EoF MT Question

[Remann]

<p>Looking for Advice from other MT Guardians, tanking EoF instances.</p><p> Currently spec'd STR/STA, but I'm thinking of going back to my Tower Shields for the protection they provide.  Advices is welcome.</p>

[Buzzing]

Don't bother. The protection you gain is very small, aout 2% avoid or so.

[Buzzing]

<p>bah double post...</p>

[Macross_JR]

The main difference is avoidance.  If you can get your hands on the Buckler of the Howler, stay sta spec'd, or do what most guards are doing now, 4/4/8str/sta/int.  I personally went 4/4/8 str/agi/sta.

[Sir_Halbarad]

Once the mob is debuffed, you don't need a tower shield, at least that is my opinion.With STR/AGI/STA or STR/STA/INT you can still equip the tower shield and use it on pull or in chaos situations.I prefer STR/STA/INT btw...

[Remann]

<p>I have the buckler of howler and am spec'd to str 4 4 8, sta 4 4 8 8 1 int. 4 3</p><p>Testing out in FTH tonight.</p>

[Snorm]

<p>If you're well geared enough to be tanking most stuff with the buckler on in offensive, then it's kind of an academic point. However, I somewhat recently went from the buckler to agi/int and I've seen noticable survivability jump. I would certainly have stayed buckler if I didn't have pretty solid hate controls most of the time (coercer/dirge/swash in the MT, and troubs for all casters), however given my experience, I'm not sure that's really accurate.</p><p>One thing to consider, if you spec very defensively, you can stay in offensive with a tower practically always, and you can run with more offensive buffs in the MT group. If your gear is crazy uber (such that you never leave offensive or take the buckler off), you will definately lose some DPS/hate. However if you tank the harder content with a tower on now some or most of the time, you may not see much of a drop on the fights that matter. You might even increase your aggro and DPS if you are currently in defensive with a tower on on the harder names, esp if you don't run with a warden as you can stay in offensive more.</p><p> I throughly expected to hate the agi/int build. I went for the most defensive build I could find just to see how it played. Honestly, it works well. I still clear 2k on 3+ mobs, 1800 isn't out of the question on pairs. About 1300-1500-ish on singles all in offensive with GBH. Aggro isn't particularly a concern. All that's really changed is that I actually use reinforcement now. Going int/str, or 448 int/agi/str would improve DPS a bit at the cost of the parry and defense vs agi/int. Str/Int is probably the best compromise as a guard as defense is fairly easy to crank up there, and the crits are nice. </p><p>Personally, I'd say if you spend any substantial amount of time either in defensive or with a tower in a sta build, you're probably better off with a tower build of one kind or another, even if you have the buckler of the howler. YMMV.</p><p>You have to ask yourself what you're trying to do as a guard... As far as I'm concerned I rolled the class to tank, not DPS. If I'm producing enough hate that the DPS can go nuts, then that's enough. Past that, I'm worried about survivabiltiy. Healers can DPS more. You can get by with fewer healers in general. Random emergencies and damage spikes are handled better, etc. Every time I died while buckler specced, I had to ask... would the extra def/parry have made the difference? Is the piddling extra DPS on trash we'd kill just fine anyway worth it?</p><p>Snorm -- 70 Guard</p>

[Denor]

I agree 100% with Snorm on his idea's of tanking ect. I know the "popular" spec's are for mass DPS ect.  because living isn't an issue, As for myself while i was "nub" geared in legendary ect, I was Str/Wis spec'd  eventually I moved to Str/Int and loved it, with no issues in any situation.As of late I've been trying different spec's just seeing what everyone was going out, personally I thought the Agi line would weild more AoE agro ect, for myself i didn't really notice it, Wasn't sure what caused it if i was just having abad night, or the Swashie was slacking. I've found it really hard to test things out and get a true feel for the different spec's.  I also tried 4/4/8 str 4/ 4/ 8/ 8 / 2 Agi and like 4/3 Int (number or two might be off) And HATED it again not sure if it was the transfer or just a bad night but i noticed a massive issue with agro without the 10% hate from Str line, I know everyone says it caps at 50% with coercer/dirge but i have a feeling the warrior 10% mod from str is totally unrelated with that.. OR i just had a horrible night with hits/misses ect. again Its almost impossible to test by the numbers these thingsFor myself I still have a massive soft spot for str/int spec  but I plan on playing around with stam/agi /str for a FTH/CWM run and see how she goes. I'm certainly going to be that spec or close for the RoK grind.  On a totally different note I really wish they would give the Tower shield / D tank some sort of way to hold additional agro other than DPS, I just feel ... dirty.. trying to up my DPS. It reminds me of a certain other MMO that I left. >_>WTB additional Avoidance on Tower shields and a Hate proc in D stance  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" />Ya ya I know I'm strange.P.S. I suck at spelling kk thx