Ladder Slasher Hardcore Tanking Guide
by rusclaudiualin


Introduction:


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 in a safe game as once you die on hardcore you loose all the items you have on your character.

Climbing in a group is faster than solo a maze but it’s somehow better in my opinion because you actually 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. Better days will come and I'm sure of it.

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 referring to the hardcore part where If you make a mistake you are dead and you lose time invested in your gear and in many cases you will quit even If quitting 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 other character related things and I’m sure you can find answers about those 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 it's placed in front of the group absorbing the incoming damage with his high defence armor and prevents the team to die while you clear the maze of evil 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. Of course many would say on hardcore you need great gear and then you’re a God. That’s actually not true. I saw may players with high end gear that ripped because 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 until monk and that’s a long road.
I did many climbs only as a tank and I say to you I enjoy keeping a team safe while not shrining and I enjoy driving in the maze.

Tanks are cheap characters to make when you start hardcore and there is always a demand for them.

I will underline the rules of safe playing hardcore as a tank just so you know.

Character to pick as a tank:


When I create a tank I pick up either fighter or barbarian because both have advantages in some way or another. Barbarian has higher strength doing more damage and also having more vitality getting more life in the end. Fighter has a bit more intelligence and dexterity.
It’s your choice in the end but both are good.

Here are the stats that both character get in the beginning:

Fighter:

Weapons he can use: Swords, Clubs, Axes
Armours: All
Status points at the beginning: 50 strength, 40 dexterity, 10 intelligence, 50 vitality.


Barbarian:

Weapons he can use: Swords, Clubs, Axes
Armours: All
Status points at the beginning: 60 strength, 25 dexterity, 5 intelligence, 60 vitality.


Tanking the maze:



The key of a solid tank is pumping all stat points into vitality until you have 100 based vitality. It’s possible to tank with less but I found out from my experience that 100 vitality points it’s safe. I sugest you start with 100 vita points and after you aquired some experience and better gear put less vitality points but never under 80 points If you plan to do some objectives aswell. If you want a solid tank you can put vitality points untill 100 then all the remaining points into inteligence while you use a high offensive charm: strenght / dexterity depending of your weapon choise. If you also want to be an effective melee but with the sacrifice of lower defence you can put 80-100 vita points and all after that into strenght/dexterity with a strenght/dexterity charm. The intelligence is nice because it gives you protection against casters that can rip you If you have low magic defense.


So we talk about two aspects: physical defense and magical defense. You have two ways to higher your magical defense: getting armors that have high magical defense ( leathers/scales/chains ) or pumping intelligence with stat points and gear.
So for a tank it’s crucial to think about improving his max life, physical defense and magical defense 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 until you have like 80 vitality, then change and pump your intelligence with 20-30 points and get back to your vitality until you get 100. This will balance your stats.

Even If leathers/ scales / chains are better in game at the moment then plates becouse you always find a mix of caster monsters with melee monsters after some tests I found out that plates are superior when doing no maze no more objective but this should be revealed probably in the future. It might be true or not. It's just a conclusion based on my tests.

It’s always handy to keep a heal charm with enhanced effect for safety 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.

Items to take in consideration as a tank:


In starting levels until level 10 I’d say we need more than ever max life, life per attack, life per kill so we should go with tier III items with more than 250 max life as armor and charm and with a weapon somewhere between 50-60 enhanced effect ( always check the max stat you can get at the specific level ). Sure a mix of those it's way better like 15 str / 300 life.

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 defense as max life does not count that much anymore so you’ll be getting an enhanced effect armor and a charm like mine for example: 15 strength / 365 max life.

Normaly axes are good for tanks but after you pass your character to samurai you can't use them anymore so I prefer to do a sword set and use only the axes I found.

After this point you will be getting only ee armors, swords and defensive / offensive charms ( based on your choise ). A good example of a nice charm that can get you to master quest can be: 30 strength / 33 intelligence, but you actually can get one with other adds too like max life and vitality.

Rules for safeguarding your team:


Other rule of a tank is that you stay in catacomb while there are players there and always ask for permission to go to town at higher levels.

You never know when you go to town as a single tank and some objective with high risk 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 because 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.

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 as a tanking character just because the restrictions it has for the gear and the fact that after you passed it you must play with other character but overall it can be a tank no 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 because 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 sense 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.

Wrong sub-forum bro: http://forums.d2jsp.org/forum.php?f=74

Yeah Roy. Prob. I just wait for Rick to put it there as stick maybe


Tomorrow I will translate it in romanian also

This post was edited by rusclaudiualin on Jan 9 2011 05:43am

Dont have time to read it over right now, but the format has been greatly improved from your last version. Its a lot cleaner and easier to read overall. So good job on that. I'll check it out tomorrow

Very nice guide for Hardcore tanks and awesome for newer slashers just starting out who are looking for their place to start without spending a fortune. I love playing in Harcore catas with Rus as my tanker

I still say if you are going to make an optimal tank using barb you go with 125 vita That is the best one.

Might be but with 100 vita points you still get like almost 7000 life and it's enough from my point of view. Beside we need some damage aswell.

A guardian with high ee plate and massive intel makes an excellent tanker imo and is very efficient with the use of mana per heal when the heal is in the acc slot in the catacombs. Also guardian can use longswords and so can sammy and pally so I dont know why you didnt go into more details about guardian?



Just because its expensive is not a good enough reason imo... besides this guide didn't say anything about being a poor mans guide.
I have seen many people including myself spend alot of fg on many gears just to be as tank as I could be, whether it was for barb pally or guardian.
I mean, to be a good tank you will need to expect to have ether a guild that will provide you gear to do it with or expect to spend fg on great gear because you are at a disadvantage from the start due to the fact that you will not be doing as much damage as the others because of your vita/intel stats so you will need to buy powerful gear or alot of these guys on hc when you get to the high levels just wont play with you unfortunately if your gear is crappy and you put all points into vita/intel.

This post was edited by implite on Jan 9 2011 05:46pm

longswords cost a fortune on hardcore In fact every single heavy weapon is very expensive on hc. I know they are good tankers but as a beginner I don't see it as wise decision.

I also don't see many decent ee heavy weapons to buy.

Bringing up my post to keep it on first page.