DPS Tanking party

[Ymarsakar]

I've been testing some different tactics in White March, party level 11, high content enabled and Path of the Damned, fighting those fish wildlings past the bridge near Durgan's battery.

 

What tended to work the best or at least was the most interesting when the pull fell apart (which did like 50% of the time since I was experimenting, and the backline got completely swarmed because the enemy saw the tank last so didn't even go towards him), was to group everyone together for priest buffs and aoe heal, then use the melee to force the enemy into a line or certain formation so they can't flank my weaker members.

 

It tended to look like a square or a triangle. Screen wise the fighter is blocking the left side using terrain bottlenecks like a bridge or something, that prevents the enemy from physically moving around and even blocks sight sometimes. North on the screen the paladin blocks that part, making the enemy form another line or cluster. The priest, the wizard, and the druid all have backup shields. The druid can do a lot of damage if his spells aren't interrupted, since wave crushes and stuns and various other horrible spells higher up (Wave crush can even hit 7 enemies out of 10, if I line them up right). The wizard, though, does crazy damage in melee with citzal's spirit lance, so with the self buffs he can actually hold part of the line if it breaks through. Although his low health, low DR in full plate even, and low deflection makes him take a lot more health damage than the paladin. Cipher is in heavy armor waiting to help any party members, if needed.

 

So I was wondering if anyone had experimented with this tactic before, where most of your party members had tank defensive abilities from somewhere, but the main class was dps or spellcasting. Such as a monk tank or a chanter tank, using at least 2 defensive talents, built with deflection equipment and buffs.

 

It's different from having a lot of paladins, fighters, monks, and berserkers in the same party I think, because it uses the opposite of what some of these classes normally do (sit in the back).

 

Another tactic which I sometimes was able to trigger, involved the tank successfully drawing aggro from the dangerous enemy paladins and blowgun users with good AI, allowing most of my secondary team to bypass the enemy frontline and hit the enemy's back line, completely destroying their ranged blowgun users. And since this stretched the front out north and south, the enemy paladins couldn't even heal their backline because they had to run all the way back over there and then try to attack my dps tanks there that was just tanking the enemy ranged dps, while the druid and wizard just keeps casting aoe over them since the dps tanks have enough DR to sustain friendly fire. Terrain wise, they could not get to my druid and wizard, because they were blocked by their own people, a terrain bottleneck, the paladin, and the fighter. Plus cipher for when those red paladins still decide to run through my line, they get caught up by the cipher.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[globalCooldown]

I personally enjoy the idea of chanter tanks. My own fights tend to devolve into people running all over the dang place, and having a Chanter in the middle of all your party members (as opposed to chilling in the back) means their chant buffs can reach more party members. "Tanking" is surprisingly easy; as long as you have a good Constitution and a few supporting abilities, you can tank.

 

Personally, I slapped Veteran's Recovery on Kana. That, heavy armor, and the buffs he's already cranking out for himself due to chanting, and he's pretty good!

[Ymarsakar]

I personally enjoy the idea of chanter tanks. My own fights tend to devolve into people running all over the dang place, and having a Chanter in the middle of all your party members (as opposed to chilling in the back) means their chant buffs can reach more party members. "Tanking" is surprisingly easy; as long as you have a good Constitution and a few supporting abilities, you can tank.

 

Personally, I slapped Veteran's Recovery on Kana. That, heavy armor, and the buffs he's already cranking out for himself due to chanting, and he's pretty good!

 

Veteran's recovery is infinite duration while the chanter regen heal (Ancient memory) is limited right?

Edited September 3, 2015 by Ymarsakar