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!

1v1 in Praag DoK vs IB

Ironrbeaker (me) R36

VS

Disciple of Khain R38

My first thought was, “Oh laady, I’m going to get my ass handed to me on a paper plate.” That didn't stop me from charging in - of course I charged in - and with my lovely Cave In ability followed by a 40% movement reduction to dismount him (although, I probably could have just spit on him and he’d dismount). I popped my Toughness and Armor buffs up, but As he went from 50% to full health with the snap of his fingers, I begin to feel that this was a complete lost cause (With Starbreaker’s death being the only option). So while my health was at about 70% I punted and ran behind a corner.

And he almost passed me by… Damn gyro chopper makes too much noise. Haha. This time our fight took place with a lot of contact with the walls around Praag. I think I did an alright job of keeping him on his toes with positioning and knockdowns/punts. And I’m guessing that I punted him at just the right times cause his heals weren’t as effective as they were from the first time. I don’t know how I out damaged him, truly, he must have been having a coffee break and was playing with only one hand, *shrug* but I’ll take the victory never the less.

Thanks for the fun battle, Alder!

Solo ORvR - UI testing

Tonight destro locked up the elf area. My warband had already made it to the fort and I was one of the few stragglers. A straggler who came across a black orc named, Stonetusk. After I made a quick retreate across the river and then back, the two of us locked metal. I was very excited to test my new UI set up (diablo-esque) as the ORvR earlyer left me dieing before I knew what hit me. This was my first chance to really test out my keybindings and button layout.

Aside from our initial charge, Stonetusk seemed to be a bit imoble. Throughout the battle I had compleate positional controll leaving Stontusk's shield to be of little use. I made sure that I was on his flank or rear as often as possible. I was expecting a long battle and after hitting him with Binding Grudge, I proceeded to buff myself with Guarded Attack (armor buff) and Vengfull Strike (toughness buff), and went for positional controll. My lvl 1 moral poped fast, and after casting Inspiring Attack (str buff) and stone breaker i used it. This is where i did the most damage (pic taken a bit after I used my moral 1). Continualy keeping my binding grudge and cave in up, it didn't take long to finish him off. I was supprised to walk away with more than 50% health.

I was somewhat dissapointed, as he had a two lvl advantage, and I was expecting more of a challenge. Nevertheless I finished with a bow and about 10 sec later was rampaged by 6 of his closest friend. haha

All in all I'm really enjoying my new UI config. I still have a few tweeks, but other than that it's great. I'll talk more about my UI next time.

This is a pic from ORvR in Eataine at the Sanctuary of Dreams. Order was doing well, and then another destro warband showe up. ouch!