Who is the best "tank"

[Desmodeus]

We all know our favourite guy - Eder "the Wall" Teylecg - is probably best character out of all companions for early game tanking duty. However as all tanking fighters he is kinda scaling bad in high levels, especially since his INT and PER are subpar, so overbearing guard isn't even that good in his hands. So who, in your opinion, out of our story companions can become better arrowba.... important party member who we sucri... who protect us from danger. I personally find Kana and Durance becoming significally better as frontliners after lvl9-10. With Kana chanting Dragon Thrashed/Lo, Their Endless Host, the Harbingers Doom(if target immune to fire only so mostly Dragon THrashed) interlocked with some def chant and Ancient spirits talent and Durance with shield and nightshroud in hand. Devil of Caroc could have been great tank, but inability to eat, dring or do drugs just makes her too frail in serious endgame fights(like almost all dragon fights).

[baldurs_gate_2]

Still Eder, because if he has only to tank, nobody cares about his PER.

Fighters are good, because of unbending. 50% damage covered to healing, 3 uses per rest, 1 per encounter as far as i know.

You just give him the best shield and buff him up with durance. Shields of the Faithful and Crown of the Faithful provide +50 deflection (25 deflection and 25 resolve), + his Vigorous Defense another 20. If you use Salvation of Time on the party, his lower INT doesn't matter.

Champions Boon provides + 10 per, so, if you just buff him properly, he can tank pretty well. Fighters don't deal much damage anyway. They have inferiour single target like Barbarians and their AoE is bad as well (compared to other classes).

"Tanking" in this game is not as braindead as in other games. The AI is smarter, they will just disengange your heavy tank and go for your weaker backline.

Edited February 22, 2021 by baldurs_gate_2

[Desmodeus]

4 hours ago, baldurs_gate_2 said:

"Tanking" in this game is not as braindead as in other games. The AI is smarter, they will just disengange your heavy tank and go for your weaker backline.

Thats exactly why I am saying that Eder does not scale that good. His mediocre perception and int makes overbearing guard significally less useful as tanking tool (yeah, he is not interenting but thats the point. Enemy tries to break engagement, get hit by disengagement attack, get dropped on his ass, fighter reengade runner and so on till combat end) as he quite often miss with prone and small int means short prone time

[Boeroer]

Okay, but what other alternatives in terms of "keeping engagement"/"preventing enemies from rushing past you" are there? I mean with the official companions.

Pallegina can have the higher passive defenses in theory but she doesn't have any tools to stop rushers. She would be better in chokepoint situations - but every withdrawn character could do that.

In case of chokepoint tanking Kana would be my number one. Just withdraw him while he's chanting Dragn Thrashed. Even better if he has double preservation (e.g. Blaidh Golan + Ilfan Byrngar's Solace) so Grieving Mother can cast Definsive Midweb on him before he gets withdrawn: whole party gets +100 to all defenses and Kana is an unmovable and untouchable blocker while doing great AoE dmg. But of course that's not really "tanking" like a Fighter can potentially do it with engagement etc. Still works in the open field because +100 to all party members turns everybody into a real good tank.

Maybe there should be a definition first what kind of tanking we are talking about.

 

[Desmodeus]

Well in theory character can be tank by looking like high dd squishy. Basically low DR, high damage, high deflection(at least in my experience enemies doesn't exactly get idea of deflection and just judge squishiness by DR). Thats probably best be pulled by Kana, or at least would have been in his resolve would be positive. Other one is maybe Heravies - cast storm and dots while running with shield and hatchet.

[Boeroer]

Different enemies react to different stats. For example Barbarians prefer to attack low deflection. Rogues seek enemies with low DR and also low percentage of endurance. And so on. 

I made a druid tank build and posted it here. It's cool but first of all it diesn't work well until you reach a certain level and secondly the defenses are not good enough for some of the late fights. It great as a second tank but not so great as the only one imo. 

I mean in PoE I think one single tank doesn't really work well in the first place. 

 

[davoker]

Eder doesn't have the best attributes for a tank, but he does his job very well with the right equipment and some buffs, at level 7 and early equipment he gets to 90 deflection easily, a weapon with engaged and the necessary talents for a good tank and I personally don't get knocked down, he can handle anything and he can take whatever they throw at him.

Personally I never use a tank as a main character because they bore me, I like classes that require a lot of micro management, it's how I have more fun, however, in a group of 6, at least 3 I take them in this plan, 1 pure tanke (more or less, Eder xD) and 2 off-tanks, Kana and my main character in the case of taking druid, I use my druid with that role, and reached level 7 and 9 is able to withstand many beatings while caste his magic.

Kana is essential in my group, even by team she practically equals (in some games she has even surpassed him) in deflection to Eder, but she is not able to tanky the same because I don't give her the right tank talents, evidently, If I take Pallegina they are practically 1 tanke and 3 off-tanks xD is a very resistant group, Durador and Aloth would be the others that I always take, and these I take them very soft, they are the target of many enemies, a fampyr the first thing he does is try to disable them (I hate the damn fampyrs xD).

In short, for my fighter is the tanke par excellence, and Eder despite not having the best attributes, does his job very well.

PS: Sorry for my English.