Rift: Riftstalker - BD vs. Ranger

Back when I was new to the Rift guild Addiction (world first Alsbeth and GSB), I decided to write an article about Riftstalker tanking. It basically was to determine what was a better spec for tanking, and it is needlessly complicated ~_~ 

Oh well!

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Current build: HP: 10762, Dodge: 8.27%, 6% -dmg.

Rift barrier: 35% damage reduction, up to 26905.

Boss damage needed to break shield:  81483 (6% of 76871 is 4,612).

BD build: 10762 – 538.1 = 10223.9, 18.27% dodge (50% for 15 seconds).

Rift barrier: 35% damage reduction, up to 25559.75.

Boss damage needed to break shield: 73028

Results.

1345.25 damage absorption

In a 1 minute fight, a boss attacks once every two seconds, for 3,333 damage each hit, and a total of 30 hits. This amounts to 100000 damage.

For one with 8 points in ranger, this becomes 94000 damage.

[(.6827)(15s)+(. 1827)(45s)]/60s = ~30.8% dodge over 1 min.

So, assuming 30.8% of bosses melee attacks will be dodged, this is a potential mitigation of ~9 melee attacks, or practically 1/3^rd of incoming hits (30,796 damage).

For a 2 minute fight (the cool down timer for sidesteps), dodge becomes [(.6827)(15s)+(. 1827)(105s)]/120s = 24.5% (~14.7 hits: 48,995 damage mitigated)

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So, this is a 16.23% dodge increase over ranger. 16.23% dodge alone works out to 32,456.8 damage mitigated over the 8 minutes. By comparison, the damage reduction from ranger works out to 11,998.8, and 16,538.346 from dodges = 28,537 damage total. Now take 60(3333)/26905 = 7.43 applications of rift guard needed to sustain it. With 1345 higher damager absorption for ranger over BD (5% health increase), this amounts to 9,997 in absorption over 2 minutes. This brings the total mitigation for ranger to 38,534 for this 2 minute, simulated fight.  

After a bit of reading, I was curious to see which is a better use of points for rogues who want to tank. Once you've put the standard 7 points in bard and 51 in riftstalker, you have 8 points left. What to do with these? Well, you have two options. Blade dancer clearly seems like the more attractive option, as it offers 10% dodge, a 50%, 15 second dodge cool-down, and a reactive cp generating ability. For ranger, you have 6% damage reduction, and 5% hp.

Now, it would seem that BD is the clear winner, as having all that extra dodge is quite helpful. However, I want to put forth an example that compares it to ranger, using a dumbed down boss scenario.

First of all, here are some numbers, using my own stats in mediocre tank gear.

With 8 in ranger: | HP - 10762 | Dodge - 8.27% | (6% damage reduction)

With 8 in bladedancer: | HP - 10224 | Dodge - 18.27% | (50% dodge for 15 sec.)

There is only a 538 health point difference between the two, and clearly 10% dodge is far better than a mere 538 hp. However, there is more to consider.

Consider a boss that melee attacks for 3333 every 2 seconds. Over a 2 minute interval, he will deal 60(3333) = 199,989 damage.

No, with sidesteps factored in, your 2 minute dodge percentage with NB is going to look something like this: [(.6827)(15s)+(. 1827)(105s)]/120s = 24.5%. So, 18.27% + sidesteps becomes 24.5%. Even better, right?

I'm not done. Firstly, this is a 16.23% dodge increase over ranger, which would in this case account for (60)(.1623)(3333) = 32,457 points of potential damage mitigated.

By comparison, taking the equivalent damage and factoring in the 6% reduction from ranger gives us 11,999 damage ignored. With 8.27% dodge from ranger, you can expect to mitigate about 16,538 damage in this case. This amounts to 32,457 damage mitigated by bladedancer, and 28,537 mitigated by ranger. But there's more.

That 5% health buff in ranger gives a nice benefit to rift guard. Since improved rift-guard provides a 35% damage reduction, up to 250% of your max hp, this would give me 26905 points of damage absorption over 30 sec, vs. 25,560. This is a difference of 1345 points, which at first does not seem like much, but over 2 minutes, against a boss that deals 1,666.5 dps, roughly 7 applications of the shield are necessary to keep it active. This amounts to 7(1345) = 9415 greater absorption by ranger. This totals to 37,952 points of mitigation for ranger, vs. 32,457. The 8 points in ranger have provided the rogue with an additional 5,496 points of damage mitigated.

I should also mention that dodge is completely useless against magic damage.

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Revised:

After a bit of reading, I was curious to see which is a better use of points for rogues who want to tank. Once you've put the standard 7 points in bard and 51 in riftstalker, you have 8 points left. What to do with these? Well, you have two options. Blade dancer clearly seems like the more attractive option, as it offers 10% dodge, a 50%, 15 second dodge cooldown, and a reactive cp generating ability. For ranger, you have 6% damage reduction, and 5% hp.

[Disclaimer: since I am not fully versed in tank knowledge, there could be a few mistakes here]

First of all, here are some numbers, using my own stats in mediocre tank gear.

With 8 in ranger: | HP - 10762 | Dodge - 8.27% | (6% damage reduction)

With 8 in bladedancer: | HP - 10224 | Dodge - 18.27% | (50% dodge for 15 sec.)

Next, consider a boss that melee attacks for 3333 every 2 seconds. Over a 2 minute interval, he will deal 60(3333) = 199,989 damage.

Now, with sidesteps factored in, your 2 minute dodge percentage with BD is going to look something like this: [(.6827)(15s)+(.1827)(105s)]/120s = 24.5%. So, 18.27% + sidesteps becomes 24.5% over 2 minutes. This becomes (60)(.245)(3333) = 48,995 points of avoided damage.

Now taking the equivalent damage and factoring in the 6% reduction from ranger gives us (60)(.06)(333) = 11,999 damage mitigated. With 8.27% dodge from ranger, you can expect to avoid about (60)(.0827)(3333) = 16,538 damage in this case. This amounts to 48,995 damage avoided by bladedancer, and 16,538/11,999 avoided/mitigated by ranger.                                                                          Even with 35% damage reducing (up to 250% of health) benefit to rift guard, you only end up with 1345 points of absorption higher with ranger. Over a 2 minute interval, against a boss that deals 1,666.5 dps, roughly 7 applications of the shield are necessary to keep it active. This amounts to 7(1345) = 9415 more points of damage mitigated than the bladedancer. This totals to +9415 points of mitigated damage for ranger vs. 48,995 of avoided damage for the bladedancer. The 8 points in bladedancer have provided the rogue with an additional 11,043 points of avoided damage.

Against non-physical oriented encounters (are there any?) ranger might be more viable, but overall it would seem that BD will provide you with more survivability.

Worst Video Game Moment - 1 Week of Pain

At the dawn of the release of a brand new TBC raid dungeon, excitement ripped through the clandestine waves of Zangarmarsh...


Hydross the Unstable is the worst boss I’ve ever encountered in a video game. This gigantic water elemental lived in the watery dump of Serpentshrine Cavern, located in the deep tangled mess of Coilfang Reservior. As I recall, he was always angry, and treated all raids with such callous disregard as to mop the floor with 25 dead bodies. He did this while laughing at under-geared tanks and other fools who'd stand in clumped groups to get AoE bombed by Ice-tomb. This was the state of things before the nerf bat, at least.


What seemed like a basic tank-swap/positioning/dps-race fight turned into an over-tuned cluster-F of confusion and chaos. Every night for a week, the brave raiders of <Eclipsed>, including myself, would burn through 2 flasks (4 hours) of attempts without feeling any sense of progression. As many died to the mysterious elevator boss and over-tuned trash packs, frustration occurred even before the encounter began. After about the first hour of these shenanigans, the raid would be in no mood for fighting Hydross the Bloated, which simply made matters worse.


Now, the Duke of Currents, Hydross, was no more than an angry sack of water who generously spewed forth deadly bolts nature and frost junk. Upon engaging this boss, he would start out in the nature phase, and you’d need a maxed out nature resist tank to handle him during this phase. Then he’d switch to the frost phase, where you’d need a frost resist tank to take control. This delicate swapping had to be perfectly timed, as improper timing resulted in deaths. No less than 6 healers (preferable 7-8), were needed for this fight, because not only did Hydross hit your tanks for pain-trains and rocket-ships, his ample supply of raid-based AoE damage was substantial, and it became worse as the fight progressed.


The initial pull of the fight led to more wipes than I care to mention, despite the skill of the hunter who initiated; if he wasn’t positioned perfectly, Hydross would simply do his own thing by one-shotting raiders at random (usually me, Hydross didn’t seem to care about my priestly Fade ability). This had something to do with the boss’s tendency to ignore the invisible barrier that accounted for his current damage affiliation (nature or frost). To add insult to injury, a curious raider would occasionally stray too far ahead of the main group, hit a pack of nearby water elementals, and aggro the boss without warning. More frustration and repair bills that could have easily so been prevented! Yay!


A short time into the fight, a ‘water-tomb’ mechanic offered substantial raid damage. This random-target ability affected all players within 8 yards, stunned them for 4 seconds, and caused 4500 frost damage to all affected players over 5 sec. In addition, a raid-wide debuff (Mark of Hydross) stacked up to 6 times, for a max of 500% increased frost damage received for all. As a healer, this was my worst nightmare, as every attempt resulted in the unnecessary deaths of dps and healers, who were simply too lost in tunnel-vision to stay properly spread out. However, to their credit, it was difficult to stay fully spread out, as the platform where the fight took place was far too small and ridiculously shaped for everyone to be safe.


In fact, the entire fight was ridiculous, inasmuch many an ambitious raid group chose to skip Hydross in order to kill The Lurker Below, and forget Hydross altogether. Unfortunately, rather than wait for the inevitable nerf bat, we were far more concerned with maintaining the sense of elitism and pride that came with being a server first guild, so we merrily trucked along in the face of adversity. This outright lack of common sense resulted in a mountain of broken keyboards, a slew of mental breakdowns, and a server-first kill. Only after several <5% wipes!


After all was said and done, we were left with a garbage pair of epic warlock boots, which were soon converted into enchanting materials.


And if you’re the type of person who might attribute this fail to poor raid leadership or lack of skill, consider that we’d cleared all Vanilla content (excluding the final bosses of Naxx 40-man), prior to Hydross, and had maintained top 3 server progression throughout (we were neck-and-neck with our rival guild at all times). Admittedly, we weren’t the best of the best, but we knew how to crush content nonetheless. Or so we thought!