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The Waste or Sponge pure defensive build
The Pure Defensive Warrior
So my first attempt at posting a guide, I am going to delve into the pure defensive warrior.
We are going to be looking at one sub build of the “Tank” warrior, so I guess ill bite the bullet and get into it. Be Gentle. Note: there are many other ways to build a tank, this is just one of them.
When deciding any Style/job Class the first thing I always try to do is look at the Slave and think… what do I want them to do. Next is usually, is this going to be a long term Blood God (Hol) Glad or am I just pushing ranks to get to HOL. That being said, let’s start with the first Sub build to the Tank.
The Low Intelligence Tank or The “Waste/Sponge” Build.
A decent Waste Slave might look something like this (non-hol pusher, Typically a Farmer.)
Strength: Any, Intel Under 70, Agil: 75/80, Stamina: 75/80, Size 80+, Pressence70-75, chi Lower the better. (yes I know we all wish we got non hols like this more often, but they do come up.
The first thing you going to notice is Strength is not a big issue, OMG What!. Yeah I know, We are not focusing on damage, we are Focusing on three major things
Mitigating Damage: Blocking/dodging ETC -- Agility
Limiting Attacks/Hindering Initiative -- Presence
Sponging Damage that we do take with Health – Stamina/Size
So Next Thing we need to decide is Weapon Choice.
I break this down like this.
Agility is higher than Strength (99% of the time on this build) Sword Main hand
Strength is higher than Agil (hardly ever) Axes/Maces main hand
As we are going defensive, we will be using a shield so no 2handers.
So now we have answered the main questions, what are we doing, what style are we doing it with, and what are we going to use to do it. Let’s dig into Skills.
*One thing to note is that we are going to try to avoid Activated skills as much as possible, due to the low Intelligence, we are stuck with a couple, but all in all we can get there pretty well by avoiding most.
Tier One: Main hand weapon only!
But you said we are using a shield… we are. But, I will explain later.
Tier Two: Grim Determination.
Why not Iron Jaw, It really is a tradeoff. We are already going to be wearing heavy Armor on the head, which reduces the chances of getting knocked out. We deal with stuns by turtling behind a shield and thick armor and relying on Health to get us through the tough spot
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Tier Three: Battle Hardened, Master of Arms
In my opinion taking Master of Arms to 10 instead of shield to 10 gives you the ability to still use a shield in your off hand as all weapons become equal to the skill of your main hand, Ie 10. But, it also gives you the ability to make use of those odd weapons that get picked after a drop, or those oddball weapons that get assigned to you in Pit fights. Yes, you have to wait to make full use of your shield, but, we are not worried about attacking with it anyway, we are only worried about the Defense bonus it gives and the extra stats you’re getting from an offhand. So fumbling an attack with a shield is not really a big loss on a style that designed to only attack occasionally anyway
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Tier Four: Armor Movement, Never Say Die (self-Explanatory if you read the skill)
Tier Five: Intercepting Guard, Light as a Feather, and Create Distance (great defensive skill)
Tier Six: Armored Fortress
Now that we have skills out of the way let us look at something very important to this build.. Achievements. WE need to be able to stack defense for this build to work even remotely well. The only way to really effectively do that is with Achievements.
Defense Achievements come from a couple sources, First contracts, killing Thieves and completing contracts get you some of your early achievements But, the main focus is winning Pit Fights.
OK here is where it gets touchy for most managers. The only really reliable way to win pit fights is to do what I call “lurking”. As you progress in the main arena, you also progress in pit fights. From watching close what I can tell is you stay in your ranking bracket and one bracket above you. Seems unfair I know, but considering a good majority of glad, especially decent ones Blow through the lower ranks and are probably somewhere around Veterans or Elites before they really begin to develop beyond maxxing their main weapon, and working some on their tier two skill, if they even get that far.
Why this build is hard for most managers is because you have to lose, team records reflect losses, and honestly pride messes with a lot of folks and does not allow them to “Lurk” enough to make this build effective later. Don’t get me wrong, this Is ONLY for pure defensive builds that I am going to run in the Maximus/Primus range for a while (usually to farm money as Maximus and Primus pay very well in relation to other brackets). Please realize this build is only for very specific purposes and requires a lot of patience.
Let’s look at how to “Lurk” effectively. First, understand that you get Skill points even if you lose. Yep losing still gives skill points.
So, I get my guy the best thickest armor I can afford, I use the free lookup feature to buy a blue Torso first thing. I give them their main hand and the highest defense shield I can find. The trick to this is losing. So I set up my fight strategy ( I have to keep somethings to myself, but I would be happy to discuss in a message) and I fight until I win enough fights to get myself into Fresh Meat or Amateurs , Top Ten. Now the hard part and the part that takes patience. I TAKE OFF MY ARMOR, what!? Yep. And I leave it off, checking on my little Waste periodically to make sure he/she stays in that bracket winning when I need to and losing when I need to until I have done my taverns and arenas for skill points, which I apply to the above mentioned skills. Now here’s the point of “Lurking” , I need to win PIT fights for this build to progress well. To do that I want to stay in the lowest class I can, and fight the newest warriors I can in the pit. If done right I can lurk off a few daily 2nd place wins, spreading them out to only a couple a week because let’s face it doing this is a dick move to anyone honestly trying to win the pits. This allows skill points to accumulate, Contract achievements to stack up and lets you get your hands on the first PIT achievement (+50) defense.
At this point you should be leveled up enough to have your first parry stances, weapon maxed and hopefully a good distance advanced on your Master of Arms.
Now it is time to unleash this Glad on the upper levels, coming in with a poor record, usually more losses then wins, but skilled and Achievmented way ahead of the Curb (hopefully). I then challenge for wins, Other warriors/Slayers/ some Rages. Work my way to Maximus and start farming gold, This can be done until the glad balanced out and gets in the positive win category and makes it to the Primus bracket at which point you can continue to farm, or more likely retire them for an HOL.
These Guides if you can call them that, are my opinion and examples may vary, hope this helps
Regards,
The Small one, Manager of the Legendary Crew.
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