Need advice for tanking w/ NB

Phaoryx · April 2014

So, I've been wanting to make a good AoE tanking sort of build for my nightblade. Here's just a breakdown of what I have so far:

Skills
Blood Craze
Swallow Soul
Whirling Blades
Lotus Fan
Siphoning Attacks
Ultimate: Veil of Blades

This is working pretty well for me, but I was thinking... if I combined Flurry with Siphoning Attacks, and morphed it so I got increased weapon speed, would that heal more/be more effective than Blood Craze? Because Blood Craze has meh damage, a pretty nice HoT, doesn't use much stamina and knocks off two quick hits for SA. Another thing would be to swap Whirling Blades with Refreshing Path or whatever the other Path of Darkness morph is. It's AoE as well, and has some nice buffs and stuff. I've never used it, so if you could tell me which one is better, that'd be great.

Armour
I was originally going to do a 5-2 Medium-Heavy set. I really like the medium buffs and that increased attack speed is really nice. However, I realize that having 5-2 Heavy-Medium or even Heavy-Light would be better for tanking. The problem with this is that my second weapon set is a Bow, and it's mainly DPS. So, I probably wouldn't be able to spam Bombard and Magnum shot as much as I'd like to. If someone could tell me what'd be ideal for my situation, that'd be great.

Weapons
If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm going to be dual wielding. I don't want to change that. Sword n Board is better for tanking, but I don't know. I like dual wielding

(works great with SA). So, if I am to DW, it doesn't really matter what weapon I choose until I get the passive Twin Blade and Blunt. So, I'm not sure what to choose; Swords for the 1.5x extra damage, Daggers for the crit (I'm using the Shadow Stone as it helps a ton with my bow set, not to mention I have like a 25% to crit), or axes for the extra DoT. All are appealing to me, and I only really want to use one (ie, not have 1 axe and 1 dagger etc). So, here's a question which will pretty much decide it: As your ultimate charges with all the damage you do and stuff, does the bleed DoT that is inflicted with the axes do that as well? If it does, that would really help to spam VoB. Otherwise, I'd probably go daggers for the crit, unless people just tell me the 1.5x with swords is really good.

Well, thanks for reading through all that, and if you could answer some/all of my dilemmas it would be very helpful!

Phaoryx · April 2014

You don't have to answer all of it, maybe just a few tips...

Chelo · April 2014

Watch this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_olC-q-mDXk

MasterLanz · April 2014

First problem: Siphoning Attacks triggers off skills, but doesn't heal your character. Leeching Strikes heals your character, but doesn't trigger off skills.

So there's no way to get Flurry to restore health with either Siphoning Strike morph. If you're relying on Blood Craze for sustaining health, you won't be able to replace it with flurry + Siphoning Attacks. Leeching Strikes is worth having anyways, though, since you'll invariably run out of stamina at some point, and having Leeching Strikes gives you a lot of sustaining mileage out of your auto-attacks.

I have to ask, though: have you actually tried tanking yet? I tank as a nightblade, currently level 40, and I couldn't even imagine tanking without a taunt. Tanking without sword and shield? Sure. Tanking without any kind of taunt? No. I don't see it happening.

As far as I've experienced, AoE tanking doesn't exist. When the party is between bosses, I swap to my other weapon, my 2h, and go on a cleave rampage. I've yet to be grouped with a healer who was unable to handle the spot healing of the DPS taking hits on ordinary pulls. The regular mobs die so fast that the healer usually doesn't have a problem keeping people up.

Now, that said, as the tank, I still consider it my responsibility to keep my party healthy and safe, even when I'm not using my sword and shield, so I do change up my 2h skill bar when tanking to include Ring of Preservation and Funnel Health (I don't use swallow soul. 8% more healing doesn't come close to AoE party heals when it comes to group synergy), and I make sure my groups always know to stand in the shiny white circle. Between the huge defensive buff combined with 2 sources of HoTs outside of the healer, I keep my party alive between bosses by basically being the sub-healer for the group while focusing on downing enemies with my 2h.

If you want to try 'AoE tanking' I recommend treating it as your secondary bar, and still having a sword and shield set-up for tanking bosses. You'll have a hell of a time consistently holding aggro with any kind of build if you don't have a taunt.

Now, if you're really gung-*** for DW tanking, you can pick up the Undaunted taunt, which is a spell-based taunt and can be morphed into a ranged taunt. That would let you DW and still be able to taunt things. The problem, of course, is that you have to unlock it, and myself, at level 40 and having run every dungeon up to my level at least once, I still haven't unlocked it yet. You'll probably have to do a whole bunch of dungeons if you want to unlock it early.

Either way, you probably will have a really hard time actually protecting anyone if you don't have a taunt.

GwaynLoki · April 2014

Did you consider Mark Target/Reaper's Mark? I know it sounds counter-intuitive to use this while tanking at first but if you drop that thing on someone who is going to die in the next few seconds, a 40-60%-restore of your total health is nothing to look down upon.

GwaynLoki · April 2014

Did you consider Mark Target/Reaper's Mark? I know it sounds counter-intuitive to use this while tanking at first but if you drop that thing on someone who is going to die in the next few seconds, a 40-60%-restore of your total health is nothing to look down upon.

Anzer · April 2014

I found a loadout that seems pretty fun. I don't have all of the skills and morphs for it yet, but what I do have it pretty exciting so far. I would only recommend this loadout for trash pulls or questing, you'll most certainly want a few different skills for tanking bosses.

1- Lotus Fan (Charge, AoE Damage, DoT + Snare)
2 - Refreshing Path (Frontal Cone DoT + Self Healing)
3 - Manifestation of Terror (Placeable PBAoE CC)
4 - Leeching Strikes (Resource builder + Self Healing)
5 - Flavor Skill (Your choice. Probably a taunt if this is for trash pulls)
U - Veil of Blades (PBAoE DoT, Snare, Mitigation)

Phaoryx · April 2014

MasterLanz wrote: »

First problem: Siphoning Attacks triggers off skills, but doesn't heal your character. Leeching Strikes heals your character, but doesn't trigger off skills.

Yeah, but I figured if I used Blood Craze, it'd apply a HoT while also restoring stam and mag. It says in the Siphoning Attacks tool tips that basic weapon attacks restore stamina magicka and health though, but any other attacks (like skills) only restore stamina and magicka. That's what I was thinking with Blood Craze at least.

So, it seems like I need a taunt here. I'll probably just switch to sword and shield for that, which will replace Blood Craze. I might turn Whirlwind into Refreshing Path as well. Should I turn Lotus Fan into shield charge (I want a gap closer)? I think Lotus Fan's snare is really useful... and now that I have no Blood Craze, I'll probably do Leeching Strikes. Hell, might even switch Swallow Soul to Funnel Health as I realize I should probably be more support oriented :P Thoughts on that build? I'm keeping VoB.

Also, thanks for all the advice guys! Just to clear some stuff up, I haven't fully tried this out yet; I just figured it looked good on paper and wanted to see if anyone did something similar and could verify it works. Thanks again

MasterLanz · April 2014

Lotus fan is fine as a gap closer, but I don't feel you really need a gap closer as a tank in a pve environment. As soon as you pull (easily accomplished with funnel health) everything will move in on you anyways. If anything, it's usually better to bring the mobs to you on your terms then jump at them. It means the rest of your party is already at close proximity, if nothing else.

You don't even need to be first to the fight, even. If there are sneaks in the party, I often let them get their first hit in for critical sneak attack damage and then follow up. If it's a boss, you can taunt it off them, if it's not a boss, you don't really have to worry much about the occasional drifter mob chasing your DPS. Even with the most defenseless glass-cannon build, they should be able to deal with things that aggro on them. In the group pulls you just want stuff to die before your group does.

Phaoryx · April 2014

Yeah, I usually let them shoot them with a sneak attack. But then I just jump in, AoE snare them, and they usually just start attacking me. Also, ranged users are annoying so I like jumping at them and not letting them run away with the snare.