Tanking with a rogue (duo w/sham)

[baue1446]

Just looking for some advice. My sham friend and I have been duoing (both of us have Fungi tunics). So far its been ok/rough. I feel the spot we are in is good till 45 but then we are at a loss where to go after that.

1st question: As far as weapons my plan is Epic MH / SoED or Exquisite Velium Spear OH. I dont know if this is a good plan or not. Remember I am tanking and doing pretty much all the dmg. He really just heals and slows.

2nd question: Any advice on where to go 45+ that a rogue can tank with sham healer? I have mostly focused on Str and HP as far as gear goes.

3rd question: Should Shaman be tanking and I just Backstab? I am so so at tanking backstab maneuver (where i run thru mob and back up/BS before he turns around) So so = about 50% of the time.

Any help would be great thanks!

[PatChapp]

Shaman should tank in this duo,so you can maximize dps.
Spirocs in td would be a good spot for ya until low 50s.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Shaman should tank in this duo,so you can maximize dps.

This. Shaman should slow tank all the way to 60. Shamans are good tanks, especially since you have a Fungi on them. Faster kills via backstab will also reduce damage taken.

Bloodgills, guards, or Tower of Frozen Shadow can all easily get you to 50 or 51. Tower is more annoying since you need keys, but the XP is great.

55-60 Plane of Mischief rat maze is awesome.

51-55 is a bit harder for me to recommend, as I usually kill guards from 50-55.

[Snaggles]

I would root the mob and balance proximity aggro so you can tank when you want and immediately back up for a backstab forcing it to flip on the closer player (the shaman).

It’s going to be a balancing game. Find the most efficient way to stay mana neutral and high kill speed. Or let the rogue tank the particularly nasty things since they actually have defensive skills.
As for zones, Grobb 45-51/2 and HK in the low 50’s is magic. Nobles with 2k hps drop fast.

[Toxigen]

Find a tank to trio with.

[Jimjam]

Agreed that best tank is sharing with root. Shaman can stand still while rogue steps in and out for tank/bs.

But even better is hiring a dedicated tank to reduce load and let the shaman med.

[7thGate]

I've done a bunch of Shaman duos. Its generally good. I used to duo Sirens in SG with a Torp shaman when I was 55, and have done a bunch of puppet show in duos. You need very high MR for sirens though, and probably torp for both camps, so not great leveling.

The root suggestion is a good one, you want to be able to backstab effectively but you also are tankier if geared for AC and want to split the damage across the two of you if you both have fungis. If you're not AC geared you might want to let the shaman take more hits, but you still want to make sure that Regen and Fungi are both always healing you for efficiency.

PoM rat maze is probably good in high 50s. Puppt show audience might be decent? They're kind of high HP, but they're slowable and don't social, so you can just chain kill them as long as you have mana/hp and there's a high zone exp modifier.

[WarpathEQ]

Agreed on the Shaman tanking and/or the root split tanking mechanic (one of my favorites as a rogue that often had to tank).

Dreadlands or Burning woods are both good places with lots of mobs to level off of from 45+. Firiona Vie is not far away for bind/merchants. You can also move to Chardok (probably too tough at 45 but will become doable in 50s).

[ScottBerta]

Shaman slow, root tank. Shaman pet and rogue attack from behind. Very good duo. Only problem is no pacify but with root can split mobs. An underrated camp once your like 50 is Drov. Captain in KC.

[Penish]

Shaman slow, root tank. Shaman pet and rogue attack from behind. Very good duo. Only problem is no pacify but with root can split mobs. An underrated camp once your like 50 is Drov. Captain in KC.

Use blind, far more uptime on mana, same effect as root - The Shaladin

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Use blind, far more uptime on mana, same effect as root - The Shaladin

This can be risky. If the mob gets out of melee range of both players it will start running.

Also, I don't think blinding repeatedly would be cheaper, unless I am misunderstanding.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Flash_of_Light - 12 mana for 2 ticks.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Root - 30 mana for 8 ticks.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Blinding_Luminance - 50 mana for 4 ticks.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Enstill - 60 mana for 16 ticks.

Blind doesn't have the chance to break early, and it generates more hate. But I don't think that will make up for having to cast blind 4x to maintain blind for the same duration as root. In both cases you are spending significantly more mana.

Root is also reduced a bit via Alteration Specialization, where blind is Divination.

[Botten]

It is crazy that a blind can scale up to 1.7 minutes and max @L34 from a weapon that starts procing at level 1.

Mix in Muscle Lock # when your the right level you can then apply a 55% or even a 60% snare (4% better than Ensnare) with a pretty good duration.

*End result is a pretty long lasting fear kite you can control by moving into melee range.

Probably best to stick to outdoor zones thou using it could be fun.
(thou then again having the shaman then do all the damage through spells just isn't practical.)

Could probably have better results with a ranger w/ the same weapon (casting snare and bow) /w the shaman.

[Snaggles]

Between slow, regrowth, and bandages you should be able to stay on top of things. In the high 50’s my ranger duoed with a warrior and we did a similar model to this, trading hits with root, and could pull fairly quickly.

IMHO the blind-gear stuff is gimmicky. Even traditional fear kiting can be obnoxious but at least that’s tried and true. I’d personally keep this more simple. If you are getting hammered with 70%+ slow pick easier mobs.

[Jimjam]

Between slow, regrowth, and bandages you should be able to stay on top of things. In the high 50’s my ranger duoed with a warrior and we did a similar model to this, trading hits with root, and could pull fairly quickly.

IMHO the blind-gear stuff is gimmicky. Even traditional fear kiting can be obnoxious but at least that’s tried and true. I’d personally keep this more simple. If you are getting hammered with 70%+ slow pick easier mobs.

I tried using bolts, blind and bow in the past on ew orcs and didn’t have much luck with it, but this was without weighted axe gimmick and the bow was probably huntsman - so pretty mid.

[Duik]

We go from.
This game has been worked out years ago /end thread.
To
How do I solo/duo X and Y and we get a useful dialogue filled with alternate + tried and true strats.

I love it.

[Solist]

Everyone is wrong.

Rogue tanks. Stack AC.

Works fine. Once you're high enough that it's mana possible, root mobs and have the rogue step back to backstab (mob turns to sham for a sec) then back to tanking with shaman in melee range. Until late 50's it's the only meaningful way to do it. Then you just send a tell to /who all monk xx level range, and invite a tank.

[Garnaak]

12/20 mainhand gonna do more white damage than epic if tanking, by a decent margin. 12/20 on many high level raid mobs, Vindi, Tuna, etc. with Ragebringer offhand will do better than the reverse setup. Yea damage bonus!

[Snaggles]

12/20 = sub 7% improvement in melee dps over 15/25
13/20 = sub 12% improvement in melee dps over 15/25

Almost half the benefit of the more traditional MH preference and you lose a point of damage for backstab.

[Garnaak]

12/20 = sub 7% improvement in melee dps over 15/25
13/20 = sub 12% improvement in melee dps over 15/25

Almost half the benefit of the more traditional MH preference and you lose a point of damage for backstab.

Obviously if you have a 15/21 available to you the 12/20 or 13/20 is going away. I don't believe that was the question though. OP only has 12/20, 15/25, or 20/34 slash available to them.

"Only" ~7% or 12% improvement for something as simple as location swapping. Seems simple to me. People spend countless hours camping and raiding for improvements that garner much less improvement than that.

[Snaggles]

Obviously if you have a 15/21 available to you the 12/20 or 13/20 is going away. I don't believe that was the question though. OP only has 12/20, 15/25, or 20/34 slash available to them.

"Only" ~7% or 12% improvement for something as simple as location swapping. Seems simple to me. People spend countless hours camping and raiding for improvements that garner much less improvement than that.

For full disclosure I was responding to the previous post, not the OP. I doubt 12/20 MH will do more than match the primary ragebringer in most situations. Raid rogues that MH it can still end up high on the parse. I haven’t seen A 12/20 rogue up there.

The issue is you pick only 7% MH melee dps at an expense of a substantial backstab loss. 55+ you have the chance at double backstabs and discs that radically bump the dps.

The Ragebringer is a slow lumpy weapon. Those 500 damage backstabs though sneak up your DPS. I personally wouldn’t offhand MH for anything worse than a 13/20. As silly as optimizing an offhand is, it’s a better route. At least it’s a very proven one.

As for something as simple as location swapping. People often make bad “free” choices in this game despite the math not making sense.

[Snaggles]

In the OP’s situation if the Sham isnt tanking or rooting to help the rogue BS off cooldown, yea just swap in the 12/20 and melee like a boring ranger.

[Garnaak]

I actually have had the opposite experience. Never make parses mainhanding RB, but consistently just under the NToV/Tuna rogues when I go 12/20 mainhand instead.

[7thGate]

12/20 mainhand gonna do more white damage than epic if tanking, by a decent margin. 12/20 on many high level raid mobs, Vindi, Tuna, etc. with Ragebringer offhand will do better than the reverse setup. Yea damage bonus!

Vindi is a relatively low AC raid mob, actually. I generally break 100 dps on him. I'm very skeptical a low delay to max damage bonus is a good idea there vs. backstabs.

AOW and Tunare, maybe. Both of those take like 2/3 of the damage Vindi does, and the unreduced damage from the mainhand does more there.

Generally, I expect to hit about 50 times a minute with Ragebringer mainhand, and thus about ~62 for a 20 delay off hand. With an 11 point damage bonus, that gives an extra ~2dps, which is then lowered by the backstab damage drop.

AOW min hits a huge percent of the time on backstabs, so it might be marginally better there. For anything where you're going to do at least 536 backstab damage per minute above the 120 min cap, I am pretty sure you should outdps with the 15 damage mainhander.

Regardless, the difference is small enough that I'm just going to mainhand the 15 damage weapon and keep that.

[zelld52]

Obviously if you have a 15/21 available to you the 12/20 or 13/20 is going away. I don't believe that was the question though. OP only has 12/20, 15/25, or 20/34 slash available to them.

"Only" ~7% or 12% improvement for something as simple as location swapping. Seems simple to me. People spend countless hours camping and raiding for improvements that garner much less improvement than that.

Do not use the scimitar. It's too slow.