I know it's probably a lot of effort on your behalf but if you made a series where you did a run through of each dungeon on m2-3 and kinda what to do as a tank that would be unreal! Keep up the great content!
Hey guys I’m just a casual player doing like 3-4 M3s a day. I run sword and flail. I do the 10% damage for group members and the spinny aoe ability, rush, and then of course the aoe taunt. I’m using oro for my flail. I use the run in ability, then ground slam in case I missed the taunt on mobs, then the purple spin move. This gives heroes resolve to group members to buff their damage and their armor. Then I switch to sword and spin to win after using rush and aoe taunt for fortify and the health after a few seconds. Then I just spin to win for rend and Aggro. I’ve used blooddrinker and I’ve seen my aggro fall off quicker on bigger pulls and bosses, but it’s great if you’re healer isn’t good. Typically not a problem with aggro, but just letting you know. I run 350 con, then get whatever gives me incoming healing for focus then the rest in strength. Currently trying to get void plate. And I use the heartstone that gives fortify and heals me for base health. The build is really really beefy and it gives a lot of buffs to my team and some healing in a crunch. I tank m3s with a breeze.
My favorite part about the DPS Tank builds that have become “norm” or popular is that while they are the most optimal they are incredibly inconsistent for those of us who have to pug mutations and have less than adequate teammates. Id argue that while 300-300 is good the 50 focus bonus isnt something to shrug off. Its considered a beginner tank attribute but when playing with randoms it matters from my experience. When i manage to get a company run i often can drop it but i feel like its a safe place for people pugging
I find that the issue to get the 50 focus is currently the magnify, in order for me to go 50 focus i gotta be on 400 con and 150 str which brings my dmg down, so maintaining agro can be hard at time.
Don’t forget the blight potions at caretaker! As a healer main, it sucks seeing my heals barely having an effect on anyone. I’m looking into trying tanking though. Thanks for the guide!
Flail and shield. Drop the eruption. Pick up barrage. It will surprise you to how good it is for tanking. You literally run through enemies taunting them when you do. How many times have you gotten swarmed into a corner and your healer pulls aggro and needs help? Barrage completely out of the swarm taunting everything and smash the mob bugging the healer . Not to mention the fort it gives you and teammates. Don't sleep in it
Defensive formation on SnS is way better for a tank. 10% dps buff is good, but with randoms, 30% defense is better when needed to help prevent wipes. Also, Restoration on Defenders Resolve is a must if the healer goes down and you need to hold the hoard while they get revived. This is also why Reverse Stab is way better than Whirling Blade. You get faster heals than using pots. You do not seem to be taking into account the uncertainty when queueing with randoms. You must be equipped to take up some slack from lesser players.
@@Stefanssky now the taunt gems activates and give 300% threat. So you're able to shoot gems that aren't carnelian. Myself I'll be slotting jasper for the 20% bonus DMG
Hammer tree is close. One thing though, wrecking ball is too good to not have. Armor breaker is secondary. You do not need armor breaker rend in clumps and wrecking ball gives way more value. you do mention this later, but I would not run armor breaker at all in clumps regardless of the group rend situation. The extra knockdown is more important for group survivability Side note: if you don’t have a spear in your group, get one. And if a lobby doesn’t have a spear player, leave the lobby.
Wrecking ball is in my alternative setup and is the one I personally prefer! Using a spear is also something I mention a lot, thank you for the suggestions 😀
Great all around tanking video. Works for everything except speed runs but thats premade anyway. Keep the good work up! Im so glad we dont have to farm all enemy typ gearsets and that they reduced the hassle with consumables, the double coating application could be removed but thats just me beein picky. The game keeps getting better, lets hope that they keep doin so !
Awesome guide! On the Stoneform heart rune suggestion.... I upgraded mine, and honestly cant tell if it does anything. I get the stone appearance for 3 seconds, am i missing something?
im currently rocking a 200/200/200 split with GS/SNS and having a blast. currently there are quite a few perks on the shield that carry over when using the GS such as heal on block and empower on block and in defiance stance you are perma blocking when swinging heavys so its pretty nice
Im running 80% resists for all builds and 4/5 strike or slash and grit ...with void armor...i average 90% damage reduction from the numbets i can see with sns...i can solo m3s up to first bosses. Its amazing how stout you can get eith the right builds
Obligatory: I haven't tested it BUT... IMO, no. The ability to dodge 1 hit mechanics is too valuable, MANY boss attacks do more stamina damage to a block, than it would cost you to dodge, and they should be dodged. I HIGHTLY doubt the extra stamina on The Wall will prevent your guard from getting shattered by the bigger hits, and I think it will become a crutch for some players that prevents them from learning how to dodge well. I would run artifact medium pants for more attributes, so you can hit 25 nodes in dex/focus easier rather than any other Artifact Armor. The sacrificed armor isn't noticeably debilitating, but the perks of having extra stats to move around is quite noticeable.
i thought tanking in new world was just about the taunts but there is only one taunt on flail on your build and same for sword and shield ?how exactly does aggro work i usually take the 2 taunts on both flail and warhammer and just use these skills to always taunt i thought that was the point ?
Imo I think using the wall as a shield and then taking spark warhammer and lost stopwatch would be ideal. You can get more damage by not having to use a carnelien, you can weaken the enemy a shit ton, your stuns from warhammer last a lot longer, and you stil get 25% elemental damage absorption from the wall.
My buddy and I have to do the research but he noticed that the walls resistance is actually flagged differently, so it might be better to run a targeted shield resistance over the wall.
Currently in the code it's not flagged the same as the the shield resistance so it doesn't add on to your current resistance. Once again we have to test it but based on my buddies predictions the resistance provided by wall will be worst for specific mutations that have a certain element. For things like savage the wall will still be good.
Please don’t do this. Wall encourages blocking too much which is bad. Stopwatch sounds nice but in practice if doesn’t work well. The stuns “last longer” but they get knocked out of the stun as soon as they get hit by any weapon. So basically it doesn’t do anything. And also yeah I would always recommend shield wards on shield over the wall. Shield wards are extremely strong. Allows you to get like 78% ABS
how is it possible to gain 380 points in characteristics with equipment and weapons? and how get that ? what type of characteristic should I take because no matter how much I try to calculate it's impossible to have that, whether I take full force or form, I'm always missing points..?
Imo sword still beats flail... i run leadership on sword, so 10% damage for the whole group... but you have to give up some defensive options to get there, but you can get enough. I do more personal damage with sword plus the damage bonus. Many dungeons I tank with both sword and flail.... flails barrage is such a good ability because you can run straight through mobs to group them up better. I usually start the fight off with flail and as soon as I'm in position swap to sword. Personality I disagree that the left side flail is stronger than right for tanking. Barrage is best mobility ability of all weapons plus a 20% fortify and free blocks while rushing. Bludgeon is a good aoe taunt and massive armor buff for you and group. Genesis is one where I do not use flail... not as much need to run through mobs... I use a greataxe and sword there. Starstone and Laz are two where I use sword and flail. I don't think going under 300 con is viable anymore because you just need that grit. I do more damage with 300 con because I'm not getting staggered. 350 con is super tanky because it gives extra damage reduction. I would consider this for m3 but I think m2 and below are pretty easy with the rebalance. Warhammer... especially spark of mjolnrer is good against bosses in m3. It has a strong rend and a strong weaken.
I think that lost stopwatch with spark and the wall is going to be the go to build imo. Maybe switch out hammer for spear for bosses. I think spark paired with stopwatch provides too much weaken and stun to not be used by the tank.
Stopwatch, as it exists right now, is a trash amulet for MAIN tanks. If you're pugging, and the tank is shit, and healer keeps getting agro, you can slot it really quick to help keep adds off the healer, but it is NOT an adequate replacement for Carnelian gems in your weapon. The bonus threat generation from carnelian is required to maintain threat via dmg. Caveat: IF you're running a tank build that has a means of generating enough CDR to permanently have mobs taunted, then you could consider running the amulet. HOWEVER, you're giving up a lot of perk utility in the neck slot by doing so, and I don't think it's at all worth it. IMO the best use of the amulet is in niche pvp builds for 1v1 and 3v3, where you use shockwave or shield bash stun to secure a massive damage spike from Greataxe's execute ability or some other such skill such as Mighty Gavel. But it's going to be trash in OPR and War, because any NON-DoT that hits the target will break the stun, and they will be free to move.
2nd comment: I actually think you should run a regular war hammer, and Odo (flail) with this amulet if you're going for a meme pvp build. Odo grants bonus dmg to stunned targets (for both weapons) and would buff Mighty Gavel vs a stunned target. Could be pretty powerful, enjoy.
elemental aversion says "less damage from range , elemental attacks" .. elemental attacks are range and melee or only range? if both i think is pretty nice to have for mutations since they have a lot of elemental dmg and it got buffed
The damage from melee attacks is converted to elemental in mutations but that doesn’t apply to elemental aversion. Elemental aversion would work against archers and mage puddles etc. I’m not sure how it interacts with those elemental circles that appear on the ground on some mutations though. I would assume those count as range.
What they said^ Elemental Aversion IS a non-zero bonus to mitigation, it does HELP vs archer and mage enemies that you don't have controlled in your stack. BUT... there are simply more optimal perks to slot. Grit Ward reduces ALL damage while you have grit (which is 90+% of the time if you have 300 or more Con) Enchanted Ward reduces ALL light / heavy attack damge. Elemental or Physical, Ranged or Melee. So it's effectively 4x better than any Aversion perk. Both of these are higher priority than Elemental Aversion.
You CAN... but you only have 1 stamina bar, so slotting hammer as 2nd is better in most cases, since it allows you to CC mobs when you need a break to let stamina recover, AND it brings massive rend utility.
I would run the Artifact Medium pants on ALL PvE builds. Optionally... Void Darkplate chest for +20% bonus armor is an option. I don't think many or ANY other artifacts are "BiS" or required for tanking. I'm trying to get Bloodrinker so I can test it. I absolutely want it for open world / solo play. But the jury is out on if it's good for main tank in mutes. Loss of damage MIGHT impact the ability to hold agro too much. Ankh is strong, but prevents rotation of protection perks on amulet, so I would argue it's not BiS. Artifact Earring is okay... but doesn't have the perks I want, and that can't be fixed by the additional perk. Only artifact weapon I'd consider for tanking is Serenity, and it's not really BiS either, and better served as a DPS weapon. IF it came with a Gem Slot instead of Refreshing Move, Hated could be crafted on, and then I would totally consider it BiS. But any weapon that lacks hated and a gem slot for Carnelian... I can't consider BiS for tanking. Serenity is phenomenal in open world solo play, if you want to be "tanky" but it's not a group tankING weapon.
@8:04 don't slot Keen Jagged for any AoE/Cleave dps weapon. This perk is ONLY good in single target. The internal cooldown means it's ONLY ever on 1 enemy. Weapons that can hit multiple enemies should NEVER slot Keenly Jagged, and tanks should probably NEVER run a weapon that only hits 1 target. (Unless you're bow tanking Wyrm) BiS tank Longsword perks are Refreshing Move, Hated, Trenchant Rend. You should be heavy attacking as part of your rotation anyways, and more rend boosts your whole group's DPS. The uptime on Trenchant rend isn't the best, but it's decent. If you prefer a different perk, you can replace this one, but IMO the other 2 are required. Hated allows you to keep threat over higher dps builds. Refreshing Move is... as explained, pretty required. @18:40 Clearout has always had almost 0 knockback (IN EXPEDITIONS). There are and were specific enemy types that DID get knocked back, such as corrupted mages, and lost bombers, but many times you WANT to knock those back. I've been using Clearout for YEARS in expeditions, and it's phenomenal. The recent buff to the perk is just a cherry on top of an already great skill. BiS Warhammer perks are Sundering Clearout, Trenchant Recovery, Hated Trenchant Recovery is fantastic when weaving heavy attacks between hammer skills for more CDR, and longer Grit window. Hated is self explanatory. You NEED hated when tanking for strong dps players in high end groups, or you'll loose agro almost instantly. @27:45 This is a mole hill I'm prepared to die on. ENFEEBLING SKEWER ON WEAPON IS A COLLOSAL WASTE FOR ANY BUILD. Enfeeble caps at 50%. The ONLY time you need more, is if the target is empowered, which DOES happen, but you still DO NOT need the perk on spear. Perforate enfeeble, + Enfeebling Skewer (ON ARMOR) does the exact same job, without sacrificing a weapon perk slot. There are MANY MANY other sources of enfeeble, almost every weapon has SOME measure of enfeeble they can apply and sustain in cases where a target is empowered. You DO NOT NEED enfeebling skewer on the weapon EVER. IF you need a spear perk on weapon for more survivability, Fort perf is better on boss fights, and Leeching Cyclone is ACE for trash pulls. But please for the love of all that is holy stop perpetuating the patently ignorant meta of slotting enfeebling skewer on the weapon. Shockwave: 10% enfeeble Roaring Rupture: 10% enfeeble Grasping Vines Heartrune: 20% enfeeble Shield Rush: 20% enfeeble Enfeebling Maelstrom: 16-27% enfeeble YOU DO NOT F(*&^ NEED ENFEEBLING SKEWER ON WEAPON. All these other sources of enfeeble, are AOE, and PROBABLY already in play in your group, or SHOULD be in play in your group. Sorry about the rant, if you can't tell, I feel some kinda way. It's basic math and common sense, and yet so many people are blindly committed to the dead meta, I just don't understand. Running enfeebling skewer on the weapon IS "absolutely huge". It's nuking a dead horse from orbit with an ICBM. The horse is already dead. Stop it. Get some help. GEAR: I disagree with a lot. Sword: Fort Shield Rush is REQUIRED, Resolve is okay at best, and empowering whirling blade is probably sub-optimal. I'd rather have a defensive armor perk or a good weapon perk in it's place. The empower is conditional, and tank's dps isn't a massive concern. It's not BAD necessarily, I just don't agree that it's good, or optimal to slot it. Empowering Armor Breaker: Is a trash perk. Don't waste your time. You have to break a block WITH the armor breaker ability in order to benefit from it at all, and in 95% of cases you'll be better served by slotting a different perk in either armor or weapon. Penetrating Wrecking Ball: Same argument as above, tank dps isn't a priority. Additionally Wrecking Ball isn't a high damage ability to begin with, and that isn't substantially changed by slotting this perk. IMO, this is a wasted perk on a tank character. This perk ONLY ignores 40% of the armor for the skill's damage, and doesn't apply a rend or anything. It ends up being less than 200 bonus damage per skill activation. Personally I'd rather slot a defensive perk on armor, and NEVER slot this on weapon. Greatsword: None of the weapon perks should ever be on the weapon. Rupture IS good, but the magnitude of the slow is irrelevant. The only relevant factor is that it applies an area slow, which then allows other dps to benefit from attribute passives to deal more damage at a higher uptime. The tank or hammer dps should be knocking everything down and stunning regularly enough that bonus slow magnitude wouldn't ever be noticeable. Spear: You've already read my rant, if you got this far. Gear: Medium Artifact pants, with +10 to all attributes are BiS. They make hitting 25 attribute benchmarks massively easier, including the 25 focus/dex and 50 focus. Amulet: WRONG! Divine >>>> Health. Your max HP is almost irrelevant unless you're getting 1 hit killed. The bonus healing from Divine is VASTLY more valuable than higher base health. Health is an "I guess it's not totally worthless" B tier perk. I would say, Protection>Divine> Fortified> Stam Recovery>REFRESHING RECOVERY> Health. Health should be SUPER low priority in ANY environment where you have healers actively trying to keep you alive. If you're solo out in the open world... do you, max HP totally makes sense there. But in an expedition or pvp (assuming you have a healer that is competent), you absolutely don't need health on amulet. Earring: I disagree. Bugger nimble it's worthless. Test it yourself if you want, but the stamina recovery speed is negligible; you're talking barest fractions of a second faster. Nimble would need to be 30%+ for me to even consider it worth taking. BiS is Refreshing Toast, Purifying Toast, Despised. I like Fortifying Toast, but I would rather have a way to cleanse roots from Ice and Nature mutations, than simply ANOTHER fortify. Regenerating is trash, if you ever need this perk, you should be complaining about the healer, OR you're an idiot and not standing in Sacred Ground. You have Divine, and bonus incoming healing from SnS tree, and optionally from 50 focus, there's no (good)reason to slot regenerating. Ring: I think Enfeebling is higher priority than Leeching, or even Hearty. I can cope having less stamina, but increasing enfeeble duration for everything I apply is huge. I would say Enfeebling > Hearty > Keen Awareness > Leeching. Personally. SnS crit mod is 30%, and the base tree has +10% to crit chance. As a tank you SHOULD almost never have opportunity to back attack an enemy for auto crits, so having good base crit chance is probably the best way to boost threat via damage. I know a lot of people swear by leeching, and they're the same people that swear by regenerating, and enfeebling skewer on weapon... to those people... I say: "Get better healer friends". EDIT: Consumes PSA on Oakflesh and Gemstone Dust: THESE ARE NOT ABSORB. They are in fact boosts to your armor, i.e. a fortify specific to elemental or physical armor. This information is important to know if you're optimizing, because absorb caps at 50%, many mutation runners have a resting absorb of 50% or higher against the mutation element, but gemstone dust stacks for bonus mitigation, because it is not absorb, regardless of what the tooltip says.
i just created a sword/flail shield tank and i love it ,great agro and agro holding with flail skills and my teams are so happy with me,people barely get hit except during boss fights. When i play any DPS build i always get agro :P also Flail has passive +16% passive heal skill when at least 1 ally is within 4m range from you so that and a healer and you're kinda immortal. Bastion has 2 taunt skills btw
