Glancing Tank
Rednose submitted some interesting builds to share. These builds have not been group tested, but they all received extensive solo testing in the Egypt areas of the game (Q7-Q9 content).
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I used this build for solo-play in Egypt during the last few days of the beta. I used fitting weapons and talismans(QL7), but you actually might be a little hard pressed to unlock all skills that I use here by the time you reach the desert. This build provided me with a VERY high survivability, while still doing great damage, especially to groups. It mainly uses sword skills and then several passives that synergize well with penetrating hits.
I feel like this was my best build during my time in Egypt. In almost all cases where I didn’t succeed with other builds, I succeeded with this.
Weapons: Sword, Elemental Magic(only used for 1 skill, you can use whatever you want as 2nd weapon
Talismans: I used DPS equipment, but I feel like you shouldn’t go lower than 3.5k hp with this in the desert. I had around 4k most of the time.
Glyphs: High defense(important) and penetration values are most useful for this build.
Triggers/Mechanisms: Being glanced, Affliction, Penetration, PBAoE Damage
Active Skills:
1. Blade Torrent/Bamboo Cutter: Resource builder, they are basically the same skill with Blade Torrent creating more hate/agro. Triggers affliction together with “Shoot ‘Em Up”
2. Clearing the path: sword consumer, penetrates afflicted targets
3. Matador: builder for strong single targets, buffs defense rating, thus increasing the chance of glancing hits on yourself
4. 2nd weapon consumer, e.g. Lightning Manifestation: elemental consumer; 10 chain attacks with decent damage. Last 10 seconds with 15 second cooldown. It’s a cast and forget skill, which fits the rest of this build very well. You can use whatever consumer you want for your 2nd weapon here.
5. Martial Discipline: increase the chance for glance hits and self heal together with “Regeneration”
6. Utility slot: I either used Steel Echo for extra damage or Point of Harmony for extra self-heal(30% of your max health over 3 seconds)
7. The Art of War (Elite): PBAoE, aggros mobs, impairs for a short time, forces glancing hits
Passive Skills:
2. Shoot ‘Em Up(AR Skill): triggers affliction when using Frenzy abilities, aka skill no 1. This is essential, because you need affliction to always trigger penetration on clearing the path. You can usePerfect Storm here to cause the affliction, it’s just not as strong damage-wise(and thus you have to use Blade Torrent as builder)
3. Riposte: deals damage to any target that glances you
4. Salt in the wound(Fists skill): small amount of extra damage when causing affliction
5. Sudden Return: medium extra damage on penetrate
6. Arterial Pulse(Blood skill): small extra AoE damage on penetrate
7. Regeneration: self-heal when using Martial DisciplineUsage: this build is geared towards taking on groups of up to 5, or more if you feel confident and have gotten a feel for this build.
Start off with alternating Blade Torrent/Bamboo Cutter and Clearing the path until you can use Lightning Manifestation. Blade Torrent or Bamboo Cutter will cause Affliction to up to 5 targets around you due toShoot ‘Em Up, which will consequently trigger a small amount of extra damage due to Salt in the Wounds. After that Clearing the Path will always penetrate up to 5 targets around you, because they are afflicted. This penetration will cause a decent amount of extra damage with Sudden Return and a small amount of AoE damage around every penetrated target with Arterial Pulse.
Lightning Manifestation lasts 10 seconds and does a chain attack in a 10m radius every second for decent extra damage.
Once you lost 25-30% of your hp, use Martial Discipline to recover some hp and start up the defensive mechanism of this build. It increases the chance that enemy attacks only glance. Every glanced hit on you causes damage back to the attacker with Riposte and brings you closer to triggering Sixth Sense.
Use The Art of War to start off the fight, if you feel you’re facing a strong group or generally if you need a breather. It will cause damage reduction(guaranteed glancing hits), decent PBAoE damage and a very short impair, while having a short cooldown for an elite skill. Thanks to the impair, it can even be used as interrupt.
Matador is used as builder on strong single enemies to buff your defense rating.
Use your Utility skill whenever needed. Point of Harmony is the defensive option, while Steel Echo is supposed to give a decent amount of extra damage on every attack for 10 seconds. I didn’t check if it actually triggered on every hit of the PBAoE hits or only on 1 target per PBAoE.
For even more defense you could add Immortal Spirit for a small self-HoT, which triggers on penetrating hits, instead of Arterial Pulse
Most fights looked like this:
1,2,1,2,4, click(to place the manifestation), 1,2,5 and so on
Against stronger opponents:
1. Sword basics(Blade Torrent, Martial Discipline, Regeneration, Perfect Storm, Immortal Spirit) – 38 points
2. Cleaning the path (and thus Bamboo Cutter and Sudden Return, too) – 85 points
5. The Art of War – 169 points
With this, the build should already be playable pretty well for 519 points
6. Salt in the wound – 47 points
7. Lightning Manifestation – 75 points
8. Arterial Pulse – 59 points
9. Shoot ‘Em Up – 96 points
10. Steel Echo – 119 points
This build is just phenomenal. At least the parts I’ve tested. haven’t had to use all the actives yet as none of my opponents lasted long enough to even need the heal components. This includes the Black Pharaoh. Either I had lots of health remaining or I got hit with the “OK now the script says you have to die to continue the fight” attack.
Can’t wait to see how this works once I get all the weapons/talismans/glyphs up to spec.
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I don’t understand why do you use Bamboo Cutter instead of Blade Torrent, BT also benefit of Shoot’Em’Up and generate more aggro than Bamboo Cutter.
Could you explane this ?
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I mean, Blade Torrent+Shoot’Em’Up seems to deal the same amount of damage than Bamboo Cutter+Shoot’Em’Up but with more aggro.
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Rednose would have to answer this directly and I don’t think he’s playing atm.
His guides were largely built for soloing and I have avoided labeling this build as a full-on tank build for the reasons you outline. I am certain it does not carry the threat generation load out you would want in a tanking build.
It’s probably best to assume this is a high mitigation oriented survival build.
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Thanks to your answer, now it’s more clear for me.
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