EE Tanks. I need advice

[Meat-Head]

Hello DDO Brethren and Sistren,


I wanna build an 18/2 Pally/FTR tank with a DPS option. I'm one feat short.

I want to know which is more critical for EE tanking: CE or Improved Shield Mastery.


Here's my feat plan:

H- B.Sword
1- Tough
2- THF
3- iTHF
4- gTHF
5- Imp. Crit Slash
6- Power Attack
7- Shield Mastery
f1- Cleave
f2- gCleave
Epic1- O. Crit
Epic2- EITHER Imp Shield Mastery OR CE.



I'm thinking CE is more important because twisting Improved CE is 20 more PRR.

Imp Shield Mastery nets FIVE PRR plus 5% doublestrike. I don't think that 5% DS is needed hate-wise. So, I figured ISM is the one that's LEAST important.



Thoughts?


PPL with EE tanking experience, tell me what you think?

[MattiG]

I'd agree that CE trumps ISM. or go 3 monk 2 fighter splash and get it all, sacrificing tier 3 stance obviously (but not much else). 2 extra feats, 10% heal amp, evasion, small benefit to saves progression.

A bit more work to hold agro in tier 2 stance, but intolerant blows FTW either way.

[squishwizzy]

I'd agree that CE trumps ISM. or go 3 monk 2 fighter splash and get it all, sacrificing tier 3 stance obviously (but not much else). 2 extra feats, 10% heal amp, evasion, small benefit to saves progression.

A bit more work to hold agro in tier 2 stance, but intolerant blows FTW either way.

What about a pure pally build? Would CE still trump ISM?

(I'm running a pule pally tank. Just want to see if the same holds true with pure versus splash.)

[elraido]

What about a pure pally build? Would CE still trump ISM?

(I'm running a pule pally tank. Just want to see if the same holds true with pure versus splash.)

I am a pure pally tank. And no, CE does not trump ISM.

[Riekan]

In all honesty, take both CE and ISM and drop improved crit. At end game, you should be grinding out for both the epic chimera's fang and Nightmare from caught in the web as a bastard sword user. Both of these weapons have keen on them. As a fighter tank myself, I found that once I had nightmare I rarely ever swap it out. The vampirism on it is awesome. I use nightmare on all trash and fang on dr bosses. I crafted cold iron on mine, it comes with silver, and with the unyielding sentinel having options for good and holy on all weapons, this bypasses almost all relevant DR in the game.

[me_TOO]

In all honesty, take both CE and ISM and drop improved crit. At end game, you should be grinding out for both the epic chimera's fang and Nightmare from caught in the web as a bastard sword user. Both of these weapons have keen on them. As a fighter tank myself, I found that once I had nightmare I rarely ever swap it out. The vampirism on it is awesome. I use nightmare on all trash and fang on dr bosses. I crafted cold iron on mine, it comes with silver, and with the unyielding sentinel having options for good and holy on all weapons, this bypasses almost all relevant DR in the game.

this.

I run a 18/2 pally. Go with both and drop gthf until you get them/one . Lots of build options. Right now im running with sentinal dragon marks so i get free BS prof with echimera's (which is really your weapon of choices with the sentinel marks) and only take thf. With the added incite from the full mark benefit plus getting a +10 weapon its pretty much impossible to take agro from me, not even dragon breath from a sorc or maxxed out fury barbs can do it, especial with intolerant blows and divine righteousness. I twist in momentum swing, laywaste and legendary shield mastery. This toon is a first lifer aswell.

this is JD btw

[Belsogno]

this.

I run a 18/2 pally. Go with both and drop gthf until you get them/one . Lots of build options. Right now im running with sentinal dragon marks so i get free BS prof with echimera's (which is really your weapon of choices with the sentinel marks) and only take thf. With the added incite from the full mark benefit plus getting a +10 weapon its pretty much impossible to take agro from me, not even dragon breath from a sorc or maxxed out fury barbs can do it, especial with intolerant blows and divine righteousness. I twist in momentum swing, laywaste and legendary shield mastery. This toon is a first lifer aswell.

this is JD btw

this one. Drop GTWF and enjoy tanking options.

As a capped sentinel pally with right gear you shouldn't really concern about loosing aggro.

I run a 18/2 pally/monk triple chimera fang and i need two swings to secure the threat at a point that even the best sorc on the server can't pull aggro off me anymore

[whomhead]

Improved crit is a requirement for overwhelming critical. These are the tradeoffs for trying to make tank characters with DPS options.

[arminius]

I would go ISM because you have power attack and you can't run CE and PA at the same time, so at any given moment one of them is wasted. I think the times when you are going to absolutely turtle up and be unconcerned about dps would be few and far between.

And if those times are most important to you, then I'd drop PA before either ISM or CE.

Edit: Of course then cleave, therefore great cleave and overwhelming critical, require power attack, so dumping it would mean starting over the whole concept from scratch. I didn't say it was a good idea, I mean I wouldn't do it. I was just trying to think of what to do if CE was really that important to me.

[elraido]

Improved Shield Mastery. Remember the laws of diminishing returns on AC and PRR. The extra 15 PRR you would get from Combat EX won't net you as much as the 5% double strike. On my tanks, I almost NEVER have combat ex on.

[LeLoric]

Take both and drop GTHF. The doublestrike more than makes up for any lost glancing blow dmg and gives you the best possible tanking stats.

[Zerkul]

Take both and drop GTHF. The doublestrike more than makes up for any lost glancing blow dmg and gives you the best possible tanking stats.

I agree ... or just ignore CE: Combat Expertise means you cannot use Power Attack and this means that you will not be able to use momentum swing and, possibly, laywaste... two abilities that improve your DPS drammatically. Without a consistent DPS you might loose aggro against the most fierce DPSesses unless you work with that US ability which sky-raise it for few seconds.

I also think that nothing currently ingame requires CE on to be tanked. High AC, PRR and a little of Dodge is all you need and you don't need CE to get it: i only use CE when i get overwhelmed or i need that little added surviving edge for critical situations, for most of the time i run with PA.

[Dolphious]

I agree ... or just ignore CE: Combat Expertise means you cannot use Power Attack and this means that you will not be able to use momentum swing and, possibly, laywaste... two abilities that improve your DPS drammatically. Without a consistent DPS you might loose aggro against the most fierce DPSesses unless you work with that US ability which sky-raise it for few seconds.

I also think that nothing currently ingame requires CE on to be tanked. High AC, PRR and a little of Dodge is all you need and you don't need CE to get it: i only use CE when i get overwhelmed or i need that little added surviving edge for critical situations, for most of the time i run with PA.

My understanding is it would be better to drop overwhelming crit than G2HF. OC is is 10% more DPS, and if Sirgog is right here: http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...2&postcount=10 G2HF is a 17.5% increase in DPS. It might even be more if you're spaming cleave/GC as those proc a glancing blow each time.

[edit] personally I would drop CE, OC, and IC in exchange for the full 2HF, both shield masteries, and quicken. Now that I have quicken on my pally I don't know how I ever lived without it.

[maddmatt70]

I think pallys which are tanks are more pure tanks then fighters which is fine. I also think you should play to their strengths. 2 monk is much better then 2 fighter for a pally - evasion man. My 18 pally 2 monk S&B has all saves at about 60 or higher and has regenerating 6 lay on hands that is some sick stuff. A fighter doesnt have that. Fighter got some other cool stuff, but a defensive pally should go for evasion and be slightly more one dimensional in my opinion - the one dimension being defense.

[Dolphious]

I think pallys which are tanks are more pure tanks then fighters which is fine. I also think you should play to their strengths. 2 monk is much better then 2 fighter for a pally - evasion man. My 18 pally 2 monk S&B has all saves at about 60 or higher and has regenerating 6 lay on hands that is some sick stuff. A fighter doesnt have that. Fighter got some other cool stuff, but a defensive pally should go for evasion and be slightly more one dimensional in my opinion - the one dimension being defense.

I used to feel that way, but with PA/cleave/great cleave/momentum swing you can pick up so much DPS at so little cost to defense I think a DPS/tank hybrid is a pretty reasonable choice even for a pally. And it's not like there's many situations that call for all out defense.

[elraido]

I think pallys which are tanks are more pure tanks then fighters which is fine. I also think you should play to their strengths. 2 monk is much better then 2 fighter for a pally - evasion man. My 18 pally 2 monk S&B has all saves at about 60 or higher and has regenerating 6 lay on hands that is some sick stuff. A fighter doesnt have that. Fighter got some other cool stuff, but a defensive pally should go for evasion and be slightly more one dimensional in my opinion - the one dimension being defense.

One thing about evasion is you need light armor. That starts to cut into your PRR. My tank has never had an issue with needing evasion. Like you said, with the regenerating LOH (I have 8) and the sheer amount of HP and saves, he takes most damage with a smile and just keeps on waving at the bad guy.

[FengXian]

I agree ... or just ignore CE: Combat Expertise means you cannot use Power Attack and this means that you will not be able to use momentum swing and, possibly, laywaste... two abilities that improve your DPS drammatically. Without a consistent DPS you might loose aggro against the most fierce DPSesses unless you work with that US ability which sky-raise it for few seconds.

I also think that nothing currently ingame requires CE on to be tanked. High AC, PRR and a little of Dodge is all you need and you don't need CE to get it: i only use CE when i get overwhelmed or i need that little added surviving edge for critical situations, for most of the time i run with PA.

I did the same, I dropped CE because it's just not worth it, I spend all the time in PA anyway. Took quick draw over it, although it doesn't seem to be working 100% as it used to (but still reduces the time needed to restart attacking after boosts, cleaves etc so good enough for me...). However I'm a fighter so I can afford more feats like mobility, active fighter PL, even bulwark of defense, so I can get some extra AC that way. Not sure about pallies, they do have aura after all...

[Kinerd]

Take both and drop GTHF. The doublestrike more than makes up for any lost glancing blow dmg and gives you the best possible tanking stats.

I think this an interesting mathematical proposal so let's look at it in more detail:

5% double-strike with a bastard sword's critical profile of 25 (with OC) gives...
.05 * 25 * base
= 1.25 * base

GTHF gives us +10% damage and +25% proc rate for glancing blows, or...
+ 19 * .5 * .1 * base
+ 19 * .25 * .5 * base
= 11.875 * base
...assuming we don't twist in any glancing blow stuff or run in Fury or some other crazy idea.

So in terms of raw damage the GTHF is 10.625 ahead, but what about magical effects? Well:

5% double-strike gives...
.05 * 19 on-hit
(also .05 * 4 on-crit and .05 * 1 on-vorpal, but we'll put that aside for now)
= .95 on-hit

GTHF gives...
19 * .5 * .03 on-hit
19 * .25 * .09 on-hit
= .7125 on-hit

In terms of on-hit effects the double-strike is .2425 ahead, so we technically need to know what our base and what our on-hit effects are to know for sure which one wins out, but it's pretty unlikely that you have 44 times as much damage from on-hit effects so I'd go with the GTHF from a pure DPS perspective.

[LeLoric]

I think this an interesting mathematical proposal so let's look at it in more detail:

5% double-strike with a bastard sword's critical profile of 25 (with OC) gives...
.05 * 25 * base
= 1.25 * base

GTHF gives us +10% damage and +25% proc rate for glancing blows, or...
+ 19 * .5 * .1 * base
+ 19 * .25 * .5 * base
= 11.875 * base
...assuming we don't twist in any glancing blow stuff or run in Fury or some other crazy idea.

So in terms of raw damage the GTHF is 10.625 ahead, but what about magical effects? Well:

5% double-strike gives...
.05 * 19 on-hit
(also .05 * 4 on-crit and .05 * 1 on-vorpal, but we'll put that aside for now)
= .95 on-hit

GTHF gives...
19 * .5 * .03 on-hit
19 * .25 * .09 on-hit
= .7125 on-hit

In terms of on-hit effects the double-strike is .2425 ahead, so we technically need to know what our base and what our on-hit effects are to know for sure which one wins out, but it's pretty unlikely that you have 44 times as much damage from on-hit effects so I'd go with the GTHF from a pure DPS perspective.

Your numbers are Dmg over 20 hits instead of average dmg per hit so if your numbers were correct then we are talking less than .5 dmg per swing in favor of gthf.

This is a paladin which deals with things like smites, divine sacrifice as well as often some destiny attacks for which doublestrike is amazingly good and gthf does absolutely nothing for.

Fact is Imp shield mastery is more dps than gthf 90% of the time as well as provides more defensive benefit for the above build.

[unbongwah]

Your numbers also assume gthf adds a third glancing blow effect which it hasn't for a long long time now. You have the 3/4 glancing blows irregardless of the feat.

Are you sure? When did that change?