Looking for advice for the raid guardian

[Katur]

<p> Hello all I have been a faithful guardian since about a month after launch when I left Eq for EQ2. I started raiding about a year after I started playing , and have been ever since. For the first part of this time being a guardian and a raid tank seemed to make sense. After LU 13 I had to relearn my class , and I felt like I was still the best tank for raid tanking. Since the introduction of APs and the curves put in place things have once again changed , and Im looking for ways to improve my game. Using this as a preface let me explain what I observed last nite.</p><p> My guild is far from hard core or uber we raid 3 times a week for 3 - 4 hrs a raid. We have recently started focusing almost completely on expansion raids as we have farmed out most of KoS. On our third trip to MMiS we got the first name down , and on our fourth trip we got our tactics set on second name(skipped Viswin). We have two very well equipped tanks myself and a beserker. I have pretty much relegated myself to ST since he can produce so much more hate through his insane dps. Our zerker regularly leads our parses and he has both hate augs normally. Last nite we went to CMM for our fifth trip to MMiS. Our MT *zerker* had to leave , and we had lots of LD issues. We ended up having a very good player log on his alt zerker with 7500hps roughly *unbuffed*. I told him I didnt see how his toon so underequipped would have a chance at the second name given our strategy. The strategy we had devised was to have the MT grab name and the ST grab adds pull them out of ae kill adds then work on name. This seemed to be making headway when we hit our time/gear limit on third raid. We first pull killed the first name with the underequipped zerker taking agro for most the fight and living just fine. I took a debuff, hit and died. He held the named epic with np and his healers kept him up to my amazement. He tanked the name for the next 50 % of its life till i blew reinforcement to get it back for the last 15-20%. We evaced and headed to the third name skipping viswin. We setup and pulled the zerker dropped this time , but its not that unusual I grabbed all 4 and we beat it on that first pull. Me and the other well equipped zerker had died several times each do to our respective mobs. I was shocked to be able to tank all 4 mobs. It takes a very long time with his healing to get him dead, but after 10 min fight or so we got him down. So with this very underequipped ST we was able to accomplish a first time kill on a first pull. Again to my amazement. I have against my preferance gone with the buckler line recently to try to get my dps up. My peak with full out buffs is around 1500 when the zerker can break 2k. Both of us being mostly mastered out , and very much full on players. </p><p> In conclusion I have so many questions. Why is a zerker with mostly treasured gear and legendary heroic stuff able to tank this well on some of the hardest content in the game? Is there any way for a guardian to compete with zerker dps and still retain the ability to MT. Does gear even matter? The only fabled piece i think the zerker alt had was doomrage arms. In comparison I am only wearing one non raid dropped piece in the dark chitin ring. Would appreciate any help anyone might can offer short of change classes. I dont consider that a option.</p>

[Skeptycal]

Some of those mobs have nasty debuffs / dots that they put on you. From what you describe, most likely you got unlucky and he got lucky. The mobs dont really hit very hard; they just have those once in a while things where the healers have to be on their toes instantly (and constantly) to make it work.That's my opinion anyways...

[Katur]

I dont feel as if the zerker performed better than me. I feel as if he performed well enough , and virtually as good as me . Considering the differential in our gear and the difficulty of the mobs we are facing shouldnt there be more discrepancy? Also considering the difference in the two classes dps it seems there should be more of a difference on the defensive side of things as well. I dont have a link to his gear but with over 2k less hp than me that should give you a idea. Having raided for awhile and seen this debuff plenty we know that we have to chain cure ,occasionally that doesnt work so we keep 2 tanks ontop of hate list. If you get debuffed in these fights your screwed it doesnt matter what lvl your gear is. I have only had issue with zerkers dps up until last nite when I realized just how borked the combat system has to be for him to have performed that well. I am a guardian and I love the idea of guardians but dmg absorbing is not fun and not what I was told my role would be. With the current changes, and the ones coming I see that being the case more and more.

[YummiOger]

<p>Hello Katur, an old friend here <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />...</p><p>Ill try and answer any Zerk questions u may have, to the best of my abilities. Im not up to par on guardian specifics but have a pretty good overveiw on tanking. So ask away... </p><p>PS. how is RP doing? drop me a PM <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /> ..</p>

[TuinalOfTheNexus]

<cite>Katur wrote:</cite><blockquote>I dont feel as if the zerker performed better than me. I feel as if he performed well enough , and virtually as good as me . Considering the differential in our gear and the difficulty of the mobs we are facing shouldnt there be more discrepancy? Also considering the difference in the two classes dps it seems there should be more of a difference on the defensive side of things as well. I dont have a link to his gear but with over 2k less hp than me that should give you a idea. Having raided for awhile and seen this debuff plenty we know that we have to chain cure ,occasionally that doesnt work so we keep 2 tanks ontop of hate list. If you get debuffed in these fights your screwed it doesnt matter what lvl your gear is. I have only had issue with zerkers dps up until last nite when I realized just how borked the combat system has to be for him to have performed that well. I am a guardian and I love the idea of guardians but dmg absorbing is not fun and not what I was told my role would be. With the current changes, and the ones coming I see that being the case more and more. </blockquote><ul><li>Mitigation and resists make little or no difference to survivability. Particularly when raid buffed. This is something many players noticed when they introduced the mitigation curve at the launch of EoF. There remains a misconception that mitigation is important, since in KoS, before they screwed up gear progression, a fabled-out player had a noticable mitigation advantage, but this is no longer the case. I can tank a raid in T1 cloth armor and there's very little difference.</li><li>Guardians have an advantage vs debuffing mobs because they can hit ToS, Stone Sphere, and Block during or before the spike.</li><li>There is actually very little DPS difference between Guardian and Berserker. Berserkers can often be percieved as parsing a lot higher because they usually DPS on raids and hence don't get stunned / debuffed like an MT Guardian, but if you stand both classes next to each other in the same stance with the same gear, the Zerk only has a noticeable advantage in short fights versus large numbers of mobs. In longer or single target fights the extra double attack of the Guardian and the long reuse of Juggernaut/Destruction/Open Wounds results in a much smaller gap, perhaps even favoring the Guardian.</li></ul><p>It seems you have an issue with low DPS, so the following tips might help:</p><ul><li>Get a long delay weapon with a large damage spread. A Grim Brimstone Hammer or Soulfire Gladius is ideal, although since you haven't killed MM yet Villucidae's Sword of Shielding, a Folded Scale Blade, Shadow Axe, or Serrated Sword of Retribution might be more realistic. 1.6 delay weapons universally suck, so if you're still using something like Ascendant ditch it as fast as humanly possible.</li><li>High DPS comes from autoattack, and ensuring you have the right buffs, AA, and gear to maximise it. The highest DPS is achieved by focussing on crit %, a balanced dps/haste mod, and maximising double attack. Consider carefully your gear and don't simply wear Fabled items for the sake of it. Mastercrafted str/agi rings give significant autoattack gains, as does the crit% from League rewards. Other very cool items are Underworld Legplates and Buckler of the Howler / Calcified Bone Spaulders.</li><li>For group DPS consider the Agi AA line and 2H weapons; 40% AE autoattack and a big hitting 2H can do wonders. I use Chirat, Greatsword of Truth, and have broken 3.2k dps on 4-mob group encounters in FTH before (while tanking).</li><li>A typical AA spec is str 448 sta 448 agi 448 (favors group encounters), or str 448 agi 448 int 484 (have a good 2H and are comfortable holding aggro/surviving without buckler), or str 448 sta 448 int 448 (favors single target).</li><li>Do not, under any circumstances, AA spec for +defense, +parry, or buckler avoidance. Especially buckler avoidance, which is a stupid thing to spec for, since more avoidance = less aggro, and the whole reason for using a buckler over a tower is aggro.</li><li>Do not, under any circumstances, drop str 448, since it is overall the most useful and significant DPS gain you can obtain assuming you have a good weapon.</li></ul><p>If Guardians really were far behind Zerkers in DPS, then we wouldn't be the MT of choice, it's a simple as that. What makes a good Guardian MT is high DPS coupled with a few very useful survivability and aggro tools. If you focus on survivability and not DPS, then that's only half of the equation. Fighters are rather unique because our DPS comes more from careful gear selection and buffs, and can vary much more than a pure DPS class. It's not hard at all to believe you have a Zerker who can do 2k easily, but so can Guardians.</p>

[Docimodo]

<p>I'll add some points to the above post.</p><p>Keeping you alive is your healers problem (after a point)</p><p>You keeping aggro is your concern</p><p>My personal rule is that I will spec as defensively as possible aslong as I can maintain perfect aggro throughout the duration of a named fight.</p><p>To that end aggro on trash encounters may become an issue and especially if they are ae encounters. </p><p>To get around this even though one is specced for pure defense vs a single target you can regear your character for trash mobs with many many items that have taunting procs on them, many of which are ae in nature. I believe CMM is the place to go for this (belt, shield, shoulders, cape all with taunt procs)! or else the broker! </p><p>also if you have access to contested hurricanus, it has some nifty reactive taunt gear that really helps a lot.</p><p>But yes the biggest upgrade to threat comes in getting the best weapon possible to take advantage of crits and double attacks if you have them aswell as letting you chain more CAs before autoattack pauses</p>

[Wilin]

There's a shield with nice taunt effect that drops off trash in FTH. It's pretty decent if you aren't buckler specced. I use the howler though so I haven't paid enough attention to it to remember what it's called. Sorry <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Ep]

towershield of strife 2 % crit 275 or so single target hate, 10 % chance on ca i think.

[spa]

For grouped encounters theres a Legendary kite shield that drops from Vanquisher in CastleMM, which has an awesome hate proc. Your only losing 1.6% block chance compared to a regular Fabled tower shield. Not quite as good as buckler spec but its better than other tower shields for aggro on grouped encounters.

[YummiOger]

<cite>Katur wrote:</cite><blockquote><p> Hello all I have been a faithful guardian since about a month after launch when I left Eq for EQ2. I started raiding about a year after I started playing , and have been ever since. For the first part of this time being a guardian and a raid tank seemed to make sense. <span style="color: #3300ff;">After LU 13 I had to relearn my class , and I felt like I was still the best tank for raid tanking. Since the introduction of APs and the curves put in place things have once again changed , and Im looking for ways to improve my game. Using this as a preface let me explain what I observed last nite.</span></p><p> My guild is far from hard core or uber we raid 3 times a week for 3 - 4 hrs a raid. We have recently started focusing almost completely on expansion raids as we have farmed out most of KoS. On our third trip to MMiS we got the first name down , and on our fourth trip we got our tactics set on second name(skipped Viswin). We have two very well equipped tanks myself and a beserker. <span style="color: #9900cc;">I have pretty much relegated myself to ST since he can produce so much more hate through his insane dps. Our zerker regularly leads our parses and he has both hate augs normally.</span> Last nite we went to CMM for our fifth trip to MMiS. Our MT *zerker* had to leave , and we had lots of LD issues. We ended up having a very good player log on his alt zerker with 7500hps roughly *unbuffed*. I told him I didnt see how his toon so underequipped would have a chance at the second name given our strategy. The strategy we had devised was to have the MT grab name and the ST grab adds pull them out of ae kill adds then work on name. This seemed to be making headway when we hit our time/gear limit on third raid. We first pull killed the first name with the underequipped zerker taking agro for most the fight and living just fine. I took a debuff, hit and died. He held the named epic with np and his healers kept him up to my amazement. He tanked the name for the next 50 % of its life till i blew reinforcement to get it back for the last 15-20%. We evaced and headed to the third name skipping viswin. We setup and pulled the zerker dropped this time , but its not that unusual I grabbed all 4 and we beat it on that first pull. Me and the other well equipped zerker had died several times each do to our respective mobs. I was shocked to be able to tank all 4 mobs. It takes a very long time with his healing to get him dead, but after 10 min fight or so we got him down. So with this very underequipped ST we was able to accomplish a first time kill on a first pull. Again to my amazement. <span style="color: #009900;">I have against my preferance gone with the buckler line recently to try to get my dps up. My peak with full out buffs is around 1500 when the zerker can break 2k. </span>Both of us being mostly mastered out , and very much full on players. </p><p> In conclusion I have so many questions. <span style="color: #ff0000;">Why is a zerker with mostly treasured gear and legendary heroic stuff able to tank this well on some of the hardest content in the game? Is there any way for a guardian to compete with zerker dps and still retain the ability to MT? Does gear even matter? </span>The only fabled piece i think the zerker alt had was doomrage arms. In comparison I am only wearing one non raid dropped piece in the dark chitin ring. Would appreciate any help anyone might can offer short of change classes. I dont consider that a option.</p></blockquote><p>Color Coded! <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p><p><span style="color: #3300ff;">As it stands right now, Guardian is still the best MT in game. Guards have better hate control, damage asorbtion, and Buffs for MTing. ToS, Reinforcement, Shere, Plant, +Melee Skills, +AP Block%, 69% Double attack base (w/ kos/EoF both), better reactive threat, same short terms as Zerkers. Zerkers do not have those kinds of defensive abilities (save the short terms) or aggro control tools. </span></p><p><span style="color: #cc00ff;">What worries me here is the Zerker leads the Parses. True DPS classes should be leading the parses especially the Assassin or Swashy in MT group. A 500 DPS differance is not that significant in the Threat Level of the MT. Our MT usually zone wides with ~1000DPS (Tower Spec), but can hold aggro Vs 2.5-3K parsers. The Zerker class does produce exeptional DPS for a tank but thats what we're built to do. Even tho Zerks will out DPS a Guard, the Guard should be able to still hold aggro utilizing the +hate of Assassin (> Swashy, Apply Poison is massive), Dirge and Coercer in the MT group. So ya, give a Zerker those same +hate buffs, u will never pull agrro from him, BUT u loose all the Guardian tools as MT. Even then, a Guard can take aggro thru Reinforcement, and can recover top Threat within seconds.</span></p><p><span style="color: #669900;">Im a big fan of Buckler Spec. It increases the base Hate thru straight DPS with the lose of minimal Survivability. Iv tanked all zones in Kos/Eof with Buckler of the Howler. The whole issue with Buckler spec is the Weapon you are useing with it. What weapon are you useing might I ask? 1500 DPS with the Hate buffs should be enough to hold aggro on mobs. I'v ZWed 1500-1600 going thru EoF zones and never had aggro issues, without the aggro tools of Guardians. Im unaware of the top AP builds for Guardinas, but I can say most all Zerkers are going STR/STAM/INT, Cyclone/Debilitate/Bulking. Maby some top Guards can post some of the AP Pro's and Con's for you.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">You can thank the Deminishing Returns Curves for this. As long as a Tank can get to 60% Mitigation and 50% Aviodance, they can tank near any encounter in game given good healers and debuffs. Personally I stopped building my solo mitigation at 4800-4900. Instead focusing more on +DPS adorns/items, then +Aviodance (adorns, items ect). A guard should not have to pull 2K DPS to hold aggro and MT. It seems that you are not doing anything wrong. As I siad before, our MT usually ZWs 1000+ DPS and holds aggro fine. Raid DPS is usually in the 27K+ range with several very high DPSers (~3Kish). Pound for Pound, a Zerker will usually outparse a Guardian thru just basic class design. Does gear matter? to a piont Yes, after that, not really LOL. Thank U SOE!</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff00;">Overall Katur, i dont think ur doing anything wrong. sounds like me you have some peeps in guild that just do not know how to handle thier personal aggro. Not your fault, its theirs. You, Coercer, Dirge, Assassin, Templar, Shaman = you will rock the aggro control. IF others grab aggro from that .. Let them Die.....</span></p><p>Hope this helps any. GL to ya..</p>

[YummiOger]

<p>dble post bahhhh</p>

[Remann]

Thanks to those that responded to Katars post.  I had gone back to a tower shield, but after reading the very useful information, I'm back to str/sta with my guardian specs down the dmg line for gain the dbl attack from there as well.  Of course I've applied 5 points into rescue and reinforcement as well.