Stats

[Cocytus]

I would suggest adjusting your stats to give yourself the best defense possible, to make up for the lack of a shield. In most other games, a two-hander seems to handle aggro well enough. So yeah, you might have some worries with defense, and may find yourself on the wrong side of the avoidance/mitigation argument, but I'd like to think V:SoH will have enough options for character development to make that a viable playstyle.

[Blood_Raven]

Well after reading all the posts ive come to this conclusion. In a GAME the best tanker would have the str. life. and dex. to hit everything...i think. But the hero in a game could be compared to William Wallace, or Achellies. Neither of them were huge beefy guys. But, both as we know killed ALOT of effing people. Example. Begging of Troy (the movie) rememer when achellies fought that other armys MASSIVE warrior. How long did it take to beat him? what a few seconds? One move and he was dead. Thats my point, yeah you have to be strong and what ever, but if you know what your doing alot better than your oppent, if you know how to hit, where to hit, and how to react better. Your always gonna win. Game. Set. Match.

Much Love

Raven

[Infect]

Originally Posted by Blood_Raven

Well after reading all the posts ive come to this conclusion. In a GAME the best tanker would have the str. life. and dex. to hit everything...i think. But the hero in a game could be compared to William Wallace, or Achellies. Neither of them were huge beefy guys. But, both as we know killed ALOT of effing people. Example. Begging of Troy (the movie) rememer when achellies fought that other armys MASSIVE warrior. How long did it take to beat him? what a few seconds? One move and he was dead. Thats my point, yeah you have to be strong and what ever, but if you know what your doing alot better than your oppent, if you know how to hit, where to hit, and how to react better. Your always gonna win. Game. Set. Match.

Much Love

Raven

/Agreed

[godzilr1]

Yes this is definitely an interesting possibility with alot of options.
STR/CON - able to take the blows
INT - able to perceive and stop incoming blows
DEX/AGI - can hit and dodge a lot of the incoming attacks.
AGI/INT - perception of and dodging inc blows
STR/DEX - hard hitter that hits alot

Almost seems though that trying to make a mid range char with stats in everything may not be a efficient as picking a road.

[Kell]

Heres just a thought that came to me at random. There will be rescues, most likely literally placing you between your healer and the enemies weapon. I don't think dodging in that case would be a great idea. So a shield and some strenght/const are prolly a must if you want to be able to pull that of effectively. Of course you would need the perception to move in time.

My thinking is mostly str/con/int balance with enough dex/agi to hit the basterds. But yeah int for more perception is defenatly gonna be up there for me.

[Warbreed]

usualy in games that ive played tanks come in TWO forms. damage mitigation and damage avoidance. And I have yet to see the two equaly made in any game even though those games promote these.

From what ive found the Mitigation tank wins out especialy on raid occurences because the of the huge amount of damage dealt by mobs in these situations or at least that is what you are led to believe. In truth the mitigation tank wins out because of the unequal variables used for mitigation and avoidance, where mitigation is based upon engrained programming percentages that scale with the characters armor class and sometimes with a racial stat that increases the ability. The avoidance tank that uses "skills" such as reposte,parry, and dodge as thier staples are based on skill level, character level and a racial stat.

A mitigation tank of equal level of lets say 20 and an avoidance tank of 20 have completely different variables associated with tanking. For this instance Ill just base the tanking ability on the ability to stand thier and take the punishment, without including agro control ect. Also let us say both tanks are wearing equalivlent level armor and are the same race.

A usual build for a mitigation tank is based on HP and AC (or what ever uses the mitigation for said game.) For this lets say this tank has 500hp and 50% damage mitigation with an average 20% avoidance base.

On the avoidance build you have a tank based on Agility and Skills/abilities such as dodge/parry/reposte of 50% . With this build the character would have 350hp and lets say 20% mitigation to be nice.

The mob is level 25 and because of "to-hit" scaling (used in every game to determine the strength of the mob versus the player and i think this scale is closed to what is used in City of heroes) has a 65% chance to hit on a level 20 base player. And lets say this mob is a raid mob and can hit for an average of 200hp with a make of 350 on special attacks.

(can you see the problem already, if you cant read on.)

Again making things on equal ground here lets say both tanks and Mob hits at the same rate and will trade attacks per round.

Mitigation Tank round 1-5
Mob attacks 200 base damage mitigated to 100 damage (400hp left
Mob attacks 250 base damage mitigated to 125 damage (275hp left
Mob attacks 350 base damage mitigated to 175 damage (100hp left
Heal made to full 500hp left
Attack avoided
mob attacks 220 base damage mitigated to 110 damage (390hp left


Avoidance tank round 1-5
Attack avoided
Mob attacks 250 base damage mitigated to 200 damage (150hp left
attack avoided
heal needed to 350hp
attack avoided
Mob attacks 350 damage mitigated to 280 damage (70hp left

Here you can see a glimpse of the disparity between the two builds in a very short term look. Take this fight over a longer time period it will average out that healer will "need" to heal about twice as much on the avoidance tank compared to the mitigation tank. Decreasing the effeciency of the tank/group/raid because one class effects the whole in these situations. The reason this is different is because mitigation happens no matter what to some degree compared to avoidance.

Hopefuly in vanguard to be an avoidance tank you will not have to sacrifice HP by race restrictions to be effecient at avoidance. Usualy the larger races will have stats geared toward high hp and str, mainstays in the mitigation build while smaller races will have higher agil and int specialy tailored for avoidance but again lacking the hp. Usualy avoidance is a offensive melee aka damage dealer to stay alive and not take damage.

[Kell]

I think the above post can be simplified by one sentence.

Constant damage is manageble, burst damage kills.

In effect the mittigation tank is more reliable.

[Saty]

Originally Posted by Kell

I think the above post can be simplified by one sentence.

Constant damage is manageble, burst damage kills.

In effect the mittigation tank is more reliable.

Burst damage with good reactive healing is also manageable, only your healer has to pay attention
But you're right, steady dmg load is easier to follow from a healer point of view.

[godzilr1]

with the lift of NDA i can post pics about what exactly ever stat does if you all want me to

[Cynical]

yes please!!!!!!