Build challenge: the casual tank

[Pilgrim1]

Build challenge: the casual tank

Hello everyone, I have a build challenge for you guys should you wish to take it.

I am looking for a tank for a casual guild raids. Looking to be able to facilitate easy guild raid completions.

Goals-
a) Tank lob normal, Tod normal/hard, and everything less than that.
b) Have sufficient self healing and/or damage avoidance to be able to do the above with very little outside support.
c) be useful, fun, and self sufficient outside of raids.
effectively be un-killable, able to get aggro, and be fun to play.

constraints-
1) 32 point build
2) no non-cove epics
3) very little raid gear
4) feel free to use +2 tomes, any cannith crafting, shroud items, and most any BTA quest gear.

I'm not very good at building multiclass mixes and my knowledge of tanks is slim. I don't know the all important ac thresholds and if a build can meet them. thanks in advance.

PS. at this point my ignorance is leading me to a monk/pally/something mix of some sort.

Edit: there are some crazy good builds out there but they are mostly geared to the teeth, is there anyway I can reach my goals without all that gear?

[wax_on_wax_off]

What do you want that distinguishes your character from a non-casual tank? What you've asked for is pretty much a full on dedicated tank without a full gear set allowing tanking of the real top tier stuff like elob.

Some ideas:
Emerald build, 2.0
The Dark Knight
And ... some variety of human dragonmarked pure or almost pure SDIII build.

Of the 3 the Dark Knight seems closest to what you're looking for with self healing and minimal gearing.

[Pilgrim1]

Both of those two builds have significant gear investment. I'm looking for a tank build that can manage lower tears (they shoot for epic LOB - I just want to be able to do normal) with much lower gear requirements. I included AC into my mix because I believe (possibly incorrectly) that lower difficulty raids can be managed much easier with high AC.

I guess to summarize I want:

Good enough AC for normal LOB/ToD
self healing of some sort
sufficient aggro generation
minimal gear investment

[wax_on_wax_off]

Both of those two builds have significant gear investment. I'm looking for a tank build that can manage lower tears (they shoot for epic LOB - I just want to be able to do normal) with much lower gear requirements. I included AC into my mix because I believe (possibly incorrectly) that lower difficulty raids can be managed much easier with high AC.

I guess to summarize I want:

Good enough AC for normal LOB/ToD
self healing of some sort
sufficient aggro generation
minimal gear investment

Epic gear --> epic raids.
Non-epic gear --> non-epic raids.

Simple. Maybe what you're really asking is for a suggested gear set of easily acquired gear to apply to one of the 3 traditional tank builds for which you could then tank easier raids ... but for that we'd have to know what style of build you're looking for out of the 3.

[Pilgrim1]

Epic gear --> epic raids.
Non-epic gear --> non-epic raids.

Simple. Maybe what you're really asking is for a suggested gear set of easily acquired gear to apply to one of the 3 traditional tank builds for which you could then tank easier raids ... but for that we'd have to know what style of build you're looking for out of the 3.

I see, in that case I guess of the 3 builds the Emerald build appeals to me more.
Edit: and thank you for helping me straighten this out.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I see, in that case I guess of the 3 builds the Emerald build appeals to me more.
Edit: and thank you for helping me straighten this out.

Ok, monks are generally a little harder to gear up but let's see:

Head:
Gloves: Epic Brawling Gloves (yellow: GFL)
Cloak: MinII +45 HP, +6 con skills Cloak
Boots: (unsuppressed) Madstone Boots
Trinket: Pale Lavender Ioun Stone / Head of Good Fortune (upgraded) / Cannith Crafted Shard of Power +4 AB
Bracers: L16 Bracers of Wind (+3 dodge, +1 dodge slotted)
Belt: Epic Spare Hand (toughness)
Necklace: Shintao/Verik's/Stalwart Necklace
Goggles: Cannith Crafted +4 AB, LGA: +20 HP goggles / Cannith Crafted +2 dodge, LGA: +20 HP goggles
Armour: Icy Raiment
Ring1: generic ToD ring (shocking burst)/Epic Ring of the Stalker/Circle of Hatred
Ring2: Kyosho's, Verik's, Stalwart or generic ToD ring (holy burst)
Weapons: +5 True Chaos/Vicious Adamantine Lined Handwraps of Greater Construct Bane, +5 Anarchic Burst Silver Threaded Handwraps of Greater Lawful Outsider Bane

Could work, not much hate though but not much can be done about that.

[count_spicoli]

ac is wonderful for any non tanking epic. my char is longand of khyber and he is sporting a raid buffed 92 ac(97 shield blocking) and is unhittable in anything under epic including elite horoth. for gear ideas check him out. i have 978 hp which i find more than enough with ac for anything uder epic. for epic tanking it is just a matter of gear swap out's for dr instead of ac. you will also want to get your intim as high as possible. this is as important as dr and ac

[Pilgrim1]

is ac harder to get on a monk splash toon? Can you get good ac using 2 lvls of monk just for evasion and 2 feats and running around in light armor?

Wax - thanks for that gear breakdown, none of that looks particularly difficult for me to get. As for hate I was thinking that fighter stance + monk stance would be enough, or if its a big issue maybe i could go pally instead of fighter and get oodles of hate that way.

[sirgog]

Non-AC stalwarts will work pretty well in all the content you might run except Hard+ TOD and Elite VOD.

Something like a Human version of http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=344642 .

That build isn't massively gear intensive. Gear makes it better, but it will function well with less.

[wax_on_wax_off]

is ac harder to get on a monk splash toon? Can you get good ac using 2 lvls of monk just for evasion and 2 feats and running around in light armor?

Wax - thanks for that gear breakdown, none of that looks particularly difficult for me to get. As for hate I was thinking that fighter stance + monk stance would be enough, or if its a big issue maybe i could go pally instead of fighter and get oodles of hate that way.

Either way it's about DR. Either get the DR from Shield Mastery or Earth Stance II/III/IV.

Fighter Stance + Monk Stance will be fine but may cause some issues if you have a raging barbarian with an eSoS who doesn't remove his epic claw set, for instance. Hate is very sensitive to gear comparisons so it's just something to be aware of. In general you should be fine. If you can get the Stalwart ToD set then it will help significantly.

[glowbug]

Others may disagree, but I feel like I would be doing you a favor if I could talk you out of the emerald... Its a superb build, fun to play, and makes a great tank... BUT only with EXTENSIVE gearing... without the ton of gear listed in that thread, you have mediocre AC, mediocre 'to hit' and poor threat gen... I have one, im not making assumptions here.

Make a half elf, 12 Fighter, 6 Paladin, 2 Monk: SD-II, HoTD-I, monk dilly... High Str / Con... All shield feats and. THFs, Bastard sword + tower when tanking, 2 hander for dps or evasion.. 20 20 10 built in heal amp + neg 25% incoming damage + DR is easy to heal even with bad AC...pop another 20% HA on a ring and heal scrolls hit you 200+... Gear = hp items, dt outfit with incites or HA.. Craft a mithral tower of lifeshield + 20% imcite and boss dr breaker bastards.

edit: sorry for the poor Formatting... my phone hates line breaks apparently

Grim

[wax_on_wax_off]

Others may disagree, but I feel like I would be doing you a favor if I could talk you out of the emerald... Its a superb build, fun to play, and makes a great tank... BUT only with EXTENSIVE gearing... without the ton of gear listed in that thread, you have mediocre AC, mediocre 'to hit' and poor threat gen... I have one, im not making assumptions here. Make a half elf, 12 Fighter, 6 Paladin, 2 Monk: SD-II, HoTD-I, monk dilly... High Str / Con... All shield feats and. THFs, Bastard sword + tower when tanking, 2 hander for dps or evasion.. 20 20 10 built in heal amp + neg 25% incoming damage + DR is easy to heal even with bad AC...pop another 20% HA on a ring and heal scrolls hit you 200+... Gear = hp items, dt outfit with incites or HA.. Craft a mithral tower of lifeshield + 20% imcite and boss dr breaker bastards

I don't see any issue with the gear layout I described above. It's got +1/+2/+3/+4 dodge, +5 deflection etc. Only real thing it's missing is 3 AC from an epic Abishai set. After that it's more about who's in the group to determine what you can AC tank (paladin, ranger, bard, halfling, divine).

Sigh, check that, the gear layout is missing armour bonus. Iirc, armor bonus can go on belt, bracers or body. The only belt available is epic sirens belt, if it goes on bracers you'd need epic grims bracelet in the neck slot for +3 dodge. In the body slot you lose the +4 dodge. Either way you'll need a proper epic item.

Edit: to be sure head/cloak/boots epic Abishai set should be a significant priority