Tank for a Potd Full party

[jomsvikingr]

Hello

On Potd Party ( 5, mix between companions and created char in the inn ), i try to choose a tank ... but i cannot !

I don't want the " armored turtle " Paladin/fighter

so what is the best between :

Figther / Wizard

Paladin / Wizard

Figther / chanter

Paladin / Figther

[Raven Darkholme]

Paladin/Wizard is the best tank, but honestly the others are all pretty close.

The big thing about the paladin combo is the amount of AR you get from Stoic Steel + Llengrath's Safeguard.

Combine this with a big DR body, and if you want to be silly Nemnok's cloak prolonged with wall of draining (can even self proc it if you are a bloodmage)

With a 17 AR Patinated Plate you will get 28 AR without the ironskin of nemnoks, which would add another 5 for a certain amount of hits.

On top of that the wizard will have many buffs for deflection on top of safeguard and with wall of draining you can prolong them indefinitely.

[Elric Galad]

Aren't engagements Worth considering for a party tank too ?

Paladins/Wizards aren't very useful for this.

[Haplok]

Just don't do Paladin/Fighter. That's kinda silly.

Paladin/Bloodmage might be most tanky, but I'd probably consider Fighter/Bloodmage more fun. More crits, more accuracy, stuff like Citzal's Lance with Clear Out aoe x aoe. A bit faster in full plate.

Also Wall of Draining can prolong Unbending endlessly, providing superb healing (of course you can heal fine as a Paladin also, particularly Garrote).

Edited June 18, 2020 by Haplok

[Raven Darkholme]

3 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Aren't engagements Worth considering for a party tank too ?

Paladins/Wizards aren't very useful for this.

why? all you need is terrify from the wizard, you never need max engagement anway cuz not enough enemies can engage you and as pala/wizard you still get enough.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Raven Darkholme

[thelee]

5 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Aren't engagements Worth considering for a party tank too ?

Paladins/Wizards aren't very useful for this.

 

1 hour ago, Raven Darkholme said:

why? all you need is terrify from the wizard, you never need max engagement anway cuz not enough enemies can engage you and as pala/wizard you still get enough.

 

you don't need one tank to do all the engagement in the world, though it can be nice. I'm a little less sanguine about using terrify (or other effects) in place of actual engagement, but there are plenty of easy ways to get +1 or +2 depending on what you need based on how many semi-tanky melee-ers you have.

 

my main concern though is that any tank multiclass that relies on a caster for survivability sounds extremely flaky to me against arcane suppression. it's do-able but i feel like players need to be aware of this going into it and that it requires a little bit more skill and metagaming to not just be utterly crushed in fights where a caster has access to arcane suppression (and very rarely, arcane cleanse) edit - though i'm not sure ironskin is suppressable? it doesn't have a duration.

Edited June 18, 2020 by thelee

[Raven Darkholme]

18 minutes ago, thelee said:

 

 

you don't need one tank to do all the engagement in the world, though it can be nice. I'm a little less sanguine about using terrify (or other effects) in place of actual engagement, but there are plenty of easy ways to get +1 or +2 depending on what you need based on how many semi-tanky melee-ers you have.

 

my main concern though is that any tank multiclass that relies on a caster for survivability sounds extremely flaky to me against arcane suppression. it's do-able but i feel like players need to be aware of this going into it and that it requires a little bit more skill and metagaming to not just be utterly crushed in fights where a caster has access to arcane suppression (and very rarely, arcane cleanse) edit - though i'm not sure ironskin is suppressable? it doesn't have a duration.

I didn't mean terrify instead of engagement but for disengaging attack shenanigans (if one wants to go that route, but lets be real what other use is there for engagement anyway lol).

I don't think arcane dampener plays a big role vs paladin/mage, it will mostly affect the early stage of a fight, where paladin has more than half hp and the only things suppressed are skills that trigger when bloodied.

On top of that lately i've just been interrupting dampeners it has such an insanely long casting time, and as you said there is quite a few things on top one could do vs it, but in a full party it will ahrdly ever be necessary and stuff like stoic steel wont be suppressed anyway (or the base ar).

[thelee]

1 minute ago, Raven Darkholme said:

On top of that lately i've just been interrupting dampeners it has such an insanely long casting time,

precisely i've found that it seems like a lot of players don't bother with explicit interrupts of spells, at least based on some of the posts i've seen.

[jomsvikingr]

ty for your answer

[Boeroer]

Unbroken/Trickster is one of my favorite party tanks. You get enough engagement (Unbroken+shield+Persistent Distraction + Hold the Line = already 4) without the use of Defender Stance but can take Mob Stance or Warrior Stance instead. Good mix of tankyness and dmg (especially on disengagement) and impervious to ranged and AoE attacks thanks to Large Shield modal & Adept Evasion. I like how you can still move on the battlefield with the help of Escape (despite being immobilized from the modal). And you also can terrify. 

The cherry on top is that he can lure enemies to a spot with Dazzling Lights easily before unstealthing. This usually makes sure he can engage even those enemies who would otherwise sit in the back rows and shoot/cast. 

I personally like lots of engagement slots because unlike PoE it makes a tank really sticky. 5-6 slots is def. enough though. 

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by Boeroer

[thelee]

24 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

The cherry on top is that he can lure enemies to a spot with Dazzling Lights easily before unstealthing.

Ooo that's a clever use of that. I should do that, to get those annoying back-line enemies within easy reach.

[Boeroer]

Yes, it's also helpful to be able to unstealth when the crowd gathered and then "escape" right amongst them in order to engage as many enemies as possible. And the deflection bonus of Escape makes the first blows miss a lot even before you can trigger Refreshing Defense + Mirrored Images. 

[Haplok]

Or, you know, do boring stuff, like Assassinate Shadowflame Paralyze them all.