[PMB] Astrodon's way of the Tank

1

Friday, May 9th 2014, 10:28pm

Caether

Beginner

Posts: 4

'Hello everybody. this is Astrodon, warrior from the league side, member of the guild 'AstralRiders'.
I'll be your guide on this magical trip of becoming a warrior tank.
Grab my hand, and let's begin our journey.'

The warrior is a class with a broad choice of melee weapons. This makes the warrior one of the most variated classes, considering you're able to pick a huge two-handed weapon to slash every foe that's on your path, paired weapons for the warrior that wants to rip his foe apart as fast as possible. And as last... the one-handed weapon, accompanied by a shield. This last one. That's the one I did like to go deeper into.

Why taking a tanking role, if you could go for an awesome DPS (Damage Per Second)?

Lately it's a difficult time for finding tanks for instances and astrals. Becoming one would make it so much easier for you to join these events.
As a tank you're always the "center" of your party. What I mean with this, is that the whole party is dependent of YOU. This might sound a little stressful, but basicly you're the one that takes (atleast tries too) all the monsters on yourself and keeping it like that, so your fellow party members can take the enemies down without having to worry about dying.

Vigor - This is basicly the old 'Strenght' stat. It's a stat that's only received from equipment and/or rubies. It's like the base damage, and is always nice to have as a tank, considering you'll have to grab alot of attention with your hits and this is easier to do with a nice amount of damage.

Stamina - In the old patch you've had the same stat too. There's not alot that has changed. Just like 'Vigor' it's only received from equipment and/or rubies. Stamina is basicly the stat for your base health.

Proficiency - This is the stat that's linked with the other stat 'Vigor'. The higher your proficiency is, the higher percentage your Vigor increases with.

Determination - I like to explain this stat as a 'Pay-Back' stat. This is because it increases your damage dealt, by the percentage of wounds you're receiving. This is a nice stat to have as a tank, considering you're the one being attacked alot by enemies. This causes us to do a higher DPS while being busy tanking

Brutality - Brutality increases your damage by a percentage depending on the health of your target. The lower health your target is having, the bigger damage you're doing. This is always a nice stat to have, but as a tank it's not the biggest 'must'.

Anger - This stat is just like the old 'rage' stat. Its main purpose is for decreasing the incoming healing of your target (mostly in pvp) by giving a higher wound complexity given from your hits. Not a 'must' for tanks.

Vitality - Just like the 'Proficiency' stat increases your base damage by a percentage, this increases your 'Stamina' by a percentage. It's always nice to have a nice health bar as a tank, since this increases the chance of surviving. Not only does this increase your health bar, but also your 'Stony Resilence' barrier strenght.

Willpower - This is the stat for resisting control spells from other targets (mostly used for pvp too). Basicly for every second you're under a control effect, you'll receive a percentage resistance. When this reaches 100% you'll receive immunity for these effects for a few seconds, depending on your 'Willpower'.

Bloodlust - Bloodlust simply gives your health back by a percentage of the damage you're dealing. This can be a nice stat as a tank for survival, and helping the healer that's working hard for keeping you alive. Even though it's a nice stat to have, I wouldn't say to focus to much on it. Just see it as an additional stat to have for tanking.

Tenacity - Perhaps one of the most important stat for tanking all the damage. What it does: it increases your base defense. This makes us possible to receive less damage than we usually would and there for it increases our survivability. There is a warning on this stat though. You'll ONLY receive this defense increase, as long your wound complexity isn't emerging. When you're getting damage while having your wound complexity full, your defense will be drop back to your official base defense, ending up you'll receive the normal amount of damage. But this stat doesn't only increase your defense, it also fastens up the loss of wounds, meaning you'll be able to get your bonus defense back. IMPORTANT stat to have.

Luck - This stat is just like the old 'Luck' stat. It increases your chance of doing critical hits by a percentage. This stat can only be gained from rubies and dragonic equipment. A nice stat to have for any playstyle you're having.

"If I have a bullet with your name on it, I will just keep on firing till I figure out which one is it"

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2

Friday, May 9th 2014, 10:31pm

Caether

Beginner

Posts: 4

My current favorite tank build:

71 talent points; 61 rubies

Skills which are used in this build:

Devastating blow / Flawless Strike - Deals a nice amount of damage and gives 15 CA (Combat Advantage).

Charge - Charges to a target dealing an amount of damage and knocks the enemy down .

Argonizing Strike / Fatal Blow - Deals alot of single target damage. Costs 50 CA.

Lunge - A quick hit with a low energy cost. Gives 10 CA.

Shield Slam - Slam the enemy with your shield causing a fair amount of damage and knocks the enemy down. Only possible after a block (Don't worry, you don't have to panic straight spamming the button. You'll end up giving your blocked target a "buff" for 10 seconds, making you able to use Shield Slam).

Intimidate - Forces your target to attack you for 10 seconds. Your first 2 melee hits will increase its duration by 2,5 seconds each. Also causes your target to do 50% less damage on others (AOE (Area Of Effect) for example). This skill works on players too, but increases cooldown by 100%. The target must inflict damage equal to 10% of your total health to be able to switch to another target.

Adrenaline Buzz - Energy regeneration rate increases by 100% for 15 seconds long.

Vicious Spin / Whirlwind - Spin your head right round and hit enemies within 7y radius by a nice amount of damage every second, 5 seconds long. Reduces movement speed by 50% and costs 65 CA.

Headbutt - Deals a nice amount of damage to a single target, kicks him a few yards away and knocking him down. Damage depends on the quality and level of your equipped helm.

Reasoned Aggression - Grants the Warrior to generate 10 CA per second for 7 seconds long. You'll be in a combat mode while the effect is active. Consumes 3 Tears of the Dragon. (Using Tears of the Dragon of a higher quality reduces the cooldown).

Heroic Might - You receive 3 stacks of Heroic Might for 20 seconds. Each use of Forceful Kick, Hack, Devastating Blow and Flawless Strike consumes one stack. The abilities deal an extra amount of damage and have extra effects: Forceful Kick kicks back the target for 10 yards, Hack immobilizes target for a few seconds, Devastating Blow and Flawless Strike apply Deep Wound, which deals an extra amount of damage every second, 3 seconds long. Consumes 3 Tears of the Dragon. (Using Tears of the Dragon of a higher quality increases additional damage dealt by the Heroic Might effect and durattion of the Broken Legs effect).

Crushing Blow - Jumps to a specified location, inflicting a huge amount of damage to all enemies in a 10 yard radius and toss them up for 1,5 seconds.

Cruelty - Increases threat by 300% but decreases your damage by 10%.

Take Cover - Increases block rate by 50% for 8 seconds.

Stalwart Defense - Grants a group member an effect to generate 25% less threat and protects against death. If deadly damage is dealt, the group member uses Die Hard ability instead of the warrior. (Even though your group member is under this effect, but you'll get a lethal blow first instead, you'll use the Die Hard ability like normally and removes the effect from the other player).

"If I have a bullet with your name on it, I will just keep on firing till I figure out which one is it"

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Caether" (May 9th 2014, 10:44pm)

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3

Friday, May 9th 2014, 10:33pm

Caether

Beginner

Posts: 4

Abilities:

Agile Maneuvers - Increases Vitality by 15.

Bull's Eye - Damage dealt by Devastating Blow and Flawless strike increases by 15%

Bushido - Warrior restores 1 energy every 2 seconds.

Daredevil - Increases Determination by 9.

Desire for Life - Reduces cooldown of Die Hard ability by 40%.

Die Hard - After receiving a lethal blow, cancels all controll effects, increases your health by 40% and restores the same amount of hit points. Lasts 15 seconds. 3 minute cooldown (With Desire for Life rank 2 it's 1 minute and 48 seconds).

Fencing Master - Increases your chance to parry by 15%

Gladiator - Increase one-handed weapon damage by 20%.

Hexed - If a shield is equipped, the incoming damage may be reduced by an amount with probability of 50%, depending on the quality and level of the shield.

Just a Scratch - If a shield is equipped, critical damage reduces by 21%.

Lethal Blows - Increases your Proficiency by 9.

Lucky - Increases a critical strike chance of Devastating Blow and Flawless Strike.

Master of Defense - Increases shield block rate by 15%.

Might over Magic - Chance to shield-block magic damage is 100% of your chance to block physical damage.

[b] Natural Born Killer - Increases damage dealt by Agonizing Strike, Fatal Blow, Vicious Spin and Whirlwind by 15%.

Pebble Wall[/b] - Stony Resilience restores in battles at 15% of your hit points. Increases the effectiveness of incoming healing by 15%.

Rampaging Menace - Increases your Vigor by 9%.

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Rugged Fighter - Increases your Stamina by 15%.

Ruthlessness - Increases your Anger by 8.

Slaughter - Increases a critical strike chance of Agonizing Strike, Fatal Blow, Vicious Spin and Whirlwind by 10%.

Swiftness - Each attack that successfully deals damage to a single target increases Warrior's movement speed by 10% for 7 seconds. This effect stacks up to 3 times.

Team Play - Damage dealt increases by 2% per each Group Member in the radius of 40 yards.

Here are some tips and tricks for tanking which I gained from experience.

Whenever you're going for a pack of mobs, it's always nice to use 'Reasoned aggression' whenever it's possible. This will make you able to use the 'Whirlwind' skill alot faster, causing you to get all their attention alot easier before losing them all running towards your DPS'ers.
Use the skill 'Take Cover' as much as possible. We don't have the barriers like the paladins do, but this is a nice solution for us warriors to block alot of damage too.
Stalwart Defense is not a skill you HAVE to take, it's just something I like personally. Considering we're not capable of ressing somebody while being in combat like the paladin, you're still able to save somebodies life (Your healer for example. Since when your healer dies... Everybody dies).
Vicious Spin and Whirlwind are great skills for keeping packs on yourself, but considering it costs alot of energy it might always be a wise idea keeping 'Adrenaline Buzz' ready for whenever it's really needed.
Whenever you're having the posibility of moving around, do it. With the 'Swiftness' ability you're able to run alot faster away from an enemy, making it a more difficult time of actually hitting you. And because you're receiving slower damage, your wound complexity is having the time to decrease and makes sure you'll get your defense bonus from 'Tenacity'.
The more health you're having, the stronger your barrier from Stony Resilience gets.

I hope this guide will be any use to you one day!