Best Trio That Doesn't Use Enchanter

[Zuranthium]

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

They mostly bleed from my experience. Rangers bleed slightly less.

WTF are you talking about. Look at the actual numbers in the game coding. Monks have the highest damage reduction. Then Pally/SK. And then Ranger (who also have less HP than Pally/SK).

This is inarguable. The random shit you're saying is wrong.

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

Rangers bleed normally. I can warn my party when rangers tank when I get lom, with paladins, it's death all at once.

Ranger often has the higher dps, and gets DPS aggro, but they also have root as well.

If we're talking things besides their damage reduction and HP when it comes to tanking, this is still not very accurate. Paladins have root and better heals than Rangers. They don't have an issue gaining aggro and they generally stop more damage than Rangers can, not just from their base stats but also from their other abilities.

There are a few things that can be argued in favor of Rangers:

1.) Snare - this is mostly irrelevant to the situations you're talking about. Root already provides crowd control. Where snare does help is keeping a Charm pet snared, providing more room and time to react on breaks.

2.) Access to 50% slow proc (whereas otherwise slow will just be 35%). While this can help, it's not reliable, and a Ranger tanking a 50% slowed target is still going to take more damage than a Monk tanking a 35% snared target. Compared to a Pally/SK, the Ranger may have a small advantage in damage reduction. I'd need to see some more detailed number crunching for that. However, the Pally getting a bigger return from C-heal and having better healing of their own certainly tips the scale in their favor overall.

3.) Better DPS (things dying faster = less damage taken). Some direct testing will be required to further debate this. I'd very much like to see someone set up a Paladin vs Ranger test scenario (will require "equal level" of gear) where the trio has to kill some very hard MOB. Let's see in which scenario the Cleric ends the fight with more mana. What I do know for sure is MONKS have the highest DPS and damage reduction, plus the amazing feign death addition, making them the best choice of any melee class for this trio.

[Rimitto]

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

WTF are you talking about. Look at the actual numbers in the game coding. Monks have the highest damage reduction. Then Pally/SK. And then Ranger (who also have less HP than Pally/SK).

This is inarguable. The random shit you're saying is wrong.



If we're talking things besides their damage reduction and HP when it comes to tanking, this is still not very accurate. Paladins have root and better heals than Rangers. They don't have an issue gaining aggro and they generally stop more damage than Rangers can, not just from their base stats but also from their other abilities.

There are a few things that can be argued in favor of Rangers:

1.) Snare - this is mostly irrelevant to the situations you're talking about. Root already provides crowd control. Where snare does help is keeping a Charm pet snared, providing more room and time to react on breaks.

2.) Access to 50% slow proc (whereas otherwise slow will just be 35%). While this can help, it's not reliable, and a Ranger tanking a 50% slowed target is still going to take more damage than a Monk tanking a 35% snared target. Compared to a Pally/SK, the Ranger may have a small advantage in damage reduction. I'd need to see some more detailed number crunching for that. However, the Pally getting a bigger return from C-heal and having better healing of their own certainly tips the scale in their favor overall.

3.) Better DPS (things dying faster = less damage taken). Some direct testing will be required to further debate this. I'd very much like to see someone set up a Paladin vs Ranger test scenario (will require "equal level" of gear) where the trio has to kill some very hard MOB. Let's see in which scenario the Cleric ends the fight with more mana. What I do know for sure is MONKS have the highest DPS and damage reduction, plus the amazing feign death addition, making them the best choice of any melee class for this trio.

You guys keep saying it's "the best" but every time I see a monk die in my party trying to pull something I keep thinking to myself "why didn't they just roll ranger or something useful". I can share a story of highkeep basement.. very mellow group at the time, had a ranger, a shaman, a wizard, myself. It was an okay party and we were splitting raiders and warriors fairly well thanks to harmony. An iksar shaman came down and wanted to party, he was a few levels above us, and had that fabled holgresh beads. He was using the eye to pull things, and completely messed up the camps we had split, which eventually lead to a huge train and killed the wizard and nearly everyone else. I think the ranger might have also died near the bank trying to run away. This monk got uppity after that and when called out for his lack of skill, he ranted off about how he has the best gear in the game and then logged off. After that the ranger began pulling again and things went smoothly from that point on for a few hours until the party ended.

That's just one example of the type of monks I've dealt with.


Paladins aren't all that much better from my experience. Sure they can tank, but I've seen rangers tank better, warriors and shadowknights are clearly the best tanks since they require so little healing simply by comparison. Paladins are about on average with the same as rangers, they both bleed, but rangers have higher technical skills than paladin. I've seen paladins struggle heavily with aggro before, and when they finally do get it, they just bleed. I've honestly NEVER seen a ranger have problems holding aggro, which is one of the primary rolls of the tank archetype. Yes, that's right, I've seen paladins fail to hold aggro, and when they do, they bleed.
Rangers bleed too, but they actually kill the monsters. Doesn't take a genius to see the enormous difference in these 2 statements, the dps actually matters from a healing standpoint, especially when talking about the "Best Trio" that doesn't include enchanter.

I'll try to explain this in mathematics since you're focused more on the code than the results. lets' say it takes me 12% mana to heal a paladin or a ranger from half health to full health. If the med time it takes for me to regenerate that 12% mana is more than the health loss of said paladin/ranger, I will be playing a losing game trying to catch up mana and will eventually have to call to stop pulls. That's simple math.
Let's say, for example, I only regenerate 6% mana before needing to heal again. This means that eventually I WILL have to call for a stop. At that point, the only difference in the party will how many monsters will be killed in that time. You can argue what things should be and how they're coded all day, but time is a factor that cannot be ignored, abused, or sidelined. Even a single round can be life or death, which leads to minutes of recovery, which leads to minutes of loss.

Trying to calculate all of these variables leads to one ultimate conclusion, that the "best" option is the most viable and least outlandish.
Much like how Tom Brady was the best Quarterback in the NFL, despite being so mediocre, the best party combination is the same way. It's stability that the BEST needs, not arbitrary stats.

Rangers can tank.
Rangers can pull.
Rangers can do CC.
Rangers can DPS.

These are inarguable facts.

I'll give you this question to think about....
Why do Monks always die on pulls but rangers never die on pulls? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Zuranthium]

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

I've seen paladins struggle heavily with aggro before, and when they finally do get it, they just bleed.

Paladins have the same base tanking ability as SK's, which you keep talking about as being such great tanks, and they have root + better heals on top of it.

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

I'll give you this question to think about....
Why do Monks always die on pulls but rangers never die on pulls?

This isn't a thing that happens. You don't seem to have any experience playing with a high level or well geared Monk.

[Rimitto]

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

Paladins have the same base tanking ability as SK's, which you keep talking about as being such great tanks, and they have root + better heals on top of it.

Paladins do not have the same base tanking ability as SK.
You just assert that they do because they are "light-dark" inversion in your mind.
Treat them as separate classes like they should be and you'll see SK are far better than paladin tanks.

"If you want to make this real stupid then I can go that route too... *AHEM* SK/Paladin/Ranger are just the Light/Dark/Nature inversions of each other. They all are the same, and have the same basic tanking abilities."

^-- see that up there, that's me putting stupid, like you're doing, into the equation.
I wouldn't compare a necro to an enchanter just because they can both charm undead, have fear spells, and roots, and can give others mana. Stop comparing SK to Paladin, they're different classes entirely, solely because of their skillsets.

I partied with a shadowknight yesterday down in guk, because of their ability to drain compared to heal, they could keep up the action without tiring the cleric out.(I was not the cleric in this party). A paladin in the same situation would lose time healing, and as such, would make the party clunkier. You could argue ghoulbane or some other shenanigans but there's a clear difference between SK and Pal.

Pal's are fun as heck to play, but they are far from the best tanks in the game. Warrior and ShadowKnight are simply superior. Maybe you've just never seen a truly good ShadowKnight and can't tell the difference. I've seen quite a few and they're on their way upwards.

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

This isn't a thing that happens. You don't seem to have any experience playing with a high level or well geared Monk.

oooaaaaayyyyy lololololololololol.

literally all the fking time rofl. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

failure monk death(fmd for short), a term I just invented, is how I learned how to target corpses and drag them back to safe zones.

you can talk smack on the monks all you want, but monks dying is the standard. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It goes like this, on the scale of possible death chart:
Enchanter -> Monk -> Wizard -> Cleric(myself) -> Druid -> everyone else.
If you can't figure out how or why that is, it's fairly clear you don't even play. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[cd288]

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

I partied with a shadowknight yesterday down in guk, because of their ability to drain compared to heal, they could keep up the action without tiring the cleric out.(I was not the cleric in this party). A paladin in the same situation would lose time healing, and as such, would make the party clunkier. You could argue ghoulbane or some other shenanigans but there's a clear difference between SK and Pal.

SKs have a slight edge over Pallys but this is definitely not why. And you are clearly making this story up because an SK relying on consistently lifetapping to avoid killing the Cleric's mana will kill it's own mana kind of quickly and then have to med up. It's also not a viable strategy as you level up for the pure reason that the SK lifetaps aren't level equivalent for the content they are doing and therefore will be insufficient later on.

[Zuranthium]

Animation pet was OP during p99's early years, doesn't seem like Rimitto was playing during that time though. If you're playing mostly AFK and just camping a single spawn the pet is still useful, can unload your mana bar on direct damage spells while the pet tanks, return to AFK, then when you get back you're full mana with a pet still ready to go. Also if you're grouping somewhere that only has higher level MOBs compared to your level, then charm will break a lot and it can be nice to just use the animation to add safe DPS.

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

Paladins do not have the same base tanking ability as SK.

Yes they do. Exact same HP/AC/Defense formulas and skillcaps.

And the big thing you were trying to talk about before was aggro and crowd control. How are SK's doing that better?

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

I partied with a shadowknight yesterday down in guk, because of their ability to drain compared to heal, they could keep up the action without tiring the cleric out.(I was not the cleric in this party)

I'm assuming you must mean DPS when you say "their ability to drain".

Yeah I prefer SK's as a whole because they do more DPS and fear kiting can be very strong. That doesn't mean they are a better "tank". Against really hard NPC's the Paladin healing is better too, SK spells get resisted.

[eqravenprince]

Why are you guys even bothering to respond to this guy?

[Jimjam]

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

Why are you guys even bothering to respond to this guy?

Single player mode unlocked!

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

I'm assuming you must mean DPS when you say "their ability to drain".

As the context was not overstretching clerics, I’d assume ‘drain’ meant tap tanking / vampitic embrace to reduce the amount of healing the tank requires.

[Rimitto]

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

Animation pet was OP during p99's early years, doesn't seem like Rimitto was playing during that time though. If you're playing mostly AFK and just camping a single spawn the pet is still useful, can unload your mana bar on direct damage spells while the pet tanks, return to AFK, then when you get back you're full mana with a pet still ready to go. Also if you're grouping somewhere that only has higher level MOBs compared to your level, then charm will break a lot and it can be nice to just use the animation to add safe DPS.

actually, that's more or less 1:1 how I used my animations. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I'm not stupid cindy, I know monsters do 'more' damage in some cases, but animations are far more reliable, and in some situations, reliability trumps dps.
If magic were a weapon, the animation spells would have the finesse quality on it. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'll give an example, albeit an odd one. I could go to seafury island, charm something, watch both monsters die and then go for the snipe double-kill. This leaves me with less mana but then I repeat the process.
Alternatively I could take the exp-hit, summon an animation, and just rely on that to kill seafurries. There's no risk of charm break, or wasting of any mana to double-kill at the end. The exp loss is definitely there, but is easily rectified by adding 1 other person to a party. Even without that party, it's still faster in the sense that I can focus more on keeping a steady flow of exp rather than deep diving into charm double-kill hope-it-works tactics. (this is the #1 cause of enchanter deaths, don't even argue that charmbreak isn't)
It's simply a question of steady vs risky from my point of view.
I prefer steady.
people that choose risky just simply cannot understand that methods outside of trying to kill yourself in the stupidest way possible exist.
in example: hurrdurr don't mind me, I"m just gonna charm this super GM mob, give him maximum haste, dual-wield him, give him buffs, yup he's a murder machine noCHARMBREAK ohshitsohstihoshit. *proceeds to blame the cleric*

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

Yes they do. Exact same HP/AC/Defense formulas and skillcaps.

And the big thing you were trying to talk about before was aggro and crowd control. How are SK's doing that better?

Well offhand, I figure they probably have better dps. I've only seen and experienced SK as tanks before, and only have experience as paladin. I've experienced other paladin tanks as well before, so I understand that paladin is mostly a 1-trick pony relying on blind/darkness. I'm assuming SK probably gets additional aggro from their spells, and probably have a decent assortment of weapons that are generally more focused on higher dps, which naturally would get them far more aggro.

as far as HP/AC/Defense, I simply do not see them being comparable in any way shape or form. I'll even take it a step further to add insult to injury on this one. If you're comparing a human paladin to a troll shadowknight, the regen factor alone is going to make the SK better. If you're comparing an dwarven paladin to an ogre shadowknight, the fact that ogres have frontal stun immunity is going to make a world of difference.
It's just a simple matter of logistics that the evil races getting shadowknight are simply better at tanking because of their racial bonuses.
We can keep going by comparing an erudite paladin to an iksar shadowknight if you want....

They're better at tanking, just admit it.

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

I'm assuming you must mean DPS when you say "their ability to drain".

Yeah I prefer SK's as a whole because they do more DPS and fear kiting can be very strong. That doesn't mean they are a better "tank". Against really hard NPC's the Paladin healing is better too, SK spells get resisted.

combined with the above reasons of why SK are better tanks, the "ability to drain" aka lifetap line, doesn't break them out of combat, like paladins would need to do. They don't change targets either. One thing I've noticed, maybe you could explain, is that whenever I'm in combat with my paladin and go to heal, after the heal he tries to "makeup" the rounds he's missed in the next round. Usually since he's self-targetting, the extra hits get nullified. This wouldn't happened with lifetap abilities since the targeting never changes.

You may be noticing at this point that I'm making quite a few small points here and there. What I'm truly getting at is that every single one of these small things adds up to a greater whole. Every single one of these small details is what makes SK the better tank. That's why it's recognizable to me, who is always picky about the small things, that there's a huge difference between paladin and shadowknight.

Even rangers are better overall tanks when properly geared.
notice the wording I used there... "overall tanks".. You mentioned earlier that there are specific cases where paladins are better, but this isn't a "what is better" topic it's the "what is best" topic, which means that you are REQUIRED to at minimum, look at all the possible spots that each class would be applied to. That means in the 10's, the 20's, the 30's, the 40's, the 50's, and 60's.

If you're going to argue raid tank, then that's well outside the concept of "best trio".

[Zuranthium]

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

SK are better tanks, the "ability to drain" aka lifetap line, doesn't break them out of combat, like paladins would need to do.

Casting a heal doesn't break you out of combat. You just target yourself after an attack swing and start casting, then switch back to the target you're attacking.

The stuff you keep saying about Rangers is just crazy.

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

I could go to seafury island, charm something, watch both monsters die and then go for the snipe double-kill. Alternatively I could take the exp-hit, summon an animation, and just rely on that to kill seafurries. There's no risk of charm break, or wasting of any mana to double-kill at the end. The exp loss is definitely there, but is easily rectified by adding 1 other person to a party. Even without that party, it's still faster in the sense that I can focus more on keeping a steady flow of exp rather than deep diving into charm double-kill hope-it-works tactics.

Dunno what level you're talking about, but you shouldn't have any problem charming Seafuries at 50+. There's no real risk, you just root the non-charm target and stand back and wait to re-charm the other one if it breaks.