Coming back looking for IB idea

[Asherdoom]

So basically i love dwarf armor estetic but... ive been told IB is just a guardbot with the damage of a sick baby compared to many classes unless you go 2handed at RR60+ and got proper gear:
I read the dwarf handbook and... is that really true? I mean i got no hope to do any relevant apart being a damage bot? PPl told me about cc but there is a inner cc immunity on warband scale after someoen uses ccc so that would be excluded too right?

thanks in advance for any info!

[Wiede]

Well, you could say the same for every other archetype...

MDPS: im dying so fast, i dont have CC, i dont do enough damage to kill a healer
RDPS: im dying so fast, melee train wrecks me, i dont do enough damage to kill a healer
Heal: im not dying, but i cant do any harm to anyone

In the end it's a teamgame, you need someone taking the damage and cc-ing, you need someone keeping you alive and you need someone dealing damage. And for each type of gameplay there are better and more worse classes.

IB is a good mix of survival, damage and sustain. But you will never be a full tank with 2h, you will never deal the damage of a dedicated DPS and you will never outheal a healer. But overall IB is a good mix of everything.

What really hinders your wb-effectiveness is that your buffs/debuffs are mostly singletarget. But else you can do everything other tanks can do too: punt, AoE-Snare, guard, Detaunt, interupt.
And dont be too afraid to play an IB just because your not the best for WB. Tanks are always needed, and there will come times (e.g. City), where that stupid AoE-spam isn't the key to success anymore.

[GONDOR]

2h IB starts to liven up at rr50, when you can run this with some flex: https://builder.returnofreckoning.com/c ... ,3740,3763

IB shines in small man groups. If you have extra healers, you can move the points from Brotherhood and Grumble and Mutter into Vengeance for Grudge-Born Fury.

Punishing Knock is a massive (and probably biggest) boost to your effectiveness - will allow you to kill healers that are solo, and put out massive pressure in the engagement (DoKs also can't cleanse it ). You also have tactic flexibility with Sweet Revenge / Seen it all before / Ancestral Inheritance.

Gearing wise, Sentinel is probably the best set you easily get, for quite some time. It mixes in really well with a lot of other sets, and helps cover some important stat holes.
Bloodlord weapon is excellent, reasonably easy to get, and IMO BIS (still testing it out vs SC weapon and Earthshatter.) Earthsplit is the best weapon to start with (T4 Elf epic quest).

Ironbreaker struggles doing damage because of the armour meta, and lack of weapon skill on their gear. Beastlord 3pc (WS bonus) is something you're likely to never give up, even IBs in Warlord (the better of the two Royal sets for 2h IB), still use Beastlord.

Similarly, I strongly recommend putting RP into Weapon Skill to pump up both your damage and chance to parry.

Guard damage doesn't have any strikethrough behind it, so high parry helps a lot, and high weaponskill is necessary to prevent players with high strength ignoring your parry %.

Low level IB can be incredibly effective, it plateus a little bit at rr70+ while you transition into endgame gear (Warlord, Bloodlord, Sentinel), but really changes again once you get the +2 and can branch your builds a bit more.

[Thorakk]

That’s very insightful, thank you!

For a rr70/73, would you recommend going for Warlord due to the stats? Str+Ws bonus and HP regen that looks quite interesting.
Is it worth it at all or just skip it to Alt Sov?

Cheers!

2h IB starts to liven up at rr50, when you can run this with some flex: https://builder.returnofreckoning.com/c ... ,3740,3763

Ironbreaker struggles doing damage because of the armour meta, and lack of weapon skill on their gear. Beastlord 3pc (WS bonus) is something you're likely to never give up, even IBs in Warlord (the better of the two Royal sets for 2h IB), still use Beastlord.

Similarly, I strongly recommend putting RP into Weapon Skill to pump up both your damage and chance to parry.

Guard damage doesn't have any strikethrough behind it, so high parry helps a lot, and high weaponskill is necessary to prevent players with high strength ignoring your parry %.

[TreefAM]

If IBs are anything like BGs I'd go for the anathema weapon from scenarios than the blood lord one, you will be too squishy otherwise.

[zakgrin]

Punishing Knock is a massive (and probably biggest) boost to your effectiveness - will allow you to kill healers that are solo, and put out massive pressure in the engagement (DoKs also can't cleanse it ). You also have tactic flexibility with Sweet Revenge / Seen it all before / Ancestral Inheritance.

IBs 2H or otherwise should pretty much never be able to kill a healer solo, unless they are under 40. Punishing Knock is an outgoing heal debuff so it will have no effect on a healer healing itself.

[GONDOR]

That’s very insightful, thank you!

For a rr70/73, would you recommend going for Warlord due to the stats? Str+Ws bonus and HP regen that looks quite interesting.
Is it worth it at all or just skip it to Alt Sov?

Cheers!

You're welcome - anything to help.

I went with off sov, and it was a mistake (imo). (there's a few reasons but tldr warlord is better itemised for ib).

Definitely go with Warlord.

Weapon Skill is really hard to find compared to wounds and strength. One of the biggest challenges 2h IB faces is the lack of an armour cap with DR. You'll commonly come up against people at the 100% or higher. The armour hardcap for mitigation is 75%, so if you're only debuffing by 25%, or 1k, from 4300ish armour, they're still sitting on that mitigation cap.

If you want to do meaningful damage, stack that weapon skill until you're at like 45%, and deal with the other stats later.

Punishing Knock is a massive (and probably biggest) boost to your effectiveness - will allow you to kill healers that are solo, and put out massive pressure in the engagement (DoKs also can't cleanse it ). You also have tactic flexibility with Sweet Revenge / Seen it all before / Ancestral Inheritance.

IBs 2H or otherwise should pretty much never be able to kill a healer solo, unless they are under 40. Punishing Knock is an outgoing heal debuff so it will have no effect on a healer healing itself.

Incorrect. Outgoing heal debuff affects any heals cast by the caster. Incoming affects heals cast by others onto that target.

If IBs are anything like BGs I'd go for the anathema weapon from scenarios than the blood lord one, you will be too squishy otherwise.

Bloodlord weapon for IBs is 4.2 speed, which is big with Stoutness of Stone (50% AA haste). IB also have Ancestral Inheritance to offset the armour debuff (660 vs -10%, roughly works out to be a small net gain). IB also really need the initiative - 60 on Bloodlord 2h (123 base). tldr, it's really good and worth using.

That said, Earthshatter (Sentinel weapon) is excellent as well.

[Battlefield]

IB needs some up make as BG at least when hit someone it gives points of hate IB need it also without tactic

[zakgrin]

Incorrect. Outgoing heal debuff affects any heals cast by the caster. Incoming affects heals cast by others onto that target.

My understanding was that healing yourself is not considered an outgoing heal, however I see your point. That being said, an IB should never be able to kill a healer solo unless they are low level, or have absolutely no idea what they are doing. That goes for pretty much any tank.

[GONDOR]

Incorrect. Outgoing heal debuff affects any heals cast by the caster. Incoming affects heals cast by others onto that target.

My understanding was that healing yourself is not considered an outgoing heal, however I see your point. That being said, an IB should never be able to kill a healer solo unless they are low level, or have absolutely no idea what they are doing. That goes for pretty much any tank.

I'm not even sure of the point you're trying to make - are you saying that it never ever happens? That's not true for two reasons.

1. It happens, I do it, I don't know why it doesn't happen for you, but punishing knock is the only reason it does happen.
2. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Punishing Knock is a must have, it's absurdly good.