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Belwar's tank build- for Orders of the Nine guildies
jrdaddyttro
Member Posts: 13 Arc User
EDIT
New Build after changes with Feywild
This is the new build, gear enchantments and all, that I now use to tank endgame. The major changes are for the following reasons: Firstly, the sheer amount of damage dealt by all the mobs in malabog, especially if you have a group with less than stellar dps, is quite impressive, and far outstrips anything else encountered in the game, except maybe moments of being stunned in spellplague and dread vault. For this reason, and the nerf to its AP generation, I removed Knight Valor from my rotation and replaced it with frontline surge. I also removed both my chest enchantment, bloodtheft, and my weapon enchantment, lifedrinker, and replaced them with enchants to reduce the amount of damage i take overall. For armor this is the new Barkshield enchantment, currently i'm wearing a lesser, and for weapon this is a feytouched enchantment, currently i'm wearing a regular. The feytouched only goes off on encounter powers, so by using my frontline surge once every 20 seconds i ensure the maximum uptime of my feytouched on up to 3 enemies.
Gear:
My gear remains pretty consistent, I finally got an ioun stone, so i have more stats room to play around with, which is nice.
I did however replace one of my defense slots with a greater tranquil enchantment. Many people say they don't work, i've seen it appear in my log quite a few times, so i like them haha.
Feats:
3/3 strength focus
2/3 toughness
3/3 shielded resurgence (New addition to my tree- heals even when you block the CC)
5/5 Distracting shield
3/3 Armor Specialization
3/3 potent challenge
1/3 grit
0 points in the last tier of heroic feats.
5/5 armor of bahamut ( new addition to my tree- was always a good talent, now i have room from dropping KV's enhancement feat)
5/5 Plate agility
5/5 shield defense
5/5 shield master
5/5 balanced shield fighter
5/5 overwhelming impact
1/1 iron guard
Powers:
3/3 cleave
3/3 tide of iron(right click at will)
3/3 lunging strike
1/3 villian's menace
3/3 shield talent (first passive)
3/3 enforced threat
3/3 griffons wrath
3/3 fighter's recovery
3/3 terrifying impact(second daily- new addition to the rotation- good for interrupting large groups of enemies in MC- still use supremacy of steel more often)
3/3 enhanced mark(second passive)
3/3 guarded assault
3/3 crushing surge (took it just to try it out- still pretty bad)
3/3 anvil of doom
3/3 frontline surge (my middle encounter, very useful for peeling agro off healer, and for applying feytouched and getting a few enemies off your back)
3/3 threatening rush (left click at will)
3/3 into the fray (my right encounter)
3/3 supremacy of steel (first daily)
3/3 iron warrior (left encounter)
3/3 knights valor (still use it in lower level instances)
3/3 bull charge
3/3 indomitable strength
Rotation:
I use Into the fray while running into combat, use threatning rush to close the distance and apply marks, then use frontline surge to apply feytouched and put the more threatening enemies prone. continue to threatening rush and shield stab to gain agro- when agro is established used into the fray again and iron warrior to maintain shield and just keep stabbing and shield bashing. Use supremacy of steel to apply debuff to large group of enemies, or terrifying impact to apply debuff to enemies in a line and knock them prone to interupt attacks and make it easier to ensure agro.
Thats it for the major changes in this build!
Thanks a lot- the old build is below for reference purposes.
Old Build for reference
Below I'm going to lay out my endgame tanking build, i'll explain if i believe something is an integral part of the build. Anything that i haven't gone into specifically therefore can be changed to whatever fits your playstyle best. By no means follow this build directly, every player is different and what makes me my best tank will not necessarily be true for you.
Gear:
I use both the indomitable champion set (for bosses that i need to kite) and the grand regent set (for everything else)
both are slotted with recovery/deflection gems
my enchants are lifedrinker and bloodtheft. I play without a taunt, as will be described below, and these two help to ensure i have a constant aoe threat going.
I use the ancient main-hand and off-hand. As its downright the best, and its set bonus stacks well with grand regents set bonus.
I have 2 sets of rings and necks, one for normal tanking situations, i use ancient brawler necklace and ancient priests rings, and one for kiting situations, i use the hrimnir set.
Feats:
3/3 strength focus: obvious choice- increases guard bar
3/3 toughness: obvious again
5/5 distracting shield: part of staying alive is making sure your shield stays up- this helps with that a lot.
3/3 armor specialization: obvious again
1/3 grit: clerics get a bonus % added to their heals if their target has temporary hp- it doesn't matter the amount. I put 1 in this to simply give the cleric that buff more often, but don't waste more than 1 point in it.
3/3 potent challenge: I play without a taunt- so this helps a lot with my aoe threat.
2/5 ubiquitous shield: a 10% reduction is enough to help mitigate any accidental, or necessary, hits from behind. But the other 3 points are better used elsewhere.
Protector Feats:
5/5 plate agility: obvious
5/5 shield defense: obvious
5/5 shield master: as i said above, part of the key to staying alive in the brutal endgame tanking situations is making sure you have your shield when you need it- this again helps a ton.
5/5 Brawling warrior: this increases the utility of a core ability of my rotation adding mitigation to my 2 other skills that mitigate while i'm blocking- allowing me to use knights valor to block incredible amounts of damage. the buff to enforced threat is a side benefit for me- since i usually don't play with it. However, if i'm kiting i do have it on my bar, and this buff makes holding agro in kiting situations just a little easier which is nice.
5/5 balanced shield fighter: useful for adding threat with your blocking at-wills when you have a chance- also good for 1 on 1 tanking
5/5 overwhelming impact: I use supremacy of steel constantly- it is essentially the taunt for my build. I'll explain more below.
1/1 iron guard: helps keep the damage down, to keep your shields up.
Powers:
3/3 cleave
3/3 tide of iron (my right click at will)
3/3 lunging strike
3/3 villians menace
3/3 shield talent (my first passive)
3/3 enforced threat (use it in kiting situations)
3/3 griffons wrath
3/3 fighter's recovery (use it only with bad healers)
1/3 knee breaker
3/3 enhanced mark (my second passive)
3/3 guarded assault
3/3 knights challenge
3/3 frontline surge
3/3 ferocious reaction
3/3 threatening rush (my left click at will)
3/3 into the fray (in my final rotation- its my r)
3/3 supremacy of steel (my first daily)
3/3 iron warrior (in my final rotation- its my q)
3/3 knights valor (in my final rotation- its my e)
3/3 bull charge (use it to push in applicable situations- replaces iron warrior in those situations)
3/3 Indomitable strength (use it to push in applicable situations- my second daily)
Rotation:
I blow Into The Fray as i'm running up to enemies, i Threatening Rush repeatedly as soon as i'm in range to get as many enemies marked as quickly as possible. i then use Supremacy of Steel, immediately followed by Knight's Valor and Iron Warrior. As soon as Knight's Valor's buff countdown reaches 3 or 2 i use sepremacy of steel again- to get the double wave of blades hitting all enemies around me, and blow into the fray again. At this point your daily should come back up and be ready for the entire rotation again as soon as knights valor is back off cooldown.
That's basically everything! Hope ya like it.
Post edited by jrdaddyttro on
0
Comments
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
Thanks for posting your build. Do you have a particular stat recommendation for it?
Correct.
my current stats are:
2,442 power: +97.7
1,266 recovery: 11%
5197 defense: 38%
3,333 deflect: 20.7%
781 regeneration: 6.4%
450 movement: 3.4%
this works out to total defense stats of:
protection: 9,070
damage resistance: 51.5%
deflection chance: 28.2%
and yes- while the defense softcap is way lower than my current defense values- it still has some effect on total reduction values- and gives plenty of power to compensate for the deminishing returns
I slot everything recovery and deflection, as they're the two most useful stats that are on the low end total point wise- meaning point for point they'll be more useful than basically anything else you could slot. Theres a decent arguement to be made for +hp gems. But i slot them only into my indomitable champion set- as that set already has a lot of +hp and i can really capitalize on the huge health pools
Thanks for that information. I was wondering in particular about which starting stats would work well. Since that's the only thing that can't really be changed later on it would be a bother to mess those up.
Was wondering exactly what you meant.
i rolled until i have all 10's in my offslots-
and then put every level into con and strength
my 60- non-campfire stats are
24 str
24 con
14 dex
12 int
12 wis
12 cha
I see that you do not have any aoe damge power. Instead, you use Kinghts Valor to build threat of all mobs, right? Don't you suffer too much damage using KV in your rotation?
Jo Khon El, Potionholic Cleric of Torm.
Odalas, Shield on the run.
The only thing that will bring a bright side to deflection in tanking is one of the final feat you can get with boons called "Fey thistle" (reflect 400 damage when you deflect).
Deflection isn't boosted that much as GF while GWF can get more than 20% with feats/class features so it's very secondary for us. We just need basic pieces stats and diminushing returns hit very soon ! We are enough struck by Defense diminushing returns to let an other stats screw us in the same way. ^^
I'm at 20% base deflection (25% if featured) and i'm fine with it.
I believe tanks are misguided to be slotting, or stating for anything other than their main stats. If you are capped in defense, move to deflection and recovery. I am fully capped in my defense, and slotting for it would be a waste. I am far from capped in my deflection and recovery, so i slot both.
In the real endgame situations where a tank is needed, you also need to be as survivable as possible. With you at 20% deflection, and me at 27% deflection i have a much lower damage taken threshold over the course of thousands of hits- and you do take thousands upon thousands of hits, especially in the likes of CN and other far endgame instances. The cleric in your group will much thank you for this.
Also- on a note about the cleric, if you are playing with a cleric who is as equivalently geared as you are, and specced correctly that cleric should be buffing you with their stats. meaning the stats a cleric stacks are going to be buffed the most, aka power, recovery, and crit. By putting any extra slots at all into power or crit you are actually reducing the effectiveness of those buffs on you. Again, my philosophy about tanking on this is pretty straight forward- go straight for survivability- it is our one and only job.
In regards to the patch today,
The change to KV is one i wholeheartedly agree with after playing. It makes KV a much more skill based encounter power. Before, you could blow it- and get all your AP back right then and there, now- you must use it- and intentionally move into the big hits while facing your party- to block absolutely verything thats happening- you will get your daily back in just slightly longer maount of time- nothing all to game changing- just requires more conscious effort on the part of the tank.
I do have moments where i take a ton of dmg with KV- but this is my mistake, i move wrong- or don't block right. Enough practice and that'll stop happening for the most part. I pair KV with iron warrior always- meaning my shield is a beast- i positon right, and then block almost all the damage in KV- therefore actually reducing the damage the party takes by 50%- not simply redirecting it to myself.
Aoe threat wise- you get tons of threat through KV yes- but i also pair KV with supremacy of steel- meaning evry hit an enemy puts on ANY party member will retaliate with supremacy of steel, generating agro and debuffing them to take more damage from subsequent hits. I then blow supremacy to add more aoe threat. I also use a lifedrinker enchant- which generates aoe threat every time it procs- scaled up threat because its healing threat.
For now, i'm lost. I need few days to get over all of this and start building a new gear and optimization and i'm open to all suggestions as i must not know everything about GF despite i play it since early May.
Cya.
Occasionally, KV starts to act as though it's always active, so trying to use it again doesn't work so the power becomes impossible to renew. It has happened to me once in awhile on one of my GFs that uses KV a fair bit.
At that point, I have swap out the power for awhile or have one less encounter. Swapping it out and then swapping immediately back to KV doesn't seem to work, as the power still remains unresponsive.
However KV does eventually work again, so you can use it after awhile, I haven't quite figured out how to make it work again, but others might know what exactly must be done. So, basically I have to wait it out and check it every so often to see if it works again.
And if you would like me to record myself playing- i'll do it eventually :-)
I understand, thanks. I am very happy to see in the forums two guides of end-game tanks with two different playstiles :-)
I would like to suggest you to ask Community Moderator to incluide your guide in this index:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/sho...21#post5511421
Jo Khon El, Potionholic Cleric of Torm.
Odalas, Shield on the run.
I haven't had that happen to KV since the latest patch came in. Maybe it's fixed now.
Just as a reference, the major changes in my build come because of the increase in the damage potential in castle malabog, KV is simply a liability there, even at the level of my tank stats. I replace it with frontline surge, both because knocking 3 enemies back and not taking damage from them in a place as high damage as MC is a big deal, and because I am now using a feytouched enchantment, which only activates on encounter powers that hit targets. I make sure i use my frontline surge once every 20 seconds or so, to ensure the max uptime of my feytouched.
New Build after changes with Feywild
Posting this here too incase anybody missed it up front.
This is the new build, gear enchantments and all, that I now use to tank endgame. The major changes are for the following reasons: Firstly, the sheer amount of damage dealt by all the mobs in malabog, especially if you have a group with less than stellar dps, is quite impressive, and far outstrips anything else encountered in the game, except maybe moments of being stunned in spellplague and dread vault. For this reason, and the nerf to its AP generation, I removed Knight Valor from my rotation and replaced it with frontline surge. I also removed both my chest enchantment, bloodtheft, and my weapon enchantment, lifedrinker, and replaced them with enchants to reduce the amount of damage i take overall. For armor this is the new Barkshield enchantment, currently i'm wearing a lesser, and for weapon this is a feytouched enchantment, currently i'm wearing a regular. The feytouched only goes off on encounter powers, so by using my frontline surge once every 20 seconds i ensure the maximum uptime of my feytouched on up to 3 enemies.
Gear:
My gear remains pretty consistent, I finally got an ioun stone, so i have more stats room to play around with, which is nice.
I did however replace one of my defense slots with a greater tranquil enchantment. Many people say they don't work, i've seen it appear in my log quite a few times, so i like them haha.
Feats:
3/3 strength focus
2/3 toughness
3/3 shielded resurgence (New addition to my tree- heals even when you block the CC)
5/5 Distracting shield
3/3 Armor Specialization
3/3 potent challenge
1/3 grit
0 points in the last tier of heroic feats.
5/5 armor of bahamut ( new addition to my tree- was always a good talent, now i have room from dropping KV's enhancement feat)
5/5 Plate agility
5/5 shield defense
5/5 shield master
5/5 balanced shield fighter
5/5 overwhelming impact
1/1 iron guard
Powers:
3/3 cleave
3/3 tide of iron(right click at will)
3/3 lunging strike
1/3 villian's menace
3/3 shield talent (first passive)
3/3 enforced threat
3/3 griffons wrath
3/3 fighter's recovery
3/3 terrifying impact(second daily- new addition to the rotation- good for interrupting large groups of enemies in MC- still use supremacy of steel more often)
3/3 enhanced mark(second passive)
3/3 guarded assault
3/3 crushing surge (took it just to try it out- still pretty bad)
3/3 anvil of doom
3/3 frontline surge (my middle encounter, very useful for peeling agro off healer, and for applying feytouched and getting a few enemies off your back)
3/3 threatening rush (left click at will)
3/3 into the fray (my right encounter)
3/3 supremacy of steel (first daily)
3/3 iron warrior
3/3 knights valor (still use it in lower level instances)
3/3 bull charge
3/3 indomitable strength
Rotation:
I use Into the fray while running into combat, use threatning rush to close the distance and apply marks, then use frontline surge to apply feytouched and put the more threatening enemies prone. continue to threatening rush and shield stab to gain agro- when agro is established used into the fray again and iron warrior to maintain shield and just keep stabbing and shield bashing. Use supremacy of steel to apply debuff to large group of enemies, or terrifying impact to apply debuff to enemies in a line and knock them prone to interupt attacks and make it easier to ensure agro.
Thats it for the major changes in this build!