I am considering building a tank on one of my lowlife alts. What builds make sense today, and where can I learn DDO-specific tanking tactics?

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_fully_carroted_

Well-known member
Looks as if there's need for a tank in my guild, so I was hoping to get some advice from the boards. I haven't tanked in DDO, although I spent about ten years tanking in world of warcraft. So I used to be good at it, whatever that's worth.

Can you guys point me at a good way to learn how to tank the DDO way? (Youtube content? Spending an hour trudging through R4 content with hirelings?)

As for build questions, I have an alt but no plan.

The character I'm planning to convert has the following:
  • +8 tome
  • 3 racial and 2 universal points, for a total of 85 points
  • pretty good non-raid Feywild and Sharn level 29 tanking gear sets, but not much for minor artifacts. The Prince's Gauntlet is her tankiest artifact.
  • 18 reaper points
  • around 7 or so filigree slots, although I could probably wrangle more.
  • I'm sure I have a fair amount of iod/vecna gear, around my account, but not full legendary sets

My total lack of DDO tanking experience means that I don't really know the details - how much intimidation is required for the type of content that a newbie tank should handle? A first-pass 20 Paladin build in DDOBuilder had 5000hp, 350PRR and 215MRR. Is that anywhere near enough for anything current? What builds make the most sense as a first tank?
 
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PraetorPlato

Well-known member
That might be a slightly too-dense intro—to answer your questions more specifically:
-105 is a good first goal for intim
-that HP is decent but could be higher, that PRR is low. you really want 21 RP for the extra 170 HP.
-20 pally is a very good choice
In general, the goal is going to be to build for HP and prr, use intim to get aggro, and use WASD and stats to stay alive.
 
Bjond

Bjond

Well-known member
That low-life pally looks really nice for a first time tank. My first tank (1st lifer) was based on PainStealer's Steelmaiden build and worked quite well. That one above is much simpler. One of our raid leaders uses an SF paladin to acquire the Radiant Servant tree for a healer + tank result. I don't know the details of that build, but the result works quite well.

My current tank is a 12 Rogue 5 Barbarian 3 Bard dodgy d-roll build, which is sufficiently weird compared to most tanks as to disqualify it from "newbie" tanking, but it started on a low-life char as 11 Rogue 6 Fight 3 Bard before some improvement iterations.
 
seph1roth5

seph1roth5

Well-known member
Are you mainly soloing, pug-ing, static group? Because tanking solo is aaaaaaaaaawful. The best way to learn how to tank is to run raids and ask the other tanks how they're doing it. It changes from raid to raid but it's pretty simple I think. Though in raids you'll have people healing you. Think it's mostly aggro management (through intim, epic strike, or maybe shenanigans) and knowing the bosses.

For non-raids you can just intimidate (and epic strike stuff that can't be intimidated) mobs an dkeep them off the squishies. This is for up to low reaper anyway. I don't really run high R so can't tell you the tricks there.
 
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Sarlona Raiding

Well-known member
I would recommend shifter paladin with con maxed out first and charisma second with cha to hit and damage. Obviously Sacred Defender Capstone and T5 with a dip into shifter for stat + magic fang, vanguard for deflect arrows, feydark illusionist for cha hit/damage and the rest in kotc for much goodness there.

There is also a solid case to be made for PDK if you are willing to use a +1 heart or splash 2 fighter. PDK gives the bonus feat plus bastard sword proficiency plus less AP for cha to hit and damage which is obviously great on a first-lifer.

For easy tank mode I really like 3 piece core vecna set and 5 piece legendary forbidden knowledge set with Ignition and tower shield counting as 2 of the 5 pieces.

Heart of Suulomades is a really nice artifact trinket for a tank -esp when new to tanking. Not having to worry about curses esp in elite+ project nemesis or vod is a really nice quality of life thing. The evil and fire absorb is useful for too hot to handle and fire over morgrave. The quality +3 con can be difficult to slot.

Alternatively, rolling up some legendary gem of many facets and seeing what 2 piece combos you might get is worth doing if you have the mats. I personally don't reroll if I get a good 2 piece combo I don't need today, but might need tomorrow and am glad I did that. I eventually ended up using some of those gems with 2 useful sets. For a tank there are multiple useful sets increasing the odds of getting 2 that you can use. If you get an obviously bad combo you can just reroll that.

The one stat I wouldn't understimate is AC, although you hear conflicting comments on the forums. It's very useful in most scenarios - R10 questing and non-push raiding. As a new tank you probably don't want to be the tank in push raids anyhow -it's not the right place to learn and usually they will want a barbarian specialized experienced tank anyhow. You can definitely get 400+ AC on a first-lifer, although it requires more investment without martial past lifes.

Good luck with your tanking project!
 
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Ostwind-Cannith

Well-known member
I was running a slightly tweaked Steel Maiden build (google it) Pally Arty Fighter and he was pretty survivable up to mid reapers on his first life. AC does work it it's high enough lol. haven't touched him since the great nerfs of EA and Primal's Carrion Swarm/Thorn though.
 
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PraetorPlato

Well-known member
Sarlona Raiding said:
I would recommend shifter paladin with con maxed out first and charisma second with cha to hit and damage. Obviously Sacred Defender Capstone and T5 with a dip into shifter for stat + magic fang, vanguard for deflect arrows, feydark illusionist for cha hit/damage and the rest in kotc for much goodness there.

There is also a solid case to be made for PDK if you are willing to use a +1 heart or splash 2 fighter. PDK gives the bonus feat plus bastard sword proficiency plus less AP for cha to hit and damage which is obviously great on a first-lifer.

For easy tank mode I really like 3 piece core vecna set and 5 piece legendary forbidden knowledge set with Ignition and tower shield counting as 2 of the 5 pieces.

Heart of Suulomades is a really nice artifact trinket for a tank -esp when new to tanking. Not having to worry about curses esp in elite+ project nemesis or vod is a really nice quality of life thing. The evil and fire absorb is useful for too hot to handle and fire over morgrave. The quality +3 con can be difficult to slot.

Alternatively, rolling up some legendary gem of many facets and seeing what 2 piece combos you might get is worth doing if you have the mats. I personally don't reroll if I get a good 2 piece combo I don't need today, but might need tomorrow and am glad I did that. I eventually ended up using some of those gems with 2 useful sets. For a tank there are multiple useful sets increasing the odds of getting 2 that you can use. If you get an obviously bad combo you can just reroll that.

The one stat I wouldn't understimate is AC, although you hear conflicting comments on the forums. It's very useful in most scenarios - R10 questing and non-push raiding. As a new tank you probably don't want to be the tank in push raids anyhow -it's not the right place to learn and usually they will want a barbarian specialized experienced tank anyhow. You can definitely get 400+ AC on a first-lifer, although it requires more investment without martial past lifes.

Good luck with your tanking project!
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Shifter paladin is a weird choice, because defensive stance and rage (shifting) are mutually exclusive. Magic fang is meh on a tank—not a ton o defensive stats from it. If you're looking to be survivable in difficult content as a low-life tank, FDI and KOTC are kind of unfocused—the benefits of hitting things are going to be very small, and they come at the cost of more defensive stats.

I haven't seen good GoMF tank sets—what's an example set?
Ostwind-Cannith said:
was running a slightly tweaked Steel Maiden build (google it) Pally Arty Fighter and he was pretty survivable up to mid reapers on his first life. AC does work it it's high enough lol. haven't touched him since the great nerfs of EA and Primal's Carrion Swarm/Thorn though.
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Mid reapers is a low target for survivability on a first life tank—r10 survivability is more than doable. US mantle is a big part of that, though—from a tank's perspective, EA got a buff.
 
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Sarlona Raiding

Well-known member
PraetorPlato said:
Shifter paladin is a weird choice, because defensive stance and rage (shifting) are mutually exclusive. Magic fang is meh on a tank—not a ton o defensive stats from it. If you're looking to be survivable in difficult content as a low-life tank, FDI and KOTC are kind of unfocused—the benefits of hitting things are going to be very small, and they come at the cost of more defensive stats.

I haven't seen good GoMF tank sets—what's an example set?
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My experience is different. Shifter gives +6 natural armor bonus and magic fang gives +8 to hit/damage on my weapon and +8 ac bonus on my shield which gets multiplied by shield bonuses in sacred defender + unyielding sentinel + perfect shield mastery and is increased again based on overall ac multipliers. I don't consider that small once you work it through all the multipliers - esp for someone lacking martial past lifes that can use all the extra ac they can get.

There are several combos that work with additive set bonuses and slots that don' interfere with your 3 piece and 5 piece vecna sets.

One example I have is legendary might of vulkoor + windlasher ferocity which gives me all additive artifact bonuses. Even getting a 3 piece might set is complimentary to 5 piece vecna with 20 profane MRR and 10 profane natural armor.
 
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PraetorPlato

Well-known member
Hit/damage on weapon isn't super relevant IMO for low-life tanks, you can't afford to do a useful amount of damage—at best you'll be at like 10% of DPS damage, which is functionally similar to 0. The AC question is interesting, but in general, I think PRR/hp are a better better for increasing your capability, because the worst-case scenario of taking 3+ hits in a row happens fairly frequently, and you're giving up helf or dwarf, both of which are awesome races. For that matter, Dragonborn gets 6 AC, 6 prr, a bunch of hamp, wings, and HP.

Vulkoor's might and windlasher's both don't do much on a tank. Might of Abishai is interesting, I haven't managed to get it to Tetris well for general-purpose tanking, because the profane MRR is substantially worse than the absorb on the Sharn tank set.
 
Kyrr

Kyrr

Well-known member
PraetorPlato said:
Hit/damage on weapon isn't super relevant IMO for low-life tanks, you can't afford to do a useful amount of damage—at best you'll be at like 10% of DPS damage, which is functionally similar to 0. The AC question is interesting, but in general, I think PRR/hp are a better better for increasing your capability, because the worst-case scenario of taking 3+ hits in a row happens fairly frequently, and you're giving up helf or dwarf, both of which are awesome races. For that matter, Dragonborn gets 6 AC, 6 prr, a bunch of hamp, wings, and HP.

Vulkoor's might and windlasher's both don't do much on a tank. Might of Abishai is interesting, I haven't managed to get it to Tetris well for general-purpose tanking, because the profane MRR is substantially worse than the absorb on the Sharn tank set.
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A lot of players have differences and opinions on how to play tank. I don't think this case is very different. I have an exceptional tank and press maybe 3 buttons (W, Intimidate and Shield Throw) with the exceptions of clickies like Blood of Vol or Epic Moment. I have thought about getting more to hit through KotC and FDI just to land Celestial Mandate but it boils down to playstyle.

EDIT: He's now a dwarf, but I used to know a Paladin tank on Argonnessen that is a shifter and his stats were pretty decent.
 
Bjond

Bjond

Well-known member
PraetorPlato said:
Shifter paladin is a weird choice, because defensive stance and rage
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Yeah, but shifters are so nice for tanking, I can see the temptation to try and make it work. OTH, I don't know the details of what happens when you rage while stanced. IF perhaps when you hit rage, it just doesn't trigger (stance blocks it), but the filigree set still fires, it would be very nice.

That's pretty much how I use rage on my melee shifter; hit rage for the TMP HP, then cancel rage when the TMP is gone so I can one-button fire off another TMP HP buffer if/when I want one. I don't tank while raged.

The funny thing is the melee shifter uses the cast/wild racial and the druid uses the melee/beast racial; the reason being that the melee wants ED melee trees and thus can't afford draconic for cast-while-raging (gotta get it from racial), while the druid uses cast trees and thus can afford the more defensive melee racial.

BTW, neither one is really a 1st-life let's learn tanking build -- just thought I'd comment on shifter tanking. THE big reason I like them is for regenerating rage combined with using The Blood Feast 5pc filigree set, which gives 1200 TMP HP on rage activation and brings 20 PRR from 2x rare-raids. Shifter bonuses for tanking while raged are nice, but annoying to maintain. It requires a two-button cancel+rage to put up another TMP HP and you have to be sure you have enough real HP while doing that to avoid death-by-rage-cancel (usually not an issue unless you're really in a bad way -- like a near-wipe).
 
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Sarlona Raiding

Well-known member
PraetorPlato said:
Hit/damage on weapon isn't super relevant IMO for low-life tanks, you can't afford to do a useful amount of damage—at best you'll be at like 10% of DPS damage, which is functionally similar to 0. The AC question is interesting, but in general, I think PRR/hp are a better better for increasing your capability, because the worst-case scenario of taking 3+ hits in a row happens fairly frequently, and you're giving up helf or dwarf, both of which are awesome races. For that matter, Dragonborn gets 6 AC, 6 prr, a bunch of hamp, wings, and HP.

Vulkoor's might and windlasher's both don't do much on a tank. Might of Abishai is interesting, I haven't managed to get it to Tetris well for general-purpose tanking, because the profane MRR is substantially worse than the absorb on the Sharn tank set.
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dps is not a dump stat and while you aren't trying to max it you also shouldn't pass up easy pluses either. you don't have to give up any important defensive stats to do so.

ultimately a tanks ability to hold agro is made up of threat + dps and the biggest problem I see with inexperienced tanks is inability to hold agro and relying too much on intimidate.
 
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Sarlona Raiding

Well-known member
Kyrr said:
You are missing a very strong capstone. I don't recommend splitting into 2 Fighter.
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I agree with you - I prefer 20 paladin over 18 paladin / 2 fighter. I've played both for extended periods primarily for R10 questing, but have no experience tanking mid or high skull current raids - so can't comment there.

If someone wants to play PDK for the low ap-cost cha to hit and damage with a bastard sword I wouldn't be too worried about losing the capstone. I don't think the heal proc ever happened. +2 cha, +2 con, 10 prr, 10 mrr are great, but not game-breaking stat boosts. You actually end up with more threat from T1 fighter.

My main issue with 18/2 PDK and PDK paladin in general is that you don't have access to sovereign host which gives you unyielding sovereignty. It's one of the best get-out-of-jail free cards in the game, and you can use it on your healer or another party member if the situation calls for it.
 
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PraetorPlato

Well-known member
Sarlona Raiding said:
I agree with you - I prefer 20 paladin over 18 paladin / 2 fighter. I've played both for extended periods primarily for R10 questing, but have no experience tanking mid or high skull current raids - so can't comment there.

If someone wants to play PDK for the low ap-cost cha to hit and damage with a bastard sword I wouldn't be too worried about losing the capstone. I don't think the heal proc ever happened. +2 cha, +2 con, 10 prr, 10 mrr are great, but not game-breaking stat boosts. You actually end up with more threat from T1 fighter.

My main issue with 18/2 PDK and PDK paladin in general is that you don't have access to sovereign host which gives you unyielding sovereignty. It's one of the best get-out-of-jail free cards in the game, and you can use it on your healer or another party member if the situation calls for it.
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The capstone is not bad—in raids below r5, it will keep you up if healer gets distracted for a while and you're in trouble. When I'm in content below r5 or so, I very rarely die with turn undead charges left, and they keep you from incapping.
 
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