Olebenny
Shield Bearer
Hello,
I wanted to put forth a suggestion to tweak stats when the expac comes along. There's no denying that the current system does work, and works just fine at that. So when resources are limited I get why it is not a high priority, but I still want to put this out there in case theres some time for adjustments like when the expac rolls around this fall.
In its current iteration, tanking classes are the most boring to gear and don't utilize the plethora of stats unique to tanking in the slightet bit. SSG seems to keep trying to force us to the other stats but there is no denying it simply keeps failing. Vitality essences didn't exist at the start of lvl 140 and people just wore lvl 130 vits instead. The supplemental vitalities here at 150 are being stacked on tanks without so much as a parting thought given to ich/crit defense/avoidances.
To be honest, this was perfectly fine since group instances were all about super high hitting spike damage that could not be avoided in order to threaten tanks. But Depths has done an amazing job giving us fights that are extremely threatening to tanks (b1/b2) but still are able to have attacks avoided and with regularly occurring critical hits from enemies to chip into our crit defense. If this trend continues (which I realllllllly hope it does, this has been so much fun) it would be great to reasonably build up our other stats.
Avoidances
I think the issue with avoidances is that there are 3 caps for them and instance mobs can penetrate some of our avoidance ratings. There is simply too many stats to try and get for too little reward. There is no way you can cap all 3 avoidances. I get that there may not be an intention to cap avoidances, but you can't even cap 1 of them. There is no denying that these stats have been out of whack for going on 8years. The 168k T3 stat cap per avoidance is so far out of reach. Thats ~510k stats to cap avoidances as a whole.
To start, 3 essences, 1 for each avoidance, is just too much. There are not enough essence slots to go around to try and work on all 3 avoidances. I think it is time to scrap the 3 essences and replace them with 2.
- Essence of Block. Grants a large amount of block rating but also grants a modest amount of parry and evasion
- Essence of Parry. Grants a large amount of parry rating but also grants a modest amount of block and evasion
Can keep the uniqueness of the avoidances this way and classes can play into their stats how they want still. I might want the block essence on my guard because of our block chain, but when i get closer to cap, I could swap to the parry essence instead.
Just combining them is no where near enough, it would be wasted efforts to do so without also increasing the values given. If you want to look at it from a ratio stand point
- Mastery essences give 1.06% of the stat cap
- Crit essences give 1.36% of the stat cap
Under this logic, an avoidance essence should give somewhere in the ballpark of 6.3k ratings. This would end up with a block essence looking something like
- 3k block,
- 1.6k parry and evasion
Which is still an increase of 46% from the current 4.3k rating 1 essence gives us. But I think this is the wrong way to do it, I just wanted to show case this to show how INSANELY UNDERPOWERED avoidance essences are
I think the better comparison to give is to utilize a stat that is hard to get from base stats. The issue with comparing avoidances to mastery/crit is how much of those stats come from base stats, especially mastery. I would instead look at finesse. It is a stat that is harder to come by via base stats and it has a cap that you don't necessarily try to reach, which is where I would suspect avoidances would ultimately fall, not a stat you want to full cap, but something to pump a little bit of resource into.
- Finesse essence give 2.72% of the stat cap
So under that #, an avoidance essence would provide somewhere in the ballpark of 13.8k avoidances. This would end up with a block essence looking something like
- 7k block
- 3.4k parry and evasion
Now we are getting somewhere. This is getting closer to an essence I would slot instead of supplemental vitalities. But only closer in the literal sense...
The last part of this equation is weighing how valuable the stats are. Avoidances are chance, while morale is constant. Depths has done a great job on utilizing our avoidances thoroughly (please please please continue this trend), but at the end of the day they are rng. It sounds crazy, but even with 13.8k avoidances granting you ~1.8% avoidances, its hard to pass up on a guaranteed 1400 morale from a supplemental vitality.
With that in mind we start getting into the "feels" section of where they should stand. I think the finesse comparison is a good place to start with where avoidances should be buffed all around, that being a 320% rating boost. But even after that I'm not sure I would slot an avoidance essence.
To me I think my theoretical threshold for where I would be willing to slot an avoidance essence instead of a supplemental vit is a bit higher than the finesse comparison, somewhere around 2.5% of avoidances being granted which would be roughly around 23k ratings from an essence. This would mean for my theoretical block essence we would get around 11k block and 5.5k parry and evasion. This would be a 530% increase from what current essence values give us
Furthermore, there are often tanking jobs given to certain classes that may not benefit as much from avoidances. Yes you can avoid the attacks from Umshura and the Sturdy Tentacles, but your cappy tank that has their aggro probably, even with a 530% increase, would still not slot avoidances. The attacks are spaced out enough and hit hard enough with scream buffs that reliability from more morale is a lot stronger. So there is an argument to be made for them to be even higher to accommodate all tanks desiring. I personally will not extend my argument up to those numbers, I think my ICH points below are more fitting for those roles, but the argument does exist that 530% is still not good enough.
Partial Avoidances
And the last last thing to consider for why such a large boost to our ratings would be needed is the even higher partial avoidance cap. That is 288k per avoidance, 864k between the 3 of them. I absolutely am not advocating for us to reach that cap, dps'ers don't come close to their crit magnitude cap, but it sure would be nice for us to reasonably tap into those stats by feasibly capping maybe 1 or 2 of our avoidances regular rating...
Incoming Healing
Incoming healing is in a similar spot to avoidances, but nowhere near as extreme. They are at the same point, ratio wise, as finesse with the same stat cap. But it just does not feel good to slot them. Right now 3 essences gives me 2% ich, which isn't terrible, but is it worth losing 4.2k base morale? That morale gets put to a lot more use when its all buffed up from motivate/store tome/hope tome/duty bound. This plays back into the point in the avoidances section about straight morale always being constant. Heals will go up and down and could be low at the wrong point which will not fully utilize that ICH increase, but morale is always a constant stat when tanking.
So at the end of the day it does just feel bad despite being on similar ratios as other essences. I wear a few of them but I really have been considering swapping them out. On a purely feeling basis, I would like to see these be about 50% more valuable stat wise on essences and gear and I believe I would comfortably keep what I have slotted, and even consider swapping out some supplemental vits for more if I am not at cap.
Critical Defense
Crit defense is even more weird and less important in my eyes. I'm not sure I would ever slot a crit defense essences over supplemental vit/ich/avoidances even in their current iterations. More so I think these could go for a boost in general and it wouldn't hurt to see them on gear a little more IF and only IF they got a boost. Right now I have 36k which is only ~20% of the cap and half of it is from my shield alone which has simply always had crit d on it. I don't know where exactly, maybe a 50% boost like my ICH suggestion and then its okay to put it on tanking gear a little more often.
Base Stats
I do like how base stats function in 95% of situations. The variety of stats that base stats give and how your "non-main" base stats still give good bonuses allowing a little flexibility in how you gear. All good! I think might/agi/will are pretty much set for dps and healers. Tanks though...
Vitality
Vit as it stands gives the exact same stats for every class. I wish it would give something extra for the tanking classes though. It doesn't need to be as extreme as the days where dps got 3pts of morale while tanks got 4 or 5, but something. Personally I think some incoming healing would be perfect to accomplish this. ICH cap is 150k, I already wear more ICH than other tanks and am sitting around 66k ich. If Vit gave 1 point of ICH, my 52k vit would jump ICH up to 118k which is a pretty ideal spot to be in with relation to the cap for a maxed geared tank. Do this for bear/warden/champ/cappy/guard/brawler. And I also do not think it would make these classes in their dps role too op. They already are melee classes normally getting chipped with aoe's and I think it could synergize well with their literal physical placement close to danger in fights.
Avoidances from Might/Agi/Will
On a guard, you get 1block, 2parry from might and 1parry from agility. On my guard I have 23k might and 3.5k agi. That gives me just about nothing for avoidances in the grand scheme of thing. When T3 cap for avoidances is 170k each, 510k total, gaining 72k from my base stats is quite abysmal. I wear will essences on my guard for the finesse and higher mits, but even if I swapped all (5) of them out for might essences, I would only gain 21k more avoidances, which is still next to nothing.
I would greatly increase the contributions that might/agi give for avoidances. On guard I would find it ideal if might gave 3block, 2parry, 1evasion and agility gave 3parry, 2evasion, 1block. In this situation, if that was the case, I on my guard would get 138k avoidances from might and 21k from agility. ~160k into the 510k gap is much more reasonable to gain from base stats alone in my opinion.
Where would all these changes put me?
I have a pretty much 100% maxed guardian. If the base stat changes and 530% rating boosts were applied right now I would have the following
-91k block from ratings, 69k from might, 3.5k from agility = 163k block
-60k parry from ratings, 46k from might, 10k from agility = 116k parry
-28k evasion from ratings, 23k from might, 7k from agility = 58k evasion
If the base stat changes and 50% rating boosts were applied for ICH right now I would have the following
-99k ich from ratings, 52k from vitality = 151k
These #'s look amazing to me. I have gotten the ICH jewellery (rings, bracelet, gold Depths cloak) and I even have a few essences slotted. So to be right at cap with all that + traceries is right on the money in my opinion.
Capping block as a guard from base stats/ratings alone is what I have wanted for a long time. That is from my memory how stats would play out for Guard when I first got into end game content at lvl 105. Then I would slot some theoretical parry essences in this manner to bring it and my evasion up BUT the block from that would be able to feed into the partial avoidance cap. I genuinely would slot 5 of my suggested parry essences right now if these changes were made. Get parry up to cap, be a little over on block which is fine because of partial avoidances, and have a bit of evasion to boot
And again, keep in my mind that my guard is maxed. I have literally no improvements left to make other than some ilvl's here and there.
I wanted to put forth a suggestion to tweak stats when the expac comes along. There's no denying that the current system does work, and works just fine at that. So when resources are limited I get why it is not a high priority, but I still want to put this out there in case theres some time for adjustments like when the expac rolls around this fall.
In its current iteration, tanking classes are the most boring to gear and don't utilize the plethora of stats unique to tanking in the slightet bit. SSG seems to keep trying to force us to the other stats but there is no denying it simply keeps failing. Vitality essences didn't exist at the start of lvl 140 and people just wore lvl 130 vits instead. The supplemental vitalities here at 150 are being stacked on tanks without so much as a parting thought given to ich/crit defense/avoidances.
To be honest, this was perfectly fine since group instances were all about super high hitting spike damage that could not be avoided in order to threaten tanks. But Depths has done an amazing job giving us fights that are extremely threatening to tanks (b1/b2) but still are able to have attacks avoided and with regularly occurring critical hits from enemies to chip into our crit defense. If this trend continues (which I realllllllly hope it does, this has been so much fun) it would be great to reasonably build up our other stats.
Avoidances
I think the issue with avoidances is that there are 3 caps for them and instance mobs can penetrate some of our avoidance ratings. There is simply too many stats to try and get for too little reward. There is no way you can cap all 3 avoidances. I get that there may not be an intention to cap avoidances, but you can't even cap 1 of them. There is no denying that these stats have been out of whack for going on 8years. The 168k T3 stat cap per avoidance is so far out of reach. Thats ~510k stats to cap avoidances as a whole.
To start, 3 essences, 1 for each avoidance, is just too much. There are not enough essence slots to go around to try and work on all 3 avoidances. I think it is time to scrap the 3 essences and replace them with 2.
- Essence of Block. Grants a large amount of block rating but also grants a modest amount of parry and evasion
- Essence of Parry. Grants a large amount of parry rating but also grants a modest amount of block and evasion
Can keep the uniqueness of the avoidances this way and classes can play into their stats how they want still. I might want the block essence on my guard because of our block chain, but when i get closer to cap, I could swap to the parry essence instead.
Just combining them is no where near enough, it would be wasted efforts to do so without also increasing the values given. If you want to look at it from a ratio stand point
- Mastery essences give 1.06% of the stat cap
- Crit essences give 1.36% of the stat cap
Under this logic, an avoidance essence should give somewhere in the ballpark of 6.3k ratings. This would end up with a block essence looking something like
- 3k block,
- 1.6k parry and evasion
Which is still an increase of 46% from the current 4.3k rating 1 essence gives us. But I think this is the wrong way to do it, I just wanted to show case this to show how INSANELY UNDERPOWERED avoidance essences are
I think the better comparison to give is to utilize a stat that is hard to get from base stats. The issue with comparing avoidances to mastery/crit is how much of those stats come from base stats, especially mastery. I would instead look at finesse. It is a stat that is harder to come by via base stats and it has a cap that you don't necessarily try to reach, which is where I would suspect avoidances would ultimately fall, not a stat you want to full cap, but something to pump a little bit of resource into.
- Finesse essence give 2.72% of the stat cap
So under that #, an avoidance essence would provide somewhere in the ballpark of 13.8k avoidances. This would end up with a block essence looking something like
- 7k block
- 3.4k parry and evasion
Now we are getting somewhere. This is getting closer to an essence I would slot instead of supplemental vitalities. But only closer in the literal sense...
The last part of this equation is weighing how valuable the stats are. Avoidances are chance, while morale is constant. Depths has done a great job on utilizing our avoidances thoroughly (please please please continue this trend), but at the end of the day they are rng. It sounds crazy, but even with 13.8k avoidances granting you ~1.8% avoidances, its hard to pass up on a guaranteed 1400 morale from a supplemental vitality.
With that in mind we start getting into the "feels" section of where they should stand. I think the finesse comparison is a good place to start with where avoidances should be buffed all around, that being a 320% rating boost. But even after that I'm not sure I would slot an avoidance essence.
To me I think my theoretical threshold for where I would be willing to slot an avoidance essence instead of a supplemental vit is a bit higher than the finesse comparison, somewhere around 2.5% of avoidances being granted which would be roughly around 23k ratings from an essence. This would mean for my theoretical block essence we would get around 11k block and 5.5k parry and evasion. This would be a 530% increase from what current essence values give us
Furthermore, there are often tanking jobs given to certain classes that may not benefit as much from avoidances. Yes you can avoid the attacks from Umshura and the Sturdy Tentacles, but your cappy tank that has their aggro probably, even with a 530% increase, would still not slot avoidances. The attacks are spaced out enough and hit hard enough with scream buffs that reliability from more morale is a lot stronger. So there is an argument to be made for them to be even higher to accommodate all tanks desiring. I personally will not extend my argument up to those numbers, I think my ICH points below are more fitting for those roles, but the argument does exist that 530% is still not good enough.
Partial Avoidances
And the last last thing to consider for why such a large boost to our ratings would be needed is the even higher partial avoidance cap. That is 288k per avoidance, 864k between the 3 of them. I absolutely am not advocating for us to reach that cap, dps'ers don't come close to their crit magnitude cap, but it sure would be nice for us to reasonably tap into those stats by feasibly capping maybe 1 or 2 of our avoidances regular rating...
Incoming Healing
Incoming healing is in a similar spot to avoidances, but nowhere near as extreme. They are at the same point, ratio wise, as finesse with the same stat cap. But it just does not feel good to slot them. Right now 3 essences gives me 2% ich, which isn't terrible, but is it worth losing 4.2k base morale? That morale gets put to a lot more use when its all buffed up from motivate/store tome/hope tome/duty bound. This plays back into the point in the avoidances section about straight morale always being constant. Heals will go up and down and could be low at the wrong point which will not fully utilize that ICH increase, but morale is always a constant stat when tanking.
So at the end of the day it does just feel bad despite being on similar ratios as other essences. I wear a few of them but I really have been considering swapping them out. On a purely feeling basis, I would like to see these be about 50% more valuable stat wise on essences and gear and I believe I would comfortably keep what I have slotted, and even consider swapping out some supplemental vits for more if I am not at cap.
Critical Defense
Crit defense is even more weird and less important in my eyes. I'm not sure I would ever slot a crit defense essences over supplemental vit/ich/avoidances even in their current iterations. More so I think these could go for a boost in general and it wouldn't hurt to see them on gear a little more IF and only IF they got a boost. Right now I have 36k which is only ~20% of the cap and half of it is from my shield alone which has simply always had crit d on it. I don't know where exactly, maybe a 50% boost like my ICH suggestion and then its okay to put it on tanking gear a little more often.
Base Stats
I do like how base stats function in 95% of situations. The variety of stats that base stats give and how your "non-main" base stats still give good bonuses allowing a little flexibility in how you gear. All good! I think might/agi/will are pretty much set for dps and healers. Tanks though...
Vitality
Vit as it stands gives the exact same stats for every class. I wish it would give something extra for the tanking classes though. It doesn't need to be as extreme as the days where dps got 3pts of morale while tanks got 4 or 5, but something. Personally I think some incoming healing would be perfect to accomplish this. ICH cap is 150k, I already wear more ICH than other tanks and am sitting around 66k ich. If Vit gave 1 point of ICH, my 52k vit would jump ICH up to 118k which is a pretty ideal spot to be in with relation to the cap for a maxed geared tank. Do this for bear/warden/champ/cappy/guard/brawler. And I also do not think it would make these classes in their dps role too op. They already are melee classes normally getting chipped with aoe's and I think it could synergize well with their literal physical placement close to danger in fights.
Avoidances from Might/Agi/Will
On a guard, you get 1block, 2parry from might and 1parry from agility. On my guard I have 23k might and 3.5k agi. That gives me just about nothing for avoidances in the grand scheme of thing. When T3 cap for avoidances is 170k each, 510k total, gaining 72k from my base stats is quite abysmal. I wear will essences on my guard for the finesse and higher mits, but even if I swapped all (5) of them out for might essences, I would only gain 21k more avoidances, which is still next to nothing.
I would greatly increase the contributions that might/agi give for avoidances. On guard I would find it ideal if might gave 3block, 2parry, 1evasion and agility gave 3parry, 2evasion, 1block. In this situation, if that was the case, I on my guard would get 138k avoidances from might and 21k from agility. ~160k into the 510k gap is much more reasonable to gain from base stats alone in my opinion.
Where would all these changes put me?
I have a pretty much 100% maxed guardian. If the base stat changes and 530% rating boosts were applied right now I would have the following
-91k block from ratings, 69k from might, 3.5k from agility = 163k block
-60k parry from ratings, 46k from might, 10k from agility = 116k parry
-28k evasion from ratings, 23k from might, 7k from agility = 58k evasion
If the base stat changes and 50% rating boosts were applied for ICH right now I would have the following
-99k ich from ratings, 52k from vitality = 151k
These #'s look amazing to me. I have gotten the ICH jewellery (rings, bracelet, gold Depths cloak) and I even have a few essences slotted. So to be right at cap with all that + traceries is right on the money in my opinion.
Capping block as a guard from base stats/ratings alone is what I have wanted for a long time. That is from my memory how stats would play out for Guard when I first got into end game content at lvl 105. Then I would slot some theoretical parry essences in this manner to bring it and my evasion up BUT the block from that would be able to feed into the partial avoidance cap. I genuinely would slot 5 of my suggested parry essences right now if these changes were made. Get parry up to cap, be a little over on block which is fine because of partial avoidances, and have a bit of evasion to boot
And again, keep in my mind that my guard is maxed. I have literally no improvements left to make other than some ilvl's here and there.
Conclusion
I hope this shows just how bad avoidances are right now. They have not been updated in forever and in turn have not been sought after in forever. Our avoidance caps got lowered to 13% a long time ago in order to, I assume, lessen how strong they could be if fully maxed, but now we can't even consider reaching that cap. A 5%, 10%, 50%, 100% increase in essence/rating value will NOT see them being slotted in a serious manner. They without a doubt need a boost of several magnitudes. My 530% boost I ultimately suggested for essences is not an exaggeration, I seriously would need them to be that much stronger for me to consider slotting them at all.
I have 7 supplemental vitalities slotted and I am normally pretty stubborn about slotting these things. And I got the 3 ICH essences slotted I might swap out for more supplemental vits. I don't want to slot these boring essences D: please buff the other tanking stats so I can wear more interesting gear
Cheers, I really hope we can see these old stats brought back to fruition with our next instance cluster
I hope this shows just how bad avoidances are right now. They have not been updated in forever and in turn have not been sought after in forever. Our avoidance caps got lowered to 13% a long time ago in order to, I assume, lessen how strong they could be if fully maxed, but now we can't even consider reaching that cap. A 5%, 10%, 50%, 100% increase in essence/rating value will NOT see them being slotted in a serious manner. They without a doubt need a boost of several magnitudes. My 530% boost I ultimately suggested for essences is not an exaggeration, I seriously would need them to be that much stronger for me to consider slotting them at all.
I have 7 supplemental vitalities slotted and I am normally pretty stubborn about slotting these things. And I got the 3 ICH essences slotted I might swap out for more supplemental vits. I don't want to slot these boring essences D: please buff the other tanking stats so I can wear more interesting gear
Cheers, I really hope we can see these old stats brought back to fruition with our next instance cluster
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those essences can be pretty much removed at all