Best tank char?

[ChromaticOnion]

I'm wondering what is the best char to make as a tank. barb or werebear druid?
If I had to guess it would be a barb with max shout, ironskin and battle orders.
But what weapon to use? Sword/shield? or a maul and lots of vit?
should I use concentrate or whirlwind?

Any and all advice will be welcomed

[Brista]

BO Barb, max block, imo

[kier]

Barb with max bo, max iron skin, max WW (can travel through barriers such as bone walls, etc, without having to destroy them first), max weap mastery (depending on what weap you choose for him to use), a point in increased speed and any remaining points in shout.

For kit, I'd get him a nice shield with max block, a meaty 1 handed weapon, damage reduce gear and life leech gear with a tiny bit of mana leech for keeping your mana high.

Stat wise, make sure he has enough dex to use his kit, don't put any points in mana, and spread the other points in vitality and strength.

[TheDragoon]

With a liberal use of Shockwave, a Werebear is easily the best tank in the game. The monsters stand there stunned and so NO ONE in the party is getting attacked. :) Then you add in the Werebear's health of 3000-4000 life and its boost to defense (though this doesn't help quite as much as it could) and you've got yourself one big scary tank.

[ryan4nayr]

I think the barb's Natural Resistance makes it a slightly better tank, esp. when tanking the likes of big D & big M, when the usual tanking mercs just plain melt. It can use War Cry as a poor subsitute for Shockwave if stun is needed, but Concentrate is uninterruptible anyway. Taunt the ranged monsters to get their attention.

It's a fun build, my friends love my Tankeryan.

[Vash]

Warcry is indeed a powerful skill. It's seldom used by the populace of B.net...but that's because they don't realize how incredibly cheesy it is! My sword/shield Berserk barb uses warcry all the time.

But after reading over the stun times for the Werebear's shockwave...I'm going to have to say that the Werebear is the better (read: cheesier) tank. :lol:

[ryan4nayr]

they don't realize how incredibly cheesy it is!  My sword/shield Berserk barb uses warcry all the time.

But after reading over the stun times for the Werebear's shockwave...I'm going to have to say that the Werebear is the better (read: cheesier) tank.   :lol:

Vash got me thinkin'... What's better than 1 cheesy tank? TWO cheesy tanks... anybody know if War Cry & Shockwave stun durations stack?

Then there's also Oak Sage + Battle Orders. :D Crikey. It'd make the entire party walking... somethings.

[Brista]

But after reading over the stun times for the Werebear's shockwave...

This skill does not perform as advertised. Multiply by 0.4 to get the real times which are unaffected by difficulty

[Occhidiangela]

Add a touch of Cyclone Armor to absorb elemental damage. Depending on how you equip him for Pure tanking the Werebear can get some damage absord and lots of resistances and -MDR -DR. With the immense HP bonus, DR bonus, and the ability to toss a Minion Grizzly around to 'distract' the foe, and Shockwave, I'd have to call the Druid the better Tank.

Maxing the Barb's defense and HP by maxing

Concentrate
Iron Skin
Shout
BO
A few points in Natural resist
Uber Armor Class
Shield(Pick what to socket with and why)

You certainly do get a hell of a tank. The way I see it, the Tanking function involves both absorbing damage and avoiding attacks to the party in the first place. I'd say the combination of Shockwave and Grizzly makes the WereBear Druid the slightly bettter tank. Equipment now becomes the driving variable.

YMMV. :)

Another excellent tank is a Javelin/Shield Amazon whose avoid and dodged are maxed. She rarely gets hit, and needs easily arranged resists and maybe some absorb to take care of elemental attackers. Toss in the Decoy and Valk about to make the attackers choose targets.

Best Tank Versus Diablo and Meph?

IMO, a Paladin with max resists (Easy to do with 4PD shield), Hotspurs, and a little absord/-MDR/-DR for good measure. Toss in a dwarf star and a ravenfrost and thundergod's belt . . . and I think you could stand there all day with even modest leach against either.

[gekko]

Consider also a tankazon -- while you probably won't kill as quickly in most areas (barring a high level lightning fury), the tanking abilities of this gal are at least on par with the barb or bear. Sure, you'll never have the life or physical damage capabilities, but the D/A/E skill tree gives you the ability to avoid, if you really pump them, more than half the attacks that get by your shield block. In most cases, that is FAR superior to the higher defence a barb or druid will have.

Add to that the valk and decoy skills; sure, they're not directly "tanking" skills, but used properly they'll take easily half or three quarters of the heat off you -- and if that doesn't help you tank, what will?

gekko

<<edit: missed that occhi already mentioned the tankazon completely. I must be going blind.>>

[ghost70]

I'm wondering what is the best char to make as a tank. barb or werebear druid?

They are both great tanks, but as far as absorbing damage and holding of monsters goes, I don't think any character can beat a necromancer. Bone wall, prison, dim vision, decrepify, confusion, terror, and an army of revives probably make him one of the best tanks in the game. Except versus bosses... one red lightning hose can take down a screen full of revives suprisingly quickly.

[Gandalf_teh_White]

I was just thinking about posting a joke about a necromancer tank :P . Although many minons combined life is alot of life and makes a good meat shield for those melee attackers they aren't good for running through packs and getting to the otherside of that clogged cow portal ;) .

By the way which golem has the largest life possiblity and what is it (without BO and Oak Sage)? :lol: Another question, how many total minions of lag can that necro control? 91?

[pbrain]

My vote is for the barb over a druid for a party "safety" tank.

I tend to embed my tanks into mobs and get surrounded (more critters beating on me, the less beating on the party), so I prefer WarCry's lower range but 360 degree protection to Shockwave.

Druids have no AI manipulating skills, so I have to give some points to the barb here for sheer fun. Anything that's ignoring my juicy looking barb can be Taunted into warcry range. If things get really hairy, Grim Ward (or Howl if you're high enough level) can come out (sadly, rarely ever needed in LoD though). Taunt has the added benefit of setting mobs up nicely for area attacks from party members.

Barbs have a more reliable method of disabling bosses/champions. I'll trust Bash to pin a fanatic+cursed moon lord over Maul's unreliable stunning ability vs bosses. WarCry+Bash means any boss pack is neutered. Actually any melee physical damage is essentially neutered.

Barbs are also more mobile and able to aid a lagging party member, with leap attack and frenzy if you go that route. With high enough shout and a defiance merc, you can make party members say "what the heck happened?! why is my DR 9k?" Enough to make a difference in case something gets through to swing at 'em.

Barbs can also dual wield lightsabres, negating conviction mlebs. Through in a Ravenfrost or two, a Rising Sun and WarCry and you're pretty much invincible.

That said, a Werebear can make a dandy tank too. I've just found I have more options with a barb over a werebear and enjoy the lunkheaded tanks over the furry tanks, but to each his own :D

[kier]

I wouldn't dismiss necs, I have a summoner who took out a pvp sorc. Granted, I had 55 Skellies and 5 revives, but the sorc had level 42 nova/ts and a good few points in ice orb, but those 60 summons lagged her for long enough to kill her in 2 seconds.

The problem is the nec (and ama) is a survivor, hard to kill. But by the definition of tank on Diablo, it is a char who stands in the thick of it using melee attacks to kill as many as possible. Or a name I would call my tank char would be "CannonFodder" :P

[BD_Mfwic]

Since we are on the topic of tanks,

what is everyone's opinion on the skills and stats for such a build for both a Barb and Druid?

BD_Mfwic

[AtomicKitKat]

I've been tossing around a few tank druids, but can never seem to get past the mental boredom that is levels 12-24. :P I'm not sure if I should get him the str/dex for that unique baba sword(Patriarch? Grandpa?) which adds 25% to max life. O_o It's just too bad the werebear skill doesn't add more life(base +100% would be nice :D) But I THINK Maxed Lycanthropy+Oak Sage(Permanent life BO! Or at least till it dies, lol.) should be able to trump the baba.

As far as "generic" equipment goes, I'm guessing a whole load of armour with the "+5% to max hp" mod rune should do it. If the requirements for that 2H sword I mentioned above is too large, a shield socketed with the rune above(is it the same in shields?) plus a sword with decent elemental/+HP runes will do the trick... Last I heard, someone on these boards reached or broke 10k in HP using a werebear... I wonder if we should make a "high score table" for those with high HP WBs. :D Maybe make each one link to a screenshot of the character screen? :) No "cheating" by standing in a BC/BO, of course. ;) Oh, and no Oak Sage(simply because the aura can hide the baba shouts) :)

*mini rant*I still wish they'd turn the arrow around on Lycanthropy, making it a requirement for WW/WB, instead of making WW a requirement for Lycanthropy(a name change to "shape-shifting" would be nice as well...) Plus, they could then have shifted the WB to level 1, allowing room for an additional skill... There's also life regen items, which I think could do with a boost. Maybe make them restore X% of base life per second(where X is the total number of life regen points you have. So a Civerb's Icon for example, restores 4HP/sec at 100 HP) I guess that might be a LITTLE too powerful, maybe(currently, the +4 regen from CI would restore 1 HP/2s regardless of max hp) But it would certainly add to the usefulness of Life Regen, beyond about 200 HP. Oh well, too late for all that now...*mini rant*

[Occhidiangela]

I was thinking last night that the fastest team, two person, would probably be a Necromancer and a Sorceress.

Necromancer has Lower Resists. Bone Walls and Prisons to channel monster into kill zones.

Sorceress use Meteor or Firewall, and either Orb or Static . Or CB

In any case, the LR will reduce imimunities, no one is safe, all monsters get dispatched in groups.

[Kevin]

I really think the zon is going to take this over in 1.10 if things stay like they are in the beta. Completely avoiding damage seems to be the way to go since you can't count on leaching it back anymore.

The zons passives allow her to dodge/avoid magic based attacks quite well now. I've seen mine and my wife's dodging away when lightning bolts and bone spirits and oblivion knight blobls and charged bolts come flying our way. The ability to avoid lots of damage, get big blocking without a lot of issue, and have a decent defense rating as well, just makes it seem like a well built zon is going to be able to just stand up there blocking and dodging away, and she has a away to avoid elemental and ranged attacks which are much more of a worry in 1.10 that no other character has. It even allows her to be pretty good with average equipment, though of course she would really shine with good gear.

Of course with the new tk bonus to energy shield, a vulpine warrior sorc might do pretty well too, but that is a very equipment dependent tank.

[AtomicKitKat]

Don't forget Inferno. Inferno is now a superb 60 point skill(Warmth+FM+Inferno, NO PREREQS!)

Slvl 20 Inferno=203-220 damage/s
Slvl 20 Warmth=100%+258% Mana regen/+240% damage to Inferno
Slvl 20 FireMas=+163% damage to Inferno

End result: Inferno Damage=100+240+163=503%

Slvl 20 in all=1021.09 to 1106.6 damage/s

For every +1 fireskills, add about 11-12 points of damage to base inferno damage, and add 19% to the total bonus damage.

Assuming "just" a LEAF runeworded staff(preferrably with +3 FM, I'm still looking for one...),

+6 to all 3 skills

Inferno Base damage=269-292 d/s
Warmth bonus=312% damage bonus
FM=205% damage bonus

Final damage=1659.73 to 1801.64 d/s

Unless warmth and FM actually multiply off each other, in which case, the damage would be even higher. *drools*

[Dagni]

I tried out a uber-gear vulpine Energy Shield sorceress. She was amazing! :D

I'd already read about the huge help given from Telekinesis, but what I didn't realize is that the % absorb from ES gets much, much higher than before. Indeed, even at high levels every point in the skill gives at least +1% to the absorb, until it maxes out at 95% absorb at slvl 40! Combined with 50% damage reduction, that's 1/40th of normal damage!

Obviously if you go all the way to 95% vulpine items are of almost no help, but it would be a viable strategy if combined with items of +%mana. Also, with buyable mana potions giving mana back at a much faster rate than the rate for health potions, and high Warmth, damage can heal exceptionally fast.

But I wanted to try out the vulpine gear, so I lowered the +skills down to get a slvl 24 ES with "only" 78% absorb. With 185% damage to mana, and with the help of high warmth, my mana ball wasn't lowering even a single drop. And with 50% damage reduction and max resists I was only taking 11% damage from physical attacks, and even less from elemental (except for poison, which ES doesn't work against).

I don't know that this type of Sorc would compare all that well to a well-equipped Werebear or Barbarian as a pure tank, but it sure was amazing compared with what ES used to be able to do.

- Dagni