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Venore's Debuff Turtle Tanking Guide (GF)
tibberton1
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 83
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Venore's Debuff Turtle Tanking Guide
Added 5/10/2013: Once you get into T2's, and get to the middle/harder T2's you absolutely need to go conqueror build. Go to Envy or Rokuthy's guide for full lay out. I believe 100% that this guide is great for new guardian fighters, for people struggling with first getting into epic dungeons, and for solo players. There is a lot of discussion on page 5/6 of this guide, in Rokuthy and Epic's guides, on reddit, elsewhere, and everybody's personal experience that right now you need to put out competitive DPS as a "tank" to succeed in the last few dungeons. The guide is staying up, but this intro and a longer discussion in the conclusion will lay out why you need to transition at a certain point.
For those that have seen the other two guides, this first part is going to be familiar: it's gratitude. Thanks and good jobs to both Rokuthy for his Hybrid Tanking build here, and Envy for his Conqueror focused build here. You'll notice I copied their layout and color scheme to large extent. I think it works very well, and something about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.
And a super special thank you to the community over at guardianfighter.com, specifically Dragonsbane, who got this guide started by sharing his at-will / encounter powers.
I wrote this because it's extremely different from the ideas presented in the other guides, so I want other options out there for up and coming Guardian Fighters.
Right off the bat, let's get this established: their builds are going to be significantly better for PvP. I'm much more PvE centric - I live for dungeons. Their builds are going to be more fun for people who enjoy damage. My build is going to be more fun for people who enjoy control. For me, it really comes down to trust. I work odd hours, play at different times during the day, and usually solo queue. I am risk adverse. I am very untrusting. I assume DPS isn't going to do their jobs. I assume that heal isn't coming. So I build my tanks around trusting myself: high threat generation, high damage mitigation, a multitude of buffs and debuffs, with a focus on maximizing my guard meter. I know I can hold aggro, I know I can block competently, and I have picked skills that augment those two things. I always assume the worst, while hoping for the best. If the DPS are good, and the cleric is good, I am pleasantly surprised and extremely happy.
There's another aspect to my choices. Because I assume the worst, I want to put everybody else in the best possible position to succeed. More specifically: with my build, you will be at the very bottom of the damage charts, and the very top of the damage taken charts - but bosses will die with precision and control, clerics will be largely unmolested, and you will have many successful groups because your mere presence (with all the buffs and debuffs that you are giving out) will increase the performance of everybody else. You will make moderate players good, good players better, better players great, and great players walking destruction factories.
Also, I do foundry and solo content with this build, but it is a little slow. Be advised.
If I haven't managed to scare you off yet, please read on.
Powers
What I'm going to put down here are the passives, at-will, encounter, and daily powers that I use and why. Building up to the point where you can use them should be done in whatever way your heart desires. I could spend a lot of time talking about other skills, but I'm going to focus exclusively on my powers and their reason.
Passive #1: Shield Talent; Increases your shield meter by 5/5/5%; augmented by Shieldmaster, which reduces the amount of guard meters used by 2/4/6/8/10%. Pretty self explanatory. My goal is to collect as close to all the mobs as possible, and block as close to all the damage possible. The more meter I have, and the less that gets used, the more I can do those two things.
Passive #2: Enhanced Mark; Marked targets now build threat while marked, and you generate 33/33/33% more threat when striking marked targets. This has great synergy with my first at-will. In fact, without that at-will, I would drop this passive. But as you'll see in a moment, I have marks up on most mobs almost immediately and for large stretches of every fight. Mark without this passive already causes the enemy to have lowered damage resistance and for you to get twice as much threat generated for each attack on them. Mark does not get removed if you block their attack. Going back, again, to my strategy of blocking as close to 100% of incoming attacks as possible.
At Will #1: Threatening Rush; rush to the target and slam into them, doing damage, marking that target, and marking targets around them for a short period of time (extra points do 10/10% more damage). This is an amazing power, and I use it for pretty much everything. I use it to initiate fights. I get there before my group, and make sure that every enemy starts with a mark, because they are grouped together when I get there. I use it to close the gap on enemies that are away from me. When applicable: I use it to get out of bad zones, by rushing to an add. It's got decent enough damage, but it's true purpose is to set the table for everything else that I do.
At Will #2: Tide of Iron; smash a target with your shield, doing moderate damage (points increase it by 10/10%), lowering their damage resistance, and regenerating 10% of your shield meter. Your most reliable, on demand shield meter regen - the debuff is icing on the cake.
Encounter #1: Into the Fray; a party wide buff that temporarily increases your party's movement speed, action point generation, and gives everybody temporary hit points based off of your maximum HP. Extra points increase movement speed by 2/2. It also recovers guard meter. All of this on a 15 second cooldown. The usefulness of this power cannot be overstated. I use it almost entirely selfishly, and it still constitutes a spot on my bar. I use it while running up to a pack to make sure I'm the first one in, and can get my marks on everything. Meanwhile, if I need to move, it's a little bit faster. Meanwhile, I'm generating AP towards my daily abilities at a significantly faster rate. And if you watch your guard meter, you'll see that it's constantly regenerating while Into the Fray is active. You can use it to make kiting easier, but that's almost a peripheral benefit. I often get two daily abilities during one encounter. In addition to how much it does just for me, the benefits are extending to my entire group! Make sure you use it before you use any other AP generating abilities, such as Enforced Threat. Speaking of...
Encounter #2: Enforced Threat; forcibly taunt nearby foes, causing them to attack you, while also recovering guard meter - extra points increase that recovery by 5/5%. Also on a 15 second cooldown. AoE hard taunt with guard meter recovery fits in very nicely with a strategy of "collect all the adds, guard all the attacks." You can get Brawling Warrior to increase its damage and threat by 2/4/6/8/10%. I elected not to (explanation below). I use this ability pretty much on cooldown. I try to make sure Into the Fray is active before activation.
Encounter #3: Frontline Surge; 10 foot aimed cone that does a lot of damage and knocks enemies back, leaving them prone. Extra points increase damage done by 10/10% and knockback done by 1/1 foot. Useful in so many situations. First off all, the damage done is significant. It really levels the boom. Secondly, it interrupts via knockback. Thirdly, it leaves enemies prone (not for very long, but still). It's also a great setup for Terrifying Impact. It has a long cooldown of 20 seconds. But it gives you a ton of action points when you cast it into a crowd - even more action points when you have Into the Fray active.
Daily Power #1: Supremacy of Steel; surround yourself with two glowing swords that return damage done to you, can be used early to do AoE damage around yourself. Extra points increase the damage done by 10/10% and the buff duration by 2/2 seconds. Augmented by Overwhelming Impact, which decreases the damage resistance of affected targets by 2/4/6/8/10%. Essentially, when you have a ton of adds on you, you active Supremacy of Steel, hold it for a strong five count, and activate it again. You'll return a percentage of damage done during that time period, hit everything in an AoE, and the debuff it.
Daily Power #2: Terrifying Impact; 4 foot cylinder with 50 foot range that does a ton of damage while tossing affected enemies into the air. Also triggers Overwhelming Impact. Extra points increase damage by 15/15%. Upheaval causes interrupt. Damage is tremendous. One slight drawback is the short casting time, which is about a second long. You can be interrupted or knocked back during that time.
Supremacy of Steel or Terrifying Impact?
Different situations call for one or the other. Because they both apply the same feat-based debuff to the enemies affected, you only have to choose which one to use based on the situation at hand.
If you have enemies clumped around you, and you will not be able to get them positioned in a straight line, Supremacy of Steel is better. If your guard meter is broken, Supremacy of Steel is better because you will be taking more damage and thus returning more damage.
If you need to interrupt an enemy, Terrifying Impact is better. If you can get a nice group of enemies in a straight line, Terrifying Impact is better. Frontline Surge is an amazing setup for Terrifying Impact.
One final note for consideration. Terrifying Impact has higher base damage. Supremacy of Steel has lower base damage, but it also will be doing more damage based on how much you get hit while it is active.
Feats
Most of the powers I selected are not directly buffed by my feat selections, which I know will cause some people to be squeamish right off the bat. So please allow me to explain. I started at the far right first. The capstone choices are: increase damage done based on guard meter left, debuff damage done when you hit targets, or increase AP generation when not blocking. If you read the introduction, you'll realize immediately that the first and third options were no good for my strategy. This put me into the Protector Tree almost by default. Working from right to left, you will see the powers buffed by the Protector Tree:
I skipped Knight's Valor as a power completely because my whole purpose is to prevent enemies from damaging my party. So intercepting damage done to them shouldn't happen. After playing around with a ton of encounter abilities, and using one of my full character respecs to test further, I couldn't justify taking Knight's Valor over the other powers. Therefore, I couldn't justify spending the points in that feat, because it would only be buffing 1 power, making each point spent there slightly less effective. As far as Ferocious Reaction goes, like I said: I assume the heal isn't coming. I've already used a potion before I got to the 15% point. Hanging at low health makes me nervous, so I avoid it. My only sadness here was not being able to keep Villain's Menace, because it's an absolutely stellar daily. But since Terrifying Impact and Supremacy of Steel have different uses, I kept both of them.
Now that you understand the end portion of my decision, let's go to the beginning and walk through my feats...
Feats, For Real This Time
5/5 Action Surge (2/4/6/8/10% more AP from guarding attacks); get enemies, guard attacks, build AP, unleash dailies, repeat, profit.
2/3 Strength Focus (5/10% more benefit from Strength); these points were taken specifically for increasing guard meter. I would love to make this 3/3, but I put the point I dropped here into a talent later in the tree, specifically Armor Specialization. The reason is that despite my best efforts and the points I've put into it, at some point I will miss blocks and/or my guard meter will be broken. Passive benefits to armor and defense are always on, and guard is not. Given the choice between a point that will be used some/most of the time vs. all the time, I chose all the time.
5/5 Distracting Shield (guarding an attacks causes the enemy to do 1/2/3/4/5% less damage for a period of time); get adds, block attacks, punish them for hitting you. "Debuff Turtle". Get it?
3/3 Armor Specialization (increases effectiveness of AC and defense by 5/10/15%); see strength focus above for the points on this.
5/5 Powerful Attack (increases damage of At-Will and Encounter abilities by 2/4/6/8/10%); just because I'm not primary focused on doing damage doesn't mean that I avoid damage when I can get it. The vast majority of the actions you take in game are now 10% more lethal for five measly points. That's an amazing investment.
Talents Not Taken, and Why
Toughness - flat HP is always 'meh' worthy
Shielded Resurgence - not better than more guard meter and more defense
Potent Challenge - extra threat not needed if you're being active with your powers
Grit - remember what I said about assuming no heals are coming?
Pin Down - would only affect Frontline Surge, whereas points elsewhere are more universal
Weapon Mastery - crit is 'meh' worthy when we're not damage focused
No Ubiquitous Shield?!
I felt this one deserved a more lengthy explanation. You'll notice that a lot of my feats are built into passives. File and forget points that I don't have to think about at all. There's a very good reason for this. I spent a lot of time in dungeons worried about positioning, where my cleric is at, where adds are at, which daily power I want to use based on the situation around me, which fire I want to go put out first, etc. etc. etc. Part of that vast mental energy is put into making sure that I take as few 'combat advantage' shots as possible. I feel that Ubiquitous Shield is a lazy talent, by and large. The one exception is after Enforced Threat, when everything comes on you - you will be taking some shots then, through no fault of your own. Take a moment to reposition, get your back clear, and then move on with the fight. I feel that spending 5 points to either allow yourself sloppy positioning, or to mitigate a few shots that you know are coming and should be prepared for is wasteful. End rant.
5/5 Plate Agility (gives a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to deflect attacks); sure, why not? I'm not fan of avoidance typically, but that's a fair trade.
5/5 Armor of Bahamut vs. 5/5 Shield Defense; Shield Defense is supposed to give 1/2/3/4/5 more AC, which would be a strong investment. Points spent there don't currently reflect in the character sheet, and I've yet to see confirmation / clarification on it. Otherwise, I would put the points into Armor of the Bahamut, which gives increased damage resistance to attacks that break your guard meter. Sometimes, your guard meter breaks because you get poked down by a lot of adds, sometimes the reason your guard breaks is because you just got hit by a truck. Either way, without guard you're significantly more vulnerable, and this mitigates it somewhat. I would prefer Shield Defense, as long as it's functioning.
5/5 Shield Master; buffs my passive by making sure each guarded attack consumes less meter. Solid.
5/5 Balanced Shield Fighter; 3/6/9/12/15% damage increase to at-will's when shield is raised - I use these abilities so frequently that this is a great buff for me. A word on aggravating strike - it does damage to multiple mobs with proper positioning, putting it on par with cleave. It also is a high threat move. It also does extremely respectable damage.
5/5 Overwhelming Impact; discussed at length above.
1/1 Iron Guard; capstone ability, also discussed above. Constantly debuffing enemies, while also guarding as many blocks as possible.
5/5 Fight On (tactician tree); 2/4/6/8/10% decrease in encounter ability cooldowns. Gets me to my dailies faster.
Conclusion
This build is (in many ways) overkill, but it was made for a very particular purpose. It is extremely durable, extremely sturdy, extremely self-reliant... while making everybody around you better. Its primary goal is to create safe, comfortable, successful dungeon runs that are built almost 100% on control and proper positioning. It is made for those who queue up for dungeons and skirmishes by themselves, and cannot be sure of the quality of their future group mates.
There are other options out there, two very good ones listed at the top of my post. This is not in any way, shape or form the definitive guide. But if you find yourself in a similar position as me, my sincere hope is that this build will serve you reliably.
T2 Transition and You
Some clarifications:
The choice between strength, armor, and toughness only comes up if you are doing the turtle build. If you are doing a DPS build, you'll be skipping the tier 1 blocking talent, which will have you spend points in both strength and toughness. In the turtle build, HP is significantly less necessary because your shield is taking so much incoming damage. In a DPS build, you're face tanking more damage, which would increase the need for HP. The builds and their purpose match up well when it comes to this choice.
Furthermore, I hit the point where turtle build is a liability, and have swapped to something closer to the Hybrid build. I don't have the three extra points that Rokuthy has so it doesn't match up completely - amongst other minor differences.
With a DPS build, your damage goes up (duh). I am working on my playstyle right now and swapping out some gear, so I'm a little behind the 8 ball in two ways. 1 - my non core armor pieces are overtuned for mitigation and lacking in damage; 2 - I am having to rehaul my playstyle, and habit changes are always fun! But back to the damage. More specifically, what the damage means:
Turtle Build, trash: all mobs on you, controlled, debuffed, standing in one spot while your DPS brings them down.
Turtle Build, boss: full mob control and boss control, everything debuffed, mostly standing in one spot while your DPS kills adds and then whittles boss.
This will be a strong build for leveling, and a strong build for T1 and early T2 content. It does reach a point, where the adds that come with the boss are too much for your mitigation or too much for your control. Then you wipe. That's the point Rokuthy reached about 5/6 days before I did.
DPS Build, trash: trash explodes, nothing had a chance to threaten anybody in the group
DPS Build, boss: depending on the specific boss, you either burn the boss quicker or you burn the adds quicker, making it an overall safer fight
Every once in awhile, on a one big threatening mob / many trash mobs encounter (read: every boss), I need to bring shield up and stab over it for some quick "snap" like threat. By and large, I've been gathering everything up with Enforced Threat and cleaving my heart out. Updating guide to reflect this.
- First published on 5/3/2013
- T2 Update on 5/10/2013 (discussion immediately below, more points added to the conclusion)
Venore's Debuff Turtle Tanking Guide
Added 5/10/2013: Once you get into T2's, and get to the middle/harder T2's you absolutely need to go conqueror build. Go to Envy or Rokuthy's guide for full lay out. I believe 100% that this guide is great for new guardian fighters, for people struggling with first getting into epic dungeons, and for solo players. There is a lot of discussion on page 5/6 of this guide, in Rokuthy and Epic's guides, on reddit, elsewhere, and everybody's personal experience that right now you need to put out competitive DPS as a "tank" to succeed in the last few dungeons. The guide is staying up, but this intro and a longer discussion in the conclusion will lay out why you need to transition at a certain point.
For those that have seen the other two guides, this first part is going to be familiar: it's gratitude. Thanks and good jobs to both Rokuthy for his Hybrid Tanking build here, and Envy for his Conqueror focused build here. You'll notice I copied their layout and color scheme to large extent. I think it works very well, and something about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.
And a super special thank you to the community over at guardianfighter.com, specifically Dragonsbane, who got this guide started by sharing his at-will / encounter powers.
I wrote this because it's extremely different from the ideas presented in the other guides, so I want other options out there for up and coming Guardian Fighters.
Right off the bat, let's get this established: their builds are going to be significantly better for PvP. I'm much more PvE centric - I live for dungeons. Their builds are going to be more fun for people who enjoy damage. My build is going to be more fun for people who enjoy control. For me, it really comes down to trust. I work odd hours, play at different times during the day, and usually solo queue. I am risk adverse. I am very untrusting. I assume DPS isn't going to do their jobs. I assume that heal isn't coming. So I build my tanks around trusting myself: high threat generation, high damage mitigation, a multitude of buffs and debuffs, with a focus on maximizing my guard meter. I know I can hold aggro, I know I can block competently, and I have picked skills that augment those two things. I always assume the worst, while hoping for the best. If the DPS are good, and the cleric is good, I am pleasantly surprised and extremely happy.
There's another aspect to my choices. Because I assume the worst, I want to put everybody else in the best possible position to succeed. More specifically: with my build, you will be at the very bottom of the damage charts, and the very top of the damage taken charts - but bosses will die with precision and control, clerics will be largely unmolested, and you will have many successful groups because your mere presence (with all the buffs and debuffs that you are giving out) will increase the performance of everybody else. You will make moderate players good, good players better, better players great, and great players walking destruction factories.
Also, I do foundry and solo content with this build, but it is a little slow. Be advised.
If I haven't managed to scare you off yet, please read on.
Powers
What I'm going to put down here are the passives, at-will, encounter, and daily powers that I use and why. Building up to the point where you can use them should be done in whatever way your heart desires. I could spend a lot of time talking about other skills, but I'm going to focus exclusively on my powers and their reason.
Passive #1: Shield Talent; Increases your shield meter by 5/5/5%; augmented by Shieldmaster, which reduces the amount of guard meters used by 2/4/6/8/10%. Pretty self explanatory. My goal is to collect as close to all the mobs as possible, and block as close to all the damage possible. The more meter I have, and the less that gets used, the more I can do those two things.
Passive #2: Enhanced Mark; Marked targets now build threat while marked, and you generate 33/33/33% more threat when striking marked targets. This has great synergy with my first at-will. In fact, without that at-will, I would drop this passive. But as you'll see in a moment, I have marks up on most mobs almost immediately and for large stretches of every fight. Mark without this passive already causes the enemy to have lowered damage resistance and for you to get twice as much threat generated for each attack on them. Mark does not get removed if you block their attack. Going back, again, to my strategy of blocking as close to 100% of incoming attacks as possible.
At Will #1: Threatening Rush; rush to the target and slam into them, doing damage, marking that target, and marking targets around them for a short period of time (extra points do 10/10% more damage). This is an amazing power, and I use it for pretty much everything. I use it to initiate fights. I get there before my group, and make sure that every enemy starts with a mark, because they are grouped together when I get there. I use it to close the gap on enemies that are away from me. When applicable: I use it to get out of bad zones, by rushing to an add. It's got decent enough damage, but it's true purpose is to set the table for everything else that I do.
At Will #2: Tide of Iron; smash a target with your shield, doing moderate damage (points increase it by 10/10%), lowering their damage resistance, and regenerating 10% of your shield meter. Your most reliable, on demand shield meter regen - the debuff is icing on the cake.
Encounter #1: Into the Fray; a party wide buff that temporarily increases your party's movement speed, action point generation, and gives everybody temporary hit points based off of your maximum HP. Extra points increase movement speed by 2/2. It also recovers guard meter. All of this on a 15 second cooldown. The usefulness of this power cannot be overstated. I use it almost entirely selfishly, and it still constitutes a spot on my bar. I use it while running up to a pack to make sure I'm the first one in, and can get my marks on everything. Meanwhile, if I need to move, it's a little bit faster. Meanwhile, I'm generating AP towards my daily abilities at a significantly faster rate. And if you watch your guard meter, you'll see that it's constantly regenerating while Into the Fray is active. You can use it to make kiting easier, but that's almost a peripheral benefit. I often get two daily abilities during one encounter. In addition to how much it does just for me, the benefits are extending to my entire group! Make sure you use it before you use any other AP generating abilities, such as Enforced Threat. Speaking of...
Encounter #2: Enforced Threat; forcibly taunt nearby foes, causing them to attack you, while also recovering guard meter - extra points increase that recovery by 5/5%. Also on a 15 second cooldown. AoE hard taunt with guard meter recovery fits in very nicely with a strategy of "collect all the adds, guard all the attacks." You can get Brawling Warrior to increase its damage and threat by 2/4/6/8/10%. I elected not to (explanation below). I use this ability pretty much on cooldown. I try to make sure Into the Fray is active before activation.
Encounter #3: Frontline Surge; 10 foot aimed cone that does a lot of damage and knocks enemies back, leaving them prone. Extra points increase damage done by 10/10% and knockback done by 1/1 foot. Useful in so many situations. First off all, the damage done is significant. It really levels the boom. Secondly, it interrupts via knockback. Thirdly, it leaves enemies prone (not for very long, but still). It's also a great setup for Terrifying Impact. It has a long cooldown of 20 seconds. But it gives you a ton of action points when you cast it into a crowd - even more action points when you have Into the Fray active.
Daily Power #1: Supremacy of Steel; surround yourself with two glowing swords that return damage done to you, can be used early to do AoE damage around yourself. Extra points increase the damage done by 10/10% and the buff duration by 2/2 seconds. Augmented by Overwhelming Impact, which decreases the damage resistance of affected targets by 2/4/6/8/10%. Essentially, when you have a ton of adds on you, you active Supremacy of Steel, hold it for a strong five count, and activate it again. You'll return a percentage of damage done during that time period, hit everything in an AoE, and the debuff it.
Daily Power #2: Terrifying Impact; 4 foot cylinder with 50 foot range that does a ton of damage while tossing affected enemies into the air. Also triggers Overwhelming Impact. Extra points increase damage by 15/15%. Upheaval causes interrupt. Damage is tremendous. One slight drawback is the short casting time, which is about a second long. You can be interrupted or knocked back during that time.
Supremacy of Steel or Terrifying Impact?
Different situations call for one or the other. Because they both apply the same feat-based debuff to the enemies affected, you only have to choose which one to use based on the situation at hand.
If you have enemies clumped around you, and you will not be able to get them positioned in a straight line, Supremacy of Steel is better. If your guard meter is broken, Supremacy of Steel is better because you will be taking more damage and thus returning more damage.
If you need to interrupt an enemy, Terrifying Impact is better. If you can get a nice group of enemies in a straight line, Terrifying Impact is better. Frontline Surge is an amazing setup for Terrifying Impact.
One final note for consideration. Terrifying Impact has higher base damage. Supremacy of Steel has lower base damage, but it also will be doing more damage based on how much you get hit while it is active.
Feats
Most of the powers I selected are not directly buffed by my feat selections, which I know will cause some people to be squeamish right off the bat. So please allow me to explain. I started at the far right first. The capstone choices are: increase damage done based on guard meter left, debuff damage done when you hit targets, or increase AP generation when not blocking. If you read the introduction, you'll realize immediately that the first and third options were no good for my strategy. This put me into the Protector Tree almost by default. Working from right to left, you will see the powers buffed by the Protector Tree:
-
Shield Slam / Aggravating Strike (passive damage increase)
-
Terrifying Impact / Supremacy of Steel (enemy debuff)
-
Shield Talent (less guard consumed)
-
Knight's Valor / Enforced Threat (different buffs to the abilities)
-
Ferocious Reaction
I skipped Knight's Valor as a power completely because my whole purpose is to prevent enemies from damaging my party. So intercepting damage done to them shouldn't happen. After playing around with a ton of encounter abilities, and using one of my full character respecs to test further, I couldn't justify taking Knight's Valor over the other powers. Therefore, I couldn't justify spending the points in that feat, because it would only be buffing 1 power, making each point spent there slightly less effective. As far as Ferocious Reaction goes, like I said: I assume the heal isn't coming. I've already used a potion before I got to the 15% point. Hanging at low health makes me nervous, so I avoid it. My only sadness here was not being able to keep Villain's Menace, because it's an absolutely stellar daily. But since Terrifying Impact and Supremacy of Steel have different uses, I kept both of them.
Now that you understand the end portion of my decision, let's go to the beginning and walk through my feats...
Feats, For Real This Time
5/5 Action Surge (2/4/6/8/10% more AP from guarding attacks); get enemies, guard attacks, build AP, unleash dailies, repeat, profit.
2/3 Strength Focus (5/10% more benefit from Strength); these points were taken specifically for increasing guard meter. I would love to make this 3/3, but I put the point I dropped here into a talent later in the tree, specifically Armor Specialization. The reason is that despite my best efforts and the points I've put into it, at some point I will miss blocks and/or my guard meter will be broken. Passive benefits to armor and defense are always on, and guard is not. Given the choice between a point that will be used some/most of the time vs. all the time, I chose all the time.
5/5 Distracting Shield (guarding an attacks causes the enemy to do 1/2/3/4/5% less damage for a period of time); get adds, block attacks, punish them for hitting you. "Debuff Turtle". Get it?
3/3 Armor Specialization (increases effectiveness of AC and defense by 5/10/15%); see strength focus above for the points on this.
5/5 Powerful Attack (increases damage of At-Will and Encounter abilities by 2/4/6/8/10%); just because I'm not primary focused on doing damage doesn't mean that I avoid damage when I can get it. The vast majority of the actions you take in game are now 10% more lethal for five measly points. That's an amazing investment.
Talents Not Taken, and Why
Toughness - flat HP is always 'meh' worthy
Shielded Resurgence - not better than more guard meter and more defense
Potent Challenge - extra threat not needed if you're being active with your powers
Grit - remember what I said about assuming no heals are coming?
Pin Down - would only affect Frontline Surge, whereas points elsewhere are more universal
Weapon Mastery - crit is 'meh' worthy when we're not damage focused
No Ubiquitous Shield?!
I felt this one deserved a more lengthy explanation. You'll notice that a lot of my feats are built into passives. File and forget points that I don't have to think about at all. There's a very good reason for this. I spent a lot of time in dungeons worried about positioning, where my cleric is at, where adds are at, which daily power I want to use based on the situation around me, which fire I want to go put out first, etc. etc. etc. Part of that vast mental energy is put into making sure that I take as few 'combat advantage' shots as possible. I feel that Ubiquitous Shield is a lazy talent, by and large. The one exception is after Enforced Threat, when everything comes on you - you will be taking some shots then, through no fault of your own. Take a moment to reposition, get your back clear, and then move on with the fight. I feel that spending 5 points to either allow yourself sloppy positioning, or to mitigate a few shots that you know are coming and should be prepared for is wasteful. End rant.
5/5 Plate Agility (gives a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to deflect attacks); sure, why not? I'm not fan of avoidance typically, but that's a fair trade.
5/5 Armor of Bahamut vs. 5/5 Shield Defense; Shield Defense is supposed to give 1/2/3/4/5 more AC, which would be a strong investment. Points spent there don't currently reflect in the character sheet, and I've yet to see confirmation / clarification on it. Otherwise, I would put the points into Armor of the Bahamut, which gives increased damage resistance to attacks that break your guard meter. Sometimes, your guard meter breaks because you get poked down by a lot of adds, sometimes the reason your guard breaks is because you just got hit by a truck. Either way, without guard you're significantly more vulnerable, and this mitigates it somewhat. I would prefer Shield Defense, as long as it's functioning.
5/5 Shield Master; buffs my passive by making sure each guarded attack consumes less meter. Solid.
5/5 Balanced Shield Fighter; 3/6/9/12/15% damage increase to at-will's when shield is raised - I use these abilities so frequently that this is a great buff for me. A word on aggravating strike - it does damage to multiple mobs with proper positioning, putting it on par with cleave. It also is a high threat move. It also does extremely respectable damage.
5/5 Overwhelming Impact; discussed at length above.
1/1 Iron Guard; capstone ability, also discussed above. Constantly debuffing enemies, while also guarding as many blocks as possible.
5/5 Fight On (tactician tree); 2/4/6/8/10% decrease in encounter ability cooldowns. Gets me to my dailies faster.
Conclusion
This build is (in many ways) overkill, but it was made for a very particular purpose. It is extremely durable, extremely sturdy, extremely self-reliant... while making everybody around you better. Its primary goal is to create safe, comfortable, successful dungeon runs that are built almost 100% on control and proper positioning. It is made for those who queue up for dungeons and skirmishes by themselves, and cannot be sure of the quality of their future group mates.
There are other options out there, two very good ones listed at the top of my post. This is not in any way, shape or form the definitive guide. But if you find yourself in a similar position as me, my sincere hope is that this build will serve you reliably.
T2 Transition and You
Some clarifications:
The choice between strength, armor, and toughness only comes up if you are doing the turtle build. If you are doing a DPS build, you'll be skipping the tier 1 blocking talent, which will have you spend points in both strength and toughness. In the turtle build, HP is significantly less necessary because your shield is taking so much incoming damage. In a DPS build, you're face tanking more damage, which would increase the need for HP. The builds and their purpose match up well when it comes to this choice.
Furthermore, I hit the point where turtle build is a liability, and have swapped to something closer to the Hybrid build. I don't have the three extra points that Rokuthy has so it doesn't match up completely - amongst other minor differences.
With a DPS build, your damage goes up (duh). I am working on my playstyle right now and swapping out some gear, so I'm a little behind the 8 ball in two ways. 1 - my non core armor pieces are overtuned for mitigation and lacking in damage; 2 - I am having to rehaul my playstyle, and habit changes are always fun! But back to the damage. More specifically, what the damage means:
Turtle Build, trash: all mobs on you, controlled, debuffed, standing in one spot while your DPS brings them down.
Turtle Build, boss: full mob control and boss control, everything debuffed, mostly standing in one spot while your DPS kills adds and then whittles boss.
This will be a strong build for leveling, and a strong build for T1 and early T2 content. It does reach a point, where the adds that come with the boss are too much for your mitigation or too much for your control. Then you wipe. That's the point Rokuthy reached about 5/6 days before I did.
DPS Build, trash: trash explodes, nothing had a chance to threaten anybody in the group
DPS Build, boss: depending on the specific boss, you either burn the boss quicker or you burn the adds quicker, making it an overall safer fight
Every once in awhile, on a one big threatening mob / many trash mobs encounter (read: every boss), I need to bring shield up and stab over it for some quick "snap" like threat. By and large, I've been gathering everything up with Enforced Threat and cleaving my heart out. Updating guide to reflect this.
A Guardian Fighter Blog:
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On a tank?! That seems completely counter intuitive to me. I'm sure you have a reason for saying this though...
I will keep reading but also wanted to bump this for you again
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Envy's Guardian Fighter DPS Conqueror Guide
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Think of it this way: if you're gaining a flat amount, it's worth the most point for point to someone with the lowest possible health. For a tank, a flat amount gained is negligible in most cases compared to the massive amount of HP we tend to have almost by default. If it was a percentage gain then an argument could be made for picking it up, as it would provide significantly more HP to those of us looking to be as tough as possible.
See what I'm getting at?
The problem is that it isn't flat HP. It's 9% more HP.
Wrath - 60 Great Weapon Fighter - Mindflayer
Envy's Guardian Fighter DPS Conqueror Guide
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Ah, guess that makes it a miscommunication in that case. At that point I suppose it's just a matter of crunching the numbers to find out if there's any point at which it's worth the points to get the extra HP, or how much mitigation it's providing point for point. Never been a math person myself so I'll withold judgment as to his choice to pass on it here. ^.^
or im blind :P
I can clarify in the original post. When I said 'flat' HP I was referring (even if the points give you a percentage) to the fact that its benefit is to just give you more hit points. I could have expanded on it in the original post, but (as you'll see) the explanation is lengthy and would have broken up the groove of the guide. Instead of just having hit points, I'm worried about a concept called effective hit points.
This is largely true in a lot of MMO's, and even more so in Neverwinter.
Let's take a look at this, together. We end up with (depending on race) about 30,000 HP at 60. 9% of that is: 2700. In some dungeons, enemies (especially bosses) are hitting for thousands of damage. Even for run of the mill enemies, who are hitting for 500, if I taunt and miss a block, I'm taking at least a couple thousand damage. So 3 talent points allow me to facetank 1 more hit or less? 3 talents points allow me to make a single more mistake? Not a solid investment.
I could stop here, but there is a lot more to say.
There is a vast difference between hit points and effective hit points. Allow me to explain more in depth.
Hypothetical situation: We have two guardian fighters, whose only difference is 3/3 toughness vs. 3/3 strength focus, so that there are no other factors involved. One has gone with toughness, and has +HP gear, so he is at 35,000 HP (round number where I pulled the bonus from toughness and roughly doubled it to reflect more HP on gear). The second guardian fighter is at 30,000 HP. The first guardian fighter has foregone other stats, such as defense / deflection, to pump up his hit points. To make the math simple, let's assume he has 20% damage reduction. The second guardian fighter has much more balanced gear, and is at 30% damage reduction. They are both fighting a mob that does 1 swing a second, for 1,000 damage.
We're assuming that the GF's stand there and do nothing:
The first guardian fighter is taking 800 damage a hit. The second guardian fighter is taking 700 damage a hit. The first guardian fighter, without block, can take 43 hits before dying. The second guardian fighter, without block, can take 42 hits before dying. This is the difference that just having more HP got us, which isn't much of a difference at all.
Now we're assuming that the GF's only stand there and block:
The second guardian fighter put points into strength focus, and can now block more of those attacks than the first, which would more than make up for the difference that HP provided.
Now let's look at it from a healer's point of view:
Healers don't care about how many hit points you have. They care about how much is missing from your health bar. If both the first and second guardian fighter are down to 20,000 HP (which - as we've seen - at even HP the second guardian fighter has a lot more fight left in him), the first GF is at 57% health. The second guardian fighter is at 66% health. Mentally, the difference between looking at about half a health bar vs. 2/3rds a health bar is tremendous. The cleric is now going to start modifying their behaviors more drastically for the first GF, putting strain on your aggro and your control. And if the cleric is one of those "get people topped off" types, he now has to pump 15k worth of healing into the first guardian fighter, where as the second guardian fighter is only down 10k.
What are the benefits of stamina?
In other games, such as WoW, stamina provides benefits against spells cast. A larger health pool to soak magic damage is one of the most effective ways to mitigate it... except, in Neverwinter we get block. Block is a massive trump card. Block negates a lot of the benefit to stamina that is present in other MMO's.
Conclusion:
If you pump up your HP just to have a large HP pool... you achieved that by sacrificing elsewhere. Those sacrifices play out by undermining what you were hoping to achieve with a higher HP pool. It's better to focus on stats and feat points that make each hit point you have more valuable, than simply pooling more of them. Finally, in that rare situation where having 2700 extra hit points was the difference between life and death... chances are very good that you now find yourself in a very bad, emergency style situation, that is going to be difficult to recover from. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
So when I say it's "meh" this is what I mean. It's not bad, it's not good. It's just... there. It has some marginal benefits. I can see the appeal. It has some problems, which I hope I've highlighted. When the choice is toughness, strength focus, or armor specialization (which is essentially what it comes down to): strength focus gives more block / more damage / more damage resistance to dots (very dynamic benefits for points); armor specialization gives you 15% more benefit to damage reduction (great investment); toughness gets you roughly 2700 hit points ("meh").
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Defense > Recovery (up time on Into the Fray and quicker to the dailies) > Power/Deflection > Life Steal > Regeneration (largely interchangeable, one rewards you for staying active) > everything else.
Movement isn't needed, because of Threatening Rush and Into the Fray.
Critical Strike and Armor Pen don't really have a place here. If the choice is them over nothing at all, yes they have benefit. But if the choice is anything else, you'll get more benefit from other stats.
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Knights Valor - Probably one of the most undervalued skill. With this plus Into the Fray you almost always have your Daily up. Plus its a huge threat increase and since most mobs due AoE and people stand in it, almost always gives you agro + a free Daily. When you use this with Supremacy of Steel all targets hit get the debuff plus the damage. If one AoE cone hits all of you it hits the target 5 times. Kinda ridiculous but amazing.
Even with this, I didn't take Brawling Warrior because I'm not sure if its worth it vs Shield Master.
Ubiquitous Shield - I know you say its the lazy skill, but lets face it things are going to hit you from behind, wether it be adds or something else, I took some out of Distracting Shield and Powerful Attacks. Tossed a point or two in there for good keeping.
Little different from your build but thanks for the start. The one thing I love abou this build is that you almost always have a daily up.
Also, would you run a healing companion since you did mention solo and foundry is slow
Thanks for the great guide and also providing us the insight on how it does on T2 runs
Yes, if your pounding potions your going to get your 8.5k a shot. Though a 10% heal from your healer will heal the 35k tank 3500 while the 30k tank 3000.
In addition you assume the HP based tank is giving up mitigation which in this game is only partly true. The way gear works and specs most of the time your choosing between 1% block or 2% HP for stats. The real question is what is the raw value of block (is it a static value or is it based on other factors like total HP).
As for the feats department you went with 6% DPS over 9% HP. Which may or may not be bad because dps does offer more threat generation. Though is it required... or more for ease of soloing.
EDIT: No matter how hard I look, I can't find "Threatening Rush" under the guardian's power list
Still going dwarf. 3 extra points would be okay, but not gamebreaking. I've also said many times over to play the race that makes you happy. Nothing is that different as to make it worthwhile.
Str/Con for attributes.
Threatening Rush is an at will power.
Doing Epics with this build, and clerics are very happy with me - as they don't get a lot of attention.
I'm currently sitting at 28k health - still don't think toughness is worth it. Would still rather have powerful attacks. I don't take a lot of damage from mobs behind me. When I take damage it's because I got knocked down / knocked prone / stood where I shouldn't / missed a block. Those first two are part of the reason I stuck with dwarf.
Good point on the healing, haven't rolled with a cleric past level 6-7 yet. I was planning on dabbling in all the classes, so that I could put primers on my blog so that Guardian Fighters at least know what the other classes are doing. Obviously, a bit more busy get Andra geared up
For companion, when I want to be slow and steady and safe, I roll cleric. Frustrated that I can't get her past rank 15 yet. Most of the time, I'm running with panther/wolf/phoenix, though, to level them up.
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Good guide but I want to point one thing out: Every MMO with a tanking class eventually entertains this theory crafting regarding effective hit points. The point behind the whole effective hit points argument is that if the healer can already heal you enough to keep you alive without going out of power, any points/talents/gear spent in extra hit points is a waste, particularly if those points/talents/gear can be used on more defense, deflection, etc. Only problem with this conclusion is it relies on the situation where you are always with a good healer, the encounters always go as planned, and no one ever lags or dcs. While it is true that having a gigantic health pool is pointless if you do not need it, there is always value in having enough "extra" hps to cover you when bad things happen. In particular, since this build is focused on a solo tank that joins pugs, I would reconsider not getting hit point talents because you never know who you are going to be grouped with and what is going to happen. Just my two cents.
Long time Tank here from many other games, and looking to build my Guard up here. I have to say that tanking in NW is different and interesting. Thank you for the guide, looks great
I was wondering, in lieu of spelling out every Power point spent, would you name the Powers that you stay away from?
I like to do my research before committing to a build, and once I do, I see it through. Currently I've been following Rokuthy's guide on point allocation, and I was wondering if you'd provide input.
Cheers!
Bale.
I have been wanting to try something similiar but with repecs being so costly I have stuck with my dps spec so far.
I will respec tonight after I have done some more pvp and gotten that last piece of armor and that really nice 4-set bonus.
I would absolutely not drop points in the AP gain through blocking, nor the debuff applied to enemies that you block, nor powerful attack (I already do about half as much damage as the bottom DPS on average, and that's with the talent points I spent on increasing damage done in certain scenarios). So if you're going to take points from someplace, it's going to be strength or armor. Personally, I would rather have a little more block / damage / situational resist than pure HP. And I would certainly rather have increased defense over pure HP. To each his own on that front. Furthermore, I prioritize armor specialization over both, which means I'd only get 2 points into toughness, which would further detract from the benefits people would find. You just don't get enough HP from the talent points to make it a worthwhile investment. I stick firm to my stance that it's underwhelming. Others disagree - that's totally legit.
Moving past that point...
Here is what I have build wise, for points spent:
3/3 Cleave - before I realized that aggravating strike could hit multiple targets with the correct positioning, I was convinced that cleave would never leave my bar. For a little while, I had cleave and threatening rush slotted. I found that I really wanted Tide of Iron for another debuff and for the on demand guard regen.
3/3 Tide of Iron - it's one of the skills the build is based around. Of course it's maxed.
3/3 Lunging Strike - before threatening rush, it provides insane mobility, and is a top notch initiator.
3/3 Villain's Menace - I love this daily, it does everything right. If I was just a little more focused on damage, I would find a way to work this in. As it is, I can't justify breaking up the tandem of dailies I have, since both of them give an awesome debuff to affected enemies, and both have wildly different uses. But up until then, Villain's is amazing.
3/3 Shield Talent - integral part of the build.
3/3 Enforced Threat - one of the best tools that you have as a tank in the early dungeons, and its worth never decreases. Hard taunt with AoE damage. Useful in so many ways. Open a fight with it to buy your DPS time to nuke weaker adds. Use it to pull adds off your healer. Use it for a good chunk of damage.
3/3 Griffon's Wrath - I have this in case I ever do want to try PvP. I'll swap out Enforced Threat for this. Tons of single target damage and an interrupt. Around level 20, you start running into enemies that drink potions, which was obnoxious for me. Griffon's Wrath when you see them start that animation.
Skipped Fighter's Recovery. In BW1 it was insanely overpowered. Then it got hit with the nerf ... stick? Bat? The nerf tree fell down and crushed it. It felt more and more lackluster in every beta weekend. I thought it might be good for a Envy build, where you are doing damage all the time, but I'll let the man himself weigh in on that: "Fighter's Recovery - I'm underwhelmed by this daily. Even with 3 points, I find the heal negligible. Not worth your action points."
3/3 Terrifying Impact - my favorite daily (Villain's is second and Supremacy is 3rd).
3/3 Enhanced Mark - integral part of the build.
3/3 Guarded Assault - I haven't tried it again since mid levels. It was only okay then, might be better now with so much damage flying around. You'll start to notice that I took all the passives, just in case one or more of them increases or decreases in usefulness based on the situation at hand. There will always be a place in my rotation for group wide movement speed and AP gen buff. There will always be a place in my rotation for an AoE taunt. And there will always be a place in my rotation for some form of interrupt (I prefer Frontline Surge over Griffon's for damage and affecting multiple targets over a single target)... I see those as being pretty rigid. The passives could theoretically be swapped out for fine tuning, especially when going over to PvP.
No crushing surge. Too slow, took too much damage while swinging, heal wasn't enough to offset it.
1/3 Knight's Challenge - there for PvP if I ever get into that.
3/3 Combat Superiority - could see swapping this in for PvP.
No Anvil of Doom. Can't see swapping out one of my encounters for an execute. It's got its place in a damage build, but not here.
3/3 Frontline Surge - part of the build.
3/3 Ferocious Reaction - could see swapping this in for PvP.
3/3 Threatening Rush - I'd dare say this is mandatory for all Guardian Fighters. An at will charge is ridiculous.
3/3 Into the Fray - part of the build.
3/3 Supremacy of Steel - part of the build.
3/3 Trample the Fallen - I'm pretty sure this works for enemies under any control effect, not just one that you put on them. Could be amazing in the right situation.
3/3 Iron Warrior - if I ever felt the need to have a super guard regen layout, I could slot this, Enforced Threat, and Into the Fray, as all three skills recover guard meter.
No Knight's Valor. I didn't care for the skill. Somebody earlier in the thread pointed out that it's a good insurance policy against DPS that stand in the fire. That's a good point. I always prefer prevention and preparation over reaction, personally.
3/3 Bull Charge - if I want to go ultra mobility, I can slot this, Into the Fray, Lunging Strike, and Threatening Rush.
No indomitable strength. Damage is amazing on it. I don't like being still that long, I have enough problems with block lowering my mobility. And if I need something prone, I will go with Frontline Surge. Also, this wouldn't replace one of my two cornerstone dailies.
3/3 Enduring Warrior - we actually seem to get a ton of killing blows, even if our damage is low. I snagged it because it was a passive and I didn't really feel anything else was that great.
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Take whatever upgraded gear you can get while leveling up (without taking it from others, I should clarify). I had plenty of Crit and Armor Pen while leveling, because it was a dramatic increase over what it replaced. Gear priority only matters when you start getting much higher than 18.
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It's slightly more than just that you almost always have a daily up. It's the debuff that comes along with your daily. That is almost always up, and if you are using the correct daily in the correct situation, you are putting that debuff on a ton of enemies.
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Thank you.
Bale.
Just respecc'ed to this build today. Will post and let you know how it goes. As a new level 60 guardian trying to do my first Tier 1 dungeons I was getting destroyed by adds and boss DPS, even with a gear score of 6300 (which I have been told isnt bad for a new lvl 60). Hopefully with this build things will go better.
I was just wondering, what is your rotation? Since you don't use cleave, you pretty much stay guarded and use aggravating strike. What do you do to maintain guard so it doesn't break, allowing you to conintually AoE mobs. Do you alternate from guarded attacks to spamming Tide of Irons and encounter abilities?
Running up to a fight, I open with Into The Fray. This gives everybody increased movement speed, and AP generation right from the start. I threatening rush the closest target, Enforced Threat almost immediately (since I'm trying to keep them as clumped as possible, this is before they start running after healers or overzealous DPS), threatening rush again to reset any marks that dropped while doing ET. Since I have a good group of them, I Frontline Surge there, and then go into guard.
At this point, I'm pretty close to a daily, I've got everything right in front of me, and I have very high threat. I stab over the shield to get threat going. Blocks take me to a daily. I daily based on what situation is in front of me.
Mid battle, Into the Fray and Enforced Threat come up again. Right about the time my guard meter is getting broken. Doing Into the Fray and then Enforced Threat not only gets my AP gain rocking again, but it pretty much gets me to 100% meter within the next couple seconds.
Rinse, repeat. I use Tide of Iron every once in awhile for the debuff. I only use it for guard meter regen when everything is on cooldown and I desperately need regen.
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Look forward to hearing about it. With this build and a gear score of about 6100, I was rolling through Cloak Tower and Crypts. Hopefully it does well for you!
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Wouldnt a second threatening rush after enforced threat be kinda wasted since enforced threat already marks everything?
Also, do into the fray en enforced threat really recovery your guard meter? I doesnt seem to do anything at all for my meter atleast.