Chosen and 1.1

[craemma]

Wondering what people think about the stealth nerf Mythic gave Chosen.

[Thook]

Ho was your bilerot today? a lot of difference?

[craemma]

We got Bilerot done, but it was not easy. The healers need to be on thier toes. We wiped to Blath about 4 or 5 times. With 5 wards I was getting hit for 2200-2900 a shot.

[Torlan]

I'm not a chosen myself but a few friends have them, I really think it was needed in some aspects as far as PvE. Most of these we are supposed to go in geared with wards we had to work for and have it feel like an epic fight. I think the should have replaced it with something at least useful though.

[Zetras]

This is my take on it so far...it's doable, certain encounters are harder, but doable.

But that's not what really bothers me the most about this, what irritates and frustrates me, outside the fact that they nerfed our class defining trait into the ground, is that we are now a tank class who's tanking mastery line is now basically worthless. With the piercing repel nerf, hastened dismissal is pretty useless, since oppression doesn't stack with potions you are better off just using potions, mixed defenses is still bugged, impenetrable armor is not a good morale 4 ability, downfall does no good in boss encounters, corrupting horror has it's uses...but with needing embrace the winds and crippling strikes you are probably going to be short points for awhile to get that.

Chosen are not an unplayable class and it looks like Mythic wants us to be mainly off-tanks. But this is starting to feel like what I went through with my Skald, in that they aren't quite sure what they want our role to be. Hopefully they come to their senses and restore piercing repel to around 50% or at least replace it with something more useful.

[VorathGuruth]

We finished the last boss in LV last night using 2 chosen tanks with crippling / embrace the winds, so the class is still definatly viable for maintanking.

I do find it funny that our defense line is virutaly worthless for tanking now, but I dont realy mind because the crippling/embrace spec is also great for pvp and saves the respecing cost.

[Kermul]

Can you post the crippling/embrace spec you used?

[VorathGuruth]

http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=13#7:128:0:0:13:10792:29:504:8353:8 369:8362:::::611

Thats the build I use for tanking, also works well for pvp. You need rr40 for that exect build (26 mastery points).


I prefer this one for pvp, at rr 50 you can pickup shatter faith as well.
http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=13#0:0:5:32:15:10792:29:505:8358:83 54:8367:::::611

With enough gear it works fine for tanking the IC dungeons, havent tried LV with it yet.

[joven]

I am not sure I understand?
My Chosen is speced in
Corruption 19 Points; (Full bar plus Dire Shielding, Corrupting Horror, Downfall, Oppression)
and 6 points in Discord 5 in bar plus Discorant Turbulence.

My tactics are: Dire Shielding, Baneful Shielding, Rugged, Menance
My Morales are: Inevitable Changing, Shield wall, Sprout Carapace, Immaculate Defense.

I stack toughness over wounds (Tougness 900+ wounds 8000)

I Have full Ani set except sent boots and belt.

I have no problem tanking the bosses in bloodwrought. Bilerot is another story though, but once I have more sent gear it shouldn't be that much of a problem.

[Zintair]

http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=13#7:128:0:0:13:10792:29:504:8353:8 369:8362:::::611

Thats the build I use for tanking, also works well for pvp. You need rr40 for that exect build (26 mastery points).


I prefer this one for pvp, at rr 50 you can pickup shatter faith as well.
http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=13#0:0:5:32:15:10792:29:505:8358:83 54:8367:::::611

With enough gear it works fine for tanking the IC dungeons, havent tried LV with it yet.

Vorath please dont tell me you use that first spec you posted as your tanking spec?

I dont see how Disrupt + willpower stuff etc has any effect on tanking, to be honest you are in the wrong tree as well, your tanking three is the middle one. Havent you even looked at the abilities at all that your using and saying, wow these are pointless?

[VorathGuruth]

Have you read any of the other post here or have any understanding of the chosen class or the abilitys that are available to us ?

Our "tanking" line is horribly broken, it started out weak, its abilitys are bugged, and its most potent tanking skill (peircing repell) was nerfed into garbage. With lower end gear it may not be so true, but with decent gear crippling strikes + embrace the winds is a far superior tanking spec.

I no longer run with that spec anyways, I run with a 2h build now that dont even have embrace the winds (I will again at rr60 in a few more days). Just to note I solo tank bw/bile with zero problems, and main / offtank LV with zero problems. We generaly clear bile in about 40 mins, LV in 2.5-3hours if were not screwing around.

Im at work currently and a bit busy, when im home and bored enough ill post more details as to why our tanking line is so horrible, and why crippling + embrace (with the right gear) is worlds better.

[VorathGuruth]

doh, double post

[Monstein]

Vorath please dont tell me you use that first spec you posted as your tanking spec?

I dont see how Disrupt + willpower stuff etc has any effect on tanking, to be honest you are in the wrong tree as well, your tanking three is the middle one. Havent you even looked at the abilities at all that your using and saying, wow these are pointless?

With crippling strikes and embracing the winds are all thats realy needed any more for Chosen tanking. I can solo tank all the IC stuff without a problem with that build.

[VorathGuruth]

Joven for you, imo there are a number of problems with that build and tactics set for tanking.

First of all your not realy using any survivability tactics, or for that matter have any available. Dire shielding and baneshield do absolutly nothing to help keep you alive, the toughness tactic is debatable I think, but I personaly dont use it.

The corruption line overall is pretty much worthless for the most part. Piercing repell is garbage now after the nerf. It went from I think 100% armor penetration reduction to 10%. That ability alone made chosen probably the best pve tank at the time.

Mixed defenses is probably still bugged, I realy dont know though, I havent used it for months, but instead of adding 25% parry it multiplyed your current parry. So if you had 10% parry, you would end up with 12.5% instead of 35%. If this is, or ever is fixed it would be highly desirable though. Having high toughness / armor / resist and so on is great, but your still going to take damage when your hit, a parry or block means you get hit for 0.

Oppression is ok if you dont have higher end gear. From what ive been told 75% pysical reduction is the cap for armor, so adding 900 more armor realy dont do anything at all if your close to the cap, and I think you should be with full ani gear + some sent. Im not sure how "overcapping" works with armor penetration, but I assume you get no benifit by going over cap. It also dont stack with pots, or any other armor buffs that I know of (procs from certain shields / weapons if you have them), so again even more pointless in many cases assuming the 75% cap is true. I dont have any numbers, but In the past ive used this ability, and gaining the extra armor seemed to help very little if at all.

Corrupting horror is insanely good in pvp (makes instant cast spells and melee attacks castable, and i believe interuptable), however I never noticed much differance with it in pve at all. Im assuming this is probably going to be nerfed as well because its very bugy and powerfull in pvp. Downfall is also nice, but it only effects one target. And speaking of nerfs, suppression was also nerfed a long while back. It used to be able to stack with itself (cooldown was shorter then the duration by a few seconds) giving us a much higher parry % for a few seconds every 10 seconds or so.

So you add it all up, and you should see that our tanking line offers close to nothing in the way of survivability for tanking. Thats why many chosen now use crippling strikes and embrace the winds.

With crippling strikes everytime you crit your target with a melee attack, that target deals 25% less damage for 10 seconds. Now think about that, bosses are going to be hitting you anywhere from 1k - 5k with crits, now remove 25%, pretty big differance if you ask me, or a healer. Even with no crit gear your still going to crit, but 5 peice sentinal (5% crit bonus) helps a great deal. Also the bloodfist direblade (the greenskin pvp influence reward) has 3% crit, 41 toughness, 1% parry +gemslot, and a 5% chance on hit to increase crit by 9% more for 9 seconds. Imo, its the best tanking sword in the game for chosen. at RR45, and 55 you can add even more crit if you choose. Solo tanking id say I crit enough that crippling strikes is active atleast 75% of the the time. In LV we currently run 2 chosen with similiar builds (both with crippling) so its up virutaly the entire time for any fight. One thing to note about this skill, it dont seem to effect "all" damage, there are some bosses with special attacks like nkari that dont seem to be effected.

Embrace the winds should be pretty obvious, 15% healing bonus. It might not seem like much, but it adds up very fast over the course of any fight.

Both of those skills together again imo totaly blow away anything our tanking line can offer. Then you consider the fact that the discord line buffs all of our best dps skills like palsy, blast wave, and ravage, buffs our resist aura, gives you quake, the -25% healing aura, plus all the buffs you gain from dread, this not only helps you hold agro extremely well, it can with spec variations be made into very effective damage or suppresion builds for pvp.

The pve content in war is not very difficult so I dont think many people if anyone has figured out all the numbers to what works best. I normaly never look at my damage logs so I cant even offer facts on many things, but I and many other chosen can tell you it works extremely well for tanking and for pvp.

Just a few other things to add. The first few seconds of a pull are critical, if you take a huge spike of damage your healers are going to have to spam heal you and probably pull agro right away so you need to negate that the best you can. First of all always make sure to keep suppresion up, it should be the your highest priority attack, 25% parry is absolutly huge. Quake if you have it is very good at stoping alot of the initial spike damage on trash pulls, giving you time to get suppression up, and builds you a little agro. If your tanking multiples make sure to use blastwave, and switch targets often not only to keep agro, but to keep crippling strikes applied to as many mobs as possible. Also, relentless if you can work it into your build is very nice. It dont do as much damage as ravage + autoattacks, but it hits 5 times in 3 seconds and will use much less ap over time. That gives you a much higher chance to land a crit and proc crippling strikes. I dont use any standard rotation in abilitys, but I use relentless pretty often when im low on APs and see my target dont have crippling strikes applied.

If you can, twist your auras, I normaly run resist / str / tough for pve, occasionaly ill run the damage aura in place of str or toughness. If your main tanking, make sure to guard a high damage class that wont be taking damage (in turn doing more damage to you) On almost all trash, and some boss fights I guard a sorc that does most runs with me, this will build you a considerable amount of agro. Healers work also, but in experiance not as well as an AE dps class for trash.

As far as tactics, I use crippling strikes, warped flesh, flawless armor, and menace. When I hit rr60 ill be able to get embrace the winds again with my new spec, and ill replace either warped flesh or flawless armor with it. The value of flawless armors debatable, as I dont think anyone knows for sure how reduced crit factors in many ways for either pvp or pve. If anyone has solid information on how it works (if its added or multiplyed) id like to know. Warped flesh is great in many ways, but toughness might actualy be better in its place especialy vs multiple mobs, its just another thing im to lazy to figure the numbers for :p


Vorath please dont tell me you use that first spec you posted as your tanking spec?

I dont see how Disrupt + willpower stuff etc has any effect on tanking, to be honest you are in the wrong tree as well, your tanking three is the middle one. Havent you even looked at the abilities at all that your using and saying, wow these are pointless?

And for you, as I said above, you should read post more carefully and have some understanding of what your talking about. I mentioned that build doubled as both a pve and pvp build, the ability you mentioned is very clearly pvp oriented.

Well this got pretty long, but hopefully helps out some of our chosen.

[joven]

I see your points Vorath.
When I get spike damage, I pop Shield wall and use my aoe taunt to keep argo on me.

I find warped flesh to be useless. I've run the numbers and there are just too many other tactics that that slot is better used for.

I will have to rethink my spec now becuase of the nerf to Bane shield. Baneshield + Menance, I have no trouble holding agro, even when I forget to guard someone. A few times I have been in a middle of a boss fight to finally notice that my guard wasn't on, but I was still holding agro.... <shrug>.

We have another chosen in my guild who is speced similiar to you, but I am constantly outdamaging him in scenarios, I attribute it to the fact I am harder to kill, and bane shield is constantly popping. This is of course PvP not PvE.... and again since they are nerfing bane shield I will most be trying out your spec.

Thank you for your time.

[Ashen]

Im with Vorath on this one.

Crippling Strikes + EtW are imo the best tanking tactics we have we have.
The 5 piece sentinel set bonus give you +5 crit, the conq boots give +3 and like vorath said at rr45 you can get another 2.

with that, whatever im hitting has CS up most, if not all the time.

One thing to note about EtW, it seems to be bugged, and actually increases everything by 15%.
i've heard this includes other buffs, as well as debuffs.

also, im finding for MT, Tzeentchs Amp(+ EtW), is bloody brilliant.
Tzeentches Cordial ticks for 800-1400 and crit ticks for upwards of 2k.
So long as a healer refreshes their HoT's as soon as you pop it, and right before it ends, you get a long time where heals do insane numbers.

I also like this more for PvP when running with a group. My healer can just put two DoTs on me and know im unkillable. :P

With the upcoming nerf, im using BS alot less and i dont run with Dire Dhielding or Corrupting Horror.
however, with the caps on resists, our resist aura is going to kick some serious ass.

peace.