Kaylon

Can you explain this a bit more, please? There was a bug which allowed to shoot without reload/recovery if you were using a loading weapon and a recovery weapon with full attacks. It was fixed a few patches ago...

Best tank should have sustainable defenses. If his defenses are dispelled/wear off he's not the best anymore. Or else we can consider the priest the best tank because of Barring Deaths Door+Salvation of Time. Here's my end game list considering sustainability: Best tank: Goldpact/Troubadour>Goldpact/Monk>Goldpact/Cipher Best melee dps: Soulblade/Rogue>Monk/rogue>Devoted/Rogue Best ranged dps: Monk/Rogue>Chanter/Rogue>Cipher/Rogue Best support: Cipher/Troubadour(mostly because brillance)>Paladin/Troubadour>Druid/Priest PS. Special award for the best tank/dps against enemies without Arcane Dampener Evoker/Priest with the Shroud of the Phantasm.

You can argue all you want about cc, damage or who adds more utility to a party but that's not tanking. A tank, as its name implies, should be an almost indestructible character.

Best tank in RPGs is usually defined first and foremost as the character that can prevent monsters from attacking the non-tank ("hold aggro" - in MMORPG parlance). Survivability is secondary - though not unimportant. No, that's the MMO definition. Best tank means the character with the best survivability.

With a cipher and a priest the fight can become trivial. Give to everyone in your party a potion of focused mind, antidote and final stand to become immune to anything. The cipher will use Ancestor's Memory on the priest at the beginning of the fight while the priest will keep spamming Salvation of Time for the entire party to keep all the buffs up. The easiest way to damage the boss is using Minoletta's Minor Missiles with a Wizard because it never misses and does crush damage (use crusted sword fish, potion of ascension, Firethrower Gloves to ensure you have enough penetration and the highest damage). Keep your party together to avoid losing your buffs and kill enough little spiders until her defenses ar low enough. Use crush/corrode/raw damage or high penetration weapons to damage her.

If you pick the best options for each weapon then the Red Hand comes on top mostly because of the damage buff (and that's math, not testing). But of course that doesn't take in account the fact that you move or die more often which can cripple your final dps. PS. The lash doesn't help a faster weapon more than a slow one if they have the same base dps. PPS. It seems the enchantments have been tweeked and some of them aren't exclussive anymore - now you can have both lashes on the Essence Interrupter which means it can surpass the damage from Aamiina's Legacy.

You need immunity to dexterity afflictions or immunity to poison (paladin or antidote potions) to avoid being petrified/paralyzed. Resistance to dexterity afflictions just downgrades her petrify to paralyze. Resistance to resolve affictions is also good to have to avoid being shaken by her screech.

It is not numerically possible for a Streetfighter Swashbuckler to do less damage then a Trickster Holy Slayer. Unless you were not using your Swashbuckler right and didn't trigger his specials. Swashbuckler also has much higher Crit chance, so that also can provide a benefit to on-crit effects. 40% of damage taken is possible, but it matters little with Unbending, as you can heal trough most incoming damage. Of course Paladin wins in the support department. The streetfighter has the potential to do better damage only if you babysit him the entire fight which becomes tedious very fast.

If you move out of her range when she starts the attack you can avoid it.

Tbf pala/chanter with Eld Nary is not even close to single class chanter with the upgraded Eld Nary. It is still better than summons tho, since summons lack Pen. Eld Nary is strong but it has big drawbacks - long cast time, targets fortitude and is rather expensive. The best solo build for me is the Darcozzi/Skald spamming Thrice Was She Wronged - a rather effective and cheap AoE spell. Deltro's Cage/Black Plate for armor, Sun and Moon with modal to debuff reflex between casts, the medium shield with health regen, ring of greater regeneration, etc... Basically unkillable with endless AoE attacks and able to deal with any encounter without abusing consumables, kiting or splitting enemies right from the beginning. Why Darcozzi specifically? The flame shield seems rather weak compared to Goldpact's armor bonus. Because vs multiple enemies the armor bonus will go away very fast. The flame shield however is just free damage and will last the entire fight. My build is already very resilient and the damage shield + eternal devotion help me deal damage to multiple enemies (the lash buff affects Thrice Was She Wronged), while the bonus from Sworn Enemy is very small (basically 2dmg every 3-4s) and only for a single target.

Yes, but the dagger modal works only vs melee weapons and most creatures don't use weapons (fangs, claws, etc. aren't considered weapons).

As "useless" as Combusting Wounds with a bit of underpenetration? No, more... But you can always combine it with Combusting Wounds to do a little more damage, I'm sure you can make it work.

The question is, why you don't get hit? Is 142 deflection enough for that? At some point (don't know what triggers it) she stops attacking from range and just tries to come at melee range. Can you explain your tactics here? In the vid. At the beginning I just try to kill enough spiders while avoiding her melee attack. Once her defenses are low enough I position myself in order to keep enough spiders between us and prevent her from closing in. (From time to time I killed a few spiders behind me to lower her defenses a little more.) After that I just attack her until death. Sometimes I summoned the animated weapons and used the bow to attack her from the distance, while sending the melee weapon to kill some more spiders - just for the fun because it doesn't help very much.

The riposte from Akola's Apex Ward is almost useless because the hit is made with an unenchanted weapon, not with your main weapon (and the chance seems to be lower than the 25% advertised).

Any rogue with the Red Hand would come ahead of most melee classes.

It's not very difficult - once you aggro all the melee enemies you place yourself into a corner/bottleneck where you can keep them nicely in front of you.

Here's the long and boring video (paladin/rogue or paladin/cipher can kill her much faster): https://youtu.be/PHiWq0gBvIY With enough regeneration (Ring of Greater Regeneration, Three Trolls Stitched, Fleshmender, Whiteleaf,...) I think it's possible to use this strategy with any class. Ciphers are probably the only class who can CC her effectively using charm/dominate.

How will anyone win this encounter then? A paladin/chanter can solo her. You have to keep her at distance (keep her spiders between you and her) and attack from distance with a scepter (it deals crush damage and penetrates her armor). Cadhu Scalth with the modal activated and the regeneration/armor take care of all the incoming damage. Maybe I'll make a video later with the encounter and the items/build used. PS. Killing spiders lowers her defenses but increases her offense (+1acc/+1dmg/+1spd for every spider killed) so killing too many of them isn't a good strategy.

aoe damage from mortars - but you would have to be streetfighter to take advantage of a blunderbuss. also aamina's legacy with fast attack modal on is very close in terms of dps to red hand and does best of slash/pierce. I am going to run 2 ranged characters and see who prevails: One Red Hand-er and another with Aamina's. I guess Ranger/Rogue is the best DPS combo for ranged characters? Can anything be better? When using Aamiina's you have to take care of the lost acuracy and lower penetration (compared to firearms). I recommend the devoted/rogue if it's not your main (the devoted gives armored grace, +10acc from stance, +15%dmg with mastery, +2pen, +25% crit dmg) because of the low maintenance and great survivability (and unlike a monk you can always add more penetration using a potion). Monk/rogue is great for the Red Hand however - you have Dance of Death for the accuracy buff and wound regeneration, but you have to keep keep up all the time Lightning Strikes + Thunderous Blows (a helwalker/streetfighter can be an option if it's your main - you can lower yourself your health to 50% using Mortification).

Personally I would pick a mix of classes who are able to solo by themselves and who require very little micro: paladin/chanter, paladin/monk, paladin/soulblade, paladin/trickster, etc...

Elemental dots don't ignore armor at all. Combusting Wounds, Brand Enemy, Dragon Trashed, etc. are completely useless against enemies with high burn resistance.

You switch weapons for a better penetration/damage type or you lower their armor using various debuffs.

The leather means I get more recovery time, and the SS garb is more recovery for less reload speed.. am I missing something? If you're using a pet with armor recovery reduction then the bonus on the armor will become greater than the actual armor recovery and you will attack faster than with no armor at all (without mentioning better protection and other bonuses).

Uniques robes, the Misscreant's Leathers (for bows) or Sharpshooter's Garb ( for arbalest, arquebus, crossbow) with the armor recovery pet are better options.

The DOT doesn't stack and if you attack faster than every 3s you will get less than 15% dps increase...