Tanks

[Allison]

I was in this 5-person group today, hunting little piggies in Cruchan Gorge. We had a Druid, a Warden, a Bard, a Ranger and a Nightshade, all between levels 22-26. We were just cruising along, with very little downtime. Good exp, at a fast rate. Then, a level 27 hero joined us, and it went downhill from there.

The new hero was taking sooooo much damage. He sucked mine and the Druid's mana dry almost every single fight. Our downtime was greatly increased, there were a couple of deaths, and the exp wasn't as good. And we were killing the same little piggies that we were before.

I asked the guy how his armor was, and he said, "good." Then I said something like, "wow, you sure are taking a lot of damage." And he just said, "They like me." I was trying to subtly ask him what the heck was up. But I guess I was too subtle. hehe

I've heard that some people will sacrifice points in Shield to increase their damage, thinking that things will go faster if they can shorten the fights. Is that true? Because that seems nutso, if, in the long run, you are increasing downtime for your group.

I dunno, I don't really know that much about tanks. What do you guys think about the whole thing?

[Rooster]

A) If you were fighting grouped mobs, was he tanking 2 at a time, whereas prior to him joining was it spread out? (but see B)

B) How can one person take two peoples mana in a fight (with the same thing that didn't before)? I don't see how it's possible -- although I'm not doubting you, I just don't see the math in it.

C) If you're fighting the exact same thing you were before he joined -- the creatures should definitely die faster.

D) If he was a spear or Large Weapon hero - he would take more damage than a shield hero, but likely the same as any other class (he would likely be full spec in LW/CS & parry, which is better than other classes). But, at the same time, a LW/CS Hero dishes out a LOT of damage.

E) Did anyone put a Dex & Armor buff on him? If not, and you had one on your "tank" before, that would make a difference.

F) He was level 27 -- if you weren't fighting things orange to him, experience is going to drop dramatically. And if you do fight things orange to him at 27, it's going to be tough on the 22nd level character to be effective (if he's a melee type).

Basically, when in a group -- you must fight things orange, red, or purple to the highest level person in the group. That's why when someone groups with Muri & myself, it goes so well... we can already handle orange, red and low purples by ourselves -- so others that join only shorten the time it takes down the creature (or decreases our down time). If you were fighting things yellow to him, your experience would plummet.

[Allison]

Oh yeah..I knew the exp would drop when he joined. I understand how all that works. I just thought it sucked that his joining also increased the downtime, and used so much mana that we weren't able to tackle anything bigger.

But I just didn't get how one guy could take so much damage when the 2 guys (lower levels than the hero) who were tanking before the hero got there (and were still tanking after the hero got there) were barely needing any healing before. And then the hero joins and both the druid and I had to constantly heal him.

Yes, the hero was buffed. Yes, we were fighting just one of the same thing we were fighting before. No adds. And yes, the creatures did die faster. But, as I said, the hero needed so much healing that we still had to rest between each fight.

I dunno, maybe all his armor was gray or something. *shrug*

[Rooster]

That's odd. I know my bar moves slower cause I typically have 1100+ Hit points -- so it's going to drain anyone's power trying to keep me healed (most mobs hit me for 90-120 hit points now-a-days). Even though it doesn't look like I'm getting hit for that much damage due to the high hit points (it's a percentage thing).

[·ç·Xayd]

I would think just looking at your tankless group that...

Not only can the druid heal, but he can poison/root the creature as well, which helps over time. If you have a tank, the Druid's natural impulse may have been to stop that and concentrate on healing. Bard can DD as well, and the Ranger if shooting is doing just about as much damage as the shade, so it confuses the creature a bit, when two non-tanks do similar damage.

Torcs are orange/yellow at 37, with the occasional one about 40, so you were over your head considerably, although they're not that dangerous to your particular group since the ranger has a bonus to hit them and they're weak to pierce (assuming the shade was using daggers) ;). And yeah they hit rather hard, about 150-200 damage if I remember correctly. Lurikeen shades and rangers will get some evades and misses, a big Firby hero won't.

[Boom]

That hero was doing something wrong. I have been in lots of heroless groups like the one you described and it usually takes a good bit if healing to keep a non-hero/champ tank alive (blademasters are papertanks, I can tank better than a blademaster). Usually when im in a group like you described and a hero joins, everything gets a bit easier and we will take on harder mobs. Then when the hero leaves we gotta switch back to easier stuff. Once I was fighting purple abysmals and decided to tank myself when the hero left. After all, I wear pretty sweet scale armor and have nearly 1000 hitpoints (maybe only 800ish at the time). I was surviving, but the other healers said it was just too much downtime to heal me so we found easier monsters. I just don't have the parry and blocking thingies to lower the amount of damage I take.

Well, just to throw a wild guess out there....

Before the hero joins, ranger pulls and takes a hit or two (or evades hit or two) when the mob gets to yall. Then the nightshade gets in his big damage backstabby thingy and draws the aggro taking a hit or two. All this time the druid or warden has been bapping away and finally draws the aggro taking a hit or two. Maybe one of the healers gets a little aggro from healing and takes a hit or two. Nobody has taken a devistating amount of damage, maybe one person needs a heal or two before the mob dies. Then the hero joins. Sometimes a hero will want to pull if he isn't sure he can draw the aggro off a ranger. Was this hero pulling? Regardless, if he pulled he instantly had the aggro and its really hard to aggro a mob off of a hero. If the ranger pulled, the hero would taunt the mob before it reached the ranger and immediately have the aggro. Noone has a shot of pulling the mob off the tank. So instead of the the damage being spread out to 3-4 of the party, the tank is taking all of it. So everyone is healing the tank as fast as they can because they see his hp dropping so fast. So you have 3 people healing, when 1 or 2 of them may have been fighting before. And if the tank dies, all the healers are out of mana because they were spamming heals at the tank, so now someone else is gonna die.

This is just a bunch of guess but some of it may not be too far off the mark. Also, who knows how that tank was speced. Maybe he had zero points in parry and whatever other defensive skills tanks get. I know when I watch monsters beating on Malk, I hear a "clink" alot. That "clink" means that Malk parried the monster's attack and took zero damage. Those piggies bite real hard. One parry can save you from having to cast 2 or 3 heals. Also he said he had good armor. Maybe he was an idiot who though that blue reinforced armor was good. Hell, it sounds good, its not just regular armor, its "reinforced"!

Anyway, the moral of my story is (woot! story with a moral!) there are lots of things that could cause this, but it was an odd occurance. Next time you are in a heroless group and someone says "Should we try to find a tank?" Don't think to yourself "Naw, we are doing fine, a tank will just slow us down." You should be thinking "Omg, with tank we can fight harder mobs and get better exp! We soooo need a tank here!" Weird stuff happens all the time, but after being in lots and lots of parties made up of all kinds of combinations of classes, I can say that Heros kinda rock. Some classes make a huge difference in parties and some don't. Add a bard to a party and everything changes for the better. Add a nightshade and noone notices much of a difference (not to dis nightshades, they are invaluable in RvR and its not like they don't help at all in RvE). Hero is one of those classes that usually makes a huge difference for the better when they join a party.

[Rooster]

Damn, Boomy's all smart & stuff. :D

(perfect reasoning Boomy)

[Boom]

/blush