State of the Main Tank

[ellestil]

Why wouldn't deny life be a paladin ability? We aren't sapping the life out of them, we are blocking their access to a divine benefit with our deity.

I think a more DKish ability would be Silence or Intimidate. Something that keeps a mob from using their energy or their endurance for a limited time. Making a caster weaker or a melee weaker since they cannot use their preferred abilities. It fits with the "fear and intimidation" ability with DK's.

[velzevul]

Originally Posted by ellestil

Why wouldn't deny life be a paladin ability? We aren't sapping the life out of them, we are blocking their access to a divine benefit with our deity.

I think a more DKish ability would be Silence or Intimidate. Something that keeps a mob from using their energy or their endurance for a limited time. Making a caster weaker or a melee weaker since they cannot use their preferred abilities. It fits with the "fear and intimidation" ability with DK's.

so far our "fear and intimidation" comes down to spending 2 GC cycles to debuff a mob -40sh every stat. How useless is that when stats at level 40sh are in 300s at times? I would feel better with -40% stats. Debuffing mob's wis/intel by 45 doesn't remove its ability to heal.

[Warakus]

Originally Posted by velzevul

so far our "fear and intimidation" comes down to spending 2 GC cycles to debuff a mob -40sh every stat. How useless is that when stats at level 40sh are in 300s at times? I would feel better with -40% stats. Debuffing mob's wis/intel by 45 doesn't remove its ability to heal.

[ellestil]

Well, if a DK had a silence type of ability, a mob couldn't heal, nuke, or do anything besides swing at you. Whereas deny life only reduces the amount of healing a mob can receive. So silence, imo, would have more uses and net you a nice ability.

[velzevul]

silence makes no sense for a tank whatsoever. it is nice on paper, but in practice silence is useless without spell identification, because long term silence is overpowering, and short term silence without knowing what spell a mob is casting is useless. plus it all comes down to how many mobs are immune to any such ability.

[ellestil]

I bet silence will be an Inquisitor abilty. If you know a mob is a caster, and you can silence him for 20 secs, thats reducing his dps and you take less damage. Sure you may not know when he casts the big nuke vs a dot or what have you, but still, you reduced the damage you took by silencing him. If he is a healer, you kept him from healing or casting on you also. 20 sec isn't overpowering, but it isn't chump change either. But if you guys don't want it, the Inq's can have it then

[Adino]

I knew before I read down the page to your later post, shadessls, that you were a dwarf. I could tell by what you were saying about your defensive abilities. I said, "Shade must be a Dwarf." Behold! You are. Now, lemme explain how I knew and what difference it makes. Quite frankly, you either know some VERY good healers or you really haven't gone deep in any dungeon, just based on your build. I, a level 44 Cleric, heal for a lvl 42 Pally and he is by far the best Tank I know.... and I know some good warriors and DKs.

1. Dwarves get +3 Constitution and +1 Wisdom. They can only add 4 to Str and Dex. (Ths is not meant to reflect the Class or standard ability bonuses at each level.) What, exactly does Wisdom have to do with Tanking? Nothing. You just wasted 41 points. What good is Con? At level 50, if you get +7 con per level, you'll have 123 more Con than a Human who put 5 Dex/5 Str/4 Con. (3 more per level, from 10-50, for 41 levels. 3 x 41 = 123) So, how much extra HP and resistance does that get you? 369 HP at level 50. Useless. 12 more to resist all. Useless. Your stats with a Dwarf are not good because Con is almost.... I do mean almost, worthless.

2. You probably ignore Evasion and Dex/Str in your build and gear, focusing more on Con, but Dex and Str adds gobs to evasion. Evasion makes you SO much easier to heal!!! I know, I'm a Cleric! Even with the +2% evasion from being a small race, you're probably doing good to get 22% melee evasion with your pally, shadessls. That's probably your biggest issue, aside from having gear that probably isn't focused on the right stats.

3. If you don't have good Dex and Strength, you won't crit or hit as hard and you'll have a hard time holding aggro. People will hate dying because they pulled aggro off you so easily. If you don't have hate-generation, then you can't tank. If you're a Dwarf, you absolutely can't get more than 4 Dex/Str and, considering why you probably picked a Dwarf, you likely don't have more 3 Str/3 Dex per level.


About DKs:

They do get life-leeching abilities. They aren't that great, but they obviously help them. Your heals are as, if not more, effective. You have a ton of utility moves, but it takes a lot of concetration to use them all in a timely manner. Dks have some Utility, but Paladins have some UBER abilities. Lowering the healing effectivenesss of healer mobs is huge. I to think that should be DK, but I'm happy for my pocket pally friend gets to use it! You start with +15% mitigation in defensive stance and you should have the best Mitigation of any tank, when wearing equal or identical armor. DKs must build up their Dreadful countenance to be abel to get 15%.... they usually can't because the mob is dead before they reach lvl 5 DC. You have AoE Aggro abilities that the DKs don't have. You have better and more rescues than DKs do. You are not inferior. You are superior, if you are a well-built pally.


About warriors.... don't even bother.... get a ranger to tank or something.... I mean.... Warriors need help bad. At this point, you get +5% mitigation, healing spells, your own buffs, and better rescues. You are far superior.

[Adino]

Gimmie a Psi and Sorc any day. You got rescues and I got heals. Let's use em! A cleric and a pally are virtually unkillable. Just add DPS!

Sorcs do WAY more damage than rogues or Bards. Bards are nice for utility, but there's no way they out damage a sorc. Psi has the Best CC in the game, bar none and VERY good damage. Being casters, they DON'T wanna be up-close and personal and don't have to be in melee getting hit by AoEs, which really can help. Not only that, Sorcs critting for 20k to finish off mobs is nice ot have. Counterspelling isn't too shabby either. Group just once with a good sorc/Psi and everything else will pale in comparison.

If you don't have it already, you'll get an ability that costs you 269 mana, but gives everyone 300 mana. That helps a healer out a lot on chain pulls or when there are adds. Throw in a Psi that can toss the healer 1k mana and leech mana from mobs to regen itself, and you've got more mana than you know what to do with.

Your perfect group isn't so perfect and has fairly low DPS with no AoE compared to, IDK,, a group with Pally/Cleric/Sorc/Sorc/Psi/melee DPS (You could put a ranger, rogue, bard, or Monk there and it would be fine.) I think you'll find life hard when you get to higher-end dungeons with a group like that. (Your Pall/Pally/Cleric/Bard/Bard/Rogue group, I mean) If you'r eon my server, I'll talk to you in-game if want to compare with me and my pally friend. Let me know. My Cleric is Adonis on Thunderaxe.