I think he is talking about the buffs that either boost your mitigation or your +hate. I usually do it against hard hitting bosses.
Mitigation whilst I'm being hit and then provoke when another tank has got it.
I don't think it blocks content. The only blocker in T4 would be Yah Chieng, because this is a boss that favours Guardians. When we had our first Yah Chieng kill we were also only T3 geared (well, maybe one or two small T4 pieces) and all three Guardians in the raid were Tempest specced. Our build was about as offensive as the one I posted somewhere else in this sub forum, but we did use Chromatic Warding and Enduring Defense. That kill happened before they nerfed Mortal Affliction, so it's perfectly doable on offensive specced Tempest Guardians.
When I'm tanking Yah Chieng on my little SnS-Guard or on my DT, I also notice some disadvantages compared to Tempest Guardians:
- Sometimes there is quite a big crowd running around the boss while Blade Dance is running. Sometimes I have some difficulties then to find a new spot where I can hit the boss with my sword. With a polearm I don't have these problems because of its longer reach.
- Another advantage of Tempest Guardians would be Hit Rating. Especially with T3 equipment and Protection accessoires you barely have 10% hit rating on DTs or SnS Guardians, even if you leave Pressing Strikes active. With Stalwart feated your hits and especially spots to determine the right illusion are much more reliable, leaving you more spots to swith aggro while tanking illusions.
- And there's DPS. It's not much but in our early kills we wanted as few Mortal Afflictions as possible so we thought the few hundred DPS more of our three Tempest Guardians put together an asset.
Defon (Guard)
Nejoo (Guard) ◊ Areana (DT) ◊ Willamus (Conq)
Ichkruchka (Demo) ◊ Defina (Necro) ◊ Defhid (HoX)
Sagittaa (Ranger) ◊ Phaictan (Sin) ◊ Alunn (Barb)
Defure (BS) ◊ Deforia (PoM) ◊ Nutiaret (ToS)
Lolwut?
You can poletank T1-T3 (and most-if-not-all HMs) in T2 gear. Once you have some T3 pieces you can poletank basically anything. Where's the problem?
I poletanked since Acheronian Keeper days and never felt squishy.
In 6-mans going poletank can make a difference (if you go frenzy whenever you can), but in a raid there's too much people to even notice the dps gain. It's more reasonable to tank using s&s, because as a guardian you will be chosen for the most crappy tasks
Last edited by Misiuggah; 21st March 2013 at 14:48.
confessions of a keyboard turner / i'm just a fanboy
Imho, the one primary reason to put an offensive (crit-strong) poletank to a caster boss is "Vengeance is mine".
This way the vengeance counter can stack up to 10x, and the boss gets the debuff which reduces his damage by 10%. No other class can reduce boss damage that much, and mind, it helps all tanks on the boss... even with AoEs everyone else.
The offensive poletank doesn't even really need to tank, he just needs to be around.
S&S tanks stack passively when they or someone in their group is hit by melee(!!) attacks. Only guards with "Vengeance is mine" + high crit rating can stack actively. Mind, it requires equip+correct feats+Aa feats+right choice of combos to actually keep the stack on 10x in practice.