Daemonwynd
02-25-2004, 05:46 AM
Original post by Brodda Thep.
With all the recent claims about which class tanks better than some other class, I decided it might be of interest to see exactly how the classes compare to each other when tanking. Most of the testing I did was to compare how the classes tank when using end game equipment. However, in certain cases I did test to see how the classes tanked at a much more attainable AC level.
The tests were done tanking a Valorian Guard in Halls of Honor. Each class would tank the mob for 40-60 minutes at a time. This is about the duration of a LdoN adventure so should have some bearing on the performance of adventures. After having performed these tests, I am not sure what to think about how monks tank. Certainly the tests created a lot more questions than they answered.
The classes that were tested all had max tanking AAs. Each class had virtue as their only buff. Each class was able to keep agro easily, without using any spells that decreased the mobs attack or attacking the mob, while being healed by a cleric. Each class was always facing the mob. The information below only applies to the punches from the Valorian Guard.
CLS - Class
AC - AC with virtue
SHLD - Amount of shielding on items
AVD - Amount of avoidance on items
DB - Damage Bonus of the mob. This is modified by shielding.
DI - Damage interval of the mob. This is modified by warrior innate 5% reduction of the DI.
MIT% - 0% mitigation would be max hits every single time. 100% mitigation would be min hits every single time.
ATKS - Total number of punch attacks
HIT% - Hits that landed divided by total punch attacks
MISS% - Misses divided by hits that landed plus misses not including blocks, parries, dodges, or ripostes
BLK% - Blocks divided by total punch attacks
DDG% - Dodges divided by total punch attacks
PRY% - Parries divided by total punch attacks
RIP% - Ripostes divided by total punch attacks
DMG - Avg damage taken per punch attack, basically AVG * HIT%.
On top of the previous information, the warrior had a 8% riposte mod, monk had a 8% block mod, rogue had a 8% dodge mod. Also, the known magelos are linked to in their class name. Though some have changed since the test.
TABLE
TABLE
CLS AC SHLD AVD DB DI AVG MIT% ATKS HIT% MISS% BLK% DDG% PRY% RIP% | DMG
WAR 2271 15% 0 87 21 223.3 71.1 2573 48.9 42.2 NA 4.2 5.9 5.3 | 109.2
SK 1861 0% 10 102 22.1 268.4 65.6 2951 48.9 44.2 NA 3.5 5.3 3.8 | 131.2
PAL 2066 0% 0 102 22.1 255.1 68.8 3153 51.1 40.4 NA 4.1 5.5 4.7 | 130.4
CLR 1958 2% 0 100 22.1 270.5 64.6 2775 65.7 33.1 NA 1.8 NA NA | 177.7
RNG 1728 2% 10 100 22.1 292.1 59.5 2359 48.5 43.5 NA 4.2 6.0 4.0 | 141.7
ROG 1952 2% 20 100 22.1 302.9 56.9 3121 47.8 43.6 NA 5.4 5.4 4.4 | 144.8
SHM 1859 0% 10 102 22.1 287.2 61.1 2932 63.9 35.0 NA 1.8 NA NA | 183.5
DRU 1565 0% 40 102 22.1 306.1 56.6 2619 61.1 37.7 NA 1.9 NA NA | 187.0
BST 1432 0% 25 102 22.1 320.0 53.3 2119 47.8 41.9 10.2 3.7 NA 4.0 | 153.0
MNK 1854 2% 60 100 22.1 311.0 55.0 3476 41.1 47.2 12.0 5.4 NA 4.7 | 127.8
So if we look at this we see that warrior > monk > Paladin > shadow knight > ranger > rogue > beast > cleric > shaman > druid. Which doesn't seem so bad for us. However, there is certainly more to tanking than just taking damage. And in getting agro monks are severely lacking. Please look at the histograms provided to get a better sense of how each class mitigates. I don't think the mitigation numbers I provided give an accurate picture in the VERY large differences in mitigation across the classes. Also it can clearly be seen that some of the classes I used to test weren't as well equipped as others. I would expect a paladin and shadow knight to easily take less damage than a monk given the appropriate shielding equipment and armor class. This does not mean we make good tanks though. Far from it.
However, with that information I would still expect that monks would take less damage than any other class except warriors, paladins, and shadow knights. Can't really argue with that, or can we?
Now, of course some monks here are going to say that they can't obtain that type of equipment and that it is the non-raiding monk that is really hurting here. So I ran some more tests.
TABLE
CLS AC SHLD AVD DB DI AVG MIT% ATKS HIT% MISS% BLK% DDG% PRY% RIP% | DMG
WAR 2271 15% 0 87 21 223.3 71.1 2573 48.9 42.2 NA 4.2 5.9 5.3 | 109.2
WAR 1380 0% 0 102 21 273.2 64.5 1854 48.1 43.1 NA 4.9 5.9 5.5 | 131.4
MNK 1854 2% 60 100 22.1 311.0 55.0 3476 41.1 47.2 12.0 5.4 NA 4.7 | 127.8
*MNK 1635 2% 60 100 22.1 313.2 54.5 2923 42.0 46.8 11.6 4.9 NA 4.7 | 131.5
MNK 1331 0% 0 102 22.1 317.4 54.0 2550 46.8 42.1 10.4 4.5 NA 4.4 | 148.4
MNK 1063 0% 0 102 22.1 344.4 52.5 2883 46.7 41.0 11.9 4.4 NA 4.6 | 160.8
RNG 1728 2% 10 100 22.1 292.1 59.5 2359 48.5 43.5 NA 4.2 6.0 4.0 | 141.7
RNG 1308 0% 0 102 22.1 316.4 54.2 2026 51.6 40.6 NA 3.6 5.6 4.0 | 163.3
*MNK This is where I took 35000 copper to remove all monk AC bonus and tanked. It removed 219ac from my monk. Was it mitigation AC or avoidance AC or both? No one knows.
As you can see, at 1331 I mitigated nearly the same as at 1854 ac. The change was miniscule. Here is where we see a 'soft cap' on AC. I always thought the softcap would depend solely on the mob you were tanking. I thought you could keep piling on AC unitl you got to a point where the majority of hits were for min and thus you had your diminishing returns. It turns out that soft caps are on a per class basis. No matter how high my ac gets I do not think I could ever mitigate like a 1300ac warrior. Of course, I also bet rogues are susceptible to this mysterious softcap since they mitigate so poorly for having such high ac.
Speaking of warriors. They mitigate damn well. In fact, that 1380ac warrior takes about as much DPS as does the 2066ac pally. But then the pally and shadow knight could still see significant gains in their ability to take damage, so that probably isn't such a big deal.
Looking at the ranger you can see that they get fairly good gains in mitigation from increasing their ac. Something monks don't get.
All of this does show that a non-raiding monk was in fact not hurt nearly as bad by the mitigation nerf as the raiding monk. They mitigate fine. They tank fine. 1331ac WITH virtue is not that hard to achieve. And I would imagine that the monk 'soft cap' is probably below this AC level.
What I really hate about all this is that, I have no idea what AC does anymore. When does it become useless? And for which class? 20ac on my monk certainly doesn't do nearly as much for me as 20ac on a warrior. But go look for AC augs. We get 5ac they get 10ac. What is the point? The nerf has completely eliminated AC as an avenue to progress my character. And I don't see the need for it. At 1300ac I still get hit for max 13% of the time and at 1800ac I get hit for max 12% of the time (compared to 3% for 2200ac warrior or 6% for 1400ac warrior). I should still see gains from getting more ac.
Besides from getting more hp, a monk can only get substantial gains in tanking from 3 items. One is the time tunic, the other is a quarm bracer, and the last are legs that drop from RZ in Time. Sure there is the TZ orb, but can't hardly see myself constantly swapping out my range. And I certainly won't tank using one handers, so shinai is out the window.
Are monks a class meant to take damage? YES. Take a look at the quarm bracers and time BPs. These items have mods on them that make the class that gets them perform better at their job. Chain classes get an accuracy mod on their bracer and tunic, supposedly helping their melee dps. Monks get avoidance mods. Something that is only of value when taking damage from mobs.
I don't see the need for a 'soft cap'. Just making ac worth less on certain classes is more than fine. I should be able to mitigate like a 1380ac warrior even if I have to get 2000ac to do so, but I can't under the current system.
I still think monks should take the same damage as a warrior. We are still crippled by lots of max hits, almost no way to get agro (though keeping it is ok.), and lower hp. But that point is very hard to argue, since many people still see the best tank being the one that takes the least amount of damage. Which is hard to understand with all the hubub that surrounded hybrid agro generation compared to warriors.
Feel free to link this to other class boards if you think they would find it interesting.
Charts
When comparing the charts to each other try to keep in mind the percentage amounts listed over each bar. The bars don't all have the same scale from graph to graph.
Warrior 2271ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/warror%202271.JPG
Warrior 1380ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/warrior%201380.JPG
Shadow Knight 1861ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/shadow%20knight%201861.JPG
Paladin 2066ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/paladin%202066.JPG
Cleric 1958ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/cleric%201958.JPG
Ranger 1728ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/ranger%201728.JPG
Ranger 1308ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/ranger%201308.JPG
Rogue 1952ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/rogue%201952.JPG
Shaman 1859ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/shaman%201859.JPG
Druid 1565ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/druid%201565.JPG
edited- I added in known magelos. I removed the misuse of the word tank as pertaining to the monk class. =P Added in how I thought the monk class should take damage. Added in some histograms.
Edit: Done fixing post, should be 100% error free now. Sorry, but taking a long post with tables and pictures on one kind of board, and transferring it to an incompatible board with tables/pics/etc intact is a bit o work.
Edit: Brutul (fixed your tables)
With all the recent claims about which class tanks better than some other class, I decided it might be of interest to see exactly how the classes compare to each other when tanking. Most of the testing I did was to compare how the classes tank when using end game equipment. However, in certain cases I did test to see how the classes tanked at a much more attainable AC level.
The tests were done tanking a Valorian Guard in Halls of Honor. Each class would tank the mob for 40-60 minutes at a time. This is about the duration of a LdoN adventure so should have some bearing on the performance of adventures. After having performed these tests, I am not sure what to think about how monks tank. Certainly the tests created a lot more questions than they answered.
The classes that were tested all had max tanking AAs. Each class had virtue as their only buff. Each class was able to keep agro easily, without using any spells that decreased the mobs attack or attacking the mob, while being healed by a cleric. Each class was always facing the mob. The information below only applies to the punches from the Valorian Guard.
CLS - Class
AC - AC with virtue
SHLD - Amount of shielding on items
AVD - Amount of avoidance on items
DB - Damage Bonus of the mob. This is modified by shielding.
DI - Damage interval of the mob. This is modified by warrior innate 5% reduction of the DI.
MIT% - 0% mitigation would be max hits every single time. 100% mitigation would be min hits every single time.
ATKS - Total number of punch attacks
HIT% - Hits that landed divided by total punch attacks
MISS% - Misses divided by hits that landed plus misses not including blocks, parries, dodges, or ripostes
BLK% - Blocks divided by total punch attacks
DDG% - Dodges divided by total punch attacks
PRY% - Parries divided by total punch attacks
RIP% - Ripostes divided by total punch attacks
DMG - Avg damage taken per punch attack, basically AVG * HIT%.
On top of the previous information, the warrior had a 8% riposte mod, monk had a 8% block mod, rogue had a 8% dodge mod. Also, the known magelos are linked to in their class name. Though some have changed since the test.
TABLE
TABLE
CLS AC SHLD AVD DB DI AVG MIT% ATKS HIT% MISS% BLK% DDG% PRY% RIP% | DMG
WAR 2271 15% 0 87 21 223.3 71.1 2573 48.9 42.2 NA 4.2 5.9 5.3 | 109.2
SK 1861 0% 10 102 22.1 268.4 65.6 2951 48.9 44.2 NA 3.5 5.3 3.8 | 131.2
PAL 2066 0% 0 102 22.1 255.1 68.8 3153 51.1 40.4 NA 4.1 5.5 4.7 | 130.4
CLR 1958 2% 0 100 22.1 270.5 64.6 2775 65.7 33.1 NA 1.8 NA NA | 177.7
RNG 1728 2% 10 100 22.1 292.1 59.5 2359 48.5 43.5 NA 4.2 6.0 4.0 | 141.7
ROG 1952 2% 20 100 22.1 302.9 56.9 3121 47.8 43.6 NA 5.4 5.4 4.4 | 144.8
SHM 1859 0% 10 102 22.1 287.2 61.1 2932 63.9 35.0 NA 1.8 NA NA | 183.5
DRU 1565 0% 40 102 22.1 306.1 56.6 2619 61.1 37.7 NA 1.9 NA NA | 187.0
BST 1432 0% 25 102 22.1 320.0 53.3 2119 47.8 41.9 10.2 3.7 NA 4.0 | 153.0
MNK 1854 2% 60 100 22.1 311.0 55.0 3476 41.1 47.2 12.0 5.4 NA 4.7 | 127.8
So if we look at this we see that warrior > monk > Paladin > shadow knight > ranger > rogue > beast > cleric > shaman > druid. Which doesn't seem so bad for us. However, there is certainly more to tanking than just taking damage. And in getting agro monks are severely lacking. Please look at the histograms provided to get a better sense of how each class mitigates. I don't think the mitigation numbers I provided give an accurate picture in the VERY large differences in mitigation across the classes. Also it can clearly be seen that some of the classes I used to test weren't as well equipped as others. I would expect a paladin and shadow knight to easily take less damage than a monk given the appropriate shielding equipment and armor class. This does not mean we make good tanks though. Far from it.
However, with that information I would still expect that monks would take less damage than any other class except warriors, paladins, and shadow knights. Can't really argue with that, or can we?
Now, of course some monks here are going to say that they can't obtain that type of equipment and that it is the non-raiding monk that is really hurting here. So I ran some more tests.
TABLE
CLS AC SHLD AVD DB DI AVG MIT% ATKS HIT% MISS% BLK% DDG% PRY% RIP% | DMG
WAR 2271 15% 0 87 21 223.3 71.1 2573 48.9 42.2 NA 4.2 5.9 5.3 | 109.2
WAR 1380 0% 0 102 21 273.2 64.5 1854 48.1 43.1 NA 4.9 5.9 5.5 | 131.4
MNK 1854 2% 60 100 22.1 311.0 55.0 3476 41.1 47.2 12.0 5.4 NA 4.7 | 127.8
*MNK 1635 2% 60 100 22.1 313.2 54.5 2923 42.0 46.8 11.6 4.9 NA 4.7 | 131.5
MNK 1331 0% 0 102 22.1 317.4 54.0 2550 46.8 42.1 10.4 4.5 NA 4.4 | 148.4
MNK 1063 0% 0 102 22.1 344.4 52.5 2883 46.7 41.0 11.9 4.4 NA 4.6 | 160.8
RNG 1728 2% 10 100 22.1 292.1 59.5 2359 48.5 43.5 NA 4.2 6.0 4.0 | 141.7
RNG 1308 0% 0 102 22.1 316.4 54.2 2026 51.6 40.6 NA 3.6 5.6 4.0 | 163.3
*MNK This is where I took 35000 copper to remove all monk AC bonus and tanked. It removed 219ac from my monk. Was it mitigation AC or avoidance AC or both? No one knows.
As you can see, at 1331 I mitigated nearly the same as at 1854 ac. The change was miniscule. Here is where we see a 'soft cap' on AC. I always thought the softcap would depend solely on the mob you were tanking. I thought you could keep piling on AC unitl you got to a point where the majority of hits were for min and thus you had your diminishing returns. It turns out that soft caps are on a per class basis. No matter how high my ac gets I do not think I could ever mitigate like a 1300ac warrior. Of course, I also bet rogues are susceptible to this mysterious softcap since they mitigate so poorly for having such high ac.
Speaking of warriors. They mitigate damn well. In fact, that 1380ac warrior takes about as much DPS as does the 2066ac pally. But then the pally and shadow knight could still see significant gains in their ability to take damage, so that probably isn't such a big deal.
Looking at the ranger you can see that they get fairly good gains in mitigation from increasing their ac. Something monks don't get.
All of this does show that a non-raiding monk was in fact not hurt nearly as bad by the mitigation nerf as the raiding monk. They mitigate fine. They tank fine. 1331ac WITH virtue is not that hard to achieve. And I would imagine that the monk 'soft cap' is probably below this AC level.
What I really hate about all this is that, I have no idea what AC does anymore. When does it become useless? And for which class? 20ac on my monk certainly doesn't do nearly as much for me as 20ac on a warrior. But go look for AC augs. We get 5ac they get 10ac. What is the point? The nerf has completely eliminated AC as an avenue to progress my character. And I don't see the need for it. At 1300ac I still get hit for max 13% of the time and at 1800ac I get hit for max 12% of the time (compared to 3% for 2200ac warrior or 6% for 1400ac warrior). I should still see gains from getting more ac.
Besides from getting more hp, a monk can only get substantial gains in tanking from 3 items. One is the time tunic, the other is a quarm bracer, and the last are legs that drop from RZ in Time. Sure there is the TZ orb, but can't hardly see myself constantly swapping out my range. And I certainly won't tank using one handers, so shinai is out the window.
Are monks a class meant to take damage? YES. Take a look at the quarm bracers and time BPs. These items have mods on them that make the class that gets them perform better at their job. Chain classes get an accuracy mod on their bracer and tunic, supposedly helping their melee dps. Monks get avoidance mods. Something that is only of value when taking damage from mobs.
I don't see the need for a 'soft cap'. Just making ac worth less on certain classes is more than fine. I should be able to mitigate like a 1380ac warrior even if I have to get 2000ac to do so, but I can't under the current system.
I still think monks should take the same damage as a warrior. We are still crippled by lots of max hits, almost no way to get agro (though keeping it is ok.), and lower hp. But that point is very hard to argue, since many people still see the best tank being the one that takes the least amount of damage. Which is hard to understand with all the hubub that surrounded hybrid agro generation compared to warriors.
Feel free to link this to other class boards if you think they would find it interesting.
Charts
When comparing the charts to each other try to keep in mind the percentage amounts listed over each bar. The bars don't all have the same scale from graph to graph.
Warrior 2271ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/warror%202271.JPG
Warrior 1380ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/warrior%201380.JPG
Shadow Knight 1861ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/shadow%20knight%201861.JPG
Paladin 2066ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/paladin%202066.JPG
Cleric 1958ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/cleric%201958.JPG
Ranger 1728ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/ranger%201728.JPG
Ranger 1308ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/ranger%201308.JPG
Rogue 1952ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/rogue%201952.JPG
Shaman 1859ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/shaman%201859.JPG
Druid 1565ac
http://www.grumpsrage.com/parses/druid%201565.JPG
edited- I added in known magelos. I removed the misuse of the word tank as pertaining to the monk class. =P Added in how I thought the monk class should take damage. Added in some histograms.
Edit: Done fixing post, should be 100% error free now. Sorry, but taking a long post with tables and pictures on one kind of board, and transferring it to an incompatible board with tables/pics/etc intact is a bit o work.
Edit: Brutul (fixed your tables)