Finally, PVP tank is actually viable

[Kutsuu Isback]

I know some of you guys have been going tank specs in WFs, but in the majority of cases there is no reason for people to attack you since VK mana draining is no longer threatening and you just get ignored while your team dies.

However... with the recent fixes to subdue, it's viable to be a PVP tank that actually helps their team considerably.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0c....xx0mzL.xx0c0M

That's the spec I've been testing most of the day today (around 15 WFs total).

The basics behind the point spending and use of the spec are this:

-Concussion does not proc subdue. Cracking skulls (14 warlord) and incite (32 reaver), however, do.

-Both sergeants order and grim lure also proc subdue.

-What you end up with is 2 single target taunts on 8s timers, 2 aoe taunts on 1 min timers, each that proc 15s of damage reducing awesomeness.

-Your aoes reduce others strength, and you can put infestation on especially heavy hitters to reduce damage further.

-Try to use the heal debuff on tertiary targets that are being focused by solo DPS players who aren't warriors. Multiple players heal debuffed and taking damage = much harder job for the healers.

-Use cast on target of target to put guard on whoever is being focused. I also have a macro for it that I use for my squishiest party member (usually a mage or low rank cleric).

-When you have just used an aoe taunt on all the DPS and don't need sergeant's orders for a few seconds to reduce damage, use it as an interrupt on heal casts. You can also use it to pull healers out of LOS of their DPS, causing them even more issues.

-Always use your fear off cooldown, preferably on a healer when another player is being focused down.

Basically when played well, you actually cause their team so much trouble that they MUST focus you and try to kill you. With all the damage reduction in this spec, wish them luck. If they don't focus you and your team has a couple of healers, nobody is going to die.

There are a TON of cooldowns with this spec, and I had to add 5-6 extra hotkeys on top of my normal 15 or so. For this reason, it's also complicated to play and requires a lot of concentration and multitasking. It will take me quite a while to master it...

Good luck and enjoy!

[CloudCobra]

How do you rate Subdue builds with Reaver vs. ones with Void Knight?

Pros Reaver:

-Second AE taunt
-Control breaker
-Crippling Infestation
-Wasting Away (this one really necessary on top of Subdue?)

Pros VK:

-Mana Drains against very large amounts of healing
-Rift Summon
-AE silence
-Purge + Dispell
-even more Mitigation (mitigation is not the problem of tank specs, though)


What is more important in your opinion?

Isn't Resilient better in your build than Berserker Defense? Because physical damage shouldn't be the problem on a shield tank.

[Kutsuu Isback]

How do you rate Subdue builds with Reaver vs. ones with Void Knight?

Pros Reaver:

-Second AE taunt
-Control breaker
-Crippling Infestation
-Wasting Away (this one really necessary on top of Subdue?)

Pros VK:

-Mana Drains against very large amounts of healing
-Rift Summon
-AE silence
-Purge + Dispell
-even more Mitigation (mitigation is not the problem of tank specs, though)


What is more important in your opinion?

Isn't Resilient better in your build than Berserker Defense? Because physical damage shouldn't be the problem on a shield tank.

Void knight mana drains are a joke at this point. The only void knights that can actually drain a cleric dry and keep them there are the champion/paragon builds that incorporate a low investment in VK and can hit upwards of 2k dmg with devouring blow. That is my primary PVP spec that I will still spend a majority of my playtime using.

Sergeant's order is a 8s cooldown, makes rift summon a bit trivial.

Wasting away is just more damage reduction. May as well have it, I mean.. should I try to increase my piddly dot damage instead?

AE silence is great, but with current DR I prefer to let my DPS players CC as needed to kill people, rather than give the entire enemy team that is close to me DR to control effects.

The second AE taunt is just massive... Hard to stress how big a deal it is to have 2 of them. You go from 25% uptime (15s every 1 min) to 50% uptime (30s every 1 min).

I like resilient, but the 15% crit reduction would be a matter of choice if you want it. The most threatening DPS on my server cluster right now are R6 warriors, so I want to stuff them as badly as possible when they start focusing me due to not being able to kill anybody.

Overall I'm sure both are effective, but I'd hate to give up ranged attacks and extra aoe taunt with VK instead of reaver.

[Milen]

You, sir, have provided again and again wonderful builds and ideas from which I have benefited a lot. Granted, I usually end up using my own creations, but the reasoning and experience you put in your posts are invaluable.

This being said, I've been thinking on a taunt-based support PvP tank for a long time now, much before I hit 50, and I can't wait to reach rank 3 (very close now) in order to test it myself.

Just wanted to express in one post my appreciation for all the good thinking and solid experience you've brought to these forums thus far. Carry on

[CloudCobra]

Damn me, forgot about Sergeant's Order.

So the main choice seems to be AE silence the healers to kill the others vs. second AE taunt to keep your people alive.

Still going to stay VK because of roflminates for 4k+, but thank you for the input.

[MeganW]

THe two AE taunts and the two single target taunts dont share the same CD? I thought Trion made all the tunats share the same CD at one point. And Subdue is being hotfixed to work again with all the taunts! I might have to give this a shot.

[Kutsuu Isback]

THe two AE taunts and the two single target taunts dont share the same CD? I thought Trion made all the tunats share the same CD at one point. And Subdue is being hotfixed to work again with all the taunts! I might have to give this a shot.

Subdue was hotfixed to work with "all" taunts yesterday, but for whatever reason concussion is not one of them.

Incite is a separate AOE taunt. If you were to read the description, you would see that it says it shares no cooldown with any other taunt.

All single target taunts except sergeant's order share a cooldown. This means grim lure and SO can both be used on separate cooldowns.

[Kutsuu Isback]

Damn me, forgot about Sergeant's Order.

So the main choice seems to be AE silence the healers to kill the others vs. second AE taunt to keep your people alive.

Still going to stay VK because of roflminates for 4k+, but thank you for the input.

Yep that's the basic of the choice between the two.

Remember, with imbued armor and power from the masses, reaver gives a base 15% reduction to all incoming damage, this goes up to 35% when below 30% life. It also gives 9% spell damage reduction. So basically, you are getting roughly the same amount of reduction as the 20% from fully spec'd void.

[abr4]

Hmmm Sergeant's Orders being on a different cd than the other taunts is quite the game changer.

So far my pvp tank spec has been

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0c...aIziudz.xx0s0o

But I will definitely give reaver / warlord a try and see how I will fair. There are things I already know I will miss, like my dispells, the magic shield, the cast time increase (valuable vs. mages and healers alike) and the silences. Ever ran into a 10 man caster zerg in port scion, hit ae silence and see them scatter because they don't know wtf to do? It's glorious.

Also the void knight pull seems like it's the more reliable one of the two, even though the warlord one is on a way shorter cooldown.

I do wonder though, why are you speccing berserker defence in stead of resilient? Seems like 15% less chance to be crit is more valuable than blocking 25% more incoming dmg (seeing as I mostly get toasted by mages).

Edit: wrong link

[Cetharel]

After the new DR rules most of the time casters are immune to the aoe silence or got a silence remover waiting :<. And as stated, the mana drain got nurfed so it aint really usefull

[Kutsuu Isback]

Hmmm Sergeant's Orders being on a different cd than the other taunts is quite the game changer.

So far my pvp tank spec has been

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0c...xxh0z.xx0c0M0V

But I will definitely give reaver / warlord a try and see how I will fair. There are things I already know I will miss, like my dispells, the magic shield, the cast time increase (valuable vs. mages and healers alike) and the silences. Ever ran into a 10 man caster zerg in port scion, hit ae silence and see them scatter because they don't know wtf to do? It's glorious.

Also the void knight pull seems like it's the more reliable one of the two, even though the warlord one is on a way shorter cooldown.

I do wonder though, why are you speccing berserker defence in stead of resilient? Seems like 15% less chance to be crit is more valuable than blocking 25% more incoming dmg (seeing as I mostly get toasted by mages).

I explained in an earlier post that the most threatening DPS players on my server cluster are geared warriors. We normally run against 5+ warriors per warfront and the majority are champs. The extra armor is just more "FU" when they decide they don't like doing crappy damage and want me dead.

The 15% is not subtracted from their crit chance, its 15% less of current. So if a mage has say 30% chance to crit, you're reducing it to 25.5%. That's still pretty nice, but not big enough for me to stress over.

[abr4]

After the new DR rules most of the time casters are immune to the aoe silence or got a silence remover waiting :<. And as stated, the mana drain got nurfed so it aint really usefull

That's not true when you are the one to lead the charge as I usually am in Port Scion.

[MeganW]

Hm, need macro help for the guard macro

what do I @ to target my targets target?

I have

#show Guard
cast @targetoftarget Guard

so far and its not working.

[kenoh]

Hm, need macro help for the guard macro

what do I @ to target my targets target?

I have

#show Guard
cast @targetoftarget Guard

so far and its not working.

you dont need any macro to achive that there is an option allready to force tageting target of target with beneficial spells, you just need to tick it

[RamzaBeoulve]

Problem with these builds is simple : alone, you are useless. In a stupid outgeared/outskilled pug, you are useless.

But if you have a skilled group... the tank builds are now very devastating.