That age old question : AC vs. HP

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Clamford]

[Kilgaroz]

[Wyvernwill]

My theory is 75% of a Knight's augs should be high ac (25+) at this point... which is entirely doable. The other 25% could be Hps, Mod2s, etc... but the primary focus should be having every high end AC aug available in the group game. Recent AC augs are now supplying AC tanks with healthy amounts of AC that help as well.

Currently I am raid buffing to 18899hp / 4289ac and we've still not even broken into DK. Generally speaking, I've been able to handle tanking almost every boss mob that has been necessary for me to pick up.

[Galelor]

I go all AC personally.

[knytul]

Balance Balance Balance

1) AC+HP augs are $$
2) AC augs 30 ac+
3) HP + Mod2 augs in the mods that you are lacking

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

Thanks folks.

This is all starting to come into focus for me.

I recently upgraded from
Bulwark of the blind eye
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=30410

to
Shield of the Lightning lord
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=33613

Very few other minor changes occurred about the same time, but what surprised me was I was able to go from just barely surviving in Fate of the combines run, to nearly trivial to tank it. (not quite trivial, but previously my druid healer was spamming to keep him alive, whereas now he requires maybe 2-3 heals tops)

that 40 ac shift, which effectively works out to 180 ac according to the earlier post made an incredible difference it would seem.

Ok. I am sold. AC augs it is.

[Galelor]

[knytul]

[Augustas]

[Wyvernwill]

[Kakimor]

For a non raider tho Wyvern Spell and Dot shielding are really low priority, but since the OP just acquired a drop from AMV I would say hes a CoA lvl raider which means very soon those mod 2s will become very nice to have. Still tho AC > shielding/avoidance > hps > other mod 2s

[Amanensia]

It's worth pointing out that how useful a smallish increase in AC is does depend on where you are on the mitigation curve against the mobs you typically fight. At the obvious extreme, if you're at 5k AC and fighting moss snakes, there's no need at all to get any more AC, as you are already mitigating all you can. But the same argument works the other way too. If your AC is way, way too low for the content you are fighting, then even a fairly chunky increase in AC may have almost no effect, as it might not be enough to boost you out of the "minimum mitigation" zone. In such a situation you may be better served equiping all the HP you can, and stockpiling AC improvements in the bank until you have enough to really give yourself a significant boost.

However, that would be a pretty rare scenario, and in general AC is the way to go. In the original poster's situation I would choose the AC over the HP.

[Galelor]

[Ainchoo]

[Yirrudno]

[myrmidonlord666]

Why max CE and Accuracy, if your a tank, Don't get me wrong if i get them on my gear ill skeet all over the place, but i am not wasting AC/tanking mod2's for hp/dps mod2's. Perhaps I am missing something about that.

[knytul]

Accuracy: every 10% increase = 1% chance to hit (max 150) so 1) thatll increase ur dps (yes we can do dps), and 2 more chances to hit = more dps = more agro ull generate (yes this helps our tanking).

CE = more chances to proc (yes this helps our DA procs on our hammer) and is very essential to an RT pally (ramp tank). Accuracy helps here too cuz if u hit more, u can proc more. This is by far one of the most difficult mod2's to max for us.

Again i only recommend pursueing offensive mod2 augs when your defensive ones are up there and near max and stable. if ur sittin at 10 shielding, dont bother just yet. But to max out mod2's and then go ac all the way leaves ur offensive lacking and to be a complete all around knight (which i like to be), you need to try to be workin to max everything. Also imo, 15k hp, and 4k ac raidbuffed is severly lacking as AC will do nothing for you on spells and ae's, where hp will and mana (omg the thing left out) will help out as well with them group heals and hot's.

[Finori]

nvm. I mis-read the text.

[Yirrudno]

[ZsaZsa Vavoom]

[Mendler]

He is partially correct. Yes higher dps = higher agro....ask a monk or ranger but its so minimal that you can't even notice it. Galelor is completely right on this and its not because I am a fellow ac whore. When I started to play my war he was really under geared for the content I was doing. So I went with what ever gear I could with out looking at the ratio ac to hps. I was at approx 2200 ac 13.1k buffed after I was done equiping him with "any thing". I would go to rss to camp ac augs two boxing my cleric and I would have to chain ch and patch here and there in order to stay alive. Now this is with group gear mind you. Now I am 3100ac 13.3K hps (still group geared except for 4 pieces)unbuffed and I can handle 3 at once with just cleric on ch's. My hps didn't change hardly at all but i got an additional 900 ac. This shocked the crap out of me to be honest and when I accidently pulled three mobs in rss I was preparing to die immediately. This is with no mod2's either and I want to really start working on that so I can tank better on raiding now that I have the time.
In the mean time I have added about 45 accuracy, and 12 ce and I notice zero difference in my agro (well maybe from the procs). Its so minimal that you should never worry about those. They will come with upgrades so they will work them selves out.

Someone mentioned up above that they go with 1 ac = 5 hps, but I am to the point where I use 1ac = 7 hps because I am such a fanatic about it and know what it does for me.
Bigcat if you haven't already put an ac aug in that shield do it immediately. You get a bonues on raw ac on shields. Take advantage of it.

[Finori]

Only the intend will create aggro, i.e. your swing - it is not important if you hit. However double and triple attacks (and flurry) will come only if you hit. Obviously CE will raise your proc rate on weapon procs (not buff procs).

[Abazzagorath]

He is incorrect.

Swing aggro is based off potential damage, its irrelevant if you actually hit anything or not.

Even if you maxed accuracy, 150, you are talking about 60-100 dps increase against live mobs (dependent on how good your weapons are) over having none. Proc dps is laughable. If you can get accuracy or CE then go for it, but sacrificing your ability to do what you are going to be doing most of the time (tanking) makes absolutely no sense.

I'm a "90% ac whore". I think the top 10% take it too far (I know an SK that sticks ac augs in their weapons and uses a 20 ac aug rather than something like the hand aug (15 ac 135 hp +stats +saves). Or a paladin in my guild that only looks at ac on upgrades and has like 15-20 shielding and 60 avoidance or something ridiculous like that because of it.

I think a smart knight looks at the equipment with the highest ac available to them (say a 10 ac range per slot) and plans their gear to get all their needed foci, maxed sheilding and avoidance, close to max mana regen, and as much ac as they can under those guidelines. Augs should be all ac. Unless you need a shielding or avoidance aug, it makes no sense to use pure hp augs over ac augs. The return tradeoff on augs makes anything else simply dumb. And I mean that word, dumb. An occasional high hp aug (150+) in exchange for a smaller ac aug (20 or less), ok, that's not crazy, but a 90 hp aug for a 25 ac aug? Completely dumb, I don't care who you are or what you do (assuming you're a knight).

I will admit to having collected some HP augs with dps mod2s, but I would only use them if I KNOW I'm not going to be tanking, and never auged on anything I wear when tanking (for example, I have anguish CE aug in my demi shield for a 20 CE shield to use when DA RTing, in the past I've stuck 10 accuracy aug on a 15 accuracy 10 CE earing to wear when dpsing, etc.).

Want to know what AC whoring will do for you? Doing enforcers in DK 2 nights ago. First attempt, the cleric (well geared cleric) in my group goes oom healing the warrior (popped defensive first 3 minutes) and warrior goes down maybe 8-9 minutes in. I tank the rest with an oom cleric and shaman healer till we wipe.

Next go around, warrior (a complete unabashed HP whore, one of those "I have 3200 ac unbuffed therefore I don't need anymore" types, all hp augs) is put on the bench and raid leaders have me tank it. Never in danger of dying the whole time, when enforcer pops, warrior gets it, dies as soon as defensive drops (we were the last enforcer to be killed) and I have to tank it and only drop lowish health after the AEs, never in danger of dying.

Heck, I had ONE shaman keep me up on ghost in razorthorne for a good 5 minutes (my epic click refreshed) as raid camped out when someone ran too close and aggroed him as we were setting up. ONE shaman (I supplemented heals on myself of course).

That's what AC lets you do. We have 18 slots (19 with shield) to put hp/ac augs. Without much effort you can put 25-30 ac augs in most of those slots, or 90 hp augs in most of them (110+ hp augs being rarer unless you are TSS+ raiding). The math doesn't make sense to do anything else.

Personally, I'd rather be the knight asked to tank raid mobs or be on MT rotation sometimes if low on warriors than the one doing 50 more dps when your raid is pushing 40k or 50k dps or whatever.

[Yirrudno]

[Mendler]

[Yirrudno]

[joks]

[Mendler]

[joks]

[Wyvernwill]

[Mendler]

Thank you for the clarification Wyver, now I do understand it.

[knytul]

ok now im confused.

"Every time you have the potential to do damage, regardless of the outcome, you will generate the same agro (bashes, etc excluded due to they are not generally the same damage potential of your melee weapon)." from yall

vs

"Hate is based on the base damage of the attack" from Rashere.

My understanding of Rashere's comment is the attack has to land for hate to be generated. but yall are saying that it doesnt matter if you hit or miss, the hates comin. To me this is a controdiction. You take a berserker who sits there and afk swings, itll take awhile for them to overagro a tank, but if they hit them dps disc's that increase damage, they gonna get agro ALOT faster. Explanation?

[Finori]

[Abazzagorath]

[Kilgaroz]

[Bruennor]

Imo, read steel warriors if you want the crazily detailed versions of how swing hate is generated.

As for ac and hp, ac, ac, and more ac. The only anguish augs I ever got were avoidance, stun resist, and the 125 and 150 hp. I still use the 125 and 150, replaced avoidance and may still be using the stun resist one, not sure. I love stun resistance. Plan your gear around the ac and mod 2's, and you can't go wrong. More hp's are nice things, but when it comes down to it, cutting the common damage down on every hit you take is much better than being able to handle 1/10 of one hit of a 4k hitting mob with 3 to 4 augs giving you 400 hp. And no, you don't take less damage from a hit with AC, you just prevent the bigger hits from hitting as often. When you think about it, you go up against a 4k hitting mob. It quads you for 2k, 3k, 3.5k, 3k. Your 400 hp increase doesn't help you there unless you get knocked to within 400 hp's of dying, so you will still be living. But if you put on 4 ac 30/25 augs, lets say 25 to simplify, and you get 100 ac, and you break the mobs attack. That would cause the mob to go from hitting the 2k, 3k, 3.5k, 3k to hitting more towards the 2k range more often, thereby saving you more than 400 damage, making it more valuable than hp.

Imo, hp is ok, but nowhere near as effective as ac. Also, you can get 20+ ac augs for pretty much every slot now. I highly recommend doing normal ldon vule for his ac aug to. In my book, ac is extremely valuable, no matter where you go. High hp is on all raid gear, but high ac is not a guarantee. You can get all the hp's you need to function off the raid gear of the expansion prior to the one you are doing now, save for possibly TBS, not sure there. I am guessing the next expansion will change that though.

[dindaur]

this come sup ALOT, maybe we should sticky this?

anyhow ac cuts down the damage taken so that gives it huge usefulness there for any tanking scnario, hp'll pad you for AE's coming from a raid perspective that is, and the spellshieling helps there as well, but keeping to ac . vs . hp i wouldn't pair the two off against one another, you NEED basic amounts of ac to handle the tanking aspect, and you NEED basic amounts of hp to handle the AE crap. find themediu, satisfy your all round needs by balancing your stats and your direction,

generally thoguh i found balancing hp was easy every epxanision just slaps on an extra 50 - 100 more hp so youll be upgrading that no matter what , its the ac then in that mid trnaisiton from CoA to Demi to beyond, where you can upgrade thehp and lose out on your ac, so in that sense i'd always focus ons trong ac items from cutting edge content, like i said the hp will always be on em in hunks.

and usually a ful set of gear from near tier mobs give you basic hp counst to ahndle the tiers aes - even a few tiers down can do the trick

but yea i really say lets stick this and be done with constantly answering it ;p

[Zorbee]

I don't think stickying it will change the questioners! Haha.

I'm in the middle road in my transition. I buff to 2300 AC but only 12khp. The problem is that every last upgrade I've come across will usually give me 20-60hp but drop my ac from 2-10(!). So I upgrade slowly at this point. (My guild is still in elementals so most of my upgrades are from 1 group events.)

[Zorbee]

A good example where you can see easily hate being accrued by swing and not by damage is using a non-magic weapon to attack an invulnerable to all but magic weapons mob. (Fine steel on The Rathe Council!)