Ladder Slasher tanking guide
by rusclaudiualin



We all know ladder slasher changed so much into a team based game that implies creating an efficient group that can climb the 71 levels as fast as possible.
Climbing this way is faster than solo but it’s somehow better in my opinion because you actualy feel that you are playing a game and not doing some other stuff while you regenerate for the sake of items as it was in the past.
We must face the truth that this game is not bad as it is at the moment but that it’s still needs some more changes to make it better.
So with the new version of this game you need a group to level faster while slashing the evil monsters in a place called catacombs, but not just a random group refering to the hardcore part where If you make a mistake you are dead and you loose time invested in your gear and in many cases you will quit even If quiting is for silly bears.
The group must be a balanced one and it always needs a player called „tank” and another one called „ healer” along with the other players.
I really don’t want to discuss about how many players a group needs or the level range and I’m sure you can find answers about that in some other guides. I made this introduction just to make sure you understand what I’m saying If you have no clues about this game at all.
So a tank is the player that takes the most damage and it’s placed in front of the group preventing the team to die while the others attack clearing the waves of monsters. There are some rules for a tank and you must know them very well so you’ll have a long life here on hardcore. Ofcourse many would say on hardcore you need great gear and then you’re a God. That’s actualy not true. I saw may players with high end gear that riped becouse they forgot hardcore has some proper rules and you must respect them with any means.
Why a tank? Why not? You can get with a tank untill monk and that’s a long road.
I did many climbs only as a tank and I say to you I enjoy to keep a team safe while not shrining and I enjoy driving in the maze.
I will mark the rules of safe playing hardcore as a tank with red just so you know.
When I create a tank I pick up either fighter or barbarian becouse both have advantages in some way or another. Barbarian has higher strenght doing more damage and also having more vitality getting more life in the end. Fighter has a bit more inteligence and dexterity.
It’s your choise in the end but both are good.
The key of a solid tank is pumping all stat points into vitality untill you have like 100 based vitality. It’s possible to tank with less but I found out from my experience that 100 vitality points it’s safe. After you got 100 vitality points you have two options: strenght/dexterity depending on what weapon do you prefer or inteligence. I personaly put all points into inteligence and use a strenght/inteligence charm to boost my damage. The inteligence is nice becouse it gives you protection against casters that can rip you If you have low magic defence.
So we talk about two aspects:physical defence and magical defence. You have two ways to higher your magical defence: getting armors that have high magical defence ( leathers/scales/chains ) or pumping inteligence with stat points and gear.
So for a tank it’s crucial to think about improving his max life, physical defence and magical defence while sustaining his damage. This is the key of a tank well made.
As wenzor said and yes it’s true you can also build your tank like this: put the starting points and all the points untill you have like 80 vitality, then change and pump your inteligence with 20-30 points and get back to your vitality untill you get 100. This will balance your stats.
It’s handy to keep a heal charm with enhanced effect for safty even If you would get like some casts only it will still help you in dangerous situations.
We found out how to invest our stat points now we must know what gear should we use and when.
In starting levels untill level 10 I’d say we need more then ever max life, life per attack, life per killso we should go with tier III items with more then 250 max life as armor and charm and with a weapon somewhere between 50-60 enhanced effect.
After level 10 try to make a set of weapons like swords/axes with decent ee and this is the time when you need a better defence as max life does not count that much anymore so you’ll be getting an enhanced effect armor and a charm like mine for exemple: 15 strenght / 365 max life.
After this point you will be getting only ee armors, swords and defensive charms. A good exemple of a nice charm that can get you to master quest can be: 30 strenght / 33 inteligence, but you actualy can get one with other adds too like max life and vitality.
Other rule of a tank is that you stay in catacomb while there are players there and always ask for permision to go to town at higher levels. You never know when you go to town as a single tank and some objective with high risque of dying spawns and rip your team. You won’t want something like that and you will blame yourself long time after. As tank you are a leader becouse they are used to clicking while you should be only thinking about keeping the group alive!
If you’re the driver always check If your healer is ready. He might be afk and you can rip.
As a tank on hardcore you must always have in mind the possibility of sacrificing your character for the others safety. If things go wrong it’s better just to die and save players with high gear or warlocks with nice casting gear as gear for tank can be replaced. You should be the last one that leaves in town in a hard situation so when you think things are messed up stop clicking so your door won’t stuck!
I did not mentioned guardian just becouse the restrictions it has for the gear and the fact that after you passed it you must play with other character but overal it can be a tank do doubt about that.
I think healers should have their purpose and we must stick to the tanking part. Don’t be hasty to think we should have some mana for our heal as you only need a bit of it to not die in hard situations.
I am sure you will enjoy your tanks and thank you for your patience to read these up. I started from nothing with a tank so don’t be scared to start hardcore becouse of high price of items. The drop rate is decent so you will progress fast enough while having a fair roll for any item. Keep your common sence and a friendly attitude while in game and you’ll see that this version of ladder slasher is just a cool stage of a great game.
I wish you a great year and play it safe!

Thanks Paparick and Wenzor for the help.

This post was edited by rusclaudiualin on Jan 3 2011 08:41am

make it easier to read please
i just woke up and that's scary as hell



writing doesn't work that way
you make things read well so that people understand and even agree with you, not the other way around

This post was edited by Behemoth on Jan 3 2011 08:48am

I'll fix it up If it turns to be a good one. At the moment I still need opinions. Get your head in cold water It always helps for me.

On hardcore this tank build makes things run smooth like butter. Thanks for being such a Super Sexy tank in the hc catas

hardcore is just too scary for you and beside you should first try hardcore then give constructive advices in a hardcore guide

I still don't understand what do you want me to fix. Good books does not have only one page. It's not that long to not read it and If someone does not want to read it, then it means they don't want to learn. End of discution.

What John is saying is its a wall of text. Make it look nice, maybe space it out some. Throw some bullet points in or something so its not just a giant page of non stop text.

Spaces between lines

Stop writing in multi color

Maybe add categories aswell (introduction / stats / gear recomendations (what you Should and what you Could use)


Basically, don't make it look like a huge wall of text. Brb gonna try to read it anyways, bbl in a few minutes

Guide looks nice, you just need to make it easier to read

This post was edited by SCXiao on Jan 3 2011 09:05am

Now I understand and yeah I'll fix that up If it's an ok guide.

As I said this thread is just for opinions and thanks for your words. First thing I will change is the writing.

you could have posted this in like 2 guild chats
would of had the same effect lol

lol yeah

We should revive hardcore somehow...