Curse

stocker25 · Jul 06, 2006, 11:25 PM // 23:25

this bild works great until you run into a mesmer or necro and then its gg. Also in my opinion using only 3 skils i can tank more effectively. I bring dolyak sig, watch yourself, and melendrus resiliance (for overkill bring i wil survive). This way i have a lot for 4 attack skills and a res sig.

Fluffy Butt · Jul 07, 2006, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Well, good idea, bad output.

1) Great defence bad offence, A good defence is a great offence right, then this is a All Defence no offence. Example: Tank VS. Tank right? they both take 4-10 damage w/o skills. You may take little damage BUT SO WILL THE OTHER TANK, infact, the other tank might kill you if your adding health skills runs out. becuase the other tank is doing 20-40 damage with skills while your doing 4-10.
2) A tank is soppose to block the foes, well you will move very slow, the +75 armor helps, but not when it comes to mesmers. Mesmers haves you owned with this build

3) I hate this build, not a good damage output The "Lich" need to take a lot of damage, you will be worthless in that mission and some others. Heck a monk will own you (never ending fight) cause you can't do enough damage.
4) I love that you came up with this build, more ideas the better. Just not one of the good ones, good job thinking outside the box

Benandorf · Jul 07, 2006, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Well, again, it is supposed to just tank. And I don't turn on Dolyak while I am body blocking, I turn it on when I am already in the battle.

Damage doesn't matter to me, it is simply a damage absorber.

dgb · Jul 07, 2006, 04:03 PM // 16:03

The real problem with this build isn't that it's bad for tanking, it's that it is for tanking at all. Tanking is a dumb idea and there are far better uses for a warrior in PVE, namely killing stuff. Four warriors, a necro and a few monks will flatten anything in PVE faster than your tank backed up with eles will ever do.

wheel · Jul 09, 2006, 09:08 PM // 21:08

It's far from unkillable. Don't label your builds on claims that are impossible to hold up, like being unkillable.

Vincent Ritz · Jul 10, 2006, 02:10 AM // 02:10

It is a tank's JOB in PvE to absorb and reduce damage so the the squishies don't have to. I run a similar build to the Ice Imp IDS solo, I modified it to be quite self sufficient. As it IS guild wars, there is always at least 1 class that can be custom made to kill you.

W/Mo tank:

Swordsmanship: 8+1
Strength: 10+1
Tactics:10+1+1
Healing Prayers: 8

Defy Pain {E}
Dolyak Signet
"Watch Yourself!"
[Utility skill]
Healing Signet
Vigorous Spirit
Live Vicariously
Restore Life

This PvE build I use as of recent, as there is a low energy requirement, and the self healing methods are solid. If you are in a mesmer heavy area, Live vicariously can be removed before aggro, and healing signet can do well as a self heal. If the mesmers are likely to use leech signets or cry of frustration to interrupt healing signet, Live Vicariously or Vigorous spirit can be uesd to "bait" the interrupt before using heal sig. On the other hand, when fighting things that use rust or other anti-signet skills, then Vigorous Spirit + Live Vicariously heal for 13+10 per hit (or +13 if you can't hit your target). Assuming you're using a sword/ax + shield, the healing output is 23 or 13 healing per 1.3 seconds, which is MUCH better than mending, and fairly comparable to healing breeze, WITHOUT actually using a healing breeze; this allows any regen spells from the party to be used without competing for regen space (or crappy warrior breeze versus excellent henchy breeze).

Things to watch out for: mesmers and necros, some rangers, few warriors. Mesmers can be custom fitted to kill any class, so best advice is to keep an eye out for the more dangerous of hexes. Necros are less of a threat to you even with SS, however you become a liability towards others if you continue to swing while you have SS on you, again hexes are nasty, but nothing is perfect. Rangers tend to riddle you with conditions and may even interrupt your heals, but most tend to be harmless in PvE. Warriors, the same, they can interrupt you (lousy cheating trolls with both mighty blow and disrupting chop), once again a rare nuissance, but managable.

This build works wonders to keep party damage to a minimum, It lacks punch, but tanks quite well with less stress for the healer, and allows the casters to do their thing as the typical tank+healer+nuker party frame was designed to do.

I hope this helps with people wanting to be a true tank, and not a damage dealer.

]SK[ · Jul 10, 2006, 09:12 AM // 09:12

Enchatment Strips are too annoying for me. I realised that why bother trying to counter damage when you can just absorb it instead.

My skill bar looks like this.

Flurry
Quivering Blade {E}
Standing Slash
Silverwing Slash
Galrath Slash
"Watch Yourself!"
Dolyak Signet
Healing Signet

Strength 10 (9+1)
Swordsmanship 13 (12+1)
Tactics 12 (9+1+1)

Having a Zealous Sword for this is important. A +45 -2 while in stance shield is recommended since 95% of the time your in a stance with (Flurry). Every few seconds I am doing 50+ dmg from each attack and when fighting alot of melee based enemies they are do 0 dmg to you. I also pack a +5 armour on my sword meaning I get a total of 71 extra armour from my shield, sword and skills and -2 dmg. A further -5 dmg from my absorption rune and ascalon helm.

151 Armour during battle.
171 Armour v's melee fighters.

With this setup I can deal damage while also tank. Obviously any armour ignoring damage gets by this. Empathy and Spiteful Spirit are my personal hates. Good skills to shutdown any warrior or indeed kill any clueless warrior. Recommendation is to just tank without attacking when hexed up like this.

Try to use healing signet when both Watch Yourself and Dolyak Signet are active. The -40 armour from this skill really does show when your being attacked. Don't use when under heavy fire it will kill you rather than heal you.

Mr_eX · Jul 10, 2006, 10:39 PM // 22:39

I used to use a tanking build similar to that one to serve as the 100% defensive aspect of my PUGs:
Dolyak Signet
"Watch Yourself!"
Defy Pain
"Shields Up!"
Healing Signet
IWAY
Rush

IWAY is nice because if multiple party members die I can cast it and stay and hold aggro with 10-40 seconds of +7 health regen while the monks kite and Rebirth our dead party members. Or, if the entire party wipes, I can cast IWAY and Rush, run away, and Rebirth everybody myself.

I don't like Endure Pain because you can't keep it on throughout an entire battle like Defy Pain. Endure is a skill I only use for running.

Unfortunately, a dedicated tank has become a completely irrelevent member of most PUGs because of the fact that people simply don't know how to aggro correctly. The only times I've actually tanked are as a stance tank with a gear in Sorrow's Furnace (now nerfed) and with the above build in Ruins of Tombs (before people knew what a b/p ranger was.) In Factions, I noticed that most mobs would just run right past me and go straight for the backline, which just makes my job null and void.

Being a meat shield is nice because you are incredibly hard for the average PvE mob to kill, but your contribution to the average group will be pretty much insignificant. Unless you're partying with guildies or friends, stick to a high-damage build and bring a couple of shouts if you want to help defend your teammates.

Valkyries · Jul 11, 2006, 09:00 AM // 09:00

I don't know if the problem is because of the title or if most people don't realize what a tank is supposed to do.

Is his build perfect? No! I can see a few things I would change myself but this is what works for him!

Claiming the build is unkillable is probably what is getting you the most flames. Which is just poor labelling in my opinion, you stated many times in your original post that the build of course isn't indestructable.

Also, most people (I said most if anyone is about to start a flame war) do not realize that a Tank is not meant to deal damage. Yes he has low attr in swords... yes, he has pretty much no attack skills... none of this matters at all. His job is to pull a mob, bring it closer and take the hints until the REST of the party takes it down. Not him... he just needs to be a meat shield, nothing more. I think his build does that.

I agree, it is weak against something like a Mesmer and definitely not for PVP (I thought that was really obvious to be honest) but seriously tell me a build that is GOOD against a Mesmer. Take a shield that is good against Hex and hope your Monk is useful.

For a place like SF farming, I think a build like this is pretty decent. Again, its not what I would run personally but if it works for you then awesome. Thanks for sharing.

jesh · Jul 14, 2006, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr_eX

Being a meat shield is nice because you are incredibly hard for the average PvE mob to kill, but your contribution to the average group will be pretty much insignificant. Unless you're partying with guildies or friends, stick to a high-damage build and bring a couple of shouts if you want to help defend your teammates.

Quoted for truth.
On a side note, Enfeebling Blood is an awesome skill to bring as a warrior, because you can draw aggro with it, hit heal sig, and when they all run past you, your team will still take less damage. Then I guess you could run back also and use Protector's and knockdowns. lol

Sad that warriors have to play like this, just because no one can snare or manage aggro.

Benandorf · Jul 14, 2006, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valkyries

I don't know if the problem is because of the title or if most people don't realize what a tank is supposed to do.

Is his build perfect? No! I can see a few things I would change myself but this is what works for him!

Claiming the build is unkillable is probably what is getting you the most flames. Which is just poor labelling in my opinion, you stated many times in your original post that the build of course isn't indestructable.

Also, most people (I said most if anyone is about to start a flame war) do not realize that a Tank is not meant to deal damage. Yes he has low attr in swords... yes, he has pretty much no attack skills... none of this matters at all. His job is to pull a mob, bring it closer and take the hints until the REST of the party takes it down. Not him... he just needs to be a meat shield, nothing more. I think his build does that.

I agree, it is weak against something like a Mesmer and definitely not for PVP (I thought that was really obvious to be honest) but seriously tell me a build that is GOOD against a Mesmer. Take a shield that is good against Hex and hope your Monk is useful.

For a place like SF farming, I think a build like this is pretty decent. Again, its not what I would run personally but if it works for you then awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Hehe, thanks. I really am bad at naming things, and that was all that came to mind.

Also, I wanted to make a tank without the generic W/Mo formula, that is why I don't have this guy as a wammo.

And as I said before, this is not PvP.

TadaceAce · Jul 14, 2006, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Really I don't like all the warriors who are trying to be super tanks. In factions I'd much rather have a good damage warrior that a guy who thinks he is invincible. Warriors are so far and away the best single target damage dealer, why waste it in going overkill tanking. Warriors have enough armor in themselves to tank, they don't need anything else unless you have really bad monks.

Xaero Gouki Kriegor · Jul 15, 2006, 01:21 AM // 01:21

12 Earth Magic
15 Strength
Rest in Tactics with Superior Tactics Rune

Dolyak Signet
Watch yourself!
Armor Of Earth
Obsidian Flesh {E}*Similar To your Defy Pain, Except makes you imune for a while to spells*
Healing Signet

or

As for an rea full of mesmers or something or hexes:

12 Wilderness Survival
12 Stength
Rest in Tacitcs

Melandru's resilience
Troll Urgent
Healing Signet
Dolyak Signet
Watch Yourself
Riposte
Deadly Riposte
Shield Stance

W/r can still be kiled but only if the mesmer in the area is prepared, ive actualy tried a variation of the w/r to try and take down scales lol, could tank them, but couldn dent them too greatly, that +10 regen they get from your degen is a pain to damage through, then when you do finally get them damaged down, the annoying things use grenth's balance :/