[PS4] Best active companion for tanking?

abmaiden95 · October 2016

@greyhawk#1973 about bulette pup every hit taken vs orcus/fbi/edemo proc his active bonus (even with 80% dmg resistance)

greyhawk · October 2016

@abmaiden95 even through the shield? I think that's what I read at one point. That the hit has to do 25% damage to the GF but most hits are mitigated 'too much' by our guard...

If what you posted is true, then I'd say it's a great companion to have active - not summoned, unless you need 3 Def slots. I'm too broke to buy one for almost 2 million, so I'll take your word for it

sadus671 · October 2016

Btw... there is another good defensive Companion. Sylph from Knight of the Feywild pack. 50% Resist to Control Effects. Has a noticeable effect on reducing stuns, etc.

abmaiden95 · October 2016

@greyhawk#1973 no, it surely wont work with the shield on.... but why do you need heal woth your shield on? Orcus hit don't even hurt you.

audioboxer · October 2016

sadus671 said:
Btw... there is another good defensive Companion. Sylph from Knight of the Feywild pack. 50% Resist to Control Effects. Has a noticeable effect on reducing stuns, etc.

Yeah that one is awesome, but we don't have it on PS4 (yet). I miss being able to pop unstoppable on my GWF to get out of roots instantly!

By the way I finally hit 70

Just finishing off the last portion of EE just now. My goodness I hate EE. Then it'll be dailies to get some more boons. I'll be happier jumping into tanking once I'm at an "inflated" GS and have more boons. I am around 2200 just now due to dusk head/feet/chest and some enchants taken from GWF. I'm not buying the Grazliaxx bundle again just for arm pieces, not with mod 10 on the horizon. We are forced to spend 1700 Zen for that bundle for dusk arms. They are not on the TB store like they are on PC IIRC.

Killing enemies is a lot slower than GWF, but hey, I'm unkillable

schietindebux · October 2016

dancing shield = 20% debuff
The debuff pushes effectiveness and 20% x 5 in a group is hard to beat. I run this companion in FBI at blue level, it´s not that annoying like yeti or other tankcompanions, who spot the boss 24/7
I bought a rust monster for debuff on top, next will be a pseudodragon.

Btw the best support in terms of tankyness was my angel of protection anyway, but I don´t use him any more, can´t tell why.
Just read those abilities, this is not to beat by any companion:
1.Protective Ward: Summoner takes 5% less damage.
-->this is huge and as far as I understand it bypasses your 80% DR cap on top
2.Ward: Angel of Protection wards you from harm when you take more than 5% of your Max Hit Points in damage, intercepting half of all incoming damage for 10 seconds. This may only take place every 60 seconds.
has a 60s cooldown.
-->Not much to say, hard to find anything compareable, would be interesting if the angel recasts that spell in case he dies and resurrects?
3. Angel's Touch: Heals the summoner for 6% of Max Hit Points.
has a 2.5s cooldown.
-->2.5 seconds CD? I did not find any healer who can top this
I got the battle field medic (12 sec CD) and apprentice healer (25 sec CD), wich is very inconsistent

Active Bonus: On Resurrection you are shielded for 10% of your total Hit Points.
Only problem is the delay of procing bondings, you need to get hurt first to start him casting, so be aware of the inital hit.

Some of the best companions in game are pretty cheap , sellsword 2 gold, dancing shield 300k AD, Angel of protection 100kAD

sadus671 · October 2016

schietindebux said:
dancing shield = 20% debuff
The debuff pushes effectiveness and 20% x 5 in a group is hard to beat. I run this companion in FBI at blue level, it´s not that annoying like yeti or other tankcompanions, who spot the boss 24/7
I bought a rust monster for debuff on top, next will be a pseudodragon.

Btw the best support in terms of tankyness was my angel of protection anyway, but I don´t use him any more, can´t tell why.
Just read those abilities, this is not to beat by any companion:
1.Protective Ward: Summoner takes 5% less damage.
-->this is huge and as far as I understand it bypasses your 80% DR cap on top
2.Ward: Angel of Protection wards you from harm when you take more than 5% of your Max Hit Points in damage, intercepting half of all incoming damage for 10 seconds. This may only take place every 60 seconds.
has a 60s cooldown.
-->Not much to say, hard to find anything compareable, would be interesting if the angel recasts that spell in case he dies and resurrects?
3. Angel's Touch: Heals the summoner for 6% of Max Hit Points.
has a 2.5s cooldown.
-->2.5 seconds CD? I did not find any healer who can top this
I got the battle field medic (12 sec CD) and apprentice healer (25 sec CD), wich is very inconsistent

Active Bonus: On Resurrection you are shielded for 10% of your total Hit Points.
Only problem is the delay of procing bondings, you need to get hurt first to start him casting, so be aware of the inital hit.

Some of the best companions in game are pretty cheap , sellsword 2 gold, dancing shield 300k AD, Angel of protection 100kAD

I believe I mentioned this before... are you sure the debuff from Dancing Shield stacks with the native GF at will (Tide of Iron)?

If it did, I don't think you'd see anyone not using it.

audioboxer · October 2016

sadus671 said:

schietindebux said:
dancing shield = 20% debuff
The debuff pushes effectiveness and 20% x 5 in a group is hard to beat. I run this companion in FBI at blue level, it´s not that annoying like yeti or other tankcompanions, who spot the boss 24/7
I bought a rust monster for debuff on top, next will be a pseudodragon.

Btw the best support in terms of tankyness was my angel of protection anyway, but I don´t use him any more, can´t tell why.
Just read those abilities, this is not to beat by any companion:
1.Protective Ward: Summoner takes 5% less damage.
-->this is huge and as far as I understand it bypasses your 80% DR cap on top
2.Ward: Angel of Protection wards you from harm when you take more than 5% of your Max Hit Points in damage, intercepting half of all incoming damage for 10 seconds. This may only take place every 60 seconds.
has a 60s cooldown.
-->Not much to say, hard to find anything compareable, would be interesting if the angel recasts that spell in case he dies and resurrects?
3. Angel's Touch: Heals the summoner for 6% of Max Hit Points.
has a 2.5s cooldown.
-->2.5 seconds CD? I did not find any healer who can top this
I got the battle field medic (12 sec CD) and apprentice healer (25 sec CD), wich is very inconsistent

Active Bonus: On Resurrection you are shielded for 10% of your total Hit Points.
Only problem is the delay of procing bondings, you need to get hurt first to start him casting, so be aware of the inital hit.

Some of the best companions in game are pretty cheap , sellsword 2 gold, dancing shield 300k AD, Angel of protection 100kAD
I believe I mentioned this before... are you sure the debuff from Dancing Shield stacks with the native GF at will (Tide of Iron)?

If it did, I don't think you'd see anyone not using it.

This is a good question, hope someone knows!

lirithiel · October 2016

audioboxer#8681 said:

sadus671 said:

schietindebux said:
dancing shield = 20% debuff
The debuff pushes effectiveness and 20% x 5 in a group is hard to beat. I run this companion in FBI at blue level, it´s not that annoying like yeti or other tankcompanions, who spot the boss 24/7
I bought a rust monster for debuff on top, next will be a pseudodragon.

Btw the best support in terms of tankyness was my angel of protection anyway, but I don´t use him any more, can´t tell why.
Just read those abilities, this is not to beat by any companion:
1.Protective Ward: Summoner takes 5% less damage.
-->this is huge and as far as I understand it bypasses your 80% DR cap on top
2.Ward: Angel of Protection wards you from harm when you take more than 5% of your Max Hit Points in damage, intercepting half of all incoming damage for 10 seconds. This may only take place every 60 seconds.
has a 60s cooldown.
-->Not much to say, hard to find anything compareable, would be interesting if the angel recasts that spell in case he dies and resurrects?
3. Angel's Touch: Heals the summoner for 6% of Max Hit Points.
has a 2.5s cooldown.
-->2.5 seconds CD? I did not find any healer who can top this
I got the battle field medic (12 sec CD) and apprentice healer (25 sec CD), wich is very inconsistent

Active Bonus: On Resurrection you are shielded for 10% of your total Hit Points.
Only problem is the delay of procing bondings, you need to get hurt first to start him casting, so be aware of the inital hit.

Some of the best companions in game are pretty cheap , sellsword 2 gold, dancing shield 300k AD, Angel of protection 100kAD
I believe I mentioned this before... are you sure the debuff from Dancing Shield stacks with the native GF at will (Tide of Iron)?

If it did, I don't think you'd see anyone not using it.

This is a good question, hope someone knows!

Tide of Iron is garbage now. It only affects you - I certainly don't use it anymore.

schietindebux · October 2016

sadus671 said:

schietindebux said:
dancing shield = 20% debuff
The debuff pushes effectiveness and 20% x 5 in a group is hard to beat. I run this companion in FBI at blue level, it´s not that annoying like yeti or other tankcompanions, who spot the boss 24/7
I bought a rust monster for debuff on top, next will be a pseudodragon.

Btw the best support in terms of tankyness was my angel of protection anyway, but I don´t use him any more, can´t tell why.
Just read those abilities, this is not to beat by any companion:
1.Protective Ward: Summoner takes 5% less damage.
-->this is huge and as far as I understand it bypasses your 80% DR cap on top
2.Ward: Angel of Protection wards you from harm when you take more than 5% of your Max Hit Points in damage, intercepting half of all incoming damage for 10 seconds. This may only take place every 60 seconds.
has a 60s cooldown.
-->Not much to say, hard to find anything compareable, would be interesting if the angel recasts that spell in case he dies and resurrects?
3. Angel's Touch: Heals the summoner for 6% of Max Hit Points.
has a 2.5s cooldown.
-->2.5 seconds CD? I did not find any healer who can top this
I got the battle field medic (12 sec CD) and apprentice healer (25 sec CD), wich is very inconsistent

Active Bonus: On Resurrection you are shielded for 10% of your total Hit Points.
Only problem is the delay of procing bondings, you need to get hurt first to start him casting, so be aware of the inital hit.

Some of the best companions in game are pretty cheap , sellsword 2 gold, dancing shield 300k AD, Angel of protection 100kAD
I believe I mentioned this before... are you sure the debuff from Dancing Shield stacks with the native GF at will (Tide of Iron)?

If it did, I don't think you'd see anyone not using it.

If you use the dancing shield, running ACT, your max. effectivness get´s a 20% boost, using sellsword 10% (works like 1 stack of HP-set I read)
I guess these debuffs work for the group (ask @thefabricant , his list about companion-buffs and -debuffs in NWO is not finished jet)

further debuffs are (as far as I remember from reading ACT two weeks ago):
Mark (8-10% effective for the group i guess, 20% for you)
Double mark from Threatening rush, did not check that weeks when i was IV.
ToI , guess 20% (only for you after patch), WMS debuffs 30%, so there is no need to run ToI except you are tactitian using surging tide and for the offhand feat gaining stamina.
plaguefire 8% , dread enchant 8%, terror 4% - for the hole group
Enhanced mark offhand feat 5%, no clue if that´s groupactive, I guess it is
crushing pin, 10% (for the group) but hard to keep up, only real option is guarded assault offhand feat in case you tank and use KV+ITF

sure I forgot some more

PS: did some ACT testing.
1.Using dancing shield 20%, Mark 10%, and enforced threat offhand feat 5%, I can push the effectiveness of my companion up to 135% (sometimes jump 140%). Using pure plagefire up to 145%.
Shields damageboost is for the hole group and it buffs also 5 companions on top.
Beside broken companions like owlbear cup and deamon doing insane damage slopes dancing shield is one of the best companions in NWO and obtainable for everyone from the start.

2. using mark, dancing shield, ToI, WMS, pplague and enforced threat offhand my effectivenss endsup at 225%

sadus671 · October 2016

@schietindebux

Thanks for the testing. That's great news. Bummer that it's 3 defensive slot.

It also has a slow attack for building Protector's Camaraderie, but 20% is hard to pass up

greyhawk · October 2016

The Dancing Shield may have a great debuff, but I'm with Forge... 3 Def slots is a deal breaker for me. Maybe GFs with lower ilvl or those not using Negation (why do GFs NOT use Negation?) Need those def slots?

Me? I'll take the lesser debuff from the Sellsword, and get much better stats from her 3 Off slots.

sadus671 · October 2016

The Dancing Shield may have a great debuff, but I'm with Forge... 3 Def slots is a deal breaker for me. Maybe GFs with lower ilvl or those not using Negation (why do GFs NOT use Negation?) Need those def slots?

Me? I'll take the lesser debuff from the Sellsword, and get much better stats from her 3 Off slots.

I could see Tac Spec. Since their Capstone still benefits from additional DR after 80%....

Also, you are not going to do any meaningful DPS as Tac or Prot... the loss of Power isn't that big of a hit I guess

There is a very rare alternative.

Ambush Drake, but those are pretty much all bound on PC and PS4/Xbox never got access to them.

It has a 20% debuff + 2 Offensive/ 1 Defensive.

I think I've only run into 1 or 2 people that actually have it. So in reality it's not an option.

greyhawk · October 2016

That's right, the ap gain portion of the Tact capstone depends on the DR of the GF right? I'd forgotten that. I don't know how you could test that, but I'd be surprised if having more than 80% DR made a huge difference in how much AP was gained.

I'd think those stat points would be better served spent elsewhere than stacking DR for just slightly more ap gain. HP's, Deflect, LS, or better yet more offensive stats would be better options I would think.

That's actually another reason that tact, and more so Prot, aren't as appealing any more... Past a certain ilvl the tankiness for the available content doesn't improve so much that one needs to gimp their dps/threat in order to do the job. I've read that even mid 3k Conqs are able to tank FBI, but I haven't seen it yet so not 100% sure. Some says it's best to have an op tank, and a GF for support which could be were Tactician shines. I hope that GFs are able to tank FBI fine, and those comments were more about maximising for speed runs.

Either way, there is some great companion discussion going on here. When I finally unlock FBI I plan to use the following companions:

1. Legendary Harper Bard, summoned. Not readily available on PC, so sub in any comp with a good debuff/buff. I like this one as he buffs the party some, and debuffs the bad guys some. And 2 Def slots means I can further tweak my offensive stats...
2. Green Bear Cub, for the Life Steal boost. Not sure how worthwhile it is to upgrade him, so I may think of doing that.
3. Epic Rust Monster, for the debuff. This one has another debuff when used as summoned, but I've read it's not great and doesn't make off for the ugly bug factor. IMO lol
4. Blue Dread Warrior, for the threat boost. This one is up for changing, as is the next one.
5. I'd probably use a dps companion, like my Air Archon, until I decided on a better option. If I used a summoned comp that attacked I might go with my blue Astral Deva, for the chance at more healing. Maybe I'll reread this thread for more ideas

Most of those I listed are not part of my normal setup, but until I'm comfortable with tanking the new content I'd focus on using tank-oriented comps with my Conq spec.

Good luck!

schietindebux · October 2016

greyhawk#1973 said:
That's right, the ap gain portion of the Tact capstone depends on the DR of the GF right? I'd forgotten that. I don't know how you could test that, but I'd be surprised if having more than 80% DR made a huge difference in how much AP was gained.

I'd think those stat points would be better served spent elsewhere than stacking DR for just slightly more ap gain. HP's, Deflect, LS, or better yet more offensive stats would be better options I would think.

That's actually another reason that tact, and more so Prot, aren't as appealing any more... Past a certain ilvl the tankiness for the available content doesn't improve so much that one needs to gimp their dps/threat in order to do the job. I've read that even mid 3k Conqs are able to tank FBI, but I haven't seen it yet so not 100% sure. Some says it's best to have an op tank, and a GF for support which could be were Tactician shines. I hope that GFs are able to tank FBI fine, and those comments were more about maximising for speed runs.

Either way, there is some great companion discussion going on here. When I finally unlock FBI I plan to use the following companions:

1. Legendary Harper Bard, summoned. Not readily available on PC, so sub in any comp with a good debuff/buff. I like this one as he buffs the party some, and debuffs the bad guys some. And 2 Def slots means I can further tweak my offensive stats...

2. Green Bear Cub, for the Life Steal boost. Not sure how worthwhile it is to upgrade him, so I may think of doing that.

3. Epic Rust Monster, for the debuff. This one has another debuff when used as summoned, but I've read it's not great and doesn't make off for the ugly bug factor. IMO lol

4. Blue Dread Warrior, for the threat boost. This one is up for changing, as is the next one.

5. I'd probably use a dps companion, like my Air Archon, until I decided on a better option. If I used a summoned comp that attacked I might go with my blue Astral Deva, for the chance at more healing. Maybe I'll reread this thread for more ideas

Most of those I listed are not part of my normal setup, but until I'm comfortable with tanking the new content I'd focus on using tank-oriented comps with my Conq spec.

Good luck!

I don´t use my T negation because the stacks are some how inconsistent and sometimes you ´don´t get above 4 stacks (let´s say at Orcus).
I did not check at FBI my stacks but it´s the same problem. Take the frist boss, the moment he lifts in the air your stcks run out , the moment he lands you are at , let´s say 60% DR...that´s no option to play that dungeon because my GF will die the moment I run KV and my group gets a big swap of frostdamage.

lirithiel · October 2016

So I finally joined a guild with my GF and now have access to the Defense boon. My DR was about 70% so I swapped out Azures for Radiants in defensive slots for more HP - mine was rather low and probably still is (127k). I still haven't reached the magical 80%-mark and could decide to pursue the Dancing Shield for the debuff. I'm running with a blue Dread Warrior as summoned atm but his immense size puts me off as a Dwarf.

schietindebux · October 2016

greyhawk#1973 said:
The Dancing Shield may have a great debuff, but I'm with Forge... 3 Def slots is a deal breaker for me. Maybe GFs with lower ilvl or those not using Negation (why do GFs NOT use Negation?) Need those def slots?

Me? I'll take the lesser debuff from the Sellsword, and get much better stats from her 3 Off slots.

The disadvantage of 3 def slots is not a disadvantage in my eyes...and the debuff is hard to beat in terms of group dps.
Atm I got 3 belts slottet in that Dancing Shield, loyal avenger, commander and the Defender. I specced all boons defensive.
I don´t rely on my T Negation enchant, too inconsistent imo, too slow to stack, so I run soulforged. I need to stack real 80% DR, wich is obtainable using 3x rank 12 bondings, you can finetune your setup chosing offensive boons instead of defensive ones, in case you get far above the DR cap, or I kick that defender belt, those belts are no good choice anyway, commander and avenger are far better.
The defensive slots (3xloyal belts) are slotted with 2x silver and 1 x dark enchant, so I get some needed deflect and lifesteal.
Grinding is easy mode anyway, everything dies in seconds, also for a Tactition GF.
In the end you don´t loose much, only thing I miss sometimes is the benefit of a healing companion... but tbh. if you drop your shield at the wrong moment or lagg facing orcus or turtle you die, no matter if your healing companion is summoned or not.
Lately I checked that Angel of protection in FBI, great buffs but that lazy, stupid Angel just don´t proc bondings.

greyhawk · October 2016

Good point about slow attacking bosses not stacking Negation quick enough. Or stacks dropping off.. I probably out gear the current content and can't track stacks easily on Xbox, but that's great feedback.

I have some mythic artifacts with defense, and the Harper Bard has 2 def slots so I should be able to hit 80% with guild boon easily enough. I may throw a lesser soulforged in my bags for when I can't hit the cap without needing to worry about those issues with Negation.

That's not an option for all, so the fully Defense oriented companions are very useful.

Or I could try to get a boatload more Defense from companions gift, and tweak my gear for more hit points.. lots of options.

Thanks

[PS4] Best active companion for tanking?

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