[Troxx]

Originally Posted by Gloomlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Let's not forget that Paladin is the perfect Enchanter/Necromancer bodyguard for charms. That's a pretty significant positive for them in a group. Can't tell you how many times I've saved the Enchanter's life and saved so much time from a potential death.

If we look at it only from the perspective of only DPS and Durability, then obviously Warrior wins. The utility that Paladin (And perhaps even Shadow Knight) brings is a big plus that, in my opinion, overrides that.

No doubt man. Paladins are amazing and are, in my opinion, the actual ideal and "perfect" group tank. I'm not gonna dispute that.

My only beef is with the sentiment that they "only fulfill the niche of enabling raids to happen. In small group content, they are less optimal than a knight and Monk in the tanking department.".

I honestly feel warriors are just fine. They aren't weak, broken, or worthless. They sacrifice that absolute reliability for un-matched durability and are an core necessity for raid progression in content-appropriate gear. On p99, if they had the kind of on-demand snap aggro they got in later expansions they would be flatly overpowered. No point in playing a knight at all. For many expansions they were so far ahead of knights it wasn't even funny. Thankfully knights got mini-defensive disciplines of their own later on down the line which helped to restore some balance.

Originally Posted by Vivitron

Surely the Fist of Nature with one of the other beefy options in the offhand comes out way ahead of the TStaff, and is probably top monk aggro? 15/18 with a higher aggro proc than the Frostreaver or tstaff (stun and root are equal aggro on this patch). Its price is in a whole other league, though

Is root aggro really the same as stun? I don't think it is but admittedly I could be mistaken. It should be 160 threat from the DD component with the side benefit of granting aggro after proc to whomever is standing closest ... if it lands. It's a 3 minute duration but can break early by chance or whenever the enemy is nuked. If it doesn't land ... no root perk. If you are correct and root generates the same flat 400 threat that stun does ... well FON would be a massive aggro hog indeed.

From a DPS standpoint, the *new damage bonus tables along with the dynamic of monks triple attacking with their main hand weapon should work out such that TStaff should be comparable to the best raid monk dual wield setups out there .. including fist of nature. Perhaps a raid geared monk could weigh in? I'd parse it but I don't have the weapons. BotB monk DPS at the raid level are gonna be the ToV 2handers, but none of them have a threat proc.

TStaff should be the best monk aggro weapon setup in the game ... excluding 2 scepters of destruction. Any super experienced monk who knows better ... please feel free to correct me.

Originally Posted by Vivitron

I think you're referring to parsing yourself, not doubting your parse but you mentioned mechanisms too. Monks are on a unique* damage table, so they get some bonus damage not reflected in the skill caps.

*Someone should check whether rogues are on this damage table in error, if they want to make monks even more relatively overpowered compared to everyone else

All I know is that my warrior swinging a 42/43 Frostreaver (stun + dd proc) puts out near-indentical aggro to my Monk swinging 29/30 (stun + dd proc) if both of them buff dex to 255. As my warrior has a higher unbuffed dex, with anything short of focus/dex stack or avatar - the warrior's baseline threat is higher. From a DPS standpoint, the warrior wins by a pinch. Warrior having higher impact ripostes and critical hits wins out over slightly higher skill cap, that sweet-spot delay of 30, +/- any unique damage tables that are at play.

Originally Posted by Jimjam

This may seem insane but I’ve found avoidance to be quite a situational benefit. As you say P99 is easy. Often groups have an excess of heal. Often it is better to have worse avoidance so you take more hits and do substantially more damage through DS. This is why I often prefer ranger to even warrior.

Despite their reputation they actually mitigate reasonably on most content - it is their avoidance that lets them down. This isn’t really that big a problem - as previously stated most groups have an excess of heals (and the ranger itself may add like 23/tick through fungi, chloro and skin like nature) - so all it means is the ranger gets to land more hits with damage shields than other tanks (and handily the ranger has plenty of baked in DS).

Obviously there are higher end circumstances where their lesser tankiness does become problematic, but 100% unironic post, I promise.

My ranger is 52 now. Maybe things will get better as I push closer to 60 but from 46 on I feel a whole heck of a lot more squishy than I ever did solo leveling my warrior and paladin through those ranges. It is also possible that my anecdotal experiences of squishiness are due to the lower hp pool ... each hit taking a larger percentage of my health etc etc.

Regardless, I have healed many a group with ranger tanks. They get the job done admirably unless low-ish level for the content or poorly geared.

Originally Posted by Jimjam

When investigating the impact of strength on damage looking at damage per hit removes more variables than looking at dps, especially as Dps can be extrapolated as a factor on damage per hit.

Looking at damage per hit you don’t need to worry about variance in hit rate, parries, blocks, dodges, ripostes, etc. As such ripostes actually just give extra data points rather than taint the data.

Bingo. Higher or lower strength will not affect how often you riposte. A riposte is simply an extra potential swing at standard damage tables. If the only different variable is strength, ripostes don't matter from one parse set (Gamparse set) to the other from a comparison standpoint. Assuming you have sufficiently long parses or a robust enough compilation of individual fights ... riposte rates will average out over time.