1.6 Tanking thread - All you need to know

[Sebb]

COMPREHENSIVE TANKING ANALYSIS

Purpose: Break down the different builds possible. If you don't want to read anymore - go spec 38 reaver and laugh at everything in the game. If you have another build you want to put in, let me know. I didn't think up everything.

The testing:
Attacking elite mobs in Shimmer Sand: Wanton Destroyer and Wanton Scortcher. To start, I attacked mobs naked using a 0/0/0 with no buffs up to establish baseline damage done by mobs. All passive buffs were used, but no active buffs were used (empowered strike namely).
• Gear level is full T1 raid gear
• For reaver testing, 3 stacks of wasting were active and 10 stacks of crest mastery.
• No debuffs were used (pacifying strike etc) Warlord Testing was done using Call to Entrench, but without the 5% buff it provides (by clicking off the buff).
• Some warlord magic mitigation is slightly skewed because of the +resistance buff, which will have diminished returns with appropriate raid buffs and a full source core.
• A full earth based block source core was used.
• All magic damage taken was fire damage.
• Void Knight testing is with 10 pacts up.


Live baseline: 51 VK/8PL/7 WL : Physical Mitigation: 76%, Magical Mitigation: 30%, Block chance: 72% w/ aggressive block

**NOTE** ALL #'s are all now theorycrafted. Testing has shown all mitigation to be additive. For all average mitigation values, please see Eaux's sheet HERE

51 Pt Builds

51 VK/15 PL/0WL – Pure Void Knight: LINK
Physical Mitigation: 73.6%; Magic Mitigation: 36.1%; Block 68%
Comments: Comes with lots of tools, easy to keep pacts up. All the usual goodies of 51 vk. The last 7 points are pretty much just for the chance to reset void summon.

51 WL/15PL/0VK – Pure Warlord: Link
Physical Mitigation: 73.5%; Magic Mitigation: 40.1%; Block 68%
Comments: A very fun build. Generals order is good for some laughs, so is killing field, but not in a good way. In general, there is no reason to go beyond 32 if you want to MT anything. Maybe 38 if you want no permission to die.

51 PL/15 WL – Pure Paladin Link
Physical Mitigation: 72.1%; Magic Mitigation: 34.1%; Block 76.51%
Comments: The worst of all 51 point builds. This lacks the mitigation of every other build you can possibly think of. Life’s rapture sharing a cooldown with Touch of Life just adds insult to injury. I’d only ever spec this if LR was changed to a 1 min CD. In latest PTS update, LR now instant heals the paladin, making it an improved version of ToL. The only place I can see this build being useful is a fight that has minimal tank damage but lots of raid damage. Zilas maybe?

51 RV/15 PL/0 VK – The Pure Reaver Link
Physical Mitigation: 76.6%; Magic Mitigation: 42%; Block 73%
Comments: As mentioned above, Paladin beyond 26 is a joke. This brings you Entrench caller and all the VK goodies. A minimal VK build will make pacts a little bit difficult to keep up, so count on alternating between CtE and Pact Conversion. Good all around build that brings lots of VK utility.

26 VK/24 RV/16 WL – The Death tri-brid Link
Physical Mitigation: 80%; Magic Mitigation: 52.1%; Block 51%
Comments: An alternate to the Shielding Hybrid, this build trades the block based benefits for static mitigation. A solid build if you want to spend your APs keeping CtE up.

Niche Builds

21 RB/16WL/29VK – Blink Tank Link
Physical Mitigation: 77.4%; Magic Mitigation: 41.5%; Block 51.5%
Comments: An alternate to my old favorite. You may be able to move points out of VK and then go 22 RV instead of WL, or put points into resistance in WL and still keep Rift summon and 5 pt devour. It’s pretty asinine that this build does better than any 51 build. The changes to surge make aoe threat a lot easier, and the hp boost we get with gifts makes this more viable in a raid.

26 RB/16 WL/24VK – The Warstalker (aka – ROFLIMAROGUETANK) Link
Physical Mitigation: 75.9% Magic Mitigation: 37.2% Block: 51.51
Comments: The new change to rift summon makes this build amazing. This is an awesome aoe off tank build. You simultaneously will get a pull taunt and blink every 4-6 seconds, near unlimited energy, aoe threat from surge/PC, all while providing freeze armor for your warrior DPS. Oh ya, feel free to taunt and eat a nuke using stoneshield. The only downside is you can only put 3 points in devour because of the need to pick up Rift summon.

38RV/20Paragon/8PL - The squid killer Link
Physical Mitigation: 74%; Magical Mitigation; 40.5%; Block - 62%
So you want to go WOTM tank? This is probably the way to go.

38PL/28WL/0VK - The Off Tank Link
Physical Mitigation: 74.3%; Magical Mitigation 38.1%; Block 75%
This spec is awesome to use for off tanking. You put preservation on the MT, and get access to Aid Command.

44 Pt Builds

44 VK/22 WL/0 PL – The VoidLord Link
Physical Mitigation: 75.9%; Magic Mitigation: 39.1%; Block 61.5% Link
Comments: A really nice all around that I’ll probably have come live. You get all the best cooldowns, quality mitigation, and still a decently high block level thanks to 0 PL. Plus, with 22 points in WL you can move points around as you wish between figure head and resistances.

44 PL/22 WL/0 PL –PallyLord Link
Physical Mitigation: 74.3%; Magic Mitigation: 37.1%; Block 75%
Comments: A decently robust build. Impassable guard is a really nice cooldown, and with this build you get a high block level. Preservation is a nice ability. This build will probably be usable in a two tank fight without very heavy magical mitigation where FoF and the rest of the VK tools are nice to have.

44 RV/22 WL/0 PL – The ReaverLord LINK
Physical Mitigation: 79.3%; Magic Mitigation: 53.1%; Block 60%
Comments: If you really want a 1 min cooldown, this blows everything out of the water. It gives you the deep reaver cooldown plus enraged essence and binding of death. Spam blood fever without ever running out of power. Oh, also infestation at 3 points is a nifty little cooldown to rotate in

44 VK/22 RV/0 PL – The Death KnightLink
Physical Mitigation: 76.5%; Magic Mitigation: 46.1%; Block 56%
Comments: This build gives you the best of the cool downs with most of the reaver mitigation goodness. RS keeps your block levels up along with 0 PL. Without having to keep CtE up, you’re going to spam PC all day long.

44 PL/22 RV/0 VK – The DeathadinLink
Physical Mitigation: 74.8%; Magic Mitigation: 44%; Block 70%
Comments: One of the two ways to make 44 PL work. The mitigation is better than the 22 WL estimate with POTM active, but you don’t get the raid benefits of cutting distraction and intercept.

44 RV/16WL/6PL - Cooldown Reaver Link
Physical Mitigation: 79.3%; Magical Mitigation 54.1%; Block 70%
Comments: This build gives you top quality mitigation with high block levels. Cycling SoE and Infestation every minute gives you a lot more average mitigation. Same build as Reaver Lord, but trading some resistance and figure head for a lot more block.

Top Mitigation Builds

38RV/28VK/0PL - Max Mitigation Link
Physical Mitigation 80%. Magic Mitigation: 55.1%; Block 58%
This is going to be top non-block mitigation for anyone in T1 Raid gear. Has some really nice VK utility. No 44 pt cooldown. Once you get to 4 pc of HK gear though, you're going to want to move to the build below.

38RV/16WL/12PL - Top Average Mitigation Link
Physical Mitigation 79.9%; Magic Mitigation 54.1%; Block 70%
Though on paper passive mitigation isn't quite as good, you probably have a lot more average mitigation. Once you have the 4 pc warlord crystal, then this is quite superior. You do give up the utility from VK tree. The 38/20/8 variant is probably a better holistic use of points for raiding. The presence of cutting distraction is a big boost to raid dps.

CONCLUSION

Making a build is simple - put 38 points into reaver, then decide what else you want to do. Try to keep 0 PL for the +10% block.


Closing remarks:
I don't know why they made reaver have so much more mitigation than other classes. Even if you decide to ignore the best mitigation you can get, gimp your raid, and do something else - then you still can put something together that has comparable mitigation to pre 1.6.

[Unicornpower]

I do not understand your power from the masses estimates. How do you gain like 30% mitigation from it on some of your specs?

P.S. it is from the masses, I do not get why everybody calls it POTM

[Stryka]

Where are you putting your wl points in the 44vk/22wl/0pal build mate?

5/5 Dramatic Presence seems pretty good now (Call to Entrench reduces damage by 6%)

Also, I'm trying to incorporate 8 points into Pally somehow for Touch of Life.

[Sebb]

I do not understand your power from the masses estimates. How do you gain like 30% mitigation from it on some of your specs?

P.S. it is from the masses, I do not get why everybody calls it POTM

Based on doing the math around the armor bonus and the seen mitigation without it. if you have 73% mitigation, 60% of that coming from armor bonus, that means you have bonus mitigation of 30%. Add 10% or so to that and you've got algebra.

[Sebb]

Where are you putting your wl points in the 44vk/22wl/0pal build mate?

5/5 Dramatic Presence seems pretty good now (Call to Entrench reduces damage by 6%)

Yes - anything that has at least 16 WL is always with 5 points in dramatic presence.

[Sebb]

Build #7: 26 RB/16 WL/24VK – The Warstalker (aka – ROFLIMAROGUETANK)
Physical Mitigation: 75% Magic Mitigation: 38% ;51% Block
Comments: The new change to rift summon makes this build amazing. This is an awesome aoe off tank build. You simultaneously will get a pull taunt and blink every 4-6 seconds, near unlimited energy, aoe threat from surge/PC, all while providing free armor for your warrior DPS. Oh ya, feel free to taught and eat a nuke using stoneshield. The only downside is you can only put 3 points in devour because of the need to pick up Rift summon.


^^^ fixed typo to show magic mitigation.

[Unicornpower]

So you are assuming everything is additive? Because it definitely is not, unfortunately it is not all multiplicative either.

[Sebb]

No I'm not. Like I said it's just an estimate. I generally put around a 8% addition to the bonus mitigation.

[usman]

Any reason for not testing a Rv/WL/Pal spec? Something like 25/21/20.

[Sebb]

Any reason for not testing a Rv/WL/Pal spec? Something like 25/21/20.

I could and will eventually. I need to test out further how hard it is to keep stacks up with 1/2/3 points in POTM.

The spec I've typically been running on live is 26 PL/21 RV/19 WL. And there doesn't seem to be much reason to go Paladin. It's pretty much 6 for Shield Buff, 20 for UD, or 26 for Shield buff II.

On the other hand, VK goes well with PL because of the Str boost.

[Lande]

Being a big fan of Paladin this makes me very sad.

[usman]

In my experience on PTS 2/5 PftM keeps it up nicely, also wasting away is still bugged and 2/3 gives the full 15s duration.

25 reaver gives full benefit of wasting away, PftM and 3/3 infestation for a nice little CD.

The way I see it, Reaver + WL is a no brainer, then the desision is down to pally or VK for the final soul, my personal feeling is that an extra flat bonus of 20% block and 20% block reduction, with 3% spell damage reduction is more useful than the flat mitigation from VK.

Afterall, the difference between 50% block and 70% block is 40% less unblocked attacks coming at you and 20% less damage on the ones you block.

[ebbrey]

Great writeup so far!

Coupple of q's.

Does any of the 26 VK builds have any points in surge?


Im tempted to go 26 reaver to get Enraged Essence, then being left with 14 points to spend in WL, since that wont give me Entrech, would you reccomend using those 14 in Paladin instead for Block+shield?

[Stryka]

Great writeup so far!
Im tempted to go 26 reaver to get Enraged Essence.

I was looking at that too, possibly something like 26Re/24Vk/16Wl.

[Rygrath]

And this right here pretty much solidly confirms what Euax, Sebb, Pro and others have been trying to say over and over. All these changes have done is created a new "Top Dog" mitigation spec. It's gone from 51VK to Hybrid. What do you think the raiding tanks are going to do? Go with the highest mitigation they can get from talents and call it a day.

Sure, there is more flexibility in 5mans, you can pretty much spec however you want for those after the great LFD nerf to the dungeons. In a raid however, where you want to be the best you can be, you are going with the spec that gives you the best chances at survival. So, these "foundation" changes that have been done haven't really done much, but create a new spec everyone will be using. What's the point then?

Atrius, I do hope you are taking a closer look at Euax's proposal in this thread.
http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-gene...ing-souls.html

Sure, it's not 100% and could use a little more refinement. Honestly, his idea of how the tanking souls behave sounds a lot more fun to play than what we are going to be getting. Choices, flavors, interesting abilities, cool downs, etc. These make for fun game play. We shouldn't be having to play "what's the best spec" game, that gets a bit old. I'd rather the tank souls be equalized in mitigation, and have the fun and flavor be in talents you pick.

From experience with past patches and PTS however. It seems this is just how it's going to be come live, since there is a dead line that can't be extended and most of the "foundation changes" are done. From the looks of things, no raiding tank will be going 51pts anything (especially paladin). No raiding tank will be going high Paladin. Warlord will just be used to pick up the calls we are already using. Reaver is going to be the core of the tank builds.

I don't mean to belittle any of the devs work, since I understand this is insanely complex to balance in PvE, PvP, levels etc. There just seems to be some core issues that you guys seem to keep coming up against. All we see mostly is a jumbling of numbers bouncing around each patch and a new tank spec is revealed until the next patch after.

Again, I personally would like Euax's ideas to have a closer look at. They (so far) seem to be the best and creative ideas I've seen yet on how to really fix this mitigation through talents mess and give you more options to create fun ideas and mechanics. Bunch of work and coding? Yes. Would it pay off long term? Most likely. At this rate, we really won't be seeing much more done until patch 1.8 or 1.9, since 1.7 seems to be the "we're looking at pvp" patch.

Just to finish this wall o' text. Thank you guys like Sebb, Pro, Eaux and others that really take the time to do all this testing and posting your results. I'm sure you do it because you enjoy doing so, but it really is appreciated by many of us that lack the time to compressively do what you all do. I'd buy you all a round if I could. Let's just hope Atrius and his team see this and realize there needs to be more done.