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A Guardian Fighter tank/tank build.
demonsunder
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 243 Bounty Hunter
Updated to new thread because of significant changes
Post edited by demonsunder on
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I like to read about any defensive tank builds.
Thats how I want to play a tank.
I noticed u did not place every single ability points
to Str, Con and Dex, like everyone else.
I find this interesting too.
I chose a more diverse stat roll because of the HP scaling, I value more Str (Higher Guard meter over a little more Hp, yes this means less power and less temp hp for my party But I feel the added Guard is better), Dex is good especially since the deflection calulation is taken after the defensive calculation, so Dam taken -> Defence Reduction -> parry roll, But its very easy to cap 2k is very little and I don't find it worthwhile to just bump high with base stats (if you spend alot of pts in dex you could get 30% Deflect), you need the HP and the STR for your guard.
Here is a few things that need to be added to your guide for completeness sake in no particular order since I'm posting from a phone.
1. Which feats would you take as a non human
2. Dwarf vs Humans on starting stats (For your build Dwarf seems much better)
3. Why not Knight's Challenge
4. Put some numbers up so people can compare your build to others. eg. Damage Reduction %, Deflection, Recovery, Power, Life steal.
5. Do you find that much recovery is necessary?
6. How does not having BIS affect this build. (Probably the most important aspect with the coming BOP patch)
7. Some nice color formatting for the different sections please.
My Opinion:
I've actually tried a build like this after my free respect and to I have to be honest it hurt my play group much more than it helped. It felt too much like the old tank and spank of a stand still tank mentality that has no place in this game. My DPS suffered and to be honest I had less control that I did before. I will admit my surviveability and pot use was down but at too great a cost in other aspects.
2. Added
3. Too long a cooldown for the effect, its a great ability for a dps guardian but a tank guardian doesn't need it, If I want aggro I can take it though enforced threat + aggravating strike (shift left click) the ability to take 1/2 damage is nice but again the cd is too long and with only 3 encounter slots its best left to DPS tank's
4. Will do, still optimising stats's and taking this slow, I am personally testing everything to double check info (I found alot of erroneous data and assumptions) and I haven't listed items yet working on a BiS list for this build
5. from testing yes and no, yes it helps with threat generation and no because of current itemization still working on final number's
6. The build scales well I can actually tank using it in random gear/non-set the threat generation is huge the gear only affects your surviability, but more to come.
7. Good idea will make it easier to read.
Reply to My Opinion:
It really depends on your group, and if your standing still to tank your doing it wrong the ability to massively increase your groups survivability makes dungeon running much, much smoother I won't post damage meter screenshot because its way to easy to pad your number's but I take on AVG 3 - 4 times more damage than the rest of my group and thats with insane damage reduction (sitting atm at 58%. I am surprised at lack on control issues, because with this build I can basically put any mobs anywhere I want it though the use of line of sight (if there's obstacle's) or rounding them up (grouping them or flipping line attack mobs away from the party) I admit your DPS will suffer, you will most likely come last in dps but I find that a full tank guardian is a huge asset in a 5 man group, being able to direct the damage away from your party and provide a damage soak is key. It all comes down to what you enjoy though, if you don't enjoy it, it just wont work well.
1) I just don't like using knight valor, it tends to get me killed and threat is not an issue for me, my party doesn't die unless they stay in AoE which is suicidal to use knight valor to help them for. But if you can make it works, that's great. I just prefer the mobility and bonus AP generation for my party from into the fray, i feel since i'm tanking they shouldn't take damage unless they sit in AoE, the mobility should help them. Furthermore, being more mobile make dodging possible for ourselves, i don't really turtle. That said Iron warrior is viable too, but the cooldown is too long for me, and it's at best situationally very good. So normally i play with 3 of those 5 powers depending on the encounter and group composition: Lunging strike, enforced threat, into the fray, frontline surge, iron warrior.
2) Since frontline surge has been mentioned being unfriendly for melee dps, i'll just say that this encounter is great for 4 reasons:
-AP generation
-quick interrupt
-can save life (including your) with a good moderate range when you can't really charge or turn a mob you tank.
-Reposition mobs.
Of course it could make melee dps encounter to be wasted, but it's more an issue of not using it for simple dps. I normally use it as an opener, or to stun the mobs not currently dpsed or just before the last second of Arcane Singularity or because i might die if not. I rarely annoy melee dps stunning for fun.
3) I don't feel going deep in protector actually give so more survival. I just prefer the efficiency of cleave radius and damage too, so then i specced 21 conqueror/10 protector, i do 90 degree rotation around single mob to dodge attack, or just cleave 3 times, block few seconds, rinse, repeat for group of adds. I find myself front tanking more often than blocking and the animation of stab is so buggy and slow, often i can't dodge AoE because i did a front step (god wth with that front step), caught in the animation and i just can't avoid it. I block when i wait an encounter and damage receive is high, or when Astral shield is over and I'm crowded. The capstone of protector is ok, but it doesn't get applied by aggravating strike and really it's not useful except for bosses, everything else will die quickly and bosses are not hard to block. I tested it, and i was not clearly feeling it was doing a noticeable difference, i feel the damage reduction is not additive it's multiplicative, so it's not a lot. The mobs strike with 10% less damage, then you reduce the hit by your damage reduction. It's not like the mob strikes you and you reduce the hit by 10%+your damage reduction. I feel that if the hit is for 3000 you take (-10%) 2700 (-45%) 1485 vs 3000 (-45%) 1650 not 3000 (-10%+45%) 1350.
So it's roughly a 5% damage reduction, when you hit 5 times the mob excluding the stab (aggravating strike) and you need to refresh the buff each 6 seconds to benefit of it and you will be losing 5% bonus damage + 15% cleave damage + 100% power... idk, i don't feel it's that necessary, used often enough and noticeable for a capstone feat, which is sad i would really like to get out of the conqueror path. It's not because being tank is not necessary it's just because Protector feats are really not that great, i wish we had a more solid capstone. I wish it would make you way much more tanky to actually be the spec needed to main tank, but the gains are so small, you can actually playing full tank without caring for your dps without it. At the end, it's the playstyle not the all the protector feats that make you a full tank.
4) Speaking of feat i actually like ubiquitous shield, yes it's been said it's 25% of the combat advantage bonus damage, not the full number. And some observations said mobs have around 15% combat advantage bonus, so it's only 3,75% damage reduction, But it's 3,75% when you need it, 3,75% of a 10k+combat advantage strike it's maybe only 437 dmg, but i was willing to sacrifice without any regret 3% crit (crit is far from our priority, if you want more damage get some power/armor pen, it's not like we will use vorpal), 1 point in grit (40 sec or 50 sec i don't remember is just too long and pointless, for maybe few seconds of +15% damage and every cleric uses sacred flame + i use into the fray.) and 1 point in potent challenge (seriously, threat wasn't that bad pre-patch, only the cleric was too high, i wasn't loosing threat from most rogue/wizard, now everything sticks on me, and i sometimes forget to use enhanced mark for a whole instance without realizing it). Plus, i'm pretty confident by observation some mobs has way higher than 15% combat advantage bonus, i suspect certain type of mobs like spiders, wolves and kobold actually hit harder with combat advantage (or maybe it's just me imagining it because they do in the tabletop game). Oh, i know it's not a PvP build, but combat advantage seems to be more destructive than simply 15% bonus dmg when it's from a TR.
4) The topic i'm the more interested in your guide are the armor/weapon enchant, thank you for the feedback, that is very interesting, great guide. Keep it up!
What I was really hoping to see from your build was a huge increase in the damage reduction but it isn't that big a boost over conqs and your DPS is way down. Trash and mini bosses are a joke really. When they retune the feats this spec will probably see a big buff but right now that loss of DPS is costing you in the only place it matters and that is DPS on the end boss of a instance. Or in saying this do you not tank the actual bosses?
But...... where?