For the experienced tanks and boxers, I see some of you pulling 4+ mobs at once and straight tanking (no cc) without much problem, e.g. tucoh, some PL groups. All in T2 group gear too... Can you provide some insight on how you are pulling that off without getting smushed? Assuming a geared and AA'd warrior for example... Are you hitting fort/flash on pull? Pain doesn't hurt immediately? Some cleric or sham box spells that mitigates or blocks damage further? I'm a bit noob so would love to learn your ways. Right now if I tank 2-3 105 mobs as a 110, I have a very good chance of getting spiked to death with my merc healer.
Sounds like your gear and AA are lacking and that you aren't using disc's to get you through those situations. Also, the difference between having a real character for a healer, boxed or not, is way better than a Merc.
(real) Clerics have two auras: Reverent and Divinity. One mitigates melee dmg (4% @ rk2) one increases HP significantly (14.5% @ rk2). Also (real) clerics have DI, Mark/Retort spells for reverse DS, and Shining (Fortress @ 110) spell for another 10% melee mitigation (rk 2). Wurmslayer knocks another 1750hp/hit off each attack, Djinn illusion benefit knocks off another 500hp/hit (I'm not sure if they stack), both of these are especially valuable in larger pulls. But your main problem may just be not enough healing. Add any 110 toon to your group with an additional merc healer (they stack very nicely), and you'll never have to actually touch the other character if you don't want, just put them on /autofollow or park them next to your camp and you just doubled your healing.
Real issue is the merc. I don't regularly pull more than 2-3 but when do the Darkness Howls MIssion in GMM I regularly end up tanking 7-9 at once with discs just to keep mission moving at each stage I can even use shaman to keep up the tank without much issue. Now those mobs are a lot easier than tbl where I wouldn't want to go above 4 but the reality is the trick comes down to: 1) real boxed healer 2) pop a disc as needed or epic on sk - or my pally will spot heal as needed 3) dps the first mob or two down this means my mage or wizzy might use a disc or two Truthfully it's just a combination of #2 or #3 on each pull and this lets you stagger it out over time to consistently pull big. Geared and aa'd means i'm sitting at 35k aa minimum on the pally/sk and over 7k buffed ac (7300-7400)
The benefits from multiple SPA 162 (Melee Guard) effects don't stack together. Neither do SPA 161 (Spell Guard) effects. Here is how it works since the August 17, 2016 patch:
Well I doubt they're using fort or flash but they're probably using some discs. I'd check your rotation first if I were you.
just throw everything you have it at all the time. you have more than enough tools to keep at least something up probably at least 90% of the time for a good Lesson burn. if you're talking about the pull on its own, each of the classes has an impel-type AA that gets you out of range. that's enough time to hit some discipline or AA that lets you take a hard first round of hits. I play SHD and PAL. I would use shield flash if it's at least six on a pull. I am not too familiar with warriors though I do hear they are supposed to mitigate even better. that said, if shield flash is down, tons of other tools available. SHDs and PALs can fare well even with one healer mercenary in T2 Ring of Scale content (I haven't played Burning Lands yet). just make use of all your tools. one thing I see lacking from a lot of boxed groups is DPS. you'll never survive if you don't kill them first. so kill them first. stack on the DPS. I see boxed groups with a shaman, enchanter, and beastlord, like... you know, you want to take three-five minutes per mob? for me, no thanks. wizard, wizard, magician, enchanter (for nukes and aDPS, not crowd controlling, not even debuffing), burn them down.
The healer issues may be limited to warriors. As an SK, my merc healer is fine. But I believe proper tanking is a full time job, and if you need to switch to a healer to do stuff, you're tanking is probably suffering. I do box a druid, but he is primarily DPS and emergency heals. I never switch to his toon to heal, and instead use hotkeys/broadcast keys. I personally would not want a cleric, because while they can heal great, they can't do much of anything else and a druid or shammy is more than sufficient for any group content (and they bring DPS, ADPS, and utility). I wonder if DPS is part of the issue. You want to avoid prolonged fights as much as possible: I would focus on killing faster rather than healing more. I recently tanked a GMM Howler run without any healer at all (8-10 blue mobs at a time). But there were a couple of times that I got worried that my discs would wear off before enough mobs died - group DPS is important. You should always be using your discs: pop them before you get into trouble, not reactively. If you are doing the same things as other warriors, don't sell short the importance of gear and prior expansion progression. You really need to have all the right augs (which you might not see when looking at others) AND have the Heroic AAs (from /achs) if you want to "be like Mike"
My latest trick is to do SK\PAL-110\PAL-106\CLR\BRD + 1 merc in undead zones (ST&HS in ROS). With the cleric aura for HP and fully buffed the SK is at 335k hp and AC numbers w/ bard song are like 8400\3300(or so). The SK is almost max AA, the pallys are 27k and 19k AA respectively. Cleric is almost max AA but no 2.0 (/cry) and the bard doesn't have 2.0 either. The cleric has a social that has 3 group heals on. Each paladin does as well. Everyone melees(I like the healing\damage procs from the weapons). I just keep cycling the heals. Pally slays provide the DPS. One has a Mercy, the other has a Chopper. Each pally also has socials for a series of stuns and a series of nukes. The pallies and cleric of course have "oh crap" abilities to do large group heals and the cleric has the ability to pop healing ward. The SK can usually pop a single disc or ability and do fine with only 3 or 4 mobs in camp. The SK can combine two or more abilities for 5 to 6 in camp. With 5 or 6 I usually pop HT on one so it dies in a few seconds. If you stagger healing (kind of like you did in the old days with CHeal rots) a couple seconds a part you always have pally group heals going. The cleric can focus on bigger single target heals too. I am sure that there are caster based dps groups out there plowing through stuff in a stricter sense faster than I can but for EASE and just chill out ability... I think I have a great setup. People that have come by and noted things on the HS side of the zone line to ST alway comment "dude, you had 5 mobs and how come your life bar barely moved?!"
. If I pull a tough group (or more) of mobs I'll pop flash of anger right before they get there, especially in TBL where that first burst of mob damage might stack with some huge nukes and quickly destroy you. This also gives my shaman some breathing room to cast his AE slow when the mobs get there. . Warriors are all about stacking defensive abilities and relying on outside healing. There's a ton of info out there on how to stack defensive buffs, but it's not a trivial thing to learn. I use colored coded gina triggers to help me keep my buffs up, you can watch them in my vids. If you want me to go into more detail I can, but this resource is great: http://pb.gamerlaunch.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11328956&gid=518180 . About half of EQ classes can contribute to a tank's survivability. If you say what classes you're using we can help give advice on what you can do. With a warrior, keeping the tank up is really a group effort. . One thing I do that I don't see a lot of others doing is using heal sticks on my melee: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=129385 I also use the TBL achievement heal proc augs (including on my berserker and mage), which are very difficult to get currently. But the heal sticks provide a sustained flow of healing into the warrior that I really miss in my new setup with 2 new berserkers with no heal target-of-target items. . A boxed healer can keep their alliance spell up on the tank, which provides a substantial amount of additional healing when a merc casts heals. http://www.raidloot.com/Spells.aspx?name=ancient alliance&view=Table&class=Shaman . When a new expansion comes out I roll with a crew that includes a shaman, bard and cleric which all work together to provide tremendous survivability to the group and tank. This allows me to bully new named and missions into submission. Once I beat an expansion I swap the cleric out for some DPS and do the hunter/collections/farming with a high DPS, low survivability crew. In this mode the game becomes much riskier and I wipe with regularity. I don't upload those videos of course! So when you watch me cut through groups of mobs with lots of DPS and with ease you're not seeing all the times I've failed.
