Bear Shield Mastery Feats\Bear Tank PRR lackage

[xBunny]

Hello,

So to make long story short - trying different tank\tankish builds right now. One think I noticed that bears compared to Pal\Ftr lag behind PRR. Paladins get 25 from stance and another 25 in SD t5 + Angel Skin 20 at cap. Same for fighter defensive stance + fighter Heavy Armor Combatant feats line. While bears defensive stance gives 12 PRR only. Arti can splash those 2 above classes for defensive stance, while Bear cannot use rage while in Pal\Ftr defensive stance(afaik). Lightning Strikes the Mountain helps to catch up with MRR, but it still 50% of the time. And on top of this Shield Mastery line is not applicable in bear form also meaning no Unyielding Sentinel shield bonuses. So my proposal would be - can we have those shield mastery back for druid animal form please, at least for bears? I mean bears already do have synergy with shields - most tankish Enchantments works only with shield (25% hp).

P.S. sorry for my not fluent english.

P.S. Sorry just noticed I used wrong forum to post this thread. Was looking for something druid specific themes, did not notice it is Lamania.

P.S. According to my calculations bears lag 70-100 PRR behind both Pally and Fighter, and even slightly lag behind MRR having 40 MRR only 50% of the time. Pally has more MRR potential with Angel Skin spell.

[magaiti]

Nature's Defense gives 20 PRR/MRR (8 from core and 12 from T1)
3x Natural Fighting gives 12% doublestrike/12 PRR

Bears get a lot of MRR and 20% force absorbtion, so I suppose they were designed to be more resistant to magical attacks and less to physical, than fighters/paladins.

Do not forget that PRR/MRR have diminishing returns. The more you have, the less value you gain from adding another point.
And PRR is not your only defensive stat. Bears get more CON from bear shape and rage, so they should have more HP to compensate for less PRR.

[xBunny]

Nature's Defense gives 20 PRR/MRR (8 from core and 12 from T1)
3x Natural Fighting gives 12% doublestrike/12 PRR

Bears get a lot of MRR and 20% force absorbtion, so I suppose they were designed to be more resistant to magical attacks and less to physical, than fighters/paladins.

Do not forget that PRR/MRR have diminishing returns. The more you have, the less value you gain from adding another point.
And PRR is not your only defensive stat. Bears get more CON from bear shape and rage, so they should have more HP to compensate for less PRR.

Good point, I did miss the cores and Natural Fighting. But AFAIK Paladins also do get PRR\MRR from their SD cores, like 10/10. Get another 10% HP from 18s core(and 25 more hamp), 100 HP from T5, so its likely HP to be pretty close. So is fighter core that 18s Fighter core that gives another 25PRR. Natural Fighting need spend 3 more feats, and unlike the Fighter u don't have so plenty of them, so 12 PRR is pretty expensive. Fighter I believe can afford more Toughness feats.

Also I believe bears do not get more MRR than Fighters or Paladins, it looks about the same: 20 from cores and T1 + 40 from T5(50% of time) is 60 MRR.
Paladins 25 stance + 25 T5 + 10 cores + 20 Angel Skin which is 80 MRR 100% of time.
Fighters get 25 stance + 3 + 6 + 9 + 12 from feats and that is 55 MRR 100% of time.


Also bears cannot use Combat Expertise when raging, so having like +30% AC from animal form and T5 NP, comparing to 20%(10% from t5+10% feat) and 25% fighter(15%core + 10% feat) both of which do also have 50% from armor+ 50% from shield and also various smaller bonuses like Defensive Mastery(+3AC and armor agility) and Shield Mastery(15% shield AC and +3 tower shield armor agility) Enchantments. Which ends up bears lagging behind in AC according to my calculations( I might be wrong here).

About diminishing returns - yes, but it also works the opposite way to taken damage too. So having like 200 PRR and 250 PRR is 33.33% to 28.57% incoming damage, which is 4.76% difference and about 14.3%(4.76/33.33) less damage taken. And difference between 400 PRR and 450 PRR is 25% to 22.22% which is 2.8% which is 11.2% less damage taken. Please correct me is my math or game mechanic understanding is wrong.

Comparing PRR:
Bears: 20 PRR(cores and T1) +12 PRR(3x Natural Fighting) is 32 PRR.
Paladins: 25 stance + 25 T5 + 10 cores + 20 Angel Skin + 15 from 2x Shield Mastery(for heavy shield, tower will get +10) + 15 US is 110\120 PRR.
Fighter: 25 stance + 25 core + 15(25) shield + 15US + 30 from feats = 110\120 PRR.
So bears lag 80\90 PRR behind from from Paladin and Fighter.

Also there is BaB difference between Pal\Ftr getting 1 and Druids getting 0.75 that I did not took into account that makes difference even bigger.

UPD forgot about Angel Skin, which is another 20 Prr\Mrr. Added to calculations.

[magaiti]

Natural fighting is 3 feats, while paladins/fighters have to take 2 shield mastery feats as well as 3 heroic combat style feats for Epic Defensive Stance. Fighters also take armor mastery feats. And that US thing costs you either T2 twist or 6 AP in US.
Everything else, I have no problem with.

[xBunny]

Natural fighting is 3 feats, while paladins/fighters have to take 2 shield mastery feats as well as 3 heroic combat style feats for Epic Defensive Stance. Fighters also take armor mastery feats. And that US thing costs you either T2 twist or 6 AP in US.
Everything else, I have no problem with.

Well at least Paladins and Fighters have option to take or not to take those feats to boost PRR and have 5% more HP from EDF(as 1.6 damage multiplier if we speak about Bsword\Daxe which is not needed for tank, unless u plan to generate hate), while bears can not. And id rather spend 2 feats to get extra 30\40 PRR either on my Bear as I would do on Paladin or Fighter since I am going to tank.

Bears are already worse in MRR since that 40 boost is only 50% of the time, and 80+ PRR difference is a huge lost for tank. Add here that AC potential of bear is lower. Paladins do have bigger Mrr potential than bears.

About 6 AP in US: 3 ap from T1 gives you 50% shield AC and 3AP from T2 15 PRR, if u try to max your AC\PRR as a tank you will likely want to spend those 6 APs. And since we speak about tanking - its likely to be US ED anyway, so no need to twist it.

UPD. I forgot about Angel skin spell which add 20 Prr\Mrr to Paladins which makes gap even bigger.

UPD2. Bears also loose potential to get another 20PRR from Improved Combat Experience LD T2, since Combat Experience cant be used while raging. Bringing PRR difference to around 100 PRR

[PsychoBlonde]

Natural fighting is 3 feats, while paladins/fighters have to take 2 shield mastery feats as well as 3 heroic combat style feats for Epic Defensive Stance. Fighters also take armor mastery feats. And that US thing costs you either T2 twist or 6 AP in US.
Everything else, I have no problem with.

Not to mention that a bear tank does WAY more damage and generates threat MUCH more easily than fighters or pallies. My half-baked bear tank can actually HATE tank bosses that can't be intimidated due to the insane threat generation, which most pally and fighter tanks can't do for beans. I mean, I just have a half-assed gear set that I threw together in about 5 minutes and I can still tank multiple Doom Reapers in R10 legendaries no problem.

There are tradeoffs to how you build your character. That's kind of the point of having different builds. Everyone doesn't need to be identical.

[xBunny]

Not to mention that a bear tank does WAY more damage and generates threat MUCH more easily than fighters or pallies.

Glad to see some new responses.
That is interesting. Would you mind share your experience - where does this way more damage and hate comes from?
Assuming pure 20 builds for simplicity. Bears tend to get 35MP from bear +15 attack speed and 10MP from wolf trees +1 crit multi. And 600% melee hate + 50% from Roar spell. Pally tree offers 850% (actually should be 1050% but says its bugged) hate generation 1.6 from THF feats damage multiplier +15% attack speed from Vanguard 31, +1/+1 crit multi and range. Fighters same 1.6 multiplier, 10-15% speed (depending if u spend 11 in kensai for +1 multi) and 830%-930% hate generation. AFAIK Bear form and Shield&Board - both can use twiching fighting. Assuming multiclassing, like 18 or even less - bears lose attack speed, (other loose some hate generation, which multiclassing can bring back). Bears str\con bonuses from hate can be covered by pally\fighter SD tree. Bears rising furry looks good, but imho all this tanking stats like AC\Dodge(armor mastery) is for taking less hits.

[magaiti]

maybe it was sarcasm, idk

[kanordog]

maybe it was sarcasm, idk

Not sure, we got to see if OP will complain that sorcerers are too squishy.
Obviously maulbears are not OP enough.

We need a nuker+healer class that can trap and have evasion in heavy armour and can shoot bolts from their dual repeaters that can strikethrough.

[xBunny]

Not sure, we got to see if OP will complain that sorcerers are too squishy.
Obviously maulbears are not OP enough.

We need a nuker+healer class that can trap and have evasion in heavy armour and can shoot bolts from their dual repeaters that can strikethrough.

Well, most of end game content I see now, are Paladins and Alchemists, so u might be right - maulbears are not OP enough.
Sorcs can be pretty tanky if u build them for that purpose, and they can benefit from shields mastery while bears can not, lol.
When I talk about bear tanking, I find it little bit awkward, that class that need shield for taking perks to work from NP tree, cannot benefit from shield mastery feats and shield perk from only tanking ED in the game. Taking into the account that bears tanks are lagging around 90-100prr from other tanks splits, and for multi classing purposes are tide to T5 NP tree to be able to wear heavy armor and iron shield(duno mby winter set items might change it), so very little room(if any) to balance this taking perks from other classes.
The only reason I can see for this is - bear are not suppose to be real heavy hardcore tanks, and mby that is my issue.

Anyway, thanks for constructive feedback.