Skill for Glacial Walker

Level up icicle (which should be level 2 now, that's what it starts as) and tough. Unless you're using the walker for PVP (and there's better pets for that), replace flesh ream with bash (icicle + bash = more aggro) or threaten (reduced physical attack debuff for 15 seconds out of 30)

I built mine to be a tank, If I could replace tough with bramble it would be even better.

Personally, dump Icicle and don't bother with fireball, you don't want elemental skills on a tank.

I've got Roar, Bash, Flesh Ream, and Tough. When I can afford it, I plan on replacing Tough with Bramble just because I never have a use for it.

Keep all the skills maxxed and you'll do well. (BTW, this build out-DD's a Herc so be careful if another has a herc tanking.) I very rarely take aggro from it and I'm a Pure MAG veno who doesn't hold back on weapon damage.

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

Going off of the point you were trying to make, you should have suggested to get the metal bash skill on the walker. Wood damage isn't nerfed on metal mobs, it's nerfed on wood mobs because mobs are only resistant to their own element. Metal dmg just does more to wood mobs. Still, normal bash would be the better choice since it does more dmg, and I hear pets die frequently in caster nirv anyway. x.x But I guess if the nerfed wood dmg were that big a deal you could replace icicle with the metal bash skill

Last I knew, Bash wan't elemental damage at all. It's pure Physical. Which works on anything and has a higher aggro percentage than any elemental skill.

You are correct though, Bash is the better choice. It just doesn't do metal damage.

Although, if you're thinking about caster vana... you should probably build up a second Walker for it and just give it 4 elemental skills you can swap between. Personally, (and my opinion is limited by the fact I can't vana), I would forget the pet for vana and focus on Amp and debuffs.

Allisandre - Sanctuary wrote: »

Last I knew, Bash wan't elemental damage at all. It's pure Physical. Which works on anything and has a higher aggro percentage than any elemental skill.

In fact any pet skill that inflicts damage has the exact same percentage of aggro. The only difference is the actual damage inflicted on the target which adds up (so basically it is attack's damage + set % aggro).
This is because the pet system is pretty static and set on certain values that never change. Debuffs will increase the damage of the pet. Unless you were referring to the fact that there is Ironwood's debuff making the damage higher but the difference is little in my opinion when we're talking about serious aggro holding. You have to rely on other things mostly such as having multiple attack skills, Reflect (this varies) or a lot of debufs stacked (Ironwood, Tangling Mire.. or my favourite Armor Break + Mire and of course Amplify).

But I also believe and feel that Bash is better overall.
Elemental Bashes aren't bad but I would rather save them for a second pet to use in Caster Nirvana.


To the OP:
Here are a few pet skills set ups that I think make a good tank pet:

1) Bash, Flesh Ream, Tough, Threaten
To maximise the tanking potential. Tough to make the pet receive less damage, Threaten to decrease the boss's attack power while Tough is off/cooldown. Other two skills are for aggro. Ironwood (+Amplify) will increase their damage.

2) Bash, Flesh Ream, Tough, Roar
I have found Roar extremely useful. It resets aggro. It is good for when you must force aggro on your pet quickly to save someone or even yourself if you have stolen aggro. This is the set up I would recommend.

3) Icicle, Bash, Tough, Threaten or Roar
If you decide to keep Icicle to save yourself from money of buying an extra skill, this would work too.

I don't recommend any debuff skills for your Glacial Walker because you should rather focus on its tanking capabilities and take advantage of them as much as possible. Build a different/faster pet for debuffs/DD. Such pet would be: Varicose Scorpion, Dark Wanderer, Seamonster Guardian, Kowlin (recommending Kowlin because it comes with all DD/debuff skills you'd want: Bash, Flesh Ream, Howl, Pierce and thus it saves your money. All you need is to upgrade them).

I should think that Icicle with an 8 second cooldown would generate more aggro than Flesh Ream with its 15 second cooldown, since the majority of pet aggro is from skill use, not damage dealt.

There's two parts to aggro generation when using Bash and Flesh Ream. One is the actual damage dealt, the other is the application of a skill.

Since Flesh Ream is a DoT skill, damage wise, it catches up to Bash (assuming an equal number of times firing the skill).

Casting a damaging skill yeilds a certain amount of aggro. From what I've seen, that amount of aggro is static across all pet skills that deal damage. Where Bash becomes the winner is the cooldown. The Bashes have a cooldown of 8 seconds, while Flesh Ream has a cooldown of 15 seconds. So with Bash, you're getting twice the amount of aggro from skill use, and twice the amount of damage from skill use in the same amount of time.

Flesh Ream does have it's advantages tho. For PvE, if you have multiple pet skills you're keeping active, the longer cooldown makes things easier to manage. For PvP, the lack of damage reduction makes it an obvious choice.


To the OP:
I agree with what most of the others have said. A tank pet should have a Bash skill. The non-elemental Bash is the best outside of caster Nirvana, but the elemental Bashes aren't terribly far behind (it depends on which element you're fighting).

Flesh Ream is a good secondary aggro skill, if you feel it's needed.

For survivability, look into Tough and Threaten and alternating them.

Roar should only be used if you lose aggro. Spamming it makes it harder to maintain aggro.