The First Mage Tank Build (M10 capable)

[Nourri]

I have been doing work on creating the first mage-based tanking build. Here is what i have so far.

Required Weapon: Rapier (used mainly for taunting and survivability on bosses that hit hard like cilla)

Main Hand Abilities to run

• Evade, Reposte, Flurry
  Key Perks
• Leeching Flurry, Hated, Dispised (earring), Keenly fortified

Nice Perks to have

• Leeching, Refreshing Moves

Off Hand Abilities to run

IG

• Windchill (Required)
• Shower (Required)
• Tomb (Recommended)

Key Tips

• Dodge > Evade spam for hard hitting bosses
• Reposte for Threat/Aoe Taunt (with carn gem)
• If you have questions, let me know.
• CARN GEM IN OFF WEAPON (IG)
• Heavy Armor
• 250 Con/Int
• Refreshing Evasion, Ward armor perks
• entomb can be used for many important moments. Like evade, it is key for many things use it when you do not have evade up.

[Trufitus]

@Nourri

Tether (Required)

tether is single target where oblivion empowers your whole team + removes buffs on enemies if you have the perk. Tether = useless

overall seems like a meme build tbh

[Anonymoose123]

Mages in mutations?? Uh oh…

Next patch: “We noticed the VG and IG were doing disproportionately well in mutations. To rectify this issue, we have nerfed all magic weapons’ damage by 50% across the board and changed the 50 INT passive to provide +25% to incoming damage. Additionally, the ‘mage killer’ debuff will be permanently active in all dungeons.”

[Nourri]

lol

SMASH THE MAGE THEY CANNOT HAVE ANY VIABLE BUILD

[gege]

Not sure if first mage tank build - I’ve done them. Problem is you can’t beat the utility and defenses of other builds. No reason to make things harder on the group just so we can be a hipster.

Having said that - I really wish they’d give us the tools to have a niche - such as range tanking, or something.

lastly - you can run another melee weapon with intellect conversion, + magic damaged gems/ring, etc - rapier is a really poor choice as it’s a dps set up more than a tank/support. Great axe GW is arcane, for instance or could get a meta melee weapon with shirking element/attune/chain and scale it.

I personally like running ig or VG with GS battle mage style.

Also agree that tether is not as great as oblivion…especially when you have no perks that help you with stamina damage…or the fact you are heavy dodge rolling - you will need a way to keep stamina up. If you are dodge rolling to mitigate damage then I’d go light. There are videos in the wild on how to light tank

[Nourri]

Edit: After some more testing i found the following to be the best options

• Windchill with perk (it gives you grit which is a common issue with this build, which makes the knocking down on many bosses etc less of a problem)

• Shower with perk still seems to be a good dps boost and control boost as well as some speed increase for faster mutation runs

• Tomb. I cannot express how good this is, especially if you are using 5x refreshing evasion. You can basically spam this, which means you can absorb hits every few seconds. it can also be cheesed for cleanse, heavy hits, etc. Since tomb does not carry over into the mage health there is options here for “Creative” usage.

[Pointe]

For rapier, run tondo instead of flurry. Every tick of bleed on every stack on every enemy will give you 3 stamina with the other rapier passive. So 9 stamina per second per enemy with full stacks. This stamina regens even while you’re blocking.

[Bloodangel1378]

magic users are second class in NW. trash builds unless a healer.

[Penfold]

Thin but somewhat informative.

[Nourri]

You use Flurry for the CD, not the stamina gen.

Edit: Btw, thanks for that contribution, its an interesting bit of info.

[Pointe]

I guess it just depends if you value the leeching over the stamina Regen. For Stam Regen, tondo is king in PvE, but leeching flurry + lifestealing is nice in ove as well.

[WeGbored]

Title says mage build,
First requirement is to use a rapier.

This is me leaving.