How to be a valued TANK

[frankinnh]

There aren't a lot of great bears out there.* That's bad for all bears.* A well-run bear-tank is a pleasure to group with.* We need to show the 'squishies' that we are valuable, even vital, team-mates.* If you like playing a bear because it's safe, GO AWAY!* My focus here is on the bear-tank.* I keep enough str to wear great armour.* All other points go into dex.* I prefer the sword/harpoon with shield combo.* Dex bears using talons/bows have their uses, but this guide is for the lost art of tanking.

Basic Rules:

1. Be first in the fight
2. Control the fight
3. Rule the boss
4. Learn the map
5. Communicate

1. Bears live longest, so be the first into the brawl.* Get agro so the 'squishies' survive.* You can't out-damage a bird or mage, so use your skills to get the mobs attention.* Taunt and Beckon constantly.

2. Control the Fight.* When you are first in the fight you have the opportunity to define how the battle will be fought.* You want the mobs near you, so your up-close skills work best AND the mages' get the best results as well.* DON'T SCATTER THE ENEMIES!* Too many bears over-use stomp.* Stomp pushes mobs away from you; this is bad.* But stomp is vital to use.* The beckon-stomp combo is your best weapon and taunt-beckon-stomp combo is even better.* Here is how to use it:

A. Taunt asap, as a you enter the room, head toward a wall and taunt on the way.
B. At the wall, hit beckon.* Watch the mobs collect around you.
C. STEP AWAY FROM THE WALL then let loose with stomp.* Only use stomp when the clump of enemies are trapped between you and the wall.* The wall will keep them clustered so the mages' group-damage spells will have maximum effect.* (Stomp seems to work best when you have selected a mob, beckon seems to work best when no mobs have been selected.)

More on Control the Fight:* Watch your team-mates.* If a mage is getting picked on, or if a bird is doing too much damage, help them out.* You need to use beckon to pull mobs away from the 'squishies' or use stomp to push them away.* This may cause scattering, but you may give your team-mates enough time to grab a potion or cast heal.* If you only use one of the two spells, less scattering occurs.

More on Control the Fight:* Use the corners and walls.* See next section.

3. Rule the Boss:* The ideal fight goes like this: Bear locks onto the biggest beast in the room and keeps it busy, while the squishies clear out the smaller mobs.* Once things are under control, everyone kills the boss.

I begin with the taunt, run-to-wall, beckon, step-away-from-wall, stomp combo.* This sets up the fight.* Now I go after the boss.* Lock onto him and repeat the taunt-beckon-stomp combo on him -- this may cause some scattering, but I need to get the boss against a wall or into a corner.* At this point, I'm less interested in damaging him,* I need to keep him on me.* Taunt and debuff him.* Once he's against a wall, I'll use beckon-stomp to help to clear the room and to keep him from hammering on a squishy.* Taunt not only keeps him on me, but it adds to my dodge; I'll also be using evade and iron blood to buff myself.* (Rage is vital - it's always on.)* Once the room is clear of small fry, the group focus's on the boss.* Now I use all my damage spells, but, as long as a squishy isn't getting singled out, I use stomp without beckon, so the group doesn't have to waste time running after the boss.

4. Learn the Map:* You can't be first in the fight if you are following others around.* Once you've done a few run-throughs, you'll learn where to clump enemies, where the bottle-necks are, and, where the environmental hazards are.* Try to use the battle ground to your advantage.

5. Communicate!* I use the pre-set chats to tell my team-mates what's up.* Here are some good ones to have ready:

A. Let me go in first. We'll all live longer.
B. Let me hold the boss while you guys clear the room.
C. Mages, please keep me buffed - and a heal or two would be cool.
D. Mages, I'll be pulling bad guys to me... time your nukes!
E. Wait for the others... it's a rough room.

X. A Word on skills:

A. Max out skills: rage, taunt, beckon, stomp, mega-slash
B. Ignored skills: restore, crippling slash
C. Nearly-maxed: iron blood, evade, hell scream
D. Some points: crushing blow, veng' slash

(I'm only lvl 50; I expect to Max the 'nearly maxed' skills soon.)

Thoughts?

[CrimsonTider]

Plenty of threads on this, but to add to the conversation...

SMS does not need to be maxed. Instead, max iron blood, evade, crushing blow, and hell scream. At your level (50), place one point into SMS and Vengeful, then max the rest (outside of restore). Crushing blow and Hell scream provide important debuffs in mob control and iron blood and evade provide extra armor and dodge (respectfully), very important for a tank.

Outside of this, good points on the how to improve upon bear usefullness.

[xBearSpiritx]

Plenty of threads on this, but to add to the conversation...

SMS does not need to be maxed. Instead, max iron blood, evade, crushing blow, and hell scream. At your level (50), place one point into SMS and Vengeful, then max the rest (outside of restore). Crushing blow and Hell scream provide important debuffs in mob control and iron blood and evade provide extra armor and dodge (respectfully), very important for a tank.

Outside of this, good points on the how to improve upon bear usefullness.

Agreed... as a tank, it's important to max your buffs and well as your debuffs.

[Redbridge]

A. Taunt asap, as a you enter the room, head toward a wall and taunt on the way.
B. At the wall, hit beckon.* Watch the mobs collect around you.
C. STEP AWAY FROM THE WALL then let loose with stomp.* Only use stomp when the clump of enemies are trapped between you and the wall.*

Even if every bear reads this bit, it would be great. Good job.

[Ellyidol]

Even if every bear reads this bit, it would be great. Good job.

Just to add to this as well, when Beckoning and mobs come towards you, cast a Hell Scream before Stomping them in to finish combo/pin them. That way, when they come out of stun/being pinned, they have that Hit and damage debuff. Very useful in maps like Nuri's Hallows where mobs can almost one shot bears with debuffs.

[skavenger216]

Just to add to this as well, when Beckoning and mobs come towards you, cast a Hell Scream before Stomping them in to finish combo/pin them. That way, when they come out of stun/being pinned, they have that Hit and damage debuff. Very useful in maps like Nuri's Hallows where mobs can almost one shot bears with debuffs.

I do this also, but with one small tweak. I do the hell scream immediately after I stomp, doing this seems to net a lot of mega combos, regardless of the group I'm with.

[Ellyidol]

I do this also, but with one small tweak. I do the hell scream immediately after I stomp, doing this seems to net a lot of mega combos, regardless of the group I'm with.

Makes sense! I'll be tweaking mine as well

[sun light]

im a mage and sometimes i see bears that fear to push on.
waiting in the enter of boss room and wait for the others to come in.
plz dont do that. like he said. push on! !
u did stomb ok.. nice job! move on and let is do area spells.
p.s
for bears that doing fever, plz... keep him busy, dont kill the chests, cos when u leave the boss he goes after is and kill us.
so plz.. dont leave him and we will heal u all the time, that way nobody going to die
tnx

[skavenger216]

im a mage and sometimes i see bears that fear to push on.
waiting in the enter of boss room and wait for the others to come in.
plz dont do that. like he said. push on! !
u did stomb ok.. nice job! move on and let is do area spells.
p.s
for bears that doing fever, plz... keep him busy, dont kill the chests, cos when u leave the boss he goes after is and kill us.
so plz.. dont leave him and we will heal u all the time, that way nobody going to die
tnx

For that matter, when fighting fever, everyone who isn't tanking the boss needs to spread out, away from the boss and tank. Kinda hard to not spread fever when everyone seems to want to stack on top of the bear.

[sun light]

bear is keeping him busy, and everyone else is spread arround.. thats the idea