Post by Vichya on Dec 27, 2010 8:56:08 GMT
The purpose of this build is to be a capable dexterity based tank who can still do a lot of damage.
Since the introduction of the Abyss dexterity tanks had some sort of revival. They were previously frowned upon since their damage output was - in general - worse than strength tanks and universal tanks were common enough to tank the occasional Malebranche. This is no longer possible in the Abyss since a few mobs have extremely high ability checks, for example Goristros (DC 60 Strength) or Balors (DC 60 Dexterity).
One possiblity of increasing the damage output is to be a Lash of Hatred. Not only does the vulnerability infliction benefit your damage output, it does the same for the entire party. Another possibility is to take Harper Scout levels and use the Boots of the Wanderer which give you two more attacks per round for 5 minutes twice per rest.
Goals of this build:
(Assuming 2x demi and using robes)
Abilities:
Assist Other (Player Tool 2):
Pick up any player who is knocked down, even if you're about to activate UUU. It can save precious time and prevent the death of a party member.
Improved Disarm & Improved Knockdown:
As a Lash of Hatred you get those two feats once you obtain your quasi status at level 22. Although you most likely won't be able to use them on mobs like Pit Fiends, Malebranche or Balors there are still surpisingly many mobs where one of these two abilities is useful. Orthons and Dogais for example can be easily disarmed and Rachugons can be knockdowned easily.
Divine Might & Divine Shield:
With 34 Charisma Divine Might & Shield lasts 216 seconds, about 3.5 minutes. Always use Divine Might since the +12 physical damage boost is one of the reasons your damage output will be superior to many other dex tanks. Divine Shield is a bit more problematic, on the one hand you get +12 dodge AC which can come in quite handy if you die on a deep hell run - especially if you use the normal Harper Scout boots. You also get 12% divine immunity which. On the other hand you'll cause kickback damage when certain mobs hit you. However, with high AC and concealment this is usually not a real issue.
Boots of the Wanderer:
Apart from 25% elemental immunity the Boots of the Wanderer give two extra attacker per round for 5 minutes twice per rest. The downside of using these boots is their low dodge armor class bonus. But with Divine Shield this is no big deal. Using a Crucible of Moliation on the boots also helps.
Craft Harper Item:
You can use this feat once per rest. Doing so pops up a dialog where you can select the potions you want to craft. Two potions are especially useful: Shadow Shield and Greater Restoration. Shadow Shield gives you 100% negative immunity and more importantly full immunity to necromancy spells. This blocks Wail of the Banshee and also Horrid Wiltings, e.g. when fighting Mordu-that-Was in Aboleth. Greater Restoration potions work like heal potions except that they also restore, i.e. you lose all temporary negative effects such as inflictions. That makes them extremely useful when fighting mobs like Ichors for example.
Spells:
Blackguards don't have many good spells unfortunately. The ones you'll use often are
Level 1:
Bless Weapon for adding +1 die of divine damage.
Frost Weapon for adding +3 dice of cold damage.
Hint: These two spells are the only reason for recommending to take extend spell. You don't have enough level 1 spell slots to cover both of them for the entire party so memorize one of them as an extended spell.
Both the cold and divine buff are not as powerful as possible. A non-quasi divine tank can give +2 dice of divine damage and a Cleric or Blackguard with at least 26 class levels can give +4 dice of cold damage.
Level 3:
Greater Magic Weapon
Level 4:
Death Ward for runs like Elysium where it can be used to protect from certain lethal attacks.
Freedom of Movement
The only two spells you'll use from your Ranger spell book are:
Level 1:
Camouflage
Hint: Keep in mind that your Camouflage is not as good as the one from a pure Lash of Hatred, Ranger or Druid. If any of those classes are in your party ask them for a Mass Camouflage in order to get 5% more concealment.
Level 3:
Bladethirst
Equipment:
Randomized items make it impossible to give an optimal gear combination. So I'll just give a few hints what to use and let you figure our your personal favorite gear setup.
At all times you should cover physical damage reduction and physical, elemantal and exotic resistance. Additional immunities everyone should have are: Freedom, Death Magic, Mind Spells, Fear, Poison. Most of these are required at a certain stage in the game, such as fear immunity in Hell or Immunity to Death Magic in Illithids. Damage Immunity is less important until you play in end game areas.
At level 40 you should ideally have 15/+10 damage reduction, 15-20 physical resistance, 20-30 elemental resistance and 10-15 exotic resistance.
In order to achieve an armor class of 140 or more you'll need to make use of your high dexterity modifier. Since it is capped by armor and shield you'll have to use robes and a small shield to make it work. Good Beyond Ultra-Rare robes are Bulwark of the Choralist for its physical resistance, Panoply of Lliira for its immunities or and Robes of the Dim Mak Master for the elemental resistance, poison immunity and listen bonus. Out of these the Robes of the Dim Mak Master are probably the best pick. This build also relies on a Visor of Vigilance for Epic Skill Focus Listen and Defensive Awareness II. Exotic resistance can be covered with The Serpent's Coil or the Coil of Grabduk. Physical resistance and damage reduction comes in a nice package in the form of the Ygrette's Evanescent Locket amulet.
The equipment I currently use is:
Armor: Robes of the Dim Mak Master
Shield: Spirit Ward
Helm: Visor of Vigilance
Cloak: Cloak of the Unjust
Belt: The Serpent's Coil
Gloves: Manacles of Mephistopheles
Amulet: Ygrette's Evanescent Locket
Boots: Moliated Boots of the Wanderer
Mote: Mote of Skillful Stealth
Useful items:
Gist of Undead: Immunity to Critical Hits is sometimes very valuable, for example when fighting an enemy with devestating criticals like Quimath or Molydei.
Source of Shadows: Epic Dodge can further reduce the number of times you're hit per round at the cost of less immunities.
Sparten: Large shield that is immune to slagging.
How-to play this build in Nessus:
Out of all Hell runs Nessus is in a way the hardest for this build. The reason for this are Ichors. They slag metal gear with a Discipline check of DC 130 - 6*(Base AC of your armor), i.e. 130 for someone using robes. In other words you auto-fail this check if you aren't buffed with Greater Restoration. Robes or light armor can't be slagged like whips, but any shields can be slagged. There are a couple of options how to tank Ichors with a dex tank: rely on a cleric's GR, switch shield to Sparten, completely change gear setup to light armor and Rampart of the Pact Primeval, or use Bonding Resin potions from Hive, which grant slag immunity for 5 minutes.
In the Coil the easiest solution is probably to switch to Sparten if you see Ichors. You will lose a lot of AC that way so try to get rid of Ichors fast so you can switch back to some small shield. You should try to acquire some Bonding Resin potions and use them, at least for the initial spawn.
Run Logs: (Character name is Myraelle)
Nessus
Elysium
Thanatos 2 & 3
Azzagrat 3
History:
2010-12-27: inital post
2010-12-27: added suggested favoured enemies (thanks to maljin), note for creating this character from scratch, Boots of the Wanderer and craft harper items
2010-12-28: changed feat list (moved Cleave to pre-epic feats, thanks to nofix)
2011-01-07: changed feat list (moved Divine Might & Shield to legendary levels, thanks to louisvilleslugger)
2011-01-22: added an immortal version of this build
2011-01-23: updated my current equipment
2011-04-25: added a section about Nessus
2011-05-06: added run logs
2012-05-14: added paragon feats
Since the introduction of the Abyss dexterity tanks had some sort of revival. They were previously frowned upon since their damage output was - in general - worse than strength tanks and universal tanks were common enough to tank the occasional Malebranche. This is no longer possible in the Abyss since a few mobs have extremely high ability checks, for example Goristros (DC 60 Strength) or Balors (DC 60 Dexterity).
One possiblity of increasing the damage output is to be a Lash of Hatred. Not only does the vulnerability infliction benefit your damage output, it does the same for the entire party. Another possibility is to take Harper Scout levels and use the Boots of the Wanderer which give you two more attacks per round for 5 minutes twice per rest.
Goals of this build:
(Assuming 2x demi and using robes)
- Dexterity tank with enough Strength to make some ability checks in Hell and Abyss (60 Dex, 44 Str)
- High AC and concealment (140 AC and 60% concealment from Camouflage)
- High saves (65 Fortitude/Reflex/Will)
- Relative high damage output
Optimized for | Level 60, Immortal | Level 60, 2x Demi |
Build | Ranger 12/Blackguard 23/Harper Scout 5 | Ranger 12/Blackguard 23/Harper Scout 5 |
Race/Subrace | Half-Elf (+1 skill point per level, immunity to sleep effects) Half-Guardinal (Evasion) | Half-Elf (+1 skill point per level, immunity to sleep effects) Half-Guardinal (Evasion) |
Level order | Ranger 12, Blackguard 10 first to qualify for Lash of Hatred. Be sure to take the Harper Scout levels in epic levels to be able to select Greater Dexterity feats. | Ranger 12, Blackguard 10 first to qualify for Lash of Hatred. Be sure to take the Harper Scout levels in epic levels to be able to select Greater Dexterity feats. |
Abilities at character creation (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha) | 12, 14, 12, 14, 14, 12 | 14, 15, 12, 14, 12, 10 |
Pre-epic and epic ability progression | Dexterity 10 | Dexterity 10 |
Legendary level ability progression | Dexterity 10 | Dexterity 10 |
Pre-epic feats | Blooded Power Attack Cleave Weapon Proficiency - Exotic Weapon Focus - Whip Weapon Finesse Improved Critical - Whip | Blooded Power Attack Cleave Weapon Proficiency - Exotic Weapon Focus - Whip Weapon Finesse Improved Critical - Whip |
Epic feats | Alertness Iron Will Metamagic - Extend Spell Divine Might Divine Shield Great Dexterity I Great Dexterity II | Alertness Iron Will Greater Weapon Focus - Whip Metamagic - Extend Spell Great Dexterity I Great Dexterity II Great Dexterity III |
Blackguard bonus feats | Epic Weapon Focus - Whip Epic Prowess Armor Skin Epic Toughness | Epic Weapon Focus - Whip Epic Prowess Armor Skin Epic Toughness |
Harper Scout bonus feats | Great Dexterity III Great Dexterity IV | Great Dexterity IV Great Dexterity V |
Legendary level feats | Legendary Weapon Focus - Whip Legendary Skill Affinity - Tumble Legendary Skill Affinity - Listen Great Dexterity V Great Dexterity VI Great Dexterity VII Great Dexterity VIII | Legendary Weapon Focus - Whip Legendary Skill Affinity - Tumble Legendary Skill Affinity - Listen Divine Might Divine Shield Great Dexterity VI Great Dexterity VII |
Paragon level feats | Paragon Weapon Focus - Whip Paragon Anchoring Paragon Inherent Waterbreathing Legendary Disarm Paragon Disarm | |
Favoured Enemies | Outsiders - most Hell, Elysium and Abyss mobs Abberations - Aboleths, some Elysium and Abyss mobs Shapechangers - Rakshasas and a few Abyss mobs (Ekolids) | Outsiders - most Hell, Elysium and Abyss mobs Abberations - Aboleths, some Elysium and Abyss mobs Shapechangers - Rakshasas and a few Abyss mobs (Ekolids) |
Tome | Enchantment | Enchantment |
Artifact | Several artifact can be useful for this build including: The Orb of Dragonkind for poison immunity, Hand of Vecna for stun immunity or The Eye of Vecna for confusion immunity. | Several artifact can be useful for this build including: The Orb of Dragonkind for poison immunity, Hand of Vecna for stun immunity or The Eye of Vecna for confusion immunity. |
Pandect | ||
Abilities (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha) | 34, 60, 26, 30, 28, 32 | 40, 64, 30, 34, 30, 34 |
Skills | Concentration 31 Craft Armor 25 Craft Weapon 25 Discipline 63 Hide 63 (you can take Hide as a class skill in legendary levels as a Blackguard) Parry 63 Listen 63 Tumble 60 Lore 6 (take this on a Ranger level) Persuade 8 (take this on a Blackguard level) Search 4 (take this on a Ranger level) | Concentration 31 Craft Armor 25 Craft Weapon 25 Discipline 63 Hide 63 (you can take Hide as a class skill in legendary levels as a Blackguard) Parry 63 Listen 63 Tumble 60 Lore 6 (take this on a Ranger level) Persuade 8 (take this on a Blackguard level) Search 4 (take this on a Ranger level) |
AB | 98 | 101 |
AC | 136 | 141 |
Saves (Fort, Ref, Will) | 68, 77, 61 | 71, 80, 63 |
Abilities:
Assist Other (Player Tool 2):
Pick up any player who is knocked down, even if you're about to activate UUU. It can save precious time and prevent the death of a party member.
Improved Disarm & Improved Knockdown:
As a Lash of Hatred you get those two feats once you obtain your quasi status at level 22. Although you most likely won't be able to use them on mobs like Pit Fiends, Malebranche or Balors there are still surpisingly many mobs where one of these two abilities is useful. Orthons and Dogais for example can be easily disarmed and Rachugons can be knockdowned easily.
Divine Might & Divine Shield:
With 34 Charisma Divine Might & Shield lasts 216 seconds, about 3.5 minutes. Always use Divine Might since the +12 physical damage boost is one of the reasons your damage output will be superior to many other dex tanks. Divine Shield is a bit more problematic, on the one hand you get +12 dodge AC which can come in quite handy if you die on a deep hell run - especially if you use the normal Harper Scout boots. You also get 12% divine immunity which. On the other hand you'll cause kickback damage when certain mobs hit you. However, with high AC and concealment this is usually not a real issue.
Boots of the Wanderer:
Apart from 25% elemental immunity the Boots of the Wanderer give two extra attacker per round for 5 minutes twice per rest. The downside of using these boots is their low dodge armor class bonus. But with Divine Shield this is no big deal. Using a Crucible of Moliation on the boots also helps.
Craft Harper Item:
You can use this feat once per rest. Doing so pops up a dialog where you can select the potions you want to craft. Two potions are especially useful: Shadow Shield and Greater Restoration. Shadow Shield gives you 100% negative immunity and more importantly full immunity to necromancy spells. This blocks Wail of the Banshee and also Horrid Wiltings, e.g. when fighting Mordu-that-Was in Aboleth. Greater Restoration potions work like heal potions except that they also restore, i.e. you lose all temporary negative effects such as inflictions. That makes them extremely useful when fighting mobs like Ichors for example.
Spells:
Blackguards don't have many good spells unfortunately. The ones you'll use often are
Level 1:
Bless Weapon for adding +1 die of divine damage.
Frost Weapon for adding +3 dice of cold damage.
Hint: These two spells are the only reason for recommending to take extend spell. You don't have enough level 1 spell slots to cover both of them for the entire party so memorize one of them as an extended spell.
Both the cold and divine buff are not as powerful as possible. A non-quasi divine tank can give +2 dice of divine damage and a Cleric or Blackguard with at least 26 class levels can give +4 dice of cold damage.
Level 3:
Greater Magic Weapon
Level 4:
Death Ward for runs like Elysium where it can be used to protect from certain lethal attacks.
Freedom of Movement
The only two spells you'll use from your Ranger spell book are:
Level 1:
Camouflage
Hint: Keep in mind that your Camouflage is not as good as the one from a pure Lash of Hatred, Ranger or Druid. If any of those classes are in your party ask them for a Mass Camouflage in order to get 5% more concealment.
Level 3:
Bladethirst
Equipment:
Randomized items make it impossible to give an optimal gear combination. So I'll just give a few hints what to use and let you figure our your personal favorite gear setup.
At all times you should cover physical damage reduction and physical, elemantal and exotic resistance. Additional immunities everyone should have are: Freedom, Death Magic, Mind Spells, Fear, Poison. Most of these are required at a certain stage in the game, such as fear immunity in Hell or Immunity to Death Magic in Illithids. Damage Immunity is less important until you play in end game areas.
At level 40 you should ideally have 15/+10 damage reduction, 15-20 physical resistance, 20-30 elemental resistance and 10-15 exotic resistance.
In order to achieve an armor class of 140 or more you'll need to make use of your high dexterity modifier. Since it is capped by armor and shield you'll have to use robes and a small shield to make it work. Good Beyond Ultra-Rare robes are Bulwark of the Choralist for its physical resistance, Panoply of Lliira for its immunities or and Robes of the Dim Mak Master for the elemental resistance, poison immunity and listen bonus. Out of these the Robes of the Dim Mak Master are probably the best pick. This build also relies on a Visor of Vigilance for Epic Skill Focus Listen and Defensive Awareness II. Exotic resistance can be covered with The Serpent's Coil or the Coil of Grabduk. Physical resistance and damage reduction comes in a nice package in the form of the Ygrette's Evanescent Locket amulet.
The equipment I currently use is:
Armor: Robes of the Dim Mak Master
Shield: Spirit Ward
Helm: Visor of Vigilance
Cloak: Cloak of the Unjust
Belt: The Serpent's Coil
Gloves: Manacles of Mephistopheles
Amulet: Ygrette's Evanescent Locket
Boots: Moliated Boots of the Wanderer
Mote: Mote of Skillful Stealth
Useful items:
Gist of Undead: Immunity to Critical Hits is sometimes very valuable, for example when fighting an enemy with devestating criticals like Quimath or Molydei.
Source of Shadows: Epic Dodge can further reduce the number of times you're hit per round at the cost of less immunities.
Sparten: Large shield that is immune to slagging.
How-to play this build in Nessus:
Out of all Hell runs Nessus is in a way the hardest for this build. The reason for this are Ichors. They slag metal gear with a Discipline check of DC 130 - 6*(Base AC of your armor), i.e. 130 for someone using robes. In other words you auto-fail this check if you aren't buffed with Greater Restoration. Robes or light armor can't be slagged like whips, but any shields can be slagged. There are a couple of options how to tank Ichors with a dex tank: rely on a cleric's GR, switch shield to Sparten, completely change gear setup to light armor and Rampart of the Pact Primeval, or use Bonding Resin potions from Hive, which grant slag immunity for 5 minutes.
In the Coil the easiest solution is probably to switch to Sparten if you see Ichors. You will lose a lot of AC that way so try to get rid of Ichors fast so you can switch back to some small shield. You should try to acquire some Bonding Resin potions and use them, at least for the initial spawn.
Run Logs: (Character name is Myraelle)
Nessus
Elysium
Thanatos 2 & 3
Azzagrat 3
History:
2010-12-27: inital post
2010-12-27: added suggested favoured enemies (thanks to maljin), note for creating this character from scratch, Boots of the Wanderer and craft harper items
2010-12-28: changed feat list (moved Cleave to pre-epic feats, thanks to nofix)
2011-01-07: changed feat list (moved Divine Might & Shield to legendary levels, thanks to louisvilleslugger)
2011-01-22: added an immortal version of this build
2011-01-23: updated my current equipment
2011-04-25: added a section about Nessus
2011-05-06: added run logs
2012-05-14: added paragon feats