Warden Tank Build?

ramenwaifu

Can’t believe my first post is a complaint or whatever, sorry, but is there something against warden tank builds? Twice yesterday someone bashed me how I was a dps who queued as a tank. But, the thing is, I can’t do enough damage on my own to consider myself as a dps. It irritated me so much that I completely changed my build twice, once to make it more “dps”, and again to make it more tanky. It honestly made me consider stopping doing dungeons on my warden, but oh well.

If anyone has any tips or suggestions, I’d appreciate it. I don’t mind changing my build again, I just want to have an enjoyable pve experience on my warden...

VaranisArano

Were you taunting the boss and holding aggro? Crowd controlling enemies?

Generally, the only time I call someone a "fake tank" is if they clearly are failing to hold aggro on the boss so that my healer or DD is tanking the boss instead. (And obviously no one else is taunting the boss away from the tank, that happens too sometimes.)

Taunts:
Puncture, one hand and shield
Ice staff heavy attack, with Trifocus passive
Inner Fire, Undaunted
Tormentor set procs on a charge ability

NUKE65536

i love my imperial warden tank. and most groups i run with love it too. no problem tanking veteran dlc dungeons hard mode with it. perhaps not as tanky as dk, but i can give major slayer. i am using master architect, ebon and bloodspawn.

DeadlyRecluse

In a 4 man dungeon, if you are holding aggro and not dying, you're a tank.

If people complain because you aren't a DK/aren't using sword and board/aren't running a full debuff+support suite, they need to stop pugging dungeons and go join a trials guild.

Holding aggro and not dying is literally all you need for 4 man dungeons.

crobarXIII

Why did they call a fake tank? Where you running around & not holding stuff in your dd's aoe's ? Are you squishy? Even as a tank there are some attacks you have to avoid & block those heavy attacks. Did you have a good healer in the group that was helping keep your health up & giving you shards/orbs? Having a good healer with you makes your job easier.

ramenwaifu

crobarXIII wrote: »

Why did they call a fake tank? Where you running around & not holding stuff in your dd's aoe's ? Are you squishy? Even as a tank there are some attacks you have to avoid & block those heavy attacks. Did you have a good healer in the group that was helping keep your health up & giving you shards/orbs? Having a good healer with you makes your job easier.

I kept aggro up the whole time on both dungeons. The first time someone complained, the healer wasn’t really doing much, which was the only reason I was dying. The second time, it was the healer who complained (and left the group) even though I was keeping aggro and doing completely fine.

ramenwaifu

VaranisArano wrote: »

Were you taunting the boss and holding aggro? Crowd controlling enemies?

Generally, the only time I call someone a "fake tank" is if they clearly are failing to hold aggro on the boss so that my healer or DD is tanking the boss instead. (And obviously no one else is taunting the boss away from the tank, that happens too sometimes.)

Taunts:
Puncture, one hand and shield
Ice staff heavy attack, with Trifocus passive
Inner Fire, Undaunted
Tormentor set procs on a charge ability

Thanks for the list of taunts, I use Inner Fire and Ice Staff.

crobarXIII

ramenwaifu wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Were you taunting the boss and holding aggro? Crowd controlling enemies?

Generally, the only time I call someone a "fake tank" is if they clearly are failing to hold aggro on the boss so that my healer or DD is tanking the boss instead. (And obviously no one else is taunting the boss away from the tank, that happens too sometimes.)

Taunts:
Puncture, one hand and shield
Ice staff heavy attack, with Trifocus passive
Inner Fire, Undaunted
Tormentor set procs on a charge ability

Thanks for the list of taunts, I use Inner Fire and Ice Staff.

I would highly recommend you use puncture as it also debuffs the target allowing the dd's to deal more dmg & use inner fire just as a range taunt allowing you to conserve your magicka for other abilities.

Aurielle

Don’t let it get to you; crappy players will always blame the tank and/or healer if something does not go according to plan. I got called a “*** tank” the other day because I was not 100% clear on boss mechanics for a normal DLC dungeon I’ve never done before that came up via the random normal group finder. Said player also told us the WRONG strategy, which I realized when I looked the dungeon up later, and so he clearly wasn’t fully aware of the mechanics himself. Yeah, I was on my mag sorc, but I had switched out some DPS skills for Bound Aegis, Surge, and Inner Fire. My health never dipped below 75%, I kept the bosses and scary adds taunted, AND I did more DPS than the two hapless damage dealers combined. But I’m the one who got the hate whispers because I decided to drop the group when we couldn’t proceed past the boss. I tried to tell him that we would have had the same result if I were on my dedicated DK tank that only pulls around 8-10k DPS total (only difference being that it would have taken us 10-15 mins longer to get to that point, thanks to the crappy damage dealers), but he obviously blocked me after he’d finished venting.

So really, don’t let it get to you. Unless you’re tanking vet trials, you’re doing just fine if you’re keeping bosses taunted and aren’t dying. If you can do some CC and can pull ranged adds in? Even better, but not required. ANYONE who can’t survive in a normal dungeon only has themselves to blame. Vets can be a different story, but even there, if a DD dies because they were standing in red or because they didn’t block a ranged attack, THEY’RE the ones at fault — not the tank (or the healer). As a Warden tank, you should be able to survive easily without a healer. So throw a little more self-healing in there if you find yourself in a dungeon with a healer who is not up to par, and you’ll be fine.

Llaren_Uvayn

I think a Warden tank has some nice group utility. Major Ward and Major Resolve for the whole group, Leeching Vines allows you to help out the healer and give the player healed Minor Toughness. You don't have chains, but you do have portals, your aoe CC scales off max health, and so does your other heal+dmg aoe.

BejaProphet

If you could tell us more about your build, it would be easier for us to determine where the trouble is, whether in your build or in the complainers themselves. But just from hearing you talk about ice staff tanking it prompts one piece of advice. If you go into a dungeon with a non-typical tank build you better be able to get the job done. There really are a lot of people who que as a tank or healer when they are actually dps. They do this to avoid the long wait times, and they do it especially in normal dungeons where they can get away with it. So when they see you waltz in to tank with a staff, if you have any trouble with the content they are going to assume that's what they are seeing.