Stats for a rank 40/40 defensive tank?

[ToXoS]

I know there is a thread about that, but I just can't find it...

So I ask that here to all the pro tank players:
What is the ideal Strength, Toughness, Armor, Initiative and Wounds for a fresh rank 40/40 defensive tank?

[GodlessCrom]

What class? That will change things. I.e. Chosen can slot Flawless Armor for 10% less chance to be crit, so they need less initiative. Ironbreaker and Black Orc however have super low initiative and so will need to invest more. However, Ironbreaker can slot Ancestral Inheritance and use Guarded Attack, so needs less investment in armor.

So uh yeah, a long way of asking what class youre talking about.

[ToXoS]

What class? That will change things. I.e. Chosen can slot Flawless Armor for 10% less chance to be crit, so they need less initiative. Ironbreaker and Black Orc however have super low initiative and so will need to invest more. However, Ironbreaker can slot Ancestral Inheritance and use Guarded Attack, so needs less investment in armor.

So uh yeah, a long way of asking what class youre talking about.

You're right, my bad.
The class is Swordmaster. Specced Vaul/Hoeth.

[Axerker]

I can't speak for a Swordmaster, but in general I would recommend getting Toughness to 1050 (less if you reliably have a way to increase it - i.e. potions or auras), since 1050 is soft cap.

A lot of people swear by Armor stacking on Destruction (I imagine Order would be the same, since Destro seems to have much more melee than Order in RvR). Personally, I don't agree, but it is technically viable. Armor cap is 75% (I think this is around 3700 Armor). You will have around 4500+ from gear without Armor Talismans or Potions (660 Armor from Potion will put you at 5.1k or so, which covers the 1400 you'll lose from White Lion or Marauder debuff, allowing you to stay Armor-capped even while debuffed). However, Weapon Skill is passive Armor Penetration based on % of Total Armor, I believe.

50% Armor Penetration vs 3700 Armor (Cap) = 1750 Armor (if linear, 37.5% Physical reduction) [Enemy Weapon Skill causes them to bypass 1750 Armor, increasing their damage against you by 37.5%] (Due to being 37.5% less than the 75% maximum mitigation you can accrue)
50% Armor Penetration vs 5100 Armor (1400 over Cap) = 2550 Armor (if linear, 52% Physical reduction)
[Enemy Weapon Skill causes them to bypass 2550 Armor, increasing their damage against you by 23%] (Due to being only 23% less than the 75% maximum mitigation you can accrue)

As you can see, Armor stacking can be pretty effective. However, there's some caveats:

a) Anything over cap while 1) not debuffed or 2) not facing an enemy with a high-ish Armor Penetration percentage is wasted stat points and entirely useless. This means the situations in which it applying are more like being specialized for worst-case scenario, and not at-all-times
b) Armor only affects physical damage (Spiritual, Elemental, and Corporeal are not mitigated by Armor). Even enemy melee classes often have magical damaging attacks, and they will use them, because resistance cap is 45%, while Armor is 75%. That gives those attacks a base 30% higher damage output, assuming their target is capped in both.

All of this is why I prefer Toughness as a Tank, because Toughness works as a flat mitigation (against Strength, Intelligence, or Ballistic) against ALL forms of damage. An enemy with 1050 Strength attacking you with 1050 Toughness will cause the damage to only deal base damage, I believe - which is also mitigated by either Armor or Resistances respectively. If Base Damage is 100, and your Toughness is equal to their STR/INT/BAL, you can reduce it to 25 by 75% Physical Reduction via Armor (if it is a physical damage ability, Magic reduced to 55 damage at 45% Resist cap). I'm not sure if having more Toughness than their STR/INT/BAL will cause the Base damage to be reduced - possibly making attacks deal 0/1 damage. (i.e. 500 STR vs 1000 Toughness would reduce Base Damage by 500. If Base Damage is 300, does the skill deal 0/1 damage?)

TL;DR: Here are my recommendations for all Tanks in general:

Via Priority:
a) 1050 Toughness
b) 75% Armor (3700, I believe)
c) 45% Resistances (all three) (Unsure of flat number, probably around 800 or so)
d) 500+ Initiative (This is primarily for reduction of Critical chance, Dodge is a nice bonus - but most Tanks get their Dodge from 45% from Hold the Line. If you pick up Futile Strikes (24% Crit reduction for like 30-40 RR points) then this isn't as necessary. Picking up Futile Strikes will allow you to not worry about Initiative as much
e) As high as Wounds as possible, after the above are complete - Goal being above 9000
f) Strength, anything left you have, but you'll mainly get this from Conqueror gear - Your job isn't meant to do damage. If you're doing SCs, you may want to move this up higher, but in RvR, rely on your teammates to deal damage, because they'll be relying on you to take as much as possible in their place

Your talismans should reflect whichever you need most in order to achieve A, B, and C.

Best of luck!

[Collateral]

Damage can never be 0. The least amount of damage you can take is 1. Also, it's not very easy to reach 4.5k base armour for a sm. You will need talis for that. So it's not really true that you will have 5k+ armour with pot without having any armour talis (unless you're an ib). Initiative is quite important for tanks. Sm doesn't have a lot of problems with ini, but it's not true that having only futile strikes will solve your problems. Having low ini will make you extremely vulnerable to ini debuffs, and futile strikes won't help a whole lot, if you really want to avoid being crit. Sm should be able to get close to 400 ini + fs.

Wounds are also not easy to come by for sm. Reaching 9k+ is relatively hard for pretty much all tanks except bo. You will need talis if you want to reach those numbers. You can get to 8.5k if you get some decent talis, should be enough for you.

I'm personally not sure about toughness. I did a high toughness build on my bo before and idk, it was meh I guess (the problem with bo is very low base ini, but sm is fine there). You can try stacking toughness, but I would recommend going for wounds and armour if you plan on doing rvr. Wounds are the only hard counter to morales, and armour is the best counter for mostly melee oriented destro. In the end, you can test things and see what fits you best.

[ragafury]

can't say:
this and this and that is good.

most likely you will have a starter gear like fortune or ruin.

those sets leave you with weaknesses.
equipping ruin usually leaves you with low wounds, resistance and initiative.
as an example, your wounds are usually stuck at ~800 - 850 in ruin, depending on class.

try to work against those.
as collateral has stated: morale counter = wounds, resistance can be solved with winds really quick, it also grants armor and initiative.

having a noticeable toughness value isn't going to happen since you need your talisman slots most likely for wounds, at least the majority. If you have something like 550 toughness it's ok. can be less, can be more, if you struggle run rugged. toughness is anyway only really noticeable if you apply huge chunks of it (the difference of 550 to 650 is barely noticeable gameplay wise, same goes for a jump from 650 to 750, also toughness debuffs are a thing, same like armor debuffs).

usually pot and your armorclass work okayish for oRvR. I like to socket some of those for everything non warband related since physical DPS also does a good amount of white hits.
the highest armor debuff you can receive is -1600 by marauder (if I'm correct) if you are playing order. So it's good to have a buffer. Also be aware that Marauders -1600 stack with tanks Demolishing Strike and potential tactics by other classes like Zealot, so you can easily get debuffed by a potential - ~3000, however, you basically never face that in WB v WB. more common is ~ -1600 in WB v WB or less. So a bolster in that department is worth it.

so you have done the best to fix those weaknesses with socketing a bit of wounds, maybe a bit of armor. most likely your initiative will now be low.
if you play in a group have you access to RP buff? if yes, check you ini with RP buff, if no how low is your initiative. 200 is very bad, 250 is tolerable but yikes, 300 is okay, 350 is great and everything after 350 is luxury most of the time for a starter tank which isn't called blackguard. and initiative debuff on a low initiative target is pretty much rip.
you need to be almost uneffected by that to survive the damage you receive plus the large potion of guard damage. if your initiative reaches double digits after a -120 ini debuff you are pretty damn rip, that's why tanks tend to bolster it.

for renown my points usually go into Deft Defender 3, Defender 4, Reflexes 2, Futile Strikes I, Vigor I as a RR40 SNB tank. IB values are really pathetic in terms if initiative so that class needs another approach, same as BO.
Later on at RR60 or 70 or maybe and 70s like BO and IB you want to step away from FS as much as you can and invest in Impetus (I don't know statgrowth per level for SM, so you gotta check yourself when the refund and reinvest is worth it and how much you want to reinvest). simply FS without backed up by a good initiative value will do nothing since your chance to receive a critical strike will be very high than.

Overall positioning, propper skill usage, working with your team and knowing your limits will work better than relying (too much) on gear in RvR.

cheers and hope I could help you a bit.

[ToXoS]

Thanks for all the answers!
Luckily a lot of good tank players have answered, and that's what I was hoping for.

But there is still the question of Strength.
How much Str do you guys think a baby 40/40 defensive tank should have?

[xtc1999]

Thanks for all the answers!
Luckily a lot of good tank players have answered, and that's what I was hoping for.

But there is still the question of Strength.
How much do you guys think a baby 40/40 defensive tank should have?

400ish so you dont get parried 24/7

Also dont bother with capping toughness, its gimping urself

[venrik]

Thanks for all the answers!
Luckily a lot of good tank players have answered, and that's what I was hoping for.

But there is still the question of Strength.
How much do you guys think a baby 40/40 defensive tank should have?

400ish so you dont get parried 24/7

Also dont bother with capping toughness, its gimping urself

A 40/40 def tank can stack 400 plus str, with enough armor, avoidance (Block, disrupt and dodge, parry), crit reduction, wounds and toughness, to actually be a def tank? pretty fine margin imo. I cant see how that is achievable with every tank class at 40/40.

As a tank you are constantly playing a trade off game, whereby you have to sacrifice something to provide something, for the good of the group/wb. Armor needs to be 4k plus, wounds need to be around 7k mark, toughness should be around 600 plus. If you are shield, max block and make sure you can turn to face damage. Current game requires high disrupt and dodge, due to high amount of rdps, so try to get that high. get that parry up as high as possible as well, and try and get that chance to be crit down as well. Its a balance, and you need to find the sweet spot you are comfortable with. Use your class mechs, such as chosen -10% chance to be crit etc. And above all, accept that you are not going to be indestructible. Play smart with your group/wb.

[Axerker]

Thanks for all the answers!
Luckily a lot of good tank players have answered, and that's what I was hoping for.

But there is still the question of Strength.
How much Str do you guys think a baby 40/40 defensive tank should have?

For Strength, I believe the only number you need is whatever is inherently in your defensive gear. This won't be a lot. I currently sit at like 200-300 Strength (Will probably be 300-350 in Conqueror's) and deal crap damage, but enough to get kills here and there, or at least assist with them with minor chip damage. Its really very rare that you will be using skills for the purpose of dealing damage. CCs/Snares -> Debuffs/Buffs -> Damage abilities, in my opinion. I only use my damage skill(s) when everything else is on Cooldown, which is almost never. If you ever have nothing on cooldown, its almost always better to use Hold the Line instead of a Damage skill.

For being Parried, this is negligible if you are behind an enemy. Lots of people run past you as a tank, just rotate a bit, attack them to proc your buff (like Chosen +25% Parry ability), then turn back to the main army. Dodge/Disrupt are easily able to be nearly capped with just Hold the Line and Deft Defender maxed (Hold the Line is 45% + Deft Defender 24% = 69% Dodge/Disrupt). I sit at 100% Disrupt when using Hold the Line and Disrupt buff (Chosen). Other than the occassional Undefendable attacks, only melee is a threat until I'm CC'd (luckily you Dodge/Disrupt pretty much every ranged CC). Assuming the enemy is intelligent, Melee shouldn't be attacking you anyways, except to CC you here and there. Luckily - and unluckily (for you) - enemy melee typically attack the first thing in sight, which should always be you.

We all have different play-styles and opinions. Feel free to try out different things and see what you like. Your gear and build will change depending on what class you play as well as what game mode (and play-style). Some tanks sit in the back by their ranged, most in the frontline. If you're sitting in the back, your spec will need to be entirely different than the frontline tank.

If you're pugging, just play however you would like. In organized play, the answer might be forced on you anyways, depending on the level of elitism employed.