CN GF tank possible?

johnjohniii · April 2016

Have any of you successfully tanked the last boss in CN? My group has tried a few times with 0 successes. Advice??? how are you doing it???

grimah · April 2016

Two ways depending on which paragon you are.

If you are swordmaster, slot one of your class features as steel defense. Pop fighters recovery after he punches/swings at you and you will have immunity to pop your encounters/skills.

As iron vanguard, the safest way is to use shield talent, and keep your shield up always. hopefully you have the shield slam/tides of iron artifact feature, and you can keep your shield up indefinately. Drop your block to pop into the fray or fighter's recovery if need be. Other skills may be too risky to use so you will have to play within your own latency.

be careful of orbs, just back off and make sure you block them, it's not so bad as SM because you can go immune, but very very dangerous for an IV.

lantern22 · April 2016

CN is definitely doable with an IV GF, I'm 3.1K IL and find it pretty easy as long as there is a DC in the party for some minor heals and debuffs.

If you look at the IV Vs orcus thread down the page a bit, there is plenty of discussion on it. Grimah has summarised it in his post.

What composition is your group and what IL?

rapo973 · April 2016

I'm a DC and I support the GF I use to play with. We have no problem at CN.
Recently I joined a pug team at CN and the GF was fighting Orcus as he was a CW. Unfortunately there are many horrible GFs around....

dzaims · April 2016

2.6K IV Protector here, packing Soulforged and Lathander's set. Managed Castle never with a good group of well-specced and -geared guildies on Mumble. I off-tanked with my Baby Yeti pet, dropping shield only to ITF, ET and IW, and Fighter's Recovery after some major Orcus hits. Just trading threat, back and forth, with the yeti, letting him tank while I heal up or whatever. The crew had good DPS, and I tried to keep threat up (but hard to compete for aggro against 3K+ DPSers). It's possible, but your pinky will get cramped from holding down the shift key ;-)

rafaelda · April 2016

dzaims said:
2.6K IV Protector here, packing Soulforged and Lathander's set. Managed Castle never with a good group of well-specced and -geared guildies on Mumble. I off-tanked with my Baby Yeti pet, dropping shield only to ITF, ET and IW, and Fighter's Recovery after some major Orcus hits. Just trading threat, back and forth, with the yeti, letting him tank while I heal up or whatever. The crew had good DPS, and I tried to keep threat up (but hard to compete for aggro against 3K+ DPSers). It's possible, but your pinky will get cramped from holding down the shift key ;-)

That's why i've changed Shift and Tab functions XD

dfnce · April 2016

EDIT:

As one of non-KV PUG variants for SM with non-elite DC or even without them: Lunging Strike, Enforced Threat and ITF.

Stay as close as possible to Orcus. Not just tanking or aggro holding. One or few melee arc hits of Orcus refill daily AP. If you get away from Orcus, he cannot melee you anymore and GF cannot guard his attacks, no AP gain for GF. Worse, Orcus starts attack you with ranged 800k nukes.

Orcus melee attack may come in chain. When its chain ends, activate Fighter Recovery, even if you 100% HP. It is daily with safest and fastest animation. Being under Steel Defense immunity for short period of time, GF has time to activate encounters, or Artifact power.

All other time GF must keep guard up. If character enters into Cleave/Crushing Surge melee animation, it may lasts 1.5-2 extra seconds after player stops using them, it prevents instant guard activation with all consequences. Use Tab/Tide of Iron as a first in Steel Defense period, then some encounters, then activate guard. Shield Slam with FR should self-heal well.

To better control on field, i would suggest to set fov to 90 or even more (use /gfxsetdefaultfov 90). It allows to notice floating spheres once they appear just behind you.

zyek88 · April 2016

I tank Orcus as a Swordmaster Conq. 100% KV uptime. Fighter's recovery + Steel defense makes it fairly easy to alternate between invulnerability and shielding while self healing allowing the healer to focus on buff and polish rather than all heals. More buffs plus ITF buff makes for a fast kill removing many chances for errors in a longer fight.

It helps that my guildmates know to stand behind him rather than next to me as even with KV one hit from Orcus might still one shot a dpser.

Enhanced Threat feature helps keep Orcus looking at me.

oliboyph · May 2016

DC is crucial here if you're dps is low, but with good enough dps GF should not have any problems. Just keep your shield up. I've been tanking CN since it was reintroduced.

juliofp70 · May 2016

CN is boring.... i can do it without pally or dc on team...

exgardian · May 2016

Using any defender companion, like Young Yeti with loyal defender acessories, Orcus will be less difficult.

johnjohniii · May 2016

ok, if other people in the run bring out tank pets does that help or hurt? for example, the tank has a def pet and 2 other people bring out their def pets... better or am is it too much of a good thing?

urabask · May 2016

johnjohniii said:
ok, if other people in the run bring out tank pets does that help or hurt? for example, the tank has a def pet and 2 other people bring out their def pets... better or am is it too much of a good thing?

It really shouldn't matter. The biggest issue is when melee DPS party members grab aggro (e.g. GWF with daring shout) because any drop in DPS makes your job harder.

darthtzarr · May 2016

Equip: Shield Talent, Tide of Iron
Unequip: Knight's Valor
Rotation: Block, Tide of Iron, Block, Tide of Iron, Block, Tide of Iron, Block.... repeat more

One mistake and you are dead... and you will still need a good healer, but it is doable even on a 2k GF. I have successfully run twice now as a puny 2k Tact GF with no Boons, no weapon/armor epic enchants, no artifact set bonus, no artifact weapons (not even level 70 weapons), no Steel Defense, and only green/blue artifacts (I did have a Goat wearing Loyal Defender and rank 7 Azures, comes to about 3.9k Defense). Although I have had well coordinated teams both times.

If you need to keep your shield up for an extended period of time, use Shield Slam (right click while shielding). It will regen 5% stamina on each hit, so you can guard a little longer.

EDIT - there is way more to it than that, but previous posters nailed most of it.

mrvincent1959 · May 2016

Why would you unequip Knights Valor? What would you replace it with?

darthtzarr · May 2016

mrvincent1959 said:
Why would you unequip Knights Valor? What would you replace it with?

At lower item levels Power Word: Kill kills me if I take it with KV equipped. I run Bull's Charge for some extra DR/Threat that I can activate instantly.

urabask · May 2016

mrvincent1959 said:
Why would you unequip Knights Valor? What would you replace it with?

There's not really much point in having it equipped in Orcus since everything that you'd want to bother reducing is still going to one hit anyone else in your party.

dfnce · May 2016

johnjohniii said:
ok, if other people in the run bring out tank pets does that help or hurt? for example, the tank has a def pet and 2 other people bring out their def pets... better or am is it too much of a good thing?

Orcus with tank companions happen to turn randomly to companions and attack them. If there are such companions and melee (TR/GWF) in group, tank can move to position enough to prevent excessive Orcus rotation and this will keep melees players alive. Of course, GF has no better things to do but track other players companions.

schietindebux · May 2016

My impressions from GF 2.8k and CN.
Running a GF conquerer with a damagespec it did not work that good. I got too much damage in one hit even by blocking all time. That was no tanking that´s more a pain in the a...
I can´t imagine how those player with 2k GS even managed to survive one hit, only possible in case you put every little effort in HP and DR i guess and stack as much tanky feats as possible.
I respecced into protection and 15 point into tactition and am able to tank that boss without big efforts.
I am more an average tank, new in this business and use a T Negation+feytouched and an Angel of protection on top, pretty sure most of you guys will manage it without that stuff, but at least i can tell I am a tank and do not need a Tank companion, maybe even not a healer in case a Hunter or a templock is in my team.
The protector capstone, brawling warrior, devoted protector, shield defense and plate agility do very good. I spend 2 points in shieldmaster and 3 point in unbreakable line, wich may be useless as soon as my GF has aquired all boons, but so far they do help to manage my stamina. 15 points went into fight on, daunting challenge and rounsing speech.
Actions surge 4/5 + steel defense for the win...
Sure my damage went down, but it´s more than enough to do my dailes, no comparison to a faithfull DC, wich is real pain.

oliboyph · May 2016

schietindebux said:
My impressions from GF 2.8k and CN.
Running a GF conquerer with a damagespec it did not work that good. I got too much damage in one hit even by blocking all time. That was no tanking that´s more a pain in the a...
I can´t imagine how those player with 2k GS even managed to survive one hit, only possible in case you put every little effort in HP and DR i guess and stack as much tanky feats as possible.
I respecced into protection and 15 point into tactition and am able to tank that boss without big efforts.
I am more an average tank, new in this business and use a T Negation+feytouched and an Angel of protection on top, pretty sure most of you guys will manage it without that stuff, but at least i can tell I am a tank and do not need a Tank companion, maybe even not a healer in case a Hunter or a templock is in my team.
The protector capstone, brawling warrior, devoted protector, shield defense and plate agility do very good. I spend 2 points in shieldmaster and 3 point in unbreakable line, wich may be useless as soon as my GF has aquired all boons, but so far they do help to manage my stamina. 15 points went into fight on, daunting challenge and rounsing speech.
Actions surge 4/5 + steel defense for the win...
Sure my damage went down, but it´s more than enough to do my dailes, no comparison to a faithfull DC, wich is real pain.

At 2.8k ilvl you should be able to solo well enough with a tank build.

namelesshero347 · May 2016

I tried CN recently. I have a 3.4K tact GF and still most hits are one-shot, even thru block. If its not a one-shot, I have like 20% HP left and I'm finished on the next quick shot. Tanking Orcus seems out of the question for IV GF if not protector.

lantern22 · May 2016

namelesshero347 said:
I tried CN recently. I have a 3.4K tact GF and still most hits are one-shot, even thru block. If its not a one-shot, I have like 20% HP left and I'm finished on the next quick shot. Tanking Orcus seems out of the question for IV GF if not protector.

Then there are lag issues (i.e. your shield is not really up in time) or something is wrong with either your play style, build or both. Because I have a 3.1K GF Tactician IV and can easily tank Orcus with a DC/Healadin in the party and have tanked Orcus without any support.

Note I am an IV - so no immunity from steel defence

xaansteel · May 2016

With swordmaster the method is fairly simple, but it requires a few things. You should have a good deal of stamina/guard regeneration because you can keep your shield up for a while but you eventually have to take it down shortly. That's where steel defense comes in, and you really want to be able to get all of your guard back by the time the immunity wears off. Using enforced threat and ITF during that time will help. It does really help to have a healer as has been mentioned, I also like guarded assault with a good deal of lifesteal for healing, and a healer companion. With all of that, it's actually pretty easy

schietindebux · May 2016

xaansteel said:
With swordmaster the method is fairly simple, but it requires a few things. You should have a good deal of stamina/guard regeneration because you can keep your shield up for a while but you eventually have to take it down shortly. That's where steel defense comes in, and you really want to be able to get all of your guard back by the time the immunity wears off. Using enforced threat and ITF during that time will help. It does really help to have a healer as has been mentioned, I also like guarded assault with a good deal of lifesteal for healing, and a healer companion. With all of that, it's actually pretty easy

You do not need any stamina regen in case you use shield talent, that way you also can tank the boss by blocking 100% all time and taunt by stabbing him with left mouse button, you never will drop his attention by that.
Without good stamina regen I can´t run guarded assault.
Only problem is buffing with ToI, mark and ITF, wich could be deadly if you are IV.
At full buffs , my 2.8 GF, 125k HP and half boons seems to stand a hit from Orcus being beyond the damage cap from negation and Iron guard. Having a poor DC or a Paladin I run that angel of protection who does very good giving 5% DR on top+ heals.
But as I mentioned, as a conquerer at about 55% DR and no buffs at the start of the fight there is no way to get into fight without steel defense imo, tactian is same thing i guess. Even having steel defense active it needs some time to stack Negation, no chance without a DC that knows how to buff you with HG+AS at the start...some do not know what to do for sure and at 55% DR you can´t stand those hits, even blocking that damage lot´s of damage.
If you are high geared and capped wit DR you can run any tree you want for sure.
I am not that experienced with GF to tell what is best option.... slot DR>HP until you a are near cap even having 100k HP?

urabask · May 2016

schietindebux said:

xaansteel said:
With swordmaster the method is fairly simple, but it requires a few things. You should have a good deal of stamina/guard regeneration because you can keep your shield up for a while but you eventually have to take it down shortly. That's where steel defense comes in, and you really want to be able to get all of your guard back by the time the immunity wears off. Using enforced threat and ITF during that time will help. It does really help to have a healer as has been mentioned, I also like guarded assault with a good deal of lifesteal for healing, and a healer companion. With all of that, it's actually pretty easy
You do not need any stamina regen in case you use shield talent, that way you also can tank the boss by blocking 100% all time and taunt by stabbing him with left mouse button, you never will drop his attention by that.
Without good stamina regen I can´t run guarded assault.
Only problem is buffing with ToI, mark and ITF, wich could be deadly if you are IV.
At full buffs , my 2.8 GF, 125k HP and half boons seems to stand a hit from Orcus being beyond the damage cap from negation and Iron guard. Having a poor DC or a Paladin I run that angel of protection who does very good giving 5% DR on top+ heals.
But as I mentioned, as a conquerer at about 55% DR and no buffs at the start of the fight there is no way to get into fight without steel defense imo, tactian is same thing i guess. Even having steel defense active it needs some time to stack Negation, no chance without a DC that knows how to buff you with HG+AS at the start...some do not know what to do for sure and at 55% DR you can´t stand those hits, even blocking that damage lot´s of damage.
If you are high geared and capped wit DR you can run any tree you want for sure.
I am not that experienced with GF to tell what is best option.... slot DR>HP until you a are near cap even having 100k HP?

Most of the stam regen you'd need to replace shield talent comes from boons anyways.

dfnce · May 2016

IV in greater degree than SM should not ignore debuff options, so

1. Ask team to use damage debuff on Orcus - Break The Spirit (DC), Ray of Enfeeblement (CW), Courage Breaker (TR). Consider use of companions with damage debuff/damage mitigation (rust monster, honey badger).

2. Use GF abilities to reduce incoming damage - Protector cap provides 20% max damage debuff as cap feature, so one should maintain this debuff with permanent Shield Stab. Tactician should use Tide of Iron to Surging Tide (10%). Heroic Distracting Shield feat adds extra 5% damage protection on guarding damage.

johnjohniii · May 2016

So, I tanked it. I'm tactician and it really wasn't that hard. we had a good dc, but i took very little damage. my rotation worked really well. w/ shield up did a shield bash, taunt, shield bash, followed by fighters recovery, into the fray, enforced threat. then i did it all again. if into the fray or enforced threat wasn't up yet i would throw out a tide of iron... but that was it. it worked well!

schietindebux · May 2016

I may switch to tactitian at 3k+ one day, till than i stick with my protector setup not in need oft any DC, since i pug.
I like that tanky capstone and being independant, that way a DC may also go full buff/debuff using BtS instaed oft BoH

exgardian · May 2016

I'm a IV GF tactician 3.2 and I have no problems to tank Orcus. I do that:

*Class Features I use: Shield Talent and Guarded Assault
*Encounters: ITF, Bull's Charge, Lunging Strike
*At-wills: Crushing Surge, Tide of Iron
*Dailies: Fighter's Recovery, Indomitable Strenght

*All level 4

Mark Orcus, ITF, activate Fighter's Recovery and go with guard up. One hit will fill all AP (and my allies AP too).

My Rotation: Lunging Strike (to get 3 sec half damage), Guard, Fighter's Recovery, Guard, Tide of Iron, Guard, Bull's Charge (to get more 3 sec half damage), Guard, Indomitable Strenght (-10% damage for 6 sec. Can stack), Guard, repeat.

I use a rare Con Artist with loyal defender acessories to apply more defense to me for every Bonding Runestone effect and debuff Orcus with -10% damage resistance, or rare Young Yeti for parties without healer. But if I try to do a different rotation, surely I'll die.

My opinion: For a tactician, making the aggro to take damage is very important. The 6 sec immunity from Steel Defense is super good, but filling all the party AP in a single guarded hit and spam countless dailies like the nerfed Divine Protector is better.

mamalion1234 · May 2016

THEY added back the penetration bug on orcus or by mistake or to discover what broken mechanism players will use to able to kill boss.
THE last fight should reward any good pt no matter the item level afterall is 2k to remind to some overgeared .

zman81420 · June 2016

I've tanked CN a hundred times successfully. Slot steel defense and shield talent passive. At wills tide of the iron, crushing surge. Encounters ITF, Knights Valor, enforced threat. Dailys are fighters recover and villains menace. I am a tactician with high defense and AP gain. When your daily is full I use fighters recovery, go immune 6 seconds then pop ITF, Mark, tide of the iron, then enforced threat then back to blocking. Make sure you are on the opposite side of the boss to avoid ticks in the back for full damage. GL and pm me if any questions still.

CN GF tank possible?

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