Do Not Engage: Warriors Vs. PALs/SHDs

[Shabaza]

And whats about the Death Touch Target?

Don't forget this second job of Rangers. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Grod]

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

rangers literally have 1 job:

engage the raid boss with /weaponshield and cast as many flame licks / low level snares as you can before it wears off then let the main tank take over with a giant threat lead

I know some guilds did that but it's definitely inefficient and inferior to simply playing normally because anything you gain in DPS through the threat lead is going to be more then lost by losing the DPS from the Ranger not to mention you then lose the ability for the Ranger to use that weaponshield to save a potential wipe if the tank happened to die. Inferior strategy all the way around. Threat and positioning are something that can be done reliably without the Ranger doing that but of the classes with an avoidance discipline Rangers had the longest one and the best agro mechanics.

A lot of times what happened when a tank died is that either the boss would plow through several DPS which might ruin the chances of success or the next tank would get agro and die before the CH rotation hit him. A good portion of the time when a tank died it led to a wipe and on some encounters the clearing and setting up of the actual boss fight took quite a while so a wipe was very counter productive. Even if it's not 100%, of all the classes, the Ranger is the best class to pull agro and tank the mob while the next tank gets setup after a tank death. Wasting the ability of the Ranger to salvage a wipe after a tank death, which good rangers could pull off with a fairly high success rate, is absolutely asinine from any quality guild. Did guilds do it? Sure they did, but it was still stupid and inferior to using the class correctly.

Moving on, Death Touch logically went to the class that provided the least to the raid encounter which, on many boss encounters, was either the Enchanter after tash or a boxed character.

[YendorLootmonkey]

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

Threat and positioning are something that can be done reliably without the Ranger doing that but of the classes with an avoidance discipline Rangers had the longest one and the best agro mechanics.

We used it on mobs that had the potential to a) kill the initial tank before the first CH even landed if we waited to let the tank get aggro, or b) start wiping clerics if we timed the start of the CH cycle too early before the initial tank could get sufficient aggro. At the time, we knew no other way to do it. Mostly on the AoW/Status of Rallos Zek/Vindicator encounters in Velious, if I recall correctly. I don't remember doing it for anything else, and after Luclin we pretty much saved our /disc timers for Trueshot. Maybe one ranger was designated to save for weaponshield, unless it was AoW/SoRZ/Vind. Again, that was just my guild, and that was in the Velious era. /shrug (side note, reading stories on Alla of people soloing AoW/SoRZ/Vind with their level 9325235 characters makes me weep)

Secondly, you had more than one ranger on raids (or at least we did) with weaponshield ready to save the raid if needed. We didn't start doing massive damage until Luclin, so it wasn't a huge loss if the initial weaponshield ranger went down. Raid was more worried about losing monk/rogue DPS.

[Tenudil]

I think its a combination of taunt not being quite as effective especially at lower levels as it was in classic and hybrids getting things they shouldn't have until later expansions. When i played classic SK's and Pal's seemed to spend the time i was pulling medding up and couldn't reliably keep up a continuous pull cycle. I have found that to not be the case here. They also had significantly less hp's for a while. I haven't played one past level 4 or 5 here but it did seem to me that they had several of the abilities they shouldn't have gotten until later expansions, increased mana/hp pools and reduced spell costs, and the melee timer not being reset. But i may also have been mistaken. Anyone have any insight on what they do or don't have here?

A couple of posts down.
http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum...ead.php?t=3400

Here's the list of major boosts to knight abilities since December of 99, as least as well as I can remember them. It's been a long time, so my order and timing compared to expansions is no longer reliable, but I'll try anyway.

Pre-Kunark:
-Knight HP is given a boost to bring us to a level between that of rogues/rangers and warriors. Previously, a naked level 50 rogue would have more HP than a knight. He still out tanks us, though.

Kunark:
-SK Lifetap progression is altered, so that the level 60 tap is 338 HP, rather than 150.

-Harm touch is given a damage boost post 40, and moved to the lifetap resist table. HT has ever since remained in relatively close
proximity to a high end wizard nuke.

-LOH is given a serious boost in damage healed, approximately doubling it.

-Hybrid mana pools are -greatly- enhanced. First, our mana-per-stat-per-level is set equal to casters, removing the nine level penalty. Second, our spells are set to cost the listed mana cost, not twice it, and in the case of the SK's lifetaps, three times it.

Velious:

-Hybrid /discs are introduced. Rangers and bards win big. Knights don't get much.

-Knight defensive caps are raised from 225 to 252. We can finally out mitigate, but not out dodge, a rogue. Warriors still out dodge, out parry, out riposte, and flat out out avoid and out mitigate us. This is as it should be.

-The Great Two Hander Change. This is described above, but the -real- bonus is a seperate, nearly concurrent change.

-Hybrids are flat out given detrimental spell haste on all dots, stuns, DDs, taps, snares, etc with a casting time of 3.1 seconds or greater, not including items. Further, the act of casting a spell no longer causes 'next melee attack' timer to restart. Previously, wielding a 45 delay weapon meant I would swing 4.5 seconds after my last swing, or 4.5 seconds after finishing my last cast. Now, it means I will swing 4.5 seconds after my last swing, unless I am casting at this time, in which case I will swing immediately after the cast is complete. The timer then starts again at 4.5 seconds. This means that I can cast 'between' melee attacks.

[Noselacri]

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

I've heard the argument here that warriors are superior tanks in classic EQ because they have better defensive skills, hence better damage mitigation. However, they have issues holding aggro, to the point that they sometimes need to have the DPS classes delay engaging the mob for a while as they gain hate.

Here is my question. While the warrior is doing this, the mob is effectively not taking any damage (OK, it's taking appreciable damage, but compared to the damage it would be taking if all DPSers were engaged, it's quite small). Overall, the mob takes longer to die, and will hence spend more time beating on the tank. If, on the other hand, your tank is a paladin or a shadowknight, DPS classes can engage immediately (feel free to correct me if I have this wrong), and the mob hence goes down faster, and will spend less time beating on the tank.

How does this extra time spent taking damage compare to the extra damage mitigation warriors have? Can one make a case to use a paladin or a shadowknight instead since the damage taken by the end of the fight might be comparable, or is the superior mitigation so powerful that this issue is minor?

It probably evens out more or less, or the difference is so small that it doesn't really matter. What's more important is that holding aggro throughout the entire fight, even towards the end of it, is not a given with a warrior. You could take a ten second head start and still lose aggro a minute into the fight. Warriors will do the job, and with a group/raid that knows how to operate with a warrior tank, they'll do it just fine as well. The rest just won't be able to push their classes to the limit.

Also, again correct me if I'm wrong, but a warrior has a greater need to focus on DEX and STR gear-wise so that he can hold aggro, while SKs and PALs can afford to gear up with AC, STA, and AGI since they can hold aggro with spells. To what extent does this make a difference in the end game in terms of the ability to soak up damage?

That makes no major difference. Most of the AC gear comes with those stats anyway, or the DEX pieces are available with equivalent AC to the normal stuff.

I also hear that warriors get better come Kunark. In what way? Does this mean that SKs and PALs are even less desired?

Warriors get a lot better in Kunark becase of disciplines, and to a lesser extent because the hybrids were kind of bad in that period of time. Defensive discipline is the cornerstone of raid tanking, and will stay that way until many expansions ahead which will be irrelevant for us. However, it doesn't become truly crucial until Velious, in my opinion, which is where warriors finally become the only real raid tanks.



See, in the current era, warriors basically aren't very good. The amount of mitigation they have over paladins and shadowknights is minimal, and the available gear does not readily exceed the worn AC cap which is when warriors begin to shine due to their significantly more favorable diminishing returns. They are more sturdy, but by a very small margin, and can't hold aggro for shit. Even with two SSoY and all that, your aggro depends entirely on the randomness of procs, and barring periods of extreme proc luck, you won't generate enough for everyone to comfortably do whatever they please without worrying about aggro. I think warriors are preferred for raid tanks at the moment more out of habit and tradition than out of necessity, because there's nothing they can tank that a knight can't, and it's a good deal more risky, even if it's a bit more mana efficient to heal a warrior. It's especially bad while leveling up where warrior aggro is truly pitiful and frankly not good enough to suffice in most cases, especially with non-twinks. I don't slow when the tank is a warrior, because by the time I can cast it without taking aggro, the mob is half dead anyway.

To put it simply, it's usually like this:

Warrior has bad proc luck: aggro is horrible and people will probably die, or will have to wait far too long before engaging/slowing/etc.

Warrior has average procs: aggro is okay, tanking will not be a problem if people are careful.

Warrior has good proc luck: everyone can do as they please, put out maximum DPS, slow early etc.

Paladin/SK is not in a coma: everyone can do as they please, put out maximum DPS, slow early etc.

Thus, since the survival aspect of tanking is currently not noticeably different between warriors and knights, the latter are probably overall better tanks when taking everything into consideration. We're talking like a 5% combined avoidance and mitigation advantage to warriors, and a base HP difference so small that an ogre SK will have more than a human warrior due to natural stamina. This largely changes in Kunark and Velious.

[Estu]

So what exactly does defensive discipline do? I have zero knowledge of discipline mechanics.

[Noselacri]

Uh... it's been a lot of years, but as far as I remember, it's two minutes of -40% damage taken and -40% damage dealt. Could be just one minute, I'm not sure now. There was an evasive discipline as well that did the same thing except with avoidance instead of mitigation, but it's on the same timer as defensive which comes out ahead for some reason or other.

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

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

So what exactly does defensive discipline do? I have zero knowledge of discipline mechanics.

lasts 3 minutes

divides the mobs DI by 2

reduces the warriors dmg by a similar amount. I am not as familiar with the math behind PC damage, so I don't want to speculate more detail than I know

[Cars]

The Avoidance one is really only ever used on Venril Sathir as he has a lifetap that procs constantly and heals him for over 1000hps or something. But considering everyone wants there pants you will see the avoidance discipline quite a bit.

[Estu]

What's the cooldown on it? Also, why is the defensive one used more than the avoidance one? Less risk of repeated high damage?