Thread: Single target tanking and EoB?

It has been a long while since I posted in these forums, I retired my 65 Waden shortly before F2P went live and as you see from my sig, I am still level 65 (even though I jumped on the warden this weekend... running in 5R and capstone, my DPS per combat analysis was averaging about 150, which made me really sadface, especially comming off a capped hunter main that easily 1-2 shots any normal landscape mob in the area...)

Anywho, my warden was my main for most of 2009 and much of 2010 until F2P and I tanked everything from CD to Watcher to DN and BG (OD wasn't around when I stopped, though I made a cameo for a couple wings here and there in a pinch). My buddy has a Warden alt and he is pretty good but it always drives me nuts when I see him using EoB on a single target mob for tanking.

Now, I know EoB is broken and that is not why he does it, he actually practically refuses to use EoB since it's broken, but what I am talking about is the usage of EoB on ST bosses prior to the brokenness. I asked him about it and he said that not only does it build threat, it gives him a heal too so it would be silly NOT to use it. Back at 65, if I saw a Warden using EoB during a single target tanking situation, I would have gave him a /slap after the fight. But is this a viable skill in the newly redefined lvl 75 Warden? I would just think that a PB would help infinitely more with aggro and the little bit of heals that EoB gives (in a single target situation) I think it would be better off using EITHER a self heal, OR a threat.

I have no idea what the answer is, his warden has always been his alt, but he has it really well geared now and at 75 tanking end-game on occasion, while I have had my warden as a main and tanked end-game at 65 for a long while, but again, have not leveled past 65 as of yet. Just want to hear opinions of some of the Wardens here on the forums, as there are only a couple of really good wardens on my server, it's hard to catch up with one of them and ask.

Even without the terrible visage bug EoB is now the warden's highest threat gen move. Its over time threat though so up front SoV or SoD might be better.

I've tried duoing in limlight with a reasonably good dps RK without terrible visage, which I figured would be a sort of worst case scenario when it comes to threat since I only have one person to leech threat from, and I found that still using EoB minimized the amount of threat moves I had to use to keep ahead of him.

Yep, bug or no, EoB is still the strongest threat move we have now, as counter-intuitive as it is. In fact, if you have less than a full group, it is twice as good as PB, the next highest threat generator. Even if you do have a full group to leach from, the leaches only barely manage to surpass PB in pure threat gain; they still lag well behind EoB.

So to answer your question, yes, it is a viable tactic, even ignoring the heal component. Even though it's strange and would be stupid back at 65.

Originally Posted by luapremylc

Even if you do have a full group to leach from, the leaches only barely manage to surpass PB in pure threat gain; they still lag well behind EoB.

Not sure but I think you say this because of the bug how terrible visage affects EoB? Once this is fixed, on a single target with your whole group beating on it, I'm thinking that a threat leech would help more or at least be at around the same level.

Originally Posted by Beornded

Not sure but I think you say this because of the bug how terrible visage affects EoB? Once this is fixed, on a single target with your whole group beating on it, I'm thinking that a threat leech would help more or at least be at around the same level.

Nope, even without the bug, EoB is still our strongest threat generator, based on tooltips and this. As I posted in the Compendium, the threat values are as follows:

1. [31232] Exultation of Battle - 8T over time = 8T total
2a. [23232] Conviction - 1T per fellow transfer = 5T total
2b. [2323] Dance of War - 1T per fellow transfer = 5T total
2c. [3213] Aggression - 1T per fellow transfer = 5T total
5. [31] Precise Blow - 2T initially and 2T over time = 4T total
6a. [3232] Surety of Death - 3T initially = 3T total
6b. [3131] Spear of Virtue - 3T initially = 3T total
7. [232] Maddening Strike - 0.5T per fellow transfer = 2.5T total
9a. [32] War-Cry - 2T initially = 2T total
9b. [13] Offensive Strike - 2T initally = 2T total
11a. [313] Piercing Strike - 1T initially = 1T total
11b. [323] Brink of Victory - 1T initially = 1T total
13. [33] Goad - 0.5T initially = 0.5T total

Originally Posted by luapremylc

Nope, even without the bug, EoB is still our strongest threat generator, based on tooltips and this. As I posted in the Compendium, the threat values are as follows:

No that's not the part I quoted and disagreed with. I said the same thing about EoB in my first post. I meant the leech to eob comparison. Do you think leeching from 5 people is less than 8x our base threat?

Also it's probably 10x, since with every 4 seconds over 16 seconds, it'd have to proc 5 times, unless it actually doesn't gen any threat at 0 or 16.


Edit: where'd you get the threat leech numbers from? There was a post from Graalx explaining ToTs but I've never seen something like that for threat leeches.

The threat transfer estimate uses some fuzzy math to say conviction takes 1T units from each other fellow and gives it to the warden, for up to 5T threat. However, that's an absolute threat gain. The relative threat gain within the fellowship is 10T, since all other fellows lose threat. But against the other fellows in the raid, it should be 5T.

This is fuzzy, theoretical math and pretty hard to test.

--Harper

So do those T units from leech actually compare to the T units from threat gen moves? If they don't maybe should of labelled them L or something or people will get the wrong idea...

My post was made purely from a threat gain perspective. When you start, say you have X threat. After an EoB, you'll have X+8T threat. However, if you used a threat transfer, you'd have X+5T threat. I phrase it this way for simplicity's sake. If you start factoring in other people's threat, as Harp said, the calculations get fuzzy.

In a perfect world, you would gain 10T effective threat because you get 5T added to your threat, and 1T subtracted from each other member in the group's threat. However, this is a bit of a fallacy. For example, I usually don't have to worry about healers stealing aggro from me on a given target. They just don't put out enough threat compared to DPS classes to warrant it. The problem is, if I take 1T threat from the healer on the very bottom of the threat list, does that threat loss alone (ignoring the threat gain) benefit me? It really doesn't, because it doesn't help me keep aggro off of the 4 other people in the group ahead of the healer. This same principle can be applied to the other members of the group who aren't at the top of the threat list.

As a general rule of thumb, the more evenly threat is distributed amongst other classes in your group (and therefore the more people that are vying for aggro), the better threat transfers will perform. In my experience, there is usually only one or maybe two people in my group that I am vying for threat with, and so I'd put threat transfers' threat gain to be 6T or maybe 7T when you factor in comparative threat values. Which is still below the threat value of EoB, 8T.

However, this is all highly situational, and things change based on the circumstances. A case can be made for threat transfers, in my opinion, if the following conditions are met:
A) you are in a full fellowship (or raid), AND
B) there are 2-3 or more people in your group that have the potential to take aggro if you slack off.

If these conditions are not met, EoB will perform better. This is of course also ignoring additional things such as CC'd mobs, more than 10 targets, etc.

EDIT:
To answer this question:

Originally Posted by Beornded

Edit: where'd you get the threat leech numbers from? There was a post from Graalx explaining ToTs but I've never seen something like that for threat leeches.

The tooltip for the leeches says "Transfers a moderate amount of threat from each member of the fellowship to the warden." I took that to mean "moderate threat", which according to Graal's post would imply 1x threat per fellowship member transferred (I changed the x's to T's because I thought the x's were a bit more confusing, as they looked like multiplication operations and not variables).

Originally Posted by luapremylc

My post was made purely from a threat gain perspective. When you start, say you have X threat. After an EoB, you'll have X+8T threat. However, if you used a threat transfer, you'd have X+5T threat. I phrase it this way for simplicity's sake. If you start factoring in other people's threat, as Harp said, the calculations get fuzzy.

In a perfect world, you would gain 10T effective threat because you get 5T added to your threat, and 1T subtracted from each other member in the group's threat. However, this is a bit of a fallacy. For example, I usually don't have to worry about healers stealing aggro from me on a given target. They just don't put out enough threat compared to DPS classes to warrant it. The problem is, if I take 1T threat from the healer on the very bottom of the threat list, does that threat loss alone (ignoring the threat gain) benefit me? It really doesn't, because it doesn't help me keep aggro off of the 4 other people in the group ahead of the healer. This same principle can be applied to the other members of the group who aren't at the top of the threat list.

As a general rule of thumb, the more evenly threat is distributed amongst other classes in your group (and therefore the more people that are vying for aggro), the better threat transfers will perform. In my experience, there is usually only one or maybe two people in my group that I am vying for threat with, and so I'd put threat transfers' threat gain to be 6T or maybe 7T when you factor in comparative threat values. Which is still below the threat value of EoB, 8T.

However, this is all highly situational, and things change based on the circumstances. A case can be made for threat transfers, in my opinion, if the following conditions are met:
A) you are in a full fellowship (or raid), AND
B) there are 2-3 or more people in your group that have the potential to take aggro if you slack off.

If these conditions are not met, EoB will perform better. This is of course also ignoring additional things such as CC'd mobs, more than 10 targets, etc.

Good logic, and it leads us to more fuzzy math. The threat gain in a fellowship is actually 6T. 5T from the transfer and 1T because everyone is down 1T more than before. Take the following example:

Warden: 4
Hunter: 6
Champ: 5
Minstrel: 4
Loremaster: 3
Captain: 2

After conviction threat xfer:
Warden: 9
Hunter: 5
Champ: 4
Minstrel: 3
Loremaster: 2
Captain: 1

The warden is only up 4, but he's gone from 2 behind the hunter to 4 ahead, a net gain of 6 relative threat. Also, if the hunter was in another fellowship, we'd only be up by 3.

Lets look at the same scenario with EoB:

Warden: 4
Hunter: 6
Champ: 5
Minstrel: 4
Loremaster: 3
Captain: 2

After EoB (assuming nobody moves)
Warden: 12
Hunter: 6
Champ: 5
Minstrel: 4
Loremaster: 3
Captain: 2

We are ahead of the hunter 6T, 2T better than the previous example. That seems to jive with real world experience.

--Harper

Originally Posted by Harperelle

After EoB (assuming nobody moves)

That of course is one of the problems comparing them... EoB is certainly more threat after 16 seconds, but the leech is more threat until the 12th second. And once you look at threat over time you have to figure out what else you're doing in that time, even if you're not looking at what the group is doing.

I guess a more accurate test would be to determine how many leeches one can fire in 16 seconds (they all transfer the same amount, but it might be faster to hit [23]2 followed by [32][13] than to stick to one leech), also determine how many EoBs one can fire in 16 seconds (probably fewer than the number of leeches, since it's a longer gambit than all but one of our leeches).

Might have to cut off the threat count at 16 seconds, even though the last few EoBs would continue to tick. Just because EoB will always leave you more time to hit gambits, so you have to stop counting somewhere.

Thank you all for the feedback. my mind still = blown from the fact that an AoE threat skill will do more threat than a single target threat skills... on a single target. Now, I totally understand that a teir 5 (5 builders) threat skill should be higher than a teir 2 threat skill (PB).

Thanks again!