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Make dodge tanks able to function in latest content (TA / Cosmics)
morigosa
Posts: 710 Arc User
For reference, the build I'm using can be found here. Short summary: I'm using Lightning Reflexes, Thundering Kicks, and The Elusive Monk advantage on Parry to achieve 100% dodge chance. In most content, this works pretty well. Against recent content, however, it works not at all - the damage is high enough that a single un-dodged hit will kill you, even through block. Which means you have to maintain 100% dodge chance, 100% of the time, or you die. Which you can't do, because The Elusive Monk only lasts three seconds after making a melee attack. Here's a run-down:
TA Mindslayer: Required blocking followed by required movement; this takes more than three seconds, so The Elusive Monk buff falls off and then you die. Should be doable if you have a really good team and can afford to mostly ignore picking up orbs, however.
TA Gravitar: Spams knocks; at some point in the fight you'll get knocked about for more than three seconds at a time and then you die.
TA Grond: Only has the one knock attack and you can block that then resume attacking. A bit risky, but doable.
TA Teliosaurus: You have to block her hold... I don't actually remember if this is a normal hold (in which case this fight should be fine for a dodge tank) or if she still has the special hold that the Cosmic version does that requires you to maintain the block until a debuff falls off (in which case you've been blocking longer than three seconds and die).
TA Telios: Has some knocks; I wouldn't want to take a dodge tank in here but it shouldn't be as bad as Gravitar.
Cosmic Kigatilik: No problems here.
Cosmic Qwjibo: Fire patches deal a strong dot that can be blocked, but can't be dodged and ignores the dot resistance granted by Lightning Reflexes. If you block to deal with that, then The Elusive Monk falls off and you die. If you don't block, then the fire patches kill you instead. This fight could also be fixed by changing the fire patches so they only damage people that are actually standing in them.
Cosmic Teliosaurus: Requires blocking to deal with both green bubbles and her hold; in the latter case, you have to maintain the block until the debuff falls off, which is - you guessed it - longer than three seconds which means you die.
My suggestion for how to deal with this: Change The Elusive Monk buff so that it's granted by blocking and by being knocked, in addition to being granted on making a melee attack. You'd still have some problems with Cosmic Teliosaurus, trying to find enough time where you're not blocking to get in full combos of Thundering Kicks, but I feel that's probably doable.
If anyone else has any ideas for how to make dodge tanks viable in these encounters, I'd love to hear them.
TA Mindslayer: Required blocking followed by required movement; this takes more than three seconds, so The Elusive Monk buff falls off and then you die. Should be doable if you have a really good team and can afford to mostly ignore picking up orbs, however.
TA Gravitar: Spams knocks; at some point in the fight you'll get knocked about for more than three seconds at a time and then you die.
TA Grond: Only has the one knock attack and you can block that then resume attacking. A bit risky, but doable.
TA Teliosaurus: You have to block her hold... I don't actually remember if this is a normal hold (in which case this fight should be fine for a dodge tank) or if she still has the special hold that the Cosmic version does that requires you to maintain the block until a debuff falls off (in which case you've been blocking longer than three seconds and die).
TA Telios: Has some knocks; I wouldn't want to take a dodge tank in here but it shouldn't be as bad as Gravitar.
Cosmic Kigatilik: No problems here.
Cosmic Qwjibo: Fire patches deal a strong dot that can be blocked, but can't be dodged and ignores the dot resistance granted by Lightning Reflexes. If you block to deal with that, then The Elusive Monk falls off and you die. If you don't block, then the fire patches kill you instead. This fight could also be fixed by changing the fire patches so they only damage people that are actually standing in them.
Cosmic Teliosaurus: Requires blocking to deal with both green bubbles and her hold; in the latter case, you have to maintain the block until the debuff falls off, which is - you guessed it - longer than three seconds which means you die.
My suggestion for how to deal with this: Change The Elusive Monk buff so that it's granted by blocking and by being knocked, in addition to being granted on making a melee attack. You'd still have some problems with Cosmic Teliosaurus, trying to find enough time where you're not blocking to get in full combos of Thundering Kicks, but I feel that's probably doable.
If anyone else has any ideas for how to make dodge tanks viable in these encounters, I'd love to hear them.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
...Or, with a bit less sarcasm: it'd be nice if dodge tanking wasn't a binary thing, but I don't really expect the devs to put in the time to make well-balanced drastic changes. Thus my suggestion: I think that's the smallest change that would achieve the desired result.
Though it being binary isn't actually a problem on its own; the problem comes in when dodge is binary and you don't have enough hit points to let things average out. Someone with, say, 80% dodge chance and 75% avoidance, facing a series of 20 hits that do 2000 damage each (so 40,000 incoming damage), can expect to take around 16,000 damage; with other defenses online and a decent healer, that's reasonably survivable. The same tank facing a single 40,000 damage hit - not an uncommon number to see in recent content - is looking at taking either 10,000 damage in a survivable lump-sum... or, one time in five, 40,000 damage and they go splat.
Unfortunately, letting that sort of thing average out would require over a hundred thousand hit points, which is entirely unreasonable and would be utterly broken for reasons completely unrelated to dodge mechanics.
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Or you can just rebuild your character. A Str/Con Wardicator with 15k hp, using Laser Knight instead of Elusive Monk, can soak a 40k hit without dying, or a 60k hit with an AoRP support.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
If that's not how you intended it... then how did you intend it?
It's not the only build out there. Heck, a pure dodge build would use Fluidity, right? And that buff lasts for ten seconds after blocking for three.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
So, you take the difference between the random number you got and the minimum random number you needed for a successful dodge, multiply by something, and subtract that from your Avoidance. (To a minimum of zero Avoidance, naturally.)
A dodge tank is a "randomly higher mitigation" tank. LR has never made your character dodge anything - it has made your character randomly take less damage while standing in place not dodging at all. If we renamed Dodge to "Extra defense chance" and Avoidance to "Extra defense amount", and then dropped a new player in front of the screen they would never know that what they were looking at was at one point a "dodge tank".
Your LR tank is just a tank with slightly different mitigation mechanics from the tank next to them. LR has potentially the most fake theme out of any power in the game, because at no point does it enforce that theme on your character in any way other than making the word "dodge" appear above your head if you have damage numbers on, especially now that you no longer even do a block animation when you dodge - at the very least that made it look like you were parrying attacks, but now you don't even do that much.
Don't bemoan the loss of your "dodge tank" theme, it never existed to begin with.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
So let's be conservative and call it 80% for a dodge tank and ignoring they might get an AoRP there (150% min let's call it) and have a dodge chance of say 65% with oh 80% avoidance. Let's say they do the smart thing and just block when they need to block alphas and keep saying burning chi up. Let's say the attack is 10,000 points.
Without AoRP that dodge tank that doesn't dodge and isn't blocking will take 5263 damage and 2924 damage when dodged and saying they have a rank 2 block of 300% that becomes 1316 or 731. The average comes out to around 3374 not blocked and 843 blocked.
Compare that to say a regeneration tank, which is a reactive defense instead of a proactive one. I will be fair and use my stats and say the resistance is 109%. Damage I take unblocked is from the same the same attack does 4566 and if I happen to dodge (remember base of 10%/20%) 3805 and a blocked value of 1142 and 951. And my average comes out to 4477 and 1119.
And if we throw in AoRP of the 150% I prescribe above, unblocked dodge tank gets 2857, dodged 1587, and average of 1880 with blocked being 714, dodged 397 and average of 470. For the regeneration tank unblocked 2710, dodged of 2258 and average of 2657 with the blocked value of 678, dodged 565 and average of 664.
Each defensive has its strengths and weaknesses. I think the big problem here is that people are forgetting that block is an important part of their defense, and also forget that defense is suppose to be wagered into this, not just simply dodge. You get over 300% resistance to dot damage as well with LR, and all regeneration has is its reactive healing, the 30% resistance doesn't even apply since it disappears the minute the tank takes any damage and requires the tank to almost always be topped off.
To be blunt, I don't see dodge being so handicapped to not be comparable to other tanks. The complaint of what about big hits that you don't dodge is fairly moot when you see an alpha as a tank you should be blocking to begin with. The fact that one of Dodge's advantages is that it can flat out ignore this basic function of the game in a lot of content lately is a major issue. No I do not feel dodge is handicapped and no I don't feel dodge tanks have it worse than say a regeneration tank and definitely not even in a dire straight as much as say PFF.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
I've been working on testing all the passive forms of defense in the game lately and my first round of tests without using any stats or specs shows LR with a base equivilant of 172.4% resistance on a successful dodge... just for comparison Invulnerable has a base of 40% resistance & Defiance has a base of 10.5%/stack. When you take into account that you've got a base Dodge chance of 40% with LR that gives you an average equivilant of 69% resistance right out of the gate. Thats a pretty significant bonus already... So if you want to shore up the weakness then the passive will have to sacrifice some of it's strengeth to bring it in line with other passives.
In my testing I was sitting at 20% resistance from gear that with the tank role bonus became 34.9% effective, and a 55% dodge chance. The result was 207.3% effective resistance with LR for an average of 114% resistance. 6 stack Defiance only reached 97.9% with the same setup. Again this is without super stats for base value... if you add in stats to that you're looking at a much MUCH bigger bonus... plus for every 1% you add to your dodge chance the higher your average resistance grows and the closer to that enormous effecitve resistance value you get.
Now, with the current options it is actually entirely possible to make a dodge tank that is practically unkillable even in Giant Monster fights... LR + EV:VD + IDF + TBD/AS + Juggernaut with as much dodge and defense as possible from gear could easily have an average resistance of around 600%, even more if you throw in CoPD and have an ally with AoRP and another with AoPM... Sure you won't be 100% dodge but you'll be easily around 70% dodge (Which at base LR avoidance is 120% average resistance).
It's worth noting that even with Defiance or Invulnerability you can't match the potential that LR has. Using an identical setup but changing only the passive will yield a significantly lower average resistance. Sure you're constant resistance will go up but even with a failed dodge on the above setup you'll survive pretty much everything that gets thrown at you... And due to EV:VD blocking goes from a "i'm making myself weaker" to a "I'm making myself stronger" situation.
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Dodge Chance capped at 60% - this cap can only be exceeded by Masterful Dodge and Lightning Reflexe's stacking Dodge buff
Powers that grant Dodge Buffs now grant Avoidance buffs instead
Lightning Reflexes grants +40% Dodge Chance
NW, WotW, & Quarry now grant +23% Dodge Chance (NW & WotW grant +23% lump sum, Quarry grants +8% base +5%/stack Audacity)
LR now grants 20% Resistance
WotW now grants 10% Resistance
NW now grants 8% Resistance
Quarry now Grants 5% Resistance
Avoidance now uses Cryptic Math
Avoidance with LR is now 75%/97.5%/120% base (43%/49%/55% mitigation)
Avoidance from LR scales with superstats, Dodge Chance & resistance does not.
Base avoidance is now 50% (33% mitigation)
Result: consistant 100% dodge is impossible, but LR tanks now won't die from a failed dodge. Non-LR Dodge builds are more survivable. Dodge on non-dodge builds is now just a chance for extra mitigation. 100% dodge is only achiveable while using MD or from the stacking buff from LR. Statistically an LR tank should dodge between 1/2 and 3/5 of attacks, and resist 20% (+other resistances) of the rest. This is an average resistance of 45% Base which puts it solidly between Invuln and Defiance at base. Which is a good place for it to be.
That won't fix issues with Qwjibo's fire patches, since their damage is only reduced by resistance on the block layer (and Fluidity removes all of that)... but the PTR notes said something about adjusting their areas, so hopefully it will soon be possible to mitigate them by, y'know, just not standing in them.
Ironically, STR primary with ward/guard-icator and lots of con makes for the best dodge tank though, which I think is a big issue. Folks making dodge tank types probably wanna roll with a dex primary, but dex does not give you options for in built defense like STR does. And you NEED defense optimized for a dodger. You should have at least 100% or so resist for the instances where you don't dodge, as well as very high hp. Dex primary will not give you that, and its enhancements to dodge are fairly pitiful, aside from the little shot to avoidance you can get from mastery.
If you're willing to spend the power slots and advantage points to take both Fluidity (r2 and Flowing Like The River) and Parry (The Elusive Monk), things are slightly better; Cosmic Teleiosaurus is reasonably tankable with Fluidity. (And yes, Fluidity does count as a block for things like the dino's spike detonation.) There are still some problems, though.
Knock-spam will still kill you unless you're really super-paranoid about blocking all the time; Fluidity's buff technically lasts 10 seconds - but the amount of dodge it grants decays over time, and in practical terms you really get only maybe six seconds (assuming you're also keeping the buff from Thundering Kicks active - without that, Fluidity's decay mechanics allow you a grand total of one second in which to attack) before you need to block for another two-and-a-half.
You still can't tank Qwyjibo. In fact, if you're using fluidity instead of parry, you have no protection at all from the fire patches. The only "good" news here is that Qwyjibo doesn't require as many tanks as the other cosmics, so not being able to tank usually isn't a big deal. Annoying, yes, but... I can live with it.
And I discovered something I'd missed before: Kigatilik has an aura that reduces dodge chance by about 2.3%. Which is obnoxious - if you're normally just at 100% dodge, that renders you completely incapable of tanking. If you're overgeared enough (or just have enough people around with AoPM) to have 102.3% dodge or higher, on the other hand, that -2.3% penalty is completely ignorable. The upshot of this is that my dodge tank works fine at tanking Kigatilik (since there's almost always someone around with AoPM), but isn't usable for tanking dogs.
Suggestion: Change Kigatilik's aura to debuff avoidance instead of dodge chance; -2.3% avoidance would be around a 15-20% increase in damage taken for a dodge tank. This would make it a meaningful penalty for everyone, rather than a penalty that's ignorable for some characters but renders others completely unable to fulfill their primary role.
I would probably alter things as follows:
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
I don't think it's actually a good idea, though. Either the cooldown is short enough that it functions as guaranteed dodge vs things like Teleiosaurus' bite - at which point LR becomes the defensive power of choice for anything tough - or the cooldown is long enough that it is, in practical terms, not reliable and you might as well just roll the dice the first time.
If I were going to suggest rebuilding dodge mechanics entirely (which I was trying not to do with this thread, but we're there already so whatever), I'd start my considerations with something like this:
LR avoidance scaling changed to be based more on rank of power than on super stats. (Try putting LR on a low level character sometime; the results are... sad.) I'm not going to try to pull numbers out of a hat, but this should be set so that the average damage reduction from LR is comparable to other defensive passives.
LR damage-over-time resistance fixed so that it doesn't apply to dot effects that can also be dodged. (This may entail just removing it outright, as the only dot effects I know of that can't be dodged are ones that ignore LR's dot resistance anyway.)
LR reduces damage on all hits that could have been dodged but weren't as if they had been dodged - and then applies the difference as a non-resistable (and non-dodgeable) damage-over-time effect that spreads the damage out over the next ten seconds.
This would remove the "Oops, you failed to dodge, you're dead now" mechanic of current dodge tanking, while preserving the value of both dodge chance and avoidance; maintaining 100% dodge chance would make for an interesting goal, but would no longer be strictly required for survival - and in some cases you might actually choose to (gasp!) gear for avoidance instead of dodge chance.
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