Understanding my Tank

[EverAfterIt]

<p>* Edited to remove question.</p>

[Grabs]

<p>1. An effective Guardian that wants to truely progress will research and read before asking, as everything you have asked has already been hashed over / discussed many many times in these forums and others. Search is your friend / teacher.</p><p>2. Read #1</p><p>3. If you can not find specific Info, then ask specific questions, or someone like me will post something like above  =P</p>

[EverAfterIt]

<p>OK buddy thanks... your a massive amount of help.</p><p>Actually try typing in Mitigation in the search, and tell me where in the 18 [Removed for Content]' pages of crap from 2004 of useless [Removed for Content] posts does it say what mit is exactly. Cuz I never actually thought to use the search feature first . But instead of wasting a month looking over crap dead posts about junk that hasn't mattered in years, I think to ask if there's a post somewhere, or can get a couple of condensed easy answers... but instead I get you.</p><p>Thanks... my questions are revoked. I will find my answers elsewhere. No wonder there are so many crap players in this game, the ones that want to be better get useless-teat advice from jerks.</p>

[Rahatmattata]

<p>Take it easy man... a lot of it is pretty self explanatory.</p><p>Mitigation is how much of an attack you... well.. mitigate. This applies not only to your physical mit, but also your magic mit (resists). When looking at your mit the most important part is the percentage. Basically, if you have 60% mit, you will absorb 60% of the attack. So, if a mob hits you for 10k damage, you will mitigate 6k of that and only take 4k damage. The number you see on persona window (and the amount of mitigation on gear) determines what percent you will mitigate. It is based on your level and also is on a dimishing return. So, for example a level 20 character with 400 mitigation might absorb 60% from a level 20 mob... a level 80 character might need closer to 5,500 mitigation to absorb the same 60% vs a level 80 mob.</p><p>The persona window is displayed vs a mob of your level (80 in my case) with no modifyers (ie: no arrows up or down or epic tags) as far as I know. The more mitigation you have, the more you need to get to make any difference. What I mean is at level 80, 3000 mit might give you 40% 4000 might give you 50% 5000 might give you 57% 6000 might give you 62% You can see you need more mitigation number to actually increase the percent you absorb. This is also further broken down into crushing/piercing/slashing mitigation but I'm not sure on the specifics, and it seem fairly irrelavent at this time.</p><p>Also, the mitigation on your armor is relavent to the level of your armor. Example.... a level 70 bp with 550 mit will actually give less % than a level 80 bp with 550 mit. This works the same for shield protection as well currently.</p><p>Double attack is just what it says. You have x percent chance to autoattack twice.</p><p>Critical attack is pretty self explanatory. I'm going from memory but I belive if an autoattack crits, it will always do the max damage on your weapon (after str and dps mods... look in weapon stats in persona) + up to 33% more. Combat arts do a flat 33% more than what the CA would have hit for, not neccissarrily the top end. I could be wrong on some of this, I'm sure someone will correct me if so.</p><p>This is why if you have a high crit% (which we strive to have) if 2 weapons have the same damage rating (DR) but different delays, it is best to use the higher delay weapon. One weapon might hit for 50-150 damage every 2 seconds giving 100 DR. Another weapon might hit for 1-200 damage every 4 seconds which would also be 100 DR (unless my math is [Removed for Content], but this is just a made-up example). If you have a high chance to crit, and I'm not exactly sure how much "high" would be, you are better off using the 4 second delay weapon because if most of your autoattacks crit you will be hitting for the full 200+ rather than 150+ with the lower delay weapon.</p><p>The higher delay is also beneficial because of haste and fitting in autoattacks between combat arts. When a CA is used, the autoattack must wait until the CA is finished before it can fire (generally a hair over 0.5 seconds). If an autoattack is ready to fire but you throw down a CA right before the AA swings, you have just delayed your AA for a half second more or less. This adds up over time. So, if you have a low delay weapon and a lot of haste, and are swinging once every few tenths of a second, you will over time end up losing AA swings that keep getting delayed further and further back because they are being qued up waiting for you CA +recovery to fire.</p><p>Avoidance pretty much consists of agility, parry, defense, and block. Raising any of these will increase your overall chance to avoid a hit. When you parry you have a % chance to counterattack with a riposte. I don't know what that % chance is however.</p><p>Tanking is about balancing survivability with threat control... and right now threat control is achieved through dps and hate mod. So, get as much dbl attk crit haste and dps mod as possible while maintaining good hp, avoid, and mit. It's about having a feel for your individual character. When selecting a piece of gear do you need the defense more or the offense? Are you having problems staying alive or holding aggro? This heavily depends on not just you, but also the other players in your group. If you have amazing healers and good utility and smart dps, you can get pretty offensive on most things. The real struggle is when you have to be fully defensive to stay alive because your healers suck (or you suck) and you have no utility, but you have really high dps classes with good dps buffs. After all, you can have 100% mit and avoidance and 1billion hp but that means nothing when the mob is punching your dps in the face. It's all about getting a feel for things and maintaining a balance. You need to be holding aggro but not at the expense where healers are using saves on every encounters.</p>

[Grabs]

<p><cite>EverAfterIt wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>OK buddy thanks... your a massive amount of help.</p><p>Actually try typing in Mitigation in the search, and tell me where in the 18 [Removed for Content]' pages of crap from 2004 of useless [Removed for Content] posts does it say what mit is exactly. Cuz I never actually thought to use the search feature first . But instead of wasting a month looking over crap dead posts about junk that hasn't mattered in years, I think to ask if there's a post somewhere, or can get a couple of condensed easy answers... but instead I get you.</p><p>Thanks... my questions are revoked. I will find my answers elsewhere. No wonder there are so many crap players in this game, the ones that want to be better get useless-teat advice from jerks.</p></blockquote><p>You are welcome <span ><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/user/profile.m?user_id=312041"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small; color: #00ccff;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">EverAfterIt</span></span></strong></a></span> , nothing I said was vicious or stated with contempt. If you think one person posting some answers to your questions will yield a true answer, be my guest.  But I assure you you all the answers have been given many times, and reading the discussions about them will yield you more usefull info.</p><p>Rahatmatatta tried to answer as you can see, but there is soo much more to it. If you do not want to spend "Months"  (your words) reading and you think one quick post is going to answer everything for you, thats great, but you will soon discover that you will need to read alot more.</p><p>Enjoy your Guardian, I wont try and help you as I dont like holding a persons hand that wants.. well everything handed to them.</p>

[EverAfterIt]

<p><cite>Cruunch@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>You are welcome <span><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/user/profile.m?user_id=312041"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small; color: #00ccff;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">EverAfterIt</span></span></strong></a></span> , nothing I said was vicious or stated with contempt. If you think one person posting some answers to your questions will yield a true answer, be my guest. But I assure you you all the answers have been given many times, and reading the discussions about them will yield you more usefull info.</p><p>Rahatmatatta tried to answer as you can see, but there is soo much more to it. If you do not want to spend "Months" (your words) reading and you think one quick post is going to answer everything for you, thats great, but you will soon discover that you will need to read alot more.</p><p>Enjoy your Guardian, I wont try and help you as I dont like holding a persons hand that wants.. well everything handed to them.</p></blockquote><p>The way I saw your response was condescending... I never asked for one "quick" answer. I asked for a direction on finding answers, as many other classes have guides about them. You came off to me as basically calling me either stupid or lazy, but saying use search, then repeating to use search. I already used search, and came up with pages upon old pages of useless crap. Hence why I asked for some direction -- not to have my hand held as you seem to imply above. I haven't made it to my level being stupid, and I play as well as many, and certainly better than some that I have grouped with my main. I only want to expand my understanding of things, so I don't have to 'copy' every other tank in the game and can make alternate choices regarding gear and setups given the understanding of what the stats do/mean.</p><p>I never, ever, asked you or anyone to hold my hand... or hand anything to me. If there was a website or if more experienced players had some hidden forum post bookmarked... a very simple posted address would have more than satisfied me. I am certainly content with reading information.</p><p>I will enjoy. I will enjoy more now that I have a basic idea of what things mean more in depth thanks to Rahatmatatta's response. That was useful.  So you didn't help I won't ask for your help in the future. Be my guest to ignore any future posts by me, I don't really care if you do... but I likely won't be again. As a newer player, this form of learning the finer points of the game has been nothing but a general bad experience. I think I should have asked in the Guard world channel, but I didn't want to bother the 'big kids' with such minor points. Anyway.</p>

[Laedarr]

<p>Everafter, I wouldn't worry about people like that.  Some individuals have this superiority complex and feel unwilling to simply apply whatever helpful knowledge they may or may not have to new players.   Obviously, when EQ2 beta first came out, these folks knew exactly what everything was all about, they didn't have to explore or ask questions, they just knew.  Seriously, shame on you for reaching out, how dare you ask simple questions to such elitist! /end sarcasm.</p><p>Personally, I've gained a lot of knowledge just browsing thru a lot of useless posts and through that I've come across many useful ones as well.   I've asked a lot of questions that didn't make sense to me, and I've come across many who have been helpful and others who just are total jerks. </p><p>Grabs, if you had the time to write a sarcastic comment, then you had the time to answer an honest question.   We all pay the same to play a single character, the game is suppose to be fun, and based on support and assistance from other players, but folks like you give that idea a bad rap.</p>

[code]

<p><cite>Cruunch@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Enjoy your Guardian, I wont try and help you as I dont like holding a persons hand that wants.. well everything handed to them.</p></blockquote><p>I'll hold your hand!</p>

[EverAfterIt]

<p>Ok... but I'm not paying for dinner <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Sincerely, I thank Rahatmatatta for the info in the post. I has cleared up some things that I thought I knew, and has explained some things I didn't.</p>

[Geilt]

Thanks much for this post Rahatmatatta. I was looking for an easier access answer to the question: Does Mitigation still take into account Armor Lvl Con vs NPC Con. I was trying to decide whether to "upgrade" my T7 Fabled lvl 67ish Tank items to T8 Master Crafted at lvl 72, before going for Shard Armor. Even though the mitigation is lower, at lvl 72, wearing lvl 72 gear should be better than fabled, even if the mit is crap. This is how it was 2 years ago when i left during Kingdom of Sky...most tanks didn't understand it. I was trying to gear up our raid tank in the highest armor lvl possible. (Not everything was at the current max, as Shard armor mostly appears to be lvl 80. )

[Figfore]

<p>Geilt you are correct that armor mit drops as you level above it. It is only max for the level that it is. As you level above it try and repace it with higher level gear. If you have fable, it should be pretty much equal to Mastercrafted. Getting the ROK sets might be worth it until you can get the shard sets.  Mit is still king its just the curve makes it hard to get it above 65%. Thats why all guards go for the avoid items and shield block bonus as much as mit know.  I ran with the fable T7 until I got the ROK ledg then I got the ROK fable. Depends on what your doing. Lots of good loot to be gotten from quest that is good now. There are some good sites to show you about all the mit, resist, etc.  just use a search eng and dig through some of the sites.</p>

[EverAfterIt]

<p>There was a very informative website that explained many basic things aside from R's post above. It was <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.raidwiki.org " target="_blank">www.raidwiki.com </a> in the sidebar there was a link for combat. That site seems to have gone down though recently.</p>

[Hilai]

<p>Seems like this would be a good place to get an answer my question, as I too am trying to understand my guard. My guard is my first toon that I retired after lu13 came out but with the changes coming I dusted him off, got him some new gear, and trying to get a feel for the class. As of tonight he is geared in the t1 shard set except for the shoulders, which are t2. His 1h is the Disector (until I get the myth) and he has the shield from ToMC. Jewelry is a mix of stuff from drops to quest rewards.</p><p>Last week I was invited by my guild to tank AoB for them. At that point half of my gear was t7 and the aa's (134) weren't set up optimally. Plus my skills were very rusty. So it was ugly. For me, not for the rest of the group. They were all fabled raiders and I'm sure they had a nice chuckle at my attempts to hold agro. That wasn't happening though. I haven't tried tanking since I got the new gear. (Side note, even with a lot of t7 gear on (fabled) if I did hold agro for a few seconds, the healers had no problem keepig me up)</p><p>The first question is very basic. What do I use my conc slots on? After buffing I always have an empty one. After playing a Illi and Fury for several years that's a no no, but I can't find anything to use there. Is this normal for a guardian? Asked a berzerker friend if he fills his up and he does. So what am I missing?</p><p>I know dps is required to hold agro, at least until the coming changes. About how much dps do I need to put out to hold single mobs on me using taunts, dps, ect.? I'm still working with the training dummy everyday to get a feel for the timing. On autoattack in Offensive I'm doing a touch over 400dps. Seems a little low and I haven't incorporated my ca's in yet.</p><p>Stats:         Health 12,496  Power 5485</p><p>Int 86          Spell Reuse 12% / Recovery 30%</p><p>Str 745        Melee Crit 45%   Attack 1704   Melee DA 5%   Melee AE 40%</p><p>Agi 574</p><p>Sta 787</p><p>Wis 86</p><p>Avoidence 9300</p><p>Base Avoid 32.9%</p><p>Block 25.1</p><p>Deflection 0</p><p>Parry 14.5</p><p>Mitigation 4460</p><p>Mit % 54.4</p><p>Crit Mit 9%</p><p>Warrior tree AA str 4 4 8 7  agi 4 4 8 4  int 4 8 8 4 1</p><p>Guardian tree I put 5 in rescue timer and reinforcement. The rest is in anything that would enhance my dps, which I was told was my primary worry at this point.</p><p>TSO Tree I have 4 in Consumate Defender, 5 in Offensive Prowess and 1 in Sneering Assault</p><p>Next line down I have 3 in Saving Grace for the extra positions on rescue.</p><p>Now, I haven't had a chance to test this out in a live environment yet because I wanted to get at least the t3 shoulders before I tried again, and I only got those tonight. Going back out too soon would hurt my rep. I did actually do a pretty decent job back in the old days tanking in Def stance and throwing taunts out there while I was beating on the mob.</p><p>I was never an "offensive" type of tank which is why when the choice became tank in offensive or quit playing him, I quit playing him. I'm looking to play him a bit before the changes come (whenever that's gonna be) to get my skills up and have some fun.</p><p>I do have access to gear from alt loot rolls on raids but that's always going to be hit or miss.</p><p>Any advice/recomendations?</p><p>Thanks in advance.</p>

[Grumpy_Warrior_01]

<p>You can fill up four of your concentration slots with your buffs, the last one might be with something like the neck item from Shard of Hate that uses a slot to give you 500 HP.</p>

[Rahatmattata]

<p>I would probably drop the agi line (or store it in a mirror) and take the sta line for double attack. For multi-target encounters you'll have to work harder and get a feel for switching targets... immobilize is your friend. Get your epic. Make sure you are fully ad3 and work on getting masters. Roll with something like a dirge/coercer/assassin/swasbuckler/illusionist or even troub if you have to. Inquisitor can give you dps mod. Duel wield if you can survive... the double attack from sta goes with it nicely. Swap to shield if you need it.</p><p>Since they gimped the double attack and buckler I've not been holding hate as well, especially in defensive stance. I find myself tanking a lot of stuff in Ostance just so I can hit the mobs. Some mobs also have ridiculously high avoidance and it's frustrating to see parry, parry, riposte, miss, parry, you hit for a non-crit non double attack AA, parry, miss, miss. But when that is the case usually your melee dps is missing too making everyone's dps suck.</p>