True Confessions of a Tier 2 Rogue Tank

[Caliy]

Good post, just what the developers need!

[zetans]

I've tried to wade through this post, but I just cant get over the op's spec. Its fail in so many ways I'm supprised he manages to tank anything. Anyone playing that spec is obbiously clueless and I'll take what else he says with a pinch of salt.

RS/BD is much more viable. GS/RB/FB combos up give huge buffs which the op seams unaware of.

Fasc who posted above is much more in tune with the RS build and i agree totally with his posts.

[Montezuma]

Sigh, I hear this same complaint time and again from rogue tanks who think riftstalker is the only tanking tree. Please understand, while bladedancer is labeled as an offensive soul, its actually the best pairing for riftstalker.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M....xItbu0zokoM.V

Using this setup with only 1/2 tier one gear, I hit 23% avoidance unbuffed, 34% avoidance with false blade up, 40% avoidance using combat culmination. I have +6% to heals recieved, 39.14% mitigation pre-buff, 44.27% self buffed, 12% less damage recieved straight up (read 50% mitigation). I have 2 extra aoe generating aggro moves (dancing steel is basically godmode for aoe aggro) and every single time I dodge something (27%) I not only deal 10% more dmg for 10 seconds (effectively up all fight every fight) and gain an additional combo point, but I also counterattack whatever I dodged (amazing for aoe aggro.) I have 6600 hp self buffed with planebound resiliance (which stacks with every other endurance buff in the game.) and I have + 50 to every resistance. On top of all this I have a shield that mitigates 15% of ALL incoming damage that is always up.

When building combo points I have two reactives that come up almost constantly, which when macroed to planar strike get me to 5 combo points every 3 seconds.

Basically my gear is crap, but I have better avoidance/mitigation than tier 2 set warrior tanks and a much easier time holding aggro than them.

Rogue tanking is fine, learn how to tank. Rogue is godmode tanking.

PS I also do 150-200 dps single target easily, and up to 300 dps aoe easily, even though when offtanking I find myself pulling aggro off warrior tanks without even touching planar strike.

PPS, I also have a disarm, a self dex buff, and the single best interrupt in the game (1- sec cd, 20 yard range, 5 sec silence component)

Exactly. Players are so focussed on bard and ranger in their build that they forget about BD, which has so many goodies. Nice build, never went that high in BD, should try it out sometimes because I really like Improved FB.

Dancing steel seems like a great solution to AOE threat, however dont you just take all the hits without dodging during the channel? If you can dodge during the channel then I would probably just go 31 blade, 32 rift, and some floater points.

You can actually. Dancing steel combined with Sidestep is ownage. If you go higher in the RS tree, you will get more mitigation and tools. You need to try to balance it, which works for you and your healer(s).

edit:
Forgot to mention. RS is fine in tanking and maybe one of the best tanks around. Our threat is good even on AoE and yes you lose one, there is that taunt skill for. Sorry to say but it seems a lot like l2p issues in this thread.

[tuchmaipp]

i didnt bother to read through 14 pages but after tanking with a warrior i feel like rogue tanking is best suited for single target tanking, whereas warriors (reaver, paladin) would be a better choice for aoe tanking.

[Dunharrow]

I've tried to wade through this post, but I just cant get over the op's spec. Its fail in so many ways I'm supprised he manages to tank anything. Anyone playing that spec is obbiously clueless and I'll take what else he says with a pinch of salt.

RS/BD is much more viable. GS/RB/FB combos up give huge buffs which the op seams unaware of.

Fasc who posted above is much more in tune with the RS build and i agree totally with his posts.

You're an idiot. First, you mention Rift Barrier as if it ever comes into play. It doesn't. Dumb. Read the descriptions of Improved Rift Guard and Improved Guardian Phase before even thinking of calling that spec a failure. You're a joke.

[Zayrinoke]

You're an idiot. First, you mention Rift Barrier as if it ever comes into play. It doesn't. Dumb. Read the descriptions of Improved Rift Guard and Improved Guardian Phase before even thinking of calling that spec a failure. You're a joke.

Where does he mention rift barrier? I don't see it in his post anywhere.

Edit: Ah I see it now.

So I'll go tangential here, Rift Barrier comes into play. It actually can play a pretty important role. I'll see if you can figure it out.

[Fasc]

You're an idiot. First, you mention Rift Barrier as if it ever comes into play. It doesn't. Dumb. Read the descriptions of Improved Rift Guard and Improved Guardian Phase before even thinking of calling that spec a failure. You're a joke.

LOL

And you call us trolls?

You ever think for a second he might have mistyped RB instead of RG in the combination he listed since he didn't double up on anything? No of course not... you're incapable of that sort of thinking because rather than bring anything to bear, you'd rather just try to snipe people like this and go on a childish rant. And no matter how many times you cite Imp RG and Imp Guardian, it doesn't make you any more or less right, and certainly not educated enough to act like this.

Try a bit harder next time, and with less impotent vitriol.

[MrDDT]

I've been tanking Experts for a good while now as a Riftstalker and I wanted to put my thoughts and concerns about Riftstalker tanks in general, based on my experience and feedback I get from my healers and other Riftstalkers.

SNIP!!

Great post, I go normally with some BD, but still same issues.

AOE threat is horrid compared to clerics and warriors at level 50.

Even single target threat you can lose it to some high burst classes not giving you 1 or 2 seconds to pull aggro.

I read some of the posts here and people have good ideas on how to make a spec better, but still look into a warrior or cleric tank and you will see just how ez it is to play them and heal them. Its a joke now really. Before RS had a place in the game best boss tanks. Now they are 3rd.
On top of that they were the hardest tanks to play for T1/T2, but could be healed easier if played well. Now they are still hard to play only they die easier on a bad pull etc.

[wildwolfay2]

Trying to avoid all the "trolling" and people calling themselves idiots on another person's post so my question/observation may have been addressed:::


that spec just seems... ugly to me? I read this post and respecced to it then immediately looking at the stats and what it gives me, I immediately respecced. The ONLY thing desirable is the 3 second immunity. Defer damage is... pointless? you stop taking damage for 10 seconds, but everything hits so hard that at the end it just 1 shots u. sooooo why so many points???


http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=1M....E0bVh00MM.xhz

Granted I've only done Tier 1's, and I just hit 91 toughness so hopefully a few more days til Tier 2, but this spec allows me to AOE tank super easy. Holding threat is not an issue, and the dodge bonus from combat prep and sidestep make the beginning of pulls nothing. Cooldowns are there to be used, rogues take time to get ur buffs up (thus explains why i use contra, dodge/parry = 2 combo points = faster tank buffs) and down time allows me to use my two motifs to help out. I can keep everything up, I can hold threat, and I have just as much life as with the 51 rift spec. the 15% dex bonus also helps with my dodge/parry with the improved false blade.


Idk seems like this spec solves a couple of your problems? Some people can knit pick, but not many fights are STAND THERE AND TANK (tank/spanks) so the riftstalker phase shifts give us an advantage. (Think CC wind boss, IT fire boss) and these things. with phase shifts we dont need dispells, thus making the healers job easier to move into the circle, little things like this need to be taken into consideration.


You can't make rogues into warrior tanks and give rogues their special touch. I have quite a bit of armor, health, mitigation, not as much as warriors, but i also do a lot of DPS, some motif support, group buffs, and the versatility and freedom of movement as a rogue.


(Edit: Fixing soul calc link)

[wildwolfay2]

(this is a repost with a lot of crap added/edited which took longer than the 5 minute edit time, so ignore the above post.)



Trying to avoid all the "trolling" and people calling themselves idiots on another person's post so my question/observation may have been addressed:::


that spec just seems... ugly to me? I read this post and respecced to it then immediately looking at the stats and what it gives me, I immediately respecced. The ONLY thing desirable is the 3 second immunity. Defer damage is... pointless? you stop taking damage for 10 seconds, but everything hits so hard that at the end it just 1 shots u. sooooo why so many points???


http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=1M....E0bVh00MM.xhz

Granted I've only done Tier 1's, and I just hit 91 toughness so hopefully a few more days til Tier 2, but this spec allows me to AOE tank super easy. Holding threat is not an issue, and the dodge bonus from combat prep and sidestep make the beginning of pulls nothing. Cooldowns are there to be used, rogues take time to get ur buffs up (thus explains why i use contra, dodge/parry = 2 combo points = faster tank buffs) and down time allows me to use my two motifs to help out. I can keep everything up, I can hold threat, and I have just as much life as with the 51 rift spec. the 15% dex bonus also helps with my dodge/parry with the improved false blade.


Idk seems like this spec solves a couple of your problems? Some people can knit pick, but not many fights are STAND THERE AND TANK (tank/spanks) so the riftstalker phase shifts give us an advantage. (Think CC wind boss, IT fire boss) and these things. with phase shifts we dont need dispells, thus making the healers job easier to move into the circle, little things like this need to be taken into consideration. The other thing with this spec is the little changes you can make. You can replace the phase cooldown talents and throw them into blade dancer and get the disarm, that could always help keep you alive. or throw some more into bard and get improved armor buff, or keep in rift for the health bonus. Just keep the necesities.

There is no aoe taunt..... so? when pulling a group, if they grouped up, u can shadow blitz in, immediately shadow assault and get ur rift barrier, then rift disturb, and work in compouind attacks and twin blades whenever ur not keeping up ur 6% buff and ur other 3. AoE tanking is a breeeeeeeze. Abyssal example with the little guys, learn to take and pull back, let the mobs bunch up, and do the same.


You can't make rogues into warrior tanks and give rogues their special touch. I have quite a bit of armor, health, mitigation, not as much as warriors, but i also do a lot of DPS, some motif support, group buffs, and the versatility and freedom of movement as a rogue, all while getting punched in the face by bosses.



I haven't raided yet so I can't comment on all that, but this works for tier1/2.

[zetans]

You're an idiot. First, you mention Rift Barrier as if it ever comes into play. It doesn't. Dumb. Read the descriptions of Improved Rift Guard and Improved Guardian Phase before even thinking of calling that spec a failure. You're a joke.

Firstly that was a mistype,. RB instead of RG, yes my typing fails, I'll just go shoot myself.

RB does come into play, yes you want to get rift guard up as much as possible but on the off chance if somes down you can put up another mitigation without having to build or waste combo points using RG that you may need for another ability.

It buys you time, its also useful on the pull for mitigation as you go in, yeah, replace it with RG asap, but if its a choice of going in with no mitigation or with RB, I'll take RB.

So to respond, you fail.

[Lucubration]

We don't need Block and Rogue itemization isn't as bad as people make it out to be. For every anecdotal story about some crappy Block item dropping over and over there is one about a piece of crappy Toughness Leather dropping. Random loot is random.

Random loot hates me

Furthermore, you only need one CP to get the damage reduction since the size of the shield almost never comes into play.

I actually find this isn't right. If I do a 1-CP shield on t2 content, I find that I need to refresh it immediately because it runs out in under 10 seconds. The mobs just hit that hard, and rather than having ~14000 health (according to the tooltip) it has something like 4-5k health.

We have Shadow Blitz every 30 seconds (45 if you don't talent it), 8 seconds on Rift Disturbance, and 60 seconds on Planar Attraction. RD alone is generally enough to hold threat on almost anything. If you sub spec into BD you can get Twin Strike as well as a CP builder, and it hits two targets. AoE is very very easy on a Rogue.

AoE is the hardest situation on my rogue. For some reason, even "pulling" with Shadow Blitz and Rift Disturbance, and using both whenever they're up, I can't hold threat off a geared warrior or mage with anything besides my primary target. I may need to start tab-targeting around between each rotation to spread out the threat a little.

Second hardest situation I find is ranged mobs very spread out, or ranged adds trickling into the fight (see: Darkening Deeps goblin gauntlet).

If you think we can't Tank or we're broken, you honestly don't know what you're talking about and need to do some more research, a lot more.

Hear, hear. There's a reason I still tank progression content in our guild's runs, and it's not pity or ignorance from my party/raid members.

[Sitar]

I actually find this isn't right. If I do a 1-CP shield on t2 content, I find that I need to refresh it immediately because it runs out in under 10 seconds. The mobs just hit that hard, and rather than having ~14000 health (according to the tooltip) it has something like 4-5k health.

Most people still doesnt understand the tooltips.

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthrea...=1#post1602237

Riftstalkers who still thinks tanking with a 1 CP RG is good, will have real trouble tanking T2 and more.

[Deathfairy]

This threat severely degraded since i left as i see, all these BD build people show, lawl...
First of i spent this weekend rifting for to 98 toughness an started t2. As expected no issues. Well obviously we did have issues but it was 9/10 execution. NO threat issues vs 900 dps wars that we have as dps, Maybe you all run with AMG 1500+ dps and they rip of you, but i doubt it. No survival issues, no aoe tanking issues.
I am so damn tired of horror stories about next tier.....

P.S. To all BD builds out there, the BD/sub one made me lawl. 6600 hp selft buffed really? I don't know what game are you playing but the ones i am, with healers that i play 6600 hp = dead tank period no exceptions. Even with 51 RS/bard/ranger which provides highest mitigation and my 10k hp i still get burs-ted down low. It is not gear issues i am almost full t1 tanking t2, anything more then that is over gearing the content in which case it makes no diff what spec you are.

To the person who posted about it, you got laughed at by OP, and for a good reason. You post 3 line post with horrible spec post some random numbers around and say it is better. Did you check out what you loosing by switching to this spec, did you compare to what you gain? No you didnt you just posted random numbers which mean nothing in a vacuum.


@Facs

You and your BD build..... since beta. Pointless to argue with you. Where is the math on what you loose and what you gain by going BD? Right not here, because i did it back in beta and it is bad for BD very. BD is fun spec at best mitigation and hp you loose is just too much. Back in beta you *****ed and moaned about how we dont know if you need HP, bla bla bla, Game is here and YES we do, we get hit hard and fast, heals get silenced, feared, put in crystals, you get kicked out of range. etc You need to survive long enough with no heals.

If you want to make a case for BD, put out the facts on the table start a meaningful discussion, what you doing right now is just as pointless as OP. You have no evidence or numbers to back up anything you say about BD build, NOTHING , NADA. With all the *****ing you did at OP for not having any support for his claims you do just the same without a blink of an eye. That is at very least hypocritical. Them again you aren't totally moronic so i would assume you purposely avoiding it.

[MrDDT]

This threat severely degraded since i left as i see, all these BD build people show, lawl...
First of i spent this weekend rifting for to 98 toughness an started t2. As expected no issues. Well obviously we did have issues but it was 9/10 execution. NO threat issues vs 900 dps wars that we have as dps, Maybe you all run with AMG 1500+ dps and they rip of you, but i doubt it. No survival issues, no aoe tanking issues.
I am so damn tired of horror stories about next tier.....

No offense but 900DPS for a warrior on AOE is pretty low. Depending on how many mobs they should be pulling over 1k ez.
Mages clerics and sabos that are 1/2 way good should be pulling over 1k ez.

If its a 7+ pull they should be pulling 1800+, if the tank is holding proper threat. You wont see these numbers in a RS tank group because the RS tank cant hold aggro.