgame, bring this.
Escalation: Bread and butter aoe builder. Its... well... its exactly the same as blade torrent
Run Rampant: Single target burst builder. It gets too be stand out because it hits 3 times, and thus with a good pen stat is a great way too apply debilitate and breaching. It also gives you stacks of evade rating, so that’s cool.

Honorable Mentions
Four Horsemen: Whats that? You wanted a good damage consumer in chaos? This is it. Also a burst, hits 4 times. Helps with debil and breaching for the same reason Run Rampant does.
Reality Fracture: Ranged hate field on the ground. Does the same thing as Crimson Theater, but covers less ground and can be placed at range. For that reason its both better and worse, in that it takes more finesse too use but provides more control, and that IS the tanks primary job.
Consequence: Single target consumer, gives you a minor ward. Its a nice tank consumer. Id say you have better options as a mitigation tank running chaos, but you really don’t
Domino Effect: Short CD elite impair. Sometimes you need those.

Quick And Dirty Deck Guide; Ranged

Blood
Uses: Weird DPS, Weird Heals, Awesome offhand for leechhealing.
Pros: Long range, Doesnt need resources, 10% damage buff from bleeding, barriers mitigate incoming damage.
Cons: High hate generation on heals, Bleeding yourself for the buff tends to annoy healers, and can be problematic when combined with lifeburn.

Stand out Skills
Bloodshot: Its cheap at 2 resources, its instant, and it does pretty solid damage.
Exquisite Corpse: Anouther 2 resource instant consumer, this ones a heal. Mitigates 50% of incoming damage, does some direct healing, and also reflects 50% or the shields max strength back to the opponent.
Cold Blooded: This is the elite active of choice for blood healing. It is probably the strongest heal in the game, provides a HUGE shield mitigating 100% of incoming damage, and does some crazy high direct healing as well. Oh, and the range is huge. The one downside to this is it also generates crazy high amounts of hate, so dont be to surprised when everything on the map starts attacking you.

Honerable Mentions
Canabalize: Hurt yourself for resources and a damage boost. There is really no reason not to take this as dps, your healer is mad enough at you for bleeding yourself and likely wont even notice.
Bloodline: This is the best focus builder in the game (not that you have many options) and when paired with finish the movement means you can get off a bloodshot every other second. Not to shabby.
Exsanguinate: Decent enough focus consumer, not a bad choice for ele force, but there are better skills out there. Its fairly popular for leech's looking to up the dps a smidge tho.
Infusion: This one is weird. Build resources and boost your next sheild by removing your own. Nothing to fancy on its own, but as a healtank this + clotting is amazing.
Open Vein: Pretty nice chain builder, altho it acts more like a pbao in practice.


Elemental
Uses:Utility basicly.
Pros:Long range, Manifestations provide a 7.5 damage buff whenever they go off and you can give that to ANYONE, Short Fused buff, Lots of purge options.
Cons: No good builders, Cast times on everything, No great 'damage' consumers.

Stand out Skills
Short Fused: With the passive, its a 25% multiplicative damage buff for the party. Probably the best buff you can have with a good group.
Lightning Manifestation: AoE Mani. Proc's every second, so you can easily spread the mani buff to everyone in the group if you play keyboard a little. Does solid damage, costs 2 resources, cast time is short, can purge if you take the passive, acts as a chain. Only downside is a 15 second cooldown.
Fire Manifestation: Single Target Mani. Better single target dps then Lightning by a lot. Super short cd means you can basicly keep it up all the time. Cheap (2 resources)

Honerable Mentions
Electromagnetic Manifestation: Anouther purge. Takes no resources but has a long CD. Great range however.
Magnetic Wipe: Purge consumer. Good option for single target purge... cant imagine using it outside of gatekeeper. Cheap.
Flamestrike: Decent enough single target damage consumer, for when you need that. Cheap as well. Its a strike, so you can boost it with those passives I guess.


Shotgun
Uses:Utility, Damage, mitigation
Pros:Cleanup (purge + cleanse) and Breaching shot are fairly manditory for a group. Has the best ranged aoe's in the game. Its also super easy to use.
Cons:Single target damage is nothing to write home about. Medium range but thats not usually an issue.

Stand out Skills
Breaching Shot:+40% pen chance for the group. This is pretty manditory for a good group.
Cleanup: You dont always need it, and in many cases there are better options, however its a purge AND a cleanse in one, and if you plan on clearing the NM's, someone is going to need those. It is also usefull almost to the point of being manditory for Machine Tyrant. ALL DPS should know cleanup, and have a deck that brings a shotgun. I kid you not, this skill alone is that important.
Out for a Kill: FAST, fairly hard hitting consumer. This isnt the best consumer ever, but it sure as hell is the best damage in shotgun.
Scattershot: This is pretty much the best ranged aoe builder in the game. Its instant, it hits fairly hard, its no joke.

Honerable Mentions
Striker: There ARE better single target builders out there, but this is the shotgun builder of choice. Its not a bad one at all, and totally has its uses (For instance, I use it as shotgun/pistol dps because it lets me proc signets better then building with pistols given my stat spread.) Go figure, its also a strike for what thats worth.
Shotgun Turret: Decent aoe dps. Its a turret, it also hits with blasts. This is a nice choice for applying debil as a tank, as 1 shotgun turret is 5 stacks with no stat requirements, meaning you can fully debil off shotgun turret in 16 seconds.
Flak Jacket: 15% damage reduction for the group. Its not to shabby.
Raging Bullet: Better damage at close range then Out for a kill, its also a strike for what thats worth.
Lock, Stock & Barrel: 5 shotgun resources. Downside is you probably dont have room on your bar for it, and doesnt do much to the shotgun cd's.
Defensive Turret: GREAT mitigation, but it doesnt help with threat, costs resources and is location based. This is worthwhile as a tank on fights where you dont have to move, but only if you arent worried about holding aggro or applying debil or... well, any of the other stuff you usually worry about as a tank.


Pistol
Uses:Damage, utility, lots of heal utility.
Pros:Super high single target dps, decent utility, really nice heal cd's.
Cons:No good aoe builder. Medium range.

Stand out skills
Shootout: Force crit this. This is one of the best ele forced consumers in the game, and by far the best ranged. Shootout hurts. A lot.
The Buisness: damn fine single target builder.

Honerable Mentions
Deadly Aim: Its a pretty good buff. You probably want it in your group. Its not as nice as short fused or breaching shot tho. It IS however GREAT as a healer, and helps out blood dps (or any hits that arent under ele force) a fair bit. The irony of it is that it doesnt really help pistol dps much at all.
Win-Win: Short cd, non elite cleanse with a small heal. Close range, but still helpfull in many cases. Highly recomended for Pol 6, nice in HR, Ideal in HE, and super handy for Eidelon.
Backup Drone: Great healing cd.
Greater Good: Anouther nice healing cd.
Shake and Bake: I.... kind of love this skill. On paper, its not all that awesome. In practice, its a nice dash for when you need one, and its a hinder that can impair enemies. DONT hit the bosses, nless you REALLY know what you are doing, as it will make the tanks job impossible.


Assault Rifle
Uses:Leech!!!! ... nerfed dps.
Pros:Leech healing is awesome and if done right basicly means your healer is a full on dps. Has decent damage output and good range.
Cons:Sense the nerf to Fire in the Hole, as dps its basicly shotgun with better range and no buffs or utility.

Stand out Skills
Transfuse Anima: This is hands down the best heal consumer in the game. Can do crazy high damage and healing at the same time.
Reap and Sew: Big ol leech effect placed on the party. You can use it as an aoe heal (heal yourself silly dps) or have everyone focus heal the tank.

Honerable Mentions
Anima Shot: Leech builder of choice, seeing as you want to be healing with those. Its decent enough.
Hip Fire: Solid single target builder. Its... basicly striker from shotgun.
Suppressing Fire: Solid AOE builder.
Three Round Burst: As of 1.9, this is the best dps consumer in rifle. Its fast, it hits hard, its a burst... its basicly out for a kill.
Lock and Load: Build rifle resources, reset rifle consumer cd's. Pretty nice.
Energise: Good leech buff for when you need some extra heals.
Safety Off: Highest damage ranged builder. Sadly Latency and self hinder cause issues. Try it out I guess.

Quick and dirty Deck Guide; Non weapon actives.

Sooo... those are the weapons of the secret world. You see those three other sections? They have stuff as well. Some stuff is better then others.

DPS get
Do or Die: ♥♥♥♥. Yes. This is a HUGE damage boost, and generally your best elite active as dps. The only better option is Masters house as blade dps. Really.

Tanks get
Stoicism: Lots of mitigation and a threat boost? Pretty sweet, but you usually need the elite for an impair sadly.
Provoke: Didja just get hit with a hate wipe? Well, grats you are now the top of the table again. Not usualy needed or even recomended, but it has its uses.

Healers get
The shaft. Sorry guys... good news tho!

EVERYONE GETS
Sleight of Hand: Dont always need this, but when you do my god do you ever need it.
Speed Freak: Again, dont always need it, but rather nice in many cases.
Confuse: Use this to dump aggro. You shouldnt need it with a good tank, but it can be handy.
Misdirect: Use this to give someone else your aggro. Usually good for tanks who cant hold aggro against you, but its also a pretty good way to kill people who piss you off.... not that I recommend doing that at all...
>_>
<_<


In darkness war, the last boss has an ability called concuss that blinds everyone, sends em flying, and dumps all the tanks hate.
The way to prevent it is to hit 'provoke' to gain aggro (thus interupting the cast) then hit 'confuse' to dump your aggro... Thats really the one time dps should take provoke...

TANKS! Last thing!
In the New York Raid, tanks NEED to swap aggro back and forth to prevent whisper of darkness hitting zero stacks one oneshotting them....

There are a few ways of doing this....
Basicly, you can BOOST your hate to pull, you can forcetaunt, or you can drop your hate to force it onto the other tanks.

Forcetaunts are
Mass Provoke
(sort of) provoke
Art of War.

Mass and Art of War will both give you aggro for 5 seconds, provoke will actually shoot you to the top of the hate chart.
The upside to these is that it doesnt matter how close in hate the two tanks are, they WILL work.
The downside, is that the hate will likely just bounce right back after 5 seconds, and you make the healers job MUCH harder this way as each stack of Whisper is dealing damage, and you end up having one tank back at 20 stacks as you hit 15.... Ouch.

I dont really recomend forcetaunts.

Hate BOOSTING would be
Stoicism
(sort of) provoke
Damage Buffs (altho for that to work you want to do solid damage as a tank)
High hate abilities (for instance building with blade torrent instead of grass cutter, or force critting Razor Shards instead of Molten Steel)

This method works well if the two tanks are super close in the hate table, but you still usually want one to do a short dps halt or slow just in case, to make sure the other can keep aggro. Downside is other then provoke, none of these gaurentee a swap at any particular amount of stacks or time so they can be kinda stressfull for you and the healer, oh, and they again, require the tanks to be really well coordinated as far as hate generation goes. The UPSIDE is you dont have to worry nearly as much about loosing hate to a dps.
All in all, this method is viable on its own but....

Next up! Hate DUMPS
Your options are
Confuse (50%)
MASSConfuse (33%)
Misdirect (50% of hate gained TO the other tank)

This method, again requires the tanks be close in the hate table, altho not as close as with boosting. It has the upside that you can dump hate WHEN YOU WANT, meaning you controll the swaps. The downside is that you are also LOWERING your own hate, so you can loose threat to exeptionally good dps. Mass Confuse is the best option for this method, as its only 33% hate (so not generally enough to cause tanks to loose aggro) and has a short enough cd that it can be used as the ONLY skill for swaps.


Sooo.... All that being said, methods will varry, and it depends on the other tank.
My PERSONAL preference, is to combine hate boosts and hate dumps.
Ideally, I will take Masters house, mass confuse, and provoke. I pop masters house and unleash hell when the other tank has aggro, and mass confuse to drop mine when I hit around 5 stacks (sometimes as early as 7, depends on where I am in my rotation, generally lower then 5 is a bad idea durring the first phase as you wont be able to swap at the transition, and sometimes even dumping 33% of your hate isnt enough to make the swap happen) after that, provoke is a panic button, for when mass confuse DOESNT work. Just provoke off the other tank, or have them provoke off you, then whoever just lost aggro should stop dps for a few seconds to make sure the other tank has it.

Stoicism + Mass Confuse is also a really good option if you arent damage tanking, but I personally prefer masters house, mostly because I tend to pull better dps then the dedicated dps in my raid gear.

To come. Signets and you.

Illllll do this later

To Come. Augments are your friends.

Well, some of them.

To come. Survival. AKA how too get augments, signets, and make it too the endgame.

To come. Tokyo, or survival for the man who already did all that stuff.

Tokyo actually takes different setups? Weird.

[Zez]

I probably should, yeh

[EeeKitties]

You should update this one day, cabalie. - "Sassy"

[Zez]

Bah... raid tanking is off as well, Phys prot no longer does anything.

[Zez]

1.11 Changed a bunch of this stuff. The majority of information is still accurate, but Ele, Hammer, Exposed, AoEs, and DoD are not. Some Elites should also be tweaked, and I would cap pen before 1k, likely in the 800-950 range.