just wondering if arcane warriors are viable tanks
he is actually ment for magical tanking,u get to wear massive armor plus some magical abilites and buffs that warriors dont have,i'd say he's a great tank and i dont think he's meant for anything else
so long story short: HELL YEAH
Absolutely. I'm playing as one right now. She wears chainmail, opens with an AoE to soften everyone up, wades into the thick of battle with either Alistair or Shale, and uses mind blast, shock, cone of cold, and flame blast a lot. The only issue is that the heavier the armor the less mana you have, so if you're going to wear massive armor, you'll need to rely on the sword a lot at lower levels, which means putting some points into dexterity for attacks. My character is still pretty clumsy with the sword; I think she misses about a fourth of her strikes. With the chainmail and some mana regeneration items I can rely on the cone spells for most of the fight, using the sword only sparingly while things recharge. She works great for keeping the hostility off of the archers and/or other mages. QueenCaryatid 04:01, March 7, 2010 (UTC)
Not to mention that arcane warriors are capable of achieving higher survivability as a tank via the highest resistances and armor score out of any class (and highest defence second to dex rogues)... Lufos 04:46, March 7, 2010 (UTC)
What about their Crowd Control? they don't have any Taunt or Threaten skill :S
Fycan [fahy-kan] @ 07:05, March 7, 2010 (UTC)
- I beg to differ. AW is overpowered to the extreme (to the point of being unplayable, if you ask me), that's true. But none of the activities described by other posters in this thread really qualify as tanking. Tanking is not about survivability. Well, it is, in a sense, but that's tangential to what really makes a tank -- reliable threat management. AW is actually above average in this department, but ultimately inferior to tanking Reaver builds. In fact, Tanking: An Alternative Approach that I've written a while ago still showcases my thoughts on the subject adequately. IN 07:12, March 7, 2010 (UTC)
- P. S.: Fycan addresses the same issue, I believe. IN 07:14, March 7, 2010 (UTC)
- I know, IN. I was talking about a side perk not the act of tanking itself. Lufos 17:52, March 7, 2010 (UTC)
Every AW I have made has easily been able to outgenerate threat over my companions; sometimes regardless of taunt and threaten. That being said, I have not yet tried your alternate tanking build, but if I have an AW acting as a tank I am managing the threat of my other companions fine without a warrior. The question was, can they be used as a viable TANK? The answer, in my experience, is yes(precisely because of the over-powered factor mentioned before.. Though I would change the definition to 'game-breaking' because over-powered implies high-dps and not all AW builds have high dps; while a pure Blood Mage build, made correctly, can easily out dps many AWs unless the AWs abuse potions constantly to manage their high fatigue. Mages in-general are over-powered. AW are better described as game-breaking or near invincible).
As to crowd control, what I believe you mean, Fycan, is THREAT MANAGEMENT. Crowd control is defined as talents/spells that disable, hinder, or control enemies in order to keep control of the situation when faced against superior numbers. Spells that stun, knock down, paralyze, freeze, etc make any mage superior at "crowd control" than other classes; provided they spend the points to learn them. Threat generating skills can be considered crowd control but they are hardly the only kind of crowd control.
Lufos 17:52, March 7, 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to update my article on one point: Reaver's Aura of Pain + Blood Frenzy combo has a great potential of keeping Reaver's health low enough to maintain threat regardless of other party members' damage output: 20% health means the AI will ignore higher threat targets (50% chance); 10% health means the AI will ignore them 90% of the time. I thought of an interesting method to make these low health values both easy to attain and reliable enough once reached. IN 19:56, March 7, 2010 (UTC)
- (One comment.. You know the game mechanics better than I do so correct me if I'm wrong. I just wanted to note that in certain situations this might be a bad idea. Recently on nightmare mode, my entire party was stunned by a genlock forgemaster; who then proceeded to one hit KO Alistair (my tank) with arrow of slaying (on a side note that was the first time I've ever really seen that do anything on nightmare mode...). Dunno if the high dex in your build will nullify the chances that a freak attack like arrow of slaying from a higher level mob will hit you or not (surely minimize the chances). Just thought it was worth mentioning for your consideration. Alistair only went down because his health was below 50% and I could not heal him(therein lies the relevance of this comment). Lufos 20:22, March 7, 2010 (UTC))