Gogo's damage..

[Cotopaxi]

..sucks.

Question is, should I bother doing anything about it?

She's a vaul sword n board tank, with spare points shoved into khaine and I've grabbed sapping strike (at the expense of the rank 4 morale, although I do wonder if I should change that too).

Currently running in the lakes she's got just over 3k armour, 9k wounds and toughness is about 450. Strength is about 270 & weapon skill is just over 300.

She's just got rr35, so conq gear isn't miles away really if I play her. Her realm skills again are mainly focused on toughness and wounds. I was wondering about increasing her initiative tho (200 atm).

I want to spec for the lakes/scens mostly for now.

I can obviously increase strength and weaponskill, but at the cost of wounds and toughness tali's.

My job in the lakes appears to be to stay at the front, popping group mitigation skills, cc, and hold the line. In scens, she gets a high amount of kills but rarely gets deathblows and her damage is bloody dreadful. Shame it doesn't show how much punishment she absorbs :D

So, from a guild premade point of view, should I just accept the low damage or try to get the best of all worlds?

Here's her build at the mo (http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=17#5:32:15:10784:0:0:25:503:819:904 3:9069::::9056:611:610:613) (obviously her tactics get swapped about a bit for other duties)

..and here's her renown skills. (http://www.wardb.com/renown.aspx?id=17#::f4df11af3cf30:)

[konfuzfanten]

This will be a short answer, but I cant sleep as my WAR world knowledge was shaken in its foundation tonight. After playing the game for 1 ½ year I just learn (and tested in both pve and pvp) that guard don’t stack. Ofc a character with 2 guards will always have a guard within range, but still…well back to your question Coto:


Coto tanks are like healers, most ppl will first miss them when they aint there. Most SM S&B tank will more or less be guard-bots in sc’s. You can go for "Crashing wave[CW]" OR "whispering wind[WW]" for added group support. If you combine CW with an AM with instance rez tactic you can then instance rez any player without the AM getting stunned. I cant tell you how many sc’s that have been saved by our SM popping CW and me rezing+groupheal.

Back on azgal I fought a premade that utilized 2 WLs, 2 SM and 2 healers. The 2 SM speced for WW and rotated it so the WLs always had Lions fury on instance cast, no CD. We never found a way to combat that premade. Ofc getting hit by +2000 spirit dmg pr GCD from each WL is hard to stop.

With that said you will still be a guard-bot as a S&B SM.

I havnt had the most experience with 2-hander guard tanks in premade. But I don’t mind the extra dmg from the 2-hander tanks. Ofc you need to be in good gear to run with a 2-hander and not be a liability.

Moral:
You should use Raze as M2 because of the problems with the Z-axe in Wings of heaven.

EDIT:
Your tactics could be better, i would use this build:
http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=17#0:0:13:8744:7:128:25:503:9050:90 64:9070::::9056:607:610:613
BUT im not a SM player so some of the guild SMs may have a better spec/setup.

[Icevixen]

I use a similar build to what Konfuz posted except, I got PoH instead of calming winds. I never felt the effect of having so high disrupt in the lakes versus bomb groups so I removed it, htl really disrupts enough. I deliberately got PoH so I can get into perfect balance with it and WoH but that build will need a few more renown ranks to complete. If you don't pve much anyway, you can get redirected force much later, I got crushing advance before redirected force.

My stats in annihilator/conqueror:

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/4821/leinara018.th.jpg (http://img19.imageshack.us/i/leinara018.jpg/)

I only got initiative, weapon skill/strength, some toughness and eventually block with renown points. I should try to respec to get more armor for pve though, if I want to tank LV/VL. But thanks to better gear, I run with almost 500 toughness even with 2h.

In scenarios whether in 2h or sns now, I just run with perfect defenses, vaul's buffer, potent enchantment and ensorcelled agony. My damage is still crap compared to others because I'm a single target hero except when I use WoH every few mins. With a premade though and you don't have to try to dish out damage for your group to kill something, slot rugged for more mitigation.

http://www.war-europe.com/#/realmwarcharacter/?realmwar=CharacterInfo.war&lang=en (To search for my character to see what gear I have, at first I thought it was a direct link to that. =/)

Stats did get a lot better when I got Invader damage-wise, for tanking Darkpromise is still best with the ini/toughness/wounds set bonus and I slot strength on all or wounds except for my chest I put 1 +23 toughness so I'd run minimum with 500.

[Cotopaxi]

Thats great, thanks both. I think things are pretty much fine then.

Hmm vauls buffer, there was a reason I took it...abs 600 dam over 10 secs...ahem. *clears throat* I'm sure there *was* a reason..

It wasn't like I was having trouble mitigating or absorbing damage, I just wondered about the damage as I was doing 7-10k in scens last night.

With regard to the rank 2 morale, I've got shield wall equipped. Saves my ass when there's focus fire around. 10 seconds of full block...yum.

Hehe yes indeed they miss us when we're not around - I reckon that's why we're so short of them, it's a thankless job pretty much, but it can be fun to play even without any big numbers. :D

[Kabane]

not had any experiance using a SM tbh but like ive said a few times tanks are not there to deal dammage,
IMO you should be there for CC and protecting what ever class uve been assigned too.
i played as a tank for 10+ years in a premde grp in Doac my kills were very low and my dammage output again low, but i did my job and because of that our premade was one of the most experanced and effective grp out there, ofc im compairing two differnt games but the funimentals are the same.

[Polemides]

i agree with Kabane completely, especially having a Armsman all the way through DAoC. tanking is a usually thankless task, and usally a far cry from the "glory boys" BWs and zippy casters.

2H is a huge drain on healers without proper gear, while we could argue about the silliness of a S&B SM in the warhammer universe, the point is that they do have a good degree of survivability, and can function as guards and the indispensable "Hold the Line" in a warband setting.

I've spoken about SMs and Vaul/Hoeth before, and I've said I'm from the Khaine/Hoeth tree. CW is great, but you have to waste quite a bit up the Vaul tree to get it. is it worth it? 20s cooldown? well that will be up to you. ww, the same, very nice, but if you grab it, again, you'll be up one tree.

so between the trees....
Khaine: Ether Dance (massive damage) cooldown: 8s
Vaul: Crashing Wave (fantastic group benefit) cooldown: 20s
Hoeth: Wihispering winds (silence, and ability cooldown for 4s) cooldown: 20s

all depends on how you want to play :)

[konfuzfanten]

Coto you really don’t have to worry about your dmg, you could do 500 dmg in a sc and still have contributed more to the win then the top "death blow’er". The single most important thing a tank can do is "floating" the guard, to who ever are getting focused. This is really the main job of the tank, getting the guard on the right person before they go down.

[Cotopaxi]

Coto you really don’t have to worry about your dmg, you could do 500 dmg in a sc and still have contributed more to the win then the top "death blow’er". The single most important thing a tank can do is "floating" the guard, to who ever are getting focused. This is really the main job of the tank, getting the guard on the right person before they go down.

Yup no worries mate, as I said a bit earlier in the thread, all good. Was just worrying that I'd gone too far with the tanky bits and not far enough with strength or weaponskill. I'm happy now, and it's pretty much as I'd thought, but there's nothing wrong with checking.

As it is, I don't mind the shield-bot job at all. I played a warrior in wow, so I'm used to all the work and none of the thanks from teh dps l33t =D

[Prelate]

Ice, please resize picture. It's too big.

[ToryBasher]

Holy moly! Guard does not stack !!!

HTL still stacks up to three time though i hope?

btw, i rarely kill anything, i think like Katane says thats to be exepcted from a S&B tank.

[Icevixen]

Hahaha sorry I don't know how to maybe I should've put the thumbnail instead.

You're right and damage isn't something that tanks actually have to do but there are sc's I solo queue for and we were like 5 tanks and a shadow warrior no healer in party, we won (not many sorcs). It would've been funny probably if we were all SnS in full defensive not killing anything but takes some time to die with no heals we eventually still do. :D

You can deal decent damage as SM though if you wanted to since our dot tactics rock and they're there whatever spec you choose. I have 2 sets anyhow 1 is for tanking and 1 is my normal set. There's that and the choice of pots/liniments you use.

When you're of course guarding a sole healer in the scenario for example, you totally hardly do damage since you need to stick beside them like glue and wait for the witch elf to pop or only really get action when destros get close. Guarding mdps is more fun (bombing bws are mdps and you get more death blows ^^). :D

Crappy as it might be it's why we get less renown too since apparently you still get more renown dealing more damage per kill.

But normally in SnS I still have around 500 strength before any buff/pots and full invader gives +5% damage. I love crashing wave since I prefer it to silence, what does silence do to witch elves or choppas anyhow? For a class with so little CC I'll take what I can get.

I took a screenshot to remind me how nice it is to cross-guard too and in this one we had no healer in party.
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/4034/leinara011.th.jpg (http://img695.imageshack.us/i/leinara011.jpg/)

[Prelate]

First of all, I'm no expert in tanking, I've only dabled a bit with rank 30 something SM to get to know basics of tanking stuff. What I've seen though is that SM can hit really high at dps and killingblows in scenarios, but should you go for dps is entirely another thing. Anyways I think swordmaster is one of the underrated classes in game for no reason. Really solid in tanking and extremely usefull in "support" tanking in scenarios.

I mean lets say you have premade with Sn'B Knight guarding bombing BW, swordmaster can go for 2 hander even in full toughness tanking spec and still guard/assist melee dps and add totall dps of the group. It may be not much in overall dps, but every little bit ads up realy nicely if you spam attacks like wrath of hoeth, phoenix's wing and crashing wave with nature's blade on and mayde add few dot tactics on top of that. That way you will costantly buff your own group while debuffing enemy. And of course as some has mentioned before, for being more offencive tank in group you should go for morale 2 raze. If it is combined and timed with for ex. WP penance and WH reversal of fortune group can do really nasty moral aoe burst every 60 seconds.

And yes, renown suck many times on tank compared on other archtypes. Guard really should contibute on heal/dps.

Oh, almost forgot. Well it's of course matter of opinion, but I think getting wounds on renown points is not very cost effective. You get only 18 wounds with 12 renown points (10 points for 30 initiave, or with 14 points 42 toughness more) there and 180 hitpoints it's not that much for tank. But as I said, matter of opinion.

[Polemides]

RE: 2H SMs

I have ful INV and most of the DP armour and 2H tanking is only now becoming really viable. I'll switch to 2H fully only when I get 100% Tyrant (only 2 pieces now ::sob)

2H in scens you can absolutely crank out the dps. Snowy will finish near the top in kills and dps ONLY IF there's a good healer behind to keep them up (thx Prelate, Zaf, Avica, and the others!!!!!). 2H tanking in scens without a reliable guildie healer is an exercise in futility.

Max on parry, slot IR, look for the ToVL talis (+4% parry!)and between keeping Eagles Flight and the occasional WODS fire, you can really do well, especially with the aforementioned DOTs (PE with Natures Blade for example). Renown, I buy toughness, str, parry, and yes, some init to make sure I keep my crit chance low.

Finally, as Prelate says, when 2H throw some guard love towards any DPS'er nearby (WH, SW, WL, but NOT Slayer -it's a one way trip to the grave with those deathseekers :p )

[Peavey]

Talking about DPS and having played with some very well respected Swordmasters, all I can say is damn they really do some great deal of dps!

I never underrate SM, despite all the complains we manage to find some strategic use of SM in a specific set of warband comp. Hence, if I were to complete my personal War collection of tanks I would very much like to have an SM. I should get that collector's edition so that I can have the blindfolded 2H SM :D

Knight's damage on the other hand... At least it is being recognized by the EU class lead to be lacking...therefore the damage mechanic on some attacks is expected to be changed thus bringing it to closer parity to that of Chosen's :D Hopefully it'll get through to Mythic lulz...

@Prelate: I did not know you have an SM!

[Prelate]

What I don't have you don't need.. :) I think SM was first toon I ever made. That or BW. I quit on them though quite soon and went on destro side though. Later I ranked them up a bit (like most my order toons) to see what makes them tick and how you can kill them.