I have some questions about what the general consensus was on heroic stat preferences among tanks across two periods of EverQuest, and whether any changes to recent codes like mob Strikethrough calculations or defensive skill check orders, would change the calculus. Personally I raided from around PoP to VoA before quitting, and during that time my only experience playing a tank was as an alt on the same account as my main. So typically just group content and offnight raid content. Currently playing on Phinigel I have a warrior box who I use for mostly group content but I do occasionally bring him in for current raid content depending on attendance. So the two periods I want to speak of are firstly the period from SoF to TDS. Let’s call this the pre-Heroic inflation period. The second period would be TBM and beyond, the Type 5 Aug period. My recollection of the wisdom from the time I played in the roughly UF-VoA era, the prevailing opinion was that tanks should put equal priority to Heroic Dexterity and Heroic Agility when selecting gear. When you should select high AC augments and ideally grab ones with Heroic Agility and/or Dexterity. It seemed like the increased chance to Parry/Dodge/Riposte was the main driver behind emphasizing those two heroics. But I wasn’t ever sure on whether it was worth dropping a lower AC aug with Heroic Dexterity/Agility for non-AC augs with HP and Heroic Dexterity/Agility or whether you should take higher AC augs with Heroic Stamina/Wisdom/Intelligence but no Dexterity/Agility. So during this period what should I be looking at among augments more specifically and less specifically when selecting gear. As for the Type 5 Augment period, it seems like heroics on type 7/8 augments become very undervalued since they are no longer a significant portion of your total heroic count. Also this sounded like the time when heroic Strikethrough on mobs may have gotten a huge boost negating many of the defensive benefits from heroics, I’m not clear on whether this boost was eventually removed or reduced or whether it’s still in place. This era I really have no experience in, and am unclear on what Type 5 Augs most tanks get and what Type 7/8 Augs are generally selected. I would imagine Heroic Dex for Type 5 Augs and just highest raw AC with no other big considerations for Type 7/8, maybe using Heroic Dex or Agi as a tie breaker when AC is even. If the Strikethrough was still so overpowering that no defensive checks were being met I could see Type 5 for Stamina and Type 7/8 Augs for high AC only. Any long term tanks have advice for one or both of these eras of itemization?
Splitting Heroics always split your avoidance to never let you bypass mob Heroic Strikethrough, its always been best to hardcore all in on 1 and Dex has always been best because it has more Avoidance power + DPS power on top of that In raids it is harder because mobs are given 100% Strikethrough intentionally, but you still get the DPS benefits and if you're properly geared at every tier you aren't really at risk of dieing in general to where discipline usage/self healing/healers determines your survivability rather then where you put those points, so you might as well max your DPS to win faster right?
stacking hSta for maximum hitpoints was a game changer versus a couple encounters in their eras, like Queen Velazul in EoK with large double dots on the tank, where auging any other way would lead to 40 DI breaks in an encounter or even inability to survive. So I swapped out all my type5s, and was low-key super annoyed for a whole year.
So I guess the follow up question is then: Is it worth taking an HP/Mana aug with some hDex over an AC/HP aug without hDex? Or do the incremental gains of worn AC supersede the benefits of a few more hDex?
That's when you just bust out a 2her and go DPS mode and let the other tanks tank instead! I think generally the only times hDex > All comes into play (in regards to even ditching AC) are during like TBM+ when Heroics start to SUPER inflate and significantly outpace *old* content values (even previous expansion stuff), like TBM doubles your heroics, then each expansion after basically adds like another 300-400ish total range (which ToV the newest one also increased further), this is also mostly for the Group Game which hasn't killed avoidance to 0 intentionally 400 hDex is worth a base + 16% riposte and +16% parry pre heroic and base strikethrough counters, so when you skyrocket that much year over year starting in TBM that's when the completely avoid mob melee stuff came from, which every melee and tank based class hit in RoS or TBL, depending on class Of course their fix for this was hard capping your avoidance somewhere in the formulas (to something like 90%?)
I enjoy Hsta stack. I focus on agro and postion of x mob. While i dont disagree with Hdex people.. i choose Hsta for buffer on spell damage. if i wanta to focus on dps gains i be a dps.. but im tank and for god, glory and all rangers i choose Hsta.
I know there is a tipping point where you see a drop in something for heroics and AC but I found my partial group partial raid geared SK feared better by sorta splitting heroics. I never ran exhaustive parses like I should have but did repeat the parse settings I did run in EoK, RoS and TBL and it was always the same. Hagi trumps hdex as far as total reduced incoming melee dps. hsta helps with all the nasty effects even group trash now has. So in game I have found him able to tackle harder content and situations having something semi-balanced like say 1700 hagi/hsta and 1800 hdex then by running something like 1550 hagi/hsta and 2k hdex. Or other combo's of leaning pure hsta or hagi instead.
For actual content post TBM, for a tank, If you are a group tank, HDex > HSta > HAgi. The avoidance checks work in group content, 2 for each of them, HDex improves riposte and parry, HAgi improves dodge and miss %.But HDex improves your DPS, so it's the best of the 2. Also Riou explained why you need to not balance HDex / HAgi, due to Hstrikethrough thing. So HSta logical second heroic stat. If you are a raid tank,HSta > HAgi > HDex. As said, all raid mobs, including trash mob, negate through all avoidance checks, parry, riposte and dodge (100 % heroic strikethrough). The only avoidance skill that still works is HAgi with miss %, but even so raids mobs will hit you nearly whole time. HAgi also affects the hits distribution on you when you are hit with the AC component, so more useful than HDex. That being said, been a while AC made some difference, 500 AC used to make sizable difference in early expansions, but today way less. So more HP provided by Hsta, which allow you also to soak more hits as you will get hit very much, will also help with raid heavy AE in modern expansions. Many times, a tank has died due to a bad AE effect coupled with melee round, not only melee rounds (even if melee rounds can still kill you of course).
Can you remind me of the amount of HP boost per Hsta level (which is what, 25?). I always forget. The only thing that changes once you get higher amounts is the other additional increases (say, avoidance, spell mitigation, etc), correct?
You win HP boost each time you win 1 point of HSta. As a warrior, + 1 HSta equals to around + 16,5 HP (can go from 16,25 HP to 16,75 HP). Not sure to understand your 2nd question, mod 2 like avoidance, accuracy, etc. change after a certain number of points that will vary (you can see clicking on your char at what value you will reach next lvl), but Heroic stats have still permanent boosts for each + 1 point you get, HSta for HP, HAgi for dodge chance or AC, HDex for parry chance or % crit , etc.
this is not true for hAgi, hDex. Their benefits to dodge & parry increment for each 25 points, similar to how each 10 hStrengths adds +1 to melee hits.
I did the tests very recently with 3 various Hsta increase numbers, and obtained 16,75 2 times and 16,26 1 time. You are lucky that there is "Integer math so truncate every division"
