Rank the tanks?

[goobyplz]

Just wondering what everyone thinks the best tank classes by rank are. Tanks are pretty much berserker, fighter, paladin and ranger, since they have d10+ hp and all the heavy armor. Plz note, I am not interested in a dps that can tank, I want the tankiest tanky boy, and then maybe you can consider damage too, or other utilities.

Granted, I don't know so much about tanking in DnD and its hard to guess what berserker and paladin will be like since they arent out yet, but just tell me what you think the best ones are by tabletop DnD standards are and we can go from there.

[RealDealBreaker]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Jiren, The Strongest:

Am I the only one who is aware of the Compelled Duel spell, which forces an enemy to attack your character? It's a Paladin spell. You know what else Paladins can do? There's one subclass that has a taunt as his channel divinity, basically a divinity version of compelled duel.

Ya'll just not play Paladin or what? Paladin also has shield and heavy armor proficiency with defense fighting style, base AC of 21, plus Shield of Faith for AC 23. They have D10 hit die and often max Con as high as possible.

I dont know why you included Ranger as a tank but then precluded Cleric who literally has healing and a heavy armor subclass.

But, personally, I would build a full caster with plate armor. Best way to do that is Cleric, but you can use feats to get even a wizard or sorcerer to have plate armor, but a d6 hit die is pretty bad. So, Cleric is pretty much the best, but people who are furries will like the wildshape tanking of Druids because its actually pretty damn powerful.

So, in my opinion, the best tanks aren't anything you mentioned, its Cleric and Druid. But, if you NEED to have a taunt ability, then your only option is Oath of the Crown Paladin, who gets Compelled Duel and Command at level 3 as first level spells. Command you can say "Fight me" or just "Duel" if your dm is a jerk. Oath of the Crown has Champions Call which forces enemies to be unable to move away from you, meaning the only creature they can really target is you, and thats how the DM should rule it as thats the RAI of the ability. People will argue its not a true taunt, but DnD isnt about true taunting, and you wanted the closest thing to a tank, so there you go, Oath of the Crown Paladin is the closest thing to a tank you can get. However, you might find the lack of spells rough as Paladins dont get as many or as powerful spells as Clerics, so, you might do Forge Domain Cleric so that you have heavy armor, if you made an elf or dwarf you'll start off with a weapon proficiency so you can choose to fight with weapons if magic isnt your thing, get Green Flame Blade with a feat or some other method and you'll be able to use your weapon and cantrip at the same time while having plate armor as a full caster thats capable of healing and spamming taunt spells like compelled duel which you'll have to grab with a feat or some other method.

If your DM is cool you could ask to use Protection Domain cleric who gets Compelled Duel as part of his subclass, and gets heavy armor too. And his abilities are more about defending others, you'd need a feat or a couple levels in Paladin if you wanted to grab Protection Fighting Style to allow you to use a shield to defend your allies as a reaction, but I'm not sure what cleric could get shield proficiencies, but if you took 2 levels in Paladin and the rest levels in the Cleric Domain of your choice, you'd have heavy armor, martial weapons, shields, protection magic, taunting, and full casting.

Unfortunately none of this is in BG3 yet. Currently there is absolutely nothing you can do in BG3 to be a tank other than maxing Con with a Fighter and hoping for the best, but honestly that still leaves you with a mere 19 AC at best and the AI wont even bother attacking you at that point so, you'd be like a reverse tank as you'd just be directing enemies to al lyour squishy allies since the AI refuses to fight anyone with high ac. Command is also not great in this game so far but can be used to stun multiple enemies, but since you can't roll stats (Without cheat ;) ) you wont be able to get a very high spell save DC so enemies will very often beat your spells every single time.

Literally 2 posts before you another user comments on how compelled duel is a poor use of resources (i.e., that user clearly knows the spell exists) and on the first page of the thread compelled duel is mentioned multiple times. So no, you aren't the only one who knows of the spell, but you are one of the people that doesn't read a thread before posting.

[Indure]

I would say the best overall tanks in EA currently are moon druid and light cleric. Moon druid due to insane HP and CC/support, light cleric due to warding flare and strong support.

I think if you wanted to use cheese and gimmicks you could probably make a stronger build with warlock and wizard though.

[Egro]

Best tank have always been totem warrior plus druid's bear form. Load and load of HP and stupidly high res on everything. Though I'm not sure if multi-class is a thing in this game.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Egro:

Best tank have always been totem warrior plus druid's bear form. Load and load of HP and stupidly high res on everything. Though I'm not sure if multi-class is a thing in this game.

I can't wait to test them, and of course that's a great combo...but I wonder which hold up better, that or Bear Totem Barb + Bladesinger?

[goobyplz]

I think I am set on bear barb and pally, ty everyone who didnt derail thread

[psibot]

I'll leave the term tank discussion and where DnD is heading aside

What is best tank anyway most HP(+HP conservation/regen) + Aggro it can hold?

As pointed out AI goes for lowest AC that is visible for it so you either throw summons in first or manage visibility via hide or spells like mirror image better choose stuff not to spell based since you eventually run out of that.

Also I find HP overrated since without appropriate saves they become quickly meaningless in higher levels.

This typically pushes you to classes that have high base saves and you start combining these with shield mastery, evasion to avoid brute spells ala fireball while still having to fend of con and will saves for against e.g. charm, finger of death and alike.

How this exactly fits in is personal perferace IMO.

I like survive-ability and high damage so I like to combine evasion/high saves with sneak attacks and as many extra attacks and dmg dice I can get. This works well with many high magic stuff but is not strong against immunity to sneak attack or high damage reduction monsters.
At this point its handy to have a 2h fallback plan which doesn't have tobe perfect in my xp.

my 2 cent

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von psibot:

I like survive-ability and high damage so I like to combine evasion/high saves with sneak attacks and as many extra attacks and dmg dice I can get. This works well with many high magic stuff but is not strong against immunity to sneak attack or high damage reduction monsters.

So do I, but that's not a tank. A tank has to take hits, so that other's don't.

The best tank in BG3 (due to AI chasing lowest AC) should have AC exactly 1 lower than the next lowest party member and as many hp and temp hp and damage reduction as possible.

This is why most people land on the Barb/Druid, because Barb gives you the highest hit die and damage reduction against everything but psychic (Bear Totem). Moon Druid adds Wildshapes (polar bear) which act as another hp battery, and you can even heal up using spell slots with lunar mend. With a low ac (I think bear has 12 or something, and with unarmored defense you're only going to get max 20 ac if you have maxed out both Con and Dex, which currently isn't even possible) you are bound to get hit far more often than anyone else.

It probably is the best tank option (once muliclass becomes available), but I'm really curious to see if the Druid levels could be replaced by Bladesinger (if Larian adds this subclass) due to Song of Defense, which lets you spend a spell slot as a reaction to reduce an incoming attack by 5x the spell slot's level (and then reduce it further with resistance). The Barb-Bladesinger will have better damage reduction, but the Barb-Druid will have a higher health pool due to Wildshapes.

Which one is better? We need to test them to find out!

[Egro]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von psibot:

I'll leave the term tank discussion and where DnD is heading aside

What is best tank anyway most HP(+HP conservation/regen) + Aggro it can hold?

As pointed out AI goes for lowest AC that is visible for it so you either throw summons in first or manage visibility via hide or spells like mirror image better choose stuff not to spell based since you eventually run out of that.

Also I find HP overrated since without appropriate saves they become quickly meaningless in higher levels.

This typically pushes you to classes that have high base saves and you start combining these with shield mastery, evasion to avoid brute spells ala fireball while still having to fend of con and will saves for against e.g. charm, finger of death and alike.

How this exactly fits in is personal perferace IMO.

I like survive-ability and high damage so I like to combine evasion/high saves with sneak attacks and as many extra attacks and dmg dice I can get. This works well with many high magic stuff but is not strong against immunity to sneak attack or high damage reduction monsters.
At this point its handy to have a 2h fallback plan which doesn't have tobe perfect in my xp.

my 2 cent

You are describing a glass cannon who have to compensate their low HP with high survivability. A tank in D&D mean someone with high AC and a large HP pool(and other stuffs), these are the guy who lock an ancient dragon in a melee to allow a rouge to backstab it. Because of the frankly stupid AC concept in D&D them tank rarely take any damages, but when they do they will survive. Beside Tanks in D&D hit like a truck, these guy are not your WoW tanks.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Egro:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von psibot:

I'll leave the term tank discussion and where DnD is heading aside

What is best tank anyway most HP(+HP conservation/regen) + Aggro it can hold?

As pointed out AI goes for lowest AC that is visible for it so you either throw summons in first or manage visibility via hide or spells like mirror image better choose stuff not to spell based since you eventually run out of that.

Also I find HP overrated since without appropriate saves they become quickly meaningless in higher levels.

This typically pushes you to classes that have high base saves and you start combining these with shield mastery, evasion to avoid brute spells ala fireball while still having to fend of con and will saves for against e.g. charm, finger of death and alike.

How this exactly fits in is personal perferace IMO.

I like survive-ability and high damage so I like to combine evasion/high saves with sneak attacks and as many extra attacks and dmg dice I can get. This works well with many high magic stuff but is not strong against immunity to sneak attack or high damage reduction monsters.
At this point its handy to have a 2h fallback plan which doesn't have tobe perfect in my xp.

my 2 cent

A tank in D&D mean someone with high AC and a large HP pool(and other stuffs),

The issue with this, in BG3, is that enemies will try and avoid the characters with the highest AC (or best save rolls if they're casting a spell or using an attack that requires a save), so the best tank is actually the one that has exactly 1 lower AC than the next lowest member of the party (whatever that actually happens to be, even casters can achieve really high AC in BG3) and a lot of hp and damage reduction. Essentially, having a low AC IS how you TAUNT the enemy to attack you.

[guard65]

I prefer my tank to be fighter with protection using shield and sword. Resilience is key.

In combat my as long as my druid and rogue stick right next to him all enemy attacks are disadvantaged. Plus you get flanking bonuses fighting side by side. Not so good with aoe but you have to take all three down or else if any of the three drop in combat the unit next to it will give it a hand up so no one actually dies.

[goobyplz]

You nubs tryina say agro makes tanks lost it. Theres no point gaining agro if you can't take the hit. Its the ability to take the hit part that makes the tank.

So I'll tell ya what ima do. My groups gonna consist of barb, pally, cleric, and bard. Cleric and bard will use shield and armor to have the second highest AC. Pally will be the first. Barb will have the lowest AC with no armor, but since he has the highest HP, and the ability to pop a rage (ing b****) he will be taking half damage any time he needs to so he will tank just fine and get all the agro with his low AC. Pally will pull all other agro with that ability to keep people from moving away from him. Cleric and bard can AOE hordes and barb and pally can solo tank the rest. Let's just see how they implement the classes.

[dolby]

depands on the playthough and who will be The Mc... druid or cleric i guess the rule is not a caster not in party. ill have to wait and see if we have multiclassing, that would change things..

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AOC Karen Smollett:

You nubs tryina say agro makes tanks lost it. Theres no point gaining agro if you can't take the hit. Its the ability to take the hit part that makes the tank.

So I'll tell ya what ima do. My groups gonna consist of barb, pally, cleric, and bard. Cleric and bard will use shield and armor to have the second highest AC. Pally will be the first. Barb will have the lowest AC with no armor, but since he has the highest HP, and the ability to pop a rage (ing b****) he will be taking half damage any time he needs to so he will tank just fine and get all the agro with his low AC. Pally will pull all other agro with that ability to keep people from moving away from him. Cleric and bard can AOE hordes and barb and pally can solo tank the rest. Let's just see how they implement the classes.

That sounds about right.

Make the Barb a Druid Bear-Barian multi for the wildshapes, and give your Pally polearm mastery and sentinel for AOO anything that gets too close or tries to run for your backline and you've got yourself a solid wall of get-the-hell-outta-here with a divine backup battery and someone to sing about it.

[Egro]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von pandariuskairos:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Egro:

A tank in D&D mean someone with high AC and a large HP pool(and other stuffs),

The issue with this, in BG3, is that enemies will try and avoid the characters with the highest AC (or best save rolls if they're casting a spell or using an attack that requires a save), so the best tank is actually the one that has exactly 1 lower AC than the next lowest member of the party (whatever that actually happens to be, even casters can achieve really high AC in BG3) and a lot of hp and damage reduction. Essentially, having a low AC IS how you TAUNT the enemy to attack you.

That's why BG3 combat is super easy. My highest AC dude will just rush their damage dealers uncontested, while my damage dealers will just drawn their melee away and pepper them with attacks from range. Larian really need to work on their AI, lol..

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Egro:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von pandariuskairos:

The issue with this, in BG3, is that enemies will try and avoid the characters with the highest AC (or best save rolls if they're casting a spell or using an attack that requires a save), so the best tank is actually the one that has exactly 1 lower AC than the next lowest member of the party (whatever that actually happens to be, even casters can achieve really high AC in BG3) and a lot of hp and damage reduction. Essentially, having a low AC IS how you TAUNT the enemy to attack you.

That's why BG3 combat is super easy. My highest AC dude will just rush their damage dealers uncontested, while my damage dealers will just drawn their melee away and pepper them with attacks from range. Larian really need to work on their AI, lol.. :wowshehe:

Sure, that's one way to do it for sure...but it's not "tanking".