The art of tanking

[cins]

Why "My guard sux, dt/conq is op" aren't closed by default by now as flame source?

Because this thread contains far more intelligence than the default crap. Henry is %100 correct in saying the "art of tanking" in AoC is the art of being able switch agro at whim. And when your basic agro is bad and damage aka your actual ability to hold agro depends almost wholly on uncontrolled random buffs, it's not a good thing. In fact it's a very bad thing to have uncontrollable huge spikes and therefore uncontrollable huge gaps in your agro generation. Hello VoM (also hello stupid **** like "VoM or gtfo").

While this very badness is cured when those random buffs proc so much that it might as well be a constant agro boost, it sets a new and higher agro standard at top of the old agro spike. This breaks other tanks' normal and properly functioning agro. And just piling on more damage to other tanks to compensate for one class' bullsht is an awful solution. Hello Age of Conqueror.

And now you lot want the same shitty "solution" applied to guard? I'll tell you what'll happen if guard agro is "fixed" with "moar deeps": The dps classes rise up and there's revolution in the streets of Tarantia, they demand more damage "to be relevant", rivers flow salty with tears, game's and forums' air becomes even more toxic. Also they'd be right: templar has long been called sin in heavy armor, barb has become all but obsolete due to carnage conq crap and someone would probably figure out a way to compare "improved" guard to ranger for maximum symmetry. That sort of snowballing shitfest would sooner or later cause a new wave of revamps to dps classes (no doubt the old and fake promise of mage revamp will fan the flames), hugely increasing damage output of the average group/raid. I won't repeat what the hell is wrong with too much dps once again.

No. Being bullheaded over one shitty feature of a single class should not wreck the entire ****ing pve balance. VoM and conq damage need to be fixed, not the guard.
...
Also guard is not weak. Nobody (with a brain) says guard is weak, they're saying dt/conq is too strong.

[Petridish]

I love your posts cins. So much truth.

[Boesch]

This could be length, this could be ranty, and this might lose its focus a few times. This has a PVE perspective.

Some people need a serious learn to play lesson, and others need to take a big step back and look at how they are generalising things.

Let's get the obvious points out of the way that to me are undisputed. DTs are obscenely out of balance due to being potentially #1 DPS and #1 tank at the same time. All soldiers are overpowered in PVP. Carnage DPS is too good. People who see Conquerors doing crazy in PVP need to clearly separate that ability from PVE because they are damn near worlds apart.

The last I know you were running both Iron Skin + Stone Skin + Burning Vigor + Surging Health. Nowadays it is all about hate and DPS and people that continue to play soldiers as turtles will never see the aggro that they think they can. People just need to play their characters more aggressively.

This is a spec issue to me and not a class issue. If I ran a Conqueror with all these wasted points I too would have sub par aggro. You spec a certain way, you get a certain result, the game cannot be balanced on letting poor specs succeed.

While this very badness is cured when those random buffs proc so much that it might as well be a constant agro boost, it sets a new and higher agro standard at top of the old agro spike. This breaks other tanks' normal and properly functioning agro. And just piling on more damage to other tanks to compensate for one class' bullsht is an awful solution. Hello Age of Conqueror.

No. Being bullheaded over one shitty feature of a single class should not wreck the entire ****ing pve balance. VoM and conq damage need to be fixed, not the guard.
...
Also guard is not weak. Nobody (with a brain) says guard is weak, they're saying dt/conq is too strong.

I guess putting in a gigantic font "LOL expletive off" is probably inappropriate so I'll be a bit more tactful. I'll start by giving you one thing - carnage DPS is just too much as I put in there earlier. But a Brute Conq has just been given layers of DPS? Are you serious? They are the second lowest DPS class in the game, the lowest being Guardian.

I mean really, what doesn't outDPS a brute conq while still performing its function? In full T4 Indomitable the most I could probably do is 1400, which would basically need the group set up appropriately, pots running and to hold aggro near enough to the whole time so that I could maximise GODS, Mocking Sneer and Retaliate. The stars would need to align in a serious way. And by being full Indom I would be relatively squishy so I frankly couldn't stay alive, and my aggro wouldn't be that great because of no +hate on my armour. AND STILL a well played -everything except a guard- would beat me. More realistically, 1100 - 1200 is near the top you would expect on a Brute Conq.

Let's look at it:

All the rogues certainly do more than 1400.
So do all the priests.
Ditto for the mages.
DTs definitely. Guardians, no.

So people are honestly complaining about the second lowest DPS class out of 12 having too much? Or are we generalising so blindly here that someone needs to call out their ********? I'm not sure what to say other than 'cry me a river' that no 11 of 12 is too much DPS for you.

But let's move onto other comments in this thread:

And I want to talk about what make this gap between guardian and T4 DT/conq , the initial aggro is actually very balance for 3 tank classes, but the situation will change after DT stack up his vom, his dps will out aggro guardian's hate tools very soon and aggro lock (continued)

Before I start this, I'd like again to stress my respect for Henry as a person and as a player, but his playstyle and comments about Guardian is just dead wrong.

Does anyone seriously believe that Guardian initial aggro is only equal to Conqueror or DT? Guardians absolutely plaster the other soldiers in burst hate. Cry of Havoc + Irritate + Shield Slam = gg. They have really no 'setup time' to get their hate up and everything moving. It's just such a damn easy class to establish initial aggro it is mind blowing that they can even be compared to the others. If you want to add Stall The Advance in then it is by miracle alone that a Conqueror or DT is going see any early aggro. It's just... I don't know what to say. It just staggers me to read that.

I have a full T4 Conq, a full T4 DT, and I'm working on a Guardian now. As a Conq it just frustrates the life out of me to see people complaining about Brute Conq which IMO are already quite possibly the lowest aggro soldier in the game. We're terrible at protection tanking. We are a mile behind DT in any tank-and-spank fight due to the amount of DPS they can muster. And we have nothing on a Guardian for burst hate. I think once my Guardian is all geared up, and these new items come out, and everyone is finished crying about how terrible at the game they are, the Guardians who are played by good players are going to be laughing it up. I hope that includes me.

[Zoeri]

Dps is a number related to circumstances of group, buffs, debuffs, target and the player behind the character. All fights are different so in my opinion, the only dps that can relate between classes are on straw man with no potions, no group and no other people hitting it.

Dps is agro. Hate works in a way to increase agro from dps. You say that you wear Indomitable armor and thus get no bonus hate from the armor, but compared to Fearless you got a lot more combat rating, critical rating and critical damage rating. 200 hate is roughly 5,5% hate, and then you could argue how much of a difference that would make compared to losing 247 critical rating, 164 critical damage rating, and 43 dps (1573 combat rating). The armor difference it self is only 500 armor, and that doesn't add gamebreakingly much mitigation. You still got more armor from T4 heavy, than from Last Legion full plate, and almost as much health too.

[Boesch]

Dps is a number related to circumstances of group, buffs, debuffs, target and the player behind the character. All fights are different so in my opinion, the only dps that can relate between classes are on straw man with no potions, no group and no other people hitting it.

Dps is agro. Hate works in a way to increase agro from dps. You say that you wear Indomitable armor and thus get no bonus hate from the armor, but compared to Fearless you got a lot more combat rating, critical rating and critical damage rating. 200 hate is roughly 5,5% hate, and then you could argue how much of a difference that would make compared to losing 247 critical rating, 164 critical damage rating, and 43 dps (1573 combat rating). The armor difference it self is only 500 armor, and that doesn't add gamebreakingly much mitigation. You still got more armor from T4 heavy, than from Last Legion full plate, and almost as much health too.

I think you need to go look up fearless again. Fearless Major Pieces, Courageous Wrist + Shoulder, Indom Feet Belt Hands.

[Chillee]

No. Being bullheaded over one shitty feature of a single class should not wreck the entire ****ing pve balance. VoM and conq damage need to be fixed, not the guard.

I mostly agree. Guard is well balanced with all the other classes, including brute conq. VOM and carnage tree are the outliers.

[henryabccba]

Well I am just explaining a general tanking style/phenomenon in my post.
(Most of the fights DT/Conq aggro lock on a boss and guardian
cannot keep up aggro)

I saw such phenomenon in most of the 6man/ raid group. So I want to explain what makes this situation.

And I am agreeing with Boesch, this is exactly a spec issue and not a class issue.
The problems of this situation are DT and conq can spec in a certain way, to maximize their dps. So guardian has no chance to keep up aggro with them in long run no matter how guardian spec their feat. What guard can do is only goad /force engage.

Moreover, when all of the 3 tanks using a dps tank spec
DT has the health tap, dread to defense himself
Conq has bubbles to heal up full health
But Guard only has 8 sec last stand with 5mins cd and juggernaut to increase 700hp and less than 2% mitigation

It is not balance to see guard has no advantages after go dps spec, only little dps increase but forgo massive survivability and what guard can depend afterward is only his passive mitigation, and there is no really useful life saver for guard. And now let's put survivability aside, it is really unhealthy to see such dps gap between 3 tanks while 2 of them scales so much better with gears/AA and 1 of them scale up so less. It is unbalance that guard cannot keep up aggro with their own dps /tools without goad.

Since Boesch didn't deny this phenomenon, I think he does agree on this aggro lock issue. And he plays all of the 3 tank very well, and I know his conq is gonna win the aggro battle if 3 boeschs are playing at same time. It is miracle that conqr or DT is going see any early aggro in first min, and it is miracle that guard is going see any late aggro in the remaining 9mins without goad . And this is my one year game experience lately, I just want to say this is made by the encounter design and general players' style.
I am not saying which class is op, and this is not a l2p play issue but a fact that guardian cannot keep up aggro in a long stand still fight.

I don't know if this is an intended design to let guard take the hits at beginning and let DT/Conq finish the remaining part. But I know people love to spec into dps way to top hate and I want to express my view that it is not a good style. And it is gonna fail if funcom create more harder encounters and harder hitting boss, tanking is not an individual hero thing, it is something about team imo. On the other side, I think the time trial hardmodes in game encourage player to max their dps, and I think timing/dps is not the only way to make a fight a hardmode, I would prefer more movements and teamworks.

[kennyfisterbotm]

A guardian with a 25% dps boost wouldn't fix ****!

How do I know?

Guards who do most dps than my baby guard still can't get aggro from it. I'm talking about 500 dps compared to a shitty 300 dps.

As for everything else. I refuse to state my opinions again, since I have already done so multiple times. The guard class is still good and viable in my eyes, just because a few people have issues with the class and refuse to rethink on how they play, doesn't make the class bad.


P.S.

If you want the damn guard class to be the top aggro whore again, it's all about hate modification, and innate threat combo's. Allow "Titanic Smash" to be both a small bit of dps, and also have innate threat within the combo. that by its self would fix quite a bit imo.

[KullOfValusia]

A guardian with a 25% dps boost wouldn't fix ****!

How do I know?

Guards who do most dps than my baby guard still can't get aggro from it. I'm talking about 500 dps compared to a shitty 300 dps.

As for everything else. I refuse to state my opinions again, since I have already done so multiple times. The guard class is still good and viable in my eyes, just because a few people have issues with the class and refuse to rethink on how they play, doesn't make the class bad.


P.S.

If you want the damn guard class to be the top aggro whore again, it's all about hate modification, and innate threat combo's. Allow "Titanic Smash" to be both a small bit of dps, and also have innate threat within the combo. that by its self would fix quite a bit imo.

I actually have to disagree. A 25%~50% increase in base DPS will kill many birds with a single stone. 1.) It'll give guards that little bit of extra hate (If whatever you're doing on your 300 DPS guard suddenly turns into 450 DPS it WILL as a by product give you more hate). 2.) It'll make them more desirable in 6 mans.. there DPS won't be 500+ DPS away from the next toon. 3.) S&S may become a viable and attractive alternative in PvP.

[Chillee]

A guardian with a 25% dps boost wouldn't fix ****!

LOL Schou. You've done your share of QQing about DTs.

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=180809

Henry, I don't think guard needs a buff. Making another class OP just makes the game that much easier, and IMO, it's already too easy.

The real issue is VOM, and until that is addressed (and they probably never will), everyone is just dancing around what's really wrong with soldier classes. A soldier leading a parse in dps/heals/damage taken on a T4 encounter, or soloing a 6 man boss, isn't a reasonable way for the game to function. But with content moving at a snails pace, seeing any major changes isn't going to happen any time soon, if ever.