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7t538teo8srtfgn

08-01-2009, 04:02 AM

Ok, I have a level 80 Paladin, which rocks in tanking purely due to the large number of taunts. But I thought I'd try a proper tank and make a Guardian. Going well so far, apart from one thing: AA. Now the Guardian is only good for one thing: defence. it stands there and gets hit a lot. That's it. Nothing else. So I'm looking at the AA possibilities, and it looks like to achieve the one thing a Guardian can do properly (get hit), you need:Strength:4448. For hate gain.Stamina: 8(or 4)448. For more defence.Agility: 8(or 4)448 (and maybe 2 at the end). For shield effectiveness.Widsom: 8(or 4)448. For defence increase.Intelligence:4448. For the parry.(Now many people quote "diminishing returns" without knowing what that means, but don't bother. A benefit is still a benefit, so adding more to the top rows for health, avoidance, and resistances is always going to be good. It's not diminishing returns that's the problem with choosing 4 or 8 for the top row; it's simply choosing which is better, a trade off between one thing an another. And no, that's not the definition of diminishing returns.)Anyway, it looks like to actually do properly the one thing a Guardian is good for requires more than can actually be done. That being said, how do I get around the 70-point limit most effectively?

Rahatmattata

08-01-2009, 04:43 AM

Str: 4,4,8 CritsSta: 4,4,8,8,2 Dbl Attk, Shield Mod, Power Conumption + tiny HP regenInt: 4,8,8,5,2 Haste, Parry & ReuseFor x4 tanking. I could drop 3 from int line and 2 from Sta endline and free up 5 AA, and then probably take agi: 4,1... but I can do without the extra PBAoE when tanking x4 content. Or, I could put the 5 points in str4 (hate mod and +base taunt), which is where I did have it, but I've found my threat hasn't noticably changed by moving those 5 points into the int and sta trees, and I have slightly more haste, and consume a little less power, which I do find slightly noticable and has ebbed my coercer's QQing a little (I mean... it IS 10% less mana used which is fairly substantial). Wis: 4,1 Belly Smash might be a viable choice for the mit debuff and extra damage CA, but I don't think it works on epics, although I've never tried so I could be wrong. Shield bash appears to work on a lot of epic mobs, so I guess Belly Smash might work. Even though it says it doesn't work on epic, I definatly do see a knock-down animation on many mobs, so who knows?Str: 4,4,5 CritsAgi: 4,4,8 AoE AASta: 4,4,8 Dbl AttkInt: 4,8,8,2,2 Haste & ReuseFor Heroic and x2 tankingThis is my current setup. I don't need hate mod from str line because in a raid I'm at 59%, and I don't do heroic content without a dirge... or at least a troub & transfer. Putting more than 4 points in the first "stats" row is a waste. I have a lot of parry self-buffed, and a lot more with a dirge, so I don't put emphasis in Int 4. Although the extra 2 or 3% haste probably isn't doing much for me either, I have more aggro issues than survival issues atm.Heroic and x2 tanking setup is purely for mob control. No need for anything in the Wis line really, when there are other better IMO choices. The +mit is virtually useless when you are over 60%, if you are under that, maybe you would get some use, but I would still think 8 points is better spent elsewhere. The stance mastery is not needed IMO, and will not make up for the bonuses you get from each stance. Full agi line with Dragoon's Reflexes is fun to toy around with while leveling up, especially for mass pulls, AoE content, and an Oh sht! button before level 58 & Tower of Stone, but in end-game, it's really not all that great, and hopefully not needed with good healers and your own many saves. The +defense from agi line is miniscule at end-game... yes it will boost your avoidance 0.6% or so, but that's 8 points your talking about that could be spent elsewhere.I highly recommend final int line ability, and recommend 8 in crits and dbl attk, and 8 in AoE AA if tanking heroic content, or even attempting to OT waves of adds... but other than that, you will be hard-pressed to find two guardians with the exact same KoS build. You pretty much have to tailor your tree to your own stats and needs.

7t538teo8srtfgn

08-01-2009, 12:34 PM

I'm going to post a little comparison of the usefulness and organisation of AA trees. First the Guardian. Now keep in mind that the Guardian will never be an effective attacking class; it only exists for defence. So any AA abilities which boost attack are totally wasted.Bind Wound: 1STRENGTH: 20 points.Executioner's Strength: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Executioner's Wrath: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Weapon Expertise: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Executioner's Anger: You want 8 in here for hate gain.Executioner's Fury: totally unnecessary for tanking.AGILITY: 24 points.Dragoon's Agility: 8 for maximising Avoidance.Dragoon's Spin: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Dragoon's Cycline: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Dragoon's Avoidance: 8 for maximising Avoidance.Dragoon's Reflexes: only works for 12 seconds, so not worth it.STAMINA: 28 points.Gladiator's Stamina: 8 for maximising Health.Reversal: maximum, 8, for defensive bonuses.Gladiator's Finesse: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Gladiator's Revenge: maximum, 8, for defensive bonuses.Arena Endurance: Not really worth it, as during raids a healer will be handling your health.WISDOM: 24 points.Demolisher's Wisdom: 8 for maximising resistances.Belly Smash: totally useless for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Seasoned Veteran: totally useless for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Unshakable: 8 for maximising defence.Stance Mastery: Not necessary but a nice bonus.INTELLIGENCE: 22 points.Slayer's Intelligence: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Acceleration Strike: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Slayer's Speed: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Parry: 8 for maximising defence.Relentless Assault: Only worthwhile 5th row ability for Guardians, 2 points.That's 119 points spread over five separate lines just to get the basics of defence plus only one 5th row ability. For a tank to be a tank, it needs high defence (mitigation, avoidance, and parry), plus high health and high resistances, which is why it needs all of those things above.Now here's the AA for an Assassin, which is pure attack, pure damage.Bounty: 1 point.STRENGTH: 26 points.Blademaster's Strength: an obvious increase to attacking power, so 8 points.Bladed Opening: minimum 4 points. An extra attack is good for this class.Interepting Blades: totally unnecessary for pure attacker but requires at least 4 anyway.Precision Of Blades: 8 points to maximise DPS.Perfectionist: a HUGE boost to attack power, so another 2 points here.AGILITY: 8 points.Archer's Agility: 8 points to maximise attack speed.Point Blank Shot: Unnecessary.Fitness: Unnecessary.Ranged Expertise: Unnecessary.Poise: Unnecessary.STAMINA: 0 points.Hunter's Stamina: Unnecessary.Spinning Spear: Unnecessary.Conditioning: Unnecessary.Surrounding Attacks: Unnecessary.Impenetrable: Unnecessary.WISDOM: 0 points.Prowler's Wisdom: Unnecessary.Placating Strike: Unnecessary.Prowler's Cunning: Unnecessary.Obfuscation: Unnecessary.Smoke Bomb: Unnecessary.INTELLIGENCE: 20 points.Nightshade's Intelligence: 4 points just for access to next ability.Poison Combination: 4 points just for access to next ability. A nice extra if you have spare points.Neurotoxic Coating: 4 points just for access to next ability. A nice extra if you have spare points.Toxic Expertise: 8 points to maximise DPS.Intoxication: Unecessary but not a bad attack, optional 2 points.That's only 55 points to get the most out of the Assassin's class AA tree. Spread over only two lines, and the first row of a third. For an assassin to be what it is, a pure attacker, it only needs the few abilities listed above.That's not very well balanced.

thial

08-01-2009, 02:05 PM

<cite>7t538teo8srtfgn wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm going to post a little comparison of the usefulness and organisation of AA trees. First the Guardian. Now keep in mind that the Guardian will never be an effective attacking class; it only exists for defence. So any AA abilities which boost attack are totally wasted.Bind Wound: 1STRENGTH: 20 points.Executioner's Strength: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Executioner's Wrath: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Weapon Expertise: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Executioner's Anger: You want 8 in here for hate gain.Executioner's Fury: totally unnecessary for tanking.AGILITY: 24 points.Dragoon's Agility: 8 for maximising Avoidance.Dragoon's Spin: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Dragoon's Cycline: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Dragoon's Avoidance: 8 for maximising Avoidance.Dragoon's Reflexes: only works for 12 seconds, so not worth it.STAMINA: 28 points.Gladiator's Stamina: 8 for maximising Health.Reversal: maximum, 8, for defensive bonuses.Gladiator's Finesse: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Gladiator's Revenge: maximum, 8, for defensive bonuses.Arena Endurance: Not really worth it, as during raids a healer will be handling your health.WISDOM: 24 points.Demolisher's Wisdom: 8 for maximising resistances.Belly Smash: totally useless for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Seasoned Veteran: totally useless for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Unshakable: 8 for maximising defence.Stance Mastery: Not necessary but a nice bonus.INTELLIGENCE: 22 points.Slayer's Intelligence: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Acceleration Strike: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Slayer's Speed: totally unnecessary for tanking but requires at least 4 anyway.Parry: 8 for maximising defence.Relentless Assault: Only worthwhile 5th row ability for Guardians, 2 points.That's 119 points spread over five separate lines just to get the basics of defence plus only one 5th row ability. For a tank to be a tank, it needs high defence (mitigation, avoidance, and parry), plus high health and high resistances, which is why it needs all of those things above.Now here's the AA for an Assassin, which is pure attack, pure damage.Bounty: 1 point.STRENGTH: 26 points.Blademaster's Strength: an obvious increase to attacking power, so 8 points.Bladed Opening: minimum 4 points. An extra attack is good for this class.Interepting Blades: totally unnecessary for pure attacker but requires at least 4 anyway.Precision Of Blades: 8 points to maximise DPS.Perfectionist: a HUGE boost to attack power, so another 2 points here.AGILITY: 8 points.Archer's Agility: 8 points to maximise attack speed.Point Blank Shot: Unnecessary.Fitness: Unnecessary.Ranged Expertise: Unnecessary.Poise: Unnecessary.STAMINA: 0 points.Hunter's Stamina: Unnecessary.Spinning Spear: Unnecessary.Conditioning: Unnecessary.Surrounding Attacks: Unnecessary.Impenetrable: Unnecessary.WISDOM: 0 points.Prowler's Wisdom: Unnecessary.Placating Strike: Unnecessary.Prowler's Cunning: Unnecessary.Obfuscation: Unnecessary.Smoke Bomb: Unnecessary.INTELLIGENCE: 20 points.Nightshade's Intelligence: 4 points just for access to next ability.Poison Combination: 4 points just for access to next ability. A nice extra if you have spare points.Neurotoxic Coating: 4 points just for access to next ability. A nice extra if you have spare points.Toxic Expertise: 8 points to maximise DPS.Intoxication: Unecessary but not a bad attack, optional 2 points.That's only 55 points to get the most out of the Assassin's class AA tree. Spread over only two lines, and the first row of a third. For an assassin to be what it is, a pure attacker, it only needs the few abilities listed above.That's not very well balanced.</blockquote>dps = agro I would not follow this "guide" you made at all unless you wana really suck....sorry take no offense. Most of the stuff you said "totally unnecessary for tanking" are just the opposite

7t538teo8srtfgn

08-01-2009, 02:12 PM

<cite>Jdark@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>dps = agro I would not follow this "guide" you made at all unless you wana really suck....sorry take no offense. Most of the stuff you said "totally unnecessary for tanking" are just the opposite</blockquote>No offence taken. People will inevitably disagree on many things about game mechanics and such.However, a Guardian can not rely on DPS to generate aggression. Just won't happen. You will only maintain aggro through aggro-borrowing abilities. When you're in a raid and the party is throwing out 100,000 damage, and your Guardian is doing maybe 2% of that, it just won't make any difference to add an attack which increases your own DPS by 5% or whatever (which would be going from 2% to 2.1% of the party's DPS in this hypothetical example). Got another AA attack which let's you hit something for a few hundred points? Cool! Won't make any difference. You get your aggro by borrowing half the assassin's hate when he's throwing in ten times as much damage. Meanwhile, the assassin doesn't have to survive being hit, but you do.But if you want to include those extra attacks as being necessary for a tank to be a tank, go right ahead. It simply adds to my point about the Guardian requiring so many more AAs just to be a tank.

Rahatmattata

08-01-2009, 02:50 PM

You're AA setup is garbage but do what you want. 8 in wisdom lol serious? You think dps doesn't matter and want to put 8 in hate gain, when you will be capped anyway. You might as well put 8 in crits instead <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /> A guardian has to maximize dps in addition to transfers and hate mod in order to hold aggro. You get your hate mod capped and transfers from other classes, you maximize your dps through other class buffs and your AA tree. Putting 8 points in the stats is dumb. Who cares about an extra 16 stamina when you could have another 20% double attack <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" />You seem to talk as if you know a lot about guardians. "For a tank to be a tank, it needs high defence (mitigation, avoidance, and parry), plus high health and high resistances, which is why it needs all of those things above." And yet you fail to realize if you aren't holding aggro your extra 32 wisdom (lulz) and 0.4% mitigation boost means sht. Sorry, but we aren't easy-mode paladins that hold aggro like a champ through some threat transfer, and focus on pure defense. We actually have to do stuff to get and maintain aggro, which as a pally that's probably a new concept to you.

7t538teo8srtfgn

08-01-2009, 03:00 PM

<cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote>You're AA setup is garbage but do what you want. 8 in wisdom lol serious? You think dps doesn't matter and want to put 8 in hate gain, when you will be capped anyway. You might as well put 8 in crits instead <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /> A guardian has to maximize dps in addition to transfers and hate mod in order to hold aggro. You get your hate mod capped and transfers from other classes, you maximize your dps through other class buffs and your AA tree. Putting 8 points in the stats is dumb. Who cares about an extra 16 stamina when you could have another 20% double attack <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" />You seem to talk as if you know a lot about guardians. "For a tank to be a tank, it needs high defence (mitigation, avoidance, and parry), plus high health and high resistances, which is why it needs all of those things above." And yet you fail to realize if you aren't holding aggro your extra 32 wisdom (lulz) and 0.4% mitigation boost means sht.</blockquote>Again using the hypothetical example, doing 2% of party's 100K DPS. That's 2K per second. Assuming the 20% double attack is working on a flat rate and actually firing off 20% of the time boosts your DPS to 2.4K. So you'd go from 2% of the party's damage to a bit under 2.4%. Again, it will make no difference at all.On the other hand, resistances are absolutely vital for any tank class. If you're stunned/stifled and unable to fire off a Rescue or such when required, that 0.4% DPS gain won't do much for anyone; the mob will go eat your healer and wipe the raid. Better to take every small increase in resistances and leave the DPS to those who can actually do it.I've always been impressed by the persuasive power of lulz.

7t538teo8srtfgn

08-01-2009, 03:14 PM

But we're moving away from the point. If it makes you feel better, take four points off Wisdom, reducing the Guardian's tally to 115 points against the Assassin's 55. Heck, put more points into those extra Guardian attacks, so you can do an extra 0.000001% damage, and increase the Guardian's tally of points.

Rahatmattata

08-01-2009, 04:34 PM

You are right. Your AA setup is teh pwn and I am logging in right now to respec.You probably think the dbl attk line in EoF tree is useless too? And if you are doing 2k dps in a 100k dps raid... then lulz indeed.

7t538teo8srtfgn

08-01-2009, 04:45 PM

<cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote>You are right. Your AA setup is teh pwn and I am logging in right now to respec.You probably think the dbl attk line in EoF tree is useless too? And if you are doing 2k dps in a 100k dps raid... then lulz indeed.</blockquote><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hypothetical?r=66" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://dictionary.reference.com/bro...pothetical?r=66</a><a href="http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/example?view=uk" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oe...example?view=uk</a>If you're wondering, then no, posting a 'pwn' or 'lol' doesn't change numbers or reality.Again, if it makes you feel any better, change that 2K to 5K or 10K. The result is the same. The increase derived from a boost to double attack is dwarfed by the hate gain accrued from borrowing a DPS class's aggression. Maximising aggro-gaining abilities results in greater benefit than maximising attacking power for a class that has minimal attacking power. Again, this is why you're better off boosting defences and letting DPS classes do the DPS.

7t538teo8srtfgn

08-01-2009, 05:12 PM

This shouldn't need explaining, but here goes anyway, and I'll try to keep the language simple. The game designers do this thing called 'game balance' or 'class balance'. It may not be done well sometimes, but they do it anyway. This involves having different roles for the different types of characters, rather than having one type of character which is awesome at everything. For example, they created a type of character which is good at defence, and another type which is good at attacking, another which is good at healing, and another which is good at boosting the abilities of others, and so on. If you play the type which is good at defence, it won't be very good at attacking. Similarly, if you play the type which is good at healing, it won't be good at defence. It may not be realistic in any way, but it's done so people can play the game in different ways, function co-operatively in groups, and have characters and playing styles they enjoy. What this all means for your tank is that it isn't a strong attacker, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.

thial

08-01-2009, 07:04 PM

problem is im at cap def cap parry(raid buffed im at 620+ in both) welll into the mit curve that 240 or whatever mit it is from the wis line dont mean a thing but mayb .1 less damage.....If I was to do the spec you showed my agro would be weaker than it is now.....parry and the mit curve are very easy to get into I found the def stat took a few good upgrades to cap but any gaurd that is raiding should be able to reach the soft cap of a stat with proper buffs there is no reason to go over board.....There are many aspects of tanking as a guard besides going pure deffense which just does not work with the current status of the game...You got a link to your guard and his gear? what lvl is he? I'd like to know...btw I would love to be able to just spec every deffense AA spec there is but it just not the way it is, for many reasons... The only way I think you will relize it is through experience with the guard and actually care about keeping agro....

Rahatmattata

08-01-2009, 07:09 PM

<cite>7t538teo8srtfgn wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you play the type which is good at defence, it won't be very good at attacking.This is not how the game works. I'll try to explain it in simple words for you. You can't rely on other classes to generate threat for you and sit there like a taunt monkey doing crappy dps. A guardian has to maximize his dps (personally and with group buffs) and have hate mod boosted and have threat transfered in order to reliably hold aggro. Take out even one of those elements and threat control gets ugly. Your assumption that an extra 10 or 15% crit and double attack will make very little difference is wrong. Your assumption that an additional 32 wisdom will boost your magic mitigation more than one tenth of one percent is wrong. Your assumption that tanks don't do good dps is wrong.I do roughly 8k dps in a 100k dps raid. Most other raiding guards would consider my dps to be low. My defense and parry are way over cap, and I have so much stamina that another 16 means beans. I have 22k hp, a hair over 80% avoidance, and ~68% mitigation. I can get to over 70% mitigation in any type of magic damage. Even 100 extra wisdom will be virtually useless. If I used your AA setup I would probably do like 4-5k dps, and even less when you factor in running around like a chicken chasing the mob 1 shotting my dps classes, because I wouldn't be able to hold aggro. And I would gain virtually nothing in defensive ability.But you aren't going to change my mind about my AA setup, and you won't change your mind about yours until you get to end-game and try it for yourself. It may seem like a fine setup while you are leveling, when you can do Runnyeye and SoS with no AAs at all perfectly fine, and the rest of your group is in treasured garbage and apprentice one, or 3 levels lower than you... but when you get to end-game where players are on equal footing, relying on other classes to manage their hate while you pump out a pathetic 2k dps won't make you many friends.</blockquote>

7t538teo8srtfgn

08-02-2009, 02:10 AM

<cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>7t538teo8srtfgn wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you play the type which is good at defence, it won't be very good at attacking.This is not how the game works. I'll try to explain it in simple words for you. You can't rely on other classes to generate threat for you and sit there like a taunt monkey doing crappy dps. A guardian has to maximize his dps (personally and with group buffs) and have hate mod boosted and have threat transfered in order to reliably hold aggro. Take out even one of those elements and threat control gets ugly. Your assumption that an extra 10 or 15% crit and double attack will make very little difference is wrong. Your assumption that an additional 32 wisdom will boost your magic mitigation more than one tenth of one percent is wrong. Your assumption that tanks don't do good dps is wrong.I do roughly 8k dps in a 100k dps raid. Most other raiding guards would consider my dps to be low. My defense and parry are way over cap, and I have so much stamina that another 16 means beans. I have 22k hp, a hair over 80% avoidance, and ~68% mitigation. I can get to over 70% mitigation in any type of magic damage. Even 100 extra wisdom will be virtually useless. If I used your AA setup I would probably do like 4-5k dps, and even less when you factor in running around like a chicken chasing the mob 1 shotting my dps classes, because I wouldn't be able to hold aggro. And I would gain virtually nothing in defensive ability.But you aren't going to change my mind about my AA setup, and you won't change your mind about yours until you get to end-game and try it for yourself. It may seem like a fine setup while you are leveling, when you can do Runnyeye and SoS with no AAs at all perfectly fine, and the rest of your group is in treasured garbage and apprentice one, or 3 levels lower than you... but when you get to end-game where players are on equal footing, relying on other classes to manage their hate while you pump out a pathetic 2k dps won't make you many friends.</blockquote></blockquote>Yep. I've always found claims of awesomeness and accusations of suckiness to be mighty convincing, and always superior to mathematics.I've already explained to you the benefit given by extra double attack. Now for critical hits. A crit on a CA is going to be up to +30% or 33%, I forget which. Doing an extra 33% (at best) around 15% of the time, again, adds diddly to raid DPS. On your auto-attacks you'll be doing maximum base damage plus one. Again, not that big a deal.And no, you little ray of sunshine, I don't output 2K. That's why I gave you links to definitions of the words "hypothetical" and "example", and recommended you try the same example using 5K and 10K.

7t538teo8srtfgn

08-02-2009, 02:12 AM

<cite>Jdark@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>problem is im at cap def cap parry(raid buffed im at 620+ in both) welll into the mit curve that 240 or whatever mit it is from the wis line dont mean a thing but mayb .1 less damage.....If I was to do the spec you showed my agro would be weaker than it is now.....parry and the mit curve are very easy to get into I found the def stat took a few good upgrades to cap but any gaurd that is raiding should be able to reach the soft cap of a stat with proper buffs there is no reason to go over board.....There are many aspects of tanking as a guard besides going pure deffense which just does not work with the current status of the game...You got a link to your guard and his gear? what lvl is he? I'd like to know...btw I would love to be able to just spec every deffense AA spec there is but it just not the way it is, for many reasons... The only way I think you will relize it is through experience with the guard and actually care about keeping agro....</blockquote>Yeah, if you're at the cap for anything, the question of boosting those things becomes irrelevant anyway. Obviously in such a case you have no reason to put points into things which boost capped factors.

Rahatmattata

08-02-2009, 02:27 AM

<cite>7t538teo8srtfgn wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've already explained to you the benefit given by extra double attack.</blockquote><blockquote>And you got it wrong.</blockquote>

Xalmat

08-02-2009, 02:43 AM

DPS = Aggro. Plain and simple. Taunts alone will not keep the mob on you.

Rahatmattata

08-02-2009, 02:56 AM

<cite>7t538teo8srtfgn wrote:</cite><blockquote>However, a Guardian can not rely on DPS to generate aggression. Just won't happen. You will only maintain aggro through aggro-borrowing abilities......... You get your aggro by borrowing half the assassin's hate when he's throwing in ten times as much damage. </blockquote>This line of thinking is pretty much the hole in your entire argument. An assassin transfering 22 or something% of his hate (not half like you claim) isn't going to make you hold aggro. You have to do dps to hold aggro. Your whole hypothetical situation of doing 2% of a raid's dps is dumb. Yea, if you are doing 2k dps and boost it to 2.4k dps with double attack, and you raid is doing 100k dps... not going to do squat.Say you are doing 4k dps autoattacking. Say you get another 10% double attack. Gratz, now you're doing 4,400 dps. Factor in 50% hate mod and that extra 400 dps is giving you 600 threat. So you basically picked up another 600 threat per second by adding 10% double attack. As opposed to another 0.4% contested avoidance and 0.0 - 0.1% magic mit from a few extra wisdom points vs a level 80 solo mob.As far as crits, I'd rather be hitting my max weapon damage +1 than hitting for the minimum possible value because it didn't crit. Not to mention I'll take another 30% damage from a CA.So to re-cap:"Strength:4448. For hate gain. +hate mod is wasted in raid as you will be capped and the +taunt amount is /laugh IMO. Will get more threat (and /gasp dps) from 8 in crit.Stamina: 8(or 4)448. For more defence. putting 8 in stamina instead of capping double attack is fail because an additional 12% double attack > extra 20 stamina points which may yield another 30hp if you're lucky.Agility: 8(or 4)448 (and maybe 2 at the end). For shield effectiveness. Not maxing AoE auto attack is fail if you are going to take this line. An additional 20% AE AA > 24 agi or 7 defense, either of which will give mininal contested avoidance gains vs a level 80 solo mob, and virtually none vs a level 85x4 mob.Widsom: 8(or 4)448. For defence increase. This is the last line I would put points in, and seeing how there's only 70 points, none go here.Intelligence:4448. For the parry. Fail for not realizing how valuable the end-line ability is."

Rahatmattata

08-02-2009, 03:35 AM

Looking back at your first couple of posts I see you aren't asking for advice about warrior KoS tree AA setup. You are simply saying it would take a lot of AA to get all of the defensive oriented abilities. Well yea... it would.

Kordran

08-02-2009, 07:16 AM

<cite>7t538teo8srtfgn wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ok, I have a level 80 Paladin, which rocks in tanking purely due to the large number of taunts. But I thought I'd try a proper tank and make a Guardian.</blockquote>I got this far, and really couldn't read much further due to convulsive laughter.

Yimway

08-03-2009, 12:44 PM

<cite>7t538teo8srtfgn wrote:</cite><blockquote>However, a Guardian can not rely on DPS to generate aggression. Just won't happen. You will only maintain aggro through aggro-borrowing abilities. When you're in a raid and the party is throwing out 100,000 damage, and your Guardian is doing maybe 2% of that, it just won't make any difference to add an attack which increases your own DPS by 5% or whatever (which would be going from 2% to 2.1% of the party's DPS in this hypothetical example). Got another AA attack which let's you hit something for a few hundred points? Cool! Won't make any difference. You get your aggro by borrowing half the assassin's hate when he's throwing in ten times as much damage. Meanwhile, the assassin doesn't have to survive being hit, but you do.</blockquote>With all due respect, you have no clue what your talking about.The only way your going to maintain aggro is via dps generation and hate mod amplifying the hate from dps.In your examples, I have NOTHING in the str hate line cause I always have a dirge+coercer that already buff my hate mod to cap, so putting 8 points there is pointless for me. However the dps generating abilities are key.At capped hate mod, if I do 3k dps I'm a joke and my raid will die cause I wont hold aggro. However, at capped hate mod and I do 8kdps, I hold aggro.(8kdps + 2k hps) * 50% hate mode = 15k tpsWizard and assasin might be throwin down 20k dps, but they have negative threat abilities and most importantly POSITIONAL hate modifiers. So providing they're using deagros, and timing position modifiers well, they're staying under my 15ktps output.If I did 3kdps, I'm lookign at 7.5ktps and I just got wtfpwned and am a noob and wont be MTing for anyone.Only a paladin would not understand how integral dps generation is to hate gain.

TumpieBrell

08-04-2009, 10:57 AM

It's too bad the OP is full of bad info.Everything else in this thread that was not posted by the OP is good info.

Atavax311

08-11-2009, 03:33 PM

<cite></cite><blockquote><cite>7t538teo8srtfgn wrote:</cite>However, a Guardian can not rely on DPS to generate aggression. Just won't happen. You will only maintain aggro through aggro-borrowing abilities. When you're in a raid and the party is throwing out 100,000 damage, and your Guardian is doing maybe 2% of that, it just won't make any difference to add an attack which increases your own DPS by 5% or whatever (which would be going from 2% to 2.1% of the party's DPS in this hypothetical example). Got another AA attack which let's you hit something for a few hundred points? Cool! Won't make any difference. You get your aggro by borrowing half the assassin's hate when he's throwing in ten times as much damage. Meanwhile, the assassin doesn't have to survive being hit, but you do.But if you want to include those extra attacks as being necessary for a tank to be a tank, go right ahead. It simply adds to my point about the Guardian requiring so many more AAs just to be a tank.</blockquote>A guardian must rely on DPS to generate hate. also, your 8% hate in the str line is useless. you are hate modifier capped at +50%. a dirge and corecer, which is in just about every mt group will cap your hate. also, 2% of 100k is pathetic for a guardian. when im not raid buff, even in full defensive, i can do 5k-6k; in content where the healers wont have a hard time keeping me up, 7-8k isnt uncommon. so lets assume 6k dps in a raid. because of your 50% hate increase, you're doing 9k threat; the corc's hate transfer adds maybe 2k onto that; so 11k dps worth of threat not including any taunts, just from pure dps. now, if you assume the other group(s) have a troub; they -34% hate gain, so thats roughly 14k that your dps can do without pulling, ignoring taunts and detaunts. dps and group make-up is 95% of how guardians maintain threat.

RafaelSmith

08-11-2009, 06:00 PM

Wow, I am by no means a ubah Guardian and I am always looking for ideas & ways to improve but I sure am glad I know enough to know that what <a href="../user/profile.m?user_id=404279">7t538teo8srtfgn</a> advices is pure fail.The biggest mistake I have made as a Guard is thinking that I need to be as "tanky" as possible and ignoring DPS in the process.My current spec is not exactly what most here have posted but so far has worked the best for me for heroic/instance tanking.STR: 4 4 8 8AGI: 4 8 8 4STA: 4 4 8INT: 4 1I never thought I would spec out of the INT endline but oddly for me, my gear and my typical group makeup this spec has worked the best.

thial

08-11-2009, 07:59 PM

<cite>Atavax311 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>7t538teo8srtfgn wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jdark@Everfrost wrote:</cite>However, a Guardian can not rely on DPS to generate aggression. Just won't happen. You will only maintain aggro through aggro-borrowing abilities. When you're in a raid and the party is throwing out 100,000 damage, and your Guardian is doing maybe 2% of that, it just won't make any difference to add an attack which increases your own DPS by 5% or whatever (which would be going from 2% to 2.1% of the party's DPS in this hypothetical example). Got another AA attack which let's you hit something for a few hundred points? Cool! Won't make any difference. You get your aggro by borrowing half the assassin's hate when he's throwing in ten times as much damage. Meanwhile, the assassin doesn't have to survive being hit, but you do.But if you want to include those extra attacks as being necessary for a tank to be a tank, go right ahead. It simply adds to my point about the Guardian requiring so many more AAs just to be a tank.</blockquote>A guardian must rely on DPS to generate hate. also, your 8% hate in the str line is useless. you are hate modifier capped at +50%. a dirge and corecer, which is in just about every mt group will cap your hate. also, 2% of 100k is pathetic for a guardian. when im not raid buff, even in full defensive, i can do 5k-6k; in content where the healers wont have a hard time keeping me up, 7-8k isnt uncommon. so lets assume 6k dps in a raid. because of your 50% hate increase, you're doing 9k threat; the corc's hate transfer adds maybe 2k onto that; so 11k dps worth of threat not including any taunts, just from pure dps. now, if you assume the other group(s) have a troub; they -34% hate gain, so thats roughly 14k that your dps can do without pulling, ignoring taunts and detaunts. dps and group make-up is 95% of how guardians maintain threat.</blockquote>I just had to clerify that I never said that, the way you edited the post made it look like I said that and well not that it matters but I don't want anyone to think I said that. Just had to add that... Glade to see that spec working out for you Gaylon....To stay on topic and not tottaly waist this space...... DPS is agro why do you think they put all those DPS stats on gear why do you think they took the + taunt mod that were on the guardian t4 TSO set and replaced it with omg DPS stats....assassins don't provide half your hate its 19%(at master or with AA not sure) Going off what your are implying though that it takes many more AA's for a guard to achieve the goal of tanking. It's very possible to work out a spec using only 70 points that would work but your not going to be able to go all deffensive you have to almost go half and half with DPS/agro being more important. That is if you want to compete with other tanks or be added to peps friends list as a "good tank"

7t538teo8srtfgn

08-12-2009, 01:55 PM

Sorry kids, been kind of busy lately. Skimming through the responses here, I see a lot of "lol" and presumptions of superior knowledge and some infantile mockery, but not a heck of a lot else. I have no need to engage in such. But I'll give you one last piece of advice: Figure out your numbers/percentages for DPS and aggro with AAs put into attacks, and then with AAs put into defences. Add hate mod to each of those figures, both with AA-boosted hate mod and without AA-boosted hate-mod. This will give you four different figures. Give it a shot. And good luck.PS: The contraction of "you are" is "you're".

RafaelSmith

08-12-2009, 03:07 PM

Who needs numbers.The proof is in the pudding.I strap on every piece of 'defensive' gear I have......spec into every 'defensive' AA I can......I can't hold aggro against a Troub let alone a Warlock.I strap on minimal 'defensive' gear, maximize as much as I can my DPS....balance my AAs with a higher bias toward DPS and DPS boosts........I can hold aggro pretty well.

Xalmat

08-12-2009, 03:30 PM

Here's the problem with what you recommend.STR3: You recommend minimal points in this. Why? Melee Crit is the single most powerful thing available to us for maximizing DPS, because melee crits affect everything besides taunts. Higher DPS = Higher Hate.STR4: The base taunt amount isn't that great. Most taunts don't even generate as much hate as an auto-attack, with the exception of hate position taunts (which are unaffected by the base taunt amount unless they have a taunt attached to them, like Rescue). Hate Gain percent can be capped with only a Dirge + Coercer, rendering the other half of this ability useless in that group; and if you're raid tanking, you have a Dirge + Coercer.In a group setting, OK I'll bite, the hate gain can somewhat be useful. But it's not as effective as maximizing your combat art damage & auto-attack damage in the long run.AGI4: Unless you plan on AoE tanking, which is better left to Berserkers and Shadowknights, you're not going down this line. Besides Defense can be capped in a raid setting anyway.STA4: This line is worth going down because Shield Effectiveness basically always works, and because STA3 is double attack. Since Auto-attack is the largest component of hate, you need to maximize auto-attack damage as much as possible.WIS4: Physical Mitigation is affected by diminishing returns. And the ~200 mit you get from WIS4 doesn't do jack when you're running 6-7k+ mitigation in a raid setting. As for WIS3, DPS mod is easily capped in a raid setting (Berserker raidwide, Dirge DPS buff, Coercer DPS buff)WIS5: The endline is useless because you can simultaneously cap your offense and defense stats in a raid group. There's also little reason to run in Defensive in heroic instance because you simply don't need the defense from Defensive, and you need the Offensive from Offensive stance to hold aggro.INT4: Parry is also super easy to cap between this and a Dirge, but you go down this line for INT5, which is a HUGE amount of reuse. The more often your abilities are active, the more often you can use your abilities. Which means more aggro.So you're basically recommend you ditch all offense gains for defense gains, which is fine if you can hold aggro without those stats. But most people aren't going to hold aggro without maximizing their DPS. Taunts alone will not cut it.And then there's the golden rule with tanking:If you aren't holding aggro, you aren't tanking. All the defense in the world won't matter if the mob isn't trying to hit you. And the truth is, on heroic content you don't need to go full defensive, you tank just fine in offensive in full offensive gear if your healers don't suck.

Kordran

08-12-2009, 03:40 PM

<cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>Only a paladin would not understand how integral dps generation is to hate gain.</blockquote>Atan, don't be hatin' on Paladins. This guy's posts are so full of fail, it really crosses class boundaries and enters the realm of universal ignorance when it comes to tanking in general. As I'm sure you know, I play a Paladin and damange output is still very much a focus of mine. I don't need to focus on it to the extent that you Guardians do, but I'm also not interested in playing bump-on-a-log and expect Amends to do all of the heavy lifting for me. And his comments about Paladins being good tanks "due to the large number of taunts" should tell you that this guy has no idea what the heck he's talking about, no matter what tank he's playing.

Yimway

08-12-2009, 03:49 PM

<cite>7t538teo8srtfgn wrote:</cite><blockquote>Sorry kids, been kind of busy lately. Skimming through the responses here, I see a lot of "lol" and presumptions of superior knowledge and some infantile mockery, but not a heck of a lot else. I have no need to engage in such. But I'll give you one last piece of advice: Figure out your numbers/percentages for DPS and aggro with AAs put into attacks, and then with AAs put into defences. Add hate mod to each of those figures, both with AA-boosted hate mod and without AA-boosted hate-mod. This will give you four different figures. Give it a shot. And good luck.PS: The contraction of "you are" is "you're".</blockquote>We have, and your purposed sollution is failsauce.Hate mods cap at 50% adding more here does crap for aggro. There is no magical aa that adds a 10x modifier to taunts, so your stuck with atleast 80% of your threat generation being a base product of dps generation. Lastly, you can get Defense / Parry well over the 550 cap with gear / buffs, wasting aa in those abilities will only make you a crappier tank.

thial

08-13-2009, 12:13 AM

7t538teo8srtfgn wrote: <blockquote>Sorry kids, been kind of busy lately. Skimming through the responses here, I see a lot of "lol" and presumptions of superior knowledge and some infantile mockery, but not a heck of a lot else. I have no need to engage in such. But I'll give you one last piece of advice: Figure out your numbers/percentages for DPS and aggro with AAs put into attacks, and then with AAs put into defences. Add hate mod to each of those figures, both with AA-boosted hate mod and without AA-boosted hate-mod. This will give you four different figures. Give it a shot. And good luck.</blockquote> Instead of arguing figures that you calculated actually go out and test it. The other guards and I (even some other tanks)that have been responding are experienced tanks. We know what works and does not work for the class we have "been there done that"... When going all out defensive add into the factor of buffs you get from other players and you will find that putting an extra 4 points into sta 1 is useless. Even when I was less equipped I was easily able to achieve 1200+ sta. The 240 mit with 8 points is equal to fractions of melee damage reduction with a healer unless you are in some really bad/outdated gear... Parry /def stats are also easily put over the top when fully raid buffed. You want figures? fine... self buffed in d-stance sta =1155 with just a defiler I'm over 1200 and 1200 is the cap IE no more gain, why waist more points? This is not hard to obtain with lesser gear parry= 524 raid buffed im over 600 why put more points after 600 there is no gain defense =563 same as parry.... I don't need to mention hate gain its been explained to you many times... mitigation = 8593 which is equal to 70.1% melee damage reduction I pop on a temp buff brings me to 10053 which is equal to 72.9% thats a whole 2.8% less damage for 1460 mit..240 mit is jack. My self buffed mit is about what a lesser geared guard would get in a group So in the end if many guards out there where to spec full defense we would see little to no difference in survivability while raid buffed. The only advantage would be higher numbers when solo/afk. So if there is no gain out of a full defensive spec where do I put all these points? hmm I know DPS so I can hold better agro.... Now you can add the fact that a higher level raid mob will ignore and need more of a said stat to achieve better results but a hard cap is a hard cap... I think this guy is just trolling the guard threads just to cause grief It's hard to believe someone misunderstands the mechanics of this game so much and than argues with experienced players when looking for "advice"... If you where to take this post to another forum I'm sure you will get the number crunching comparisons that you are looking for and the people over there will explain to you in detail just how much you fail to relies game mechanics or you might just get care bared..

thial

08-13-2009, 12:19 AM

<cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote>And then there's the golden rule with tanking:If you aren't holding aggro, you aren't tanking. All the defense in the world won't matter if the mob isn't trying to hit you. And the truth is, on heroic content you don't need to go full defensive, you tank just fine in offensive in full offensive gear if your healers don't suck.</blockquote>QFE