AC.....are all these tier upgrades worth it?

I got to 14800 AC and expected to see a big difference....the net effect was 5k less dps from the main boss in ToR vs my normal.

It seems to me all these tier upgrades we get are so minor, that they barely warrant being worth doing. I am talking about the raid gear, think they threw a bone to the groupers recently and it is over due. I feel sorry for any grouping tanks headed to ToR.


Anyone else feel the same way about the gear tiers just not being attractive enough? I know they are fighting against gear getting out of hand, but this just doesn't seem fun.

Oh new gear!
Doh! minor upgrade not worth spending points on.
Why am I here?

Eh....well....yes. I keep my chin up and just tell myself every little tiny bit helps. Even though in the back of my mind I know upgrading every slot is only going to give me a minor upgrade in performance.

They told us our upgrades would be minimal this expansion.

Every little bit does help.

A reduction of 5k dps was what % of reduction. If it was more then 5% I would say yeh thats pretty good considering that means you got atleast a DI shift.

If you're looking at AC gains as the change of average DPS, you're doing it wrong.

Reducing average DPS is a side effect of the real gains of AC.

5k less DPS? Where do I sign up?

No crap right, 5k dps knocked off a mobs output is HUGE!

That can take you from OMFGIMMADIEANYSECOND to "i got this"

5k dps knocked off current raid mobs is anywhere from like 15-35% increased mitigation, how is that small by any means imaginable?! I wish I'd get those returns from ac.

I'm going out on a limb here....but....I think his 5k reduction on incoming dps was an assumption on his part.

AC is only one part of the equation, like dps, healing, regen, etc. 1% here and 1% there never make much different alone. When you add them to a full group or raid of players, those 1%s added together make smoother events, quicker kill times, less tank swaps, whatever.

can i has 5k dps reduction to plz?

Maybe he was just guestimating. A 5K dps reduction from any mob is huge and every tank will salivating for such a reduction.

i don't feel that way at all, but perhaps i'm just extremely weird in that i'm here playing a video game, and so as time goes by and my toon becomes more and more powerful within the game world i continue enjoying playing, and engaging in the carrot-on-a-stick nature of an MMO.

i guess i just don't see the point in making the complaint that you're continually getting stronger, but you don't like how much stronger you're getting at once because you want to be strongerer just for the sake of it.

The point he is trying to make is the fact that he sees his stats increase but relatively no difference in real time metrics of his increased strength. In other words, the upgrades really aren't upgrades - they simply just make numbers bigger but prove to have little effect on your actual play. Much like the xorbb PS being used as a magelo stat padder for all intents and purposes as maybe <5% of the game population actually uses it for other scenarios(the reason I refuse to ever wear one). If you want even more proof, just look at the other forum with tank parses. I'm heavily under geared compared to the wars in the other parses yet somehow mine are on par if not better (?). All variables equal, you'd expect a warrior with clearly superior gear to out tank me by a noticeable amount, yet it's not the case at all. What it boils down to is bad rolls of RNG, inopportune hit spikes, and heals that may come .2 seconds too late and the tank is dead no matter what.

His whole argument is the reason why I don't even bother to get gear most of the time. If you know how to play your class, there is little difference between raid tanks. However, this is not the case for all classes. Some see noticeable differences in gear upgrades due to spell modifiers, spell ranks, etc. Warriors for the most part won't see much difference until they upgrade 2-3 tiers. I play and raid because I enjoy the atmosphere, the people, and the overall uniqueness that separates EQ from other cookie cutter MMOs.

Gear shouldn't make or break someone's want to play a game. Gear is just a side effect of a well immersed, enjoyable MMO.

I agree with you here gear is just not special any more . It seems like less and less of an upgrade. I think the game would be much better if instead of just ac /hp each piece of visible should have a specific tank focus. Or class only clicky items on the non visible pieces.

+1. I miss the originality of gear like the old days. Customized itemization was interesting and forced you to truly look at gear before upgrading each piece. Items with dodge, taunt, parry and other sorts of mods; Class only weapons; class only items with clickies (other than the standard bp now, which even has same clicks for difference classes), original and unique focus mods that aren't the same thing with a different and found on the same item each and every time. With upgrades there should be some sort of give and take like the old days that actually meant something. I lose this, but gain this and vise versa. Now you can just blindly buy a new item of items and its the standard +1-2 for each heroic, +7-15 ac depending on the slot, and +150-200hp.

This is partially the reason why the far and few chase items are so highly sought after. It gives characters some flair, some difference. Without them people are the same exact character with different names and race.

I like their thinking with the new worn focus gear with ToR release, if the effects were made a bit more powerful you could see some real decisions being made about stats vs. effects.

Which ones?

The "worn activated" stuff like the mana-linked gauntlets from the other thread. You can choose to stick with your raid gear for better stats, or you can choose to have the chance at 50% boost to incoming heals. I will still keep my raid gear atm, as overhealing negates the heal focus, but if you see something that boosts the overall dodge or parry rate by something substantial and you might see me ditching raid gear when grouping or killing raid trash.

Those kinds of choices.

Going over all the other items the shield is the only other one that looks decent, but I cannot fathom anyone with a raid shield trading. The bp gives to much for focus to trade for knights. Has anyone parsed any of the new stuff besides gloves? Most the other stuff isn't tank useable or is a 3hr click not proc.

I haven't found any of them particularly useful, no, but I think they would be a step in the right direction for some actually useful pieces. I forget which one has the 1% dodge and 60ac, but I could see that piece being useful if it wasn't in a slot we would be willing to swap out, and cranked up the power/reuse/etc.