Tanking battlebard- advice and ideas

[Seventh]

So after having the 14 Bard/6 Fighter split highly recommended to me, I've been thinking of rolling one up and wanted to get to work on that- thing is, I've been entertaining the idea of seeing how much tanking ability one could pull out of a bard. Been looking around the forums and getting ideas, but I'm still not sure which way I want to go at this- there's a couple different ways to go about it, so I wanted to hear from folks who know more about bards than I which of these ideas seemed the most viable and useful (assuming they're not all just terrible ideas).

The first thing that came up was building for AC. I really like the idea of an AC bard, but I don't know how well it would work in reality- building for AC is hard enough for proper Stalwarts/Defenders. I imagine I could have enough AC to mitigate the damage of nonepic trash at cap, but named mobs and epic trash mobs are probably out of reach, and that makes this idea less appealing.

Then there's ignoring AC, but building for healing amp and damage mitigation via the Shield Mastery feats and DR (and maybe going WF to get passive DR from a DoD), and making good use of the high intimidate a build like this can work up. The biggest worry would be that even with all available threat gear, the bonus from going Stawart I, a pimped out intimidate, and maybe even going human sentinel dragonmark w/eFang instead, an S&B battlebard just wouldn't be able to hold aggro against proper DPS toons.

Holding aggro might be less of an issue if I went full TWF or THF (not sure which would be better on a bard nowadays) but then it's just a bard version of the common DPS with Threat/Heal Amp tanks- and why would you pick a bard to do a job that a fighter or barb can do better and with less effort?

This last bit isn't really a tanking idea but it's related- 14/6 splits are not normally something you'd do any healing with, but could a build like this make use of a Torc and Conc Op items to provide itself with a steady source of useful healing?

Thoughts?

[Cam_Neely]

I bumped the idea around a fair bit when you could have a lock down intim, but with the new changes, I see to many issues holding agro against the high end DPS while still getting a quality AC.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I'd say that the first thing you should look for if you want to tank on a bard is versatility. By this, I mean have evasion to be able to tank those evasion bosses.

Some combination of 12-16 bard / 2-6 fighter / 2 rogue?

No reason that a human, half-elf or warforged bard (efang, double intim or racial hate) with improved shield mastery, max intimidate and a buttload of hate amp gear shouldn't be able to hold aggro unless someone is intentionally trying to pull aggro of you assuming a comparative amount of gear.

[Seventh]

I bumped the idea around a fair bit when you could have a lock down intim, but with the new changes, I see to many issues holding agro against the high end DPS while still getting a quality AC.

I figured I'd have to give up on AC, but it was worth asking.


I'd say that the first thing you should look for if you want to tank on a bard is versatility. By this, I mean have evasion to be able to tank those evasion bosses.

Some combination of 12-16 bard / 2-6 fighter / 2 rogue?

No reason that a human, half-elf or warforged bard (efang, double intim or racial hate) with improved shield mastery, max intimidate and a buttload of hate amp gear shouldn't be able to hold aggro unless someone is intentionally trying to pull aggro of you assuming a comparative amount of gear.

The aggro was my biggest concern but I don't really know too much about what takes to hold aggro on a melee since I mostly play casters and am generally trying to get threat as low as possible. That's good to hear.

I did initially consider a 12/6/2 split but decided against it because I was worried about further watering down my songs, but it shouldn't be too big a deal if the tanking works out, and evasion would be lovely- is getting my ref save up mostly a matter of gear, or should I have a sizable investment in Dex at creation?

I'm having a hard time with race though- WF has racial hate and maybe DoD use when holding groups of trash, but also has that healing amp penalty that's making me shy away from it. Human has dragonmarks/eFang. Helf/Horc could also work but I don't own those races myself.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I figured I'd have to give up on AC, but it was worth asking.



The aggro was my biggest concern but I don't really know too much about what takes to hold aggro on a melee since I mostly play casters and am generally trying to get threat as low as possible. That's good to hear.

I did initially consider a 12/6/2 split but decided against it because I was worried about further watering down my songs, but it shouldn't be too big a deal if the tanking works out, and evasion would be lovely- is getting my ref save up mostly a matter of gear, or should I have a sizable investment in Dex at creation?

I'm having a hard time with race though- WF has racial hate and maybe DoD use when holding groups of trash, but also has that healing amp penalty that's making me shy away from it. Human has dragonmarks/eFang. Helf/Horc could also work but I don't own those races myself.

Start farming gear and see what you get first: DoD or eFang and then go with the relevant race. In regards to what will be better? Maybe WF with DoD as the build will be most useful as an offtank dealing with trash anyway and DoD is amazing for that. Mind you, if you go with the DoD option then you are giving up the easiest slot to get incite (on DT).

A have a WF FvS with a triple hate DT and haven't had any problem holding aggro against anyone when tanking with a +5 metalline greatsword of righteousness. With hate boosts from holding a shield you should have no problems.

Another option is to go the splashed strength based artificer and tank with a DoD that way, similar sort of flavour.

The key statement in my above assessment is that you will be ok with aggro if you get the triple hate (from somewhere) and are holding aggro against similar geared characters (not going to work if you are wielding a metalline, silver +1 bastard sword against an aligned, silver slotted eSoS for example).

[karl_k0ch]

My 16/2/2 reaches an AC which helps to mitigate damage in nonepic quests, namely 62 AC, but that's missing dodge +1, +3, a good shield, shield ritual and is with PA switched on. You can manage to fit in some AC enhancing stuff, indeed. Nevertheless, I don't consider having Thorkar "quality AC".

But of higher importance of wearing a shield is the shield mastery and its damage resistance.

[honkuimushi]

I see this as a challenging build. One of the problems is that heavy armor and shields give you an ASF penalty that may be too high to overcome and that even if you could, the costs would be prohibitive. With Warchanter II, you might be able to pull off a mithril full plate and mithril heavy shield combo, but it's definately not playing to your strengths. The Intimidate bonuses from Warchanter and from a decent Chr would help there, but Bard doesn't really have many AC boosts included in their skill set(just the one AC song), nor do they grant any bonus feats. Bard also costs you a lot of hp.

I would personally go with Kensai and just go for a self and party buffing DPS build.

[voodoogroves]

I see this as a challenging build. One of the problems is that heavy armor and shields give you an ASF penalty that may be too high to overcome and that even if you could, the costs would be prohibitive. With Warchanter II, you might be able to pull off a mithril full plate and mithril heavy shield combo, but it's definately not playing to your strengths. The Intimidate bonuses from Warchanter and from a decent Chr would help there, but Bard doesn't really have many AC boosts included in their skill set(just the one AC song), nor do they grant any bonus feats. Bard also costs you a lot of hp.

I would personally go with Kensai and just go for a self and party buffing DPS build.

Mithril full Plate works just fine w/ War Chanter though ...

[maddmatt70]

As the game currently stands the question is why AC? DDO could change in the future most certainly in regards to AC, but the future is not here yet. Go with DR, Healing amp, and hit points. I would go with a human 14 bard 6 fighter. You can reach all the thresholds to tank epic LOB at least as second tank if not primary. Use epic SOS and epic Chimera's Fang..