69 réponses à ce sujet

[Creature 1]

MarloMarlo wrote...

Zenthar Aseth wrote...
No, it's not playing smart when you exploit the bugs. Who told you to be impressed? I am stating the truth. If you do not wish to use bugs, then constitution is essential. If, however, you wish to exploit the AI and use Forcefield on your tank, no, it's not needed. You might as well play through the game with god mode, then, though.

This is Force Field's description:
"The caster erects a telekinetic barrier around a target, who becomes completely immune to damage for the duration of the spell but cannot move. Friendly fire possible."

But let's pretend that I asked you why casting Force Field on a tank is exploiting a bug, and that I'm waiting for an answer that isn't just an unsupported assumption.

Because of the failure of the AI to have the competence of a lobotomized slug.  If you force field a friendly target enemies will continue bashing on it despite not doing any damage.  If the AI were coded more intelligently, they would hit the target once or twice and then switch to another target.  Darkspawn are smart enough to use tools, they're certainly smart enough to know when target appears paralyzed, takes no damage,  and has this shimmering glow around it, magic is probably at work and they should turn their attention elsewhere.  Definietly human and even animal opponents should also know to switch targets if their attacks aren't working. 

[Original182]

Kimberly Shaw wrote...

What about attacks that don't rely on armor or defense (eg Magical)? Having Con high helps you survive being grabbed by a dragon or crushing prison'd or the like.

(+ Phys resistance and magical resistance and mental resistance gear also important I guess)

Well ok that's true, but still, the dexterity stat that allows you to stand toe-to-toe with Loghain makes it pretty cool. It earns bonus points based on that alone.

[MerinTB]

OP posts a thread title about whether constitution is useless for a tank, but then makes a judgment call that putting points into dexterity is more effective.



To the thread title, then : no, not useless. Gives hit points. More hit points means you can take a bigger hit without going down. Also adds to physical resistance that helps against knock downs and such.



To dexterity being better place to put points: depends on what you want out of your warrior. Arguably yes and no.



There's is a correlation/causation problem here though: one can be true without the other being true. Putting points in dex could be more effective and yet points in con would still be useful.



This false dichotomy is what leads to so many arguments on here. Because something is not as effective as something else does not make it useless.



Useless is a fly swatter against a tank. A land mine against a tank isn't useless, even if a LAW against a tank is more useful.

[tranj84cl]

It depends. Constitution is much more flexible.



However, if you build a tank to avoid magic -> going the templar route and obtaining 100% spell resistance, then Dexterity is much more useful. You gain avoidance to both physical and magical attacks, and your armor protects you from special attacks.



I finished run through on nightmare using the character mentioned here, and it was a walk in the park.



Regardless, I would do Dexterity anyway. Negating physical damage is pretty much 50% of the damage you're going to face anyway. Should you neutralize magic, e.g. Arrow of Slaying, Mana Clash, you essentially do the same thing. Anyone who says Constitution is essential has never played a Dexterity boosted tank.

[noobiedude]

There isn't any reason to put points into constitution. You can get Alistair to 400 health purely through gear and high approval by end game.

[AshedMan]

How could more HP on a tank be anything but good?

[anarex]

Playing on nightmare there was an assumption I made that no matter what defense you have, boss mobs are going to hit you. I have yet to see anything that suggests thats not true. When someone posts a video of a dex tank on Nightmare basically avoiding all attacks from say the high dragon, the brood mother, that monster in the mage tower, or the arch demon i will acknowledge that dex is the better build. I mean, evidence like that would just prove this outright. I am curious to know, so if you have some dex build tank please post some boss vids.

As your argument stands right now, it just sounds like dex is the better build for clearing trash. That does not surprise me. How are dex tanks handling the major boss fights? I suspect they are going ranged on those fights.

Modifié par anarex, 11 décembre 2009 - 08:21 .

[tranj84cl]

Well, I have no video, but I stood in front of Gaxkang, the High Dragon, Jarvia, Cauthrien, Uldred, Zathrian, the Archdemon, and tanked them fine. If you don't want to take my word for it, make one yourself. 39 base strength and the rest in dex.

[andybuiadh]

Back when I played WoW we had the same discussions about stamina and avoidance.



The conclusions were that you needed a bit of both to be optimal, I guess it's the same in DA too.

[tranj84cl]

andybuiadh wrote...

Back when I played WoW we had the same discussions about stamina and avoidance.

The conclusions were that you needed a bit of both to be optimal, I guess it's the same in DA too.

It's a bit different here in DA because, as I recall, WoW does "cap" your avoidance.  Most rpgs do, actually.  In most games, you can only avoid upto 95% of the attacks.  Spell resistances and such are similarly capped.  However, in DA, there is no cap on Spell Resistance and also (from what I can tell) dodging physical attacks.  

It, then, is entirely possible to dodge all physical attacks while being impervious to spells.  Therefore, you are *almost* invincible.  Archers tend to hit you more since they have enormous attack rating, but we're still talking a very small amount of hits.  Issues arise when they use debuffs on you, but even those can be counteracted by your buffs.

[Zarenthar]

Completely pointless stat. Put your tank at 20 then forget it... STR/DEX is MUCH better.

[Tonya777]

Yes its useless



My Dwarf Templar/Champion tanked the final battle in the game on nightmare mode and didn't ever even come close to getting killed at any point



He has like 50 dex and like 45 STR , 100% spell resistance equipment and stuff like the lifegiver and whatever



I think he actually never died once the enitre game , thats how invincible he was/is

[soteria]

Another difference is in WoW, you need enough HP to avoid getting gibbed by boss attacks. In DAO damage isn't as spiky and your base HP is already pretty high, so there's less need for a balanced approach.



More HP is certainly always helpful, but there's an opportunity cost from taking constitution over dexterity. Because point for point, dexterity > constitution, and you're most generally choosing between them, constitution starts to look like "wasted" points.

As your argument stands right now, it just sounds like dex is the better build for clearing trash. That does not surprise me. How are dex tanks handling the major boss fights? I suspect they are going ranged on those fights.

If you're saying specials like Grab can't be avoided, well I guess so (can they?), but whether you choose constitution or dexterity you're still going to be eating that damage, and then you have to heal it back up. Since heals don't scale with your hp pool in any way, a constitution tank starts looking more and more like a mana sponge compared to a dexterity tank.

[Naemesis999]

A lot of con is only useful against bosses that can deal MASSIVE amounts of damage, otherwise, it's useless.

[menasure]

con is much better on non humanoids like shale and dog and they can perform well enough as tanks if you play it right however they do not have specific tank skills so you have to adapt your gameplay and maybe your other characters to make it work with them as tank.
a humanoid is the most likely candidate for tanking because of the gear you use in this game. shields are the only pieces of gear which can make you avoid damage, heavy armor by itself only limits the damage you take but has high strength requirements, which will also increase your damage ... tanking is partly damage tanking in many fights.
dex on the other hand improves your defensive capabilities without loosing your chance to hit.
if you want to make a heavy tank you will also need to add at least some con though, if it were only to avoid being slaughtered by the kinds of attack which always hit or to be able to use some skills which hurt your own character in the process.

Modifié par menasure, 12 décembre 2009 - 11:17 .

[AsheraII]

I prefer Dex on my tank, simply because more Dex = less healing, so less messing with pots, while my mages can focus more on damagedealing. It takes my mages between about 3 heals to get my tanks' health from near zero to full. Not that this happens often, it's just an indication.



Anyway, the thing is basically:

-Health can be removed only once (ignoring healing for a moment)

-Defense applies every time you are hit.



So if 1 point of Dex saves me more health than 1 point of Con provides, then my preference goes to Dex, provided my health is already high enough to at least survive being hit.



For those who'd like to see this from a WoW perspective, it's healthy warrior tanking vs rogue dodge tanking (even if we let a warrior do that in DA:O, it's the mitigation talent we're discussing). In this game, dodgetanking is the better option, since the healthpool is generally high enough already to survive some hits, so you have more points to spend on mitigation.

[Kesshi]

AshedMan wrote...

How could more HP on a tank be anything but good?

I'm exaggerating here, but it is possible to end up in a situation where 3 points of dex will reduce an attack from 4 damage per hit down to 1 one damage per hit, where as 3 points of con will make you gain 15 hps.

Lets do math on a 200 hp character.

(Base) 200 hps takes 50 hits at 4hps each to die.
(Con) 215 hps takes 54 hits at 4hps each to die.
(Dex) 200 hps takes 200 hits at 1hp each to die.

Again I want to point out that I'm exaggerating, and usually the difference isn't as dramatic as above.  Even though, the difference is usually such that more Dex is almost always better than more Con.  There are exceptions, and many have already been pointed out in this very thread (what if a grab kills you before you are released? what if you already are taking 1 damage? etc.)  Regardless, 9 times out of 10, Dex is superior to Con under the current game mechanics.

This is a situation where more HPs on a tank is "anything but good"
because of the potential loss.  Con isn't "Free HPs."  You're
sacrificing other stats, other bonuses.  You're sacrificing potential melee damage,
potential defense, potential energy/mana, potential cunning, or
potential magic attack.  Don't get it in your head that more HPs isn't
a good thing; it definately IS a good thing.  However, more defense is simply better.

Modifié par Kesshi, 12 décembre 2009 - 01:36 .

[Thanatos45]

For sword and shield dex will be better to get a high defense stat. Using shields is about blocking incoming blows, not absorbing damage.



For 2-handers I'm not sure. Pumping dex and with that defense doesn't seem to be the best route because without a shield and sword and shield talents their defense is going to be kind of low no matter what dex they have. On the other hand the HP bonus given by con isn't that high (should really be more) and on top of that you'll also have a lower attack rating so you'll miss more often (which is deadly with 2-handers since they attack so slowly).

[MR-9]

Anyone who isn't shale shouldn't require more than 18 Con. Even on Nightmare you're simply wasting the points, nothing is going to hit you enough if you're crowd controlling correctly.

[rumOnTheBoat]

maxout Dex, in Awekening you can then try go archer-like OP damage dealer /capable to tank /

- best with s&s(psychicalR)