Defensive spec Ie Tank

[Mahjong]

Do you guys see prospects for a tank spec in d3? In my experience it seems like D2 pretty much consisted of dps, dps, and more dps, and mayybe a summoner necro. But that might just be from like power levelling, and how hell was, i dunno. But this isn't WoW, I can't help but think that it would be too wild and fast-paced for a specialized pvm tank, as opposed to an extra dps melee guy. Maybe I can see it against bosses though, if he would outlast summons. And the Battlemaster tree looks like it opens up a tanking spec, or at least a Barb that heavily comrpomises damage output for endurance. Or is all that defensive stuff just some secondary stuff to choose from?

[Raging_Zealot]

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "tank".

If you mean a character that has more life/defense/etc. than the other classes, and is thus more resilient, then yes, absolutely.

If you mean an MMO-esk Tank/DPS/Healer type tank, that has defensive skills for pulling agro while other characters nuke it, then probably not. They have stated that Diablo III will follow the other Diablo games in that all character classes are capable of soloing all areas of the game. In one of the released videos the commentator even mentioned that there weren't set "DPS" characters, and that the Barbarian would be doing just as much damage, just a different style and with less "flash" than say, a Wizard. However, Diablo II's barbarian had some AI altering skills such as taunt, so it won't be totally unreasonable to think you might have some similar skills that can force the AI to target you over your squishier allies in perhaps a more limited way.

Technically speaking, depending on how many defensive skills there end up being, you could focus primary on them, while neglecting the more damaging skills, and build your own sort of MMO-style tank, but as I said, I'm not sure how many agro-pulling AI altering skills the Barb will end up with.

[nicro tower]

Taunt was more of a strategic way to lure the countess's minions out of her room, and for lowering their attack/defense. Meh faster boss-killing>outliving the boss in my opinion

[Mahjong]

Hm ok thanks for the clarification. But I can't help but think how the barb would be the most suited to deliberately take the hits, thus should take as much of the damage as possible, thus should be equipped to do so and survive...

I don't know, I guess summons and party size factor in. And monster difficulty and any inconvenience of dying...

[Akse]

They even changed WoW tanks.. the now do quite impressive amount of dps compared to what it was before. You can even level up as a tank and while doing it you can pull huge amounts of monsters at a time and nuke them quite fast while not getting hurt much at all.

That sort of tank I could see in D3 also, you sacrifce some damage for more defense and while doing that you would be able to whitstand some serious beating compared to other builds that would take more damage but also kill the monsters faster.

What I like about WoW warrior is that when I play as protection I can really see the effect of the defensive skills when the monsters cant do much to me.

It could be nice if we have some different kind of approaches to the builds in D3 too and by looking to the skills atm (which arent final) there seems to be quite a lot of different defensive skills.

[xpumafangx]

The two skills that I really saw going for the barb in d3 where. The one where he removed the sheilds of the monsters and wirlwind. I am going to say that he is going to be a dps and a tank as well. This is because in d2, barbs and druids where the only 2 classes that could get 10k hitpoints. And neather of them where lacking in the damage department as well. Even the paladin could get a good amount of hp in d2. But they could never touch the amounts that a barb or druid could get.

[BelushiEightyOneX]

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "tank".

If you mean a character that has more life/defense/etc. than the other classes, and is thus more resilient, then yes, absolutely.

If you mean an MMO-esk Tank/DPS/Healer type tank, that has defensive skills for pulling agro while other characters nuke it, then probably not.
Took the words right out of my mouth... er... keyboard...

[sicilian]

Well, assuming it's a similar system to D2, you can still create the tank/dps dynamic. It's just that the agro mechanics will be based around distance and not any kind of "threat" number.

For example, if you have a Barb specced for high defense, and a Wizard specced for his/her distance spells, you could let the Barb stand around the monsters taking most of the hits while the Wiz nukes. If the Wiz gets too close though, mobs are going to attack him.

So what you won't be able to have is any kind of Melee tank + Melee DPS combo, because if both are in melee range then both are going to be attacked.

[Akimbo]

We've yet to see the other classes yet, maybe one of those will be more suited to tanking than a barb.

[Echod16]

I'm fairly sure the tanking aspects will be up to the barbs discretion, but he will most definitely have the best ability to tank well.

[Brother Laz]

As long as a build can easily kill without being a tank, it is pointless to make a tank build that kills slower. 'Lag resistance' is not a gameplay mechanic.

[nicro tower]

Wizard tank for the win. Although it'd most likely be kiting.

[jate]

if by tank you mean is adept at using a 1h/shield combo then yes. i think hellgate london pulled that off fairly well for the guardian class. he didnt do as much damage output per se as the blademaster but he was able to take on a larger group of enemies and his skills actually scaled with the amount of enemies he had on him. so in that sense in which the theme of the character is centered around high armor, multi-target attacking, taking huge amounts of damage w/o being in too much danger, and perhaps skills that scales with enemies, then yes there will be a "defensive" or "tank" tree for the barb. it seems to be the battlemaster tree currently as it has shield specialization.

but as far as "you hold aggro and i nuke". dear god no. i love wow but diablo2 is by far my favorite game of all time and as the series has been i think making every class a dps class is the way to go for a hack and slash rpg.

[konfeta]

@Laz

So all Diablo 3 needs to do is to have mechanics that make it difficult to kill fast without taking significant damage (disappearance of LULZ-75%SUPER-BLOCK and pot-spamis an indicator of that). Then tankiness becomes a very real build parameter that some people might want to pursue. Being able to casually plow throw a crowd at lower damage output as opposed to doing acrobatics to avoid damage while inflicting super damage back is a real trade off that exists in other ARPGs such as Titan Quest.

As long as trash such as life leach that scales with your damage is thrown out as a dirt-common item stat, we are fine in that respect, I think.

*I just hope that Health Orbs don't completely undo the repairs done by removal of pot spam. Unless Blizzard gets this one right, I predict that super-killing speed characters will still outdo tanking builds simply by virtue of full HP refill after every fight in form of Health Orbs. As you said, why bother make a build that is tankier at expense of killing speed if you kill everything fast enough to simply not die and mitigate all damage by picking up Obs?

I think that preventing Godmode defense like life leach, pot spam, 75% block all, etc. is only half of the solution. The next step is to make monsters that are threats as opposed to cannon fodder. Monsters that realistically can kill you in a given engagement, monsters that have a decent enough A.I. and abilities to consistently hit and damage you if you aren't on your toes. Should such elements be present in Diablo 3, a Barbarian that can duke it out under heavy firepower long enough to kill will be a very attractive build to many players.

[Frittmar]

if by tank you mean is adept at using a 1h/shield combo then yes. i think hellgate london pulled that off fairly well for the guardian class. he didnt do as much damage output per se as the blademaster but he was able to take on a larger group of enemies and his skills actually scaled with the amount of enemies he had on him. so in that sense in which the theme of the character is centered around high armor, multi-target attacking, taking huge amounts of damage w/o being in too much danger, and perhaps skills that scales with enemies, then yes there will be a "defensive" or "tank" tree for the barb. it seems to be the battlemaster tree currently as it has shield specialization.

but as far as "you hold aggro and i nuke". dear god no. i love wow but diablo2 is by far my favorite game of all time and as the series has been i think making every class a dps class is the way to go for a hack and slash rpg.

/sign they shouldnt implement too much of wow. it should feel like diablo 3 and not world of diablo :D

edit: but i think blizz will do it the right way. cant wait for the release

[sreda]

Hack-n-Tank

[Voriax]

Sword and board likely won't be viewed as a good solo spec, but in terms of a team spec for survival on the hardest settings it probably would be nice to have one. Gather up all the mobs, get other people to blow em' down. I'm sure in a multiplayer environment it would be versatile, especially if monsters scale with people who join just like D2.

If Diablo doesn't offer any point respecs (more than likely it won't) i'd just recommend you wait for someone (or yourself if you're bored) to make one to see if it's effective. In the meantime focus on a pure high end damage class. If they decide to add any abilities which strike with shield i'm sure it would be worth it going that way. Even if it cuts your damage a little.