General Tank Questions

[Corruo]

I've been playing DDO on and off for a few years now but have never ran a tank focused character. I have two friends who want to level up characters (favored soul and sorc) and I want to play druid to tank and try out the new (to me anyway) class. I've been doing some reading and have a couple of questions what were not answered.

1. If I am running an intimidate build how important is additional hate and will a pure druid generate enough?
2. If hate becomes an issue do things like stelwart defender stack with the druid bear rage increase (I realize I cannot do this pure yet but if I need to get 6 fighter to be viable I have no problem with that)?
3. Am I required to build as a warforged for the added hate?
4. I've noticed a lot of shields with things like shock on them since I came back to the game. Will a bear get to add that to damage or is it just for shield bash?
5. Is there a way to increase the damage of the roar enhancement that does sonic damage? Is it effected by items even though it's an ability and not a spell?
6. Are there any key points to druid tanking that I should be absolutely aware of?

Any input is appreciated. Most of the information I've seen about druids is from when they were released and I'm not sure how much has changed since then.

[shadereaper33]

1-intimidate will put you at the top of the threat chart, but if you don't have the DPS/threat gen to stay there, your buddies will quickly pull agro back off of you.

2-What bear rage increase are you talking about? The closest thing I could find was the druid aggravate enhancement, which provides a small amount of DR/-. Like almost all other sources of DR, it does not stack.

3-no, you aren't required to be any specific race. If warforged has benefits you want more than any other race, go for it. If something else looks like it would be better (like human for increased heal amp) then go for that instead.

4-damage mods on shields only proc on shield bash attacks. Important note for druids in animal form, your offhand weapon/shield NEVER makes an attack. The only effects from your offhand weapon/shield that will have any effect at all in animal form are the "passive" abilities such as fortification, seeker, etc.

5-not sure, but I would imagine that sonic spell power would affect the damage of reaving roar.

6-Your DPS as a pure druid in bear form will be horrible. The attack chain is very slow, especially when compared to wolf form. There is a general lack of good medium armors for druids, as they cannot use metal armor. If your friends are remotely competent and/or have a mild understanding of how to play a FVS or a sorc, you will most likely have issues trying to maintain aggro. Best of luck with the build, hope some of this helped.

[smeggy1384]

There are one or two druid bear form spells to boost threat generation, but the attacks are slower enough overall that i'd doubt a bear tank will be able to hold a mobs attention without being h-elf with the double intimidates.

Try wolf form, use bluff so you get in sneak attack (or set your pup up for bluffing, worked fine when i tried that last life) and intimidate anytime something is seeking a new target. For enhances go for reaving roar, when you are clearing rooms just for getting one kill what is left to tank? At higher level it won't be one shotting everything, but it still takes a good chunk out of a pack of mobs. Usually 2 reaving roars is enough to clean a room up to ~18 soloing elites.

The downside to reaving roar is it will not show you the overhead damage being done, and the kills go to the kill counter as if a summoned monster had done the killing (they are killed by misadventure). Who cares about kill count, so why does this matter? Because as far as the monsters you are hitting it with are concerned you did not do that 13d6 sonic damage to them, you don't get the threat from doing it(or so i assume, never pulled aggro on a pack of mobs i hit with it). Seeing as this is not a spell you directly cast i highly doubt any item or enhances to boost sonic damage would work on it.