Which elite spec should I pick for an “easy tanking” vibe?

[FileRonin.8312]

So I’m currently trying to decide between Herald, Chronomancer, Holosmith, Scrapper, or Reaper.

My ideal preferences on what I look for include:

* Easy difficulty for gameplay, with less buttons to press rather than mashing so many or trying to micromanage buttons

* Good DPS and/or health to face-tank enemies or even generate aggro without much effort or by sending out clones/minions to do it for me

* Able to provide self-healing or “unkillable” feeling at times

* Solid AOE or crowd controlling abilities

* Preferably able to use sword and shield combo for loadout

Edited December 16, 2023 by FileRonin.8312

[Teknomancer.4895]

Given that list, I'd cross out Chrono. 🤣

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Hammer  Spellbreaker? 

Totally fine to play with just signets on your right bar. 

High health and armor naturally. 

The defense traitline gives good sustain. 

Lots of cc. Good dmg. 

Play it with Aggressive Onslaught (trait) and the relic of the midnight king and you have quickness, Fury, might and stability for days. 

 

[FileRonin.8312]

2 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Given that list, I'd cross out Chrono. 🤣

Do you mind explaining why? That way I can see what the pros and cons are 🙂

[Teknomancer.4895]

1 hour ago, FileRonin.8312 said:

Do you mind explaining why? That way I can see what the pros and cons are 🙂

OK, to start with the actual player-operation of Chrono is not exactly easy, which you requested in the op:

4 hours ago, FileRonin.8312 said:

* Easy difficulty for gameplay, with less buttons to press rather than mashing so many or trying to micromanage buttons

Tinkering with the fabric of space and time doesn't happen with a button or two. There's a lot of button mashing and timing of button mashing and micromanaging of clones and so on. You said you wanted fewer buttons to mash and Chrono as a general rule is not that.

4 hours ago, FileRonin.8312 said:

* Good DPS and/or health to face-tank enemies or even generate aggro without much effort or by sending out clones/minions to do it for me

* Able to provide self-healing or “unkillable” feeling at times

You can have damage mitigation with distortion, dodges and teleports, but a facetanky and near-unkillable Chrono isn't really plausible if you also want to output any significant damage. Play a Reaper if you want that. Really, the only thing on your list the Reaper doesn't fit is the shield.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Teknomancer.4895
Shield note

[Dadnir.5038]

Within your e-spec list, Reaper is probably the closest one to what you are looking for. Still, try to stay clear from foes that use hard CC if you intend to play a reaper with a "tanky" build.

 

[Teknomancer.4895]

True, "tanky build that still gets thrown around like a rag doll" is about as much fun as you'd think. 😆

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Took me a moment to realize you don't mean in raids.  From that list, I'd recommend Scrapper.  It has basically everything you want, except it uses a hammer as its weapon.  

[Sifolstour.3210]

Even not being listed here my vote is for Celestial Harbinger with Parasitic Contagion traited, this class is a no brainer for open world.

High dps, good mobility, good cc, good aoe, incredible sustain, and not many keys to press nor difficult rotations. The only thing missing here is your preference for shield/sword.

[Axelteas.7192]

Reading what you want obviously herald. Passive damage reduction, autohealing and auto might+quickenss when you consume it

Cele herald is the way to go with mace+axe/sword+shield.

Forget classes that rely on barrier, it's a temporary mitigation. With reaper you can facetank everything with the second healthbar, but it desnt feel so tanky like herald with the autohealing and dmg reduction trait.

[Raarsi.6798]

On 12/16/2023 at 7:57 AM, FileRonin.8312 said:

Easy difficulty for gameplay, with less buttons to press rather than mashing so many or trying to micromanage buttons

Herald is a little bit off the bat for buffs, Chrono requires a lot more micromanaging, Holosmith is mostly about micromanaging that heat gauge, Scrapper doesn't have a whole lot, and Reaper doesn't really have any micromanaging.

On 12/16/2023 at 7:57 AM, FileRonin.8312 said:

Good DPS and/or health to face-tank enemies or even generate aggro without much effort or by sending out clones/minions to do it for me

Pretty much all of them can do this (Holosmith might be the trickiest to do it, but should do enough damage to offset that).  Stack Toughness if you want to be that MMO tank with the aggro generation.

On 12/16/2023 at 7:57 AM, FileRonin.8312 said:

Able to provide self-healing or “unkillable” feeling at times

I think all of these except Holosmith can do this without killing damage output.  I'd say Reaper is definitely the easiest to do this after pulling one veteran mob in an SoD area and leaving my character to auto-attack while getting something from the fridge and coming back to it being at full health while that mob was below half health.

On 12/16/2023 at 7:57 AM, FileRonin.8312 said:

Solid AOE or crowd controlling abilities

Herald has some AoE (greatsword) and lots of CC (staff), Chrono might have AoE (I think) and some CC, Holosmith has some AoE and not too much CC options (I think), Scrapper definitely has AoE and CC, and Reaper has some AoE (greatsword and shroud skills) and a little bit of CC (flesh golem and one or two weapon skills).

On 12/16/2023 at 7:57 AM, FileRonin.8312 said:

referably able to use sword and shield combo for loadout

Herald and I wanna say Chrono are MH sword single-target with shield as support.  Scrapper and Holosmith can do sword and shield, but I'm not sure how it fares compared to hammer or mace and shield.  Reaper currently can't do either of those weapons.

Hope that helps!

[Aeolus.3615]

Herald/jalis with wand/shield 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

How in the world has Scourge not been mentioned yet

[Batalix.2873]

On 12/21/2023 at 3:26 PM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

How in the world has Scourge not been mentioned yet

This. You want unkillable? Sandtank.

[Phyb.6704]

1 hour ago, Batalix.2873 said:

This. You want unkillable? Sandtank.

Yep. Sandtank with bloods overheal barrier as well. You may not do any damage but you guna be tanky as hell. Also you can use scourge F abiltiies well stunned / knocked down. So even if ur stunned you can pop barriers.
However to be this unkillable with scourge..... you will take a whole min to kill stuff that others could kill in 5sec. It is a trade off. Always thought this could work if lyhr relic had a longer teather distance. It would let you barrier everyone up and then be so tanky yourself you can spunge up 50% of everyones damage. The teather is kinda short tho so many just de link from dodging kitten

[Batalix.2873]

17 hours ago, ohericoseo.4316 said:

Yep. Sandtank with bloods overheal barrier as well. You may not do any damage but you guna be tanky as hell. Also you can use scourge F abiltiies well stunned / knocked down. So even if ur stunned you can pop barriers.
However to be this unkillable with scourge..... you will take a whole min to kill stuff that others could kill in 5sec. It is a trade off. Always thought this could work if lyhr relic had a longer teather distance. It would let you barrier everyone up and then be so tanky yourself you can spunge up 50% of everyones damage. The teather is kinda short tho so many just de link from dodging kitten

I think slower kills are an absolutely viable playstyle. Especially since it encourages you to interact with mechs more rather than burst everything down inconsequentially.

Also I don't think anyone expects healScourge to do damage in group content.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

9 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

I think slower kills are an absolutely viable playstyle. Especially since it encourages you to interact with mechs more rather than burst everything down inconsequentially.

Also I don't think anyone expects healScourge to do damage in group content.

It's viable, but generally you'll want to kill things as fast as possible.  This saves real world time, and also lets you move on and get more loot in the same timeframe.  

[Batalix.2873]

18 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

It's viable, but generally you'll want to kill things as fast as possible.  This saves real world time, and also lets you move on and get more loot in the same timeframe.  

That's if you care more about grinding than enjoying moment to moment gameplay.

[Phyb.6704]

On 12/16/2023 at 4:57 AM, FileRonin.8312 said:

So I’m currently trying to decide between Herald, Chronomancer, Holosmith, Scrapper, or Reaper.

My ideal preferences on what I look for include:

* Easy difficulty for gameplay, with less buttons to press rather than mashing so many or trying to micromanage buttons

* Good DPS and/or health to face-tank enemies or even generate aggro without much effort or by sending out clones/minions to do it for me

* Able to provide self-healing or “unkillable” feeling at times

* Solid AOE or crowd controlling abilities

* Preferably able to use sword and shield combo for loadout

Cele reaper with condi chill / bleed spam can burst 100 bleed in about 5 - 10 sec and have pretty good survivability. Heal/scourge with minions has probably the highest survivability in the game in regards to face tanking something but it's super boring to play and generally any champion event will just time out before you can kill it. Cele reaper can actually stay alive and kill kitten before it despawns with the event timer ending. 

Revenant used to be amazing with battle scars but basically all revenant healing power scaling is garbage. It got nerfed sooooo hard. You can however try cele herald or go high healing power renegade for the elite summons lifesteal. You can get it to a good 1k lifesteal a hit and then mix cele and magi gear to use mace for condi dmg and healing since mace has the fastest attack speed to keep procing the heals. Overall though rev self sustain in regards to face tanking is like 1/3 of what it was pre EoD sadly. Rev just does not have the self healing it used to. Before you could drop the renegade summons then swap to shiro and burn everything down well you healed from battle scars. Can not do that now. Herald does have the passive barrier and corruption has the healing on the condi boon but its still far weaker then it used to be. Necro is def stronger in the dmg spunge however necro can go barrier scourge heal support vs rev going quickness herald dps support. So if you want a support spec its two dif feels in groups. The classes offer a very dif feel so it depends if you want to use them beyond open world content.

Chrono is amazing but very high skill req. You have to time your blocks and skills perfectly. If played 10/10 you are one hell of a tank. If played 9/10 you are kitten. There is no error allowed.

One large note is reaper can get thrown out a bit by cc well revenant in general has more ways to deal with cc. This could make a large dif if you find youself getting trolled by mobs a lot.

I advise looking at Lord Hizen on youtube. Probably what your looking for. He crafts open world builds to solo champion events and such.

 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

4 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

That's if you care more about grinding than enjoying moment to moment gameplay.

It doesn't have to do with grinding at all.  

[Batalix.2873]

On 12/25/2023 at 10:10 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

It doesn't have to do with grinding at all.  

Grinding...impatience..."saving time"...potato, potato.

Not everyone wants to reduce the game to a job to optimize.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

35 minutes ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Grinding...impatience..."saving time"...potato, potato.

Not everyone wants to reduce the game to a job to optimize.

Getting to do things faster isn't "grinding".  If you want to do one thing over and over again to farm some kind of currency, that is grinding.  Merely killing things fast is of value, even if you're exploring maps, doing random events, jumping from content to content, and so on.  Fact is that doing damage is how anything gets done in this game.  A player should never want to be bad at damage.  It isn't a job, either; wear offensive gear, choose offensive traits and utilities, and you're done. 

[Sirvaleen.1379]

3 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Getting to do things faster isn't "grinding".  If you want to do one thing over and over again to farm some kind of currency, that is grinding.  Merely killing things fast is of value, even if you're exploring maps, doing random events, jumping from content to content, and so on.  Fact is that doing damage is how anything gets done in this game.  A player should never want to be bad at damage.  It isn't a job, either; wear offensive gear, choose offensive traits and utilities, and you're done. 

Not completely sure but I think @Batalix was thinking about efficiency and used the word grinding wrongly in its stead there, simply because the two are often associated. Being efficient is ideal but not exactly an obligation, as long as you're playing solo or the people playing with you are aware of your choice. Some players want to be efficient, others don't care about it at all. We can do whatever we want there, as long as it doesn't impair other players's gameplay/time.

To get back to OP though, imho anything with easy barrier generation can give you that tanking vibe. In your case, I would take Scourge over Reaper and Scrapper over Holo. And since you said "Easy difficulty for gameplay, with less buttons to press rather than mashing so many or trying to micromanage buttons ", I would take Herald over Chrono. You can safely try out those three and may find at least one to your liking.

[starlinvf.1358]

This gives me an excuse to update a classic.

Reaper Minion Master 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSzAEd3lFwqYMMKWJeqSfNfA-DSRYBRNtnvYIiCOkmkBlpACRIo2fCAA-e

The basic premise is simple.  Maintain a bunch of minions, which boosts your toughness, and passively offloads conditions. Reaper Shroud is used flexibly as both a solid DPS increase OR to soak damage, depending on what you're fighting.  Blood Magic for Vampiric traits, giving you and your minions constant chip healing.   Decimate Defenses to offset Crit Chance.   Strongest in crowded fights, where Rise! can get max spawns.

Has enough of both Tank and Damage to solo most champs and HPs.  Only real down side is lack of easy stun break and no on demand condition purge; but is rarely a problem since you can just soak the damage.  Play wise it mostly just learning how to best meter your attacks, and using your CC to shut down bigger threats, so you don't have to soak everything.   This makes it easy to operate, but not totally brain dead.  As you get better at recognizing threats and how to deal with them, you can potentially tackle some of the older Group Champ events solo (like the Risen Spiders).  Just remember that you're a brawler first and foremost;  The minions are mostly there to buff "You".  

[Antycypator.9874]

For strong passive healing? Just go condi Harbinger with Parasitic Contagion. Every damage will be instantly outhealed as long as you keep pressing buttons.

For blocking damage? Chronomancer. Nothing has more damage mitigation than Chrono.

Heavy armor? Revenant for passive healing and 2 healing skills. Herald is more tanky with infinite quickness, but if you can't stand Glint's voice, Renegade is also good.

For real tankiness? Scrapper. Facetank stuff and make them explode.

For piano play? Elementalist can be good too, but you need Celestial gear and learn your healing combos.