What do you think is the best combination for Sword/Board?

[DalekRek]

Apparently Death Knight isnt as good as I thought it would be for a sword/board melee tank (or so Ive been told multiple times) so what do you guys think is the best second class to gow with Soldier for that playstyle?

[Matthew]

It is kind of funny, because people generally don't like battle mage as much and I've heard similar things about death knights, but all the other soldier combos are pretty godly. Commandos, witchblades, warders, and blademasters are among some of the best builds in the entire game.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

didn't warder use to be pretty neat that way?
or (piercing) blademaster?
witchblade?
commando?

those are some of the pre expansion builds i remember seeing some build posts about a bunch
never followed them/any myself, but they sure seemed neat
(personally i tend to go around sword 'n board builds in most games myself, so didn't try these out, but appeared highly favoured)

[DalekRek]

Originally posted by Matthew:

It is kind of funny, because people generally don't like battle mage as much and I've heard similar things about death knights, but all the other soldier combos are pretty godly. Commandos, witchblades, warders, and blademasters are among some of the best builds in the entire game.

Yeah I havent really gotten a proper explanation for why the build doesnt work. In theory it seems solid, sword and board damage focusing on Soldier skills with a few things grabbed from Necro like life leech damage to supplement the Soldier's strengths, but people tell me it sucks

[Matthew]

I have heard it is more to do with items. A lot of the items which would provide some sort of synergy and boosts give even more support to something like Shaman or Occultist, so players end up feeling like "why am I even playing Soldier when I could have just gone Shaman or Occultist?"

I haven't looked into it much yet myself. I always figured with the plethora of phys ~> other damage conversion gear and skills made the Soldier mastery flexible and could brute force just about any build. But it is my second to least played mastery and I don't pretend to be an expert on it :/

[KG]

Battlemage might be doing better this patch with the Krieg and Spellscourge sets + other support.

I've done some theorycrafting with Spellscourge but I'm not happy with the results - the character was immortal (95% Overguard uptime with 100% block recovery, 65% chance to block, 5k+ blocked damage) but kinda slow for mythical gear and 2 or 3 uber/perfect MIs. I'll let that simmer on the backburner a bit and maybe look at Krieg next.


For some reason I've never paid as much attention to serious tanks as I am post-expansion. Funny that.

[DalekRek]

Looking at Death Knight again, the build does get its own end-game epic set in the Myrmidon armor.

[Straydd]

Love the blademaster .....made a few of the new hybrids demo and inquisitor with fire build was fun but not sure how it will hold up in ultimate

[DeadlyDanDaMan]

I've got a Blademaster who's main attacks are Ring of Steel and Blitz. He's almost impossible to kill with the ridiculous amount of healing abilities he has.

[frdnwsm]

My Battlemage is working well enough so far. Doing about 18000 median damage with Blitz/Blindside. That's with a TH weapon, of course. Mace & shield drops the damage but makes him tankier. MoE for those "Oh crap!" moments.

[Kris]

people say no to death knight because it doesn't work well without a certain mythical sword. with that, it's easy to make a powerful sword and board death knight focusing on procs.

[km_md60]

Witchblade, Warder, Commando, Battlemage, Blademaster - try them all and they are a bit different.

Witchblade is probably easier than most to gear since the skill works well together. Physical damage or poison damage + CoF/Warcry melt stuff like butter. Heal from Blood of Dreeg is amazing. If you use acid/poison then take aspect of the guardian for more damage. Exclusive skill is a choice between Possession and Oleron's rage based on your damage type. Oleron gives you a good OA boost, Possession gives you damage reduction. You can switch main damage type between physical, acid/poison, and chaos depends on your gear.

Physical Battlemage is easy to gear imo. Take physical soldier + Inner focus + Maiven + Accabe will + Mirror and you get good offense and defense. Inner focus + Oleron rage combo is great. However, you have to compenstae lack of heal on demand with devotion. Dryad, Behemoth, or Chariot should do the job. Aether Battlemage is quite gear dependant and finding aether RR is rather difficult.

Warder can use physical or lightning depends on your build. Gearing both of these damage types isn't difficult since Kymon offers lightning weapon in their store. Although, lightning devotion (tempest) has on crit activation so you need high OA to get most out of it. Remeber to take the totem for constant healing.

Blademaster can go either physical or piercing. Oleron rage support piercing damage so it's quite easy to play. Take Blade of Nadaan and good Dermapteran slicer to get 100% pierce conversion. Pneumatic burst is a must for healing and general buff.

Commando can go either physical (temper commando), Firestrike, or lightning (static strike). Lack of heals spell means taking healing devotion will make your life easier.

Devotion for shield is on the right side of the devotion map. Shieldmaiden and Targo the builder requires 6blue and 4 yellow while Obelisk of menhir requires 15 blue and 8 yellow. If you plan to get the most of of your shield, try to focus on Primodial and Order.

[Tiranoslav]

Build with a sword and shield suffers from a very small DPS because many good skills require weapon damage. I noticed that the skills of the inquisitor practically do not require this parameter and thought that this is the ideal class for a soldier with a shield. At the moment my tactician is level 55 and she is tenacious and dangerous.

[DalekRek]

Originally posted by Dzeliboba:

Build with a sword and shield suffers from a very small DPS because many good skills require weapon damage. I noticed that the skills of the inquisitor practically do not require this parameter and thought that this is the ideal class for a soldier with a shield. At the moment my tactician is level 55 and she is tenacious and dangerous.

Tactician is literally the only combination I dont wanna use, since thats what my Double Pistiol build is lol. I wanna keep my builds pretty diverse

[Tiranoslav]

Originally posted by richardwallace38:

Originally posted by Dzeliboba:

Build with a sword and shield suffers from a very small DPS because many good skills require weapon damage. I noticed that the skills of the inquisitor practically do not require this parameter and thought that this is the ideal class for a soldier with a shield. At the moment my tactician is level 55 and she is tenacious and dangerous.

Tactician is literally the only combination I dont wanna use, since thats what my Double Pistiol build is lol. I wanna keep my builds pretty diverse

I use a melee build with a shield, as I have pumped an aura that damages everyone near me and reduces elemental resistance.

[DalekRek]

Originally posted by Dzeliboba:

Originally posted by richardwallace38:

Tactician is literally the only combination I dont wanna use, since thats what my Double Pistiol build is lol. I wanna keep my builds pretty diverse

I use a melee build with a shield, as I have pumped an aura that damages everyone near me and reduces elemental resistance.

Seems like a really solid build. I went for Cadence and ranged boosts with Word of Renewal and Inquisitor's Seal. Makes Cthonian enemies a joke really