Tank - Leveling Build

Overview

Class: Tank

Designed for: Leveling

Focused on: Tank

Difficulty:

Hard

Strengths

• Good for Group Play
• Difficult to kill
• Good Utility

Weaknesses

• Low Range
• Low damage

Overview

With the Tank being the heart of any party in Ashes of Creation, this build focuses on tanking large groups of mobs and is much needed in all leveling parties. And while it might struggle with solo leveling and playing alone when compared to other classes, however, this build aims to make it so solo leveling isn't too difficult either. The Tank excels at group PVE content and that is the preferred method of leveling if you plan to play a Tank.

Skills

16

15

24

22

14

23

17

18

8

9

11

5

13

19

12

10

4

6

2

25

21

1

3

7

Equipment

Weapons

Sword

Longbow

Stamina

21

17

7

20

16

6

19

15

5

18

14

4

10

13

3

9

12

2

8

11

1

As a Tank, you rely a whole lot on your blocking and that for investing points into Sustained Guard is an obvious choices to reduce stamina drain while blocking (default key E). Adding Mental Fortification is also helpful, as it lowers the chance of being crowd-controlled (CC’d) while blocking, which can be situationally useful. However, the most important node you want to unlock as soon as possible remains the Empowered Guard as it greatly improves your blocking efficiency.

Once you've unlocked the right side of the Stamina tree, start unlocking the rest with Escape Velocity to boost your movement speed while sprinting in combat (default key C). This becomes especially important later in the game, allowing you to kite mobs while waiting for cooldowns or to escape dangerous situations entirely if needed.

Next, invest in Recuperation Training and Evasive Maneuver to improve your evasion rate while dodging. This also unlocks Springstep, which significantly enhances mobility by increasing the distance you can roll.

Rotations

AOE Leveling Rotation ↴

• This is your bread and butter AOE rotation that the Tank uses while leveling, particularly useful when luring and AOE farming lower or equal level mobs by yourself.

• Pull the mobs using the auto-attacks before positioning them directly in front of you. Use Shield Assault to gain Courage and then follow up with Vengeance to deal damage not only to the first mob you hit but also the mobs nearby. Continue the rotation by using Inciting Strikes then use Desolate and Tomahawk to deal extra AOE damage. Finish off the rotation with Slam if needed. Depending on mob health, you can also use Vengeance throughout the rotation to fill in and deal extra damage or to finish off the targets.