(Rogue Tanking Question) 51 points for Rift Guard, or Avoidance?

[wildwolfay2]

I understand that improved rift guard improves ur absorption, when it comes up, but do I wanna move my 33 points from bladedancer and Bard (which gives improved false blade, contra blade for quick CP's, bard buffs, dex bonus to avoidance and combaqt culmination for trash) for some extra absorption from Rift guard???


I would have to move over 18 points, which means 9% more absorption, and 90% more absorption (which doesn't seem to be a factor, since I have never had Rift guard fall off before the 30 seconds due to damage intake).



with the points in blade dancer I have a much easier time holding aggro on aoe mobs and bosses, but am I eating too much damage without the improved riftguard? or is that 1-10 dodges more than that wih simple mitigation?

[HalfMind]

I think at the moment its a matter of preference without a large enough set of data to support one way or another. Personally I prefer the straight mitigation paired with Ranger, avoidance tanking can cause spiky damage while straight damage reduction will be more consistent.

My spec is http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...EItIuqdRkkR.xh


I could be very wrong, I know there's one or two major RS tanking threads floating around. I'd take a glance at those if I were you.

[wildwolfay2]

Good point with the comparison to spiky-ness and static damage, granted u may dodge more, but the healer is still gonna be spammin u cuz the other 70% of the time ur not dodging :/.


I'll try a 51 point build but idk bout the other 2 souls, thanks tho.

[Fasc]

Going sub 51-RS is likely going to be more detrimental than not for progression content, at least until we get more concrete information laid out with gear and everything else. The issue is the more and more you take out of RS the lower your Health and your Damage Reduction, hence your EH drops more and more. Some attacks in the Experts are pretty punishing and if your EH is too low, you go splat rather than barely living.

That being said, Avoidance can do more for you in terms of reducing overall damage taken than raw damage reduction, but that's highly dependent upon your current gear and the encounter you're up against. Avoidance gains are moot though if you can't survive a worst case scenario.

Stick with 51 RS and go 8/7 with either BD, Bard, or Ranger. Personal choice really on the last three by my pref is 8 with the BD and 7 with one of the others (still coin tossing on those two.) At the worst you'll take more damage from lacking Dodge but you'll be able to survive whatever comes your way.

I would not recommend going 22-26 deep into BD for anything bleeding edge/difficult unless you are damn sure you aren't going to keel over to a burst on whatever content you're doing. You shouldn't need that deep into BD to hold aggro at all, and the other goodies like the spell interrupt and such can be provided by group members if need be. At the same time I fully plan on having a BD spec handy for when I know I can use it safely. I might even have a more extreme one as well for even heavier Avoidance and DPS while Tanking, but that one will be so low on the EH department that I doubt I'd see myself using it on anything I didn't outgear.

[wildwolfay2]

I just gotta have atleast 15 in blade dancer tho, the dodge bonus from having false blade, the 15% dex, the weapon barrage for an interupt, the combat pose dex bonus for more dodge... idk even with the spikey damage, thats a LOT of dodge to give up for for 400 life (yes, 400, i respecced using ur, using bout 3 other combos) and 2% damage reduction, :/


as far as the rift guard stack up, bleh, that seems like meh to me. with blade dancer i can hold aoe aggro 10x's easier, with the aoe taunt, compound attack, rift disruption, aoe tanking is a breeze. and sidesteps, omg, cooldown necesity. Even if not in an emergency, which do open alot, just popping it through a fight can give everyone a much needed break (if u communicate it). twin blades for aoe aggro...


idk how people live without bladedancer, how do you people hold AOE aggro??? do you???

[wildwolfay2]

Going sub 51-RS is likely going to be more detrimental than not for progression content, at least until we get more concrete information laid out with gear and everything else. The issue is the more and more you take out of RS the lower your Health and your Damage Reduction, hence your EH drops more and more. Some attacks in the Experts are pretty punishing and if your EH is too low, you go splat rather than barely living.

That being said, Avoidance can do more for you in terms of reducing overall damage taken than raw damage reduction, but that's highly dependent upon your current gear and the encounter you're up against. Avoidance gains are moot though if you can't survive a worst case scenario.

Stick with 51 RS and go 8/7 with either BD, Bard, or Ranger. Personal choice really on the last three by my pref is 8 with the BD and 7 with one of the others (still coin tossing on those two.) At the worst you'll take more damage from lacking Dodge but you'll be able to survive whatever comes your way.

I would not recommend going 22-26 deep into BD for anything bleeding edge/difficult unless you are damn sure you aren't going to keel over to a burst on whatever content you're doing. You shouldn't need that deep into BD to hold aggro at all, and the other goodies like the spell interrupt and such can be provided by group members if need be. At the same time I fully plan on having a BD spec handy for when I know I can use it safely. I might even have a more extreme one as well for even heavier Avoidance and DPS while Tanking, but that one will be so low on the EH department that I doubt I'd see myself using it on anything I didn't outgear.

Yeah I agree, I was too far into the BD tree, that's why I've reduced it to 15 for the bonus to DEX for the extra dodge and to make sure i got high enough for weapon barrage. I currently have 91 toughness and just do tier 1 experts (since the only way to get past this much toughness at my point is to collect plaques, F you loot tables and trion!!!!!) but rarely do i just explode. I need 2 heals to solo tank 3 kings in IT but the rest is not an issue. similar with hunter seldon or w/e in KB, np 1 healing and surviving with little to no support classes. Im interested to try this with 44 points in rift (11 more, so more reduction and health) in exchange for a little dodge. but 51 just seems overkill, the 3 second immunity for 8+ soul points? meh, so much more out there. as far as third soul, bard is taking it right now because i rarely have them in my groups so i need the armor boost and when im all buffed up i can take the 25 energy to buff my party with a motif or 2 (in this spec only 1 motif).




Seems like the Rift guard improvement to 51 is over-populared to me



SPEC----http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...ItIuazokoM.xoz

[Silverblabe]

Do you guys think a 44rift /22BD could be viable in expert ?

something like that :

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...ozoM.v0dVh000M


So we're missing a lot of endu from improved guardian phase, and some mitigation from improved rift guard, but we gain a lot of parrying / dodging thanks to combat culmination (+3% in everything that's interesting for a tank beside endu),+6% parry from improved false blade, +15% dext so more dodge here.


I didn't try tanking as a rogue, so don't jump on me, I'm just curious as I've seen some very impressive tanking Riftstalkers.


Oh and BTW, someone knows how does parry and dodge fit together ? I mean, is it additive (as they basically do the same thing, aka 100%mitigation from physical attacks).

For example if I have 25% dodge chance and 25% parry, is it a whole 50% chance of mitigation ? I plain suck at maths ^_^

[del'Vhar]

Oh and BTW, someone knows how does parry and dodge fit together ? I mean, is it additive (as they basically do the same thing, aka 100%mitigation from physical attacks).

For example if I have 25% dodge chance and 25% parry, is it a whole 50% chance of mitigation ? I plain suck at maths ^_^

My guess would be two rolls rather than 1.
so:

Incoming Attack:
Check Dodge
--75% of attacks get through this roll
Check Parry
--75% of the 75% get through this roll.

So in 100 attacks:
25 are dodged, 75 are not.
Of those 75, 18.75 will then be parried, resulting in 56.25 attacks getting through.

Assuming my math is correct (no guarantees there, been a long time sine I did any real math):
25% dodge and 25% parry equal 43.75% mitigation.

[Silverblabe]

My guess would be two rolls rather than 1.
so:

Incoming Attack:
Check Dodge
--75% of attacks get through this roll
Check Parry
--75% of the 75% get through this roll.

So in 100 attacks:
25 are dodged, 75 are not.
Of those 75, 18.75 will then be parried, resulting in 56.25 attacks getting through.

Assuming my math is correct (no guarantees there, been a long time sine I did any real math):
25% dodge and 25% parry equal 43.75% mitigation.

Yep sounds better this way ^^ thanks

[Acro]

Figured I'd post my tanking build, and I don't believe 51 points into Riftstalker would benefit as much as spreading them out.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...cthuqdokkR.x0z

The bard and bladedancer trees really compliment the Riftstalker build.

For having 6 points into bard, you gain 10% more HP, Anthem of Glory (500~ armor) and Anthem of Vigor (52endurance). These are some really beefy returns for your points, and even if you have a full bard, you can stack up on Anthems and Fanfares, have them play the str/dex buff and the ability cost reduction skills. They're great to have.

For having 22 into Bladedancer, I could possibly do with less, but you gain 5% dodge, 100% counterattack rate on dodging which yields more aggro with the 140% base hate we gain. The Energy return and parry/dodge rate gained for combo points goes well with Rift Scavenger, making it all the more worthwhile to not use finishers when you don't need to, and Improved False Blade even further buffs your evasion abilities (6% dodge and parry).

I may give up Defer Death and get the Contra Tempo abilities as well to help with combo point building, but reprisal has really taking off a lot of the strain there as I'm trying to have False Blade, Rift Guard and Guarded Steel running at all times.

[Acro]

Bah, can't edit. To compare...Rift guard at 51 has a 35% mitigation. For my build, at 38 into Riftstalker I gain 28.5, lets say flat 28.

I don't feel I really need to get into math here, we can easily just estimate because the difference feels pretty vast as it is. 6 points into bards yields 10% more hp, armor and endurance. This'll improve rift guard's "%hp" bonus of course all the whole.

The rest I've spent into Bladedancer give me a constant 11% dodge and 6% parry rate, in addition to various survival tools (runspeed, dex for more increases to dodge, strikeback to help with aggro, reprisal for easier combo point generation to offset the need of having False Blade on all the time, and the 3% parry/dodge from un-used combo points). Also, Weapon Barrage - great for bringing casters in. Its the only silence we have easy access too.

[Dasorine]

Figured I'd post my tanking build, and I don't believe 51 points into Riftstalker would benefit as much as spreading them out.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...cthuqdokkR.x0z

The bard and bladedancer trees really compliment the Riftstalker build.

For having 6 points into bard, you gain 10% more HP, Anthem of Glory (500~ armor) and Anthem of Vigor (52endurance). These are some really beefy returns for your points, and even if you have a full bard, you can stack up on Anthems and Fanfares, have them play the str/dex buff and the ability cost reduction skills. They're great to have.

For having 22 into Bladedancer, I could possibly do with less, but you gain 5% dodge, 100% counterattack rate on dodging which yields more aggro with the 140% base hate we gain. The Energy return and parry/dodge rate gained for combo points goes well with Rift Scavenger, making it all the more worthwhile to not use finishers when you don't need to, and Improved False Blade even further buffs your evasion abilities (6% dodge and parry).

I may give up Defer Death and get the Contra Tempo abilities as well to help with combo point building, but reprisal has really taking off a lot of the strain there as I'm trying to have False Blade, Rift Guard and Guarded Steel running at all times.

Issue with your bard stuff is you'll generally be wanting a dedicated bard in teams anyway and also health is no where near important as mitigation, so many people run builds with empty hp (hp just there to be filled up again depleting your healers mana supply)

In most cases energy also will not be an issue (chloro/bard will prevent any real energy issues as a tank).

Improved false blade may be worthwhile mind, but personally Im sticking with 51rs/15bd

[Vandrin]

just thought i would throw my tank spec out there
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...IzqdR0oM.xhk0m

I'm only currently lvl 45 and there's barely any bards that do dungeons, (they seem to all swap to full dps when joining a group) and that's why i go 14 into bard for the armor buff. Its been working nicely for me so far, I'm only 38 into rift stalker atm with only missing the 15% crit, 15% move speed and 40% more damage on shadow assault. I don't loose aggro unless i miss a target in my shadow blitz and rift disturbance opener in which case i just taunt it and go on. If i do start losing agro when i get up to t2 dungeons then i guess ill have to swap but until then this spec seems to be effective, not the best but it does the job long enough.

One problem i do have is the first 10 seconds of a fight, without the 40% armor, 6% mitigation from phantom blow and 28.5% mitigation from rift guard. Anyone know if its worth the 4 points in rift barrier mixed with rift guard to survive the start? or am I better off just popping a CD at the start if need be?

[U₪ʭ҉¥ _Ħ]

Works like a charm in experts for me:
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...oz.EItIuqzRkkM

Thought i did use a 50/16 RiftDancer distribution at the start. As the gear get's better you can drop off a few % Endurance-bonus and Shield-absorb for awesome more threat building and 5%Crit Chance Raid Buff

The Infiltrator cc breaker works nice too. (Fear)

[Kernschatten]

Does blade tempo really help that much versus 1 more point in turn the tide? Haven't hit 50 yet, so may be underestimating average dodge/parry %s.

10% damage up I would imagine at least 80% of the time
versus 30% 12.5% of the time (assuming constant cooldown and combat)