Climbing the steelwall (Guardian AA question)

[Paleskinn]

Hey there!I will dual post here and on eq2flames, to get the best number/quality of answers in a rather short time.So, I made a guardian. At level 22 I gave him some steel to play with and he holds like a champ agains anything you can throw.Holding aggro is a nightmare. So I took taunting challenge as T3 M2 choice. Helped quite a bit, but still...So, now for the question. Where do I stuff my first, say, 50 AA points?I recon there won't be a hard and fast rule, but if someone could say what was useful pre-70 for him, that would be nice. I'm primarily looking into improving my hate gain while not sacrificing that much defense.Thanks in advance.

[Ferunnia]

At those levels it's one or the other really, defense or dps (dps is our best hate builder). You can balance between em with only 50 points but you won't be as good as you could be at either. The strength and stamina lines are the most important for hate. Getting sta to 4/4/8 increases your dps by about 25-30% easily. Add in the crits from having the str line to 4/4/8 and you can expect another 20-30% increase (all approximate) over your original dps. Autoattack dps is about 40-50% (over 60% really at the high end) of your total dps, so that's where you'll see the best gains in upping your double attack and crit rates. All this dps increase is the key to guardian aggro-holding. Taunts suck, and a lot of higher level tanks don't use em beyond pulling. The side benefit to this dps increase is soloing becomes a hell of a lot faster and easier when you can do more than tickle the mobs you're trying to kill.With all this offensive, don't forget you still have as much defense as before, and if you should go 4/4/8/8 in the stamina line your avoidance will only be about 2-4% lower while using a buckler than if you were to equip a tower shield (Not as much block, but that's more important on epic content).By the way, dunno if I'd bother posting a question like this on flames. You'll probably get told to get off yer butt and go read the 23495870942309857903 other posts about this question before asking something like this. To be honest that was my first reaction even on these boards <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Gotta realize this question is probably the most commonly asked and answered one you can find. Do a little research and you'll find more in-depth answers than I have time to give.

[Paleskinn]

Thanks Ferunnia. I actually got very nice responses over at flames =)