Current TSO monk avoidance

[githyanki]

Basically i would like a response from a dev about where the hard cap for avoidance currently is at and about how much of that is actually uncontested. With a varying groupsetup for defensive mods i'm running between 83 and almost 85 percent avoid. Monk defensive stance went from 16 base uncontested to somewhere around 22 depending on what food and drink your using and defensive and avoid upgrades thru tso aa's. My real avoidance is quite a bit less then that especially with yellow and orange mobs. That 22 percent is closer to 15 or so from the parses i've been looking at lately. Case in point was running a guild group in veksar hard instance. Had a zerker tanking with equal gear to me...i was there as a melee dps toon since most of our scouts where already involved in stuff. Never got by that first named because the zerk couldn't keep the mob off of me and even after i switched to tank role i was two shotted once tsunami went down and my self magic ward was destroyed after the first 2 seconds. Meanwhile we tried several times and the temp and fury could keep him up for about 3 minutes just fine. For an aoe tank he sure did fine taking damage and surviving vs a single no joke named. On the other hand as a dps avoid fighter i got creamed quickly. Anybody else see problem with that? I know that there are supposed to be two more rounds of fighter fixes and that is all well and good. The monk classes aoe problems have already been gone over in several posts so i will leave that one alone. I will even go so far as to say maybe i lack the aa's i need to do the hard stuff reliably especially the fix to our stifle miti buff. But i would love to get an idea about our avoidance so i can choose gear that will not waste my time before these "fixes" take effect.

[BChizzle]

<p>I think our avoidance is great.</p>

[Junaru]

<p><cite>BChizzle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think our avoidance is great.</p></blockquote><p>Well if by great you mean having 83% avoidance against an 80 mob and only avoiding 68%, then yes it's great.</p><p>The problem still stands, plate tanks can still hit high avoidance (within 10% of Brawlers) yet Brawlers still have maybe 60% of the mitigation of plate tanks. Out raid OT sits at 74.5% avoidance self buffed. I sit at 83.7% self buffed.</p>

[BChizzle]

<p><cite>Junaru wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>BChizzle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think our avoidance is great.</p></blockquote><p>Well if by great you mean having 83% avoidance against an 80 mob and only avoiding 68%, then yes it's great.</p><p>The problem still stands, plate tanks can still hit high avoidance (within 10% of Brawlers) yet Brawlers still have maybe 60% of the mitigation of plate tanks. Out raid OT sits at 74.5% avoidance self buffed. I sit at 83.7% self buffed.</p></blockquote><p>I can get to 90% avoidance and about 6k mit when buffed.  That is very comparable to my raid tank.  I have also tanked everything in this game so far and have gotten comments about easy it was to heal.  We have had vast improvements to our ability to take a hit.</p>

[PokemonLuVer]

<p>Hi,</p><p>First off I am not a monk nor play one, I do have a baby Brusier. I'm curious the type of gear you are running with BChizzle?</p><p>I have a close Guildie who was routinely tanking RoK instances, very good Monk only ever lost agro when the Warlock that occopanies us would go crazy(but thats common to whoever is tanking for this lock). He has Legendary RoK gear and some raid drops typical of a lvl 80 in a casual guild. I believe his CAs are all at least Adept 3. We did Deep Forge with him, well tried. Just the trash mobs were 2 shotting him, with a templar and a fury healing he was still dead a couple of seconds into the fight. At least on my server the sentiment is that Brawlers can't tank TSO.</p><p>Another example which mirrors the OPs dilema. Me and my typical group mates started a Scion of Ice instance with a pickup SK and a Mythical Brusier. The SK aside from being in all MC and sucking terrible couldn't keep agro from the Brusier just auto-attacking. So easy solution, we switched tanks. The bruiser in all endgame RoK and Mythical continued to get knocked down to quick for the healer to keep her up. The bruiser left the group becuase there wasn't a configureation that would work with her there. the SK logged his defiler and another guildy came, SK, and tanked the instance with no problems at all.</p><p>My point is, if you have the secret to Brawler tankin in TSO please share it, becuase I have had several examples where brawlers are ineffective, aswell as a good guy who is contiplateing rolling a new main.</p>

[Dorieon]

<p><cite>Krystal@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hi,</p><p>First off I am not a monk nor play one, I do have a baby Brusier. I'm curious the type of gear you are running with BChizzle?</p><p>I have a close Guildie who was routinely tanking RoK instances, very good Monk only ever lost agro when the Warlock that occopanies us would go crazy(but thats common to whoever is tanking for this lock). He has Legendary RoK gear and some raid drops typical of a lvl 80 in a casual guild. I believe his CAs are all at least Adept 3. We did Deep Forge with him, well tried. Just the trash mobs were 2 shotting him, with a templar and a fury healing he was still dead a couple of seconds into the fight. At least on my server the sentiment is that Brawlers can't tank TSO.</p><p> <span style="color: #3366ff;">Trash in Deep Forge should not have been 2-shotting him. I blame the healers on that one. If he could tank MC or Chel he can tank Deep Forge. Maybe tell him to open the fight with a stun so the healers can keep up and it gives time for debuffs to go in.</span></p><p>Another example which mirrors the OPs dilema. Me and my typical group mates started a Scion of Ice instance with a pickup SK and a Mythical Brusier. The SK aside from being in all MC and sucking terrible couldn't keep agro from the Brusier just auto-attacking. So easy solution, we switched tanks. The bruiser in all endgame RoK and Mythical continued to get knocked down to quick for the healer to keep her up. The bruiser left the group becuase there wasn't a configureation that would work with her there. the SK logged his defiler and another guildy came, SK, and tanked the instance with no problems at all.</p><p><span style="color: #3366ff;">Again, this should not have happened. A bruiser should have been fine unless the healer was asleep, especially a bruiser with a mythical. Why didn't the SK bring the defiler to heal the bruiser? I mean you are comparing a SK tanking with 2 healers to a bruiser tanking with 1. Of course the SK had no problems.</span></p><p>My point is, if you have the secret to Brawler tankin in TSO please share it, becuase I have had several examples where brawlers are ineffective, aswell as a good guy who is contiplateing rolling a new main.</p><p><span style="color: #3366ff;">There is no great secret to brawler tanking. And there is definitely no great change to the way we need to do it in TSO vs RoK. Alot of brawlers complain about tanking, but alot of the ones complaining are specced for pure dps and don't have the gear to get away with it. </span><span style="color: #3366ff;">I open with a stun. I use a few debuffs. I stun/stifle again. Hit a few CA's. Basically its a rotation and I always try to keep a stun/stifle/knockback up in case my hp's spike. Hope that helps.</span></p></blockquote><p>Also, some healers just have a hard time healing brawlers. I don't mean classes, I mean the players themselves. I duo/trio'd with a templar from 1-80 and he could heal me great in any situation. He took a break from the game and I started grouping with a better geared templar and she had a rough time the first few instances until we figured out how to work together. Brawlers can be streaky to heal and sometimes it takes time for a healer to adapt their casting order.</p>

[circusgirl]

<p>Oftentimes its an issue with the healers simply not understanding HOW to heal a brawler.  Brawlers are fully capable of tanking equally well to a warrior or crusador (heck, with my mythical and VP gear I have better mit than a lot of less geared guardians).  However, healing a monk or bruiser is intrinsically different from healing a plate tank.  A plate tanks hp regularly tick down in fairly even increments throughout the fight.  All a healer has to do then is heal as much damage as the tank is taking, and they can take their time about it.  For a monk, however, we very rarely take damage, but when we do we're likely to drop a good 20% or more of our hp at a time.  For healers, this means that most of the time, they don't have to heal...but when you do get hit, they have to heal you before the mob cuts through your avoidance again or else you die.  This isn't normally a problem.</p><p>Unless your healer is asleep.</p><p>Find a few healers that show some promise, group with them repeatedly so they can get used to you and the way tanking as a monk works.  When someone works well with you, add them to friends, and call them up whenever you need a hand!</p>

[Errolflynn]

<p>I regularly tank the Sisters in SOH on my Monk, I usually run with about 55% mitigation and 77% avoidance when doing so. Also note that we havn't managed too get into VP yet so no mythicals, [Removed for Content] that Leviathan he's going down soon.</p>

[Turb]

<p>The main issue in instances for me isn't surviving, it's AE aggro.    Pretty much everything is now multimob.   So the classes you have with you will make a difference there.    But it makes it more challenging and more fun.</p><p>Not really hurting in many zones.   Certainly the middling zones like Asylum and Ravenscale are fine, and we generally first pull through those now.    It was a lot of learn learning them - some nice creativity by SoE.</p><p>Don't forget your free extra mit (self root) and once you get 175AA the stun effect is removed from Iron Stance.</p>

[lavrence]

<p>ok so i am a 80 monk and have tanked, deep forge, anchor of bazzul, obilisk of a....forgot its name lol  2 healers with out a problem, all off the ones in everfrost 2 healers not a problem, veksar, not a problem, befallen had some issues but completed all 3, and najena's hollows, some issues with last boss but again completed, i am not mythical, i do not have much raid gear, but i build groups that work around monk tanks and we succeed where people say monks cannot tank. i have some issues with group incounters but hey thats why i have a enchanter, usually a coercer, i take aggro for the group and well the mezz and we are golden, 2 healers templar and usually a fury, great buffs and great heals, plus the fury can DPS some also, no problems there, so far its monk coercer templar and fury, that leaves 2 slots, i always try for a dirge ( come on what monk doesnt want a dirge) and if i get one a brigand or a assassin,  the group is ballanced, and if everyone knows what they are doing i do not loss aggro even in multi mob incounters, the healers do not have problems keeping me up and the mobs die FAST. so take some time to build groups and maybe you can tank soem of these zones people say monks cannot tank in TSO, if you expect to go in there with any assortment of 6 characters and win you will probably fail but hey thats just my take on TSO.</p>

[Sophie47]

<p><cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Oftentimes its an issue with the healers simply not understanding HOW to heal a brawler.  Brawlers are fully capable of tanking equally well to a warrior or crusador (heck, with my mythical and VP gear I have better mit than a lot of less geared guardians).  However, healing a monk or bruiser is intrinsically different from healing a plate tank.  A plate tanks hp regularly tick down in fairly even increments throughout the fight.  All a healer has to do then is heal as much damage as the tank is taking, and they can take their time about it.  For a monk, however, we very rarely take damage, but when we do we're likely to drop a good 20% or more of our hp at a time.  For healers, this means that most of the time, they don't have to heal...but when you do get hit, they have to heal you before the mob cuts through your avoidance again or else you die.  This isn't normally a problem.</p></blockquote><p>This is spot on, I play a Warden that duo's with a Bruiser as well as a Monk. I learned early on that when he takes</p><p>damage it is alot. So I adjusted my healing to that. Now my Warden is a better overall healer thanks to that experiance.</p>

[Mogzilla]

<p>I tanked kor-sha and ravenscale with one healer.</p><p>Its all about your gear and your support classes.</p><p>I used to tank RE2 with no raid gear.</p><p>The key is getting some sort of hate transfer form a bard, coercer, whatever and staying in your defensive stance.</p><p>We lose a huge chunk of mit and uncontested avoidence going from defensive to offensive, much more then plate tanks do.</p><p>Rember our defensive is a 25% bonus to worn armor, plate tanks only get a 15%.</p><p>Also our uncontested avoidence comes from our stance, plate tanks come from their sheilds.</p><p>Going from defensive stance to offensive stance is a 16% loss in uncontested avoidence, alot.  Plate tanks retain most of their uncontested in their offensive stance.</p><p>I think a mistake alot of brawlers make is attempting to tank in offensive stances like plate tanks do.</p><p>Wardens are great healers for us as the + melee skills buffs negates most of the penalties of the defensive stance.</p><p>Give me a warden, defiler, coecer, dirge, swash and I guarantee I can tank any heroic content in this game np.</p><p>Oh yeah, use your taunts.  Yeah the threat is alot less then many CA, but those CA often take 30 secs or longer to refresh.</p><p>My single target taunt refreshes every 4 seconds and the encounter is something like 12 seconds.  They are by far the best threat per second we get due to how often they can be cast.</p>

[circusgirl]

<p>Mogzilla has the group setup down exactly.  A coercer (far superior to illy, since its +dps insted of +haste, and comes with 15% hate xfer), dirge (again, WAY superior to a troub, and increases your hate gain), a swashbuckler (for a combination of AoE dps and their hate xfer, which gives you a share of the AoE hate), a healer, and one other.  I'm a big fan of defilers/mystics as my personal healer, because the use of wards eliminates the problem so many healers have with spike damage.  With a defiler you just end up sitting at 100% hp the whole fight, works great.  Furies/wardens have the benefit of fast heals, which is also nice, but my personal favorite remains with the shamans.  You can substitute an assassin for the swashy in a pinch, but it doesn't help as much with AoE.  I don't often look for most mages and scouts like rangers, or at the very least to bring no more than one crazy guaranteed-to-rip class (like warlock) at a time, since thats the number of people I can protect with altruism.  </p><p>Surviveability isn't our problem.  We're great in that department, and TSO with the two +deflection AAs only helped there.  Our weakness is AoE aggro, and right now the best thing we can do is make friends with good players of the right classes and build a group that will hold aggro for us, at least until we're fixed.</p><p>I think all SoE needs to do for us is change our dragon stance so that when it procs, it procs an encounter-wide taunt instead of a single mob taunt.  Heck, replace one of our end-line TSO AAs with it.  I'de be satisfied with that change.</p>

[Mogzilla]

<p><cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Mogzilla has the group setup down exactly.  A coercer (far superior to illy, since its +dps insted of +haste, and comes with 15% hate xfer), dirge (again, WAY superior to a troub, and increases your hate gain), a swashbuckler (for a combination of AoE dps and their hate xfer, which gives you a share of the AoE hate), a healer, and one other.  I'm a big fan of defilers/mystics as my personal healer, because the use of wards eliminates the problem so many healers have with spike damage.  With a defiler you just end up sitting at 100% hp the whole fight, works great.  Furies/wardens have the benefit of fast heals, which is also nice, but my personal favorite remains with the shamans.  You can substitute an assassin for the swashy in a pinch, but it doesn't help as much with AoE.  I don't often look for most mages and scouts like rangers, or at the very least to bring no more than one crazy guaranteed-to-rip class (like warlock) at a time, since thats the number of people I can protect with altruism.  </p><p>Surviveability isn't our problem.  We're great in that department, and TSO with the two +deflection AAs only helped there.  Our weakness is AoE aggro, and right now the best thing we can do is make friends with good players of the right classes and build a group that will hold aggro for us, at least until we're fixed.</p><p>I think all SoE needs to do for us is change our dragon stance so that when it procs, it procs an encounter-wide taunt instead of a single mob taunt.  Heck, replace one of our end-line TSO AAs with it.  I'de be satisfied with that change.</p></blockquote><p>Troubs are actually work better as far as hate goes.</p><p>I dont know the exact %, but say the dirge buff is + 39% hate gain and you are doing 3K threat per second with taunts and dps and you have a scout parsing 4K dps</p><p>So your threat per second is actually 4170 with a dirge, just barley enough to keep you above the scout.</p><p>Now say you have a troub, with 39% less threat to non fighters.  So now the scout is only doing 2440 threat per second, a full 560 below your 3k threat per second.</p><p>The troub works better as far as hate management becaue the % works better with the larger numbers of the higher parsing classes vs the dirge increasing the smaller numbers of your hate.</p>

[Mogzilla]

<p><cite>Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Mogzilla has the group setup down exactly.  A coercer (far superior to illy, since its +dps insted of +haste, and comes with 15% hate xfer), dirge (again, WAY superior to a troub, and increases your hate gain), a swashbuckler (for a combination of AoE dps and their hate xfer, which gives you a share of the AoE hate), a healer, and one other.  I'm a big fan of defilers/mystics as my personal healer, because the use of wards eliminates the problem so many healers have with spike damage.  With a defiler you just end up sitting at 100% hp the whole fight, works great.  Furies/wardens have the benefit of fast heals, which is also nice, but my personal favorite remains with the shamans.  You can substitute an assassin for the swashy in a pinch, but it doesn't help as much with AoE.  I don't often look for most mages and scouts like rangers, or at the very least to bring no more than one crazy guaranteed-to-rip class (like warlock) at a time, since thats the number of people I can protect with altruism.  </p><p>Surviveability isn't our problem.  We're great in that department, and TSO with the two +deflection AAs only helped there.  Our weakness is AoE aggro, and right now the best thing we can do is make friends with good players of the right classes and build a group that will hold aggro for us, at least until we're fixed.</p><p>I think all SoE needs to do for us is change our dragon stance so that when it procs, it procs an encounter-wide taunt instead of a single mob taunt.  Heck, replace one of our end-line TSO AAs with it.  I'de be satisfied with that change.</p></blockquote><p>Troubs are actually work better as far as hate goes.</p><p>I dont know the exact %, but say the dirge buff is + 39% hate gain and you are doing 3K threat per second with taunts and dps and you have a scout parsing 4K dps</p><p>So your threat per second is actually 4170 with a dirge, just barley enough to keep you above the scout.</p><p>Now say you have a troub, with 39% less threat to non fighters.  So now the scout is only doing 2440 threat per second, a full 560 below your 3k threat per second.</p><p>The troub works better as far as hate management becaue the % works better with the larger numbers of the higher parsing classes vs the dirge increasing the smaller numbers of your hate.</p><p>I just prefer the dirge for the stoneskin, and parrry buff works better with the bruiser retribution of stone AA.</p>

[circusgirl]

<p>Hyran's Seething Sonata actually increases hate gain by 41%, which beats out the troubs % by a fair bit.  In addition, dirges are better for monks because a dirge turns that 3k you're dpsing into 4k, as well as increasing your surviveability.  A dirge has percussion of stone (stoneskin--super useful for a monk), blade chime, parry song, and dps mod increase.  What do troub's have besides the hate reduction?  a haste increase?  Very useful for someone who's hovering around the hard cap self-buffed.  Aside from Jcap there's not much else they offer.  </p><p>I agree that the troub's hate buff has a very, very slight edge over a dirge's...but with everything else a dirge has going for it the choice is as clear as coercer over illy.</p>

[Turb]

<p>No question, I agree dirge over troub any day.   Coercer over illu too ideally.</p><p>I like having a warden in group for their defensive buffs and melee skill buff, but healers don't seem to be that important... when I run with two I find fury and templar is just fine... the extra fury dps is welcome.   </p><p>Yesterday I had me, warlock, warlock, conjuror, brigand, fury.    That was fun <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[circusgirl]

<p>Mythicaled warlocks are the bane of my existence.  </p><p>Honestly, I think monks get less of a benefit from multiple healers than other classes do.  Two healers are great when you're taking slow, sustained damage over a large period of time and one just can't keep up, but honestly, when you take irregular spike damage there's a lot of downtime when the healers aren't doing anything.  I really prefer to just go for the extra dps to decrease the duration of the fight.  </p>