Tank Belts

Discussion in 'Tanks' started by Ozon, May 26, 2021.

  1. Chaosflux Augur

    Like I am not saying you have to use it or you are bad if you don't, I was trying to provide the correct information since if you were weighing your choice based on thinking it reduces damage by 25% so i felt the need to lay out how it works clearly, id probably use it if it reduced it that much lol.

    It does not work on dots, either one of the belts is a very minor bump one way or the other, but for pure min maxing for SK/Paladin its functionally the best option.

    Its like other min/max choices like what augs to put in main hand, or which heroic to focus theres a best choice for all of those, but a good chunk if not most of the playerbase goes with a less optimal path because mechanics are so obfuscated in this game and people are set in how they think things work versus how they really work, generally. But if you go with a slow belt, its not going to utterly cripple your dps.
  2. kizant Augur

    Threads of Potential does work on DoTs. It just divides the damage up per tick. Then if you have anything to extend the duration of your DoTs it will continue to add the same amount of damage for each extra tick. So, it generally does more than 5000 damage in total.
  3. Chaosflux Augur

    What really? I must be old I thought it excluded: repeating hit points spa
  4. Warpeace Augur

    My Shaman needs one then.
    kizant likes this.
  5. Chaosflux Augur

    I've been using Boromas belt on my necro, ill have to make a threads belt
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  6. Parmalice Journeyman

    Last night I and my usual group cleared a Great Divide raid instance farming +11 luck augs and diamondized precious ores for type 19 augs (and we got 8 augs and around 8 or 10 ores!!).

    It would often happen, while clearing through the Tizmak tunnels in the northwest part of the instance, that we'd accidentally face-pull from one of those side rooms 4 or 5 mobs at a time. This raid yard trash isn't particularly hard, but dealing with 4 or 5 of them at the same time isn't particularly easy either if I don't bring my A game. I'd instantly hit my Shield Flash macro, then a disc like Restless Mantle, activate my epic if possible, hit Visage of Death, and AE aggro to ensure they're all focused on me and not steamrolling the rest of the group.

    It was very comforting seeing that Crippling Snare debuff in every single one of those mobs' debuff window within usually seconds of the encounter starting. It's precisely for these kinds of moments that I'd give up 2 or 3k dps that I might have had for whatever reduction in incoming DPS the Crippling Snare brings.

    I was also moloing through Kor-Sha labs yesterday trying to finish out that progression that I hadn't done before. I'd deliberately pull a handful of mobs at a time. One on one they die fast and don't particularly threaten me, but 5 or 6 of them hitting me at once can actually present some danger. Again I'd see them slow themselves with Crippling Snare on me within seconds. Even if it really is only like 10% reduction in incoming damage, multiply that by 4 to 6 mobs each being reduced this way and it really adds up.

    I'm all for maximizing my damage, but I'm also all about improving my own tankability and survivability.

    I'll definitely look into these Threads belts some more, and may even use my next CoV nugget to get one, but every time I see Crippling Snare on the mobs I'm fighting, particularly when it's on each one of a handful of mobs I'm tanking at once, I'm reminded just how good that is, and that a few k DPS I might have had instead with some other belt probably isn't worth giving it up. When we cleared that GD raid instance of all the yard trash we could find last night we killed 176 raid instance yard trash mobs, often 2-5 at a time, and aggregated over the whole instance I averaged 378k DPS. Getting a couple K more by giving up Crippling Snare just doesn't seem like a very good deal to me.

    I'm guess I'm not really a min/maxer. I like a more balanced approach, then will seek to maximize both sides of the balance individually while maintaining that balance.
    Ozon likes this.
  7. Chaosflux Augur

    Yeh its a good thing to have both, I keep mine in my first bag slot, ill switch to it on as needed basis, but generally walk into most raid DZs or group missions with the threads belt. I generally lean very heavily on proactive self healing alot more than other knights (atleast in my guild if we compare tank/healing parses, I also die less on average week over week), its a controlled chaos i guess, akin to warriors that dual wield tank the majority of the time, its a calculated choice evaluating the dps gain vs the risk with all minimization of risk accounted for. Everyone has their own personal threshold for what they feel comfortable with.
    Ozon likes this.
  8. Tucoh Augur

    Just to add my own two cents to this line of thought and describe why I use the slow belt on my warrior instead of a higher DPS belt even when grouping with a shaman: from my experience in normal group combat the first 30 seconds of the fight are the most dangerous. When your group botches the pull and your Flash of Anger drops while mobs are still streaming in, your slower and CCer and healer have got quite a bit on their plate, especially if they're the same person / character. That shaman has to keep everyone alive from these crazy mobs running everywhere, but might also be CCing them. Their AE slow takes a back seat and it's at these critical moments where that extra edge from your belt procing on a chunk of the mobs really makes a difference.

    My playstyle is more reckless than most people's though. At significant detriment to my health I push the limits of what challenges I can overcome as a strategic way to break through my own limits. Or something equally quixotic. Many groups and pullers introduce clean lines of mobs in piecemeal fashion and you can adapt a more DPS-centric approach because you never find yourself embroiled in the chaos I thrive in.

    This is also specific to a warrior who benefits much less than pal/sk from the DPS options.
  9. Ozon Augur

    In the end I decided to get both the Slow and the T(h)reads belt, like most here, slow belt for Solo/Molo, or when I pull a few too many, and T(h)reads for everything else. Sure I spent a bit more raid currency, but not running out anytime soon either.
  10. Parmalice Journeyman

    Note: Syylke_Emarr posted a contradiction to what I said in this post about the mana returned by Vulak's Bite due to the Threaded belt. I tested it and he's 100% correct. I'll leave my original post below as is, but the part about extra mana being returned via Vulak's Bite from the Threaded belt is simply wrong.

    ****************

    I wanted to add some data here.
    I bought JChan's Belt of Command last night off the raid vendor. It has the Threaded Boon of Potential effect on it, which is the +5000 dmg to spell casts and a chance at a 5k group heal.

    I tested this against the test dummy in our guildhall. I have a chat tab set up whose only filter is Focus Effects (under Spells). This is useful because I can cast all my spells and see which items glow, indicating that whatever focus effect they offer is triggered by that spell. This answers the question of "Does this work with XXXX?"

    Threaded Boon of Potential affects our SK lifetaps!
    It also affects Vulak's Bite. This last one could be HUGE.

    I was able to see +5000 dmg being added to every lifetap. For a non-critting lifetap this is gigantic. Given my other effects that amounts to like a 20-35% or so boost to non-critting lifetap dmg, which is like 20-35% boost to self heals for non-critting lifetaps, which is about half of the time we cast them. To critting lifetaps it's also adding +5k dmg, but that amounts to a much smaller percentage.

    The thing with Vulak's Bite could be ginormous. Think about it: with my other effects factored in, the dmg of a non-critting Vulak's Bite is in the ~8-9k range. With the Threaded belt equipped, that goes up to ~13-14k. Now, that spell only refreshes once a minute, so how much can that add in terms of DPS? The answer is: WHO CARES? That's not the point of chain-casting Vulak's Bite. The point is that a percentage of the dmg of Vulak's Bite comes back to you and your group in HP (nice but not huge) and mana (which is HUGE).

    I've already mentioned in other threads that my particular playstyle in group play with chain-pulls of toughish mobs is to load them up with DOTs and lifetap them as my mana pool can support, and that I chain-cast both Vulak's Bite and Bite of Chaos every time they pop up because in between casts of Thought Leech (every ten minutes) I can get like 40-50% worth of my mana back just from chain-casting those two spells on mobs. This is a huge boost to the amount of mana I can use during these long group sessions (or soloing sessions). I also group with a necro a lot, and that MFer is always LOM or OOM. Boosting the mana he and everyone else in my group is getting back every minute by that much will mean everyone doing dmg with mana in the group can do that much more. Vulak's Bite is an underappreciated force multiplier. It's good solo, it's even better grouped.

    Now, I've only actually verified that the Threaded Boon of Potential effect boosts the damage of Vulak's Bite. I haven't actually verified that this increase is also reflected in the amount of mana I get back. I know of no way to actually see numbers for mana coming back (a mana heal message in the log), so I'll just have to go out and group or solo for a few hours and play the way I normally do and see if it appears that I'm getting more mana back over time. I'm assuming for now that this +dmg boost due to this belt is in fact coming back in mana because I can see the mana jump much more on a Vulak's Bite cast if it crits than if it doesn't, so the mana return does seem to be tied directly to the dmg output, as the spell description states.

    So yes, my feelings are mixed about taking off Crippling Snare. But if I'm magnifying my lifetaps and Vulak's Bite as much as it appears I do with the Threaded belt, not to mention adding DPS to all of my DOTs, the extra healing from the lifetaps might make up for some of the Crippling Snare loss, and the extra DPS will just be gravy, and the biggest win will be in how much more dps my group can do with all the extra mana returned by me chain-casting Vulak's Bite.

    Oh, one more thing. I was looking at numbers from Bond of Vulak (and other DOTs) with and without the Threaded belt on, and the JChan's Threaded Belt of Command did indeed glow with every tick of that DOT, however the non-critting ticks I observed were not +5k higher than without that belt on. The increase was smaller. I believe that, as someone previously suggested, they probably add 1/X * 5000 dmg to each tick, where X is the number of ticks that that DOT will be in effect. As such, if I'm casting my five DOTs on a tough mob per fight that would only add like +25k dmg total to that fight if the DOTs run to completion, which isn't that much when mob health is in the many millions. The +dmg added to chain-casted lifetaps would be higher but still not ginormous in terms of dps boost. I consider the improvement to tankability by having +5k added to each lifetap, and the increase in mana returned by Vulak's Bite to be the biggest wins.
  11. Syylke_EMarr Augur

    Unfortunately, the damage of Vulak's Bite does not affect the amount of mana it returns. The Bite Recourse spell gives a specific amount of HP/mana back, depending on the rank of the spell. The only thing that's affected by the damage is the AA-provided "Ragged Bite of Agony" rider effect, which deals 20,000 damage and returns 10% of that as mana to the SK (and only the SK). The belt does not affect this damage (other than with +spell damage), so does not modify the mana returned. What does affect the mana returned is if Ragged Bite crits, which can increase the returned mana by ~10,000.

    A slight correction, based on my understanding of the belt focus and how it works with DoTs. The 1/X is based on the unfocused/unmodified duration of the DoT. So, for ease of math, if you have a DoT that lasts 5 ticks at base, each tick would do 1000 more damage for a total of 5000 damage for the full duration. But if, between foci and AAs, the duration is increased to 10 ticks, it's still doing 1000 extra per tick, for a total of 10,000 for the full duration. Still not huge, but it's something?
  12. Chaosflux Augur

    Syylke pretty much covered it

    I'll just reiterate the dmg it adds to lifetaps doesn't crit blast, but it does crit heal, so it averages out to about 7800 extra healing on your average lifetap over long duration when everything is all normalized. More if you have a bard obviously.
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  13. Parmalice Journeyman

    I just tested this more carefully, and you are 100% correct on this. I was fortunate in that I'd just died and ported back to the guildhall and had a nearly empty mana bar to fill up testing this against a test dummy. I didn't use my Unity buff beforehand to limit the extra procs that would muddy the waters a bit.

    I was mistaken. The Vulak's Bite dmg is in fact increased by the belt, but the mana that the group and I get back from that is not boosted by the belt. I was getting the same 1.1% of my 298769 mana pool (around 3286 mana) whether I had the Threaded belt on or not, even though the dmg being dealt by Vulak's Bite was increased. That's a bummer.

    What entirely explains the variability in how much mana I get back from a cast of Vulak's Bite Rk. III is whether Vulak's Bite itself twincasts, and Ragged Bite of Agony IV twincasts or crits. If they both twincast and crit I've seen most of a bubble of mana come back. All in all it's still worth it to chaincast this and Chaos Bite, but unfortunately the effect of the Threaded belt is not what I hoped it would be.

    A lot of little things add up to big things, and all of our performance is just a brick wall composed of many little incremental boosts, so I won't turn my nose up at this.

    I did a brief test this morning. A DOT chain of Bond of Vulak, Plague of Zlandicar, Nefarious Blight, and Blood of Ikatiar, all rank 3, with +100-135% bonuses applied to all via CoV raid gear. Each chain was me applying all four DOTs as quickly as I could get them off and then letting the whole chain run its course and appear in the parse. I repeated this five times each with the Threaded belt on and with the Crippling Snare belt on, aggregating each set of five in the parse to get average DPS for this with each belt. The difference amounted to about 2.5k DPS higher with the Threaded belt on. Sure it's not huge, but add in some additional small DPS added from whatever lifetaps or Spear of Cadcane or whatever else is being cast and one might see 3-5k dps added by the belt.

    I don't think the DPS boost alone would be enough for me to forsake the Crippling Snare belt permanently. I think what clinches it for me, for now, is the combination of that DPS boost plus the boost in self-healing because of the +5k (more with crit) HP added to every lifetap and the 5k (more actually due to the extended duration as Syylke pointed out) added over time via Bond of Vulak.

    It's a pity that Vulak's Bite does not return more mana due to this belt, as I thought earlier. That would be pretty OP, though, and it's not like SKs aren't already uber enough.
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  14. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    I always have both belts, but I have found over the last 2 years, I never take the slow one out at all. If I'm soloing for whatever reason, I want DPS over anything else. If I'm boxing, I box a shaman so don't care anyway. On raids, I want the dps (and heals). So I end up just keeping the threads belt on.
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  15. shiftie Augur

    That could be partially to the abundance of undead the last two years also. I wish this option was available for the many years I actually “needed” slow what a different time that would have been.
    Wulfhere likes this.
  16. Chaosflux Augur

    I think most people are tied to slow because they haven't actually parsed how little it does in current content. Last time I really remember it being a big deal was in EOK and the only reason it was a big deal is because there were F tons of Fully Slowable mobs.

    I've got a shaman/enchanter/bard and most of the time I don't even bother with slow unless I am filling the extended target window with mobs, if I am just pulling smaller trash packs (5 or 6 or less) faster to just burn through them, idk i am on a truebox server, maybe I'd put the effort in if I didn't have to juggle mice and different keypads, but I doubt it. Very little need to between self healing and a healer I can just heal through the miniscule amount of extra damage. Especially since trash mobs get melted so fast.

    The thing that kills you is spike damage, which it has no effect on. It just slows the spikes down, but not slowing them down enough you can fit a heal/tap where there wasn't going to be one. Which generally in the scenarios it (spike damage) was going to kill you, you are still going to die.

    The belt slows the round down by less than .2 of a second, if you are cutting it that close on heals landing you prob should be using a cooldown. Especially in the scope of the modern game where clerics just chain remedy/sham chain reckless and flood you with heals every 2s that .168 of a second difference just realistically isn't going to come up as a gamechanger very frequently. There's also quite afew abilities those (healing) classes have that can bridge those gaps if there is one beacon, burst of life, arbitrate, DG, apothic dragon hammer click, intervention etc

    Its just not impactful in the way it was when the meta and mechanics favored it alot more.
  17. Wulfhere Augur

    Helix of the Undying for the win. It's odd and a bit sad that its knights' AA debuff that matters more then strictly paladin Slay Undead wrt a gear choice vs undead.