Post#20 » Thu Aug 24, 2023 10:44 pm
IB is an average tank at best, but niche.
Good to guard mdps and provide Oathbound. Armor buff is nice, and overwrites an armor pot, but provides only about 1-2% more mitigation. The toughness buff is overwritten by Knights.
The ap feed is being nerfed. So, Knights ap feed will be better for grps.
Punt is only good 2H spec. If your s/b spec to be the best buffer, you str is low and your chance to punt is crap. Anecdotally , you will punt about 10% of the time vrs other tanks. That is crap.
2H'er, you loose Oathbound unless you run 6 Sov/3 Tri. Maybe 5% of IBs can run those sets? If you do, your self parry goes down from gear.
The major problem of IB is that is a bad tank in that it can't buff and dps worth a damn in a 10s interval. If you want to keep Oathbound up for the 25% parry, you need to mask it with Stubborn as Stone. Same goes for Runic shield.
The reality of the situation, you can be either a good buffer with s/b or decent dps with 2H. You can't do both worth a damn, and that is where its very bad tank.
The BG is far far superior. It can debuff and dps at the same time. The IB can't.
If you want to run 2H spec, go Knight after the patch.