well, i just hope i can provide some information helpful for daggers and tyrants on this very awesome type of tanking, and i hope glav doesnt sue the pants off me (as i try to evade) for suggesting this topic (once completely discussed) be added tot he tanking section.
prologue:
this guide is written for the purposes of giving information for setups of daggers and tyrants that they may find helpful should they be found as a candidate for evasion tanking during a raid or 7signs party. this was written that setup and group information may be given for the purposes of discussion and should by no means be followed to the letter as this is not carved in stone.
chapter 1: evasion and you!
evasion isnt a very frequent occurence at low levels. there exists no setup for pre level 40 that should be used for evasion tanking, and as such it is NOT recommended for levels under 40. don't get me wrong, it can be done, but it is HARD to pull off and ubersituational.
evasion is highest for classes that focus on daggers and for the tyrant. some rangers use evasion, and have low leves of passive evasion bonii, but i would much prefer to dicuss daggers and tyrants as evasion tanks as archers already have many other roles.
this guide shall focus on the TH, AW, PW and tyrant.
having said that lets move to the first topic of chapter 1: DEX. Dex boosts your evasion, run speed, attack speed, special land rate, and critical chance. for the purposes of this discussion, we dont care that dex affects shield blocking rate :p. orc discussion will proceed after discussion has been made of humans, light elfs and dark elfs.
the light elf has 1 point more dex(35) than the dark elf(34), and the human comes 3rd in this static statistic with a meager value of 30. this means that BY NATURE a light elf will crit more, run faster, etc and EVADE more than the dark elf. at level 40, the passives to evasion for each race are as follows:
light elf: Ultimate evasion level 1, acrobatic move 1, boost evasion 1.
dark elf:acrobatic move 1, boost evasion 1, ultimate evasion 1.
human: boost evasion 1, acrobatic move 1, Ultimate evasion 1.
this means at level 40, nothing has changed. light elf still statistically SHOULD evade more simply because of the base DEX being the highest.
now lets bring the orc tyrant into the picture at level 40. base Dex is 26. yes, orcs miss a LOT. yes orcs get hit a LOT. but they have high HP and hit hard. the only thing really that saves the orc monk pre level 40 is stunning fist. when opponent is tunned, no need for evasion or defence! but this is another issue. orcs have NO evasion passives pre level 40. no totems for evasion either.
this concludes DEX.
on to post 40 groping! ... i mean grouping ... yes, grouping.
as an evasion tank you need to boost evasion. this is where your Elven Elder should be your most valued group asset. buffing shield3, agility, and might3 as well as Greater shield (at the appropriate level) will definitely turn your evasion tank into a monster. having said this, simply an EE is absolutely fine for a duo/trio with the evasion tank as primary DD and tank, EE as buffer/healer with any other buffer of your choice as secondary DD and healer.
make it an SE and things get interesting with a VR/Evasion tank hybrid.
for EVERY evasion tank, you NEED only 2 sets of armor. one for pre B grade, one for B up all the way into S cause the S sets arent what they could be. again another issue.
your C set is the Tempered Mithril set giving a bonus 4 to evasion. your weapon setup can be dabated, but i want to say for the dagger classes there are a few good ways to make yourself do well along the lines of:
Any dagger with Focus if all you have for a buffer is an EE. sans EE, take the evasion dagger; dark screamer (evasion) or Grace dagger (evasion). these are my ONLY suggestions for good daggers in C grade.
on to Fists!
all you orcs love your totems. well you get the totem that boosts evasion at level 62 unfortunately. until then, youll NEED the EE/SE combo to make your evasion tanking worthwhile. your fists MUST be until then Fist Blade with RSK evasion. this SA boosts evasion when hp drops to 60% or lower. if possible get them oe'd. a VERY worthwhile investment.
chapter 2: B grade!
daggers at B grade should look into trying to buy ONE of the two good light sets... Doom light set is usually preferred for the +dex bonus, but zubei leather has better Pdef but the same 4 evasion bonus. But also look into increasing your Dex and decreasing your Con if you box a healer. i wouldnt go more than -4 con under any situation cause you already dont have much to risk. you TH's can go -5 without a problem.
at this point of the game, the daggers all have passives as follows.....
UE 1, boost evasion 2, acrobatic move 2.
this means youll need to again outfit yourself with a new dagger (unless your C dagger is like +9 or better) around level 54 or so. you now have the following options:
Kris (evasion) or Kris(focus). use Demon Sword (Crit damage) if you can afford to pvp around this level. evasion tanks arent good pvpers anyway. except against archers; they pzown archers as they never get hit by regular shots, only specials! again another topic.
tyrant B grade again should be zubei leather as the dex bonus is meager by comparison with the bonuses of 4 evasion. tattoo yourself up 5dex down 5con and youre good to go.
fists of choice for B: arthro nails (rsk evasion). i know they arent top B, but the SE/EE backup you are required to have at this point should make up for lost patk. besides, they look FREAKIN COOL!
well i havent really elaborated on evasion tank grouping further than an SE/EE combo. and for good reason; unless you box every character youll never get the same party twice. for this reason i also cant really elaborate on pvp as an evasion tank. as a tyrant youll want full buffs before you go marching in, and at that youll want to get in range, cripple or stun, then use ogre/bear as you see fit to dish up the damage. but again this isnt a strategy, its not a rule, and its certainly not the only way to pvp as a tyrant.
but i will say this: an army of daggers and EE/SE boxes would re-balance our sieges which are zerged with archers. puny SWS with bows and regular tanks with bows would be no serious threat after that.
again, another issue.
on to chapter 3: A grade and higher and my closing remarks.
the A sets can be wierd. there isnt one Uber set for you for every situation. i have seen a lot of daggers in majestic light for 3 reasons: 1: to show off money (im uber i got A grade), 2: the stun resist, 3: the weight bonus. but as you might have guessed, they didnt box an EE behind them.
most A grade dagger users dont even wear A grade. if anything, the doom light + dex tattoos and boxed EE makes up for the lack of good dagger and evasion tank A grade armor. its also not really a great idea to blow literally hundreds of millions of adena on A grade that you wouldnt pve in. when youve hit level 75 and decide that youre gonna siege/open pvp then by all means grab a set of NM light and go to town. but i would still dread doing that.
tyrants are a different story. after level 62 and you got your evasion totem (rabbit) dont hesitate to use it in combat IF AND ONLY IF you have a 9man party all assisting. the story is the same for A grade armor. most of them dont cut it. NM light might, in the rift. but bring a PP for mdef boost.
weapons for daggers in A grade: depends. your B dagger has the better SA, but do you really want to sacrifice that for an A dagger? the best you could hope for is a Bloody Orchid with focus. your evasion tanking abilities taper off into your a grades if you are main tank. begin to think about being backup tank in another party.
tyrants are another story: if your arthros arent cutting it, grab a set of DragonGrinders and try to nail rsk evasion as well. best SA for you failing a blood tornado with focus should you be minus an SE.
well that about covers it, there arent really any pve strategies i can give except for tyrants: stun 'em if you can; daggers: try insta kill skills when you drop to 60% hp and cant recover fast enough.
perhaps now some techniques to evasion tanking....
die-hard evasionists will always +dex. dex happens to be the magic skill for all light armor classes so it makes sense to do so. in the process you must lower both STR AND CON minimally to boost dex without heavy losses in either other stat.
but what happens is the healers and other DD dont know what to do to keep aggro on the evasion tank.
let us begin with the healers....
for my purposes, i will include EE as absolute requirement. no other buffs really needed from EE apart from agility, shield, might, and depending on your mob and areas any other buffs for the rest of the group. if theres an SE also available, please buff focus, guidance, deathwhisper, vr, and empower. heal when your evasion tank goes down around 45%, cause its easy to pull aggro from him, and his hp is low enough that it doesnt take a lot to heal but high enough to maintain a couple mobs before falling too far.
grouptanking...
necessary for this is runspeed. elfs make great evasion tanks like this. now ... you dont have good expertise with a bow, and we arent considering archers evasion tanks, but archers really shine at this kind of tanking. the method? kiting. shoot, run, shoot, run rinse repeat. boxing anything like this will be a HUGE pain. the best thing for this is potions. and yes, before you say it, orc tyrants cant use bows and have high evasion/cant use totems.
true. but the orcs was what i was about to get to. what i have always loved about tyrants is attack speed.
on the c5 pts i was able to acheive 1200 attak speed on nothing more than totems and buffs. fists = health, armor = nightmare, dex+5con-4str-3.
turn on zealot for UBERCRAZY attack speed. doesnt matter what your damage output is, youll swing so fast, mobs will catch pneumonia if you miss just from the wind! what you get from uber attack speed is a faster build up of aggro. repeat specials build up more. i was aoeing with a warlord on the pts (yes a warlord on the pts) and i killed faster than he did, even kited aoe a few times. tyrants evasion with evade fists and evade armor = WOW!!!
raiding.
not recommended for evasion tanks. cannot hold aggro or support DD well enough to hold your own as main tank, or aggro puller.
A Tyrant doesn't really need evasion much for xping, especially at higher levels when you want to get hit to use bison/zealot. With a +4 Dex tat on a tyrant, you will gain roughly 30 atk speed (thats with dance of fury, fist fury, zerk 2, haste 2, and puma), 2-4 evasion, and about 5 run speed. You essentially gain nothing for PvE and nothing for PvP. The class is made by the passive skills and the active totems, not tattoos. Hell, I'm in my 70s and still have the base Orc stats (except the -1con, +1str from DC Light). I have tried many builds and find that this one works best (with -4Dex, +4Con a close 2nd. Yes, -Dex!)
If you actually plan on using Zealot, you would be a fool to -Con, as zealot can only be used at 30% hp or lower. The lower your hp is before you can get Zealot off, the greater your chance of being killed. Right now with base stats, a health weapon, and no BTB, I can only use zealot when I hit 1900 hp. If you try to use it much lower than that it would be suicide. Yes, you have a nice chunk of HP, but dont forget that you are in LIGHT armor.
Also, while Zealot does increase attack speed, the beauty of the skill is the crit damage. Stack this with bison, and at 30% hp you have 455 crit rate, atk speed and 2x crit dmg from Zealot. The DPS on a speed build Tyrant is significantly less than the DPS on the Bison Tyrant. In the minute it took for Zealot to fade with Bison, I took out 3 full catacomb rooms by myself with bd dances. Just try that with puma.
ah, very nice info there trailtixx; but now you must answer a question: if youre relying heavily on zealot im afraid you arent doing much evading ... no ?
I'm not relying heavily on zealot, but I do use it when I can. I rely heavily on Bison for xp and was getting 2% a buff round at level 70 with a WC duo (which is ungodly disgusting). What I am saying is that you do not want to use a tyrant for an 'evasion tank' because with vr3/vr4 and bison the Tyrant can keep its HP steady and hold aggro without needing to evade.
As for evasion, I still evade fairly often and even had great evasion with -4dex. I was simply stating that +Dex on a Tyrant is USELESS. 2-3 extra evasion is not going to make any difference for a Tyrant in either pve or pvp. Again, +Dex is useless on a Tyrant.
When I was in B grade, I was using Blue Wolf Heavy with +7 Bellions with Rsk Haste (pumpkin event was kind to me =P) and had -4con, +4Str tattoo. Until A grade, a tyrant's evasion is really crappy, and at that time Puma decreased pdef (which at the time was the only decent offensive totem) so the extra Pdef (and +3 str) really helped.
Once I hit A grade, moved to Blood Tornados with Focus (which I Oed to +5) and DC Light, still kept the same tattoos. PVP was a nightmare with HP so low. Even if I could hit hard, it meant nothing if I died before I attacked the person. At 65, I changed to -4Dex, +4Con and traded the BTs for +4 Dragon Grinder with Health. I deleted that tattoo a week ago and am really noticing no difference at all, except lower hp/cp (because again, dex does nothing for a tyrant!).
As for Zubei/Arthros making a difference? I dont think it would have made much. In B grade, if you get under 60% in light armor (for the rsk sa) you're probably going to die very quickly as you do not have much Hp or pdef, and your evasion still sucks. If you're following your 'evasion build' you are going to have even less hp and pdef with the -Con. I think the best way for a tyrant without bison to xp right now would be BW Heavy and use of either Ogre or Puma (since no -pdef now). The +3 str makes a hell of a difference and will get you into a grade much faster.
So as I consider subbing glad, do you think I can go with LA masteries and go the evasion route? I would likely have a healer to party with, but not an EE I don't think (considering I *am* an EE, but that would be my subclass, so, no EE. lol).
One of our gladiators went in light all the way from 40 to 55, using Zubei light in B grade, it worked with VR and a healer nearby.
But he finally choose more P Def and went over to heavy.
hmm, nice guide. even tho, if you gonna have an EE and a SE in party, you could almost do as good with no armor at all <.< thats very good buffs with VR and 2 healers... and, the XP will be bad..very very very bad! >.<
I myself prefer heavy p.attack build and vr for hp return :)
also worthy to note: evasion tanking DOESNT work on caster mobs.>.<
no ****. played the other night, I was tierd, realy realy tierd. where solo hunting in FOTD, and I saw a bunch of mobs hugging ina group, and I thougth, what the hell, hit ultimate evasion (im a th) and aggroed them (maybe 8 mobs)........
I knew I was going to make something stupid, but my brain was overheated and slow. well...I died. ( casters.... ultimate evasion dident realy help me survive :'(
(casters there are evil...hex,root,bleed...poisons,stuns as well? or maybe not the catsers, but other mobs there do...evil evil place)
deep digging into the weapons library at L2info has narrowed the possibilities of evasion tanking.
firstly, it boils down to 2 methods of evasion tanking: evasion SA versus rsk evasion sa.
on their own, not really useful. pretty horrible. youll need to combine the weapon with +evasion gear. there are only 2 kinds of this however. Zubei (b grade light) and Tempered mithril (C light)
now, the OL, WC and the EE have +evasion buffs. each of these buffs will be a requirement to effective evasionry. the sws song adds to this, and may prove a useful aid if you can find a sws that is also evasionbased.
the way i see it the only real group that could effectively both pve and pvp would be sws+WC+PW. geared as follows: all in zubei light, wc and sws with RSK evasion fists (in B thats arthro nails), PW in Kris evasion.
so long as the pw keeps sandbombing each target, you shouldnt see a problem with mondo aggro. substitute WC for OL, you loose some DPS (no good melee buffs) so youd need oop PP but youd gain a lot of safety. youd have sandbomb + seal of chaos+seal of winter.
mana heavy, yes, but works great for the OL because youd have the OOP pp.
hell, its a 4 man group even WITH the prophet.
the important thing is that in this gear and buff combination, youre running around with +20 evasion AND sandbomb/seals.
substitute the PW for a tyrant who bisons in rsk evasion fists (in zubei) and youd have a less potent group. tyrants should not exp like that. even exping with Rabbit always up. its just ineffective. the dagger classes are much more evasion based. passive bonuses, UE - all condusive to a pleasant evasion tanking experience.
My 2 adenas. Experience C5 Ghoust hunter.
Setup on A grade:
DC light, BO+4+focus, AQ ring, +5dex, +4str, -9con.
Result:
with WC 66+ buffs I can solo in any place +0-5lvl mobs. It doesn't matter is mob is x1 or x6. Problem comes when you face mob nukers or get agro of 3 or more mobs.
If in party, usually mobs trying to kill me because of very high dps. So, it is dager tanking :). Ok most hit misses me :).
PVP was very bad - mages 2 shot, archers all the time stuns or kills by using skills and so on. Everything were changed when I have changed tatoos to +4con, +4dex, -8str.
And this is true, evasion tanking is PVE setup, not PVP!
well, evasion does affect skills now too, but only UE.
agreed that vs any mage you'd be an easy target. this is really only counterbalanced with another mage, preferably necro (or someone with curse of doom/para augment) in your pvp group.
i do think the evasion tank at high levels CAN be magekillers, but youd first need to have +6 S80, and counterattack/ evasion stun
add in Sandbomb (-5 acc) and Seal of Chaos (-4acc), youre up to +45 effective evasion.
THAT is awesome.
THAT works. if it doesnt, UE for +25 more evasion...
lol. evasion counter skills have never been so sweet.
lets see how that stacks up on a non-dagger such as OL...
+6 Zubei set = +6 evasion
Evasion buff = +4 evasion
Clan Evasion buff = +1 evasion
Song of water = +3 evasion
+5 dex = +5 evasion
Risk evasion fists = +7 evasion
Dorf buffs = +3
running total +29 evasion under 60% hp. no running evasion boost, and no sandbomb/ue, so just seals. thats still +30 effective evasion, or +34 with prophecy of wind.
tested today 46 Evasion Overlord in a group and solo. Rsk evasion fists vs green mobs. used curse chaos opener
very hard on mana. if you dont use winter +chaos, youll use HOP+chaos. either way, for solo on non-herb things = bad.
enchanted the Tempered mith set to 3, no visible change in damage taken. mobs hit 4 in 8-9 but really hard. will need to get a wind prophecy and evasion aug, and +6 set to complete the testing, but i suspect that simply boosting the damage output of the current setup would suffice.
Sorry for bumping this old thread. But, I actually did this with my TH (well, found this afterwards) and it is really awesome. I'd say I have atleast 50% evasion, I seem to tank as well, or at times better then my 60 Dark Avenger.