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Toughness, PvE and Tanks

In this section, you will find some advices and basics to start quietly ingame. Question like " I'm lvl 1, what shall i do?", "What class shall i pick?", will find some answers in this place.
arorwne
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Toughness, PvE and Tanks

Post#1 » Mon Apr 05, 2021 10:53 pm

I was trying to level my Knight earlier and I noticed that everything's hitting me entirely too hard. I always thought: "hey, that's what Stand Strong is for, it combined with Perseverance and Press The Attack will make enemy attacks very manageable". But it isn't actually like that, Stand Strong's mostly used there to buff your damage(and it's good at that, especially for a Shield playstyle). And here are some of my questions:

1. Why is Toughness so useless in PvE? Could it be made more useful, at least for Tanks or something? Because, unlike IBs(huge brute force approach, actually very efficient) or SMs(super good if you have a vision of what it is you're trying to do ; in PvE it easily outdoes any other tank), you're lacking on sustain tools. Why not make Toughness that sustain tool? How does Tough even work? Only on abilities or something? If so, it'd be nice if it interacted somehow with PvE Mob autoattacks.

2. Concerning Block, why is it so low? My Block is 4%, what is this? I know it works vs everything, but sub 5%, really? Is it a tooltip bug or ... ? Wasn't block in normal ranges on live(15-20% base value pre any sort of buff like Shield Rush)?

3. Resists, they are mostly useless outside of PvP, why? Didn't mobs use special abilities, abilities which caused "special" damage(like Corporeal etc) on live, what happened to those?

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tazdingo
Posts: 1199

Re: Toughness, PvE and Tanks

Post#2 » Tue Apr 06, 2021 12:55 am

using a reflect build with the dmg aura to just farm groups of low lvl enemies is way more effective than fighting single stronger enemies when lvling a tank, which it sounds like you're doing if they're doing any dmg to you. toughness is best for nullifying lots of little hits. it can turn 10 x 50 dmg hits into 10 dmg, but doesn't really help much against a single 500 dmg hit. it's flak immunity for front line tanks, not anti spike

use getstats for block but yes it's very hard to raise. unless you stack renown or tactics then strikethrough and debuffs are likely to switch off block entirely. every point you do get into the green is king though as % block is % flat dmg reduction if you're facing the right way.

arorwne
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Re: Toughness, PvE and Tanks

Post#3 » Tue Apr 06, 2021 8:22 am

tazdingo wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 12:55 am using a reflect build with the dmg aura to just farm groups of low lvl enemies is way more effective than fighting single stronger enemies when lvling a tank, which it sounds like you're doing if they're doing any dmg to you. toughness is best for nullifying lots of little hits. it can turn 10 x 50 dmg hits into 10 dmg, but doesn't really help much against a single 500 dmg hit. it's flak immunity for front line tanks, not anti spike

use getstats for block but yes it's very hard to raise. unless you stack renown or tactics then strikethrough and debuffs are likely to switch off block entirely. every point you do get into the green is king though as % block is % flat dmg reduction if you're facing the right way.
The problem is that you get AoA kinda too late. At level 25, you either don't care about efficiency anymore and like your class or you have rerolled, simple as that. Now, if AoA came earlier...we could talk(AoA+OYG+BB...).

Does Toughness even work in PvE? I mean, as a dmg redux tool.

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Wiede
Posts: 302

Re: Toughness, PvE and Tanks

Post#4 » Tue Apr 06, 2021 8:26 am

1) Afaik the toughness calculation in PvE works exactly like the calculation in PvP.
It's just that PvE mobs have base damage or extra damage that isn't calculated in the toughness damage reduction.

Example:
PvE-Boss hits you with 1100 strength, you reduce that by 900 strength through your 900 toughness. So that boss ist hitting you with 200 Strength that is 200 extra damage for a 1x multiplier ability.
The base damage of the ability though is 12000. Base damage doesn't get reduced through toughness as it only works vs. enemy stats. So in this example you get hit for 12200 damage with 900 toughness instead of 13100 damage (0 toughness).

It's the same calculation as in PvP. It's just that the base (or extra?) damage of PvE-Mobs is far higher than the base of player abilities.
See here:
Hargrim wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 10:48 am I will add that there are the same calculations done for PvE and PvP combat and all stats should behave in similar way.

Bosses with huge stat bonuses get relevent * power stat after reaching main stat soft cap.
What afaik works in PvE: Armour and it's %reduction.

2) First: Use getstats to see your exact stats. Second: block is a pretty good mitigation tool, don't get fooled by low numbers. KOTBS isn't that well known for high base block numbers (e.g. BO and IB 10% block tactic or BG 10% block@full hate tactic) but can reach pretty good numbers through gear too. Afaik block get's calculated before parry/dodge/disrupt. Together with your base mitigation through resists and armor it reduces damage taken greatly despite low %numbers.
Ramasee wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 6:09 pm Block is checked first, parry/dodge/disrupt is checked second. In general this only matters if you have an ability that is triggered by ONLY block or ONLY parry/dodge/disrupt.

So in your above example you have a 30% chance to block, 70% chance to not block. Now 70% of the time you do not block, you will parry 24% of those attacks. So you have a 30% chance to block, a 16.8% chance to parry, and a 53.2% chance to be hit.
3. Afaik there are some magic damage abilities in dungeons but not sure about it. E.g. I think the Hydra in Sacellum deals heavy fire damage that can be reduced greatly by resist buffs. At least it feels like that :D

arorwne
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Re: Toughness, PvE and Tanks

Post#5 » Tue Apr 06, 2021 11:09 am

Wiede wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 8:26 am 1) Afaik the toughness calculation in PvE works exactly like the calculation in PvP.
It's just that PvE mobs have base damage or extra damage that isn't calculated in the toughness damage reduction.

Example:
PvE-Boss hits you with 1100 strength, you reduce that by 900 strength through your 900 toughness. So that boss ist hitting you with 200 Strength that is 200 extra damage for a 1x multiplier ability.
The base damage of the ability though is 12000. Base damage doesn't get reduced through toughness as it only works vs. enemy stats. So in this example you get hit for 12200 damage with 900 toughness instead of 13100 damage (0 toughness).

It's the same calculation as in PvP. It's just that the base (or extra?) damage of PvE-Mobs is far higher than the base of player abilities.
See here:
Hargrim wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 10:48 am I will add that there are the same calculations done for PvE and PvP combat and all stats should behave in similar way.

Bosses with huge stat bonuses get relevent * power stat after reaching main stat soft cap.
What afaik works in PvE: Armour and it's %reduction.

2) First: Use getstats to see your exact stats. Second: block is a pretty good mitigation tool, don't get fooled by low numbers. KOTBS isn't that well known for high base block numbers (e.g. BO and IB 10% block tactic or BG 10% block@full hate tactic) but can reach pretty good numbers through gear too. Afaik block get's calculated before parry/dodge/disrupt. Together with your base mitigation through resists and armor it reduces damage taken greatly despite low %numbers.
Ramasee wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 6:09 pm Block is checked first, parry/dodge/disrupt is checked second. In general this only matters if you have an ability that is triggered by ONLY block or ONLY parry/dodge/disrupt.

So in your above example you have a 30% chance to block, 70% chance to not block. Now 70% of the time you do not block, you will parry 24% of those attacks. So you have a 30% chance to block, a 16.8% chance to parry, and a 53.2% chance to be hit.
3. Afaik there are some magic damage abilities in dungeons but not sure about it. E.g. I think the Hydra in Sacellum deals heavy fire damage that can be reduced greatly by resist buffs. At least it feels like that :D
Thank you.

1. Yes, it is quite useless. For general leveling, it's far better to just debuff their STR, stack Armor and general heal / bubble procs(SM is a master of this), while for Group PvE, it's far more beneficial to stack Initiative than Toughness. Which sucks for a Knight, it really does. But Knight is a group class, what do I know? It's cool, it's a KNIGHT, but the gameplay and efficiency is generally lacking for me. Maybe if I was running in a 6man nonstop, it'd be better, but I am not, so he is not. My problem right now is what to choose from the Empire(with BW and Knight out of the picture). I like WH better(it's just more fun), but WP is a machine, that thing can do ridiculous feats.

2. Yes, yes, once you use RR Talents to stack a bit of Parry and Block, use Shield Rush(or BG tactics) to raise it by further 10-15%(let's say 15%), the numbers aren't going to be bad, far from it. You'll have some 25-ish % to Parry, some 30-ish % to Block, it's actually quite good. It's just that the base value flanked me.

3. Well...yeah. I wish it were more useful, but meh.

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Earthcake
Posts: 251

Re: Toughness, PvE and Tanks

Post#6 » Tue Apr 06, 2021 12:08 pm

2. NEVER use a shield in T1 and for most of T2-3.
You "gain" far more life by killing faster so you are getting hit less, than praying for a 5% block to actually happen.
Once you have access to better shields, +block gear and got some renown to spend in block chance, then you can start using a shield.

arorwne
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Posts: 235

Re: Toughness, PvE and Tanks

Post#7 » Tue Apr 06, 2021 3:16 pm

Earthcake wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 12:08 pm 2. NEVER use a shield in T1 and for most of T2-3.
You "gain" far more life by killing faster so you are getting hit less, than praying for a 5% block to actually happen.
Once you have access to better shields, +block gear and got some renown to spend in block chance, then you can start using a shield.
Depends. For groups, it's ok. Also, depends on a class. Knight and Black Ork are fair enough with a Shield even early on. BO is just a massive blockade when using a Shield and Knight...Knight is actually the optimal choice if one wants to use a Shield. Not only because of a Shield Rush, but also because of Auras. First 3 are optimal for most of RvR and you can safely use PTA / SS with OYG and BB + Vic.Slash to safely PvE(quite nice passive aggressive playstyle that's still quite efficient - your weapon / aa dps also isn't that low due to pta buffing your STR and SS debuffing enemy Toughness) and you've got quite some nice things for RvR. Everyone else just feels meh while using a shield below, idk, rank 30 or something. There just isn't a valid reason to use it(5-10% Block...lol + meh). Especially Swordmaster, absolutely no reason to use it on that one.

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tazdingo
Posts: 1199

Re: Toughness, PvE and Tanks

Post#8 » Tue Apr 06, 2021 4:16 pm

i thought the main point of a shield was htl. pierce defenses & strikethrough must mitigate the modest levels of block that can ever be achieved

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