AC or HP?

[worthful]

I want to make an intimitank, and I'm probably going to make a dwarf. I've seen a lot of people dumping points into dex for the AC bonus. It seems to make more sense to dump points into con.


something like:
16 str
8 dex
20 con
10 int
8 wis
6 cha

With feats, enhancements, and gear, it seems your AC Will get high enough.
How much does heavy armor and a tower shield kill your dex bonus though?

Does it make more sense to buff AC and try to never take damage, or to have a ton of HP so when you do take damage you are prepared for it? Does an intimitank even have a use for str?

As weird as it seems, couldn't a reasonable tank build be built around
8 str
14 dex
18 con
10 int
8 wis
14 cha

so you could have a decent dex bonus, a decent intim bonus, and decent hp?

Pretty scatterbrained post, I know....

[captain1z]

Intimitanks have High AC to counter damage from trash mobs. This is for holding the attention of groups so others can pick them off and you dont get murdered in the process. That said you need to shoot for an AC that defeats trash mobs, at endgame thats around 65-70. With gear and a plan its very possible, I almost did it with a 10 dex wf pali, before I got tired of playing him and deleted for something more fun.


Hit points are for named bosses, as they will hit you at some point or another. Whether its melee or a spell they will get you. For tanking raid bosses I would suggest 500+ hp w/o evasion (400+ with evasion) and some form of DR vs the bulk of the enemies attacks (fire resist, shield, stoneskin, natural dr whatever)


Low str is bad because you wont be intimidating in every quest against every mob all the time. Some stuff is just to easy to kill and at 8 str you'd be just some gimp fighter watching everyone else kill stuff.


As I have yet to make a 100% effective intimitank yet I could not advise you on all the specifics, there are many build threads that can guide you though.

I can tell you that the goal is to balance AC and HP in a functional melee fighter.

Neither your Dex or your charisma needs to be overboard to accomplish this. I think dex of 14 and charisma of 10 is fine 14-16 con and 16 str if you can work it. Str can still get over 30, dex after tomes and party buffs makes for a workable AC (doesnt have to be 65-70 all the time, rangers palis and bards are part of that) charisma 10 with tomes later is fine................ but gain, look to established builds for a better idea.


Dont go overboard in 1 area............ balance.

[captain1z]

Resources:


http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...timitank+build Mr wizards intimitank players guide

More.......

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...ven+intimitank this is the "Riot", its old but it serves as the base of a few other builds and will give u an idea of where to start

[worthful]

I've read both of those threads, and it seems I misunderstood tanking in this game. I come from EQ1, back in the old days with taunt spam and auto attacks, where you needed a huge amount of HP to take care of things, but your damage output was not that important.

So if I understand correctly, tanking will only <really> matter on red names?

[assamite]

So if I understand correctly, tanking will only <really> matter on red names?

And large amounts of trash mobs, example. Bastion

[Quikster]

If you want to build an intimitank for end game you need 4 things.

1. High intimidate. The current high watermark is 80. Not many can reach that without either a. reincarnation or b. stacking a bunch of short tern bonuses. Its not critical you get to 80 as that's 2 bosses one in an elite raid, the other in an epic raid that few use an intimitank for. You do need to be no fail on the normal stuff though.

2. High ac. 72ish for vod normal scaleing as diff goes up will net you very little physical damage. Mid 70's for tod normal is the same. If you plan on tanking the highest level raids on elite you want to be able to raid buff to the high 80's low 90's.

3. HP. In TOD you can take up to 530 points of damage on a failed disinigrate save. Doent happen often, but it does happen. IMO 600 in stance is a starting point. If you can get higher that's better.

4. Offense. You need to be able to dish out some pain. In a lot of this game intimidating while turtled up is a waste of a party slot. When I say a lot of this game I mean like 90% of it. Make sure you take a fighting line (twf or thf) and power attack. Make sure you have the gear to up your dps alnog with that.

Mr wizard has a solid build. It would be a good guide to follow.

[Quikster]

I should note that ac can be bypassed if going for a dr build, but as a dwarf you will want to go ac. You can still achieve a decent dr to compliment your ac, but not what a wf'd can get.

[Gyries]

One of the reasons you might see Dwarves go with higher Dex is to be able to two-weapon fight using Dwarven Waraxes. Also Dwarves get a racial Armor Mastery allowing them to increase their maximum Dex allowed in armor (stacks with Fighter Armor Mastery).

Dwarves also get a bonus to Con so that makes spreading some points to Dex a bit more viable.

My advice is to keep Str, Dex and Con high. Do not make Str a dump stat as you need to be able to damage well. I opted to drop Con to 12 (on a 28 point build) knowing that reincarnation options would be available at end game and constitution gets better the higher your level so for me it was an acceptable tradeoff. A lot depends on if you have the ability to buy tomes as well (can always be picked up later when you have funds). If you are going to be a serious tank you will need to get your int to 13 most like in order to pick up combat expertise at some point that means 10 +3 int tome, 11 +2 int tome etc.

Tanking can come in handy in almost all situations, it is up to you to make it viable though as DPS rules the day in DDO. A well placed intimidate can keep party resources used low, and group DPS very high (allowing for sneak attacks, keeping them in the fire etc). DPS is always useful.

[MrWizard]

I want to make an intimitank, and I'm probably going to make a dwarf. I've seen a lot of people dumping points into dex for the AC bonus. It seems to make more sense to dump points into con.


something like:
16 str
8 dex
20 con
10 int
8 wis
6 cha

With feats, enhancements, and gear, it seems your AC Will get high enough.
How much does heavy armor and a tower shield kill your dex bonus though?

Does it make more sense to buff AC and try to never take damage, or to have a ton of HP so when you do take damage you are prepared for it? Does an intimitank even have a use for str?

As weird as it seems, couldn't a reasonable tank build be built around
8 str
14 dex
18 con
10 int
8 wis
14 cha

so you could have a decent dex bonus, a decent intim bonus, and decent hp?

Pretty scatterbrained post, I know....

If you are going intimi tank, I would assume you will go stalwart defender.
Ac is helped by a dex bonus.

As a dwarf fighter you have access to 3 levels of max dex bonus additions via fighter armor mastery and dwarven armor mastery for a total of 6. You also get 3 from stalwart defender III.
This allows for a max dex bonus to ac, with armor only, to go to 9 (for a total of 10 counting the 1 the armor allows). I assume you want to use a tower shield for end game, probably leviks defender.

Defender starts at max dex bonus 4, you get 3 more from defender for a total of 7. You can add enhancements to that to get to nine pretty easy, even 10.

However, taking dwarven armor mastery is expensive 2,4,6 = 12 action points. Then to take two enhancements of tower shield is even more (three even more costly).

More on point, to get to a 9 max dex bonus would mean your dex needs to be 28, which will be hard to come by without losing some ground elsewhere.
+6 item, +3 exceptional, +3 tome, 16 dex = 28.
Can be done. (10 would mean a +4 tome, or a stat level in dex)

Dex of 15 is needed for twf if you go that route.
+3 tomes take a long time to get, +3 exceptional too.
You could always do a lesser reincarnation at some point if you get these items.

However, to spend so many action points on it means something must give.

I suggest
str 16
dex 15
con 15
wis 8
int 12
cha 12

to start if you can. Get force of personality when you get a +1 cha tome, Combat expertise when you get a +1 int tome.

could you lose 2 points of strength (making it 15) and adding those two stat points to dex for a 16? Yes. It would not kill you.
In fact I would put str, dex, and con at 15...then allow just one to go to 16, your choice. One gets you ac (dex), one gets you more hit points (con), one helps you hit and damage things (str)
Dex will add to reflex saves and balance skill, con to fort save, str to trip, hit, damage.


at end game you will have high ac, high hit points, and good to hit/damage per swing.
12 int is for skill points and to easily get to 13 with a +1 tome at 3rd level.
12 cha is for will save, intimidate, and umd. *(assuming you take force of personality feat and get a 13 cha)

[Quikster]

If you are going intimi tank, I would assume you will go stalwart defender.
Ac is helped by a dex bonus.

As a dwarf fighter you have access to 3 levels of max dex bonus additions via fighter armor mastery and dwarven armor mastery for a total of 6. You also get 3 from stalwart defender III.
This allows for a max dex bonus to ac, with armor only, to go to 9 (for a total of 10 counting the 1 the armor allows). I assume you want to use a tower shield for end game, probably leviks defender.

Defender starts at max dex bonus 4, you get 3 more from defender for a total of 7. You can add enhancements to that to get to nine pretty easy, even 10.

However, taking dwarven armor mastery is expensive 2,4,6 = 12 action points. Then to take two enhancements of tower shield is even more (three even more costly).

More on point, to get to a 9 max dex bonus would mean your dex needs to be 28, which will be hard to come by without losing some ground elsewhere.
+6 item, +3 exceptional, +3 tome, 16 dex = 28.
Can be done. (10 would mean a +4 tome, or a stat level in dex)

Dex of 15 is needed for twf if you go that route.
+3 tomes take a long time to get, +3 exceptional too.
You could always do a lesser reincarnation at some point if you get these items.

However, to spend so many action points on it means something must give.

I suggest
str 16
dex 15
con 15
wis 8
int 12
cha 12

to start if you can. Get force of personality when you get a +1 cha tome, Combat expertise when you get a +1 int tome.

could you lose 2 points of strength (making it 15) and adding those two stat points to dex for a 16? Yes. It would not kill you.
In fact I would put str, dex, and con at 15...then allow just one to go to 16, your choice. One gets you ac (dex), one gets you more hit points (con), one helps you hit and damage things (str)
Dex will add to reflex saves and balance skill, con to fort save, str to trip, hit, damage.


at end game you will have high ac, high hit points, and good to hit/damage per swing.
12 int is for skill points and to easily get to 13 with a +1 tome at 3rd level.
12 cha is for will save, intimidate, and umd. *(assuming you take force of personality feat and get a 13 cha)

Agreed, FAM/DAM/TSM add up to a ton of Ap. What going dwarf does do is allow you to take FAM II (6 ap) and DAM II (6ap) for an increase of 4 for the same cost of either line individually. My human fighter has the whole FAM line, and my dwarven paly has the whole DAM line, so getting one more for the same price isnt a bad deal.