Nerdarchy DnD 5e Builds- The Unstoppable Tank

hey guys Dave here from the rocky for nerds by nerds today I'm hanging out with miss Ted come on me bro today we're talking unstoppable tank codes for your dandy game jump down the description below you can sign up for nerd Aki the newsletter get weekly gaming tips as well as learning out a game with us all right so we're gonna revisit our tank though we did that maybe a couple years ago a lot of things have come out since workers adventures Volos guide Zappos guys everything so like that that gives us a lot of options we get new races that are out there and all those books we got all those new subclasses and you know we have we have to now rethink with all these new options do we settle on our fighter paladin or do we go another direction yeah what is the most impressive tank tank build and fifth edition knowledge of dragons also the question is to what exactly is a tank what is their job well the the tanks job you really have to look out and you're supposed to take the hits you're supposed to help out the help out the party and be able to like draw attention to yourselves draw that anger out if you want to get MMO terms you're the wall you know you're supposed to keep you're supposed to keep the guys behind you safe protect the wizard protect the cleric and make sure everyone pays attention to you you know in the early early edition you know we didn't have tanks we didn't have you know DPS or striker and controllers and all these terms but we did have fighter mage thief Clarke you know so so they were all there there was always like this core component to the game and anyone that was like the fighter or the powd and type or even the barbarian we just called them the meat you know the meat shield meat wall so the concepts are it's a fairly old one it's not really new right but you know with MMO they they wound up you know making these new terms making these new things and as always you know you got it you got to make a change for change sake so you got these things but how do we make the best the best tank what do we got looking at all right so you know first of all let's look at the different races we have to mention this one or chief and editor Doug is going to be so upset with us so he has his heart set on the portal as being you know a good race for playing a tank I got I got a si to a certain extent at extreme low levels like one through three it's a really solid choice you've got a seventeen armor class regardless of decks that you just you can just put in there and boom all right hey I'll play something and I'll clip of shield BAM now I'm at a nineteen unarmored and there's nothing you can do about it yeah they also get a bonus to their con and let's face it if you grew up in the 80s you want to be a turtle turtle power alright well speaking of Constitution there's a lot of races that do get a bonus and having a nice solid high Constitution is kind of a requirement if you're gonna play a tank because you're gonna need the most amount of hit points yeah the ones are gonna have to come from somewhere so you know we made a list you know half work Goliath mountain dwarf human variant and lizard folk they all get bonuses to Constitution but they also they also some bring some other things to the table as well right no you could have the the stout halfling if you wanted to throw that in there as well no they're gonna have the advantage on the the saving throws with lucky and they're gonna get that that small bump but you know I don't know whether halflings really gonna be my go-to for a tank true enough so you know let's look at the list let's look at half work you get round relentless endurance and savage critical savage critical good ability getting that extra die when you score a crit it's not super you know tanky related cuz it's not about being able to take hit points or help out your companions blood bringing down the enemies faster that certainly helps well I would also say doing a lot of damage makes you hard to ignore that that that is a absolute speaking point relentless endurance you know the worst thing that can happen to a tank is getting dropped and to be able to say once a day I got this pack up the chumbawamba effect absolutely Goliath gets thrown in dorrance it's not bad every sure I think it's like easy there long rest short rest you get to roll a die 12 and minus that from a hit you just took so taking less damage keeps you in the fight longer helpful absolutely mountain dwarf of the the most superior stat driven in a game I guess a +2 strength plus 2 to con totally awesome for for a tank especially because most most tanks most meet walls are going to be fighting with their strengths so that's that's good they get the armor proficiency so regardless of what class you're going they got some armor to go along with it and poison the second most damaged type in the game if first if not the first they get resistance to yeah their other abilities not going to be as useful because you're probably going to have a class that covers that anyway but you know it's a dwarf answer the worth so if you go with human variant you you get the variable stats to put them wherever you want so yeah you can put it right in a strengthen kana if you like you know win-win situation there and to totally jump right in into a feed at first level thinking you know may be tough maybe if you went with fighter or palin and the armor mastery not a bad choice they're all good sentinel there's tons of good feature can the stack on here and we'll get to feats you know more in depth later on so lizard folk well those are folk they come with a natural armor not really great because it's gonna you're probably gonna be looking to get that plate mail on as soon as possible but they got hungry jaws they've get that extra attack as a bonus action which gives them temporary hit points so always useful alright so those are the the bulk of the good tank races and do we make our pick now or do we move into class and then we revisit i think we should move into the classes and talk about them a little bit alright so jumping in order we got barbarian let's face it barbarians have the the biggest hit die in the game rocking that d12 no one is going to have more hit points in the barbarian to tack that on when you start raging you're gonna get resistance to the damage can't can't argue with that now I think probably in our previous video we talked about path of the totem a lot you know for tanking way better than path of the Zurcher because not only can you get resistance when you're raged to physical attacks but to everything but I believe psychic damage so that was a big deal but we're kind of we've kind of turned the corner a little bit and we've added a path of the ancestors absolutely extremely tanky when you hit somebody if they attack someone other than you you know they're the person being attacked gets resistance to the attack if you're raised it raging you still have resistance and they get other abilities where they had their ancestors help them and hinder your enemies so you can use your reaction to go oh I'm gonna minus this amount of damage from that attack you just did to one of my allies the other thing oh you know what now you're actually going to take that damage as well so yeah you better pay attention to me so very very critical for for someone who's like I want to be the tank I want the attacks come in my way I read I read this you know and every time I see that I'm like that looks like a fun fun character to play and it fills that tank role supremely sure so should be done are we is that it no I think we get somewhere to talk about we could also mention give honorable mention to path of the zealot the only problem with that is it relies too much on getting dropped and I think your tag tag is just a little more effective when he stays on his feet I I would have to agree with you there so I'm gonna say you know most people are not gonna think this is a good tank but circle of the moon druid you you have the ability to wild shape into a large assortment of creatures you you can just boom I'm gonna make the biggest sack of hit points I possibly can and I'm gonna get in the way and with the size limitations that these guys can hit they can easily just block movement especially if you're you know in a dense forest or gonna in a dungeon you just you can't go through me you're just gonna have to hit meanwhile my party sits behind me and hit you with spells sorry dude you lose you have the ability to use your spells as a bonus action to heal yourself you can oh you get reverted back to your normal your normal body okay I'll just wild shape again so yeah there's essentially twice every short rest you know depending on what level you are you can just slather on a bunch of extra hip points even if that's only what you look at it for is the extra hip points but it's a big difference especially at the higher levels I think you know my son's moon druid you know between short resk and slather on almost an extra 300 hair points that's not a big deal that's amazing to have happen but you know we can't slack off to the fighter the fighter is the one who's best known for being the tank goes right back to the to the very beginning to the concept of of what the tank was of all right the fighters the meat shield he is the one that goes up and smacks the thing and lets him smack them yeah now almost all of the subclasses work to some degree or another with the fighter it is the most versatile as far as if you want to build a tank maybe not the best but you do have a lot of options there is only a couple that I that I might say yeah maybe not so much like the elders Knight but everybody else can tank pretty well and the fighter core abilities you know fighting styles if you take the protection fighting style that means literally if you to get if someone tries to attack someone near you within 5 foot of you your reaction boom disadvantage so it's going to make them want to attack you more action surge is always phenomenal second wind is great for a tank they just have tons of great abilities you also you can't ignore the defensive fighting style it gives you that bump to your armor class and you know that bump that that can mean that can mean the difference between a hit or MS it's very important so I think next that takes us to the paladin alright paladin what more can we say he he not only has the ability to provide a bonus to saves to people around him he's got the ability to heal he's got the ability to do some massive spells I mean there's reason why this was a leading choice in our last video for you know the best tank yeah the the oath of the crown oath of redemption and oath of vengeance all have ways to make your opponent's really want to pay attention to you absolutely so you know paladin strong leader at the moment I have to agree always plus you know with those smite you're just doing so much damage it's hard to ignore the powd and if I'm the enemy I want to get the pattern down as fast as possible and stop those mites from happening alright so before we get into you know let's finishing off this let's touch on feats let's touch on some spells okay so feats there's there's quite the list of feats that are that are useful for a tank some of which are just useful no matter what absolutely but you know you have tough extra hit points two extra hit points per hit die I mean that that's a that's a game changer it's like that's like increasing your Constitution by four so lucky that that's gonna help you pass those savings throws when you when you happen to a roll poorly you know it's never a bad idea to have that feat there's nothing worse than having your tank turned against you if you go with Sentinel you have you have the ability to to really lock down the battlefield especially if you combine that with polar master yeah that's a really good one I mean that's going to shut down movement around you if people attack people attack anyone other than you as a reaction you get to attack them people cannot disengage from you you you know you become really sticky just from that one feat and you know heavy armor master is as I mentioned earlier a totally awesome choice because you can start shaving off damage that's coming into you by having some dr martial adepts another good one you get to steal from the battle master and take a couple maneuvers goading attacks always a good one especially if you want them to attack you and not your peeps shield master always a good solid choice if you're not using that pool arm well you can also move people around on the battlefield it's going to increase your your dexterity saving throws it's just really useful for resisting damage you got made Slayer which you know if you're getting someone's face gonna me make them a lot harder to cast spells yeah that was really specific if you want to build a specific kind of tank especially the Moines that's really good as shutting down spell casters and magic users the mace layer especially but it can be really cool you know you've got charger which is going to allow you to you know really get up in there in their faces that much easier and do some extra damage while you're at it well yeah a tank isn't really very useful if he's in the back you need him up front you need him in the enemy's face so charger lets you take that - action and get up there and still make an attack and you're also gonna do some extra damage so it's gonna be hard to ignore you so if you now for a couple race-specific feats if you're looking at dwarf dwarven fortitude is a solid choice and if you're looking at half work orcish fury nice yeah bring on the fury so I think the last thing before we kind of make our picks is there's a couple spells that are useful absolutely so this is if you're if you're looking at paladin and you know that's definitely a high contender you've got compelled duel that's I mean come on it's right there in the name you're gonna you're gonna get that moving in aid heroism these are spells that are gonna allow you to buff your party yeah you're probably gonna have to sacrifice some of those spikes to make those spells go off but you know your idea is to bunk that party up you know that much more yeah things like Sheila faith which is gonna make you harder to hit there's things like divine favor or vitality all of these are really good especially if you want to build your tank out as a paladin all right so now will we get down to the crux of it we need to pick a race we need to pick a class or classes so what's that what's our contender here what's so oddly enough we actually had one all decided up until we're about to start doing this video that's true and then we remembered something you know we we have our trusty zanaffar guide to everything and in here is the most solid choice and we like well we got to chuck this well let's follow that the runner-up first right the runner-up is all right so we were we were locked in on path of the ancestors 14 levels barbarian 6 levels of power 6 levels of power and I'm like this is going to be the tops and nothing's going to beat this there's no way you're gonna be able to ignore them we went with oath of the crown because their channel divinities awesome you you let out a shout all the enemies in 30 within 30 feet of you they have to attack you like that's the epitome of what what a tank does drawing everybody to you in the beginning of the combat pulls them away from your allies amazing and then if they then try to slip past you you have the path you ancestors abilities which is going to hinder them and eventually even damage them all right but we found something even better we did so if we go into Zenith ours guide to everything and we go to fighter subclass cavalier oh my word some of the fantastic abilities these guys get you know yeah you you can do stuff with horses and animal training and what have you but at third level you can start marking someone when you make an attack on them whilst within 5 feet of you creatures marked by you have disadvantaged on any attack role that doesn't target you okay that's superb you you know as a fighter you wind up getting multiple attacks okay well I'll mark you I'll mark you now you have to fight me or you know you have this advantage and also does another thing it means taking the protection fighting style there's no point anymore you can just take defensive and have a better armor class right so in addition if a creature marks by you deals damage to anyone other than you you can make a special melee weapon attack against a marked creature as a bonus action on your next turn and you have advantage on the role regardless the number creatures you mark you can make this special attack and number of times equal to your strength amount of fire minimum wants and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest not bad at seventh level you get warning maneuver if you are a creature you can see within five feet of you is hit by an attack roll you can use a d8 as a reaction if you're wielding a melee weapon or a shield you roll the die and add the number to the target say see if the attack still hits the target has resistance against the attacks damage you can use this a number of times equal to your con mod again we've you know refreshed on a long rest 10th level you you become master of locking down your enemies essentially this boils down to the Sentinel feet you get the ability to make a reaction against an attack as a reaction against someone moving moving within five feet of you if you hit their speed becomes zero fifteenth level you get ferocious charger you can run down your foes whether you're mounted or not if you move at least ten feet in a straight line before attacking the creature and hit it with the attack they make a strength save or be knocked prone and then the supreme ability that makes this character utterly ridiculous is 18th level vigilant defender you respond to danger with extraordinary vigilance in combat you gain a special reaction that you can take once on every creatures turn except yours you can use this special reaction only to make an opportunity attack and you can't use it on the same turn that you take your normal reaction so there are four we were looking at this if you take a polearm and you take a hoard of an army that's approaching you and they all move through your vast area this 5x5 square that you threaten all of them rush by you on their turn you can attack all of them because every single one gets its own turn moves through your threatened area so you are the bane of anything that you can just slaughter with one attack you've just became a become a one-man killing zone essentially so so like you know we were joking off air that's like this is the guy the guy that they needed for 300 he's not gonna run out of reactions they hope you move to close dead his biggest problem is he's going to run out of spaces from all the bodies and so the end result was we're like there's no need to multi-class this subclass does everything you would need the only addendums we'd add is polar master you'd want that because one you want to get more attacks and you want it you want something that reached to take full advantage of those abilities charger becomes really good to add to everything else you're getting as well get him up there get them in their faces everything else after that as far as feats go I feel like they're gravy we don't need Sentinel anymore it's useless as I get it so now the question is what race would you go with well I mean you know there's there's something to be said for each of them but I honestly feel that the savage critical and relentless endurance from half work you know put it far and above everything else I have to concur I mean all of them can be fun you can build there's a zillion different ways to build a fun tank to play but if you're talking about just the most optimized the guy that's going to be the most sticky and it's going to be impossible to ignore this is the one you want all right so what do you guys think did we miss something did you build a better tank do you really love what what we built put your thoughts and comments down below while you're down there don't forget to Like share and subscribe can check us out over at nerdist.com so until next time stay nerdy [Music]

Channel: Nerdarchy

Views: 416,511

Keywords: D&D Build- The Unstoppable Tank, D&D Build, D&D Character Build, tank build, 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, players handbook, dungeons and dragons, 5e, d&d, dungeons & dragons, 5th edition, Taking 20, Matt Colville, nerdarchy, Matt Mercer, wasd20, Web DM, Danwforgedcast, xp to lvl 3, puffin forest, player's handbook, dungeons \u0026 dragons, dnd, rpg, dungeon master, character class, 5th, fighter, paladin, barbarian, druid, dm

Id: Tkqd_yB4tlw

Length: 21min 19sec (1279 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 11 2018