-HC-Tank help

[Hercules]

Hi all great builders out there !

I could use some help from you, to decide in what to build for my next -HC- tank .
I am torn between:

• CoT - with half Guardinal, see build Lee's CoT
• CoT - with Thunderborn, see build here (but will go bastard sword/shield)Herc's CoT
• Barbarian - with half Guardinal, see build Twilight's Barbarian

Can you guys be of help here, adding pros /cons for those builds ?
I'll decide out of that. Thank you in advance.
(as I don't got Koly, theese are my options. with that race unlocked I would def go for a 32Barb/5WM/3Pally build)

~Herc

EDIT:

Can also do a BattleCleric out of Pharlan....Scyte 2 hand user.

[Raj]

wm/pally is inferior to harper/pally so don't cry too much over lack of koly tag

[Hercules]

elaborate please ?

[Raj]

What's to elaborate, 2 more Attacks are worth more than better crits, when you focus mostly crit immune guys, when it matters. Then obviously you can have funnier times in some LL runs or in weak parties critting things and not having to rely on harper boots, but wm is a bad splash for most tank types once you study logs.

[Yojimbo]

I would say I prefer Barbarians over CoT myself but I would say I like the look of the Dex w/ Monk splash CoT best of the two linked above. I don't know what subraces you have but I have a Half-Eladrin 2 Handed Rapier Pally and have seen the same idea done with CoT instead which is much stronger than Pally at least pre-Demi and pre-PLs and in Hell not sure how they would compare in Abyss.

[Deleted]

You have those BUR subraces in -HC- already?.. and i'd suggest the Barbarian.

[Torin]

For Barbarian, I would go 31 Barbarian 4 Fighter 5 Harper Scout and fit WS in. With Slipery soul, Leg. Slipery Soul, Leg will your saves will be fine. Make it STR-uni and fit DC/OO (Helbart) in.

Mish's Battle Cleric is also very nice and imho more interesting to play. I would adapt it and splash 4 Fighter (WS), 1 Paladin. Going 2 Hander on BC in -HC- could be a bit risky, though.

[desocupado]

Thunderborn storm lord (battle druid) would be very handy with the epics for a HC party.


Otherwise I'd avoid barbarian due no Con Modifier. Tough I'd take Paladin 35/ HS 5 over CoT almost any day.

[Raj]

Jan 9, 2014 20:33:30 GMT desocupado said:

Tough I'd take Paladin 35/ HS 5 over CoT almost any day.

And be wrong Btw, why 35/5 instead of 31/4/5? That's a horrible splash.

[desocupado]

35/5 can still be a smiter.

[Raj]

nah, not really

[Yojimbo]

Not enough so compared with 31/4/5 build and smites would only be significant portion of damage if you are CHA based and/or specifc areas where such damage and enemy grouping allow for it to be.

[Vichya]

Losing 5 smiter levels doesn't really matter a lot. The only thing a non-pure paladin loses is the ability to recharge the standard smites.

That being said I think any of the builds you listed work, but I would suggest not using the dex CoT for the simple reason that your AC will be sub-par when you're not a demi. In your build thread your CoT has 140 AC, but that's at double demi. As immortal you would have 7 less.

[Hercules]

Jan 10, 2014 7:46:51 GMT Vichya said:

That being said I think any of the builds you listed work, but I would suggest not using the dex CoT for the simple reason that your AC will be sub-par when you're not a demi. In your build thread your CoT has 140 AC, but that's at double demi. As immortal you would have 7 less.

this is correct Vichya, but he is also only lvl ~68-70 somewhere.
AC will increase further up to 80, but the AC drop you mentioned is static
What you you consider a acceptable AC for a dex tank, to make it worthwhile? >135 AC ?


Herc

[Vichya]

Don't get me wrong, 140 AC is fine. But you won't get that with a hardcore character. I'd try to get 135 or more at immortal for a dex tank. I think that excludes most monk splash tanks since they use demi iterations to get acceptable AC.