AC and hps to tank Horoth?

[Junts]

If you can hold aggro on an AC tank with a bunch of epic claw set, eSoS weilding melee, then Kudos to you. Considering that's usually the group i run with, having an AC tank is just a PITA. But if it works for you go for it.

It isn't that hard to do if you prepare properly, and the window where you even have to worry about 'holding' aggro is pretty short - once everyone else goes to fight Suulomades, you could spend half ytour time blocking if you wanted and you'd have no chance of losing aggro by the time they get back.

Further, most people are smart enough to save smites/haste boosts/etc until Suulomades and don't burn them on the innitial horoth whacking, so its easier to hold aggro there than it would seem.

If you're really stressed about it, you can always grab initial aggro in a DPS mode, then swap away when the party leaves. When we do hard or elite speed runs, I tank with my epic sos+righteousness when I have all the healers available, then swap to shield when everyone else is on Suulo so I can be healed by a single person easily.

Aggro issues are bigger if you tank vod regularly, since he resets aggro so frequently. Vod is way easier, thoguh, with a lower ac threshold, so its easier to make other gear swaps that increase your dps and consequently your threat, like power attack, twfing, etc.

When you're packing +235% threat and 16% doublestrike with a silver chaosblade, its actually not nearly as hard to hold aggro as it might initially seem

[Sweyn]

AC is superior then hit points really what this says to me is you run with the wrong people.

Not wrong, just different playstyle. We can complete elite ToD with no pots with a 900 HP barb just as fast as you can complete an elite ToD with no pots with a 90 AC tank. It doesn't really matter, it's just different.

[Junts]

As you said above . . .



We both roll with great healers but stuff happens. I've only died once on Horoth is is less often than rarely That was when my friend's bard was scroll-healing me as the only healer and he spaced out and accidentally dragged his scrolls off of the tool bar. We give him grief to this day as the only healer who ever let Meathelmet die

As you also said above, "something fairly abnormal happens in quick succession." And this does happen, I've seen 800+ HP fighters go from full HP to 0 in about 1 second when badges tick, meteor swarm bukakee hits, and then they roll 1 on the disintegrate. And this was on NORMAL.

The thing is pretty much everyone dies in those situations: That you havent is as much a testament to having been fortunate as it is to having 80 more hit points. Last week, one of my guildies got an 890 pt disintegrate during a power word stun: find me a build who lives through that!

The thing is, dying doesn't matter anymore - it takes me about 12 seconds to get Horoth back (cast death ward, cast elec resistance, activate unyielding sov, reactivate stance, intimidate). That even restores you to the top of the threat list, and you can easily block while waiting for refreshers of ac buffs before you go back to swinging. Even the hp he regains isn't an issue - Suulo has so many more hp and better overall defenses that he's a much bigger worry than another 12% hp on Horoth, and it might lengthen the raid by maybe 20 seconds if you happen to die.

Since you -always- can die, its imprudent to plan as though it won't happen. That I die once every 3 or 4 runs has more to do with the fact that we don't insist on ideal party makeups than any other variance - I'd say theres probably not a light monk in more than 1/4 of my tower runs, and they're frequently done with only 2 people who can heal in total, and one of those being the person who's job it is to sing songs as well.

I've seen the way you build your elite towers - you don't have any business dying, and you wouldn't be dying in groups like that with 650 hp either.

[grodon9999]

If you can hold aggro on an AC tank with a bunch of epic claw set, eSoS weilding melee, then Kudos to you. Considering that's usually the group i run with, having an AC tank is just a PITA. But if it works for you go for it.

My DDO the guys from this picture: http://imageshack.us/f/94/run1i.jpg/ At least two of them were using ESoSs with Devils Ruin crystals and I think everyone had the Claw set.

This was an Elite Run though I was on Sulu. We typically use my fighter on Sulu on Elite because he's got the best threat to indestructible ratio of anyone in the guild. 5 second head-start and everyone goes ape, the faster we get Sulu killed the less likely we are to see anything strang happen with the Horoth team.

[Junts]

Not wrong, just different playstyle. We can complete elite ToD with no pots with a 900 HP barb just as fast as you can complete an elite ToD with no pots with a 90 AC tank. It doesn't really matter, it's just different.

They both work: the biggest advantage to ac IMO is that it provides you with more flexibility for the rest of the group, and its potentially faster overall because you can bring less healers.

I absolutely hate making people switch characters or waiting for a specific class or finding someone to play a specific role: I have an ac character for tower because I want to absolutely not care who the other 9 characters are after myself and a couple people with mass cure light and moderate and heal scrolls - I've made bards kite, I've done elites without casters at all, etc.

I absolutely refuse to **** around and be picky about who's there or ask someone to run a character besides the one they feel like playing today. An AC tank gives everyone else far, far more flexibility and allows the raid leader to spend the least amount of time ****ing around with composition.

I personally believe that every time someone says "We need a _____, who wants to switch?", god actually kills a poor child in India.

[Sweyn]

My DDO the guys from this picture: http://imageshack.us/f/94/run1i.jpg/ At least two of them were using ESoSs with Devils Ruin crystals and I think everyone had the Claw set.

This was an Elite Run though I was on Sulu. We typically use my fighter on Sulu on Elite because he's got the best threat to indestructible ratio of anyone in the guild. 5 second head-start and everyone goes ape, the faster we get Sulu killed the less likely we are to see anything strang happen with the Horoth team.

I never said you couldn't, i just said if you could make it work then go for it. Looks like you did, congrats.

[maddmatt70]

Not wrong, just different playstyle. We can complete elite ToD with no pots with a 900 HP barb just as fast as you can complete an elite ToD with no pots with a 90 AC tank. It doesn't really matter, it's just different.

Can with no pots? What does this really mean. I have run with barbs and this has not really been my observation especially when taking out sulu as well. The healers always drink pots when you fight Horoth and Sulu and use non massive healing amped or ac characters at least if you do not take 4 healers with you or something of that nature. Barbarians make lousy tanks from a resource standpoint. Now if you would have said FVS, or Sorc or Wiz tank that might make sense from a resource perspective. We have been having warforge sorcs tank Sulu to great success on elite.

[Junts]

My DDO the guys from this picture: http://imageshack.us/f/94/run1i.jpg/ At least two of them were using ESoSs with Devils Ruin crystals and I think everyone had the Claw set.

This was an Elite Run though I was on Sulu. We typically use my fighter on Sulu on Elite because he's got the best threat to indestructible ratio of anyone in the guild. 5 second head-start and everyone goes ape, the faster we get Sulu killed the less likely we are to see anything strang happen with the Horoth team.

We occaisionally have an ac tank on Suulo, but its really rare in our guild to have two ac toons in the same party. I pretty much always take Horoth and the Suulo tank is usually 'whoever gets the aggro'. Suulo party healer+person tanking + anyone else who happens to help with curses is usually enough. Every now and then someone may be cursed 3 times in a row and die, but its generally a pretty insignificant thing.

If possible, I prefer to get FVS healers onto the Suulo party. Unless I've died in pt 1 or 2 and am in desperate need of the aura to reduce Horoth's to-hit, I generally find its far better to get the debuff rolling on Suulo from the aura of retribution, and if I was tanking him I'd actually drop my ac to stack the debuff as much as possible. Reducing Suulo's fort by 20-50% is the single best thing you can do to speed up a tower run, and its worth the risk of a tank death to maintain a debuff stack on him as high as possible.

[grodon9999]

The thing is pretty much everyone dies in those situations: That you havent is as much a testament to having been fortunate as it is to having 80 more hit points. Last week, one of my guildies got an 890 pt disintegrate during a power word stun: find me a build who lives through that!

OUCH! Dang, that had to hurt! That might even kill Axer!

The thing is, dying doesn't matter anymore - it takes me about 12 seconds to get Horoth back (cast death ward, cast elec resistance, activate unyielding sov, reactivate stance, intimidate). That even restores you to the top of the threat list, and you can easily block while waiting for refreshers of ac buffs before you go back to swinging. Even the hp he regains isn't an issue - Suulo has so many more hp and better overall defenses that he's a much bigger worry than another 12% hp on Horoth, and it might lengthen the raid by maybe 20 seconds if you happen to die.

Absolutely agree, that intim change worked out perfectly for us.

Since you -always- can die, its imprudent to plan as though it won't happen. That I die once every 3 or 4 runs has more to do with the fact that we don't insist on ideal party makeups than any other variance - I'd say theres probably not a light monk in more than 1/4 of my tower runs, and they're frequently done with only 2 people who can heal in total, and one of those being the person who's job it is to sing songs as well.

You may not bring a light monk, but your cleric of choice has a Pale Lavender Ioun stone which is the same thing

I've seen the way you build your elite towers - you don't have any business dying, and you wouldn't be dying in groups like that with 650 hp either.

If you saw our three back-to-back-to-back Elite ToDs thread from a few weeks back, some of those runs were FAR from optimal.

[grodon9999]

We occaisionally have an ac tank on Suulo, but its really rare in our guild to have two ac toons in the same party. I pretty much always take Horoth and the Suulo tank is usually 'whoever gets the aggro'. Suulo party healer+person tanking + anyone else who happens to help with curses is usually enough. Every now and then someone may be cursed 3 times in a row and die, but its generally a pretty insignificant thing.

If possible, I prefer to get FVS healers onto the Suulo party. Unless I've died in pt 1 or 2 and am in desperate need of the aura to reduce Horoth's to-hit, I generally find its far better to get the debuff rolling on Suulo from the aura of retribution, and if I was tanking him I'd actually drop my ac to stack the debuff as much as possible. Reducing Suulo's fort by 20-50% is the single best thing you can do to speed up a tower run, and its worth the risk of a tank death to maintain a debuff stack on him as high as possible.

We do the opposite usually, put the AC guy on Sulu and the meatbag on Horoth. The curses are just a pain in the balls. If we use a Cleric it usually works out great as they can heal with Aura and dump their whole Blue-bar into Divine Punishment.

This is what I LOVE about tower, there's so many ways you can skin this cat and all are viable. We need more raids like this.

[Thrudh]

We do the opposite usually, put the AC guy on Sulu and the meatbag on Horoth. The curses are just a pain in the balls.

Yeah, that's how I like it too... You need someone dedicated to removing curses on the Suulo tank if said tank is a low AC high hp build... Put a high AC tank on Suulo and he can handle his own curses.

[Junts]

OUCH! Dang, that had to hurt! That might even kill Axer!



Absolutely agree, that intim change worked out perfectly for us.



You may not bring a light monk, but your cleric of choice has a Pale Lavender Ioun stone which is the same thing




If you saw our three back-to-back-to-back Elite ToDs thread from a few weeks back, some of those runs were FAR from optimal.

Its lovely to be healed by Fanfare, but it certainly doesn't happen to me as often as I'd like. Most runs, I'm dealing with both of us being stunned on every Blasphemy.

If we have a 3rd person capable of healing at all (IE one of the casters is a heal scrolling sorc), we'll often put them on 'healscroll the Horoth healer' duty when a blasphemy is called out. FVS and air savants are particularly awesome at that - wing over, throw scroll, cut stun duration in half basically. Having them heal the healer instead of me cuts down the distance they have to travel significantly.

[grodon9999]

I personally believe that every time someone says "We need a _____, who wants to switch?", god actually kills a poor child in India.

This is true, but I hate poor-children so it's a win-win.

[maddmatt70]

Yeah, that's how I like it too... You need someone dedicated to removing curses on the Suulo tank if said tank is a low AC high hp build... Put a high AC tank on Suulo and he can handle his own curses.

hmm either you go with a warforge or the healing on the main tank is so little you can just rotate the healers around to heal the sulu tank and spread the healers' mana more around that way.

[maddmatt70]

They both work: the biggest advantage to ac IMO is that it provides you with more flexibility for the rest of the group, and its potentially faster overall because you can bring less healers.

I absolutely hate making people switch characters or waiting for a specific class or finding someone to play a specific role: I have an ac character for tower because I want to absolutely not care who the other 9 characters are after myself and a couple people with mass cure light and moderate and heal scrolls - I've made bards kite, I've done elites without casters at all, etc.

I absolutely refuse to **** around and be picky about who's there or ask someone to run a character besides the one they feel like playing today. An AC tank gives everyone else far, far more flexibility and allows the raid leader to spend the least amount of time ****ing around with composition.

I personally believe that every time someone says "We need a _____, who wants to switch?", god actually kills a poor child in India.

I full endorse this philosophy. I hate formulaic approaches to things that force people to swap to characters they do not want to run, I hate waiting for the perfect group, and I like running things on the hardest difficulty the group can manage. Ran 4 epic dragon and 4 epic dqs last night and had one run where we had a monk, 4 casters, 2 ranged rangers, 1 bard and 3 cleric/fvs and another run where we had 2 healers, 7 melee, 1 bard, 2 casters both succeeded and neither run we had to wait and people got to run what they wanted on both runs which is a win.

[grodon9999]

I full endorse this philosophy. I hate formulaic approaches to things that force people to swap to characters they do not want to run, I hate waiting for the perfect group, and I like running things on the hardest difficulty the group can manage. Ran 4 epic dragon and 4 epic dqs last night and had one run where we had a monk, 4 casters, 2 ranged rangers, 1 bard and 3 cleric/fvs and another run where we had 2 healers, 7 melee, 1 bard, 2 casters both succeeded and neither run we had to wait and people got to run what they wanted on both runs which is a win.

but those are epic raids, not Elite Tower

[Thrudh]

Ran 4 epic dragon and 4 epic dqs last night

Also, you play too much.

[mute_mayhem]

We occaisionally have an ac tank on Suulo, but its really rare in our guild to have two ac toons in the same party. I pretty much always take Horoth and the Suulo tank is usually 'whoever gets the aggro'. Suulo party healer+person tanking + anyone else who happens to help with curses is usually enough. Every now and then someone may be cursed 3 times in a row and die, but its generally a pretty insignificant thing.

If possible, I prefer to get FVS healers onto the Suulo party. Unless I've died in pt 1 or 2 and am in desperate need of the aura to reduce Horoth's to-hit, I generally find its far better to get the debuff rolling on Suulo from the aura of retribution, and if I was tanking him I'd actually drop my ac to stack the debuff as much as possible. Reducing Suulo's fort by 20-50% is the single best thing you can do to speed up a tower run, and its worth the risk of a tank death to maintain a debuff stack on him as high as possible.

The FvS aura (-2 to-hit, ac, saves, sr) does not apply to any enemy that is immune to fear, which includes Horoth and Suulomades. But you are right that stacking the crown of retribution on Suulo allows for a much faster beat down, I just have to remember to put the crown on the tank...

[Junts]

but those are epic raids, not Elite Tower

Which is to say, its a raid people actually are more likely to need to run a specific toon for as opposed to anything that's off timer, because they're a lot more likely to need a specific ring than they are a specific base item.

That makes flexible composition more important, not less: I don't want to run my caster in tod elites because he has no reason to run it, but running random epic raids with him is the same as all my other toons because he's just hunting sos shards or red scales or whatever.

Making sure my monk actually gets to run tod on timer is important: she still needs a fb ring. And ditto that for the others, with different rings (a ravager for jaerlach, shintao for aryenne and falstian).

Having to run a toon you already have the items you want for (especially likely for extra casters and healers, since those characters tend to not need as specific a set of rings, or to want items that are competed for less than the ravager/shintao combo) is a big burden. Most players are likely to have their healers already equipped and still have more melees who need melee rings. Gotta get as many of those people in as you can.

[coolpenguin410]

I've been tanking Suulo in Tod on both normal and hard no problem...

What would I need to tank Horoth on normal? on hard?

I can get a 76 AC on my own.... low 80s with a paladin and a bard.

I only have 500 hps base... 580 with rage, ship buffs, and Yugo pots

I don't have madstone boots on this character...

This is pretty close to what I have on my WF SD tank. I usually do very well as the Horoth tank on normal. I can't vouch for Hard or Elite, though. I have somewhere around 567 HP unbuffed, IIRC.

In one really good group, I had a buffed AC around 85 and Horoth barely touched me. I can reliably maintain an AC of 80 in most groups and the healer's job is a cake walk.