Warrior Tanking 123 with explanations

[Rob Prose]

After playing every legends I have come to the conclusion that sts games cannot be at a truly hardcore level till sts releases all the figures for every skill, boss, and clarifies every figure that were sitting here scratching our heads over. These figures may seem excessive for a casual but without them we are esentially fighting in the dark and making these games more about dumping $ than mad skillz...

[Kenoon]

I believe that as of current situation, tanking warrior might need to go beyond 1000 armor mark to get to see the Lv16 cap tanking where 0 pot is require to do tanking.

I am rushing my level to 21 asap after my overseas trip.
Will hunt down the good gears and do some testing.

[Enisceloz]

I believe that as of current situation, tanking warrior might need to go beyond 1000 armor mark to get to see the Lv16 cap tanking where 0 pot is require to do tanking.

I am rushing my level to 21 asap after my overseas trip.
Will hunt down the good gears and do some testing.

If you need help let me know. Highest I've gotten has been 953 armor with around 3.1K in health and I still have to use pots.

[ShadowGunX]

i had around 600armour nd 2.5k hp(lvl16 i was) nd was able to do bael (not elite) without using pots nd also kill those two assasins within 10secs bt after update i felt like fighting two elite stahl nd then bael cme up before i could finish those two assasins nd i was spamming lots of potion. nd then i died (out of potions :-P).
So i can conclude that maps r alot harder nw. lol watchers3 nd kraag3 r crazy. running those lvl4 tombs r beyond my thinking :-D

[ShadowGunX]

I have a friend with all taunting skills set up and he can't keep aggro from another friend who's a Sorcerer that has around 190 Dmg, causing a boss to switch his focus back and forth. Either this is intentional or like you said taunt needs to be buffed. And as for the Elite levels I think they are fine. I do tons of runs (I have all Elite achievements got them first day patch came out) and I don't die much if at all and I can keep aggro however I do use a considerable amount of pots to keep my health up, compared to what I used on the old Elite levels (once again team mechanics play an important role here). But this maybe could be because I have yet to acquire the new set pieces (and that's another mess that needs to be fixed lol).

will u care to show us ur stats nd list wat gears nd amulets nd rings nd sword nd pet u r using?

[Enisceloz]

Remember bro the enemies have now been scaled up! So my question is after the update were you doing these runs solo or with a party? Because if it was with a party and the highest player was 17+ the enemies will now scale to the highest level, hence the increase in difficulty!

And as for me showing you my gear I would be happy to do it in game and maybe get some runs in with you if you would like (too lazy to take pics and post them up lol). Add me IGN: Enisceloz

I should be getting on in like 5 minutes if you're game!

[Kenoon]

If you need help let me know. Highest I've gotten has been 953 armor with around 3.1K in health and I still have to use pots.

I should be doing fine.
Since you have the armor, able to advise typical damage received by an elite mob is how much?
The objective would be stacking the defensive stats and figures to reach a stage where we will take in around 100 or less damage per hit from mibs so our HOR can heal in excess to get our hp back to full again.

[ShadowGunX]

Remember bro the enemies have now been scaled up! So my question is after the update were you doing these runs solo or with a party? Because if it was with a party and the highest player was 17+ the enemies will now scale to the highest level, hence the increase in difficulty!

And as for me showing you my gear I would be happy to do it in game and maybe get some runs in with you if you would like (too lazy to take pics and post them up lol). Add me IGN: Enisceloz

I should be getting on in like 5 minutes if you're game!

ah man m very poor. m lvl18atm
current equipment:
ogre helm lvl16
resounding armour of will lvl15
ornate band of fitness lvl16
solid bauble of warfare lvl14 (epic)
avalenche veil of will lvl17
Pet: snaggle
nd m having 687armour with 2.6k hp.

[Enisceloz]

I should be doing fine.
Since you have the armor, able to advise typical damage received by an elite mob is how much?
The objective would be stacking the defensive stats and figures to reach a stage where we will take in around 100 or less damage per hit from mibs so our HOR can heal in excess to get our hp back to full again.

Now remember HoR healing values also depend on our Bonus Dmg %. So everyone's heal is not the same (which I'm currently at around 230-250 Bonus Dmg %). And on top of that I charge my Vengeful Blood which heals for 500 HP.

[Kenoon]

Everytime i would use Vengeful Blood first followed by shiloh's arcane skill before i cast HoR.
My damage bonus is 282% in this case.
I hit lv21 today but still using crappy gears.
Will start farming for better gears in these few days
I had died more than 30 times during this patch to do the testings.

[Kenoon]

PS:
After a santa goblin dropped a winter armor for me, things goes smoother.
I spent 10 plats on getting a lv21 sword & shield.
Luckily it gave to me on my first try.





Here are some screenshots with 3 pets for your reference purposes.
All with Vengeful blood activated + Pet's arcane skill triggered.


With Malison:



With Shiloh:



With Ribbit:



I am still working on to get my tanking necklace.
Hopefully someone buy my stuffs lol.
My next step would be getting the gears from banded chests.

My passive is 5 to Might.
If i were to use Durable, my armor would be 893.5

[Enisceloz]

Also try out the Artic Ward of Will it gives a whooping +109 in Armor with a little decrease in Dmg and DPS.

[Nutstomper]

These screenshots are done BEFORE any buffs, no Vengeance, pet, or any other buffs active. I have allocated 5 points into Might. Gear is essentially maxed out, helm is lvl 20 but not worth it to upgrade to +1str, +16 armor, +.3 dps for 1 million.

The unfortunate truth is that tanking has become much more difficult after this expansion for many reasons from what I have noticed and experienced.

-Horn, did not scale well. Maxed out pre-expansion it healed for 25% initially up to 50% by the end of HOT effects. It now heals for approx 14% initial up to 28% by end of HOT. Pots are mandatory now.

-Armor ratings did not improve as well as other classes, maxed out Rogue has around 700ish armor. Warriors using 2 handers around 850ish. Elite mobs will hit for upwards of 300dmg! And unfortunately we do not have the Rogues 25% dodge.

-Damage output for Warriors did not get raised as much as our counterparts. Rogues went from 140ish shown dps to 270ish. Aggro is much harder to maintain.

Damage output is probably the biggest reason for losing aggro on bosses. Threat needs to be adjusted on all taunt/threat skills or have Warrior dps bumped up a flat 20%

I run with the same team day in day out. We held records for 7 of the 8 Elite Pure maps. It's not a matter of not knowing how to tank, Warriors are nerfed and it does not get much better with gear.

[Kenoon]

Also try out the Artic Ward of Will it gives a whooping +109 in Armor with a little decrease in Dmg and DPS.

I used to have that weapon but in the end i chose to take the higher DPS.
Like what Nutstomper says, our threat or aggro isn't high enough to hold the attention of boss or mobs compared to Rogue and Mages high dps.

I will write a suggestion to the suggestion section and highlight to STS to improve on the threat output for sword & shield users if they were to be holding this type of gear.

If gearing up as sword & shield but still having the same threat output as 2h weapon, that would defeat the purpose of holding such gear.

The proc on Ice Armor isn't that amazing neither. The damage reduction or effect doesn't seem to be significant enough to allow my warrior to tank elite map mobs. I believe they will look into this and balance up on next upcoming fix.

[ShadowGunX]

OMG!!! nutstomper u hav 130dmg!!! ur HoR heals 350hp roughly per 1.5sec?

[Enisceloz]

Yeah we need major re-vamps. Especially on the effectiveness of taunts. Right now when I play with a really good team of Sorcerers and Rogues I feel like I'm just there to get hit first and distract mobs nothing else! I wonder if us not getting as improved as the other two classes has anything to do with PvP??

[Kenoon]

Yeah we need major re-vamps. Especially on the effectiveness of taunts. Right now when I play with a really good team of Sorcerers and Rogues I feel like I'm just there to get hit first and distract mobs nothing else! I wonder if us not getting as improved as the other two classes has anything to do with PvP??

LOL.... I'm using HOR's 2sec to escort my party mage and rogue to enter next level for tower each time.
That's our most useful skill at the moment.

[Nutstomper]

Well, there are actually a couple options right for tanking although each option has limitations and drawbacks as well as strengths. This is all assuming that everyone is equally geared though, or that the tank is slightly better geared which is preferable. If you're all still running tower its safe to assume your teams are not yet maxed out.

These options have worked for me and all your experiences will vary I'm sure.

Vengeance 5, WW, CS 2 or 3, Horn 5, Might 4 or 5
Good for:
Aggro-ing multiple mobs. New expansion routinely has grouped mobs of 10 or more. This allow you to play support and hold aggro and large groups as long as you CS from different sides + WW in a circle to tag multiple mobs to keep threat up. Horn taunt and bubble self explanatory. Your job is just to keep trashes attention until they get 2 shotted by your friends.

Boss fight-CS's interrupt no longer as important as it was pre-expansion. Chances are you won't have boss' aggro and Rogues/Mages no longer get one shotted so it's not imperative you get that interrupt off. Which is why you can choose to either commit 2 or 3 points into the skill. Do get Extended Reach.

Pet:
If undergeared use Flap Jack, be a team player and realize the most important thing now is to keep your friends from dying to trash. AOE stun gives everyone a breather, re-establish aggro or buy time for Horn.

If geared semi-equally (aggro goes back and forth) grab Ribbit or Loki and tank that boss.

Cons:
Mediocre at almost everything. Average damage, average threat production. You're going to use a lot of health pots.

Vengeance 5, Hammer 4, WW 3, CS 3, Might 5
Good for:
Holding aggro on boss and doing smaller pulls (groups of less than 5) or if you're still at a level where you are farming Jarl.

Pet:
Ribbit or Loki

Cons: You will use A LOT of pots compared to just using a lot of pots. Lacks survivability.

Hammer 4, WW 3, CS 3, Horn 5, Might 5
Good for:
If you have gold to spare. Builds decent threat, still has group in mind with decent survivability. You should have a slight edge in aggro to equally geared team mates. You still play the role of keeping trash mobs off of your dps and onto you but have a much better chance at keeping the boss' attention.

Pet:
Use Flap Jack on trash (for reasons stated earlier) up to boss. After you reach boss, swap it for Ribbit or Loki and go to town best you can.

Cons:
You need to have gold. You'll be relying on Mana pots exclusively in addition to health pots. But if you are farming it shouldn't be too big a deal. Just sell something.

Again, your experiences and play style will affect how well the builds will work for you.

Thoughts on War tank "fixes"
Some options would be:
-Give Warrior 20% damage buff
-Reduce swing time on 1 handed weapons ONLY by 25%-35%, effectively increasing dps on 1 handers only
-Increase threat on all taunts
-Make all Warrior taunts hold mobs attention for 1/2 second minimum

Those options should make Warrior tanking effective again. I personally don't mind spamming pots if we could hold aggro. After all, the other two classes have been spamming pots since the game's inception

[Kenoon]

I am still using my Build 3 for tanking. (as mentioned, still best threat output)
I no longer have problem in holding aggro with Tower last boss or Jarl.
Pot usage is much lower.
Pet is Snaggletooth or Shiloh.


My current setup is:
CS 2, Windmill 4, Vengeful 5, HOR 5, Might 5.

Using Lv21 Wonderland helm and armor.
Lv21 dps ring
Lv21 tanking ring
Lv20 Shadowrealm.

My idea in tanking:
Hold highest aggro
If skills can give hp or mp regen significantly,
i wont give up those skills and use potions to replace them.
Carry the team to survive and clear bosses.

[Nutstomper]

What are your friends geared like? I'm maxed out and so are my friends. That build still has issues for me.