EverQuest 2 Guardian Guide

EverQuest 2 Guardian Guide by Halbarad

Hi folks!

I wrote Raid Guard Guide for my guild/alliance and thought you may want to have a quick look and tell me what you think could be written better or would be a good addition.

Just a few notes:
– Equipment Advice is given for the KoS Raid Starting Guard. There could be an EoF Raid Gear Section.
– AA Builds need some more input from Guards with different builds. Especially EoF.

Here goes:

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Halbarad’s Incomplete Guardian Guide

This Guide focuses mainly on Raid Guards. But other Raid Tanks may find some valuable info here.

Content

1. Role of a Guardian

2. Short Overview of Game Mechanics

3. Raid Tanking
a. Casting Order
b. Group Setup

4. AA
a. KoS
b. EoF

5. Equipment

6. Adornements

7. Spell List

1 – Role of a Guardian

The Guard is best suited for the Main Tank Role. But even as off tank and dps/backup tank he can work very well when prepared for it.

2 – Short Overview of Game Mechanics

SOE changed a lot of things in the almost 3 years since release. The changes SOE applied with the release of EoF are the most sincere for tanking.
Since then Mitigation (as resists) is on a diminishing return curve. Once your mitigation exceeds 5,800-6,000, you gain almost nothing from every additional mitigation point. The number in your persona window doesn’t matter btw, the percentage you get from the tooltip is what matters.

Example:
Mitigation 5971 – 64.4%
Mitigation 6154 – 65.0%
Mitigation 6511 – 66.1%

That means the focus has switched from survivability to dps because you can get the “needed” survivability very early in your career. And more dps means more hate (1 damage = 1 hate) which increases the possible dps of the raid without aggro bouncing. Which in itself makes fights shorter… And a mob that is dead 10 seconds earlier can not damage you – so this is really uncontested avoidance

Avoidance

Avoidance checks are done one after the other:

Parry (A Parry can become a Riposte)
Block / Deflect
Miss
Ally Avoidance Buff

Since a parried attacked can’t be blocked after that, you can not add the numbers.
Example:
– Avoidance 6909 – 51.6%
-> Parry – 14.7%
-> Block – 7.6%
-> Base – 38.5% (That’s the normal miss)

Parry, Deflect and Miss / Dodge are contested vs. the Mob’s Level and it’s to hit bonus, making it almost impossible to avoid vs. a not debuffed epic mob.
Block is Uncontested Avoidance – it is only compared to the Mob’s Level.

Avoidance Bonus from Adornments and AA’s are considered uncontested as well and are considered their own avoidance check (on top of those above)
Some Examples:
– Scintillating Balanced Ayr Stone (2% Riposte)
– Scintillating Balanced Fastening (2% Parry)
– Gladiator’s Revenge (8% Riposte – Warrior AA: STA4)

The Basic Rule:
If the epic isn’t debuffed – your avoidance will be 0%
If the epic is fully debuffed – a mage can tank it

3 – Raid Tanking

The 2 easy ingredients of successful raid tanking are:
1. Stay alive
2. Keep aggro
If you do 1+2, your raid will win.

Both things aren’t done by the MT alone. But the MT can make sure it is easier for the Raid to achieve 1+2.

Some Rule of Thumbs
– Let at least your Group know where you will tank the mob(s). Better if the whole Raid knows.
– Keep your back to the wall so you don’t get knocked out of range.
– Make sure one of the priests is concentrating on curing.
– Work with your MA so he knows when it is safe to call assist and when you need a bit longer to position mobs or build a bit more hate.
– Make sure you are prepared for the encounter script: Mem Wipe? Resists? Adds? Target Macros? Other Macros?
– Give your Raid a 10 second warning so they have time to apply their short term buffs before the pull.

3a – Casting Order

The Pull
In most of the cases – you pull. If you have a chance, pull with your bow. If there is the danger of adds, you have to body pull.

The Body Pull
Body Pulls are tricky because when the encounter aggroes, you have 0 hate. Unfortunately ticking pre buffs generate aggro that almost always puts the Shaman and other raiders on top of the hate list.
Make sure your group knows when you are body pulling. That way the classes who are prone to get body pull aggro know to stand near you.
If you body pull, put either sentry watch or guardian sphere up so they have a better chance to survive when your taunts get resisted.
– Pull Preparation message
– Guardian Sphere or Sentry Watch
– Body Pull
– Move back to the Raid
– As soon as the encounter is at a safe distance from adds, spam your group taunt and single taunt.
– Cycle through the encounter to make sure you have every mob on you.
– Assist the MA and start killing.
– Cycle through the mobs again every 10 secs to make sure you don’t lose one to the AoE classes.

The Bow Pull
Bow Pulling is the preferred way of pulling mobs. That has two reasons:
1. Nothing else you have has a range of 35 meters (40 with field point arrows)
2. A successful bow attack can do up to 1-4k damage (with the right arrow and bow). That’s 1-4 power free Confronts.
After the bow pull continue with the casting order above.

What to cast when:

Before the Pull:
– Ward Potions (if needed)
– Bind Wound
– Command (any Pull) or Wall of Force (only when bow pulling because it slows you)
– Sentry Watch or Guardian Sphere (when body pulling)
– Tower of Stone (on named pulls)

Establishing Aggro:
– Confront
– Protection
– Vindictive Strike
– Obliterate
– Sever
– Merciless Charge
– Flay
If you fight an encounter, cycle these high aggro CA’s through the mobs.

Keeping Aggro
– /assist your MA! (you have a macro, right?)
– Cycle through the mobs every 10 seconds and put at least one CA on each mob before returning to MA’s target.

3b – Group Setup

The MT Group should consist of the following classes:

Tank (you of course)
Cleric (preferably Templar)
Shaman (preferably Defiler)
Hate Buffer (preferably Dirge)
Hate Transfer (the highest parsing Assassin or Swashbuckler of your Raid)
Druid or Coercer (if none of those are available, get somebody to put moderate on – sorcerer or summoner)

4 – AA’s

4a – KoS AA’s

There are many builds that allow you to improve your Guard. You can mix them as you like… Only one line is inferior compared to the other lines: WIS. Avoid WIS – please.

Build 1 – Buckler and Hate
Bind Wound
STR 4,4,8,8
STA 4,5,8,8

That gives you: 22% Crit Chance, 9% Hate increase, 60% Double Attack, 8% (uncontested) Riposte, an additional 100% Crit Attack and Buckler Reversal which is nice power free damage.

1 Damage = 1 Hate. This setup will let you do the most damage available to Guards without nerfing your survivability. In case, it doesn’t really do anything to your survivability. Just macro your tower shield and put up Tower of Stone on hard pulls and when the mob is debuffed, get going with the dinner plate.

Build 2a – DPS!

STR 4,4,8
STA 4,4,8
INT 4,4,8

Build 2b – AoE DPS

STR 4,4,8
STA 4,4,8
AGI 4,4,8

Build 3a – Tower Hate Tsunami

STR 4,4,8,8
AGI 4,4,7,8,2

Build 3b – Tower Hate Haste

STR 4,4,8,8
INT 4,4,8,7,2

Build 3c – Tower Haste Tsunami
AGI 4,4,7,8,2
INT 4,4,8,6,2

There are many combinations of the STR, STA, AGI and INT lines. Nothing you do really gimps yourself.

Personally I like the Buckler Hate Build (#1). But it all depends on your MT grp, your raid dps and the general experience of your fellow raiders. If you survive, keep aggro and kill the mob, your build works

4b – EoF AA’s

EoF AA’s are not hard to figure out what to focus on. You want Double Attack from the slaughtering line and Block from stalwarting.

Focus on slaughtering first.

Slaugthering
Overpower 5
Vindictive Strike 5
Flay 5
Lay Waste 5
Double Attack

Stalwarting
Command 5
Wall of Force 3
Plant 3
Unyielding Will 2
Stone Sphere 2
Tower of Stone 5
Block

Stability
Rescue 3
Reinforcement 5

5 – Equipment

Weapons
Your goal must be to get a 1handed weapon with a delay of 2.5 secs or higher.
The reason for that is that you will miss much less auto attack swings when you spam your CA’s and the damage spread is much higher on low delay weapons, making your crits do a lot more damage. Damage = Hate.

Example:
Vilucidae’s Sword of Shielding – 3.0 secs – 174-695
Frostwrath – 1.6 secs – 114-343

A Crit does Max Damage+1 – Max Damage*1.3
That means with Vilucidae’s your crit does 696 – 904, Frostwrath only does 344 – 446.

A 2.5+ delay weapon must be your most important goal. Unfortunately there is only one weapon that can be achieved without a 4-grp raid, and that is the Lucanic Gladius.

Some Weapons:
Shadow Axe – 2.5 secs – Halls of Seeing
Cudgel of Pain – 2.5 secs – Halls of Seeing
Axe of the Bloodbeast – 2.5 secs – Halls of Seeing
Vilucidae’s Sword of Shielding – 3.0 secs – Lyceum of Abhorrence
Lucanic Gladius – 3.0 secs – Swords of Destiny Timeline

Bows
Like with melee weapons, you need the lowest delay possible to get the most of the one hit you get when bow pulling. Ghostly Bow of Bylze, Splitscar Longbow and Rain Caller are the easiest to get starter bows.

Dinner Plates
The best Bucklers available in group content atm:
Ironplate Shielding – PoA
Azjer’orz Guard – HoF (no trade)
Festering Flesh Buckler – Unrest

Armor
The Legendary EoF set gear is as good as relic and should be your starter set gear for raids.

Strongbear’s Steelskin Set
Head – Unrest
Chest – Unrest
Shoulders – Mistmoore Catacombs (Butler or Seneschal)
Forearms – Crypt of Valdoon (End Boss)
Hands – Kaladim
Legs – Castle Mistmoore
Feet – Obelisk of Blight (End Boss)

Mithrian (Relic) Set
Relic Plate drops in Laboratory / Lyceum / Deathtoll

Doomrage Set
A good set with more focus on disease and poison resists. All pieces drop in Laboratory.

None Set pieces
High priority pieces from KoS raid zones:
Ichor Filled Thorax – Deathtoll / Fitzpitzle
Reticulated Dragonscale Vambraces – Deathtoll / Amorphous Drake
Vitrified Dragonscale Gauntlets – Deathtoll / Amorphous Drake
Dragon Bone Leggings – Deathtoll / Tarinax
Wingblade Sabatons – Deathtoll / Tarinax

Jewelry

Here are a few examples of good jewelry pieces:

Waist:
Sash of the Spurned – Castle Mistmoore (drops from heroic trash) – High Priority because of the Hate Proc
Dragonscale Sash – Claymore Questline

Neck:
Mark of the Awakened Instinct (still hard to find a good upgrade for this) – Questline starting in Bonemire

Ear:
Ivy-Shrouded Earring of Tunare – Tunare Questline (starts in Lesser Faydark)
Fitzpitzle’s Earcog – Claymore Questline
Auditor of Silence – Obelisk of Blight
Kaladim Diamond – Collection Reward (Kaladim Gems)
Dragonscale Earrings – Claymore Questline
Draketooth Hoop – Laboratory

Wrist:
Amulet of the Forsworn – DT Access reward
Silver Bracelet of Rage – Laboratory
Solidified Shadow Bracelet – Obelisk of Blight
Vampire Slayer’s Circlet – Collection Reward (Castle Mistmoore Slayer Tools)

Finger:
Stained Glass Hoop – Collection Reward (Castle Mistmoore Glass Fragments)
Wurmscale Band – Laboratory
Jagged Band of the Cursed – Unrest
Band of Songs – Halls of Seeing

Charm:
Music Box – Shimmering Citadel / Poet’s Palace Quest (Desert of Flames)
Idol of Zan Fi – Monk Tower Questline (The Fallen Dinasty)
T7 Hex Dolls – Tailor made

6 – Adornments

Until you get gear that you know you won’t upgrade any time soon, treasured adornments are the way to go since they give most bang for the buck and it doesn’t hurt as much when you upgrade the slot.

My personal outfit atm:

Weapon: 2% Riposte (Fabled – Transmuter)
Shield: 57 Piercing Damage Shield (Legendary – Woodworker)
Bow: +12 Damage (Treasured – Tinkerer)
Bow (once I have a good one): 10 DPS (Fabled – Tinkerer)

Head: 100 power (Treasured – Tailor)
Chest: 6 STR/STA/AGI/WIS/INT (Legendary – Alchemist)
Shoulders: 100 HP (Treasured – Tailor)
Forearms: +67 vs. Crush/Slash/Pierce (Legendary – Armorer)
Hands: 14 AGI (Treasured – Tailor)
Legs: 14 STA (Treasured – Armorer)
Feet: 14 STA (Treasured – Armorer)

Neck: 10 DPS (Legendary – Jeweler)
Ear: 14 INT (Treasured – Jeweler)
Ear: 14 INT (Treasured – Jeweler)
Finger: 70 HP (Treasured – Alchemist – T6)
Finger: 70 HP (Treasured – Alchemist – T6)
Wrist: 14 STR (Treasured – Provisioner)
Wrist: 2% Parry (Fabled – Sage)
Cloak: FT3 (Legendary – Provisioner)

7 – Spell List

Here are the Spells you will use at level 70. Adept III on everything is the absolute minimum for raid tanking.

25 – Rescue
34 – Intercede
35 – Unyielding Will (Bloodline Chronicles)
52 – Reinforcement
55 – Sentry Watch
57 – Inflaming Defense
57 – Overpower
58 – Goading Assault
58 – Desperate Charge
58 – Steadfast Stance
58 – Tower of Stone
59 – Buffet
59 – Confront
60 – Plant
60 – Unyielding Vigilance
61 – Compression
61 – Return to War
62 – Sustain
63 – Besiege
63 – Moderate
64 – Flay
64 – Protection
65 – Call to Siege
65 – Obliterate
66 – Call of Armament
66 – Vindictive Strike
67 – Merciless Charge
68 – Command
68 – Precise Strike
68 – Retaliation Strike
69 – Staggering Blow
69 – Wall of Force
70 – Fortified Conviction
70 – Sever
70 – Stone Sphere

Master II choice should be Flay since Protection Master I is normally cheap on broker and Flay is your highest damage attack, benefiting more from Master II than Protection does compared to Master I.

Your taunts, high damage attacks, group buffs and stances should have priority when upgrading to Master I.

Bold are the spells that won’t get any upgrade in Kunark, so these should have priority as well. You won’t find them cheaper than they are atm… once expansion comes out, nobody will hunt T7 anymore (compare it to the current price of 57-60 masters from T6).

I hope you found a bit of useful information in this guide.
Any comments are very welcome.
/salute
Hal