What do you think about Ryn's Warrior Queen set?

[A1teros]

Title question since I don't see any discussion about it. I think it's pretty great as a tank set, maybe Sun Blade could be more impactful in terms of either giving a longer/better debuff or more damage (either from the initial activation or the damage buff it gives you). The Boreal Vanguard recharge increases her armor and ward, Harrick provides an extra body on the field to potentially redirect some attacks. Her Cleaving Strikes passive (idk if this is exclusive or just a normal warrior perk I don't play warrior) helps deal with mobs where you might want a tank. very clear flow where eventually you just Boreal Vanguard -> Attack -> Boreal Vanguard and then recast Sun Blade instead of attack when it comes back on.

Its worth really depends on what fights you've got coming up though since it gets a lot more value out of being used against lots of enemies, and there aren't so many enemies that can't just be burst down at this point. My main gripe was that Ryn didn't really get to do anything before Cait and Champ eviscerated the Undermountain enemies. If we get tougher 4+ enemy battles later on this set will be worth more I think.

 

[Baggrin]

I haven't had much time to thoroughly test this set, but my preliminary conclusion is that it's a very mediocre build and not worth choosing over Queenly Raiment.

Boreal Vanguard has a fast recharge, but doesn't boost armor very well, especially since Ryn has shamefully low armor for a tank.
Sun Blade doesn't seem to be very useful, as it doesn't stand out with its damage buff or enemy debuff.
Harrick seems to be a pretty weak summon, so even with good Presence it doesn't have very good combat performance.
Personally, I've never used Cleaving Strikes so I could be wrong, but overall this perk doesn't seem to fit well into her build.

So this is probably the worst Etheryn's builds, the worst tank, and one of the worst builds overall.
P.S. If I notice anything special about this build, I'll add it via comment edit, but I don't think I'm missing anything important about this build.

 

[Loveless]

Eh, I'd say Atugia is still worse. I can see myself using Queen Ryn with Agni if I play a more bursty char but Atugia just doesn't really fit in with any party. Both of her sets are just really underwhelming.

 

[SomeNobody]

Eh, I'd say Atugia is still worse. I can see myself using Queen Ryn with Agni if I play a more bursty char but Atugia just doesn't really fit in with any party. Both of her sets are just really underwhelming.

She needs an offensive Set, with a different Ultimate.

All the party members need to be able to have new Ultimates when using alternate Sets, that better fit the theme of whatever that loadout is trying to accomplish.

 

[A1teros]

I haven't had much time to thoroughly test this set, but my preliminary conclusion is that it's a very mediocre build and not worth choosing over Queenly Raiment.

Boreal Vanguard has a fast recharge, but doesn't boost armor very well, especially since Ryn has shamefully low armor for a tank.
Sun Blade doesn't seem to be very useful, as it doesn't stand out with its damage buff or enemy debuff.
Harrick seems to be a pretty weak summon, so even with good Presence it doesn't have very good combat performance.
Personally, I've never used Cleaving Strikes so I could be wrong, but overall this perk doesn't seem to fit well into her build.

So this is probably the worst Etheryn's builds, the worst tank, and one of the worst builds overall.
P.S. If I notice anything special about this build, I'll add it via comment edit, but I don't think I'm missing anything important about this build.

Ah I didn't look at her base stats, is her armor much worse than other tanks? I don't typically use tanks to begin with so I'm not sure how she compares. Cleaving strikes is probably mediocre in this case since she likely doesn't have the damage to do anything with it.

 

[Resawar]

So this is probably the worst Etheryn's builds, the worst tank, and one of the worst builds overall.

Outrider is her worst set frankly, Frost Arrow needs to be reworked to be somewhat useful and this counts for both Outrider and Warrior Queen but yeah Harrick sucks, he needs to be updated to be something closer to the Roc enemy. Now Warrior Queen is overall fine for a tank from my testing, High Hp and 20% Resistances across the board with no weaknesses and the ability to boost armor every other turn is good. On the off turns of Boreal Vanguard you use Sun Blade when you can and then normal attack with cleaving strikes to gain and keep threat. Also she does get two level seven perks unlike everyone else who gets only one.

Ah I didn't look at her base stats, is her armor much worse than other tanks? I don't typically use tanks to begin with so I'm not sure how she compares. Cleaving strikes is probably mediocre in this case since she likely doesn't have the damage to do anything with it.

30 to 40 points less about, coming out to about 10 to 12% less damage reduction. But she does have Tough Skin so she has 20% Resistance to all damage types due to her not have a single weakness.

Eh, I'd say Atugia is still worse. I can see myself using Queen Ryn with Agni if I play a more bursty char but Atugia just doesn't really fit in with any party. Both of her sets are just really underwhelming.

This is Atugia slander. But seriously she has her uses and she does them well, the Knight set is a semi passive wall that can heal her teammates and take hits for them while dealing chip damage and her Berserker set is a semi bulky offensive attacker that can heal themselves, do chip damage from static, and get boosted damage from storm strikes while also powering up cornered beast when she gets hit.

 

[Baggrin]

Eh, I'd say Atugia is still worse. I can see myself using Queen Ryn with Agni if I play a more bursty char but Atugia just doesn't really fit in with any party. Both of her sets are just really underwhelming.

You know, I'm not sure which tank is better/worse.
I would call the big drawback of Atugia the lack of a shield... but, on the other hand, it increases the protection of your teammates (which is especially useful when you deal so much damage that the tank is not always able to attract the attention of enemies), takes on some of the damage of others and, Unlike her student Quin, she has decent accuracy and good weapon.
Arona has pure physical damage (well, also tiase damage) and shameful accuracy, but her defensive stats are generally better than Ryn's.
Azyrran has decent survivability and seems to have accuracy, but is somewhat weak in terms of damage. Also, I'm not sure how useful her Ultimate is in modern versions.
Brint/Brienne has the best defense, has no problems with accuracy or initiative, and in general they are probably the best tank, but their damage is rather on the low side, plus as a minotaur/cowgirl they have vulnerability to blight and pheromones.
Winter Knight Brint... more damage, less accuracy and durability.
Etheryn has a potentially interesting set of abilities, but I'd say they're on the weak side. Additionally, she lacks both defense and accuracy damage.
Quinn is probably overall better than Atugia and a potential contender for the role of the best tank, but has problems with initiative, accuracy, and weapon damage.

Ah I didn't look at her base stats, is her armor much worse than other tanks?

Armor 66 at level 7. My Black MAGE has more armor. Although, as it turned out, I missed one rather important detail, but in my opinion her survivability is average, she receives only slightly less damage from enemy attacks than I do.

Outrider is her worst set frankly

Well, at least this set has decent damage, which is also frost, which is rare.

Warrior Queen is overall fine for a tank from my testing, High Hp and 20% Resistances across the board with no weaknesses and the ability to boost armor every other turn is good.

I wouldn't call her HP particularly high. In addition, she loses health too quickly in my opinion, seems faster than any other tank, although I may be wrong here. Plus, I'd say the Shield Drive would be more practical.

On the off turns of Boreal Vanguard you use Sun Blade when you can and then normal attack with cleaving strikes to gain and keep threat.

Hmm, looks like I underestimated her a bit. But I can’t say that I liked the result very much, in my opinion, without Queenly Raiment the battles drag on too long, so it would be better to choose another tank, not this build.

Also she does get two level seven perks unlike everyone else who gets only one.

I didn't notice this.

30 to 40 points less about, coming out to about 10 to 12% less damage reduction. But she does have Tough Skin so she has 20% Resistance to all damage types due to her not have a single weakness.

She doesn't have any weaknesses, but I'd say she doesn't have a lot of defense either, so the Tough Skin perk barely covers up for her lack of defense.... in terms of damage it does, save rolls are a different story.

 

[Resawar]

say the Shield Drive would be more practical.

You analysis is good but shield Drive has a massive weakness that makes me hate it, that being is you can't defend on the third turn because the status is the same as defending. It makes sense you can't defend twice in a row pokemon does that, but the fact that it does the same status effect really kills it for me on recharge turns after a shield drive after you use net throw and crowd control is on cooldown. With high agility Brint/Brienne has a decent initiative so the status goes away and now they can't even defend thus eat attacks with lower armor. Also pressing defend just gets rid of the buff.

without Queenly Raiment the battles drag on too long,

I play battles a bit slower as my main champ is a status charmer, so sets like Warrior Queen work nicely for me. Same with Atugia and her sets as they mesh well with my playstyle. My point is that some sets work better for some playstyles, so with you playing a HO(hyper offence) nuke I can see why her new set is unappealing due to losing out on being able to use her Queenly Remnant set.

She doesn't have any weaknesses, but I'd say she doesn't have a lot of defense either, so the Tough Skin perk barely covers up for her lack of defense.... in terms of damage it does, save rolls are a different story.

With Food Buffs the only thing that matters is if she can withstand dying mid combat, she does that fairly well as ending combat with low health matters not if you win. What do you mean by save rolls? I can't see a single saving roll that uses Armor, Ward, or Focus as most contested stat vs stat is derived from Physical Resistance and the such. Armor, Ward, and Focus only seem to be used to reduce damage from attacks directly.

I wouldn't call her HP particularly high. In addition, she loses health too quickly in my opinion

What is high HP then? She has almost max Toughness and Presence, those both boost HP up to a max of 422. Bar Kiyoko and her 35% HP boost no one else could boost up to that level without having the same stats, so I'm not sure how her HP could not be considered high. Unless you mean affective HP then we start to count damage reduction as a percent, HP, possible recovery, and weaknesses to factor in a max affective HP. For the best affective HP in a tank I would say Arena Brint intuitively, but I'm unsure.

 

[Baggrin]

hield Drive has a massive weakness that makes me hate it

Hmm, I never thought about that, to me it's a very good Power that attacks with Crushing damage (not that it matters for Arona, who deals this type of damage with normal attacks) with a Staggered effect, plus increases defense plus increases Threat Level and on top of this there is also cleared Sunder bebuff. I find the latter very important for some fights.

My point is that some sets work better for some playstyles, so with you playing a HO(hyper offence) nuke I can see why her new set is unappealing

Perhaps so. But it's not only that. If it was just a matter of Blessing, then I could take Sun Dancer Cait into the group, her Blessing only lasts one turn, but usually that’s enough. But I’m not satisfied enough with the performance of the newest tank for such an exchange; for me, even the Atugia, which is unloved by many, seems a more suitable tank.

With Food Buffs the only thing that matters is if she can withstand dying mid combat, she does that fairly well as ending combat with low health matters not if you win.

I would say that she is losing health at such a rate that I (ok, not me, but the party healer) have to heal her. Of course, she shows better resistance against magical attacks, but enemy casters in terms of damage they cause, in my opinion, would never be a problem.

What do you mean by save rolls? I can't see a single saving roll that uses Armor, Ward, or Focus as most contested stat vs stat is derived from Physical Resistance and the such.

I guess I expressed myself too vaguely... I meant that her disadvantage is not even low armor, but low defensive stats in general, so the Tough Skin perk only partially covers her lack of defense.

What is high HP then?

What I meant was that high HP is hard to count as an advantage over other tanks, since any decent tank at level 7 has 400+ HP.
Atugia has 413 health, Arona has 435 health, compared to them, Etheryn’s health does not look like something very outstanding.

 

[Resawar]

Perhaps so. But it's not only that. If it was just a matter of Blessing, then I could take Sun Dancer Cait into the group, her Blessing only lasts one turn, but usually that’s enough. But I’m not satisfied enough with the performance of the newest tank for such an exchange; for me, even the Atugia, which is unloved by many, seems a more suitable tank.

Love Atugia and her sets, not many people can see the good she can do as evident by people complaining about having to use her when Lumia quest first dropped. Blessed on a support/healer companion is too good in my opinion and should be reserved to the pc, with her also having expert inspiration it gets a bit ridiculous the role compression she has. As for compare to other tanks Warrior Queen is unique in it's role as I explain below.

I would say that she is losing health at such a rate that I (ok, not me, but the party healer) have to heal her. Of course, she shows better resistance against magical attacks, but enemy casters in terms of damage they cause, in my opinion, would never be a problem.

I guess I expressed myself too vaguely... I meant that her disadvantage is not even low armor, but low defensive stats in general, so the Tough Skin perk only partially covers her lack of defense.

Her best Defensive stat is focus and mental resist, the only other companions with similar stats on par are Dancer Cait, Kiyoko, and Cultist Quin. With decent magic and high lust resistance she should be a great tank for fighting demons and such along with her holy damage. In effect Warrior Queen is a semi offensive focus tank, she won't fold to a few physical hits like the others. If you also give her the Crown of Winter that's plus 25 focus, 10 mental resistance, and 5 magic resistance making her the best focus tank in the game

Also you don't like to heal your tanks? She's bulky enough to not necessitate being healed every round. On another note yeah enemy casters need to show up more and be threatening.

Hmm, I never thought about that, to me it's a very good Power that attacks with Crushing damage (not that it matters for Arona, who deals this type of damage with normal attacks) with a Staggered effect, plus increases defense plus increases Threat Level and on top of this there is also cleared Sunder bebuff. I find the latter very important for some fights.

It's a rather fine power, it's unreliably is my problem.

What I meant was that high HP is hard to count as an advantage over other tanks, since any decent tank at level 7 has 400+ HP.
Atugia has 413 health, Arona has 435 health, compared to them, Etheryn’s health does not look like something very outstanding.

Warrior Queens high HP is good when combined with her average defense, decent magic and high focus because enemy's have to break her through normal means and not circumventing the large HP stat by hitting weaknesses or low stats.

 

[Loveless]

Well, I know the conversation has progressed beyond this but; my personal ranking of best tanks weakest to strongest would be like: Dragoon Azzy, Base Atugia, Winter Brint, Queen Ryn, Vestal Cait, Chief Atugia, Hopknight Quinn and Arena Brint.

Dragoon Azzy is just bad, I'm sorry. Base Atugia is stuck with a dead ability unfortunately. Winter Brint takes too much set up for too little pay off. Queen Ryn is the current topic of discussion. Vestal Cait is fine. So is Chief Atugia. Hopknight Quinn is good but a bit inconsistent. And Arena Brint has good damage and defense but bleed takes some time to really hurt.

 

[Resawar]

Well, I know the conversation has progressed beyond this but; my personal ranking of best tanks weakest to strongest would be like: Dragoon Azzy, Base Atugia, Winter Brint, Queen Ryn, Vestal Cait, Chief Atugia, Hopknight Quinn and Arena Brint.

Dragoon Azzy is just bad, I'm sorry. Base Atugia is stuck with a dead ability unfortunately. Winter Brint takes too much set up for too little pay off. Queen Ryn is the current topic of discussion. Vestal Cait is fine. So is Chief Atugia. Hopknight Quinn is good but a bit inconsistent. And Arena Brint has good damage and defense but bleed takes some time to really hurt.

Dragoon Azzy is not a real tank, she Chien-pao in an armored trench coat. But seriously she is not a tank she's more of a commander or offensive support she can heal and gain a damage boost, gain armor, half damage for all allies, do spread damage, and lowers all enemy armor by 20.

Atugia's Berserker set being a tank is iffy to me solely for the fact that Frenzy cuts her armor in half when below 60%, other wise she has all the markers of one. Also what is this "dead ability" all of base Tui's powers have a use, if it's a perk then both Wellspring and Font of Will are not bad.

pyromancer Brienne Should be listed due to the fact Imposing gives threat and HP, plus embers is a defensive Perk. For how she works it's okish, almost 400 HP base, 50's in all armor classes, and okish magic and mental resistance. She's not that good of a tank but has enough bulk to take a hit or two from gaining threat.

 

[Loveless]

Ahem, I'm gonna get real lame right now but: tank and off tank are different things.

Tanks don't just have a lot of health, they also have the ability to either buff allies or debuff enemies. They have abilities that generate extra threat but they all in all lack the damage of an off tank. They are obviously more supportive.

Off tanks may be just as beefy but they can't take as much punishment as real tanks, they either lack the defense or the healing to do so. They may act as the frontline for the team, but their ability to draw threat is based entirely on their ability to do damage and they will not protect members who do equal or greater damage compared to them. (Berserker Atugia goes here because she is more offensive focused compared to a real tank and and is not as durable)

And now to get even lamer: Eternal Light is a dead ability, it has been dead ever since the Combat Rework and the removal of Resolve. Just give her Steady Strike instead of Eternal Light and buff her Encounter ability and she is fine.

 

[Resawar]

Ahem, I'm gonna get real lame right now but: tank and off tank are different things.

Tanks don't just have a lot of health, they also have the ability to either buff allies or debuff enemies. They have abilities that generate extra threat but they all in all lack the damage of an off tank. They are obviously more supportive.

Off tanks may be just as beefy but they can't take as much punishment as real tanks, they either lack the defense or the healing to do so. They may act as the frontline for the team, but their ability to draw threat is based entirely on their ability to do damage and they will not protect members who do equal or greater damage compared to them. (Berserker Atugia goes here because she is more offensive focused compared to a real tank and and is not as durable)

Good to know thanks, it's nice you mentioned this so I can make sure take it into account on my companion set analysis I'm doing. I seem to have forgotten about the good offence makes a good defense, I'd assumed we were only taking into account pure hit taking ability with the ranking.

And now to get even lamer: Eternal Light is a dead ability, it has been dead ever since the Combat Rework and the removal of Resolve. Just give her Steady Strike instead of Eternal Light and buff her Encounter ability and she is fine.

It's not useless it does add up to the same amount healed as heal but it could be better such as giving it another effect, I use it as an alt heal for when I only want to spend one turn healing someone but still want them to still get healed a bit afterword while focusing on healing my hit taker. I also just tested Echos of Life and it could use a buff and be more clear in its damage and healing, right now it's worse War Song with a little healing.

 

[A1teros]

pyromancer Brienne Should be listed due to the fact Imposing gives threat and HP, plus embers is a defensive Perk. For how she works it's okish, almost 400 HP base, 50's in all armor classes, and okish magic and mental resistance. She's not that good of a tank but has enough bulk to take a hit or two from gaining threat.

Brienne's surprisingly good yeah, she's gotten me through some runs of Faceless Blade whenever I just decide to bring whoever's relevant to an area. I wouldn't call her a tank but if you're running some kind of grease-fire focused offense she's fairly durable. I guess build synergy may also be something to consider in what makes a tank good, though I'm not sure any other tanks are designed for that sort of thing.

 

[Loveless]

I guess build synergy may also be something to consider in what makes a tank good, though I'm not sure any other tanks are designed for that sort of thing.

Winter Brint is pretty bad without Etheryn.

 

[Baggrin]

In effect Warrior Queen is a semi offensive focus tank, she won't fold to a few physical hits like the others.

Well, maybe the problem is that the really dangerous opponents mostly focus on physical damage, so protection from magical and mental damage isn't as important as it could be...

Also you don't like to heal your tanks? She's bulky enough to not necessitate being healed every round.

Not every round, but every other round or so. I find this unnecessarily frequent. It seems to me that other tanks perform better than her and need healing less often.

On another note yeah enemy casters need to show up more and be threatening.

Probably the problem is not so much the frequency of encounters with enemy casters, but rather the fact that magic is somewhat inferior to weapons when faced with really good defense.

Warrior Queens high HP is good when combined with her average defense, decent magic and high focus because enemy's have to break her through normal means and not circumventing the large HP stat by hitting weaknesses or low stats.

Maybe I just haven't tested her long enough, maybe it just doesn't fit well with my playstyle, but in the end I didn't find this set very relevant.

 

[Resawar]

Maybe I just haven't tested her long enough, maybe it just doesn't fit well with my playstyle, but in the end I didn't find this set very relevant.

At this point I'm feeling like it's a playstyle thing, because I just tried her set out on another character and Warrior Queen works just as well on my charmer as my spellblade. So I'm not sure what problem your having with the set, you don't have to but I would love to see the save your using and test on there.

 

[A1teros]

Might also just be a priorities thing, I remember someone saying something about their battles taking like 5-10 turns on average and that just seems unacceptable to me but for some people the slow methodical playstyle is actually preferred.