Using a Tower shield over a buckler - what is the difference?

[Pelda]

While leveling I'd use the buckler as it will increase your dps, killing mobs quicker and gaining exp quicker.  The little addition by using the tower shield and the wis line isn't enough to be worth it while leveling.  Once you get to 70 and start raiding you will have to decide which is best to tank with if you raid.

[ToiletBomb]

Raahl wrote:

Instead of comparing STR/WIS w/Tower to STR/STA w/buckler.

Compare STR/AGI or STR/INT w/Tower to STR/STA w/bucker.

STA increases the effectiveness of your buckler increasing your overall avoidance.   So you should go with AGI or INT that increases avoindance.

STR/STA w/buckler = impressive DPS, more hate, slightly less survivability

STR/WIS w/tower = Slightly more DPS, Slightly more hate, slightly more survivability

STR/AGI or STR/INT w/tower, Slightly more DPS, Slightly more hate, more survivability

My suggestion would be to try the STR/STA using a tower for the initial spike damage (using ToS) and switching to buckler for the remainder of the fight.  Heck if you are really into the DPS, you might try STR/STA/INT.

Yea the STR/STA/INT can be really good especially if you're using a sword.  The haste CA from the INT line doesn't suck. Personally I still feel the WIS line mitigation is overkill but the dps mod isn't bad.  It really depends where you are on the mit curve tho.  If you're high enough to be eating significant diminishing returns loss then it is so-so.

[Bantel]

Jaraxx@Lucan DLere wrote:

here's our dirge set up for buffs - DPS MOD - BOON - POWER REGEN - PROC - STONESKIN.

Just curious why you choose Dissonant Boon (28 to slashing/crushing/piercing and ranged) over Hyran's Seething Sonata (+75 Strength and +41% Hate Gain). 

Gaining + to melee skills is pretty easy (standard Templar buff, adornments, gear with plus to slashing etc), adding raw hate gain on ALL melee actions including taunts is not.

[Wilin]

Bantel wrote:

Jaraxx@Lucan DLere wrote:

here's our dirge set up for buffs - DPS MOD - BOON - POWER REGEN - PROC - STONESKIN.

Just curious why you choose Dissonant Boon (28 to slashing/crushing/piercing and ranged) over Hyran's Seething Sonata (+75 Strength and +41% Hate Gain). 

Gaining + to melee skills is pretty easy (standard Templar buff, adornments, gear with plus to slashing etc), adding raw hate gain on ALL melee actions including taunts is not.

I can't speak for Jaraxx. But, seething sonata does not add to all melee actions. It only adds to the ones that are above 0 hate. (41% of 0=0) And without boon, there are some zones where I get parried alot and therefore I get no hate from sonata on those attacks. But with boon, I at least connect on the swings and get normal hate out of them. The moral of the story is that my dirge plays sonata unless I tell him to play boon because I'm getting parried alot.

[Traxor789]

nm

[Yourbestfriend]

[Removed for Content] double post

[Yourbestfriend]

Hate gain caps at 50% - I dont' need boon as I'm always in offensive stance. Boon is for my dirge/swash dps.

[Khurghan]

Jaraxx@Lucan DLere wrote:

Hate gain caps at 50%

I can't seem to find the dev. post on this any chance you could provide the link?

[Yourbestfriend]

Khurghan wrote:

I can't seem to find the dev. post on this any chance you could provide the link?

I don't know of a post I just know of it to be true. I've had friends who have talked to devs. - test it yourself. You'll see it doesn't stack past 50%

[rubels]

IMO

The major diffrence is aggro. Thats the bottom line with a buckler you establish aggro faster allowing the dps to unload sooner compared to a ts tank. The trade off is alittle bit of survivablity.

 - Krovax

[Belce]

Buckler reversal also helps to maintain encounter agro and control agro with encounter adds.  It gives a chance to proc each time you parry, reposte or block an attack on their attacks.  And since you can maintain decent avoidance with a buckler down the sta line compared to a tower you can expect reasonable use from this proc in addition to your proc taunt as well.  Having really good avoidance decreases the importance of our proc taunt and if you combine our proc taunt with buckler reversal you get a way to generate hate for some of your avoids as well. 

What a guardian does really well with the sta line is keep encounter agro locked down.  This further helped with an increase in dps as well. 

[re1master]

Belce@Lucan DLere wrote:

Buckler reversal also helps to maintain encounter agro and control agro with encounter adds.  It gives a chance to proc each time you parry, reposte or block an attack on their attacks.  And since you can maintain decent avoidance with a buckler down the sta line compared to a tower you can expect reasonable use from this proc in addition to your proc taunt as well.  Having really good avoidance decreases the importance of our proc taunt and if you combine our proc taunt with buckler reversal you get a way to generate hate for some of your avoids as well. 

What a guardian does really well with the sta line is keep encounter agro locked down.  This further helped with an increase in dps as well. 

Really?  Going by the description of Buckler Reversal, it sounds like it can only trigger once every 30 seconds, which seems like it would be of minimal use in raids.  Unless of course it's once per mob per 30 seconds -- but even at that it's a fairly weak hit...  Seems more useful for soloing than anything.

[Belce]

Once every 30 seconds it will trigger when you block, parry or reposte and also if your target, blocks parries, repostes or deflects.  A total of 7 triggers per 30 seconds.  Consider that our proc taunt is a 25% chance whenever hit for a similiar amount of agro to damage done by reversal.  How minor is our proc taunt?

[Yourbestfriend]

Belce@Lucan DLere wrote:

Once every 30 seconds it will trigger when you block, parry or reposte and also if your target, blocks parries, repostes or deflects.  A total of 7 triggers per 30 seconds.  Consider that our proc taunt is a 25% chance whenever hit for a similiar amount of agro to damage done by reversal.  How minor is our proc taunt?

First it's 50% and it's roughly around 210 taunt per second in combat for me. Which is very significant.

[Wilin]

Ya, oddly enough, if you use a buckler in offensive stance, you get hit alot.

But that's not a bad thing most of the time. This touches on another benefit of staying away from a TS with a pure defensive AA spec. If you spec for avoidance, you not only get out dpsed by an afk troubador(and therefore your hate generation blows), but you also get much less inflaming procs to assist with hate generation.

[Belce]

That is right Jaraxxa it does proc 50% of the time and not 25% of the time and I do think it is important even when I thought it was only 25% of the time.  I think that buckler reversial gives a benefit for the times we do manage to avoid a hit with its triggers as well. 

[salle]

I'm TS user and I've yet to see a bard out dps me while I'm tanking. To get to OP's question, I think it's hard to just crunch a couple of numbers out and that's that, it's hard because it's not very straightforward. just see think of it this way: You do more single target dps with your double attack increase. With more double attack you get riposted more ofte n, you take more melee hits. Your avoidance is (however slightly) lower so you take more melee hits. so The number of hits you take increase the number of ripostes you yourself do. (on all mobs facing you) The number of hits you take increase the frequency of your hate  proc (and damage shields)  So you trade in being hit more often to better agg ro, and hate controll of the encounters you face. For grouping sta line is the much better choice, most healers should be able to keep up. But most people in the end game only care about ra idspeccing, so what you have to do then is look at  your raidforce and use the specc  that is most helpfull to the raid overall, if you lose agro alot, go STA, if you die too much go INT. 

[Yourbestfriend]

Screw it - I'm not going to argue it, if you don't understand why 1.5% avoidance is so minor then you are a complete idiot and are not worth my time anyway. - I extend a invitation to anyone who wants to hear arguments about why buckler is your best choice regardless of your situation. If you want any advice as always contact jaraxx.lucan_dlere - send a pm or whatever

[Yourbestfriend]

Screw it - I'm not going to argue it, if you don't understand why 1.5% avoidance is so minor then you are a complete idiot and are not worth my time anyway. - I extend a invitation to anyone who wants to hear arguments about why buckler is your best choice regardless of your situation. If you want any advice as always contact jaraxx.lucan_dlere - send a pm or whatever

[re1master]

Jaraxx@Lucan DLere wrote:

Screw it - I'm not going to argue it, if you don't understand why 1.5% avoidance is so minor then you are a complete idiot and are not worth my time anyway. - I extend a invitation to anyone who wants to hear arguments about why buckler is your best choice regardless of your situation. If you want any advice as always contact jaraxx.lucan_dlere - send a pm or whatever

Do consider how ever that 1.5% avoidance at different points in your character's progression is worth different amounts.  Early on, sure it's minor, but later it can be significant: 1.5% avoidance when you have 0% avoidance means you have 1.5% more of a chance to avoid an attack, if you had 97% avoidance and you were going to get an extra 1.5% that means your chance to avoid an attack just effectively doubled. (you went from getting hit 3 times every 100 to 1.5 times every 100.)

[Yourbestfriend]

How's this I don't even cast call of armament, or my parry  buff, anything with parry/defense on - I take off.

[Wilin]

salle wrote:

I'm TS user and I've yet to see a bard out dps me while I'm tanking.

My troubador reference was a joke. If a troubador out parsed me, I wouldn't be posting about it. I would have canceled my account immediately after.

[Bantel]

Jaraxx@Lucan DLere wrote:

Khurghan wrote:

I can't seem to find the dev. post on this any chance you could provide the link?

I don't know of a post I just know of it to be true. I've had friends who have talked to devs. - test it yourself. You'll see it doesn't stack past 50%

I'm confused.

If hate gain doesn't stack past 50%, then having a coercer with Enraging Demeanor (Increases Hate Gain of target by 49% at M1) in the MT group would be maximum hate gain. Hyran's would provide no benefit. No need for a swashy or assassin in MT group either.

Experience tells me this just isn't the case.

So, maybe it's 50% hate gain buff, and some unknown cap on hate xfer as well?

Where does the 10% additional hate from the STR line AA come into play then? Wasted points? Or does it stack on as another category?

[Yourbestfriend]

Hate gain and hate transfer are two totally different things.

[Aristigon]

I don't understand why some people think 1.5% avoidance is actually a big deal. I tank every raid with a buckler. /shrug

[TuinalOfTheNexus]

Jaraxx@Lucan DLere wrote:

Screw it - I'm not going to argue it, if you don't understand why 1.5% avoidance is so minor then you are a complete idiot and are not worth my time anyway. - I extend a invitation to anyone who wants to hear arguments about why buckler is your best choice regardless of your situation. If you want any advice as always contact jaraxx.lucan_dlere - send a pm or whatever

I think "regardless of situation" is a bit extreme. Close to the truth though.

Any heroic group you have the buckler out and only swap in a tower for ToS. In a raid though it can vary a bit. Trash you'll almost always have the buckler out again just hotkeying a tower for ToS. I think a really dilligent guard would pull with a tower shield in defensive stance, use obliterate to guarantee hits for 10 seconds while debuffs go in, then get a buckler out and switch to offensive for hate. Realistically though, it's not worth the effort swapping stuff unless you have really awful healers.

There are quite a few encounters though when a tower shield makes sense. Primarily those when the raid DPS isn't on the mob you're tanking 100% of the time so aggro isn't an issue, and heals are split so you might not have an optimal setup. In that situation having a buckler out is making life harder on your healers for little or no reason. I also think the proc on the Scaled Shield of Growth is worth a fair bit assuming it works, although I get the feeling mine is broken atm.

One thing I am curious about, a lot of buckler spec guards put 8 points into avoidance with a buckler out. I don't understand why. If you're using a buckler you need hate, so minimal avoidance is actually a good thing. If you need avoidance you're using a tower shield, so again those 8 points are wasted...

[Aristigon]

I spec for the extra avoidance in buckler line for the added benefit of being nearly as good as a towershield for defense and having the dps for the extra hate gain I need/want. Not to mention the dps contributes to overall raid performance. My guild isn't pushing 35k+ dps in raids but I hold aggro well so I don't rely much on my hate reactive.

[Yourbestfriend]

TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:

I think "regardless of situation" is a bit extreme. Close to the truth though.

Any heroic group you have the buckler out and only swap in a tower for ToS. In a raid though it can vary a bit. Trash you'll almost always have the buckler out again just hotkeying a tower for ToS. I think a really dilligent guard would pull with a tower shield in defensive stance, use obliterate to guarantee hits for 10 seconds while debuffs go in, then get a buckler out and switch to offensive for hate. Realistically though, it's not worth the effort swapping stuff unless you have really awful healers.

There are quite a few encounters though when a tower shield makes sense. Primarily those when the raid DPS isn't on the mob you're tanking 100% of the time so aggro isn't an issue, and heals are split so you might not have an optimal setup. In that situation having a buckler out is making life harder on your healers for little or no reason. I also think the proc on the Scaled Shield of Growth is worth a fair bit assuming it works, although I get the feeling mine is broken atm.

One thing I am curious about, a lot of buckler spec guards put 8 points into avoidance with a buckler out. I don't understand why. If you're using a buckler you need hate, so minimal avoidance is actually a good thing. If you need avoidance you're using a tower shield, so again those 8 points are wasted...

This is were you are wrong, what makes you think I'm in stamina spec for hate gain? I'm stamina line for the [I cannot control my vocabulary] dps. Faster the mob dies is the faster - smoother the raid goes - faster I can have sex with my gf.

[TuinalOfTheNexus]

Jaraxx@Lucan DLere wrote:

TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:

I think "regardless of situation" is a bit extreme. Close to the truth though.

Any heroic group you have the buckler out and only swap in a tower for ToS. In a raid though it can vary a bit. Trash you'll almost always have the buckler out again just hotkeying a tower for ToS. I think a really dilligent guard would pull with a tower shield in defensive stance, use obliterate to guarantee hits for 10 seconds while debuffs go in, then get a buckler out and switch to offensive for hate. Realistically though, it's not worth the effort swapping stuff unless you have really awful healers.

There are quite a few encounters though when a tower shield makes sense. Primarily those when the raid DPS isn't on the mob you're tanking 100% of the time so aggro isn't an issue, and heals are split so you might not have an optimal setup. In that situation having a buckler out is making life harder on your healers for little or no reason. I also think the proc on the Scaled Shield of Growth is worth a fair bit assuming it works, although I get the feeling mine is broken atm.

One thing I am curious about, a lot of buckler spec guards put 8 points into avoidance with a buckler out. I don't understand why. If you're using a buckler you need hate, so minimal avoidance is actually a good thing. If you need avoidance you're using a tower shield, so again those 8 points are wasted...

This is were you are wrong, what makes you think I'm in stamina spec for hate gain? I'm stamina line for the [I cannot control my vocabulary] dps. Faster the mob dies is the faster - smoother the raid goes - faster I can have sex with my gf.

Which is great, unless you get some unlucky dice rolls and are wtfpwned by an avatar, and are also unlucky enough to be on a server where another guild can 1-pull it and is sat waiting to do so.

Oh believe me I'm as much a DPS [Removed for Content] as the next guy, and it's always satisfying to break 2k, but on a contested when my DPS is a few percent of the raid, aggro is a non-issue, the mob isn't debuffed in a major way, and a wipe is a really bad thing to happen, then you'll forgive me if I take the extra 10% avoidance and slip into defensive stance. I'm not saying it couldn't be done with a buckler in offensive, I just think it's leaving stuff needlessly to chance.

[PaganSaint]

Uh, not to be a kill joy but your DPS is not going to make an avatar or top end instance named die fast enough to make a noticeable difference with the approximate five, maybe all the way up to eight, hundred dps that you would lose going from buckler to towershield. The higher DPS you put out though the higher DPS you can hold from your raid which does make the mob die faster. As it is buckler is the best choice for tanking period at the moment, using the tower to mitigate spike and incoming pull damages, or using the tower if you do not trust your healers.