That’s super interesting. I’ll admit my experience outside of spear/hatchet/bow/musket is quite low mostly just a toe dip.
But good to hear!
I gave you the benefit of the doubt and went out to try Warhammer. Not in an expedition because I am not insane of course.
With the warhammer block passive a charged wolf attack takes 25 stamina. The same charged wolf attack takes 13 stamina when using a tower shield. That is a difference of 50% in terms of block cost.
You also lose 15% physical armor, 10% magic damage reduction, 10% fortify at all times, 10% incoming healing, additional armor, and additional health because the CON passive stacks with physical armor. There is only 1 half decent warhammer passive to make up for it (outnumbered).
If you have ever tanked a dungeon you’d know how important blocking and stamina is, how important stacking armor/health is, and how important taunts are. And bosses are immune to CC by the way.
Now, what you might have possible done, is ‘kite random target DPS and healers run for their lives because of random aggro’ tanking. Although I still find it hard to believe any party would even allow you to do that unless you are best mates since elementary school.
If you want to convince me, I’m afraid you will need a video for that.
1 Like
You know you’re only reinforcing the reason why forcing us to rely on Carnelians is a bad idea with this right?
I initially picked up Ice Gauntlet as a potential icemage tank build because it had surprisingly good defensive capability.
The trouble comes from attributes. To get the Gauntlet to do good damage, You need Intelligence.
For SnS, You need Strength or Dexterity.
Now, it would be possible to go all into INT/CON with an INT conversion gem so your damage works out, But in the current game, that means giving up all your bonus threat from Carnelians.
Moving Threat as a mechanic away from Carnelians and baking it in elsewhere opens up a whole lot of Tank diversity.
Game would healthier for it.
You’re such a liar. Even with to[ carnelian and sword and shield things still aggro off to healer naturally. Stamina maintenance and managing taunts is extremely important in high end content as a tank. No taunt? No fucking way you’re a tank doing that content without everyone in your party losing their mind.
1 Like
HIlariously, I have borne witness to a party losing their mind over a Tank in Depths on final boss whose Tanking method involved Spear+Hammer and running in circles.
And getting one shot every time he messed up.
I kid you not, Every time the Taunt ran out, he immediately lost hate and caused the boss to do his finger point and jump slam at someone else.
They made it to phase 2 once, got absolutely demolished immediately and disbanded lol.
Wasnt my run, was spectating a Company member’s stream XD
It wouldn’t be a bad setup if your goal stopped with tanking adds. But yeah, Bosses with massive Stamina damage just aren’t truly feasible without a Shield IMO.
Final boss of Depths (We keep going back to him lol) is a fantastic example of that. He swipes 4~ times in a row, You can dodge the first. Maybe block the second but the third will run you out of stamina no matter which way you do it.
You cannot afford to dodge forward to escape the hitbox as you run the risk of him spinning and cleaving the squad.
If I remember correctly his fourth attack would break my shield at level 45. But I had a tower shield and always keep my gearscore up to date.
Many people refuse to renew their gear for 10 levels or so. Big mistake. Just get random crap from the trade post for 10g every few levels, it’s still better than your underleved perfect attribute rare.
I usually get left with about 10 stamina. Just have to let go of Block for a moment between swipes to get a couple points of stamina back.
Sometimes it’s just safer to eat one of the eats to ensure the other 3 don’t break the shield and staggerlock you.
He cant. You can outdps equally geared DDs as Tank. You have to have a Carnelian
having a healer with light’s embrace second passive and able to pop heal circle properly with increased stam regen helps a shit ton on tank as well.
having the perk giving stam on shield bash also helps a lot on your ability to tank.
but yeah for now, tower shield or no tank. the tower shield alone makes a huge part of how much you can tank.
Why not have a seperate weapon if you group/tank with the gem and another without the gem when tanking isnt needed aka the open world.
Its not that hard to just switch weapons when you need to be a tank.
Also you are the tank not a DPS so get used to not doing much damage when in that role.
ps. i made a hatchet/SnS build which can be a tank and a dps by just switching the sword and hatchet
Because the Carnelian replaces the damage conversion gem. And without it, you’d hit like a wet noodle and generate almost no threat even with +250% Threat generation.
DPS and Healers both have complete freedom in their sub weapon choices. Lifestaff for healing, Focus conversion gem in ANY other weapon and they’re good to go.
Hell, you can even do weird stuff like Fire Staff + Hammer for DPS and get the hammer to do decent damage with the conversion gem.
But Tanks lack that diversity. All because we’re forced to slot the threat gem or lose access to all the taunts and threat generation we’re supposed to have for the role.
And the solution i like best is just the addition of an item like the Faction armor Attribute swap item but it adds a Carnelian effect to the weapon.
Just get the item and your chosen weapon and take it to a Forge. Apply the +Threat effect and BOOM, You have your threat and your taunts where applicable on any weapon for the low price of a handful of Faction tokens.
And now you have complete freedom to experiment with as many setups as you want.
Seriously, This harms absolutely no one. Its a change that affects only PvE and in a good way. More build diversity is always better.
1 Like
Also, don’t forget, tanks need two weapons because threat and taunt is useless in PVP.
This is not an issue during throw away leveling. But when you grind 50 hours for the perfect endgame 600 GS sword it is a very big issue. Especially the fact that DPS don’t need to do that.
had a 56 tank who never heard of carnelian gem tanking for dynasty a few days ago, I ended up tanking as healer. Was a interesting run.
I agree we need a different solution for applying the taunts and threat. Requiring a gem slot is extremely clunky and shows that the pve was thrown on at the last minute. Not only does it basically make any weapon without a gem slot useless for tanking but even when they do it kills build diversity as the gem slots are auto locked if we want to tank.
2 Likes
As a healer in game, some of these suggestions are worrying… As it stands, I go in full carnelian armor for reduced aggro and my tank full carnelian taunt and the mods still target me over him. THAT is BS too… I agree taunt needs to be dealt with but taking away gem slots used for reducing aggro to make them gain aggro is not the answer!
you don’t get any effects of the shield if it isn’t out though, so using any other weapon would only give you the active taunts and not the 250% passive threat
You need to be more creative. The carnelian gems in your armor are gameplay wise even worse of a mechanic than for the tank in his sword.
Why? Because now all your 5 gems are completely useless in PVP and solo PVE.
They should remove this silly effect alltogether and just reduce everyone’s aggro by X% as if everyone would be running those gems.
Make them the baseline instead of a useless and wasted necessity.
1 Like
Take the taunt gem away from the weapons entirely and put it in another item (necklace slot springs to mind) that always has a gem slot whether crafted or looted. That will allow tanking equipment/style variety without compromising on weapon upgrades.
Tanking gem is fine. When I am a tank in a party then I use my tanking gear. When I am soloing then I do not. I don’t see any problems.
It removes any hope of making interesting, alternative tanking styles.
No, evade tanking is a thing on certain bosses when more than one thing needs to be tanked. You also have a second weapon.
Gems to convert Focus into damage on the Sword
Are you a tank or damage dealer? As a tank your primary goal is not damage. You can be a paladin healer, tanking with carnelian and healing in between with life staff. But I think you will not have the time for that when tanking.
These builds work great. But they fall apart as soon group play starts.
Then switch to other gear as I do. I think you never tried. There is even an amulet that moves the taunt from weapon to jewelry.
welded to a single weapon
More of a single mindset. Change that and the world will change around you.