44%+ Dodge Wraps Tactics

[Ladislaio]

Here is a nice, simple wraps tactics build layout, with enhancements, which should have very good stunning fist / quivering palm DC's and a dodge score of 44-56 (IMO 44 is the tipping point, getting higher costs PRR/HP)
With a cannith crafted sheltering item and no past lives this build should have 114 PRR - which means with past lives and slavers gear it would have 186 PRR.

At 44% dodge, 25% Incorp, and 186 PRR if you cannot keep the toon alive you shouldn't be playing melee. Thus I say that monks are functional in LE with enough work on gear.

Run in WATER STANCE

Race: Halfling (AKA The Master Race)
Class split: 16 monk 4 Fighter

STR: 12 DEX: 16 CON: 15 INT: 8 WIS: 18 CHA: 8
Stat points into wisdom
Level Class Feat Bonus Feat
1 Monk Two Weapon Fighting Dodge
2 Monk Mobility
3 Monk Stunning Fist Light monk feat thingy
4 Monk
5 Monk
6 Monk Cleave Power Attack
7 Fighter Great Cleave
8 Fighter Tactical Training
9 Fighter Improved TWF
10 Monk
11 Monk
12 Monk Improved Critical
13 Monk
14 Monk
15 Fighter Weapon Focus Greater TWF
16 Monk
17 Monk
18 Monk Grandmaster of Forms
19 Monk
20 Monk
21 Epic Vorpal Strikes
24 Epic Improved Martial Arts
26 Epic P. TWF
27 Epic Overwhelming Critical
28 Epic Elusive Target
29 Epic Dire Charge
30 Epic Epic Damage Reduction Scoin of Elemental Plane of Earth

Expanded AP layout:
Shintao
Core 4 Bastion of Purity Prot. f Taint. C. Iron Hand Argent Fist
t1 8 Deft Strikes 3/3 Ki Shout Rest. the Balance Exemplar 1/3
t2 10 Knock ot Sky Smite Taint. C. Iron Skin 3/3 Conditioning 3/3
t3 4 Jade Strike Wisdom
t4 4 Tomb of Jade Wisdom
t5 2 Empty Handed Mastery

Stalwart Defender
Core 2 Toughness Stalwart Defense
t1 4 Durable Def 3/3 Item Def 1/3

Kensi
Core 1 Kensi: Wraps
t1 4 Extra AB 1/3 Haste boost 2/3
t2 9 Tactics 3/3 improved dodge 3/3
t3 3 athletic mastery 3/3

Ninja Spy
Core 3 Basic Ninja Training Adv. Ninja Train. Shadow Veil
t1 5 Sneak Attack Training Subtlety 3/3
t2 3 Agility 3/3

Henshin Mystic
Core 2 Riddle of Fire Ki Bolt
t1 4 Porous Soul Way of the Patient Tortoise

Halfling
Core 4 Halfling Luck Dexterity Halfling luck
t1 1 Stealthy 1/3
t2 3 Nimble Reaction 3/3

There will be no screenshots from me. I don't like playing wraps builds, too many buttons to press.

You can take either WW attack or PA/Cleaves, personal choice.

[boredman]

Here is a nice, simple wraps tactics build layout, with enhancements, which should have very good stunning fist / quivering palm DC's and a dodge score of 44-56 (IMO 44 is the tipping point, getting higher costs PRR/HP)
With a cannith crafted sheltering item and no past lives this build should have 114 PRR - which means with past lives and slavers gear it would have 186 PRR.

At 44% dodge, 25% Incorp, and 186 PRR if you cannot keep the toon alive you shouldn't be playing melee. Thus I say that monks are functional in LE with enough work on gear.

Run in WATER STANCE

Race: Halfling (AKA The Master Race)
Class split: 16 monk 4 Fighter

STR: 12 DEX: 16 CON: 15 INT: 8 WIS: 18 CHA: 8
Stat points into wisdom
Level Class Feat Bonus Feat
1 Monk Two Weapon Fighting Dodge
2 Monk Mobility
3 Monk Stunning Fist Light monk feat thingy
4 Monk
5 Monk
6 Monk Spring Attack Weapon Focus
7 Fighter Whirlwind attack
8 Fighter Tactical Training
9 Fighter Improved TWF
10 Monk
11 Monk
12 Monk Improved Critical
13 Monk
14 Monk
15 Fighter Precision Greater TWF
16 Monk
17 Monk
18 Monk Grandmaster of Forms
19 Monk
20 Monk
21 Epic Vorpal Strikes
24 Epic Improved Martial Arts
26 Epic P. TWF
27 Epic Overwhelming Critical
28 Epic Elusive Target
29 Epic Dire Charge
30 Epic Epic Damage Reduction Scoin of Elemental Plane of Earth

Expanded AP layout:
Shintao
Core 4 Bastion of Purity Prot. f Taint. C. Iron Hand Argent Fist
t1 8 Deft Strikes 3/3 Ki Shout Rest. the Balance Exemplar 1/3
t2 10 Knock ot Sky Smite Taint. C. Iron Skin 3/3 Conditioning 3/3
t3 4 Jade Strike Wisdom
t4 4 Tomb of Jade Wisdom
t5 2 Empty Handed Mastery

Stalwart Defender
Core 2 Toughness Stalwart Defense
t1 4 Durable Def 3/3 Item Def 1/3

Kensi
Core 1 Kensi: Wraps
t1 4 Extra AB 1/3 Haste boost 2/3
t2 9 Tactics 3/3 improved dodge 3/3
t3 3 athletic mastery 3/3

Ninja Spy
Core 3 Basic Ninja Training Adv. Ninja Train. Shadow Veil
t1 5 Sneak Attack Training Subtlety 3/3
t2 3 Agility 3/3

Henshin Mystic
Core 2 Riddle of Fire Ki Bolt
t1 4 Porous Soul Way of the Patient Tortoise

Halfling
Core 4 Halfling Luck Dexterity Halfling luck
t1 1 Stealthy 1/3
t2 3 Nimble Reaction 3/3

There will be no screenshots from me. I don't like playing wraps builds, too many buttons to press.

You can take either WW attack or PA/Cleaves, personal choice.

This is a good splash for monks that want to give it a try to quivering palm, i don't know how much can raise it but i guess will need a lot of gear and stats for a useful qp (also can take tactician for +2 tactics instead, and scion of astral plane for +4 tactics, dodge, but less prr). (also can use vanguard brutality for +3 stunning if needed).

I think you need combat expertise as prereq for whirlwind attack but no problem to fit another feat there. also may want to use harper tree for kta, i think it boost your tactics. May as well spend a bit more in henshin for 3th core meele power, prr and maybe lighting the candle.

About race Bladeforged is a powerful option that give 3 more tactics and the powerful self heal but need a lesser heart to remove the paladin level. (although the bladeforged 16 monk/2 fighter/2 paladin should be a good option without having to spend a heart of wood)

Pure monk is still a powerful option as well with 35 more meele power but 5 less dire charge dc, 3 less stunning fist dc and 1 less qp dc i think.

[DrawingGuy]

I am trying to figure out your math for Dodge - the max dodge a pure Monk can achieve is 50:

25 base
2 ship
3 Agility (Ninja Spy)
8 Grandmaster Ocean Stance
5 Meditation of War while in Ocean
3 Racial (Halfling/Gnome/Deep Gnome)
4 Astral Scion
----
50 (max a pure Monk can achieve)

Adding your Cross-Class:
3 Cross-Class (Kensai/Tempest)
----
53

So 53 would be the max you could get on this build. Though you're down Astral and MoW, so you'd be at 45 dodge.



It's 2am and I'm not tired, so here's some numbers for you peeps.

Max possible dodge you can get in the game now would be a 12 Rogue + 3 Fighter + 1 Monk (the other 4 level spread doesn't matter):
25 base
2 ship
4 Astral Scion
8 Grandmaster Ocean Stance
3 Racial (Halfling Tier 2 - can't afford Gnome or Deep Gnome as they're T3 instead of 2)
3 Agility (Fighter Kensai Tier 2 - can't afford Ninja Spy Agility with this Enhancement spread)
3 Athletic Mastery (Fighter Kensai Tier 3)
2 Tumble (Rogue Thief-Acrobat core)
2 Kip Up (Rogue Thief-Acrobat core)
3 Light Armor Mastery (Rogue Assassin Tier 5)
10 Measure the Foe (5 stacks, Rogue Assassin Tier 5)
-----
65 Max Dodge
+ 50% Improved Uncanny Dodge from Rogue levels puts you at over 100% making you essentially invulnerable to physical attacks for the duration of Uncanny Dodge, even without the Measure the Foe stacks.

For max possible permanent Dodge, you would drop the 3 + 10 temporary in the Rogue Assassin tree in favor of 5 from Thief Acrobat for:
57 Max permanent Dodge.

Dropping Assassin tree also allows for a much more realistic and useful Enhancement spread.



Now max Monk unarmed and unarmored PRR. Note that I will not be counting RNG junk like Dreamscape, Scion of Limbo, and Audience with the Queen. Guardian Angel also has low uptime and poor triggering, so not counting that either.

Max Pure Monk:
20 Iron Skin
10 Meditation of War
15 Henshin (3x 5 cores, capstone doesn't provide)
15 Mountain Stance
45 Enhancement item
22 Insightful item (requires being WF/BF, otherwise whatever random loot max is - crafting is 18)
11 Quality item
15 Artifact bonus (Planar Conflux)
19 Mythic (4 from armor + 3x boots, cloak, helm, neck, and bracers)
10 Deific Warding (other part in Situational)
10 Epic Damage Reduction
20 Scion of the Plane of Earth
9 PDK past lives
27 Divine sphere past lives
3 Hardy Nature (Deep Gnome only)
30 LD Blitz or US Unbreakable
20 Improved Combat Expertise
15 Standing with Stone (Tier 4 GMoF twist - only in Mountain Stance)
6 Damage Reduction (Tier 2 Fury of the Wild twist)
2 Tome
-----
324

Plus Extremely Situational:
20 Deific Warding
5 Two Weapon Defense (must take feat and use two weapons so would not technically be "unarmed" anymore)
15 Ephemeral Evolution twist (Tier 1 Primal Avatar twist)
15 Sigil of Warding (Tier 1 Magister twist)
15 Action Boost
-----
394 temporary cap


Of course obtaining that much takes stupid gearing and build choices, absurd luck, and tons of grinding... along with negating the max dodge portion due to not being in Ocean stance.

Now if you cross class, the max possible PRR I could determine was a 12 Monk/5 Paladin/3 Wizard.

324
- 10 Meditation of War
- 3 Henshin as only taking 4 cores
+ 25 Sacred Defense (Paladin Core + Tier 1 Sacred Defender)
+ 25 Harbored by Light (Paladin Tier 5 Sacred Defender)
+ 10 Improved Shield (Wizard Tier 2 Eldritch Knight)
+ 10 Bone Armor (Wizard Core + Tier 2 Palemaster)
-----
381 (451 with extremely situational)


Any class can pass 300 with doing these things. Note that my math may be slightly off due to typing this late in the night, and anyone going for PRR numbers like these will have an trash character. I personally think the OP's build ideas make too many sacrifices in the name of PRR (and Elusive Target is a terribad feat - I crunched the numbers as to why that is in other threads). But based on his post it sounds like this is a theory craft rather than anything he really plays.

[Ladislaio]

This is a good splash for monks that want to give it a try to quivering palm, i don't know how much can raise it but i guess will need a lot of gear and stats for a useful qp (also can take tactician for +2 tactics instead, and scion of astral plane for +4 tactics, dodge, but less prr). (also can use vanguard brutality for +3 stunning if needed).

I think you need combat expertise as prereq for whirlwind attack but no problem to fit another feat there. also may want to use harper tree for kta, i think it boost your tactics. May as well spend a bit more in henshin for 3th core meele power, prr and maybe lighting the candle.

About race Bladeforged is a powerful option that give 3 more tactics and the powerful self heal but need a lesser heart to remove the paladin level. (although the bladeforged 16 monk/2 fighter/2 paladin should be a good option without having to spend a heart of wood)

Pure monk is still a powerful option as well with 35 more meele power but 5 less dire charge dc, 3 less stunning fist dc and 1 less qp dc i think.

Yep! is what I have to say about your post, heh. Would suggest 15/3/2 if you went bladeforged tho.
KTA is hard to fit AP wise if you are going for the high PRR/Dodge setup; if you choose to go for that instead it would also be wise to start at 14 int or so. Does the damage work with wraps now?

I am trying to figure out your math for Dodge - the max dodge a pure Monk can achieve is 50:

The thing you are missing is the +3 dodge cap from a 2 item shroud set. Of course, you likely think that anybody who gives up 20% hp to pick up 3 dodge has made a trash character, so I'm not too shocked about your overlooking this.

I
Any class can pass 300 with doing these things. Note that my math may be slightly off due to typing this late in the night, and anyone going for PRR numbers like these will have an trash character. I personally think the OP's build ideas make too many sacrifices in the name of PRR (and Elusive Target is a terribad feat - I crunched the numbers as to why that is in other threads).

I agreed with most everything you posted until this paragraph. Calling a tank build a "Trash character" kinda ****es me off - just because it isn't in the meta of "self sufficent dps that runs everything like they are solo but happen to have 0-11 other people also soloing it, and maybe a CC wizard" doesn't make it trash. I swung for the fences and went strait tank - AC, PRR, Dodge - in a recent life on one of my toons. I found that it was very useful in situations where there was something to tank - Double dragon(where I was able to just stand there during their 400% damage phase, with both dragons), Shadow Dragon, MoD, LHoX, LTS, LShroud(part 2 if you couldn't figure that out), and slavers pt 3. Being able to grab a boss(or 6. or a full wave of trash) and put it right where you want it, then hold it there for as long as you want it, is actually really freaking useful. 136 intim + 'tired kitten level dps' held aggro from everyone who came to the raids. Yes, this included fully geared completionist DPS toons, such as TWF/SWF Kensi/Ranger/Paladins(pure and mixes), Fury Archers, and Warlocks. No fully geared DPS barbs tho, those seem to be hard to find now.

Elusive target is an aweful feat, I agree. But until they give us a better feat, in terms of "not getting hit/ not die'n" to take in its place, it is best in slot for particular builds. Builds you would likely call trash, but w/e.

But based on his post it sounds like this is a theory craft rather than anything he really plays.

Yes, it is. I got very, very sick of people saying that the current pass on monks was not enough to make a monk survivable no matter what you did, so I spent a half hour and typed that up.

PRR is optimized for not having the past lives... if you have that and the gear, yes, you would want to go for more damage.

For max possible permanent Dodge, you would drop the 3 + 10 temporary in the Rogue Assassin tree in favor of 5 from Thief Acrobat for:
57 Max permanent Dodge.

Dropping Assassin tree also allows for a much more realistic and useful Enhancement spread.

Adding the +3 from the shroud set gives you 60 max stable dodge. However you cannot have this dodge and also be able to pick up the 25% incorp from ninja spy, so the max evasion-optimized dodge is really 58, found in a build that has 6 rogue, 6 monk, and 3 fighter(or ranger, but fighter is better imo). I would suggest going 10/6/4 for a dodge-max build... and as that is a stick build I am likely to play, I have been holding off on the post until I can get some SS of the setup.

Also worth noting is that some things, mostly just one type of champion buff but a few bosses and trash mobs, bypass some dodge - I don't know the exact numbers but it may be possible to miss a dodge check even with 108 dodge.

On a further note - With how hard things were hitting in reaper mode, high-dodge builds may become more common once that actually reaches live. FYI Sodapoppy with the 300ish PRR 2600hp was getting 1-2 shot in 10 skulls reaper Search and res-q. (one shot to negitive 1500ish commonly)

[boredman]

Yep! is what I have to say about your post, heh. Would suggest 15/3/2 if you went bladeforged tho.
KTA is hard to fit AP wise if you are going for the high PRR/Dodge setup; if you choose to go for that instead it would also be wise to start at 14 int or so. Does the damage work with wraps now?

About splash, yeah (15m/3p/2f sound good), i was thinking about Bf Monk 15/Fighter 4/Paladin 1 as well (16/4 with lesser heart), lose divine grace (+8 saves),but get tactical training feat for +2 tactics dc and keep stalwart stance.
About kta, haven't tried on live but on lammania the tactics boost were working (stunning were working, didn't test qp), not sure about the damage but since handwraps are now weapons it should work.

(The reasons for me not going pure are getting some defenses but mainly better tactics since my main point of a tactical monk build is having the most reliable tactics, so i would sacrifice some ap on dodge or prr (not sure if have to on ap) until can get almost no fail dc on tactical abilities) (otherwise i would go pure (dps) or a more deep fighter/pally splash for higher stunning and saves at the cost of sacrificing qp)

[DrawingGuy]

The thing you are missing is the +3 dodge cap from a 2 item shroud set. Of course, you likely think that anybody who gives up 20% hp to pick up 3 dodge has made a trash character, so I'm not too shocked about your overlooking this.

I'm missing that because I typed it in the middle of the night and simply forgot about it. You can simply add 3% to every number I provided, and thank you for correcting me - your 56 was correct. Though it would indeed be a mistake to take 3% dodge over 20% HP in most situations (unless you had really low HP or really, really high dodge), Escalation items provide HP, SP, and skill bonuses, so are some of the more useful LGS items, and thus this bonus is worth getting.

I agreed with most everything you posted until this paragraph. Calling a tank build a "Trash character" kinda ****es me off - just because it isn't in the meta of "self sufficent dps that runs everything like they are solo but happen to have 0-11 other people also soloing it, and maybe a CC wizard" doesn't make it trash. I swung for the fences and went strait tank - AC, PRR, Dodge - in a recent life on one of my toons. I found that it was very useful in situations where there was something to tank - Double dragon(where I was able to just stand there during their 400% damage phase, with both dragons), Shadow Dragon, MoD, LHoX, LTS, LShroud(part 2 if you couldn't figure that out), and slavers pt 3. Being able to grab a boss(or 6. or a full wave of trash) and put it right where you want it, then hold it there for as long as you want it, is actually really freaking useful. 136 intim + 'tired kitten level dps' held aggro from everyone who came to the raids. Yes, this included fully geared completionist DPS toons, such as TWF/SWF Kensi/Ranger/Paladins(pure and mixes), Fury Archers, and Warlocks. No fully geared DPS barbs tho, those seem to be hard to find now.

Obviously my poor choice of words upset you, but the term was for ONLY characters that went to that absolute extreme just for a PRR number, not tanks. Those numbers involved wearing random items JUST for +3 PRR. It involves making unnecessary sacrifices in the name of PRR - sacrifices to AC, dodge, stats, tactics, DPS, etc. Your character would indeed be "trash" compared to what it could be with a sensible balance. A properly balanced toon would be able to tank everything the 400 PRR toon can all while having much higher DPS and utility. A "tank" is not defined by having the highest PRR possible, but by being able to handle the aggro of the targets needed. You did not state that was the goal of this build, but let's look at your examples:

There's no reason to be able to just stand there during the 400% phase as they can't be killed in that phase anyways, so kiting them off in the corner in a little circle is easy enough - though a character with 150 PRR and some HP can do that as well.

Shadow Dragon is a wimp and is easily tanked.

MoD unsure what you're talking about - PRR doesn't save you or the party from circles and beholder negs, and Abbot just stands there anyways... the knights you have to kite from circles. The only possible use is taking all of the archer aggro and being able to survive their DPS while debuffed, but they were always the least of the concerns in that raid as they're easily killed/CCed.

LHoX is more of a "how high is your Intim/Ki Shout?" rather than needing a ton of PRR.

LTS is a legitimate example of where having tons of PRR is useful, but once again you don't need to go to the extremes I listed. Between Knock on the Sky and having a little HP, even a sub 200 PRR toon can tank him - his slow attacks should give you time to heal between.

LShroud you have to be careful about part 2. Getting the aggro of everything can hurt if they can't get the aggro off you. Especially considering the glitch where aggro tables don't always update automatically unless you successfully taunt/diplo. I had a time where I had the aggro and even just standing there for five minutes no one could strip aggro off me, making it impossible to split them up. Allowing people to split aggro from the beginning is best practice, and doesn't take much to survive the aggro of one or two. Part 5 PRR doesn't save you from Hell Ball, which is the only serious attack in that portion. The first boss wave being able to take them all is useful, but being able to squish them quickly is more so since half the time your dealing with phased/teleports anyways.

Slavers pt3 is another example of where PRR can go a long ways. Though this goes back to my original point - you don't need to gimp yourself for effective tanking. Giving up almost everything so you don't have to step back and heal every now and then is just silly.

Elusive target is an aweful feat, I agree. But until they give us a better feat, in terms of "not getting hit/ not die'n" to take in its place, it is best in slot for particular builds. Builds you would likely call trash, but w/e.

As for Elusive Target being "Best in Slot", there are many better choices. Tactician to boost Quivering Palm, Stunning Fist, Jade Strike, etc. Forced Escape to break CC (if you have SP to back it up). First Blood, Holy Strike, Guardian Angel... hell, Toughness is usually a better survival feat mathematically. That may change a bit in the world of Reaper mode where not getting hit 0.4% more often is worthwhile since no matter what you do you're a 1 shot otherwise, but we're not in that world yet.

Yes, it is. I got very, very sick of people saying that the current pass on monks was not enough to make a monk survivable no matter what you did, so I spent a half hour and typed that up.

PRR is optimized for not having the past lives... if you have that and the gear, yes, you would want to go for more damage.


Adding the +3 from the shroud set gives you 60 max stable dodge. However you cannot have this dodge and also be able to pick up the 25% incorp from ninja spy, so the max evasion-optimized dodge is really 58, found in a build that has 6 rogue, 6 monk, and 3 fighter(or ranger, but fighter is better imo). I would suggest going 10/6/4 for a dodge-max build... and as that is a stick build I am likely to play, I have been holding off on the post until I can get some SS of the setup.

Also worth noting is that some things, mostly just one type of champion buff but a few bosses and trash mobs, bypass some dodge - I don't know the exact numbers but it may be possible to miss a dodge check even with 108 dodge.

On a further note - With how hard things were hitting in reaper mode, high-dodge builds may become more common once that actually reaches live. FYI Sodapoppy with the 300ish PRR 2600hp was getting 1-2 shot in 10 skulls reaper Search and res-q. (one shot to negitive 1500ish commonly)

People will always complain - what your and my posts show is that there is plenty of PRR available outside of Monk. Though that doesn't necessarily mean that Monks shouldn't have more access to PRR natively. I'm one that thinks that Mountain stance should have a little bit more. But, yes, in general, there is no reason anyone should struggle surviving LE on a Monk or any class for that matter. The options exist out there to make you able to take a hit.

Now for building for Reaper mode, a bit early for that as I wouldn't put it past them to put in huge dodge bypasses on Reapers. You'd also be a smear on the floor the second a caster looks at you with a non-evasion spell or you fail a Reflex save where someone with proper MRR and a shield would be fine. Though it does look like they're trying to bring back the olden days of Elite where you had to have CC/instakills for trash and a tank+healers for bosses. Whether a dodge or a PRR tank will be most effective is yet to be seen.

[Ladislaio]

As for Elusive Target being "Best in Slot", there are many better choices. Tactician to boost Quivering Palm, Stunning Fist, Jade Strike, etc. Forced Escape to break CC (if you have SP to back it up). First Blood, Holy Strike, Guardian Angel... hell, Toughness is usually a better survival feat mathematically. That may change a bit in the world of Reaper mode where not getting hit 0.4% more often is worthwhile since no matter what you do you're a 1 shot otherwise, but we're not in that world yet.

Ok, let's run some numbers on elusive target! YAY! numbers!
First some #defines

Dodge 44 = 0.56 chance of being hit
Dodge 48 = 0.52 chance of being hit
Dodge 58 = 0.42 chance of being hit
AC < 200 = 0.95 chance of being hit (It seems to me that in LE 200 AC is the starting point of useful)
Elusive target = 0.95 chance of being hit
Ninja Spy Incorp = 0.75 chance of being hit
Displacement = 0.5 chance of being hit


Total chance of being hit is equal to the product of all the hit chances of the parts that make up the defensive miss chance.

Thus dodge 44, elusive target, ninja spy incorp, AC < 200, and displacement would be
0.56*0.95*0.75*0.95*0.5 = 0.1895
so you get hit 18.95% of the time;
Dodge 44, ninja spy incorp, AC <200, and displacement = 19.95%

Thus at 44 dodge, with ninja spy incorp, non-significant AC, and displacement, elusive target makes a 1% difference(rounded to 1/100th of a percent).
How much does adding 4 dodge change this?

Dodge 48, elusive target, ninja spy incorp, AC < 200, displacment = 17.60%
Dodge 48, ninja spy incorp, AC <200, displacement = 18.53%
Thus elusive target is worth about 0.87% evasiveness for WAI evasion types at 48 dodge. Why, yes, that is over twice the amount that you claimed it is worth! Is someone relying on bugged stacking of particular abilities in calculating their miss chance?
And 4 dodge vs elusive target is worth about 0.43%, a trivial difference according to some. Yes, I would trade elusive target for 20 PRR and take the 4% dodge at 30 if they let me.
Removing displacement(eg vs TS mobs) results in the effective differences being doubled.

How much HP is this worth? well, that depends on how much the mobs are hitting you for. If you get hit for around 1000 points of damage(not unreasonable with around 150prr in LE shroud), elusive target is worth about 9 hp per attack - so you get the same value of toughness every 4th attack, which also happens to be the tipping point for when you are more likely to have been hit than missed ( [1-.176]**3 = 0.56; [1-.176]**4 = 0.46).

Thus, in terms of staying alive elusive target remains best-in-slot for builds like this (unless you position poorly, have bad saves, don't invest in making an SR belt and get CC'd a lot, in which case you want to pick up forced escape)

Obviously there are better choices to improve damage, but hey, I didn't say best in slot overall, just best in slot for the not-dying staying alive options.

Of interest:
Dodge 58(max stable w/ ninja spy incorp), elusive target, ninja spy incorp, displacemnt, AC < 200:
14.21% chance of being hit. Tipping point of getting hit is every 5th attack. (about 54% chance of being hit by the 5th attack)

A "tank" is not defined by having the highest PRR possible, but by being able to handle the aggro of the targets needed.

[... snip ...]

Giving up almost everything so you don't have to step back and heal every now and then is just silly.

Being a tank means being able to
1) Hold the aggro of the targets needed
2) Not die to the targets
3) Not die to any incidental trash that may slip by the party while you are tanking.

Yes, you can tank a target without having maxed-out tanking stats. But a tank that doesn't need to take time outs because they are not really fully optimized for tanking isn't just silly, it is simply better at tanking than the build that does not give up unnecessary traits for tanking, such as DPS above holding aggro, but sometimes needs to be able to step back and heal (on just die) every now and then.
A true tank is as much of a dedication of past lives and gear as a DC caster with an even smaller pool of useful situations. But that doesn't make them bad or trash, just of limited use.

You did not state that was the goal of this build

Indeed I did not. This is not a tank build, it is simply a proof-of-concept that you can get a wraps monk well over the numbers accepted as needed for LE content without fully gimping out the character. You are the person who referred to maximized defensive builds as "trash", which leads to the question of tanking.

[Ravand]

I am trying to figure out your math for Dodge - the max dodge a pure Monk can achieve is 50:

25 base
2 ship
3 Agility (Ninja Spy)
8 Grandmaster Ocean Stance
5 Meditation of War while in Ocean
3 Racial (Halfling/Gnome/Deep Gnome)
4 Astral Scion
----
50 (max a pure Monk can achieve)

Adding your Cross-Class:
3 Cross-Class (Kensai/Tempest)
----
53

Great stuff in this thread, it is really giving me some food for thought as I theorycraft my U33 monk.

I do have one question, and one comment, though:
Where does the 8% dodge from GM of Ocean Stance come from? I thought it was 4%?
Also, don't forget the 6% we get from Flurry of Blows.

[Ladislaio]

Great stuff in this thread, it is really giving me some food for thought as I theorycraft my U33 monk.

I do have one question, and one comment, though:
Where does the 8% dodge from GM of Ocean Stance come from? I thought it was 4%?
Also, don't forget the 6% we get from Flurry of Blows.

That is about dodge cap, not dodge amount. Filling your dodge isn't a problem on a monk.
The top ocean stance, GMoO, gives 8% dodge cap and something like 12 dodge.

Flurry of Blows just gives passive dodge, it doesn't impact your dodge cap at all.

[DrawingGuy]

Ok, let's run some numbers on elusive target! YAY! numbers!
First some #defines

Dodge 44 = 0.56 chance of being hit
Dodge 48 = 0.52 chance of being hit
Dodge 58 = 0.42 chance of being hit
AC < 200 = 0.95 chance of being hit (It seems to me that in LE 200 AC is the starting point of useful)
Elusive target = 0.95 chance of being hit
Ninja Spy Incorp = 0.75 chance of being hit
Displacement = 0.5 chance of being hit


Total chance of being hit is equal to the product of all the hit chances of the parts that make up the defensive miss chance.

Thus dodge 44, elusive target, ninja spy incorp, AC < 200, and displacement would be
0.56*0.95*0.75*0.95*0.5 = 0.1895
so you get hit 18.95% of the time;
Dodge 44, ninja spy incorp, AC <200, and displacement = 19.95%

Thus at 44 dodge, with ninja spy incorp, non-significant AC, and displacement, elusive target makes a 1% difference(rounded to 1/100th of a percent).
How much does adding 4 dodge change this?

Dodge 48, elusive target, ninja spy incorp, AC < 200, displacment = 17.60%
Dodge 48, ninja spy incorp, AC <200, displacement = 18.53%
Thus elusive target is worth about 0.87% evasiveness for WAI evasion types at 48 dodge. Why, yes, that is over twice the amount that you claimed it is worth! Is someone relying on bugged stacking of particular abilities in calculating their miss chance?
And 4 dodge vs elusive target is worth about 0.43%, a trivial difference according to some. Yes, I would trade elusive target for 20 PRR and take the 4% dodge at 30 if they let me.
Removing displacement(eg vs TS mobs) results in the effective differences being doubled.

How much HP is this worth? well, that depends on how much the mobs are hitting you for. If you get hit for around 1000 points of damage(not unreasonable with around 150prr in LE shroud), elusive target is worth about 9 hp per attack - so you get the same value of toughness every 4th attack, which also happens to be the tipping point for when you are more likely to have been hit than missed ( [1-.176]**3 = 0.56; [1-.176]**4 = 0.46).

Thus, in terms of staying alive elusive target remains best-in-slot for builds like this (unless you position poorly, have bad saves, don't invest in making an SR belt and get CC'd a lot, in which case you want to pick up forced escape)

Obviously there are better choices to improve damage, but hey, I didn't say best in slot overall, just best in slot for the not-dying staying alive options.

Of interest:
Dodge 58(max stable w/ ninja spy incorp), elusive target, ninja spy incorp, displacemnt, AC < 200:
14.21% chance of being hit. Tipping point of getting hit is every 5th attack. (about 54% chance of being hit by the 5th attack)

Your numbers are achieved by completely discounting AC. I exclusively play EE and LE content, and a vast majority of the time it is "Miss" (as happens with AC) popping over my head rather than "Dodge", "Incorporeal", or "Blurry". Most of that, of course, is AC is checked first, but also because AC works. So while you are correct that if you're sitting on a 100 AC toon, Elusive adds about 1% survival. But when you're on a 200+ AC toon, that does indeed go down to the 0.4% I listed. I have over 200 AC while in Ocean Stance, which is still over 50% chance of missing on almost everything in the game (if only the tool tip was accurate and it was 80% ). I flip over to Earth stance, and that jumps to over 60% of everything missing me. Even someone without all my past lives should be able to get 150+ AC on their monk, which would be ~40%. And those numbers are assuming you're going against a CR 70 monster, which I can't think of any in the game. Majority of monsters in the game should be missing about 60% of the time on a 200 AC toon.

While it's true that once you start considering mobs with True Sight or Dodge bypass, the value of Elusive increases, but once again your giving up DPS and/or utility in favor of a small gain. Does this gain mean the difference between life and death? Then it matters. That might be the case in Reaper Mode. But needing to heal once every 84 or once every 85 attacks is hardly enough of a difference for most people to give up a utility or DPS feat. And Toughness works against spells and other non-physical forms of damage and might be the difference of being one-shot or not while Elusive would not make that difference.

Being a tank means being able to
1) Hold the aggro of the targets needed
2) Not die to the targets
3) Not die to any incidental trash that may slip by the party while you are tanking.

Yes, you can tank a target without having maxed-out tanking stats. But a tank that doesn't need to take time outs because they are not really fully optimized for tanking isn't just silly, it is simply better at tanking than the build that does not give up unnecessary traits for tanking, such as DPS above holding aggro, but sometimes needs to be able to step back and heal (on just die) every now and then.
A true tank is as much of a dedication of past lives and gear as a DC caster with an even smaller pool of useful situations. But that doesn't make them bad or trash, just of limited use.

You're talking to someone that has a character approaching 100 lives. Past lives for AC, PRR, MRR, heal amp, resists... every little bit helps. And a "step back heal" is not you walking off and taking a nap, it's you jumping back to land a heal when you're low health to make sure you don't get hit and killed during the second that takes. I'm almost always able to do that before the boss even has a chance to budge (especially when you can abundant step/charge/wing back... though do miss the days of having healers in party) - it's not like you're taking a nap while the boss kills the party. But once again it comes down to balancing your character. If you're choosing between "just dieing" for +1 damage or not, it's obviously the incorrect choice for a Tank. But if it's the difference between doubling your damage and having to take 1 second time outs once in a blue moon vs losing that DPS and not having too... I think you're making a mistake doing it that way.

This is not to say that if people want to play a max-possible-defense-no-matter-the-cost is bad or trash in the literal sense. If that's how you want to play, more power to you - you can play naked with only the pumpkin head skin on a dump stat CON melee char in Magister for all I care. But if you're asking me my opinion on what would make your tank better, my suggestion is efficiency: minimum amount of defense to effectively do your job while maximizing your DPS and/or additional utility where you can. Tanking a mob just fine while doing 400 damage a hit > tanking a mob just fine while doing 150 damage a hit.

[BigErkyKid]

Your numbers are achieved by completely discounting AC. I exclusively play EE and LE content, and a vast majority of the time it is "Miss" (as happens with AC) popping over my head rather than "Dodge", "Incorporeal", or "Blurry". Most of that, of course, is AC is checked first, but also because AC works. So while you are correct that if you're sitting on a 100 AC toon, Elusive adds about 1% survival. But when you're on a 200+ AC toon, that does indeed go down to the 0.4% I listed. I have over 200 AC while in Ocean Stance, which is still over 50% chance of missing on almost everything in the game (if only the tool tip was accurate and it was 80% ). I flip over to Earth stance, and that jumps to over 60% of everything missing me. Even someone without all my past lives should be able to get 150+ AC on their monk, which would be ~40%. And those numbers are assuming you're going against a CR 70 monster, which I can't think of any in the game. Majority of monsters in the game should be missing about 60% of the time on a 200 AC toon.
.

I think AC "works", but it is still pretty borked. My testing seems to indicate that CR is all it matters for the to hit of the monster. But you get the same CR in eGH and in Slavers! Considering that back when eGH and the rest came viable AC was lower, to me this means that all the claims that AC was broken were absolutely true.

Now speaking as someone who was playing a ~270 pure fighter S&B tank in slavers (terrible toon, did it just because and got out of it after the experiment). AC is rarely enough to keep you up. Mobs miss, but a lot of them attack several times per round, and you end up being hit a lot. The best defensive obviously is killing them fast and stunning them with dire charge.

Now, as far as making a tank goes, I would def only do it if I wanted to have it as an alt / dedicated tank. I have been toying with the idea of a toon who can tank and switch quickly to DPS by changing destiny, but my experience is that it just doesn't work.

Now arguably tanks will be of much use in reaper, so perhaps it is not so much of a waste.

[DrawingGuy]

I think AC "works", but it is still pretty borked. My testing seems to indicate that CR is all it matters for the to hit of the monster. But you get the same CR in eGH and in Slavers! Considering that back when eGH and the rest came viable AC was lower, to me this means that all the claims that AC was broken were absolutely true.

Now speaking as someone who was playing a ~270 pure fighter S&B tank in slavers (terrible toon, did it just because and got out of it after the experiment). AC is rarely enough to keep you up. Mobs miss, but a lot of them attack several times per round, and you end up being hit a lot. The best defensive obviously is killing them fast and stunning them with dire charge.

Now, as far as making a tank goes, I would def only do it if I wanted to have it as an alt / dedicated tank. I have been toying with the idea of a toon who can tank and switch quickly to DPS by changing destiny, but my experience is that it just doesn't work.

Now arguably tanks will be of much use in reaper, so perhaps it is not so much of a waste.

Of course AC is not enough. Even if you somehow get your total mitigation up to 90% (and no build I know of is that high), you're still getting attack 1 of 10 attacks, and a group of mobs means you're getting hit pretty much every second. A Sword and Board tends to get hit more often than a dodge tank since their AC difference is not enough to make up for the dodge difference, but usually has more PRR (and especially MRR) to make those hits smaller. If you really want to see the difference AC makes, try stepping into the same group of mobs without AC. I noticed marked improvements on how much I could handle as I raised my AC.

Another thing to consider is that the game has a forced hit with grazing hits making you take damage even when your AC is working. So even if you have the AC of a god, you'll still be seeing damage numbers over your head 25% of the time on Elite. This means that counting "Miss" over your head is an inaccurate indicator on how much your AC is helping since you could very well be getting mitigated damage from your AC.


As for the matter of AC increases outstripping CR, there's a few things in play there.

First is that I do think they've played a bit with the AC and/or to-hit formula since the cap was 25... they've had two defensive passes since that point after all.

Second is that really didn't see any major changes beyond small incremental gear creep except at two points - the addition of Epic Past lives, and the U29 loot pass - which means for the most part you won't have seen much of a difference unless you dug into those past lives (at which point I indeed saw a major difference on how much I got missed) or have taken advantage of the higher AC loot.

Third is they built in an expanded range diminishing return in the formula. This is to keep people getting hit more often than on a natural 20 no matter what their AC is, and also means that those already at a high AC will not noticed as much of a difference with an AC increase.

Lastly I actually don't think you are getting hit more often in new quests than old quests. I think they're purposely not rocketing up CR for the very fact that it is part of monster to-hit formula and they want to keep AC effective... you just notice the hits more in new quests due to higher damage.


Beyond that, you bring up a key point - the best defense is either killing them faster so you get hit less often or stunning/CCing them so you don't get hit at all. Positioning matters - side stepping to avoid a breath attack, blocking blowbacks, flipping on an absorb item for a hellball or lightning strike, etc.... there's more to tanking than just AC, Dodge, and PRR. But my point was that even while AC is end-all-be-all that it used to be, nor is it as good as the tool tip claims it to be, it still matters and still makes a difference. You do not still get hit 95% of the time with sub 200 AC like Ladislaio is claiming. Heck, even at only 100 AC you should still see a "miss" about 10% of the time. There's a reason I got hit less often in Mountain Stance than Ocean Stance pre-U33, and that reason was AC.

[Ladislaio]

Your numbers are achieved by completely discounting AC. I exclusively play EE and LE content, and a vast majority of the time it is "Miss" (as happens with AC) popping over my head rather than "Dodge", "Incorporeal", or "Blurry". Most of that, of course, is AC is checked first, but also because AC works. So while you are correct that if you're sitting on a 100 AC toon, Elusive adds about 1% survival. But when you're on a 200+ AC toon, that does indeed go down to the 0.4% I listed.

In case you didn't notice, it said AC < 200.

I've played a toon (50 past lives, working on his last PRR and have 2 more AC lives to do) who I pushed the AC around from 200 all the way up to 330 and stepped into LE shroud to see how the missing seemed to go. My observations were that you get maybe 10% miss rate at 200ish ac, possibly 30%ish at 250, and about 50%ish at 300. I really wish that the devs would release some good numbers on what the to-hit of endgame mobs were so we could have better than casual observational evidence as to how useful AC is. FYI testing it in PVP showed that endgame setup characters got glancing blows at about 11-12 vs 300 AC. LINK TO BUILDOUT(also I've pulled better gear than what he had when I took the screenshots, so durability will be going up next time I get him into the build)

My main character is a (69 past lives) completionist tanky quickened-rez casting repeater build that sits at about 140 AC. I hardly ever see any misses float above her head, I *really* doubt that the miss rate is above 5% in LE content, I see incorp more than I see miss. Except in slavers. I don't know why but the trash in LE slavers misses her a LOT, to the point where I only move to keep IPS lined up. (Of course I haven't really run that content on her since the week that it came out so they may have cleaned that up with a patch) Link to buildout (please keep in mind that while the class split is the same, gear and past lives have changed since the post)

but once again your giving up DPS and/or utility in favor of a small gain.

You do know that Holy Strike works out to an expected 5 points of non-scaling damage per swing, right? And that first blood only works for targets with over 90% health so it is likely to work out to even less damage? On a non-crit my not-really-high-dps repeater is hitting for about 350 base damage(first number), so even on poorly optimized damage setups Holy Strike is less than 1% more damage. (It is worth noting that, as a ranged build, she runs holy strike / doubleshot for 26/28 feats because there simply isn't anything better really.)

Now, as far as making a tank goes, I would def only do it if I wanted to have it as an alt / dedicated tank.

Agreed. Hence why if you make a tank tank it should be fully optimized - don't do silly things like trying to make it half tank half dps - make your dps toon, then make your tank toon, and make them good at what they do.

I have been toying with the idea of a toon who can tank and switch quickly to DPS by changing destiny, but my experience is that it just doesn't work.

I've managed some builds that could somewhat quickly switch between tank mode and dps mode by changing ED, Enhancements, and a few key pieces of gear, but I found these to be still less good than builds that focused on one or the other or were simply very tanky dps. Worst of all the enhancement swapping resulted in a prohibitive cost in plat after playing them for a bit. Poor Soda went from being plat capped to having to pass his (very fancy) hat around before a raid where people wanted him to be tanking something.
Again, I agree with your statement that if you want to make an extreme tank, do it on an alt, don't try to bastardize it. (although using bastard swords on it can work out quite nicely, particularly if you are PDK)
Vangaurd builds are worth mentioning, as you can make a fairly tanky good dps toon with them, and swapping between LD/DC and US can float them between acceptable DPS and acceptable tankyness fairly well, even without massive stacks of past lives to back it all up.

Now arguably tanks will be of much use in reaper, so perhaps it is not so much of a waste.

This would be really nice, and I hope that party comp becomes important again. My prediction is that it will follow the same route that most hard content has in this game tho... people will mostly play ranged dps until they learn it and get gear after which you will see a mixture of ranged, melee, and casters dps/DC's. But hey, maybe defensive focused dedicated tanks will be useful in a much larger number of quests when this reaches live. A man can dream, right?

[BigErkyKid]

Of course AC is not enough. Even if you somehow get your total mitigation up to 90% (and no build I know of is that high), you're still getting attack 1 of 10 attacks, and a group of mobs means you're getting hit pretty much every second. A Sword and Board tends to get hit more often than a dodge tank since their AC difference is not enough to make up for the dodge difference, but usually has more PRR (and especially MRR) to make those hits smaller. If you really want to see the difference AC makes, try stepping into the same group of mobs without AC. I noticed marked improvements on how much I could handle as I raised my AC.

Another thing to consider is that the game has a forced hit with grazing hits making you take damage even when your AC is working. So even if you have the AC of a god, you'll still be seeing damage numbers over your head 25% of the time on Elite. This means that counting "Miss" over your head is an inaccurate indicator on how much your AC is helping since you could very well be getting mitigated damage from your AC.


As for the matter of AC increases outstripping CR, there's a few things in play there.

First is that I do think they've played a bit with the AC and/or to-hit formula since the cap was 25... they've had two defensive passes since that point after all.

Second is that really didn't see any major changes beyond small incremental gear creep except at two points - the addition of Epic Past lives, and the U29 loot pass - which means for the most part you won't have seen much of a difference unless you dug into those past lives (at which point I indeed saw a major difference on how much I got missed) or have taken advantage of the higher AC loot.

Third is they built in an expanded range diminishing return in the formula. This is to keep people getting hit more often than on a natural 20 no matter what their AC is, and also means that those already at a high AC will not noticed as much of a difference with an AC increase.

Lastly I actually don't think you are getting hit more often in new quests than old quests. I think they're purposely not rocketing up CR for the very fact that it is part of monster to-hit formula and they want to keep AC effective... you just notice the hits more in new quests due to higher damage.


Beyond that, you bring up a key point - the best defense is either killing them faster so you get hit less often or stunning/CCing them so you don't get hit at all. Positioning matters - side stepping to avoid a breath attack, blocking blowbacks, flipping on an absorb item for a hellball or lightning strike, etc.... there's more to tanking than just AC, Dodge, and PRR. But my point was that even while AC is end-all-be-all that it used to be, nor is it as good as the tool tip claims it to be, it still matters and still makes a difference. You do not still get hit 95% of the time with sub 200 AC like Ladislaio is claiming. Heck, even at only 100 AC you should still see a "miss" about 10% of the time. There's a reason I got hit less often in Mountain Stance than Ocean Stance pre-U33, and that reason was AC.

What I am saying is exactly this, that mob CRs and attacks have remained more or less constant, which has helped make AC nice again with the bonuses we have now.

In any case, I am sorry but when making a tank I am all in for making it just a tank and nothing else. I have tried to do toons that could fit more roles and you end up with a suboptimal tank. Reaper will likely bring back the value of uber specialization.

As for the rest, I think we pretty much agree.

[DrawingGuy]

Holy Sword is indeed a weak DPS feat, but gives you Ghostly bypass along with it. If you're a Sword and Board using a Bastard Sword or Dwarven axe, or a THF, taking both PTWF and PWHF is a solid option. Tactics can give +2 to make sure your tactics don't fail, or to boost your already struggling Quivering Palm DC on a Monk.

You're right, though, that without hard numbers from the devs, it's difficult to really say how effective AC is. What we have to go off of is almost purely anecdotal, and short of recording thousands of hits and noting glancing blows among those, it will stay that way. And quests matter massively - my Monk with 200+ AC is essentially invulnerable in the new Slaver's quest, but I have to be more careful in LE Shroud or even LE Curse as my AC is less effective in them. But my opinion still holds of balancing is better than min-maxing for a tank. You don't have to burn your house down to kill a fly, just make sure you have a big enough fly swatter. I'd rather be able to do damage AND tank and be just fine rather than just tank and be just fine. I personally consider the all-or-nothing overkill to be "sub-optimal" rather than the other way around. It's only when that DPS gets in the way of actual survival that it becomes sub-optimal.

The PRR, HP, and AC you can reach on Soda is impressive, but you could work out a build that does more damage and still be able to tank Sor'jek easily. It's not a matter of being "half and half", but rather being efficient at what you do. Maybe in Reaper Mode it will indeed take the all-or-nothing to survive, but that simply means that is the effort it takes to be efficient. But is it efficient if you're building a 300 AC, 300 PRR, 2500 HP character to tank Korthos?

However all of my arguments go completely out the window if that is how you want to play. If a niche-role overkill tank is what you want to do, don't let me stop you.

[Ladislaio]

my Monk with 200+ AC is essentially invulnerable in the new Slaver's quest,

Yeah, the to-hit of mobs in LE slavers seems messed up.

I'd rather be able to do damage AND tank and be just fine rather than just tank and be just fine. I personally consider the all-or-nothing overkill to be "sub-optimal" rather than the other way around. It's only when that DPS gets in the way of actual survival that it becomes sub-optimal.

The PRR, HP, and AC you can reach on Soda is impressive, but you could work out a build that does more damage and still be able to tank Sor'jek easily. It's not a matter of being "half and half", but rather being efficient at what you do. Maybe in Reaper Mode it will indeed take the all-or-nothing to survive, but that simply means that is the effort it takes to be efficient. But is it efficient if you're building a 300 AC, 300 PRR, 2500 HP character to tank Korthos?

Having tested it, it turns out that Soda has more than enough dps to one shot things on korthos! So I guess I did a great job making a dps build also, woot! Who would have thunk it?

However all of my arguments go completely out the window if that is how you want to play. If a niche-role overkill tank is what you want to do, don't let me stop you.

Yet you still call them trash builds, so yeah. And I'll quote Maxim 37 about your claim on overkill. Maxim, not rule.

[DrawingGuy]

And you seem to be latched onto the word I already apologized for and took my exaggeration of tanking Korthos literally. It was obviously meant to illustrate that a 300 AC, 300 PRR, 2500 HP toon is no more survivable in a quest than someone in Korthos with 50 AC, 0 PRR, and 250 HP... and similar logic would apply to the remaining quests. There comes a point where your defensive investments are not the difference between you living or dying. Are we trying to have a constructive debate here or just posturing?

I'm not saying you are a bad or "trash" player or character for maxing out defenses or going for "over-kill" (mercenary maxim or not). My personally thinking that there are more efficient ways to play a tank once again mean nothing if that is how you want to play.

So at this point we can either debate why maximizing defenses is technically better or not than balancing defense and offense for a tank, or we can take it as that both work and people can play however they want to play.

[BigErkyKid]

And you seem to be latched onto the word I already apologized for and took my exaggeration of tanking Korthos literally. It was obviously meant to illustrate that a 300 AC, 300 PRR, 2500 HP toon is no more survivable in a quest than someone in Korthos with 50 AC, 0 PRR, and 250 HP... and similar logic would apply to the remaining quests. There comes a point where your defensive investments are not the difference between you living or dying. Are we trying to have a constructive debate here or just posturing?

I'm not saying you are a bad or "trash" player or character for maxing out defenses or going for "over-kill" (mercenary maxim or not). My personally thinking that there are more efficient ways to play a tank once again mean nothing if that is how you want to play.

So at this point we can either debate why maximizing defenses is technically better or not than balancing defense and offense for a tank, or we can take it as that both work and people can play however they want to play.

I'll say this from experience. Trying to achieve anything but being a tank in something designed to tank is IMO a mistake.Whatever investment you make in DPS will still feel like a bucket in the sea.

Right now tanks are mostly not necessary. There are a couple situations where it can be fun and useful, but that's it. For that reason, I really don't recommend using it as a main.

Once it is an alt though, I am assuming you just bring it out for tank duty. Then it just makes sense to give it the best shot possible.

At the end of the day the reason why I even considered building a tank was reaper. There you really do need maxx defense.

[Ladislaio]

And you seem to be latched onto the word I already apologized

I apologize for beating that into the ground. It was quite upsetting.

I really don't recommend using it as a main.

Once it is an alt though, I am assuming you just bring it out for tank duty. Then it just makes sense to give it the best shot possible.

^ Agreed (even with what I didn't quote, wanted to not quote the entire post tho)

To both of you (and anybody else) I tested several variations of soda's build, ranging from full support of DPS feats and enhancements to what it is as posted, and I found was that unless he dumped the tankyness so hard he was at a lower durability tier than my main or a well built swash, the damage wasn't comparable to my main. I spent most of the time that lammy was up testing different setups of the build trying to work around this, but none of them bore any fruit. Doing a few things that I did not consider acceptable could have - giving up on getting AC to 250+, giving up on the no-warlock policy, and/or giving up on going heavy armor. I did a surprising amount of work for a build which I had just decided to do for a life to try to see just how effective AC could be.

The ending build concept for Durability-Defined was to take the defensive stats to the max, and then scale them back for damage and/or threat in order to maintain aggro as needed. It just turned out that with how intim works right now the build didn't need much of any scale back in favor of damage.
Designing a tank this way gives you a charcter that is very, very good at its job. It only does one job, but it does it well, even if the party borks up some of its other jobs and you end up having two battle ragers on you and all 5 deathlords up(Which if you haven't had this happen you likely haven't tried to carry enough pugs through EE Shadow dragon yet).

This method also provides you longevity in your tank. Tweaking your tank so that you have *just* enough intim(which isn't really a good idea anymore as intim directly scales into threat, there is no maximum useful amount) and *just* enough defenses for current content. Even if you do that on a tank minded toon, your damage isn't going to be at where the DPS minded toon's damage is, and if new content is scaled up you will have to tweak your build and possibly farm new gear before your tank is ready for tanking in this new content. A defensively focused tank would be best equipped to do the tanking on day one that a tank could be.

Just to make sure to beat this into the ground: It is NOT recommended to have a defensively focused tank as your primary character, unless you *really* like playing one. They are use-impaired in most content, and while they may be able to do their job better than other setups where they are useful, a well built hybrid build can do the same job acceptably well while having more options of role and content in which they provide these roles.