How to build a well balanced 1H

After so much great information on how to build a 2h DK, now it's time to see what it takes to create a tank.

I am not sure how different the set ups need to be between pvp and pve with a 1h, so hopefully if there are major differences in the what we should be looking for, they'll get mentioned.

From all I've read here on the forums, it seems the major concern with going 1 handed is HP followed by block strength and rate, then armor.

Baragain has posted a great video along with his tank stats here. Lots of attack speed and hp.

Since I relatively recently began building a 1h, some of the basic ideas were covered, but I wanted to get more in depth with this thread focusing on what gear to choose to build the well balanced 1h.

The wolf shield will give you more than enough block rate. More than you can use actually and Baragain posted thoughts on shields, but for the life of me I can't find that thread.

In my original question on building a tank, I suggested a build with around 1100 dmg, 2.6 speed, 70% armor, Hp 18K, 80% block, 70% bl strength, 55% resist as a good starting point.

This was said to be doable, but proving quite hard to accomplish.

Speed is a lot tougher to build than I thought. I still max out at 2.1 and that is with 5 of the 6.6 gems in my adornment. This leads me to believe that a sword is 100% necessary, no axes or hammers here.

A good fast sword with a speed enchantment. From what I've seen dmg and crit don't seem to matter as much, but I hope those with more knowledge will explain this better.

The second issue is trying to build armor and hp at the same time. It seems like you get one, you lose the other.

For gear sets, the Warlord still seems to be viable as it adds block rate, but there might be better options.

Shield: The wolf shield is overkill but works in a pinch. The pw Heredur shield with the Warlord set seems to be perfect, but getting that shield must require more luck than I have.

Torso: To me this seems like a time to go 4 lines of armor if you can get it. But I wouldn't be surprised if this was not the best choice, we'll let those who know better decide.

Speed gloves seem to be a no brainer here, but I'm guessing that you'll need to find a great legendary to get that nice speed boost.

Although the Keens set still seems perfect for going 1h.

At some point with any tank especially if you do pvp, resist needs to be talked about. Prior to 155, a basic starting point was 50%, so I'm not sure how much that has changed considering the new dmg output of spellweavers, not to mention some of the bosses you encounter in pve.

With the new pw rings, there are some interesting possibilities to consider. You can go full HP or Armor with some, so suggestions would be nice to which ones to focus on.

Amulets and weapon adornments seem to lost in the 1h build, but I'm guessing that some extra hp in these could be a nice touch.

Boots: I've seen some legendary boots that offer nice HP lines, but considering speed is needed to pvp, this might be one of those areas that may need to thought about depending on whether you are doing mostly pvp or pve.

Now the fun part comes into play.

Most tanks are simply in the group to spam the aggro skill. That doesn't seem like a lot of fun to me, so I think that a well balanced DK should also be able to kill a big boss if the desire is there. Yes, it will be harder than going 2h and you'll burn through a ton of ess, but you should still be able to do it if the mood hits you.

 

I think getting over the 2.1 speedbreak is the most I would go for 1H, or the one below that. I don't think I would go for the 2.6 speedbreak as a 1H DK, unless we're talking 1H sword with full royals gem sets or something.

Back in the level 45 game I found the 2.1 speed break to be incredibly effective for 5v5 pvp. At that point I had 5 flawless sapphs and 5 flawless rubies and i think 3 or 4 jewels of rage. But the game has changed since then.

Today, I probably would do the same basic build as in the 2H page (warlord + keens + dragonache + 2x armor, 2x dam% torso + 4x crit adornment) and use either a 2-2 shield or heredurs shield and 3x weap dam% - 1x +damage 1H, probably an axe.

 

Here is the short version because it has been a long day and I want to go kill something (a digital something, in case you were concerned).

Obviously, there are two main types of 1H builds. The uber tank and the well rounded 1H. From time to time you'll see someone try to make the odd "1H DPS DK," but usually it is just sad to look at. By the time they are done, you ask yourself why they didn't just make a well rounded 2H if they wanted to have DPS and survivability.

The uber tank is all about HP, armor, block, and attack speed (for generating rage and spamming Battle Frenzy). This is usually only used for bosses because going solo in this build would be sooooooo sloooooooow!

The well rounded 1H wants to be able to solo at a reasonable pace, but be nearly importal while doing so while still able to lead a group as the primary punching bag. They walk a fine line of being strong defense, but not ignoring their DPS. Most common place to see this is with PvP DKs who don't maintain a 2H build for PvE.

At a later time I'll cover each of them separately. I'll review skills that make sense and some of the gear choices that get you there... I'll even get into a little math regarding HP and effective HP as a measure of performance (which is infinitely better than the stupid CV system.)

P.S. This is post #2498... I may just make my dream of having #2500 a good, insightful, DK focused guide post a reality. Here's hoping!

 

No crit DK build is absolutely a lose except being a pure tank .

 

This first one will just be about effective HP as a measure of DK quality.

You have a specific amount of HP in any build. On top of that, you have armor, resistance, and blocking stats to protect your HP. You could consider that these basically extend your HP. Consider this example:

If you have 20k HP with no armor, you can take 20k damage before you die. That is pretty straight forward. But, if you have 50% damage reduction from armor, you can take (20k/(1-0.5))=40k unreduced damage before you die.

The complication comes when trying to decide the weight to assign armor vs resist. Some attacks are defended partly by resistance and part by armor, but, with the exception of the SW, more attacks are impacted by armor without resistance. However, also worth consideration: with the introduction of the new random monster enchantments with elemental damage and fire archers with fire damage, elemental damage has become much more common in PvE. For this reason, an argument can be made for the increased importance of resistance. Personally, I'd just take the easy road and say that they should be weighted equally even though the armor is much easier to get.

That covers Armor/Resistance, but block is easy to consider. Block applies equally for elemental damage as physical damage. If you have 50% block strength and 75% block rate, that means that you can average it out over time and it gives you an "Effectiveness" rating. Effectiveness is simple to calculate: %BR*%BS=%Effectiveness. Make sure to use the decimals in the math above. In the example I just gave, you would have a %effectiveness of 0.50*0.75=0.375=37.5% This means that those blocking stats, when averaged out of a large amount of hits, will effectively extend your HP by 37.5%. If you could ever reach 80%/80% (rate/strength), you would have a 64% effectiveness, but this is nearly impossible to reach ever since they changed the way block works in R155. A very good amount is 50%-54% effectiveness which is attainable from 62.5%-67.5% block strength with 80% block rate. If you doubt my math, you can look at my posts that explain it a couple different ways starting here. As a heads up, it is based on the old system of block strength, so 80% block strength is now pretty much impossible, but the math is still valid. Long story short, this is applied on it's own, separate from the armor/resist totals.

So, what is DrH's equation for "Effective Health" you ask? Well, here you go.




I'd argue that this is the most important metric of a defensive DK because it represents the total damage output from players or monsters that a tank can receive without kicking the bucket. It also lets you compare builds to see if the HP that you'd lose is worth the resistance you'd gain or vice versa. Of course, if I were making an Excel equation, I'd build it so that I could type in the actual stat values (for example 5000 armor) and out would pop the final stat, but that would be too complicated to read. I'll type that up later and provide a screen shot with the equations for copying.

Edit will be coming later to this post with the copyable Excel equations and screen shot of the tool.

Edit:
As promised:



You input the lines from the stats page to line 2 and it calculates the values below in line 3, and then line 6 uses the values from line 3 to calculate total effective HP.

You can paste the below formulas into Excel or GoogleSheets and it will work.
These formulas have been updated to reflect the change to the formulas when I made a math error when I first developed this.

The formula for B3: =IF(B2>=9480, 0.8, B2/(B2+2370))
The formula for C3: =IF(C2>=9480, 0.8, C2/(C2+2370))
The formula for D3: =IF(D2<1, "Input a valid Block Strength", (IF(D2>=5, 0.8, 1-1/D2)))
The formula for E3: =IF(E2>=8876.8, 0.8, E2/11096)
The formula for A6: =A2/((1-D3*E3)*(1-(B3+C3)/2))
The formula for B6: =A2/((1-D3*E3)*(1-B3))
The formula for D6: =A2/((1-D3*E3)*(1-C3))

Hope it helps you all.

 

What a cool tool. This will be incredibly valuable, thank you. These are some of the factors that the dev's should have been using when they were making their stupid cv system.

 

That is why I said there should be a two part CV system: offence and defense, with both based on objective factors like effective HP and DPS as opposed to static subjective values that poorly represent character quality. My system would be a real metric for comparing build quailty becasue objective numbers do not lie. After that, they could make a subjective miscellaneous category that could account for the rest of the stats like run speed, HP regen, cool down reduction, knowledge points spent, etc. that would mostly be for curiosity.

 

Do you think that there are any specific differences in gear choices that should be made going 1 handed or will a well balanced 2h build work if you find a good shield? The boss rings, especially the one that is all armor seems like an interesting item, and the new ring of life could also be quite interesting.

 

on my 1h before 155 i really didnt need an extremely high resistance but after- with the different and more common elemental monsters i was getting my arse kicked pretty easy and my armor was 60%- hp 11500-i noticed a big difference in the value of good resistance percentage just my experience

 

It is really hard to make a good balance DK, a lot of work 'couse you can't "cut corners" anywhere, if you do it's not gonna be fun mate.

Most important is Block Rate and Reduction of damage by blocking, next big life goes a long way with good armor 7110 (75% for the level 50), last but not the least you need 1800+ resistance.

 

I just realize that even though this thread has been getting referenced a lot regarding the Effective Health equations and the logic behind it, I never came back and looked at gear choices for a one-handed DK. I'll correct this oversight and do so later today and give you everything that you were looking for regarding your gear choices for a 1H build.

 

Here is my balanced 1-hand dk build. I use a high crit rate/crit dmg build for farming pws/pvp also does well with bosses when i switch out my main axe for my speed axe. this build owns due to the reduced cooldown on crit from rage attack makes my cooldowns less than half of what they normally are. The no cooldown on crit iron brow is a perma stun/rage generator/dps increase and is insane in both pvp and pve.
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OK, so here we go for "well balanced." There are two ways that "well balanced" can go in the DPS area but a well balanced 1H DK can not compromise on their defense stats, so that is what I will look at first.

First of all, the best place to get defensive stats is unquestionably on the right hand side.

When it comes to sets, your best option is the Black Warlord set, either 3/3 or 2/3 (shoulders/cape) to get that 15% armor boost. Additionally, with the block rate shoulders and a decent shield, it is rather easy to hit 80% block rate. Using the helmet for it's extra block amount and the block amount from the 3/3 bonus comes in handy boosting the block strength, but if you have a nice offence/defense helmet (like the old Dark Helm or the Mortis Helm), you can probably forgo the Warlord Helm.

That considered, you get to start looking at torso/gloves/boots. Torso is one of the easiest places to get armor, especially if you can get some of those % armor stones from the jesters. I'd actually recommend a legendary here as opposed to any unique because you can get better defence stats on a legendary than almost any other torso. One possible exception is the Darkness torso if you are looking for a crit oriented 1H build like Cazic demos above, but I'd still say that the amount of crit you get from the torso is insignificant compared to the benefit you could get from good HP or armor lines when it comes to over all survivability. Put a good defensive legendary together with the 15% armor boost from the Warlord set and it is rather easy to get 5000-5500 armor, providing your other gear choices support it. I wouldn't recommend a high % damage torso in an defense build unless you have tons of armor from other sources due to it not providing as significant of a boost as a 2H build gets from a high % damage torso.

This leaves gloves/boots. If you are PvPing, travel speed or attack speed may be important, but in PvE, it is less important than over all survivability, especially if you are tanking for a team and not dishing out the damage yourself. One obvious choice is Keen's 2/3 or even 3/3 (depending on belt choices which is a whole other point of discussion). There are better individual legendaries out there, but once you hit the 2/3 and get the 750 HP, it is hard to beat. Basically, you are looking at 1200 armor and 1575 HP (Both are approximations now that these pieces scale) between two pieces. Boots and gloves come with 103 base armor, so that is just about 200. That means you need 1000 armor and 1575 hp between 8 stat lines. This could be done with 3 lines of armor greater each than 333 and 5 lines of HP greater than 315 each. These numbers are very possible, but it will likely take a while to find such pieces. In fact, unless you are planning to use 3/3 Keen's (for the crit/run speed because no one cares about 40 damage), you are probably best off looking for this. If you find really good items, you could theoretically (and reasonably) reach 1400-1450 armor and 2125-2150 HP from those 8 lines (and base stats) with lines in the 400 armor/425 HP range (max is 440 for armor and 478 for HP) which is 17% more armor and 37% more HP than using 2/3 Keen's.

This covers the right hand side items, I'll cover weapons/off-hand/left hand side items later. Time to play.

 

Such a wealth of information, thank you for all this.

 

Would this setup be consider well-balanced? Damage used to be higher since I moved all my higher tier gems to 2-hand axe. BTW I'm mostly doing pve.

 

I would certainly vote yes. Would love to reach these stats myself. It's a shame that shield only has 2 gems slots.

 

How was the fastest 1h sword what you found? I ask, because found not bad magic (1.48 total) and i think i will not find better so fast, even legendary (ofc speed 1h for pure tank) And sorry for my eng.

 

Speed maxes out at 4.00

Any faster and nothing happens. Regarding the fastest you could get on a sword, theoretically, you could get 4x18.75% lines for a total of 75% This would put the speed of the sword at 2.07 before any speed gloves, speed gems, set bonuses, knowledge points, etc. I've found that 2.20-2.40 is usually more than enough for a 1H agro spamming tanking. To get that, you can use a sword with only 12% speed, 5x8.6% speed gems, and the 7.5% speed from Tear Holder and 10 points in attack speed (16%). That comes out to 1.18*1.12*(1+0.43+0.075+0.16)=2.20

Hope that helps answer your question.

 

That "theoretically" is a key. Find 4x18.75% sounds like a miracle and leg with 4 x any stat lines, like have poor bonuses. That is my reason I ask for the best speed bonuses in 1h sword what you have seen in practice. Edited my last post, maybe you arledy dont seen. I found one good magic with 1.48 base speed even with 4 slots. What you think about that sword? Worth of keep, or easy to find better at 50 lvl?
Anyway these information are helpfull and I like other your job on this forum.

One more thing. You had describe right side for 1h tank in other post. For left side you preffer set for drakens?(tear holder, blood fang and mulet, forgot english name of this set) it still have good defensive stats + MS% and AS%.

Aaand another thing... Maybe my questions aren't the smartest, but I changed class for DK maybe week ago, and dont know best what bonuses this class can achieve. Earlier sitting on mage, but I dont feel so best with "glass canon"

 

Indeed. I'd say that a legendary with one or two stat lines greater than 10% or 12% would be good. The reason is that the % attack speed applied from weapon enchantments is applied before the % attack speed from items and gems. So, I'd say +20%-24% is the best you should aim for. But like I said before, even with only one stat line of 12% or more will make it easy enough to reach 2.20 attacks per second. Your blue item is good if you are trying to do a pure Battle Frenzy based tanking method, but you will have damage that is so low that you won't be able to regen much HP with that sword. For that reason, look for 1%AS/2%DAM/1+DAM is probably best, and, if your attack speed isn't as good, then try for a 2%AS/1%DAM/1+DAM weapon.

I'm getting there. It takes me a while to write my big explanation posts and I just finished up my one about shields. That one took me 2 hours to figure out the equations and build the spreadsheet, and then 2 separate days of writing 11 pages of text and taking the screen shots. Don't worry, I'll revisit the recommendations for the left hand side items. But for starters, yes, I am a fan of the Dragonsilver set. It has one of the best balanced set of stats that a DK could hope for. I'll also discuss other good choices, but the Dragonsilver set is one of my favorites for building a well rounded DK.

Don't feel too bad. Everyone learns sometimes. A glass cannon DK is only really useful for farming in areas where you can kill before the mobs even can land a hit on you, because if you have to go toe to toe with them, you won't survive long. And you can't "run and gun" like a SW/SM/RA because you need to be next to your target. The highest area that can be survived in as a "Glass Cannon" DK is the Painful PWs, but that is just my opinion and you have to have some really high damage to pull it off. And you can't pull off the "Walking Fortress" that can't be killed but has no damage because unless you are running with a bunch of damage dealers, it will take forever to kill the mobs, especially in the PWs. Much better is the well balanced builds, 1H or 2H, that can farm and fight in the PWs, but kill at a reasonable pace. Those builds can also tank for a group, either with Battle Frenzy or by doing enough damage to hold aggro, but are not 100% reliant on others to be able to play. For the analysis that I already did in depth for 2H DKs, check it out here.