Ugg's Pure Elite Tank Build

[Reggin]

The only annoying thing about my build is the reliance on a team... it's terrible for grinding kills and leveling. Also, playing with random people who have never seen anything other than a charge and spam warrior is frustrating.

Since you literally do pathetic damage, you need your team to be efficient in rapidly killing things and prioritizing targets (mages and archers first) or despite the tank survivability you are going to burn a ton of pots.

However, if you are a warrior who has three skilled high dps friends (I prefer 2 rogues and a mage), run with them and you'll see the best example of how this build can shine.

I'd be curious to see how some of the high damage warriors fair with this build, as additional damage wouldn't hurt... I wonder if the added damage would help aggro enough to ditch cs in favor of either vengeance or war horn... since new bosses are immune to the interrupt, I'm debating giving up that addition and just keeping for the taunt.

[Wizard_Mike]

since new bosses are immune to the interrupt, I'm debating giving up that addition and just keeping for the taunt.

I still find the interrupt pretty useful, though. Some of the trash in the later levels have some pretty strong windups that can really hurt your team if they happen to be caught in a tight area. Plus it's nice to be able to interrupt 2-3 mages at a time when they are tucked together.

But regardless, jarl is still the quickest elite loot run and he can still be interrupted. CS makes that fight cake. Heck, with interrupts you don't even have to worry about positioning outside of pulling him away from the goblins in the back. Easy mode, heh.

[Wizard_Mike]

I personally don't use charged attacks because I want constant hits in after a taunt and sword with shield is actually decently quick.

I've been meaning to dig more into this, but kept forgetting.

Have you, or anyone else, tested to see if there is any difference in holding aggro between using all charged versus all non-charged normal attacks? I know when fighting packs of trash it's better to go with charged, because it deals AoE damage, rather than just hitting a single target. I noticed a big improvement in my ability to hold aggro on packs when I started charging my normal attacks.

But I don't know if there would be any diffence on bosses. A charged attack hits for more damage, of course, but non-charged attacks (with sword & board) are really quick. I older which would generate more APS (aggro per second... Can I coin that? Lol).

Also, charged attacks have a small chance to stun. I'm going to assume this doesn't work on bosses, but I haven't fully tested this out yet. It's a simple one to test, so I plan on doing so, but I figured I would bring it up in case anyone could chime in on it.

[Reggin]

Yeah... packs are another story... but as far as pure damage on a single target, those multi quick hits for less damage end up hitting for more than the charged hit that takes the same amount of time. I'm pretty much referring to bosses, as those are the ones most likely to wipe a party as long as the pulls are done intelligently.

[grunt226]

thank you ugg for the right up! very informative. question regarding weapon choices. with a build such as yours, I would imagine you would prefer a weapon with a support proc or debug opposed to damage. what would you prefer? the 25% armor defuff, ice armor proc or str/hp regen buff?

btw, respecced my tank based off your build and maintaining aggro has essentially became child's play. it does help that I have a lot of previous tanking experience ( MT for a top alliance guild in wow from bc thru cata)

I have been playing a rogue and sorcerer primarily in AL but recently decided to roll a tank because I was getting very frustrated with the lack of quality tanks in this game... and your guide has definitely clarified a lot for me... it's surprising that sts left out vital information for certain skills ie... I didn't realize that cs had a built in taunt, nor that jugg has a continuance taunt etc...

again, much appreciation for your time and sharing your information. I'm sure the community will appreciate it as well, as it will undoubtedly lead to more quality and informed tanks coming down the pipeline.

[Reggin]

I was a horde MT in an end game raid guild years ago lol... I personally prefer the sword and board... the armor from it is constant regardless of the proc. However, the proc isn't exactly bad. I'd still use it even if it had no proc though.

[Szangheili]

Use flapjack as a pet with this build. Thank me later.

[kiratdeluxe]

anyone use rally cry ?

[Reggin]

Flap Jack is my #2 option with Nexus being #1.

Nexus gives 15 str, 10 dex (.5% dodge), 2 mps, 1% less damage. His arcane is what makes him godly, as it restores mana to the whole party. It gives over 150 mana, which means it's boosting mps for all by about 25 mps.

Flap Jack is great for enemies that can be stunned, but if you have a super high dps rogue that has you taunting like crazy he won't keep up with the rate you spend mana. Nexus means 0 pots used for mana for the tank and a lot less for rogues in the party.

[Szangheili]

Hmm. I don't have nexus although I will probably buy him with plat really soon.i keep hearing that hes such a great pet..

[Reggin]

He's plat only, but only buy if you've got the plat to spare. His passive attack is an aoe that has a chance to reduce enemy damage and crit by 5%. For a pure tank that wants mana, he's the perfect pet in my opinion.

[Reggin]

I've had a request for my skill cycle, so I thought I'd post it here for those who are interested.

Grinding Cycle (Tombs or areas with tons of mobs)

Before running to gather mobs, I'll use jugg for the repeating aoe taunt. Once gathered and in place, I'll pop renew and basically spam charged auto attacks and regular chest splitter. Losing aggro to a single mob won't kill the rogue or mage so holding taunts isn't needed. The main goal is to neatly group them in this situation.

Elite Cycle

For elites I'll get into position where the pack can face me and allow my team to get behind it without aggroing another pack. I'll open with axe throw then either renew if it's a small pack for aggro or jugg and renew if it's a big pack. I'll then auto attack (charged or not depending on size). I'll chest splitter if a mob changes to someone else and pretty much spam renew.

Elite Boss Cycle

This is what the build was designed for. I'll get into position and pull with axe throw. I'll immediately jugg so the repeated taunts maintain aggro as the party starts dps. Auto attack non charged spam comes next. Depending on the boss, I'll keep renew available at all times to shield the party from aoe wind up attacks (which lets them continue dps without slowing down). At any given time, I make sure to have two taunts available. I prefer to keep axe throw available cuz it's amazing, but if I have aggro and all other skills available I'll use a charged axe throw to reduce armor and possibly stun. The second a boss turns, I'll use chest splitter to taunt. If I lose aggro again immediately, I'll axe throw. If I'm still losing aggro repeatedly (often due to stacked aim shots), I'll juggernaut and go into spamming cs. When jugg is going, I will only use cs to save at and renew to use during the 30 second cooldown where it's not active. During that 15 seconds it's active, timing cs to go between the jugg taunts means an active taunt every 1.5 seconds which is extremely hard for even a top rogue to steal aggro from. The big thing is that while you have aggro, don't use skills at all. Learn how the taunts work and be prepared to improvise based on need. One big thing is learn to position bosses so you can easily see the second they turn and all dps should group together behind it. This will make timing your taunts a lot easier.

[Ashanto]

I think your build is only good for lower gear or it depends on how someone plays. I play with top damage gear with a semi tank build and I have never died since reaching 21 or had someone pull agro more than 1-2 secs. I also never buy pots as I have zero need

Stats:
STR 303
Bonus DMG 252%
HP 3354
DMG 123.3
DEX/Dodge/Crit 42/5.12%/9.05%
INT/MP 16/260
DPS 138.7
Armor 856

With Mighty Vorp of Assault, crit procs to 102% multiple times during fight which increases threat massively and procs often

Build with Nexus:
Full STR
Sky 1/2/3 the stun is great for mitigating damage
Chest 1/4
Venge 1/2/3/4
Horn 3/4 1 only increases healing to 8 meters. We are not healers and 3 adds taunt at 8 meters already. 2 is a wate, only adds 250 HP over the additional 1.5 sec heal, Venge offsets that when charged by boosting HP by 250 plus adding damage
Final 5 points in Might Passive for DPS/HP

From my experience the high crit causes awesome threat in white damage and chest splitter. I almost never have to rely on Horn, only use it to gain start threat and self heals. The low INT isn't even noticed because of Venge.

I use Ribbit over Nexus for the additional crit and the reducing enemy damage.

I even have room for improvement since my sword is level 20, level 21 only adds 4.3 DPS and 10HP. And Demonlord Helm of Will can add 31 Armor 130 MP and 9 HP at a small loss of base crit/dodge.

[Reggin]

I've said it many times... a damage build isn't bad if that's the play style you like. However, I can tell you right now that you either don't play with high damage rogues or they are majorly holding back their dps. A warrior simply can't do more damage than a rogue no matter what they do, so maintaining threat without taunts isn't possible.

My build isn't designed for low gear, as I've had tons of positive feedback from people who have better gear than me. It's based on maximizing the skills that benefit the defined role of a tank. Tanks don't need to do damage by definition! They simply need to hold aggro. I can guarantee you that your gear and build doesn't hold aggro better than mine, and I'd be happy to prove it in game. You and me do jarl, and see who keeps the aggro... I'll bet you 100k gold if you honestly want to try to back up your claim and put your money where your mouth is...

[Ashanto]

I dont know about the gold part. But as a huge fan of MMO's I would love to test the build out against your build for maximizing sake

[Reggin]

Awwww... not willing to back it up then it isn't worth my time to prove it. You'll notice there are a lot of positive comments from people who actually try the build instead of just knocking it based on their own perception. The difference is that I've used the competing builds to level and owned the damage gear at level 16 before deciding to sell it in favor of pure tank gear.

I've tanked with both the common ss, cs/ww, vb, hor build and I can tell you with 100% certainty that the four taunt build holds aggro and soaks damage better. I'm so certain that I'll put my money where my mouth is... anyone care to take me up on it?

[Ashanto]

The only problem I see is that you may be on overkill with so much taunt. I've used both builds and find that I can use 2 taunts with top gear for DPS and Armor and still maintain control. The max you use in Horn is wasted points. You should never have to worry about healing max range of 8M instead of 6M and a 25% increase in skill time is only 250HP. Mages are usually out of range of boss AOE so taking no damage and rogues are within 6M so they are shielded incase your Chest Splitter doesn't interrupt the bosses attack.

I actually am interested in possibly swapping out Sky Smash for Axe Throw. That would drop AOE damage from Smash but add a high threat/taunt to boss fights. I like that Axe can also drag annoying mages and archers within range.

[Reggin]

The increased duration from renew adds not just one extra heal tick (which I don't use for the heal anyway) but it makes the shield last 2.5 seconds instead of 2.

The range increase is there specifically because if someone does pull aggro and they are a glass cannon the instinct is to run away. The extra range is great for making sure they get the needed shield.

I guess you can reduce the range buff if you wanted, but I personally have tried it with both and like the range (especially since it's a radius buff not a diameter buff). There is no way I'd give up the duration though, as a half second of total immunity to the whole party is phenomenal.

It's not overkill... I promise... with maxed rogues going all out dps it is even hard to maintain aggro sometimes with my build, and impossible with less taunts. If they rework the taunt mechanic to guarantee aggro for 1 second, I would contemplate a change. Actually, even then I wouldn't as each taunt is different and has a very specific use in my play style.

[Crystalite]

I wish we could discuss alternative builds more amiably on these forums without having to resort to challenges instinctively. We are here to learn from one another after all. :P

I like how both of you make sme interesting points though: I kind of agree with Ashanto's point on healing range of horn of renew. In either pugs or regular groups, I find rogues and mages are either right beside me, too far away(mage) or quick to run out of range once the red light area appears for elite madrom. So it would appear the extra 2m upgrade for Horn of renew might not really be necessary.

On the other hand, those tanks who have ever noticed the 'non-100% success rate' of taunts in the game will realize that maybe 4 taunts are not really an overkill, since your taunts may, for whatever unexplained reasons like latency, a quick increase in threat value from dps toons right AFTER you have used a taunt, or simply current game mechanics, and WILL fail to work sometimes.

But on then on the other hand again, I am coming to the conclusion that regardless of which build u use as a warrior: dps-oriented or pure taunt build, what is important is your party's objective. E.g. If you are going for leaderboards obviously you would prefer dps-oriented for the extra dps, since dps toons can simply pot through most of the damage, which begs the question of why we need a tank for such speed runs, but that's another issue I guess. However, if the party's objective is to finish the run safely(this point is debatable), and with minimum use of pots(healing pots for dps toons), at the loss of timing, then you might want to use the pure taunt build. At least this is just my opinion.

Regarding finishing the run 'safely', I refer to the probability of dying on runs, for both tank and dps. With juggernaut, tank has much higher chance of surviving pulls like that group on 2nd floor: that big 'shark?'(as someone calls it) mob hits like a tank, along with those dog mobs. With more taunts, the dps toons are less likely to pull agro, or if they do, likely to have agro pulled off them. On the other hand, i have noticed that with poorly-equipped parties, fights take way too long (longer than 15sec of juggernaut) and even my tank has an issue surviving that pull. Horn of renew and juggernaut, the 2 most reliable aoe taunts, are 15sec and 30sec csd. Chest splitter alone cant handle all mobs from that pull of 9 on the 2nd floor. So in this case, from a survivability viewpoint, the quicker mobs die, the 'safer' it might be for tank and dps. But then, with less taunts dps might die more easily too. I think it depends very much on the dps toons' abilities here: e.g. Which mobs they chose to target as a rogue, whether e mage times his fireball, frostbolt and if he has it, gale, to CC the mobs. So i think it is quite debatable! Again, this is just my view.

[Reggin]

Only put the challenge out there for the purpose of backing up the aggro claim since he mentioned never losing aggro. Challenge is a good way to actually test the ability of each build to maintain aggro.

As far as speed goes, I'll have to respectfully disagree. The added dps of a damage build over a tank build is maybe 200 dps factoring in everything. However, take a warrior and 3 rogue example. In order for the damage build tank to maintain aggro, the rogues can likely only go 75% of their max potential.

If a rogue can do 1000 dps max, the reduced damage would be 750 dps to not pull aggro. Three rogues would be 750 dps party reduction. Adding in the extra 200 dps from the damage build would still be a 550 reduction in total dps to maintain aggro.

There is no doubt in my mind that the other suggested builds are effective and have an ability to tank in many situations, but they quite simply aren't true tank builds... they are warrior builds that can often substitute for a tank due to the naturally high armor and health of the class.

Honestly, I'd prefer a tank build that guarantees aoe aggro without fail even if it did absolutely 0 damage, simply because that's the core role of a tank.