Thread: Low Morale does not equal a bad Tank

Me and a champion friend of mine were doing a tier2 Pits of Isengard run the other night. He wanted to DPS (I am a Captain-Healer) so I advertised on chat and grabbed the first tank who answered. He was a guardian.

We entered the instance and I noticed he had barely 10k morale even after all of my buffs. I was worried. Typically it's custom to equate low morale with a bad tank - and I was expecting wipes galore and generally a lot of pain and agony. To use a southern expression, "I coudn't have been wronger".

He was easily one of the BEST tanks I have ever played with. I don't know what his build was or how he geared, but I can tell you he barely took any damage at all and it was so easy to heal him it literally felt like a tier1 run. So I want to caution people out there who assume Guardians who do not have high morale are terrible or suck. Because trust me, there is at least one low morale guardian out there that knows exactly what he's doing.

Yep, and when he tanks a warg in acid t2 and gets oneshoted post here again.

Originally Posted by Feomalo

Yep, and when he tanks a warg in acid t2 and gets oneshoted post here again.

obviously he doesnt have enough morale for an acid warg, but for foundry it was fine. No gear was mentioned but that doesnt mean he doesnt have all the orthanc etc gear

Unfortunately we are all guilty of focusing on one stat (Morale) as a measure of how well geared someone is (and sadly, sometimes how skilled they are).

However, I would agree that it is hard to be well geared and still only have 10k morale... its certainly going to be tough tanking raids with that little morale.

Think of tanks as leaky... water tanks . Regardless of how well geared you are you will not have enough morale to be able to tank raid bosses without assistance ie healing. A good tank:

a) Can hold threat (of course)
b) Minimises the "leaks", ie has good B/P/E and mitigations,
c) Is easy to refill, ie has good Incoming Healing Rate,
d) Has enough of a buffer (max morale) to remain alive in between leaking and being refilled

Just focusing on d) at the detriment of b) and c) might get you more invites but will make the rest of the team work harder to keep you alive. Sometimes it pays to look beyond the cover of the book.

Luckily, when skilled players (like your new friend) are recognised they usually get more invites and more opportunities to gear up.

Having 10k with cappy means, he's at 8k unbuffed .. How do u get such low morale?

Not trying to boast or anything, but even in full dps setup (~1800 might), I am over 12k morale.

I have always said that skill > gear. That said, there is always a point where (such as the aforementioned Acid T2 Wargs) gear does come into play, no matter how skilled you are.

He could have just been a very skilled player, that is part of a casual social kin that doesn't do any kin of 12-man (ToO, Draigoch, Skraids, etc.) that would get him better geared.

Well I don't know much about Guardians. All I can tell you is he tanked 10 times better than guardians I've played with who have 20k morale. And I"m not exagerating. It was insane how easy he was to heal. It wholly changed my opinion about Guardians, as I used to think they were morale-based and that was the key to their tanking and I've learned the error of my ways.

Rather he could have lived through a tier2 Acid Wing in Orthanc is a fair point, and I don't know - but I can tell you he had absolutely NO difficulty living through both wings on Pits tier2. In fact, he coasted through it like it was nothing lol

So this popular myth that goes around that guardians need a lot of morale else they suck simply isn't true.

Tanking pits t2 isnt that hard. No one needs insane high morale when it comes to tanking this EZmode runs. But 3 mans are not the standard for tanking these days. Generally im guilty of thinking low morale=bad tank but i tend to run more raids where 10k morale is asking for a quick fail.

Originally Posted by Erasluindor

Tanking pits t2 isnt that hard. No one needs insane high morale when it comes to tanking this EZmode runs. But 3 mans are not the standard for tanking these days. Generally im guilty of thinking low morale=bad tank but i tend to run more raids where 10k morale is asking for a quick fail.

Well Eras this may or may not be the case - but I can't tell you how many horrible tanks I've encountered incapable of doing tier2 3 mans. So if it's as "EZmode" as you say - must be a lot of horrible tanks out there.

I once played with a guardian who had like 17k morale, but for some reason thought he was a hunter. He literally stood back shooting things wtih his bow while me and the loremaster tanked mobs...

So I guess the point of this post was just to raise awareness and not to assume simply because a guardian has low morale that he sucks. I was guilty of this also - but I've seen the light.

Raiding may indeed be a whole different ballgame. I'm not sure. I've never played a tank on this game and I didn't observe this Guardian in a raid setting. So you could easily be right about raids. But as far as tanking 3 mans goes, even on the tier2 variety - low-morale Guardians can get the job done, and get it done nicely. And I don't want people to make the same mistake I did and wrongly assume a tank is bad based off his morale. I felt like quite the fool after he showed me up lol

Originally Posted by Jeremi

So if it's as "EZmode" as you say - must be a lot of horrible tanks out there.

There are

moar wordz

As was stated before, pits is almost too easy for a decent group. The thing to probably note is that it was honestly very likely your friend the Champ that made the Guards job so easy. The guard just pulled them together and the Champ ate them up. This combo can be very effective for 3 man content. I do not want to take anything away from this guard, but likely your friends Champ is why it seemed so easy for you to heal. Champs can often easily eat through 3 trash mobs moral before mobs can get past challenge and then a well timed aoe stun from horn use. So they Guard may well have been very good, but I am gussing the easy content and a well played Champ might be more responsible for your results.

It should be noted that if this guard had sky high mitigation and resistance and was able to keep agro of the champ (probably with moderate ebbing ire use), then that's all you really need if there is no major risk of spike damage.

High morale requirements generally come about from bosses that do massive or AoE damage... The tank has to be able to take a few hits while the group is being healed or other such nonsense.

But yeah, I would rather have a good tank in bad gear than a bad tank in good gear.

Originally Posted by Djasi

As was stated before, pits is almost too easy for a decent group. The thing to probably note is that it was honestly very likely your friend the Champ that made the Guards job so easy. The guard just pulled them together and the Champ ate them up. This combo can be very effective for 3 man content. I do not want to take anything away from this guard, but likely your friends Champ is why it seemed so easy for you to heal. Champs can often easily eat through 3 trash mobs moral before mobs can get past challenge and then a well timed aoe stun from horn use. So they Guard may well have been very good, but I am gussing the easy content and a well played Champ might be more responsible for your results.

It wans't the Champ Djasi, though he's an excellent Champ I have to say so not to take anything away from him either.

I've played with other tanks with that same Champ in the group and the results were not so pretty. And it was mostly on the boss fights that the tank impressed me so much. The trash pulls are always pretty easy long as I got a good dpser along.

I don't know what it was, rather he just had tons of mitigation or what, but my HoTs alone were literally all I needed to keep him at max HP, and that is very rare for me to encounter. He could have had 5k morale and been fine. It was pretty insane, and at first I thought he may have been hacking or something lol

Originally Posted by SaintBass

It should be noted that if this guard had sky high mitigation and resistance and was able to keep agro of the champ (probably with moderate ebbing ire use), then that's all you really need if there is no major risk of spike damage.

High morale requirements generally come about from bosses that do massive or AoE damage... The tank has to be able to take a few hits while the group is being healed or other such nonsense.

But yeah, I would rather have a good tank in bad gear than a bad tank in good gear.

The Champion did have to use "ebbing ire". I remember him telling me that. So you may be right - and he was a high mitigation/resistance build. Either way, it was impressive - and I will never pre-judge guardians again based off their morale. I have learned my lesson.

I've been on T2 foundry and T2 RoF run with a hunter tanking. It was me (mini), capt, LM, 3 hunters. RoF was a pain to heal (no wipes, just difficult) but foundry was a cakewalk. I hope a low morale guardian could tank them..

It's pretty difficult to have low morale and great mitigations at the same time since vit plays a big part of both. Not saying it can't be done, just saying you actually have to try harder to build for lower morale and high mits.

I must admit, i´ve seen a lot guardians on my server (vanyar) but my opinion is: a tank with 10kmorale is nearly impossible, but this don´t mean he is bad. The main tank in my kin is at roughly 15K morale but have really high block/mitigation ratings and inc heal.
He always says: damage that does not reach me, mustn´t be healed. So you have lower healing aggro and more healing for other raid members or enough power to heal at damage spikes (and in case of good mins to play your ballads and hymns and support your group).
I´ve seen a guardian with nearly 22k morale and must say he was a really bad one... mitigation's were not so good, especially his block ratings and so his aggro. Tanking with challenge at min cd isn´t real tanking.

I would say the golden way is the middle way. You need higher morale for damage spikes on ToO (wargs acid, trolls Kalbak and so on) but you don´t nee 20k or more moral at costs of your block/mitigation ratings.

Originally Posted by Wolfhardt

I would say the golden way is the middle way. You need higher morale for damage spikes on ToO (wargs acid, trolls Kalbak and so on) but you don´t nee 20k or more moral at costs of your block/mitigation ratings.

I would say the golden way is 22k morale, capped mits, and 40%+ full avoidances.

Originally Posted by timmyloo22546

I've been on T2 foundry and T2 RoF run with a hunter tanking. It was me (mini), capt, LM, 3 hunters. RoF was a pain to heal (no wipes, just difficult) but foundry was a cakewalk. I hope a low morale guardian could tank them..

You are missing the point Timmy.

I too have run instances with hunter and LM tanks before. But they took a LOT of damage - and I had to heal them a lot. (Though it was not not T2 Foundry and Roots. I would have to see this hunter tanking a T2 foundry and Roots before I believe it).

The thing about this guardian wasn't that he was "able" to tank them. It was the fact he tanked the whole instance without ever sustaining any damage. My HoTs were literally all needed to keep his morale in tip-top condidtion. As I said in an earlier post, he could have had 5k... or even 3k morale and been just fine. That was what was so impressive about him - it wasn't that he was "able" tank them. I do tier2s with Champion tanks under 10k morale serveral times a week afterall. That is nothing new. What was new was how he was literally impossible to cause damage to. I could have been cooking dinner and easily kept him alive at the same time.

But anyway, the point of my thread was just to caution people not to assume simply because a tank has low HP that means they are "bad". That's not always the case, and didn't want people to make the same blunder I did.

10k grd = lazy

Easy to have over 15k without any special effort in gearing up

I do believe that many of the individuals posting here do have very valid points about the dangers of low moral builds for tanks, but I would also like to extend my gratitude to a nontank expressing how it is nice to heal a real tank class vs other classes. I know that for me it is nice to have someone post here expressing appreciation for our class and restating to others who may not understand, that moral is not better than skill and that guards are not mindless anvils that just stand there and absorb damage reguardless of our skill (or lack of skill). Thank you for the post sir/madam.

Well I have 18k+ morale un-buffed (without loyalty and fidelity) and still have over 11k in resistances and 15.6% inc healing.
Ok, my grd is end game geared, but it is rly easy to have over 15k+ in morale and decent resistances and inc healing without latest raid top gear, and even that one is relatively easily obtained, run ToO in T1 and unlock and with casual play by now you should have full set. And River jewelery sets are also easy to get, so 10k tank, as I said is, either not finished or just lazy if it is satisfied with that amount of morale.

So I don't see any point in praising 10k tank.

Originally Posted by Darethelion

Well I have 18k+ morale un-buffed (without loyalty and fidelity) and still have over 11k in resistances and 15.6% inc healing.
Ok, my grd is end game geared, but it is rly easy to have over 15k+ in morale and decent resistances and inc healing without latest raid top gear, and even that one is relatively easily obtained, run ToO in T1 and unlock and with casual play by now you should have full set. And River jewelery sets are also easy to get, so 10k tank, as I said is, either not finished or just lazy if it is satisfied with that amount of morale.

So I don't see any point in praising 10k tank.

He skillfully tanked the whole instance for me without taking any significant damage Darethlion while keeping everyone safe in the process. If that's not a reason to give "praise" to a tank then I don't know what would be.

Just because he didn't have high morale doesn't mean he wasn't a good tank worthy of praise. That's my whole point basically.

Now could he have have tanked a tier2 acid wing raid? Probably not based off the comments here, and I'm not claiming he could have. But then again - he didn't sign up for a tier2 Acid wing raid either. He signed up for a tier2 3 man instance - at which he was more than capable of tanking, and he did so with great skill and turned the whole run into easy-mode for us.

So again, I think praise is warranted, as is a reminder to people like me that it's best not to pre-judge tanks based off their morale. It's not always an idicator of how good or bad the tank is. A lesson I learned the hard way

While I'm sure he did a great job and you were pleasantly surprised, I have to assume you are exaggerating a lot here. I'm going to reiterate what jhwort said here. It sounds like his mits were capped (very possible). However, it's impossible to cap your mits without have a boatload of vitality. If he only had 10k morale, he had to have an extremely low amount of vitality. This just doesn't make sense. How much vitality can you have while having 10k morale? Like 1k? Or less? This would give you what like 40% tac mit? (no where near cap).

The only other possible thing I can think of that could have happened is that his might was loaded (maxing phys mit and block %) and not having any tactical attacks hit him during the entire instance. This is still highly unlikely...

Originally Posted by Lohre

While I'm sure he did a great job and you were pleasantly surprised, I have to assume you are exaggerating a lot here. I'm going to reiterate what jhwort said here. It sounds like his mits were capped (very possible). However, it's impossible to cap your mits without have a boatload of vitality. If he only had 10k morale, he had to have an extremely low amount of vitality. This just doesn't make sense. How much vitality can you have while having 10k morale? Like 1k? Or less? This would give you what like 40% tac mit? (no where near cap).

The only other possible thing I can think of that could have happened is that his might was loaded (maxing phys mit and block %) and not having any tactical attacks hit him during the entire instance. This is still highly unlikely...

Nope. Not exagerating in the slighteset. That's really all I can say here. He was easily one of the best tanks I've encountered and coasted through the instance like it was a walk in the park. He left a very vivid impression on me and taught me a good lesson in the process.

And I wish I could give you more details Lohre but I can't. I just don't know much about this class, or the kind of gear or traits he was using. But you can of course think I'm exagerating if you want, that's your right

Originally Posted by Jeremi

Just because he didn't have high morale doesn't mean he wasn't a good tank worthy of praise. That's my whole point basically.

agree with this completely (although, to a point). and i think a lot of people are getting hung up on your example, so i'll provide one of my own.



recently, a tank in our raid group got well over 20k morale with buffs. he boasted that he had gotten past 22k before (with warrior's fortitude though)

everyone the raid group ooh'd and ah'd at him and i just shook my head. my 'measely' 18k morale looked really awful in comparison i suppose.

later on, he mentioned that he had 'about 60' for tactical mitigation. mine is capped at 70%.


'only 10%' doesn't sound like a lot, but if you do the math, i take 25% less damage than he does from tactical attacks. for a fight like saruman, that's every single attack.
even if he had 25% more morale than i did, it wouldn't be enough to cover the 25% more damage he's taking from every hit for the entire fight.


all of that said, i would still think 10k is a bit low for orthanc raiding, but perhaps if you stack agility and might for block/parry/evade, maybe someone could prove me wrong.
i vaguely remember someone posting a build a couple months ago with really high melee offense, capped mitigations and decent avoidances and only 9k unbuffed morale, so i'm sure it could happen.

Fact still is... 9 out of 10 tanks (warden or grd) that join a pug group with around 10k morale are fail... been there, done that too many times. Is the 10k morale the problem? Not really, the problem with these guys is always the fact they don't understand the class well. Losing aggro all the time, no idea what a good time to pop e.g. pledge is etc. These make pug Foundry runs a living hell. This tank seems to understand his class well but for some reason did not have high morale.

Really, this is an exception to the rule rather than a new found wisdom of low morale tanks being good tanks.

Originally Posted by Ixinix

Fact still is... 9 out of 10 tanks (warden or grd) that join a pug group with around 10k morale are fail... been there, done that too many times. Is the 10k morale the problem? Not really, the problem with these guys is always the fact they don't understand the class well. Losing aggro all the time, no idea what a good time to pop e.g. pledge is etc. These make pug Foundry runs a living hell. This tank seems to understand his class well but for some reason did not have high morale.

Really, this is an exception to the rule rather than a new found wisdom of low morale tanks being good tanks.

Ix, just to defend myself here but I never said having low morale means the tank is good.

What I DID say was that having low morale doesn't mean the tank is bad. And that's quite a bit different.

In short, give the tank a shot before you pre-judge them. Their morale isn't always a good indicator of the tank's skill. That's all I was trying to say.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

Ix, just to defend myself here but I never said having low morale means the tank is good.

What I DID say was that having low morale doesn't mean the tank is bad. And that's quite a bit different.

In short, give the tank a shot before you pre-judge them. Their morale isn't always a good indicator of the tank's skill. That's all I was trying to say.

No, but gear is. I'm telling you, it is seriously hard to NOT have at least 15k morale with half decent gear. Purple quest gear or anything of the sort is a red flag (unless they are an alt of a player you consider good) or if they have 10k and they're anon... that's a bad sign as well. Just sayin.

Originally Posted by jhwort

No, but gear is. I'm telling you, it is seriously hard to NOT have at least 15k morale with half decent gear. Purple quest gear or anything of the sort is a red flag (unless they are an alt of a player you consider good) or if they have 10k and they're anon... that's a bad sign as well. Just sayin.

I don't think he was anon, because I tried to inspect him breifly after the boss fight was over because I wanted to know what on earth he was wearing. All I was able to catch glimpse of before he left the instance was his cloak... and then I think I crashed or something.

Originally Posted by jhwort

I'm telling you, it is seriously hard to NOT have at least 15k morale with half decent gear.

Easy to obtain 15k gear will most likely leave you lacking in mitigations and/or BPE. All those crafted earrings etc. won't make you tougher. Then again you can easily get purple mitigation and BPE jewellery from AH that don't feature much in terms of morale but do add to the general toughness.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

Ix, just to defend myself here but I never said having low morale means the tank is good.

What I DID say was that having low morale doesn't mean the tank is bad. And that's quite a bit different.

In short, give the tank a shot before you pre-judge them. Their morale isn't always a good indicator of the tank's skill. That's all I was trying to say.

Well... perhaps you should have changed the title of your topic then to: Low Morale does not ALWAYS equal a bad Tank.
Does not...equal sounds like it's mathematically proven

You were positively surprised which is all good but as I said this guy really is an exception to the rule. If you don't have time or energy to try a tank and finding out after an hour he sucks it's usually safer to get one with higher morale (wich most likely means better gear). I have a guardian myself so I can check pretty quickly if that tank has the proper legacies and traits etc. which usually is also an indication he will not be a bad tank. Still, the opposite is very much possible. A tank with very good gear and the right traits can still have no idea on how to tank and tbh these are more common than the ones you are describing here

Originally Posted by Ixinix

Well... perhaps you should have changed the title of your topic then to: Low Morale does not ALWAYS equal a bad Tank.
Does not...equal sounds like it's mathematically proven

You were positively surprised which is all good but as I said this guy really is an exception to the rule. If you don't have time or energy to try a tank and finding out after an hour he sucks it's usually safer to get one with higher morale (wich most likely means better gear). I have a guardian myself so I can check pretty quickly if that tank has the proper legacies and traits etc. which usually is also an indication he will not be a bad tank. Still, the opposite is very much possible. A tank with very good gear and the right traits can still have no idea on how to tank and tbh these are more common than the ones you are describing here

Ixen your point is taken but low morale doesn't equal a bad tank, just like my title says. So I don't really see a need to change it. The title doesn't say low morale equals a good tank either. It really wasn't a statement of proof one way or the other.

I have learned the hard way that using morale as a guide to measure tanks isn't always a good one - because I almost ditched what turned out to be one of the best tanks I ever played with, and it made me feel like quite the idiot.

Are there tanks out there with low morale who are bad? Of course, and I've met plenty of them believe you me. But I've also came across a lot of tanks with high morale who were equally as bad - a point you were eluding to yourself. And it shouldn't take an hour to figure out if a tank is good or not. Most of the horrible tanks I've been with, it was painfully evident after the first couple of pulls. So I don't think this thread is being unreasonable to suggest that people give tanks with lower morale a chance before assuming they are bad.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

Nope. Not exagerating in the slighteset. That's really all I can say here. He was easily one of the best tanks I've encountered and coasted through the instance like it was a walk in the park. He left a very vivid impression on me and taught me a good lesson in the process.

And I wish I could give you more details Lohre but I can't. I just don't know much about this class, or the kind of gear or traits he was using. But you can of course think I'm exagerating if you want, that's your right

I also want to add that I understand your point, and I appreciate your reasoning behind creating this thread. Just because I disagree with the possibility of that guard's build, doesn't mean I disagree with your intended point.

It's good that the OP sees this.

I had considered myself as geared as I could have been (given the abilities of my computer at the time) when I had hit just about 10.3k health.

Then my mom got me a new laptop (i love my mommy!). If people hadn't looked past my horrible gear I would have never gotten into PuGs where I met the people who now take me on weekly raids. Now I have good gear and 16k health unbuffed; while not the most impressive is usually good enough that most PuGs (three and six man groups) won't even second guess my ability to tank an instance.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/256/defenced.png/

Just an old Screenshot(21. february 2012) of my guardian. Had censored it, don't know why. But morale was 13.183.
Was in a raid.

In my case, I don't just wear one set of clothes and jewellery.
In situations, I don't need high morale cause of hard hits, I wear as much defence items as possible.
So, I get the block- and the parry-rating on cap, while evade is near the 18%.
Physical mitigation is capped at 71% (dwarf) and tactial mitigation at 70%

Actually I get the ratings just a few higher. Incoming Healing is at 24.9%, so just 0.1% under the cap.
Exactly other ratings I don't know from memory, therefore I would have to log in.

Maybe I will find some time to get a newer screenshot, but I don't raid a lot. We'll see.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/256/defenced.png/


Hope, my english is not to bad. Not my native language

My first visit to ToO T1 was with 11.3k unbuffed morale. The first ToO T1 clear (including saruman), was with 13.4k unbuffed morale. I am now raiding in ToO T2 with 14.2k unbuffed morale, and a build which is pretty much all I can wish for until more items are created.

Originally Posted by Jullandar

Easy to obtain 15k gear will most likely leave you lacking in mitigations and/or BPE. All those crafted earrings etc. won't make you tougher. Then again you can easily get purple mitigation and BPE jewellery from AH that don't feature much in terms of morale but do add to the general toughness.

If half decent gear is pushing you over 2k vit, your resistances are going to be pretty high and your morale will be pretty high. There's no reason as a guard to sacrifice morale gained through vitality for raw mits, until you've reached a level of marginal trades - which isn't 10-12k morale for a tanking build.

Originally Posted by Maelendil

My first visit to ToO T1 was with 11.3k unbuffed morale. The first ToO T1 clear (including saruman), was with 13.4k unbuffed morale. I am now raiding in ToO T2 with 14.2k unbuffed morale, and a build which is pretty much all I can wish for until more items are created.

Just to elaborate a bit on this: there was a time when I was sitting on 20k buffed morale. I then decided to lower my vit and get rid of as many +morale item as I could reasonnably afford to loosen, to increase my avoidances (mitigations have always been a priority). My current breakeven point is 14k unbuffed morale, which when fully buffed in a raid allows me to be hit by a devastating crit from Kalbak (8k) at the same time as the static shock (9k) and still survive (barely).

When we clear the trash I swap out some +tact mit items in favor of +vitality items and gain more than 1k morale. I do the same when running roots, except on the final fight where I max my tact mit again.

Pits is a bit different, as you need tact mit even for the fire and acid trash, and no one is hitting hard enough to require a large moral pool to take the hit. The thread title should really be: "3-man instances do not require a real raid-ready tank". More at eleven.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

I too have run instances with hunter and LM tanks before. But they took a LOT of damage - and I had to heal them a lot. (Though it was not not T2 Foundry and Roots. I would have to see this hunter tanking a T2 foundry and Roots before I believe it).

The thing about this guardian wasn't that he was "able" to tank them. It was the fact he tanked the whole instance without ever sustaining any damage. My HoTs were literally all needed to keep his morale in tip-top condidtion.

When I run pits on my mini with grd/wrdn tanking I simply stay war-speech during the trash because healing isn't even needed.

By default a guardian has much higher total b/p/e than a hunter and greatly more mitigation. If a hunter/lm can tank the instance it should be incredibly easy for any guardian (assuming they know how to play). Even if the guard has bad gear he can still look good because the instance is easy.