Who's the best 2h-Tank?

[Oldschool]

Best 2H Tank is SM.
He is doing his Ether Dance attack every couple of seconds what does, together with other attack skills, magical Spirit damage. If you have your Resis up you maybe have 40-45% Damage reduction for this attacks, more is not possible.
If you have your armor up and you can easily have more then 40% damage reduction.
This Spirit attacks makes him strong and as far I know this ether Dance is not strength based, so you can put your talis and jewels for defence and even simultan you have a strong attack skills with Spirit damage. And with this he is the one that is the best 2H Tank.
Easiest Tanks to Play cause of there game mechanic by far are Kotbs and Chosen.

[Madcatmech]

Best 2H Tank is SM.
He is doing his Ether Dance attack every couple of seconds what does, together with other attack skills, magical Spirit damage. If you have your Resis up you maybe have 40-45% Damage reduction for this attacks, more is not possible.
If you have your armor up and you can easily have more then 40% damage reduction.
This Spirit attacks makes him strong and as far I know this ether Dance is not strength based, so you can put your talis and jewels for defence and even simultan you have a strong attack skills with Spirit damage. And with this he is the one that is the best 2H Tank.
Easiest Tanks to Play cause of there game mechanic by far are Kotbs and Chosen.

You are completely wrong about the SM skills not being affected by strength. SM has to slot all str tallies for 2h to do any damage.

[TenTonHammer]

Strongest 2h tank is SM with a it's retarded stacking spirit debuff

Followed by BG then IB


No 2H tanks are really worth mentioing after that

[Wdova]

SM? If we talk about pure dmg dealing, than Yes. But tanks role is not only to deal dmg. We have DPS classes for that. It is not that simple as it seem. SM dmg is best overal, BUT against squishies, BO is more effective, while SM is more effective against anyone who stack armor like crazy(tanky Doks, all tanks, mixed def/off mdpsers). Double spirit debuff is nice to have, but except SM it buff dmg only for DPS AMs, while Black orc armor debuff buff dmg not only for him self, but for all physical dmg dealers. Yes its not that effective, like SMs spirit debuffs, but its more usefull for the group or realm mates.

You can scrap everything above when SM wears full Beastlord for 960 armor debuff Than its **** amazing

DPS SMs are fun for a while, but sooner or later You gonna get bored by same skill rotation over and over again and ofcourse lack of proper CC skills.

No matter how dmg You deal and how glass cannon You want to be, You cant replace any MDPS in game. DPS SM heavily lack in utility like escaping danger(snare/root imunity, self punts, detaunt), gap closers like charge, pounce, stealth, proper crowd control abbilities like AOE snares, staggers, superpunts, knockdown(In pure 2H dps build). All Your survivability stands on Wall of darting steel. If You are under KD or staggered, You can be dotted and killed during this short 3-6seconds window.

[peterthepan3]

in bis gear (6/6 dominator, subju, genesis), you can fill in for a DPS as a SM vs even very good premades.

[flatfoot1987]

The more I play the more I lean to an idea that 2h tank is a dead end. It feels like the original devs added offensive trees to tanks who willingly drop their defense role to temporary fill mdps-like slot (maybe even with FO). If you do that in any competitive environment you won't get far — all this hate towards loldps wannabe tanks kinda proves this point.

It reminds me of vanilla wow where most classes had a central role defining spec and some wacky offspecs for giggles. People spent years arguing whether they work or not.

We're sitting here trying to balance offense and defense with a 2h equipped in order to put some pressure on a target and stay more or less tough at the same time. No matter what snb tank is superior at soaking up damage and protecting his teammates, mdps is a lot better at actual killing rather than smuding damage across the scoreboard AND getting out of the fight when it gets hot.

I got a feeling that a lot of people don't get it that having a snare immunity and a decent detaunt in most cases actually works better than having some armor and toughness (which is gonna be pretty mediocre if you're stacking strength anyway). If a tank has serious stack of defensive stats he won't hurt a lot of people with a 2h and vice versa.

Probably a lot of people asking about what tank to pick for 2h setup are being delusive about what's coming next - you hit proper T4 and your toughness/armor/resistances aren't high enough to keep you alive under pressure but your damage sucks either. You probably shouldn't even try it until you can stack two str set bonuses from real T4 sets also.

The whole 2h tank story sounds like a design flaw that's been here for all these years drawing people away from a well-defined and important role tanks have in this game.

P.S. Maybe I'm just having a bad mood as I do play a 2h IB myself atm but it's mostly about lore/design/looks whatever. I also pug/solo roam 99% of the time. If I had an option to use snb and be more or less of a threat to anyone in terms of damage (without rolling a Black Orc) I'd gladly do it. Maybe I'll give SM a chance as apparently it's only tank initially built around 2h.

[GodlessCrom]

The more I play the more I lean to an idea that 2h tank is a dead end. It feels like the original devs added offensive trees to tanks who willingly drop their defense role to temporary fill mdps-like slot (maybe even with FO). If you do that in any competitive environment you won't get far — all this hate towards loldps wannabe tanks kinda proves this point.

It reminds me of vanilla wow where most classes had a central role defining spec and some wacky offspecs for giggles. People spent years arguing whether they work or not.

We're sitting here trying to balance offense and defense with a 2h equipped in order to put some pressure on a target and stay more or less tough at the same time. No matter what snb tank is superior at soaking up damage and protecting his teammates, mdps is a lot better at actual killing rather than smuding damage across the scoreboard AND getting out of the fight when it gets hot.

I got a feeling that a lot of people don't get it that having a snare immunity and a decent detaunt in most cases actually works better than having some armor and toughness (which is gonna be pretty mediocre if you're stacking strength anyway). If a tank has serious stack of defensive stats he won't hurt a lot of people with a 2h and vice versa.

Probably a lot of people asking about what tank to pick for 2h setup are being delusive about what's coming next - you hit proper T4 and your toughness/armor/resistances aren't high enough to keep you alive under pressure but your damage sucks either. You probably shouldn't even try it until you can stack two str set bonuses from real T4 sets also.

The whole 2h tank story sounds like a design flaw that's been here for all these years drawing people away from a well-defined and important role tanks have in this game.

P.S. Maybe I'm just having a bad mood as I do play a 2h IB myself atm but it's mostly about lore/design/looks whatever. I also pug/solo roam 99% of the time. If I had an option to use snb and be more or less of a threat to anyone in terms of damage (without rolling a Black Orc) I'd gladly do it. Maybe I'll give SM a chance as apparently it's only tank initially built around 2h.

I understand the frustration, but i think a lot of it stems more from pugging/soloing than it does any flaws in 2h tank design. I have specced full defensive on my chosen and my IB and pugged with it: it still sucks. No one focuses targets, no one heals, the one mdps in the scenario insists on suiciding into groups of enemies, and to cap it, youre a defense speced snb tank and so do very little real damage.

I encourage you to get a group and run with them as 2h tank. It DOES work, but sometimes you will have to swap to snb (if solo tanking f'rex) but other times, the extra dps from the 2h tank is essential to bursting targets down. Not to mention, on IB and BG at least, their only reliable KD comes from 2h. Yeah yeah, everyone says with guard the block requirement isnt that bad but we have all been in. situations where we needed that KD but it wasnt up due to the block prereq.

Tl; dr: dont get too discouraged, find a good group (or even a good duo partner, just look at Volgo/Mkatew or Volgo/Fiskgjuise) and have some fun. Pugging sucks no matter what, youre just rolling the dice that other 11 people on your team will be better than the other 12 on theirs

[flatfoot1987]

Spoiler:

The more I play the more I lean to an idea that 2h tank is a dead end. It feels like the original devs added offensive trees to tanks who willingly drop their defense role to temporary fill mdps-like slot (maybe even with FO). If you do that in any competitive environment you won't get far — all this hate towards loldps wannabe tanks kinda proves this point.

It reminds me of vanilla wow where most classes had a central role defining spec and some wacky offspecs for giggles. People spent years arguing whether they work or not.

We're sitting here trying to balance offense and defense with a 2h equipped in order to put some pressure on a target and stay more or less tough at the same time. No matter what snb tank is superior at soaking up damage and protecting his teammates, mdps is a lot better at actual killing rather than smuding damage across the scoreboard AND getting out of the fight when it gets hot.

I got a feeling that a lot of people don't get it that having a snare immunity and a decent detaunt in most cases actually works better than having some armor and toughness (which is gonna be pretty mediocre if you're stacking strength anyway). If a tank has serious stack of defensive stats he won't hurt a lot of people with a 2h and vice versa.

Probably a lot of people asking about what tank to pick for 2h setup are being delusive about what's coming next - you hit proper T4 and your toughness/armor/resistances aren't high enough to keep you alive under pressure but your damage sucks either. You probably shouldn't even try it until you can stack two str set bonuses from real T4 sets also.

The whole 2h tank story sounds like a design flaw that's been here for all these years drawing people away from a well-defined and important role tanks have in this game.

P.S. Maybe I'm just having a bad mood as I do play a 2h IB myself atm but it's mostly about lore/design/looks whatever. I also pug/solo roam 99% of the time. If I had an option to use snb and be more or less of a threat to anyone in terms of damage (without rolling a Black Orc) I'd gladly do it. Maybe I'll give SM a chance as apparently it's only tank initially built around 2h.

I understand the frustration, but i think a lot of it stems more from pugging/soloing than it does any flaws in 2h tank design. I have specced full defensive on my chosen and my IB and pugged with it: it still sucks. No one focuses targets, no one heals, the one mdps in the scenario insists on suiciding into groups of enemies, and to cap it, youre a defense speced snb tank and so do very little real damage.

I encourage you to get a group and run with them as 2h tank. It DOES work, but sometimes you will have to swap to snb (if solo tanking f'rex) but other times, the extra dps from the 2h tank is essential to bursting targets down. Not to mention, on IB and BG at least, their only reliable KD comes from 2h. Yeah yeah, everyone says with guard the block requirement isnt that bad but we have all been in. situations where we needed that KD but it wasnt up due to the block prereq.

Tl; dr: dont get too discouraged, find a good group (or even a good duo partner, just look at Volgo/Mkatew or Volgo/Fiskgjuise) and have some fun. Pugging sucks no matter what, youre just rolling the dice that other 11 people on your team will be better than the other 12 on theirs

Well, I'm not giving up just yet, gonna keep playing that 2h IB along with a focus on some mdps alt which I haven't picked yet. I have a feeling they scale better than 2h tanks in general though.

Offtopic concerning group play.

Spoiler:

I used to have a slayer (later - a choppa) main on live and I always played in a group, I remember that it requires showing up on time and using voice comm - I can't afford any of this atm. Besides, being solo/fighting it out in a pug environment is a bonus challenge which I personally like. Duo is an option though.

[dalinvar]

If we talk about pure dmg dealing

The topic is not about the highest-dps-2h-tank, but about the most viable-2h-tank, including utilities, survival, playing vs different kinds of enemies classes, solo/party/wb and so on.
I started this discussion because I always wanted to try one and was wondering who was the best tank choice (not only in high numbers point of view).

Anyway thanks for the replies

[GodlessCrom]

If you dont like 2h IB as solo or PUG, then mdps is gonna be even worse, sadly. Mdps is the least fun class to play solo as you are very squishy relative to the amount of damage other classes put out and utterly reliant on tanks guarding and healers healing you. The exception would be witch elf/hunter solo roaming in orvr but even that is frustrating because most people run around in a group or warband.