Is a Knight full tank build viable?

Garmond

Hi! I have just started out in Achaea and this is my first post here! I looked into the classes a bit first before I created my character and I decided to go with a dwarf runewarden. This is mostly because I wanted to both play and RP a very tanky character! Runewarden seemed great with all the rune buffs (vitality, regeneration, damage reduction etc.) and I could go with a fullplate and packing steel... err, tower shield! RP-wise, I would be very content with these choices! I guess I could also focus on constitution traits and race specialization.  

However, my question is this: is this really viable in the game? Will I be able to efficiently bash my way to dragon like this? How about helping my city in raids or defending myself against other adventurers if needed, or in the arena? For example, I wanted to avoid the nimble trait because it seems to lessen my tankiness, but would I be OK at bashing or combat like that? Is there another Knight class tankier than runewarden perhaps, or another weaponmastery specialization better for survivability? My focus would mostly be bashing, but I wanna engage in combat too and I would be very interested in learning the answers to these questions before I go down that road and can't go back (at least not without lots of credits)!  

Antonius

For bashing, absolutely. You might not kill things as quickly without Nimble but you'd also have to run less and would have an easier time fighting harder denizens.

For group combat, you'll still be able to contribute. Less so than if you had Nimble, but you'd still have plenty of abilities that would be useful for fighting in groups.

For 1v1, you're going to struggle without Nimble. It wouldn't be impossible to win fights, but you'd have to work a lot harder and you'd probably not ever kill people who are relatively good defensively because you're just giving them even more time to react to and defend against whatever tactics you try. When balancing classes that use balance for pretty much everything (like Runewarden does) we tend to assume that you will have Nimble.

Antonius

A lot of stuff has just changed, in particular with Knights, in the last couple of weeks so a lot of the help files aren't necessarily accurate right now. Things are still pretty up in the air while they make tweaks and balance things, too. Runeblades should work on all weapons used by Knights now.

If we just consider class defences, Runewarden is probably the best all around tanking class of the three, with sword and shield providing the best tanking options of the four specs. However, the major advantage of Runewarden - the body runes - can be given to non-Runewardens, though at reduced effectiveness for Algiz and (I think) reduced lifetime.

Infernal has Putrefaction (cutting and blunt damage protection) and Vigour (a self-healing ability), though I think the essence cost on Vigour is relatively high.

Paladin has Toughness (from Bliss in Devotion - though this can also be used on others) and Hands, which is a very cheap healing ability (for yourself and others), so it probably has the least downtime of the three between kills.

Mechanics and abilities aside, it's worth mentioning and considering that Runewarden is the only neutral Knight class. You can join any city as a Runewarden, whereas the other two are going to result in restrictions on how and where you can play the game.

Ultimately, I don't think there's enough difference between the three to really worry about. You'd be able to bash to dragon as any of them, and that seems to be your primary/initial goal.

Garmond

Well, I guess there's always the free reincarnation and trait reset to fix things if I start to suffer at combat!  

As far as other knight classes and specs are concerned, would they be more tanky than a runewarden? I think infernal has some weird abilities in necromancy and paladin has healing? Are they more tanky in combat perhaps instead of bashing? Also, can I make my sword a glowing runeblade or is it only for dual-wielding weapons? That would be a bit of a turn-down because the help files seem a little conflicting or not up-to-date...?  

Garmond

Antonius said:

Mechanics and abilities aside, it's worth mentioning and considering that Runewarden is the only neutral Knight class. You can join any city as a Runewarden, whereas the other two are going to result in restrictions on how and where you can play the game.

Indeed, I joined Targossas when I was creating my character so my only other option would be Paladin!  

But it's OK for now, I'll remain Runewarden and perhaps consider changing to Paladin for RP reasons later on! Now on to find a good full plate armor, tower shield and broadsword! I'll have to figure out how to use them to kill pygmies...  

Blujixapug

Achaea is less like other RPGs in that while you will sometimes be fighting in coordination with an allied group, you aren't really filling out traditional roles like 'tank' or 'DPS'. While there is apparently an upcoming (Soon™) revamp of PVE mechanics, there is at present no real way to draw NPC aggro, for example. Characters are, in general, more jack-of-all-trades than other games. Tactics you may employ in teamfights will tend to reflect this: it's less "you tank while I nuke", and more "you break legs and prone them while I impale and disembowel".

It's certainly possible to make choices like picking a tankier race, more defensive traits, specialising for constitution (more health) over strength (more damage), picking the sword-and-shield Weaponmastery spec, etc.

I absolutely recommend what you're doing, which is making choices that reflect the character you enjoy playing and roleplaying. It's more important to have a character that you enjoy than one that's twinked out. If you want to bash your way to dragon, optimising your race/class/traits/etc will help, but results come more from commitment and the willingness to keep on bashing for the very long time it takes to get there. If you want to help defend your city in raids, all permutations of class/race/etc can do that. If you want to be the best at PVP dueling, it's not until you reach the higher echelons of skill that all the little optimisations - like the Nimble trait - start to factor in to a significant degree, and you have many bridges to cross before you reach that level.

Mathonwy

To be honest, I like that Achaea isn't like WoW or other traditional mmorpgs, where if you don't sit there and do the math and fulfill this one narrow role, you have zero chance of successfully pveing.

Granted, I don't like that the alternative is essentially 'be the tank and the dps and the etc. yourself.'

Exelethril

Full tank build as 2h is probably viable, I would think.

Edit : Still need nimble, actually.

Kensei

So is Knight (Runewarden I guess?) still the tankiest class, or are there others out there better, or at least on par with it? Whatever uses SoA can be tanky, perhaps?  

Sena

"Tankiest" is hard to define, because there are a lot of different ways to be tanky. In short though, I'd say runewarden has the simplest and most convenient tankiness. Other classes might be better, but require more effort/cost or are more situational. When it comes to non-physical damage though, runewarden possibly isn't the best.

For example, comparing the three knight classes, runewarden has better damage reduction than infernal or paladin. Unless the infernal/paladin get runes from a runewarden, in which case they have better damage reduction than runewarden (unless the runewarden also gets toughness from a priest/paladin, then they beat paladin again, but not infernal). Paladin and infernal have strong active healing abilities (hands/vigour) though, so if you count those towards "tankiness" then they probably beat runewarden.

And then monk and apostate have numb/apathy, which gives them extremely high damage reduction, but they get the reduced damage all at once when the ability wears off, which is often more dangerous than simply taking more damage in the first place. So in the right situations, they can be the tankiest classes.

Then there are different damage types to consider. When it comes to non-physical damage, serpents/alchemists/bards have better damage reduction than infernals/paladins, and equal to runewardens (and again better than runewardens if they also get runes).

And then there are room effects, which can increase tankiness a lot but aren't practical to use all the time. With harmonics, bard might be the tankiest class against non-physical damage (assuming you aren't counting numb and making monks the tankiest), or if you ignore anthem then alchemist with endorphin might be better.

And then all of this goes out the window when it comes to PvP because it doesn't matter much (which isn't to say it doesn't matter at all, it's still important to an extent) how well you can soak up damage, and curing/hindering becomes more important defensively than damage reduction/healing.