armor and tanking

[SilentMorbus]

I feel that tank defences,expecially armor,are a bit too easy to bypass,expecially by stealth classes and ranged dps,that can easly burst down a tank in a few blows. i mean,ignore a % of the armor it's an acceptable thing (although unfair for a pure tank) but ignore it completely seems a bit too much in my opinion. i may be wrong,but i had multiple in game tests,with 1.8 crit chance on me and more than 4k armor,with 700+ thougness. sorry if i bother

[Mazadun]

It depens on which class is up against tank, armor do not protects your from any type of magic based damage as well as morale damage. (obviously)
In other hand, tanks have access to a very potent defence stat which is a block. With proper amout of block (can't say exact amount) facing enemy face to face shouldn't be a problem. Also, any type of DD shouldn't fight you in the 1st place, because thers more important targets.

Spoiler:

*cough* Armor is broken *cough*

[Aurandilaz]

Hmm, it's almost as if some classes are designed so that they gain ability to pass armour, though end up paying A LOT to to gain this skill. (do you have any idea how much fun it is to partake in melee fights when you have barely any armour on you... not to mention armour debuffs decreasing your armour more than you have to begin with)

As for ranged dps, they tend to kill anything from range, which is again how they classes are designed. All rdps classes can probably kill a tank if they know what they are doing. (that being said, if the tank knows what it is doing, it probably will not easily die to a lone ranger)


However, since this game has a demand for tanky tanks, they have the ability to increase their Block, and possible Disrupt/Dodge/Parry rates very high. An ultra defensive tank will be extreme hard to kill, even if the enemy is a specialist in carving tanks up, it will not be an easy task, nor a cheap one. (considering how much the alternative cost is if a WE decides to go full Witchbrew glass cannon spec so they can have fun opening some midgetcans)

[xanderous]

The armor stat really does not mean jack in this game, with Armor penetration and armor debuffs being in so much easy supply, the only real stat you should care about as a tank is crit reduction, with some class abilities outright ignoring armor all together.

Every dps player out there is stacking obscene levels of crit, if your going full defense, put your renown points into futile strikes for the crit reduction and what is left over into block, parry, dodge/disrupt.

If your going 2handed tank, i'd still promote putting all your points into futile strike and the rest is up to your best judgement but the few i had left over i put into crit damage reduction.

When your standing on the edge of a zerg that does not want to commit to the charge of your factions zerge armies and you are taking the full force of their ranged dps, you will quickly notice that after a certain amount of attacks, stats like block, dodge and disrupt, don't pop as much to save you, less chance to be crit means the few attacks you don't defend against don't crit potentially making it easier for your healer to keep you alive through insane bursts from multiple enemy players.

P.S

Just for sake of mentioning I also reckon the base Armour you get from say ruin set + armor potion is enough, some suggest armor talismans are good for tanks, i disagree, go toughness,

[GodlessCrom]

Pretty sure the crit damage reduction from Trivial Blows does not work, so cannot recommend spending your renown there. Definitely recommend investing in some dodge/disrupt and parry as any tank but especially 2h tank: you need some mitigation for both magic damage (your main bane as 2h tank since you don't have block to help) and for guard. Without renown investment in parry, you'll have a rough time guarding as a 2h tank even if you don't get focused (and pretty much all rdps know 2h tanks are prone to relative squishiness, and one good magus or sorc can ruin your day with a single rotation) because you'll be taking a long string of unmitigated guard damage. Crit chance reduction is also quite important, though perhaps less so as knight because of Runefang's massive buff to your Ini, which ends up being something like 240 Ini at rank 40, which is a solid chunk of crit chance reduction.

[xanderous]

Pretty sure the crit damage reduction from Trivial Blows does not work, so cannot recommend spending your renown there.

I had suspicions about this one, was too lazy to test it though so i stopped using it anyway, shame its not working, would be super handy tool to have a crit damage reduction, i have to wonder if it is not working intentionally.

Definitely recommend investing in some dodge/disrupt and parry as any tank but especially 2h tank

I have mixed feelings on this, when on my 2handed knight, i used to max those renown points into parry/disrupt/dodge, they were helpful indeed but then i switched to futile strikes and put what i had left over in points for depth defender and reflexes, once i did this i immediately saw an increase in my survivability when it came to being focused, i think getting your chance to be crit down to zero is very important and eassily disregarded by alot of players who put too much stock in the other defensive stats, plus defensive stats like parry aren't as effective vs certain classes that just bypass them altogether, take advantage of the default high armor tanks have access to and stack crit reduction even just for the sake of combating the crit meta.

[GodlessCrom]

There are a few RR traits that don't work. Probably can't be fixed until client control. Incredibly unlikely they are purposefully broken, especially since their brokenness has been common knowledge on the server (since I started playing at least) for forever.

[Luth]

Trivial blows, last stand, hardy concessions and the like do not work by intention.

[GodlessCrom]

Trivial blows, last stand, hardy concessions and the like do not work by intention.

Well damn, I stand corrected. Any reason why? Other than Trivial Blows being borderline mandatory on live (we see the same on here with RD/CW anyways)

[Dresden]

Trivial blows, last stand, hardy concessions and the like do not work by intention.

and the like

to confirm: Futile Strikes? yes?