Dragon Age: Two-Handed Tank Build

I'm going to be drawing on a lot of other sources besides my own experience. I'm more of a game play strategist than someone who can really crunch the numbers, but fortunately many people have already gone out and done that sort of work for me. I'll be providing links as often as I can.

When I say "tank character", I mean a character whose main purpose it to get the enemy to attack it so it can soak up attacks, allowing other characters to do damage. As a general rule, the more survivability a character has, the less damage potential it has and vice-versa. Putting points in Strength means I don't have points in Dexterity or in Constitution.

Attribute Points:

In Dragon Age, their are two ways to make a Tank character. A player can either put points in Constitution and increase the total health that character has (more health means more hits can be absorbed), or put points into Dexterity (more times the enemy misses and more blocks means more hits can be absorbed). Ultimately, Dexterity is the better statistic to boost than Constitution, however, Constitution will be better in the short term.

The reason for this is that Constitution increases health at a steady and constant rate of 5 health per point in constitution, a straight line increase. Early game, points in health will appear to be much better than points in Dexterity. However, Dexterity increases at a "parabolic" rate: basically, dexterity looks like a curved line that gets steeper as more dexterity is put in. Pictures always help, so here's a graph thats loosely based on a great article called "The Science of Tanking" by Theramond. Its a bit math heavy, but if thats what your into, go for it.


Now this isn't a scientific chart, but you can see what I'm talking about. At some point, having points in defense will start to outpace points in health. What that point is up for some debate, but it appears that after getting a defense score of around 100-120 the tank begins to outpace constitution, and that around 150 the tank hits a sort of sweet spot for dodging/blocking attacks where the character becomes nearly unable to be hit.

Protection:

So now that we know the stat distrubution (everything in Dexterity), we need to find out what kind of armor we need to wear. Since the tank doesn't really use many abilities besides taunt, Massive Armor fits very well. The protection granted by massive armor, coupled with many of the bonuses certain sets of massive armor give, makes it well worth the fatigue price. Just because the tank is relying on the enemy to miss doesn't mean the tank should get one-shotted if something gets through.

The other major concern for the tank is resisting magic damage. To that end, some recommend going so far as picking the templar specialization just so the tank can wear Knight Commander Armor and its 40% spell resistance. This is certainly an excellent choice, but it is not absolutely required. Simply having the right balms for the situation, which can be made by an herbalist, can suffice. However, it will require you to hold on to all those balms that your find and then remember to use them in combat.

Talents:

This is where the 2h Warrior tank is unique. Unlike the sword and shield tank, 2h tanks can afford to wait until later in the game to proceed very far along the 2h tree. Sten is actually already equiped with every talent he needs for early game: Powerful, Threaten, Taunt, Indomitable, Pommel Strike. Eventually getting the ability two-handed sweep will be important for the AOE knockdown, and stunning blows and sunder armor are good abilities as well.

Since Sten has everything he needs, the player can begin to spend his talent points on the Archery path, specifically on the 3rd branch that ends in Scattershot. Scattershot is a great ability for the tank to have because it allows for major threat generation from a distance.

As far as specializations go, Templar is good for acquiring Knight Commander Armor, Reaver is good for boosting the effects of taunt with frightening appearance, and Champion is good for providing a knockdown effect through war cry and rally gives an attack and defense bonus. Personally I prefer Champion because it fits the role of what I want my tank to do a bit better, and since my 2h warrior will be close by the tank, the bonuses will serve him well.

Note that Alistair and the Warden can fill the role of the 2h tank as well. You get Alistair early enough that you can afford to abandon his sword and shield path, and if you have the pc version of the game a respec mod is also available.

I hope this helps people along their way to building a better tank

Articles used in reference:
Tanking: An alternative approach
The Science of Tanking