Naked Tanking.

[Noah]

<DIV>So is it the armor... buffs...stats that us guardians get or could the root of the problem be other buffs (MT group buffs) and the Mob itself?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Here are the self numbers vs a 57x4+++ drakota - Tanking it Naked (once the mob was out of power).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Self unbuffed vs a 50th:</DIV> <DIV>  50.6 avoidance (W/o a shield)  65agi</DIV> <DIV>  14.9 % mitigation</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Self buffed vs a 50th:</DIV> <DIV>  52.0 avoidance (w/o shield)</DIV> <DIV>  19.4 miti</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So the mob was oop and i started stripping my armor (mobs health was around 90 pct).  Piece by piece due to the delay.... the mob started to impact me once I had 4 or so pieces off.  Mob was at 30% when I had everything cept my weapon off.  Only thing protecting me at this point were buffs.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Observations:</DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>The mob hit hard and very slow.  </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>The healers were sitting at roughly 80-95 pct health at the end.  Generally they are at 100% due to the mob not hitting at all.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><U>What does all this show me?</U>  </DIV> <DIV>Mobs autoattack is to slow (perhaps slow/ skill affects decrease this to much)</DIV> <DIV>If the challenge is suppose to be the special attacks - Power was gone in less than 60 seconds... danger is gone at this point.</DIV> <DIV>Avoidance was not affected as much as i thought it would be.</DIV> <DIV>I gain to much avoidance from buffs.</DIV> <DIV>Mitigation is mostly affected by armor.</DIV> <DIV>Mitigation was affected like I suspected.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Some food for thought for yall.  Maybe it is not the class but the buffs them selves OR the mob design.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[English Da Gua]

<P>  The obvious and non disputed problem atm is buffs and how they stack. Other classes in particular allow any class to tank, so it cannot be said it is a guardian only problem.</P> <P>  Second, mobs lose power quicker then my ex could go through cash. This is a major design flaw and one that needs to be addressed (in certain circumstances). Mobs with power are infinitely more dangerous then a mob without.</P> <P>   I cannot comment on auto attack speed because, as you pointed out, more then likely that paricular mob had a few slows on him. Would be nice to see this done again making sure no slows had been cast on said mob.</P>

[Noah]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> English Da Guard wrote:<BR> <P> The obvious and non disputed problem atm is buffs and how they stack. Other classes in particular allow any class to tank, so it cannot be said it is a guardian only problem.</P> <P> Second, mobs lose power quicker then my ex could go through cash. This is a major design flaw and one that needs to be addressed (in certain circumstances). Mobs with power are infinitely more dangerous then a mob without.</P> <P>  I cannot comment on auto attack speed because, as you pointed out, more then likely that paricular mob had a few slows on him. Would be nice to see this done again making sure no slows had been cast on said mob.</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>This mob had only the slows by 2nd affects from skills (like our kick).  The shaman did not slow the mob... so like it was down 10% attack speed or so I would guess.</DIV>

[IvarIronhea]

<DIV>Noah, you posted your unbuffed and self buffed stats but when you say you were taking very little damage naked was that with MT group buffs? That is did you have dirge/troub, fury/warden, bruiser/monk etc buffs on you at the time?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I think it has been acknowledged by most that huge buff stacking across all classes makes people unhittable. This is most prevalent in raids where you usually get buffed across the entire class spectrum. In addition what form of debuffs were on the target? Mystic, dirge, inquisitor in addition to the minor effects from various other classes may have a crippling effect on any target. The same can be said of slows, if they are all stacking. Once again, prevalent in a raid.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>NPC's with power are also hugely dangerous compared to powerless. This npc may have been drained in a minute but that is, yet again, prevalent in raids. You have how many classes with some form of draining working on a single target?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What I am getting at here is the biggest problems seem to shine in raids, but SOE must be extremely careful of balancing this based on raid assumptions since normal grouping, duoing, and soloing can be severely affected. The full stack of buffs, debuffs, and power draining are not available in day to day gameplay.</DIV>

[English Da Gua]

<P> Well, based on what you said, seems as if mobs attack speed needs to be reworked as well possibly. You would think the attack speed of the current end game mobs would be pretty fast.</P> <P>  But as you said a mob without power poses no real danger. It has always seemed strange that not only could you siphon a mobs power so quickly but that once he was OOP he became quite trivial. But it is like this in all parts of the game, when soloing a ^^ or named all you need to do is get through the power and once done only real damage you seem to sustain is from riposites. (Talking low con mobs in comparison to you obviously if you are soloing).</P>

[-Aonein-]

<P>Did u have enchanters on this raid burning the mobs power Noah? Cause i know Enchanters can burn a mobs power down in like 3 casts. I dont play with a Enchanter myself, and mobs i fight die with power left and still hitting me with specials when they die.</P> <P>Another thing is, ive never been on a Darathar raid, but isnt it about keeping the raid alive due to his PB AoE DoTs and Nukes?</P> <P>My point is, maybe Enchanter power burn spells are over powered also due to burning the mob out of power in 60 seconds, when if you acually went with no enchanters, it might be a totally different story.</P> <P>Taemek Frozenberg 47th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</P> <p>Message Edited by -Aonein- on <span class=date_text>04-04-2005</span> <span class=time_text>04:27 PM</span>

[Noah]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> -Aonein- wrote:<BR> <P>Did u have enchanters on this raid burning the mobs power Noah? Cause i know Enchanters can burn a mobs power down in like 3 casts. I dont play with a Enchanter myself, and mobs i fight die with power left and still hitting me with specials when they die.</P> <P>Another thing is, ive never been on a Darathar raid, but isnt it about keeping the raid alive due to his PB AoE DoTs and Nukes?</P> <P>My point is, maybe Enchanter power burn spells are over powered also due to burning the mob out of power in 60 seconds, when if you acually went with no enchanters, it might be a totally different story.</P> <P>Taemek Frozenberg 47th Berserker<BR>16th Outfitter<BR>Everfrost Server<BR><BR>Enlightened Aonein Amillion ( retired )<BR>70th Stone Fist of The Celestial Fist<BR>Five Rings on Luclin Server</P> <P>Message Edited by -Aonein- on <SPAN class=date_text>04-04-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>04:27 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Yes we had 2 enchanters.  But Bards, dirge, and most mages can tap power .... nearly all classes can tap power one way or another (even if small).  I would say power regen for a mob like this (x4) should have constant power regen at a decent lvl.  Any raid can tap a mob pretty darn quick and keep it that way (unless it has a power/life tap itself).</P> <P>The fight I am talking about is not Darathar.</P> <P>Most of these observations are for impacting Raid mobs.... hence why i pointed out the MOB might be the issue here and not the PCs (with buff etc)</P> <P>Our group was 3 healers (ya, no buff stacking there) - chanter and bruiser.   No bard or uber warden.  Bruisers are just about nothing for sharing buffs since Shrug off was nerfed like mad.  </P> <P>My naked test was done AFTER the mob was OOP.  I wanted to test the *auto attack* of the raid mob.  The auto attack on group mobs and power seems to be in check (most exp mobs are dead before the power runs out).. but when you are talking about a 10 minute fight... 1 minute has suspense to it and 9 minutes are /HTL /AFK - make a sandwich or get a drink - come back... hit taunt a few times.... and slowly watch the hps go down... what is the point behind the design in this?    It wasn't *uber gear* or *adept 3 buffs* or *OMG MY DEF SKILL IS 8 million*...  it was purely the mob hit very slow.   Add the mitigation and avoidance from armor and call it 10 mins of VT clearing.</P> <P>I like challenge and the high end content should have a great deal of it.  By no means do I want to see exping groups all of the sudden get destroyed but 24 people getting together are looking to pick a fight.  Usually that fight is not with a moss snake that has 300,000 hps.</P>

[IvarIronhea]

<P>Nod, I just wanted clarification on the issue. </P> <P>Usually certain people tend to latch onto posts like this and its a month of "guardians can tank raids naked!"  with convenient lapses of memory such as "if it's out of power" or "so can the templar."</P> <P>Yes, I see where you are coming from, and this may be an issue of NPC autoattack being too slow or multiple slow type effects stacking. Combine with powerful draining spells from multiple classes and a low power regen on raid targets, ya...VT clearing.</P>

[Noah]

<P>Very true but since this post may have some use / studied information it will get quickly drained away.  Heavy opinion posts (non data driven generally) will get upwards of 5 pages of posts where as thought out information will be quickly drowned out and never used.  </P> <P>Back on track thou.</P> <P>If a few of the other classes at 50th out there would do me a favor and take off all your gear and let me know what your avoidance/ mitigation is... Buffed and unbuffed... I could get a better comparision to see if these numbers are Guardian based.  I understand TTTs will have an impact on this.   For some reason I think all classes will have a very similar avoidance at 50th (with base AGI taken into consideration).  </P>

[FamilyManFir]

Okay, I'm absolutely <b>sure</b> that it's been said before, but even so I just had to say it. By tanking the mob naked (after it was oop) and relying on your skills and Combat Arts, you were basically tanking ...in the buff? <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><hr>Seriously, I would <i>expect</i> all classes' Avoidance to be largely the same, except for Brawlers, Monks, and Bruisers. After all, what's it based on? The Defense skill, which is quickly maxed every mini-ding so long as you melee at all, the Parry skill, ditto, and any shield you wear. That's it. Agility affects Defense and Parry, so higher Agi will improve your Avoidance; that means that the <i>only</i> gear (aside from shields) that will improve your Avoidance is gear that grants bonuses on Agi (since they haven't implemented gear that affects the Defense or Parry skills directly). Since they nerfed Agi even that gear doesn't do all that much.That means that the only significant way to improve Avoidance is through buffs. Moreover, because of the way that Avoidance scales, Avoidance-skill buffs become tremendously effective the more they stack.I've stated it before but I'll say it again: the devs really need to revisit how Avoidance skills scale as well as buff stacking. I understand why they did what they did but it's not working the way they intended.

[Banditman]

<P>Pick any EXP mob you want.  Really.  Go ahead.  Pick one.</P> <P>Chances are beyond good that two thirds of that mobs DPS come from his specials.  Once a mob is OOP, he is unbelievably [Removed for Content].</P> <P>The REASON this is true is to allow encounter balancing to take place without consideration of certain debuffs that unbalanced the previous EQ game (read:  Turgurs Insects).</P> <P>Debuffs ONLY affect the mobs auto attack (many people call this standard melee).  They don't do anything to the specials.</P> <P>If you want to know where to watch for a nerf bat to clean house, that's where you look.  Any class that can quickly drain a mobs ability to do damage better duck, cuz that nerf bat is incoming.</P>

[Cod]

<P>I don't really think they will nerf the drain abilities, because those were designed to work on short duration exp fights. </P> <P>I think as Noah said they need to change the encounters giving them something different more mana, high mana regen, or something else entirely.</P>

[FamilyManFir]

<blockquote><hr>Codil wrote:<P>I don't really think they will nerf the drain abilities, because those were designed to work on short duration exp fights. </P> <P>I think as Noah said they need to change the encounters giving them something different more mana, high mana regen, or something else entirely.</P> <hr></blockquote>Maybe a scripted Full Power Heal every x minutes? Keep the mob's DPS up and CA's dangerous, keep the power-drainers busy?

[SageMarrow]

<P>well either way it would just be feasable to balance the amount of mana to the amount of mana that a raid with drainers can cast.</P> <P>and give x mob x% more mana, and just make it take an actually significant amount of time to drain that given amount of mana as opposed to the minute it takes now. Making it take 10-15 minutes instead.</P> <P>Keep in mind that in the next month - there wont be any invulnerable tanks or [Removed for Content] raid mobs anymore, SOE has made that a guarantee above anything else. We dont want them to be slaughters by giving them an unlimited amount but nor do we want to keep them gimped once OOP.</P> <P>Its seems as though they are taking raid mobs' HP and giving them new abilitys and strengths. So if the fight takes 20 minutes at max potential and attentativeness, 15 minutes of constant power drain to OOP the mob sounds reasonable so that a raid party could tie up the loose ends for the last 5 minutes and concentrate on closing out the fight.</P> <P> </P> <p>Message Edited by SageMarrow on <span class=date_text>04-05-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:02 PM</span>