The tanking issue...

Discussion in 'Tanks' started by Serriah_Test, Feb 23, 2014.

  1. Serriah_Test Augur

    So here it is - Grouper's EQ as we know it.

    Level 1 to 71 = Defiant.
    Level 71 to 80 = Glowing (or still Defiant if none is available)
    Level 80 to 85 = Abstruse
    Level 85 to 92 = Reis or Rustic
    Level 92 to 100 = Fear Touched.
    Level 100 - Grind out Heroic Adventures for Latent.


    So, where's the problem?
    A mage pet is a better tank than a player in that gear. All it takes is one earring.

    Can a player tank an HA in fear touched while waiting to hit 100 for latent? Yes, but nowhere near even close to a mage pet with group focus.


    Am I saying "nerf mage pets"? No.
    I'm saying, maybe reduce the level reqs on some of the gear, AA, Spells and skills.
    A mage dings 81, 86, 91, 96 - and they are instantly able to tank the group content with their pets. A tank class usually has to get to max level (good luck on that), gear up 21 Slots + 21 augs and then they are in the same ball park as a pet. This is usually done tanking content below their level too.


    My SK has full fear touched, 30+ AC augs everywhere and uses all abilities properly. A level 100 heroic adventure at 97, I can tank 1 mob unslowed, or 2 slowed - but HP does the Yo-yo often.
    Something to think about. I don't even play her anymore. I don't think I'm the only tanking class who wasn't around for all expansions to give up on tank classes.
    Imableeder, Xeladom and Dre. like this.
  2. Ravengloome Augur

    1) This is not a problem, your trying to skip progression steps in your gear path, that is the problem. Also the return on investment for a tank is exceptional IMO, since we end up tanking far better then an equally geared (just 1 earring) mage pet in all but some odd situations that lean towards massive HP/zerg healing tactics.

    2) Your talking about tanking current content, with effectively gear that is alittle better then T4 from VOA (which is 2 expansions old). If you want to tank current content with 2 year old gear, it should be rough. If you need it get the tradeskill gear. (Since we are on the same server, you can just ask me, I can make you the plate TS gear...). Or get partisan in HOF and do prior stated mission

    3) Tanks need a friend/social network, or supply their own (boxes) period. Most of the mages/necros I know doing current content, also supply their own team, or have friends.

    4) We play on the same server, /tell Ravengloome and I can help you with any of the things i stated above.

    5) As an aside your a much better bard then you are a tank:eek::p
  3. Ghan Journeyman

    Did menace, doom and horror countless times as 100 sk in RoF t1, boxing a 98 or so necro. Super easy way to skip 2 gear tiers, the hardest bit was doing partisan to be able to request. Also, the 40ac shield aug from the same mission is a must have.

    Being a non raiding tank can be harsh. Obsessive aug farming helps :)
  4. Ravengloome Augur

    You don't even have to be that obsessive anymore.

    Generic Tank Gear plan

    ***assuming you have fear touched gear, and atleast 20/25ac augs in most slots. Otherwise add afew days to farm plat/get augs to atleast 20ish ac in all slots

    1) farm MDH/buy TS gear < 1 week max
    2) farm old augs your missing (Can skip this step if your not missing many) < maybe afew days, unless your basically naked as far as augs are concerned
    3) DO ha's farm marks < 3 to 4 weeks to get all the marks needed if you go at a really slow pace
    ..... Now your geared well
    4) Maximize aug set up < could take awhile depending on CR1 and Neriak drop rates on the aug
    4.2) Do your class weapon (if your a paladin especially)
    5) finish old quests/trophies blah blah blah
    6) Wait till the next content release comes out

    so basically gearing up takes a month or possibly two and your maxed out ready to wait for more content.
    guado likes this.
  5. fransisco Augur

    The op is just flat out wrong.

    I have a friend with an SK ive been helping gear up. He has his tanking AAs (Mages have many many hundreds of pet AAs the OP is ignoring. And thats just for the pet, not the mage). His SK tanks great, and he isnt even a pro at playing an SK yet. He'll get even better with more AA and more skill.

    Players out tanked by pets are not good players.
    Aamonn and Loratex like this.
  6. Serriah_Test Augur

    Bard is 100% into level 100, MAX AAs, and only has 2 pieces to go for full Latent and all non-vis is 2500H/E/M. The only thing I can think of on her is a few augs and Rk2 spells... which is why she's on /melody status LOL

    I was just suggesting that some mitigation / survival abilities become the first level of new expansions. We tend to get them near the end of the expansion. Also, given the TERRIBLE xp gains in ROF, no one groups in RoF. Seriously... I killed 12 mobs + a named and did 2 quests and my XP bar stayed flat at 48%. Jumped into an HA and I got 40% of a level in two missions.

    All I know is a lot of tanks just say "screw it, I'm making a mage!" And I can't blame them.
  7. Ravengloome Augur

    ........ In Serriah's defense shes actually a pretty decent player.

    However Francisco I agree with you that if a tank is failing, its on their end. There is something they aren't doing, or aren't doing correctly.

    Knights have 3 main disc lines, one of which can be up about 60% of the time, we also have Epic2.0 and COA chest which can bridge the gap of the remaining 40% of the time. As well as Unholy aura + First Spire, and throw in leechcurse/Deflection when applicable and its pretty darn hard to kill of an SK.

    Paladins are similar, having First spire, Epic2.0, Group armor of the inquis/self Armor, and numerous other little things they can click here and there to increase survivability.

    Warriors on the other hand are abit worse off for the group game.
  8. Ravengloome Augur

    Also if a tank says "screw it, i am making a mage." They probably wouldn't cut it as a tank anyway.
  9. Serriah_Test Augur

    Players out tanked by pets are players without access to gear / groups in the expansion they need to get that gear from. Quit pretending like there's skill involved in EQ tanking. Cycle your liftaps, amp your AC with clickies and Challenge and cycle your carapaces. Click epic when SHTF and go zombie when S Really HTF. Time your big melee strike discs and renounce line when low on HP and epic'd and that's it. It's not a player ability issue - it's missing an entire 2 expansions issue.

    I want new and returning players to have a chance, and if a veteran like me returning is having a problem, I can only assume that non-vets, or players who quit a long long time ago simply log in and quit, or avoid tank classes because non-tanks can leapfrog expansions.

    Simple change in the SK domain - all three carapaces and all lifetaps at the first level in a new expansion rather than the LAST level.

    A lot of Neckbearding ine replies to my post :p
  10. Zantor Augur

    So many times, if it is easy people get bored, make it a challenge, just not to much of one and people will come back. I know as a SK, I box a mage all the time. Love that pet, is times when I have died and pet finished off the mob or had pet OT a mob while I tanked others. Any class will get better and stronger as they level up, get new gear and AA's, just for tanks, is more so important.
  11. Ravengloome Augur

    You don't have last expansions Carapace/mantle? < sorry but you could do all of COTF/ROF content with VOA's iterations of these discs you have no argument here.

    Also these get upgraded at 98 not 100, so Still no actual/legit point has been made

    Unholy guardian is 97 not a far cry from 96...

    So whats the issue?


    Theres alittle more to it then just cycling stuff, But you have the general idea down.

    You realize at 96 you can have Urash, Piqiorn, Dyalgem, and Dire loaded right? Our 90 95 100 taps other then Dire aren't on the same timer... So Getting Falsin, Klonda, and the new Dire at 100 isn't that big of a deal. Sure its an increase to survivability, but its not going to make or break you.
  12. Xequecal Journeyman

    Mage pets have 80% more HP than group-geared player tanks and in the grand scheme of things this is the only thing that matters. Sure, they take 20% more damage. Who cares? Is your healer going to run out of mana healing that up? Nobody runs out of mana these days.

    Mage pets are far less likely to get killed in two rounds between heals when the RNG goes against you due to their vastly increased HP. This is really the only thing that gets tanks killed, so yes they are better than player tanks. There is no getting around this. Pet classes also have extremely fast-casting abilities that drop gigantic melee/spell absorbs on their pet, (Auspice of Shadows/Beastwood Rampart lines) so if the pet suddenly takes a huge damage spike, you can hit that for a near-guaranteed save. Player tanks just die when this happens, because they have no analogous abilities to use in such a situation.

    Next, the fact that nobody can melee a mob being tanked by a pet is also not a huge issue, because most melee DPS are in a real bad way right now, especially in group content, and you really don't want to group them in the first place. Here's a quick example, go ahead and rank the effectiveness of the following groups:

    1. PC Cleric, PC Mage with pet tank, two wizard mercs.
    2. PC Cleric, PC tank, two wizard mercs.
    3. PC tank, PC rogue/zerker/monk, cleric merc, and wizard merc.

    Group 1 has significantly more DPS than Group 2 and a pet that's far easier to heal. (Read: Doesn't get burst down from 100-0 when the mob uses its DD ability and flurries twice in a row)In addition, both Groups 1 and 2 are MILES ahead of Group 3, which is complete crap, featuring half the DPS or less of the first 2 groups, and has a healer healing a tank prone to dying to burst damage.

    So, to summarize:

    1. Mage pets are significantly easier to heal than player tanks and survive burst damage much better, and the fact that they require more total healing/mana spent on them than PC tanks is irrelevant because one's mana pool is not a significant limitation in EQ.

    2. The main drawback of pet tanks, namely that nobody else can melee the mob, is also not important, because in any environment where mercs are permitted, melee DPS classes are complete garbage in general. You think a group-geared Rogue or Monk can out-DPS a wizard merc on burn? Good luck with that one.
  13. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    Try working with full groups of 6 real players and see how much of a difference a full group with no mercs makes.
  14. Ultrazen Augur

    I've been saying for a long time, that they need to re-examine the curve that is currently set for mitigation. Between level 70-100 specifically. Tanks seem to be ok once they get really geared and AAd, but there is a real no mans land trying to get there.

    If the mitigation curve was softened a bit but still ending up where it does, I think it would help immensely. I get really frustrated trying to play any of my tanks post 70, the gear you need just shouldn't be necessary to do run of the mill daily content.

    /shrug. You can take an average geared DPS group into old bloodfields at 84 with mercs and do just fine, try taking an 84 tank in average gear there...it's brutal, you'll pretty much get 2 shot.

    TLDR: I wish they would make mitigation a bit more effective on the way up.
  15. fransisco Augur

    i apologize for being so harsh. I just get so annoyed at everyone saying mage pets are to powerful (which leads to more nerfs).
  16. fransisco Augur

    Tanking with support actually is pretty easy. I've been tanking stuff with my ranger (zero raid gear), with my enchanter slowing (no raid gear again, no rank3 spells).
    He can tank HAs once an enchanter just casts normal slow on it. He is in rof t1 and cotf gear, and ok but not stellar AC augs. Duel wielding of course, not with a shield.

    Until you get all your defensive AAs, just get a enchanter. They make anything tankable.
    With all my enchanters cooldowns, I can have my ranger tank a HA named even.
    And all this is with merc healers, not real ones
  17. Hatsee Augur


    They are powerful, but that's only because they get tuned to the content now and again meanwhile Aristo and Elidroth think melee and hybrids are nuts asking to have abilities that would be trash 10 years ago upgraded. It's a design issue, pets are fine.
    Bearforce, Potawatomi and Yinla like this.
  18. Feradach Augur

    The argument clearly was not that mage pets are too powerful. The argument was that PC tanks are underpowered.
    Elricvonclief and Yinla like this.
  19. Qest T. Silverclaw Augur

    The real problem, and I suspect it's going to get worse and not better if we don't complain about it, is that the devs decided that raids not only shouldn't fail when some overheated caster steals aggro from the tank, but that the caster who screwed up should live!

    Because of that design direction, I expect we'll not be seeing tanks tank better, but rather their DPS will be increased to balance with caster tanks. Enchanters are already there with their more than half a million hitpoints in runes on top of their normal hitpoints. With CotF the other casters took the first step in that direction as well.

    My opinion is that warriors should be unbelievably phat, and knights much less so, but able to tank similarly due to their spells making up the difference. I think that if a caster steals aggro on a raid target, despite the aggro meter, that caster deserves to need a rez
  20. Cerris Augur

    Making the new tradeskill armor req 96 / rec 100 would go a long ways towards helping tanks make the jump from fear touched to Latent Ether.