So with the early access being confirmed theses past days I was pondering if a pure tank in this game has utility (considering PVE). I read many posts in the forum but none of them really helped me in my future decisions (I’ve never played the game before). So if you guys could help me with some questions I would be really grateful.
Utility: is a tank really useful to a party in grinding and dungeons? Will it be required for end game content?
Aggro: for what I could get the only way for there are two basic ways for a swordsman get agro: using swash buckling (SW) and the swordsman own attribute provoke. Bearing this in mind, Pelt is a must for a pure tank. The thing is how much I should invest into Pelt, most builds I saw got only C1 some got C2, but what about C3 where you can hold up to 21 targets using SW, wouldn’t that be better overall for a tank, or there are few situations where you can actually hold that much mobs.
Damage mitigation: it looks like there are few skills, which can be used to help mitigate the damage received, all the skills I have seen in swordsman tree just increase some of the stats, increasing either block or evade. So, I’m guessing one should build a tank around these status either increasing block by increasing CON (I saw somewhere that CON increases block) or increasing DEX for a high evade attribute. As for magical damage there’s slithering (but it could be a bug) or a high CON (meat shield). The thing is: which you think should be more useful in the long run?
With what I know I came up with two builds, wjich I would like some feedback:
1 – sword > pelt > hop C3 > pelt > dragoon – CON 2 – STR 1, accuracy gained by items (if needed), would focus solely in block. High Guard 5 so I could use it as a defensive cd.
2 – sword > pelt C2 > rod C2 > fencer C2 – CON 2 – DEX 1 –STR 1 or CON 1 – DEX 1 –STR 1, since I would go fencer evade seems a better attribute mixture between block and evade, rod C2 solely for slithering (since it’s the only way to mitigate magic damage).