Starting EC

[big_herpes]

So, I recently got my 50 vanguard tank pretty decently geared (all columi and about 4 pieces of BH). I was able to tank all of HM EV no problem the other night with a PUG group. My guild is pretty short on geared tanks, and I wanted to offer my assistance.

 

If all my defense stats are pretty much where they should be, what do you think my endurance should be unbuffed before heading in there? I don't want to be so squishy that I'll ruin the op before it really begins. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Kitru]

If all my defense stats are pretty much where they should be, what do you think my endurance should be unbuffed before heading in there?

 

If you've got the mitigation stats to tank, you've got the required hp. As long as you know the strats, SM EC is pretty much on par with HM EV/KP. You're not going to want to start working on HM EC until you're in full Rak at minimum, but you're more than geared to start beating SM EC (and getting the Rak gear that'll get you into HM EC).

 

Concerning tank hp, I've tanked HM EC on my VG tank alt in full Rak (the only BH was ear and implants) with not a single problem at 23k hp (with exotech stim). The healers had no complaints about keeping me alive since my mitigation was more than enough to make up for the "lower" hp. All-in-all, you're going to have the hp and mitigation to tank any of the existing content in the game if you're in the appropriate starting PvE gear (leveling blues/greens and/or tionese for SM EV/KP, columi for HM KP/EV and SM EC, Rak for HM EC) whether you focus on getting higher mitigation or higher hp. Unless you're completely eschewing your mitigation stats, you'll have all that you need of the other category whether you stack hp or mitigation.

[Mordeguy]

If you've got the mitigation stats to tank, you've got the required hp. As long as you know the strats, SM EC is pretty much on par with HM EV/KP.

 

I wouldn't quite say that, it's definitely a notch above EV and KP HM. We do take columi geared peeps through it but it usually involves having other people there who are more geared and can pick up the slack. HM EV is eeeeeasy in columi, EC SM can be quite the challenge at that gear level especially for people who are just learning it. Yes though, if a group is experienced enough it can certainly make it seem easy. I don't remember the last time we've wiped on story mode outside of taking new players that don't have it down yet and mess up along the way.

 

Anyway onto the topic. Your HP doesn't really matter, well it does, but it doesn't. I have 3 tanks of the same class and I gear them each differently. One is all mitigation, one is a mix, and one is an endurance stacker. Honestly, a lot of healers like my endurance stacker. Near 29k hp with a stim and trooper buff, while maintaining pretty good def/shield/absorb. That said though, my other tanks have never had any complaints. My first attempt at denova on one of them was with about 21k fully buffed. I had a good group with me so it helped, but I never felt like I didn't have enough hp for it. If you've met a good shield/absorb target then your hp, like said above, should be at an appropriate level without needing to stack it higher.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Mordeguy

[Kitru]

EC SM can be quite the challenge at that gear level especially for people who are just learning it.

 

That's why I said "know the strats". I meant it in the sense of "done EC before without having to have the strats explained" as opposed to "has read but not experienced the fights". Assuming everyone knows the fights, you can do SM EC in Columi gear just as easily as you would do KP or EV HM; the reason that most people breeze though HM KP/EV easier than SM EC is largely because people are more familiar with that content, especially if they're just in columi gear (which likely means they've never seen EC but, if they're full columi, they've seen both EV and KP at least once). Familiarity counts for a lot.

[Redklaw]

Kitru is absolutely right.

 

We took a Jugernaut fresh 50 alt in almost full recruit gear (minus black hole implants and a earpiece we made for him) into EC SM and cleared it without difficulty. The only real trouble point was kephess for him, and really all he had to do was kite a bit.

 

We took the same tank into HM EC tonight (with 3 piece columi, rest black hole / rakata mix) and were able to clear everything but kephess. We may have gotten kephess down we started late and people needed to get to sleep after a couple of attempts (he did pick up at least 1 piece of campaign every fight up to that point, so he wasn't extremely under geared by that point, but still had columi main / offhand and helm)..

 

Keep in mind that this is with a full group of people that have done the encounters to the point of absurdity, including the under geared tank (although he had done them only as a dps merc / marauder prior to the attempts above).

 

There is relatively small amounts of stat differences between gear sets, the difference between optimized campaign / black hole and columi is about 7-10% mean mitigation (guesstimating here, I play a PT tank so I can punch it into a spreadsheet later). That is a pretty big difference in many fights, but with everyone having enough familiarity and skill, it is by no means a raid killer. Most raid leaders nowadays prefer to have everyone way over geared simply because very few players are playing fully optimal and they need the extra boost or just want things easy.

 

My guild has a habit of doing things the hard way out of sheer boredom / insanity (ie it's tradition for us to tank the drouk mini boss with the knockback mechanic on the log).

 

TL;DR - Really you should be fine to tank EC SM, if you can learn and handle the mechanics. I wouldn't recommend HM until you get a chance to see the SM mechanics first, but really gear isn't as much a barrier as people make it out to be.

[Kitru]

There is relatively small amounts of stat differences between gear sets, the difference between optimized campaign / black hole and columi is about 7-10% mean mitigation (guesstimating here, I play a PT tank so I can punch it into a spreadsheet later).

 

I would probably guess that the difference is *much* more substantial than that. Armor rating, especially for PT/VGs and Jugg/Guards, accounts for a vast majority of your mitigation and that's *directly* tied to item-level. The difference between columi and Campaign is close to 7-10% based purely off of the reduction/increase in K/E dam redux. Increasing Shield, Defense and Absorb probably pulls it up to double digits in decreased mean mitigation easily (12% or so would be my guess). I really wouldn't want to go in to HM EC with an entire raid of columi geared individuals. Of course, if you're going in with 1-2 columi geared characters and everyone else is completely familiar with the content such that they're more likely to wipe due to boredom than actual fight mechanics while also being woefully overgeared, it's going to be a problem (even threat with a tank would be rendered null with proper use of taunts). The average gear level matters more than the individual gear level of a specific player. Skill, on the other hand, generally has a minimum requirement for everyone.

[Redklaw]

Kitru before I start this post, I'm putting the numbers up here because I've been thinking about this all day while at work, not to try to argue with you or something (MUCH RESPECT!). I really have only guesstimates on what the numerical difference is between columi and optimized campaign gear.

 

I am using a modified version of MorningMusume's Powertech / Vanguard Spreadsheet (that is up to date with all class changes) to calculate this. Also I use this spreadsheet to find what is "fully optimized" for overall mean mitigation.

 

Stats (mostly) Fully Optimized Campaign / BH Supercommando with War Hero Relics and Full Augments (IE what I'm wearing now) and an Exotech Stim:

 

Armor: 8760

Defense: 323

Shield: 724

Absorb: 634

 

Calculated mean mitigation: 77.15%

 

Default Columi Supercommando with an Exotech Stim and BM Relics (zero augments):

 

Armor: 8165

Defense Rating: 447

Shield rating: 247

Absorb Rating: 148

 

Calculated mean mitigation 68.86%

 

The raw numerical difference is 8.29%, which is actually pretty close to my original estimate. This is a much larger figure that it would appear however (thus why my original post stated this was a pretty big difference).

 

Example:

 

Given a 10k hit

2285 per hit average with my gear.

3114 per hit average in default columi.

 

This actually makes my gear work out to a 27.48% reduction in damage intake in comparison to the columi.

 

Remember the effectiveness of mean mitigation is on an exponential curve, so every percent is worth much more than the one before. A good easy to follow example of this is that at 99% mean mitigation you take HALF the damage as someone at 98% mean mitigation, the difference of taking 1% of total dmg output capacity and 2% of the same.

 

I'll show more math if anyone has any questions

Edited September 5, 2012 by Redklaw

[Redklaw]

Ohh as for threat issues, really it only became a concern in Stormcaller and Firebrand for us.

 

The tactic we used to account for low threat generation on the ungeared tank is as follows (be warned long read):

 

 

Positioning:

 

Both tanks on turrent facing the turrents back and inward with dps standing roughly across from the tanks on the inside of the tanks, this allowed us to guard whoever and always be within 30 meters. It also allowed for healers to double up on problem areas if needed. Geared tank starts on stormcaller and the undergeared on firebrand. SC has two dps'ers on him and a healer, FB has 1 dps'er on him and a healer, and one dps'er is on the ground.

 

Mechanics handling:

 

DPS - 2 on SC and the one on ground attack SC until after 2nd defensive systems to avoid pylon drop on 2nd DD. Afterwards it's split even until after final Defensive systems where dps gets shifted around to get the simultaneous kill. This is our normal tactic.

 

Tanks - Normal tank swap rotation on the first go, Undergeared tank ends up kiting electric umbrella's while chaining defensive cooldowns (this seemed to be the point he would die in the first couple of attempts). Afterwards geared tank ends up on FB and undergeared on SC. Proceed with normal tank swap but after the geared tank kites pylons he taunts back FB and the undergeared tank taunts back SC, repeat till finished. This is highly altered and is due to issues with threat management with the undergeared tank when starting off on SC and issues with the undergeared tank surviving defensive systems while kiting pylons without defensive cooldowns.

 

 

 

Just as a note, this was actually done as a matter of necessity as our other tank was out of town all week and every pug tank we tried to bring couldn't handle mechanics regardless of them being in full black hole.

 

This was doable with a woefully undergeared tank who has understanding and skill, whereas it was nigh impossible with geared tanks that don't understand or can't handle the mechanics.

 

TL;DR Back to the original topic, if you want to help out your guild, learn as much about the encounters and your class as possible. Gear will follow as an afterthought.

Edited September 5, 2012 by Redklaw

[Kitru]

The raw numerical difference is 8.29%, which is actually pretty close to my original estimate

 

I defer to your math completely. My guesstimate was more predicated upon the qualitative increase of tier 2 to tier 4 and the assumed differences in armor rating between them (I'm so used to looking at raw stats rather than item rating) while I forgot that Rakata is more akin to tier 2.5 (thanks to being 140 i-rating) and campaign is tier 3.

 

As to the comparative differences in incoming damage, it's something that I think very few people realize (though once you've learned to look at it that way, it becomes obvious). A hypothetical 5% increase in mitigation from 90% mitigation to 95% mitigation (an increase of only 5%, which, when compared to the 90% you got before that, would seem relatively minor) is worth as much as the entire previous 90% mitigation upon which it was built. It's for this reason that I'm glad the developers aren't using additive survivability mechanisms and are instead applying diminishing returns that both enforce optimization to diversify rather than specialize as well as normalizing mitigation to become a more linear rather than logarithmic incoming damage scale.

[Kitru]

Undergeared tank ends up kiting electric umbrella's while chaining defensive cooldowns (this seemed to be the point he would die in the first couple of attempts)

 

This is a point in the fight where I've always found it most necessary for group communication to be used. My normal kiting path is to just run a circuit around Stormcaller while hitting him with any ranged attacks that I can (I do it on both my VG and my Shadow). When I'm *approaching* the section where I'm both in range and in LoS of the Stormcaller side healer, I call it out in TS so that the healer can drop a quick couple of heals on me as I run by. Since, if you're running fast enough to avoid the rods-from-god in the circuit around the tank (the rods fade right when you're about to get to them so it works out quite well), you're only within range and LoS of the healer for a couple GCDs, it's imperative that you give them time to prepare. Elsewise, you're likely to die just because you're constantly eating little bits of damage from Firebrand and, potentially, errant lightning rods that drop too close to you, without getting appreciable heals.

[Redklaw]

Our path is to do a direct flyby of firebrand's group and to call it so the healer can top you off and to do the same when approaching stormcaller's group. Ending back up on firebrand after this stage from this position puts you in a favorable angle to not cleave a group due to shoddy movement or slow kill times on the adds.

 

Honestly I think the main issue was inexperience with the tank in this fight as a tank. It being the first time he's done it as a tank, there are a lot of little things that can cause things to go wrong that you just aren't aware of until you've done it enough.

 

When done right this fight can look easy, but IMO it's the hardest 8 man encounter to master in game. Kephess felt easy in comparison when we were learning him.

[Kitru]

When done right this fight can look easy, but IMO it's the hardest 8 man encounter to master in game. Kephess felt easy in comparison when we were learning him.

 

Really? I always felt that Kephess was the more difficult encounter to master thanks to the pinpoint taunt timing. Tanks is the most finicky, by far, because sometimes the mechanics refuse to work correctly (couple weeks back, the HM EC run I was in spent 3 hours on tanks because, no matter what we did, rods kept dropping into 1 or both shielded areas even though the tank had threat and was in range), but, as a tank, I found it to be relatively simple when things go as they're supposed to.

[Mordeguy]

Really? I always felt that Kephess was the more difficult encounter to master thanks to the pinpoint taunt timing. Tanks is the most finicky, by far, because sometimes the mechanics refuse to work correctly (couple weeks back, the HM EC run I was in spent 3 hours on tanks because, no matter what we did, rods kept dropping into 1 or both shielded areas even though the tank had threat and was in range), but, as a tank, I found it to be relatively simple when things go as they're supposed to.

 

I sort of agree with Redklaw, and you at the same time. Kephess seems very very overwhelming at first to people learning it, but it's just a matter of learning each phase's simple mechanic. The tanks on the other hand can be a pretty hectic fight. When done right the tank fight can seem almost effortless, but in my experiences it takes people who are new to Denova longer to understand that fight than Kephess. Especially on HM due to some randomness. Kephess is mostly a DPS race that when broken down phase by phase is pretty simple. The hardest part is, like you said, for tanks to learn when to taunt (and how to drop the circles in a safe spot). Once they have this down the fight is really not very hard to one shot each time.

 

As for the tanks being a finicky fight, you are absolutely right. There seems to be a lot that can go wrong even when you do things right. We've had spires drop on both shields as well, when stormcaller was clearly aggro'd to the tank, and our tanks take the same paths each time so they are never out of range. We've also had dps who took the double destruction be hit afterwards despite being clear of the danger zone, though that could be latency. I will say, it's the one fight in this game that I fear will go wrong even when everything goes right. I think the random and unpredictable nature of this fight, whether it's intended or not, make it more difficult to "master". Sometimes you just never know what you're gonna get. Our first clear of denova HM way back was about 6 hours total. Half of it spent on the tanks.

Edited September 8, 2012 by Mordeguy

[CitizenFry]

IMO if you're running full speed to dodge lightning bubbles during the Defensive Systems phase, you're doing it wrong. Once you get the timing down, you can drop lightning bubbles just as tightly as Kephess' Breath of the Masters circles without taking any damage from them (you'll still be taking mortar hits, obv).

 

In any event, there's no reason you can't be within range and LOS of the Stormcaller healer the whole time. Usually I try to drop the lightning bubbles behind the shield, so the lightning isn't between the boss and the people who need to run up to the boss. You can do this for any of the three shield positions, though the middle (story mode) position is a bit of a tight squeeze.