Tanking Powers

Shield
Shield is one of our first tanking powers, and also one of the best. This ability, at its basic augment 'ation, amplifies the host's natural AC. If the form you are in has high natural AC, this is very useful. If the form you are in has weak natural AC, you will notice the effects of Shield are greatly lessened. Boosting Shield grants a permanent (until remerge or shield disable) increase to the amount of AC gained from the power. Using shield drains a small, but constant amount of control so it is advisable to avoid using it unless you are taking damage.

At control level 12, you will gain access to additional options for creating your shield. These improvements are independent of the host form- meaning they are flat amounts of shield not related to a form's natural AC. These can also be boosted for greater effect.

Basic
Impact grants Edged and Blunt defense.

Abrasive protects against Cold, Acid, and Poison

Mental defends against Mind only

Emit boosts AC against Fire, Energy, Electricity, and Radiation

Malleable
Adapt appears to scale up defenses against the damage type you are taking during combat. Rapidly decays when not in combat so avoid using if you are switching enemies quickly.

Absorb I theorize that perhaps this shield gives a flat amount of damage reduction.

Reflect seems to return a portion of the damage dealt to the attacker, no emote to show such is happening

Overload
Is a tricky ability to use properly. Overload lets a Sii temporarily block all damage to his health pool. This is a great ability until overload reaches 100%. That is the point at which the Sii begin to imitate mages. It aint pretty. An easy way to prevent this problem is using 'focus plan overload check and focus plan combat' while playing any form that does not use a special ability. Doing so allows you to constantly monitor any variations in the % toward 100 in an easy manner. If you are using a client, there are simpler methods.

An example of how to use this ability efficiently, is setting your mental reaction to 'overload on at (roughly 45% HP)' with a trigger to turn overload off when at full health. Using this technique allows a window of opportunity, when your health is relatively low, to heal using focused regeneration before turning overload off and tanking again. By doing this, you can sustain combat against larger mobs by carefully blocking their damage when you need to heal.

Perceive
Simple, but effective ability. When you activate perceive in combat, you will dodge every attack after the first per round from every mob attacking you. At its basic level it lasts 10 rounds. When boosted it appears to last an additional 5 rounds for a total of 15. (tested in damage form, not a tank form). I theorize that the gskill perception directly affects this ability(needs further testing)

Psionic prevent
Psionic prevent is a dodge type power that detects the damage of an incoming attack, tests it against the configured threshold, and then attempts to dodge the attack if it is over that threshold. It is not as finely configurable as bubble, which is similar in effect, but it is more effective and much cheaper. The control cost is notable, and it costs around 20 sp per dodge, so when solo it is sensible to set the threshold as high as possible to conserve resources.

This synergizes well with overload and perceive to make sii extremely sturdy for very short periods of time.

In parties, it can effectively turn large hp damage into a much smaller and more steady sp drain. If possible it is best to have healers ready to heal your hp as well, as the dodge does not always succeed making sii fairly "spikey" in their defenses. Sii regen is significant, so if the failed dodges are spread out enough self healing can recover. Due to the control cost, if this is being used for full on tanking, the sii will need a steady supply of large corpses to envelop.

Presumably the "perception" mind skill which appears at glevel 10 is related to this skill. I am guessing that the skill makes the dodge more likely to succeed since the power fires 100% of the time the hit threshold is cleared as far as I can tell. (Tu's Note: Cognizance is the gskill that affects prevent.)