Build Guide: Shield Defense/Broadsword able to handle any content

[Porche]

This is my current build used by Porche of Chaos United on Everlasting.  I figure I should share what I have done since I have benefited a lot from other's build guides and guidance. Its the result of about a year of active play and a couple of revisions on my first ever level 50 main.   It can tank 4-star ITF, and its balanced all-around protections make it capable of handling any enemy group in the game without holes.  As always if you have suggestions or questions let me know.

 

Pros:

• Positional defenses are soft capped naturally
• All resists at about 70% self-buffed
• Four different Mitigation buttons to cycle through (Rune of Protection, One WIth the Shield, Melee Core, Barrier Core)
• Capable of going AFK mid-pull in MSR raids and being fine

 

Cons:

• A heavy defensive build means the Offense suffers
• Uncapped balanced resist means needing mitigation buttons to hit caps so a bit more active
• No self-heals or drains, don't expect to tank Hamidon

 

Build Theory

This is a build focused on balanced defenses. Although I could have capped certain resists, I instead chose to take a balanced approach and get everything up to a high level. The result is ~70% resistance across the board. This makes the build capable of handling ANY content without struggling. It can take on Freakshow as easily as Council and CoT.  I have not had any 

 

I use the mitigation powers and cycle through them to maintain my resistance. Because Barrier Core Epiphany T4 lasts the full 2m with an effect that gradually loses power, we have a minimum of an extra 7% resistance. The same is true with Melee Core, which gives a minimum of +16% for an extra +23% resists, making for all practical purposes 90% resist all (Psi at 88%). All of this is self-buffed.

 

Active Defense is our Status Protection, and it will refresh 11 seconds before it wears off, ensuring 100% uptime.

 

 

Mitigation Buttons

Rune Of Protection, +25% resist all, 10pt Status Protection

One With The Shield, +45% resist all, 21pt Status Protection

Melee Core, 16%-25% resists all (scaling with enemies)

Barrier Core, 57%-7% Resists/Defense scaling down over the full duration

Parry, +15 Melee Defense

 

 

Pools

Sorcery gives me my Movement power, a minor teammate buff, and Rune of Protection (Resist) as a big mitigation option.

Fighting pool is pretty obvious for Tough (Resist) and Weave (Def)

Leaping for Combat Jump (Def)

Leadership for Maneuvers (Def)

Energy Mastery gives me Conserve Power as an option if Endurance gets tight.

 

Incarnates:

Resilient Core to boost my resists

Melee Core as a mitigation option

Barrier Core as a Mitigation Option

Degenerative for the -MaxHP

Mighty Radial Final Judgement for the Knock up

Cimeroran Lore for thematic reasons

 

Endurance Use

This build just sips endurance, All of the toggles and Active defense up uses only 1.02 End/Sec.  I can freely use One With the Shield and the crash isn't even noticeable.  Conserve Power lets you recover very quickly if you get drained.

 

Strategy:

I put Active Defense on Auto, this is our basic status Protections.

I cycle through the defenses as they wear off. RoP, MeleeCore, RoP, OwtS, BarrierCOre, RoP, etc. 

Taunt and melee for area threat

Shield Slam lets you move quickly if an ally is getting pressured, the KD from it gives you a few seconds to followup and lock in the aggro. 

 

Porche - Tanker (Shield Defense - Broad Sword).mbd

[Zect]

You can get similar resistances and defenses while saving a few slots if you split up your ATIO2. This reduces reliance on 4x shield wall for EN res, which is really inefficient if you need to slot multiple sets, and also allows fitting 2x -res procs in the attack chain and double-stacking your AD which helps with DDR (though you won't need that if you cycle your res cd's properly because at that point you're a res tank).

 

Preventive med proc should go in spirit ward and miracle in health because prevmed works even if the power is not used (it's more like a global in that sense than a normal proc).

 

 

68-72% res is actually the right breakpoint for non-res sets, because melee core will bring you to 89% and chip damage will cap you. However, quite a lot in your build is still overkill. For example, if you are taking parry (and I know you use it as a filler because your rech is far off from being able to do hack disembowel hack headsplitter), why build for melee def? Just use parry. Owts/rune/melee core already fit a nice 5 min cycle. Do you really need barrier? In fact, this is the setup I use on my 4* shield tank and I take advantage of this to carry incan for the team instead since I don't need any destiny. etc. In the end, being able to afk sounds impressive, until you realize it means wasted stats, i.e. you're building defenses against things that don't exist. You can afford to tone it down slightly and invest in other things, while being just as (or even more) indestructible. I know because I am.

 

[Duckbutler]

I am in love with my axe/shield scrapper and a shield tank is on my "to-do" list. Along with about 3 others that I power leveled to the mid levels via the MS event (which still sounds like a public awareness campaign to me). My thought is to aim for incarnate capped defenses, get resists "good enough" and then for the Destiny slot pick up Rebirth for the heal. My shield scrapper is generally fine just using inspiration macros to filter all inspirations to either damage or health and then when he needs healing, a few inspirations are good enough. I feel like a tanker might want the retroactive tanking CD of an actual heal.

[Maslow]

This sounds wonderful and looks nice, how well do you think your general setup would pair with other secondaries? I'm returning to the game and have no idea how balanced things are now. I know people have the urge to play whatever you have fun, but I would like to hear comparisons, especially from someone that regards their combo as working really well.

[Porche]

It should pair very well with most powers.  The slotting of the defensive powers wouldn't need to change and the attack slotting is straightforward with focusing on the best set bonuses to resists. 

 

The overcap on defense gives you a lot of wiggle room to change things up while still having very high defenses and resistances.

[Maslow]

Here's what I came up with and am working on, thanks for the rikti raid!

Porche2 - mine - Shield Defense - Stone Melee.mbd

[DarkRevelation]

I know nothing about Shield, so this is a perfect opportunity to learn. What does shield do for debuff resistance? I downloaded your build and looked. 

 

How do you deal with getting sapped/recharge debuffed?

[DarkRevelation]

On 4/23/2024 at 1:21 PM, DarkRevelation said:

I know nothing about Shield, so this is a perfect opportunity to learn. What does shield do for debuff resistance? I downloaded your build and looked. 

 

How do you deal with getting sapped/recharge debuffed?

 

One of the reasons I asked this question is not because of a tank related reason, but it falls into the defense based builds across ATs. I have a widow that I love to play. I didn't follow any build with her, and played it by ear. It ended up being a decent first build, with Mind Link up all of the time she is sitting at roughly 90% defense to melee, one proc'ed out attack, multiple set bonuses and sacrificing recharge/sapped defense debuff resistance to get there. It is a leveling build that I never respec'ed out of, honestly because it is just fun. I mean seriously, running around stealthed with a stealth IO in sprint as well, buffing the hell out of a team's defense/accuracy, dropping crits from stealth, and being able to pop back into stealth and crit again all while at 90% defense to melee? It is pretty fun. 

 

It is awesome, until it isn't. What I mean by that is there isn't much that character can't do until the debuffs finally hit, and when they do, look out. No heals in that situation = not fun, but it is now time to run. I assume the answer is 'well, you have a team in those situations' but that isn't always the case. My other tanks have mitigation methods for when the debuffs hit, like resistance AND a heal/absorb+heal.

 

How do Shield tanks mitigate major debuffs when solo? 

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, DarkRevelation said:

How do Shield tanks mitigate major debuffs when solo? 

 

With shield my main goal is to build the 3 positionals as high as I can up to about 70 max.  The sweet spot for me is 60-65 because that ensures incarnate content isn't going to slip through like it would at 45%.  Phalanx Fighting only increases this for any team member you are near.   Shield is great solo but only scales when teamed and when thoroughly engaged. 

 

This combined with shields nearly capped DDR (only slightly behind SR) means there won't be much that hits you that will matter.  Ie you won't be debuffed if you don't get hit. 

 

With res taking into account 1 stack of might of the tanker I like to get near 80%s/l  and 60-70 for the remaining categories. 

 

If you accomplish all those metrics. I promise you if anything brings you down. They earned it honest. lol