Greetings glorious adventurer! As the first wave of players are already facing the challenges in Verra, many will begin to realize how easier everything is when you have a tank in your party.
The Tank, besides the one who takes the damage, also provides debuffs which other archetypes can take advantage of. Quick examples – tank provides Staggered debuff and fighters can use their Crippling Blow to trip their target, which will lead to 20% more damage from Maim. Mages can benefit from the stagger effect as well – Aftershock is an improvement of Chain Lighting, which once hit a staggered target, will cause the attack to trigger twice. They are great support for any type of encounter, be it PVP or PVE.
In this guide, we will touch on how you can build your Tank, provide some insight based on gaming experience.
Disclaimer: this guide is designed around working in party/raid.
Skill Selection and Core Abilities
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As the leveling process goes on, everyone will encounter different challenges. For the tanks are these:
- Low damage output
- Running out of mana
- Lack of sufficient self-healing
- Holding aggro or getting enough aggro off a party member before they get killed.
The answer to the first 3 is rather easy – teammates! Having a group of friends will make your gaming experience in Ashes of Creation immensely more fun.
How to handle the 4th challenge?
Selecting the right skills from the skill tree is the answer. Here you can find a suggestion of skills for the early levels. We will touch on basic rotation as well.
Before we start, here is a quick example of what you can do as a tank. (no fancy weapons or armor; basic starting gear with common copper mace and shield)
Core abilities and how the skills can change your gaming experience
As you open your skill book for the first time, you will notice that there are icons with a huge white cross that indicate multiple options. Basically, the game asks you to choose between a single target ability or an AOE ability. The tanks have 3 of those choices to make, which can change the gaming experience greatly.
Pulverize or Desolate
Pulverize is the hardest hitting ability of the tanks – it will attack 1 enemy within 4m range. Essentially, that is a short gap closer with high damage output and threat generation.
Desolate will have the same attack animation. Instead of moving to a target within 4m range, it will do damage to everything within 4m range. Same threat generation.
In my build, based on my gaming experience in Ashes of Creation, so far, Pulverize proved to be most useful to my party. Especially in the case of someone “ninja” pulling – 300% threat generation on top of the 225% physical damage is a huge helper.
Tremoring Bellow or Tremoring Strike
Tremoring Bellow is an AOE ability that will apply Snare to every enemy hit in front of the tank.
Tremoring Strike is a single target ability, which will Trip your target – the enemy will fall on the ground. (Recommended for PVP)
I have selected Tremoring Bellow to help with maintaining the AOE aggro and the movements of the targets in front of me. AOE snare is massive assistance to the party when you are doing mass pulls. Also, the Rangers benefit from already snared targets – Bear Trap, Air Strike. The damage difference is not as great as it was with Pulverize and Desolate.
Tip: If you do not have a Fighter in your group (I have at least 1) and there is no one that can trip your enemy, you might consider swapping to Tremoring Strike for that and have Desolate instead of Pulverize to maintain AOE aggro.
Tip: Tremoring Bellow and Desolate with Punish work well together.
Shield Assault or Shield Slam
Shield Assault is a 7m shield charge which will stagger enemies in front of the tank. The movement is based on where your character is facing.
Shield Slam is a 10m shield charge towards your target.
Shield Assault costs more mana, charge distance is 3m less and does 25% less damage. However, the skill helps with the AOE aggro, which applies Staggered to the enemies in front, which the Fighters (Cataclysm) and Mages can benefit from.
The other core skills
After deciding on which of those abilities is best suited for your Ashes of Creation experience, it is time to combine them with the rest of the core skills.
Inciting Strikes – The main threat generation skill for both a single target and AOE. It hits everything in front of the tank.
Grapple – Single target pull. Amazing for pulling targets as an opening skill. Visually, it looks cool and everyone from your party can see which enemy you are planning to attack. In case of honest mistake or someone from your party, ninja pulls or over aggro a target – you can pull them back to you and keep your friend safe.
Fortify – Is your best damage mitigation ability. If used when your courage is at max (100/100), it will provide you with a 40% damage reduction for 20 seconds. Furthermore, it will help you with getting that courage back to max. You must have this.
Charge – This is a skill which can help you if you have to traverse distance in a very quick manner. Helps with kitting slow enemies and or to buy time for the healers to heal you up. Every enemy hit on the way will be staggered. Tip: can be used while swimming ;)
Taunt – This skill doesn’t immediately make the target attack you. It helps you build aggro and reduces damage done to anyone, but you with the debuff Humiliated.
Reflect – Increases your block mitigation for the duration of this ability. If an attack occurs within 3 seconds, you will reflect it back to the attacker. This ability generates threat as well.
Supernatural Grit – provides the same level of mitigation towards magic attacks as Grit does for physical attacks.
Rotation
To keep single target aggro – Inciting Strikes + Pulverize + Reflect + Auto Attacks.
To keep AOE aggro – Inciting Strikes + Tremoring Bellow + Shield Assault + Auto Attacks.
In case of ninja pull, wrong targeting or loosing aggro – Taunt and/or Grapple + Inciting Strike + Pulverize.
Maxing out single target damage output – Shield Slam/Shield Assault -> Tremoring Strike with the upgrade Forceful Tremors -> Ground Pound -> Pulverize with the upgrade Punish.
Cooldowns and situational abilities
Some insights/pointers to have in consideration when making your selection of skills if you want to deviate from the planned build:
Currently, the skill Wall is working. It is a cool looking ability, but doesn’t block any movements or projectiles from mobs.
Shake it Off is the only self-healing ability. 10% of your maximum health points, every 30 seconds. Compared to the damage taken per hit and the healing received, this skill is lacking.. Works well with Indomitable Spirit.
Indomitable Spirit is your second-best defensive skill. It is an ability with a 60 seconds cooldown and for 15 seconds you will have 30% more health points and you will receive 30% more healing from skills. Once you have unlocked it and you are more confident in your survival, you can combine it with Aegis.
Absorption Field is one of the ways you can protect your party in cases of not expected enemies or targets, which are having hard hitting aoe spells. 20% of your maximum health will be added to your party members who enter this field.
Rush of Courage will provide you with 100 courage. Usually, it is easy to build up courage. However there are and will be encounters in which you must engage with maxed out courage for mitigation purposes. This skill will help you in those scenarios.
After you have selected the defensive abilities, it is time to check on your offensive skills, again.
Intimidating Aura can help you with maintaining the AOE aggro and with staggering enemies. Thanks to this ability, you can get back to the Tremoring Bellow and Tremoring Strike options. If the AOE snare is no longer needed, you can change it for the trip effect. The same thing is valid for the choice between Shield Assault and Shield Slam.
When Intimidating Aura and Ground Pound are both selected, Tremoring Strike becomes even more valuable.
Aegis and Protect are skills which can help you save party member(s) or get you killed. In PVE there are better solutions – DPS should attack the tank’s target, should not pull if not asked/needed. Best is to leave the pulling to the tanks. The initial threat is important since it may take time to catch up with the aggro. In PVP, these 2 skills can help your healers survive longer.
Tomahawk on it is own is not exactly desired skill. With the upgrade (Tomahawk Trip), it becomes valid option in PVP.
Stamina Skill Tree
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These choices are straight forward as Tank. First, Improve your blocking:
- Less stamina consumption when blocking
- 30% less time in which you will be CC’ed.
- 25% increased effectiveness of your blocks
For the second tree to level up, I have chosen to improve the sprinting. Currently, the stamina cost of rolling can’t be justified, compared to the benefits and stamina cost when blocking.
Melee Weapon
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We can choose between 2 types of melee weapons for tanking – 1hand Mace and 1hand Sword.
Both of them are valid options. Base your decision on the needs of your party and the enemy you are facing. Main difference – Swords swing faster, Maces have higher damage per swing.
1hand mace can provide Stagger (might become overkill) or Daze (increase enemy’s casting time)
1hand sword can provide Bleed (overal more damage done), Snare (slow) or Wound (reduce healing).
Range Weapon
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Tanks can use range weapons next to melee to help with pulling from distance or provide different debuff, which our main weapon can’t. If you have picked 1hand mace, the bow can provide wound. If you have picked 1hand sword, the bow can provide stagger
Tip: Even if you have Bow out to use for auto attacking, you can still benefit from the shield’s blocking potential when you press your block keybind.
Gearing in Ashes of Creation
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Disclaimer: The process is slow! All items which are displayed below are obtainable. Armor and weapons mainly drop in various POIs. Recipes are dropping as well, therefor you can obtain higher rarity if you get high enough crafting skill and have the necessary materials. You can start working on those items as soon as you hit level 10
Side note: I have chosen the rarity level to be “Rare” since I have, and I have seen drops of that rarity, as well as being a realistically crafted rarity. Personally, I am focusing on Jewelcrafting and have the recipes for the selected items. Those items are on the “low end” of what is available.
Once you reach level 16-17, It is recommended to start visiting Citadel of the Steel Bloom in order to acquire the next tier of armor – Rosarium Guard.
Stats
What kind of stats should you be looking for if you are a tank and you want to perform well?
- Constitution – increases the maximum health points, armor, physical critical avoidance rating
- Strength – increases physical power rating, physical accuracy rating, physical penetration rating
- Mentality – increases magical resis, magical critical avoidance rating, max mana
Stick to those 3 if you have hard time acquiring the items mentioned above. Here is why:
- Constitution will help you against physical damage and will increase your health pool.
- Strength will help you with holding the aggro and will increase the damage against other players as well as the chance to hit them.
- Mentality will help you with the mana pool and will reduce the incoming magical damage from PVE and PVP.
Final Thoughts
Planning and reality
After the initial planned abilities, I had to deviate a little. I didn’t change the skills, but rather the order in which I picked them on the journey to level 10. That is based on the encounters and the number of people in my party and their archetypes. Meaning: to stay on top of your game, you should try to be as flexible as possible with the current needs of your party.
I had to pick up the Charge ability before others, since I have found my mobility lacking.
Tip: Currently, you can re-spec for free. Also, you can right click (within game) to deselect chosen skill and pick another.
Can I you have fun with this archetype?
Yes! This archetype is for those who want to mitigate incoming damage for party/raid members, support allies by debuffing enemies or shielding friends, obstruct enemy attacks and movement.
Tank archetype is perfect for those who want to be neck deep into the action!
