Mr.intima Tank

[EinarMal]

in the d20 srd, nothing is mentioned that the ac must be centered. if they really apply the nerf, i'll prolly switch to kamas but at a loss of 20-30% dps. if its really that bad, the toon may be rerolled

The whole centering thing is a Turbine invention, so I am pretty sure that they can do whatever they want with what it effects.

For a monk there are feats that allow you to use other weapons (like longswords) that might come into play at some point.

The Ranger X/Monk 1 builds are doomed....although it could be many months before the hammer falls.

[baddax]

Aranticus, I really don't see what the monk splash builds have to do with the gimpness of intimidate total S&B tanks. Sure ac still works great on normal vod and can work on hard vod if the build and character has alot of gear, etc.. regardless this has little to do with ac and is rather about a stubborness not to pick up three lousy feats (twf, itwf, gtwf) and have a decent dex score. More to the point is are these new builds that these people keep defending or the defense of archaic characters from yesteryear. I don't see people leveling up these characters so perhaps I am missing something..

I love the solution some of you folks espouse for Sulu - stand in a corner and repeatedly hit the intimidate button and then when something needs killing the others pull the mob off - I mean its laughable. Yes, how uber. How about the melees standing in a cluster (for mass healing and concentrated dps) with some displacements on the melee here or there and fight in fogs with webs and a decent ac tank if need be pulls the extraneous orthons away while the 'main tank' has sulu's aggro far from the rest of the group. The other tanks when they kill the trash mobs and start working on sulu's backside they don't pull the aggro away from the main tank - that is the way aggro works. It sure doesn't take a long time to build up enough aggro to maintain agro. Generally 2 clerics on a run like this with little to 0 resources used and no gimpy intimidate tanks necessary.

Could you pleaese clarify as to the differences? Are you saying that Agro from Intim and Agro from DPS are different? If so how. I guess knew there had to be a different mechanic involved as traditional agro is Assigned by DPS., while agro maintained stricly by intimidate was established by your intimidate ability. Im not sure if thats what you are saying then ok. Just wanting some clarification on Agro from Intim vs Agro from DPS. Also with hate enhancement lines like the pallys is it possible to build an intimitank either S&b or TWF (to get and maintian agro and the turle up) WITHOUT spending many skill points to build for 65 intim?

[maddmatt70]

Could you pleaese clarify as to the differences? Are you saying that Agro from Intim and Agro from DPS are different? If so how. I guess knew there had to be a different mechanic involved as traditional agro is Assigned by DPS., while agro maintained stricly by intimidate was established by your intimidate ability. Im not sure if thats what you are saying then ok. Just wanting some clarification on Agro from Intim vs Agro from DPS. Also with hate enhancement lines like the pallys is it possible to build an intimitank either S&b or TWF (to get and maintian agro and the turle up) WITHOUT spending many skill points to build for 65 intim?

I don't quite understand your question. You should max out your skill points in intimidate - assuming you have plenty of skill points. If you enough int for CE you for sure will have more then enough skill points. What the heck else are you going to put your skill points in if not intimidate?

[baddax]

I don't quite understand your question. You should max out your skill points in intimidate - assuming you have plenty of skill points. If you enough int for CE you for sure will have more then enough skill points. What the heck else are you going to put your skill points in if not intimidate?

Could you pleaese clarify as to the differences? Are you saying that Agro from Intim and Agro from DPS are different? If so how. I guess knew there had to be a different mechanic involved as traditional agro is Assigned by DPS., while agro maintained stricly by intimidate was established by your intimidate ability. Im not sure if thats what you are saying then ok. Just wanting some clarification on Agro from Intim vs Agro from DPS.

ie. One specific i am aware of is the intimidate skill is area effect as dps obviously is achieved by direct DPS or glancing blows to targets. Can you or others clarify more?


Return forever stated

"Umm yeh, obviously, using an intima tank in vod is slower than waiting for someone to get and hold agro via dps, and if they lose that agro at anytime, having to wait again to regain it. I mean who wants to just start winning when we can wait? Obviously some people haven't figured it out!"

I believe what you are saying that dps intimidate is quicker and or better int This situation that Intimidate skills. If this is so could someone please elaborate as to why or why this is not true?

[Junts]

the norm/hard vod dcs are:

51 (50+1, 54 in score with the -4 size pen) for normal

57 (56+1, 60 in score with the -4 pen) for hard.

hurry added the roll number twice.

for a halfling, add 4 more to the 'in score' number.

i haven't tested the elite dc definitively, but those are normal and hard

[Junts]

Could you pleaese clarify as to the differences? Are you saying that Agro from Intim and Agro from DPS are different? If so how. I guess knew there had to be a different mechanic involved as traditional agro is Assigned by DPS., while agro maintained stricly by intimidate was established by your intimidate ability. Im not sure if thats what you are saying then ok. Just wanting some clarification on Agro from Intim vs Agro from DPS.

ie. One specific i am aware of is the intimidate skill is area effect as dps obviously is achieved by direct DPS or glancing blows to targets. Can you or others clarify more?


Return forever stated

"Umm yeh, obviously, using an intima tank in vod is slower than waiting for someone to get and hold agro via dps, and if they lose that agro at anytime, having to wait again to regain it. I mean who wants to just start winning when we can wait? Obviously some people haven't figured it out!"

I believe what you are saying that dps intimidate is quicker and or better int This situation that Intimidate skills. If this is so could someone please elaborate as to why or why this is not true?

it works like this, there are two methods to accomplishing the main goal of vod (allowing everyone but the tank to flank the raidboss)

the original, and still prefered by some, including maddmatt, method, is to have someone with a very high dps solo suulomades for 45-90 seconds at the start of the raid to establish aggro, and then let everyone else dps him in the back

the advantages of this are as follows:

1: the tank is dpsing, so it may be marginally faster
2: when intimidate is failed. not used due to lag, etc, he does not warp off to someone else because the aggro is with the maintank
3: you don't need a build optimized for intimidating him to use this strategy
4: this is the only real way to do elite, because each server probably has tops about 3-4 intimidate-based characters that are equipped enough and capable of hitting the intimidate threshold to do elite no-fail - it is extremely high, and only human fighter-intimitanks with dragonmarks like the one proposed by comfortably have any chance of attaining the intimidate dc.

after a while people realized it was possible to intimidate suulomades and hold his aggro that way if your score was high enough, because intimidate lasts as long as its timer, so by just mashing the inttimidate button (usually while blocking, as it doesnt always go through if you are swinging etc), you can hold his aggro regardless of the damage you do

the advantages of this technique are as follows:

1: the tank will take less damage and not be cursed with the no-healing curse because they are blocking (which gives blocking dr and stops the curse)
2: the tank cannot lose aggro to someone else and have issues getting it back (especially if the aggro taker is particularly squishy) as they can gain aggro by pressing a button
3: characters built this way are usually optimized to tank, eg, lots of hit points, great damage mitigation via shield blocking, etc
4: since the time does not have to be spent and re-spent on aggro establishing, it can in some situations be marginally faster than the other method
5: can also easily tank all 4 orthons, which is at best a small benefit but significant in groups where most of the dps characters have very poor armor class and it is important to keep them out of orthon cleaves


I have run and completed the raid both ways; I have done so in 20 minutes both ways. the reality is that its mostly a matter of prefernce, but my experience suggests that doing it with an intimitank lowers the difficulty of the quest for new tanks, as the raidboss is more easily controlled and you do not need to get them to do things like 'stop dpsing the boss' or 'swing for 5 seconds and back out for one so you dont pull aggro', which is particularly problematic latei n the quest when he starts using the chains, which neuter the tanks attack speed.

any non-warforged tanking vod needs to be very well equipped for it - great weapons, raidloot, etc, or they will struggle past normal. guys like madmatt who are running this raid with their friends and mostly very experienced players prefer the first method because it can be 3-5 minutes faster if done well and does not require anyone to run the sort of tank build that they have little regard for. players routinely pugging the raid (especially trying to put it past normal) are probably using an intimitank-based strategy because it effectively reduces the margin for error - you are less likely to fail the raid with a great intimitank, but it will not be quite as fast as it could be if everyone was a tricked out twf ac build and they could all just pummel him with essential impunity.

given his immense damage output and the inability of ac characters to actually evade his attacks on elite, an intimitank capable of doing this raid on elite would probably make the raid far easier than the dps method by the simple virtue of being so much easier to heal (also less resource intensive), however, I have never seen one on my server and only know of one who has any chance of coming close; with absolutely optimial situation (eg, a monk who devotes himself to keeping walk of the sun on me, and skillsong), my toon would still miss the elite dc by 3-5 points, depending exactly what it is (which i have yet to precisely determine).

[maddmatt70]

The entire Khyber server does it the 'maddmatt' way as you put it so I guess we are all gimps on that server.. The reality is that on normal and hard a high ac tank (on hard has to have all the gear - about 80 ac) does not get hit when fighting Sulu. When we do it if there is a high ac tank in the party on normal or hard which there frequently is we put a high ac tank on Sulu. These high ac tanks are often not s&b characters. On elite its a different story where warforged melee is preferred and ac is not important because he hits every time acs into the mid 80s and the damage Sulu kicks out is about 150-200 a pop so DR is not going to do the job either..

Edit: By the way the coordination is really simple for all the trash mobs using this method.. All you have to do is stay together and mass heal on one target in fogs and on webs.. A high ac character with the other melee can grab the orthons aggro away from the group if damage mitigation is required.

[maddmatt70]

Could you pleaese clarify as to the differences? Are you saying that Agro from Intim and Agro from DPS are different? If so how. I guess knew there had to be a different mechanic involved as traditional agro is Assigned by DPS., while agro maintained stricly by intimidate was established by your intimidate ability. Im not sure if thats what you are saying then ok. Just wanting some clarification on Agro from Intim vs Agro from DPS.

ie. One specific i am aware of is the intimidate skill is area effect as dps obviously is achieved by direct DPS or glancing blows to targets. Can you or others clarify more?

The difference in aggro is the intimidate tank can only maintain aggro for a short time frame which is why they have to rehit the intimidate button. The dps aggro style is the product of two factors dps per second and the amount of seconds that a target is being hit vs. another character in the party's dps. The specific mathematics of dps aggro is hidden from us of course in the programming.

Return forever stated

"Umm yeh, obviously, using an intima tank in vod is slower than waiting for someone to get and hold agro via dps, and if they lose that agro at anytime, having to wait again to regain it. I mean who wants to just start winning when we can wait? Obviously some people haven't figured it out!"

I believe what you are saying that dps intimidate is quicker and or better int This situation that Intimidate skills. If this is so could someone please elaborate as to why or why this is not true?

The intimidate tank is not fighting so the time equation is what is the loss of dps of the intimidate tank not fighting (or in his stead a better dps melee) vs. the time if any for the party spent waiting for a tank to gather enough aggro for it not to be taken from him. Another point that should be made is what if the main tank loses aggro is that truely a cataclysmic situation - the answer to that one is not at all either somebody else assumes the main tank role now or there is a halt while the original main tank regathers aggro - the damage taken in the process though is minimal.

[Junts]

The entire Khyber server does it the 'maddmatt' way as you put it so I guess we are all gimps on that server.. The reality is that on normal and hard a high ac tank (on hard has to have all the gear - about 80 ac) does not get hit when fighting Sulu. When we do it if there is a high ac tank in the party on normal or hard which there frequently is we put a high ac tank on Sulu. These high ac tanks are often not s&b characters. On elite its a different story where warforged melee is preferred and ac is not important because he hits every time acs into the mid 80s and the damage Sulu kicks out is about 150-200 a pop so DR is not going to do the job either..

Edit: By the way the coordination is really simple for all the trash mobs using this method.. All you have to do is stay together and mass heal on one target in fogs and on webs.. A high ac character with the other melee can grab the orthons aggro away from the group if damage mitigation is required.

did i say you were gimps? read my post without being defensive

you can't dr his hits into nonexistance, but 35 out of 100 is still a noticable difference in how badly your bar is jumping around.

the best variations of this build, matt, also carry twf feats and can switch back and forth between as needed; your hostility to anything that isn't a rogue or ranger with monk splash for ac purposes is both unnecessary and shortsighted; it's gotta be pretty obvious that there's gonna be a nerf there, and when you look at prestige classes like defender of siberys, quite clear that the devs are going to go out of their way to make tank-oriented characters the best at it.

there's not really a need to be hostile and denigrating to people who don't run a raid the same way you do; each server tends to do it differently, and there's multiple ways to complete everything quickly and efficiently.

[Aranticus]

note while intimidate is on a 6s timer and it lasts 6s, there is a small window frame of half a second where the intim ends and the timer clears. if one does not have dps agro on suulo, what happens is suulo will turn onto whoever has the agro and cleave the group. this causes unnecessary healing. not saying that intim sucks but if an intim tank can dps, its going to be a perfect run

[baddax]

Is it ever possible, necessary or benaficial to do both? ie intim. him via skill, whack him for 2-4 seconds to establish dps Agro? As a side question if someone has Intimidate agro can you pull agro by dps? Or if you have Dps Agro can you pull it via Intim? Excluding the possible afformentioned small window between intims?

[Aranticus]

Is it ever possible, necessary or benaficial to do both? ie intim. him via skill, whack him for 2-4 seconds to establish dps Agro? As a side question if someone has Intimidate agro can you pull agro by dps? Or if you have Dps Agro can you pull it via Intim? Excluding the possible afformentioned small window between intims?

you can use intim to get him in and if confident of your dps ability, get everyone to work on him as well. on a fighter, its going to be extremely hard due to most likely SnB. if one is able to do both, you are never going to lose agro. he'll stick to you until he ports up to the top of the pillar

[baddax]

thanks for the reply aranticus.

Any fighter/barb with his stones no mater how specialized should be able to pick up a great ax/great sword and whail away until they get a good crit! If not its Reroll time IMO.


Now If someone could answer this question it would be greatly appreciated.

As a side question if someone has agro from the Skill Intimidate then can you pull agro by dps? Or if you have Dps Agro can you pull it via Ithe skill intim?

[Aranticus]

thanks for the reply aranticus.

Any fighter/barb with his stones no mater how specialized should be able to pick up a great ax/great sword and whail away until they get a good crit! If not its Reroll time IMO.


Now If someone could answer this question it would be greatly appreciated.

As a side question if someone has agro from the Skill Intimidate then can you pull agro by dps? Or if you have Dps Agro can you pull it via Ithe skill intim?

you can pull agro using intim as long as you have a successful check. it will last approx 6s and the mob will revert to whoever had the highest dps (note: agro is the sum of dps and agro mod item/enhancement/skill over time). as long as the intim check is successful, dps cannot pull the mob away

[baddax]

you can pull agro using intim as long as you have a successful check. it will last approx 6s and the mob will revert to whoever had the highest dps (note: agro is the sum of dps and agro mod item/enhancement/skill over time). as long as the intim check is successful, dps cannot pull the mob away

thx.