Say you have 5000 ac with a shield that has no aug in it. You have a 30ac aug that you can put in it, and that would bring you up to 5030ac. Or you have an aug you can put in that shield that can give you a chance to proc for extra damage. Now, is it really better to have 0.006% more ac, or is it better to have a chance to improve dps and thereby your aggro and ability to taunt? We are going to ignore the fact that ac on a shield raises the ac soft cap, because no one knows the exact math behind how that works. If the bonus from raw ac is only 0.006% how much of a multiple can you apply to only 30ac to dent the raw 5k ac you have without it. Im only trying to point out that 5000ac at a moderate level is a large amount for a tank, and if the lack of the 30ac aug doesnt result in a noticable increase in damage recieved why NOT go for the extra damage dealt? Its a whole nother story if you are a tank with relatively low power gear and need that ac aug on the shield to have a fighting chance, but this hypothetical situation that is not the case here. Since using the shield gives its base ac, and the aa ability to block an entire attack, its already better for you to tank with 1hander instead of 2hander. So assuming the above, would you use an ac aug in the shield or one that boosted your damage dealt? How much damage mitigation is 0.006% more ac going to give you?
I may not be a Warrior / Knight... But first, AC on shield completely bypasses the AC softcap... Which you can read up on here: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/armor-class-and-you.160/ Now from reading that... AC is big without soft caps... Now how much do you get from the Damage aug? I am guessing it is a 250 damage proc, and lets say it procs... 5 times in one minute? that is 1250 damage in 60 seconds.. that is 20DPS... 20DPS vs ALOT more then 0.0006% mitigation...
Smak, you're wasting your time. The only people that will support you are new players that don't know much about the game.
Casters have asked in the past for a 2 hand weapon that will give the same amount of AC as a one hand weapon and a shield, and we were told that the 2 hand weapon would need thousands of AC to be equal to a shield and one hand weapon.
Ahh thank you for your support, some asked to move the topic to a new thread since that one was about ac and mitigation i felt what aug to put on a shield was appropriate to bring up there. But i was hoping the trolls had their fill there and someone might come up with an well thought out explaination of why a tank MUST use an ac aug in a shield. Maybe with a link to damage parses for me for someone who has the programs and the time to collate it. I have a simple response to those who thing you must use an ac aug in a shield: What if there are 2 shields in an expansion and one is 100ac and one is 150ac but the 150ac shield is not group obtainable so you must use a 100ac shield. Does that mean the player with a 100ac shield cannot tank anymore because hes missing 50ac potential? Say you have a 50ac aug and an aug that adds some effect you want on the shield, so you adhere to the idea you NEED ac augs in shield so you use the 50ac one. And you tank just fine, no problems whole expansion, but 6 months before the next expansion you win the 150ac shield on a pickup raid. Now do you HAVE to put that 50ac aug in it, or can you just add some more dps or effect on the new shield? If everyone does the exact same thing, everyone is equally succeptable to a particular weakness. Say everyone gears up for h dex instead of h agi, like every tank in the game, and then a patch changes how h agi works and boosts the ac gains really high. Everyone would be feeling gimped. Aside from the one who went all h agi.
It's pretty simple and has already been posted more than once for you. A proc aug in a shield won't produce enough dps to even be considered dps. If you equip a shield, it's because you need better mitigation. Therefore, an ac aug is your best and only choice. If you don't need the mitigation, you use a dps set up. DW/2hand for warriors or 2hand for knights.
I had said it was a hypothetical question at the start, i was asking what others would do in that situation, yes i did make a small math error when converting % and decimals in my head, 5030ac is 0.6% more ac than 5000ac. But for someone doing max level content they would have much higher ac, closer to 9000ac and 40ac augs available. In that case its only 0.44444% more ac with the ac aug. As to the aug i would use alternatively, it would be the fallen dragon one that adds 338damage sympathetic proc chances for every single direct damage or damage over time spell that you cast or proc from weapons or proc buffs, and it stacks with the fallen dragon bow aug for 2x338 damage possible from a single proc. and that comes to 113 damage per second when it goes off. And from my experience it goes off quite often. No amount of argument is going to convince me that a tank given the option of having more aggro generated vs a negligable difference in mitigation is preferable to having the slightest chance to lose aggro and thereby get a healer or dps or caster killed. A furious bash shield may only add 200 aggro once every 3 bashes, but a shield with no effect on it adds no aggro at all. So having more aggro, and more dps is of no use for an sk in your opinion. By the way i had ignored you, you made it clear how you felt about me long before so i was going to let it lie there. But you make it hard to do when you show up and respond to a thread i start with the same old tried and true straight from the internet everquest tank rhetoric coupled with alot of personal remarks that missrepresent the facts. Yes i did leave bertox, no i did not leave bertox because i cannot or did not tank raid targets. One of the reasons i left was because there really is only one guild that even completes content there, another reason is there is no guild there focused on mid game progression 70-85 levels that i had missed during the 4 years i was gone, another reason i left was you constant defamatory remarks in general channel there. And i find it very unusual for someone to spout off so vehemently about someones ability or inability to play a particular class when you have never ever grouped with that player before, nor even been playing when he or she was playing the game in the past. But i got to say the main reason i left bertox was easy to understand, spend a few days listening to both the bertox channel and the cazic channel and you can clearly see what server has the more mature, helpful, respectful players on it, and what channel is more akin to the barrens channels of the past. I guess its all a moot point, if eq will never really be made available for a classic game outside of the mac server, and if there will be no incentive for players to complete midgame content on normal servers i guess i see no point in paying to play only 10% of a game that has 13 years of content developed for it. Maybe i will just move on from this type of game altogether, audit a few college arts classes and create some work in my spare time. or maybe even get a job and make something happen
You dont have to put anything you dont want in your gear, but the Ac aug is better due to how the game works with shield Ac and the proc aug is not going to add enough damage or hate to change that. The math and parses have been posted before on these forums(old ones) and the various Tank forums. Nothing is wrong with being different though and if you can still tank content your interested and not get killed or get others killed do what ya want
First, I'm sorry that this topic has proven to be so acrimonious and that it has brought you so much unfriendly attention. A debate about meta-gaming precision in an MMORPG is not worth enduring genuine stress over. What strikes me about the argument, the way you're framing it, is that you're effectively asking which bonus is less negligible: extra AC at the top-end, or a bit of DPS+aggro - and using various hypotheticals and arbitrary figures to try to argue in favour of the latter. I think this is why your topic isn't opening up to debate: many of us don't see the question as one of theoretical best-case scenario, but of general best practice. My attitude is simplistic: when I get out my shield, I want maximum AC. If I want to do damage, I bring out the 2H, because it handily beats any bonus from any aug. If I want to be certain I keep aggro, I just use the tools that my class already has (plenty and sufficient). To my mind, there is no such thing as a negligible AC gain; this is the same mindset that keeps me buying ranks of CS and CA, knowing the actual improvement per rank is probably less than 1%, but the total is worth it. I feel the reason that you're running into such resistance is that, the vast majority of the time, a knight or warrior is never going to be in that unique situation where they can say to themselves "okay, I've got enough AC that I can tank it all without total confidence, time to think outside the box." Even if it's just a few extra mobs in a swarm, or for the breath of better chance at shrugging off that brutal round, the siren song of extra hard AC is impossible to ignore.
Taken your view on shield ac, of more ac is better, what do you consider better to tank with more: 40ac aug or a 10% dodge aug that would raise dodge skill 45 points, for a normal armor or non visable type 7/8 slot? Keeping in mind that 40ac augs are nearly level 100 items and at that level you can get close to 10k ac, a 40ac aug would be a very minor thing to sacrifice for 45 dodge skill. And a successfully dodged attack does no damage, where ac may only result in getting hit hard less frequently.
It's not a choice between a 40ac aug or a 10% (45) dodge aug. Any tank that's serious about tanking already has the type 3 slot 8% (36) dodge aug. This has also already been pointed out to you in the past day. You are a seriously troubled individual.
Gear your toon the way you want, run your toon the way you want. This is a game we pay to have fun with.
to go back to the % increase of a shield aug, you're not gaining 30ac vs your 5k you ahve now, you're gaining the real ac of 30 over the usable ac you ahve now, which is far lower, due to softcaps etc. dont have the exactn umbers but let's throw some out there and say you ahve 2k softcapped then 3k on top taht gets modified, now as an sk you are only going ot "use" approxmiately 1k of that extra 3k so now you're at 3k not 5k, then the shield is going ot be 200ac on top of that (because shield ac i always real ac not modified) and your 30ac shield aug on top, now you're at 230/3000, or about 7.6% increase in ac. If you only look at the aug, you'rel ooking at 30 of 3200, or 1%. However, a shield is for defense, and the relativity you should bel ookingat isnt 30ac vs your total but 30ac vs the new shield total, or 30/230 which is 13%. A 13% better shield should never be a question for you whether or not to use. it's like if you do a nonrepeatable task and the reward is either a 13% better shield, or a weapon with a .05 better ratio. You're a tank, you take the 13% better shield. Instead of arguing this point over and over and over and over as you ahve done over the last few months, just go get yoruself a better 2h weaopn. anddrop it
Biggest AC aug in your biggest AC shield for obvious reasons. Biggest DMG aug in your best ratio 2H for best DPS. If your 2h is so much worse than your 1h that a proc aug for your shield is more DPS I'd put it in a second shield, not your best shield. Ultimately you'll be best served getting a proper 2H, unless you happen to play a Warrior in which case it's 1H+S 24x7 right now.
I play a warrior Ac in shield by far greater than proc... AC > All. You have a differing opinion good for you. I'll stick with what works for me.
that is what i have setup right now, my biggest ac shield has a 35ac aug in it, and my furious bash shield has a dps proc on it. Its all situational, and no i do not have a decent 2hander on par with the 1handers i have now. If i did have a decent 2hander i would use it for dps, but for swarming i still think a 1hander and shield with dps aug is the best setup if i can handle it.
Smak: so what do you guys think of putting a non-AC aug in a shield? Everyone: it's utterly stupid and completely counter to every mechanical system in the game. Smak: you guys are all trolls! you suck! that about sum up this carnival barker's sideshow? it is better to have 0.006% AC, even ignoring the fact that an AC aug in a shield is in fact much much more than that. which neither furious bash nor a dmg proc aug in your shield will actually do, which i explained to you in exacting and precise detail in the other thread, and which apparently you're deciding to simply ignore math because it doesn't fit the narrative of how special you think you are for coming up with this inane idea. if you go into EQ and open up your char window and you have no buffs and you look at your AC and it says 5000, you actually have somewhere in the general vicinity of about 1600 AC (depending on your level and gear, would need the rAC numbers obviously, but that's within the ballpark) - so adding 30 to that is actually a fairly significant increase. now, we know that AC has certain break points vs. mob ATK - though because every mob has a different ATK and those thresh hold are an unbelievably huge pain in the to parse out, we can not and will never be able to say "you need X AC to be tanking your best vs Y mob", which is why the the tank motto in EQ is simply 'moar AC. and then moar AC. until you have all the AC. and then moar AC.' i type all of this out simply for the sake of any random passersby who may see this thread and not know any better and be taken in by your frivolity. what you have drilled into your head is a notion which is entirely against the mechanics of how EQ's combat works - and while it's your toon and you have every right to gear it and play it however you want, don't come posting your street corner hobo ramblings in public and not expect to have the stupidity of your ideas refuted by those of us who know better. what you are suggesting is like saying "why waste all that money buying salt when you can just season all of your food with road gravel? i bet none of you have ever done it, so you can't prove it wouldn't work better!" and then getting all prissy and playing the victim when it's explained to you how that's a monumentally bad idea.
