He’s not a tank. He defends an area. He’s highly mobile and can stun enemies only in his area. His shields long cooldown keeps him in an area. He is a defender.
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He doesn’t defend an area though. He can easily get pushed out an area from ranged and the option you are talking about isn’t until level 4, where as every other tank/defender in this game can start as early as level 1 in alot of cases. True they get better at it as they should with level’d but level 4 for Toby being able to do anything towards defending is a bit too late.
Even then, his shield strength is so low and his body is so big he can easily be pushed out.
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I’ve dealt with this myself Shogun. I think almost every character in Battleborn save one, is a man to man opponent. You see Alani giving you a hard time, push her back. Rath’s overextended? Cut him off and make the kill.
Toby, is the only ZONING character in game. And it comes from a painful lesson: His Force Field, ISN’T always meant to be hidden behind. That Field makes a great target, but also a great decoy.
One of the early failings I had with him, was always trying to find a spot and, as you said, turret up behind his field and hammer down. Now, it CAN work in certain cases. Melee or short-ranged opponents, will never get close enough to that shield to really hurt; least not before Toby’s dished out a few railgun and arc-mines. But any team with three mid-to-long range shooters, can easily spare one to constantly harrass Toby out of position, and it becomes a vicious cycle. You can’t shoot, so you can’t level, and you can’t level because you can’t shoot.
The solution, is to treat him as a SHIELDED defender, not a health Defender or attacker. 
And yes, I sound contradictory right now. Stack his base shield, with +Maximum Shield Strength gear. You’re already doing great damage with his Railgun and Arc Mines. But you need a buffer when his Force Field is on Cooldown, and that’s where the shield gear comes into play. Unless you’re trading with a Marquis or ISIC, your shield will outlast theirs. You have a force field eating up their damage, and boosting yours. So just make it that much longer that they CAN’T crit on you and drive you out. One good 600+ point crit with his railgun, will send most enemies running.
Lastly, you’re not meant to just dig into ONE spot and rain fire. It’s the same mistake a lot of early marquis players make. Mix up your positions, fire those arc mines from different directions, and bury your shield in the tunnel on occasion. Make the enemy think you’re in one spot, and shoot at them from another, and you’ll find Toby’s rhythm.
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I can understand that all conmpletely and I’m sure that works wonders and may try it out as I complete his lore challenge. I’ve played with all the defenders in this game and have at least 10 with all of them and I have to say taht by far Toby feels like the only one that isn’t one. He just doesn’t feel tanky at all, being able to soak up enough damage to occupy enemies to where players pick him off.
His damage output however is just insane and the most without a doubt out of all the defenders.
I’ll put some more time into him as I go for my platinum trophy but right now it just feels he’s too squishy to be called defender.
Nah all you do is just double stun people and they die. It’s mad frustrating to even deal with.
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His Force Field could use a bit of a base health buff. He absolutely has the highest potential DPS, but it is very situational, as he is heavily reliant on being behind his Force Field that can be taken down fairly easily.
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Situational is what should replace adorable in his classifications. He’s great on Monuments, Snowblind, and every paradise map.
Area denial is key when playing Toby, if you have one good Toby, and a decent steath character, they can hold a lane by themselves, even if the stealth player floats a bit.
Toby’s legendary and stun mine helix are overrated; in most cases, you’re giving up the ability to stop a minion push (which a good Toby is able to do arguably better than any other battleborn in the game) by choosing stun mine - which also requires a direct hit. If your team is halfway decent, the self defense you gain with stun mine is simply unneeded, as dropping a slow mine at one’s feet and thrusting away is almost always sufficient.
It’s a bit of a tangent regarding the topic, but I feel it’s worth sharing my view on the slow-stun debate.
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No its not about defending yourself with stun mine its about straight killing people with it.
You can easily straight kill a person with that combo.
I may not be qualified to make good judgement on this, as I just recently started playing Toby myself,
but for me the choice between Slow and Stun always came down to be a tactical choice based on team composition.
I tried both Helices in Meltdown, and I found the slow somewhat redundant (as my Team already had good slowing capability), so I went with the stun.
I actually used it both ways. It’s a great anti melee defense (especially for those wielding shields, like Galilea), but I also used it quite aggressive when retaking lanes.
It’s definitely for defense; otherwise, you’re telling me that going out of position to land a stun (the mine doesn’t have a long range) is OK because double stun can kill people.
You can also kill people from a range without ever needing the stun utility AND simultaneously retaining the ability to stop pushes as big as thrall+elite bot+minions.
It’s not a bad choice per se, but I couldn’t justify giving up one of Toby’s best facets (8s slow on minion waves) just to add the ability to stun for -potentially- 4s. Besides, Toby is much more suited to capitalize on stunned enemies than to initiate said stun.
Hate to say it Hex, but I do agree with Tehh Hamster. The only other person who has a move that upgrades to a direct stun on impact I believe is Miko. And Miko’s is more powerful than Toby’s for the simple fact that even if you MISS the stun, you still have a solid chance at a SLOW. Toby doesn’t have that luxury, and it’s extremely painful to give up a solid slow or short-ranged yankback, for a stun that only works on a direct shot.
I’m not saying it’s worthless, but to give up that much map control, especially once you’ve got Toby’s Legendary, for a double-tap stun on direct impact, makes no sense to me. It can be a killer combo…if you nail it every time you try. If you don’t, it’s a wasted effort. The mine does less damage because people are in it’s AoE for less time. And with no slow effect, you have that much harder of a time, landing full charged RG shots.
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There is a reason why characters are labeled defenders instead of tanks. These characters are great at defending their teammates. They can either: distract the enemy, provide cover fire, soak up more damage, and protect friendlies when they run towards them when trying to escape from the enemy.
You can’t label Toby as either an attacker or a tank, because he can’t do either of those things. To be an attacker, he has to be able to deal a constant amount of damage in any situation. He can’t do that because he has to be behind his shield to hit targets consistently.
I suppose you could make him into a sort of tank if you choose health, shield, damage reduction gear, and choose his “still alive! Sorry!” Increased shield helix, and his 30% damage reduction helix. However, you would be giving up his damage potential by a substantial amount. This gear would be better suited on someone with a higher base health.
Maybe you should try Kelvin? He has a base health of 2030 and his level 1 mutation increases it by 360. The highest I’ve gotten his health up to in a PvP match is 4500. He is a real threat late-game, especially if you have a support character on your team.
Moostacho, I disagree with that. Toby’s regular damage with a fully charged RG shot, STARTS at about 140 at Level 1, and only gets better as he levels. His Arc Mine damages and can slow or yank someone back into a killzone, and his ultimate can deliver serious punishment when it’s used properly. Trading SOME damage enhancers, for more shields and DR, is not a loss for him. I run a pure shield build with my Toby, and it is quite hard to get past him when he’s got 900+ shield AFTER you chew through his 500 point Force Field, that doubles to 1k in the late game. I can make people burn ults, just to get a SHOT at damaging me in certain games. Much better than having those ults available for a PC kill against me.
900 shield? Is that even possible? I can imagine getting to 750 with the right gear… But 900? The helix choices that make his basic shield that blocks 1700 damage is good enough combined with his 540 shield and the 30% damage reduction.
I have played Toby vs Toby where I choose to max out his damage potential early on and deny kills to the enemy team to prevent them from leveling. At level 7 you can wipe out groups of minions and thralls in 3 seconds flat. I hit someone 3 times with his rail gun and if they aren’t KO’d they are retreating. Clearing out waves of mobs like this is essential for your team to push forward. This also allows you to take out any turret before anyone can even notice.
If the enemy Toby chooses survivability over damage, then I would be able to take his shield down and have another one on reserve ready to deploy if he even manages to destroy it. They don’t stand a chance. I didn’t say it was a total loss to make him tanky, just better suited elsewhere.
900 is conservative. I think it’s possible to go even higher than my 961. Toby STARTS with a 300 shield, like most everyone else. The helix mutation gets him up to 540. From there, I use a blue Capacitor gear that gives me +140 shields, with an extra 98 after I kill a minion or minor enemy. So, we’re up to 680 before the buff, 778 after. And then I use two purps that give me +95 and +88 shield strength. 680+95+88 = 863 base shield constantly, with a maximum output that DOES spike when I kill a minion, to 961. Since I’m not using any Legendaries, I can’t say if that’s the absolute ceiling of possible tank based shield protection, but I’d say I’m 80% near the top.
And you have to remember what shields do FOR you. That 863 shield, is at least ONE FULL ULT that must be expended just to get it down to where someone can bust it. It’s 863 points of no-crit damage, even with shield pen. It’s anti-stun protection as even the best hitter can’t crank out that much damage before he comes out of a stun. And this, is ALL before his 500/1000 point force field comes into the mix. All of the damage his shield and force field take, is wasted damage. It doesn’t hurt him, as he can regenerate it fairly quickly. To get health back, I need to find a healer or the healstation, or just back and top off. To regenerate shields…I just have to wait for no damage. Get back to the sentry, wait a few seconds, get back into the fight. Get to my friends around a corner, and my shields have time to come back online.
As a side note: damage reduction is a waste of time. Even on pure health tanks like Boldur or Kelvin, decreasing all damage you take, even by 15% from all possible items, doesn’t offset what you lose in terms of gear flexibility. Instead of taking 100 damage from a given attack, you take 85. Instead of taking 500 damamge from an ult, you take 425. You haven’t evaded a kill, it’s just going to take an extra blow or two to get it. Before Helix items or item boosts due to damage on a minion, I am safe from 623 points of damage from any source before I can even be THOUGHT of as killable. I can survive one ult definitely, and the follow up shot, even if I’m at 1 health, unless someone uses Shield Penetration.
900 shield for Toby is impressive, but i stand by my opinion of favoring damage over survival. You can finish a game at a loss with 0 deaths if they constantly destroy your shield, which will seriously hinder your damage output.
I use Kelvin with a near-constant 40% damage reduction. It is not wasted. I can’t even begin to tell you how Kelvin can utilize this after his sublimate nerf. The enemy team absolutely has to focus at least 3 of their team to kill him. This leaves 4 of your team to harass the other 2 and build/destroy turrets, etc. Very useful.
Okay, let’s do the math: Marquis, vs my Toby, and let’s give them the best damage numbers possible on straight shots.
Marquis at 10th level, I believe does 350 on a straight shot against a shielded opponent. Toby on a fully charged Railgun round, does 300 against that same opponent. Before Marquis can damage my Toby’s 961 shield, he must first chew through my 1k Force Field. That’s three shots of no damage on me. As we also exchange fire at the same rate, that’s three 300 shots in my favor, or 900 points already done against the Bowler Bot, more than likely killing him(I’m not sure how much health Marquis has, but I doubt even with shields, it exceeds 900). Remember also, that the Force Field will eat the last full damage shot against it, even if that shot destroys the shield, so I’ve taken no damage.
But, let’s imagine the game’s bugged and somehow, there are repeatable number of Marquis facing me. So, another Marquis pops up, and we exchange 3 shots again. My 961 shield, vs his 350x3 for 1,050. He’s just done 100 points of health damage to me. But again, I’ve killed a Marquis who traded against me. Also, by this point, my FF is now off cooldown, and it’s back up, so not only are my shields regenerating, my health is as well, and I have my 1k wall up again.
Marquis number 3 steps up to the plate, and we trade shots. Again, 3/3, he dies, I’m alive and my FF’s deactivated again. But here’s the wrinkle: if that fight’s lasted longer than ten seconds, I’m back up 70 health and probably full shields again. My FF also regenerates my health at 7 points per second. ten seconds behind it, and I’m 70 points up again, so I’ve only taken 30 ACTUAL damage that I can’t regenerate.
Now, this ISN’T a real fight; it’s just a numerical simulation of us trading our best non-cooldown shots at each other and defending as best we can without dodging. In that straight trade, at 3 Marquis deaths for 30 health damage I can’t regenerate, with a 1,388 health pool on Toby, it will take 138 Marquis Deaths…to kill me ONCE.
The wasted damage of shield damage, almost universally trumps any kind of damage resistance or extra health unless you have a really strong HR mechanic. Kelvin’s health pool is massive, and using Chomp’s LS can offset the damage he takes. But all of that comes at the cost of reach and control. Kelvin must get to within Melee ranges to make his plays. Tanks like Toby and ISIC, are literal battleships in game. They can range fire across the entire map, and generally have excellent escape maneuvers when they get jumped. This doesn’t imply they’re perfect tanks; I don’t know any that are. But no amount of damage from a Defender character, will edge over their sheer survival potential. Trading that, for a few more points of damage per swing or shot, weakens them more than it strengthens them.
Don’t forget that in your controlled environment, you need to factor in Marquis’ passive eins zwei die bonus damage. At level 10, I believe he has 1400? health plus his 300 shield. Since you have your 3 slots of gear in order to get that 900 shield, consider Marquis with increased damage, fire rate, and reload speed/shield penetration. Honestly, there are too many things to factor in. Sure, you could survive in a controlled environment, but consider my Toby in this experiment. At level 10, he will hit 415 damage per shot, and kill the Marquis before he destroys the deployable shield, if he stands still.
In a real environment however, the enemy team will recognize Toby as a threat and take out his shield as a team, while dodging left and right. Marquis players will wait for their shield to regenerate before chipping away at the deployable shield. They can destroy it faster than your cooldown can keep up. Phoebe players will phase in with a slow; stab, and run away. Oscar Mike will launch napalm grenades to keep you from harassing his team… If you can’t dish out enough damage, all of your efforts will be for naught because no one stands still to take damage from Toby, so you need to make the few shots you can hit really count.
Your Toby loadout is very effective, I’ve seen it before. It’s especially effective against impatient melee players who will charge in past the shield, but then they get slowed or stunned while taking a barrage of rail gun fire. If they manage to kill you, the self destruct will finish them off and make them think twice about approaching you again.
I’m not trying to discredit the abilities of your Toby, I’m just suggesting he has higher potential in the damage per second department.
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That whole example is highly unlikely anyway. Toby is a MUCH bigger target and a whole lot easier for Marquis to shoot. Your shield is a stationary target and is bullet food for a Marquis, You might not even hit him before your shield goes down