Melee Tank Builds

[darwin.evenwood]

Hey there, i wanted to try some melee tank build i tought, making some test on jegs but i would like to know what do you think about them.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?297807 Fighter build with blackguard and divine champion, will finish with very good saves and decent damage, also the bust of EDM will be pretty high when paired with divine wrath. AC Will be 49 base.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?298307 This one is a copy but has ICE, so it gains +4 AC when in use, losing 3 dmg from power attack. Slightly less HP but still the EDM damage boost.

The last i built on Jegs is a variant of Karond's DD, with rogue instead of cleric. I played the Karond's DD to lvl 28 in game so i know it is very viable, just asking myself if one of the two builds i posted above could be at least near to DD power and if not how could i improve them.

I tought to add 4 or 10 Man-at-arms instead of Divine Champion to gain tumble and the rest.... What do you think?

[Kiran]

Best tank build I ever played personally was a man at arms level 30 with high strength and all the shield feats, including shield charge and dire charge in the epics.

Make him human so you can fit in furious charger and luck of heroes.

You cant pick extra strength on man at arms bonus feats in the epics, so make sure you pick strength on normal feats and choose the armour feat, dire charge and other feats that are not extra strength on the man at arms bonus feats.

If you want more saves and EDM, you can also pop in 3 or 4 blackguard/paladin depending on your chars alignment, you will lose a few strength of course and some epic feats, but the saves is what sets the full 30 men at arms build a bit back unless you have exceptionally good items. So taking blackguard can be worth it for that, and EDM (Also you get skill access to heal with blackguard which is nice for a pure fighter class like the man at arms)

I believe when I played my one he had a DC of 34-37 on his aoe shouts and taunts, also make sure to take the skill taunt if you are tanking, fits well in with the class.

I have the build on a excel sheet somewhere if you want to take a peak

[Rudolph]

I'd replace BG 4 and the last 4 F levels with another juicy PrC... (FB or something good with Tumble). Power Critical isn't all that good and you could also drop the extra turning feats (there are some shop boots for Extra Turning, +10 HP, +3 CHA).

[chad878262]

M@A26/BG4 is the objectively 'best' overall. M@A biggest issue is saves and Blackguard addresses that. For losing 1 epic feat you get BG Aura (+2 to all your DCs, including Shield Slam and M@A challenges), Epic Divine Might, and a huge bump to your saving throws (again, biggest weakness of the class). As an aside I would skip Divine Shield even going BG4 since you'll have limited uses and will likely only have charisma of 24, making the duration rather short. Better to stick with taking Tower Shield proficiency. Fighter adds a bit of power, but it does not address your weakness. Being a tank you really don't want low saves.

[darwin.evenwood]

i tried to build a Man-at-arms26/BG4 on jegs but it doesn't really shine for AC or anything else, plus aiming to gain EDM i can't pump Str so much... i didn't take the shield bash line of feats though so i will try building another. I don't want to min-max too much also cause i like a bit of skill points. AB as well seemed a bit low to me but i will try to build another one. What if i try to keep a decent Cha score (17+3item), picking plain divine might and try to get some EDR pumping Con? could it be possible?

What feats do you reccomned? At lvl 19 i got epic resilience, is it still confirmed? it could save two feats (toughness and steadfast).

[chad878262]

It's impossible to see M@A builds accurately without understanding the mechanics. Your challenge gives you +5 AB/Damage that can be renewed at the start of each battle, for example. You don't have to go for EDM, but BG3/4 is still a very good pick up. Even going max STR that aura is +2 to your DC's for all of your challenges. CHA is good because it's added to all saves, which is what makes EDM ideal... You end up with 10 uses of turn undead which each use is 14 rounds of +14 damage and +7 to all saves. That's pretty tough to beat, but you will still want to equip some +Saves gear on M@A. Without blackguard the saves are far worse (-7 vs. EDM build).

You don't really need to min/max...21 STR/CHA, 12-13 DEX, 12-14 CON, 14 INT (if you want IKD), 8 WIS (one dump stat).

For feats you want: Shield Bash, Knockdown, Shield Charge, Shield Slam, Power Attack, Divine Might and CE/ICE. You get Epic Resilience for free and so do not need Steadfast. Other beneficial feats to consider are blindfight, luck of hero's, Improved Knockdown and there are some others that may be more or less interesting depending on your play style.

Think of adding Blackguard and EDM like this... The aura gives you the equivalent of +4 STR where your shield slam is concerned (like having 28 instead of 24). It also increases the DCs of your challenges effectively by 2 (effectively making your DCs the same as M@A 30).

Basically I would recommend either going 21 STR/CHA with EDM or M@A30 pure STR with CHA left at no higher than 13. The Blackguard version won't struggle as much against caster mobs that hit you with save or X spells.

[Hammer_Song]

Monk 30. Wisdom based.

[Hendrak]

You could also consider MaA22/Fig4/BG4 if you go shield feats you need shield specialization (only accesable with fighter 4+) for a 3rd shield attack.

You want to have around 55 AC without selfbuffs,potions,spells to "tank" the toughest bosses.

I would consider therefore Combat Expertise/Imp.CE.

You could also go another route and just pick Divine Shield and focus a bit more on CON and take Epic Toughness or other stuff.

Edit: MaA 21 / BG 4 / Warlock 5 seems also fun and fitting. Hideous Blow, Dark Ones Blessing, See the Unseen, UMD class skill, Spellcraft classskill, maybe Practiced Invoker too

Edit Edit: DC 5 also a nice option.

[darwin.evenwood]

http://nwn2db.com/build/?298346 This one has damage reduction and fast healing. saves are even higher thanks to steadfast and hig Con. not very high AB or damage (39-45 AB, 22,5 - 25,5 dmg) but can be addressed with situational divine wrath and divine might. AC will be 54 with ICE on.

Just to return to my original point, i think these builds may be fun and sustainable but not even close to Karond's DD, maybe staying human will be difficult to get close to that. Only Barbarian builds may be on that level.

I will anyway try to build a couple of MaA/BG builds following your suggestions and i want to try a MaA23/F4/BG3 with Epic damage reduction, weapon spec. and divine might.

Thanks to everyone!

[Sun Wukong]

I once made a Drow Fighter 12/Frenzied Berserker 5/Divine Champion 10/Blackguard 3 on this server. I actually liked it a lot. Quite a lot infact.

With some +4 weapon, Improved Power Attack, and Epic Divine Might it could do something like 60-70 damage per avarage non-critical hit. More damage with Divine Champion's Divine Wrath.

And if it needed some AC, it could always turtle up with ICE and Towershield turned on. I think the build got something like 40 AB with both a Tower Shield and ICE on. It is quite fine for the mobs found on this server. Oh, and Epic Divine Might was always nice extra damage to be had.

The fortitude save the build got was frankly absurd. The other saves were decent enough I suppose.

Thus, there was great flexibility when it came to killing things. In a party or against low HP mobs, I could just two-hand a weapon. Against bulky mobs with high AC, I could just turtle up and tank them away.

This drow of mine literally soloed pretty much everything that could be found in the underdark, and like a breeze. Well, some bosses took longer than others to kill.

But yeah, Fighter 12/Frenzied Berserker 5/Divine Champion 5/Blackguard 3 is what I would recommend. You could also go for Fighter 12/Frenzied Berserker 6/Divine Champion 8/Blackguard 4, because it lets you get sneak attack dice and Divine Shield at the cost of a bonus, some saves, two feats, and situation AB and Damage.


But as for something completely different, something no one might have ever considered before... Something I would have never thought about without being annoyed by Maecius on Discord: http://nwn2db.com/build/?298464

[darwin.evenwood]

Well the point was staying human and not barb20/X10 build that is probably the best melee build anyone can use today.

I am now trying a MaA23/Bg3/F4 (currently lvl 22 so not full power yet) with shield feats and powerful charge, EDM and it seems fun and viable, will have 60 ac without buffs when ICE is on.

Even if I am still thinking to give a try to the last F/DC/BG build I posted since I really like high saves and EDR+Fast Healing with the fighter damage feats....

[metaquad4]

http://nwn2db.com/build/?287900

Here is one fairly good tank melee build. The AC goes to 68 with all your gear and ICE on. You can push it higher with an IMA wand (+2 from that). You can also inflict -2 AB on a target, effectively giving you 2 more AC as well. With those two, you can push to an effective 72 AC.

All the calculations are at the bottom.

You can also taunt enemies, forcing them to attack you and allowing you to actually manage aggro.

You can also trade disarm for northlander hewing, allowing you to deal even more damage.

Upread and saw human. You can change it from Aasimar to human, you end up losing -1 AC, -2 Damage (Divine Shield, EDM), 1 turn undead use, and 1 to your DCs. It isn't crippling overall, though human won't be as good for sure.