Tanks

Disclaimer: the information brought forward to you is based on personal experience and information brought forward by fellow players of the game and therefore may be inaccurate in some ways and in need of updating so your contributions are much appreciated. Thank you.

Tanks are the most underrated class in toram yet it serves an important role in battle, however many fail to capture the essence of what it means to tank and thus struggle at it, this forum will prove to be as a guide for anyone who wishes to make such a build, improve or compare to what they have currently.

Let me just state that a tank can be of any weapon type and build, wether it’s a halb, katana, sword +sheild or knuc+md. The combinations for a tank can be very diverse however there are reasons why a tank is normally of a typical combination which we will see later on.

When tanking there are three main criteria that needs to be considered in the build to be effective in battle they are :
1) Aggro
2) Survivability/durability
3) Invulnerability

AGGRO

This may seem like a no brainer but aggro is very important to a tank, any tank that can’t hold and maintain aggro in battle is like a paper weight in battle. So the problem is not that if a tank is making aggro but is he/she generating enough aggro to the point that the boss/mobs have their full attention at all times .

How do I generate aggro?

All skills generate aggro however the question is how much aggro I generate is a question many ask. So as a simple rule of thumb the amount of aggro generated is proportional to the amount of mp a skill uses, this is regardless of the level unless the skill itself consumes less with a higher level, so for example war cry consumes 300 mp so every time you cast war cry you generate 300 aggro, this is unaffected by save and smite tags , whatever a skill consumes out of a combo remains the same within a combo regardless of how it’s placed there.However finale as a skill is an exception even though it costs 1200 mp it only generates a fixed 100 aggro per second while being cast , other exceptions include rage sword that gains an additional 200 aggro at lv 10 giving the user 400 aggro with a 200 mp skill (not to mention that it has perfect aim when the user is targeted , also it halves the mp cost of the following skill just like impact), blinding strike gains an additional 200 aggro at lv 10 giving the user 500 aggro for a 300mp skill and p. def gives an additional 500 aggro at lv 10 so that’s 600 aggro even though it’s a 100mp skill.

Along with this some equipment gives +ve aggro which adds to the amount of aggro generated by a skill by the numerical % aggro it gives, so if a player has an equipment with +20% aggro and casts war cry the aggro would be 300+(20%*300)=360. Which means the more +ve aggro buffs a tank has the easier it is to hold and maintain aggro, also tanks benefit from having combos that have a lot of save tags which makes moves spammable and easier on their mana pools.

What about mob aggro?

Mob aggro is just as important as single line aggro and certain skills makes that possible, that is any aoe damage dealing skills except demon claw and any and all buffs wether it’s a party buff or personal buff skill, some generate one time aggro like war cry whilst others like brave aura generates aggro per second once the buff is active. So here are a list of mob aggro skills that are useful for tanks: war cry, Meikyo Shisui, Kairiki Ranshin, guardian, sanctuary, decoy shot, blinding strike and meteor breaker. There are others that can be used but these have the most usefulness in battle and with the exception blinding strike and meteor breaker the others don’t ruin propriation which is an added bonus .


SURVIVABILITY\DURABILITY

So now you have aggro but now you have to stay alive to be useful and the easiest way to achieve this is high hp, that’s why many tanks train vit stat, however this by itself may not be good enough so there are these options :
1)refined armor, additional gear and sheild , each refine level gives 1% damage reduction for the three damage types (physical, magic and fractional)which in turn reduces the overal damage of an attack making you take more hits in the long run, the higher the refine the better it is for you in battle
2) gear stats and hp buffs, there is no such thing as too much resistance or too much hp when it comes to a tank, the more the better so arm gear statted for more hp or none player made gear that gives additional hp works fine as well. There are also a wide range of xtals that boosts your hp as well, tank builds are the easiest and cheapest to make so it’s not always necessary to go that route however it’s there as an option in case anyone wishes to do so. Along with high hp is hp regeneration and three skills that are useful are power defense, heal and nature’s wonder. Those skills will make a tank less dependent on healing items in battle.


INVULNERABILITY

Now this may seem to be the same as survivability but however there are some bosses you can tank and not worry about massive amounts of damage but however for those bosses that do, invulnerability is very important. Some bosses deals high fractional damage ( damage based on hp) , in this circumstance you need a quick way to defend yourself and prevent death. So as I stated before any build can potentially be a tank and that has some truth to it (wether ppl agree or not) .

halb -dive impact, 1 second invulnerability during animations where all attacks misses the user, can only be activated when within 4m of target (cost 400mp)
-dragon tail, reduces damage in two phases, 45% in the first phase and 90% in the second, can be cast at any distance from target (cost 300mp)

*Katana-Zantei Settetsu, nullifies the initial damage and is invulnerable for roughly 1 second afterwards when tenryu is active (cost 400 mp)
-magadachi , at lv 10 provides physical and fractional damage reduction by 90% and magic damage reduction by 45%,
also leaves the user on 1hp if the damage received exceeds his current hp, this skill has an added bonus of recovering 200 mp when the user successfully counters an attack . (cost 300mp)

1h,2h,ds-meteor breaker, gives the user a 1 second invulnerability during the skill animation where all attacks miss the user (cost 600mp)

ds-phantom slash, gives the user a 6 seconds invulnerability window from all attacks once animation is active , during animation all attacks will miss the user (cost 400 mp)

Sheild sub- p. def , nullifies damage instantaneously during animation and recovers a percentage of the users max hp based on its level, but is capped at 2000hp (at lv10), however some critical movies can not be nullified by this move ( like a certain move from the gerumi boss in the alchemia story collab event) (cost 100mp)

Halb,1h sword,md,knuckle and dagger- Elegant poise, 1st phase halves damage on initial phase leaves the user on 1hp if halved damage deals more than current hp, 2nd phase makes the user invulnerable for 3s where all attacks miss the user, can be interrupted or canceled if the user is inflicted with a status ailment (cost 100mp)


In practically however p.def is the main go to for a invulnerability skill not only that it has a low map cost it has the added effect of healing the user generating aggro (500 aggro) , much easier to use and master than most skills and the addition of a shield gives the tank other skills that makes survivability much easier for a tank , hence that is why tanks usually carry a shield in toram, but it doesn’t mean that all tanks have to, it’s based purely on play style and skill of the player.

*in the hands of a skilled player katana can tank well but the number of attacks that a player would have to land to maintain aggro could well ruin popriation, this may be why the use of katana as a tank is widely (if ever seen) thus many rather go full dps with a katana character.

 

Thank you for effort in making this guide. I have currently made a new tank character and this has helped cleared up a few things.
One thing I don't really understand is '300+(20%*300)=320' because that looks like it equals 360. Did you mean 300+20=320?

 

Sorry it was a typo I’ll fix it thanks

 

For P.DEF, it's better change it to Slvl*1% and Maximum heal 2000 HP, else people may think that it's will always heal 2000 HP. And base on HP calculation, with VIT 275 only can reach about 19920 HP ( without any additional VIT or HP buff ).

1 more underrated skill is Knight Skill Rage Sword & Binding Strike.
Rage Sword gain additional 200 aggro at LVL10, with it's 200 MP total is 400MP.
Binding Strike gain additional 300 aggro at LVL10, with it's 300 MP total is 500MP.
If use both skill in combo with 100mp skill as Combo Start, you will deal 1KMP without any Aggro+ item.
Beside when player is targeted, rage sword will have AbsoluteHIT and Cut Half Mana for New Skill use, so player can use combo like Astute>RS(Save)>BS(Swift/SMI) for fast aggro gain or clear the minion.

 

Maybe you can consider these things:
>Proration Control
You know, some dps these day are stupid enough to spam with decoy without thinking if they gonna ruin the proration. I think tank will be the best to take that role.
>Knowing opponent's pattern
This one is quite important imo, when you know all the pattern you can decide which one to manually dodge, pdef, or interrupt. It gives you ability to make your mp consumption more efficient
>Interruption
As a tank you have to protect your companion, time your interruption will make it perfects, so its gonna be better if you exclude all interruption skill on ur combo.
>War cry
Addition for aggro generator. I'd say if this one is actually the best to aggro. You don't need target to do warcry, aggro globally, doesn't prorate, and also the animation is really fast.

I think its gonna be sounds more simple as "Damage Reduction"

 

*Katana-Zantei Settetsu, nullifies the initial damage and is invulnerable for roughly 1 second afterwards (cost 300mp)

[/QUOTE]
Zantei without tenryuu buff only parries 1 attack and nullify the damage during the parrying animation, only when one has tenryuu buff will it turn to tenryuu ransei zannou and gives an invincibility buff after the parrying animation. Also zantei costs 400 mp, magadachi is the one that costs 300 mp

 

To be honest the fractional damage part is news to me, I wasn’t sure about the damage reduction for sheild refine since I always thought sheild refine was for guard strike, I’ll update that thanks.

Yeah I get your point I oversimplified it, I assumed that all tanks would have it at lv 10 so I didn’t study the level increments in the guide. You said rage sword gets an additional 200 aggro at lv 10 so with its 200 mp total is 400, is that a typo? Since I was confused a little, I never really used it much since the recent update with absolute hit and what not because I stuck with knuc tank of recent.

Propriation- I don’t want to confuse a new tanker with too many things it’s difficult to balance propriation and aggro holding since many players spam a lot, I have lost aggro many times while trying to propriate for the team and I get hate if i lose aggro, so rather I would just hold aggro and try not to ruin propriation in the process and let the dps figure that mess out.

Knowing boss pattern and interrupt- I’ll have to make videos to make this part possible since for a tank position is key, take wondering wheel for example a tank can stick him by the wall hold aggro and take little to no damage in the process, so exploiting the battle field is important (I’ll add that), as for interrupting bosses, it’s simple for mini bosses but main stream bosses and event bosses you will have to be specific for many of them, i wasn’t sure if to make a separate thread in this or add it since it may be a long list if I consider all the possibilities as the do’s and don’t when it comes to interruptions, if there is a thread or web page that already gives a detailed list I’ll just link it or something .

war cry- yes war cry is one of the best non damage type aggro generators, that’s why I made mention of it so much, but I grouped it together with some others for variation, the katana skills mentioned also has quick animation, only decoy takes really long which doesn’t make it spammable.

Thanks for all the information guys keep it coming, I’ll update it right away.

 

Zantei without tenryuu buff only parries 1 attack and nullify the damage during the parrying animation, only when one has tenryuu buff will it turn to tenryuu ransei zannou and gives an invincibility buff after the parrying animation. Also zantei costs 400 mp, magadachi is the one that costs 300 mp[/QUOTE]
Ok thanks I’ll explain the skill more and correct the typo, ty.

 

invincibility lasts only 1s while jumping, you can be hit again as soon as your character lands on the ground, but the animation does not end there yet. using this requires precise timing.

Dragon Tail costs 1mp less and reduces damage taken twice during it's animation.
45% during the 1st spin and 90% during the 2nd spin.
also, it has no range restriction on activation and can be used anytime, while Dive Impact can only be activated at 4m or less.

 

Ya, sorry typo. I mean 400 aggregate.

 

Oh I didn’t know about that aspect of dragon tail, I have t used that move in ages lol, when I used dive there is a 3s invincibility counter , I know the animation doesn’t last that long but I still put it there due to that, maybe because if you get frozen the animation takes longer? I was always puzzled by the 3s counter tbh but I assumed it was to compensate for freeze

 

I have a knuckle tank and I find my interruption skills really slow, what should I increase? Attack speed or cast speed?
Sorry for the nub question..

 

Attack speed , since after 1k attack speed you get 1% motion speed so the animations are faster, however if you know the boss patterns you can use the interruptions earlier to compensate for that, I normally do that for p.def. Many bosses have tells just before they actually do their special moves so it pays to be observant

 

If you talking about bash and sonic, just forget about ASPD, leave it at 1K will do because even though have 5K ASPD this 2 skill still have slow motion.

I would suggest you added both skill in combo with swift which increase 50% motion speed, or train yourself on capture the correct timing for both skill.

 

For knuc tank I prefer sheild bash or sheild cannon since the animation is faster, but yeah some knuc animations a kinda long.

 

yep and aside from the long animation, the stun chance is based on AGI, so its not that reliable unless your tank have 250 AGI.

Base Ailment Chance: 25% (levels 1 to 5); 50% (levels 6 to 10)
Ailment Duration: 5 seconds
Ailment Resistance: 25 seconds (Easy, Normal, Hard and Nightmare); 30 seconds (Ultimate)
Game Description: "Strike a heavy blow on the head. Chance to inflict [Stun] on the target."
Knuckle Main/Sub bonus: Skill Multiplier +(1 + total AGI/500)
Knuckle Main/Sub bonus: Skill Constant +(50 + total AGI/5)
Knuckle Main/Sub bonus: Stun chance +(25 + total AGI/10)%

 

Finale generates 100 aggro/sec on top of the 1200 aggro from the skill

Its not just the tanks job to prorate, its everyones job, 1 char is not enough to prorate for everyone

 

Its not like I burden all the prorate job to tank ofc its everyone's job, but its more like if tank help to prorate its gonna be way easier for the others to focus on dealing dmg. I've noticed tank these days tend to ruin the proration by spamming a combo with multiple physical skills to get their aggro back which is the opposite of my statement. When a tank knows this sort of job, they gonna change their combo to be more proration friendly.