Can BMs replace Barbs as Tanks

For 99% of bosses yes. BM's can replace Barbs.

Rawrgh - Raging Tide wrote: »

Unless if they have tons of -int gear.

Don't get me started on thatb:cry

When I played a cleric, I loved having BM tanks for BH29 and BH39. I found that they aggroed all the mobs (something that I found a significant ammount of barbs didn't do) and I felt that they did a better job watching the cleric.
As a tank, I was able to heal them fine on the bosses. Yes DD's need to watch aggro, but that's part of learning to play your class.

Are they on-par with barbs? No. Barbs have more hp and more skills to hold aggro. Alot of the ability to 'protect' the cleric...actually most of it, is based on player skill. For tanks A good barb will be better than a good BM (assuming same lvl aprox same gear etc).

This might change late game with fists + demon spark, but I don't know much about that. But in lower lvl BH's a BM tanking will do fine, plus it saves the party time shouting for a barb.

idk how well BMs can tank BH51. I've only done it on my wiz and the only time we've had a BM tank is when we got one that was lvl 82.

I could tank FB51 at level 63, as long as DDs don't go crazy BM's can hold aggro quite well. When I was level 74 with -.05 IBH wrists I could compete with a level 78 barb for aggro, I felt pro

Buuuut yeah, BM's make good tanks. I'm not saying we're better than Barbs, but we do well for ourselves.

ChaoticEnvy - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Before you get a good -int on your gears you can still tank easily, just the DD's need to becarful of the agro.

Once you get good -int, fist/claws and Demon spark only thing that will take agro off a BM is another -int, demon sparking fist/claw/Dagger user ( Bm, Barb, Arch etc )

fixed b:chuckle

Celestyna - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I have not seen anything that a good bm couldnt tank with a good cleric backing them. a fist -int bm is even better, and no one worries about stealing other then another fist -int user

What gets me is how many people feel like they HAVE to have a certain class and wont let anyone else even try. why do you need a barb for bh59? that one always gets me, or you have a veno in 59 or below and 79 and wont let em try even if they say they have tanked it just fine solo. My veno had a psychic tank bh69 a few days ago, I didnt expect that to go well but it worked. I like when squads think outside the box

I tanked polearm a few times and never died. I feel proud b:cute

MystiMonk - Sanctuary wrote: »

You mean vit gear?

No, he means -interval gear. As in, gear that makes you attack faster. Once you get to higher amounts of -interval, you start attacking at incredibly high speeds using fists or daggers, and thus do so much damage it's nearly impossible to take aggro away from you.

Vorawrcious - Harshlands wrote: »

Im thinking yes a BM can tank a boss. But it has to be either several levels higher than the boss or conciderable better gear then the barb. A mediocre geared barb can tank a boss higher level thatn itself. On average, the BM would have to be around 5 or more levels higher than boss and be nicely geared to tank it. Any roll can tank boss if it enough levels above boss and well geared.

On a side not couldnt a heavey armor veno with fox form skill tank better than a BM. Im talking survivalbility not neccesarly holding aggro. Veno could easily get more P-Def than a BM with close to equal HP. Also veno could always get negative channeling gear to increase damage. Just a thought.

Survivability I think yes, but holding aggro would be a problem simply because they wouldn't be doing enough damage themselves. Pluse -chan gear wouldn't do much for a veno in foxform because the the skills don't rely heavily on channeling.

Searing - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Barbs are much better at low levels -> any level when people start getting a lot of interval..so i guess 95.

And also costs a Barb alot less in terms of gear to be able to tank

BMs can tank anything a barb can for 99% of bosses. They cannot spam aggro skills like a barb can, meaning a DD would have to be careful to nerf their damage, but this doesn't mean the BM tanks any worse than a barb does. Several times, in fact, I have seen BMs do better.

This can probably be attributed to the fact DDs know not to even attempt to go all out on a BM. With a barb, you can take the risk of doing more damage, but if that barb ends up being a failure of a barb you will steal and, more often than not, you will die. In general, this means that failure barbs become more obvious when tanking, where as BMs in general do quite well.

It costs roughly the same for a non-CS barb to tank in comparison to a non-CS axe BM. Keep in mind this is talking about lower levels where you don't get -int and suchlike. Generally a barb will exceed because of his higher HP, and better aggro control. However, BMs are good off tanks and back up tanks.

End game, a -int fist/claw BM with triple spark will hold aggro just fine and tank just as well all the same and they become better tanks. This is really only challenged with -int fist/claw barbs I suppose, as they can tank just as well too, but I haven't seen too, too many of them.

Brigid - Harshlands wrote: »

No, he means -interval gear. As in, gear that makes you attack faster. Once you get to higher amounts of -interval, you start attacking at incredibly high speeds using fists or daggers, and thus do so much damage it's nearly impossible to take aggro away from you.

How do you get interval gear sounds nice.BMs could use this early on in the game archers to.

MystiMonk - Sanctuary wrote: »

How do you get interval gear sounds nice.BMs could use this early on in the game archers to.

Elenacostel's Archer Attack Speed Basics lists most -interval equipment available, in Appendix A.

Vorawrcious - Harshlands wrote: »

On a side not couldnt a heavey armor veno with fox form skill tank better than a BM. Im talking survivalbility not neccesarly holding aggro. Veno could easily get more P-Def than a BM with close to equal HP. Also veno could always get negative channeling gear to increase damage. Just a thought.

Theoretically the veno can get higher base pdef. In practice, the BM has to spread his stat points between just str, dex, and vit. The heavy fox veno typically puts all the points into mag, str, and dex (str and dex at minimum). That leaves vit at 3. All the heavy fox's extra hp come from shards and refines. So despite his lower pdef, the BM will typically need more hits til he's dead than the veno. That makes him a safer tank. If my heavy fox is grouped with a like-level BM, I'll let him tank unless it's a boss which does only physical damage and the BM has tried and failed to tank it.

Also, in any BM or heavy fox tanking situation, there's going to be a cleric. So the veno will always get cleric pdef buffs, but the BM will get both cleric and BM pdef buffs. That helps reduce the difference in pdef.

Vorawrcious - Harshlands wrote: »

Foxform skills have channeling. What's not to understand? Reduce your channeling and you will increse your DPS.

Problem is the fox skills were designed with the arcane veno in mind. They augment melee damage if you're a caster veno with like 50 str. By the time a heavy fox gets her str up to about 180-200, she actually does more damage with regular attacks than with fox skills. So channeling is fairly pointless except for the occasional heal and debuff.

That said, zero channeling on a fox makes heals and debuffs seem to take a painfully long time. I frequently have to nerf my fox's damage output to avoid stealing aggro, so usually leave about -6% to -12% channel on in place of -interval and +str gear. Lets me react more quickly to a developing situation.

But this is off topic...

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Theoretically the veno can get higher base pdef. In practice, the BM has to spread his stat points between just str, dex, and vit. The heavy fox veno typically puts all the points into mag, str, and dex (str and dex at minimum). That leaves vit at 3. All the heavy fox's extra hp come from shards and refines. So despite his lower pdef, the BM will typically need more hits til he's dead than the veno. That makes him a safer tank. If my heavy fox is grouped with a like-level BM, I'll let him tank unless it's a boss which does only physical damage and the BM has tried and failed to tank it.

Also, in any BM or heavy fox tanking situation, there's going to be a cleric. So the veno will always get cleric pdef buffs, but the BM will get both cleric and BM pdef buffs. That helps reduce the difference in pdef.

i dont have a BM so not sure but by the time BM puts enough stats into strenght to equip heavey armor and enough dex to equip fist weapon, i can't imagine there's much left over to put in vit. Isn't almost all of BM HP due to shards and refines as well.

and regarding buffs, lets not for get the reflect buff for more defense and more damage.