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T9G as GF tank
manipulos
Member Posts: 235 Arc User
I've attempted Tomb of the Nine Gods a few times with some guildmates recently and we could not get past Orcus. All of us were 12.5K-13K item level range so we knew it would tough so we didn't have any hard feelings. The thing that is bugging me though is that I did not feel useful in that fight on my GF tactician tank. Yes ITF and KV were helpful, but I can't keep Orcus focused on me and stop him from spinning around and attacking everyone seemingly at random. I can't do enough damage to be helpful in that regard, and there's no way I can take the temp hit point shield and absorb all the balls and keep up Knights Valor. I ended up being on "zombie duty" but I wasn't great at that being limited to Enforced Threat and weapon masters strike as my only AoE's. Villian's Menace or my shield do not stop me from getting knocked backwards into the water. So do most GF's just gear up for dps at endgame? Because that's about the only way I felt like I would have been helpful in that fight.
So should I give up tactician tanking at "endgame" and drop the millions of AD that it will take me to get dps companions, artifacts, enchants, etc.? Typical Neverwinter solution to everything seems like MORE DPS 100% of the time.
Kinda funny side note, one of our guildies that I don't run dungeons with often because he is typically on a different schedule was with us last night on his DC. When we were discussing strategy and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do for the next attempt he said "I only ever see dps gfs tbh lol".
So should I give up tactician tanking at "endgame" and drop the millions of AD that it will take me to get dps companions, artifacts, enchants, etc.? Typical Neverwinter solution to everything seems like MORE DPS 100% of the time.
Kinda funny side note, one of our guildies that I don't run dungeons with often because he is typically on a different schedule was with us last night on his DC. When we were discussing strategy and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do for the next attempt he said "I only ever see dps gfs tbh lol".
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I would actually hand it off to one of your teammates (preferably, one who has good speed and is paying attention). This way, you can focus on keeping the aggro on you, rather than have to pray your teammates don't die when you run off to deal with the balls. You CANNOT take the AoE curse on a tank, ever (and AoE curse is useless, zombies die quickly with or without the curse). Aggro is partially derived from damage, and the AoE curse causes you to deal halved damage to Orcus, and in turn, generate less aggro on Orcus. Also remember to up your ArmPen up to 85% so you deal full damage to Orcus.
By the way, I did solotank T9G a few times, although I was running in doubleDC teams most of the time with 2x DPS or 1x DPS + 1x MoF debuffer.
On Orcus in particular, I didn't really struggle to keep aggro, although there were a few times I lost it, as I was using the old SH weapons. If you continue to struggle, try using Enhanced Mark to up your aggro generation (yes, you might need to give up Steel Grace speed, Steel Defense breathing room, or Guarded Assault placing Crushing pin, but imo keeping and holding aggro is most important). That is intentional, no matter what GF spec you are. I believe it also blows you away even if you're a GWF in Unstoppable, so in line with the other cheating CCs in this game, you must dodge it. Well... to be fair, the reason why many GFs turned DPS is because Tactician does not scale with gear (you can also make a choice that it scales POORLY with gear because lol Martial Mastery). Sure, you can keep up ITF, but the potency of our buffs (ITF) isn't tied to gear. You could buff as well as a fresh level 70 Tactician as you can with a BiS Tactician GF.
So, there comes a point where adding gear becomes near pointless for the effectiveness of a Tactician build. Your ITF is off cooldown practically 24/7 and you can fire off dailies without hesitation, so why should I spend 20 million AD for an extra 4000 Recovery from enchants/mount for a little faster ITF time?
But DPS GF? Gear is almost always a useful addition, and burning down a boss quickly is a more noticeable effect than occasional AP refills or a 6.5% buff to ITF.
Ultimately, it is your choice on whether you wish to run DPS GF. It does help for dailies and in carrying poor runs, but whether the style is a fit for you is a different story.
I would still hold on to your Tactician gear, as you never know when you need/want to play pocket bufftank.
Also, you should probably use Commanders Strike during that fight to buff the dps cursed person, even if you're a dps tank.
If you're doing things wrong though, no spec will make a difference. Picking zombie or hp curse as the only tank is doing things wrong. HP curse should in that case go to the person who ideally gets hit least and zombie curse should go to the person with least dps in general.
I know 100% for sure that I've had my shield up and still been pushed all the way back into the water multiple times, but I will try the walking forward thing and see how that works. However depending on where Orcus was standing the distance of the push was not always far enough to dunk me. Maybe your shield is better than mine
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
I didn't mean to be condescending, but there is a certain design to boss fights and certain mechanics devs create for people to follow, following those makes fights much easier. Not following them is what I mean by "doing things wrong".
Sure it is possible keep aggro with zombie curse or tank the boss while you have the hp curse, but that means you will have to compensate for ignoring that mechanic in some other way, like melting boss so fast that hp curse doesnt run out anyway. Not all parties have such luxury though, so it is generally good practice to "do things right".
There is nothing to feel bad about not knowing what to do at first though. It took me several runs to figure out all the mechanics myself, maybe there are still some I dont know.
avoid the red stuff on the floor!
Worst case scenario you fail and get hit by pushback aoe thing, and you will loose aggro, if this happens just get back into position as quickly as possible while spamming Mark /tab and he will come back to you.
Every other mechanic for this fight is not for the tank, so for once u don't have to be the one at fault!
GF forums always has the best people that's for sure!
I noticed that during last boss fight I get damaged a lot when souls appear. Even with holding my shield and avoiding red areas, I don't even know what hits me.
Any tips for this fight? I'm usually running KV-ITF-CS with enhanced mark with offhand bonus and steel defense, 13.5k tactician.
Also, any tips for companion during this run? I'm still running with Dancing Shield, but don't know if it's still good after debuff rework.
When the souls appear you're most certainly facing the boss and the souls are behind you. So what I made (and paid for it dearly on a couple occasions) was turning around and trying to mark the souls to get the team better chance of taking them down asap. This of course exposed my back to the huge hits from the boss resulting in swift and ugly death
Generally speaking there are many sources of damage and hits can be really deadly, OP's have an easiest time to stay alive due to the fact they're not taking KV hit's and their shielding mechanics which is superior to our's.
For the companion I would stick with the Dancing fella, since you can't really have a better alternative with the defensive slots and the debuff it provides.
I would use Guarded Assault on the off hand to give you a way to apply Crushing Pin. You shouldn't have any issues making the ugly face targeting you anyway.
On the topic of Pallys, I recently made some work on my alt (I know I said I will never do this but...). Tried some dungeons with normal bondings, absolutely no boons (apart from Guild ones, lvl 20) and it was a breeze.
Tanking as a Palladin is a completely different story, so SO much easier.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
I also think it's easier and thus the question - are GFs still the class for tanking? It feels for me like pally is a hot new chick in the class and GF is the Ugly Betty of Neverwinter. We can't powershare and I think we're not on par with Pally when it comes to endgame content.
I'm capable of tanking tong. No prob for me, but people prefer OP because of synergy and because he's more reliable with tones of temp HP.
As for the last boss fight - yes, sometimes I try to mark souls for debuff or even use CS on them. For crushing pin I use the new ring from Fang of Dendar hunt. According to @rjc9000 guide it helps with crushing pin.
As you said, you're still able to tank TONG so I would be far from shelving a GF (I'm not even close to do it myself).
Ring of the Curse Bringer is a thing, yes but it's limited to your attacks and we're not doing it too fast. Anyway I find GA on the off hand a better way to spread the Pin. I'm guilty of being lazy as well
GF is a great class and it has a place in the team alongside of a Pally. Looking at the new patronage System coming with mod 12b I'm even more eager to rank up my infant Mace wielder.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
@wizardlvl80#5963 The boss always does flaming sword attack when the souls are spawning, chances are that massive hit is coming from its DoT. If your cleric doesn't have cleanse, that is a good time to pop up your Fighter's Recovery.
The open world and soloing really seems to belong to the GF
Right now this particular dungeon seems way easier for the OP. We are trying to figure out how to get our GF brethren through this dungeon just as easily - seems there is a trick to the first boss we haven't figured out yet, but we fully expect the second boss to be easier for the GF.
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
I still use it, since it's the better of two meh options: stat inflation, or a small chance to place Crushing Pin.
Also, I think GF are still wanted as tanks, even though our tanking isn't as easy or as strong as OP. However, most of the time, I don't think many teams can be so picky about which tank to bring, since the available tanks for hire tend to be small...
Tier1s/Tiers2s are fairly easy with most teams, so whether you bring GF or OP doesn't really matter there.
FBI got power-creeped to be somewhat similar: I don't really notice too much of a difference tanking on GF or OP, the only difference comes in how the tank synergizes with the deeps. Back in Mod10, OP had it easier due to Templars affording much more mistakes.
I would say SP is much easier to tank and protect teammates with GF (and much more fun imo) due to KV being better at mitigating constant incoming damage.
OP has it easier in Svardborg and T9G due to Templar's Wrath being much better at absorbing high spikes of damage. Another advantage is that high TempHP means that, they don't need to worry about stupid hitbox issues and can just use high TempHP to facetank a few gimmicks.
For GF as a solotank, you have to be on your guard... in both senses. If your shield is not pointed towards your enemies, you will generally die. And, if you are not paying attention to what enemy attacks are coming at you, you will also die.
See: Kemi's example of getting rekt by 3rd boss overhead when he tried to deal with the Souls
(Note that the shield actually blocks an area a little wider than 180 degrees, it's probably more around 200-240 degrees. So if you wanted to, you could try to cleverly position yourself so you're blocking with the last few degrees, while being able to mark the souls...)
Steel Defense is literally useless here, the boss' red areas will flat out ignore any form of invulnerability.
A Dancing Shield is still the prime pet here, since it still has the strongest debuff of any companion. The faster you burn the boss, the less time you have to make mistakes.
The only thing you need to be careful for is when your companions derp and fall off the arena. That one is luck based, so you might want to prepare some extra sacrifices to RNGezus.
Also, liberally use fighter's Recovery!!!!! Especially if you run a setup with Guarded Assault and Jagged Blades. Toss a few attacks on the boss, use FR, shield attacks, repeat.
I haven't seen many dwarf GF in a long time. Dragonborn are much more common and quite large.
As for OP, I'm afraid the nerf crusade against GF will leave the class in a bad spot. Think about it, all the GF has on the OP is personal dps (if specced conqueror), take that away and the OP is better at pretty much everything: far better survability, power sharing, is able to hpds and even heals. If GF gets to lose a lot of its damage it would need to buff noticeably better than OP so there's a good balance between those classes, there isn't any way a GF could even get remotely close to the tankiness a paladin can have.
As for T9G, I pretty much second what has been stated before with a tac loadout: guarded assault, fighter's recovery, dancing shield, KV and I also run Valhalla set, trans fey, trans negation, like 12% -14% lifesteal, 220k - 240k hp plus hitpoints and also keep an eye on powersharing stuff to hit my shepherd's devotion when it can benefit the group the most. It is much easier to stay alive as tac for sure, I remember I stripped my SW from her brutals to run my GF in T9G by first time with a group I don't know and I got instakilled a few times (being a first time didn't help lol)
It's harder, it's less forgiving and due to those two it's more satisfying. Back in the day when I made my OP just to take a grasp at the class, the thing that hit me the most is that OP's shield is....exactly why is it even there? (apart from using it as an umbrella).
GF's use the shield to protect them, OP's have tempHP. So I was so used to press Shift when I saw a hit coming or when I was standing in RED, I was constantly baffled while playing an OP. This was of course back when I had 0% knowledge about the class. I'd say now my lvl is closer to...5%
We will see how will the "crusade" end. I hope dev's will not rekt the class since we really do not need to cripple the class seeing how few of us actually play the game.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
Also, on overloads, do guild undead or demonic wards work, or is he Yuan-ti and better to go basic like lesser black ice? Didn't really have a problem until last boss, and the damage resist shredding. Changing up some mount abilities too.
Aren't many, that's for sure.
As for speed, I usually just tap the movement keys a few times in the direction(s) I need to go whenever I need small, precise movements. Otherwise, you could take off Steel Grace and/or Gladiator's Guile if you really need to control your movements.
> Anyone know if mark works on 2nd boss when he still ahs bubble up, which is most of the fight? I've had people tell me Commander strike not good in there because you can't see the mark. But seems the damage is still giving combat advantage. But not sure
Yes, it works as intended although visuals are still broken. You can safely use CS.
GF lacks in temp HP though. From my pov the DO DC or the templock ot the buffer-GF takes that balls.
I swapped my enchants from my main over to my GF and by that have to shuffle a lot of stuff I bought (rustmonster, Chicken, Dancing shield, cockatrice) and gear up for a dps spec, since I can´t see a lot arguments to stay maintank inside that dungeon, after gearing up my OP...
It hurts since it took me some effort to run that tank spec. But tbh I witnessed no GF tanking inside that dungeon and doing compareable good as OP does without much effort or skill needed till now.
Far >90% of GF´s I met run a supporter spec, and the ones that run beside a prot OP can´t be considered to actually tank those bosses.
The GF´s I run with so far as solo tank, gave up at last boss or earlier, even runnning with 2 DC´s and a templock for instant heal, sadly.
Maybe I meat the wrong GF´s, but since every OP solved that dungeon till now, it has to be more than only bad gameplay.
OP is sooo much easier, running x mio temp HP, Vow on the boss generates autoaggro all time. The class itself can be build as a striker, no need to spend much efforts in defensive gear and stats from what I experience atm.
If he starts melee clubbing people or using his sweep attack on other players, then I would be concerned, but if he is just using Finger of Death and the Cone attack on your allies, you likely still have aggro.
Signature [WIP] - tyvm John
Seems like the Developers are focused on taking away everything the gf does as a tank... AOE push back that can't be resisted... hmm I have a great dodge that can get me outta the red... no wait they gave me shield so I don't have too dodge .... wait that don't work... hmm
How about a boss that shreds nearly all dmg resist ... good thing I have massive temp hp's oh wait... thats my OP...
Guess my GF is going to be a buff/DPS from here on out and my OP will be doing the heavy lifting as a tank.
Last time I fought Orcus in T9G I did have a better time using my shield I must say. My friend was tanking AND absorbing the death balls with his OP tank so I was on zombie duty and running KV and keeping Orcus busy when the OP was running to the balls. It worked well, I was getting knocked back a much shorter distance. I guess it was just user error on my part the first X amount of tries against Orcus...I don't know.
The last boss shredding defense really is icing on the cake right? It's not like you can just get out of the red, if the souls are standing in the red you have to just eat the debuff because you only have what feels like 5 seconds to kill those souls.
I agree with what you said.
Generally, I think TotNG strogly favours Op class ,its mechanics that were designed to challenge the Defender classes,have minimal effect on Op while they are devastating to a GF.
1.The Wraiths daze can kill a GF ,since Gf is helpless with out block yet a Wraith will take a lot more time to kill an Op cause of temp HP.
2.Ran Si is quite small for a boss: and has large AoE attacks.DPS classes tend to get in Gfs way .If two of them get the overhand IBS of the boss,Gf is killed by KV.
3.GF defense mechanism -Block-is action based.And provides only frontal /side protection when it is activated.In the ghosts phase,GF is in the middle of atacks:By Ran Si and the ghosts.Gf needs to face the ghosts to mark and to use Commader Strike .That means he is vulnerable against Ran Si or more usually to the DPS or the cleric (more often) that do not paying attention to Ran Si at that phase and get a hit,and through KV get GF in trouble.
4.ToNG has the "unavoidable damage " idea in its design.Sounds great ,but NW has two defender classes.One has around 170-230k hp and the other has 1+ milion plus.
5.Ran Si shreds defense-primary stat of a GF- but not HP ,primary stat of an OP.
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That are my thoughts considering the toNg design.It is a catastrophe for Gfs.
I do not say that cannot be done.I have done it 4-5 times as solo tank with success.But requires a lot more attantion than to play an OP.
I hope devs in next dungeon design to make the boss a little bit taller and attacks to come only by one direction.