How does the Protector fare in Tier-3 solo?

[Xodarap777]

It's the topic title! :P

I love the challenge of the tier-3 skirmishes (despite the unfortunate lieutenant balancing which makes it a bit of a lotto), but my herby dies in one second and my warrior in about four or five, which leaves me all alone -- not a good thing when Blood-Rook is hitting me for 500-1000 dmg. I don't really need someone to hold aggro off of me as I'm quite tanky, but I can also heal very well (HoH), so I figure he may be the only choice.

However, I really don't want to spend 50k SM to raise him up just to discover that he, too, falls quickly to the hordes.

[riedlj]

I personally just started skirmishing with my 37 cappy and found that the protector was better able to stay alive than the herbalist. I found if i shield brother the protector and buff him, i can get my HOTs on him right away and then help him finish off the competition. With the herbalist i was constantly trying to pull mobs off her and it screwed up crowd control etc. Of course i'm still working with tier one skirmishes, so i hope this helps.

[forusrname]

As a cappy who can keep him healed up, its probably a win combination. Only trouble might be your aggro from healing... the protectors aggro is mostly from being hit, so he has to round up the mobs and get hit a bunch before heals, or you will lift aggro from healing. At rank 20 he can probably take the punishment long enough for this to be a non-issue, but in the really big pulls like tuck, it could bite you.

This is going to be a slow, steady burn setup but very likely a winning combination.

[Xodarap777]

As a cappy who can keep him healed up, its probably a win combination. Only trouble might be your aggro from healing... the protectors aggro is mostly from being hit, so he has to round up the mobs and get hit a bunch before heals, or you will lift aggro from healing. At rank 20 he can probably take the punishment long enough for this to be a non-issue, but in the really big pulls like tuck, it could bite you.

This is going to be a slow, steady burn setup but very likely a winning combination.

Those are my thoughts as well. The T1 skirms are easy enough that I never have to worry about it, so I bring in a warrior, keep guys around him, and let him thrash around with quick swipe for damage, while I lay on my damage and my oathbreaker archer goes nuts, too. I figure in T1, I'm just going for SM/hour, so all that matters is damage.

But I actually like the skirmishes for their own sake; I think they're tons of fun -- so I want to run the tier-3s and the warrior just doesn't cut it at all, and if I get a tough lieutenant beating on me (like blood rook -- argh!), I can't spam-heal myself, just HoT, so I drop, too. But I can spam Words of Courage all day on my soldier if I need to. The protector has a crowd taunt and a ultimate skill crowd force-taunt, so it's not just the riposte. With my RK, though, the protector seems to get "caught" on single foes unless I drag some around him and wait for him to taunt them off of me, which doesn't help me much.

I'm still curious if anyone has really tested the protector's mettle.