Agi and avoidance vs. Def and mitigation

[Quilli]

<DIV>I play an iksar SK.  But I have always thought rats would be fun to play.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now before we get started this is just a theory thread and by all means play what you want.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>But I was thinking that a rat with their agi and avoidance trait might actually be on the of the best SK tanks you could make.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I only say this because everyone in my guild talks about trying to get more AGI on their SK and how they want their avodiance higher than mitigation.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So with a rats agi and avoidance trait I wonder what a min maxer thinks vs. the +def of a race like Iksar</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Again purely a theory thread play what you like based off looks  and RP <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>But what do you think?</DIV>

[vwlsskng]

<P>Do you honestly believe an extra ten points of agility would tip the scales? The stats of each race are close enough so as not to matter. And as time marches on and gear gets better and better any infantesimal difference in stats from one race to the next will be crushed as it was in EverQuest 1.<BR><BR>As per the advice of many, many other posters in numerous, similar threads before this one, role whichever race looks best to you.</P>

[Tami]

<DIV>AC (Mitigation) will always be more important in long run then avoidance.  While, in theroy, they achieve the same result in overall damage, avoidance has the negative effect of 'spike' damage .. thus making healing more difficult. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I belive when SoE began with the classes, the idea was low avoidance/high mitigation (warriors) .. medium avoidance/mitigation (crusaders) .. high avoidance/low mitigation (monks) .. which again, in theory would make all those equal in overall damage taken.  However, buffs make it easier for the warriors to have both high avoidance/mitigation where as the reverse is not as* substantially true -AND- did not take 'spike' damage and the problems that cause into consideration.</DIV>

[Craien]

My main is an assassin, level 30 right now.  I have an SK I play also, just not as often (level 17).  I can tell you that agility isn't all that great right now.  Maybe pre-nerf it was, but strength is the thing you want to increase.  Go to the assassin boards and you will read of assassins with agilities of 150-200 getting their butts kicked by blue and white cons.  Dont discount it completely, but I wouldnt recommend placing an uber value on it.

[Quilli]

<P>Let us refine the discussion then.</P> <P> </P> <P>If you could have +2% avoidance  or +5Def   which would you take (assuming that for some reason everyone got this choice)</P> <P> </P> <P>Now my own personaly choice is to have mitigation/avodiance as close to one another as possible...  that way If I do get hit I can absorb some of the damage <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P>

[Craien]

Ideally I would choose avoidance, and be thus harder to hit and (to my way of thinking) better able to riposte with an attack of my own.  In the current state of game mechanics however, I would choose the +5 defense.

[Quilli]

<P>As I dont have any +def items to test this (nor did I write down the info before taking the +def trait)</P> <P> </P> <P>Does Def add to mittigation or avoidance?  I think Mitigation, at least I always assumed as much</P>

[Baelzharon]

I'm a Rat SK  and have taken all the avoidance/agil traits up to lvl 38 so far. SK buffs if you notice have a lot of agil bonuses in them and when using a shield while buffed I'm currently in the 64-66% avoidance range. I'm not sure how well my tanking is in comparison because most often I am the main tank and or/duo with a Defiler. When looking at my parsing I do notice a lot more parry and blocks then pure misses. At 34 I was soloing lvl 40 Nightbloods in EL without much trouble (tanking not kiting). One side effect of being a Rat SK is I definatly need top end gear to get the most HPs I can. <div></div>

[Bron]

If you watch the dev tracker you'll see that in the next 2 live updates there are BIG changes coming up to the combat system, particularly the effect of the Defense skill and other avoidance related skills when tanking.  Right now I wouldn't be making any major character decisions or using a /respec to shift a character one way or the other. <div></div>