P/W Spear Tactics

P/W Spear Tactics Paragon

Spear Mastery 10+3+1
Tactics 12
Motivation 8

Barbed Spear
Blazing Spear
Cruel Spear{E}
"To The Limit"
Shield Stance
"Watch Yourself"
Mending Refrain
Healing Signet

Equipment:
Rune of Superior Spear Mastery
Rune of Superior Vigor(Optional)
Runes of Vitae
Centurion's Insignias on all armor
Furious Spear of Defense/Fortitude (Shrieking Spear for example)
Tactics Based Shield of Fortitude (Tarnen's Shield is what I have)

Usage:
Use Mending Refrain just before entering battle. Engage the enemy and use "To the Limit" to get initial adrenaline and reuse it every time it is recharged. Keep up "Watch Yourself" to give armor buff to yourself and allies. Spam attack skills as often as possible, wait for all three to charge before using them for a spike, leaving your target bleeding, burning and with a deep wound. Use Shield Stance against melee opponents. Use healing signet when needed.

Counters:
Blind, Degen, Anti-adrenaline skills(Soothing Images)

I have mainly used this in AB, but it also works in the majority of Pve situations I have used it in. You can cap the majority of the shrines in AB solo, with the exeption of the warrior shrine (if the elite warrior is there). You can hold your own against all classes 1v1 and I have come to a standoff with a warrior and 2 sins at one point. I made this build to give an alternative to the typicall warrior, for those of us that don't care for melee but still want to be able to tank damage. There is little problem with energy management, but I havent tested this build in battle lasting longer than 2 minutes(standing outside opponents base in ab).

I was considering using something other than Mending Refrain for healing, but when using both "Watch Yourself" and "To the Limit" you can keep it up indefinately and it cannot be removed like other health regen skills. Anyone have some suggestions on this one?

Can drop Healing Sig for a Res in Pve as there will be a monk for healing.

You might be saying why not just use a warrior for tanking, well I have only used a paragon and a monk so the only warrior skills I have unlocked are the one's you see here.

I would appreciate any suggestions for improvements, but remember I do not care if the warrior makes a "better" tank, I do not own a warrior. The purpose of this build is to have a paragon with good survivability while placeing conditions/pressure on my target.

looks pretty solid

..although I'm not a huge fan of Cruel spear. merciless spear is good enough for me... then you could invest in another elite like [card]stunning strike[/card]........or maybe [card]focused anger[/card] or [card]soldier's fury[/card] but then again those are leadership elites...


stuning strike + wild throw is good in AB because of all the enchants/stances runnin around. an IAS would be nice....maybe [card]flail[/card]?

Yeah I have considered throwing in Wild Throw to take care of the multiple rangers that I see using whirling defenses. They can be quite annoying with the Burning Arrow+Apply Poison combination that I have seen a lot of, because of the major degeneration this causes this build sometimes has a hard time dealing with them. The main reason I use Cruel Spear is that I find ussually the target I am fighting is not moving(since I tend to solo cap) and it ussually takes a little bit to get them below 50% health for the Merciless Spear to become valid. Plus since Cruel Spear does +40 damage, when it inflicts the deep wound it is effectively doing 100 damage total which is a major spike.

As for Stunning Strike, it could easily be switched out for Cruel Spear if casters seem to be the majority of enemies being encountered. As for the other 2(besides being leadership as you mentioned) IAS or increased adrenaline would be nice, but going that route I would lose one of the three conditions inflicted by the current settup. I will have to check into them though, but it will involve a major rework of the build.

Thanks for the input.