AC Ceiling?

[coolpenguin410]

Have I hit the AC ceiling for my build? Currently I have 71 AC unbuffed. I just picked up the Levik's rune for my DT armor and I'm currently unaware of any more AC boosts without going into epics.

Here's a breakdown of my build (going from memory, at work at the moment):
WF Fighter 20
10 Base
+6 Dex
+8 Adamantine Body
+7 DT Docent
+1 Alchemical Armor
+1 Dodge feat
+3 Chattering Ring
+9 Levik's Defender
+1 Alchemical Shield
+5 Combat Expertise
+5 Three piece Levik's set bonus
+2 ToD SD set
+3 Stalwart Defender
+5 Natural Armor Crystal Cove Pirate Hat
+5 Protection cloak
--
71

I do have the +1 AC trinket from Crystal Cove, but I can't wear it without giving up moderate fortification while in AC mode (Head of Good Fortune). I'd like to craft a Moderate (or Heavy) Fort belt of Greater False Life, but that's a long way off and tanking with only 25% is a no-no.

I've been hesitant to go into epics (I've only done 1 eDQ on this character) because I hear AC means very little in those and my DPS is moderate at best (I do have power attack and a collection of two handers for when I'm not tanking).

So my questions is, where can I go from here? What epic items are worth chasing down? Will I get much by TRing (once, let's not go overboard here)?

Thanks.

[Nospheratus]

I would drop the levik's set entirely, get Tharak bracers (+2 dodge+toughness) and a min2 weapon with +4 insight.
With that you gain 2 equipment slots, 1 AC and 20 hps from the toughness if you didn't have it before.

[Dragaer]

If your char is a fighter the PL feat allows one more max dex bonus to AC. Being a WF and not being able to wear heavy armor hurts your AC just a little.

[MeToo]

10 Base
+6 Dex
+8 Adamantine Body
+7 DT Docent
+1 Alchemical Armor
+1 Dodge feat
+3 Chattering Ring
+9 Levik's Defender
+1 Alchemical Shield
+5 Combat Expertise
+5 Three piece Levik's set bonus
+2 ToD SD set
+3 Stalwart Defender
+5 Natural Armor Crystal Cove Pirate Hat
+5 Protection cloak
--
71

You do use your SDIII stance, right? If not, just drag it from your enhancements tab (found under SDIII) and put it on a hotbar.

+4 Superior Defensive Stance
+5 standing in Paladin's aura (up to 6 if they've taken DoSIII and all Bulwark of Good enhancements)
+4 from a level 15 bard's Inspire Heroics
+2 recitation
+2 dodge on Chaosgarde or Bracelet of Thaarak
+1 haste
+1 dodge L16 Cloak of Night
---
19 more right there.

Since you can't wear the full Levik's set and some of that gear at the same time, you might have to shuffle a bit. That deflection from your cloak can be cast on you as shield of faith. You could then use an Epic Cloak of night there for your +2 dodge. The Nimble Trinket can be used for the +1 dodge if you can find moderate or heavy fort elsewhere.

There are other very situational things, like Halfling's Hero's companion that can boost you even further but not practical to count.

[coolpenguin410]

I would drop the levik's set entirely, get Tharak bracers (+2 dodge+toughness) and a min2 weapon with +4 insight.
With that you gain 2 equipment slots, 1 AC and 20 hps from the toughness if you didn't have it before.

Well, if I go that route, I could swap my Levik's rune (just got that yesterday) for Insight 4 or heavy fort (that comes on Sovereign runes, right?). But the biggest loss is the 20% healing amp. As a WF tank, that's important.

EDIT: This is an answer to my question, so I thank you for that.

If your char is a fighter the PL feat allows one more max dex bonus to AC. Being a WF and not being able to wear heavy armor hurts your AC just a little.

More dex is tough, but I suppose the extra build points from TR'ing will help with that. Are there any +7/8 Dex gloves in epics?

I'm not looking for best AC in the game, just best for me. I'd stay WF for the DR.

[Rusty_Can]

As for your current setup, as Nospheratu pointed out, you might drop Levik's and:
- get a +3 Dodge on the Sovereign tier of your DT;
- craft weapons with +4 Insight bonus to AC;
- look for sources of +2 Dodge bonuses (e.g. Chaosgarde, Bracelet of Thaarak, Cloak of Night).

What epic items are worth chasing down?

Technically, there are some epic items which might improve your AC; not sure you can fit them in without reworking your entire gear setup thou:
- many epic docents have +6 enhancement bonus and Reinforced Plating +2; the epic red dragonscale docent got +3 Reinforced Plating;
- epic ring of Silver Concord: +6 deflection bonus to AC, along with +7 CHA and a yellow slot;
- 3 out of 5 epic items from Abishai set (helm, gloves, boots, cloak, bracers): +3 profane natural armor bonus to AC;
- revised not-yet-released version of the epic Grim's bracelet (necklace): according to devs' talks, in the future, this item might provide +3 dodge bonus to AC.

[coolpenguin410]

You do use your SDIII stance, right? If not, just drag it from your enhancements tab (found under SDIII) and put it on a hotbar.

+4 Superior Defensive Stance
+5 standing in Paladin's aura (up to 6 if they've taken DoSIII and all Bulwark of Good enhancements)
+4 from a level 15 bard's Inspire Heroics
+2 recitation
+2 dodge on Chaosgarde or Bracelet of Thaarak
+1 haste
+1 dodge L16 Cloak of Night
---
19 more right there.

Since you can't wear the full Levik's set and some of that gear at the same time, you might have to shuffle a bit. That deflection from your cloak can be cast on you as shield of faith. You could then use an Epic Cloak of night there for your +2 dodge. The Nimble Trinket be used for the +1 dodge if you can find moderate or heavy fort elsewhere.

There are other very situational things, like Halfling's Hero's companion that can boost you even further but not practical to count.

I do use the defensive stance, I was just counting my unbuffed AC. I don't use it unless I can tank without moving much, such as in most raids like HoX, VoD and ToD.

The Cloak of Night is a dangerous route, because if you trigger invisibilty, then you loose aggro. I want to hold aggro. There's no need to have high AC if no one is swinging at you.

The problem with Shield of Faith is that I can't cast it at caster level 20 where I would get +5 AC.

[FrozenNova]

You can usually rely on the divines to throw you a +5 shield of faith. After all, they're saving themselves quite a bit of pressure.

[MeToo]

I do use the defensive stance, I was just counting my unbuffed AC. I don't use it unless I can tank without moving much, such as in most raids like HoX, VoD and ToD.

The Cloak of Night is a dangerous route, because if you trigger invisibilty, then you loose aggro. I want to hold aggro. There's no need to have high AC if no one is swinging at you.

The problem with Shield of Faith is that I can't cast it at caster level 20 where I would get +5 AC.

You could get Shield of Faith cast on you by a divine or a DoS Paladin. Unlike the Shield spell (which wouldn't stack with your shield anyway) it isn't self-only. Otherwise, protection +5 can be found on other slots.

I wouldn't worry about the invisibility because most things worth tanking will have True Seeing anyway. Maybe someone could make a list of bosses that don't have it and where you'd want to avoid the cloak proc.

[coolpenguin410]

You can usually rely on the divines to throw you a +5 shield of faith. After all, they're saving themselves quite a bit of pressure.

Asumming they prep it. I rarely carry even the mass version on my cleric and I know of few FvS's who would take this spell. Besides, I'd rather be self-reliant and as beholder proof as possible.

[theboatman]

Devil's Advocate: Levik Three Set- yes you can gain another point of AC by swapping bracers, but you lose the 30% hate amp. Currently the Stalwart Defender stance hate modifier is borked (as per the known issue thread) so extra amp in addition to the 15% on the tod set is always welcome.

You can get dodge 2 from the epic mabar cloak as well, but that isnt an ideal tanking item. Fighter AC boosts can situationally increase your AC, or The haste proc on a x3 Air greensteel, by one point. The divine spell Recitation gives two points of AC, but with a limited duration. A level 15 bard can sing Inspire Heroics as well, for 4 points of AC.

And as previously mentioned, the Defender stance gives you a 4AC dodge bonus, as well as 4 Str and 4 Con. That gives you a 75 without some of the less common buffs, which is enough to start making a difference against Horoth on normal.

[Aerendil]

Just another thing to chew on, and one I was thinking about for my Fighter, is to go Epic Swashbuckler over Levik's Defender.
You lose 1 point of AC (base AC of 8 only), but it comes with +4 insight to AC and saves, exceptional dex 2 (if you need it - I know I do!), plus guardbreaking, riposte, 6% double strike, and a blue slot if T3.
This frees up your main weapon to not be an insight weapon, and aim more for dps (i.e. a min2 with acid blast instead). Plus you get the increased dps from the shield's double strike (which I believe as of the last update or so should now reflect on your mainhand too).

[coolpenguin410]

Just another thing to chew on, and one I was thinking about for my Fighter, is to go Epic Swashbuckler over Levik's Defender.
You lose 1 point of AC (base AC of 8 only), but it comes with +4 insight to AC and saves, exceptional dex 2 (if you need it - I know I do!), plus guardbreaking, riposte, 6% double strike, and a blue slot if T3.
This frees up your main weapon to not be an insight weapon, and aim more for dps (i.e. a min2 with acid blast instead). Plus you get the increased dps from the shield's double strike (which I believe as of the last update or so should now reflect on your mainhand too).

That would be worth TR'ing into. I could leave my Dex as is, put the build points elsewhere and still have all of my max dex. However, I'd have to wait until the Cove comes around again to make it.

With the Thaarak bracers, that's a net of +2 to my AC.

[willemvh]

hey, good luck on the tanking there! Mabey you can take a look at this treath http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=319126

If you have some experience in the new hate tanking i would be glad if you post some ideas here to

[coolpenguin410]

hey, good luck on the tanking there! Mabey you can take a look at this treath http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=319126

If you have some experience in the new hate tanking i would be glad if you post some ideas here to

Hate tanking is now a group tactic, not just the responsibility of the main tank.

You need to let the tank build up hate before the party joins in, but not a whole lot. Intimidate is a huge help for high DPS parties. Since it puts you to the top of the threat list and gives you a bonus, with just a few +incite items, it's pretty easy to maintain aggro. This assumes your party is cooperating, though.

Occasionally, you come across an **shat that wants to try to pull aggro. If he wants to tank so bad, let him. If his build is better at it, then he should have said something sooner, it doesn't make him less of an a**hat.

In my experience, though, a well built intim-tank is better than a glass cannon hate-tank because they're more flexible. High HP and DPS are great, but if the hate-tank loses aggro or dies, they have to start from scratch and the party has to stop what they're doing to allow the hate tank build up threat. They're also harder to predict. You can't see how much DPS the hate-tank is doing, but you can certainly ask an intim's intimidate score. If an intim loses aggro, they can get it back as soon as the intim cooldown is over. That's 15 seconds tops. It can take a hate tank a lot longer than that to rebuild threat.

Also, if the hate tank has nothing but HP to keep him alive, the healer is going to hate him because it takes a lot of resources to keep a high HP character up unless they have a lot of healing amp to go with it. Damage mitigation via DR and AC makes the healer's job easier, even with a lower HP score. With only 547 HP, two tiers of healer's friend and Levik's bracers, I've been scroll healed through ToD's, VoD's and HoX's. My last time through ToD, the FvS assigned to heal me laughed and asked what my AC was because I wasn't taking any damage.

However, a well built hate-tank generally makes the quest go faster. It is my humble opinion that I prefer a slightly slower fight that is more reliable. That said, in either case, please assign an alt/backup tank when doing ToD. Everyone will appreciate it, even if you end up not need one.

[grodon9999]

Hate/HP/AC are not "either/ors."

[coolpenguin410]

Hate/HP/AC are not "either/ors."

Never said they were.

EDIT: To expand on that, I just wanted to compare the two most prevalent types of tanks, using the term 'tank' as someone who holds aggro of 1 or more mobs while the rest of the party beats on the mob(s). There are builds that use high, AC, DR, hate and intim that don't go sword and board, but those are mostly TWFing monk splashes that require a goodly amount of gear and skill to play. I've never acutally seen one of those types actually step up to tank, though. The other kind, a THF high AC build, would likely be a rogue splash (for SA and UMD) and would be clickie/short term buff intensive. Both are less popular than the two I intially compared.

[grodon9999]

Never said they were.

EDIT: To expand on that, I just wanted to compare the two most prevalent types of tanks, using the term 'tank' as someone who holds aggro of 1 or more mobs while the rest of the party beats on the mob(s). There are builds that use high, AC, DR, hate and intim that don't go sword and board, but those are mostly TWFing monk splashes that require a goodly amount of gear and skill to play. I've never acutally seen one of those types actually step up to tank, though. The other kind, a THF high AC build, would likely be a rogue splash (for SA and UMD) and would be clickie/short term buff intensive. Both are less popular than the two I intially compared.

Which is funny because they aren't that hard to build and work stupidly well. The hate-gen from Stalwart/DoS stance was just recently fixed so it may take a while for this style of tank to catch on.