User:Vallen Frostweaver/Build Archive/Axe Stance Tank

Stats	Self/Enemy	Party/Allies
Damage	Low to Medium	n/a
Defense	Medium	Low to Medium
Healing	Low to Medium	None
Support	None to Low	None

This was designed primarily for tanking fleshy creatures that cannot break stances in PvE though it can be used to solo areas. This also offers extra defense for the team as well as adding speed to the player.

Attributes and Skills

Expertise	10 + 1 + 1
Tactics	11
Axe Mastery	9
Wilderness Survival	4 + 1

Escape

Lightning Reflexes

Dryder's Defenses

Apply Poison

Cyclone Axe

"Watch Yourself!"

"Shields Up!"

Healing Signet

Equipment

• Max Sundering or Zealous Axe Of Fortitude
• Max shield with damage reduction and health bonus.
• Max Sentry's armor is preferred as you will always be in a stance.

Usage

1. Apply Poison to your weapon, "Shields Up!", and start with Escape to charge your foe(s).
2. Use stances to stay constantly blocking.
3. Cyclone Axe once you are tanked in to poison all adjacent foes.
4. "Watch Yourself!" when available for added defense.
5. Healing Signet only when needed and only when in a stance if used in battle. Best when "Watch Yourself!" is active as well to offset the armor reduction.

Counters

• Blindness/Blocking
• Energy denial
• Anti-stance/block skills

Variants

• Remove one or more of the following:

• Healing Signet
• "Watch Yourself!"
• "Shields Up!"
• Apply Poison (only if no fleshy targets are around)

• Add in one or more of the below to replace one or more of the above:

• Resurrection Signet
• Disrupting Chop (for an interrupt)
• Troll Unguent for added healing and some resistance to degen (most often switched with "Watch Yourself!" or "Shields Up!" in a solo build).
• Antidote Signet to remove blindness.

• Sword variant - remove a shout and Cyclone Axe and add in Gash and Sever Artery.

Notes

• No attribute runes above a +1 are used as this makes for a large health bonus when stacking on a Superior Vigor Rune and the Equipment health bonuses enabling you to be a better tank though they can be added if desired.
• In a general team PvE setting this can be a very durable build in the right areas but if there are too many healers in the enemy mob you won't have enough offense to take down many if any of the group without team support so make sure your party understands that you need to tank in to be the most effective, allowing attacks to center on you and not your team. Often (but not always) pulling a Kilroy will actually help (contrary to common belief) to ensure this is accomplished as you can withstand quite a bit and usually will still be in no trouble by the time the healer(s) have caught up.

Links

• Inspired by ReZon.