Mystra
Goddess of Magic
No doubt.
In fact, that's why I'm rolling a tank now. I need to understand what they are doing to better DPS at least in my opinion.
Hope Grunndi's Paladin Shield and (Daxe/Bsword) build is going to cut mustard.
DPS Too High: Was it my fault?
- Thread starter Mystra
- Start date
In fact, that's why I'm rolling a tank now. I need to understand what they are doing to better DPS at least in my opinion.
Hope Grunndi's Paladin Shield and (Daxe/Bsword) build is going to cut mustard.
Grunndi
Well-known member
This math is why for LH/R1 raids I personally think an incite tank is way better. When I hit intim then follow up up immediately with an Adren/boulders that gets me about 1.5-2 million hate every 9 seconds… usually sufficient however much DPS is out there even with some crazy imbue stuff going on.
Mystra
Goddess of Magic
From my experience "hate tanking" is far far better than "intimi tanking". It's why I'm hyper-focused on your paladin dwarf build which seems to try and straddle both worlds.
I bet in terms of defense and maximum aggro it hits he sweet spot. Maybe. I haven't tried it yet.
Bjond
Well-known member
Literally every time I check to see who is flipping agro in a raid it's ALWAYS someone with defender stance on or running a high-imbue build; roughly 90/10 for that split -- high-imbue builds aren't all that common, but they behave like imbues have double threat.
The other even more rare method of pulling threat is to have a high-spike build; ie. it has a HUGE adrenaline punch (or HE+Sniper punch, which was pretty common pre-U66)
I wish threat was simple, but it's not. It seems to be a function of total damage, sequence (1st agro is sticky), distance, spike, and squish -- and a lot of that is guessing driven by "uh, why did that leave the tank to stomp the poor newbie?" I even suspect it's idiosyncratic with different agro mechanisms per type of mob.
The other even more rare method of pulling threat is to have a high-spike build; ie. it has a HUGE adrenaline punch (or HE+Sniper punch, which was pretty common pre-U66)
I wish threat was simple, but it's not. It seems to be a function of total damage, sequence (1st agro is sticky), distance, spike, and squish -- and a lot of that is guessing driven by "uh, why did that leave the tank to stomp the poor newbie?" I even suspect it's idiosyncratic with different agro mechanisms per type of mob.
PraetorPlato
Well-known member
One thing to note: I don’t know your lives situation, but that build really really likes racial lives-if you’re not racial comp, you’re going to lose stuff really quickly.
Less importantly, but still important, is that bc you’re a hybrid tank/something else, a solid chunk of your tankiness comes from RP-without wings level RP at least, you’re going to feel a bit squishy. Don’t know where you’re at, so that might not be relevant.
Mystra
Goddess of Magic
rabidfox
The People's Champion
Just use a first life tank and scale it up. If you want to run a tank, go full tank; trying to hybrid it without knowing how to play and decide what stats you can afford to trade-off from experience will just make it meh at both roles.
Mystra
Goddess of Magic
Naw, need a hybrid. I want to be able to walk the line so I can go DPS when I need to and tank when I absolutely have to. In other MMO's this will be called a "off-tank".
PraetorPlato
Well-known member
The issue is you kind of suck at both without lives—even Grunndi's ubercomp setup is going to be well, well, below pure DPS on DPS, and significantly less tanky than a first life tank. That's fine, because covering both in LH/r1 is a cool niche to fill, but without lives, you just won't be enough of either. Hate tanking is def easier to keep aggro with, but very rough on a first lifer to get tank stats AND dps stats.
SpartanKiller13
Why do I have 411 .ddocp files
Absolutely, hate tanking is a lot more effective (aside from Intim being AoE, which usually doesn't matter for raids).
But generally takes a bit more investment, at least now that like Carrion Swarm is out.
Personally I have a first-life tank/healer that I've tanked thousands of raids on, and it works great with just Intim assuming people manage their threat. If not, squish squish. We do a lot of teaching raids, and it's good teaching XD
There are a lot of better tanks out there than mine, but it's worth knowing how threat works on both sides of the equation.
If you can, hate tanking is a lot better. I've tanked quite a few lower-difficulty raids on a full-DPS toon, and as long as you can survive it's super easy.
Even at -100% threat standing, Intim gives +400% melee threat for 12s which makes it super easy to hold aggro against everyone else in the raid.
My main has about 100 more lives and 80 more reaper points than my tank though, which definitely helps XD
rabidfox
The People's Champion
You said you wanted to play a tank so you could understand them. If the goal is to understand them then you need to know the downsides of full tanks too. Otherwise, you're just getting a limited picture of how things work and will still have the same issues as before. You'll likely be subpar for DPS and tanking on any build that tries to do too much. Take that 1st lifer tank build that's posted, make a new alt that can run as a DPS to level, level to cap, use the free LR every new character gets to change them into a tank, and park them as a tank at cap forever. Now you get to experience being a full dedicate tank and can leave you main for whatever.
As an aside, I've been working on my first life tank -- what are some benchmarks/goals for intim, prr/mrr, threat%, etc? Can assume R1 is the top goal.
When I lose aggro I always feel like I'm doing a bad job, but I'm not sure how often that is the case vs the aforementioned stances, imbues, spikes etc.
When I lose aggro I always feel like I'm doing a bad job, but I'm not sure how often that is the case vs the aforementioned stances, imbues, spikes etc.
I would use the first lifer paladin post by PraetorPlato/posted by Rabidfox in this thread.
rabidfox said:
https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/low-life-pally-tank-build-for-difficult-content.10897/
PraetorPlato
Well-known member
110 intim, 500 prr, 1k ish threat, 6k hp, 300 mrr is a decent set of goals.
Mystra
Goddess of Magic
Your tank build is absolutely SOLID !
Love it.
Just tanks are such a pain to level. O can leave them there and will never die but everything takes insane time to kill. :-(
PraetorPlato
Well-known member
Don't level as a tank, just level as DPS and use the free lesser heart.
Bjond
Well-known member
It's not always a tank issue. Sometimes it's the game. VOD boss will rinse agro and teleport. He's a devil; they do it, too, just more often.
Also, the recent "don't chase to far" change for NPCs has made some kiting jobs a LOT harder. We've found that when kiting shadows in KT, they will often give up and roam about randomly until they attack the people on the throne. We've had to adapt and use a stationary tank for them.
If you want to practice raid tanking without endangering a raid, you can zone into KT @ R1 and play with Kor-Kaza. I like to do this for a new tank build; 30m of easy tanking = it's good enough. It's also a way to learn the dragon two-step for tanks (dance from foot to foot to force swipes instead of breaths). Others like using VOD, which for solo testing is definitely a lot harder than KT @ R1.
You can just use DPS gear and trees if you're not quite a true 1st life and lack the free heart. Your underpinnings won't line up, but gear & trees will make it play dps'ish enough that it doesn't feel like you're dragging a boat anchor behind you (with the boat attached).
If you plan ahead a little, you can also use the free feat swap at cap to trade dps for tank. Every life has that.