Troubadors + Assassins = Tanks Obsolete

[HuntressSWG]

<DIV>   Alright first I want to say that in know way is a tank an obsolete class.  Matter of fact far from it.  Im making this post in hopes that maybe the Devs might see it and if the combonation of these two proffs is to overpowered that something be done about it.  If this is what the devs intended then so be it I am one happy camper and consider this an infromative post... but if its not intended then consider this a submission to get it fixed in the name of balance so we all can enjoy the game on equal footing without any one class feeling obsolete.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>    Alright a group of five of us headed down to C-Thule in Ferrott for some hot lizard action.  Things were going smooth until our tank went LD.   Well the tank never came back and we later learned it was due to a modem problem so no biggy.  We found another tank and started leveling again.  But as it started off as a cursed session this tank went LD on us as well and we were stuck tankless once again.  Well third times the charm right?  So we get another tank and we level for about 2 hours.  Myself, 45 Assassin, a 44 Troubador, 43 Guardian, 43 Templar and a 42 Necromancer.  Well our tank said he was getting tired and that he would push onto the last bit and well he lived up to his word and fell asleep at his keyboard leaving us tankless once again.  Now here is where the fun begins.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>    I chime in and say well we can look for another tank or I can pull blue ^^'s its better then nothing.  This goes off without a hitch so I start pulling white^^.... again Im tanking like a mad man and the Templar isnt even needing to heal me.   So I ask...  "Want to try some yellow ^^'s" (46-47)... group says why not and I start pulling these.... again Im not getting hit... and if I am its not for much and the Templar is able to keep me up right with hardly any mana loss whatsoever.  We decide to go into the basement of CT and proceded to destroy the place with me tanking.  Templar wasnt even breaking a sweat.  The next day a group of us four push it further and head off to Everfrost where I am tanking ^^ (49-50's)  without any problems at all, raking in .5 to .6 xp per encounter and killing extremely well.  At times the Troub would pull agro but this was a plus for i just stealthed and unleashed with Condmening blade and Bloodthirster.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>     How is this possible you might add?  Well agility is key.  Later that night we grouped with a guildy of mine a 48 Fury (after our 44 Templar left EF) and four man teamed EF for hours.  He was able to transform me into Lion form thus upping my agility... the Troub has buffs as well and these are key for without the Troub buffs this just doesnt work.  I would list the names of the buffs however they slip my mind but any Troub near the low 40's will have them and know what they are.  My top agility that night was 318 (383 with another Troub ealier the day before) and in combination with Lethal Resolve (Adept 1 ..... but i upgraded it to it Adept 3 just beacuse of this wonderful discovery)  which ups my parry skills we were unstopable... chain pulling all night and raking in xp that I havent seen in a long long time.  It finally peeked with this encounter and although he was hardly hurting me he wasnt bugged or anything to that nature.  We raided the same mob with a 47 Pally who was getting hit very often and somewhat hard.  Ill let the picture speak a thousand words.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV align=center>Forgive my clicky Noobness</DIV> <DIV align=center><A href="http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=193260&poll_id=0&warned=y" target=_blank>http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=193260&poll_id=0&warned=y</A></DIV> <DIV align=center> </DIV> <DIV align=left>     Now when doing this not only do you need the above factors (The Fury lion form is recommnded not mandatory.... Templars have nice buffs as well) but your style of engagment must be modified if your fighting grouped mobs.  No AoE's!  Now this may seem bad but for the xp gain you wont miss em.  We were still tearing through the lower depths of CT without them as well as EF/PF.  Secondly the Troub and the other DPS must wait just a hair longer to start dropping bombs so the Assassin can build up hate.  I have done this technique now for two days and have had zero wipes, forced evacs or close calls.  The reason I say the Assassin and not the Troub tanks is due solely to Lethal Resolve which ups your parry... very important.  Hell I was even doing this tanking scenario without armor in nooby light armor robe (forgot to take screeney).</DIV> <DIV align=left> </DIV> <DIV align=left>     Again no tank or other proffession is useless.  If this technique is to overpowered and needs to be addressed for the greater good of the game then so be it I am bringing it to light.  Otherwise this is an informative post for those of you stuck without a tank... or sick of the high-end .2 .3 xp gain per fight with a 5 or 6 man team.  The reason this works better then a four man group WITH a tank is the sole fact that the tank gets hit almost all the time.... thus sucking up the helaers mana.... whereas with the Assassin-Troub tank combo the healers mana is hardly touched simply becasue the Assassin is not being hit :smileywink:  We killled other nameds in EF and Ferrott as well but the names slip my mind as well.  </DIV> <DIV align=left> </DIV> <DIV align=center>Leave you with one more and enjoy!!!</DIV> <DIV align=center> </DIV> <DIV align=center><A href="http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=193264&poll_id=0&warned=y" target=_blank>http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=193264&poll_id=0&warned=y</A>   </DIV> <DIV align=center>(Violance is the Fury by the way notice mana towards end of fight)</DIV> <DIV align=center> </DIV> <DIV align=center> </DIV> <DIV align=center> </DIV> <DIV align=center> </DIV> <DIV align=center> </DIV> <DIV align=center> </DIV> <DIV align=left> </DIV> <DIV align=left>     </DIV><p>Message Edited by HuntressSWG on <span class=date_text>01-15-2005</span> <span class=time_text>05:57 AM</span>

[Kinza Suresh]

<DIV>OR,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You could tell your "Fighter" class not to avoid the agility statistic...  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Just because strength is the statistic that influences their power pool should not make it the only focus the character should concentrate on...IMO.</DIV> <DIV>Without myself having first hand information, I still want to know if the game design is going to soft cap or hard cap our statistics.  It might be important to know during the next expansion.  This is just my opinion though and in my view there should always be more then one way to look at things.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It would be the same if you asked Assassins to look at their strength.  It is the second highest class statistical bonus we get...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <HR> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Read the descriptions sony gives for the class guides, what you have described reflects the description they gave.  Higher agility increases chance to hit, and avoidance.  I dunno, perhaps I am just on a mission to fight for the Ratonga/Halfling/High Elf warrior's cause and their racial trait of avoidance.  Seeing the numbers of what your buffed to, the low strength starting base of those races does not seem that detrimental overall.  Am I way off base here?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What about the Troubadors + Warrior combo?</DIV><p>Message Edited by Kinza Sureshot on <span class=date_text>01-15-2005</span> <span class=time_text>06:35 PM</span>

[Ani]

<DIV>Husband and I found out about this combo, but on a much lower level scale. An 18 Bard and 19 Pred were able to duo the rotstuff scarecrowsm in Antonica faster than full groups of similar level people. The agility buff of bards and scouts high agility made the hits very rare. This was also nice when we could trade agro between each other, allowing us to each stealth and do very hard/fast damage. While we did have a small bit of downtime to regen power (made much less with Bria's power regen song), we were back at full health and power very quickly (good food/drinks makes it that much faster). </DIV>

[hispu]

<DIV>Excellent post!  I bet the bards feel pretty uber now !  There's just not enough of them <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV>

[sorav]

Well I don't think it's overpowering, I mean you do after all need another person to help you do it, and I think a tank in the same situation would tank just as well

[-UGG-Andy]

<DIV>This is exactly the same way a monk tanks so well..not sure if they do it better than a assasin,i would think so,as its what they are designed for.As you say,AGI buffs make for a godly tank.</DIV>

[Fogh]

I have been using a parser to watch damage stats the last few days. At level 35 most tanks are doing as much or more damage than me, and their attacks are from the front. An assassin tanking looses at least half their attacks. I think assassins are more obsolete than tanks...

[Sumat]

<DIV>From my understanding AGI is somewhat out of wack right now. I saw a Ranger and a Wizard the other day duoing large groups of ^^ group mobs without being touched. The ranger tanked and his health basically -never- went down. I asked the Wizard how in the world they were doing it, and he said the key was AGI.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The ranger I saw was running backwards in a circle with the mobs chasing him, while the Wizard stood in the center and picked mobs off with single target attacks. It was fast and effective, and probably insane exp.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This really needs to be addressed... if the highest dps class can also tank the best, and has great utility (evac, track, pathfinding) then why bother playing a different class?</DIV>

[Krysbla]

<DIV>I've seen Assassins, Rogues, Bruisers/monks all tank without a bard, yeah the AGI buffs are nice but if the person playing the character has some good equipment, then a bard isn't needed.  Also, I personally do not see tanks going the path of the trash can either, as an Assassin myself, i maybe be able to dodge 90% of the attacks but it's those 4 hits for 300+ dmg that are going to wipe me, being a scout class doesn't inherently lend it's self to being sturdy (unless you're an ogre or troll or something similar), plus as was previously mentioned, scouts lose half their attacks when going toe to toe with a mob, as opposed to toe to heel.  I personally prefer not to be the subject of a target's ire, it tends to die faster if I am on the back side doing more dmg with my stealth maneuvers and flanking attacks, then if I am the one tanking it.  I am willing to bet that a caster can tank a mob if their AGI is high enough, It's not the classes involved merely the statistic, besides, I've seen tanks blow through mobs that were yellow ^^ without needing a heal as well, dont know if it was because they had high AGI or just a ton of hp/ac, but I've seen it done.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sylkos Bloodblade, 22nd Assassin</DIV> <DIV>Blackburrow</DIV>

[Krysbla]

<DIV>Unintention Repeat Post</DIV><p>Message Edited by Krysblade on <span class=date_text>01-17-2005</span> <span class=time_text>08:47 AM</span>

[khalysta]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Sumatte wrote:<BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This really needs to be addressed... if the highest dps class can also tank the best, and has great utility (evac, track, pathfinding) then why bother playing a different class?</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>The equipment everyone gets is very generic.  The same agility gains a scout is getting is going to tanks because they will upgrade the same slots and will tend to get similar agility gains to   Like for example open a broker up and view bps.  Every bp has some agility on it at least and in many cases the agility difference between a plate and chain bp is only 1 or 2 agility.  The same thing goes with gloves, boots, belts, wrist slots and rings which appear to be the default agility items.  So any semi smart person that reads these boards can now go out and look for the higher agility based items and increase their avoidance regardless of class.  I've seen numerous cases with plate tanks where they "brag" about not being touched by white/blue/green mobs.  So the assassin may be able to avoid as described here but I think it actually applies to more classes than this thread is led to believe since anyone can really stack up the agility.  </DIV>

[HuntressSWG]

<DIV>Aye.... I was just doing this with me, assassin, and a troub.  The key is agility and the title was just an example of what we accomplished.  THis can be done with other classes as well... and is even better with a Fury + Troubador + (Insert makeshift tank).  Monks would be the ideal choice... however its our ability to utilize Lethal Resolve and the upgrade for it that make us superior in my opinion to this scenario then any other scout class... especially when you have the adept 3's for these skills.  The troub couldn't dodge nearly as well as I could seeing that he did not have these skills at his disposal.</DIV>

[Drtydog]

<DIV>The only thing i can say on this is that you can't taunt and if you get into trouble and you're cleric does a big a heal and gets aggro it's going to be almost impossible to get it off of the healer.</DIV>

[Drexel]

<DIV>If its true that you had zero wipes, and no problems holding agro then I would expect a nerf to your parry/deflection skills or self buffs.  There is no case where an assasin should tank as well in an AGI tank situation.  In this case, you are filling the spot perfectly of a Monk or Bruiser.   You should not be able to do that....I would guess it's not intended, and the only fix I see is lowered or capped deflection based skills, or an adjust made to how hate is calculated.  The fact that you can keep a mob glued to you without taunts, and not run out of power damaging it is a balance issue.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>S~</DIV>

[HuntressSWG]

<DIV>I would lose agro at times.... but it was extremly rare to lose it to the healer.  It went to the Trouby.  But yes even though I enjoy it alot Im kinda on the fence on wether it should be adjusted just a bit.  Thing is if I do lose agro I have bloodthirster and Condmening blade saved to get it right back.  They did push a patch through on 40+ creatures and have not touched my assassin in high end combat though for some time due to me leveling up my alts to TS combat levels.  </DIV>

[Syanis]

<DIV>So hows this make tanks obsolete? Well lets see.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Tank has ae taunt.... good DPS....</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now besides that IF the tank invested in good gear and the gear for the right stats the tank would never be obsolete. Sure the tanks agi won't get as high as an assassins but IF the tank pressed for it in gear and didn't go for a 10 agi race the tanks agi would still get pretty well up their. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Issue I see with tanks and this is on the lvl 20-35 scale is to many wearing obsolete gear since they are to cheap to invest in better. If its not droped/quested to many refuse to spend cash even if they have it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I love my assassin and find it funny that my agi is about double in very good gear at 20 then a poorly geared tank.... my ac couple hundred points then the average poorly geared lvl 22 tank.... now just think how much better they would compare in their line of equivelent gear as mine....</DIV>

[Drexel]

<DIV>Yes but your missing the point.  All things being Equal, (gear, stats, skill-ups) your Defelction and Parry skills are just as good, if not better than a tanks.   Probably better than plate tanks for sure.  Couple that with high AGI, and better AC than a Brawler type tank...and your filling a role you should not be able to fill, at least not as easily as you are.  Your Role is DPS and utility, and I'll maybe give you the role of offtank in a pinch...but MT on a teir 3 Mob?   Somethings broken.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Slie</DIV>