Sir Buffalot - Ackter's Buff Tank build

cactusjackter

So, since my last build post, I've been experimenting a lot on a pure tank/buff build. It's got to the point where I'm basically invincible now, and it takes a direct hit from a Stronghold dragon buffed by at least 3 empowerers to one-shot me. So, here's what I have:

Summary:
This build is about two things. Survival and Buffing. Both of these things stem from your Damage Resistance stat, so the focus on the build will be increasing that as far as possible. You will also be maximising your stamina to keep you guard up, with some points also in Deflect. With your shield up, you take 20% of incoming damage. Your damage resistance is then applied to that, so with 80% damage resistance you'll only be taking 10% of incoming damage. Add to this your Deflect severity and it'll be possible to reduce this to 5% damage from a lot (but not all) of incoming attacks. Nice eh? While damage resistance for incoming damage caps at 80%, raising it past this still works for buffing.

Class: Human
Starting Rolls:
STR 14
CON 18
DEX 14
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 10

When levelling up I split the bonus points evenly to end up with:

STR 19
CON 24
DEX 19
INT 12
WIS 12
CHA 12

Paragon: Swordmaster
Heroic Feats:
Action Surge 4/5 to boost AP gain from blocking
Strength Focus 3/3 to boost Stamina Regen
Toughness 3/3 to boost HP

Shield Resurgence 0/3 - this is next to useless, just not needed
Distracting Shield 0/5 - would be nice, but it's a tiny debuff in exchange for 5 points
Armor Specialization 3/3 - serious boost to Damage Resistance

Potent Challenge 0/3 - you'll find you simply don't need the extra threat
Powerful Attack 5/5 - this is for solo play, a 10% boost to your damage output
Grit 0/3 - Tiny circumstantial boost you'll never need

Pin Down 0/3 - 3 points for a 0.3 second prone boost? No chance. Biggest waste of points in the game.
Weapon Mastery 0/3 - you're not here to deal damage, this isn't needed
Ubiquitous Shield 5/5 - 25% resistance to Combat Advantage damage? Yes please. You'll be surrounded by enemies.

Paragon Feats:
Protector
Armor of Bahamut 0/5 - Your stamina is never dropping below 30%, this will never trigger
Plate Agility 5/5 - a big boost to your deflection chance

Shield Defence 5/5 - another big increase to your damage resistance
Staying Power 0/5 - boosts an At-Will we will never use

Unshakable Line 5/5 - big increase to Stamina regen when in a party
Devoted Protector 5/5 - Blocking an attack boosts your Deflect by 5%. This will basically be permanent.

Shieldmaster 5/5 - seriously improves your Stamina management
Brawling Warrior 5/5 - boosts your damage resistance while using Knight's Valour (looks broken) and increase the damage and threat from Enforced threat. The 5 points here can be saved for something else if you'd prefer.

Balanced Shield Fighter 5/5 - increases your At-Wills damage for solo play
Overwhelming Impact 0/5 - boosts moves you won't be using

Iron Guard 1/1 - reduces the damage output of enemies by around 20% when you attack them and, as you're doing so little damage and your At-Wills when shielding hit multiple targets, you'll be applying this 20% debuff to loads of enemies

Tactician
Fight On 5/5 - increases your Encounter cooldown rate, so you can get your buffs out quicker

If you didn't put 5 points into Brawling Warrior, stick them into Daunting Challenge. Anything you Mark will deal 10% less damage to your allies. This combined with Iron Guard and Enforced Threat (which Marks everything around you) makes a serious debuff to enemy damage.

Powers
Here I'll only be listing the moves I actually use, you can put any other points anywhere you want.

At-Wills
Cleave - when facing multiple enemies
Crushing Surge - when facing one enemy

Encounters
Lunging Strike - solo play
Enforced Threat - group play
Griffon's Wrath - solo play
Anvil of Doom - solo play
Into the Fray - group play
Knight's Valour - group play
Commander's Strike - to use in group play instead of Knight's Valour if you have a permabubble Pally in the group

Dailies
Villain's Menace - seriously buffs you for 2-8 seconds for solo and group play
Fighter's Recover - if something is actually causing you damage, this refills your health incredibly quickly

Class Features
Shield Talent - seriously increases your stamina management
Steel Defence - makes you invincible for 6 seconds after using a daily. With a haste healer in the team this is permanently up

cactusjackter

Boons
Sharandar
+400 defence to increase damage resistance
+400 deflect to increase survivability
+3% AP gain to keep Steel Defence up as much as possible
+chance to heal 20,000 HP when hit, for survivability (you'll never use a potion again)
+10% stamina regen in combat, for stamina management

Dread Ring
+250 Power and Movement
+400 Life Steal to increase survivability
+3% deflection to increase survivability
+Enraged Regrowth for chance to heal and boost defence for 10 seconds
+Endless Consumption to increase survivability

Icewind Dale
+400 AoE resist for survivability
+400 Stamina gain for manegement
+400 recovery for cooldown increases
+Cold Shoulder for survivability
+Avalanche - none of the others add anything, and this basically gives you a 15,000 AoE nuke every 20 hits you take. And you'll be getting hit a lot...

Tyranny of Dragons
+Power, 1600 HP is nothing to you
+400 deflect
+400 defence
+400 Life Steal
+Dragon's Thirst 3/3 for extra 5% Life Steal

You could also take one of those points and put it into Dragon's Revival for a big increase to incoming Healing instead

Guild Stronghold
This obviously depends on your Guild, but I'm lucky enough that my Guild picked exactly what I wanted - both come from the Stable.

+Armor Penetration Bonus - this is basically your entire Armor Pen here. I don't have any anywhere else on me.
+Defense Bonus - to seriously increase your damage resistance

Utility and PvP boons don't make any difference to this build.

Companions
This is an area I'm still having trouble with as I just can't decide on my best 5. I'm currently running with:

Summoned companion:
Legendary Cave Bear
3x Rank 12 Bonding Runestones for their huge defence and Companion's Gift
Personalised Recovery Belt
2x Personalised Recovery Necklace

The Cave Bear is the perfect tanking companion as it's the only companion with 3 defensive runeslots, 3 personalised equipment slots and a main attack with only a 1.5 second cooldown. At Rank 40, my Bear has over 4,000 defence and 2,000 Recovery to gift me.

Active Bonuses:
Epic Blacksmith, 25% chance to reflect 10% damage taken
Epic Book Imp,+2% Recharge speed
Epic Phase Spider, +25% reduction to incoming Combat Advantage damage

and here's where I'm having the trouble again, that fifth companion slot. These are the contenders I have so far (all stats for Epic versions):
Skeletal Dog, +300 Life Steal
Dread Warrior, 10% chance to increase Threat generation, also makes you huge
Cockatrice, 10% chance to root attackers for 6 seconds
Fawn of Shiallia/Wayward Wizard, +300 Recovery
Any Sprite, +2% AP gain
Dancing Shield, +2% Deflect
Battlefield Medic, +6% incoming healing
Frost Mimic, +300 Defence
Duergar Theurge, +165 Life Steal and Deflection
Pseudodragon, 20% chance to restore stamina when attacking (with all the buffs from feats and boons, this isn't needed)

Now, the perfect fifth companion, imo, will be an Epic Pewter Golem which gives the equivalent of over +2% Defense and Power, but we won't get this companion on Xbox until at least the next time Respen rolls into town.

Gear
Armor
Elemental Elven Ward Helm
Elemental Dragonflight Ward Breastplate + Negation Enchantment for survivability
Elemental Dragonflight Ward Gauntlets
Elemental Dragonflight Ward Sabatons

Even when Underdark hits, it doesn't look like we'll be getting a better tank armour set up than this.

Weapons
Elemental Fire Longsword with Lifedrinker Enchantment for survivability
Artifact Power: Cleave, as it increases the damage you do when attacking from behind your shield as well

Elemental Fire Shield
Artifact Power: Shield Talent to increase your max Stamina by 15%, Stamina Regen (as close to +400 as you can) for stamina manegement

Again, it doesn't look like we're getting an improvement on these with Underdark as the new weapons all have Critical Chance on them instead of something useful for us.

Artifact Set
Emblem of the Seldarine (+1,000 Defence and Life Steal at Mythic)
Greater Cloak of the Seldarine (+8 AC and a good amount of Deflection and Life Steal at Legendary)
Greater Belt of the Seldarine (+2 CON and again more Deflection and Life Steal at Legendary)

Set bonus: whenever you lose 10% HP in one hit, get 2% of it straight back

Rings
2x Personalised Recovery Rings are currently the best choice, but there's some interesting ones coming in Underdark...

Shirt & Pants
Defender's Gemmed Exquisite Elemental Chainmail, gives Armor Pen instead of Crit compared to the other choice
Defender's Gemmed Exquisite Elemental Chausses, though the Warrior's version is also fine

Artifacts
Emblem of the Seldarine (+Defence & Lifesteal)
Oghma's Token of Free Movement (+Defence & Deflection)
Eye of Lathander (+Defence & Life Steal)
Sigil of the Guardian (+Defence & Deflection)

These four combined give a serious boost to Damage Resistance and general survivability.

Enchantments
Offensive: All silvery for Recovery
Defensive: All azure for Defense
Utility: All Dragon Hoard for refinement points

Mount
Flail Snail: AP Gain
Strider: serious Movement increase
Axebeak: Armor Pen

Personally I prefer the Flail Snail, though if your guild isn't booting their Stable then the Axebeak is essential to make up for the lack of Armor Pen you have.

Play Style
1. Keep Knight's Valour active as much as possible, this redirects 50% of all damage your allies take to you instead
2. Hit Into the Fray as much as possible to apply your Damage Resistance % to your team as a Damage increase %
3. Hit Enforced Threat as much as possible to Mark as many enemies as possible to debuff them
4. Hit your dailies as often as possible to make you invincible
5. Keep your Shield as much as possible to debuff as many enemies as possible and increase your survivability
6. Only drop your shield to activate Into the Fray, Enforced Threat and your dailies. ItF and ET also boost your stamina regen, so you should never even get close to running out of stamina.
7. Always try and keep the enemies between you and your team mates. Not only will this give Combat Advantage to everyone, it will also ensure the damage they give you from Knight's Valour will hit your shield before it hits you.

Conclusion
Currently, at 3,100 iL, I'm basically invincible. The only thing you have to watch out for are fire attacks that pool on the floor, like the lava from the eLoL scorpions. Your shield can't seem to block this damage and it hits ridiculously hard. If you don't immediately get out of the pool, you will die. I have a base Damage Resistance of 65% without any buffs. Once Companion's gift kicks in, this rises to 95%. That means as long as Into the Fray is active, my teammates are essentially doing double damage to everything.

Note: You will also have a much higher Damage Resistance than this, but it isn't applied to your profile so can't be transferred to your team via Into the Fray. With a Transcendent Negation enchantment, you will almost always have an extra 30% which will push you over the cap easily. It's basically got to the point where I don't really need it, but it's nice having that extra DR for the small amount of time that Companion's Gift isn't active.

Hope this is helpful for you guys, and a big thanks to @rockstargfu who showed me the buff light. Cheers.

cactusjackter

Tactician Variation

There isn't too much difference between these two variations, so I'll just point out what actually is. Basically, once you're comfortable using the above build, changing it up into the Tactician tree makes you buff more at the expense of easy stamina management - though it still won't be a problem once you're used to it. It basically just involves throwing out a Tide of Iron every now and again to help fill your stamina.

Powers

Tide of Iron (At-Will) replaces Crushing Surge to help with stamina management
Enhanced Mark (Class Feature) replaces Steel Defence to help with AP gain

Feats
Protector Path
Plate Agility 5/5 for increased Deflection
Shield Defence 5/5 for increased Damage Resistance
Devoted Protector 5/5 for increased Deflection

Tactician Path
Fight On 5/5 for cooldowns
Daunting Challenge 5/5 to debuff enemies (Enforced Threat will apply this to all enemies within 30' of you)
Rousing Speech 5/5 to increase the AP Gain of your allies
United 5/5 to further debuff the damage of nearby enemies
Inspiring Leader 5/5 to further buff the damage of your allies from Into the Fray
Martial Mastery 1/1 - every time you take damage, you and your nearby allies gain AP. As an example, one blast from an eLol scorpion immediately refills 3/4s of my AP. Taking a hit from a Stronghold Dragon can often give 100% AP.

People may be wondering why I don't use Surging Tide. Basically, from what I can tell, that only applies to you and not your allies, and I don't use Tide of Iron often enough for it to be worthwhile.

Artifact Weapons
While you're getting used to the new stamina manegement required of this change, switch your Artifact Power to Iron Tide as it gives you more Stamina regen. I find it handy in solo play, but when it comes to dungeons Into the Fray and Enforced Threat have more than enough Stamina regen to not really need it - but it's always nice to have in emergencies.

Everything Else
Everything else I have is the same. This is what my character sheet looks like when I'm attacking the dummies in the Stronghold, with 3 stacks of Rank 12 Companion's Gift:



Note: I had my armour pen set on my Bear at that point. My usual Resistance Ignored is 38.9%, that 35% extra RI turns into an extra 15% Recharge and AP increase instead.

rockstargfu

Great man now i hot some new ideas brewing lol, awesome job

Few things i noticed though

Pewter golem is extinct on pc, so we will never get it. (That stinks)

Dmg mitigation is a bit off 80% of 80% is 4% then if you deflect its 2%

Portal hound and neverember guard both have 3x defense runestones

Tide of Iron applies a -20% dr to enemies so that 20% more dmg they take as well

Again great stuff, im happy to have another Guardian Fighters brain to pick at

cactusjackter

Neverember Guard unfortunately doesn't have 3 personalised slots so you won't be maximising Companion's Gift with him (unless we eventually get the companion items the PC has). The Portal hound is also a good call, yes.

The Rimefire Golem might be good, but I don't have one so don't know what his cooldown is.

Tide of Iron still only affects us though, doesn't it? (At least that's what the tool tip says). The enemies will take more damage, but only from us.

Why is the Pewter Golem extinct?

rockstargfu

Idk why pewter extinct prolly something to do with it have 4x amount of stata as normal companions

Tide of iron works for others from my testing, but i never specificaly loomed at it

But my calculations of all buffs total dmg output increase from others is only a couple % off at high numbers, (230-250%) depending on what im proccing

And i think the variance is from plaguefire not being a even % cuz i rounded it to 9

rockstargfu

Ohh and good call on guard havent play tested and didn't notice his item slots

cactusjackter

I've picked up a Terror enchant. Can't go wrong with a 40% debuff to both power and defence.

rockstargfu

Plague fire max stavks is 9% boost both ways

Terror is 6%

Tested Tide of Iron, effects others


Btw doohickey is amazing to test things

cactusjackter

It shouldn't be 9% both ways - it's meant to be weighted more towards the defensive debuff.

iirc Terror is meant to be 40% for both defence and power, while Plague is 45% for defence and 15% for Power

With Tide of Iron, it may be good for other people, but I just don't use it enough in the way I play to make it worthwhile. It's very probably worth giving up my extra Deflect for, but I literally just fire off Mark, ItF and ET in between guarding - does the boost from the Feat apply to Shield Bashing as well?

I do need something else to slot in my tray. I have Tymora's Coin and Boo in there currently, with the third slot being taken up by those Life Stone things that I never use.

rockstargfu

Tide of iron is very effective, and it gets multiplied by you itf boost meaning during itf total dmg output your increasing (at 100%dr) dmg by 40% with it

Heres how i test with math and have confirmed within resonable variances

50% buff or debuff equals .5

1.(+buff) X 1.(+debuff)

This gives total dmg overall

To find additional dmg your providing minus 1

I know plague and terror seem closer but thats how the tests played out between me and like 3 other ppl on pc test servers

indylol

Listen to rock, tide of iron is dope. It was a huge component in my old tac build. Your job as the tank is to put as many debuffs up as possible, depending on if you went IV and have TR to go with your iron tide, and you've learned to compensate your healing with fighters recovery. Its not the easiest tank build but its the most rewarding for your team.

cactusjackter

What's TR?

indylol

Threatening Rush

rockstargfu

Think @indylol is refering to Threatening Rush if you went Iron Vanguard

cactusjackter

Oh right, yeah.

rockstargfu

@indylol

Does threatening rush apply a bigger debuff that soft marks from enforced threat

indylol

Idk if all 3 mark mechanics stack if thats what your asking. Take a doohickey to the trade of blades and test it.

rockstargfu

I dont have threatening rush tho, enforced threat is 6% modifier and hard mark is 20%, and 20% if dbl marked


Might have to use a couple respec token from festival, getting curious now

cactusjackter

I can't decide which class feature to use alongside Shield Talent.

cactusjackter

I'm currently playing around with this setup:

Action Surge 1/5 - +2% AP gain when guarding
Strength Focus 3/3 - Strength is 15% more effective
Toughness 3/3 - +9% HP
Distracting Shield 5/5 - 5% damage debuff on enemies who attack my guard
Armor Specialization 3/3 - +15% AC/Defense effectiveness
Potent Challenge 3/3 - +15% Threat
Ubiquitous Shield 5/5 - 25% debuff on enemy combat advantage

Plate Agility 5/5 - +5% deflect
Shield Defense 5/5 - +5% AC

Fight On 5/5 - 10% cooldown buff
Daunting Challenge 5/5 - 10% damage debuff to marked targets
Rousing Speech 5/5 - +5% AP gain for party
United 5/5 - 5% incoming damage debuff for party
Inspiring Leader 5/5 - +5% ItF buff
Surging Tide 5/5 - 10% incoming damage debuff
Martial Mastery 1/1 - AP boost based on Damage Resistance

Tide of Iron
Threatening Rush / Cleave

Lunging Strike
Griffon's Wrath
Anvil of Doom
Enforced Threat
Into the Fray
Knight's Valour
Commander's Strike

Villain's Menace
Fighter's Recovery

Shield Talent
Enhanced Mark

zman81420

cactusjackter said:

I can't decide which class feature to use alongside Shield Talent.

cactusjackter said:

I can't decide which class feature to use alongside Shield Talent.

I suppose it depends on the group composition. I leave Guarded Assault and combat superiority in for easy guild runs and slot steel defense and shield talent when helping newer members gear up. I am also looking for the perfect defender companion for companion Proc's. I have been toying with the Neveremeber guard for a few months but I feel there has to be something better out there to increase IFT buff even more off the charts. Another very similar ideal as mine with rotations, although I rock a conquer build.

indylol

Guarded assault and shield talent I believe. With the artifact power for some additional stamina you should have no problem managing stamina. Or for bonus points once you understand that shield uptime is only for the fraction of a second when you're taking predicted incoming damage, and mind you this is for iron vanguards, if you use lightning enchants in conjunction with guarded assault + guarded assault artifact power and slot trample the fallen as your other active, you will find you gained 15% damage on all enemies who attack you, aswell as snaring them and building threat with the lightning enchant.

boromir

I never drop guarded assault. Since you didn't take the conquerer tree, disregard combat superiority. You can negate the need for shield talent with ITF, enforced threat, tide of iron/shield bash. That was my goal for a long time so I could keep combat superiority. Since you went with IV, I'd have to agree with Indy's suggestion of trample of the fallen.

cactusjackter

My latest and most up-to-date guide has been published on MMOMinds.

Cheers rock for the help.

rockstargfu

Uhoh i needa update mine mad, have had zero time to play for like a month now. Not fun!

#NeverTime