76 réponses à ce sujet

[Timortis]

A tank is a character who's more durable than others, and can survive a beating. How much beating he needs to be able to survive depends on the encounters in the game. This game is not an MMO with bosses that hit you for a gazillion damage, requiring spam heals with 3 healers to survive, there's no need to play it that way.

A DW Warrior is durable enough to serve as a tank for this game.

Modifié par Timortis, 01 février 2010 - 06:00 .

[Haplose]

Enough perhaps. Is it best though?



All other things being equal (so both Dex builds with some 32-36 Str), a SnS tank can be ahead by 25 Defence, 5 Armor and direct contact Knockdown immunity.

That's with Champion's Shield and upgraded Shield Wall.



Or just straight 30 Defence more. A few points more Missile Deflection maybe and some armor, but I don't remember right now.



So no, a DWW won't be a "better" tank. Sufficient, sure. More efficient, perhaps. But not better at tanking as such.

[Timortis]

Well, once you have a character durable enough to do the job, the question then becomes, are you hurting yourself by overdoing the durability at the expense of more damage and faster kills?

[mosspit]

I will add aggro collection to the following. The key now is whether it necessary the aspect of dps into picture. For me, I will not consider dps and aggro generation is assumed to covered by taunt.

[TheRealIncarnal]

I can say that during my playthoughs having Alistair in massive armor with Threaten and Taunt was not enough to keep the enemy attention on him. He simply doesn't put out enough damage compared to the rest of my party.



Now, if you're not using your dual wielder as a tank, then I can't imagine why you would want to have Heavy or Massive armor on your DPS character. To me the obvious best armor for a DPS dual wielder is Wade's Superior Dragonskin Armor, the medium one. This armor has very good stats and the stamina cost reduction is INCREDIBLE. You can pretty much keep using your good attacks as fast as they cool down with this armor.

[soteria]

Sometimes I wonder if all the people who claim taunt isn't working for aggro are thinking that it has the same mechanics as Taunt from world of warcraft.

[TheRealIncarnal]

No, I know how it works, it's just that Taunt doesn't work fast enough to keep enough of the people who need to be focused on my tank on my tank without purposely making my mages sit on their hands instead of doing their job.

[soteria]

Taunt works instantly--as soon as the enemies complete the action they were in the middle of they'll switch targets. It's simple: 1. Run in with your warrior, taunt. 2. Go crazy.

[AlgolagniaVolcae]

http://dragonage.wik...Mictlantecuhtli

^ That's the build I use, Dwarven Templar/Reaver focusing on crits(single target, through gear or Death Hex)) and AoE damage for large groups of enemies. You can mix and match the talents, I am not 100% sold on taunt myself as I havent seen it work with any type of consistency against enemies focused on other party members due to DPS.

A summoned skeleton is a much better alternative, as it pulls HUGE aggro when first summoned regardless of ongoing DPS(from spells like Virulent Walking Bomb/Crushing Prison) and single target spell spam like arcane bolt, etc on top of that.

Modifié par AlgolagniaVolcae, 01 février 2010 - 07:07 .

[dkjestrup]

As soteria said, taunt works extremely well. Too well in fact. If you're still having problems even with taunt, then spec reaver and grab frightening appearance? You can skip Templar if you have another way of dealing with mages, or champion if someone else is going to be one.



Simply, put your party on HOLD. Outside the line of sight from the enemies. Enter with your warrior (preferably after setting up your stealthed rogue). Run right up to the enemies, and taunt, then take your party members off hold. By the time your tank has used taunt and one of its knockdowns (either warcry, holy smite, or even both) it should have the aggro of everything. Smite is good to get ranged aggro to, btw.



As for your mages sitting on their hands. If you're really having a lot of problems, then cast a glyph of repulsion at your feet. Such an underrated spell, I swear.



I personally love starting the battles with my mages, usually with Paralysis Explosion + Blizzard, then i start nuking enemies (Leliana as well here. Then when they get close I take Alistar of his leash (move freely) and he takes the hits. Have him shield bash any enemies going for your mages, as that seems to interrupt their actions so they can target him.

[TheRealIncarnal]

Or I can just use my dual wielding warrior for the tanking.



Besides, I'm wondering if you're having some confusion between Taunt and Threaten. Threaten works on everyone, Taunt appears to draw one enemy to your warrior, with a cool down.



You're right though, the Glyphs are very handy. There's a great deal of utility in those spells.

[soteria]

Besides, I'm wondering if you're having some confusion between Taunt and Threaten. Threaten works on everyone, Taunt appears to draw one enemy to your warrior, with a cool down.

We're not the ones that are confused. Taunt is an aoe ability that gives you 300 damage worth of threat to everyone in range, instantly. 400 with frightening appearance. Threaten doubles the threat on your melee attacks.

[Timortis]

TheRealIncarnal, you're wrong, Taunt is an AoE, Threaten just doubles your threat per hit.

When I used Alistair as a S&S tank however, I found that he'd frequently be out of Stamina when I needed him to taunt if I used him to Shield Bash or anything else, since he doesn't get a lot of killing blows. DW Warriors are never out of stamina thanks to Death Blow and fast kills.

Modifié par Timortis, 01 février 2010 - 08:50 .

[AlgolagniaVolcae]

soteria wrote...

Besides, I'm wondering if you're having some confusion between Taunt and Threaten. Threaten works on everyone, Taunt appears to draw one enemy to your warrior, with a cool down.

We're not the ones that are confused. Taunt is an aoe ability that gives you 300 damage worth of threat to everyone in range, instantly. 400 with frightening appearance. Threaten doubles the threat on your melee attacks.

That still doesn't explain why Alistair can be set to Threaten, and Taunting but the bosses keep chasing my main character(mage) because they're being hit by crushing prison, virulent walking bomb, and the run and gun arcane bolt/paralyze/stonefist combo.

Alistairs total inability to hold aggro even with taunt is what drove me to discover how effective summoning a skeleton was, no matter what I do or what type of damage I am dealing the skeleton being summoned will always pull aggro off the mage while taunt will not. Though as I see it they both have drawbacks, taunt doesnt always work and there are not always corpses to fuel advanced reanimation.

Modifié par AlgolagniaVolcae, 01 février 2010 - 09:38 .

[soteria]

If you've set him to use Taunt via tactics, you should check to see if it's actually working as expected. I don't even use threaten, and I usually taunt manually for bosses since my tactic setting (Self Surrouned by 2 enemies - Taunt) doesn't work vs a boss. Trust me, you're doing something wrong. I suspect it's your tactics setup. If you don't believe me, you can watch pretty much any of my videos. After the warrior taunts, everything pretty much stays glued to him.

[dkjestrup]

Dude, taunt works extremely well. Too well in fact. How you lose aggro is a mystery to me.

[LightSabres]

I set all my tanks to auto-taunt when an enemies are at close range. VERY rarely do they attack anything else unless I made Wynn an AW with full heavy armor. Taunts aren't powerfull enough to take aggro away from clerics..

[AlgolagniaVolcae]

soteria wrote...

If you've set him to use Taunt via tactics, you should check to see if it's actually working as expected. I don't even use threaten, and I usually taunt manually for bosses since my tactic setting (Self Surrouned by 2 enemies - Taunt) doesn't work vs a boss. Trust me, you're doing something wrong. I suspect it's your tactics setup. If you don't believe me, you can watch pretty much any of my videos. After the warrior taunts, everything pretty much stays glued to him.

I don't use tactics, everything is manually controlled by me because they are a bit dumb if I leave them to their own devices. I use the equivalent of puppet mode from NwN2.

The only success I have had with a warrior actually holding aggro is when I build them for dps using dual wield, crits(death hex, gear), frightening appearance(threaten/taunt), cadash stompers(increased hostility), and aura of pain(75% spirit resistance, with regeneration thrown in also). The dual wield warrior build I linked to in other words, which is one reason I built it to begin with.

As to Alistair not holding aggro when one of my mage builds are present, it's likely because I use crushing prison(unpatched) stacked with virulent walking bomb(what I unlocked Heavy Hitter with when it did 257 damage to an entire group of templars in the circle tower at lvl 12 or 13), while a regular walking bomb typically explodes near the boss(when other enemies are present to carry it), arcane bolt/stonefist/paralyze/mass paralyze spam all running spell wisp, and spell might while I burn through lyrium like a proper junkie.

Modifié par AlgolagniaVolcae, 01 février 2010 - 10:43 .

[mosspit]

^ Likely scenario. Taunt a second time if mob is not dead?

[dkjestrup]

^ Exactly. The chances of you getting the aggro off of a tank against trash mobs is basically zero; they'll be dead before they get to you. Unless for some odd reason you're stacking debuffs on trash mobs that can be killed in 1-2 hits.



Against bosses, threaten is great, although unnecessary, as it doubles the aggro gained from attacking the target. Your mages would have to do double the damage of the tank, and that's not including taunt.

[mosspit]

I did a little experiment from an old save to have an idea on how effective Taunt is. I basically had Alistar remain in Shield Wall mode and Taunt ONCE. He did not inflict any damage on Revenant. Morrigan (lvl12 mag score 45) is the main mage atking Revenant. Don't mind the sloppish presentation.

Game: Nightmare pc patch 1.02a
Location: Denerim Back Alley

Alistar (lvl12) Items:
Wep: Oathkeeper (Tier 3)
Shd: Denerim Guard Shield (T1)
Helm: Thane Helm (T1)
Arm: Heavy Plate Glove (T4)
Chest: Templar Armour (T3)
Leg: Heavy Chain Boots (T3)

Debuff Test until Revenant switched target

                                1st Try              2nd Try
Disorient                    2                       4
Vulnerability Hex        2                       4
Affliction Hex             3                       2
MisDirection Hex       3                       3

Damage test until Revenant switched target (Revenant hp ~40% left)

                                1st Try           2nd Try
Walking Bomb           3                   3
Lightning                   3                   2
Shock                       2                   2
Drain Life                   1                   0
Flame                       2                   2

Note:
Healing done by self potioning only
No threaten
Other party members inactive.
Only spells that are not resisted are counted

My Take on the Findings:
Taunt shd be more than sufficient in holding the attention of white mobs. Against elites and bosses, dbl taunt might be needed. My little experiment showed that the atking threat is solely generated by 1 char. It is very likely that taunt will hold threat longer (wrt to health of the enemy) if the damage in concurrently dished out from more sources. If stacking of multiple high tier debuffs is made, more taunts are needed. However, given that high tier spells / debuffs already have long cooldown. Taunting mutliple times should not be a problem as long as the gamer watches the stamina of the tank.

Modifié par mosspit, 02 février 2010 - 12:10 .

[LarryFine]

soteria wrote...

I guess I'm a little puzzled as to why you would build a s&s warrior to have lower dexterity than a dw warrior. Pimping your main character in all the best gear aside, there's no way a dw warrior should have more defense than a s&s warrior, unless you're doing something like raising con? If you gave all the best gear to your PC and just had Alistair wearing crap, then I guess no kidding...

He never said that he built Alistair to have less dex than his dww you made that assumption.  From my own experience Alistair advances at a VERY slow rate.  I didn't give Alistair junk he got the gear that I had just finished using whenever I upgraded.  I think with my s&s I gave him the legion of the dead set while I wore the juggernaut armor.

If you try to split him between str for armor and weapons and dex for defense he's going to be horrible until late into the game. This is the exact reason I don't even bother with another warrior on my team if I'm a warrior.  I can out tank Alistair and I can outdmg Sten or Oghren.  That is the reason I have an all female team all the time myself excluded.

[mosspit]

Larry if I may ask, what is your defintion of a tank role?

[soteria]

He never said that he built Alistair to have less dex than his dww you made that assumption. From my own experience Alistair advances at a VERY slow rate. I didn't give Alistair junk he got the gear that I had just finished using whenever I upgraded. I think with my s&s I gave him the legion of the dead set while I wore the juggernaut armor.

Since he basically said he had higher defense with a dw warrior, and dexterity raises defense... well. Alistair is a companion. He advances more slowly than a PC warrior? No kidding, sherlock. "I didn't give Alistair junk, just [hand-me-downs]." Junk. Legion of the Dead is decent, but you're much better off taking individual pieces from different sets.

If you try to split him between str for armor and weapons and dex for defense he's going to be horrible until late into the game. This is the exact reason I don't even bother with another warrior on my team if I'm a warrior. I can out tank Alistair and I can outdmg Sten or Oghren. That is the reason I have an all female team all the time myself excluded.

So, you're saying the companion warriors are inferior to a PC warrior? Do you have any more startling revelations to give us?



mosspit and I have both asked, and you seem to be avoiding the question. What is a tank?

[Sarielle]

soteria wrote...

mosspit and I have both asked, and you seem to be avoiding the question. What is a tank?

Actually, you guys have me genuinely curious.

Would you consider an Arcane Warrior a tank?

What about games like Guild Wars (if you've played); I routinely "tanked" elite instances on my Elementalist (elemental mage, if you haven't played) while using a staff and wearing the lightest armor in the game; same with my Monk (healing class). A guildmate could routinely do it on an assassin. Warriors could, of course, also pull it off.

They all achieved this through different methods, but end of the day, they were the one running in taking the beating; the assassin could run a large portion of the elite areas solo, both tanking AND dealing all the damage.

Would you guys consider this tanking?