First section will look into comparison of single weapons, second one will offer some combination build suggestions with evaluations of each one. This is based on my personal years of experience tanking in the game, trying to be as impartial to different weapons as possible.
Shotgun: Mitigation Type: Glance
While clearly a superior choice in terms of mitigation by a wide margin, shotgun suffers from some issues compared to other weapons when it comes to questions of convenience.
Benefits:
- Highest mitigation potential in the game.
- HP % buff on signature allows for extra flexibility in builds (by giving you an option to drop rocket pod ability)
- Highest aggro potential
- Ranged attacks allow you to ignore certain mechanics / AoE attacks from the bosses
- Access to group wide buffs like Opening Shot and Expose, as well as the best cleanse in the game, Clean Up
Drawbacks:
- Reloading mechanic is unpolished and clunky
- Scattershot is the worst AoE basic attack in the game, making managing adds comparatively more challenging
- Lack of good passives for tanking (there’s essentially only 5 so you run them with no alternative)
- Poor offhand option
- Learning to ignore certain mechanics can bite you in the ass later
Weapon Options:
- Bolstering Blaster of Efficiency: top dog when it comes down to taking as little damage as possible. Massive overkill for 99% of the situations
- Bolstering Blaster of Recovery|Restoration / Thundering Demise of Efficiency MK III (IV): Second best option for mitigation, both of these weapons provide great cooldown reduction (either through passive in case of BB or with affix on TD) and additional survivability (with affix on BB and extra free passives on TD). Keep in mind that TD takes away your ability to apply Expose, as well as having Supremacy elite bugged to the point of unusability.
- Redeemer of Efficiency MK III (IV) / Shotgun of the Howling Dog of Efficiency MK III (IV): Group support options, both of those shotguns rely on using Armour Piercing Shells to provide utility to your team. Redeemer gives your team a slight boost in damage whereas Howling Dog has a much easier time applying expose stacks that makes it much easier to run and better in short fights.
- Any Shotgun of Efficiency MK IV / Bolstering Blaster of Non-Recovery|Restoration
Chaos Mitigation Type: Evasion
Slightly worse in overall mitigation than shotgun, it can nevertheless achieve peak mitigation that rivals shotgun due to amazing synergies between it’s abilities.
Benefits:
- Highest peak damage mitigation
- Best Elite + Signature Ability synergy in the game, as well as best signature ability in the game.
- Access to best taunt in the game (Evulsion)
- Highest AoE damage / aggro
- Incoming damage delay passive (Aegis of Parallelism)
- Amazing offhand option
- Melee range makes you more aware of mechanics
Drawbacks:
- Lowest single target aggro of all tanking weapons (lowest /= low, it’s still adequate)
- High energy consumption
- Melee range
Weapon options:
- Dark Mysteries of Efficiency (Recovery / Alacrity) MK III (IV): Best all around choice, great passives for mainhand, usable passive for offhand.
- Enigmatic Apparatus of Efficiency (Recovery / Alacrity) MK III (IV): Alternative good choice for mainhand (not as good for offhand)
- Sanity’s Aphelion of Alacrity MK III (IV): Good offhand choice, hence Alacrity affix, not good in mainhand
- Focus of the Unwritten Talisman: Good mainhand option for dungeons or OD tanking.
- Any Chaos of Efficiency MK III (IV)
Hammer: Mitigation Type: Temporary Health Increase
Lowest mitigation out of 3 tanking weapon options, hammer, nonetheless, has some upsides that make it a good choice for tanking lairs or dungeons if you’re running them with higher geared DPS.
Benefits:
- Guaranteed mitigation. Temporary HP provided will always soak the same amount of damage 100% of the time, unlike glance / evade mechanics that rely on RNG
- The only weapon that has access to two taunts
- High mobility
- Healing procs from mitigation abilities enhance aggro generation
- Good AoE capability
- Big buffs to incoming healing makes hammer weapon users easiest to heal
- Melee range makes you more aware of mechanics
- Good offhand option
Drawbacks:
- Lowest mitigation of all tanking weapons (lowest /= low, it’s still adequate) makes hammer tanks require most healing
- Raging Volcano taunt is unreliable on single target
- Pain Suppression is unsuitable for mitigating large spike damage
- Melee range
Weapon options:
- Torturer’s Instrument of Efficiency (Recovery / Alacrity) MK III (IV): Best option for tanking in main or offhand. Great passives for mainhand, Die Hard is one of the best passives for offhand.
- Manticore’s Riot Suppressor / Orochi Motivator of Efficiency (Recovery / Alacrity) MK III (IV): Somewhat usable in mainhand, not good in offhand at all.
- Any Hammer of Efficiency MK IV (III)
Example builds for various weapon combinations:
Shotgun / Chaos:
General Build
Import via Boobuilds
BD%-%VER%-%1.0%-%SK%-%7360713%-%9255472%-%9271872%-%5847944%-%5847932%-%7356474%-%PS%-%9271884%-%9256319%-%9256326%-%9256323%-%9256330%
This build provides good mix of mitigation and AoE capability with AoE basic and 2 AoE taunts in Sonic Blast and Mass Evulsion, as well as highest single target aggro burst with Rocket Pod.
Higher Mitigation General Build
Import via Boobuilds
BD%-%VER%-%1.0%-%SK%-%9271872%-%9255472%-%9255471%-%5847944%-%5847975%-%7356474%-%PS%-%9271884%-%9256319%-%9256326%-%9256318%-%9256330%
3 Interrupts and 2 AoE taunt should have you covered in 95% of situations. Swap Kneecapper for Anomaly in other 5%. Swap in Stand Firm for X Factor if you don’t have Dark Mysteries Chaos Focus or for Multidimensional Threads if you do. Drop Reinforced shells if you need to use Opening shot or Clean Up to buff / cleanse. Drops Reinforce Shells+passive in favour of Scattershot / Rocket Pod+passive combo for more aggro.
Maximum Mitigation
Import via Boobuilds
BD%-%VER%-%1.0%-%SK%-%7360713%-%9255472%-%9255471%-%5847944%-%5847932%-%7356474%-%PS%-%9256323%-%9256319%-%9256326%-%9256318%-%9256330%
This build provides the most mitigation at the cost of only having AoE basic and Sonic Blast as AOE taunt and relies on Evulsion + Kneecapper as double interrupt. Massive overkill for dungeons, suggest at least swapping Unification Susceptibility Module gadget for Electrogravitic Attractor or Mistress’s Bashosen for a lower cooldown interrupt. Swapping Reinforced Rockets for Mass Evulsion passive is also a possibility.
Shotgun Hammer:
General Build:
Import via Boobuilds
BD%-%VER%-%1.0%-%SK%-%6940378%-%9255472%-%9255471%-%5847944%-%5847975%-%6891759%-%PS%-%9256917%-%9256319%-%9256326%-%9256318%-%9256330%
Less popular combination than Shotgun / Chaos, Hammer can nonetheless bring some utility to this build by using Blindside with Beatdown passive for interrupting and buffing DPS, as well as supplementing weaker shotgun AoE capability. Swap Kneecapper / Stand Firm for Raging Volcano / Molten Armor if you require more AoE.
Chaos Hammer:
Import via Boobuilds
BD%-%VER%-%1.0%-%SK%-%7356448%-%7356470%-%9271872%-%7356594%-%7356426%-%7356474%-%PS%-%9271884%-%9271882%-%9271889%-%9271887%-%9271878%
Yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. The only purpose of hammer in this build is to provide Die Hard passive for free from Torturer’s Instrument weapon (it doesn’t even have to be levelled). On bosses that deal high single target damage elite swap for Immutable is recommended. Change Probability Protection passive for Incongruity if you do.
Chaos Shotgun build is therefore the same but instead of Die Hard passive benefit you’ll get a 5% increase to incoming healing from having shotgun with green shells equipped.
Hammer Chaos:
Import via Boobuilds
BD%-%VER%-%1.0%-%SK%-%6940350%-%5848008%-%9271872%-%6940380%-%6940340%-%7356474%-%PS%-%9256919%-%9256915%-%9256923%-%9256918%-%9271884%
Good AoE aggro, decent mitigation. Pain Supression can potentially be used instead of Invoke Self but there’s little reason to do it. Switching to Unstoppable Force instead of Raging Volcano on single target tanking bosses will free up one passive slot if you are using Torturer’s Instrument hammer. Multidimentional Threads Chaos passive is a good option to replace Molten Armor.
How to make your own build:
Generally there are several things to consider when it comes to tanking builds.
- Average mitigation
- Spike damage mitigation
- Aggro retention
- Forced taunting (if required)
- Add management
- Utility - interrupts, purges, exposes, damage buffs, whatever
Parts of a tanking build:
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Basic attack: Either AoE or single target. Scaling wise, single target is double the damage of aoe basic, so if there are no adds present there’s little reason to use AoE.
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HP% buff. Strictly speaking, not necessary, but it’s easy to keep %HP buff up in perpetuity, so not using it and forfeiting at least 30% of your total hp bar for a tank is borderline griefing of your healer. For Hammer / Chaos %HP buff is tied to a 3 point energy power ability ( Pulverize / Distortion) and lasts 15 seconds, for Shotgun it’s a part of Sonic Blast signature and has 60 seconds duration.
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Active mitigation cooldowns: Abilities that are expressly meant to help you prevent incoming damage spikes from boss abilities. There are some places where using them is required to avoid being oneshot, but they are also used to reduce overall average damage in an encounter even if there is no imminent big hit incoming. Each tanking weapon has one of those in Special abilities and 2 Elite abilities that can serve that purpose. Since you can only use one Elite ability at a time at most you can have 2 active mitigation abilities from one weapon (+ 1 from offhand if you so choose). Active mitigation abilities have 60 seconds base cooldowns. For elites it is usually reduced by a head cooldown reduction signet (either generic or weapon-specific) to ~40 seconds. If you know what you’re doing you can make do with just your Elite but in most situation 2 cooldowns is the way to go.
-
Signature Ability: Signature ability is a mixed ability that provides you with both a great way to quickly pull aggro from a lot of mobs with it’s 20m wide aoe, as well as having a nice mitigation bonus to help your average mitigation out. They are not as potent as active mitigation cooldowns but their base cooldown is much lower at 30 seconds and to add to that each signature ability has unique triggers that when activated will reduce it’s cooldown even further by a specific number of seconds. Generally speaking you would want to use them as often as possible. They are not mandatory, but dropping them is a big hit to your average protections.
Sonic Blast (Shotgun Signature): Cooldown reduced by 5 seconds when you glance a hit / reload.
Twist Fate (Chaos Signature): Cooldown reduced by 10 seconds when you evade an attack and 5 seconds when you reach 8 paradoxes.
Blazing Fury (Hammer Signature): Cooldown reduced by 5 seconds when you enrage and 2 seconds every time you take damage (but not more than once per second). -
Taunt: Optional for the most part, but there are some bosses that have aggro reset mechanics and require having a taunt in your build. Additionally these abilities often have use beyond just forcing aggro and are generally nice to have. Abilities that taunt are:
Sonic Blast - Shotgun Signature Ability, 20m wide AoE taunt, hits up to 6 (9 with Nemain signet) targets. Since you’re already running it for the HP% buff it’s essentially free in any shotgun mainhand build.
Evulsion - Chaos Special Ability, 15m range single (6m wide AoE centered on the main target, 5 (8) more targets with Mass Evulsion passive) target taunt, interrupts, purges (twice with Mass Evulsion passive). One of, if not the best tanking ability in the game utility-wise.
Into The Fray - Hammer power ability, 10m range, dash (target required), hits 1 target, with 51% or more survivability anima allocation taunts up to 5 (8 with Signet of Nemain) more targets around the primary target. Grants protections to you and your allies around the target. While this ability has some uses when you need to move fast it has significant drawbacks of putting your in potentially unwanted places. It is also directly inferior to Evulsion, as it deals less damage, and neither purges nor interrupts.
Raging Volcano - Hammer Elite Ability. 20m wide AoE 6 second channel, hits every 0.5 seconds and applies a millisecond taunt on each hit, until the last hit that applies persistent taunt. The taunt component for the duration is prone to failure with high DPS hits potentially pulling aggro between pulses and is not reliable as a main taunt. Can be used as supplemental taunt to hold aggro on add spawns. Also has good mitigation component so if you’re using it in a dungeon, might as well have a taunt too. Really good for grabbing a lot of adds at once.
So far our tank build looks like this:
Basic attack / HP% buff / Signature Ability / Mitigation Cooldown / Elite / Utility - for chaos hammer
or
Basic attack / Utility / Signature ability + HP% buff / Mitigation Cooldown / Elite / Utility - for shotgun.
Gaget choices:
Tanks can use variety of gadgets to different ends. List of options includes
-
Interrupts: Electrogravitic attractor - Single target ranged / Mistress’s Bashosen - Melee 10m wide AoE. These are probably the most widely used as then can not only interrupt vital boss abilities that it is your job as tank to interrupt but also pull adds that are chasing your DPS, or knock them down that will prevent the add from hitting the DPS
-
Mitigation: Personal - Unification Susceptibility Module (grants stacks of protections per teammate alive, including you), Osmium Configuration (gives you a protection boost and knockback immunity at the cost of a hefty slow) and Group - Compact Catastrophe Shelter - grants protections to everyone standing in the area (this one is usually used by the healer, but it’s also fine to use as tank if you don’t have other ones). There aren’t really any fights that require mitigation gadgets but on some fights they’re nice to have and other gadgets are not required there so you might as well.
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Utility: Purification Drone Model UW-0: Cleanses one of your teammates (including yourself) of 1 detrimental effect per second (some effects that are displayed as stacks are cleansed at once, and some per stack). Fey Line Stone - teleports you forward X meters (based on rarity), useful to teleport through some things or to quickly gain distance from some bosses when kiting is required.Manticore X27 Agitator - 3 second taunt, 15m range, single target. Almost no use in dungeons, some use in raid tanking.
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Omega broken poo poo: Effigy O33: Reconstructor - heals you for 1.5% of your max hp for 10 seconds. This heals you more than some healers, especially if you are using hammer.
Weapon Affix Considerations (these are assumed to be MK IV, adjust relatively):
Foreword here is that you can probably tank everything with any affix (of without affix if such a thing was possible), so what follows is the finest degree of hairsplitting possible. But to minmax optimally, an affix should be properly considered. Very frequently it would seem like the effect is greater than it actually is though, so take care not to overestimate the value of a particular affix.
Best Overall - Efficiency
Efficiency allows you to bring your elite ability cooldown lower, which makes it easier to use it more frequently to deal with some mechanics, that you otherwise would have to deal with by using other abilities. It is required to be able to do correct timing cooldown rotation for tanking New York Raid. However, in a lot of situation, spamming elite isn’t really required, and therefore, elite coming off cd some seconds earlier won’t really have any practical effect
Best Utility - Alacrity
Move up to 20% faster in combat. While it doesn’t have a direct effect on anything you do per se, it makes it much easier to position correctly, catch up to adds / boss, or just generally not stand in damaging shit.
Best Survivability - Recovery (with dedicated healer) / Restoration (sustain tanking)
Recovery gives you the best value at offsetting the damage you take by increasing incoming healing by 10%, and can account for hundreds of thousands of damage healed with this bonus healing. The thing to note here is that, it’s very likely that you would have healed by your healer to full anyways, even without the effect, so in practice it only allows healer to heal you faster, which is of limited utility.
Restoration is better than recovery in a situation where you don’t have a dedicated healer and are relying on either built in healing like green shells for shotgun or Reconstructor gadget. Healing procs from Restoration weapon will give you more healing than % increase from restoration would in that context, and those healing procs also provide you with a tiny aggro increase which is a nice bonus. About half as effective as Recovery, depending on how good your healer is.
Other Affixes in descending order of usefulness for tanking
You really shouldn’t be getting these on purpose but if you do have one here’s what it does.
Warding - A worse or better version of recovery depending on how you look at it. It reduces the damage and works unconditionally, so you don’t need a healer or anything to hit like with recovery or restoration and it just reduces the damage before you take it. The downside is it’s half as effective as Recovery at the same MK level and is about the same as Restoration but without added aggro from healing procs.
Energy - gives you more aggro by reducing energy cost of your 3 or 5 energy point cost abilities allowing you to use them more often. Not particularly useful since you usually don’t want for aggro that much, but if you’re undergeared it could make a difference. Best “aggro” affix to have.
Obviously you would want to have a power consumer in your build for it to be effective.
Destruction - gives you more aggro when the enemy is close to dying. Almost worthless by that time you are likely to have so much aggro on the mob that you would not lose it even if you stopped attacking
Havoc - gives you more crit power when you have 5% crit chance and no crit power in your build to begin with. Do the math
How to hold aggro for dummies
Holding the mob’s attention on you is a pretty straightforward matter of beating dps in an aggro race. However, you might want to know how to make sure you will not lose aggro to dps or better understand how it works exactly.
1 point of damage equals 1 point of aggro and 1 health point of healing equals 0.5 point of aggro.For the ease of reference Aggro points will be referred to as edps. Your goal as tank is to deal more edps than dps players do.
The main issue you will run into as tank with that is that while 24x aggro modifier given to you by anima allocation does mean you will have a higher average edps, lack of crit chance and power means that dps still have a higher burst edps, and can briefly pull ahead of you at the start of the fight by using powerful damage abilities.
To prevent that you want to use a taunt. Taunts work as follows - at the moment of casting they will place you at the top of the aggro table for the mob and will force the mob to attack you as it’s target (unless it’s already in the process of attacking someone else). As far as I could test, taunts don’t seem to have an aggro multipler, i.e. taunting while you’re already at the top of the aggro chart doesn’t multiply your existing aggro count by a multiplier, so there’s not much point to spam taunts if you already have aggro other than just dealing the damage taunt ability itself does for edps.
You can still lose aggro while the taunt is running, you just won’t be able to see it. The outcome of that will be the mob turning away from you as soon as taunt effect expires. Still, taunts give you valuable time to use your most damaging abilities to generate as much edps as you can to get ahead of the initial dps burst dps players output while they have their energy reserves. Just because you taunted doesn’t mean you can slack off. 3 point power abilities like Rocket Pod, Pulverize and Distortion provide the best energy to edps ratio and are cheap enough to be spammed by tanks without access to high crit rate and energy regeneration.
Alternatively to taunts, immutable and Unstoppable Force elite abilities provide either an edps or an actual dps bonus (so both e and normal damage), and can be used to enhance a 3 point ability to deal competitive edps.
What taunts are good for holding aggro? Shotgun and Chaos taunts - Sonic Blast and Mass Evulsion share a top spot as best taunts in the game, former being very quickly resettable with shotgun mainhand, and latter being functionally unmissable (due to requiring a target) and higher general utility. Hammer has two taunts, but unfortunately, quantity does not transfer to quality - Enter the Fray is janky to use since it requires you to be at a minimum distance away from target, and Raging Volcano deals damage so pathetic that using it defeats the entire purpose of having a taunt since you dont actually build any aggro overhead and it’s trivial to lose aggro to a well timed HEG or Eruption that lands right after the cast of Raging Volcano finishes. The redeeming quality of Raging Volcano is that it’s might be the only semi-reliable way for an undergeared tank to hold aggro against very high dps in a short engagement.
Gearing:
Consult this
Dungeon Mechanics
These guides (1), (2) are mostly relevant to tanking dungeons up until e14 where new mechanics are introduced.
Updated guide for e17 dungeon mechanics for tanking
Raid Tanking Guide
Hammer builds
General mechanics