Making a tank end game decisions

[Wilken]

I am new to DDO and I am making a tank, I had heard that if your going for tank that you should go Lawful Good as you can get many Items/Armor/weapons that will benifit you that you could not get say you were Chaotic Neutral.

So Should i reroll my lvl 4 fighter or Stay playing him, I am a Tank in Wow, and in general love the idea

[FluffyCalico]

Need more info

In DDO a tank is the person with aggro. This may or may not be who the groups wants to be the tank but they are who it is.

For this reason a tank in DDO must be able to keep aggro. And clearly they need to live though having the aggro. There is more than 1 way to get aggro and more than 1 way to live though having it. We need more info on both the way you intend to keep aggro and the way you intend to live though having it. Also the class or classes you will be taking would be helpful.

I see you have 4 levels of fighter do you mean that you will be staying a pure fighter or will you be mixing ?

Side note shroud weapons don't care about if you are lawful good or not so once you get them you should not be largely effected by your alignment. However until then it might stink and if a new raid comes out with new ever better weapons that could also stink.

[Wilken]

My plan was to follow A build called the Riott Tank, an Intimitank High AC for 17 levels and mix in the new Stalwart Defender Prestige class when it came out. And as you said right now end game it doesnt matter but it could matter in the future. I stripped my fighter of anything non bound in terms of gear and sent it off to my new guy

[EKKM]

The only item I can think of for LG characters is the Chaosgarde bracers (+2 dodge bonus to AC) found in the quest Xorian Cipher. If you have UMD you can equip them anyway.

The +2 AC won;t make or break your character and the Riott build is viable at end game but it requires some expensive equipment. I would recommend swapping a few feats for the THF feats and getting power attack earlier than riott recommends.

[cforce]

While it's true that the Chaosguarde bracers are "only" +2 AC, getting high AC on a pure fighter like the Riott template is challenging without a monk splash or uber-gear; the +2 definitely helps. More importantly, there's no other 'tanking' gear that requires any *other* alignment, right now.

At the moment, unless I think I might want to splash Barb or Bard in the future, I start all of my new characters LG 'just in case' I want to use the Chaosguarde, or in case I end up wanting a Monk or Pally splash.

Another important thing to keep in mind is: the role of the tank is lesser in DDO than it is in many other MMO's. There are definitely situations where your ability to hold aggro won't be useful, because of AoE spells and cleaving melee combatants. In cases like this, it's useful to be able to 'switch hit' and generate DPS instead. Spending some fighter feats on DPS-oriented lines like THF is one way to do this. You may also find it interesting to search for the phrase 'hate tank' -- there are a number of "TWF Tank" builds floating around right now that may prove to be very effective and quite flexible, once Mod 9 hits.

[Aranticus]

My plan was to follow A build called the Riott Tank, an Intimitank High AC for 17 levels and mix in the new Stalwart Defender Prestige class when it came out. And as you said right now end game it doesnt matter but it could matter in the future. I stripped my fighter of anything non bound in terms of gear and sent it off to my new guy

no offence to Riot but in current context of DDO where DPS is almost everything, following the Riott tank is a very bad idea. if you really want to follow that build, i'd offer the following suggestions

1- Luck of Heroes ditch this and get khopesh
1F - Dodge
1H - Lightning Reflexes
2F - Weapon Focus (Slashing)
3 - Iron Will
4F - Weapon Specialization (Slashing)
6 - Toughness
6F - Improved Shield Bash ditch this and get two handed fighting
8F - Improved Critical (Slashing)
9 - Skill Focus: Intimidate
10F - Combat Expertise
12 - Toughness ditch this and get improved two handed fighting
12F - Greater Weapon Focus (Slashing)
14F - Shield Mastery swop this with greater weapon specialisation
15 - Toughness ditch this and get greater two handed fighting
16F - Power Attack
18 - Toughness
18F - Improved Shield Mastery swop to shield mastery
20F - Greater Weapon Spec. (Slashing) swop to improved shield mastery

note: the feats should be swopped accordingly to the requirements for defender

there are many places where a defensive tank rocks but there are more areas where you need DPS. the riott tank is the last build you want in an offensive environment. make the changes and you have greater flexibility and adaptability

oh if you get a +3 dex tome, i would swop all the THF to TWF feats

[Samadhi]

Short answer to initial question:

Lawful good definitely has advantages at lower levels, but chaotic neutral definitely has some at higher level. In the long run, it won't make much of a difference either way.