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The Iron Maiden: A Reflect-Based Protector Build for Swordmaster GF's.
todesfaelle
Member Posts: 1,370 Arc User
The Iron Maiden
A Reflect-Based Protector Build for Swordmaster GF's.
Intro: Greetings, readers and fellow tanks. I'm Todesfaelle, an avid creator and tester of builds. I do my best to make all the builds I make as fun, unique, and wallet-friendly to casual players, and to become increasingly potent for hardcore players alike when given better gear. I've been playing the Guardian Fighter for a couple of weeks so far, however this build is actually something that I've been trying to plot out ever since the release of Gauntlgrym. In many MMO's, tanking is seen as one of the most important roles for the community. However in Neverwinter, the Guardian Fighter is built in a way that it doesn't resemble a real tank, making tanking a more challenging job. It's this hurdle right here that made me think that the previous Iron Vanguard version of this build will not be able to do what it was supposed to do; which is to survive the process of tanking. However, with the recent addition of the Swordmaster Path for the GF, I believe it's safe to say that we now have the means to be able to tank in this game without worrying about dying in the process of tanking. We now have the means to tank in the game thanks to Swordmaster's Steel Defense, the class feature that makes or breaks the Iron Maiden Build.A Reflect-Based Protector Build for Swordmaster GF's.
This build is all about tanking, taking the blows for your allies and making sure you are on top of everything that can harm them; while also ensuring that you get out of most, if not all of these encounters alive and relatively unharmed as well. This is the Iron Maiden Build, a build that specializes in minimizing the risks of playing as a tank in a game that does not welcome tank play styles. I called this the Iron Maiden particularly because of how this build behaves; it gives us the ability to turn our tank into a reflective and impenetrable fortress, impervious to damage while doing it with art, mastery and grace. The more our enemies attack us, the more they get hurt. This build absorbs and reflects damage, it defends and supports your allies in a wide variety of ways, and it can also maintain a decent amount of aggro with minimal risk.
To summarize things a little, allow me to include the pros and cons of using this build.
Pros:
- An effective method for tanking.
- Decent damage immunity up-time.
- Competitive in both solo and group setups.
- Able to protect allies in many ways.
- Flexible, high in utility.
- Offers a fun new way to tank as a Guardian.
Cons:
- Minimal DPS, it takes time to kill things solo.
- Not a performing build in PVP unless you tweak it a little.
- Limited gap closers, not as mobile as the Iron Vanguard.
And that's basically the summary of this build's pros and cons. So if you are interested in learning more about the Iron Maiden, read on, and I'm pretty sure you'll be surprised at the many things you may find out about this build. It has a lot of neat tricks that'll make your tanking experience both fun and effective at the same time.
Race: Your Race isn't that important for this build. I personally chose a Sun Elf for role-playing purposes, since I'm creating my characters with a back story. But if by any chance you are looking to min-max, the usual races with boosts to STR/DEX and CON would be nice. If you are looking for more utility, I suggest you go for CON and INT. However if I were to reroll, I'd most probably choose Halfling, Half-Orc, or Dwarf. Just so that we're all on the same page, I'll be using my INT build for this guide.
Ability Scores: This build will aim to get as much RSI and AP Generation as it possibly can for maximized utility and to bring out Dailies much faster for our damage immunity. For this to happen we need the following stats.
- STR: 13 (+2 Points from Level Up) = 15
- CON: 15 (+6 Points from Level Up) = 21
- DEX: 14 (+2 Racial Bonus) (+2 Points from Level Up) = 18
- INT: 12 (+2 Racial Bonus) (+6 Points from Level Up) = 20
- WIS: 11 (+2 Points from Level Up) = 14
- CHA: 10 (+2 Points from Level Up) = 13
Recharge Speed Increase, or RSI, basically equates to "speed" in this game. Faster cooldown times equate to faster AP gain and better utility uptime. Our goal in maximizing our RSI is to have utility encounters such as Enforced Threat and Iron Warrior up as often as possible. We'll need as much speed as we can in order for this build to become successful. DEX will give us an extra 4% deflect which will be useful for our tanking strength. More importantly CON will give an added 11% AP Generation and 44% extra HP, and INT will be giving an added raw 10% RSI. These aspects of the build will further be boosted later on by feats.
The Power Bar
At-Wills:
- Crushing Surge: Provides us with a decent amount of HP upon the last strike. A very good utility At-Will
- Tide of Iron: Restores 10% of our Guard Meter. A good tool to use while we're immune to damage and are in need of restoring the guard meter to full. It also reduces the damage resistance of enemies.
Encounters:
- Iron Warrior: Recovers our Guard Meter and gives us Temporary Hit Points based on the amount of HP we are missing. We gain access to this skill every 13 seconds. So that means an effective heal + Guard Meter Recovery. Its very effective in those situations in combat where your HP is just around 10%, and you manage to pop this skill for a load of temp. HP which can be a life saver at times. This skill also enables us to have our Guard up almost indefinitely. With this one skill, our guard is almost unbreakable.
- Knight's Valor: One of the most important skills for this build. It allows us to intercept the damage our allies will take and absorb them. We'll be reflecting the damage we take via the use of Supremacy of Steel which will be explained later on. But more importantly, this skill allows us to intercept 50% of the damage our party was supposed to take. Only the GF can provide a party with such a widespread and effective protection.
- Enforced Threat: Another important encounter for our PVE skill bar. This skill has a target cap of 15, and it acts as a Hard Taunt, putting you on top of the threat list and grabbing aggro from your teammates. A valuable tool for tanking. It also replenishes your guard meter over time, not as good as Iron Warrior but plenty good enough.
- Into the Fray: An ability that provides your party with a nice buff to movement speed, AP generation and when used with the Iron Maiden build, a 37.5% increase in DPS. When feated this skill will also boost your party's damage by an additional 5%. Only a GF can give a damage buff like that in an encounter. And the best part is this skill recovers our Guard Meter.
- Knight's Challenge: A power which we'll be slotting in Boss Fights. This will cause bosses to hit your allies for significantly less damage. With Knight's Valor taking 50% of the damage from your allies and transferring them to you, Knight's Challenge will further increase that by another 50%, giving you a total multiplicative bonus of 75% damage reduction. Knight's Challenge supposedly has a Hard Taunt mechanic as well, which locks you in combat with an opponent of your choice. This means that it's an effective tool to keeping the boss's attention to you, and you will not have to worry about the boss going after your allies who are dealing with the mobs.
Dailies:
- Fighter's Recovery: An absolute god-send for the Iron Maiden build. Popping Fighter's recovery and combining it with your Guarded Assault or Enforced Threat makes tanking look too simple. It heals you for big amounts. You can just imagine how this skill would behave when paired with a 15-target cap skill like Enforced Threat.
- Supremacy of Steel: A skill which acts as an extra source of reflective damage. When you can afford to generate extra threat via the use of damage, use this daily. The second activation of this skill also does not have a target cap, and it can be a good source of HP with the help of Life Steal and Endless Consumption T5 Boon from Dread Ring.
Class Features:
- Guarded Assault: The Class Feature that our build revolves upon. This CF allows us to reflect 15% of the damage we take back to our attackers. A good tool in generating damage and threat while getting hit by our opponents. This skill shines most in boss fights and raids, as it is in those two aspects of the game where we see the largest numbers of reflected damage.
- Shield Talent: +15% extra Guard Meter. It's a solid boost to our Guard Meter. And if we combine it with Indomitable Champion's 4 piece set, we'll get a total amount of 40% boost to our Guard Meter. This means we block 40% more damage with our Shield and we gain 40% more AP in one use of our Shield. Not only that, our Guard Recovery skills will be able to heal much more Guard at the same time because of the added 40% potency to our meter. Combine these with Iron Warrior, and you get to have your Guard up almost indefinitely.
- Steel Defense: 5 seconds of damage immunity; the biggest thing we gain from the Swordmaster Paragon Path. This one single Class Feature solved the biggest problem we had as a reflect-based GF, which is the amount of damage we take in the process of tanking. While the other GWF skills our GF gets from this path is considerably sub-par, this one right here fits perfectly for the role our GF has, which is to tank things and minimize the damage our allies take. Steel Defense makes sure that we stay alive while 50% of the damage our allies take gets redirected to us when using Knight's Valor.
So what we have here is a GF that specializes in using skills for tanking. Notice that the encounter toolbar doesn't have much skills that deal damage. While we can spec for more damage, it's much more important to be able to protect your party from any potential damage they might take, making things easier for your team.
The Protector Iron Maiden
Heroic Feats:- Action Surge (5/5): 10% more AP whenever we guard attacks. Since we will be having our Guard up a lot, and we generate a lot of AP via the use of Guard, the 5 points we put in this Heroic Feat will be one of the best investments we can make as an Iron Maiden.
- Toughness (3/3): +9% HP. More HP = more tanking. It makes Regeneration better, and will be a good help since we will not be stacking HP aside from the ones we get from our gear.
- Strength Focus (1/3): Increases the effects of Strength by 5%. While not that useful for a defensive build, it does indirectly increase our Guard Meter as well.
- Distracting Shield (5/5): Something to further debuff our opponents. While 5% may not sound like much, considering the amount of times we'll have our Guard up, this feat will net pretty good returns in terms of long-lasting effects. It'll provide some protection for our allies just in case our enemies are popping AoE's.
- Armor Specialization (3/3): Increases our AC by 5 and Defense stat by 15%. Always useful.
- Potent Challenge (3/3): 15% more threat. Not much to explain here. We want more threat to take away the aggro from our allies.
Paragon Feats:
Tactician:
- Fight On (5/5): 10% Recharge Speed Increase. Since we aim to pop our encounters very often for maximized utility, having a 10% increase in our cooldown speed would help us net more AP in the long run.
- Daunting Challenge (5/5): Reduces the damage our allies take by 10%. In conjunction with Knight's Valor and Knight's Challenge's multiplicative bonus of 75% damage reduction for our allies, we can top that with an additive bonus of 10% via this feat, giving us a total amount of 85% damage reduction for our allies. So we mark, KV, then KC on boss fights and you and your party will not have to worry about getting one shot by bosses, since we're soaking the damage for them.
Protector:
- Plate Agility (5/5): +5% more Deflect. We'll try to get as much deflect as possible from our gear to net a possible 30% Deflect with complete gear. That's practically deflecting 1 out of 3 hits.
- Shield Defense (5/5): +5 AC, a good boost to DR right here which helps us survive strikes that will kill most other squishy classes.
- Shield Master (5/5): Guard depletes 10% slower. You can easily imagine how this would affect our play style.
- Brawling Warrior (5/5): Knight's Valor increases our damage resistance by 5%, and Enforced Threat deals an additional 10% damage and threat. A very useful tool to make our regularly slotted skills better. This gives us better Threat Generation from Enforced Threat, and Knight's Valor will further increase or survival by giving us a 5% flat increase in Defense.
- Iron Guard (1/1): Every melee hit on an enemy reduces the damage it deals to us and our party by 5% per hit, max of 20%. This will be another useful tool to reduce the damage our party takes from the boss. One of our main skills, Guarded Assault, is able to proc both this skill and Distracting Shield, giving us a total of 25% DPS debuff for our opponents. It's a pretty significant debuff for boss fights and raids.
Boons: Our choice in Boons will be relatively simple. We'll want to take the boons that increase our ability to tank things, so this means we only take the defensive ones as we are not a spec for DPS. That said, here is my simple list of Boons that I'd choose.
Sharandar: For our Sharandar boons, I chose Elven Resolve for my T5 boon as it helps us regenerate our Stamina 10% faster. We tend to use skills which replenish our Stamina such as Enforced Threat and Iron Warrior, and sometimes Into the Fray as well.
- Dark Fey Warden: 250 Defense.
- Fey Elusiveness: 250 Deflect.
- Elven Haste: 2% AP Gain.
- Elven Tranquility: When being struck by a foe you have a chance to heal yourself for 400 HP.
- Elven Resolve: Your Stamina or Guard Meter regenerate 10% faster in Combat.
Dread Ring: For our Dread Ring T5, nothing beats Endless Consumption in terms of increasing our survival capabilities. We'll be netting a decent amount of Life Steal once we hit level 60, roughly around 12%. So you can just imagine how much HP we can get back from our reflected strikes with the amount of hits we'll be taking.
- Reliquary Keeper's Strength: 125 Power and Movement.
- Evoker's Thirst: 250 Life Steal.
- Forbidden Piercing: 250 Armor Penetration
- Enraged Regrowth: When taking damage you have a chance to heal 1000 HP over a few seconds. After this effect ends you have 250 more Defense for 10 seconds.
- Endless Consumption: When you steal health from your Life Steal stat, it has a chance to steal 3 times as much.
Icewind Dale: I chose Avalanche for my T5 boon for IWD. Most people would disagree due to its low proc chance, but when you get 20 to 30 or more mobs hitting you, I'm pretty sure it'd be easy to collect those 20 stacks effectively.
- Weathering the Storm: 250 AoE Resist.
- Refreshing Chill: 250 Stamina/Guard Gain.
- Rapid Thaw: 250 Recovery
- Cold Shoulder: When damaged by a foe you have a chance to proc Cold Shoulder on them, which will reduce the damage of their next attack by 200.
- Avalanche: When damaged by a foe, chance to gain a stack of Avalanche. At 20 Stacks, taking damage will clear the stacks and deal 200 damage to nearby targets.
Tyranny of Dragons + Rise of Tiamat:
- Dragonheart: 800 HP
- Dragon's Shadow: 200 Deflect.
- Draconic Armorbreaker: 200 Armor Penetration.
- Dragon's Greed: 200 Life Steal.
- Dragon's Thirst: 3% Extra Life Steal.
- Dragon's Revival: Grants 10% Increased Incoming Healing.
- Dragon's Grip: Grants 10% increased Control Strength.
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The Idea and Philosophy Behind the Iron Maiden
Steel Defense and Supremacy of Steel: The combo that makes and breaks the build. Without it, it'll be impossible to tank the damage mobs deal against us. Steel Defense procs each time we activate a Daily, giving us 5 seconds of damage immunity whenever we use a daily, and our Daily of choice will be Supremacy of Steel for most situations. Supremacy of Steel reflects a decent portion of the damage our opponents deal against us, and this is basically the reason why I named the build The Iron Maiden. We take advantage of our abilities to make our opponents attack us. And since we can predict that our opponents will, or will eventually attack us, this turns Supremacy of Steel into an effective tool to generate threat, deal damage from a wide area, and eventually use the predictability of our opponents to our advantage and cause them to commit suicide by attacking you. This mechanic also helps tremendously in solo play, as we will be able to deal with hordes upon hordes of mobs and not worry about getting ganked to death. Supremacy of Steel is also a double-cast Daily, meaning you activate it 2 times in one rotation, giving us a total amount of 10 seconds of damage immunity. I usually maximize the reflective portion of Supremacy of Steel before popping another 5 seconds of immunity by using the second cast of Supremacy of Steel, which is the part where we fling golden swords all across the room. The second cast has no target cap, and has a decent range. This means that it's a good way to generate threat in a room teeming with mobs.
The Pros and Cons of Steel Defense: Steel Defense definitely has a lot of perks, but not all of em are useful for us. Steel Defense is able to give us 5 seconds of immunity as I mentioned in my earlier statements, but did you know that it also prevents the loss of our Guard Meter for 5 seconds? This will thereby allow us to freely regenerate our Guard while having it raised up, giving us CC immunity and soaking damage for us. This means that we have unlimited Guard for 5 seconds no matter how many enemies attack us, even if our meter is currently at its last 10%. But conversely, Steel Defense also prevents AP gain during the time we are immune to damage. It seems that the amount of AP we gain from blocking depends on how much we lose on our meter, not how much damage we take when we have our Guard up. Steel Defense not only prevents AP gain from Blocking, but it also prevents AP gain from the Tactician Capstone Feat, Martial Mastery, which led me to the conclusion that playing as a Protector will be a better choice for a tank, and that increasing the endurance and potency of our Guard Meter would net us much more AP gain in the long run as compared to soaking damage without using Guard via Tactician's Capstone Feat. But both trees will be useful for this sort of play style. I just chose Protector for the added protection it gives to our allies. More Guard means more AP gain from soaking damage via Guard, so I modeled this build to have a much more potent Guard than usual, getting us nearer to popping dailies whenever we can.
The Perks of Knight's Valor: Knight's Valor allows us to intercept 50% of the damage our allies would have taken. Not to mention it allows us to proc our Armor Enchantment's effects such as Briatrwine, Bloodthirst, and Thunderhead, and the likes. Knight's Valor effectively increases the chance of proc-ing our armor enchantments by 5 in a full party. It'll be as if you are giving them part of your armor's abilities. Knight's Valor also generates a decent amount of threat when your allies get hit, which will allow us to peel off the mobs away from our allies without us having to go and attack them. When paired with Steel Defense, it'll be safe to say that even if that CW, TR, or HR stands in the red area of a boss attack, as long as you're under Steel Defense and they have the KV buff on, they'll be relatively unscathed after which.
The Perks of Knight's Challenge: This skill is a really useful tool for bosses despite it being accessible only every 20 seconds at 40% RSI. It lasts 10 seconds, but what basically happens is that the GF will be able to pop this on a boss and reduce the damage the boss deals to the party by 50%, and you and the boss will deal an increased amount of damage to each other by 150%. The only difference is that you will not have to worry about getting hit by an empowered attack from your opponent because you tend to be immune to damage when they hit for big numbers, and if not you'll always have your shield. So whenever you are in a party, you get the attention of the adds and the boss at the same time, and you're invulnerable to damage, just like a tank should be. This skill also has an amazing AP gain which is why I like having this slotted in my bar all the time.
The Perks of Supremacy of Steel: This skill is our main and only reflect ability before we get any boons from Sharandar or Dread Ring. Supremacy of Steel allows GF's to reflect a huge amount of damage dealt to you. And you guessed right, Knight's Valor procs Supremacy of Steel as well because in the end, when you're using Knight's Valor, you are being attacked. So each strike to your allies gets reflected back to your enemies as an attack. But it gets better. I mentioned that the reflected damage come in the form of "attacks." Yes, this skill also procs your Weapon Enchantments! So that means if you have Plague Fire on, the mobs attacking your allies will be getting their armor screwed, and if you have Lightning on, part of your weapon damage will chain to your enemies making Supremacy of Steel and Knight's Valor a sort of AoE ability with a huge, huge range. But those aren't for tanking. What we want for our Weapon Enchantment will be Lifedrinker or Greater/Perfect Lightning Enchantments. Why? For one, these two enchantments creates tons of Threat. More threat for you means you get to peel off the mobs from your allies giving them a lot of breathing room. Lifedrinker has a more decent utility purpose however. Because when Lifedrinker procs from Supremacy of Steel, you gain HP while the mobs attack you, making the process of tanking immense numbers of mobs a much easier job.
Generating Threat as an Iron Maiden: This is one of the main issues that non-DPS spec-ed tanks usually encounter, which is generating the right amount of threat in order to keep the attention of your enemies to us. We actually have a decent repertoire of skills that assist us with this task, and one of the most notable ones would be Enforced Threat. Enforced Threat is a good way to Mark and Hard Taunt some mobs to make them attack you. And if you have Enhanced Mark slotted, you'll also be able to generate threat simply by marking things. There's also the option of using Knight's Valor to protect your allies and generate some thread while intercepting damage for your allies. Those 3 skills in which I just mentioned should be regularly placed in their appropriate slots in your skill bar whenever you are in a party, because those 3 skills assist us in reaching our goal as a tank; which is to protect the party from harm.
The set in which is required for this build is actually quite easy to get. What we want is the Indomitable Champion Set (T2 PVP). This set can be acquired by purchasing them from Gauntlgrym. Its effects are pretty straightforward and the stats on the set are useful for us. Below are the total stats and effects of our preferred armor set.
Set Stats:
Set Effects:
- 2/4 Pieces: +450 Defense.
- 4/4 Pieces: You have 25% more Guard Meter.
Having 25% more guard meter and 10% increased run speed should increase our survival by a whole lot, as well as our AP gain and damage soaking capabilities. Pair this up with Shield Talent and we get a 40% boost. Pair those two up with Guard Recovery skills such as Enforced Threat, Iron Warrior and Into the Fray and use them all in one rotation and you should be able to soak so much damage that you'll rarely see your guard being broken for more than 5 seconds. It's a fun and reliable way to tank. No need for kiting, just tank everything. Though the 10% increase in run speed helps us kite a little when we find ourselves in hairy situations where we messed up in our encounters, or we were chain CC-ed by mobs and find ourselves in need of some breathing room.For our Main Hand and Off Hand, we'll definitely want the following gear.
Main Hand: Ancient Grand Knight's Long Sword
Off Hand: Ancient Grand Knight's Shield
This set will give us a total amount of the following stats.
- + 1095 Power
- + 207 Recovery
- + 779 Defense
- + 442 Deflect
- + 207 Regeneration
Set 2: +450 DefenseIf the set is too costly, we can also opt to go for the Sword and Shield of the Grand Regent. The important stats will be Defense and Recovery for our AP Generation. 1355 Recovery so far for the 2 sets.
For our Jewelry and Belt, we definitely will want to get the following gear. These gear will be relatively cheap but their effectiveness for the build is top notch.
Neck: Blessed Amulet of Youth: 133 Power, 133 Recovery, 110 Regeneration.
Ring: Ring of the Forest Guardian: 128 Defense, 128 Regeneration, 108 Deflect.
Ring: Ring of the Forest Guardian: 128 Defense, 128 Regeneration, 108 Deflect.
Belt: Blessed Belt of Youth: 133 Power, 133 Recovery, 110 Regeneration.
For our enchantments, we'll want to slot Silvery Enchantments with a minimum of Rank 7 on each Defensive and Offensive slot. Silvery Enchantments are really cheap in the Auction House which makes gearing up a whole lot easier.
Offense x 6: Silvery. Minimum of Rank 7 = 1110 Recovery.
Defense x 3: Silvery. Minimum of Rank 7 = 555 Deflect.
Utility x 3: Dark. Minimum of Rank 5 = 375 Movement.
With the gear and stats factored in, I currently have the following boosts to my stats so far, without any boosts from an Augment Companion.
For our weapon and armor enchants, we have a variety of choices to choose from.
Weapon Enchantment:
Armor Enchantment:
I'll also be incorporating some of the features which will come from Module 2, which is the Active Companion Bonus System. This new system will give us bonuses as long as we have companions waiting in our Active Companion slots. It allows us to add dimensions to our play style and to personalize it even further using this system. While the main summoned companion for this build will still be the Ioun Stone of Allure, we'll be able to benefit from our Active Companion Bonuses just by having them in our Active Companion Slots. So even if they're not summoned, they will be passively providing us with buffs that will be beneficial for our tanking. Let's start with our Ioun Stone of Allure.
Ioun Stone of Allure: All PVE builds need Ioun Stones to increase their performance, and we are no exception. We'll be stacking as much Power, Recovery, and Regeneration as we can to increase our ability to get tank and to generate AP.
Runestones.
Gear
Active Companion Bonus: The Active Companion Bonus system will introduce a new dimension to planning builds in PVE. It increases the number of paths one build may take, and the bonuses we took for this build pretty much sums up to increasing the amount of utility our reflective capabilities give us.
High Priority: These are pets that you will be able to use all the time and will further enhance your PVE play style. So when you get the chance to purchase them, just by them. The pets in this list are relatively cheaper than most other alternatives, and their effects will be readily apparent. These companions are also safe choices to upgrade as they can significantly improve your performance.
Medium Priority: The pets in this list are either costlier than usual, or their effects will not be as apparent as the ones from the High Priority list. But still useful.
Low Priority: These pets will be relatively useful, however they may be too costly, too hard to get, or their effects aren't that reliable. But when their effects do proc, it can be pretty fun. If you guys have these pets, that's good. I recommend buying more Active Companion slots for these guys!
Will be adding more pets to the list as soon as I get more time.
Artifacts: For our artifact selection, we will be choosing what best suits a type of build that tends to get hit a lot. We want a lot of Regeneration, and preferably some Recovery on the side as well for added RSI and AP gain. So my top choices for artifacts are...
Primary Artifact:
- Emblem of Seldarine: Gives us the ability to heal ourselves and our allies whenever we get hit. We'll be getting hit a lot. And an effect like this should scale well with the number of enemies facing us. The more we heal, the more threat we generate as well which will be good for the party. It has some Defense stats which will be pretty much overkill, but we can always use more defense. What we're after is the effect of the Artifact.
Secondary Artifacts:
- Waters of Elah'zad: It has Recovery, Regeneration and Defense. A really good defensive relic with stats that fit our build so well.
- Blood Crystal Raven Skull: It has Recovery, Regeneration and Stamina/Guard Gain.A perfect addition for a tank build like ours.
These artifacts will further increase our ability to tank hits, and at the same time, it will help us generate more threat for the benefit of the party. The Emblem of Seldarine will also provide a good utility bonus to our party to keep them away from Death's doors much more.
So this pretty much sums up the Iron Maiden Build. While it may not be the most effective tank spec in terms of instantly peeling mobs off our allies, we can peel them off in time and protect them at the same instance. People may say that the GF class is dead with the recent ascension of the GWF, but in the end it still depends on how you play your class. The GWF may have the better DPS, but I don't think you'll find one with the ability to do the same things as us, buffing our party members and shield them from damage, taking the hits for the team. I hope you enjoyed reading about my GF spec, and maybe enticed to spec-ing for a similar build.
If you guys have any questions, feedback, or are in need of clarifications, the thread and my inbox are open for them! Thank you for reading, and I sincerely hope you guys enjoyed it.
Also for faster AP gain, why not tactician with minor in Protector? The only thing you really lose is the 5% DR from KV and 10% enemy damage decrease from Protector final. But if you have threat to get all enemies to be attacking you anyway (for maximizing effects of reflect), Tactician would make more sense there too IMO.
Hi! Actually, I tried making use of that Reflect CF. But let's be honest, it's total <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> unless our dear devs decide to give it a nice buff, maybe like 5% per rank for a total of 15%.
For faster AP gain, Tactician makes a lot of sense and I tried it out and it takes me nearer to my goal of being able to pop a daily. But the thing is, Steel Defense, which is the main CF of this build, completely negates the effects of Martial Mastery. This means I can't gain AP from getting attacked while under the effects of SD. So I concentrated on making my Guard more potent as I noticed that the amount of AP we can get from Guarding far outweighs the AP gain we can get from the Martial Mastery feat. I concentrated on being able to recover the Guard Meter quickly to be able to gain AP by Guarding some more. Only the GF is able to generate this much AP by using their defensive feature and I decided to bank on that by going for Protector, and increasing the effects of my defensive capabilities. I have more details on the Philosophy of the Build section of the guide.
Nice, I just checked your thread man. I like how we instantly have 2 separate Swordmaster builds in one day. This should prove to be a good development. I'll be dropping by your thread for a comment!
Yeah I actually do the same.
Nonetheless, I like how you use Fighter's Recovery with Steel Defense. We need more Swordmasters around!
Also consider Greater Ring of Repulsion instead of Dark Forest (yes they are a little bit more expensive)
Instead of Galeb Dur, Honey Badger might be a better choice for the active bonus as you don't plan on running at below 50% most of the time.
Lightfoot is unlikely to be useful for your build given that you have only 5% crit chance i think
Lillend heal amount is very small from testing, 2% max HP for most allies won't be more than around 400-600 hp, which would be minimal for threat too. Vicious Dire Wolf on the other hand would be great as it should work with reflect damage as well.
In response more to the area colored, using Aggravating Strike (Block at will) generates more AP then straight blocking OR Martial Mastery. I believe this is due to the taunt that it enacts as well. I prefer using it when a mob is up in a singularity.
Did you find the abilities that restore block to be restoring large amounts? I never noticed much of a difference in my testing, but I never used them extensively either
Hey, man. You got that right. While I'm in Steel Defense, since I can't gain AP from Blocking I tend to spam Aggravating Strike and since it has a seemingly limitless target cap, the AP we can generate using it can be quite nice while we're immune. As for the Block Restore abilities, Enforced Threat/Iron Warrior/Into the Fray, when used individually they can give us some breathing room and the block restore isn't that much. But if you use 2 at the same time, the effects are noticeably more potent. It takes a while for tons of mobs to burn through your guard, and it'll recover the Guard Meter quickly if it breaks.
>>. It seems that the amount of AP we gain from blocking depends on how much we lose on our meter, not how much damage we take when we have our Guard up<<
This is totally false.
I gain sometimes over 20% with one blocked attack. So the amount of the impact count, nothing else.
Second one:
>>Steel Blitz: Increases our damage by 36% when it procs. It has a higher chance of proc-ing if we hit multiple targets. This means popping the 2nd activation of Supremacy of Steel is guaranteed to have a whole lot of procs with this class feature. Use this only in solo plays as it is not to useful in groups.<<
This is totally false. The tooltip say +12% damage, but this not mean, that you GAIN more damage. It only increase the % of the weapon damage you do if this proc. With my GWF i gain additionally +600 per hit for a 700-900 Weapon damage. But the procchance vary from at least 5%-30% or something like that.
Additionally information:
>>As for the Block Restore abilities, Enforced Threat/Iron Warrior/Into the Fray, when used individually they can give us some breathing room and the block restore isn't that much.<<
ET: 20% over 8s.
Iron Warrior 50-100% depend if you have some block left or the block is broken(50% if broken 100% if 1% or more left).
For a guide you have really to many inaccurate tips
Thanks for correcting me, specially about how block generates AP. I specifically phrased it to make it noticeable that I'm not sure. So now that we have input from one very experienced GF such as yourself, it'll benefit the play style a lot and prevent further inaccuracies. For Steel Blitz, what you said was exactly what I meant.
Then again, I'm not really the type to nitpick over small details so I apologize if by any chance this somehow caused you distress. Allow me to correct them for you later!
Hey, man. I just saw this post. Sorry for the late reply.
I'm going for Allure Stone, simply because it's cheaper. This build is highly flexible and doesn't require any of the high end costly pets. They are merely bonuses. This isn't much of a min/max build, to be honest. Just for guys who want to have fun in the game without stressing over stat caps too much. But your suggestion is good for min-maxers, though I believe min-maxing is beyond my area of expertise.
Oh and thanks for bringing up Greater Ring of Repulsion. It's also a good choice, but I specifically chose the Dark Forest rings for the Offense slots. I wanted more Recovery for more AP gain. Deflect is a stat that is hard to raise to 30% without the use of high end enchantments and Ioun Stones, so I'm planning to get just 3113 deflect to get my deflect to 30% flat using the stone.
Galeb Dhur, I don't think I'll be buying this pet. I just put it there for players who have the pet, or is able to buy one. I specifically did not include Honey Badger because from my entire PVE experience, I've never seen my GF go below 35% HP. But I guess it'll be a good precaution. Thanks for the suggestion! I'm going to edit the guide later and add it up.
Lightfoot Thief... I honestly think you're right. But I just included it there because from the amount of attacks we are able to reflect, at least one of those will crit even if it's just a 5% chance. Although 5% is a completely unreliable factor. But yeah, you are correct. I still want to own one of these, though. Same reasoning with Vicious Dire Wolf! It's only a 5% chance but you're right, I'll include it as well later. I like it. ♥
And true, I guess Lillend is TOO costly for its capabilities. But being able to pop a lot of dailies, I thought "why not?" It's on the back of my priority list however. I'm still saving up for my Blacksmith and Ioun Stone.
I'm pretty sure you guys can tell how cheap I play.
Lillend has a 30s CD on the 2% heal. So if you can pop up the daily every 10s, it won't proc 4 times within 30s.
Galeb Duhr is a slotpet for DDs. Not for a tank. If you want be more tanky, then the Dancing Shield will be fit your Guide(+% Deflect chance).
And yes, I agree with Galeb and Lillend. I personally will not be buying them. I just listed them there simply because I think it's cool to have a tank that can heal their allies as well in the process. I'm making builds for fun, not to min/max.
I had shelved it before because I was so busy with my CWs and my new HR. Thanks for breathing some new life into my GF.
If I may add, I like weapon masters strike much better than cleave; but to each his own.
I do find however, that a HR will wind up pulling agro mostly because they start split shot spam well before I can get in there to have gained any agro at all.
^^Shadow
WMS should also increase shield slam and aggravated strike as well which hits harder than cleave.
@master - This is true! The reason I mention cleave is it probably hits harder than WMS in an AoE. WMS, turtle up and smacking them with taunt/shield regen single target is also useful. Or are they a cone? Not really sure on that one.
Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you're enjoying the build! I actually like WMS too, but I find that the AP generation from Cleave since it has no target cap a whole lot more enjoyable. But WMS does look real nice, TBH. Sometimes I find myself tempted to use it simply because it looks cooler.
I most usually do not find any trouble pulling aggro from my teammates using Enhanced Mark, Enforced Threat, Knight's Challenge and Knight's Valor, skills which I have regularly slotted. And even if you do fail to pull some mobs away from your allies, as long as you have Knight's Valor up, your enemies will have a hard time killing your allies no matter how far they are from the cleric. I just spam TAB to mark things from afar, let them build up threat for me and they'll eventually be peeled off. We don't have instant peeling abilities but once we do peel one away from the allies, it'll be ours for a long time.
Definitely! The T2 PVP armor provides a very nice boost to our survival and AP gain, but you can also use sets like Grand Regent. Basically anything with Regen/Deflect/Defense/Recovery in one set will be good. There's also the Sharandar set.
Todesfielle -hmph, yeah and some people on the forums say the GF sucks. Not this one it doesn't.:cool:
"Break yourselves and your weapons upon my steely visage, your attacks are useless!" is how I feel about this build.
So hopefully you guys will have fun experiencing the next build for another class! It'll be unique, just to set everyone's expectations.
1) This build does work.
2) CWs are not your friend - this build wants to be attacked, and CWs make the mobs stunned, or fly everywhere, or dead.
3) Slow and clunky animations of your key powers are your enemy. Get used to every mob's attack sequence to know when you can afford to be standing there like a noodle while a slow animation gets the job done.
4) You can tank all the adds at the final boss in epic spell plague, and just have everyone else shoot the boss. All the adds. (might want to keep an eye out for knockback cones coming in from behind you though
5) The worse your team is (in a PUG for example) the better this build performs.
6) Gaining agro via Knights Valour can be quite slow, doubly so because you can not have it up all the time. Without threatening rush to get over to and mark loose adds you are even further limited. You may have to explain to people that if they don't want to keep an add, they need to let it hit them once while the blue aura is on them, and not try to burn the mob down. Likewise, you probably wont get agro off the CW that wants to AoE everything. Basically, while you can agro everything, you can only do it if the rest of the team co-operates - they can and will take and hold agro if they want to. Rangers with Split Shot are especially prone to this issue.
7) An issue that messes with your timing with SoS and KV can kill you
Anyway - I finished an epic spell plague having dished out top damage with this build, thanks mostly to hogging millions of adds to myself while I got the team to focus the boss to dead. I swear the game was going to explode my GFX card with it trying to render that much chain reaction effect though. It did take a couple of attempts still, as half the team was new to the dungeon (a PUG) and it took a bit for them to accept what I was saying about leaving the adds be. I still wish I could physically bash the need to use ice storm out of that CW though. Personal peeve of mine, that spell.
The main reason why I rolled for a 20% RSI + 20 INT (10% RSI) + Fight On (10% RSI) is to have KV, KC, and Enforced Threat up as often as possible to maximize my threat generation. I took the clunky animations into consideration when I was planning the build so I wanted as much flexibility and be able to pop those skills when I really needed them.
As for #7, agreed. There's no getting around this, which is why I like the 25% extra Guard from Indomitable Champion. Lessens the odds of it happening when you have the ability to guard more attacks.
We ended up completing it with 1 tr me and 2 cws and no cleric.
And my gfx card also almost blew a s#!t on the boss fight but only when more adds came pouring in.
You can get GG set without PVP at all.
As our friend masterjewstar has mentioned, KV + SoS procs both Weapon and Armor enchants. When KV redirects an attack to you, it will count as an attack made by an opponent, thus proc-ing armor enchantment effects. When SoS reflects an attack, it will count as an attack made by you, thus giving your gold swords the effects of your weapon enchantment.
This is true. I just did Fardelver Coin Farms with my Valiant Warrior set. I could have forgone PVP but I wanted the extra 7 coins per match.