Recommended leveling AA progression for tanks.

[Angyish]

i've been getting tells lately from some of the lesser AA's hybrids and war's in the guild asking me which defensive AA's to do or which AA's to get.

Personally i think i got my AA in a dumbass order but i got them in the end so $$.

i recomend Combat stability first get it to level 3. 10% mitigation owns.
Then go for Combat agility to level 3.
Skip ND for now.
Get ID 5 next becuase mitigation > all
then LR 5 becuase dodging is teh own.
then do your ND AA's
finally get your Physical enhancement AA.
and if your a war get weapon affinity, since alot of our wars rely on procs for agro. well everyone should get this to help DPS but war's its more important for.
then if you've got levels get the omens of war defnsive AA.

also don't waste your AA"s on stats items will max your stats soon enough, we probably won't be EP before their maxed. wis and int casters shouldn't listen to this, but i mean getting sta or dex is just kinda dumb. becuase items will max them in time. maybe the AA that increases the caps.

and imo its smarter to get these AA's before heading to 70, stop at 65, get them then keep going. there isn't that much extra hp to be gained from leveling and your mitigation from defensive skill doesn't go much better. AA at 65 in WoS will own AA at 70. also you might get less groups but believe me people will remeber a tank who can't handle tanking somewhere and you won't be getting invites for awhile.

just thought i'd give out a little info since i know people are progressing through AA's. i know people really want to customize their toons, but if you really want to help a raid, these AA's are a must have =).

[Vikk]

window's posts on shadowknight.org are as close to gospel as you can get. he claims to have parses to back up his rankings.

http://www.shadowknight.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23886

in almost all cases, levels > AAs in terms of power gain (new spells, etc.) but that would be really boring. mix it up and get some fun AAs too, like horsey.

[Conan]

Vikk,

Pretty cool link I printed it and will be looking for one geared a little more specifically towards Warriors i.e. minus spell aa's but it looks pretty right on.

[Angyish]

if you want to help your guild as a raiding tank or TM, take the AA's i posted up there, the thing that vikk posted, well that guys a dumbass. ID and LR are what lets me solo tank PoValor. when i first got my ID's i was still dinking around in the VT shard zones, and between id 1 and id5 i noticed one thing, in AR with less then 5.5k hp unbuffed and virtue as my only HP buff my necro partner and i could dou with him using shadowbond to keep me up. before ID i could not solo AR, after i could plow through at leaste 2 mobs at a time without a problem.

don't worry about your dps, worry about your ability to stay alive and keep agro. dps is for the rouges rangers and uilea's

i choose not too becuase there are other better sources of solo xp.

[bill]

This comes up all the time. Here's my 2 zhents:

ND > All. When an AE hits (cuz AE's on raids are not common hehe) ND is the only thing that will save you. ID won't. LR won't.

As for dodging and mitigation, the warrior forums paint a different pic. I came from there with the impression that ID is very barely noticable.

I have finished LR but am now going to get Origin (75% of an AA away$) and then finish off Weapon Affinity 4 & 5. From there I'm not sure hehe.

[Jahras]

When looking at CA/LR also keep in mind that a mob's proc (true procs, not a times ability like emp's DD) wont go off unless he lands a melee hit. It's very noticable on mobs with chaos claws.

And I agree way, I parsed my mitigation before and after ID5, and there was almost no difference at all. Somewhere it was posted by a SOE corespondant on the beastlord boards that ID does not actually alter mitigation on its own, but just raises the AC soft cap. And thereby showing up as working great for people in high end gear, but doing nearly nothing for someone geared like me.

[Vikk]

This thread might be more applicable to warriors:

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=10801

I couldn't find a good ranking guide on Steel Warrior even though they are known to be extremely meticulous with their parses (to the point of making shadowknight.org look like a bunch of hacks)

[Angyish]

skipping ID is a BAD idea. i mean you can go without it if you want, but um, i'm 90% sure i'll mitigate damage better then you. i mean 5% off of a hit for 1000 is 50, but war's with fulldefensive should be mitigating about 20% or more maybye 25. i really don't think the guy who posted that ID is 1% is right.

okay but lets take it and say war's with full non oow defensive AA's which i hear are fucking awsome. okay so a mob quads you for 1k, welcome to VT and oow and just about everythign else. lets assume that that 1 k isn't full defensive. there for take off 20% off every hit. now its down to 800 for every hit. so um thats 800 hp you just saved your ass.

i don't know about the other tanks in the guild...(well actually i do) but i don't have 800 hp that i can casually throw around like that, and aside from higgilx which really wasn't the case on a RD hit. i saw DI fire when he was at 1%. and well he went back down in hp before the next cheal landed so um yeah.

now obviously this is a war without a vie buff and without defensive disc in use. i mean with that then you can fuck around a bit more. but lets say we engage mob and the fight lasts past defensive disc, which most fights will now. well we're going to wtb every tiny bit of mitigation you can get. and i've noticed war's with full defensive own ones without it.

i know i'm writing a damn novel, but its becuase it should be hashed to death.

AE's waystin has a point yeah with AE's the only thing thats gonna help you is ND, or i suppose resist point AA's. but what about AE rampage Mobs, we have a bunch of those in the future and one right now who we still haven't been able to add to farm list, remeber how inny rapes us? its not becuase he's high dps or a belly caster. its the AE rampage and that the healers can't really keep up becuase most peopel don't mitigate enough in order to stay in and fight. and alot don't know how to joust.

so waystin is right ND is teh win against AE's but resists are easier to get with gear. mitigation, well i'm still waiting for that improved mitigation aug to drop.

[bill]

i've noticed war's with full defensive own ones without it.

Did you note the gear on the warrior with more aa's than the one with less AA's? We could go back and forth for a while on this so I'll leave it at that.

[ForsakerTrull]

Personally what I would recommend for most of our tanks is once 65 start putting a portion of xp into aa but still continue to to grind out for 70.
Reason's being:
-from 65-70 (maxed sta) gained from 100-125 hps per lvl
-stats lvl raised each lvl so raid buffed maxes to higher stat lvl
- skills went up such as, defense,offense,1hs,2hs etc
aa's I would recommend as a raid tank
natural durability
physical enhancement
planar durability
1 point at least into combat agility and stability to take avantage of the physical enhancement aa.
From there put the aa's into whatever you want but recommended would be finish out the avoidance aa's first then mitigation.

LvL + hps > all , everything else is just gravy.


Trull

[Lemme]

I dont see any point in splitting between reg and aa exp. Just going to take you longer to get something that helps. Go 100% which ever way you decide.
PE is the best bang for you buck, get it asap. That is if you have atleast one level of CA, CS and ND.
HPs might mean less to SKs vs Wars because we can self medicate to offset AEs.
I have read the CS/ID really only helps if you have high AC issue. Hopefully I have high enough AC.
Lemme

[Bilnick]

I dont see any point in splitting between reg and aa exp. Just going to take you longer to get something that helps. Go 100% which ever way you decide.

I totally agree with that, I never understood why people split reg and AA exp, except maybe 10% into reg exp when working AA's to account for deaths etc.

As far as AA progression..get em all, they all help. I have my archtype defensive AA's done now and after I get a level will probably work either LR 1-5 or maybe Slay Undead (for fun).

[bill]

I'm one of those freakish 50%/50% ppl. On both Drannor and Waystin.

Hey...maybe that's part of the reason Waystin is still 67 heh.

[Vikk]

level level level!!

there is a level component to all checks, including resists and hits. remember those old AD&D d20 charts? EQ has them too, except they are really big and all squished inside your computer.

[Slid]

My 2cents for warriors:

Level... dont even worry about aa. I mean I would get maybe your generals out of the way, but level is going to make you tank better than obtaining mitigation/avoidance aa's. When something is red, its gunna smack the crap out of you, reguardless of your aa's. If its blue, its going to have alot harder time hitting you, especially for max. Level is always greater than AA's, once your 70 AA's come easy. You will get groups for better xp area's than at 65.

What I would get and order?
If you want to tank raids, I would get these:

Run3
Regen3
CS3
CA3
ND3
PE
AET
Planar Power
Planar Durability
ID5
LR5
Ambi
Sturdiness5
WA5
DI5
RM5

Then its personal preference on offense abilities and there are other abilities besides those mentioned that will make you a even better tank (delayed death, etc), but if you get the AA listed above you would be stout. Anyways, my 2 cents. This is a old and very debated subject, my opinion is level is always greater than AA's.