MOD 20: DPS, TANK & HEALER OBSERVATIONS AND PERSONAL OPINION:

At the start I found out first hand that DPS and Healer types could still perform as tanks in epic and trial content simply because that is what I had to do when the changes first went live. Fortunately, it has improved greatly since then.

Even with the changes at the beginning of any epic dungeon I will still run ahead and start combat with any toon I take into it because I know that any DPS or Healer that I play can usually handle one mob and even if I cannot the save point is close by so not as far to travel to catch up to the rest of the group. For the rest of the run, I now make the effort to stay with the group.

Combat tactics that still work:
I still use my dodgy DPS or Healer types to run ahead of the group and attack the next mob and then dodge forward and past them. Before a tank was not really required for this move and I never worried about it. Now chances are the DPS or Healer that does this will most likely not survive for very long without someone else to pull the aggro off of them. Even before the changes having a Tank in the middle to pull aggro off the designated cannon fodder was always optimal for this one.

Used to consider this a solo tactic because I never used it in group content:
I recently did spellplague (REQ) with a group and for a lot of it I just used my healer to attack one target from a distance and we just waited for the mob to come to us without disturbing the other mobs close by or opening up one of those portal type thingies. Before we used to be less careful about that.

Random Queue:
I no longer waste my time with RDQ but I still do the skirmish one because it is still a very short wait time to get in and the time it takes to do it is still the same.

With the introduction of Sharandar I now do REDQ with my favored DPS or Healer as I want the campaign currency and chose those two to collect it. It will not last long though as I only need the first 1200 on those two toons to upgrade my HR, DC and TR with the corresponding pant and shirt items.

I still automatically abandon lomm and ravenloft because I do not want to do them, they generally fail from REDQ and I have better things to do for the next half-hour so whether I get the leaver penalty or not. Tong seems to be messed up in a few places and my DPS toons no longer seem to cause any significant damage at all to the spirit thingies at the end boss and for my last run something weird happened in the second mini-boss battle and it seemed to affect everybody badly as it killed us all in about 3 seconds so we just abandoned.

RTQ: I never stopped doing this one but now instead of automatically abandoning CODG with my healer I will stay and make one attempt at it. Although, I still do the lemming thing and abandon it if everyone else does. Also, I still abandon any instance where there is another healer in the same group as I deem it an automatic failure even if it would not be. On the week they supposedly fixed that problem it seemed to happen more often for a few days or so afterward but has not happened since then.

Some things I have noticed: in public content there is no such thing as a GWF tank at least I have not seen one since MOD 16. As of MOD 20 GF tanks seem to be making a comeback or rather it stopped being paladin only as tank in public content.

Since mod 18 I have taken the time to develop my GF and Paladin as real tanks but because they are both just alts, I will not play either of them as tanks in public content. I have done my own brand of testing with the Paladin in Avernus and for the most part it seems that I am now more capable of doing tank type stuff with a tank.

Awareness: I had no idea how much of a big deal it really was until I purchased the new mythical mount from AH. Even though my other toons do not get the full effect of the new mythical mount the omnipotence power is still available to all of them so I use that one now for most of them.

A lot of the companion encounter powers still seem to procure 0 damage so I still do not like using them.

CW: In mod 20 I still purchased the poisoned knives set for this alt but the reason I had for upgrading to that set no longer exists so he is still using the Valindra set. Arcane Tempest has replaced Disintegrate and is my new third favorite power to use. Almost used it to replace Repel but I know how the melee types love that one and I do not want to deprive them of a chance to express their true feelings.

GWF (DPS): one of the feats “Overpenetration” has changed to actually be useful but I could not take it because my power and accuracy for this alt are nowhere near that point yet.

Paladin: In mod 20 it is the only toon that required me to work on it just to bring her back to what I considered to be a medicore state for a tank before mod 20 and now that appears to be as good as it gets for this alt.
In terms of encounter powers, I still have no idea but I chose Sacred Shield for the first feat and even if the feat does not actually work, I am still doing extra damage with whatever at-will I am using as I am pretty sure that the encounter power it affects still works.

Enchantments and Runestones: I made zero changes to my rank 10 and 9 enchantments and only replaced one rank 10 empowered runestone with a rank 15 or 11 indomitable runestone for all nine of my toons. My paladin got a rank 15 and 11 because I seemed to think she needed it more than the others.

Before I was focused on upgrading all runestones to rank 15 after the bonding ones were done and now it is Utility Enchantments instead.

I have all rank 10 and 9 enchantments and since all the offense and defense ones are different and they are not providing any real benefit except for probably the combined rating thing. For the utility ones it may be providing me with a small benefit as all my toons have rank 10 Brutal Enchantments and 1 rank 10 Tymora equipped there because a while back some of the enchantments I had on a few toons were made useless so I decided to make it just one type of enchantment for all. Basically, it was a cheap enchantment that I could afford for 9 toon’s and then at least I would know if it was useless for one then it was useless for all.

The way it is done now I will just skip my original plan of upgrading to rank 12s first and just go straight to rank 15s for each group. I will start with utility as that is already chosen for me as dark enchantments are the only choice. For me I will not do anything with the offense or defense slots until I see how things look after I have upgraded all of the utility slots with the appropriate rank 15s.

Insignias: the only thing I did with my insignias is to stop upgrading the blue to orange as that is no longer useful to me until I make changes so that they are all one insignia type and in terms of the economy I will no longer waste AD on this in the AH as I used to just buy a legendary one every once in awhile just to speed things up.

Artifact sets: Initially I made no changes and besides my TR and almost all alts were already using the old artifact sets. Although, once I finally had enough of the undermountain campaign currency I did still upgrade the artifact sets of my GF and Paladin to the reflective set because that set was still giving an extra 20K HP when upgraded too legendary and that is what I consider to be the most important thing for them.

My HR and GWF still have the Lostmauth sets I gave them way back when. At the time they only got it because it was all I had left of the completed sets and I was still working on their other sets at the time and knew there was no chance of me completing them anytime soon.

My DC no longer has a complete Tiamat set and even if I did, I still prefer the staff of flowers set over that one. Ditto with the SW except her Tiamat set is still intact.

I never gave my Paladin her Tiamat set but I keep it in my guild bank just in case I should ever change my mind about it.

The new artifact sets introduced with the new Sharandar look no better than what I have from undermountain and for the seemingly Tank focused one, well the only way I go after that one is if they nerf the reflective set in such a way as to take away the 20K HP that it provides or change the new one to include a similar or greater increase to HP.

Artifact Weapon Sets: All my toons still have the legion set from Avernus and since they are still providing me with what I wanted in the first place no change there.

The fuzzy logic that I use to play this game:
From Undermountain to present I have always soloed each new campaign area with the presumption that my toons are simply not powerful enough to do said content with a group. I only started this because at the time no one seemed interested in doing an ME with a 14 to 16 IL toon and I simply did not care enough or have the patience to keep trying. Although, even after I appeared to have a high enough IL I still avoided group content because I was still having difficulty with the Gravemaster and I simply felt the need to do it solo until I could defeat that one without having to do the whole respawn thing at the campfire.

Also, I seemed to enjoy it more and I can just be AFK at any time with no consequences as long as I remembered to come back before the 15-minute mark. (Excludes new epic dungeons and trials but that is already taken care of by me not having the IL or stats to do it)

As of MOD 16 these particular sayings always seem to come to mind when reading stuff in the forums or playing the game (for those that do not know the first three are from DBZ Super or at least that is where I first heard it.):

“It can’t end this way I am an invincible everlasting god”

“Mortals do not tell gods what to do”

“I told you, you can’t talk to a god like that. That’s Deity 101!”

“Rated M for Mediocre at Best”

“It’s Nerf or Nothing”