Hi I'm the Xbox and I'm getting ready to start a gf it will be my forth toon and I would like to try this build. But I will be only pve and mostly tank for my guild what if anything would you change for this type of play?
Hi I'm the Xbox and I'm getting ready to start a gf it will be my forth toon and I would like to try this build. But I will be only pve and mostly tank for my guild what if anything would you change for this type of play?
Honestly if youre going to use that char PvE only and with a guild youd be better off going tactician or even defender.
This progression being your level of gear and possibly the gear/experience level of your group mates.
When you have lower gear level... the feats from Protector will help with your survival and KV will help with your group mates survival. As your gear improves and your group mates gear improves... they will need less assistance with survival and you will need less help with survival. At which point, you should likely switch to Tactician (since it's the mix of defense and group buffing)... Once you are at 3k+ ilvl and you are commonly grouping with other ppl with 3k+ ilvl... then most players at this level need little help with survival and mostly need you to ensure you can keep aggro. The best way to keep aggro... is to do more DPS yourself... at which point Conqueror accomplishes this best.
Conditions I would suggest switching to Conqueror:
- 65% or better Defense self buffed (bonding stones, Potions, food, etc) - Perfect or better Negation Armor Enchant - 50% or better Critical Chance self buffed (bonding stones, potions, food, etc) - 10% or better life steal
If you can gear to these conditions, I feel pretty confident that you should be able to survive without the aid of the more defensive feats and do sufficient damage to warrant the loss of Tact's part buff enhancement. Your personal DPS going from doing 5 mil dps to 20 mil dps will likely out weigh contributions from Tac's additional AP gain and 5% additional ITF buff.
Also, HDPS group members will be able to go all out on their personal DPS and not be concerned with stealing aggro from you.
NOW... if you prefer the more hybrid nature of Tac with DPS via group mates and some defensive feats... then just stay Tac and start to invest resources maybe into an alt character.
again.. this is all just my opinion... one of many things.. everyone has
Depending on your current DR/HP's/Life Steal, you can drop Surging Tide.. since I tend not to use Tide of Iron. Those points could be reallocated to Fight On for better encounter recharge, or Shield Defense for extra DR.
I didn't play Tactician for long, so there might be some better more optimized builds out there. Also, depending on what you are trying to achieve... if you want 100% ITF up time, then you are going to need to stack a lot of Recovery and will definitely need to take Fight On. I somewhat think this is a too all out commitment. Although, I just don't naturally have a Tactician mind set. My play style has always fit better with Conqueror... as a result I jumped to Conqueror as soon as I felt... it didn't compromise my role as a tank.
I have about a 3.4 second gap between duration of the buff and my cooldown.
It's usually up between groups of trash and when I'm tanking a boss... it might not be timely for me to recast ITF immediately after it comes off cooldown anyways... (like I'm not going stop blocking an Orcus hit.. just to recast ITF the second it comes off cooldown)
Afaik Terror provides the most dps between all those types of enchants that "Deal additional weapon damage as extra something damage."
Transcendent Feytouched You deal an additional 18% of weapon damage as Psychic damage. Your encounter powers siphon away 18% of your target's damage. This damage is converted into 18% more damage for you. This effect is a 3 target AoE, lasts for 20 seconds, may only happen once every 20 seconds.
Transcedent Terror You deal an additional 25% of weapon damage as Necrotic damage with every swing and induce terror in your foe, reducing their Defense and Power by 40% for Players and decreasing their Damage Resistance by -4% for monsters. This effect cannot be refreshed until it expires. You also have a 10% chance to root your target. This root can only occur once every 30 seconds.
I don't have the money for it but it would be interesting to test terror enchantments power reduction. For example I took these stats from some pvp GWFs guides in the class forums.
IcyDrake 38,577 power -> terror debuff (15,430) / 400 = 38.577% 4,814 defense -> terror debuff (1.925.6) / 400 = 4.814%
Lancer 42,073 power -> terror debuff (16,829.2) / 400 = 42.073% 7,036 defense -> terror debuff (2,814.4) / 400 = 7.036%
Feytouched gives your more damage with 18% weapon damage + 18% more damage in general when buffed. However I might give transcendent terror a go someday on an op or dc pvp character.
Could you imagine fighting a tiefling op debuffing with 45% less power and then they slap bane on you so you deal 30% less damage as well?
@humanplus: yes you can tank orcus as a conquerer/SM spec.
Keep combat superiority as it is arguably our best class feature in any and every situation. Some may disagree, but steel defense is still useful while tanking orcus. 3.5 seconds of invulnerability still frees you up to do anything. And you'll get dailies like crazy in an orcus fight.
Make sure you have the off hand feature for added stamina gain when using shield bash/tide of iron. This allows you to stay away from shield talent.
Just keep your shield up and always be bashing, with the occasional hard mark to keep aggro. This makes enhanced mark as unnecessary as shield talent. Within one or two hits you'll get a daily. Pop fighters recovery and only fighters recovery. ITF and hit him with a commander's strike. Throw in a tide of iron to get back lost stamina and then crushing surge until his next attack. Raise your shield and repeat. You'll never go down unless he hits you hard or twice, with your shield down.
Can you tank orcus with this? Well I guess you do say this build can tank pve content so can you give tips on Orcus pls?
Yeah, I use Enchanted Mark and Shield Talent passives. I start with Iron Warrior then use ITF between Orcus' hits. His hits fill my AP pretty quickly, usually after two hits, I use Fighters Recovery then and continue stabbing behind my shield. That actually provides enough self healing not to need a healer for the normal phase. When he gets his hands up you have to move away from him to prevent balls from spawning. After I move away, I use Iron Warrior again before engaging then continue using ITF and Commanders Strike between his hits and stabbing behind shield when he is attacking to fill my health. I basically get 100% uptime for Fighters Recovery. The self healing may not be enough when portals spawn so thats when a healer is needed.
When figuring out the timing, Its best if you stay behind your shield as much as you can and use any skills only if youre confident enough that you will have enough time to block again for his next attack. After a while you will get the hang of it and will be using a skill between almost every hit.
Ive also tanked nSva and FBI with this build, I wouldnt recommend attempting those with less than 45% everfrost resist, however.
Afaik Terror power debuff is halfed in PvP. 20% instead of 40%.
This is true, I still think 20% power reduction is quite significant when people are stacking so much power and defense reduction comes in handy when fighting other tanks.
I've found that I preferred Transcendent Elven Battle to Transcendent Negation. There are simple too many places in the game where you have few to no mobs ticking your stacks. Take Orcus, Negation is near useless. How many stacks on average do you keep up? EToS is an exception. T. Elven Battle not only provides the resist and lower duration on CC but increases stamina gain by +30%. I've found I rarely need Shield Talent anymore allowing me more freedom on my class features.
In DPS mode Combat Superiority and Steel Grace (outperforms Steel Blitz IMO) with Guarded Assault and Steel Defense when in pure tank mode. Just something to consider.
Afaik Terror power debuff is halfed in PvP. 20% instead of 40%.
Awww, way to burst my bubble. I guess in organized pvp it would still probably be useful to have someone with the debuff but I'll stick to feyt/vorpal for the moment.
Updated the build for new year and Indexing at guides list. Now also includes good mount insignia bonuses.
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dread4moorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,154Arc User
Hey Tony. Respeccing my third GF for PvP following your guide. Question: In 2015 NW had the "NW Combat League" with "Burning Gladiator" versions of PvP gear. The Stronghold and SKT pvp gear seems to Excell the Burning set. I have a lot of that Combat League currency left, but not sure if they will have the event and gear on sale again.
Do you think it's worth it to invest in Burning for a PvP SM Conq?
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
@dread4moor Armor set from the combat league is still not so bad stat wise. It does lack set bonuses but its certainly useable. However you will have to eventually replace it anyway with prestige set and it doesnt take too long to get 2 piece prestige. So until then you can make do with guildmark set even though its inferior. May be a better idea to keep the currency even though I don't think they will have the event anytime soon.
I tried doing FBI for the first time yesterday and got destroyed making my way up the hill and then couldn't rank The mantacore boss at all. He was just eating though my shield. I had 40% everfrost resist.
I tried doing FBI for the first time yesterday and got destroyed making my way up the hill and then couldn't tank The mantacore boss at all. He was just eating though my shield. I had 40% everfrost resist.
Patience and vigilance on the bosses.
Watch what the boss is doing and react accordingly. Don't fret because your stamina is trickling down, after the boss' attack finishes, you get a split second or so to make any move of your choice (cast ITF, cast FR, cast Tide/ET, cast CS, etc.)
Also, don't let the manticore cross up behind your shield. If you're too close to him, then he effective hits BEHIND your shield (yes, the hitboxes are buggy like that).
@humanplus Going up the hill is the most painful part of that dungeon in my opinion, if your party is patient enough, pulling the giants in smallest possible groups helps. Manticore is mostly about timing and positioning. In addition to what @rjc9000 said, try to give your side to the wall. I use shield talent for that fight, feels more comfortable for me like that. Keep Fighters Recovery ready for when your HP is getting low. Also 40% EFR isn't all that much. I tank it with 57%.
Comments
This is what i have right now.
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/gf?b=2uli:zb51c9:9wxt:9fx7b,19i352i:15uz051:1500000:1z00000&h=1&p=smr&o=0
IMO your progression should be....
Protection --> Tactician --> Conqueror
This progression being your level of gear and possibly the gear/experience level of your group mates.
When you have lower gear level... the feats from Protector will help with your survival and KV will help with your group mates survival. As your gear improves and your group mates gear improves... they will need less assistance with survival and you will need less help with survival. At which point, you should likely switch to Tactician (since it's the mix of defense and group buffing)... Once you are at 3k+ ilvl and you are commonly grouping with other ppl with 3k+ ilvl... then most players at this level need little help with survival and mostly need you to ensure you can keep aggro. The best way to keep aggro... is to do more DPS yourself... at which point Conqueror accomplishes this best.
Conditions I would suggest switching to Conqueror:
- 65% or better Defense self buffed (bonding stones, Potions, food, etc)
- Perfect or better Negation Armor Enchant
- 50% or better Critical Chance self buffed (bonding stones, potions, food, etc)
- 10% or better life steal
If you can gear to these conditions, I feel pretty confident that you should be able to survive without the aid of the more defensive feats and do sufficient damage to warrant the loss of Tact's part buff enhancement. Your personal DPS going from doing 5 mil dps to 20 mil dps will likely out weigh contributions from Tac's additional AP gain and 5% additional ITF buff.
Also, HDPS group members will be able to go all out on their personal DPS and not be concerned with stealing aggro from you.
NOW... if you prefer the more hybrid nature of Tac with DPS via group mates and some defensive feats... then just stay Tac and start to invest resources maybe into an alt character.
again.. this is all just my opinion... one of many things.. everyone has
- Forge (GF)
- Apocalypse - (DC)
- Sadus (OP)
- Fireball (GWF)
- Ixian (CW)
Thank you Loadouts for allowing my toons to be all the things... they ever wanted to be....
Hey @tostrek2012 ,
I would say something along these lines:
nwcalc.com/index.html#/gf?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,1li3n00:1000000:150u000:15u5z51&h=0&p=smr&o=0
Depending on your current DR/HP's/Life Steal, you can drop Surging Tide.. since I tend not to use Tide of Iron. Those points could be reallocated to Fight On for better encounter recharge, or Shield Defense for extra DR.
I didn't play Tactician for long, so there might be some better more optimized builds out there. Also, depending on what you are trying to achieve... if you want 100% ITF up time, then you are going to need to stack a lot of Recovery and will definitely need to take Fight On. I somewhat think this is a too all out commitment. Although, I just don't naturally have a Tactician mind set. My play style has always fit better with Conqueror... as a result I jumped to Conqueror as soon as I felt... it didn't compromise my role as a tank.
I have about a 3.4 second gap between duration of the buff and my cooldown.
It's usually up between groups of trash and when I'm tanking a boss... it might not be timely for me to recast ITF immediately after it comes off cooldown anyways... (like I'm not going stop blocking an Orcus hit.. just to recast ITF the second it comes off cooldown)
- Forge (GF)
- Apocalypse - (DC)
- Sadus (OP)
- Fireball (GWF)
- Ixian (CW)
Thank you Loadouts for allowing my toons to be all the things... they ever wanted to be....
You deal an additional 18% of weapon damage as Psychic damage. Your encounter powers siphon away 18% of your target's damage. This damage is converted into 18% more damage for you. This effect is a 3 target AoE, lasts for 20 seconds, may only happen once every 20 seconds.
Transcedent Terror
You deal an additional 25% of weapon damage as Necrotic damage with every swing and induce terror in your foe, reducing their Defense and Power by 40% for Players and decreasing their Damage Resistance by -4% for monsters. This effect cannot be refreshed until it expires. You also have a 10% chance to root your target. This root can only occur once every 30 seconds.
I don't have the money for it but it would be interesting to test terror enchantments power reduction. For example I took these stats from some pvp GWFs guides in the class forums.
IcyDrake
38,577 power -> terror debuff (15,430) / 400 = 38.577%
4,814 defense -> terror debuff (1.925.6) / 400 = 4.814%
Lancer
42,073 power -> terror debuff (16,829.2) / 400 = 42.073%
7,036 defense -> terror debuff (2,814.4) / 400 = 7.036%
Feytouched gives your more damage with 18% weapon damage + 18% more damage in general when buffed. However I might give transcendent terror a go someday on an op or dc pvp character.
Could you imagine fighting a tiefling op debuffing with 45% less power and then they slap bane on you so you deal 30% less damage as well?
Keep combat superiority as it is arguably our best class feature in any and every situation. Some may disagree, but steel defense is still useful while tanking orcus. 3.5 seconds of invulnerability still frees you up to do anything. And you'll get dailies like crazy in an orcus fight.
Make sure you have the off hand feature for added stamina gain when using shield bash/tide of iron. This allows you to stay away from shield talent.
Just keep your shield up and always be bashing, with the occasional hard mark to keep aggro. This makes enhanced mark as unnecessary as shield talent. Within one or two hits you'll get a daily. Pop fighters recovery and only fighters recovery. ITF and hit him with a commander's strike. Throw in a tide of iron to get back lost stamina and then crushing surge until his next attack. Raise your shield and repeat. You'll never go down unless he hits you hard or twice, with your shield down.
When figuring out the timing, Its best if you stay behind your shield as much as you can and use any skills only if youre confident enough that you will have enough time to block again for his next attack. After a while you will get the hang of it and will be using a skill between almost every hit.
Ive also tanked nSva and FBI with this build, I wouldnt recommend attempting those with less than 45% everfrost resist, however. This is true, I still think 20% power reduction is quite significant when people are stacking so much power and defense reduction comes in handy when fighting other tanks.
In DPS mode Combat Superiority and Steel Grace (outperforms Steel Blitz IMO) with Guarded Assault and Steel Defense when in pure tank mode. Just something to consider.
At transcendent, yeah elven battle is worth considering. However, until then negation is superior.
Question: In 2015 NW had the "NW Combat League" with "Burning Gladiator" versions of PvP gear. The Stronghold and SKT pvp gear seems to Excell the Burning set. I have a lot of that Combat League currency left, but not sure if they will have the event and gear on sale again.
Do you think it's worth it to invest in Burning for a PvP SM Conq?
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
Armor set from the combat league is still not so bad stat wise. It does lack set bonuses but its certainly useable. However you will have to eventually replace it anyway with prestige set and it doesnt take too long to get 2 piece prestige. So until then you can make do with guildmark set even though its inferior. May be a better idea to keep the currency even though I don't think they will have the event anytime soon.
Watch what the boss is doing and react accordingly. Don't fret because your stamina is trickling down, after the boss' attack finishes, you get a split second or so to make any move of your choice (cast ITF, cast FR, cast Tide/ET, cast CS, etc.)
Also, don't let the manticore cross up behind your shield. If you're too close to him, then he effective hits BEHIND your shield (yes, the hitboxes are buggy like that).
Going up the hill is the most painful part of that dungeon in my opinion, if your party is patient enough, pulling the giants in smallest possible groups helps.
Manticore is mostly about timing and positioning. In addition to what @rjc9000 said, try to give your side to the wall. I use shield talent for that fight, feels more comfortable for me like that. Keep Fighters Recovery ready for when your HP is getting low.
Also 40% EFR isn't all that much. I tank it with 57%.