Throne and Liberty Tank Build Guide - Weapons, Abilities, and Rotation

Welcome, fellow gamers, to the incredible realm of Solisium! Strap in as the Star Child, wielding a fragment of the Star of Sylaveth, and prepare for an adventure of unlimited power. Throne and Liberty is a brand-new Korean MMORPG that follows the footsteps of classic and legendary games like Lineage 2, WoW, and others. It takes everything that gamers love about those games and wraps it into stunning graphics and modern gameplay systems. This is the Throne and Liberty Tank build guide, written based on the global release of the game. The information presented here will be updated further as the game gets its’ worldwide release.

This guide will give you everything you need to know to make a character whose primary task is to absorb damage, letting the teammates deal all the damage and keeping them out of harm’s way. In order to help you understand how to build your character into such a role, we’re going to cover what it means to be a tank in this game and what are its advantages and disadvantages. Then, we’re going to talk about how to approach playing this build, explaining the philosophy behind tanking and how it works in TL. Next, we’re going to talk about what weapons and their abilities you’re going to use. This part is the one that will see the most updates, so bear that in mind. It will give you an idea of what abilities you can mix and match to make a viable Tank build Throne and Liberty, which you can then further improve as you reach the max level.

Read our other articles:

• Throne and Liberty Gearing Guide
• Throne and Liberty Taedal's Tower Guide
• Throne and Liberty Contracts Guide
• Throne and Liberty Beginner's Guide
• Throne and Liberty Best Builds
• Throne and Liberty Best Weapons Tier List
• Wand and Staff PvE Build Guide

Throne and Liberty Tank Build PROs and CONs

Let’s begin by saying the most important thing: for this tank build, you’re going to want to be using a combination of the Sword and Shield as your main weapon and the Greatsword as your offhand weapon. To give you a good idea of what you can expect from a tanking character in Throne and Liberty, we’ve compiled two lists that represent the TL tank’s strongest and weakest sides.

Let’s start with the tank build PROs, of which there are a few:

• The only true tank in the game -  using this particular combination of weapons makes you into a full-fledged tank with no compromises. This means you will be in the thick of battle no matter what activity you’re participating in - PvE or PvP.
• Exceptional Survivability - this build gives you the largest amount of health and a ton of ways to preserve it while taking damage. Compared to you, other classes and their weapons would look feeble. 
• Effective Crowd Control - this build excels at drawing aggro, making the enemies around attack you and not your allies. It can even be useful in solo play because drawing aggro gives you various bonuses to your attack, protection, etc.

There are, of course, some tank build CONs that you must be aware of:

• Limited Damage Output - just because you will be able to aggro a pack of mobs doesn’t mean you’ll be able to take care of it on your own. After all, the focus of your stats won’t be on dealing as much damage as possible but rather on surviving for as long as possible. So, leveling solo will not be as easy or enjoyable as if you played any damage-focused build.
• Requires skill - unlike mindless pressing of buttons and watching the enemies perish as a DPS build, tanks must be very careful about managing their aggro and how many enemies they pull. The game can be unforgiving to those who aren’t careful enough. The responsibility is also great as the group will quickly die off as soon as they lose a tank. In other words, there’s a matter of skill and responsibility that you will need to handle when playing this build.
• Low Mobility - if you like mobile builds that can zip-zap around the enemy, this is not a build for you. Tanks hunker down in one spot and stand their ground until an enemy is defeated. The gameplay is not as dynamic as for other builds, and you need to be aware of that.

How To Play The Tank Build in Throne and Liberty

The general idea of your role is to make the enemies focus on attacking you. To do that, you have several instruments that come from both weapons. To give you an answer to a question -  how to play the Tank build in Throne and Liberty, here’s a general flow of every combat encounter that you will follow, utilizing your entire arsenal of active and passive skills.

• Start the combat using one of your charging abilities and be the first to start hitting the enemy. Alternatively, to charging in, you can instead pull the enemies to you using the chain ability or the taunt ability.
• Next up, you need to stun your enemy. You want to do this before dealing any damage because you have a passive from the Greatsword that significantly increases damage dealt to stunned enemies.
• Next, you’ll use your main damage-dealing abilities from both weapons - shield bashes, the triple greatsword attack, and a massive finishing strike. Ideally, you’ll want to press all of those buttons while the enemy is stunned, but at the start of the game, if you successfully stun the enemy, it only lasts 1.6 seconds. So, realistically, just use the one ability that isn’t yet on a cooldown.
• In case you want to fight multiple targets at the same time, after you initiate combat, use the buff that gives you an increased blocking chance for 6 seconds, and make sure you use your defensive skill as often as possible as it provides even more defensive utility.

You need to be extremely careful and mindful of two things - your health and your mana. Throne and Liberty is a very punishing game, and you can die to one regular mob if you’re not taking breaks from farming mobs to replenish your health and mana at a bonfire or using various consumables. The game is structured in such a way that you will gradually unlock more abilities as you level up, so the early levels will be particularly painful to play through as you won’t have much of your intended utility. But as you approach the max level, you will accumulate lots of tools that will allow you to tank and deal with enemies more effectively.

Throne and Liberty Tank Build Abilities

As you progress and level up, you will gradually unlock more Throne and Liberty Tank abilities for each of the two weapons you choose. Specifically, you'll gain access to 10 active abilities, 8 passive abilities, and one defensive ability per weapon. However, it's important to note that out of the total 20 active abilities available from both weapons, you can only have 10 active at any given time. Similarly, you can only have 8 out of the 16 passive abilities active simultaneously. As you level up and unlock more abilities, choose carefully to tailor your Tank build to your playstyle. BLOG20

From level 1, you'll have access to a set of initial abilities that will form the basis of your early game rotation. As you progress in the game, additional active abilities will become available to you at levels 11, 21, 29, 37, 44, and 50.

Throne and Liberty Tank Build Passives

Apart from your active skills you will have access to 2 passive abilities that will provide additional bonuses to your skills and allow them to benefit from each other. The skills and slots for them will continue to unlock as you level. Refer to the following table to see which are the best passive skills that you should have by level 25.

Let’s explain why these are good for your initial leveling stages and beyond. The first one is a no-brainer. The more health you have, the more damage you deal, and when you’re a tank, you have a lot of health! Resilience is great for helping you not to burn away your mana too quickly. Last but not least, the Cold Warrior is super helpful and will be useful even on the max level. Plus, on levels 7, 16, 25, 33, 41, and 47, you will unlock more useful passives. By level 50, you’ll have 8 slots for passives.

Throne and Liberty Tank Build Rotations

At the start of the game, you won’t have all of your cool abilities, and you’ll be limited to using what you have. Still, by combining the abilities from both weapons, you can have at least two pretty powerful rotations that will help you deal with single targets and groups of targets rather easily. One note, though - you will probably want to rebind your abilities for easier access. As we described in our “how to play” section, the flow of combat is rather simple - charge in, stun, deal damage, finish off. With that in mind, you can have two rotations. Here’s the ones we used and found efficient:

Rotation #1:

1. DaVinci's Courage - Start by buffing yourself and your party members with extra HP before engaging.
2. Shield Strike - Follow up with a powerful attack that has a short cooldown of 6 seconds.
3. Blood Devotion - Use this to increase party damage while redirecting damage intended for others toward yourself.
4. Provoking Roar - Apply your main AOE taunt to draw the attention of multiple enemies or ads.
5. Gaia Crash - Execute this to maintain aggro while also boosting your attack speed.
6. Willbreaker - Continue with this strong ability to further assert control in the fight.
7. Guillotine Blade - Deliver a finishing blow that deals significant damage.
8. Shield Strike - Reuse this ability to keep the pressure on your enemy, maintaining its short cooldown.
9. Valiant Brawl - Finish the rotation by striking your enemy three times, dealing massive damage after a stun.

Start with buffs, engage with Shield Strike, and use Blood Devotion to support your team. Maintain aggro with Provoking Roar and Gaia Crash while cycling through your powerful attacks. Use Stalwart Bastion and Immortal Pride as panic buttons to mitigate damage when necessary. Keep weaving Shield Strike and Valiant Brawl to maintain control over the encounter.

Rotation #2:

1. Drastic Charge or Chain Hook - use the first one to charge into a pack of mobs and push them all in one direction, grouping them up.
2. Counter Barrier - apply a buff that increases your shield block chance and evasion for 6 seconds, preparing yourself to get hit by multiple enemies.
3. Valiant Brawl - attack one of the targets with this skill because it actually hits multiple enemies in range.
4. Stunning Blow - stun your selected target
5. Shield Strike - quickly deal huge damage with this
6. Death Blow - finish them off while the target is still stunned.

After that, switch to the second target in the pack and start using abilities trying to follow this rotation or just press whatever is not on cooldown. One awesome thing about fighting packs of mobs is actually blocking their attacks.

Your defensive ability - Shield Survival Technique, is incredibly good for dealing with multiple enemies. First of all, you simply raise your shield to block any incoming attacks. Furthermore, it resources health if you block a Fury attack (you know when you see that purple marker). On top of that, if you block that attack, press the Q again to use the Retaliatory Strike that deals damage equal to 200% of your base damage to the target. The more Fury Attacks you block before using the Retaliatory Strike, the more bonus damage it deals, stacking 50% bonus damage up to 4 times!

Tank Build Leveling Throne and Liberty

There’s a particular gameplay style that comes with the Throne and Liberty Tank build leveling that you will be forced to stick to no matter what. We’ve said this a number of times already, but this game is very reminiscent of those early 2000s MMOs that were pretty harsh to players. You can already see that a lot of your skills have long cooldowns. On top of that, the healing and mana potions have a 1-minute cooldown. All of this will make you play more carefully and analyze each encounter the same way we did in those older MMOs. 

When you’re playing a tank, it’s even worse. You’re not dealing as much damage as you would with a DPS build, and this is a melee role, which means that you will be taking hits when you execute your rotations. Even more so, at the start of the game you don’t really have even basic tools that the tanks use. You have one crappy, short-term stun with a long cooldown, a couple of charging attacks, and a few damage-dealing ones. But that’s about the extent of it. From level 1 to about 20-25, you’ll struggle a lot, so one piece of advice for leveling a tank would be this: play smart and don’t overextend. In other words, don’t push too far into enemy territory and don’t pull too many enemies at the same time. Yes, you might have a huge health pool, but your mana will be a problem. So, one thing you can do whenever you’re grinding the mobs out on the field is make a mental note to yourself about where the nearest bonfire is.

Bonfires is a place where you can restore your health and mana without the need to consume any potions or teleport back into a safe zone. If you’re playing solo, you’ll want to use everything the game offers to your advantage, and bonfires are one such thing. Plus, as you complete quests and other contracts, you will receive all sorts of food as rewards. Read what each of them does and use them before you go mob-farming again. They all provide various passive buffs, and they are very useful in the starting stages of leveling.

Last bit of advice - find a guild as soon as possible. Leveling in a group as a tank is a night and day difference compared to solo play. Besides, the TL is made with a strong focus on guild content, so, eventually, you will have to find yourself people to play with if you wish to reach the max level and try some of that endgame content.

Active and Passive Skills Enhancement Prioritisation

In Throne and Liberty, you can upgrade your skills the same way you upgrade your gear and weapons. In game terms, you can increase the level and rarity of your skills the same way you do for your equipment. But what do you level up first? The general idea is to prioritize the skills in the same order as you press them in your rotations. Here’s an example:

From this screenshot above, the general order in which you upgrade your skills can be as follows:

1. Charge skills / mobility skills
2. Stun skills
3. Damage dealing skills
4. Buffs and Passives

Stat Prioritisation

Just like in traditional RPG games, you have your 5 character stats that you will increase each time you level up, but which ones should a tank focus on? Let’s see:

1. Strength - provides strong defense and increases max health. This is your primary stat because, as a tank, you want to have as much HP as you possibly can.
2. Perception- Increases the hit of attacks and CC effects in addition to enhancing time to boost abilities, max, and min damage. In other words, this is good for your stun and buff abilities.

Alternatively, you can go for the Dexterity as your second stat as it increases the evasion, making you harder to get hit.

Conclusion

Having and playing as the best Throne and Liberty Tank build won’t be easy, especially for solo players, but it is a very rewarding experience. If you push through the early levels with or without the help of friends or guild mates, you will turn into a formidable fighter. Just like in games like World of Warcraft, everybody knows that you unlock your tank’s full potential closer to the max level. The tank build is amazing at what it’s meant to do - absorb damage, and you don’t need anything else. The role of tanks is difficult to underestimate. They’re a key part of any group that wants to do dungeons, raids, or win in PvP battles.

We hope that this early guide gave you an idea of what you can expect from playing a tank build in Throne and Liberty. We’ve provided you with a basic understanding of the class, how it works, and what kind of gameplay you’re going to have. We will be updating this and our other build guides as the game receives more updates and we experience more of what it has to offer. For now, this is a great starting point for any aspiring tank. Thank you for reading, and we’ll see you in the next one!

F.A.Q.