Help with TSO tanking [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Xaax

07-14-2009, 10:50 AM

Hello all, I have been bickering with a few peeps in the thread on item degradation: <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=454495">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=454495</a> . Now in that thread there are peeps stating that master crafted gear is good enough to start completing TSO instances. I happen to think I have a bit better then master crafted gear yet I have a lot of trouble completing TSO instances. I was hoping that yall would give me some feedback on my gear and toon set up that may point out what I am doing wrong compared to all these people out there completing TSO instances in crafter level gear? I am in a casual guild, raiding is not likely and unless I tag along to another guilds raid, I don’t get to raid at all and don’t have access to raid level gear. I 80% of the time PUG. If I am playing my zerker, my wife is playing her mystic so common groups always have zerker mystic as a base. In my past attempts in the TSO instances we ran with two healers, usually a druid as second, and the rest DPS. I haven’t had a chance to play with a chanter/CC class yet in TSO. I can solo an encounter pull 99% of the time with no issues, it seems that I get hit really, really hard in TSO and I tend to drain healers mana by quite a bit. So we end up pulling really slow and adds are a lot of trouble, tanking multi encounters at one time. I can’t tank in TSO with 2 weapons, so I use a shield. I also have to use def. stance as that seems to make life a touch easer then attempt to tank in offensive stance. I am not fully mastered up but strangely agro is not a big issue for me, holding the mobs attention seems ok for me its just the damage I take that I preventing me from completing the instances. AA set up: Im probably a bit off, not sure if im remembering correctly, 128 AAs total: 70 aa in fighter treeStr – 4 4 8 8Sta – 4 4 8 8 1Int – 4 8 8 30ish assorted EoF AAs:28ish AAs in TSO tree. Any suggestions and feedback are welcome. Thank you forgot to add link to my toon: <a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/characters/character_profile.vm?characterId=558486111">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...terId=558486111</a>

Kimber

07-14-2009, 10:58 AM

Respec your Fighter tree tbh untill you get T1 shard gear you will get allot of benifit from having the Wis tree goingWis 4-4-4-8If you can spare the points raise 3rd on up a bit as this increases DPS or DA I forget which TB but untill you get up around 140-160 aa and have em in the right stuff in the shadow tree the mit buff and DPS or DA will help you allot more than the extra speed from Int. The Wis line also gives you Belly Smash which while it does not effect Epics will debuff the Heroic mobs in TSO and help ya hit em harder.

Hardain

07-14-2009, 11:19 AM

Bard and/or chanter really helps on groups. Not how you could gain more survivability without new gear, def stance and shield is allready on heavy side of defense.

Kimber

07-14-2009, 11:33 AM

Just going off what he put up there. Says he takes 2 healers the rest DPS so sounds like a survablity issue to me so some extra Mit might put him over the top for anouther % and lessen the inc damg enough to make it threw.

Costa

07-14-2009, 12:08 PM

One of the bigest things your going to suffer with is lack of crit mit gear. TSO brought in mobs doing some big crit damage hence why you'll find your self standing tall np one min and then a few secs later fighting to live the next. I found that when TSO came out i was running the instances with Legendary and Fabled gear from RoK instances with 140aa and my epic and it was tough going to start with. I was in a similar situation of small guild so not able to get raid gear from RoK or myths so it was slow to start. Once you start getting the shards together and getting the T1 then upgrading to T2 gear you'll be fine. If people are tanking the zones in MC then they probably have some pretty well geared healers keeping them alive as personally i can't see how a MC group would be affective at all in TSO instances.I don't know how well your group gets through the RoK instances but unless your clearing through them comfortably your probably not geared up enough yet to progress through too many of the TSO instances. I would say stick to the 1st of the EF. LS and possibly CL instances and even try OOA in moors and see if you can clear those. Thats 7 shards per run so you'll soon be decked out in T1 gear and then move on to the 2nd instance for EF.If your not able to do any of those yet then there is always the option of doing the EF, CL and LS zones mentoring a lvl50 player and doing the mission quests for shards. That would yield you 8 shards for the 8 instances plus the aa for the quest. If your lucky one of them could be the daily double which would get you 10 shards for all 8.

Xaax

07-14-2009, 01:01 PM

<cite>Bazill@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>If your not able to do any of those yet then there is always the option of doing the EF, CL and LS zones mentoring a lvl50 player and doing the mission quests for shards. That would yield you 8 shards for the 8 instances plus the aa for the quest. If your lucky one of them could be the daily double which would get you 10 shards for all 8.</blockquote>Thank you for the feedback. I will give that a shot and see if that helps.I really didnt belive that anyone was completing TSO with crafted gear but I wanted to give the poster that stated that commit benefit of doubt and check. The only shards I do currently have were due to a guiildie helping me with a lv 52 toon so we can run the instances with all the mobs grey. After I did that I rolled a new alt and said not again. I just cant grind grey mobs to gear up, something just seems very wrong with that. I place it on the level of an exploit that SoE is pushing on players for really bad game design.Hardain, thank you for the response. If I ever have a chance to run the instances with a bard/chanter I will. I just havent had that chance yet. PUG bards and chanters do not seem common place on my server.Thetmes, If I am reading correct are you saying just get more mit? Umm you have a suggestion on how I can do that or are ya just saying get more? I have free respects, Ill give the wis line a chance and see if that helps. I assume you mean I should keep str and sta lines and dump int line?

Artalis the Elder

07-14-2009, 06:37 PM

Best advice? Find a dirge and coercer and become their best friend.Problems over.Seriously though; which zones are you having trouble with? TSO was slight departure from the tank and spank zones of the past. There's a right way and a wrong way to pull them. I do them the "wrong way" all the time for entertainment value but you don't have my gear.

Kimber

07-14-2009, 07:38 PM

Yes basicly dump the Int line for the Mit in the Wis line but only do that if they are close fights if the mob is over 5% and everyone is out of power when you die I doubt the Wis line will do you any good in that case if its under and you get hit for a big spike and peeps still have power it might help. Also I checked your gear and you are wearing the lv 77 MC stuff what you may want to look at is getting a few pieces Leg out of Maidens and the other lil instance in JW. There is a nice set of shoulders Legs and Chest ( if i remember right ) in there. Those could help allot possably. Oh 1 more thing there is a really decent Leg shield that you can get in TG for doing a quest in Karnor Castle I forget what the name of it is but it might be better than the MC one you have. As one of the poeple abouve said its all about crit mit and he is right untill you get some you will be a lil [Removed for Content] tanking the zones but if you can get as much mit as you can get before you start heading in there the lil non crit hits wont hit as hard making the big hits that do crit a lil easier to deal with.Anouther option for you could be do go into the zone as OT or DPS. I dont know how your server is about taking more than one figher in a group. I know that the group I usually run TSO zones with is 1 Guard 1 Zerk 1 Pally 1 Fury 1 Dirge and either a Sin or 2nd Healer depending on the zone. So if you could find a group like that or one that would be willing to take you on a few runs till you get your shards and can start running your own groups threw as MT it might be an idea. This would also give you the opertunity to learn the pulls and such on the named and what to expect and when.

Morgue

07-14-2009, 10:56 PM

While I tend to disagree with the WIS you may find some use in it. The replys you have gotten are not leading you wrong however. My personal view is this... being hit less will prolly benifit you more. To do this from AA you will need to take int ine.. 4468 and for the reuse 2 in the endine. Now so your understand I will explain. 4468 will give you around 4 levels of Parry skill depending on how much parry you already have it maybe as much as 10% more avoid. The endline is reuse time this will allow you to use your skills more often specifically our 30sec temp that ups parry/def and shield effectivness. Stamina line 4488 3rd tier if for DA which is more hate/dps 4th tier is for shield effectiveness 12% at max you said you cannot DW so this will further increase your avoid. you can take the endline it may or may not help you with power use.Str 448 for crit if you dont need the extra hate from the 4th tier wait to take it.as far as gear get your t1 shoulder for the extra mit first and foremost. this should increase your overall mit more then any AA choices your make. next pieces just either get bp legs or really you can take whatever is your weakest piece and upgrade according to your own personal pref. If anything if you have a lvl 50 toon between you and yoru wife you can get all the shards from DF/EF/CL a day which is 7 total. Zerker Tree take the cyclones down 3 each till you get to turmoil 5 there and 5 in open wounds those are you hate and dps. will help with your AE hate. also the endline int will help with reuse on those too. cyclones for the AE range and Taunt resistif you have the AA get the clickly zerker taking self and group zerker to max and filling in till you can access the clickly zerker. juggernaut is nice to max one day. come back to zerker tree later.TSO General get the hp and power 2.5% aa. Fighter improved rescue and the dps reduction endline if you need more hate.Warrior tree if you have the AA get stun resist and the shield block AA for increasing hate. Now by no means am I saying these guys are wrong to tell you what they have. However this is what worked for me. feel free to PM me if you would like more advice I spend a few hours a week helping any zerker that needs it and I havent had one zerker tell me i lead them wrong on anything. They have all excelled. My Zerkers link<a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/characters/character_profile.vm?characterId=573689203">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...terId=573689203</a>

Obadiah

07-16-2009, 12:41 PM

<cite>Xaax wrote:</cite><blockquote>I really didnt belive that anyone was completing TSO with crafted gear but I wanted to give the poster that stated that commit benefit of doubt and check.The only shards I do currently have were due to a guiildie helping me with a lv 52 toon so we can run the instances with all the mobs grey. After I did that I rolled a new alt and said not again. I just cant grind grey mobs to gear up, something just seems very wrong with that. I place it on the level of an exploit that SoE is pushing on players for really bad game design.</blockquote>As the poster who said that I suppose I should chime in. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Let's clarify ... I'm not out there completing TSO instances in crafted gear regularly. I tanked Deep Forge on my Monk in MC armor. Once. It was the level 77 MC armor, not the 72 stuff. It wasn't pretty. No, there were no Mythical/raiding healers. And we didn't have a Shaman. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" /> It was slow, as one might expect. We wiped on the named with the hammers a couple times, and once on the guy in the middle. My Berserker, being my main and OT used for raids since KoS never touched MC in T8. Honestly it seems like people run DF before anything else but I think Scion is much, much easier than DF. OoA I think is the easiest of all, and it shouldn't take many times through to upgrade your shield.I agree about the grey shards. It's too bad they didn't eliminate that before people started abusing that. I ran plenty back in early TSO .... primarily for AA though, the shards were just a side-effect. My suggestions would be:*You haven't done the Lavastorm solo series leading to WoE access. Do it. Among other things you'll get <a href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Ring_of_the_Flame_Disciple" target="_blank">a decent ring</a> at the end. If nothing else, do what you need to to get the daily shard quest, and then duo it with your wife.*Don't feel like you have to finish every instance. Can you kill the large groups in the Caverns of the Afflicted foyer? There are two shard quests that just require these mobs, which respawn as long as you don't kill the first Malevolent dude. There are quests in Halls of the Forsaken that similarly do not require the death of any named mobs.*Get enough shards to upgrade those level 69 boots ASAP. It's only 4 shards! (5 if you can't find a crafter ... still) Think I'd go with pants next ... 5 shards, iirc, and +6 Def, +6 Parry can't hurt, eh?*There are <a href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Survival_Accord_Badge" target="_blank">other niceties</a> you can get from solo quest lines. For that matter, you could duo the Rime faction stuff and be able to buy a relatively inexpensive, quality set of armor. I'd have to look at it again on the merchant to see exactly how nice it is.*Definitely do what Samous said with regards to the Int line. I hadn't noticed that you only went to the 3rd item there. Personally I would go to the end ability (4-4-6-8-2).

fbi

07-16-2009, 01:53 PM

Stance Mastery (end line WIS ability) does wonders for 'under' geared tanks (yours isn't awful just the TSO mobs are tough.) I had it on my 'Zerk prior to updrading to shard armor. We (my SO and I) were able to do TSO instances minus the nameds with just four characters (two + two boxed - my zerk, her fury and cony, and my dirge; by the way, once you have a dirge with your zerker you'll feel practically naked without one.) You can stay in DEF stance and be able to do better damage than you are now, and you also will not have any penalities to your temp defensive CAs. The WIS line gets pooh-poohed a lot around here, and for the better geared players probably deservedly so, but for the lesser geared tanks it really is quite good. It will get you through the rough patch until you can get your mit and avoidance higher, which will come with the shard armor. Good luck <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Xalmat

07-16-2009, 01:55 PM

<cite>Kimber@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Respec your Fighter tree tbh untill you get T1 shard gear you will get allot of benifit from having the Wis tree goingWis 4-4-4-8</blockquote>Do not follow this advice. STR STA INT is the way to go. However I do recommend you change it up to this:STR 4 4 8 5STA 4 4 8 8INT 4 6 4 8 2You don't need the hate gain from the STR line that bad, nor the STA end line. However you do want the extra 19 parry from the INT line as well as the INT end ability.Zerker tree, get Enhance Berserk Rage 5, Enhance Wall of Rage 3, and Enhance War Cry 3. Drop Enhance Open Wounds altogether, and max your Cyclones tree with everything else. Be sure to pick up Gut Bloodlust in the Debilitations tree (I recommend maxing everything except Body Check and Demolish to get it).All the WIS line does is remove the Defense penalty from offense stance, and the slashing penalty from defense stance. But a measely 20 points of each doesn't make as big a difference as you think. And besides the +19 Parry from INT tree makes up for it just as well.Remember to rotate your temporary defense buffs (Chaos, Wall of Rage, and Controlled Rage) throughout fights, they will greatly help you out. I find it most effective to always start with Controlled Rage, then hit Chaos when CR fades, and by the time Chaos fades, Controlled Rage should be available again. The opposite order works as well, but you'll then need to cycle Wall of Rage. And don't be afraid to hit Adrenaline when things hit the fan.I'll echo what the above posters said: Make friends with a Dirge, it will make your life a whole lot easier.Also a word of advice, remember to adorn your gear. Once you get some quality armor and jewelry that you won't be replacing easily, and once you get your epic, get the following adorns:Shoulder: Scintillating Rugged Straps (+100 HP)Forearm: Smoldering Glancing Splint (+8 parry)Neck: Smoldering Judicious Clasp (+12 DPS)Fingers: Smoldering Rugged Polish (+100 HP per ring)Wrist: Smoldering Balanced Fastening (+3% uncontested Parry per wrist)Bow: Smoldering Judicious Composite Gear (+12 DPS)Throwing: Smoldering Judicious Easyloader (+12 DPS)Slashing Weapon: Smoldering Balanced Ayr Stone (+3% uncontested Riposte)The Wrist and Slashing Weapon adorns are the big adornments to help your survivability, as are the shoulder, forearm, and ring adorns (the HP adorns are also fairly cheap).Also if you're interested in temporary food, look into the parry and dodge food and drink, known as reductions and infusions (Bruteflesh Reduction, Drachnid Reduction, Mountain Giant Sweat Infusion, Devourer Blood Infusion, etc. There's a whole bunch to pick from). They only last 30 minutes apiece, but they're worth the extra expense in keeping you alive.

Morgue

07-16-2009, 04:39 PM

Reason for the open wounds in Cyclones tree is to help him with his AE agro. I am certain he does not have his mythical yet and he may find Open wounds more useful for hate I did. However getting the 2 blue back AEs maxed may also work. In the cyclones line the only thing that most eveyone will share is Turmoil maxed. What ever works for you is what you should use. I only just recently started using Gut Bloodlust. I am only semi happy with it as its better then perz line. Some of the things in that line are ok. Xalmat has the adornments solid. No arguements at all there. And the food/water is what i use.So you understand the common theme MIT is important however avoid will keep you alive. Sure make friends with a dirge. I find I only need a dirge in raids now to get agro. Groups I never need a dirge any more only class that gives me grief is Brigand. If your still reading this thread you will have noticed almost everyone does something different. When you truely grasp the class you will have created your own playstyle and found out what works for you. So take everything we say with a grain of salt and if someone doesnt explain the reasoning behind it they prolly just copied someone else. -sam

Xalmat

07-16-2009, 05:52 PM

Dirges are one of those jack of all trades that just makes everything easier.They greatly boost your defense, to the point where it's like having a second healer in the group. They greatly boost your offense, which means mobs die faster. They greatly boost your aggro, which is good since holding aggro is your job. They can boost healing to your priests. They have good debuffs which debuff just about everything under the sun. And of course they put out some pretty good damage output for themselves.Tanking pre-mythical I never found Open Wounds warranted extra points, and really once you get Jeering Onslaught in the TSO tree your AoE aggro goes up significantly. But if you really wanted you could drop the INT tree for the AGI tree, which provides 40% AoE auto-attack full time as well as +Defense.

Morgue

07-16-2009, 08:27 PM

Dont get me wrong Xalmat I love my dirge friends I find myself going from 55% avoid DW to 67% with a dirge. TBH a dirge is a Zerkers best friend. since we run the line of tank/dps so well they boost us more then most classes. On top of that you will find you can DW with a dirge in your group more often and they will really help agro. Just remember to keep your weapons on the same attack timers. 3seconds being fabled and you can use a 3 or 6s OH.I cannot ever remember a time when I had trouble AE even pre Mythical. I am certain as soon as he gets a few better pieces of gear and atleast his fabled he will be seeing things get much easier. Thankfully he is playing his zerker after TSO....now that i think about it I was using Open Wounds more for a parse thing. Youll have to forgive me its been quite some time since I used open wounds for anything other then the haste when i wasnt already maxed.Nothing wrong with droping INT for AGI if you find it more useful. I never used the AGI tree.Seems like it all boils down to he needs gear. We can argue over what AA does what all day and none of us will do it the same. Some things are common like Stam DA and Str Crit. Personally if he just got an idea of what was out there and learned somethings about the AA and class from imput on this thread I would think we all contributed to another GOOD zerker. On a side note I dont disagree with Xalmat I just have a different method to my madness. I hope we didnt confuse you. And if we did feel free to ask I have found most of the zerker community helpful and willing to take time to teach a young zerker. at any rate...just a thought-sam

Kimber

07-16-2009, 09:15 PM

As many of the others here said and they are right find what works for you I went with Wis for a couple reasons and it worked for me lol. Each to their own though as things stand right now though I still have some of the Wis line but mainly for Belly Smash but then I am on a PvP server and with the crazy Mit and Crit Mit now it helps a lil to lower there stuff and I only have it on my DPS spec. My Tank spec is Str Stam and Int now that I have the gear to back it up.

Xalmat

07-16-2009, 09:25 PM

<cite>Samous@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>Seems like it all boils down to he needs gear</blockquote>That i can agree to.To the original poster, your gear is a good starting foundation. You just need to spend some time and get some upgrades now, which will come with time. The easiest pieces will be Tier 1 Gloves and Boots, but the biggest bang for your buck comes from the BP and Shoulders first. Once you have a full T1 set then you can move up to T2 piece-by-piece. Jewelry will be a bit harder to come by, but you'll get them running instances. I'd hold off on void shard jewelry until you get a full set of T2.

Aule

07-16-2009, 09:53 PM

Some of the 5 shard jewelry is pretty worthwhile for survivability purposes. Defender's band, for example, is ring 5 defense / parry (and deflection but you don't need that). There's a belt that's the same. There's some 15 and 20 shard items that do much the same, get those later if you still need them. The 5 shard ones though, they really made a huge difference for tanking on my bruiser.

Xaax

07-17-2009, 10:29 AM

I do have all my gear adorned, not sure why my profile link does not show the adornments? Xalmat’s list of adornments looks much better for the most part then what I have. I have a lot of +sta adornments instead of the +DPS stuff. I do not have my mythical but am working on it. I didn’t know about the 30 minute food, I usually use the stat + stuff, I will look for the parry/dodge stuff. I have changed my AAs to the:STR 4 4 8 5STA 4 4 8 8 INT 4 4 6 8 2 Kurgan, thank you for the item links some nice items, I will looking into getting those. TBH I didn’t think I was a terrible tank until Kurgan slapped me to the floor with tanking TSO in master crafted gear as a monk. I never had issues in DoF, Sky, EoF or Kunark instances. I even got a few complements on my tanking style. When TSO came out it was like running into a brick wall, I guess that crit mit is just that important. I guess in the end I just need to grind shards, I was kinda hoping that the next expansion would help my bypass that but its sounding like that is not going to happen. As far as looking for a chanter/bard, I will keep at it. I guess its either this or gind grey instances =/ Thank you all for the input, there is a lot of good opinions and advice in here.

TwistedFaith

07-17-2009, 12:19 PM

As another newbie zerker I thought this would be a good time to jump in with some questions.1. OK i'm running low on power a LOT. Yes I spam my CA's whilst timing my autoattacks but the way I like to play is that I pull fast and keep people on their toes. Any suggestions to counteract this instead of just getting a chanter in the group or using the end line of the STR line?2. Crit Mit. I was under the impression that only raid mobs were able to crit on you is this wrong? If so what would be a good crit number for simply tanking TSO instances? The difference between T1 and T2 armor seems so slim crit mit wise like +1 on a item etc.3. OK here goes with the stats, unbuffed I have around 12k Hitpoints, 46 DA and 55 MC. I dont know if this is good or bad, I think its bad but I am not sure.4. In terms of tanking zones, I always try to tank dual wielding in offensive stance, if I can hit too hard I switch to a shield and remain in offensive stance. I have 187 AAs and am tempted to put the last few points of my shadows tree into the offensive stance buff.

Xalmat

07-17-2009, 01:19 PM

<cite>TwistedFaith wrote:</cite><blockquote>As another newbie zerker I thought this would be a good time to jump in with some questions.1. OK i'm running low on power a LOT. Yes I spam my CA's whilst timing my autoattacks but the way I like to play is that I pull fast and keep people on their toes. Any suggestions to counteract this instead of just getting a chanter in the group or using the end line of the STR line?2. Crit Mit. I was under the impression that only raid mobs were able to crit on you is this wrong? If so what would be a good crit number for simply tanking TSO instances? The difference between T1 and T2 armor seems so slim crit mit wise like +1 on a item etc.3. OK here goes with the stats, unbuffed I have around 12k Hitpoints, 46 DA and 55 MC. I dont know if this is good or bad, I think its bad but I am not sure.4. In terms of tanking zones, I always try to tank dual wielding in offensive stance, if I can hit too hard I switch to a shield and remain in offensive stance. I have 187 AAs and am tempted to put the last few points of my shadows tree into the offensive stance buff.</blockquote>1. Nothing you can do about that. Make friends with an Enchanter or a mythical'd Mystic, that's about the best you can do. Berserkers go thru their power pool fast, especially if you use Adrenaline a lot. Just something you have to learn to deal with.One thing I do is adorn my offhander with a Smoldering Phantom Handle, which is a power proc. I also use lots of "Spirit Totem of the Goblin" to help with out-of-combat regen. And remember to adorn your cloak with a "Smoldering Metaphysical Lining", which provides a tiny amount of in-combat power regen (which is better than nothing).2. Tier 2 armor is sufficient for non-raid tanking. I know it doesn't seem like much, but that extra +10 crit mit or so that T2 armor provides over T1 is worth it just enough to keep you from getting slapped around too hard. The only way to get more crit mit than that is to run raid zones (Ward of Elements drops T3 set pieces, and TSO x4 zones drop T4 set pieces).3. For non-raid gear, your DA is good but your MC is very low. Need to get your MC as high as possible. But try not to sacrifice your DA in the process.4. That's the way I tank, and it's quite effective. Don't waste points on your Offense Stance AA, there's much better things to get.

Morgue

07-17-2009, 03:03 PM

To my knowledge and if i can find them I have screens of mobs criting before TSO.. which leads me to believe that they only increased the raid mobs crit mods so you would need crit mitigation. Cheap ploy to add more depth or another stat requirement for gear. We will see if this carries over to the next expansion. Wardens also have an Endline TSO ablitiy to increase crit mit by 15% when maxed. Keep in mind we do the majority of our dmg from are AutoAttack 50-60% my DPS tends to be Autoattack. so DA is more important that Crit atm. However when the change to crit stats on items goes to a coeffient styled stat you will want more crit for taunt crit. Zerkers should tank DW in Ostance as much as possible. once you get your Avoid to around 40% based before dirge/templar etc you can just spam your Defensive Temp buffs. Which should bring you to around 50% or more depending on your def/parry stats. Xalmat and I tend to play the zerker the same minus some minor details.As a zerker if your not charging groups of mobs, making healers cry, and constantly being a terror to every scout you see.. I dont think your doing your job... oh and bards arent scouts they are bards, idc what sony says they need to rethink so dumb ideas they have had for classes. Specifically Combine the 2 brawlers and give us all BL... sorry I wild tangent. LOL the filter will not allow you to spell out the class name <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />On a side note does anything believe the outleveling gear idea will actually stick this time? I have my doubts -sam

Xalmat

07-17-2009, 03:22 PM

<cite>Samous@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>To my knowledge and if i can find them I have screens of mobs criting before TSO.. which leads me to believe that they only increased the raid mobs crit mods so you would need crit mitigation. Cheap ploy to add more depth or another stat requirement for gear. We will see if this carries over to the next expansion. </blockquote>The only one that did to my recollection is Phara Dar in VP, and it was actually a bug that was fixed. Mobs didn't actually start critting properly until TSO. Even then non-raid mobs don't have a very large crit mod. Pretty sure when Sentinel's Fate comes around Crit Mit will still be a requirement.

Xalmat

07-17-2009, 06:37 PM

<cite>Xaax wrote:</cite><blockquote> I guess in the end I just need to grind shards, I was kinda hoping that the next expansion would help my bypass that but its sounding like that is not going to happen.</blockquote>Alas, the expansion is still seven months away. Gear upgrades will help you right now, and gear upgrades now will also help you out later.

TwistedFaith

07-18-2009, 08:33 AM

<cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote>4. That's the way I tank, and it's quite effective. Don't waste points on your Offense Stance AA, there's much better things to get.</blockquote>OK what would you suggest in terms of the shadow tree for a group only zerker. At the moment I have the following:0-0-0-5-5-0-0-0 (Health and Mount speed, i like the mount speed so I am not changing it)0-0-5-0-0-5-1 (Rescue reuse, and Mit bonus, along with taunt)0-5-0-0-0-5-1 (5 to increase group CA dmg and 5 for the defensive stance even though I rarely use it, along with the taunt)5-5-0-0-5-5-1-1 (Gibe,Reuse,Andrenaline,Shielding and both specials)This now leaves me with 4 points which I was thinking of putting in offensive stance to improve my hit rate seeing as so much of our damage comes from autoattack.Does anyone have any suggestions?

Xalmat

07-18-2009, 02:31 PM

Here's what I roll with, but I've been playing around with it a lot lately.General: 0-0-0-5-0-5-0-0Fighter: 0-5-0-0-0-5-1Warrior: 0-5-0-0-5-0-1Berserker: 5-5-5-5-4-0-1-1As long as you have the +Max HP AA, you're fine. The second choice doesn't matter a whole lot. I like +Max Power, some don't. And we'll leave it at that.I can't recommend points in Offensive Prowess because of one reason: All it does is improve the +Crush/Slash/Pierce of Offense Stance, and with the right group members you'll be capped in those stats pretty easy (which means the AAs will be unneeded, and wasted if you're over cap). Same thing with Consummate Defender, all it does is boost +Parry and +Defense, and with the right group you'll be capped on both. And if you rarely tank in Defensive in the first place, those points will rarely be useful.I personally went with 5 to Swinging Strike for a more DPS oriented setup, but Enhance: Rescue is another good choice (although it's mostly a raid tank tool and not as useful in instance tanking). Note that Enhance: Rescue won't cut the reuse of Rescue down as much as you think: 50% reuse translates to 1 minute 40 seconds less reuse than base (and if you have Int end-line and Hastened Reuse as well, that number actually becomes 1 minute 16 seconds).Veteran's Shielding enhances the mit of your armor in Defense Stance, but once you get some good gear (Tier 2 in particular) you'll notice the Mit bonus in Defense Stance doesn't really boost your mit by a whole lot anymore (the exception being our T4 6 set, which adds +6 Mitigation to our defense stance). Adding 5% more mit on top of that will not result in a very big increase to overall mit %, maybe 1% more (due to Diminishing Returns). And again if you rarely tank in Defensive in the first place, these AAs are wasted.Instead I recommend Absorbing Blows (which will help you resist Stuns). Aggressive Nature is somewhat useful, but if you do a lot of dual wield tanking it won't be effective while doing so.Berserker tree I went with a nearly full DPS setup, but I'm tempted to drop Adrenaline Rush for Gladiator's Rage. The one thing Gladiator's Rage has going for it is that it enhances the +Shield Effectiveness of Controlled Rage, and it's very difficult to cap Shield Effectiveness (especially without Raid gear). Adrenaline Rush helps build up hate while you have Adrenaline going, but of course all the hate in the world won't do any good against a trigger happy Wizard.

TwistedFaith

07-19-2009, 11:36 AM

My idea behind putting points into the offensive stance was that zerkers do the majority of their dps through autoattack and having a dirge in the group doesnt always happen.I like the enhance rescue skill, its up every 3minutes which is nice, the 3 positions is more than enough for group instances. I will be dropping the defensive stance buff as like you said I rarely use that anyway. I am not sure about the stun bonus, I am trying to rack my brains and think of zones that stun me, I havent run a lot of them as a tank honestly.I do think that Gladiators Rage is a nice skill, I have the bonus to it on the zerker tree and its up a lot. Maybe its me though but I rarely use Juggernaut, I just find that I get hit so hard its not worth apart from on trash.

Xalmat

07-19-2009, 05:57 PM

<cite>TwistedFaith wrote:</cite><blockquote>Maybe its me though but I rarely use Juggernaut, I just find that I get hit so hard its not worth apart from on trash.</blockquote>I always pair Juggernaut with a temp buff or Adrenaline if I use it on named mobs. Trash mobs they usually die fast enough it doesn't matter.

MoonSorceror

07-20-2009, 01:19 PM

I helped a newbie zerker main from the guild through that situation with my templar and it were hours I don't really like look back at... Try to get stacked groups with minimum of two supporters and at least a dirge or a coercer. Having a templar to heal doesn't hurt either due to the number of defensive buffs they've got.And have every piece of T1 armor (the berserker/guardian flavor of course!) crafted as soon as you've got the shards - starting from your worst pieces. Don't go for shard jewelry before you've got the 5 piece bonus for the T1 set. After that there's nice 5 shard stuff with loads of defense/parry stats on there to give you better survivability.Also try to get the best tower shield you can afford - either a legendary one with +3 shield effectivity or a fabled one (fabled with +3 shield effectivity is of course the winner here but not so easy to get)A cheap improvement for survivability is also the Danak Vial Necklace with 2% riposte chance which can be crafted from a cheap component by any crafter with sufficient faction from Danak Shipyard.

Costa

07-22-2009, 09:02 AM

Aull

07-23-2009, 06:52 PM

Excellent info here from all of you. I wish all the boards were this infomative and everyone being helpful. It has been a pleasure reading this thread. Great job all!

TuinalOfTheNexus

07-24-2009, 08:53 PM

The general thing I've found, having tanked/raid tanked for years, is;- Aggro needs to come before survivability. If your aggro is completely solid, then the healers have to worry about 1 thing, keeping you alive. If your aggro is anything less, then healers will end up trying to heal 2+ people at once, or stop heals on you totally. This will kill you more than having 5% less avoidance, or whatever. This is a key mistake many tanks make, thinking 'ah, i'll just let the wiz die', when in the process of dying the wizard has eaten the group ward, deathsaves, and made the healer change target, so you get subsequently flattened straight after.What this means in practical terms is that you should be dual wielding for the majority of content, and you should be in offensive stance for virtually all content. Alternate open wounds, rampage, and insolence between encounters to be sure you always have a decent amount of AE aggro going out. Use adrenaline frequently to compensate the loss in survivability, and as someone else mentioned get the charm from guk: halls, and/or the lavastorm collection to help with power.If you're holding aggro solidly but still getting completely flattened, then you can start bringing in more defensive gear.- Be prepared (cliche I know). Not having freedom of mind and freedom of action potions as a tank will cause avoidable wipes. Similarly having and using cure potions can help the healer substantially on mobs that land high damage DoTs, since they aren't faced with the difficult decision of whether to spam heal or cure. Signets, too, if used with an understanding of all the encounters, can mean the difference between a semi-difficult fight or completely steamrollering a named as though it were trash.- Use contol effects. As a zerker you have a fairly long stifle, multiple knockdowns, an interrupt and a stun. If you're fighting stuff that is really causing you to spike, then using these carefully rather than spamming will buy the healer a few seconds at critical moments. Also be aware that you can snare mobs easily with the temporary proc buff, meaning simply moving away from the mob can stop it from damaging you, an obvious fact often overlooked (although this will of course annoy any scouts and is best kept to a minimum).- Get positioning right. Avoid pulling mobs that AE back ontop of the group, but also avoid running away from the healer on a pull. Get the encounter static as soon as possible and make sure your UI is setup to let you cast CAs and move at the same time. If in doubt keep your back to a wall to prevent any knockback incidents. Couple the clickable berserk from the Zerker tree with adrenaline on difficult pulls so it's up from the start of the pull rather than waiting for a proc.- Get targetting right. Slackers in the group will target through you so what you target will die first. Remember that rapid cycling of targets so all mobs in an encounter die at roughly the same time maximises dps but makes life harder for the healers. Conversely, burning down one target at a time increases your survivability but reduces dps and increases the total time to kill the encounter.- Get AAs right. As noted str/sta/int is the 'correct' spec. Avoid the wisdom line, it won't help; if you need mitigation you have 2 temporary buffs that put you well above the curve. Lot of info on AA setup out there already so I won't repeat it here.I'm sure there's other stuff but those things seem to be the most common things lacking in bad tanks.

Kordran

07-24-2009, 09:07 PM

<cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite><blockquote>If your aggro is anything less, then healers will end up trying to heal 2+ people at once, or stop heals on you totally. This will kill you more than having 5% less avoidance, or whatever. This is a key mistake many tanks make, thinking 'ah, i'll just let the wiz die', when in the process of dying the wizard has eaten the group ward, deathsaves, and made the healer change target, so you get subsequently flattened straight after.</blockquote>A couple of comments:Letting wizards die is amusing. Reminding them that their DPS while dead is 0 is just priceless.In all seriousness, the DPS classes are also responsible for their threat generation. They even have that handy noob... I mean, threat meter now. If you're a mage or scout and you're grouped with a lesser-geared tank, it's as much your job to throttle your DPS as it is his to try and hold aggro. If you don't like holding back, then find yourself a different tank. One of the things about the game right now is that most people seem to think that aggro control is solely on the tank, and that's simply not the case. Because you can go full-burn in groups with your guild's MT and OTs doesn't mean that you should expect to do the same with some PUG tank in T1 legendary. And if you can't exercise any self-control, then the tank and healer(s) should just let you die until you get the point or /ragequit.Aggro management should be a team effort between the tank and the DPS classes that he's soaking up damage for.

TuinalOfTheNexus

07-25-2009, 04:08 AM

The problem, though, is that the tanks who struggle with aggro usually use 'it's the dpser's fault' as an excuse to stop themselves from worrying about improving. Similarly gear is often used as an excuse for a bad playstyle.I mean, yes, DPSers do foolish things sometimes, but since you can't do anything about that, you should be trying your absolute best to keep aggro, and you have a heck of a lot of tools to enable that even with a significant DPS gap. Given equivalent gear it should be near impossible for them to pull aggro if you're doing your job right.Horde stuff with +double attack and +melee crit, and mutagenic burst, get a decent offhand and build a set of gear to maximise DPS. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to hold aggro against a mythical wiz or warlock with the fabled epic and a bunch of +2crit/DA legendary gear, and mutagenic for the really big pulls (e.g. outer stronghold).

Xalmat

07-25-2009, 04:48 AM

Aggro is a two way street.DPSers need to control their aggro.But at the same time it's up to the Tank to put out as much aggro as possible.

Haze

07-27-2009, 07:36 PM

Stick with Scion and Deep Forge until you get your T1 gear, then go after the other everfrost instances. Its hard, and does take some time. Also get your fabled weapon, that will also help alot, and always tank in defensive stance (even when dual wielding).At least, thats how I did it until I got geared up.

Hardkatt

07-28-2009, 05:06 AM

In my experience with EQ2, each expansion for a tank flip-flops between mitigation and avoidance. With expansions like RoK where the mobs swing fast, avoidance was key. EoF and TSO deal with slower swinging mobs that do high damage, which means you need mitigation. SoE even gave everyone a hint as to which you would need in this one by adding critical mitigation for critical hits.When I'm tanking Xebnok, Switchy, pentalclypse, whatever, my mitigation is what I most worry about. Of course I still run AGI potions and parry food, but I want my mit as high as my avoidance.Group instance same thing, but don't blame yourself on all these encounters. I have tanked Varsoon to death with a solo Warden. Does that mean any Warden can solo heal Varsoon? Not likely, I've been Pwnd in the face by Varsoon with 2 healers before.Needless to say, it sounds like you really care about your play style and don't want to feel like you're not doing your part, when in fact it takes a group to go through instances, not the tank draggin a bunch of bots.

Aull

07-28-2009, 09:37 AM

<cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite><blockquote>The problem, though, is that the tanks who struggle with aggro usually use 'it's the dpser's fault' as an excuse to stop themselves from worrying about improving. Similarly gear is often used as an excuse for a bad playstyle.I mean, yes, DPSers do foolish things sometimes, but since you can't do anything about that, you should be trying your absolute best to keep aggro, and you have a heck of a lot of tools to enable that even with a significant DPS gap. Given equivalent gear it should be near impossible for them to pull aggro if you're doing your job right.Horde stuff with +double attack and +melee crit, and mutagenic burst, get a decent offhand and build a set of gear to maximise DPS. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to hold aggro against a mythical wiz or warlock with the fabled epic and a bunch of +2crit/DA legendary gear, and mutagenic for the really big pulls (e.g. outer stronghold).</blockquote>I agree somewhat with you. Everyday t2 or lesser armored non myth zerks cannot compensate for a nuke that just crited for 25K and nothing in the zerkers abilities other than rescue will help unless of course aa's are maxed for their abilities.So no matter how hard a zerker tries to keep aggro a strong dps class will rip aggro everytime off the zerker if the zerker has no forms of hate increasers or transfer.So I would say that dps classes will always have a much easier time generating hate than what a zerker can. So they to need to be attentive to the good ole hate meter.

Xaax

07-29-2009, 12:54 PM

<cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite><blockquote>I mean, yes, DPSers do foolish things sometimes, but since you can't do anything about that, you should be trying your absolute best to keep aggro, and you have a heck of a lot of tools to enable that even with a significant DPS gap. Given equivalent gear it should be near impossible for them to pull aggro if you're doing your job right.</blockquote>Could you please clarify this statement? As long as I am tanking for a similar level group as I am, I never have issues. When I play with t2 swashies, t3 wizard and even a top gear SK I have spikes where the mob turns and I can’t get agro back. I will pop rescue and watch the mob look at me and turn right back at the DPS’ers. One big one that comes to mind is a top geared brig on our server can auto attack and take agro for every non top raid geared tank I have ever seen(I usualy let him tank when I group with him) LOL, if there ever was an ego blow, its having a scout out tank you while they are AFK. Edit to add: LOL, my reading skills are lacking, I missed the part, "Given equivalent gear ". yaa I never have issue with peeps that arent 95% raid geared.

Artalis the Elder

08-05-2009, 06:36 PM

SK's are problematic to tank for, Deathmarch is great, its also a great big aoe taunt. Their Grave Sacrament ability is I'm pretty sure, the single biggest taunt in the entire game (and a lot of them don't even know it) If either of those buttons get pushed you will lose aggro in some cases. Sometimes not to Deathmarch if you are dishing out enough pain to all the mobs in the encounter, but Grave Sacrament takes it every time. A t3 wiz with Najena's Ring of Readiness can drop an 80k+ nuke on a debuffed mob, if they do it at the wrong time you can pretty much bet the mob is going to be right miffed about it. Swashbucklers are aoe dps machines, and their auto attack hits harder than ours and hits almost as many mobs as ours. They also have short term buffs that up their output considerably just like our own Rampage, only moreso. Make sure they are putting their hate transfer on you and I say again, get a pocket Dirge. Brigs are the worst. No hate transfer of their own and we have nothing to do to them but try to outdps them. If you manage that then you are either pulling lots of mobs or the brig isn't all that great. If you want to lock in aggro get a dirge and coercer and get a peaceful link put on the brig and +hate on you from both classes. At that point you should be able to have complete control of the hate, barring stuns/stifles on pull or the like.