[Earth Tanking] i have some questions

Hello, i've switched from fire tank to earth tank and i have some questions.

1 - Do I need only 1 aftershock to get full 50% absorption instead of 3 with jackhammer and upheaval ?

2 - Is the totem drawing his own aggro ?

3 - Is the brick golem drawing his own aggro ?

4 - I have 3600 def, 1060 dom. If i pop a power, i have 4060 def that is : 57% damage mitigation.
But lastest raids ignore 25%, so i have 32% damage mitigation.
I add 50% damage absorption, so i have 82% damage mitigation but the cap is 75%
Do i need to block (or turtle) ?

Thanks.

1. Yes.
2. Probably only on the initial casting. I haven't tested it thoroughly though.
3. Yes, if your HP drops below 40%.

4...Experts on this, please tell me if I'm wrong but this is what I think how the Defense mechanic works.

You mean 4660 Defense, right? If an add ignores 25% Defense, I think it ignores the stat itself, not the amount you can mitigate. So, 75% of your total Defense should be 3495 or roughly 49% damage mitigation. If you block, it adds a 5000 to your current Defense. If you count on that, you will have (4660 + 5000) * 75% or 7245 Defense or 75% damage mitigation due to the damage cap.

Now here's the thing. Damage Absorption will absorb even beyond what Defense can mitigate because it's a different mechanic entirely. So that means, you will be able to mitigate 25~50% of the incoming 61% damage (when not blocking) or 25% damage (when blocking).

Oh and depending on the situation, you may still need to block accordingly.

"You mean 4660 Defense, right?"

---> yes sorry

thanks for your quick reply

Is earth the best power for tanking ?

When did they change the Absorption to only need 1 aftershock? I must have missed those patch notes.

Mathmatically for armor piercing there's no difference between mitigation and raw defensive stat. Doesn't matter which one it affects, the end result is the same.

Mathematically yes. But they are all equal in the hands of a skilled player.

i read about it in others forums and when i do 1 aftershock, i can see "Jackhammer : 50% damage absorption" but i don't now if it's a bug or i'ts true

If it is working like that I wouldn't think it's intended based off of the tooltips, and I would keep with the three just to keep up the practice and to be on the safe side until we hear definitively one way or the other

Yeah just tested this as I thought you always needed 3 after shocks- but yeah you only need to pop the power then do 1 after shock to get the full 50% - I swear they just made Earth Tanking the easy-mode. (Less power consumption for maximum benefit)

Question 1: In order to aftershock tank effectively, it is highly recommended that you have a minimum of 2 Aftershock powers on your load out so that you can maintain for 50% Damage Absorb. Having just 1 Aftershock power will leave you vulnerable while the power is on cool down so the idea is that if you have two or more powers on you're load out, while one is on cool down you can have another active so that you maintain that 50% damage at all times.

Question 2: No, the totem does not draw agro as far asI I am aware of it's soul purpose is to heal golem's

Question 3: Yes it does, the Brick Golem will draw agro from time to time & as it says in the description if you're health drops below 30% then it will taunt all of the NPC's around so that you can heal and then as soon as you're health goes above 30% the golem will drop some agro back onto you

Having tanked both T5 ops using Earth, there should be no difference to playstyle. Sure, just needing 1 aftershock for the 50% dmg absorption is great. So, if one just gets 1 aftershock up and gets interrupted/juggled/stunned etc, the 50% dmg absorption is already up.

So, like what Black Mary said, I'd say keep to current practice of 3 aftershocks.

Besides:
- Gemstone Shield - U need 3 aftershocks for the added defense/dmg mitigation. 1 aftershock is useless.
- Upheaval - For people using this, since its a juggle move, what would be the point of just triggering 1 aftershock? Obviously, you'd cast 2-3 aftershocks for the juggle.
- Jackhammer - Same as above.
- Earthquake - Never used it, since its a 25% SC. No comment.

Brick/Crystal Golem? Dmg Shift? Come on, you're a Tank. So tank. Don't depend on pets. Unless u pvp, and u need the Brick Golem to help u.

Totem? Has its uses as a juggle but cast time is looooong. Demands clipping. An unclipped Totem in front of a boss means u are going to eat heavy dmg.

• Gemstone Shield grants more than 50% damage absorption and less than 100% absorption without using the full aftershocks. The trick to it is to use it as just a damage dampener instead of a straight-up shield. Also great when you have the healing shield mod.
• Upheaval doesn't juggle. It does do knockbacks which only lasts for a few seconds. Jackhammer might be a better power if you want to control opponents for much longer. However...
• Jackhammer only juggles when your opponents are dazed, which means you have to use Unstoppable or Tectonic Break prior to juggling them with Jackhammer. This is compared to Upheaval in which you only need to use the aftershock at least once to knock opponents back.
• Earthquake has aftershocks but they do not grant additional damage absorption. I'd consider it though, since with or without aftershocks, it does have stunning properties. Also considering the fact that 25% SC is quite cheap.

Gemstone Shield - I used both Gemstone Shield and Hard-Light Shield. Basically, I wanted something up at all times. Y?
-> Maybe its overkill, but just go do pug T5 Ops runs on Test server with crazy DPS who melee aalllll the time . That means the healer is healing the DPS more often. Its crazy. I'm the tank, and I actually monitor the team's health like I'm healing. Basically, I'm just going to keep all adds/boss, block like crazy, shield like crazy and soda like crazy. Heals from the healer? I treat them as just a bonus. Power in from the troller? I treat them as just a bonus. Too many spoilt DPS on the test server. Its ridiculous really.
-> Looking at the raid videos, 2 shields is like the bare minimum to mitigate against the incoming dmg from raid bosses. Fire tanks will be privy to only 1 (HL Shield)

Juggle? Knockback? Semantics. Its just CC basically. I don't use Upheaval, but some ppl do. The reason is I don't want to knock them away. I use Epicenter, draw them all in a tight circle in front/around me, facing away from the team. Moshpit. Then everyone else can do aoe attacks for dmg. I've never tanked the T4 content on live. But I dps (or heal), and when I dps, nothing makes me smile more than having a crowd of adds combined into 1 spot.

If the dmg in starts to spike or I accidentally pull too many in, Unstoppable for the win to shrug off the pesky adds.

My tanking loadout for T5 ops does not afford inclusion of an SC move - Earthen Grip, Epicenter, Gemstone Shield, Hard-Light Shield, Jackhammer, Unstoppable. It works for you? Great. It doesn't for me.

very useful answers
thanks all

It's a good idea to use Reinforce as a tank ?
Maybe it's a good group support.

You don't need 2 aftershock powers. First of all there are only two that ACTUALLY give you 50% absorption, gemshield is just a shield with the absorption mechanic tied to it and it doesn't tie it to you. THe reason you don't need 2 is because both Jackhammer and Upheaval's cooldowns are shorter than the time the absorption buff lasts. You can run two if you want but you most certainly do not need two.

THe initial cast of totem will draw aggro but the damage ticks will not. Its purpose is to CC, it has a secondary effect of healing any nearby golems while in tank stance and giving Crystal golems an crit boost while in dps stance.

Brick does not draw aggro "from time to time" he ONLY draws aggro when your health drops below 40% and even then as soon as you hit a power you have taken the aggro back from him(snap taunting thats how it works).

It has been that way since the very first update they did to Earth that made it so movement powers didn't give you 2xdom added to your defense, and made it so aftershocks didn't stack with damage shift active. They never put it in the notes, but its been that way for a while.

@Alpha
When I activate Gemstone Shield, I go for the full 3 aftershocks because it gets to 100% dmg absorption, which is what I want. Unless that is wrong? 3 aftershocks do not grant 100% dmg absorption?

Sometimes, if being CCed, I will trigger Gemstone Shield (since its usable while controlled) just once. I don't go the full 3 aftershocks.

I disagree with pet tanking. In general, I don't like pets in the game and people who depend on them. Its my personal opinion that pet tanking is not real tanking. If you think otherwise, thats ok as well. We can disagree.

My disagreement with pet tanking stems from the fact that I personally abhor the Brick Golem. This is generally due to my pvp experience on USPC, that most (I stress most and not all) Earth Tank pvpers that use the Brick Golem are totally dependent on it to do counters and create opportunities. Without the pet, they would get stomped, and stomped hard. And with the pet, it is still not a guarantee to work against the more experienced pvper.

Did I not say Totem has its uses for juggle? I didn't say Totem's useless. But its cast time is lllloooong. Long cast time powers are, generally speaking, bad. Yes, of course, people who know how to Earth Tank aren't stupid enough to cast a Totem in front of a boss to CC. But the OP is new to Earth Tanking, and hence I raise the example of a bad scenario of casting an unclipped Totem.

For group pvp, Reinforce is excellent to redirect some of the damage taken by someone on your team being heavily focused (usually the healer).

For pve, nothing wrong to me with using Reinforce if you do regular league runs (alerts/raids). I doubt the people on your team would mind that you are taking some of the damage off them.

But if you pug pve, just be aware that some people take way too much risk when they shouldn't or can't (not yet fully geared). So, if you still want to take some of the incoming damage off them, then thats up to you.