Building the Ultimate Tank!

[Azrael]

way to resurrect a post from the dead.

take out stomp and taunt for crushing blow and crippling slash. Swamp the swamp tooth with a thoth weapon and bring back your zombie shield. 13 hs 11 ms is solid. Restore is pretty useless in pvp and thusly pve, but thats just me. Lastly drop your str to 127, to max dex. i have 7 natural points in int for when i swamp to 2h but thats just me.

[Mahk]

Hi, I'm Mahk, and I'm a Warrior. I'm usually hitting the grog hard, and I'm not too smart anyways, so I'm a good tank for the most part -- feelin' no pain! I've got a nasty habit of aggro'n a bit too many mobs, or if I'm in a group wiht another warrior, I try and leap frog pulls (he pulls a bunch of mobs as the DPS folks engage, I run forward to the next and get another group ready for the DPS folks). Been getting a bit of grief for that... but I'm Mahk! What can I say? I'm not too smart....

OK, guess I have some respec'n to do. Have done it once already....

Right now I'm Lvl 33 running 130 STG, 40 DEX and 16 INT (for just a lil more mana regen). Last night I solo'd Act 1 of Skellar Returns including Meathead at the end -- died a few times, bit slow, but I completed it! Used maybe 20 heal and mana pots total.

All purple gear 'cept Helm -- using Shield and some frosty ax right now. Oh wait, I gave up my level 30 Purple Bone Plate for some level 33 green swamp plate that was more Armor but less stg...

Skills: STOMP, CRIPPLING SLASH, HELL SCREAM, TAUNT, RAGE, RESTORE, IRON WILL, EVADE

I never use Beckon, only Taunt -- I use the AoE one because it has the buff or debuff in it. Have got the range pretty well down so that I can peel singles off a large group.

My "offensive" skills are only STOMP and CRIPPLING SLASH, I like to root characters from running back at my DPS peeps. Will add the Stun blow skill too, so that I can alternate on the cool downs, generally don't like knockbacks either. (There's one that stuns and another that roots, third is knockback, fourth is dmg debuff I think -- I only took the root.)

Basic mode is to buff up with Rage/Iron Will/Evade -- on bosses I'll alternate cooldowns on Iron Will/Evade so I can always have one or the other in play (need to do same with offensive blows).

When a mage or archer is pulling mobs, I stand next to them and then auto-lock dash out a few steps in front and try to CRIPPLING SLASH the mob, rooting it, and keeping them from getting to the caster/archer.

As mobs gather, I'll Hell Scream and Taunt, resorting to stomp only when it gets hectic . Knockback usually caueses more problems for me, but it can help too. And then as we're whacking away, I add in Crippling Slash, Tuant, Hellscream, Rage and Restore as needed.

Having a LOT of problems with auto-lock -- auto-lock on a mob that gets knocked back into a large group and there I go running in! Auto-lock on an unpopped chest behind us! Auto-locked on a minor mob as a boss wails away on my group....

Only way I can find to disengage auto-lock is to run the hell away ... that's not helping my reputation! Esp as I aggro a ranged-attacker and then back away pulling him into the DPS crew's range -- I look like a freakin' chicken!

And just like WoW (or heck, SHADOWBANE!) I just can't hold aggro once the DPS builds up behind me, I debuff 'em and taunt 'em and root 'em, but they usually don't care about me.

I've had pretty good luck timing my attacks, running past minor mobs and initiating Auto-Lock on the Boss's. Have actually stood toe-to-toe with Boss's while the rest of the group cleans out the area. Just, I have no chance of DROPPING the boss in any reasonable amount of time... Had a brutal time at Mardi Growl last night, major props to the group for overcoming the frequent wipes and fininishing that bad boy!

So that's me, Mahk. And if you don't like the way I play, YOU try playing with 10 mugs of grog in yoU!

[FriedSushi]

Nice first post

[Dizko]

Ha, great first post.

I recommend getting some pink gear.

Zombie gear would be perfect for you. 5h/s per item.

[Monqi]

For me, I chose otherway. I been playing all STR since started this game, so far fairly well. I have also respec to str to wear armour and rest to dex before and seriously, dun really like it. When i have 5/5 evade & taunt on, i still got beaten hard when they give me a critical hit. but if i have 20hp more( may seem nothing much), i'm may still surviving for the last stand and pot red fast.

I agree DEX is now a winning stat, but those DEX we have only given 3% dodge more than full STR while nake. I dun noe about future but for now it is good nuff. Those armour should be cover more than nuff dodge too. IDKW, but Tank warrior DMG and DPS is not that much useful at the moment, coz we will not have the dps as high as other DPS in your party. You may find out ur target will still switch toward your party and this is the time to use ur skill. Regard to 16int get 1ms. Pro & Con, it help to recover bit by bit. It is not as useful when u r spamming skill, you may find that at the end still pots blue.

I read and understand 98% or more of tank warrior pump str nuff to wear armour, 16int to get 1m/s and rest to dex. well, i choose to be another side and thats me..

no matter wat, everybody have different thinking and tactic of playing. most importantly, is to noe urself is a tank and how you go and design to work well with ur team mate. Cheer~

[Kingofthebear]

Mahk, you might want to give Beckon another look.

I'm going to respec when I get to 40 and I'm going to cut Taunt loose. For some reason my armor and DPS drop about a point each when I use it with Iron Blood and Rage up (maybe it's something with out it stacks, or doesn't). Beckon is also great because it pulls, while Taunt just "gets mobs' attention." I love throwing out Beckon, getting a nice tight group of mobs, then throwing Hell Scream right when their stun fades. Depending on how well the group holds together, and if no other Enchantress throws Firestorm and screws up the pull I may not need Stomp to maintain the stun before I can use Beckon again. If it does, the scatter is small enough that Beckon will usually get them back in. Also, I don't have any proof of this myself, but I'm pretty sure this is more effective if you yell "COME OVER HERE" into your ipod when you do it.

I've soon got a decision to make about h/s and m/s. I have two pieces of Thoth, and two pieces of Zombie. However I think I'm going to save my Zombie pieces for the rare pvp I do. I'll keep Thoth helm and weapon (thought about Spear, but might go Sword because my base DPS will be around 95). For Armor and Shield I'll go Conqueror's Mynas, and Pharoah's Shield of Legend. Well, I'm actually not positive...

By doing so I'll go from 10 H/S down to 2 H/S, and I'll lose some dodge, but my armor will jump up 8, and my strength 14. For pve I'm fine with losing 8 h/s since I can use potions when I need them, but I think I'll really enjoy using the huge boost in str to respec some of these into dex. If I want to go pvp, I can switch sets and have a full 10-10 regen. I'll make up the lose to dodge by using the points I would have had in stomp or taunt into dodge buffs.

But yeah, I've got some serious decisions regarding spear/sword, and then regen/str

[Kingofthebear]

Ok I made it to 40 and respecked. Here's my character until 45, buffed.



High defense; mana and health regen in the double digits; high DPS but damage still in the triple digits. This is so fun to play with. I effectively have infinite mana, and even solo'd Seth without taking a potion once. Paladins are cute and all...but nothing beats a classic bear. :-P

edit: Just swapped my Conq Mynas plate for Mynas plate of Legend, so decrease crit and dodge and increase h/s accordingly

[Monqi]

initially !



This is wat I wanted and best for me !

[Kingofthebear]

Monqi you need dexterity my Bear brother

[Monqi]

Monqi you need dexterity my Bear brother

Yo bro bear, been playing str tank all way since started and doing well . Full throttle tank . Health won't affect by buff . Thanks for the concern.

[Mahk]

Hmm, OK, at 40 now and definitely using BECKON (like the stun aspect of that too). Now have a few points in 3 of 4 of the attack skills for ROOT (Crippling Slash 5pts), STUN and the Dodge DEBUFF, still no knockback offesnsive attack (cept STOMP.)

At 40 with Sword and Plate of THOTH (+INT / M/S) it's insane, no need for mana pots!

But BY GOD, KING, DPS in the 120s!!?!?!?! I think I'm in the high 80s low 90s with the Pharoh's Sword of Thoth -- is DEX affecting that? Think your DEX is 10-15 higher than me...

All in all, quite fun, very few things can touch me all buffed up, but heck if I can kill anything ... quickly.

I mean, I was solo'n Balefrost Castle and had a 10 min whack fest with the King of Bling?!??! I've solo'd a lot higher bosses faster, for some reason, he gave me problems (not that I was ever hurt, just, couldn't hurt him ....)

[Kingofthebear]

Ah, it's no longer that high now. I had to completely respec to become effective in pvp. Beckon is gone, instead I stun with hell scream, stomp (fast cool down makes it such a necessity against pallys), and SMS. Thoth sword has been replaced with spear, and I've got zombie armor and shield. I'll post my build in a bit...

Yeah I threw a bunch of points into dex once I had my item requirements satisfied. I'm using a new threshold now: with enough dex to get my hit % above 100, and everything else into str to get my HP and regen up. It's made pvp'ing against pallys pretty fun.