26 réponses à ce sujet

[Jonata]

I'm starting a new playthrough with a Warrior (DW) and I want to roll a classic DPS / Tank / Healer / Rogue team. Problem is, I don't want to stick with Alistair like I did in previous walkthroughs because A) I want to try something new and I'll probably let Loghain live at the end of this walktrhough (I'm still undecided though) so I'd better not let the Warden bond too much with him.

Since I always do Orgrimmar for last this leave Sten as a viable possibility: but just how viable he is? He's mostly a Two-Handed fighter and therefore do not use a Shield, can I still thrust him as the team's tank? Can he be effective as a full fledged Tank Alister?

[gds76]

If you know what your doing, sure you can use him. He has threaten and taunt so he can tank. He'll never be able to take as much damage as Alistair or Shale,but he can dish out some damage and dead enemies don't do any damage at all. Just put him in the heaviest armor you can find and keep an eye on him during combat, especially on lower levels. You may want to put some points into dex or con if you have trouble keeping him alive.
He tanked on nightmare for me and I went straight Str so it's possible.

Modifié par gds76, 26 mars 2013 - 11:40 .

[mousestalker]

He's an excellent off-tank. He's less so as a main tank. If you're running a dual weapon warrior, then you can ping pong aggro between the two of you without problem.

Have you considered using Shale? If she is built correctly and given the proper tactics, she can be an excellent aggro magnet.

Modifié par mousestalker, 27 mars 2013 - 12:53 .

[Blazomancer]

What mousestalker mentioned. Sten needs to be on the offensive to have more survivability. Just don't let him get surrounded for too long, and he'll be kicking ass. You can also try stacking up the '+x% chance to dodge attacks' property - Evon the Great's Mail, Cailan's Greaves, Cinch of Skillful Maneuvering, Spellward will together net him a 50% chance to dodge attacks, meaning you'll probably dodge every second basic attack.

Also, consider Shale; she's nigh immortal with all those health regen bonuses.

[dainbramage]

Any warrior wearing high tier massive armour can tank. Two-handers actually excel at this (enough so that I'd call a dex 2h warrior the best tank in the game, even though their offense is then roughly as strong as a wet fish), since they have lots of nice attributes. There's more to tanking than hp, armour and defence, and indomitable, 2H sweep, and mass stuns all contribute a lot. After all, a knocked-down or stunned enemy can't hurt your tank.

Modifié par dainbramage, 27 mars 2013 - 02:44 .

[cJohnOne]

I never got around to trying a dex 2-handed warrior but thought it was a possiblity.

I thought Shale wasn't suppose to be as good as a tank because she's a contitution tank instead of a dex. tank?

[cJohnOne]

I should start a game with Sten, Zevran, Leliana, and me(mage). What do you think?


How do I build Sten?  1 pt in Strength 1 pt in Dexterity until I get to what 40 Strength?


2 Dexterity and 1 Strength?

Modifié par cJohnOne, 27 mars 2013 - 10:50 .

[cJohnOne]

I'm thinking 2 Dex. 1 Stength but I think some of the bosses will roll over me. I think I'll probably have to skip the Dragon fights or bring Shale along instead of Zevran. It kind of defeats the purpose of tanking with Sten if I bring Shale. I don't think I've ever brought Shale to the urn of Sacred ashes so it will be alright with me just for that leg of the adventure.

[keeneaow]

How do i turn shale into something survivable or useful at all ?
up to now he dies along with the rest of the team in a heartbeat,
wih the notable exeption of myself as an arcane warrior that is

Modifié par keeneaow, 28 mars 2013 - 07:44 .

[mousestalker]

1. Change Shale's tactics. The very first one should be to set her to consume a health poultice at <50% health. The second should set her up as Any=>Stoneheart. The next is Any=>Threaten and so forth.
2. Use the crystals appropriately. The large crystal is for defense and the small for offense. If you will be fighting spiders, for example, they do nature damage but do not like fire. Shale should have a large nature crystal and a small fire crystal.

If all of your companions die with regularity, you probably should adjust all their tactics.

[Blazomancer]

keeneaow wrote...
How do i turn shale into something survivable or useful at all ?

Shale's one of the most versatile companions in my experience. The 'Pulverizing Blows' tree make her an awesome damage dealer, the 'Stoneheart' tree makes her an awesome tank, the 'Rock Mastery' tree makes her the best buff for ranged members on the PC (if you don't mind using the unofficial fix for 'rock barrage',  then shale becomes an awesome ranged damage dealer as well) and lastly 'Stone Aura' is an excellent albeit situational party buff mode.


The last time I used Shale as a tank, I distributed her attribute points into STR and CON. With the Stoneheart tree maxed out, plus equipping the Large Brilliant Ice Crystal and the Small Brilliant Natural Crystal gave her a net health regeneration rate of 13.25 per tick (on the PC; would probably be 26.5 on consoles). Additionally, Wynne was set to cast 'Heroic Offense', 'Glyph of Warding', 'Heroic Aura', 'Regeneration' as applicable. Consequently, it was not an exaggeration when I say that Shale felt near immortal. May be a DEX build is also effective, but I haven't tried it out; one drawback would be that 'Bellow' and 'Regenerating Burst' might not be as effective as they are dependent on Shale's STR.

As mouse above mentioned, the tactical setup also play an important role. Setting 'Bellow' and 'Regenerating' burst to trigger during sticky situations also helps.

[Jonata]

Thanks a lot guys, this thread is VERY useful. Honestly, once you start playing with the appropriate Crystals for every situation and you max out one of her trees, Shale quickly becomes a lot better to use, both in terms of fun and actual utility.

I'm still using Sten from time to time though, his squad banter is my favourite so when I just want the Qunari with me I use the "dodge attacks" set Blazomancer suggested.

As I said, this is an overall very interesting thread, thanks again.

[Linkforlife]

The problem with Shale as a tank is when you are fighting 2 handed warriors, she will take extra damage from them because of the Shattering Blows passive as it does extra damage to constructs (ie. golems, sylvans and undead).

Shale is great for fighting dragons though since she cannot be grabbed/overwhelmed, but can get knocked down which can be annoying.

I imagine Sten would be good once he gets enough dex to dodge attacks and Indomitable would make it so he cannot be stunned or knocked down, but he can still be grabbed.

[windsupernova]

A 2h tank is very viable tank. I have completed nightmare with Sten and Oghren as my main Tanks.

For the build:

Get Indomitable. both Sunders and 2 handed sweep ASAP.
Go full strength, 2h weapons scale solely off strength, you need the damage. 2W and S&S can go full dex because Daggers scale off Dex too. 2H warriors don´t have that luxury.Seriously, I have tried a 2h dex tank and while he can dodge a lot he is not really good at all.

A 2h tank will rely on knockdowns to mitigate the damage, As for speccing Champion is a very good spec because it adds buffs to the whole party and adds an extra knockdown. After all an enemy on its ass can´t do damage to anybody.

Also indomitable makes you inmune to the IMO killers of warriors, a stunned or knockdowned warrior can´t really drink a potion.

Templar is also a good spec if you want full spell inmunity but that is more for soloing IMO, but its still a good spec.But in case of Sten and Oghren Champion takes priority if they want to be main tanks.

Equipment wise, the dodge set posted here is pretty good. I usually go for(I usually go for the armor sets so I don´t combine armours):

Rings:Life giver and Key to the city
Belt:Chinch of skillfull maneuvering
Amulet: Spellward
Armor: Cailans set

All of this nets you(only listing relevant to defense stuff):

39.1 armor
13 constitution
40% to dodge attacks
3 dex(meaningless tbh)
16 health regeneration in combat
44% spell resistance
6 defense against misiles
-25% fatigue

If you want full spell inmunity your armor can change to:

Knight commanders plate
Bergens honor
Gloves of dilligence
Cailans Greaves

Not only does it looks great but it gives you:

38.5 armor
11 health regeneration
84% spell resistance(up to 100 with 2 runes. or only 1 rune of its a dwarf)
40% to dodge attacks
13 constitution
3 dex
6 defense against misiles

As for shale, I usually go for 50/50 split in constitution and strength. As for shale I can´t really give any extra tips, use stoneheart mode, use the appropiate crystals for each situation and don´t underestimate switching modes on the fly although I don´t think that can be done easily with tactics.

2h tanks are pretty fun and they are viable if you build them right, they are not as brainless as a full dex autoattack S&S tank. The 2h tank needs to be more micromanaged and has to use skills a lot.

Have fun!

[Fallstar]

You don't need a dedicated Sword n Board tank in DAO, especially when two of your DPS characters (you and Sten) can wear massive armour. But really, "the best defense is a good offense" is a good rule of thumb for DAO.

As a DW warrior you'll either be getting 36 dex for dual full size or high dex for dual daggers, so either way you get a nice defense score to go on top of your armour rating.

If you really want a tank, pump dex on your rogue instead of cunning. Can still deal good damage (if not optimal), as well as being untouchable in melee combat due to the defense score. Enemy mages are negligible due to mana clash, so your only real problem would be scattershot spamming archers, which you can easily lockdown with CoC or something similar.

But yes, don't worry about tanks. For dragons just run between the two forelegs so they can't one hit you. (Until you get lifegiver and don't need to worry about that)

[keeneaow]

A several orders of magnitude better tank is a mage with Arcane Warrior talent

[TBastian]

Only in the sense that an Arcane Warrior (or any well-equipped mage, for that matter) is pretty hard to kill.

Any warrior with Taunt is preferable over an Arcane Warrior as far as aggro management is concerned. For a party with extreme DPSers (ie, a dedicated nuker mage/a dual-wielder rogue/a two-handed weapons warrior PC) then a warrior with Taunt > AW, no contest. There's simply no way an AW can keep aggro manageable once these characters start slinging spells/swinging their weapons.

Modifié par TBastian, 27 avril 2013 - 11:38 .

[keeneaow]

So true, the monsters so totally ignore my AW and instead go about to kill everything else
so consistently so i came to the conclusion it is scripted, since they dont give a jot about blood spells.
I ended up going solo at all times, since i would either way end up fighting them all alone
after the others were dead, at least this way i dont need to hear their comments

Modifié par keeneaow, 28 avril 2013 - 01:36 .

[TBastian]

Have you ever actually tried to use the blood spells to outdamage a pure Int mage spamming Fireball + the 3 cone spells over and over? Or a rogue with stacked dex or cun spamming dual-wield talents while chain crit/backstabbing a boss? Or a pure Str two-hander? Btw I say "outdamage" because the blood spells do not generate threat outside of the actual damage they do.

Because I usually do have blood mages in my party (I love having them around) and I always have them spam blood spells whenever possible.This is because they do help with aggro management, seeing as convulsing enemies will generally not fight back if you attack/nuke them. And yet they never seem to actually go after my blood mages anyway. That might have something to do with the fact that Fireball alone does roughly the same total damage as Blood Wound (and significantly more during the first few seconds). After my mage casts Flame Blast, Shock, Cone of Cold, and then perhaps use Group Heal and chug a potion while preparing to cast Fireball again... what exactly is your AW going to do to regain aggro?

That's the reason why I specifically mentioned that for parties with extreme DPSers, nothing could ever replace a true tank. This does not mean that AWs will never be good tanks, it simply means that if your PC is a major DPSer then (especially if you powergame) you might as well try to play it safe and get a plain warrior. Even Sten will do.
For the sake of completelness there are exceptions, but that's the general rule of thumb.

Modifié par TBastian, 28 avril 2013 - 08:55 .

[Blazomancer]

TBastian wrote...
...
After my mage casts Flame Blast,
Shock, Cone of Cold, and then perhaps use Group Heal and chug a potion
while preparing to cast Fireball again... what exactly is your AW going
to do to regain aggro?
...

Walking bomb/VWB, blood wound, crushing prison, miasma, earthquake, hexes, horror, petrify, paralyze, weakness?

[Jeffonl1]

Blazomancer wrote...

TBastian wrote...
...
After my mage casts Flame Blast,
Shock, Cone of Cold, and then perhaps use Group Heal and chug a potion
while preparing to cast Fireball again... what exactly is your AW going
to do to regain aggro?
...

Walking bomb/VWB, blood wound, crushing prison, miasma, earthquake, hexes, horror, petrify, paralyze, weakness?

TBastian maybe I'm misunderstanding your question? As Blazomancer suggest there's lots of ways to gain aggro with your AW...
Is your experience different?   Maybe we're not talking about the same thing?

[TBastian]

I hope you bothered to read the gist of the argument, since this is not about AW's tanking. It's about someone thinking that an AW  can replace a warrior in a team with an extreme DPSer (ie, a DPSer who is allowed to go all out on his skills and with stat/build/gear optimized for maximum damage output).

It's one thing to gain aggro, especially if no one else is attacking or if your party doesn't have any true DPSers, but it's another to actually try and regain aggro from a true DPSer.

After I cast Fireball, Cone of Cold/Shock/Flame Blast and do a few extra actions as I to prepare to cast all four spells all over again, what exactly is your AW going to do to regain aggro?
Are you saying that all your Arcane Warrior ever actually does is cast WB/VWB, Blood Wound, Crushing Prison, Miasma, Earthquake, Hexes, Horror, Petrify, Paralayze and Weakness? What about the cooldown on these spells? What about the casting time? What about the fact that in practice, the DPSer is going to outdamage your AW anyway, so he/she is actually generating threat faster than your AW? Are you saying your AW will have all these spells available by early game, considering how Fireball/Cone of Cold/Flame Blast/Shock are all easy spells to learn? What about the spells that you need to actually "tank" or hit things with that sword? If you understand how threat is generated, then you know that against most mobs at best you'll make the monster turn around for a few seconds, but after that they're gone and your AW will be left standing there with all your spells in cooldown. Feel free to try and hit things with your sword while your DPSer dies.

Fireball/Cone of Cold/Shock and Flame Blast all have 15 seconds or lower cooldown, which combined with their casting time is one of the main reasons why these four are part of the most destructive (highest damage over time) spammable spell sequence in the game, for general nuking. You'll find that no other spell combination will do this much damage over time unless you count persistent effect spells, which you can simply precast before you start spamming the sequence anyway. Even burst damage spells/sequences like Mana Clash or Entropic Death have extreme cooldown, and for the latter you have beat the target's spell resistance 3 times to actually get the desired effect. The sequence is least effective (and too mana intensive) for solo mobs like bosses, but luckily getting  these spells also gives you access to their single-target counterparts.

Spell damage is important, because spell damage determines threat. Consider that a DPSer mage will have already done at least 200 damage on Fireball (Fireball does a total of 200 damage base + extra based on spellpower) as early as when you actually get the spell (Level 1? 2?) and consider that most non-damage spells including the ones Blazomancer mentioned only generate 50-100 threat. This basically means that a Fireball from a level 1-2 mage with no gear can potentially generate more threat than some of the spells he mentioned on normal mobs. You can expect significantly higher numbers from a mage stacking int/spellpower from staff/attributes/buffs/gloves. Now consider that you are not just casting Fireball but 3 others spells rapidly and repeatedly, and possibly more in-between cooldowns of these four spells.
Consider that none of the spells Blazomancer mentioned above are really spammable (all have 20 second or higher cooldown, not counting sustaineds and Weakness) and the ones with damage that he mentioned do less damage overall than repeated Fireball + the cone spells castings. Consider that, several of the spells he mentioned like Blood Wound/Crushing Prison are good enough to possibly earn a spot in a true DPSers skillset anyway, and they're likely to use these spells anytime between cooldowns of the Fireball + cone spells sequence. Some of the spells he mentioned only generate 10-20 threat. That means it will only work on bosses with really high HP like certain uniques and dragons.

Are we actually talking about the same thing? Good question, because in my experience even my dedicated Taunt-spamming Alistair who took all the necessary +threat/aggro talents and who stacks all the necessary aggro-management warrior skills have trouble keeping up with any of my DPS builds. But the fact remains that he can. AW's can't, simple as, unless you mod the game so that every mob has 1k or higher max HP. The only way an AW can possibly keep up is for him/her to actually keep casting these four spells regularly him/herself, which will only happen if an AW doesn't activate any of his AW talents. Since he will need to if he actually plans on tanking anything, that sort of defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

Modifié par TBastian, 30 avril 2013 - 05:50 .

[Blazomancer]

TBastian wrote... I hope you bothered to read the gist of the argument, since this is not about AW's tanking. It's about someone thinking that an AW  can replace a warrior in a team with an extreme DPSer (ie, a DPSer who is allowed to go all out on his skills and with stat/build/gear optimized for maximum damage output).

I beg to differ, I believe they can. It's difficult, tricky, and more effective with certain party setups and gameplay style no doubt, but it's still viable.

Speaking from my experience, I once specced Morrigan out of shapeshifter using mods and respeced her as a Blood Mage - Arcane Warrior. I didn't get any of the spells from the Primal School except for Rock Armor. It seemed that leading the party with Morrigan, then stunlocking mobs with blood wound, casting WB/VWB, detonating the bomb, continuing the chain if it infects, toggleing blood magic on/off, drinking a lesser health poultice when health gets alarmingly low, casting a few other spells, rinsing and repeating is more than enough threat that one needs to effectively hold aggro. The power of a WB based tank is not just in the single target damage, but rather in the explosion. And given how an AW can soak up a lot of damage, plus how just a lesser health poultice can give next to a full heal for a mage, one can even afford to survive an explosion at point blank range although with one eye on the HP bar. As I mentioned, it's tricky and have less room for error, but doable nevertheless.





I'm quite aware that a defensive warrior tank or even a walking bomb based AW can never expect to outdamage the damage dealers. Hence, naturally the DPS'ers should be surrounded by enemies most of the time; but we hardly see that in the battlefield. Most of the time it's Alistair who's doing far less damage getting his sorry ass surrounded, rather than the backstabbing rogue, archer, or say a 2H warden. This is because a lot of variables are working behind the picture. For a start, rogues draw only about 4/5 of the damage based threat. Also, the enemies don't start switching targets immediately when say a DPS'er goes ahead of Alistair's initial 300 threat from taunt. By the few seconds that the target switching timer counts down, usually the ones surrounding the tank and closer to the DPSer(s), are dead or about to die. I believe all the tank need to do is grab that bit of initial threat for a few seconds for the damage dealer to finish them off while taunt or a nuke for that matter is in cooldown for the tank.

I've rolled my share of extreme DPS'er and it seemed to me that small scale set-piece battles set in a relatively smaller area, hardly lasts long enough for the tank to use 'Taunt' or say 'Blood Wound/WB' more than two times, which is essentially not even a minute. If we talk about larger areas where archers, mages or reinforcements are parched up some distance away, this becomes irrelevant as the distance component comes into the picture, and more often than not it's the tank who's going to be noticed first by them; meaning if you are not in their range, you won't get added to that particular foe's threat table regardless of your threat level to the enemies that have already perceived you. So, what I'm saying is that unless a particular battle consists of mages and/or archers, a tank is hardly required, and if they are indeed present, then the battles don't last long enough for enemies to switch target as much. Now it's easier for a warrior with 'Taunt' to grab that amount of initial threat, since it's an AoE and has a fixed threat value, but an AW can potentially draw more {damage based threat + spell based threat} than an SnS tank given a few seconds. For example, after rushing in with miasma on, casting crushing prison on the weakest foe, blood wound, WB and VWB and denotating the bomb in a few seconds, it amounts to a net spell based threat of 290 plus the large amount of damage based threat which would be far more than the 300 (or 400 with frightening appearance) for a warrior's taunt. Note that I haven't even taken into account that the player may also have all those elemental AoE's, earthquake and other minor single target based spells to follow up with, which if used carefully taking into account the enemies' elemental resistance will be even more effective. If it comes to a boss or elite boss, it's even easier to hold aggro with hexes and given it's high HP.





I'm certainly in disagreement with your statement that an AW can't replace a warrior tank in a team with power DPS'ers. Persoally speaking, it frees up an extra slot for another buffer or DPS'er. One of my team was comprised of Wynne tanking, my warrior archer warden, Leliana again as an archer, and Shale also a ranged damage dealer (but honestly, it's more about Shale's buffs), and it worked quite well if I were to say it myself. I agree though that a mage can't really expect to hold aggro as effectively as a warrior in early stages; I've never even bothered to tank before unlocking arcane warrior. That doesn't necessarily rule out an AW being as effective as a warrior tank mid to late game.

As a sidenote, I believe tanking is more than just getting each and every enemy on the battlefield to surround you and leave everyone else alone for the whole duration of the battle. I believe it's not even possible in Origins, as some of the enemies are tactically set to go for the mage or the archer in the party regardless of threat level; you know stuff like "Enemy: Nearest visible mage/using magic attack -> attack". I believe tanking is a team effort in general, where the tank strives continuously to draw enemies away from his teammates using any means necessary, while the teammates takes out the targets while losing threat using talents like Mind Blast, Distraction, Stealth, Feign Death, Disengage, and running away or whatever. It's quite meaningless to expect the tank to hold each and every enemy's attention, and outdamage his companions. Well, of course we have off-tanks, like a 2Hander, but I'm not quite sure if that particular instance fits into this discussion as a 2H tank is not about drawing aggro by using taunt and stuff, and then dodging, blocking or soaking up damage; it's more about keeping enemies off their feet with AoE's and dealing massive amount of spike dmg.






TL;DR: In my opinion, whether an Arcane warrior is as effective as a warrior in the tanking role will depend upon the player's comfort level and also on the preferred gameplay style. I believe it is not correct to say that a 'warrior with Taunt' > AW, period. It's easy with a warrior and I'm in no way arguing that, but IMO, AW's that are built with tanking as a need in mind, can stand toe to toe by mid to late game. The real advantage for a warrior is that it can spike it's threat level with taunt right at the very first second of the battle which is indeed a great advantage, while an AW would need a couple of seconds to cross that threshold. While the particulars will differ based on spells chosen and party setup, I think it can be worked out each time.








PS:

TBastian wrote... Spell damage is important, because spell damage determines threat. Consider that a DPSer mage will have already done at least 200 damage on Fireball (Fireball does a total of 200 damage base + extra based on spellpower) as early as when you actually get the spell (Level 1? 2?)

Not exactly. By lvl 2, what's your modified magic score? 27? That's a spellpower of about 17, which will net you an AoE dmg of 35.1 base and a net DoT of 35.1 over 5 seconds, for a total of about 70.2 dmg for each target inside the radius. For enemies with 150 health, that is a threat of 100*35.1/150 = 23.4 times the number of enemies caught in the AoE initially, and another 23.4 times the enemy after 5 seconds. Fireball is without any doubt an awesome addition to an AW tank's arsenal, as are the other elemental AoE's you have mentioned, especially so if the party is filled with melee DPSers when walking bomb placement is more often than not dicey. But no way you are going to do 200+ dmg to a target with a fireball at initial levels. So, there.

[TBastian]

Finally, a detailed response. Refreshing.

I'm not sure you noticed, but I'd like to point out that the main reason your scenario works is because you essentially combined both tanking and nuking - in this particular scenario a tanking AW works because your AW also just happens to be the power DPSer. It's one of the exceptions I mentioned in the above post (though not explicitly). Others include parties especially crafted for such a playstyle, special all-AW parties, etc.
However, you already mentioned yourself what the downsides of this are:
1) Very risky. This is especially true in nightmare, where everything has spell resistance. What happens if VWB gets resisted?
2) Only the AW itself is actually safe from the blast. That limits the potential of DPSers, particularly close-ranged ones. This essentially defeats the purpose of swapping a tanker for DPSer, though it would still work if all your other DPSers are ranged type.
3) Because VWB does physical damage, there is no true protection from VWB short of Force Field. Half of Fireball's damage can be dispelled, both Fireball and Flame Blast are DoT spells so it is possible to Heal someone through it, and anti-magic can keep someone alive through Fireball + cone spell spam + Storm of the Century + etc. With VWB, a mishap can be fatal.
4) Not spammable, not versatile. As you already mentioned, the battlefield is a dynamic place and there's a lot of factors to consider as you make your way through it. With Fireball and the cone spells you get massive damage, versatility (only Fireball has a dangerous AoE - all the cone spells can be aimed in such a way as to minimize friendly fire damage), and "spammability". You are free to cast spells like Sleep, Blood Wound, Mana Clash, Group Heal, Crushing Prison, Mind Blast, Force Field, any of the single target spells, and etc. while your main spells are on cooldown, so besides being a power DPSer your mage is also doing a very good job of keeping your party both alive and reasonably intact. Combined with a warrior tank (or once you get better armor and respec, just a warrior in general) running around, hitting things with Threaten up and using Taunt as necessary this essentially frees up your other two characters to focus on killing every that tries to disrupt the momentum of the tanker and the mage. This includes stragglers who refuse to focus on the tanker, low-HP hostiles who got hit by an initial Fireball while the mage himself focuses on AoE-ing hostiles clustered around the tanker, annoying archer groups, etc.

I'm not saying the setup can't work, but the way I see it you'd have to arrange it so that all your other party mates are ranged-type, so they can freely DPS while your AW is busy destroying everything else both for the sake of DPSing and in order to keep all aggro on him. Even then, it can be tedious and the risk factor remains.

You pretty much already summed it up in your TL;DR. The AW lacks the ability to spike its threat level. For a party with extreme DPS, a few seconds is all it needs to kill off everything in sight, short of bosses. What if I had a second power nuker? Surely you must see how a party capable of slinging two Fireballs followed by two Firestorms, with Cone of Cold + Flame Blast + Shock spammage to follow, is incompatible with a tank who needs ramp-up time to gain aggro. In fact, they don't even need a "tank" - just someone who can get aggro off them quickly when necessary. Hence my very specific use of the word "extreme" to refer to the DPSers of this particular party type.
I say again: the gist of my original argument was not that AW's could not tank, it was that AW's could not replace a warrior in a party where the focus is on power DPSers (I much prefer "power" to "extreme", nice choice of words).

As for the PS, I apologize. Blame it on lack of sleep.

Modifié par TBastian, 01 mai 2013 - 01:46 .

[LilPancho86]

I've rarely deviated from a S&S tank setup, but it does sound interesting to go for a 2H main tank route. Currently, I have Alistair (T/R) effectively aggro-grabbing mobs into entourage-sized groups, as I myself go to town with a 2H. Quite the sight to CC said mobs with an AOE melee arc then the AOE war cry after.

With a healer to back him up, I don't foresee too much difficulty for Sten, and I'd probably spec him as a Reaver. I usually leave the guy in Lothering to die, as I consider him inferior in his class vs Oghren. A new playthrough as an elf mage with Sten for primary tank duties will be interesting, indeed.