Warriors - When Do I Use Evasive?

[Arkanjil]

Hey guys! I see this question come up a lot with new warriors in our guild and figured I’d make a post detailing when to use this wonderful disc.

First off, when grouping, you should be using this disc almost every time it’s up. Especially when not facing higher lvls mobs that require Defensive, like the Temple Guards or Guardians of Zek in Kael. Evasive in grouping saves the healer sooo much mana every time it’s up that it dramatically increases the efficiency that pulls can come in
A few nights ago, I was in KC basement and using this on every cooldown when mobs were in camp. I needed a heal every 8+ mobs. I’m pretty decently geared, but regardless, it helps ever warrior!

In raids, there are several mobs that evasive is REQUIRED. These are:
Trakanon
Dracoliche
Venril Sathir
Nortlav the Scale Keeper

These mobs proc 1500hp lifetap on hit, so your goal is to get hit as little as possible!

After these, generally speaking, it’s more efficient to use evasive on mobs that are lvl 60 and under.

For everything else, use defensive. Hope this helps! :) I’ll post a few other “guides” on certain tanking topics when I get around to them. “What items should be in my bags?” “What mobs rampage? And how do I efficiently set rampage?” “Aggro...should I ALWAYS click a full mallet?” etc. if you guys have other topics you want covered, just put them in the comments. I’m not some master of warriors, but I thought a few of these could help people who are new to warriors learn the basics, once you are 52+.

[Danth]

There are a handful of additional creatures which have a high damage bonus and low damage interval. Some of the Plane of Growth named come to mind. Evasive performs well against such targets.

Danth

[elwing]

All the 900+quadding boss also "require" evasive too...

[wagorf]

how nice to have an experienced raid tank sharing knowledge here!

my question would be, what is the rule of thumb on when to use evasive vs. def? there may not be one but one that covers 90+% of the scenarios is good enough

for example gwurms in skfyfire, i find def to be more effective than evasive for some reason and it contradicts with my past experience

[Jimjam]

I almost always use evasive when there is any doubt. On the monk epic quest bros; defensive and max damage shield so they kill themselves.

[Sonderbeast]

Evasive is useful against General in Kith since his 500 dd lifetap procs just about every other hit it seems.

Also I've heard that its good to use on glimmer drakes to limit dispel proc, but can't confirm it actually helps more than defensive.

[7thGate]

Evasive mitigates 25% of the damage you would take, on average, but with variance. Defensive mitigates 35% of the damage you take, with no variance. The rule of thumb is that Defensive is better unless:

1) If there is a proc on successful hits that is nasty enough that the procs are doing more than 15% of the total damage you're taking.
2) You are in a situation where the 3 minute lower cooldown is relevant. This is generally in XPing groups, where evasive mitigates more damage over time because when used on cooldown it is active for a larger % of the total time fighting, but could also be for any sort of very extended combat situation with few or no breaks.

Which is pretty much in line with the OP's suggestion.

[Snaggles]

I thought that VS was one mob that rangers tank due to weaponshield parrying all attacks and lasting 15 seconds.

I'm not sure though if that is a 15 second kill on P99. We did it on live around PoP expansion.

[7thGate]

You need an enormous amount of DPS to kill VS in 15 seconds on P99. When we've killed him its more like a 45 second fight. It is usually done with an evasive warrior receiving a rune chain to block the lifetaps that land. You probably could rotate between rangers and have 2 or 3 block all the attacks, but its a little finnicky to transfer aggro like that and if you screw it up or he lives long enough for the disciplines to wear off before killing him he'll lifetap back up.

[Snaggles]

You need an enormous amount of DPS to kill VS in 15 seconds on P99. When we've killed him its more like a 45 second fight. It is usually done with an evasive warrior receiving a rune chain to block the lifetaps that land. You probably could rotate between rangers and have 2 or 3 block all the attacks, but its a little finnicky to transfer aggro like that and if you screw it up or he lives long enough for the disciplines to wear off before killing him he'll lifetap back up.

Thanks for the info. Figured was the case :).

Funny how a couple years and 5 levels/AA's can change things up. That said, I've seen the P99 folks do crazy feats far beyond the typical timeline. 20 years of strategy goes a long ways.

[Ezrick]

Thanks for the info. Figured was the case :).

Funny how a couple years and 5 levels/AA's can change things up. That said, I've seen the P99 folks do crazy feats far beyond the typical timeline. 20 years of strategy goes a long ways.

We used an interesting tactic on Brother Z one day when we had three monks with their riposte discipline. Each used their disc on Brother Z until it expired, then feigned to the next who feigned to the next who finally feigned to the tank. Z was down to about 60% when I finally picked him up. Not sure if the same would work as well with rangers and jolt, but it might be fun to try. :D

[Ezrick]

Evasive is useful against General in Kith since his 500 dd lifetap procs just about every other hit it seems.

Also I've heard that its good to use on glimmer drakes to limit dispel proc, but can't confirm it actually helps more than defensive.

If you avoid 25% of the glimmer drake procs that just means they only proc about 132,763 times a fight. If you stand at max melee range opposite the tank you can avoid the dispell, but then you have to push them to keep them from gating anyway.

[Troxx]

how nice to have an experienced raid tank sharing knowledge here!

my question would be, what is the rule of thumb on when to use evasive vs. def? there may not be one but one that covers 90+% of the scenarios is good enough

for example gwurms in skfyfire, i find def to be more effective than evasive for some reason and it contradicts with my past experience

Evasive will likely always result in lower total damage intake on average. For raid encounters where mobs hit extremely hard and you have an established complete heal chain, defensive is preferable as it will more reliably keep you save from being 1-2 rounded. For such encounters, the biggest goal is to minimize the your chances of that worst case scenario and defensive holds the advantage on mobs that don't have nasty dangerous procs (ie like the mobs referenced by the OP in the original post).

On raids the mobs 'dps' isn't what kills tanks. Damage spikes kill tanks. Defensive negates this.

[Tetsuo]

[QUOTE=Arkanjil;2763580First off, when grouping, you should be using this disc almost every time it’s up.[/QUOTE]

While it does have a rather short cool down and helps your cleric keep their mana up I still like to keep evasive ready for when things go south.

One such example was when I was in HS and the monks pull went real bad, he died instantly and too close to camp. The five or so mobs he had on him were close enough that they ended up aggroing the medding cleric ( no the cleric didn't heal the monk ) pretty much instantly killing her too. What was left of the group at this point was the enchanter, me , sub 60 shammy, and a wizard. Things went well after this as the enchanter had everything locked down...untill her pet broke at a bad time and ate her. The three of us remaining ended up living via root CC and slowly killing the rest of the mobs, was pretty glad I had evasive saved for that lol.

[Ezrick]

Hey guys! I see this question come up a lot with new warriors in our guild and figured I’d make a post detailing when to use this wonderful disc.

First off, when grouping, you should be using this disc almost every time it’s up. Especially when not facing higher lvls mobs that require Defensive, like the Temple Guards or Guardians of Zek in Kael. Evasive in grouping saves the healer sooo much mana every time it’s up that it dramatically increases the efficiency that pulls can come in


You do understand that using evasive cuts your DPS by the same 25% and 35% for defensive right?

I'm certainly not convinced that in most groups this will increase overall efficiency unless your healer is having a really hard time with mana, which, for me anyways, is quite rare.

[Arkanjil]

You do understand that using evasive cuts your DPS by the same 25% and 35% for defensive right?

I'm certainly not convinced that in most groups this will increase overall efficiency unless your healer is having a really hard time with mana, which, for me anyways, is quite rare.

Well of course I understand that's what it says on paper silly goose! Do you know it doesn't actually parse out that way on either end? :p

You don't have to be convinced, this is one person's opinion on how to keep a group humming along and when to use this disc on raids :)

[Varren]

I went evasive recently as ramp tank on vindi and got a run of bad luck. I know you can potentially avoid more damage on vindi with evasive, but it didn’t turn out well that time. Will be running defensive next time.

[skarlorn]

Well of course I understand that's what it says on paper silly goose! Do you know it doesn't actually parse out that way on either end? :p

You don't have to be convinced, this is one person's opinion on how to keep a group humming along and when to use this disc on raids :)
Yeah his math is definitely off lol. Reducing warrior dps by 35% is a much lower decrease in dps compared to a decrease in mob dps at the same 35%.

[Raev]

I went evasive recently as ramp tank on vindi and got a run of bad luck. Will be running defensive next time.

When I did my tank simulations, defensive CLOBBERED evasive by a huge amount. It was something like:

No disc: 2.5s CH chain recommended
Evasive: 3s CH chain recommended
Defensve: 4.5s CH chain recommended


You do understand that using evasive cuts your DPS by the same 25% and 35% for defensive right?

I want to say that defensive and evasive don't reduce your damage output here due to replicated Verant bugs.

[Sonderbeast]

We used an interesting tactic on Brother Z one day when we had three monks with their riposte discipline. Each used their disc on Brother Z until it expired, then feigned to the next who feigned to the next who finally feigned to the tank. Z was down to about 60% when I finally picked him up. Not sure if the same would work as well with rangers and jolt, but it might be fun to try. :D

Imagine this on vindi with 50 monks all with IFS or tstaff

[Arkanjil]

When I did my tank simulations, defensive CLOBBERED evasive by a huge amount. It was something like:

No disc: 2.5s CH chain recommended
Evasive: 3s CH chain recommended
Defensve: 4.5s CH chain recommended




I want to say that defensive and evasive don't reduce your damage output here due to replicated Verant bugs.

Vindi is also a lvl 70 mob...defensive would make the most sense for it. Lvl 60 and below is generally good for evasive.

[demokatt]

How about for masochists like me who like to solo on warrior, is there any use of the defensive discs or they even themselves out in dps vs mitigation?

[Sonderbeast]

How about for masochists like me who like to solo on warrior, is there any use of the defensive discs or they even themselves out in dps vs mitigation?

Is mob scary?
Press button

[kaev]

Is mob scary?
hold me

[Legday]

Adding in here that while Evasive and Defensive both last for 3 minutes, Evasive has a 7 (3 on, 4 off) minute cool down and Defensive has a 10 (3 on, 7 off) minute cool down, so evasive is much more efficient in the long run in higher level grouping/mini raiding stronger mobs, such as HoT.

[Freakish]

Imagine this on vindi with 50 monks all with IFS or tstaff

47 man monk aow. Send tells to raev for invite.

[Naerron]

Evasive mitigates 25% of the damage you would take, on average, but with variance. Defensive mitigates 35% of the damage you take, with no variance. The rule of thumb is that Defensive is better unless:

1) If there is a proc on successful hits that is nasty enough that the procs are doing more than 15% of the total damage you're taking.
2) You are in a situation where the 3 minute lower cooldown is relevant. This is generally in XPing groups, where evasive mitigates more damage over time because when used on cooldown it is active for a larger % of the total time fighting, but could also be for any sort of very extended combat situation with few or no breaks.

Which is pretty much in line with the OP's suggestion.

Evasive - You have a 25% less chance to hit and a 25% less to be hit
Defensive - You deal out 35% less damage, you receive 35% less damage

This is why evasive is used for things that are more dangerous because of their proc on hit mechanic and not for just their massive amount of melee damage.

At one point on live they made AoW hit for a flat amount each time, i think 1100, so the game was to simply not be hit, and at that point a warrior would rather use evasive because you could not mitigate any hits.

If you would like to go down the rabit hole some more THIS (http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=40543)post is a great jumping off point to understanding the titanium client. However, keep in mind it has been changed a lot and I personally have no idea how much or how little it has changed from this post on the emu forums.

Regardless it's still great info that will put you in the mindset of what is really going on and in the end will make you a better player.