How do I get more hit points?

totallynotadrow

Yesterday, I did my first epic thing, Kessell's Retreat. The strangers I was with took one look at my (then) 50k health and left the party, after making a big fuss about it. Eventually, some other people joined and told me that I needed at LEAST 100,000 HP to be viable in a dungeon at level 70.

I browsed the AH and filled every slot I could with an item that increased my HP (I still need some Radiant enchantments, but they were a little outside my budget currently), and I'm at 84,283.

I increased my Con at every level, I'm wearing an artifact belt that gives me +1 Con, I have 3 feat points in Toughness. How do I get enough HP to be able to live through an appropriately-leveled dungeon (or at least be considered a useful tank?

kemi1984

Basically you need to get the Elemental gear, that will grant you a good chunk of HP. Than it's all about getting your enchants (I believe r8 will do) and whatever Sigil artifacts that will grant you HP ( if I recall the GWF one gives HP).

Please also bear in mind that HP won't ensure your'e a better tank. It's a step in the right direction but if you browse this forum you will find many evidence why even at 150k HP or more, won't help you much with being OHK'ed from time to time.

Matching up your rotations, using skills that will give you a better chance to not eat the floor to often - these things + the gear AND of course your tam mates that must help you to control the mobs & provide mitigation, should make your experience a bit better

Try to experiment. Some guys are swearing that Life Steal is OP, I'm having a hard time believing it. Some skills are underused, and some people are saying they're OP as well . My advise is to test it yourself. There are very few builds out there. Maybe it's because there are few and far between ways of actually playing now?

Sadly, nowdays, there are limited skills that you can use to survive. All others are not needed - this is one of my biggest gripe to the dev's and with the game in general. They're forcing you to use x,y,z skills in order to being able to play. If you're not doing it....you're going to have a nasty time running epic dungeons.

Good luck!

aulduron

I have 103K HP with the blue gear you get from seals in KR and T1s, along with Radiant, brutal and Savage enchants.

totallynotadrow

Ergh, I was supposed to get emails when this topic updated. Sorry!

I've since gone back and respec'd, maxing out things that refilled stamina or made it go down more slowly, and buffed my Deflection stat some as well, and I seem to be more useful.

kemi, you're right about the narrow band of powers you can actually use- I'm still kind of figuring it out, but "run around a lot and keep your shield up" seems to be the best I can do- sometimes the PUGs help me out, sometimes I get blown out because I'm drawing too much aggro and the DPSs are off being awesome instead of backstabbing the guy that's swinging on me, heh.

hypervoreian

Totally,the-relatively-easiest way to obtain more hp,as as said,is the blue seals gear.

Kessel's is currently the easiest way for this.

Are you Swordmaster or Iron vanguard?if you are Swordmaster,it is more easy and i can tell you some tips.
if you are Iron vanguard,i cannot help much,other Gfs here will know better.

I 'll give you my advise if you want you can try that out.

A good rotation for a Gf in his begginings,as you ,is Lunging,ITF,Enforced threat.
If that doesn't work ,lot of aggro,too many adds around you,switch ET to Iron Warrior.execute the rotation in that order.
Lunging/ITF/IW.

For dailies slot Villan's menace and Fighter's recovery.
For passives Shield talent(a must!) and steel defense if you are Sm.if you are IV...desperate Survival could be a good choise ,but as said others might know better.
At wills
: Crushing Surge and Tide Of Iron.

With the above rotation you will start with lunging=+30% Dr for three secs.Combined with the surprise in the adds and their slow attack patterns ,3 secs is enough to activate ITF.Block and try to rotate -a little bit-in order the adds not to hit you behind your shield.
As soon the DPS /CC of your party start disabling the adds activate Iron Warrior for the +stamina regen and the +30% DR.
If you have around 30% DR with that rotation most of the times you will be around 60% DR.
At that point lunging will be ready again.Hit! Rinse repeat.

unfortunately with that rotation,Mark is missing and you have to mark (at least the most dangerous adds) manually with the Tab mark.
In order to fasten your Tab Mark activation assign mark to middle mouse key.

Crushing surge third hit is too slow ,hit 2 times with crushing and instead of third hit with Tide of iron for the regen fill and the +20% damage buff for your party on afflicted targets.

Whwn your daily is ready ,if you are in danger activate Fighter's recovery.If you tank a single add,side a little bit just one-twoo feet in game's terms and activaite Villain's menace for the extra +20% DR for 10 secs plus cc immunity.

-----------------------------------

As soon you will have completed your t1 set and you will be more comfortable ,you can switch IW for ET.And after some time,for KV.

Good luck!!! \o/

kemi1984

Glad that the topic was reanimated (T virus anyone?) and to hear you're getting better @totallynotadrow do KICK HAMSTER!

I just want to recall that I was SOO wrong about Life Steal, it's an epic stat to have and SH boon is one of the best way to get it where it shines the most.

At higher Ilvl's it's a good idea to respec to Conqueror with a mix of Protector skills (mostly for Unshakable Line - spelling sorry!). Using ITF, ET and Tide of Iron combined with Unshakable Line in party play will guarantee you'r guard will be there...but the fun part is being a Conqueror you will get your capstone stacks (Reckless Attacker) in a matter of seconds.

Why it's so important you ask? well my god Sir it's because of LS, the more HAMSTER you kick the more powerful LS is and the more chance to proc it. So you're guarding and protecting your party, you're buffing the $@#! of the damage via ITF, you're doing some nice DE PE ESSS and at the same time you're even more tougher thanks to LS - what's NOT to love about GF huh?

You kick HAMSTER and doing it with style !

totallynotadrow

The main problem was that I couldn't survive (or no one would party up with me for) Kessel's because my HP was too low, so i couldn't get the gear I needed to actually do the content that would get me the gear in the first place...

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I'm Vanguard with Protector now. Somehow I missed unshakable line and am now thinking hard about respecing for it. And I know what you mean about Life Steal- I have been building it on my GWF and it works like a charm. Had not really thought about building it for a GF because so much of my time seems to be hiding behind the shield and not attacking a bunch of people at once like most of the other classes do. I've also had mixed results with Into the Fray- my original build was more a buff-oriented Tactician with Rousing Speech, etc.

I'm at 95k ish hit points, and looking at the rewards in Underdark so there might be something there, though i have not done much dungeon-crawling in the meantime.

scathias

Into the Fray is good because it regens stamina for more blocking as well as giving your party an incredible damage boost and some AP gain. What is nice is that ITF is an excellent skill to use no matter if you are tactician or not. Personally i don't mind how much HP a GF has as long as they use ITF

gfalconio

too you can focus on a fast ap generation for use fighter recovery,

Unknown

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totallynotadrow

ambrosianectar said:

@totallynotadrow , an alternative to stacking Lifesteal is maxing Guarded Assault on your protector.

As @gfalconio suggested, slot FR in daily and GA in passive.
When getting low on HP, just pop FR and hide under your shield.


Passive lifesteal.

I've been doing that, actually, and found it to be rather good.

maxiumdan

kemi1984 said:

Glad that the topic was reanimated (T virus anyone?) and to hear you're getting better @totallynotadrow do KICK HAMSTER!

I just want to recall that I was SOO wrong about Life Steal, it's an epic stat to have and SH boon is one of the best way to get it where it shines the most.

At higher Ilvl's it's a good idea to respec to Conqueror with a mix of Protector skills (mostly for Unshakable Line - spelling sorry!). Using ITF, ET and Tide of Iron combined with Unshakable Line in party play will guarantee you'r guard will be there...but the fun part is being a Conqueror you will get your capstone stacks (Reckless Attacker) in a matter of seconds.

Why it's so important you ask? well my god Sir it's because of LS, the more HAMSTER you kick the more powerful LS is and the more chance to proc it. So you're guarding and protecting your party, you're buffing the $@#! of the damage via ITF, you're doing some nice DE PE ESSS and at the same time you're even more tougher thanks to LS - what's NOT to love about GF huh?

You kick HAMSTER and doing it with style !

I was thinking the same ting on LS. Can you turtle behind guarded assault with LS and reflect - SOS style. I was thinking of lifedrinker with this but what about lightning to chain all that deflect and wonder if that would proc LS too