Getting smacked around

[Ja]

Well I heard a few of the stories about getting hit for more post patch, but I decided to go see for myself. Logged in, took off all my equipment, attuned it, put it all back on. Okay, so far so good.I then zone into Zek with my level 33 monk. Decide to go ahead and try a level 30 green con solo orc. Hmmm, defeated it, but got knocked down to 60% health. On a green!So I try a level 32 blue con orc. Again, I defeated it, but now my health has been reduced to 50%Again, I regen my health and decide to go for another level 30 green solo orc. This time I get knocked down to 24% health before I defeat him. On a green con solo mob! A creature that is listed as me being able to defeat it with ease.It seems to me that all the beneficial changes are never going to be balanced against the detrimental changes that occur. Extra mitigation means nothing if creatures are hitting us more often.

[Xanus]

Check your skills menu. Hit "L" in game and see if your skills are maxed where they should be. the patch lowered alot of your skills. That may be the reason why you are getting owned so badly. If they are maxed at the lvl they were prior to patch and you're still having problems then yeah you have a point.

[Inv]

<DIV align=left>So far I still seem to be tanking equal to plates 2 levels lower but I have alot more testing to do and some more long term testing. There is an improvement I can say that just not sure if on par yet with others <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />   I do get pounded on pretty fierce tho in alot of fights.  Word to the wise if its a wizard type mob just avoid it, Unless ya like a fast death <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV>

[Bur]

I've only played for about two hours since the patch but at 29 I was tanking MUCH better in RoV. AC is around 3700 between group buffs and FoTM/Phins. I'm broke so i'm still wearing AQ though. Make sure to use all the buffs you have in solo fights if you aren't, makes a big difference. Other then that I don't know. I'll have to go test solo mobs as I could easily destroy the yellow (31/32) solo orcs near the docks in zek before this patch.

[RalphSmi]

<DIV> <DIV>Im still wrecking Solo con yellow/orange mobs in Zex at lvl 30.  I have some of the best gear and best weapons though.  Usually a yellow mob can take me down to 50% and a orange down to about 20-30%(one that would thrash me soundly).  So Im not too dissapointed as of yet.  I think it truely matters on how you open a fight now after these patches.  Before I could get popped on and take down one of those mobs with ease, but now its much harder.  With my monk I usually buff with eitehr Dragon Stance or Brawlers Instinct, depending on how I feel, then with Karmic Focus.  Imediately affect I open with our stun, then use all of my longer timers(kicks, cant think of the names atm), then work my way down the line of tiimers into a series of Ho's.  </DIV></DIV>

[Whett]

Alot of the people I hear complaining have all their skills at like App1 or 2, sub-par gear, and a bad attitude.

[Ja]

<blockquote><hr>Whettam wrote:Alot of the people I hear complaining have all their skills at like App1 or 2, sub-par gear, and a bad attitude.<hr></blockquote>Okay, all I was doing was stating an observation. I went into my fights with an open mind and a desire to see if everyone was just making a big fuss out of nothing. All of my gear is yellow and orange to me. Almost all of my skills are adept 1 or higher. Yes, I did notice that a few of my skills were off their cap by 5 or so points, but id that really enough to change going from almost never getting hit against green and blue solo mobs previously to getting hit by these easy challenges alot more?One of the strengths of avoidance tanks in the past was that against lower level mobs, you could avoid the vast majority of their attacks. Now in grouping situations we may be tanking better then before, but it seems that this is the case because we are tanking more like mitigation classes then avoidance classes now. All tanks are being hit more regularly, so they all need more mitigation.I guess the avoidance tank really is a failed experiment.

[Terminus E]

<DIV>As a matter of interest, are you using a 2H weapon or dual weild? I am wondering if this is a riposte issue.</DIV>

[Ja]

I was duel wielding. The other way to think about this situation is this. I would have conned orange to the orc. If I were facing an orange con, then I surely would have not been able to block/parry/riposte as much as green cons do to players?Anyway, as I said before, this is only an observation of mine.

[RadricTyc]

<DIV>I have experienced both sides of this issue.  On the one hand, I can solo blue/green stuff no problems most of the time.  On the other hand non-solo (^, ^^, ^^^) mobs, even blue ones, have a tendency to hand me my hat.  I am not trying to solo these, I am just pointing out that they hit me a TON, like 70% or more of the time.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I just made it to level 40, and compared my stats with a guildmate who is a level 40 Guardian.  Once we are buffed up, he has about 1000 more Health and about 500 more AC than I do.  I am not sure what I am doing wrong, but my gear is decent, and certainly not that far behind what his is.  I am thinking this is a big part of our problems as a tank.</DIV> <UL> <LI>Deflection seems to be streaky at best, and seems to fail against higher level mobs entirely.</LI> <LI>We seem to get far fewer hps than a guardian, even when he doesn't have his fight-time buff active which gives him even more.</LI> <LI>Even with Deflection, my AC at level 40 seems inferior to a reasonably well equipped Guardian.</LI> <LI>The extra 35% mitigation seems to have helped us not get totally hammered, but it does not seem to have made us tanks again.</LI></UL> <P>I think the problem in balancing an avoidance tank is that other tanks get avoidance as well.  Crusaders and Warriors also get block, parry, riposte, and defensive misses.  All the monk seems to get is an added deflection (extra blocks?). This means a plate tank has potentially 4 ways to avoid being hit and a brawler has 5.  If you start scaling up avoidance/mitigation for all tanks it does not bring brawler tanks in line with the others.</P> <P>The only way to make brawlers better tanks is to make deflection work correctly.  If the mitigation of a piece of armor is absolute, ie. it does not scale up or down depending on what is attacking him, then the avoidance of a brawler should be absolute as well.  We should have a fixed chance to avoid ALL attacks, whether they come from a ++++ groupx4 raid mob, or a -- newbie mob.  This fixed chance to "deflect" should increase as the monk levels.  So long as avoidance scales up and down based on level difference and mitigation does not, balance between us and plate tanks will be next to impossible.</P>