2H Tanks: 9001th thread edition

[arthur2k]

A good 6man group can do good with a 2H tank what so ever, but there is the downside of it taking more damage and loosing utility.

But hey its fun as hell to play a 2H tank thats all that matters first, but fixing some basic worst in the game tactics to benefit 2H more would be good.

[peppex91]

I guess dev should just revamp 2h in order to give it some useful buff and not the block striketrough.
They got negative feedback (some1 was thinking abour WL opness and the usual ordo vs destro victimism raised up... lol) and postponed the argument to t4.
The utility loss is not a general tank issue since some of them are designed upon 2h too. Surely i would not skip destined for victory or the 5sec BG kd.

[spikespiegel84]

At the actual state of rank/renown and damage burst, that I don't find too high but still significant, and though to evaluate, Focused Offense becomes a sort of suicide. For a 15% it's definitely not worth. Do not forget that if a Chosen wants to do real damage, needs also weapon skill, if he wants to rely on tooth of tzeentch and relentless. The dread/discord hybrid is doable only at rank 40/rr 100, with both rending blade and quake, and a ravage capable of 1000-1300 crits.

At the moment, the 2h Chosen is pretty fun to play, but in a team, except the damage debuff, doesn't have much utility. If you want weapon skill, you need to leave behind wounds, if you lower your armor of 34% you have the armor of a marauder without detaunt, charge and his damage output. Yes, you may have some cc (repel) and a stagger every 60 seconds, but totally inadequate in my opinion. In solo there are simply some classes you can't face, like AM or SW (everything is intended of course when they are played by capable people), due to knockbacks and snares. With the actual damage a healer doesn't feel threatened at all (well...). A tank should NEVER replace a Mdps, but neither being a burden for a team.

This said, Blastoise I will never give up my Deathaxe

[TenTonHammer]

A good 6man group can do good with a 2H tank what so ever, but there is the downside of it taking more damage and loosing utility.

and that same 6 man could do even better if that 2h tank was SnB insted with dps spec or something

[Scrilian]

and that same 6 man could do even better if that 2h tank was SnB insted with dps spec or something

What lead you to that assumption?

[TenTonHammer]

It is not an assumption

It is is a fact

Pretty much ever tank bar maybe sm can do every thing it's dps 2h equivalent can do just was well or well enough all the while being a better guard and having better utility, survive ability and CC

And unless something is done about 2h tanks it will remain a fact

[th3gatekeeper]

They have the traits of both tank and dps worlds, bringing enough CC, while being still fairly tanky, able to stick to the target and deal substantial damage if needed and even some unique 2h only moves.

I think there is some serious mis understanding about how these classes work.... People seem to combine all specs of tanks into 1 and classifying them all as 1 spec...

"tank and DPS worlds" - Im not sure what world you live in, but this is really not an adequate evaluation of the class. If you want to deal any type of "semi-respectable damage" you have to stack FULL strength at the cost of toughness/wounds and you forfeit block % altogether. Ive always said that if people realized how squishy 2H tanks are in reality, they wouldnt bother trying to run to back lines or nuke backline classes, they would just heal depression a 2H tank, and nuke him since he is standing right infront of you...

Not to mention, if you try and go Focused Assault, you have the armor of a MDPS, without any sort of AoE detaunt, or gap closers, and still dont hit anywhere near (using single target abilities) what MDPS can with their AOE abilities.

"Bring enough CC" - again, I think you are combining all tank classes into 1 "meta" tank. I look at my SM - has just 1 aoe knockback, which can be blocked/parried. Thats it. My Knight, provides 1 punt on a 20 sec CD that can also be blocked parried and because of ping, its VERY unreliable the direction you punt, and requires a tactic on my Knight (loss of most like toughness ~140) to super punt. Aside from that, if I spec into the "prone" for 3 seconds which are (on both classes) in the TANK tree, this is a big loss of damage as you forfeit either capstone ability and mastery points in your damage trees....

"Able to stick to a target" - If we are slowed or CCd or punted off a target its nearly impossible to catch a target again as our Juggernaught ability is a 1 min CD. If you use your tactic, this again comes at the loss of toughness or super punt or costs you ALOT of damage... Do you know how easy it is to kite a tank? VERY.

"Some Unique 2H only moves" - I can only name a small handful... Like Wounds Debuff on Knights that we dont have access to yet, and Ether Dance which noone uses on SM.... Which dont even come CLOSE to the value a SNB brings to the table with block %. Wounds debuff can be removed, ED is crap compared to WW on SM (which doesnt require 2H). I cant speak for others classes as I dont know them well enough.


Overall, I feel like I am gimping the group playing my 2h tanks. I mained a Knight until I got 35, got the boundless weapon (BIS) stacked full STR and still dealt crap damage going FULL offense... I rolled an SM because I was told they can deal more damage, which they can, but are definitely MUCH more squishy than Knights since they have no inherent resistances like Knights get with Auars so even stacking disrupt, I still get NUKED by Sorcs since I cant block spells.

Why do I play a 2H if they are so weak compared to SnB tanks? Because its SUPER freaking boring going full turtle build stacking toughness/block%/Interrupt and dealing no damage. I did it for a while, you are crazy tanky, but are zero threat to any team.

Even full STR 2H "glass canon" build on either Knight or SM, people just ignore the 2H tanks as they deal very little damage (contrary to what others think) and its easy to throw a few HoTs on the target they hit to out heal their DPS.

The only "value" they bring are moderate party buffs (which a SnB provides) and a slight increase in focused damage on a target, at the cost of quite a bit of tankiness that frankly just causes healers to have to heal YOU instead of the MDPS which ends up costing the group more.

I am going to try and get a destro friend on today, so I can post a video of my 1100+ STR 2H Boundless Knight - basically based offense WITH Focused Offense (something I dont normally slot) and just show how little a maxed offense squishy tank really does in damage.

Hopefully we can then end this debate about how 2H tanks need some love and IMO honestly need a damage boost. However I think to retain their "uniqueness" this is BEST applied via increasing Taunts damage % to 50% (I would even suggest as a BASE) as it requires still and timing to use. Then possibly providing "Focused offense" as a tactic that can somehow increase damage by 15% and increase the $ of stacks on taunt to 6 or something....

Then I would also still suggest some type of 2H version of "Hold the Line" that costs a large amount of AP but provides some benefits for you + your party.

[peterthepan3]

Kotbs is a bad damage dealer. On par with WP for worst spot.

Well-played Khaine SM can most definitely burst down healers easily if element of surprise/correct rotation.

[th3gatekeeper]

Kotbs is a bad damage dealer. On par with WP for worst spot.

Well-played Khaine SM can most definitely burst down healers easily if element of surprise/correct rotation.

Well here you go....


Click here to watch on YouTube

1203 STR, Boundless Claymore, Focused offense etc etc....

Only reason SM stands a chance is due to WW giving them a silence AND Perfect stance providing 50% increased cast time, however they are STILL easy to kite so IMO (because QI requires improved stance, best thing I did was use "nerf buttons" so I merely spam 3 but with that GCD it just makes SM easier to kite than Knight) thats on the healer if they just stand there.


Click here to watch on YouTube There is my SM, 700 STR. WW spec, with silence and increased build times. Cant kill the shaman. Not saying I played this perfectly, but this is also WITH focused offense making me (again) squishier than a Slayer or even this Shaman himself with only 1600 armor.... Its not like the damage is "crazy insane" here...

I did manage to kill him with him just face tanking my blows, took about 1:00min + of solid DPS, shatter, silence, increase cast times etc etc. So again, if a healer dies in PVP because of this, they had MORE than enough room to escape and avoid it, not to mention if another healer glances their way for a heal its game over and you wont kill the shaman. ED isnt better since you dont get silence and you dont reduce their resistances as much by speccing into that tree.

Point of ALL this is... Making Focused offense not cost as much armor, and upping its damage will not make 2H tanks "OP" by any means. Even @ 25% damage and -20% armor I dont know if I would slot it, since it would help SM kill more but they are already WAYYYY more squishy than Knights and losing armor will just make them MELT... Knights still wouldnt deal any worthwhile damage and still get a pretty fatty armor nerf making them easier to kill....



Either way, 2H damage isnt "crazy" by any means... You dont offer MUCH in the way of party utility and give up a TON of tankiness to try and get strength to a fair level.... In this case I had what? 250 toughness? No block... Low Parry % and low Interrupt % (under 10%).... My Knight had decent parry (23%ish) but low on the others... For what benefit? None really....

[th3gatekeeper]

I guess I would add to the above post, about my SM, I went 1v1 versus a DoK yesterday in an SC and was obliterated. I was spamming the 770 point shield, Eagle's Flight, and keeping resist debuff up... Wasnt even using Q.I as the DoK just stood toe to toe with me, and wasnt using F.O as that is just a horrible tactic.

So for those that say going 700+ STR and looking at the damage, its NOT very tanky at all...

I know SM doesnt get access to WW and Balanced Acc yet until T4 which will be a nice boost to damage... It just seems like this "tradeoff" really doesnt offer all that much (SnB versus 2h) considering you can do EVERYTHING I did here with a SnB and most likely do it better too....