As a general rule, how many AAs would a warrior need to out-tank a mage pet with max pet defensive AAs (16K overall)? Noted that the pet has single aggro.
I'd be willing to go head to head vs a maxed out mage pet with a warrior dressed in conflagrant gear and 1k more AAs than whatever autogrant gives us.
I need to work on my questions. The question relates to returning after a year away and deciding between a mage pet and a warrior (or a Paladin or SK) in a three-box, alt-tab setting where the non-raiding, plate tanks have a lot of work to do to catch up on heroic AAs (currently 0), progression (very little really), equipment, augments, etc. They are in Conflagrant plate and some conflagrant augments. Warrior has just the auto-grant AAs plus about 200 from collectibles. I get that pushing the right buttons with the warrior or plate tanks makes all the difference in the world, but that might require making the tank the main character. (Mage pet is EM 18.) I thought initially that the issue was the amount of AAs, but from what Tucoh wrote, I'm thinking that equipment and ability to push buttons is more important. Correct?
This is correct. Building up war AAs are easy because most AAs either help you take damage, hold aggro or deal damage, and warriors are so great at holding aggro that you can pretty much take a fresh 110, give them 1k AAs in their defensive abilities and have enough AAs to do their job. The choice between pet vs player tank is a pretty big one for a box group, and if you have a warrior you'll almost certainly want them to be the main player (aka driver) of the group, with your mage essentially being a DPS char + pet back up + call of the hero group mover. A group with a player tank (either pal, war or sk) will generally have tremendous advantages over a pet tank because of their superior ability to tank multiple mobs, but that doesn't mean you can't have an effective box team with a mage pet tanking. The deciding factors are going to be your goals, how many chars in your team and how effective of a boxer you want to be. If you're just looking to beef up your mage and want to have a casual two box, you're better off with either a bard, enchanter or another mage to box with. If you're looking to form a badass three box group with a mage, you'll might want to consider a group with sk + mag + enc/bard.
Tucoh is correct. Gear used to make a tank many years ago when you basically turned on autoattack and taunted. That is no longer the case. You need to press your buttons on the tank and actually play the tank. Gear and AA's certainly help but buttons need pressed.
If I read his post correctly, I think what he is questioning is "does the mage pet require as much attention / button pressing as the warrior?"
Sadly right now it's about the 40 aa's for the dragon glyph. Just use that on any toon and you can outank any pet. It'll get nerfed as soon as someone says, "let's get this over with in the title" However; warrior's almost include this expendable aa in their aa. I use it when burning a lesson even because I have nothing else left to put aa's into. When it comes to AA's warrior's have the least AA's out of any class. So they can get to using the glyph often.
Actually, I play both (on the same account though) and a paladin. The earth pet tanks very well and does not require much attention for defensive purposes. The warrior and paladin are better tanks for multiple mobs attacking at once. In the past, their ability was defined mostly by equipment and augments. As I understand the responses, items are not first on the list now. Instead, pressing the right buttons and in the right order are more important. However, that begs the question as to how many AAs they need to be as effective as the earth pet in tanking group content (those buttons come from somewhere). Tucoh believes all TDS auto-granted AAs plus 1,000 (defensive AAs I am assuming) should suffice for the warrior. Not sure about the Paladin. Also, are the tanks in S&S mode with a big shield or is the warrior dual wield? Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm learning . . . slowly.
