Why is heavy armor recommended for Tank builds?

mightymoose · October 2009

I've been reading up on Barb builds and it appears that heavy armor is recommended for tanking. I'm wondering why this is recommended. It seems to me that a light armor build would be better given that most of the high end bosses have magic attack as well as physical attack, and often the magic attack is higher according to what I read from these forums.

Can any of you barb vets shed some light on this? I'm still pretty low level, but would like to know which way to go to avoid having to restat later. My main goal is to tank in pve, so damage or pvp is not important.

Dominatiger - Sanctuary · October 2009

most of attacks are physical attacks, you only have 1 magic attack from 10 to 10 seconds, and you can cancel that magic attack. heavy armour gives more physical defense.

Reason why barbs are heavy users^^

Bartack - Heavens Tear · October 2009

Also, stat points for vit would have to be diverted to dex to wear the light armor, leaving you low on health. High HP is the barbs greatest advantage.

Paigrande - Harshlands · October 2009

ye, the build you need to use in order to b a successful barb ( I personally recommend full vit barb build) will req u to use heavy armour.

Accelerated - Sanctuary · October 2009

Heavy armors also give the highest HP boost if they're refined, compared to the other armors.

FunkyP - Lost City · October 2009

I'm genuinely surprised that people didn't flame this thread. I thought for sure I'd see all the posts involve some insult or the word noob, but alas, none of that. b:chuckle

Now my own two cents: I've heard that certain 10x barbs have begun to pump more dex than usual, and thus they can actually wear the most up to date LA. Although these types of barbs are mostly PKers, i would imagine they could tank the occasional magic boss better than a HA barb.

Kott - Sanctuary · October 2009

FunkyP - Lost City wrote: »

I'm genuinely surprised that people didn't flame this thread. I thought for sure I'd see all the posts involve some insult or the word noob, but alas, none of that. b:chuckle

Now my own two cents: I've heard that certain 10x barbs have begun to pump more dex than usual, and thus they can actually wear the most up to date LA. Although these types of barbs are mostly PKers, i would imagine they could tank the occasional magic boss better than a HA barb.

n00b b:victory

Barbs are close ranged attakers, when you get close to a mob they go phys on you, instead of ranged mgk & only might aoe a certain time period (every 9-10 secs? + you got alacrity of beast to take care of that.). Thus, to be a good tank you need gear with most phys def & hp, which is heavy. Meatbags FTW!

I do seethe occasional arcane barbies running around every so often,

duno how it works out for them.

XylolyX - Heavens Tear · October 2009

What everyone else already said. Physical Defense is more important than magic defense when actually tanking. It's the barbs job to use his higher HP and higher PDef to keep the rest of the squad alive. Heavy Armor one of the keys to this.

Bartack - Heavens Tear · October 2009

Yeah if you want mag def, get mag def ornaments and refine them. if your getting over 50% mag dmg reduction for your lvl, your doing pretty good. after 50% the mag damage reduction vs mag defense curve starts to really kick in and its far more worth it to concentrate on your hp.

Arravis - Lost City · October 2009

Most the answers above are correct, however one point has been missed.

Refined heavy armor provides the biggest PDEF and HP bonuses. Why is this important for a barb?

Because a barb has some of the best PDEF and HP AMPLIFICATION skills. The shapeshifting intensity increases your PDEF by 60% in tiger form, and even more if you get the heaven/hell shapeshifts.

A barb is also the only class in the game that is capable of increasing the HP pool of any player for a steady period of time (unlike TOP). We also have the most HP amplifications; HP buff grants 30%, and then tiger form (which is limited to only the barb) grants us another 30%, more if you're heaven. Heavy armor provides massive amounts of additional HP when refined, vs. the mediocre HP bonuses from refined light armor, and the absolute **** that you get from refining robes.

Take advantage of these two amplifications.

Dagnatic - Sanctuary · October 2009

Cholla - Harshlands wrote: »

Hypothetically speaking, a light armor barbarian with sufficiently reduced requirement weapons could have a higher vitality than a heavy armor barbarian (you could get 3 vitality per level if you did not mind using really awful weapons).

I do not know how well that would work, but [?] bosses mostly ignore armor anyways?

Wouldnt work for light armour reqires more dex and so yes you would be using realy ages behind wepons and would be finding this extreamly dificult.... I tried thi out untill lvl 20 on one of my alts and once i got to lvl 20 i failed miserably not enough Hp or damge or terably good acuracy eather.

Hazardus - Heavens Tear · October 2009

Think everything that could be said has already been said on the subject.

Magic attacks are only done at range or once every 9 seconds. You need to get as much pdef as you can, particularly once you really start tanking bosses (think 50+).

Heavy armors fit the vit build, allow us to use axes, adds to pdef. Our best buffs are multipliers adding HP and pdef so you want to get the most bang for your buck by maxing these stats.

LA armors could be good for some weird DD build of barbs (str+dex=attack+crit) or perhaps a bowbarian b :lipcurl. Arcane barbs? Those are just there to be b:beatenup. If you feel the need to add mdef (and you will 60-80 b:sin) then use mdef ornaments with some good HP or +vit stats.

Last, but not least of the points:
Heavy armor gives you the MOST defense of all.

For e.g. consider this (TT70) gear:
HA Physical Defence +1224 Elemental defence +525
LA Physical Defence +525 Elemental defence +815
AA Physical Defence +136 Elemental defence +1225

AA as almost as much mdef as HA's pdef. But AA's pdef =/= HA mdef.
LA are somewhere in between, but again bit more mdef (35%?) and a lot less pdef (50%?) than HA.

Arravis - Lost City · October 2009

Hazardus - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Heavy armor gives you the MOST defense of all.

For e.g. consider this (TT70) gear:
HA Physical Defence +1224 Elemental defence +525
LA Physical Defence +525 Elemental defence +815
AA Physical Defence +136 Elemental defence +1225

AA as almost as much mdef as HA's pdef. But AA's pdef =/= HA mdef.
LA are somewhere in between, but again bit more mdef (35%?) and a lot less pdef (50%?) than HA.

Numerically, yes, HA gives more defense. But you have to take into account the fact that magic also does more numerical damage, which is why the MDEF number values are higher compared to the low numbers value for pdef. Look at LA as your medium...Theoretically, the Pdef and Mdef values should be the same, but because magic hits harder, Mdef gets a boost.

mightymoose · October 2009

Thanks to everyone for their replies. You've answered all my questions plus things I didn't even think of asking! I learned a lot from your answers and thx again for everyone's help. b:pleased

AlbireoTwo - Lost City · October 2009

Cause heavy armor looks the coolest xD

Drakanius - Lost City · October 2009

One thing you guys are also forgetting is that, the majority of the time, barbs don't exactly kill the bosses strictly by ourselves. You all make it sound like we just murder everything strictly by ourselves... unless you're pro,(like so many of us are) there's usually a cleric/mage around to provide some heals if you take too much mag damage. Another thing to keep in mind is that most mag mobs usually resort to phys attacks along with mag attacks at short range. So aside from the occasional spell here and there, you shouldn't have much to worry about. pvp's a different story >.>

Why is heavy armor recommended for Tank builds?

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