Ancestral Guard

[Lestumpette]

I am after some confirmation of data presented by Lucy for this AA and also some opinions of its practical use.

Confirmation

I hope I am looking at the right Ancestral Guard description in Lucy or this discussion is null and void.

I am not certain why the duration is written as:

1 ticks@L1 to 3ticks@L6

I assume this means 1 tick for L1 of the AA, 2 ticks for L2 and 3 ticks for L3 ?

The rest looks straightforward:

L1: 25% damage mitigation up to a 5000 maximum.
L2: 50% ...
L3: 75% ...

Practical Use

I currently have this at level 1 and have found it helped on occasions where my name pops up on HoTT with a nasty hitter. I am weighing up finishing it over other AAs since on paper it looks to get way better with each level .. absorbs more damage for longer (up to the cap). But is 5k absorbed really enough ?

My thinking was that 15 points to get AG3 now looks more effective than waiting to finish my avoidance AAs, Reflexive Mastery(25pts) and Precognition (25pts) and then my mitigation AAs which take 77points(!!) to cap for a total mitigation of what looks like 15% (seems to be no numbers for Combat Stability 3 here but I assume 5%).

I realise that the mitigation AAs are on 100% of the time once you buy them compared to the 15min re-use of the AG but with careful agro control AG3 looks like damn good value to get early (15 points now) rather than later (127points).

Additional info: I don't raid high-end content. The toughest encounters I play in are at most 3/4 groups and usually only single group stuff. Mostly missions and Epic fights.

Lest

[Scowls]

[Brohg]

AG is much better at what it needs to do at level 3. You've gotten the first rank, and you see how it's best used. Get the other ranks. Virulent Paralysis is another one where you just get a taste of its real power at rank 1; buying all three ranks of that also makes it much more effective. Rez only has one rank, so Scowl is at least right about that one!

[Lestumpette]

[Brohg]

Nopers, doing the math the wrong way. The 5k limit is on how much it absorbs, not on how much it will allow you to take. On those 1k hits, the first rank takes 20 hits to reach the 5k cap; it's absorbing just 250 damage out of each whack. Rank 3 takes 6.7(ish) hits, since it's taking 750 damage off. The reason rank 3 is better is because it's so much more likely to reallize its full potential. Often with lower ranks of Ancestral Guard, you pop it in a crisis, take a couple hits, and then the mob is controlled somehow. Mezzed, taunted, rooted, you get a heal, whatever. Any potential hp AG might have saved you is wasted. There's also the scenario of REALLY BIG HITS. The situation of something smacking you a little while for 1k's is bad, you can't take them for a long time. The situation is much worse if a monster might *kill* you for touching you. Like if the hits are over 2k, or if you started out low hp from canni & such. It's much more important that you be saved damage immediately than later on. This is another scenario where AG was left with unreallized potential at lower levels... it let you die because it wasn't doing enough fast enough. Just like heal over time spells, AG stops working if you stop taking damage, and also if you die out from under it. Since, unlike spells players cast, efficiency and cast times aren't a factor, it's much better for AG to do everything it can as fast as possible.

[Rivitingribbit]

[Brohg]

[Rivitingribbit]

[Scowls]

[Brohg]

[Scowls]

[Tugela]