I only returned from a longer break mid NoS and only recently switched Main to Paladin. So as a latecomer to the Tanking game (no ToV Earring, no NoS evolving Cloak), I got the Legacies Lost Neck from LS and so this is essentially the first time that I am seriously in need of understanding the slot 18/19 Augs. I am slowly working on upgrading the Neck and currently have 2 Legacies Lost Augments. Not knowing what's all available, I just created 2 that have the most AC. But doing some more research, I found out that there are several others, those that raise the AC Softcap by 6%, some that apparently reduce the incoming damage from front or back, add procs, etc. So I am kinda wondering whether anybody minmaxed these things already and what's the optimal way forward for the Paladin? Since I am raiding with the Paladin, I expect to be able to put in 4 Augments eventually. So my current plan is to grab the max AC one (https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=148460), then the AC Softcap one (https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=148565), Acolyte's Ventral Defense of Legacies Lost and maybe the increased Accuracy one (https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=148652) ? Or am I on completely the wrong path here? Can anybody help?
neck accommodates three augments maximum AC Softcap aug is much junkier than it sounds going in. Just a sideways way for an augment with otherwise-shabby stats to have a little more AC on it (30 or 35 more, depending if you use Acolyte or Devotee). The effect of raising softcap is disabled by Two-handed Stance. Use one Ventral Defense augment, it's the important tanking one. Best one works on that defense focus, so that'll be one of your Devotee(19) augs. For the other two slots, one Devotee(19) slot and one Acolyte(18) slot, dealer's choice. You can use the two tiers of Fortification for AC+hDex, or the two tiers of Enhancement for broad shmear of stats, or two tiers of Attacker augment to gain melee accuracy (< this is a popular choice), or two tiers of Casting Ice for some dps & funnybusiness. Or mix & match!
Ah, I see. I kinda assumed that I would get another slot for completing the raids and their achievements. Thanks for the info. Well, for now I only have Acolyte available, so I think I will stick a Ventral Defense in there for now, until I get Devotee. Sounds like Ventral Defense is a No brainer. I will keep the Fortification one I have for now until I make up my mind on the rest. Some more dps would help with keeping aggro, though, so I am unsure whether to use one for melee accuracy, two Forts or two melee accuracy... Hmmm...
I believe the hardest hitting mobs currently are in the Elddar Forest instanced Kanghammer raid...the trash for the type 19s and lucks augs. Max hit was 167K, at a 1.1% reduction from the front, you'd only shave 1837hp from the max swings. Avg hit was 79,970, so 879hp reduction on avg if you used ventral defense type 19. At that low of a return, I'm not sure that would be my choice....as you'd get more of a reduction from wielding the EoK wurmslayer. Because "EQ Math" is insane, I generally go for the most amount of AC gain I can get on type 18/19s with a good boost to Hdex/agi/sta and less choice for the gimmicky customizations. I think that something like frontal/rear defense would have to be significantly better to sway my personal choice. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/ac-vs-acv2.210028/
The first thing I would suggest is getting your NoS cloak and then working the requirements to getting it evolved. I have a few more 18/19 slots available then you currently so making choices is easier. For me personally, I prefer the high AC stat (fortification) and then the soft cap mod (defense). From what has been said in the past, the soft cap mod augs stack as long as their % mod is different. So you can not have 2 or more defense augs with a +6% to soft cap. But you can have a +6% and a +5% together (I believe there are +5, +6, +7, +8% levels). It's been a couple years since I looked into posts regarding this, but last time I checked, it was still reported as stacking. There are some issues to obtaining the older augs with different %. TBL was random drop (group and raid), ToV had tradeskill combines for raid, but you needed to be so far on the Rallos ear to get the recipes, and some of the others were in anniversary quests or are random dropped so you have to clear lots of named or raid trash before you get what your looking for. I think I also have a mod for incoming healing at +3% along with several older ones with high ac and agil/dex. I think I dropped my frontal defense mod aug because of the same reason Allayna said. If I had 800k hps and took 80k for an average hit. I could get hit 10 times before death and in theory 'extend' my life by 9k each full hp bar with the frontal defense. To me, I would rather stack the soft cap augs and hope the internal damage generator drops 1 of the 10 hits to a lower damage. Also, when it matters in raids, as a knight, you can't tank while your 2h is equipped.
For paladin it's pretty useless to be honest with you. As a paladin, you already have a bunch of heal mod abilities (armor of inquis, group armor of inquis, epic 2.0 and the other group one that I forget the name of off the top of my head) that do far more than the 4% or whatever it is from the type 18/19. You can always have one up or almost always have one up. They result in a bunch of overheals already, so another 4% is not going to help much. It may be different for SK or warrior though The AC soft cap ones aren't that great in my opinion. The AC cap is so low that the amount of AC they give is about on par with one of the older fortitudes. You can check this by looking at your AC when you have different type 18/19s equipped. They're quite a bit more than the enhancements, but anything else they're roughly the same. I personally go with fortitudes, enhancements and stealths. I also use a ventral defense 1.1% aug because I figure 1.1% on each hit will end up being more than a comparable AC or any heroic stat upgrade
I use it. A couple high level paladins around here have said they don't, so (I guess?) it's not a consensus slam dunk. Seems really really good to me, for edging small & medium heals (like proc ones, and shm splash waves) up into real-business territory.
Expecting 30 or 40ac on instead equipping another Fortification augment to be more beneficial for taking hits is crazypants. A 1k hit reduction that doesn't conflict with anything (i.e. stacks with spa162 buffs like the Wurmslayer you oddly bring up. And somewhat more relevantly, Gird's protection, Armor & Mantle discs, or Protective recourse) is very strong.
I could quote another thread I recently commented on...where I tanked/healed the two LS group missions and overhealed for 49 million....and then we can talk about how "very strong" reducing a hit by around 1k is. In fact 86% of the healing was overhealing. 1K hit reduction is a proverbial drop in the bucket when I am overhealing myself for 49 mil.
Hit reduction prevents deaths to taking too much damage before all that glorious healing can come through. They are complementary parts of tanking.
Can someone else confirm this is correct? The last I remember seeing a post here (which I now cannot find) all softcap mods stacked it was the ventral that did not. If they do not, why would the % dictate whether this stacked or not?
It is incorrect. I suspect they encountered a situation where matching percentages happened to be on augments that were actually incompatible due to Lore Groups.
Right now (Anni event) the 24th Anni mission will reward you with a random type 18 aug, good news is you can get really lucky, bad news 1) they aren't the latest/greatest, 2) its random. But might be worth running the mission a few times see what you get, play around with a few augs.
