DDOCast 403 - Raid Caliber Tanks

[pjstechie]

Voodu Spyce & Chai join Patrick for a lengthy discussion about Raid Caliber Tank! We talk about build ideas, skills to work on, and how to becoming a great tanking player! We also talk about the U28.1 release, balance changes, and the Night Revels Preview!

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Raid Caliber Tanks - 2:25
Should a tank be your first character? - 1:04:45
News - 1:19:20
The Night Revels - 1:36:22
Lightning Post & Closing - 1:54:15

U28.1 Release Notes
The Night Revels Guide
Saga of Amastris: Date with Evil
Order of Syncletica: Zen Balance
Axel DDO: Update 28 Review
Voodu: Night Revels
Shady Rogues: Tide Turns
Ditrywilliamwj: Update 28.1

-- Watch live at http://www.twitch.tv/ddocast

[Livmo]

Another great show, but 16 is not my number!

Perhaps I should solo instead, but I grouped and only got 3 keys in hour and I was very active killing stuff:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5711872

At that rate (from my post above) of drops I'm looking at needing 24 key to complete an item. At 3 an hour, 24/3= 8 hours of game play for just the keys.

No way can I make an augment of pumkin cosmetic hat in an hour.

Based on my play experience Friday night I would like to see the Key drop rate increased. However, I will see if I can do better on the keys by running solo instead, and same for the challenges, when it comes back out.

I would like an option to get keys from ingrediant trade in like Crystal Cove.

[Basura_Grande]

This game still has need for tanks? Serious question, we run every raid on EE weekly and haven't seen a dedicated tank in years.

Who's the target audience for the podcast?

[Grosbeak07]

This game still has need for tanks? Serious question, we run every raid on EE weekly and haven't seen a dedicated tank in years.

Who's the target audience for the podcast?

You assume there is only one way to do something?

You are correct tanks are not common and are generally not needed, but if you want to build one and raid with it, who is to stop it? So a discussion on what would be an ideal tank build for a raid isn't a bad idea.

[Basura_Grande]

You assume there is only one way to do something?

Of course not, there are always multiple ways to accomplish a task but best practices exist because . . . . wait for it . . . they are BEST PRACTICES. And a "tank" hasn't been a best practice for anything since at least the level 28 increase.

I was just curious if I was in another time warp, being back to the future week and all that.

[Gljosh]

I tank all the time, especially when I late join Devil's Assault.

That's tank right?

When you sit at the quest entrance and get XP?

[pjstechie]

Of course not, there are always multiple ways to accomplish a task but best practices exist because . . . . wait for it . . . they are BEST PRACTICES. And a "tank" hasn't been a best practice for anything since at least the level 28 increase.

I was just curious if I was in another time warp, being back to the future week and all that.

Tanks are absolutely still a widely used practice in raiding. "Tank" does not mean a heavy armor shield bearing character, and we made mention of several alternatives.

[Basura_Grande]

Tanks are absolutely still a widely used practice in raiding.

No, they are not.

[Holymunchkin]

Tanks are absolutely still a widely used practice in raiding. "Tank" does not mean a heavy armor shield bearing character, and we made mention of several alternatives.

lol

[pjstechie]

No, they are not.

how then do you deal with the stormreaver in fall of truth? Almost every group ive run for that (and not just ones i lead) utilize a tank for the stormreaver.

fire peaks and deathwyrm are also very commonly utilizing tanks.

again, note that tank is a ROLE not a build in this case. It is the person holding agro so that the rest of the party can fulfill other roles.

[Basura_Grande]

how then do you deal with the stormreaver in fall of truth? Almost every group ive run for that (and not just ones i lead) utilize a tank for the stormreaver.

beat him down on a normal melee.

fire peaks and deathwyrm are also very commonly utilizing tanks.

Beat them down on a normal melee or have ranged toons kite them.

[Eth]

My take on tanking in current raids...

Fire on Thunder Peaks
No tanks required. What you want is someone with high intim or ruin to make it easy to seperate them.
If your approach is to "tank" them in a classic way, by standing in one spot, while taking a beating, you are doing it wrong.
You can tank the dragons like a classic tank in every phase that requires the party to DPS them, if you want to draw some damage off your melees. That is fine.
The only exception is after the double elemental beatdown, where first Nevalarich has the damage buff, which later switches. Just play it smart here and put your DPS on Thraxata first and switch your melee DPS as soon as you hear the DM text to Nevalarich. From that beatdown on, once you enter the artifact phase, all your "tank" requires is someone that can operate WASD. "Shield block tanking" is just an unneccassary risk here.

Deathwyrm
A tank is nice to have here, but the dragon isn't dangerous enough to require a dedicated tank. Usually a well built DPS will do.
I did EE on my barbarian a couple of times and had no issues tanking her, despite not being build for tanking at all (offense before defense in that sense for that build).
Kiting is also fine.

MoD
It's nice to have someone keeping Vol away from the party. Again, this doesn't require a tank. Someone that's quick to grab aggro, since she resets a lot that can operate WASD.
Deathknights - see Deathwyrm. Any proper DPS build that can suck up an adrenaline hit will do the job.

DoJ
If you have low DPS, that can't take down the worm in the end fight, it's nice to have someone "tank" him. Again this doesn't require a tank. Have someone with ranged DPS grab the aggro and dodge the attacks by using your keyboard keys.

Having an intim tank to grab devils can also be nice, if you can't one round her. Not neccessary though by any means.

FoT
When this was still considered hard on EE, I've mainly see monkchers kiting the TO. A proper tank could do the job though (if he managed to keep aggro against monkchers, lol).
Stormreaver? Not so much. If we go with the classic formular of more defense = less DPS, I'd even say it's bad to put your tankiest toon here. Since you want to keep the people working on him as low as possible, this job should be done by your best DPS, not a tank (if he can handle the boom etc.).
Ideally this person would have the reaver preped solo by the time the rest preps the TO.


TL;DR: The last raid that required a classic tank, which was also a ton of fun to tank, was LoB.

again, note that tank is a ROLE not a build in this case. It is the person holding agro so that the rest of the party can fulfill other roles.

If that's your definition of a tank, then yes, the game still has tanks. Absolutely.

Dedicated builds that fill the role as tanks are dead though.
We used to have raids in the past were people built dedicated tanks just for those raids (Hound, VoD, ToD, Chrono for example). That's not the case anymore.

[FestusHood]

Tanks, as well as healers and crowd control can help average players over achieve. The reason the strongest players don't need these roles is because their characters tend to be overpowered for the content they are running.

Not just talking about raids.

[Grosbeak07]

beat him down on a normal melee.



Beat them down on a normal melee or have ranged toons kite them.

and how many past lives does a "normal" melee have?

A big (nay, massive) problem with DDO is how the games population are insular to each other. We all run with people who are by and large like us, so your idea of "normal" and my idea of "normal" could be two vastly different things.

Weaker players and guilds can't tank the Stormreaver or dragons as a "normal" melee, I think it is unreasonable to expect everyone to play at your character and skill level. Using a tank in those situations isn't a bad idea. If they accomplish the raid, who cares how you did it? (Non exploit of course)

i'm not sure why you are resisting this idea so much. A tank is a VIABLE option, even if it is not needed or isn't "best" practice. If your group or guild needs a tank to accomplish these raids, so be it. Tank away, have fun and enjoy your loot.

[Basura_Grande]

i'm not sure why you are resisting this idea so much. A tank is a VIABLE option, even if it is not needed or isn't "best" practice. If your group or guild needs a tank to accomplish these raids, so be it. Tank away, have fun and enjoy your loot.

Giving bad advice to new players doesn't help them, it just perpetuates the cycle of bad players staying bad.

[Basura_Grande]

and how many past lives does a "normal" melee have?

Lots, what the heck else do we have to do in a game with so little end-game? Packing on PLs is the thing to do
but it's not as needed as some people think, generally I find that used as an excuse for being bad at the game.

A big (nay, massive) problem with DDO is how the games population are insular to each other. We all run with people who are by and large like us, so your idea of "normal" and my idea of "normal" could be two vastly different things.

So copy the ideas from those actually excelling in the game, look at what the people with the speed records are doing as ask them, the same tactics will work with lesser players, just slower.

Weaker players and guilds can't tank the Stormreaver or dragons as a "normal" melee, I think it is unreasonable to expect everyone to play at your character and skill level. Using a tank in those situations isn't a bad idea. If they accomplish the raid, who cares how you did it? (Non exploit of course)

Nonsense. ANY paladin can do it with basic gear on EE. If you've been playing more that 6 months that's not a difficult challenge. You want to talk about EE Defiler or Mod that's a different story, but FOT? a 3 year old encounter?

[Faltout]

Why does noone mention Caught in the Web? I'd be really interested to hear what does a tank need to survive Lolth (except for a healer of course ).

[Eth]

Why does noone mention Caught in the Web? I'd be really interested to hear what does a tank need to survive Lolth (except for a healer of course ).

Spell absorption and silver flame pots is all you need.

[Faltout]

Spell absorption and silver flame pots is all you need.

Right. Take those and go beat the whole game lol.
Seriously though, spell absorption can't last for the lolth fight and there's also the possibility of spiders spawning behind you that are not subject to spell absorption.

I've seen much more consistent wipes in EE CitW than in any other raid (even FoT that you require a tank for SR). It's where you need tactics and tanks the most and yet people seem to take it very lightly (maybe the reason of the wipes? lol). There isn't even a decent wiki entry for the raid. Many of the stuff in the wiki are wrong.

[pjstechie]

Giving bad advice to new players doesn't help them, it just perpetuates the cycle of bad players staying bad.

I greatly dispute that teaching players, old or new, about tanking is bad advice.

I would in fact argue that most raids I run outside of my normal circles are teaching players "bad advice." I see a lot of groups that are sloppy, disorganized and uninformed. My stance with leading raids has always been to teach "proper" mechanics even on a lower difficulty so that when players do move up to challenge themselves they have those mechanics and knowledge at their disposal, even if they choose not to use it. Perhaps they may also find that they use less resources. And frankly I find a raid to be generally more exciting, satisfying and fun when it is well executed than just brute forced.

Its true that most raiding parties don't tend to utilize the traditional MMO "tank build" and I'm not trying to say that they are. However many players do still want to build tanks, and even if they dont, tanking is a solid skill to have. Even on a "normal" melee build you can tank (again, tank being a ROLE not a BUILD) and many of the topics we covered were about skills for tanking not just building for "typical" tank build.

I further recognize that when covering topics like this that many of my listeners won't find the topic very useful or helpful. My hope is that even if they dont, they may send others our way, spread the word about DDOCast and maybe even find a thing or two they can stick in their back pocket. Its truly difficult to find a topic that is really for everyone (if you have ideas I'd love to hear them!)