Mitigation and Guardians

[WinterAnar]

<DIV>Ok, I read somewhere on here people saying that Guardians had higher mitigation than Crusader type characters.  So I set off looking at skills and all to figure it out.  And well I didn't find any skills that added mitigation except those toughness type ones.  However Guardians do seem to get more in the way of avoidance buffs?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'm just trying to figure out exactly why people seem to be hell bent to have a guardian as MT for raids.  It seems like any plate wearing tank should be able to match their mitigation, so the only thing I can see are those avoidance buffs and are they really that good?</DIV>

[Sazzabi8]

Guardians get a few +mitigation buffs that affect the whole group they are in, like the rallying cry line and braksan's. The only ones that just affect the Guardian are toughness and fortified stance. Fortified stance adds a lot of mitigation and lasts 12hours so we would have that advantage over other plate tanks. <div></div>

[blueduckie]

Slates invigorating threat adds mitigation also if you selected it.

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>WinterAnarth wrote:<div>Ok, I read somewhere on here people saying that Guardians had higher mitigation than Crusader type characters.  </div><hr></blockquote> Just one of the many things people misunderstand about the fighters.  Higher is one thing....Significantly class defining higher is another. </span><div></div>

[WinterAnar]

<DIV>This leads me to wonder exactly how much higher guardian mitigation is?  I'll expect them to have say 8 defence skill over another plate tank as they get stances after that first one in the teens and I don't think anyone else does.  So how much mitigation are we talking about?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'm trying to figure this all out as I come from FFXI where Paladins are the top tanks and I rathermuch like the position of endgame tank against boss creatures.  So I'm mainly trying to figure out if I would be able to still do it as a Paladin (I've grown to love self healing and all that stuff) or if I should go with a Guardian.  Then again with the combat revamp that looks to be on the way the two classes may be even closer in tanking ability than they were before.</DIV>

[Sazzabi8]

<div></div><span><blockquote><hr>WinterAnarth wrote:<div>This leads me to wonder exactly how much higher guardian mitigation is?  I'll expect them to have say 8 defence skill over another plate tank as they get stances after that first one in the teens and I don't think anyone else does.  So how much mitigation are we talking about?</div> <div> </div> <div>I'm trying to figure this all out as I come from FFXI where Paladins are the top tanks and I rathermuch like the position of endgame tank against boss creatures.  So I'm mainly trying to figure out if I would be able to still do it as a Paladin (I've grown to love self healing and all that stuff) or if I should go with a Guardian.  Then again with the combat revamp that looks to be on the way the two classes may be even closer in tanking ability than they were before.</div> <hr></blockquote>Fortified Stance adds 141 mitigation by itself. A Guardian should have at least that advantage over a Paladin. If the Paladin is not grouped with a Guardian the difference is going to be more.  486 to 228 depending on if Commanding Presence is up or not. That's  about 6-12% mitigation difference raid buffed. If you want to tank endgame mobs you are better off choosing Guardian. You certainly can tank some endgame mobs as a Paladin but you are at a real disadvantage compared to Guardians because of the hitpoints, mitigation and avoidance difference.</span><div></div><p>Message Edited by Sazzabi8 on <span class=date_text>07-12-2005</span> <span class=time_text>06:49 AM</span>

[TunaBoo]

Right now defense is why we tank so much better then other tanks. But.. our mita and HP are also a little bit higher. With combat revamp might be closer. <div></div>

[ThramFalc]

<P>Guardians MT everything because of their avoidance not their mitigation.  Yes Guardian mitigation is quite nice, but we have the biggest defense buffs in the game and defense effects avoidance not mitigation.  Most Guardians get their avoidance well over 100% with a good MT group and this is how we render many raid mobs trivial (they don't hit us).  This leads to lots of jokes about Guardians being able to tank naked.</P> <P>Some groups can also buff mitigation very high but this is a secondary requirement for raiding.  Although, some mobs are so high in level that they are going to hit you regardless of how much defense you have... for them, mitigation is huge.</P>

[Korpo]

Pallies (I don't know about SKs) get a self-buff defense line, Knight's Stance/Shining Beacon/Benediction. Benediction adds 11 or 12 defense at adept 1, I think 15 at adept 3, plus 2% extra hate generation and some divine resist. We have some minor HP and mitigation buffs as well, plus shield skill and parry buffs. What we lack is taunts, both in quality and quantity. Pallies have to rely on heals, wards, and hate transfer (instead of creation) to hold agro. Heals and wards are hugely mana-inefficient ways to taunt and the hate transfer is only group wide, so unless you put a warlock in your MT group, it doesn't help as much as it could. <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Edit:</DIV> <DIV>Oh, that "100% avoidance" that everyone shoots for is kind of misleading. If you look at it, it says "100% avoidance vs<EM>. a level 50 opponent</EM>". Since most raid mobs aren't level 50, you don't have 100% avoidance vs. the mob in question, hence it can hit you just fine. Your avoidance is mainly a function of your defense skill, as you'll be in the 80% range until you get high enough that a level 50 mob is effectively grey, 280 I believe. At that point, it rockets up to 100% or close to it, since a "grey" mob has a hard time hitting you. Having 100% avoidance vs. a level 57 would require (57 x 5) + (6 x 5) = 315 defense, assuming things grey out at 6 levels.</DIV><p>Message Edited by korpo53 on <span class=date_text>07-13-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:03 PM</span>

[Xiza]

<img src="http://www.zoelam.com/Pics/eq2/mitigation.jpg"> Don't forget them HO's!  Yes I know avoidance sucks but I'm not as uber as some of you folks. <div></div>

[stelle]

is it bad that i can practically name all of those buffs in that window? all but that purplish/couds one i think its a druid heal spell? inqui, templar, bruiser(or pally), warden actually what is that red buff that looks like battle tactics? <div></div>

[TunaBoo]

purple could be vigilance, but i wuld hope ppl were smart enough not to use it.. guess not ;P <div></div>

[Xiza]

Vigilance has been used once or twice in my brief history and that SS was not one of them.  Group there was inqui, defiler, bruiser, SK, fury. <div></div>

[stelle]

you do know vigilance after you leave group with a member, you intercept for yourself right? i hear taking 60% damage is nice <div></div>

[TunaBoo]

<div></div><div></div> <div></div><p>Just parsed it in case you got lucky... </p> <p>nope, not true.... vig stays up if person in group leaves, but has no effect in any way shape or form. <span class="time_text"></span></p><p>Message Edited by TunaBoo on <span class=date_text>07-18-2005</span> <span class=time_text>06:32 AM</span>

[stelle]

you still get the message for intervene and vigalance <div></div>

[knightinplaid]

<DIV>You can in fact intercept your own damage if you leave vigilance up after your target drops from the group. I can post logs later of splitting up damage from manastoning and the 2 damage hits do not total to 690. It's more like 90% of the total if I recall.</DIV>

[knightinplaid]

<P>(1121146299)[Mon Jul 11 22:31:39 2005] You intercept some of the damage intended for Memore!<BR>(1121146299)[Mon Jul 11 22:31:39 2005] Memore intercepted some of the damage intended for you!<BR>(1121146299)[Mon Jul 11 22:31:39 2005] Memore intercepted some of the damage intended for your target!<BR>(1121146299)[Mon Jul 11 22:31:39 2005] YOUR Manastone Conversion hits YOURSELF for 197 points of disease damage.<BR>(1121146299)[Mon Jul 11 22:31:39 2005] YOUR Manastone Conversion hits YOURSELF for 207 points of disease damage.</P> <P>414 of 690 ~ 58.5%</P> <P>I have plenty of instances of intercepting incoming melee damage that was intended for myself but with the manastone you can evaluate how much is taken off the total. </P>

[TunaBoo]

Eh its funny when it works, got it to work a few times, but inconsistant. Found a 10 minute fight vs vazgok, he hit me 100s of times.. 0 intercepts. Usually 0 in MoM raid. But sometimes I can fight a ++ blue mob and intercept multiple times. This is definately outside the range of a statistical anomily, and into the range of a hack that is funny but is flakey on when it works ;P <div></div>

[SmakenDah]

<font color="#ff9900" face="Verdana" size="2">Vigilance only has a 5% chance to intercept - that's why you don't see it happen often The main bonus of that buff is granting Avoidance to the target, while increasing your parry a couple of points - this DOES NOT work on other Guardians but I have seen it work on other classes. The real Intervene replacement (and therefore painful to use) is Sentry which has a 53% chance to intercept and hits you with about 83-86% of the damage (I looked last night - both are adept 1). I had Vigilance on my guild leader (brigand) last night and ate his manastone damage. <span>:smileyhappy: I tend to leave it on a cleric in the group since they've at least got plate, the avoidance boost likely helps them should they get beat on (which they shouldn't) and the parry increase helps me a bit. I've noticed myself intercepting my own damage from time to time after the person the buff is on leaves the group.</span> </font><div></div>

[TunaBoo]

Nah dont put the damage sucking buffs on others, they blow [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot]. If you are going to use vigalance for anything, put it on your pet and dismiss the pet to use this bug till they fix it ;P   If you want to honestly buff someones avoid, use never surrender. 42% at master1, and no intercept crap (intercept = insta death on a raid.. so throw never surrender up on someone in your group on raids). <div></div>

[SmakenDah]

<font color="#ff9900" face="Verdana" size="2">We're looking at it from two different POVs. I'm looking at is as an extra Guard on the raid and you're looking at it as the MT. So you're right, as a MT you likely don't want to use this - but as an extra tank it should be very low risk. A 5% chance on someone who shouldn't be getting agro... think about it. If they guy has agro the MT is likely dead. If the MT isn't dead, he'll likely regain agro shortly and if you're not the MT and kept up a DPS/Healer class then it's worth taking a hit or two (which you will likely survive even unmitigated). I wouldn't dare use Sentry, but I can live with a quirky 5% chance. I noted someone said Vigilance type buffs for monks/bruisers (I think it was Gage actually) don't add % avoidance in a way that shows up on the target character, instead the targeted character will see that caster parried/blocked/ripostes. Maybe this isn't as broken as it seems? I'll have to run some tests next time I get a chance to play. It still doesn't make having two guards in the same group make much sense.</font> <div></div>

[TunaBoo]

The block part of it works just fine, hence why I use never surrender. I don't like a "5% chance to instadeath" no matter what the outcome ;P <div></div>