My New Tank Spec vs. Choppa

During Gromils Crossing last night I got stuck far off by the keg capture point and was followed by a Choppa. I was instantly incited to test my new Tank build out on this lowly choppa. I, being mounted, began to head past him when he began flailing his choppas causing my Gyro-copter to malfunction. I quickly dismounted and charged into mortal combat with the ugly greenie. Within the first few seconds I had a great upper hand. My attacks were hitting him pretty hard and I got him to 50% with out hesitation. But once he got to 50% I had a rough time grinding his health down further. That damn tactic of his was healing him faster than I could DPS him! My grudges were full by this time and it was time to start spamming my new favorite ability, Oathstone. And it worked quite well. Keeping my positioning up I kept at him, but he was working me down really fast now. His knock downs left me taking 1k+ of damage since I couldn't defend w/ my shield (i only have 8k HP). The last few seconds were neck and neck. We were both at 5% health. My Earthshatter was on cool down and that is my primary source of crit damage. I was critting him with that earlier at about 1k. Quickly I popped my Oathstone and he ended up eating my shield as I hit him for 600HP.

It was far from an easy victory. I barely limped away from the fight with about 300HP. There are still many abilities that I failed to use that could have left me at a higher advantage.

What I need to incorporate into my RvR battles:

- Shield Of Reprisal. Knocking down my opponent for a few seconds would have really helped out. But I'm still not used to using a situational knockdown (one that can only be used when I block). Cave-in has really spoiled me.

-Taunt. I seem to have misplaced it and it wasn't in my action bar during the fight. That extra damage could have helped out, but I'm not really sure how much the taunt helps in RvR when someone like a Choppa is wailing on you. Edit: Taunt used to be a lot more useful. It seems that it only does an additional 3% damage now...

-Punishing Blow. yep, I completely forgot about this ability. If I had used it I could have caused two possible outcomes:
1) He would stop circling around me and fight me face to face making my blocks much more effective and making Oathsone a sure bet.
2) He would keep running circles and take some damage. This would have helped counter balance all the healing his tactic was doing.

-Away with ye. Didn't use it once. And if I had used it with the Punishing Blow, It would have been a great way to give myself a breather and force him to walk to me.

Yep, there is plenty of room for improvement when it comes to my RvR Tanking. I do think that I had my tactics set up pretty well though. Offering a good amount of damage output, but not limiting the use of my shield

Sweet Revenge + Raising Anger + Shield Mastery + Seasoned Veteran

Oh yeah, my current build.

Any other thoughts on how I could successfully run with my Tank in RvR would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

Demons, Khorn, & Angry Hell Dogs

Last night I broke down and respected Stone Mastery. I've gone from R1 - R40 with my two-hander, and for sure he will be missed, but the fact is that I just don't do enough damage with my two-hander to make it worth while. I will really miss my Powered Etchingse tactic (aoe knock back) and Cave In (4 sec knockdown). Two awesome crowd control abilities that really made it hard for me to go over to the axe and shield.

Ok, I'm ready to tank!
A group of alliance members and I made an awesome run through Bastain Stairs last night. We flew through the left & right wing with out any problems. In the right wing I managed to pick up Bloodlord Irongaunts the first PQ there. The middle part was full of blood trusty followers of Khorn, but posed little a challenge until we reached the final PQ. On the way I did manage to get Axe of the Bloodmoon. Considering I had a crap-tastic R29 axe, I'm happy! And I think it pares very nicely with the Bloodlord Irongaunts (+7 chit chance together).

I'm a little surprised that we even made it through that last PQ. Khorn Bloodletters were a bitch and a half to take down. Yet, when we got to the Big bloodletter at the end, he was a cinch. But it was this guy who made my night![We did all this while the rest of our guildies raided IC... PS, I'm bored of raiding IC.]
It took us 2 tries to down him (as this is the first time I've even seen the middle wing) and I was pretty surprised that I didn't get splattered or loose agro.

As you can see we had a BWx2, RP, WP, AM, and Me (IB).

I'd like to blame Brasus for forcing me to have fun in Bastian Stairs. It was a rockin' group and a damn good time (Even if it did take forever!).

Guilty & some other stuff

Ok so I've not posted in a while for a few reasons. Primarily because I got bored with my IB one day and rolled a Squig Herder on Phoenix Throne (an RP server) and, low and behold, I loved the orc talking RP play style. Perhaps it's just a phase, I'm still not sure, but I've spent the past 2 weeks playin my squishy squiggy.

You can call me a traitor and all that stuff now. Especially cause I would sit at home, paint some of my dwarven models, and then log on my squig herder. GUILTY as charged. I know. But the RP is so much more fun than logging on and hearing "When is the token system coming out!?!?!" & "The raiders lost another football game! NOOOO!" So yeah, I don't have to hear all that jazz. *cheer*

wait... did I just say token system?

I finally took the time to go through some of the new things coming out. I was wondering what ever happened to that RvR dungeon-esque Tome King expansion that I was so excited about months ago. Then I came across this, Dev Diary

Here are just a few quotes that made me happy:

"Thoughts of true action-RPG experiences crept in my mind. Visions of the Temple of Doom, Zelda, and God of War flashed through. Questionable levers, treasure that looks too good to be true, collapsing floors, swinging pendulums, spitting darts, (much) larger than life boss fights – I wanted it all."

"That’s when the blatantly obvious hit. We’re going to let players chase each other into dungeon instances."

"Every monster throughout the Necropolis desert has a chance to drop tokens, with which there is a lot of new phat gear and crafting materials to purchase."

Wow, lots of neat stuff. Traps and puzzles sound promising, but I'm not sure how it will go over with the MMO crowd despite my own excitement. In actuality, my old D&D games were full of traps and puzzles, that just made it all the more fun. The thing is that in an MMO your going to be doing that trap/puzzle over, and over, and over. With that being said, I better get my IB all geared up so that I can hit the Land of the Dead as soon as it breaks from it's shell. That way I'll get to partake in problem solving traps and not just tag along w/ everyone else.