Using a Tower shield over a buckler - what is the difference? - Page 3

Ep · 06-09-2007, 07:54 AM

why wouldn't anyone trust their healers? if you don't/can't trust your healers, don't bother raiding.

Wilin · 06-09-2007, 01:02 PM

There are several reasons why you might not trust your healers. It's not that hard to figure out, but I'll give some examples in no particular order.

-new healer joins the guild and raids with guild for the first time and seems to be slacking

-one of your healers keeps going LD because of bad connection/storm/crash/whatever

-One of your healers has an emergency at home and is semi-afk because the roof of their home is caving in

-etc

Ivellious · 06-10-2007, 04:21 AM

ok, ok, this is truely sad. Noone has once answered the OP question by what he wanted. this has become a purely tower shield vs buckler thread that is as redundant as slashing vs. piercing dmg. any guardian can tank, there is not one build, one aa line one anything that can't tank as a guardian. Hell 3 weeks ago I didn't have AA's and I tanked perfectly, it doesn't matter. there is no situation in the game where you have to have so and so AA to complete, there is nothing like that.

The OP wanted hard facts that showed the min/max of the builds he stated because thats what he/she wants to do, not advice, there is nothing here like that just overlizations, this is all paraphrased hogwash that has no real numbers to back so and so claims. we all know that the difference between tower and buckler is 1.7% avoidance, thats a known fact here, atleast by now, because that is the difference between buckler block mit and tower block mit, devs stated that long ago when they changed the shields block rates. with identicle gear what would be the true difference number wise, does sta do 200 more dps, show how, show the parces, thats what he/she wants not, well you fail to add this debuff that this peice of equipment adds you know debuff= hate, duh!! well, this double attack does blah blah blah, thats hogwash, thats just people playing hte big/small game in their pants. Most you people read the title and posted, grats you can read. now read the whole thing. Lets try getting some hard numbers here and not just heresay and actually make it worth something to want to go into a tree, instead, oh I should do this because this guy said he parced blah blah dmg as mt in a raid!!

I am currently making my build str/sta 4/4/8/8 and I'm going to see if it fits me, as in my play style and tanking style, if it doens't guess what I'm changing it, and theres nothing you can say to stop me. I don't care about doing this this and this, i care about what I think is freaking fun and nothing more. If i chose to go tower shield then by god I thought that was fun. It seems to me people are just trying to sell the idea of buckler/tower more then defend it, well I can do this!!! haha beat that tower shields, well we can do that, ohhhhhh. do me a favor, on a raid you're going on, reset your AA's go with 0, tank it, 9/10 times you see just how good of a tank you are. Anyone can tank with or w/o AA's. I know I've done it.

If you want to talk how good your raid crap is compaired to the next guy go to another topic, jesus, you guys are argueing over the most minute things, its embarasing, I come here for advice not for you to argue over raiding, this is the freaking GUARDIAN SECTION not whose better at raiding section! To OP I'm sorry for derailing your post even more, if your question isn't answered properly, when I get a few more AA's I will parce it myself, switching the builds back and forth and seeing for myself what the true differences are, because I want to know aswell.

*end rant*

Wilin · 06-10-2007, 01:35 PM

Well, no one is telling you what to do. And advice is about all you'll find around here. I have sweated through these things and I'm not going to bother posting parses. There are some very simple, generalized "Rules of Thumb" that have been developed by examining our own parses in the past and if you choose not to believe us, that's fine. Go verify it yourself. But honestly, you just appeared in this thread so I'm not sure why you think someone is telling you how to spec.

And I have tanked a raid with no AA for fun and the entire raid was gimped. If you tanked a raid with no AA and it went well, I choose not to believe you unless it was a T5 raid, the other raiders were not good, they had crap for gear, had no AAs, or some combination of the above. But, hey, you didn't give any specific numbers. But honestly, I don't care because I did it myself and I have seen the results.

JeffBship · 06-11-2007, 11:58 AM

Ivellious wrote:

ok, ok, this is truely sad. Noone has once answered the OP question by what he wanted.

I find this a bit amusing...you complain that nobody answered the OP's question, yet you don't answer it either. SMILEY

Aristigon · 06-11-2007, 05:12 PM

Atreu@Everfrost wrote:

Hey I just rolled a guardian yesterday and have made him a set of master crafted blackened iron str/sta/agi gear. I made the tower shield cause the mit on it was the highest, but I read here ppl like the dps that the STA line of AA gives you. I want to be at the highest mit / defense I can for my group so if I went down the sta line and used a buckler woudn`t my mit drop considerably?
Can someone give me an example of a STR/STA spec`d AA guard using the buckler vs their STR/? spec`d tower shield guard using same gear except the shield. I would like to know the exact stats and difference please.
Also for maxing my mit/avoidance etc what lines are best?

Ok, allow me attempt some vague sense of a direct apply in order to appease the disgruntled few... *cough* Please be advised that your assumption about shields and protection factor is not regarding mitigation but rather avoidance. Mitigation comes purely from armor or items with bonuses to vs crush/slash/pierce. Using a buckler in place of a tower shield will only affect your chance to block (*note: avoidance). While blocking with your shield helps you survive longer the actual difference between buckler and towershields of comparable quality is actually quite minimal. Approximately an effective 1.7% difference in your avoidance. Your actual numbers may vary. What you gain in return is a rather noticeable difference in your damage which equates to faster killing of things. This has many levels of benefit. Faster killing improves the speed with which you can complete game content, improves the speed you earn experience and reduces the amount of time you are being damaged by your target thus lowering the strain on whoever is healing you. You are also better able to solo content in the game (although still not extremely well). The improved damage output further improves your ability to focus your enemy's hate towards yourself, allowing your group members to really let loose more than they could otherwise; this further improves the speed with which things die. Of course my above statements only apply to utilizing the Stamina line of achievements. The rest of your points can be spent how you see fit, however based on my personal experience and from what I have heard from many other tanks, the Strength line of achievements seem to compliment the Stamina ones the best. I have tried many different distributions of my points and I always seem to go back to this particular spec. STA 4 4 8 8 1 STR 4 4 8 7 The 8 points spent in the 4th ability from Stamina will improve your ability to wield a buckler significantly from a defense standpoint and almost trivialize the difference between buckler and tower. I'm sorry if I don't have the time and plat to check various specs with a parse and actually provide you with hard numbers comparing multiple specs, however everything I have shared has proven to work extremely well for both myself and other guardians/berserkers. Your mileage may vary. Also good luck with your guardian. -Aristigonn

Belce · 06-11-2007, 07:37 PM

While a guardian's dps is not going to be that big in the overall picture of taking out a major raid encounter, it does play a role that is important.

Groups can be constructed to maximize MT agro and also to diminish the agro generated by others in the raid. The set that is all MT agro has to be at least as large as anyone else's agro in general. We have tools to mitigate those troubles like reinforcement, rescue, plant when someone over does their dps. The bigger you make the MT's set of agro, the bigger everyone else's can be. The amount of agro you can possibly generate with taunts is really a constant. You apply taunts when they refresh and the amount of agro is basically going to be the same over time. It is with dps that great improvements can be made in the amount of agro generated. This is why some guardians believe that the buckler line is so strong.

Rufio · 06-11-2007, 09:27 PM

Hello all,

I have read all your posts and then read them again for some sign or glimmer of hope that my question had been answered, but alas with all your uberness and shiny fabled gear you cannot simply answer the questions. I am lvl 22 at the moment with my guardian, I have 20 AA points and have been lvling slowly with my illusionist friend. I have gone don the STR line first because that is something which I find to be benefitial either way I go with my AA lines, what I do next will probably go down the wisdom line as I obviously won`t have the AA to max out the STA line and therefore the whole mitigation % factor would come into play, rendering my defense weaker than the said STR/WIS combo.

I personally like the look of the tower shield, but that is something for another thread and for those who came to show how uber their guardian is with their particular combo, that is also for another thread. I asked a simple question and require just a simple answer, that can also be answered by any guardian. It is just a matter of recording your stats using identical gear, except in the case of the shield where you should use just a plain handcrafted tower vs the buckler version for comparison sake. Then switch your AA lines for those I mentioned in my original question post to suite the specific set up, recording the stats for each as you go and then coming back here and posting your results.

This is research with a very useful and informative potential, one which nobody has managed to grasp and instead everyone has gotten caught up in their own uberness........

Snorm · 06-12-2007, 02:15 AM

You're not going to get someone to AB various AA builds for you. That get's rather cost prohibitive very quickly, and there is no reason to. Just take anyone with the sta line, and compare with a buckler vs/ without. This has already been posted, so I'm not going to do it again. The only difference you will see with someone in the Sta line wearing a tower and a 'true' tower AA build is in the crit chance, parry they might have, etc. With the right set of Sta built people, you could actually A/B any possible setup you want.

The reason no one has jumped on the idea of cataloging all the various combination of points is that is flat doesn't matter. Take the Def, take the parry, take the 13 sec parry death immunity. Take anything you want. They are all half reasonable things you will find use for. Take the sta line or don't. The reason that most of the people responding to this are level 70 raid tanks is that the ONLY time it will make any kind of measurable difference is against upper level raid mobs.

My advice, take whatever AA's you like. Take a tower setup if you like the looks. For that matter, don't even bother placing the points if you don't feel like it. You will still be able to level and tank just fine.

About 900 people in this thead alone have already stated the only thing anyone needs to know about the buckler line: You take it and you get MUCH better aggro for a marginal impact on survivability. That's it. The exact percent with any setup doesn't matter. Which other gear you're wearing, which exact towers you have vs. which bucklers, who you have in your group, what buffs they are running, the mob you are tanking, it's level vs. your, any attacks they have and how they are handled by the avoid check... Those all make any precise, standing around Qeynos Harbor comparson pretty much meaningless.

If you do want to go with the buckler and don't have anough points to run all the way down the Sta line yet, I'd go with whichever two of Int, Agi, Str catch your fancy. Pick one to fill out completely first. Doesn't matter much which.

If you still don't think anyone has addressed the issue adiquately, level up to 70, get 50+ AA's, and write up a tretise.

Snorm -- 70 Guard

Aristigon · 06-12-2007, 01:18 PM

Actually snorm put it best.. and to summarize for those of you who are too lazy to read his post is this... There are far too many variables to consider for hard number comparisons. There are multiple ways that work. It doesn't matter much until level 70 and you are tanking a raid. I feel I offered some simple reasoning as to how I chose MY AA's in my above posting. At the end of the day though, it's personal preference and whatever you FEEL works best for you. You said: "This is research with a very useful and informative potential, one which nobody has managed to grasp and instead everyone has gotten caught up in their own uberness........" If there was some simple cut+dry answer like you seem to expect wouldn't you think this thread would have stopped after maybe 5 replies at the most? Or that after all these years this game has been around, someone before you might have done this study already? Instead you try and belittle accomplished players who offered advice as best they could as if we were unintelligent. Perhaps you should take your lousy attitude and go figure it out for yourself.

ToiletBomb · 06-12-2007, 05:02 PM

Aye, the fact that you said no advice was offered was when I decided to ignore the post. If you didn't see the wealth of information that all these 70 guards offered then you are not ready to consider the very question you asked. Try reading all this again and you may find that there are some very useful tidbits of information. Like Aristigon said, Snorm summarized it very well. Parse for yourself. I've seen buckler specced guardians mitigate dmg better than tower shield specced ones. I've seen tower shield guardians out aggro buckler ones. It varies from player to player and gear / raid setup and may very well be dynamic over time for you. But, buckler is best bang for your buck for all grouping (assuming you can fill the tree up to at least 8 in the double attack). And as you can see is viable for top end raiding. But our "self-proclaimed uberness" will hinder any perfect answer I guess. If anything this should show you the viability of a few different specs. As the others have said there is no cut and dry and the bottomline is at your level it won't make much difference.

Rufio · 06-12-2007, 08:36 PM

Aristigon wrote:

Actually snorm put it best.. and to summarize for those of you who are too lazy to read his post is this... There are far too many variables to consider for hard number comparisons. There are multiple ways that work. It doesn't matter much until level 70 and you are tanking a raid. I feel I offered some simple reasoning as to how I chose MY AA's in my above posting. At the end of the day though, it's personal preference and whatever you FEEL works best for you. You said: "This is research with a very useful and informative potential, one which nobody has managed to grasp and instead everyone has gotten caught up in their own uberness........" If there was some simple cut+dry answer like you seem to expect wouldn't you think this thread would have stopped after maybe 5 replies at the most? Or that after all these years this game has been around, someone before you might have done this study already? Instead you try and belittle accomplished players who offered advice as best they could as if we were unintelligent. Perhaps you should take your lousy attitude and go figure it out for yourself.

I asked for the comparison to be done between the STR/WIS and STR/STA setups using the same gear, it is not that hard to do really you just need to have 50 AA and a guardian. I said nobody has answered my question properly, I never said that the above information, while not appointing the question, was not useful to me. On the contrary I have gained from this post in areas I thought would not have been covered by such a simple comparison.

How am I belittling anyone here? I am mrely pointing out that my question, however simple has not been answered even by the most experienced of players. I guess you fail to realize just what you are even talking about and again you miss the point like many other lvl 70 uber tanks out there who think this is a completely different topic.

I guess I will do the research myself, I don`t need to lvl to 70 and get 50AA to complete this study. I have 22 AA at lvl 22 I will do the study even before I hit 40 then post the results here for those who fail to understand how simple this is. Thanks for flaming someone who was trying to do a study using solid parameters for comparisons sake. For those who think there are too many variables, you may wish to read my question again, then post with all that knowledge you have and of course after trying it out yourself.

Opinionitive flaming is not wanted here, just answer the question originally stated, not your opinion on what can or can`t be done, what is or isn`t right, that is not what I asked about and nor what I am looking for.

Oh and Snorm if you think that there is no difference in the way a character plays depending on what AA setup they go with, then you are gravely mistaken and have some learning to do. There is a point to this and because you fail to understand it you flame with your own opinions to make yourself feel secure oncemore, stop, read and then think. take a guardian, same gear, crafted tower shield and crafted buckler for comparisons sake, then spec on for str/wis and the other for str/sta record the stats for both then come back. Simple, not expensive, one respec or can`t we afford that at lvl 70?

Snorm · 06-13-2007, 02:58 AM

Atreu@Everfrost wrote:

Aristigon wrote:
Oh and Snorm if you think that there is no difference in the way a character plays depending on what AA setup they go with, then you are gravely mistaken and have some learning to do. There is a point to this and because you fail to understand it you flame with your own opinions to make yourself feel secure oncemore, stop, read and then think. take a guardian, same gear, crafted tower shield and crafted buckler for comparisons sake, then spec on for str/wis and the other for str/sta record the stats for both then come back. Simple, not expensive, one respec or can`t we afford that at lvl 70?

Well, I supose it is possible that you don't understand why I think it's a silly question to ask. Let me try to elaborate.

From you OP:

Can someone give me an example of a STR/STA spec`d AA guard using the buckler vs their STR/? spec`d tower shield guard using same gear except the shield. I would like to know the exact stats and difference please.

The differences will be:

Str/Agi: You will have more Def, agi, an extra AOE, slighly better AOE aggro and DPS from the AOE frontal on your autoattack, and, if you go for the final ability, a little 100% parry toy to keep you from dying but will usually result in aggro slipping and the raid wiping anyway.

Str/Wis: More mit, and a little more DPS in general. End line adds marginally to survivability and power management. Little used at this point.

Str/Int: Better single target DPS, esp with a sword (for now) and if you are not grouped with someone that buffs haste. About 16 points of parry. The end line adds nicely to DPS. After the upcoming AA changes, I'm probably going back down this line myself.

Why it doesn't matter what the actual stats are:

Would you like me to do these comparisons naked? Wearing my mit gear? Avoidance gear? Any particlar resist gear? Should I have a warden running their def buff? Parry from a dirge? Are you just wanting the stats on the UI, or how it would stack up to any particular mob? Velucidae say? Or the first named in nest? Just any generic x4 mob? Shredder maybe? Or possibly trash?

These things all impact how your avoidance and other stats actually work in practice. The more def you have, the less avoid your going to get from the def in the agi line. Same with parry and the int line. Mobs make a difference because of their level, and certain combat arts from certain mobs just ignore parts of the avoid check, everything except block actually (as a guard). The buffs available just move you into different points on the parry/def curves, much like changing the mob level except just for the skill being buffed. With a dirge running their parry buff, any parry gear I have becomes less valuable, and I'm more likely to trade off for HP gear instead, as an example.

And besides, what's so special about my personal gear. There is a lot of nice parry gear that I don't have, some crazy HP gear from EOF I'm lacking. If I had those it would make a difference in how I geared, the ideal AA setup, and the numbers you would see with any particular AA build. The makeup of the raid force I'm raiding with has an impact. Fully fabled/mastered/adorned healers in a balance fully fabled/mastered/adorned raidforce just have to work less hard, and if you are in that situation, you have more room to trade down survivability for something more valuable (at the time). You have more raw healing power available, more debuffing of the mob, and just flat better gear on the MT. If I were in that situation, I'd probably gear and AA much like Jaarx does (who is frequently in that situation): Pure mit, no avoid, all the DPS/Hate you can manage.

In short, how you should pick AAs, gear, even how you should play your toon are all very largely determined by what you're doing, who you're with, and what gear you (all) have available. Are you a raider? Not everone raids, and not everone should. If you don't raid, you will not have access to some of what I would be wearing. If you're in the type of guild that gets every contested, I won't have the same options you will. Also, if you're not raiding, you're going to be fighting different mobs than I usually do. The issues you face as a grouping tank are different from the issues you face as a raid tank, which differ still from the issues with soloing (which can be very fun. I suck at it). I gear differently in all those situations (well unless I'm just being lazy), and I'd have different AA's if something other than MT in a raid were my typical situation.

As somone who has spent a LOT of time standing around QH plugging numbers into Excel, let me tell you that all of the above have more impact than any min/maxing you might end up doing. It's good to understand the tradeoffs, but even if you can derive the exact expected differences, you will most likely not be able to do much with that knowledge, and other things will have a much larger impact. (Hm.. the dirge in the MT group just went LD... let me hit pause and swap in all my parry gear.) I treat it more as a hobby SMILEY I still gear largely based on feel and what the parses say.

And, in direct response to you last post, I never said there was no difference in how people play with various AA builds. What I said was that it wasn't that critical, especially if you are just leveling. AA's are reasonably well balanced; some AA builds are better than others, but any semi-sane AA build will get the job done 95% of the time. Use your time leveling to play with the options and come to your own conclusions about what you prefer, and which tradeoffs you like.

Snorm -- 70 Guard

PS: The other reason no one wants to actually spend a lot of time coming up with the actual numbers is because of things like the upcoming LU36 AA changes. Time to review the options again......

PPS: I'm still broke at level 70 SMILEY

Wabit · 06-13-2007, 05:08 PM

ok you ask for the difference in the dps between the wis and sta line...

get in your duo group, get buffed like you are off to adventure.
with your 1H and shield equiped, type in /weaponstat
take the upperend of the actual damage (you have + crit you said). = X
now take 60 / your actual delay. = Y

so your autoattack dps without a buckler is: {X * Y * 1} / 60

with a buckler and points into double attack is X * Y *1.76 (.76 is the extra attacks)

for instance if i have 0 haste/dps buffs a 2.0 delay weapon, that hits for 200.

{200 * 30 * 1} / 60 = 100dps

{200 * 30 * 1.76} / 60 = 176dps

now if you added 100% haste and som dps to same weapon...

{300 * 60 *1} / 60 = 300 dps

{300 *60 *1.76} / 60 = 528 dps

these are a very broad generalization of the dps difference with and without a buckler.

go generous and say haveing a Towershield gives 5% more total avoid. so 50% with a buckler 55% with a toweshield.

standard delay of an npc being 2.0, average hit is 100, and has 6k HP. it'll take you minute even to kill him with a towershield. (6000 / 100 = 60 secs), mob gets 30 attacks off hitting on 13 of them you take 1300 damage total. with a buclker the same fight last 34 secs. the mob gets 17 attacks off hitting on 9 of them, you take 900 damage.

putting it in the most simplistic terms. the faster you kill something the less chances it has to kill you.

*EDIT* you you could do what i and countless other gaurds have done, and most of them have spoke up in some way shape or form here. parse the builds yourself. the countless hours i've spent autoattacking green / grey ^^^ finding the best build, which weapon is actully the best. finding the caps of stats everytime the game gets revamped.

I've probably tanked more lvl appropritate cotnent that 99.9% of gurads playing the game. it not tooting my own horn it the simple truth. when i look around at the forums, the guards i grew up with are gone. I can't even name a guard that tanked any contestedx4 in t5 on my server, there might be one between the /movelogs and mergers besides myself on my server. Some of us older guards give our advice freely, it might sound harsh but most of the topics in the guard forums are really just same words in different order.

rubels · 06-13-2007, 07:15 PM

Ok m I guess if you want to go the Vox route SMILEY I have said this before the major change from tower shield to buckler is.... Buckler- higher dps , aggromanagement from the initial pull. This is the trade off for ....

Towershield - Higher mitigation , avoidance factor and survivabilty overall.

- Krovax

Tanking since day 1 ..... and yea those t5 epic x 4 contested SMILEY

rubels · 06-13-2007, 07:16 PM

doh DP

- Krov

Wabit · 06-13-2007, 10:05 PM

lol, and i was about to offer a cookie to the first person that could name the first guardian... or see how many ppl knew what BAoW was =)

Rufio · 06-13-2007, 10:48 PM

Snorm wrote:

Atreu@Everfrost wrote:
Aristigon wrote:
Oh and Snorm if you think that there is no difference in the way a character plays depending on what AA setup they go with, then you are gravely mistaken and have some learning to do. There is a point to this and because you fail to understand it you flame with your own opinions to make yourself feel secure oncemore, stop, read and then think. take a guardian, same gear, crafted tower shield and crafted buckler for comparisons sake, then spec on for str/wis and the other for str/sta record the stats for both then come back. Simple, not expensive, one respec or can`t we afford that at lvl 70?
Well, I supose it is possible that you don't understand why I think it's a silly question to ask. Let me try to elaborate.
From you OP:
Can someone give me an example of a STR/STA spec`d AA guard using the buckler vs their STR/? spec`d tower shield guard using same gear except the shield. I would like to know the exact stats and difference please.
The differences will be:
Str/Agi: You will have more Def, agi, an extra AOE, slighly better AOE aggro and DPS from the AOE frontal on your autoattack, and, if you go for the final ability, a little 100% parry toy to keep you from dying but will usually result in aggro slipping and the raid wiping anyway.
Str/Wis: More mit, and a little more DPS in general. End line adds marginally to survivability and power management. Little used at this point.
Str/Int: Better single target DPS, esp with a sword (for now) and if you are not grouped with someone that buffs haste. About 16 points of parry. The end line adds nicely to DPS. After the upcoming AA changes, I'm probably going back down this line myself.
Why it doesn't matter what the actual stats are:
Would you like me to do these comparisons naked? Wearing my mit gear? Avoidance gear? Any particlar resist gear? Should I have a warden running their def buff? Parry from a dirge? Are you just wanting the stats on the UI, or how it would stack up to any particular mob? Velucidae say? Or the first named in nest? Just any generic x4 mob? Shredder maybe? Or possibly trash?
These things all impact how your avoidance and other stats actually work in practice. The more def you have, the less avoid your going to get from the def in the agi line. Same with parry and the int line. Mobs make a difference because of their level, and certain combat arts from certain mobs just ignore parts of the avoid check, everything except block actually (as a guard). The buffs available just move you into different points on the parry/def curves, much like changing the mob level except just for the skill being buffed. With a dirge running their parry buff, any parry gear I have becomes less valuable, and I'm more likely to trade off for HP gear instead, as an example.
And besides, what's so special about my personal gear. There is a lot of nice parry gear that I don't have, some crazy HP gear from EOF I'm lacking. If I had those it would make a difference in how I geared, the ideal AA setup, and the numbers you would see with any particular AA build. The makeup of the raid force I'm raiding with has an impact. Fully fabled/mastered/adorned healers in a balance fully fabled/mastered/adorned raidforce just have to work less hard, and if you are in that situation, you have more room to trade down survivability for something more valuable (at the time). You have more raw healing power available, more debuffing of the mob, and just flat better gear on the MT. If I were in that situation, I'd probably gear and AA much like Jaarx does (who is frequently in that situation): Pure mit, no avoid, all the DPS/Hate you can manage.
In short, how you should pick AAs, gear, even how you should play your toon are all very largely determined by what you're doing, who you're with, and what gear you (all) have available. Are you a raider? Not everone raids, and not everone should. If you don't raid, you will not have access to some of what I would be wearing. If you're in the type of guild that gets every contested, I won't have the same options you will. Also, if you're not raiding, you're going to be fighting different mobs than I usually do. The issues you face as a grouping tank are different from the issues you face as a raid tank, which differ still from the issues with soloing (which can be very fun. I suck at it). I gear differently in all those situations (well unless I'm just being lazy), and I'd have different AA's if something other than MT in a raid were my typical situation.
As somone who has spent a LOT of time standing around QH plugging numbers into Excel, let me tell you that all of the above have more impact than any min/maxing you might end up doing. It's good to understand the tradeoffs, but even if you can derive the exact expected differences, you will most likely not be able to do much with that knowledge, and other things will have a much larger impact. (Hm.. the dirge in the MT group just went LD... let me hit pause and swap in all my parry gear.) I treat it more as a hobby I still gear largely based on feel and what the parses say.
And, in direct response to you last post, I never said there was no difference in how people play with various AA builds. What I said was that it wasn't that critical, especially if you are just leveling. AA's are reasonably well balanced; some AA builds are better than others, but any semi-sane AA build will get the job done 95% of the time. Use your time leveling to play with the options and come to your own conclusions about what you prefer, and which tradeoffs you like.
Snorm -- 70 Guard
PS: The other reason no one wants to actually spend a lot of time coming up with the actual numbers is because of things like the upcoming LU36 AA changes. Time to review the options again......
PPS: I'm still broke at level 70

Thankyou Snorm, your post was both informative and a delight to read, making my quest for hard stats obsolete yet an interesting discussion nonetheless. I think this thread has given light to the wealth of information some of the older guardians can share, making my choices easier as I level up. Not to say I am new, I have been here about 3 years now a month after the release, the first character I made was a guardian, I was a noob.

I think back then making a guardian was a bad choice for someone starting out, as they require more work than most classes as far as maintenance of gear and necessity of it goes. I got to about lvl 24 back then with my barbarian guardian, then couldn`t keep up with the cost of repairs, buying new spells, finding or buying nice gear. I think with time and the experience and knowledge I gain daily, even after these numerous hours of play, things get easier and doors to new areas of play open just as often.

I have never had a lvl 70 guardian, nor have I raided as a guardian or MT, something I might do later on but it is not something I need to do to feel complete at this present time. My point is, that as you mentioned above, depending on your play style the above posts` information will be relevant or not, maybe even in pieces.

I solo and duo alot, I hardly ever have a healer with me unless absolutely necessary and even then I usually stay with mobs around my lvl. I absolutely love playing guardian because I spent alot of time enjoying lower level content, locking up to complete quests in Neriak, Darklight Wood and showing my mates who powerlvl`d through to 70 some of the areas which they missed out on.

Bringing a new aspect of play into the game and finding all the rares to make all the master crafted armor and jewellery I have, all the master I`s, well most of them I have found myself. I never thought a guardian could solo well, I thought they would need to have some scout backup or something, but I solo named ^^^ heroics 2 lvls below me everyday for new gear and to fund my next tier.

At the moment I am lvl 23 with 25 AA and I did max out the STR line, whcih for me as a primary soloer, is a great line to go down. I will continue to level up slowly and take onboard the advice I have gained by starting this thread, and I am sorry to those of you that I offended with my replies, it was not my intention to hurt you just to provoke more discussion from those of you with more experience than I with regards to the guardian class and their respective AA lines.

Thankyou.

Wilin · 06-15-2007, 04:25 PM

Wabit wrote:

lol, and i was about to offer a cookie to the first person that could name the first guardian... or see how many ppl knew what BAoW was =)

The first guardian was Noah on Permafrost. It's been a while. I created my guard on the day that Guk went live and have played him as my main since then. I only have a couple alts that I play for laughs, none of them are high level though.

Edit: And my forum account is 1 day older than yours. SMILEY

Macross_JR · 06-15-2007, 05:23 PM

Wabit wrote:

lol, and i was about to offer a cookie to the first person that could name the first guardian... or see how many ppl knew what BAoW was =)

I guess it's not fair that I do know what BAoW is and that Noah was the first Guardian, I've only played on Permafrost since the beginning..BAoW was always a blast.

Xandis · 06-27-2007, 03:49 PM

Jaraxx@Lucan DLere wrote:

Otherwise DPS guys DPS.

This is very interesting. I'm currently done with WIS line and was heading down STR line. (old school EQ1 thinking) Was going for Mit + Taunt... Didn't realize the STA was so beneficial. Going to use my free respec and try out the Sta line. Keep in mind my guardian is only 53, so I'm not raiding yet, but I do want to make sure I keep agro in groups, and can take the hits coming in. I'm actually pretty impressed with my current Mitigation, being a low 50's Legendary tank. This is interesting and worth checking out though. Thank you for your input!

06-09-2007, 07:54 AM	#61
Ep General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 435	why wouldn't anyone trust their healers? if you don't/can't trust your healers, don't bother raiding. __________________ --- Sir Auron

06-09-2007, 01:02 PM	#62
Wilin Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,151	There are several reasons why you might not trust your healers. It's not that hard to figure out, but I'll give some examples in no particular order. -new healer joins the guild and raids with guild for the first time and seems to be slacking -one of your healers keeps going LD because of bad connection/storm/crash/whatever -One of your healers has an emergency at home and is semi-afk because the roof of their home is caving in -etc __________________

06-10-2007, 01:35 PM	#64
Wilin Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,151	Well, no one is telling you what to do. And advice is about all you'll find around here. I have sweated through these things and I'm not going to bother posting parses. There are some very simple, generalized "Rules of Thumb" that have been developed by examining our own parses in the past and if you choose not to believe us, that's fine. Go verify it yourself. But honestly, you just appeared in this thread so I'm not sure why you think someone is telling you how to spec. And I have tanked a raid with no AA for fun and the entire raid was gimped. If you tanked a raid with no AA and it went well, I choose not to believe you unless it was a T5 raid, the other raiders were not good, they had crap for gear, had no AAs, or some combination of the above. But, hey, you didn't give any specific numbers. But honestly, I don't care because I did it myself and I have seen the results. __________________

06-11-2007, 11:58 AM	#65
JeffBship Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 84	Ivellious wrote: ok, ok, this is truely sad. Noone has once answered the OP question by what he wanted. I find this a bit amusing...you complain that nobody answered the OP's question, yet you don't answer it either.

06-11-2007, 05:12 PM	#66
Aristigon Lord Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 62	Atreu@Everfrost wrote: Hey I just rolled a guardian yesterday and have made him a set of master crafted blackened iron str/sta/agi gear. I made the tower shield cause the mit on it was the highest, but I read here ppl like the dps that the STA line of AA gives you. I want to be at the highest mit / defense I can for my group so if I went down the sta line and used a buckler woudn`t my mit drop considerably? Can someone give me an example of a STR/STA spec`d AA guard using the buckler vs their STR/? spec`d tower shield guard using same gear except the shield. I would like to know the exact stats and difference please. Also for maxing my mit/avoidance etc what lines are best? Ok, allow me attempt some vague sense of a direct apply in order to appease the disgruntled few... cough Please be advised that your assumption about shields and protection factor is not regarding mitigation but rather avoidance. Mitigation comes purely from armor or items with bonuses to vs crush/slash/pierce. Using a buckler in place of a tower shield will only affect your chance to block (*note: avoidance). While blocking with your shield helps you survive longer the actual difference between buckler and towershields of comparable quality is actually quite minimal. Approximately an effective 1.7% difference in your avoidance. Your actual numbers may vary. What you gain in return is a rather noticeable difference in your damage which equates to faster killing of things. This has many levels of benefit. Faster killing improves the speed with which you can complete game content, improves the speed you earn experience and reduces the amount of time you are being damaged by your target thus lowering the strain on whoever is healing you. You are also better able to solo content in the game (although still not extremely well). The improved damage output further improves your ability to focus your enemy's hate towards yourself, allowing your group members to really let loose more than they could otherwise; this further improves the speed with which things die. Of course my above statements only apply to utilizing the Stamina line of achievements. The rest of your points can be spent how you see fit, however based on my personal experience and from what I have heard from many other tanks, the Strength line of achievements seem to compliment the Stamina ones the best. I have tried many different distributions of my points and I always seem to go back to this particular spec. STA 4 4 8 8 1 STR 4 4 8 7 The 8 points spent in the 4th ability from Stamina will improve your ability to wield a buckler significantly from a defense standpoint and almost trivialize the difference between buckler and tower. I'm sorry if I don't have the time and plat to check various specs with a parse and actually provide you with hard numbers comparing multiple specs, however everything I have shared has proven to work extremely well for both myself and other guardians/berserkers. Your mileage may vary. Also good luck with your guardian. -Aristigonn

06-10-2007, 04:21 AM	#63
Ivellious Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 42	ok, ok, this is truely sad. Noone has once answered the OP question by what he wanted. this has become a purely tower shield vs buckler thread that is as redundant as slashing vs. piercing dmg. any guardian can tank, there is not one build, one aa line one anything that can't tank as a guardian. Hell 3 weeks ago I didn't have AA's and I tanked perfectly, it doesn't matter. there is no situation in the game where you have to have so and so AA to complete, there is nothing like that. The OP wanted hard facts that showed the min/max of the builds he stated because thats what he/she wants to do, not advice, there is nothing here like that just overlizations, this is all paraphrased hogwash that has no real numbers to back so and so claims. we all know that the difference between tower and buckler is 1.7% avoidance, thats a known fact here, atleast by now, because that is the difference between buckler block mit and tower block mit, devs stated that long ago when they changed the shields block rates. with identicle gear what would be the true difference number wise, does sta do 200 more dps, show how, show the parces, thats what he/she wants not, well you fail to add this debuff that this peice of equipment adds you know debuff= hate, duh!! well, this double attack does blah blah blah, thats hogwash, thats just people playing hte big/small game in their pants. Most you people read the title and posted, grats you can read. now read the whole thing. Lets try getting some hard numbers here and not just heresay and actually make it worth something to want to go into a tree, instead, oh I should do this because this guy said he parced blah blah dmg as mt in a raid!! I am currently making my build str/sta 4/4/8/8 and I'm going to see if it fits me, as in my play style and tanking style, if it doens't guess what I'm changing it, and theres nothing you can say to stop me. I don't care about doing this this and this, i care about what I think is freaking fun and nothing more. If i chose to go tower shield then by god I thought that was fun. It seems to me people are just trying to sell the idea of buckler/tower more then defend it, well I can do this!!! haha beat that tower shields, well we can do that, ohhhhhh. do me a favor, on a raid you're going on, reset your AA's go with 0, tank it, 9/10 times you see just how good of a tank you are. Anyone can tank with or w/o AA's. I know I've done it. If you want to talk how good your raid crap is compaired to the next guy go to another topic, jesus, you guys are argueing over the most minute things, its embarasing, I come here for advice not for you to argue over raiding, this is the freaking GUARDIAN SECTION not whose better at raiding section! To OP I'm sorry for derailing your post even more, if your question isn't answered properly, when I get a few more AA's I will parce it myself, switching the builds back and forth and seeing for myself what the true differences are, because I want to know aswell. end rant

06-11-2007, 07:37 PM	#67
Belce Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 318	While a guardian's dps is not going to be that big in the overall picture of taking out a major raid encounter, it does play a role that is important. Groups can be constructed to maximize MT agro and also to diminish the agro generated by others in the raid. The set that is all MT agro has to be at least as large as anyone else's agro in general. We have tools to mitigate those troubles like reinforcement, rescue, plant when someone over does their dps. The bigger you make the MT's set of agro, the bigger everyone else's can be. The amount of agro you can possibly generate with taunts is really a constant. You apply taunts when they refresh and the amount of agro is basically going to be the same over time. It is with dps that great improvements can be made in the amount of agro generated. This is why some guardians believe that the buckler line is so strong. __________________

06-11-2007, 09:27 PM	#68
Rufio Server: Everfrost Loremaster Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Japan Posts: 111	Hello all, I have read all your posts and then read them again for some sign or glimmer of hope that my question had been answered, but alas with all your uberness and shiny fabled gear you cannot simply answer the questions. I am lvl 22 at the moment with my guardian, I have 20 AA points and have been lvling slowly with my illusionist friend. I have gone don the STR line first because that is something which I find to be benefitial either way I go with my AA lines, what I do next will probably go down the wisdom line as I obviously won`t have the AA to max out the STA line and therefore the whole mitigation % factor would come into play, rendering my defense weaker than the said STR/WIS combo. I personally like the look of the tower shield, but that is something for another thread and for those who came to show how uber their guardian is with their particular combo, that is also for another thread. I asked a simple question and require just a simple answer, that can also be answered by any guardian. It is just a matter of recording your stats using identical gear, except in the case of the shield where you should use just a plain handcrafted tower vs the buckler version for comparison sake. Then switch your AA lines for those I mentioned in my original question post to suite the specific set up, recording the stats for each as you go and then coming back here and posting your results. This is research with a very useful and informative potential, one which nobody has managed to grasp and instead everyone has gotten caught up in their own uberness........ __________________

06-12-2007, 02:15 AM	#69
Snorm Loremaster Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 125	You're not going to get someone to AB various AA builds for you. That get's rather cost prohibitive very quickly, and there is no reason to. Just take anyone with the sta line, and compare with a buckler vs/ without. This has already been posted, so I'm not going to do it again. The only difference you will see with someone in the Sta line wearing a tower and a 'true' tower AA build is in the crit chance, parry they might have, etc. With the right set of Sta built people, you could actually A/B any possible setup you want. The reason no one has jumped on the idea of cataloging all the various combination of points is that is flat doesn't matter. Take the Def, take the parry, take the 13 sec parry death immunity. Take anything you want. They are all half reasonable things you will find use for. Take the sta line or don't. The reason that most of the people responding to this are level 70 raid tanks is that the ONLY time it will make any kind of measurable difference is against upper level raid mobs. My advice, take whatever AA's you like. Take a tower setup if you like the looks. For that matter, don't even bother placing the points if you don't feel like it. You will still be able to level and tank just fine. About 900 people in this thead alone have already stated the only thing anyone needs to know about the buckler line: You take it and you get MUCH better aggro for a marginal impact on survivability. That's it. The exact percent with any setup doesn't matter. Which other gear you're wearing, which exact towers you have vs. which bucklers, who you have in your group, what buffs they are running, the mob you are tanking, it's level vs. your, any attacks they have and how they are handled by the avoid check... Those all make any precise, standing around Qeynos Harbor comparson pretty much meaningless. If you do want to go with the buckler and don't have anough points to run all the way down the Sta line yet, I'd go with whichever two of Int, Agi, Str catch your fancy. Pick one to fill out completely first. Doesn't matter much which. If you still don't think anyone has addressed the issue adiquately, level up to 70, get 50+ AA's, and write up a tretise. Snorm -- 70 Guard

06-12-2007, 01:18 PM	#70
Aristigon Lord Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 62	Actually snorm put it best.. and to summarize for those of you who are too lazy to read his post is this... There are far too many variables to consider for hard number comparisons. There are multiple ways that work. It doesn't matter much until level 70 and you are tanking a raid. I feel I offered some simple reasoning as to how I chose MY AA's in my above posting. At the end of the day though, it's personal preference and whatever you FEEL works best for you. You said: "This is research with a very useful and informative potential, one which nobody has managed to grasp and instead everyone has gotten caught up in their own uberness........" If there was some simple cut+dry answer like you seem to expect wouldn't you think this thread would have stopped after maybe 5 replies at the most? Or that after all these years this game has been around, someone before you might have done this study already? Instead you try and belittle accomplished players who offered advice as best they could as if we were unintelligent. Perhaps you should take your lousy attitude and go figure it out for yourself.

06-12-2007, 05:02 PM	#71
ToiletBomb Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 54	Aye, the fact that you said no advice was offered was when I decided to ignore the post. If you didn't see the wealth of information that all these 70 guards offered then you are not ready to consider the very question you asked. Try reading all this again and you may find that there are some very useful tidbits of information. Like Aristigon said, Snorm summarized it very well. Parse for yourself. I've seen buckler specced guardians mitigate dmg better than tower shield specced ones. I've seen tower shield guardians out aggro buckler ones. It varies from player to player and gear / raid setup and may very well be dynamic over time for you. But, buckler is best bang for your buck for all grouping (assuming you can fill the tree up to at least 8 in the double attack). And as you can see is viable for top end raiding. But our "self-proclaimed uberness" will hinder any perfect answer I guess. If anything this should show you the viability of a few different specs. As the others have said there is no cut and dry and the bottomline is at your level it won't make much difference. __________________ Rienlos T'Quost 60 Dark Elf Guardian Crushbone

06-12-2007, 08:36 PM	#72
Rufio Server: Everfrost Loremaster Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Japan Posts: 111	Aristigon wrote: Actually snorm put it best.. and to summarize for those of you who are too lazy to read his post is this... There are far too many variables to consider for hard number comparisons. There are multiple ways that work. It doesn't matter much until level 70 and you are tanking a raid. I feel I offered some simple reasoning as to how I chose MY AA's in my above posting. At the end of the day though, it's personal preference and whatever you FEEL works best for you. You said: "This is research with a very useful and informative potential, one which nobody has managed to grasp and instead everyone has gotten caught up in their own uberness........" If there was some simple cut+dry answer like you seem to expect wouldn't you think this thread would have stopped after maybe 5 replies at the most? Or that after all these years this game has been around, someone before you might have done this study already? Instead you try and belittle accomplished players who offered advice as best they could as if we were unintelligent. Perhaps you should take your lousy attitude and go figure it out for yourself. I asked for the comparison to be done between the STR/WIS and STR/STA setups using the same gear, it is not that hard to do really you just need to have 50 AA and a guardian. I said nobody has answered my question properly, I never said that the above information, while not appointing the question, was not useful to me. On the contrary I have gained from this post in areas I thought would not have been covered by such a simple comparison. How am I belittling anyone here? I am mrely pointing out that my question, however simple has not been answered even by the most experienced of players. I guess you fail to realize just what you are even talking about and again you miss the point like many other lvl 70 uber tanks out there who think this is a completely different topic. I guess I will do the research myself, I don`t need to lvl to 70 and get 50AA to complete this study. I have 22 AA at lvl 22 I will do the study even before I hit 40 then post the results here for those who fail to understand how simple this is. Thanks for flaming someone who was trying to do a study using solid parameters for comparisons sake. For those who think there are too many variables, you may wish to read my question again, then post with all that knowledge you have and of course after trying it out yourself. Opinionitive flaming is not wanted here, just answer the question originally stated, not your opinion on what can or can`t be done, what is or isn`t right, that is not what I asked about and nor what I am looking for. Oh and Snorm if you think that there is no difference in the way a character plays depending on what AA setup they go with, then you are gravely mistaken and have some learning to do. There is a point to this and because you fail to understand it you flame with your own opinions to make yourself feel secure oncemore, stop, read and then think. take a guardian, same gear, crafted tower shield and crafted buckler for comparisons sake, then spec on for str/wis and the other for str/sta record the stats for both then come back. Simple, not expensive, one respec or can`t we afford that at lvl 70? __________________

06-13-2007, 02:58 AM	#73
Snorm Loremaster Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 125	Atreu@Everfrost wrote: Aristigon wrote: Oh and Snorm if you think that there is no difference in the way a character plays depending on what AA setup they go with, then you are gravely mistaken and have some learning to do. There is a point to this and because you fail to understand it you flame with your own opinions to make yourself feel secure oncemore, stop, read and then think. take a guardian, same gear, crafted tower shield and crafted buckler for comparisons sake, then spec on for str/wis and the other for str/sta record the stats for both then come back. Simple, not expensive, one respec or can`t we afford that at lvl 70? Well, I supose it is possible that you don't understand why I think it's a silly question to ask. Let me try to elaborate. From you OP: Can someone give me an example of a STR/STA spec`d AA guard using the buckler vs their STR/? spec`d tower shield guard using same gear except the shield. I would like to know the exact stats and difference please. The differences will be: Str/Agi: You will have more Def, agi, an extra AOE, slighly better AOE aggro and DPS from the AOE frontal on your autoattack, and, if you go for the final ability, a little 100% parry toy to keep you from dying but will usually result in aggro slipping and the raid wiping anyway. Str/Wis: More mit, and a little more DPS in general. End line adds marginally to survivability and power management. Little used at this point. Str/Int: Better single target DPS, esp with a sword (for now) and if you are not grouped with someone that buffs haste. About 16 points of parry. The end line adds nicely to DPS. After the upcoming AA changes, I'm probably going back down this line myself. Why it doesn't matter what the actual stats are: Would you like me to do these comparisons naked? Wearing my mit gear? Avoidance gear? Any particlar resist gear? Should I have a warden running their def buff? Parry from a dirge? Are you just wanting the stats on the UI, or how it would stack up to any particular mob? Velucidae say? Or the first named in nest? Just any generic x4 mob? Shredder maybe? Or possibly trash? These things all impact how your avoidance and other stats actually work in practice. The more def you have, the less avoid your going to get from the def in the agi line. Same with parry and the int line. Mobs make a difference because of their level, and certain combat arts from certain mobs just ignore parts of the avoid check, everything except block actually (as a guard). The buffs available just move you into different points on the parry/def curves, much like changing the mob level except just for the skill being buffed. With a dirge running their parry buff, any parry gear I have becomes less valuable, and I'm more likely to trade off for HP gear instead, as an example. And besides, what's so special about my personal gear. There is a lot of nice parry gear that I don't have, some crazy HP gear from EOF I'm lacking. If I had those it would make a difference in how I geared, the ideal AA setup, and the numbers you would see with any particular AA build. The makeup of the raid force I'm raiding with has an impact. Fully fabled/mastered/adorned healers in a balance fully fabled/mastered/adorned raidforce just have to work less hard, and if you are in that situation, you have more room to trade down survivability for something more valuable (at the time). You have more raw healing power available, more debuffing of the mob, and just flat better gear on the MT. If I were in that situation, I'd probably gear and AA much like Jaarx does (who is frequently in that situation): Pure mit, no avoid, all the DPS/Hate you can manage. In short, how you should pick AAs, gear, even how you should play your toon are all very largely determined by what you're doing, who you're with, and what gear you (all) have available. Are you a raider? Not everone raids, and not everone should. If you don't raid, you will not have access to some of what I would be wearing. If you're in the type of guild that gets every contested, I won't have the same options you will. Also, if you're not raiding, you're going to be fighting different mobs than I usually do. The issues you face as a grouping tank are different from the issues you face as a raid tank, which differ still from the issues with soloing (which can be very fun. I suck at it). I gear differently in all those situations (well unless I'm just being lazy), and I'd have different AA's if something other than MT in a raid were my typical situation. As somone who has spent a LOT of time standing around QH plugging numbers into Excel, let me tell you that all of the above have more impact than any min/maxing you might end up doing. It's good to understand the tradeoffs, but even if you can derive the exact expected differences, you will most likely not be able to do much with that knowledge, and other things will have a much larger impact. (Hm.. the dirge in the MT group just went LD... let me hit pause and swap in all my parry gear.) I treat it more as a hobby I still gear largely based on feel and what the parses say. And, in direct response to you last post, I never said there was no difference in how people play with various AA builds. What I said was that it wasn't that critical, especially if you are just leveling. AA's are reasonably well balanced; some AA builds are better than others, but any semi-sane AA build will get the job done 95% of the time. Use your time leveling to play with the options and come to your own conclusions about what you prefer, and which tradeoffs you like. Snorm -- 70 Guard PS: The other reason no one wants to actually spend a lot of time coming up with the actual numbers is because of things like the upcoming LU36 AA changes. Time to review the options again...... PPS: I'm still broke at level 70

06-13-2007, 05:08 PM	#74
Wabit Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 802	ok you ask for the difference in the dps between the wis and sta line... get in your duo group, get buffed like you are off to adventure. with your 1H and shield equiped, type in /weaponstat take the upperend of the actual damage (you have + crit you said). = X now take 60 / your actual delay. = Y so your autoattack dps without a buckler is: {X * Y * 1} / 60 with a buckler and points into double attack is X * Y 1.76 (.76 is the extra attacks) for instance if i have 0 haste/dps buffs a 2.0 delay weapon, that hits for 200. {200 30 * 1} / 60 = 100dps {200 * 30 * 1.76} / 60 = 176dps now if you added 100% haste and som dps to same weapon... {300 * 60 1} / 60 = 300 dps {300 60 1.76} / 60 = 528 dps these are a very broad generalization of the dps difference with and without a buckler. go generous and say haveing a Towershield gives 5% more total avoid. so 50% with a buckler 55% with a toweshield. standard delay of an npc being 2.0, average hit is 100, and has 6k HP. it'll take you minute even to kill him with a towershield. (6000 / 100 = 60 secs), mob gets 30 attacks off hitting on 13 of them you take 1300 damage total. with a buclker the same fight last 34 secs. the mob gets 17 attacks off hitting on 9 of them, you take 900 damage. putting it in the most simplistic terms. the faster you kill something the less chances it has to kill you. EDIT* you you could do what i and countless other gaurds have done, and most of them have spoke up in some way shape or form here. parse the builds yourself. the countless hours i've spent autoattacking green / grey ^^^ finding the best build, which weapon is actully the best. finding the caps of stats everytime the game gets revamped. I've probably tanked more lvl appropritate cotnent that 99.9% of gurads playing the game. it not tooting my own horn it the simple truth. when i look around at the forums, the guards i grew up with are gone. I can't even name a guard that tanked any contestedx4 in t5 on my server, there might be one between the /movelogs and mergers besides myself on my server. Some of us older guards give our advice freely, it might sound harsh but most of the topics in the guard forums are really just same words in different order. __________________ Wabit- 80 guardian Trixr- 70 carpenter - Oasis (part time Warden) Thoog- 80 monk - Oasis

06-13-2007, 07:15 PM	#75
rubels General Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 141	Ok m I guess if you want to go the Vox route I have said this before the major change from tower shield to buckler is.... Buckler- higher dps , aggromanagement from the initial pull. This is the trade off for .... Towershield - Higher mitigation , avoidance factor and survivabilty overall. - Krovax Tanking since day 1 ..... and yea those t5 epic x 4 contested

06-13-2007, 07:16 PM	#76
rubels General Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 141	doh DP - Krov

06-13-2007, 10:05 PM	#77
Wabit Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 802	lol, and i was about to offer a cookie to the first person that could name the first guardian... or see how many ppl knew what BAoW was =) __________________ Wabit- 80 guardian Trixr- 70 carpenter - Oasis (part time Warden) Thoog- 80 monk - Oasis

06-13-2007, 10:48 PM	#78
Rufio Server: Everfrost Loremaster Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Japan Posts: 111	Snorm wrote: Atreu@Everfrost wrote: Aristigon wrote: Oh and Snorm if you think that there is no difference in the way a character plays depending on what AA setup they go with, then you are gravely mistaken and have some learning to do. There is a point to this and because you fail to understand it you flame with your own opinions to make yourself feel secure oncemore, stop, read and then think. take a guardian, same gear, crafted tower shield and crafted buckler for comparisons sake, then spec on for str/wis and the other for str/sta record the stats for both then come back. Simple, not expensive, one respec or can`t we afford that at lvl 70? Well, I supose it is possible that you don't understand why I think it's a silly question to ask. Let me try to elaborate. From you OP: Can someone give me an example of a STR/STA spec`d AA guard using the buckler vs their STR/? spec`d tower shield guard using same gear except the shield. I would like to know the exact stats and difference please. The differences will be: Str/Agi: You will have more Def, agi, an extra AOE, slighly better AOE aggro and DPS from the AOE frontal on your autoattack, and, if you go for the final ability, a little 100% parry toy to keep you from dying but will usually result in aggro slipping and the raid wiping anyway. Str/Wis: More mit, and a little more DPS in general. End line adds marginally to survivability and power management. Little used at this point. Str/Int: Better single target DPS, esp with a sword (for now) and if you are not grouped with someone that buffs haste. About 16 points of parry. The end line adds nicely to DPS. After the upcoming AA changes, I'm probably going back down this line myself. Why it doesn't matter what the actual stats are: Would you like me to do these comparisons naked? Wearing my mit gear? Avoidance gear? Any particlar resist gear? Should I have a warden running their def buff? Parry from a dirge? Are you just wanting the stats on the UI, or how it would stack up to any particular mob? Velucidae say? Or the first named in nest? Just any generic x4 mob? Shredder maybe? Or possibly trash? These things all impact how your avoidance and other stats actually work in practice. The more def you have, the less avoid your going to get from the def in the agi line. Same with parry and the int line. Mobs make a difference because of their level, and certain combat arts from certain mobs just ignore parts of the avoid check, everything except block actually (as a guard). The buffs available just move you into different points on the parry/def curves, much like changing the mob level except just for the skill being buffed. With a dirge running their parry buff, any parry gear I have becomes less valuable, and I'm more likely to trade off for HP gear instead, as an example. And besides, what's so special about my personal gear. There is a lot of nice parry gear that I don't have, some crazy HP gear from EOF I'm lacking. If I had those it would make a difference in how I geared, the ideal AA setup, and the numbers you would see with any particular AA build. The makeup of the raid force I'm raiding with has an impact. Fully fabled/mastered/adorned healers in a balance fully fabled/mastered/adorned raidforce just have to work less hard, and if you are in that situation, you have more room to trade down survivability for something more valuable (at the time). You have more raw healing power available, more debuffing of the mob, and just flat better gear on the MT. If I were in that situation, I'd probably gear and AA much like Jaarx does (who is frequently in that situation): Pure mit, no avoid, all the DPS/Hate you can manage. In short, how you should pick AAs, gear, even how you should play your toon are all very largely determined by what you're doing, who you're with, and what gear you (all) have available. Are you a raider? Not everone raids, and not everone should. If you don't raid, you will not have access to some of what I would be wearing. If you're in the type of guild that gets every contested, I won't have the same options you will. Also, if you're not raiding, you're going to be fighting different mobs than I usually do. The issues you face as a grouping tank are different from the issues you face as a raid tank, which differ still from the issues with soloing (which can be very fun. I suck at it). I gear differently in all those situations (well unless I'm just being lazy), and I'd have different AA's if something other than MT in a raid were my typical situation. As somone who has spent a LOT of time standing around QH plugging numbers into Excel, let me tell you that all of the above have more impact than any min/maxing you might end up doing. It's good to understand the tradeoffs, but even if you can derive the exact expected differences, you will most likely not be able to do much with that knowledge, and other things will have a much larger impact. (Hm.. the dirge in the MT group just went LD... let me hit pause and swap in all my parry gear.) I treat it more as a hobby I still gear largely based on feel and what the parses say. And, in direct response to you last post, I never said there was no difference in how people play with various AA builds. What I said was that it wasn't that critical, especially if you are just leveling. AA's are reasonably well balanced; some AA builds are better than others, but any semi-sane AA build will get the job done 95% of the time. Use your time leveling to play with the options and come to your own conclusions about what you prefer, and which tradeoffs you like. Snorm -- 70 Guard PS: The other reason no one wants to actually spend a lot of time coming up with the actual numbers is because of things like the upcoming LU36 AA changes. Time to review the options again...... PPS: I'm still broke at level 70 Thankyou Snorm, your post was both informative and a delight to read, making my quest for hard stats obsolete yet an interesting discussion nonetheless. I think this thread has given light to the wealth of information some of the older guardians can share, making my choices easier as I level up. Not to say I am new, I have been here about 3 years now a month after the release, the first character I made was a guardian, I was a noob. I think back then making a guardian was a bad choice for someone starting out, as they require more work than most classes as far as maintenance of gear and necessity of it goes. I got to about lvl 24 back then with my barbarian guardian, then couldn`t keep up with the cost of repairs, buying new spells, finding or buying nice gear. I think with time and the experience and knowledge I gain daily, even after these numerous hours of play, things get easier and doors to new areas of play open just as often. I have never had a lvl 70 guardian, nor have I raided as a guardian or MT, something I might do later on but it is not something I need to do to feel complete at this present time. My point is, that as you mentioned above, depending on your play style the above posts` information will be relevant or not, maybe even in pieces. I solo and duo alot, I hardly ever have a healer with me unless absolutely necessary and even then I usually stay with mobs around my lvl. I absolutely love playing guardian because I spent alot of time enjoying lower level content, locking up to complete quests in Neriak, Darklight Wood and showing my mates who powerlvl`d through to 70 some of the areas which they missed out on. Bringing a new aspect of play into the game and finding all the rares to make all the master crafted armor and jewellery I have, all the master I`s, well most of them I have found myself. I never thought a guardian could solo well, I thought they would need to have some scout backup or something, but I solo named ^^^ heroics 2 lvls below me everyday for new gear and to fund my next tier. At the moment I am lvl 23 with 25 AA and I did max out the STR line, whcih for me as a primary soloer, is a great line to go down. I will continue to level up slowly and take onboard the advice I have gained by starting this thread, and I am sorry to those of you that I offended with my replies, it was not my intention to hurt you just to provoke more discussion from those of you with more experience than I with regards to the guardian class and their respective AA lines. Thankyou. __________________

06-15-2007, 04:25 PM	#79
Wilin Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,151	Wabit wrote: lol, and i was about to offer a cookie to the first person that could name the first guardian... or see how many ppl knew what BAoW was =) The first guardian was Noah on Permafrost. It's been a while. I created my guard on the day that Guk went live and have played him as my main since then. I only have a couple alts that I play for laughs, none of them are high level though. Edit: And my forum account is 1 day older than yours. __________________

06-15-2007, 05:23 PM	#80
Macross_JR Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 547	Wabit wrote: lol, and i was about to offer a cookie to the first person that could name the first guardian... or see how many ppl knew what BAoW was =) I guess it's not fair that I do know what BAoW is and that Noah was the first Guardian, I've only played on Permafrost since the beginning..BAoW was always a blast. __________________

06-27-2007, 03:49 PM	#81
Xandis Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 25	Jaraxx@Lucan DLere wrote: Otherwise DPS guys DPS. This is very interesting. I'm currently done with WIS line and was heading down STR line. (old school EQ1 thinking) Was going for Mit + Taunt... Didn't realize the STA was so beneficial. Going to use my free respec and try out the Sta line. Keep in mind my guardian is only 53, so I'm not raiding yet, but I do want to make sure I keep agro in groups, and can take the hits coming in. I'm actually pretty impressed with my current Mitigation, being a low 50's Legendary tank. This is interesting and worth checking out though. Thank you for your input!