Evade or block for fm?

[GreatestEver]

Yes, everyone knows atk/crit/crit dmg is the almighty meta. But seriously, as a FM with very little iframe and low survivability outside of 1 long cd ice tab, which stat works? Before you say neither, hear me out:

 

With alternating lmb/rmb and burn-upkeep fire build, it's not a secret that FM has one of the highest dps ig. With decent latency, and good rotation, they can easily outdps most classes. In my case, I pull the aggro in parties with ppl around my AP and even in parties with ppl that have 100 higher. This is a problem. There's not exactly the classic tank in this game with specific +500% aggro skills. With just bit less than 60k hp, bosses can easily down me even if i use my Q/E off cd. So I want to increase survivability in pve. HP (not aware of bonus hp primer/ss), evade, or block seems like the way to go. So which is it?

 

Yes, I have hm life drain gem and hm peridot recov gem. Yes I slot my ice fury to recover hp. But that only make my dps suffer heavily when the end result is I still don't get enough hp back to offset boss attacks on me. Am I doomed to just run around in circles and stay alive the best I can with aggro?

[YamiKokennin]

Kite/Circle the boss. I learn the range of boss atk and stay just outside of it. Run around the boss while atking. It's a lot of finger works for FM tanking. Always keep your divine veil up (you need to spec for 5% HP recovery) for some HP recovery while you tanking the boss. I only Q and E when I am too close to boss AoE and I know I won't get out in time then I Q or E otherwise, I just back up or walk out.

 

Spec CC on your skill as well. I have stun on Ice Beam, KD on my fire Tab skill. It helps to stall the boss if he gets too close.

 

My current SS is full yeti with crit infuse so yea, I don't have 60k HP. 52k or 53k only

[Arkragon]

I just make myself barely dodge their attacks, and even if I eat their attacks I throw up a divine veil to heal alongside the peridot and amethyst gem abilities or just use a potion :P

 

Like Yami said, learn the range of attacks and you should basically be fine. If the boss charges at you just Q or E or SS to dodge. You technically should be fine for almost every boss fight. Also, it's actually pretty good to stay in melee range sometimes since it limits the types of attacks they do. E.g. Drill sergeant throws bombs at you if you are the aggro holder and if you're too far away, HOWEVER, in melee range he just swipes at you, which can easily be dodged.

 

Also, there's different blocks you can spec for. TAB can be used to parry, which can block attacks like drill sergeant's charge or slashimi's charge or Asura's flamefrost. Impact (1) can also be speced to block ranged attacks and if you somehow unlock the next tier you can also block melee attacks.

[KromaXamorK]

I've got over 2k in defense and evasion and 1167 in block  and 56K HP as FM (3Asura/5Yeti mix) i'm rarely under 50% health and i play it like a melee class (except in SSP).

[Deadly Intent]

DV t4 Form 2 is the best way to stay alive.  I always draw aggro regardless of who else is in the party with me, even in 24 man dgns, unless there's another FM (lol) so it's endless circling around the boss.  I was also looking for a way to reduce threat and some online suggested using RB t4 Form 2, but using it didn't seem to reduce my threat level in any noticeable way.  Guess we will just have to be satisfied as the bringers and receivers of tons of pain.   

[GreatestEver]

21 hours ago, YamiKokennin said:

Kite/Circle the boss. I learn the range of boss atk and stay just outside of it. Run around the boss while atking. It's a lot of finger works for FM tanking. Always keep your divine veil up (you need to spec for 5% HP recovery) for some HP recovery while you tanking the boss. I only Q and E when I am too close to boss AoE and I know I won't get out in time then I Q or E otherwise, I just back up or walk out.

 

Spec CC on your skill as well. I have stun on Ice Beam, KD on my fire Tab skill. It helps to stall the boss if he gets too close.

 

My current SS is full yeti with crit infuse so yea, I don't have 60k HP. 52k or 53k only

That doesn't work for 4man bosses like yeti, where every evade is crucial. when he absorbs heat, it's barely possible to run out of his jump range with debuff, so I ave to waste q/e. and that's just a normal attack. kiting his grabs and swings are possible, but takes away focus from dpsing. ss recharge is 36s and almost never used b/c i tmight back me into icecaps. don't even have to say why i'd save my ice beam stun. on top of limited iframe & restricted movement (esp when ice phase starts), i also have to focus on his 1-hit KO freezes & slams. It's exhausting and even kiting my hp can barely keep up spamming ice fury heal. again, tons of dps potential lost until someone else gets aggro from my low ice fury dps output.  

19 hours ago, KromaXamorK said:

I've got over 2k in defense and evasion and 1167 in block  and 56K HP as FM (3Asura/5Yeti mix) i'm rarely under 50% health and i play it like a melee class (except in SSP).

Thanks for the insight. You're the only person who even somewhat actually answered my question. 

 

Focus on the secondary pve stat question pls. I know what skills I have and to avoid hits; I'm more interested in what stat to spec for beyond after crit hits 60% rate. I rather block & evade every melee hit than throw in 2k more crit to get measly 5% extra return. Alive doing dmg >> dead

[Arkragon]

What I do:

 

1. In the case of Yeti, stay within melee range (<7m). Back off (or Q/E) when you see him do the big clap but stay within melee range.

2. When he does a heat grab press Q/E to iframe the heat grab then SS to avoid the jump.

3. Stun immediately after this.

4. Q/E the AoE or sheath, but sheath might be risky for last heat phase attacks since the cold phase AoE is almost immediately after (<30s).

5. Repeat until ice phase. You should have enough iframes to dodge these attacks. When he does the double swipe or the uppercut, either predict it and move back slightly or just take the hit. No biggie.

6. In cold phase frost sheath if 3 or less cruxes right off the bat. If 4, then Q/E and sheath for last 3. If 5-8 then frost prison and sheath for last 3.

7. If he's running to attack you repeat 1. If you get grabbed by a fungus be prepared for a yeti jump which can be dodged by walking away OR Q/E, and make sure you kill the fungus since they are annoying and is easily killed.

8. Repeat 5 and 6 until Yeti is dead.

 

Note that this is what I do when I have aggro. If I don't have aggro I just sit in one spot and attack and do the sheath and prison stuff when necessary.

 

Other people may have different ways to handle Yeti, but this is simply how I handle it. If there's a better way then I'm all ears.

[GreatestEver]

Just now, Arkragon said:

What I do:

 

1. In the case of Yeti, stay within melee range (<7m). Back off (or Q/E) when you see him do the big clap but stay within melee range.

2. When he does a heat grab press Q/E to iframe the heat grab then SS to avoid the jump.

3. Stun immediately after this.

4. Q/E the AoE or sheath, but sheath might be risky for last heat phase attacks since the cold phase AoE is almost immediately after (<30s).

5. Repeat until ice phase. You should have enough iframes to dodge these attacks. When he does the double swipe or the uppercut, either predict it and move back slightly or just take the hit. No biggie.

6. In cold phase frost sheath if 3 or less cruxes right off the bat. If 4, then Q/E and sheath for last 3. If 5-8 then frost prison and sheath for last 3.

7. If he's running to attack you repeat 1. If you get grabbed by a fungus be prepared for a yeti jump which can be dodged by walking away OR Q/E, and make sure you kill the fungus since they are annoying and is easily killed.

8. Repeat 5 and 6 until Yeti is dead.

 

Note that this is what I do when I have aggro. If I don't have aggro I just sit in one spot and attack and do the sheath and prison stuff when necessary.

 

Other people may have different ways to handle Yeti, but this is simply how I handle it. If there's a better way then I'm all ears.

Thanks, but I already run 4m yeti w/o hitches by having a competent tank with high ap. respectfully, i'm not asking for a 'how to kite" or 'how to yeti" guide, but rather, what stat maybe some FM out there have experience with who knows that it'll help you stay alive in boss fight thru natural evade/block. In other games I've played, it's possible to go up to 50% evasion rate. That's a tremendous survival help and so I'd rather spec evas in that case than go past soft crit cap. Hence I'm asking which secondary stat to fuse to ss: hp (if there are such ss), evasion, or block.

[Arkragon]

Ahh I see.

 

Well, if you're above 50% crit and 115% or 120% accuracy feel free to spec evasion or block, although I doubt you'll go very far.

 

Blocks tend to not work when your back is facing the enemy whereas evasion does (from my experience). However, you get more block chance with per stat point vs evasion per stat point, at least that's what I think based off my own stats (e.g. 1624 evasion = 24% evasion rate, 1057 block = 30% block rate).

 

I remember using a full set of the King Block Soulshield set and having like 90%+ block rate. It was entertaining seeing the blocks, but sad that I can get rekt when struck in the back. I'm sort of interested in seeing the Frosty Evasion Soulshield set to compare, but I probably won't since the stats they give (aside from evasion) is pretty low.

 

Hopefully, I wasn't too off-topic here like my last post, and is somewhat helpful to you. Haha.

 

[KromaXamorK]

@GreatestEver

To be more specific

2019 in defense for 28.47% damage reduction

2172 in evasion for a 29.95% evasion rate and 94.76% conter bonus

1167 in block for 40.45% damage reduction 60.43% block bonus and 32.09% block rate

With proper gems in recovery health in block/evade i have a high survivality even with 56K HP. 

[GreatestEver]

21 hours ago, KromaXamorK said:

@GreatestEver

To be more specific

2019 in defense for 28.47% damage reduction

2172 in evasion for a 29.95% evasion rate and 94.76% conter bonus

1167 in block for 40.45% damage reduction 60.43% block bonus and 32.09% block rate

With proper gems in recovery health in block/evade i have a high survivality even with 56K HP. 

Hmm interesting.. sounds like defense and block are the way to go. Only counter we have is HM impact, which is more suitable for pvp than pve, so would be wasting that counter bonus from evasion. It also looks like require lots of points for a "maybe" dodge. with higher in defense & block, it should def up our tankiness... thanks for the intel. Do you know of any ss with HP bonus or no?

 

Edit: but def & evasion would be the way to go for pvp tho it seems, esp with impact counter, since they deal with diff offensive stats, i.e. piercing and accuracy. 

[Cesura]

Why is it that you boiled the choice down to block and evade while discounting defense as one of the options? 

 

Block and evade are both RNG procs which makes them kind of unreliable, and also I find them to actually be annoying when the block animation cancels my cast animation for a skill. I'd rather eat the hit and finish my skill, to be honest. (They're certainly more worthwhile on classes that can maximize the bonuses, and maybe a really good block/evade gem, but on FM? Eh. ) 

 

Granted, I mainly play warlock rather than FM, but I have very much the same problem of pulling agro with a squishy ranged class. (And I do have an alt FM but it's not level 50 yet) 

 

But personally I'm just stacking Def as a secondary stat on my soul shields after crit is taken care of. I'm less concerned about getting frequent blocks and evades against steady small attacks as I am about surviving a massive boss swing that would have one or two shot me at 0 defense. Being able to take an extra punch or two buys me enough time to heal back the damage  before I get nuked again. 

 

As for more defensive soul shields, The right pieces of Scorpio, Nakusun and Be Ido have some good health values. You can swap 2-3 pieces from an overall offensive set for a couple 7000+ HP pieces from those sets without loosing too much DPS. I think the single highest health on a soul shield is the challenger soul shield from infinite tower, but GOOD LUCK getting one since you need to clear floor 50. 

 

 

 

[Racingwind]

You are probably going to say this is not helpful at all, but the most helpful advice I can give you in regards to survivability as FM is to learn how to tank the boss yourself. Majority of the bosses you can tank as a FM without many problems, the only ones that I can think of that you can't tank are open world raid bosses.

 

You are FM, you are going to pull aggro, if you are even half decent at your class, it's a given. Instead of brute forcing and relying on RNG, because that's what evades / blocks are, you really should take your own survival into your own hands.

 

Now onto something more relevant to your original question, which defensive stat you should choose. Short answer, whichever one that gives you the most effective health point (EHP). Your question is actually quite complex fundamentally as you will see below, there isn't a clear cut "this is what you go for, all the time" thing, which is unfortunate.

 

*Warning, numbers below, you have been warned!*

 

I haven't done calculations for evade and block but for defence the formula is:

Defence % = (94.9 x Defence rating) / (4707 + Defence rating)

 

*Though you don't really need to know the formula as you could just swap the equipment and read it off your char sheet. Knowing the formula just enables you to be able to do the calculation without having the equipment, so you know if you want to spend the time to farm for it or not.

 

Basically, to pick from HP, Defence, evade, block, you need to know your current EHP, and then calculate the delta to that EHP when you swap stats around. Without the evade and block formula I can't give you an exact equation but here is an example.

 

EHP = HP / 100% - % Damage reduction

 

To add in block

EHPb = HP / 100% - % Damage reduction / (100% - % Chance to block * % Block reduction)

 

Now add in evade

EHPbe = HP / 100% - % Damage reduction / (100% - % Chance to block * % Block reduction) / (100% - % Damage reduction)

 

Using my own character with 63141 HP, 26.37% damage reduction, 29.84% block rate, 39.49% block reduction, 21.22% evasion. Her EHPbe would be

63141 / (1 - 0.2637) / (1 - 0.2984 * 0.3949) / (1 - 0.2122) = 123,393.54

 

Let's say I can reduce my HP by 1,000 and increase my defense by 1%, should I do that?

62141 / (1 - 0.2737) / (1 - 0.2984 * 0.3949) / (1 - 0.2122) = 123,094.65

 

The answer is no I shouldn't, as this change would give me 298.89 EHPbe less than my previous configuration.

 

Of course, this is a pretty vacuum calculation, without taking into consideration class specific skills or damages that ignores defense, can't be blocked / evaded. In order to REALLY know what's going on, we need to model this with a simulation. And also the way the game decides if it's a hit, block or evade will play an important factor as well.

 

All in all, you actually asked a question that is quite complex in nature, as there isn't a "formula" per se to tell you exactly what you should or should not do. But the one I provided should give you an idea of what you want to do.

 

 

[endervoid]

Like posters said before me, with bosses that can nearly onehit you, relying on evade or block is praying to rng-jesus (high ehp doesnt matter in this case). The only stat imho that could help you would be def (which is even doubled on fm) for dmg-reduction. But still you will need to run in circles around the boss like you said. So nothing will change much for you, as facetanking bosses is impossible. You only would lose dps by going more defensive.

At the moment you can tank every 4-man dungeon boss in the game as a fm. And losing dps when kiting happens, but it's mostly the players fault, as you always can attack the boss while running out of his attacks. Only when iframing you lose a little bit.

 

And you are wrong with the statement that there are no classic tanks in the game. A BM or KFM easily can hold aggro with less AP when he knows what he is doing. Just let a BM block one or two yellow attacks and you should be fine. But most BM of KFM don't like to tank so they are not even trying. Or they are just bad. The BM i'm mostly playing with has around 570 AP and only FMs with 650+ AP that know how to play (sadly most FMs dont) get aggro from him. The average DD with even 700 AP wont get aggro.

[rainbowkitten]

or just buy a pet and max it out

[Zedonia]

On ‎26‎.‎07‎.‎2016 at 8:43 AM, endervoid said:

The BM i'm mostly playing with has around 570 AP and only FMs with 650+ AP that know how to play (sadly most FMs dont) get aggro from him. The average DD with even 700 AP wont get aggro.

Everything is right. I just wanna add my 2 cents because you mentioned fm. As a fm it can vary a lot if you get aggro or not. BD or destro in Group who carries the mob? -> Windstorm with no aggro at all for some seconds. RMB specced that it does no aggro at all? Inferno specced to zero aggro? These are things you must keep in mind. If a bm starts the fight, the fm uses casting inferno (no aggro) and after that maybe windstorm without aggro because someone lifts the mob for some seconds, it will be almost impossible to gain aggro for the fm if the bm is not too bad and want to tank. In this case you can't even say if the bm is very good or the fm is very bad. BD is also a class who gets pretty easy aggro because the damage is high and the class has no non-aggro skills (as far as I know). But enough of that, that's not the topic.

 

About block or evasion: Block is better I think. I don't feel like I evade anything without Q/E/SS but I block sometimes normal attacks from bosses.

[Racingwind]

On 7/26/2016 at 11:43 PM, endervoid said:

Like posters said before me, with bosses that can nearly onehit you, relying on evade or block is praying to rng-jesus (high ehp doesnt matter in this case).

Sure it matters, but it's too complex and long to get into right now as I am heading to work. You are right that it is RNG and not 100% reliable, but it is also not trivial / insignificant.

[Torunder]

As a FM I deal with bosses aggro on me with nearly no usage of Q and E or SS unless stricktly necesary wich happens when they do a 360 degree skill, for the rest of their attacks, i play as melee partially using what other players said about the minimum range some 5 some 7, but mostly i get into the 1 mtr range, dps and since FM dont have to target like melees into 1 position; whenever i see they will cast an attack foward, i just, without stoping my dps, walk to their back, that's a 2 mtr movement, they turn back and try to do another attack? same procedure. Yes sometimes they will hit you depending on the type of attack and how fast it casts, but by staying within the 3 mts and manteining aggro, you can cast stage 1 veil with heals 15%, and dps teh shit out of it, without burning your iframes.

It even works on terros, not all the time cus their Aoe is OP but if you get pulled, it can save you some time to escape or tab to let anyone else get aggro.

 

Also take into consideration hidden buffs like that your evade increases when you walk sideways, block increases when you move backwards

As for def we get a buff of about 16% more with 10 stacks of ice stance, making me go from 28 % def to 44% without any def fusion into my ss set. So your basic skill rotation (if you use rmb) is automatically increasing it.

 

IDK if you are afraid of aggro but in case you are i suggest you not to only lose fear of it but to actively try to get it (depending on the situation ofc) because in my experience once you know the boss skill rotation, you can time your iframes, moves and dps rotation more effectively than if you have to rely on other classes that either tank or dps, giving them free space to dps continuosly wich is what eventually will benefit the party if the fight doesnt take that long.

 

also increasing further your crit rate than 50% to keep aggro and control the fight seems for me more effective than focusing on restarting my rotation cus evade and block animation cancells everything else

and finally try ice stance spec, deals a little bit less damage but keeps your hp up at all times, with fire fury stage 3.

 

https://bnstree.com/FM?build=50010002564126533238322503238041106542513423533266331103324941237322431141012

 

with a few extra points you can use inferno s2, short fuse and meteor s1 t2 for extra dps that wont take you away from keeping you 10 stacks of ice 

[Mirryn]

Evade and Block have some particular uses ... like resisting status effects even if you still take damage...

ex: if you're trying to tank say Blackwyrm, a mix of evade and block is the best returns, I think?  the example I've seen has ~1800 evade, ~1550 block.

(a bit of block/evade make outright facetanking 45 content fairly effective...)

 

But if you don't have a specific niche use for them (like facetanking Blackwyrm) then you're probably better off learning attack patterns, how to reset or not reset said attack patterns, etc, as relying on rng against level 50 content is... well, rng...