(GUIDE) How to PVE TANK

[Smellybelly]

Hello everyone!

Since the ch22 PQ´s got released i have heard all kinds of wierd statements regarding tanking PVE mobs, most of them completely false. So i decided to write up a few pointers for people willing to give tanking in PVE, a try.

First off sorry for any grammatical errors as im not from a native english speaking nation.

A: Regardless of your class, tanking is in 99% of the cases done with 1h weapon + shield. Swordmaster MIGHT be the exception in some very few cases.
B: On the live version of the game Monsters didnt have stats per say (this has been ever so slightly changed here if im not mistaken). So if you play in a warband and you load up on toughness and get 950 toughness, very high number so you are SUPER TANKY! In PvE this means almost squat,close to nothing; because what toughness does is subract from your attackers mainstat. If a witch hunter attacks you your toughness reduce his strenght, if its a sorc who attacks then its intellect. If a mob attacks you its...nothing, because they dont have strenght in numbers that our toughness can have an impact on. You may at best reduce a incoming 4000 dmg attack to 3940 instead, its that useless for PvE.

C: So stats that you need are 1: Wounds (low wounds and a lucky series of hits can kill you before healers can react).
2: Armor ~General consesus is the more the merrier but as close to 5000 as you can get is your aim. This partly why Winds Impervious, dwarfen racial armor tactic and Redeye set bonus are so very valuable!

3: Parry/Block as high as possible. Attacks always hit, theres no "miss roll". So first it hits, then computer rolls for dodge/disrupt or parry/block then if it passes it checks armor value, resists, toughness and finally it checks if it was a crit or not.
So parry/block negates ALL incoming damage from the attack, very powerful. Only shields can parry spells or arrows. SM is the exception with Wall of Darting steel wich increases dodge/disrupt as well as parry while its channeled.

4: Chance to be critted needs to be at 0%! Mobs have no crit value by themselfs, its possible that some hero/lords have +crit but generally no pve mob can ever crit you EXCEPT for when you have a crit chance on yourself. If you hover over the initiative stat then you will see how high chance people and mobs have of landing a critical attack on you. If its 18% chance then almost 1/5 of all attacks that lands on you, will be critical hits and thats horrifying when the hero hits you normaly for 2000-6000+ dmg per hit. So be CRIT IMMUNE!

D: Mobs have armor penetration values (not the same as weaponskill), this means some % of your armor will always be ignored by the mob/hero/lord. Your maximum armor cap value is at 75% but since a lords theoretical attack of 6000 dmg against you will ignore some armor, its wise to go above the 75% limit.
And this also means that the few items in the game with - armor % ignore becomes quite nice to use. For example on Chosen you can use the piercing repel tactic to get -10% armor penetration. If you stack this with Fleshrender rings from the lair in KV, then you can get a whooping 8-18% (depending on class) reduction on how much the hero ignores your armor.

Aggro: This is basically how much the monster hates you, if it hates you the most then you have aggro and the monster will try to kill you. So as a tank thats what you want, and you have a few tools to achieve just that.
First of is a tactic called Menace wich doubles the amount of threat you cause. Always slot this.
Next is Taunt and Challenge, im not certain if they cause the same amount of threat but taunt is the same thing as a 2500 dmg attack, challenge is probably the same thing but in a cone fanning out infront of you.
So taunt does NOT force a mob to attack you but you use it for instant extra threat/aggro gain. Attacks to use in a normal rotation should involve anything that boosts your armor/parry/block. Several tanking skills increase armor by more then even the best pots can. Each tank class also have a special melee attack that causes significantly more threat, in the case with the chosen this skill is called Enraged blow.

Auras for Chosen/Knight: Since mobs dont generally have stats then some auras are just not useful.
For example, dont run toughness aura. Mobs dont care. Strenght aura might boost your team mates, but a reduced strenght on the mob wont do much at all. Resist aura works! All mobs seem to have resist values so running this aura will greatly help your groups magic dps. Other then that i would suggest aoe dmg aura for extra aggro, or On your guard for knight, plus AP generation aura and self heal on defence aura for more aggro since healing also cause some aggro.
Other then that theres no auras that really do anything against mobs.

Now im sure i have missed a few things so feel free to ask or correct me as you see fit.
See you all and good luck with your tanking!

[Ramasee]

I'll add some stuff to this.

A. Swordmasters can certainly tank with a 2h due to not having many useful block increases and great weapon mastery gives 5% parry. There are uses for 2h tanking on other classes, first two instances that come to mind are AoE pulls since many of the better AoEs are great weapon required on a few classes, and against bosses that you cannot block or parry. (They are more common than you think.)Also the taunt proc on great weapons can be quite handy for threat generation. However, I do not recommend 2H tanking until you are quite familiar with pve mechanics and fights.

B. You are right that toughness is worthless, but its not because the opponents don't have stats. Toughness works even if your opponents main stat is 0. The problem with toughness is that a standard 1.5 swing time ability has a stat modifier of 0.3. This means that 1000 toughness will only reduce damage from that type of attack by 300. When you are getting hit for 2-6k, 300 isn't a whole lot. (toughness is generally good for trash, but don't gear for trash unless you just have the extra gear)

C. 2 and 3 are spot on.
C4. It doesn't seem that any trash has chance to critically strike. But many bosses do as I have seen crits when I have -3% chance to be critically hit, and my other tank has seen them with -1%. However, it doesn't seem too high since -8% caused me to never see a crit against me. Also a few tanks and other classes have anti critical chance abilities or tactics, so if you can rely on players to apply them, it is a different way to achieve the same result.
Adding C5. Weaponskill is basically more parry and a little more damage.
C6. Strength is also important to have some of since you need to deal at least a third the amount of damage as your highest dps class. (higher if not in guard range)

Aggro: Taunt almost on cooldown in a single target fight. You want to synergize it right after a boss attack with your higher hitting abilities in your rotation if possible. You can save challenge for getting aggro back if you happen to lose it. You need to tell your DPS NOT to hit the boss for a few seconds, specially if you are repositioning the boss. No DoTs should be applied by nontanks for at least the first 5-6s, and HoTs should be applied BEFORE you pull. Don't expect anyone to know this, so be vocal about it.
Cross-guarding lowers your overall threat generation, so don't do it unless you absolutely need it for the damage mitigation. However, guarding a 2h offtank is an excellent way to generate tons of threat.
Overheal! If you have any way to heal your party, use it on cooldown all the time even if they do not need it. Overhealing is a huge boon to threat generation.
The melee attack that generates hate, only use it if deals better than half of any damaging attack that you can use. For instance, on the swordmaster you never use graceful strike simply because ensorcelled blow deals significantly more damage and thus higher threat output.

When pulling mobs/bosses, taunt usually likes to fail. Use throw. Always pull melee mobs into ranged mobs. You can gather ranged mobs together by aggroing them and running back some until they all chase you, it will group them up. LoS pulling does not work in many cases in RoR, they just shoot through the wall.

Watch your combat log. If you do not know the fight, your combat log is going to tell you what killed you. You can also better see if you are actually parrying/blocking and whether or not you are getting crit. Some boss abilities have cooldowns and happen pretty much on timer, watching your log will allow you to better time defensives and absorbs to defend yourself. Put monster say on in your combat log as well.

Turn on all effects. Don't stand in puddles. Interrupt big hits. Enable onscreen text (quest).

[Hargrim]

NPC got and use stats, but wounds debuffs won't be usefull against them.

Main dish Hero+ NPCs in Gunbad and Onslaught got +crit% on them.

[Smellybelly]

NPC got and use stats, but wounds debuffs won't be usefull against them.

Main dish Hero+ NPCs in Gunbad and Onslaught got +crit% on them.

Thanks for the confirmation on that. Is this something unique for RoR because i seem to remember it being quite different back in the days. Not that it matters, if its altered here we will simply adapt

On the subject of stats, it still wont be a good idea to use a strenght/toughness aura for tanking? Im guessing the amount debuffed wont be enough to make even a small difference?

[Ramasee]

NPC got and use stats, but wounds debuffs won't be usefull against them.

Main dish Hero+ NPCs in Gunbad and Onslaught got +crit% on them.

Thanks for the confirmation on that. Is this something unique for RoR because i seem to remember it being quite different back in the days. Not that it matters, if its altered here we will simply adapt

On the subject of stats, it still wont be a good idea to use a strenght/toughness aura for tanking? Im guessing the amount debuffed wont be enough to make even a small difference?

Many NPCs had stats back then as well. I imagine the stats are different since from what I have learned is that every NPC here on ror was crafted by a dev using as much information that they could gather from the internet/client.

The reason why stat modifying auras aren't that great is the way boss NPC abilities were handled on live. (And it seems the same here). They have very high base damage values with average stat modifiers. -120 str is -36 damage on a regular 0.3 modifier ability.

[Hargrim]

Heroes and Lords get a lot of their DMG from Weapon DPS they are equiped with. They are also usually around soft cap for the stat that generates DMG for them, cap is usually higher than for players because the NPCs got Level above 40 and anything that's above it is converted into respectful Power - melee, ranged or magic.

So debuffing stat that deals DMG is rather pointless and Toughness is underperforming as it is so I think I wouldn't bother with it.

[Hargrim]

Many NPCs had stats back then as well. I imagine the stats are different since from what I have learned is that every NPC here on ror was crafted by a dev using as much information that they could gather from the internet/client.

Stats on ror use basically the career stats for the archetype - if you fight a Slayer he is a NPC melee DPS career and will have stats similar to a player of Slayer Career minus gear. This applies only outside the 'challenging' content.

Challenging content:
- Gunbad
- Onslaught
- Each future dungeon

[Smellybelly]

Heroes and Lords get a lot of their DMG from Weapon DPS they are equiped with. They are also usually around soft cap for the stat that generates DMG for them, cap is usually higher than for players because the NPCs got Level above 40 and anything that's above it is converted into respectful Power - melee, ranged or magic.

So debuffing stat that deals DMG is rather pointless and Toughness is underperforming as it is so I think I wouldn't bother with it.

Very appreciated, thank you

[anarchypark]

Main Tank -
Don't pull with throwing.
It has so little dmg( aggro ).

dps tend to haste on dealing.
rdps'll steal aggro with just 1 hit b4 mobs on you.
sure u can take it back with taunt but already lost 1 rotation of it.

pull with ST taunt.
it can't be missed. always hit.
1 rotation faster than others.

challenge has range. calculate it b4 use or it's wasted.
save it if there's chance of adds.
otherwise use it to add aggro.

every tanks have threat generating attack in tank tree, non-spec.
knight's sunder, SM's graceful strike, etc.
if you can't hold aggro somehow, use that skills alot.
in fact, spam it for 1 challenge rotation if someone stolen aggro.

don't give up taunting. if overhealing healer got aggro, he'll die. you should be next aggro holder.

Off tanks -
don't steal aggro from Main Tank.
save taunt for adds and interrupt.
save challenge to reduce incoming dmg to main tank when situation looks bad.

lastly, interrupt.
taunt is undefendable interrupt.
seek your trees, there are skills for it.
interrupting channeling skill of boss is huge.

[peterthepan3]

Nice post, guildie.