Return of Reckoning

Almost no one picks up the mutation specific tactics. Stuff like the 50% heal debuff tactic, mutated aggressor, piercing bite, and feeding on fear are too good to pass up on. Piercing Bite alone makes weapon skill less relevant. The parry you get from WS is almost always cancelled out by the strike through given by STR capping anyways, IIRC.

Also Cutting Claw and Thunderous Blow have 10 second CDs.

Ferocious Assault and Pulverize also work in Brut. Hell, Deeply Impaled also makes Impale more worth it as a filler if youre str capped and forgo feeding on fear. You will be in Brut anyways to use Guillotine once theyre below 50%.

I agree with you on all the tank stuff though. Though if youre that concerned about playing to your role as tank, why not just go snb? Helps out against order ranged spam more than 2h.

GodlessCrom wrote:Almost no one picks up the mutation specific tactics. Stuff like the 50% heal debuff tactic, mutated aggressor, piercing bite, and feeding on fear are too good to pass up on. Piercing Bite alone makes weapon skill less relevant. The parry you get from WS is almost always cancelled out by the strike through given by STR capping anyways, IIRC.

Also Cutting Claw and Thunderous Blow have 10 second CDs.

Ferocious Assault and Pulverize also work in Brut. Hell, Deeply Impaled also makes Impale more worth it as a filler if youre str capped and forgo feeding on fear. You will be in Brut anyways to use Guillotine once theyre below 50%.

I agree with you on all the tank stuff though. Though if youre that concerned about playing to your role as tank, why not just go snb? Helps out against order ranged spam more than 2h.

Yes, Deadly Clutch,Growing instability, MA, Piercing bite (thanks for this I did forget about it!) are all awesome. Feeding on Fear is really only good if you have guard (which is my entire beef with this thread) playing a BW and a Mara really opened my eyes to the HORRIBLE problem "DPS Tanks" are. I would LOVE to run feeding on Fear but the fact that it makes you 10% more likely to be crit... you REALLY notice this especially because your MDPS and people target you so unless you have a tank guarding you 24/7 I dont run this. Opting for something like Scything Talons not only greatly reduces your chance to be crit, it also gives you WS which gives more ARP + Parry. So again, the PURPOSE of this isnt "How to play a Mara" the PURPOSE of this is to offer a better alternative to a guy who wants to be a "Tanky DPS Class".

Cutting Claw is 10 sec yes, If I said it was 5, I apologize. I thought TB was 5 sec. Either way TC is only 5 seconds, so that will largly be what you "spam" along with wanting to pop Gut Ripper anytime its up. The POINT being Imaple is meh IMO, If you want to stance swap it would be a low life (>50%) target and you pop over to Guillotine them (we agree on this) but AGAIN.... the POINT here is: What do you want to play.

- A guard focused Tank
- A DPS focused MDPS

Trying to make a STR focused "DPS Chosen" is WORSE than playing a defensive focused Mara. Your trying to get too into the weeds on optimal way to play... Listen.. the fact we are talking about stacking STR on a Chosen with a 2H ALREADY means were throwing out "Optimal" as a requirement.


As for why I am not primarily SNB. I prefer SCs to RVR. more than half the time I play I Duo Que with a DPS DOK friend of mine and the synergy is better IMO. I have a SNB set I use for RVR. I am not opposed to it at all. I feel 2H Chosen Tank builds are largely mis-understood and can be VERY valuable in roam groups or SCs because of things like Crip Strikes.

My current Chosen has over 70% Parry chance. and I could go up to 80% if I swapped weapons out. But BOTH ways to play are still guard focused and defensive focused first. Not DPS focused.

So again. If the guy wants to play a Chosen. He has two options.
1) a 2H TANK
2) a SNB TANK
Neither are "DPS" BOTH will focus on guard.

If he feels that isnt his "playstyle" and wants to just DPS and stack STR but "still be kinda tanky" then I offered a better (for him and ALL of destro) alternative to trying to make a "DPS Chosen" work. Thats the bottom line here.

I mean...you could just let the guy play how he wants to.

Tankbeardz wrote:I mean...you could just let the guy play how he wants to.

Yeah.... then dont complain when nobody gets guarded and healers all want to DPS or not want to out of party heal.. thats a real enjoyable experience for everyone

We should tell him to run focused offense too.. cause you know... Teh Deeps Bro!

Well its a Spiral.. As more ppl play dps Tanks less ppl play meele dps because lack of guard and so on. And more ppl join The dps tank playstyle to survive longer.

th3gatekeeper wrote:

Tankbeardz wrote:I mean...you could just let the guy play how he wants to.

Yeah.... then dont complain when nobody gets guarded and healers all want to DPS or not want to out of party heal.. thats a real enjoyable experience for everyone

We should tell him to run focused offense too.. cause you know... Teh Deeps Bro!

The point is...the OP asked for DPS Tank, and he was given a response before you started your rant and called someone with a valid response stupid (not an exact quote here). I agree...I think full DPS 2h is a waste of time for a chosen/knight. If he wants to play a certain way, let him experience it for himself and make his own assumptions.

You can't, and shouldn't, FORCE anyone to play the way YOU like.
You can't force anyone to out of party heal.
You can't force anyone to guard.

Tankbeardz wrote:

th3gatekeeper wrote:

Tankbeardz wrote:I mean...you could just let the guy play how he wants to.

Yeah.... then dont complain when nobody gets guarded and healers all want to DPS or not want to out of party heal.. thats a real enjoyable experience for everyone

We should tell him to run focused offense too.. cause you know... Teh Deeps Bro!

The point is...the OP asked for DPS Tank, and he was given a response before you started your rant and called someone with a valid response stupid (not an exact quote here). I agree...I think full DPS 2h is a waste of time for a chosen/knight. If he wants to play a certain way, let him experience it for himself and make his own assumptions.

You can't, and shouldn't, FORCE anyone to play the way YOU like.
You can't force anyone to out of party heal.
You can't force anyone to guard.

I think people need to do a better job of actually educating people. Why I am so passionate about this is this was me 2 years ago. New to the game. Liked the idea of making a DPS Tank. Tried for all my might to make a KOBS (back then 32 was the cap). Got Brigands 2H full STR Talis etc. etc.

It wasnt until I made a BW for RVR (because 2H tanks are worthless) that I realized how pitiful it is to even call a 2H Tank "DPS" with maybe the exception of SM/BO.

So then I made an SM (At Az's suggestion BTW after a long talk with him over TS).

Then I made my Chosen and a Mara and the Mara is what REALLY put the nail in the coffin for me. You realize how pathetic it is to not guard and not build tanky..... The BWs damage is insane and basically guarantees a kill on squishies if you get 5-6 seconds of free casting - which requires a solid frontline + heals.

Or the Mara... Why I am so bitter is how much FUN the Mara is... but I NEVER EVER EVER got guard unless I made a PM group and made the tank guard me.

This is what is wrong with SCs... I would be in a party with my Mara and see 3 tanks, none of them using guard. I inspect them and they are full STR in every slot. Not even wounds or toughness, pure STR. No Guard.

It reall made me sour towards "DPS" Tanks because until you play those other roles... you dont understand how big of an impact is it for the Tank to NOT play his role.

New players need to understand this. ROR isnt like other games where you can take a tank, throw some DPS gear on him and it still works. ROR's "Guard" ability is one of the single most "determining" factors when it comes to RVR and SCs. Ontop of that, the range on Guard is VERY close and its likely most "DPS Tanks" dont concern themselves with the range (atleast I didnt when I wanted a DPS Tank).

So I wish that everyone would take a paragraph or two to FIRST write up how this is really a futile attempt and suggest to play maybe another class LIKE a BO or LIKE a Mara instead... Then, if you want, you can answer the question.

We need more people encouraging tanks to do their job and less encouragement here about "how to build a DPS Tank" because once they get to 40 and try and play SCs they will get wiped and so will their team and the "DPS Tank" will have a REALLY bad time.

I wish someone told me all this. It could have saved me a ton of headache.

th3gatekeeper wrote: It reall made me sour towards "DPS" Tanks because until you play those other roles... you dont understand how big of an impact is it for the Tank to NOT play his role.

Let him learn....if he wants tips on DPS let him learn the hard way. Maybe he will enjoy it -- maybe he won't and then he'll ask for tips on going tanky. You will NEVER get pugs to guard by "educating" them. In fact, b*tching in SC chat will probably lead to NOT getting guard, heals, or cooperation. I see this happen far too often and it doesn't really add anything but negativity.

There are at least 3-4 posts where you rail against people who want to play a certain way and that is not an effective way to "educate" people imho. Make your own thread and rail there. There is no value in hijacking these threads created by people looking to play the game their way.

"(because 2H tanks are worthless)" - This is your personal opinion...which is fine, but I definitely understand the role and importance of a tank in any situation and disagree with you here.

A 2h tank isnt worthless!! A full dps tank is worthless
in most Situations

Daknallbomb wrote:A 2h tank isnt worthless!! A full dps tank is worthless
in most Situations

This is what I meant. I run 2H (most of the time) so "2H" isnt worthless. I MEANT to say "DPS" Tank is worthless. Mostly worthless in SCs and totally worthless in RVR